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PERRIN LOVETT

~ Fiction, Freedom, and The West

PERRIN LOVETT

Tag Archives: Unschooled

Even More “Schools” Closing

14 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by perrinlovett in News and Notes, Other Columns

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education, hoax, homeschool, schools, Unschooled

I knew about the ones in Detroit. Then came a batch in Georgia. Now, according to the election-certifying(!) AP, it’s a nationwide thing – in response to a third wave of Hoax-Infinity.

Facing equally grim conditions, school systems around the U.S. and abroad are taking similarly tough action. Boston, Detroit, Indianapolis and Philadelphia are among those that are closing classrooms or abandoning plans to offer in-person classes later in the school year, and New York City may be next.

Such decisions are complicated by a host of conflicting concerns — namely, safety versus the potential educational and economic damage from schooling children at home, in front of computers, under their parents’ supervision.

Virus transmission does not appear to be rampant within schools themselves. Instead, many of the infections that are proving so disruptive are believed to be occurring out in the community. Educators fear things could get worse during upcoming holiday breaks, when students and staff gather with family and friends or travel to other hot spots.

The nation has entered “an extremely high-risk period,” said experts at PolicyLab, a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia team that develops guidance. They shifted their advice this week, advocating online-only instruction for areas with rapidly rising rates, at least until after Thanksgiving.

Extremely high-risk … of what? The under eighteen set is essentially immune and does not appear to transmit the hoax. Or, could they be admitting that the high-risk comes from the schools themselves? Is it like with school shooting? Could “schools” cause hoax transmission? We may never know. However, we do know that most kids in the fading US haven’t seen much of their “schools” this year. Let’s hope that trend continues and becomes permanent. Just as there are no school shootings at homeschools, the eager-to-learn “homies” don’t have to worry about the scamdemic (any more than the general population). Homeschool! Or, since we’re getting away from the concept of classes, how about Unschooling?!

Full Reverse! Ed-berg Dead Ahead!

06 Sunday Sep 2020

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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education, homeschool, schools, Unschooled

It’s turned into an education weekend at the old blog.

The failure and pending (or, in-progress) collapse of the “schools” becomes apparent to even more people.

“School finances are in full reverse mode. Whispered in the hallways before every school committee and in every town council chamber is the awesome reality that sales tax and property tax collections are down 25 – 30 percent. The fear is palpable…. It seems to me that Public Ed as we currently know it will be history in about four years. It is a big edifice. It will take a few years to fully implode, but not a decade. There’s no money left to keep it going as it is.”

Let four years come and go unhindered! We should pay to keep it from operating as it is, or was. Read the whole thing – from the insecticide factories to the declining colleges. It’s real and it’s really happening – now.

The solution is, again, homeschooling and/or small neighborhood schooling. Lately, I’ve been taken with the concept of unschooling, which was probably what I needed so many years ago. Would that work for everyone? No. But, the beautiful thing is that we don’t need, and in fact, cannot tolerate any more one-size-fits-none bullshit. All of the details can be ironed out and easier than most imagine.

Over this strange summer, multiple people have suggested that I found a school. It’s funny but I first floated the same idea to some Fed-Soc types back in 2001, in the basement of the Supreme Court of all places. As with the other big news of that year, nineteen years have passed and … nothing. I have looked into the idea. The closest I’ve come to action is a fictional character doing the work. I am not Tom Ironsides. But, I’m still interested.

Dr. I. always envisioned the necessity of an online component, even for a dedicated base school of unrivaled excellence. I think the home, more specifically the UN-schooling way, it the future (as it was the past). My vision of a remote “umbrella” school would be to publish the suggested direction in which parents should initially steer their young students, then getting out of the way, coupled with advisement as needed and a few other minor services. Umbrellas usually act to keep the state at bay. And, “we” could always offer a more intensive or directed courseload for those seeking computer-age direct instruction at a distance.

This scheme, along with multiple projects, one super project, and about six books, I’m slowly working on. If you have an existing or start-up idea on the same lines and you can tolerate a mildly cantankerous iconoclast, then let me know. Otherwise, please stand by: I might lean on some of you for capital. (And I know how helpful you’ve been on that front before…).

A new column is coming at the end of the new week. Stay tuned.

Review of UNSCHOOLED by Kerry McDonald

08 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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book review, children, education, Kerry McDonald, Unschooled

Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom

Kerry McDonald, 2019

It’s no secret that, around here, the government schools are frowned upon as satanic prisons where children are abused and civilization is crushed into oblivion. What if it’s not the government part that’s the main problem? After reading this book and thinking about all I have seen, lived, and experienced, I think the idea of “school” itself is problematic. Such is McDonald’s premise in this excellent, methodical, and entertaining work.

