Here I have written a persuasive paper on how unschooling is more effective than a formal education (K-12). Unschooling is a creative way in which to educate our children, or rather let them educate themselves. We just need to provide the resources and atmosphere for their natural curiosity.
English 312
Audience Enthymeme
Enthymeme
What Are the Consequences of un-schooling on a
child’s potential for success?
Claim: Un-schooling enhances a child’s potential for
success.
Because: having a child make his/her own curriculum
improves a child’s development of social skills.
Implicit
Assumption: Whatever improves a
child’s development of social skills also enhances a child’s potential for
success.
Contract
Question: What effect does
un-schooling have on a child’s potential for success?
Bradley Gregory
Omitted
English 312
Winter 2014
A
21st Century Education
From the age of eleven I have
received some 12 years of structured, and formal dance education. It is safe to
say that my dance education was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Professionals
from around the globe trained me. The professionals would live at the house for
about a week, and every day there was a three-hour lesson. The lessons were
highly structured and very formal, most of the time requiring a collared shirt
and tie for me. The structure and repetition from the lessons raised my partner
and I to the top of the competition. We quickly waltzed our way to the top
three in the nation for our division. It
is undeniable that this type of formal education was the reason for my
partner’s success and mine. If we adhered to an un-schooling type of education
we might not have been as successful. In other words, if we made up our own
practice regiment and curriculum, we never would have risen to the top.
A formal and structured academic
education acts similar to the dance education experience that I went through.
You need a college degree if you ever hope to make more than $34K a year
(United States BLS). If a child ever hopes to get to college, he/she must be
prepared from K-12 age for the rigors that college and later life will
undoubtedly present to them. It is obvious that preparation for college is
attained by doing homework, assignments, and complying with due dates like they
do in a structured/formal K-12 education. However, another element is crucial
to a child’s potential for success - their social skills development. Because a
student must interact with their professors and future employers, they must
learn to develop their social skills in order to be successful in navigating
our highly social world. Most people of conventional thought would say that a
formal/structured K-12 education provides a perfect atmosphere to develop a
child’s social skills because they interact with their peers and teachers on a
daily basis. However, some say that the un-schooling ideal, having children
make their own curriculum, will better build children’s motivation for success
and inevitably develop their social skills and perhaps surpass those from a
formal educational upbringing. Un-schooling is becoming popular in the U.S. and
Canada, so it would be important that we don’t have an influx of socially inept
and unsuccessful people that aren’t contributing to society. What effects then
does un-schooling have on a child’s potential for success?
Experts
say there are about two million home-educated students in the U.S.,
and it is estimated that 10% adhere to unschooling ideals (Wilson). How many of
these unschooled children are entering into college, and are they doing better
or worse than their formal/structured education counterpart? In the case of
Sudbury Valley, an unschooling facility, 90% of the graduates go on to pursue a
college education as opposed to the 69% from the public school system (Wilson).
It’s hardly strong enough empirical evidence to compare just one unschooling
facility to the entire nations formal/structured education, but the data does
show that the possibility for success and even outperforming the
formal/structured education system is there.
A big worry for those against the
unschooling ideal is that the children will be lazy and not really learn
anything. After all, we all want to just play and have fun whenever we have any
unstructured moment. How are we supposed to trust that children will be
motivated and engaged in their learning if they are the ones with the
responsibility to take the reins of their educational journey? Just like riding
a horse, it’s as if we are giving a child the reigns and telling them to take
off when they haven’t even learned to ride the horse yet. However, if you
remember back to your public school days, you might remember a sense of
excitement and enthusiasm you got in the summer months when you had 3 months
off of school. At some point or another in the summer you were really excited
to go back to school. You even got excited to buy pencils and backpacks because
it meant that you were one step closer to learning in school again. As human
beings we are naturally curious creatures (Morrison). Although we imagine that we might spend our
3-month summer “doing absolutely nothing” because we are tired of school, we
actually get anxious to get back to school and learn. This happens to all of
us, structurally educated and unschooled alike, except that an unschooled child
doesn’t have to wait for their education to start.
In addition to possibly being lazy,
another major concern is that the unschooled will be socially handicap in the
“real world” day-to-day functions of college classes and career life. If you
have ever socialized with someone who has been separated from mainstream
education, you might have thought, “oh you must be really awkward” or, “do you
have any friends?” The stereotype came from somewhere; otherwise, there would
never be the stereotype. When a child is brought out of the formal education
system it would seem hard to find a support group of either kids the same age
or other adults. Whom are the children going to associate with if they have no
peers and can’t have the chance to develop their social skills? One unschooled
woman feels in contrast that she was actually too normal in a social sense, and that she was “much friendlier
than a lot of kids who went to school. And more confident. At least around adults”
(Kate). There is more than meets the eye of a supposed
socially-excluded-unschooled-child.
