I know several. It works surprisingly well in the early years (K-3) because most kids are sufficiently hungry for education that they demand it. If the parent is actually responding to their child's interests, they provide the basics of reading, writing, and math. Children don't like being illiterate and innumerate. It makes it hard to navigate the world and play board games. There's a short feedback cycle on the benefits of education, and learning is genuinely fun, so unschooling works surprisingly well. This also allows any simple immaturity issues to work themselves out. For example, the visual system doesn't fully mature until age 9, and some kids have genuine physical difficulties with early reading that will resolve themselves if simply given more time. Most unschoolers have the rudiments of reading, writing, and math by at 9 or ten. The problem comes when the kids need to buckle down and seriously study things that aren't inherently interesting. This happens around age 9 or 10. Building foundations takes time and it's rather boring. Children don't have the life experience to understand what foundations they will need in the future. If the parents aren't willing to impose demands on their children, the kids get "stuck" in every area that they don't find inherently interesting.
There were a shocking number of inmates who couldn’t read in the prison I was in. There’s a wonderful organisation called the Shannon trust that works with inmates to help them help each other learn to read from inmates who can. I don’t think illiteracy leads to crime but I think the same neglectful or impoverished environments create crime and illiteracy.
@@jeffreyarcher9815 Illiteracy eliminates most legal job opportunities, so illiteracy can absolutely push people to accept jobs from criminal organizations.
If you have a well-educated parent with actual training as a teacher it MIGHT be possible, because that hypothetical parent will (perhaps) know how to spark the child's curiosity in all of the important areas. However, the idea that a child will just magically know to ask about (as one example) equations is ridiculous. I also have my doubts that someone dumb enough to get face tattoos is able to provide proper education even to a child who does, magically, ask all the right questions that will lead to a proper, well-rounded education. She's setting her child up for failure.
Looks like there aren't too many unschooled (former) kids here, so I'll contribute my thoughts as one (with two brothers who also were unschooled). I think that, thanks to Tiktok, "unschooling" has been hijacked as a term. I was fortunate that my mother absolutely immersed herself in Holt's literature, which is decidedly NOT anti-intellectual. In fact, I would say it took a lot from Piaget, and focused on training one's child to recognize their own zone of proximal development. There are plenty of kids in classrooms who are in lessons they don't get and aren't in a place to get. While I'm sure there are also plenty of "unschoolers" who are similarly adrift and unstimulated, a key quote from Holt in one of his interviews was, to paraphrase, that what children need to learn is adults around them who are sincerely interested in their (the child's) thoughts and want to help the child develop those thoughts. I get a sense with many of these influencers that this is NOT the reason the kids are being unschooled. In addition, you pointed out the importance of privilege. I'd agree that it's hard, perhaps even nearly impossible, to unschool well without vast support. But it really was ideal for my family. Wall to wall books. Five generations of college education. Enough money that any book we asked for was given (though, this rule was exclusively for BOOKS). I'll admit, it may not be for everyone. It may even just be for a vastly small pool of people. ...but I get angry every time I see these "unschoolers" neglecting their kids and besmirching the name of what was, for my family, a path not only to great literacy, but a lifelong love of sharing deep literature, collectively, as a whole family.
And novel writing. And script writing. And he can't read books about painting or drawing. And he can't read a script by himself to act. And can't read directions about how to build and make things or read about what kinds of materials he should use. It becomes harder to pursue pretty much any kind of art without an understanding of reading and writing. And just in general, how is he supposed to research any topic he's interested in (since this this whole unschooling thing is supposed to be about "following his interests") if he can't read or write? The ability to read and write is one of those things that I think we don't realize just how much we take for granted. We use it in almost every aspect of life.
@@Follow_a_bee it would be fine if he was getting help. As a dyslexic homeschooled kid that stuff sucks I couldn't read until I was like 10-11 and I only learned things because I took my education into my own hands
That's why gifted child syndrome sucks so much. I didn't do things when I didn't want to do them and aced the tests and was fine. I didn't learn how to study OR how to persevere.
I feel like a lot of people don’t realize how much of the “self learning” they do after school is only possible because they learned basic concepts in a structured environment.
Because people in this country have this idea of "freedom" that is very often confused with feeling entitled to do literally whatever the fuck you want to do, even if it's at the expense of others. These people are exercising their "freedom" as parents, and their kids can't read because of it. We are a lost country. Stupid people hat think they know better thab you because of google are having a very real and very negative impact on society that's only going to get worse.
My parents tried to “unschool” me. When my mom divorced my dad, she immediately enrolled me and my siblings in school. I was 9. The “unschooling” was really his idea, as he was abusive and wanted to stunt our education and any possible way out. He wanted us to be illiterate. He WANTED to make us fully grown adults who couldn’t read or do simple math. Anyways, I’m in college now
Elsewhere it is. But the american people believe in freedom. It seems to me that you guys make a big deal out of the parent's freedom to educate their own children the way they see fit. Too bad that being free _from_ illiteracy, idiocy and poverty is not considered to be "freedom".
Yeahj but it's a different same. School teaches kids to function in society while the league of privileged home schooling moms thinks it's more important to let our kids know that they're rich enough to deserve special treatment from the cradle to the grave.
@@Discordia5 yeah. No. You're watering down what that word means. Criticism is not bigotry. These women are actively perpetuating abuse. I mean are you gonna say that calling out moms who let their partners assault their daughters is misogyny?
My bosses kids are “free schooled.” They do some work but not lots. Their 10 year old daughter can’t read. She looked at me the other day and said “I wish I could go to school and read like you.” Almost cried.
I know someone does on schooling and when their children requested to go to school they sent them and the children didn't know how to handle following directions, getting along with other children, not acting out of every impulse that comes into their heads etc. They were allowed to quit just as easily. Part of going to school and interacting with society in a social atmosphere teaches resilience. Teaches you don't always get what you want. Teaches you to wait, take turns and consider others.
I received a Montessori education from ages 3-6, and I learned to read within the first year. They even taught us some French. I went into public school with a far better baseline than most kids, AND my education was hands-on. These people do not understand how intense and comprehensive Montessori schooling is, they're just reaching to find terms they think will legitimize their desire to isolate their children.
Yes! I went to a Montessori pre-school. The concept was a 1-year foundation year before joining 1st grade; where I grew up 1st grade was age 7 so I would have been 5/6. I had already started to read independently from around age 4 at home, and by the end of the foundation year I was reading proficiently. I also remember various dexterity tasks, art, learning about nature, and maths which I never had an aptitude for but because it was framed in interesting ways I at least engaged with it... All in all - Montessori and whatever this is are NOT the same.
I know a lot of kids who did Montessori for Day Care and Pre K or 4K. And are reading above others. I remember when my youngest at 2, would ask for homework, because her Sister has homework ( there 6yrs apart). So I would give her letters, #ers ext to work on. Now it took until 4th Grade for her reading to really take off. But her Math has always been 1-2grades ahead.
My sister did Montessori with her oldest (and is doing it with her twins) at home. My oldest nephew started first grade this year and is reading at a second-grade reading level.
Right? Voluntarily being so goddamn vulnerable for the entire internet, especially after a lifetime of covering it up, which must have taken a lot of skill btw? Damn. I wonder how many people he’s inspired to try to improve their own circumstances.
@@ryn3872yeah, I cannot begin to fathom how important it is for him to be an example of that. It’s powerful to push past pride and learn. I hope he can empower lots of other people. Reading is critical for many reasons, but it’s also *magical* to be able to escape into stories or talk silently over thousands of miles.
That was my life - my parents wouldn't send me to school and I spent years of my childhood sitting at home and watching movies all day, every day. I didn't know what I didn't know and nobody cared enough to step in.
@@TsufenTheMouse Mine too! I didn't go to school until I was 14. I was homeschooled and spent most of my days watching tv all day or reading fanfiction online. My childhood was so much fun lol. By some miracle, though, I was able to succeed in a traditional school environment, graduate university, and get a good job, but dang... missing out on school could have easily ruined my life.
I don't think I agree with this one. It's a big jump from "I have taken my kids out of normal schooling" to "I don't love my kids" - especially as they're spending more time with their kids now than they otherwise would have (I assume). I just think they've grabbed the nucleus of a correct idea - "the schooling system does not cover every need of a child" - taken that ball and ran full speed the wrong way.
"Never ascribe to malice [or apathy] what you can attribute to incompetence." A lot of people doing bad things are not bad--they're dumb. I believe, as a default position, that these parents do love their children. I also believe, however, they are too dumb to make the right choice about education for their children. Even if you think they are just narcissists, they'd also have to be dumb narcissists, and Occam's razor says being dumb is already a sufficient explanation.
my father cannot read. he is not free. he grew up in a time where deaf people in his country do not receive an education. i would argue really that he is one of the most trapped and saddest men ive ever seen. he cannot text his children and only can communicate in emojis. he cannot read a grocery list. he cannot shop alone. he cannot do anything alone. i would give anything for him to have the education he deserved as a child. for him to be free. for him to be able to write "i love you" to his wife. for him to be able to watch a show without someone interpreting it. i know it is different because he is deaf and has a different disadvantage but the sentiment is the same. it is not freedom but entrapment. it forces you to rely on everyone around you to be able to function at all. imagine not being able to read a menu that has no photos on it
Oh my gosh. To be unable to read when you’re already DEAF is one of the most profoundly isolating & lonely scenarios I can imagine. And to think neglecting teaching deaf people older than your father to read (when they were kids)was the norm…so cruel in its amplification of what is already a huge hindrance to communication & navigating the world without hearing. The way you describe the amount of assistance he needs, it sounds like what a mentally hanicapped/ high support needs person would require. Not a man that is capable enough to father children. That must be incredibly difficult to not feel embarrassed or emasculated by. Gosh, your story has just really made me feel empathy for you and your father. Wishing your family the best and your father happiness & longevity
@@middleagebrotips3454 he has a learning disability that makes it even more difficult for him to learn it now in his adulthood. we have tried teaching him how to read the basics but all the letters are jumbled and due to him never going to school there is no foundation to work off on. hes 50 now. most kids get to learn the alphabet. he never even got to learn the alphabet
the main thing my brother criticized about the whole unschooling thing is that since these kids only learn what interests them at a basic level, they are only getting trivia, not really learning anything
@jessicaloveridge2759 Some adults seemingly believe that learning is for children and that once they become an "adult" learning is not needed anymore. They forget that everybody is an eternal student, everybody is always learning something new
@@KenjiAsakura09 This attitude is probably the main reason that anti-intellectualism is so rampant in the US and across the world. There are an entire class of adults who gain a sense of superiority from trusting "common sense", meaning heuristics and their own life experience, over "experts". Which is fine when you're dealing with topics within the realm of everyday life, but completely fails when you're trying to understand a complex topic. If you could "common sense" your way through advanced biology, ecology, math, physics, history, etc, then we wouldn't need education and science.
@@Uhshawdudeyou’re so right and these people are not intellectuals at all. They make it seem like they reject expert opinions and do their “own research” instead. That would be fine if they are actually doing proper research and smart. Instead their idea of research is reading the first two sentences of some random gossip magazine article. If these people actually went to school, they would have learned how to conduct proper research.
@@Uhshawdude Nah, the main reason people are anti-intellectual is because various experts and institutions are ideologically captured, and that heavily undermines trust, because an agenda will be prioritized over the truth. Also, it's not healthy for people to just blindly follow experts anyway. Experts have a duty to actually convince people of their conclusions. In fact the ability to explain a complicated thing in simple terms is one of the few signs of genuine understanding. What we see instead is a lot of shaming, psycho analysis, name calling, etc. It doesn't work on a lot of people because they have heard the story of the Emperor's New Clothes before. Though none of this is to say that distrust of experts and institutions is a good thing. It's a bad thing. Following experts on average is going to be better than being highly contrarian and following intuition. I just put the blame largely in the experts being incompetent rather than blaming normal people who have come to doubt them. To me, the latter is just a symptom of the former.
I spent time teaching in a Montessori classroom and what it's taught me is that "child-led" learning actually involves a LOT of prep work from the adults. It's great to let children explore their own interests and pursue their favourite fields of knowledge! Supporting them, giving them structure, connecting the stuff they like to the other stuff they might not be as excited about... all of this requires a lot of deliberate guiding from someone who knows WHY they need to learn these, HOW to help them become self-sufficient learners, and wants them to be prepared to teach themselves as they grow older. Also... the idea that 2nd graders spend all day reading out of books... laughable. In my experience, second graders have infinite stamina and if you try to make them sit still for 8 hours they turn into a pack of wolves xD
Omg the last part - Do parents have 0 insight into what happens at school? I'm not from america, but when I grew up we did a lot of things in school that wasn't sitting down and reading. I think reading was like 10% of the stuff we did. And ironically a lot of the things they say they want their kids to learn (like buying stuff, cooking, working in gardens) actually require the type of stuff you learn in school to be able to do well. Like she said in the vid, there's a difference between telling a kid that 5+7=12 and having them learn how to figure it out
One of the things we did at that age, but especially in grade 1, was 'walking dictation'. It was literally the teacher putting out a text in a harder to reach location and we had to go there, read, run back, write it down and she would spur us on and praise us for how we wrote or correct mistakes. It was literally learning how to read and write while moving so we wouldn't get bored. So... school, huh?
