Talk:Unschooling

Proposed Merger of Radical Unschooling into Unschooling

I was looking at the Radical Unschooling article. Not much there that isn't already here and it seems that Radical Unschooling could be easily handled under Unschooling. I support a Merger of the two articles and have put up proposed merger templates. Safiel (talk) 01:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I concur. Unschooling is a marginal movement, the article shouldn't be diluted across multiple pages for different unschooling sects.Ethan Mitchell (talk) 21:47, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and merged the pages. Safiel (talk) 04:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Learning Styles Paragraph

Learning styles, in fact, do not exist and their existence certainly isn't indicated by any kind of "recent research". The idea of learning styles stems from a misinterpretation of the Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. For more information on this, I would check out this video: [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.238.252.137 (talk) 13:58, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Criticism section

The list item "Children who direct their own educations generally grow up to be leaders, not followers, and find it more difficult to take direction from others." implies that the creation of leaders is a bad thing. Humanity needs both leaders and followers to function, whereas traditional education leans towards training followers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hessiess (talk • contribs) 20:44, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

It really shouldn't be included in criticism at all. It is not in the article originally cited, so at best this is original research. It also looks like a strawman form of an argument about socialization of children in unschooling environments, and as such is original research, POV, and misleading info. Simonus (talk) 04:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I feel like the entire criticism section should be rewritten or deleted. The arguments are biased and one-sided at best. They do seem to point towards original research. --Tranquilpaths (talk) 17:29, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Essay-like and citations needed

The article tends to makes generalisations (including about unschoolers) so citations are needed, as well as a bit more qualification.Autarch (talk) 19:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Can somebody cite Assange as an unschooler?

All I see is that his mom was in hiding while he was a kid, stayed on the move, and periodically homeschooled him. If we're calling him an unschooler, we should have a citation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.142.52.121 (talk) 13:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Two notes

I've removed "Andrew Seaton, PhD" from the list of prominent unschoolers. If he's prominent, he probably should have his own wikipedia page.

Also, if there's no objection, I'm going to remove the "personal essay" flag, which no longer seems relevant. This article has lots of problems, but it doesn't really sound like a personal essay. Ethan Mitchell (talk) 21:39, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Did that. Ethan Mitchell (talk) 15:07, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Book suggestion

Please consider adding The Unschooling Unmanual (ISBN 0968575455) to the Further Reading section. I am one of the co-editors, and the book was published by our organization The Natural Child Project, so I can't add it myself.

Thank you,

Jan Hunt Janhunt (talk) 16:21, 15 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Janhunt (talk • contribs) 16:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Since this is basically self published (as you say it is published by an organization associated with the author) I do not believe it should be listed here. - MrOllie (talk) 19:20, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Respectfully I do not concur with MrOllie. The "Unschooling Unmanual" is on Amazon and is rated highly in the reader reviews area. The unschooling process/movement being something mostly outside of institutionalized education has presumably has access to the academic publishing system. I think the publishing world is changing fast and see a diverse collection of experiences as a useful resource. I think it would point editors to further information that might help improve the article. In 30 days I will look here for additional comments on the appropriateness of this book and then use the feedback to guide my action on Jan Hunt's request.Susten.biz (talk) 17:35, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

The book has two problems - it fails WP:SPS, being self-published, and it fails WP:SOURCES as it isn't published by a third party.Autarch (talk) 21:11, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Truancy

I wonder if something could be added about it. I thought that if you wanted to homeschool your child (nevermind UNschool them) the government would check in at certain times, and there would be certain things they'd have to learn. If schooling is totally non-existent (let's say they just want to watch tv or play games all day) couldn't they be arrested (possibly the parents as well) for truancy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.189.38.183 (talk) 06:10, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

probably. schools have been closed for practicing this philosophy ('never push children to learn'), on the grounds that it resulted in those children not learning much about anything and just hanging around playing videogames (geez, big surprise there). so i assume that home-schooling according to this philosophy can also get you in trouble with the law, for truancy and child-neglect. Selena1981 (talk) 19:58, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

This article is awful.

This article is awful. It has a lot of claims but no sources. I also see a lot of sentences that begin with the word some or many. Some say,Many say,etc. I am going to work on this article and I may remove the statements that have no sources.--99.177.248.92 (talk) 20:36, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

    I agree.  This article is little more than weasel words, which wp generally frowns upon. --Ulthar (talk) 15:47, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Much of unschooling is anecdotal in nature. I agree that there need to be more sources linked. Where might one find more sources if little is written and published about it? It doesn't change the existence or the nature of unschooling. I've read the entire history of unschooling edits. There has been a lot of work done on it. People have added sources when they are found and will continue to do so as more and more is known and published about unschooling. What do you propose be done in the mean time?Linkfairy (talk) 23:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)linkfairy