A prime example of the potential
that the unschooled have of being not just functionally sociable but even more
socially developed than their counterpart is Logan LePlante. LePlante is a
current participant who adheres to the unschooling ideal. He is 14 years old,
and at the early age of 13 he gave a presentation at a TEDX conference in
Arizona in front of a large audience of adults. He gives a well-formulated
argument about how he is “happier and healthier” for adhering to the
unschooling ideal. He has sought learning through internships with a textile
company as well as a winter sports company whose employees inspired him to
learn math and physics. He communicates daily with others, oftentimes being
with adults. LePlante communicates clearly and confidently like any other
speaker at a TED conference (LePlante). Keep in mind that other TED speakers
are typically adults that have had at least a decade worth of career
experience. LePlante is clearly proof
that other unschooled children can reach a high level of social capability much
sooner than their peers in a formal and structured environment.
LePlante’s story however doesn’t
show us if he has currently been successful in getting to college or if he even
plans on going to college since he is only 14 years old. Whether or not
unschooled children will be able to get into college is a major concern. One
reason for concern for unschoolded children getting into college is the fact
that they don’t have official transcripts to look at. They may not have taken
standardized test before either and they will have to take either the SAT or
ACT in order to get into a U.S. college. However, two sisters named Kate and
Molly have overcome these challenges and were accepted to the University of
Colorado as well as five “more selective” small liberal arts colleges
(Leadbetter).
Both girls decided to go to college
by their own free will and choice because they wanted to play collegiate
sports. Kate for one has demonstrated exceptional success in a variety of ways
including socially, fitness wise, and academically. In the first year of her
enrolment she accomplished A’s and B’s in all her courses while being a
two-sport athlete. She gives lively discussion in her classes making her
professors grateful to have her in their classes. Kate and Molly’s mom says “they had enough
opportunities for socializing in sports, community theater and homeschool teen
activities” (Leadbetter). Formal school is not the only place for children to
develop their social skills.
Both sisters attend the same liberal
arts college and although Molly hasn’t yet gone through her first semester,
both sisters had the same success getting accepted to college. In order to have
a transcript for the colleges to look at, the sisters did some things to remedy
the problem. Since they planned on wanting to attend college in advance, they
had time to do research on how to get there and what they needed to do. They
thought they needed to have official high school transcripts in order to play
sports in college but it turns out that any school under the National
Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) doesn’t require the
transcripts. Even though Kate and Molly enrolled to be a part of the American
School of Correspondence’s high school program to provide that transcript, they
didn’t need to. Their mother thought they would be better prepared for college
life by being a part of the American School of Correspondence. When she asked
Kate if that was true, she says her daughter responded saying “’No’, in a
duh-of-course-not kind of way” (Leadbetter).
In order to hurdle over the obstacle
of needing to take the ACT they took the test two times. The first time they
took the test they paid extra to receive the answers and results back so they
could see where they struggled most. As is expected, both girls lacked most in
the science and math areas. Before taking the test a second time, they crammed
about 3 hours of targeted problems and rules for math and science. Kate raised
her score by four points while Molly raised hers three points. Both scored at
least three points higher than my own highest ACT score (Leadbetter). I took
the ACT three times just to get my score up to a decent level while they only
took it twice. They prepared for three hours with targeted study to raise their
score while it took me three years to raise my score 4 points and their scores
were still higher than mine (Gregory).
My own learning in the public school
system demonstrates why formal education is ill suited to do what unschooling
can do in a fraction of the time. Although the social scene in high school was
nice, I found it difficult to be motivated in going to school. It was difficult
not only learning subject matters like Math, Science, and English, but also
planning whatever it was I wanted to pursue in my life as an occupation. I
didn’t even like to read until my senior year of high school, and that was only
because a friend of mine introduced a book that gave me a love for reading. My
love for learning, which is essential to academic and personal growth, didn’t
develop until I was on my own, serving a church mission in Argentina where my
study was open to whatever subject I wanted in the gospel and language. Because my schooling was simply a
“requirement” that I had to do no matter what and not because I wanted to, It
took me 12 years of education to realize what I could have realized in a
fraction of the time being unschooled (Gregory).
While developing social skills is
important, it is essential to determine if unschooled children will be able to
bring value and purpose to society. Contributing to society is captured by what
you do as an occupation. Our current school system “was set up in the late
1800s and early 1900s, to meet the needs of the industrial economy” (The Big
Picture). Essentially the school system was set up in a similar fashion of an
assembly line, much like the factories. Every year is segmented for specific
learning topics, and the masses can enter to learn and be spit out like the
hundreds of Ford cars left the assembly lines starting in 1913. The mass
production of educating our students is good for an industrial economy, but may
not be the best for an ever-increasing nimble and global economy. One may go
through school now only to realize that if they “choose to rely on the skill
set he acquired at school [he] may quickly discover that his skills are
obsolete” (The Big Picture). In our current, every-changing global environment,
there is hardly a “perfect mold” type of education to prepare us for
contribution to society. It is possible that the formal education structure
will only provide a narrow learning to a student, and not contain the depth or
quality that is needed in our currently complex world. The industrial education
setup is like an old assembly line for early 20th century cars. The
cars may be beautiful and they work, but they are no longer capable of enduring
the needs of modern society.