I just gave it 5 stars at Amazon and Goodreads and I may go back and incorporate some of these words in a house review. First, there was one thing that caught me a little off guard in the pages. It’s something McDonald doesn’t shy away from and qualifies upfront. There is, to me, an inordinate amount of reference to the … alternative lifestyles. That said, by way of qualification, the author notes that the modern trend was largely started by radical leftists and leftover hippies, then followed increasingly by the Christian right. She also praises Andrew Carnegie, for whom I have no sociological use at all. But, at any rate, the whole tome is very well-balanced and apolitical.

And, though the current “movement” started in the 1970s, the concept is ancient. Until about 150 years ago, there were next to no schools anywhere. Or, at least there were no monstrosities of the kind that dot American towns and cities these days. There were colleges, elite academies, private tutors, and local private collective efforts, but the bulk of human education was left to the family … and to the children themselves. And it worked.

It still does.

I made something like 169 Kindle notes and highlights as I worked my way through. Most of them, I’ll leave off, here. What really stood out to me was the concept of what McDonald styles the “instruction assumption.” We, most of us, naturally (or unnaturally) assume that to learn one must be instructed. I wrestled with this, as likely you will as well. McDonald did. It is a fallacy.

Who taught you to stand up? To walk? To talk? To run? The answer is “you.” Believe it or not – and the book really helps – children can and will continue to self-educate, constantly and with all subjects. The purpose of an “instructor,” a parent, is to maintain a state of freedom, riddled with inspiration and opportunity, so as to facilitate what the child can do on his own.

“Public” schools are antithetical to this natural process, as are many (most) private schools, and even curriculum-directed homeschooling. A period of “de-schooling” may be required to dispense with the horrible habits of conformity and debasement.

Some quotes:

“The reason kids hate school is because it’s school.”

“It’s Not the kids. It’s the schools.”

Let those words sink in. If you’ve worked in a school or if you have a child in a school, then you subconsciously know. If not, then remember back to your own experiences so many years ago.

McDonald breaks down, as have many other analysts, how modern schools are designed to break spirits, foster useless conformity, and miseducate. This is the opposite of learning. For doubters – and I had my doubts – she presents example after example, to include academic studies and historical examples, that prove the laissez-faire approach not only works but that it generally works much better than the alternatives. It works for happy children and also for the greater society. Most of our titans of intellect and accomplishment, from Athens to London to Philadelphia, were unschooled and yet managed to change the world or parts thereof. Her example of “young Tom” was insightful and hilarious. *I understand that Tom Ironsides also read the book and is reconsidering his classical school model along more decentralized lines.*

Children can forego school completely, take no standardized tests, receive no useless credentialing paper, exempt the SAT, and still gain admittance to a good college. There, they typically outpace their schooled counterparts. College is not the only secondary path; it may not be the best one given a particular child. There are all kinds of alternatives. The keys are freely-informed consent, individual interest and pacing, and independent and critically-acquired knowledge. Those keys are natural. What goes on in the dull halls of the K-12 world is not.

The solution, as is often the case, is freedom, in this case freely allowing the child to pursue his own interests at his own pace. Even in our crazed, rule-plagued country, this is legal in all 50 states. I developed a sense of awe in the reading. I was also a little jealous; this could have and probably was the best (non) system for me. But, times change. Think of this, for those in the know, as a Sudbury School in the home.

Given human nature and especially the nature of Americans (or what passes for them), I doubt this self-directed methodology will appeal to the masses. But it should. UNSCHOOLED gave me a great, renewed sense of hope. If you have children or if you care anything about the future of intelligent civilization, then I highly recommend not only the book but at least an exploration of the ideas within it.

“UNSCHOOLED” Review Preview

02 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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education, homeschool, Kerry McDonald, Unschooled

I’m making my way through Kerry McDonald’s UNSCHOOLED (2019), reading it in conjunction with an older book which features a similar assessment of the failed public “schools.” I’ve read about unschooling before, though not in the detail McDonald goes into. It’s excellent and I recommend it only three chapters in.

The concept is like the Sudbury School model, but at home – self-directed learning. It’s one of those things that is so easy and yet so counter to what we’ve all been lied to about that it’s hard to fathom that it works. But it most assuredly does. More soon.

Perrin Lovett

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