Thank you! Kids have an I ordinate amount of energy. My kids are far from exhausted when they come home from school. My oldest is an 8th grader taking advanced courses for high school credit. He has no less than 2 hours of homework a night (which I agree is ridiculous), and he's a member of the school's competitive robotics team thus has practices after school. He still has enough energy after going to practice and doing homework to spend time teaching himself to C++ programming or playing video games or rough housing with his little brother.
It depends on the second grader. Sometimes the infinite stamina is directed at the books. We have a picture from when I was about that age where my mom walked in on me reading 3 books at once - I had one in my hand and was sitting in a straddle with one pinned open under each leg; I would read a page on one, then the second, then the third, and then flip back to the first. (This is not to say that I didn't have my hyperactive moments, just that the hyperfocus is real too)
Here's a thought: could be be that these women want to keep their children as children for as long as possible? They don't want them to learn and grow because that would mean them becoming whole people in their own right and they would lose control of them?
yeah this is what i was thinking i feel like the moms here are doing this so that their kids can’t be independent, and basically doesn’t like when they don’t have all the control over their children so they basically shelter and isolate their children from the rest of the world
this is what i was thinking these moms seem to be doing this so that their kids can’t be independent people, they seem to be obsessed with being in control of everything their child does
You're saying bring kids into this chaotic world and traumatized them to a point of having oedipus complex? That's some narcissistic psychopathy right there.
Growing up I knew a rural family who unschooled their kids. The daughters were being groomed into being perfect little christian wives, so the parents didn't think it was very important for them to know anything beyond home ec. The son really struggled with academics so they didn't try beyond the bare minimum, because they had a family friend that promised to give him a mechanic apprenticeship when he was old enough. The family friend passed away when the boy was almost old enough, so he had to enroll in a local technical school. However, the technical school required some very basic "math for business" classes. Think of a "math for liberal arts" class at normal colleges, but even more practical/simple. Last time I heard from these people, he was on attempt FOUR of the math for business class. These people are setting their kids up for failure and dependence. "Unschooling" is just a code word for "too stupidly conspiratorial to put my kids in normal school, too lazy to homeschool them properly, and just loud enough to tell everyone what a horrible parent I am".
Yes! Most of these parents are so deep in conspiracy theories or religious ideology that they can't or chose not to understand the detriment to their children. It makes me wish homeschooling was illegal due to this
I’m currently tutoring a young man (17) who was unschooled. He started learning to read 3 years ago. He has been emancipated from his parents (with the help of his grandparents) and is a welder but would like to go to college so we’re studying for his GED. I have watched him sob because he thinks he’s stupid. He is currently reading at a 7th grade level and loving longer chapter books. He’s such a sweet kid. His parents did him and his siblings such a disservice. They set him behind significantly. He’s currently helping his younger siblings (11,12,14) with reading but his parents are AWFUL.
Getting to a 7th grade reading level in three years is something to be proud of! I hope deep down he knows that, even if he feels frustrated or sad about it sometimes. I'm genuinely tearing up. Reading is so great and every kid deserves to know how to do it.
@@sersergv You can learn to do quite complicated things as a teenager. This is why first learning to drive as a teenager, despite the fact you may not be so reliable as a person, is a good idea. Similarly, if you only pick up a musical instrument or begin a new language aged 13 you can become pretty competent in a few years with some dedication, which is why it's okay to start learning at the beginning of middle or high school. So if we can intervene in young people as young teens, there's still a good chance that they can function relatively well, which is good news.
Wow… THANK YOU SO MUCH for taking the time to teach him ❤️ I’m sure he will always be unconditionally thankful for you 😭❤️ my eyes are filling up with tears of joy just reading this.
@@vf1923 I would say that leraning new things till 25 has good results: I myself started learning italian at 19 and now at 21 I’m at a B1/B2 level. It’s important to learn new things while our brain still grows.
@@CandiceWilson-u9p so through excessive trial and error? Sure, but that comes with risks and waste that could have been avoided by... * checks notes* reading a recipe. So why make learning a basic skill much harder by skipping out on the foundation skill of reading? Senseless no matter how you look at it.
There are plenty of recipes where you can just wing it. Last risotto that I made I only put rice by the book, everything else was in wrong amounts and it still ended up pretty decent. In my, fully functional family, if you cook by the numbers you are called a chef.
@@Camper_Lv How do you know to buy the rice if you cant read it on the bag? How do you know what spice youre picking up if you cant read it unless youre already inherently familiar with what the ingredients look like?
9:28 “egg… jar… lion. This is him copying down words from other places, doing this on his own.” That’s not the flex you think it is at six. That’s like late Kindergarten to first grade age, he should be able to write “the lion runs. The jar is open. The egg is broken.” That’s where he’s expected to be rn
It was very shocking that he was 6, when I was entering reception at primary school age 4 I could write my name, and from 1 I could speak a few sentences about a limited range of subjects. I feel awful for her kids. I truly hope they will be okay.
Honestly rereading this, he should be able to write something like, “the lion runs fast.” Not a big difference, but… it’s a big difference, especially when compared to just copying the word lion
I’m very concerned by the fact that the “education” these parents describe is just the basic things parents are supposed to teach their kids outside of school. Like they’re just taking their kids away from a proper education for no reason
Crazy thought: I went to school…*and* I went outside. I learned about plants and how they grow in kindergarten. All the things these unschooling parents say they want to teach their children, I learned in school.
On the first lady: How is a kid supposed to ask about something they have no ideas exists? If they dont know about it and you never bring it up, there is no way they will learn about or get interested in that thing.
Not only this but that's just like....day to day interactions with your kids lol "hey what's this?" Oh, that's a thing. It does stuff. "Cool. Thanks. _goes back to playing_"
I see it a lot. people think that others should already know what they themself know, & if you imply to them that isn't the case, or that something they know is actually false, they get extremely defensive & hostile. they don't view "education" as important because they just. don't remember being educated on things. they don't remember not knowing, because you can't really imagine the absence of knowledge. everything, to them, maybe subconsciously maybe not, should be known inherently & not taught, & the things they already know should be defended vehemently, again, because they can't not know things or be wrong or make mistakes. so, they're not teaching their kids how to read. looking forward to the day I hear a post like "AITA for giving my children freedom? I never taught them how to read & now they want nothing to do with me."
Yes, this is the saddest part. I’ve heard this concept called the “adjacent possible”. The idea that we can only learn and discover what’s in the spaces just surrounding our current knowledge. I came across it as a way to work with depression and hopelessness, when you can’t see any way forward. The idea is that of course you can’t see a clear path to get where you want to go, because we can only see the possibilities that are right next to us, but by moving forward in whatever small way is available, we will be able to see the next set of options. Then the next and the next. This is really how nearly all scientific achievements have occurred. No one cures cancer out of the blue. They learned one thing, which lead to an interest in another thing and another after that. Eventually they’ve hopscotched their way to a place they never could gave imagined when they started. These kids will never experience that process if their adjacent possibilities are so limited.
This is one of the reasons why homeschooling is forbidden here in Germany. All children HAVE TO go to school. Keeping your child at home will result in heavy fines and can even lead to your children be taken away from you. My daughter is mentally disabled. She is 31, but mentally only about 7-9, intellectually even less. But she knows how to read at an end of year 1 level. She can read (and understand) simple Disney books. She can read grocery lists and baking recipes. I am so thankful for that. i know if I have 2 bottles on the table. both with pictures with apples on them. One says "Apple juice" the other "Apple Schnapps" she read both labels and understand them. Here in Germany "simple reading" is taught even in special schools for mentally disabled children. Simply because reading, even at a simple level, means not only freedom, but safety.
Here in Finland where I am homeschooling is legal, but fortunately quite rare, and if you do it, you still have to follow a curriculum. Homeschooling parents also have to do standardized testing and present the kid's learning results. That is in theory, I don't know how well it actually work. I would happily outlaw homeschooling entirely to be honest. Leave that shit to schools, let your child out of the house for once.
Part of having freedom is that some people will missuse it. It is always sad when it is children who suffer from others exercising their freedom irresponsibly. However, there are many, many, many students who benefit from being home schooled. Public schools in America by in large, are terrible places. And private schools are way too expensive for most families. Homeschooling offers a viable, affordable alternative where kids receive an education without the toxic social environment. There are more and more alternative forms of schools emerging because parents are recognizing that the public schools are a failing institution. There are charter schools, and micro schools, and pods, and co-ops. These schools wouldn't be popping up if public schools were actually doing their jobs. But public schools "graduate" illiterate kids all the time. Why do you think the illiteracy rate is so high? Most of those illiterate folks attended a public school. Americans Need an alternative for our children to be actually educated. And having the freedom to pursue that is a good thing.
@@sarahcover7248I don't think most people want an alternative, they want better functioning, safe, and well funded public schools. The way the US organises its public education is fundamentally flawed
@@sarahcover7248Public schooling in the US depends heavily on state and region. If I had to generalize it, I'd say it averages about mediocre. The shittier places are often the lower income ones, and lower income parents aren't exactly known for their free time or capacity to educate/socialize a kid. There certainly are some people who benefit from unschooling/homeschooling, but they're absolutely the exception, not the norm. For each child that is better off due to it, others very much are not. For now, I reckon there should be guidelines that homeschooling parents have to follow, as well as extensive testing to make sure the kid isn't getting left behind. If public schooling funding becomes standardized and improved, I think it should be required.
We are at a strange time. Our ancestors had been fighting for things like education, freedom of choice, women’s rights, etc. And now you see people feeling that we have too much education, freedom of choice, women’s rights, etc and going against these exact things older generations would die fighting for.
I don't understand these parents. Just because you send your kids to school (be that a parochial, private, or public school) doesn't mean you negate your parenting responsibilities. My kids go to a public school. I still take them to museums, read to them, take them to nature parks, have a ton of non-fictional and fictional books at my house, watch documentaries with them, travel with them, take them to planetariums, send them to camps, etc. They get both my knowledge and experience and enrichment activities while also benefitting from the knowledge and experience of others who bring to the table different skills and knowledge than what I have. It's the best of both worlds.
I used to teach in junior high and most (if not all) of the kids who were grades behind had negligent parents. I strongly believe that 99% of kids "left behind" simply lacked parental supervision. I'm talking parents who never showed up at meetings, never answered the phone or did so carelessly, never checked if their kids had done their homework. Offering enriching activities is what's right, of course, but it sounds gucci when so many parents treat school like some sort of glorified childcare.
Yes, now please say it like a hundred more times. I'm surrounded by homeschool parents at my church, and they all love to talk about how, "My kids wouldn't have been learning about ___ in public school." Except my son is in public school, and we still go to museums, take walks in parks, learn math in grocery stores, etc. It's not an either/or. It's an and. And the reason I even can make him figure out which package of chicken gives us the most meat for the best price is because he learned those fundamentals in school. My son also runs his own business with a couple of his friends after school. So they're learning how money works in a very real way outside of a classroom setting.
The responsible homeschoolers I know have kids who were genuinely suffering and struggling in school due to severe bullying and/or due to the school being unable or unwilling to accommodate their needs, and are themselves well-educated and enthusiastic about knowledge. The irresponsible ones hated school themselves and have baggage around it and/or are just plain lazy people who hate getting up before 11am and having to stop what they're doing to drive their kid places or help them with homework.
@dinosaysrawr Some parents want to remain as busy in the workforce as possible in order to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table otherwise they'd have to deal with the serious consequence of the entire family getting evicted from the home. This is why I'm glad my mom finally retired so that both of us can finally spend more quality time together.
The things most of these unschooling parents list (laundry, groceries, gardening etc.) are life skills taught by parents. What they're doing is normal parenting they should be doing in addition to the kid going to school. Yes, you need to teach your kid how to pick the right stuff in the grocery store. Yes, you absolutely should teach your kid how to do stuff in the household. Yes, it's a great idea to teach children how to tend to a garden, especially if you have one. But that is not replacing a professional education, that is just you doing your job as a parent.
