Unschooling concept by John holt is catching on in the west , going beyond homeschooling meaning no curiculum for the kids..giving more time and empowerment for our children..
Just imagine no more unrealistic PSLE exams for your kids meant for older teenagers..teaching staff here will be halved giving more money to invest on our young in a changing world.Child led instead of teacher or parent led form of learning:)
But given the kiasu syndrome, can this worked?
i think cannot
at least for u
u went to sch and look at ur english
wat if u din?
you siao ? singapore will be in chaos.
excuse for lazy lah.
This type of schooling is applicable only to a very small group of highly educated parents. Most of us are not in the profession of teaching and hence, would not be in the correct mind to transfer knowledge in Primary School subjects to our children. Children must go to school not only for knowledge, but also to mix around socially so as to be able to relate to others around them. I do agree Singapore's Schooling Subjects are getting tougher by the years...all these done to preempt our future generation with the applicable certifications required in their future working environment. In fact, foreigners like the Koreans and Chinese, are flocking to Singapore to adequately provide Primary and Secondary Educations for their children.
Transfer of knowledge is easy
Learning how to think and act on them is the most important thing.
Therefore, it does not matter if schooling is done in schools or outside.
Hi,
Here is an article on 'unschooling':
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/parenting/bal-md.pa.unschooling03sep03,0,5374416,print.story
Enjoy!
Cheers,
Wen Shih
This is assuming the parents are responsible, well educated and well informed adults.
I rather cringed at the possibility of particularly religious parents taking away their children from schools and attempting to homeschool them.
It's a nice idea, but it's all based on the assumption that the parents are really capable of teaching their children properly to integrate with society. Nice ideas tend to get abused so easily..
Today no great advances can be made, nor can the problems facing us be understood, by anyone who stays within the borders of one of the present academic disciplines. In each, the workers are smothered in overspecialization and pedantry. Yet in each the majority of members are very busy congratulating each other on the wonderful work they are a ll doing. That is self-deception, for the regular academic disciplines are now bankrupt, incapable of providing their explanations or solutions to problems.
The chief group of discontented are, of course, the students, who grow increasingly restless, discontented, and alienated because of their recognition of the large-scale irrelevance of so much of what they have to learn. Within these fields, some teachers realize, more or less unconsciously, that much is wrong. Yet they feel that they must go on, and d o so, rationalizing that they have to make a living somehow, and this is the only way they are equipped to earn what is needed, and, secondly they assure themselves and their students that the latter must have a college education.
This latter belief is correct only if the student is determined to make his living by finding a place in the great and ever-growing bureaucracies which envelop our world and now overshadow it. But all of these bureaucracies do their work inefficiently and badly. They look good only if we accept their own fraudulent bookkeeping.
If a student wants to spend his life e n-capsulated in the interstices of one of these monstrous structures, I suppose he does need a college education, not because college prepares him to do their work but simply because these structures increasingly demand a college degree as a ticket of admission to their employ. They demand that only because it indicates that the, holder of that ticket h as submitted to years of brainwashing in irrelevancies and will put up with the myths of the bureaucracy he joins.
Self-Education
If a young man today simply wants to make a very good living associated with freedom and variety, he can do it much better without a college education. Of course he must be educated, but real education today can he obtained much m ore easily (although it is never easy) in constant attendance at a good public library than at the so-called "best” universities (which are frequently the worst ones). Today, as almost never before, the way lies open to any enterprising young man to find something to do which is now being done badly or not done at all by our bureaucratized society.
To do this the first task of the young man must be to dismiss as the myth it is what passes for truth in existing universities. There is a truth and it can be found; it has been found, to some degree, by men in the past, and by men in other societies. The task of finding it is lifelong, and probably continues after bodily death, and the greatest joy of living is the search for it. That is why we are here, but to find it in the accepted wisdom of the existing academic structure is to put oneself in an intellectual prison, which does not help.
Of course, if someone can go to college and not become a prisoner of its myths and can continue free from the bureaucratic structure toward which the average college seeks to direct students, he can also live a good life and, like a non-college man, get rewards greater, even in material things, than the average college-bureaucracy-tied person. And in addition, like Ralph Nader, he will be able to keep his freedom and self-respect, which is worth something.
http://www.carrollquigley.net/Articles/Obsolete-Academic-Disciplines.htm
For once Angel3070, well said, but for reality's sake it would not apply to TS's theory in general.
Yes, I'm an advocate of free education, which is aplenty and all you need to do is research, hard work, research and hard work -- unfortunately, in our comfortale lives and constant stress on paper chase, most of us aren't better off in search of education and knowledge on our own. That's why schools and teachers exists.
I'd love to give my kids, if I had any, some homeschooling, but only if there's time and plenty of extremely high quality freelance tutors, as well as like-minded parents, in which case my child will be part of a group of homestudy students. A group, so that there's interaction and teamwork.
Can it work? Theoretically, yes and why not?
Will it work? Probably not in this generation.
10 yrs back... i am a timid person, bullied and got beaten up by people.. everyday.. i sucks at my study.. everything sucks.. i am fat.. no one wants me... just like LowHead..
then 10 yrs later.. which is now... i become someone who is able to study on his own.. very independent... able to accept most "toughship" .. in short, i became very successful compared to my peers, well... afterall i am still a student.. i cant say i am super successful since my career haven even start..
but what i am trying to say is that without education and the tough "training" i receive, i dont think i can be who i am now.. and one more thing, i am very confident in myself.
schooling is not equal to education.. we go to sch to learn how tough life is, how to accept, how to learn the truth of ur life... and how to become a person who needs no dependence.. these all are called learning.. learning nv stops, what u meant are academics... academics is only a small part of learning.
that is all what i think.. thank you
The ills of modern society like debt monetary system and employment practices (12hr shift 6 day work week) all goes back to the source of industrial based educational system.
Unschooling seems to be ahead of its time and maybe a different format may arise in the future but one thing is certain if we are to change how societies do banking and work for a living, education for the next generation is of utmost importance.