Unschooling is aided by many
learning platforms and technologies that are widely available to almost anyone
who desires to learn on their own. These were not widely available if at all in
the industrial era. Things like Youtube, the Internet, E-books, public
education centers that are free, local libraries etc. These platforms and many
more, provide many of the tools needed for a proper education. If you have ever
had a question that you didn’t know the answer to, I am sure you most likely
found the quickest answer by simply asking the Internet. Even social media
provides a platform for interconnectivity that provides not only educational
benefits, but social as well. The materials needed for learning are a simple
click away thanks to the 21st century.
Consider the potential for success
of being unschooled and if that potential is high or low. Sociological research
suggests that hacker ethic is an
ideal characteristic of creativity and innovation therefore making the “hacker”
a more successful person (West & Hannafin). A hacker ethic basically means the same thing as LePlante doing
whatever it takes to learn what he wants to. The key is that it is something
that LePlante wants to learn and that
he will “hack” the way he learns it. He is essentially unhindered in the way he
learns and is motivated in doing so. West and Hannifin’s research on COI’s
(Communities of Innovation) digs deeper on hacker
ethic and what its implications are. The research was done with four
students whom they allowed to choose any subject and/or skill they were
interested in. They were given little criteria and guidance. The research indicated
that all of them went beyond the project bounds in their learning of their
particular subject and/or skill because of their hacker ethic. They didn’t just
simply learn facts about the subject and skills, they went beyond that and
excelled at them (West & Hannafin). A
curriculum and structure in formal education may provide a potential for
success but it will not be nearly as high of a potential for success in college
and career life as those who are unschooled.
In addition to hacker ethic, flow is an
essential characteristic that describes in better detail what is going on when
the “hacker” is doing work they want to do. Research describes how flow is usually preceded by hacker ethic. Flow is a semi-new concept in research that is described as
“participating in intense engagement and learning at the edge of one’s
competence” (West & Hannafin 823). Respondents from the research reported flow happened almost more than other
characteristics when they worked on their projects. It was essential to the
project success. When the students became “completely engaged to the point of
losing consciousness of their surroundings and of time” they were experiencing flow (West & Hannafin 828). One example from the study was a young
man that chose to learn coding. He reported “You get lost in the flow . . . I’m
a dork like that. I like digging into the code and . . . I would just get lost
in that” (West & Hannafin 829). The students essentially get hyper focused
on learning their subject matters and become “experts” in the subject. This is
made possible because they have a desire or hacker
ethic for wanting to learn the subject. Flow
and hacker ethic illustrate the
potential that unschooling can have for success in teaching children not only
how to be experts in subjects they love but in teaching children to love
learning. Teaching children to love learning is a challenge all by itself in a
formal educational environment.
Although a structured formal
education provides a stable educational platform, unschooling provides a unique
advantage to a child’s social development as well as preparedness for college
and career life. Unschooling enhances a child’s social development, which in
turn increases their potential for success.
As a future parent, you need to take a step back and ask yourself if a
structured/formal education is the best route for your naturally curious child.
Instead of throwing them into the archaic educational system without a second
thought, give a second thought about the archaic habits your child will exhibit
in their day-to-day lives if they learn from a formal/structured educational
environment. Break the chains of non-progressive industrial learning, and start
implementing unschooling techniques that fit your child’s 21st
century life now.
Works Cited
United States. Bureau of
Labor Statistics. Earnings and Unemployment Rates by Educational Attainment. 19
Dec. 2013. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
Gregory, Bradley. Personal
Interview 13 April. 2014.
Kate. "Unschooling didnt
make me abnormal enough." Eat the Damn Cake. 19 Aug. 2010.
Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
Leadbetter, Ann.
"Unschooled Teens Go To College." Life Learning Magazine Dec. 2003.
Web 13 Apr. 2014.
LePlante, Logan. “Curious and
Creative Wingnut.” TEDx. University of Nevada. January 24, 2013. Conference
presentation.
Wilson, Jacque. “Unschoolers
Learn what they want, when they want.” CNN US. CNN, 3 Aug. 2011. Web. 3 Mar.
2014.
West, Richard & Michael
Hannafin. “Learning to Design collaboratively: Participation of Student
Designers in a Community of Innovation.” Instr Sci 39 (2011): 821-839.
Morrison, Kristan A.
“Unschooling: Homeschools Can Provide the Freedom to Learn.” Encounter 20.2
(2007): 42-49. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
The
Big Picture. "Rethinking Education, Part 1: Why Our School System Is
Broken." The Big Picture. N.p., 28 Nov. 2010. Web.
13 Apr. 2014.
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