To be absolutely fair, if your child is spending 8 hours in that setting and then bringing home homework they are expected to do, not to mention all of those extracurricular things mentioned like the sports and field trips and rehearsals and so on... no, you DONT have a lot of time to teach kids how to be mature adults. If schools were handling that, it'd be one thing - and if schools were not handling that, but only handling the essentials of basic education (reading, writing, arithmetic) and then leaving the child plenty of time at home to learn homemaking skills - then it'd be different. But unfortunately a whole lot of the system IS bloat, bloat that's required and non-negotiable (or at least heavily pressured.) The alternative is NOT completely abandoning the education fundamentals though; it's reducing school hours or trimming the fat in the system
Yeah most of those lessons can happen in High school though or in the late teen yrs. I do agree about it being in addition to other things, like actual subjects.
@@drawingdragon these are skills your kid learns while in primary and middle school age. They don't start studying so much and doing so much extra-curricular activities until High School. The US truly complains with their stomach full. Y'all have some of the easiest education in the entire world, with college level entry exams that are middle school levels in other countries, with way less hours than a lot of countries, and you can't seem to stop complaining about "how hard things are"
@@blahblahblahblah729thats because i want my son to get a full nights rest, not loose hair because of stress, and not expect me to cook and clean for him until i can pawn him off on another woman because all he knows how to do is take a test.
@@drawingdragonThere's only so much in the way of maturity you can learn from your parents. Kids will learn it while out on those field trips, playing sport, rehearsals, etc., and if they are having a sit-down meal with their parents every night then there is time. Maturity is not a strictly taught skill like literacy; it's more a way of being you develop organically from many sources, through mistakes and lessons. "It takes a village to raise a child."
Right? I'm a father of two, 3 and 1 years old. What the hell are you doing with your kids before this 'unschooling' trend picked up that you think going to the grocery store is something you cannot do if they go to school? LOL
This is what I thought the whole time, you can still teach ur kids whatever u want when they get home, you can still explain stuff about finances or help them with math by taking them to the grocery store and having them help u, u have all their summer break to set up hands-on learning activities, or stay up to date with what they're learning at school and do a hands-on activity related to that. Not to mention, schools do usually do that (idk if it's less now, I'll admit technology is getting a lot more incorporated into things, but I'm sure they still show how baking soda and vinegar bubble up or whatever). This somehow feels lazier than that, even though they're completely in charge of their kid's (un)schooling.
So many ppl don’t understand the difference between education and parenting. The school system can’t teach everything, but it focuses on reading, writing, math, science, etc. other non school subjects like cooking, basic finances, and whatever the kid is interested in can still be learned at home from the parents. You don’t have to choose one or the other. The school gives the basic skills for the kid to then learn whatever they want
Those non school subjects were all something we learnt in my middle school. I remember doing a lot of projects on budgeting in math class, and home ec was required in 8th grade and it taught us basic household and kitchen stuff. Then in high school there were various electives. And those were the classes that kept kids in school through math and English class.
@@thepinkestpigglet7529 yeah true most schools do teach these things, people just like to complain probably because they weren’t paying attention in class
Unschooled 33 year old here. I am still very much struggling to catch up in life and it’s hindered my success in almost every area. It’s infuriating to see these parents put their kids in the same position for selfish reasons.
It definitely seems like weird ego things with these parents. I'm so sorry you had to through these struggles. Kudos to you for working hard to catch up!
I'm a 29 unschooled person, and I'm in the exact same boat. Trying really hard to get my university entrance at the moment but I'm at a 5th grade level.
My husband couldn’t read. He was mortified by it and we worked endlessly to improve his reading and comprehension. His mom is a sick woman who loves having adult children who are trapped in her gross system of complete dependence.
how well can he read now? what was it like dating an illiterate person? did his emotions and other stuff suffer too or was he generally a well rounded normal guy besides?
I used to teach English to newly arrived immigrants. A lot of people were construction or truck drivers or laundry workers. But they'd gone through school in their home countries and got the hang of it in a few months. One man, though, didn't know how to hold a pencil. It wasn't English he was learning, but writing at all. I realized I was way out of my depth. I had a classroom of 40 adults. He stopped coming after a few weeks
Oh that is so sad to hear, especially given how few options there are for adults who need to learn the very basics. Thank you for your time teaching, that is not easy!
I work with guys like that and it’s incredibly frustrating that we allow people who can’t read or write in their own language build homes in America just because their labor is cheaper.
@@frankdevo5715there's plenty of native-born Americans who are unable to read or write American English. And if you are wanting everyone in the States to speak one language, then maybe The States should have a national language instead of legislations that encourages and supports diversity in languages.
@@enginerdy What’s the “correct” takeaway I’m supposed to have here? Am I just supposed to be “sad” that our government allows cheap, uneducated labor that depresses our wages to flood our country for the benefit of large corporations?
To me, it seems like a control thing. YOU want to control what your child does all day, what they learn, who they meet and befriend, etc. What's also telling is that this way, their children will forever depend on them as caretakers because they won't have the appropriate tools to explore the world independently. Maybe in a way, that's what these parents want.
People who have gone through the education system, and through that system learned without realizing it, and then falsely believe they learned nothing and magically taught themselves everything, so their kids can too.
@@frankfahrenheit9537similar attitude to people who benefit from things like affordable housing or affordable college and turn around and take those things away from the next generation.. “what’s you’re problem, we did just fine!”
I actually enjoyed school, but I realised I actually learned precious little. I was simply not interested. I liked playing and drawing. I didn't unschool our kids because I didn't like school or even because I didn't learn enough. I unschooled them because experience taught me that our family doesn't tend to do well in school and I don't only mean academically. I did fine until I left towards the end of high-school. I home schooled them so they would have a happy childhood and then it became evident that kids (mine at least) learn so much more happily, efficiently when they own it.
@@Zzz2x Going to school is a privilege for some, but not for all. There are good schools, excellent teachers and there at bad schools and not so great teachers. School, like anything else in life, is a gamble.
I also work as a remedial reading teacher in a public school and I have at least 10 children (out of 70 in our program) who were “unschooled” and they are the lowest levels in the school. I’m talking teaching these kids how to read the word cat for the first time at 11 yrs old. It is heartbreaking because you can see the defeat in their eyes. Learning the sounds of the alphabet is super fun when you’re 5-7 and you learn it through cute little songs and babyish games… but I’m sitting there trying to find basic phonics worksheets for teenagers… its shocking.
at that age they also realize they're far behind their peers. watching other people your age being able to read signs like it's second nature and realizing you can't even identify the letters in the words must be very discouraging. and they know they could've been even a little bit better off if they'd been sent to regular public school or been homeschooled with a proper curriculum
@@Fromabigailwithlove Look up the Wired For Reading program. My son was an 11 year old who could barely write the alphabet. Not educational neglect, just complicated special needs. Details of the diagnoses not relevant. Suffice it to say there were major barriers for all forms of language. It took 5 years and a lot of work, but he's fully literate now. He reads slowly, but he can read legal documents. At 6 he tested between the .1 and..001 percentile in every area of expressive and receptive language. He's now around the 37th percentile and starting college. Feel free to share his story with your disheartened kiddos. They CAN do this!
It's got to be the most embarrassing thing I'd imagine. The majority of the material is made for little kids with their interests in mind with a rhythm that's meant to keep them entertained. Older children find that cringey because they've mentally long moved on from that phase. They know it's for little kids and that little kids are even better than them at it because they've been exposed to it longer than them at the young spongy brain age when language acquisition is just second nature and here they are struggling to read books meant for preschoolers.
@@Fromabigailwithlove How weird, my comment vanished. Look at the Wired For Reading program. Lots of good resources there. There's also an entire category of "high interest, low vocabulary" books designed for adult English language learners, once they get past basic phonics.
I know a 6th grader whose mother “unschooled” him from 2nd grade until 5th. When I met him, his grandmother had enrolled him in a public school to ensure he got an education. He read at a 2nd grade level. He couldn’t do basic math (5x0=? and he guessed 5, 10, 50, 1 and couldn’t understand why the answer was 0). He couldn’t read a clock or tell time. He had spent his unschooling time running around outside and watching RUclips on an iPad without supervision. He was so emotionally and socially stunted, which further isolated him from his peers. I genuinely felt so bad for this kid because his mother failed him. Kids need structure. Kids need exposure to diverse opinions, ideas, cultures, and people. I will always advocate for public schools because while they’re not perfect, they’re a whole lot better than letting parents do whatever they want.
I went to private school for the first 10 school years of my life. Then I decided I was done with Jesus and went to a [well-funded] public school. Best decision I've made in my entire life. I would not be the person I am today if I had not done that... I'd be a huge PoS. I got to experience new perspectives, people, cultures, ways of thinking, etc. that I would have never been able to if i stayed at private school
That’s why a good home school curriculum is necessary. A child should learn everything that school teaches, but with respect to their biological needs, with an interest focus. Kids that get non neglectful unschooling at home end up being further along and more advanced than those taught at public and many private schools
@@richeyrich2203 So first off, [citation needed]. Second, I'm having trouble understanding how a stay at home parent (at the best of times) can also teach everything in a school curriculum at the same level that a literal professional with a masters can and offer an even more specialized approach with specific learning techniques. The group of people that can honestly do that is probably a fraction of homeschoolers. Why do people presume to be better teachers than people with master's degrees?
@@richeyrich2203 yeah but that's usually a sign of priviledge. this kids are probably that far ahead because they live in a household where one parent makes enough money to provide for the whole family, while the other has enough time and previous education to properly teach school subjects.
This is actually awful, unschooling is child abuse. I’ve also noticed this anti-intellectualism agenda that has become more popular during recent years, which is truly concerning.
Homeschool kid here! I got lucky with good parents and a solid curriculum, and I can tell you firsthand how important reading is. Half the things I know and have learned are from reading, and if my dad hadn’t taken the time to teach me not only how to read but how to analyze what I read I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Not helping your kids to learn how to read is just straight up child abuse, reading is the primary method of gaining information we have nowadays, and depriving kids of that is genuinely disgusting behavior
Yes! Most of my curriculum is just reading classic books, ones about science, history, or even stories that have been around for decades like beowulf! I read Grammer book and books about meteorology as well. You structure to learn, and I am blessed to be able to have a decent structure in learning!
Fellow homeschooler here- my mother taught me how to read and let me tell you it took a LOT of effort on her part. I hated when she would bring me a new book and make me read it and then freaking QUIZ me about it afterwards when I thought I was done. But thank God she did- if my mother hadn’t taken an interest in me and my education I’d be a neglected child who can’t read.
Yes. Homeschooling can be great if done right. Parents who truly teach you, parents who also put you into social activities. If youre in regular school, you almost exclusively see the good homeschooling situation, at least social skill wise. Because the ones that are being isolated by their parents don't take part in activities like sports. But I also met some kids who switched to regular school after being homeschooled for years and that really struggled and had to repeat grades because they were too far behind. They were smart, just had a bad homeschool curriculum.
I was homeschooled up until highschool. And it was at the same time awesome and frustrating. Awesome because I didn't have to sit at a desk all day, it sucked because my mom DRILLED me in math, reading and writing. And there where days where I'd just get so angry with my inability to grasp some of the concepts, however its important to push through and do the work, every day, every year. Homeschooling can be a double edged sword. If you had a great teacher like I did, you will a lot of times be ahead in everything, but if you are not willing to take the time to sit down with your kids, pick a curriculum and do the work with them, then its not going to end well for the kid. I am homeschooling, but I have the advantage of their grandmother’s decades of teaching experience giving me advice and coming over to help, a solid curriculum is incredibly important. That along with diligent study and religion will go a long way. There's no excuse not to do the work. You have to.
yeah those clips made me cry like a baby. he's an incredibly impressive person. i wish that he had not been failed by the system in his youth, but i really dont think many people would be able to do what he's doing now and that's so admirable. i hope someday to check in on him and see him reading everything his heart desires!
He is manlier than every other man on Tiktok in my eyes. I can't imagine how hard it must be to be this open and vulnerable about lacking something that's viewed as easy and fundamental. I'm sure there will be people out there ridiculing him on the hellsite that is Tiktok but he's really showing the world how damaging unschooling is. He's going to change people's lives and raise awareness and I want nothing but the best for him.
My younger sister couldnt read till she was 9 years old. She went to public school and no matter what we tried she wouldn't learn and the teachers would tell us to be patient and to continue practicing. It was her fourth grade teacher who told us she had dyslexia. With her help we were able to get her professional help. Now she is obsessed with reading, we visit the libary three times a month.
A similar thing happened to my best friend. They didn’t realize she needed glasses until she was in like fourth grade, so she never knew she loved reading until they addressed her vision issues
One of the advantages of sending kids to school, is teachers can potentially spot learning difficulties that may otherwise go undiagnosed. More eyes on the kids, especially from people who have studied how kids learn, means a better chance to catch things early.
I was looking for a comment like yours. Growing up in the 80thies the existence of dyslexia wasn’t as common knowledge as it is today. So my teachers were as puzzled as my parents why I had such a hard time learning reading and writing. I managed somehow but my grades were low. My mom having read to me from a very young age had installed a love for books in me that helped me staying motivated through this very hard phase until I was diagnosed in third grade and got professional help. And like your sister I became a very regular guest at our library. If my parents had waited till I was ready to learn reading on my own, we’d still be waiting - but instead I went to university and moving companies now hate me because of my extensive library.
honestly so heartfelt to see oliver be so vulnerable abt his illiteracy, i can’t imagine the shame he felt his whole life, he rly was failed by the education system bc he’s right , he should already know how to read, but it’s so sad bc ppl and systems failed him and he’s humbly taking it into his own hands to do it himself as an adult
I was a math teacher at community college for decades. I had some brilliant homeschooled students whose parents were doing it right: fourteen-year-olds taking a college calculus class because they had passed up their parents and the parents knew it. But I had one heartbreaking case of a student whose parents had taught her nothing academic. At age 22 she was taking beginning algebra. When she was 18 she realized how unprepared she was for life. She enrolled in remedial courses, and because she was naturally bright, in four years she had brought herself up to a seventh-grade level. She was furious at her parents, and said their neglect amounted to abuse.
Not gonna lie I'm glad that last student of yours was able to catch up in her education, becuse from other cases I have read of iliterate women; many only recourse in life ends up being marriage, and many end up in abusive marriages they can't leave because of that.
It’s strange how most educated people rightly recognize what a hindrance it is to suffer from low levels of literacy, but they don’t bat an eye about poor numeracy.
The vast majority of parents homeschooling their children have neither the training or experience to do it right. If teaching was that easy, then everyone would be doing it and there wouldn't be 4 year degree programs training people to be educators.
As a sociologist from India Any parent that lets their child (unless they're differently abled kids) remain illiterate Is just abusing their child. What the bloody hell is wrong with these people.
And as a special educator, I'd argue this kind of "unschooling" is even worse for many disabled children. Many of my students (with autism and an intellectual disability) know how to read. Some can only recognize their name, others know some words, others sentences. My reading curriculum is more structured and repetetive than for children without those challenges - because many pre-reading skills don't come naturally to them. I'll forever be glad my country has compulsory school attendance, reading is such a nuanced skill to teach well and so many children miss out on that.
Never teaching your child to learn to read is very different than not pressuring them to read until they are more capable of learning it. And learning at 4 or 8 has no affect on your long term educational experience.
@@daltonbrasier5491 That's true, we teach around age 6 or 7 here. But what those parents are doing, at least from what they advocate for in their videos, is not teaching their children to read. With few exceptions, children need explicit phonics instructions to learn to read well. Otherwise they'll know sight words but be unable to read words they've never read before. There's also a period where children can decipher words but are too slow to get the story. Not all children have fun practicing that, but it's necessary to get to the fun part of reading.
It breaks my heart. Most people can see how terrible this is but these parents just ignore it and keep on going. Even homeschooling for some students here in the US isn't enough. I've seen a few cousins be homeschooled. Some did insanely well. Like graduating early from high school WITH a 2 year college degree at the same time well. Then one of my cousins, idk if she even has her GED or has officially graduated from high school.
Not educating children is literally denying them a basic and fundamental human right as outlined in the Convention of Human Rights. It is literally neglect and abuse.
It's for stupid people. They resent the world reminding them how stupid they are. They reject that world. They invent a new world where THEY are the smart ones. Their kids going to school reminds them how stupid they are. That cannot happen.
I can’t speak for American schools but I am an elementary teacher in England and the 2nd woman mentions: going to the zoo, going outside, gardening, cooking, sports… I literally did all of those things with my class last year..!!!
"I will teach him how to handle money by going grocery shopping" for a short amount of time after the pandemic, I was working as a math tutor (in addition to school, 3-5 children per group from different levels). I distinctly remember 2 girls in comparison, one in maybe 8th grade, the other in elementary (probably 3rd grade). the one in elementary was way better at math, the older one seemed to have forgotten almost everything due to staying home during the pandemic. the pandemic caused a steep difference between children of capable and willing parents vs. parents unwilling or unable to perform homeschooling.
I’ve forgotten everything. 10th grade. Had to reteach myself long division at some point, struggling in algebra and went back to what I should’ve learned. Some kids can’t even read. The pandemic messed so many kids up, myself included.
i used to be amazing at math, advanced classes and everything. pandemic hit, now im taking algebra for the 4th time and i go to math tutoring twice a week. im supposed to be a senior and im still taking algebra, the math class i was taking in 8th grade in 2020. covid messed up so many things omg
@@Julie-si3hiDuring* Also I'm not surprised because a lot of the responsibility was on the mom and a lot of moms were working remotely as well as the father. I heard so many parents getting frustrated especially the mom's who felt like they had to do everything and felt at risk of losing their job if they stepped away for too long.
What really frustrates me about them trying to teach kids to do math with grocery shopping is that they're trying to work backwards. My son is learning math in school, and I use what he's learning to do real-world application in the grocery store. For example, he learned subtraction last year, so now he has to tell me how much change we're getting back. It's also annoying to me that these unschooling parents think that they get a gold star for doing basic parenting stuff. My son is in school and goes to museums, parks, and the grocery store with me. Believe it or not, you can do both. We don't just sit at home staring at each other evenings and weekends.
Books were one of the highlights of my childhood. I would read under the desk at school, I would read on my way to hockey practice, and I would read at home. I read every second I could. The ability to immerse myself in so many incredible stories and worlds brought so much fulfillment to me, teaching me about life, and science, and people even though all I was reading was fiction. Before bed at night when I was too tired to read I would close my eyes and create my own world and scenarios to explore. If I had not been able to read I would have missed out on all of this. It's horrifying to think kids are growing up without access to the whole world that is written language. Right now I'm learning Dutch and most of how I'm learning is through reading books. I feel like a kid again working through A Series of Unfortunate Events, Harry Potter and the Hunger Games. It makes me wonder if part of what I enjoyed so much about reading was also encountering language I didn't yet understand and furthering the scope of my vocabulary. My point is *how will these kids ever know they enjoy reading if they are never given the opportunity to*
Oh man, _A Series of Unfortunate Events_ was perfect as a kid, and perfect for your usage! They tend to have a lot of frilly language that isn't used in common-day speak. Always found it fun to look those words up
I feel the exact same way, I read so much when I was young and I wouldn’t have sought out reading so much if I wasn’t in school with mandated opportunities to pick out books to read!
I had a hearing problem when I was a child and could not always hear what was happening in the classroom. Being able to read saved me because I could still learn and keep up with the class. It involved a lot of extra work at home but I did not fall behind. My only problem area was mathematics because I wasn’t naturally gifted in that area and it was a real struggle for me.
She's high up in an MLM/pyramid scheme. It's why she talked about her "community of women," that's her downline. She's been covered by the anti-MLM community pretty extensively. She's refused to sign paperwork for her son because it was too much. It's almost a guarantee that his unschooling will involve a lot of time on a tablet, so Mommy can make tik toks to add to her downline.
Reminds me of Micahel Parenti speaking about the Cuban revolution and other Latin American revolutions: "And today this man is going to night school. He said “I could read! I can read, do you know what it means to be able to read? Do you know what it means to be able not to read?” I remember when I gave my book to my father. I dedicated a book of mine to him, “Power and the Powerless” to my father, I said “To my father with my love,” I gave him a copy of the book, he opened it up and looked at it. He had only gone to the seventh grade, he was the son of an immigrant, a working-class Italian. He opens the book and he starts looking through it, and he gets misty-eyed, very misty-eyed. And I thought it was because he was so touched that his son had dedicated a book to him. That wasn’t the reason. He looks up to me and he says ‘I can’t read this, kid” I said “That’s okay dad, neither can the students, don’t worry about that. I mean I wrote it for you, it’s your book and you don’t have to read it. It’s a very complicated book, an academic book. He says, “I can’t read this book.” And the defeat. The defeat that man felt. That’s what illiteracy is about, that’s what the joy of literacy programs is. That’s why you have people in Nicaragua walking proud now for the first time. They were treated like animals before, they weren’t allowed to read, they weren’t taught to read."
There are still Nicaraguans who sign with an X. Education got neglected in some areas during the Neo-Liberal era. One thing that keeps people using written language has been texting on cell phones. Learning and not using isn't a good thing. Met a new Chinese resident whose second language is some English, whose employees are Nicaraguan. Very possibly the only common language is English, but he is learning Spanish.
Similarly, it reminds me of Frederick Douglass. He had to secretly find papers to copy, or talk to kids who were schooled, in order to cobble together his literacy. He knew it was the key to freedom, and he knew it was being kept from him.
I think these parents have a problem with the system that goes back to their own childhood. Perhaps they see the system as responsible for their own dissatisfaction with their own childhood and youth. And instead of advocating for the system to improve, they use their children to protest the system, even if it means ruining their lives.
FOR REAL. I firmly believe in the value of education and I had some very discouraging teachers growing up. I loved books and was reading above my grade level and had teachers act weird about it. I firmly plan to send my son to school BUT, its the reason I refused to live where I grew up and I don't take it out on the whole system.
In the state i am in, the education system has gotten worse than when i was in school. I could vote to change, but one blue vote won't change the sea of red. Lets be clear, unschooling and lacking proper education is a huge problem facing republican states. The Unfortunate part is i dont think republican voters recognize the attempt by the republican party to make their voters uneducated and their kids part of the labor force via new child labor laws. The most reasonable answer is to move to a state that values education. Yet that still may not be an option for someone who cant afford to move.
You're right. I saw an episode of wife swap where one of the moms was an unschooler because she felt traumatized by her school experience. The other mom came in and set up a homeschool system, the kids were so excited to learn but when mom came back she was very upset that they were doing schoolwork.
@@ashleycnossen3157What?!... Also I'm so confused with what unschooling is since wouldn't that be considered home schooling which should be regulated by the state? Like isn't there yearly state exams they still have to do? How would they even graduate if they weren't follwoiea plan?!
Former Montessori teacher here, thank you for pointing out that the Montessori curriculum actually teaches reading in the pre-school years. Montessori also teaches addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in the preschool/kindergarten years albeit in concrete forms. She wishes her child was on the Montessori educational trajectory. Ha.
Dude, I went to a Montessori school for one year right before kindergarten, and I loved it! Before even starting Kindergarten, I learned how to read, I learned how exponents worked (as in I understood what it meant for a number to be "squared" or "cubed") and I learned all about classical art/art history. My mom still tells me to this day (I'm 26 now) about how we went on vacation to New York City, and when we went to the MET, I was explaining and teaching things to my parents about Picasso and his paintings 😂 Montessori was awesome! I remember it didn't even feel like school. It felt like playing!
@@LeandroVelez7while I fully agree with Montessori for younger students, I truly don’t see how it works for anything past 2nd grade or so. I’ve seen Montessori high schools and it kind of throws me off. I’m not even sure they count as a high school diploma in my area.
@@LaceBloodhi! I was Montessori through 8th grade and then went on to public high school and I’m finishing undergrad/ heading towards a PhD rn. Montessori is different after kindergarten for sure! We would get a list of tasks to perform independently, and these would relate to concrete lessons or projects we were engaged in. In 1st grade, the task list was daily, 4th grade it was weekly, 7th grade it wasn’t a list and we just kept track of assignments for each subject. We had several hours of independent and unstructured work time a day. In lower grades, a lot of our math/ geography/ science was done using physical props (so like using beads to learn additional or a map with pins to learn geography). There were also reading comprehension and vocabulary and word problems (almost all math in word problems until algebra) in books and cards. During the work time you get help from a teacher. We also had lecture, usually only 1-2 hours a day. Lecture was in very small groups. Then we had a lot of outdoor time, as well as group projects and hands on tasks like groundskeeping, outdoor stewardship volunteering, planning fundraisers and handling the finances and marketing of our school trips, etc. My favorite part by far was the independent research projects. For every science and social studies unit we would usually learn an overview and then we had to complete a few high-level research projects within the subject. For example, a research paper (we were taught how to do 5 paragraph essays, persuasive essays, syntax, etc beforehand) or an art project / model (like making a demonstration of a science principle or history fact). It didn’t work for everyone, but I feel the time management skills, practical skills, study and research skills, and love of learning really benefited me when I had to start really learning facts and sitting for important lectures because I knew how to use that information to do assignments.
My mom used to read to me as a small child. She would do voices and make reading seem really fun. When I was 3 I remember reading the captions on my coloring book all by myself. By third grade I tested at a college reading level(in public school). As an adult I've been published a few times and consider myself a hobbyist author. After watching this, I'm calling my mom and thanking her. It really does begin at home.
Unschooling kids are gonna be future tax receivers, while we the working class have to break our backs working to feed them. Unschooling is a crime of not only child neglect and abüse, but also a financial one that nations are not going to be able to survive..
The taxes you should worry about are the ones you'll need to pay to keep her son alive for his entire life because he can't get a job because folding laundry is done by robots and you need to use a tablet with a mixture of Latin and Chinese characters to operate the iSwab EXX ToiletClean Supervac Industrial.
I think part of the psychology behind unschooling parents is their own poor experiences in public school. As a high schooler, the whiny attitude towards books and reading reminds me of kids I see in my school's writing center, where I work as a tutor. They struggled in literature and English classes when they were in school, and therefore view school itself as bad, or books themselves as bad. I think it stems from insecurity.
Also at the risk of armchair psychology; as someone with severe ADHD myself, it seems very much like both the women in this video were neurodivergent to some level. I actually almost share their sentiment on the most basic level. I struggled with high school hugely and it was the worst time in my entire life- I'm nearing 40 now. If I had a kid, especially if they were as ADHD as me, I genuinely would feel AWFUL putting them through the same high school experience that I had. The guilt I'd feel wouild be huge. But at the same time homeschooling ain't it. And ironically it seems like their kids are at primary school level right now, which in almost all states in USA is still hugely hands on and engaging with very very little "book time" because kids that age literally can't sit still and learn like that.
@johnmclawson3982 Exactly why institutionalised schooling is required by law in a lot of countries, and why truancy can get the parents in trouble: school is an excellent way to get an abused child into a safe environment with adults trained to spot said abuse. Also, withholding education is another form of child abuse in of itself
I doubt that. I noticed that this is mostly white moms doing this. I really think that with the outrage of schools allegedly teaching"CRT" being thrown around, they're afraid the government is going to turn their kids against them by teaching tolerance of those different. They wanna teach their kids to exclude certain people or certain ideas out of their lives so they don't have to deal with it. Think as I think. Believe as I believe. That's what they think parenting is.
As someone who has auditory processing disorder, derived from ADHD, I cannot imagine watching any piece of media without subtitles. Subtitles are my clutch to understanding context and a lot of what's going on in any movie, anime, RUclips video. I'm Portuguese, and one of the best things the government did to prevent illiteracy was to mandate by law a minimum level of schooling for pretty much any job (escolaridade obrigatória). My grandma was a farmer, she's 85 now and spends her days reading in her retirement, it's her company, her way to keep her brain active, and everyone of us family can tell it's the best thing for her health!
Most states in the US have laws mandating attendance in school until at least 16 years of age, with potential penalties for both students and the parents if not addressed after repeated warnings. However, the US education system is inconsistent and just because they have been in school until 10th grade does not mean they read close to a 10th grade level, with in some of the worst areas having students in 10th grade not reading at 6th grade level.
Make the reading public or a test that is closed behind a door and recorded. Pass people on that and abolish auto-correct on phones as a default setting, better yet. Make it a paid feature... As it should get looked down upon to speech to text unless your job does not allow writing for transportation reasons like truck driving.
I’m dyslexic, and I love reading, but it is exhausting. I’m in my third year of university, and about once a day I will get genuinely upset by my inability to read or comprehend the material assigned to me. I wish people could understand that literacy isn’t just knowing what words mean what, it’s about the mental and physical toll reading takes. I also have dysgraphia (struggling to write on the line, flipping letters, etc.), and it’s the same thing with writing notes. And I was lucky to receive intensive supports when I was growing and developing these skills. My heart breaks for these kids who will likely struggle for the rest of their lives, and who will probably have the similar experience to me with being upset or frustrated by their struggles.
I’d also like to add that when I came home from school every day, I was EXHAUSTED, because I was spending all day trying so hard to develop these skills. Maybe I have a twisted view of it, because I’ve only ever been a student with a developmental disability, but school is supposed to be tiring! That’s how you know you’re learning! You’re fitting all this new information in your brain ALL THE TIME!
I was homeschooled, but not unschooled per se, however I’m autistic with dyscalulia so my mom wasn’t helpful at all in teaching me math. I excelled at other subjects but math never got any easier. At some point she stopped trying because I stopped trying and she thought I was just being lazy. I never got an autism diagnosis because I was never exposed to a critical school system that would notice the tell-tale signs or autism and learning disability. It was absolutely a hindrance for most of my life. I struggled with math until I actually took a GED math prep course with an amazing teacher who listened to my struggles and knew how to help. I was almost 30 by that point, and felt so far behind my peers because I didn’t have the job opportunities or education until I could pass that damn GED math test. I’m thriving in a public university now and I realize that school is a great environment for me. Some kids need the structure of formal education. Some kids don’t benefit from unchecked educational “freedom“.
This story highlights the importance of our parents taking an interest in their children and their educational wellbeing even if it’s hard for the parent. I too have dyscalulia but my father didn’t give up. He actually introduced me to a program called Microsoft Excel and I still remember what he said to me “If you learn how to use this- whatever your math problems were- they are over” it was exactly what my scrambled brain needed to hear and believe it or not- today I am an accountant (who got my first job based purely on the excellence of my excel skills). My greatest weakness gave rise to one of my most valuable skills. That’s why I think if parents want to homeschool they, CAN’T under any circumstances give up on their children
I am so grateful that you were able to find some methods that worked for you. I lucked out that I had some great math teachers in school, since we didn't know dyscalculia was a thing back in the day. Still, standardized tests are a nightmare due to the time limit.
The saddest thing is that she's saying her son is free, but being illiterate is a prison. I am so scared for this child and it is devastating to me that parents are willfully forcing their children into a life of difficulty when it is 100% preventable. That child deserves an education and it is heartbreaking that he is not getting one.
Especially in world with so much written communication. Before writing was popular (1600’s) it was fine and dandy. But reading has been a hand up in society ever since, now more than ever.
I can’t imagine how this is affecting their internal mental development. I have an incredibly strong inner dialogue, I can’t imagine how I would even think the way I do if I was raised this way.
In our State, many of those who are "home schooling" are single parents who fail at the responsibility of getting their child up, dressed, and to school on time. It's heartbreaking.
I was "homeschooled" during my middle school years (I was pulled from public school due to severe bullying). I spent all of those years completely ALONE, trying to teach myself without supervision or guidance. I went back to public school in 9th grade, but I was behind in important things like mathematics. Luckily, I was able to eventually catch up, but I struggled.
@@BaristaWithADog I'm so sorry that happened to you. I begged my dad to let me homeschool for the same reason, and he told me no on the grounds that precisely what happened to you, would happen. :( now that I'm past it I'm really glad I stayed, and I hate how common your experience is. as flawed and even terrifying as the public school system is, the alternatives right now are just disastrous to development.
Yes, it appeals to lazy abusive parents. Not sure which one but one of the influencers she showed was in another video saying “Im unschooling my kid cause it frees up my time no pick up, no drop offs from school. It will save you so much time!” Like thats a pro! You cant go pick and drop your kids off at school but you think you can do the job of a teacher all day? Selfish and delusional.
The school in my grandma's village only got to 3rd grade. She had rudimentary reading and writing skills. She worked so that my mom could finish high school, and my mom worked so that I could go to university. I will never forget their how hard they worked for me to get an education, and it's one of the most precious things they could've given me.
that's exactly what's bothering me about these moms. you're taking away the privilege to learn and be educated in a system THEY or their parents fought so hard to be part of.
Well said. People don't seem to understand that our grandparents' and great-grandparents' generation would have given a lot to have more accessible education, more accessible medicines and vaccines against serious illnesses (that cut many lives short decades early), and loads of other hard-won conveniences we take for granted.
(Long comment sorry) I had a unique schooling situation growing up. The first half of my schooling was spent in a county where just about every family was rich, or paraded like they were rich, but they were still very involved with their children's education. Every week our schools had reading competitions and regular check ups to make sure we were all at the levels we should have been (no we weren't private, just a very competitive public school). I usually ranked pretty average or middle, but that was simply because I just was't a competitive student. Then life took a turn and my family could no longer afford to live in such a costly area and we moved to a rural area that was very poor and most parents literally couldn't care less if their children failed or not. This school was very underfunded and we did not have any competitions or check ups for reading at all. That's not to say there weren't smart students, there definitely were who were able to get full ride scholarships to the best schools in the state. A majority of the kids weren't so lucky though. In high school I loved the english class, but DREADED when it came to reading time because it would always be popcorn reading and it would take a whole class period to get through a chapter or two due to the fact that almost every student in that room of 30 teenagers, could not read/understand the difference between: Your, You're, There, Their, They're, Through, Throughout, Thought, Thorough, and so on. It broke my heart every time knowing that these kids had parents who didn't care to work with them to read. Then I felt super bad when it would come to my time to read, because of my background, I could breeze through passages clearly and without falter and I felt like they were judging me for 'flexing.' "Bro, how'd you get so smart?" "If only I could read like that." I tried explaining that it wasn't a matter of intelligence, but I had just simply been taught how to read and if they wanted to improve, our local free library had those resources to assist. "Nah, my mom doesn't like libraries." "I got football practice, I don't have time to go." "Since when did we have a library?" "You have to be smart to be allowed into libraries." INSANE While those students weren't Unschooled, they definitely had literacy issues that hadn't been corrected. We absolutely had teachers sand staff that cared and wanted to help, but teachers can only do so much and if the parents at home aren't invested in their child's education, it affects everyone.
This. The idea that the only way you'll get a terrible education is if you're homeschooled. Unfortunately plenty of public schools are also failing kids.
Yes, parents should be teaching reading skills before they get to school age. I've always had extremely advanced reading skills and I 100% attribute it to my parents buying and doing hooked on phonics with me early
Plus, reading aloud is its own skill! Not just knowing how to pronounce the words, but things like keeping your eyes on track (when you read silently, you might jump back and forth to different parts of a sentence without it impacting your understanding) and keeping your eyes, brain, and mouth synced up correctly is hard!! You have to process the words a little ahead of actually speaking them for proper flow, intonation, understanding, and retention
I can express myself pretty fluently in 3 languages and she denies her son the ability to express himself in one language?? Poor boy 😢 Btw, homeschooling is illegal in Germany…for a reason!
Homeschooling ist in Deutschland nicht komplett illegal, aber es ist äußerst selten und wird in der Regel nur in Ausnahmefällen, wie bei medizinischen Bedingungen, erlaubt.
As someone who was homeschooled, missing out on the (averaged out from 1st to 8th grade in my case) approximately 7000 hours of socialization will absolutely cripple you.
the good thing is, social skills are in the end still skills that you can learn, bad thing you need other people for it. I hope you find someone or a bunch of people that are willing to help you and give you a chance
@@deusex9731 Ive had some excellent friends around me and a therapist that ROCKS that has helped me not only with the social skills themselves but also processing all of the things that in RETROSPECT are... ill be nice... strange about homeschooling lol I appreciate it comrade
I have come to realize that homeschooling is vastly different based on who your parents are and where you were homeschooled. I was also homeschooled, but never missed out on socializing. I was reading and writing at a more advanced level than many of my friends who were in public school. My mom had me in a two separate homeschool co-ops with many other kids my age, and I also was actively involved in Girl Scouts. My homeschool years honestly harbor some of my favorite memories. Though, I recognize this is not the case across the board.
@@kburdett Vastly different based on the parents AND tends to draw a specific TYPE of parent lol Just based on conversations with other homeschooled individuals your experience is in the minority. Im glad it worked well for you friend!
@@kburdetta friend's 13 year old, home schooled daughter, just started college. Her parents did not ascribe to the "books are for suckers" philosophy.
That second video with woman listing all those activities just felt like one of those sudden bursts of motivation in the middle of the night. Thinking about new existing stuff you will start and how it will change your life....Only to literally forgot about it and/or gave up on it next morning.
I was just there wondering where she got the idea that people that have their children in school aren't also doing all of those things. Has she never seen children other than her own in a museum or at an aquarium or in a grocery store or playing outside? Or does she just assume that all of those children are unschooled too?
@@snowangelnc I don't actually know if these people do actually go to these things very often, or they never took their pre-school aged children. Anyone who goes to a museum regularly during the week will know that school visits to museums basically sustain museums.
I have dyslexia, if no one forced me to read when i didnt want to, i would have never gotten where i am today. I am thankful to every teacher who has ever pushed me out of my comfort zone.
15:40 She described parenting not schooling and education. Why can't she do all that outside of school hours? Also not letting your kids build their own social life apart from you is a bit cruel. Alot of my best memories from childhood were related to school and friends from school.
My kid is free. That is the biggest lie a parent can tell themselves. Ignorance is a prison. The kid is hampered for life. The ability to read and self teach is taken from them. You can learn by others before you or you can learn from your own mistakes. The latter is more expensive and time-consuming.
I am an adult... And sometimes when you are "forced" to do something, you grow to love it. I hated grammar at school. I went to uni, and I had to take a linguistics class. The teacher was a sadist at exams but his style of teaching resonated with me so much, it made linguistics and grammar so exciting that I grew to love it and read more about it on my own... Sometimes it is good to get our of your own comfort zone.
This is so true. Went to a top uni, my criminology professor challenged us to an insane degree. However, his intellect and style of teaching was inspiring. In the end, the class average was around 3.4(3.0 is program average)
Right! I used to hate biology for most of high school but now I'm a vet student with top grades and loving it, if I hadn't been forced to learn biology as a kid I would've never gotten here
In that vein I feel like my parents tricked me into liking art. They're huge art nerds themselves and regularly brought us along to visit art museums and as a kid I hated it but simply by being that exposed to art I now actually like some types of art and I end up getting annoyed at people who criticize art in general even though they have clearly never visited an art museum. I also had a similar experience with literature and language. I hated those because I had horrible teachers growing up that never listened to me but when I finally got good Danish and English teachers the experience of actually being able to learn something I thought I would never understand ended up being so motivating that I got the highest grades in my class. And now I like those things enough that I can enjoy them as a hobby which makes me happy since having a basic grasp of literary analysis makes you enjoy media so much more, though it sadly also makes you a lot more picky.
What strikes me most about the first lady is her complaint that her kids have no energy after school. I don't know of a single parent in my *life* who has ever had that complaint.
@@wyattmilliken3320 that's so funny. I dont have any little ones, but with the folks I know, they're all trying to find some way to run em around or get them into stuff after school.
My grandma only had 8 grades of education in her village school, and my great grandmother barely had a few. Because Soviet union. My mother was the first in our family who got a University degree, and she is a PhD in her chosen field and worked as a Dean half her life. She made goddamn sure I had the best education possible. I knew how to read in 2 (similar) languages when I was 4, learned English as a child and had all the tutors we as a poor family could afford. We didn't always had fruit or meat, but I for sure always had lessons to take. This type of upbringing has it's downsides - I always need to be the best and am very afraid to fail; but without knowing the joy of learning I would not become the person I am. Nowadays, with a lot of infrastructure in Ukraine being destroyed due to the war, the biggest challenge parents face is education of their children. It is very hard to have a curriculum with constant shellings and enegry cuts, so education is very patchy and mostly online. Low quality. That one of the big reasons mothers want to take their kids out to not stunt their development. These delusional selfish idiot mothers blow my mind. They are so locked in on their personal ridiculous issues that they deny their children development. If only they had the understanding of how many people all over the world are striving to be a part of a normal education cycle. I honestly feel like these ladies are an example of degradation and child abuse.
Kinda disgusting how we’ve gone thousands of years with out education and also putting kids in factories, and now that all kids have access to education…these parents are denying them
It’s like the anti-vaxx movement. People lived for centuries without and knew how bad it was, so when it became available, they raced to get it for themselves and their kids. Now we live in a society where we take it for granted, and some people have forgotten how bad it is when you go without. Worse, they themselves had the benefits that they’re now denying their kids.
@Cristofah That tends to happen when right wing religious nuts keeps worming their way into public school boards and pushing for less funding every year
I worked for a state program to help young adults get their GED/employment and I cannot tell you how many kids were "homeschooled" but were testing at 1st grade levels in reading/math. Their struggle was so heartbreaking. Many of them didn't make it through classes because it was so much work. I was so proud of the ones that were successful but they shouldn't have had to start so far behind. The ones that made me the saddest were the ones that would have been in Special Education classes if they had been in regular school getting support for their needs that they never got at home. It's just so frustrating that public school is available to everyone and parents choose to hold their kids down.
my assigned public school only 2% of the high schoolers have a basic understanding in their grade level math and 18% can read beyond an elementary level. they also won't follow IEP's and 504's even though they legally have to.
Then, there are people like me who dropped out of high school, got my GED in less than three weeks, entered the workforce for a few years, then went to college and held a 3.9 for most of the time. I was home schooled until third grade, and that's why middle school was a true waste. They were teaching stuff in middle school that my mother taught me in second grade. All I learned in middle school was how evil and stupid kids AND adults can be. My point is that a strong and smart parent can actually outperform the school system by miles. Unfortunately, "can" is the key word here. The women in those videos are clearly not capable of teaching kids in the way my mother was.
When I was a young African American child, I learned a very powerful quote from reading a book about a young newly-freed African American Girl: "There is freedom in your head". Despite my own mental setbacks, I fought hard to read and focus. It was not easy, but I'm glad I know how. For decades, African Americans were literally BARRED from reading, blocked from good schools, and most stayed in those cycles and never learned to read. I'm a Millennial. Our grandparents were the first to know how. To willfully bar your child from experiencing school and structured learning is to deny them a privilege so many others wish they could obtain.
People mean different things by "unschooling". Some people are intentionally teaching things like reading, writing, and math, but they teach it somewhat unconventionally, so they call it "unschooling." But there are also people who think kids will just "pick it up" by osmosis or something without ever being taught anything intentionally. To those people I have to ask, "Why would anyone in the world be illiterate if people just easily picked up reading without being taught?" I think it has been well-documented that speaking can be picked up naturally, but reading and writing must be taught.
You can teach yourself to read if you're consistently exposed to someone else reading where you can follow along. That's why reading to your child is so important and a lot of little kids programs highlight subtitles of the word being spoken at the time it's said. It gives kids a huge boost because by the time they're learning the fundamentals of reading they already have a recognition for common words/letter sounds, and in some cases the kids who are exposed a lot can already do some reading by the time normal education starts. Problem is adults who can't read aren't going to be exposed to the same stuff that helps kids learn to read, they have to be taught because the tools to figure it out alone aren't there(although they may be able to learn specific words, like "news" which is repeated so often it on TV it is basically impossible to not pick up on it).
@@scragarproblem with that is, not all phonics work. You read rhe word "cough" now you have "dough" I hope you reading this can tell that while those 2 words have the exact same spelling after the first letter, but are said much differently. That's literally what the teacher is for! Or things like "live" as in I saw a live band and "live" as in I live in a house. Same word, 2 different meanings. You would never know that if you just followed along. Because there is so much more to reading that physically putting letters together to make a sound! It's sad adults can't seem to figure this out.
@@robingalbraith323this! I had no idea this was such a big issue (my native language isn’t English) but I recently listened to the Sold a story podcast and was blown away.
@@scragar Some kids can learn to read this way. I did. But others need more formal instruction on phonics, etc., before reading “clicks.” (I’m not downplaying the importance of reading to your kids, just recognizing that it’s not always enough.)
re: school gun violence. It does feel like a roll of the dice every day now. Every time it happens I'm reminded that this is so common here that it's just a matter of probability before it lands at my door. But let's be honest. These mothers aren't motivated by that particular fear. They're very likely motivated by the dread specter of wokeness. If they're that dialed in to social media to be a content creator of this particular type, they're definitely being bomarded daily by a thousand memes about this school or that teaching "gender confusion" to kindergartners or whatever nonsense the right is panicking about on any given day. Also, I looked up Mami Onami. She's a survivor of the Children of God cult, allegedly, which... yikes. That's some grim business that explains a few things about her desire to protect her children from the unpredictability of public school. Therapy would do her a lot of good and yet here we are.
What she is describing as “hands on schooling“ is simply parenting. That is literally your job. But there are many things you cannot teach your child, even if you were an expert in child education simply because you don’t know them. No one is an expert on everything. You cannot teach a person to be competent as an adult in maths, literature, arts, music, sports, science, theatre, etc. As someone with a lot of degrees, there is simply no way 🙅
Teachers are not experts in their subjects! In my whole K-12 education, I had three teachers who had degrees in the subjects they taught. Every other teacher had only a surface-level understanding of the topic and was threatened by intellectually curious children. Additionally, if you are going to boast about your degrees in a comment about education, you should probably use correct grammar to do it. You look foolish.
@@alex_1993 firstly, I never said any of my degrees were in English, Alex. Secondly, your comment speaks volumes about the UK education system, likely post austerity. In my country, post 4 grade, all teachers need a relevant university education related to their field as well as an additional pedagogical certificate and must pass national tests periodically to remain employed. Thirdly, I don’t see any of the mothers in the video posted as having any relevant amount of education whatsoever. It’s best not to make assumptions about people on the internet, Alex, it makes you look terribly ignorant, as well as foolish.
@@alex_1993 I'm sorry you had such a dearth of expertise in you education. This doesn't match my experience growing up, and as someone who works in education now I would be delighted if a student asked me a question I didn't know the answer to. That would give us the opportunity to learn together, and to me the most important aspect of teaching isn't forcing knowledge into children's heads, but helping them learn how to teach themselves and follow their passions. Reacting with hostility is a sign of a very insecure or uncaring teacher.
@Axis32109 Your reply is breathtaking. The fact that you think an English degree is required to use correct sentence structure just shows that your education in elementary and secondary school was sorely lacking. You should have been learning grammar in elementary school, not university. To your second point: I do not live in the UK. In my country, teachers only need an education degree and not a degree in their field. That is the context that the women in this video are reacting to. Lastly, I never said the women in this video had any educational training, so you are attacking a strawman. I would not be surprised if many homeschooling parents do have a lot of subject matter knowledge, though. On my part, I have never gone through a formal teaching program but I tutor high school and university students. I am amazed that even in some of the top schools in the US, teachers have not taught fundamental concepts of writing to their students. I have worked with very bright kids who still did not know how to identify parts of a sentence, properly conjugate a verb, or use good sentence structure. Clearly, the school system is not as great as many commenters imply it is.
@Uhshawdude That is fantastic, and you sound like a great teacher! I would not have so many concerns with the overall quality of schools in the US if we had more teachers with your mindset. There certainly are many great and inspiring teachers. The problem is that great teachers tend to self-sort into communities where kids already have a lot of socioeconomic advantages, leaving a lot of areas underserved.
I went to Montessori preschool and literally could read and summarize passages by age 4 and had immense amount of freedom. These parents know what they are doing, it’s not about freedom and it’s hardly about their children, it’s about being morally superior for them
Actually on second thought, it IS about the children. It’s about keeping them as young and as dependent on their parents as possible. I feel like I see dozens of mommy vloggers bragging about how they get to keep their 8 year old with them 100% of the time because they homeschool
I was unschooled (taught to read but that was pretty much it) and I cannot even begin to explain the irreparable harm it did to me. My parents did this in hope they would get to control me my whole life. They don’t control me anymore but I always need the help of other people because I can barely ever hold down a job and have ptsd from the neglect. We have to make this illegal again. It is child abuse pure and simple. I wish it never happened to me.
It breaks my heart hearing this. I would recommend getting curriculum books for elementary (libraries often have classes for adults or known where you can get them for free) and work your way up. RUclips also has a ton of videos of teachers and professors on every subject. You can still learn, it's never too late. Best of luck to you!
@@SpacemanTheo Thank you. I learned what I could as a kid on my own with no resources and have been trying to just figure out what I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask librarians about curriculum and classes. I will have to do that! I’m sure there will be a lot of adults schooling themselves soon with education being what it is. I like the idea of starting with elementary and will try that. Thanks you for caring and everyone else who has spread the word about this problem.
@@NikolaiH95 Not a problem! Depending on where you are they may be in person or online sessions. Libraries are a massive resource and one that people like me fight to keep open and volunteer for. RUclips is kinda the wild west of 'libraries' but it's how I learned math and reading when I too, was left behind when teachers wrote me off as 'lazy' when I was struggling.
@@nategalvan3907 That's not what the message stated, maybe you shouldn't shame people for their lack of education if you are not capable of understanding a single paragraph. The lack of empathy for someone who clearly went through a terrible childhood doesn't really paint a pretty picture of you, but I guess it's not as funny as your failure to demonstrate basic literacy in that situation, it's just sad.
Poor Oliver. That’s so sad but also so happy he decided to learn. I couldn’t imagine the struggle. My oldest daughter had trouble reading when she was younger & I whole heartedly believe it’s because I didn’t expose her to enough books as a toddler. Now she reads at a high school level in the 8th grade, which is great, but if I hadn’t noticed when she was younger she wouldn’t be where she is at today. I hope Oliver’s reading gets much easier ❤ Loved the video!
At 6 yrs old I was writing complete sentences. Simple sentences but complete ones. Like: "I love my mom. I love my dad. I love my cats." Simple stuff but I was writing them myself. Not copying them from anywhere. I also knew all my letters too. I learned how to read and such but I did not enjoy it. My parents loved to read and my mom was super pushy about getting me to read the books she read when she had been my age. But I didn't enjoy them or was interested in them. Which would always upset her cause she didn't like how I would look at her when she tried to get me to read. She had said it felt like I was giving her a look that made her feel stupid. I didn't come to love reading until 2nd grade (8 to 9 years old). I had a teacher who really encouraged us to read and had us spend a lot of time on reading. Most of the time I hated it, but not always. I enjoyed some of the books she picked out. It wasn't until I had gotten my hands on a series called "Rainbow Magic" that my opinion on reading changed and it went from "I hated reading" to "I enjoy reading". But that was because my teacher had given me access to books that I enjoy. I don't know if I would have come to enjoy reading if it wasn't for her or if I did. It would have been at a later date. 4th grade was when I really became obsessed with reading as it became a safe space for me as I had been outcasted by my peers. These days though, at 22 almost 23. I read for fun, I collect books of all kinds, novels, light novels, mangas, comics, and fanfics. Just because I love all forms of storytelling, except for audiobooks. I don't care for those. It's not the same as reading the book myself but that's a personal opinion. But I can't imagine not being able to read, it's all I ever do these days, most days. Not just read books, but I text friends online a lot all the time. I even write my own stories when I can. So the idea of not being is such a strange thought to me. I'm glad I was pushed to read, even if I didn't enjoy it at the time. even if I didn't like how my mom went about it. I'm glad my teacher was able to find books that I enjoyed.
I didn’t like reading much in elementary school, until I started reading more to win prizes in an annual reading competition we had. I think I wanted a specific leopard plush they were giving out for… 400 minutes? Along the way I also realized that I was actually enjoying the stories I could read, and I kept reading even after I didn’t have that external motivation. Regularly visiting the library with my mom definitely helped too, giving me a wider selection than at school. I gradually stopped reading as much after I started being “online” more… But all that reading I did as a kid/teenager built a great foundation for my future English classes, and reading/writing in general. I think we have the first 7 of the Rainbow Magic books around here somewhere. The series that lasted the longest with me were the Rick Riordan ones, since I liked the humor and have always been interested in mythology.
I'd be very interested if one of these unschooling parents blocked out or covered up every bit of text in their homes. How long would they last without reading. No instructions for the oven or recipes, no idea of what the time is, angry letters in the mail with consequences they can't understand.
YES! Kelsey said they are going to learn how to cook because that's a life skill but lets not actually teach them how to read so they can follow a written recipe.
My 14 year old son, adopted from foster care when he was 6, was in public school until 2020, and when we were home, I started working more closely with him on reading. I knew he wasn't great at it, but I became aware of how poor of a reader he was (in 5th grade, read lower than 1st grade level), even though his teachers always said he was doing fine. He learned to adapt to not being able to read. He would listen to someone else reading, or just pick up on context clues in conversation. If it had not been for the pandemic, and us deciding to homeschool "for a year" (turned into 3), I think he would have been one of those kids who graduates high school not knowing how to read. Homeschooling gave us the opportunity to really focus on reading. My thought was if he didn't know how to read the rest of the education probably wouldn't matter that much. He's back in school now and still maybe not at grade level, but he's doing so much better. We are homeschooling my 5 year old now, and he reads really well.
which is how homeschooling should be! my parents homeschooled me and my education was amazing and i didnt have too much trouble transitioning to college
You are allowed to homeschool your children in Austria, but the kids have to take exams at regular schools after each school year in order to monitor their learning progress. If a child fails the exams, the parents are not allowed to homeschool anymore and the child has to enroll in a regular school. I think that this an important policy that protects children from falling behind regarding their education. Language is the key to so many things in life - I enjoyed learning how to read and write when I was a child and I still enjoy learning other languages. The world is your oyster if you are fluent in several languages. In contrast your oppurtunities in life are very limited if you can‘t even communicate effectively in your native tongue.
It is like that in some states in the US, but not all. Each state is kind of a like a different country! I homeschooled my kids in two states that were considered moderate. In one of those states we had to meet with a licensed educator twice a year and present a portfolio of work for each student, and had to pass a checklist. With the other state you had to write a letter at the end of each year explaining how you educated and the progress that the student made, as well as presenting a portfolio of student work samples. Testing was required to be submitted for certain years instead of a portfolio, or you could just submit annual test scores every year if you preferred.
@someonerandom256 In the interest of the children, who are homeschooled I‘m glad that at least some states monitor their educational progress. Personally I think that homeschooling can be very beneficial for some families, but it takes a lot of time, effort and discipline on the parents end to work out. Not everyone is cut out to be teacher - even if they have a good understanding of a certain subject.
The thing that always pisses me off about Unschoolers is what they talk about with life experiences and personal learning. THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO AFTER SCHOOL. Like you said in the video. They act like school stops that from happening it doesn’t. Especially if you can afford to be a stay at home mom.
I would like to point out that with the cost of daycare, many people can't afford to WORK. Many would prefer to just stay home and spend time with their kids than go to work just to pay every cent made for child care.
I find the anti literacy stance terrifying. She says she’s scared of conformity but doesn’t like books? The Nazis burned books because they wanted conformity…
As a former “homeschooled” child, this is so sad. It seems as though our country as a whole is moving further and further away from prioritizing education.
Man, Oliver is just one of the strongest and bravest people I’ve seen on the internet in a long time. It takes so much strength to be that vulnerable publicly, especially with a topic where there is so much stigma, and it’s just so clear how hard he is working and how much effort and energy he has and is putting into this goal. Truly, his story and his openness will without a doubt save children from having to go through the struggles he has, and will give people the motivation and courage to stand up and face the things that they are ashamed of in themselves, and to follow his incredible example of improving ourselves in even the hardest of ways. It’s never too late to give yourself the things you needed - and deserved! - as a child.
I'm impressed by how one of these mothers is unable to recognize that a lot of the named activities require some level of language use (reading, writing) and maths. As you already said: it's not one or the other exclusively - we need both. Also, had all the same thoughts about the "freedom" quote immediately.
@@FrogsForBreakfastI went from knowing nothing about gardening 5 years ago to harvesting pounds of produce for 35-40 weeks out of the year. A lot of RUclips helped. A lot of trial and error. Audiobooks helped. The best information has come from university publications, which requires the ability to read.
Im pretty certain that Maria Montessori had children reading at high levels by the age of six. The age range is 3-6 for reading, about a year later than we expect in schools. Im checking my book on her, and they stress phonics, writing, and then reading. So 3-5 should have stronger writing knowledge than if you're teach them to read words on the page without writing the letters yourself first. These are all structured systems! I learned through writing first, and had a significantly higher than average reading level in all grades (mom did this on her own, not through the Montessori method; I was three when I could read simple books). She isn't unstructured. She's tactile; not RANDOM.
Montessori is a great example of a school system that put the child first. I also like that they are encouraged to socialize and help each other. And grow independent in a safe environment.
yes, and I would argue that through the method, the burden of structure falls on the teachers, not the children. An abacus is a fun toy for kids, but with structure and attention, we can teach them so much about arithmetic. If the teacher/parent just gives them one to play with, they won't really learn what it is supposed to teach you. That is the other half I think these parents are missing.
It wasn't until my wife started getting teacher certifications exactly how little regard and respect people have for teachers. They seem to believe teachers are either glorified babysitters, or anti-family brainwashers. She's trying to create the foundations on which your children's future learning can be built. She's not indoctrinating. She's not preaching. She's not converting. She's a teacher. She's teaching. She barely has time (and supplies) for that.
I’m autistic and (from my experience working in retail) it makes me REALLY fucking suck as a “low-skill” employee, like I am comically incompetent at basic verbal instructions and have horrendous emotional intelligence. Having a high level of reading comprehension, critical thinking capabilities, and math knowledge is the difference for me between being chronically unemployed because I can’t do basic tasks and being a well-compensated expert in a field I’m passionate about. If you want to talk about freedom, being educated is one of the most liberating things that happened in my life.
“She’s going to document the Schmidt out of this…” So, because she wants to be a Social media star she’s going to use her children as props. Very nice.
She's probably gonna try keep them illiterate so that they can't sue her in the future for the money she made off traumatizing them infront of the whole internet.
@@amicaaranearum what they don't also realize is that they are willingly helping to increase income inequality. That's very ironic, considering their likely political views.
as a future educator, it’s upsetting that’s she talking about teachers only using paper and books to help learn. I know so many teachers and educators that have studied types of learning and understand that paper and books, although they have their place, are not the most effective way of learning. HENCE LESSON PLANNING AND CREATING ACTIVITIES TO APPEAL TO KIDS
What are your thoughts on unschooling? Do you know anyone who was unschooled, or were you? I’m curious! 😊
I know several. It works surprisingly well in the early years (K-3) because most kids are sufficiently hungry for education that they demand it. If the parent is actually responding to their child's interests, they provide the basics of reading, writing, and math. Children don't like being illiterate and innumerate. It makes it hard to navigate the world and play board games. There's a short feedback cycle on the benefits of education, and learning is genuinely fun, so unschooling works surprisingly well. This also allows any simple immaturity issues to work themselves out. For example, the visual system doesn't fully mature until age 9, and some kids have genuine physical difficulties with early reading that will resolve themselves if simply given more time. Most unschoolers have the rudiments of reading, writing, and math by at 9 or ten.
The problem comes when the kids need to buckle down and seriously study things that aren't inherently interesting. This happens around age 9 or 10. Building foundations takes time and it's rather boring. Children don't have the life experience to understand what foundations they will need in the future. If the parents aren't willing to impose demands on their children, the kids get "stuck" in every area that they don't find inherently interesting.
There were a shocking number of inmates who couldn’t read in the prison I was in. There’s a wonderful organisation called the Shannon trust that works with inmates to help them help each other learn to read from inmates who can. I don’t think illiteracy leads to crime but I think the same neglectful or impoverished environments create crime and illiteracy.
@@jeffreyarcher9815 Illiteracy eliminates most legal job opportunities, so illiteracy can absolutely push people to accept jobs from criminal organizations.
If you have a well-educated parent with actual training as a teacher it MIGHT be possible, because that hypothetical parent will (perhaps) know how to spark the child's curiosity in all of the important areas. However, the idea that a child will just magically know to ask about (as one example) equations is ridiculous. I also have my doubts that someone dumb enough to get face tattoos is able to provide proper education even to a child who does, magically, ask all the right questions that will lead to a proper, well-rounded education. She's setting her child up for failure.
Looks like there aren't too many unschooled (former) kids here, so I'll contribute my thoughts as one (with two brothers who also were unschooled).
I think that, thanks to Tiktok, "unschooling" has been hijacked as a term. I was fortunate that my mother absolutely immersed herself in Holt's literature, which is decidedly NOT anti-intellectual. In fact, I would say it took a lot from Piaget, and focused on training one's child to recognize their own zone of proximal development. There are plenty of kids in classrooms who are in lessons they don't get and aren't in a place to get. While I'm sure there are also plenty of "unschoolers" who are similarly adrift and unstimulated, a key quote from Holt in one of his interviews was, to paraphrase, that what children need to learn is adults around them who are sincerely interested in their (the child's) thoughts and want to help the child develop those thoughts. I get a sense with many of these influencers that this is NOT the reason the kids are being unschooled.
In addition, you pointed out the importance of privilege. I'd agree that it's hard, perhaps even nearly impossible, to unschool well without vast support. But it really was ideal for my family. Wall to wall books. Five generations of college education. Enough money that any book we asked for was given (though, this rule was exclusively for BOOKS). I'll admit, it may not be for everyone. It may even just be for a vastly small pool of people.
...but I get angry every time I see these "unschoolers" neglecting their kids and besmirching the name of what was, for my family, a path not only to great literacy, but a lifelong love of sharing deep literature, collectively, as a whole family.
"My son can't read but he has the freedom to create whatever art he wants."
Except for poetry, I guess. And prose.
😂
And novel writing. And script writing. And he can't read books about painting or drawing. And he can't read a script by himself to act. And can't read directions about how to build and make things or read about what kinds of materials he should use.
It becomes harder to pursue pretty much any kind of art without an understanding of reading and writing.
And just in general, how is he supposed to research any topic he's interested in (since this this whole unschooling thing is supposed to be about "following his interests") if he can't read or write?
The ability to read and write is one of those things that I think we don't realize just how much we take for granted. We use it in almost every aspect of life.
America has brain broken people with the idea of "freedom"
@@Follow_a_bee it would be fine if he was getting help. As a dyslexic homeschooled kid that stuff sucks I couldn't read until I was like 10-11 and I only learned things because I took my education into my own hands
Didn't you hear what the clever mommies said? Books is darksided. Ain't no child o mine gonna write no nerd book.
Honestly, doing things even when you don't want to do them might be the #1 skill school teaches you.
Developing the skills to entertain yourself without disturbing the rest while having to wait might be a competitor.
That's why gifted child syndrome sucks so much. I didn't do things when I didn't want to do them and aced the tests and was fine. I didn't learn how to study OR how to persevere.
@@BlacksmithTWD also managing to work with others who aren't your friends and turn in work is also another important skill.
I feel like a lot of people don’t realize how much of the “self learning” they do after school is only possible because they learned basic concepts in a structured environment.
@@brianbelgard5988exactly! Plus when parents become teachers, kids can mix the 2 roles and start feeling bad sit their performance.
As a non-American, I am baffled and horrified that doing this to kids is legal. Denying kids an education is neglect.
Anywhere other than America education is better, school wouldn't be an issue for the conscious caring involved homeschooled parents.
Right? How is this allowed?? In my country you can go to jail for this.
The majority of us Americans are equally horrified.
I'm an American and equally horrified, trust me theres a lot of us
Because people in this country have this idea of "freedom" that is very often confused with feeling entitled to do literally whatever the fuck you want to do, even if it's at the expense of others.
These people are exercising their "freedom" as parents, and their kids can't read because of it. We are a lost country. Stupid people hat think they know better thab you because of google are having a very real and very negative impact on society that's only going to get worse.
My parents tried to “unschool” me. When my mom divorced my dad, she immediately enrolled me and my siblings in school. I was 9. The “unschooling” was really his idea, as he was abusive and wanted to stunt our education and any possible way out. He wanted us to be illiterate. He WANTED to make us fully grown adults who couldn’t read or do simple math.
Anyways, I’m in college now
❤
Hell ya girly your a bad ass
Glad you made it out alive.
How else would you be a proper conservative Christian? I’m sure he has a reasonable voting record and supports sensible policies.
Refusing to grant your children a proper education when you‘re 100% able to should be considered child abuse, if not a human rights violation
US public schools are not a proper education.
Absolutely. It's abuse and neglect.
It is. Article 26.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains "Elementary education shall be compulsory."
@Bongobert yes, sending your child to a US public school is abuse and neglect.
Elsewhere it is. But the american people believe in freedom.
It seems to me that you guys make a big deal out of the parent's freedom to educate their own children the way they see fit.
Too bad that being free _from_ illiteracy, idiocy and poverty is not considered to be "freedom".
"we reject school because it forces our kids to think the same"
...
"let's build a community of women who all think the same"
hm.
bpd
Yeahj but it's a different same. School teaches kids to function in society while the league of privileged home schooling moms thinks it's more important to let our kids know that they're rich enough to deserve special treatment from the cradle to the grave.
@@JerehmiaBoazi think you took that down a misogynist route...
@@Discordia5 yeah. No. You're watering down what that word means. Criticism is not bigotry. These women are actively perpetuating abuse. I mean are you gonna say that calling out moms who let their partners assault their daughters is misogyny?
Classic narc parent 😬
My bosses kids are “free schooled.” They do some work but not lots. Their 10 year old daughter can’t read. She looked at me the other day and said “I wish I could go to school and read like you.” Almost cried.
Bro call cps
💔💔
School is mandatory in my country (up until you're 16), for which I am very grateful. It's a basic right for kids.
@@sendmorerum8241wait it’s the same here too. Did you watch the beginning bit?
I know someone does on schooling and when their children requested to go to school they sent them and the children didn't know how to handle following directions, getting along with other children, not acting out of every impulse that comes into their heads etc. They were allowed to quit just as easily. Part of going to school and interacting with society in a social atmosphere teaches resilience. Teaches you don't always get what you want. Teaches you to wait, take turns and consider others.
I received a Montessori education from ages 3-6, and I learned to read within the first year. They even taught us some French. I went into public school with a far better baseline than most kids, AND my education was hands-on. These people do not understand how intense and comprehensive Montessori schooling is, they're just reaching to find terms they think will legitimize their desire to isolate their children.
Yes! I went to a Montessori pre-school. The concept was a 1-year foundation year before joining 1st grade; where I grew up 1st grade was age 7 so I would have been 5/6. I had already started to read independently from around age 4 at home, and by the end of the foundation year I was reading proficiently. I also remember various dexterity tasks, art, learning about nature, and maths which I never had an aptitude for but because it was framed in interesting ways I at least engaged with it... All in all - Montessori and whatever this is are NOT the same.
I know a lot of kids who did Montessori for Day Care and Pre K or 4K. And are reading above others. I remember when my youngest at 2, would ask for homework, because her Sister has homework ( there 6yrs apart). So I would give her letters, #ers ext to work on. Now it took until 4th Grade for her reading to really take off. But her Math has always been 1-2grades ahead.
My sister did Montessori with her oldest (and is doing it with her twins) at home. My oldest nephew started first grade this year and is reading at a second-grade reading level.
I have just started a Montessori RUclips channel to spread knowledge about how well it works for children. 😊
This guy who is documenting his literacy journey is a stone cold badass.
Right? Voluntarily being so goddamn vulnerable for the entire internet, especially after a lifetime of covering it up, which must have taken a lot of skill btw? Damn. I wonder how many people he’s inspired to try to improve their own circumstances.
That's hardcore af
He is my new hero.
He has balls the size of church bells, mad respect to him
@@ryn3872yeah, I cannot begin to fathom how important it is for him to be an example of that. It’s powerful to push past pride and learn. I hope he can empower lots of other people. Reading is critical for many reasons, but it’s also *magical* to be able to escape into stories or talk silently over thousands of miles.
My mom always told me "if I didn't love you, I would let you watch TV all day". Now I see that these parents really don't love their kids.
That’s a good line. I’m gonna use that one 🫡
That was my life - my parents wouldn't send me to school and I spent years of my childhood sitting at home and watching movies all day, every day. I didn't know what I didn't know and nobody cared enough to step in.
@@TsufenTheMouse Mine too! I didn't go to school until I was 14. I was homeschooled and spent most of my days watching tv all day or reading fanfiction online. My childhood was so much fun lol. By some miracle, though, I was able to succeed in a traditional school environment, graduate university, and get a good job, but dang... missing out on school could have easily ruined my life.
I don't think I agree with this one. It's a big jump from "I have taken my kids out of normal schooling" to "I don't love my kids" - especially as they're spending more time with their kids now than they otherwise would have (I assume). I just think they've grabbed the nucleus of a correct idea - "the schooling system does not cover every need of a child" - taken that ball and ran full speed the wrong way.
"Never ascribe to malice [or apathy] what you can attribute to incompetence."
A lot of people doing bad things are not bad--they're dumb. I believe, as a default position, that these parents do love their children. I also believe, however, they are too dumb to make the right choice about education for their children. Even if you think they are just narcissists, they'd also have to be dumb narcissists, and Occam's razor says being dumb is already a sufficient explanation.
my father cannot read. he is not free. he grew up in a time where deaf people in his country do not receive an education. i would argue really that he is one of the most trapped and saddest men ive ever seen. he cannot text his children and only can communicate in emojis. he cannot read a grocery list. he cannot shop alone. he cannot do anything alone. i would give anything for him to have the education he deserved as a child. for him to be free. for him to be able to write "i love you" to his wife. for him to be able to watch a show without someone interpreting it. i know it is different because he is deaf and has a different disadvantage but the sentiment is the same. it is not freedom but entrapment. it forces you to rely on everyone around you to be able to function at all. imagine not being able to read a menu that has no photos on it
Oh my gosh. To be unable to read when you’re already DEAF is one of the most profoundly isolating & lonely scenarios I can imagine. And to think neglecting teaching deaf people older than your father to read (when they were kids)was the norm…so cruel in its amplification of what is already a huge hindrance to communication & navigating the world without hearing.
The way you describe the amount of assistance he needs, it sounds like what a mentally hanicapped/ high support needs person would require. Not a man that is capable enough to father children. That must be incredibly difficult to not feel embarrassed or emasculated by.
Gosh, your story has just really made me feel empathy for you and your father. Wishing your family the best and your father happiness & longevity
Is there any reason why he cannot learn to read as an adult if he has sight? I'm curious.
@@middleagebrotips3454 he has a learning disability that makes it even more difficult for him to learn it now in his adulthood. we have tried teaching him how to read the basics but all the letters are jumbled and due to him never going to school there is no foundation to work off on. hes 50 now. most kids get to learn the alphabet. he never even got to learn the alphabet
@@calinac1671 thanks for taking your time to respond, I hope it gets better.
Almost cried reading this. READING this. It is so upsetting that people are putting this burden on their own children.
the main thing my brother criticized about the whole unschooling thing is that since these kids only learn what interests them at a basic level, they are only getting trivia, not really learning anything
iPad kids
Brains don’t fill up. The more you learn the more room your brain creates for more information
This is especially true of children whose brains are "empty" and ready to be filled with knowledge.
@jessicaloveridge2759 Some adults seemingly believe that learning is for children and that once they become an "adult" learning is not needed anymore. They forget that everybody is an eternal student, everybody is always learning something new
@@KenjiAsakura09 This attitude is probably the main reason that anti-intellectualism is so rampant in the US and across the world. There are an entire class of adults who gain a sense of superiority from trusting "common sense", meaning heuristics and their own life experience, over "experts". Which is fine when you're dealing with topics within the realm of everyday life, but completely fails when you're trying to understand a complex topic. If you could "common sense" your way through advanced biology, ecology, math, physics, history, etc, then we wouldn't need education and science.
@@Uhshawdudeyou’re so right and these people are not intellectuals at all. They make it seem like they reject expert opinions and do their “own research” instead. That would be fine if they are actually doing proper research and smart. Instead their idea of research is reading the first two sentences of some random gossip magazine article. If these people actually went to school, they would have learned how to conduct proper research.
@@Uhshawdude Nah, the main reason people are anti-intellectual is because various experts and institutions are ideologically captured, and that heavily undermines trust, because an agenda will be prioritized over the truth.
Also, it's not healthy for people to just blindly follow experts anyway. Experts have a duty to actually convince people of their conclusions. In fact the ability to explain a complicated thing in simple terms is one of the few signs of genuine understanding. What we see instead is a lot of shaming, psycho analysis, name calling, etc. It doesn't work on a lot of people because they have heard the story of the Emperor's New Clothes before.
Though none of this is to say that distrust of experts and institutions is a good thing. It's a bad thing. Following experts on average is going to be better than being highly contrarian and following intuition. I just put the blame largely in the experts being incompetent rather than blaming normal people who have come to doubt them. To me, the latter is just a symptom of the former.
I spent time teaching in a Montessori classroom and what it's taught me is that "child-led" learning actually involves a LOT of prep work from the adults. It's great to let children explore their own interests and pursue their favourite fields of knowledge! Supporting them, giving them structure, connecting the stuff they like to the other stuff they might not be as excited about... all of this requires a lot of deliberate guiding from someone who knows WHY they need to learn these, HOW to help them become self-sufficient learners, and wants them to be prepared to teach themselves as they grow older.
Also... the idea that 2nd graders spend all day reading out of books... laughable. In my experience, second graders have infinite stamina and if you try to make them sit still for 8 hours they turn into a pack of wolves xD
Omg the last part - Do parents have 0 insight into what happens at school? I'm not from america, but when I grew up we did a lot of things in school that wasn't sitting down and reading. I think reading was like 10% of the stuff we did.
And ironically a lot of the things they say they want their kids to learn (like buying stuff, cooking, working in gardens) actually require the type of stuff you learn in school to be able to do well. Like she said in the vid, there's a difference between telling a kid that 5+7=12 and having them learn how to figure it out
One of the things we did at that age, but especially in grade 1, was 'walking dictation'. It was literally the teacher putting out a text in a harder to reach location and we had to go there, read, run back, write it down and she would spur us on and praise us for how we wrote or correct mistakes. It was literally learning how to read and write while moving so we wouldn't get bored. So... school, huh?
Thank you! Kids have an I ordinate amount of energy. My kids are far from exhausted when they come home from school. My oldest is an 8th grader taking advanced courses for high school credit. He has no less than 2 hours of homework a night (which I agree is ridiculous), and he's a member of the school's competitive robotics team thus has practices after school. He still has enough energy after going to practice and doing homework to spend time teaching himself to C++ programming or playing video games or rough housing with his little brother.
It depends on the second grader. Sometimes the infinite stamina is directed at the books. We have a picture from when I was about that age where my mom walked in on me reading 3 books at once - I had one in my hand and was sitting in a straddle with one pinned open under each leg; I would read a page on one, then the second, then the third, and then flip back to the first.
(This is not to say that I didn't have my hyperactive moments, just that the hyperfocus is real too)
So true, you had better be very smart and ready to learn a ton yourself if you plan to effectively educate your own kids, especially in unschooling
Here's a thought: could be be that these women want to keep their children as children for as long as possible? They don't want them to learn and grow because that would mean them becoming whole people in their own right and they would lose control of them?
Yes!! It's known as emotional incest and single lonely women are ruining this nation along with tribalism
@@Undead_Griusnope it's real
yeah this is what i was thinking
i feel like the moms here are doing this so that their kids can’t be independent, and basically doesn’t like when they don’t have all the control over their children
so they basically shelter and isolate their children from the rest of the world
this is what i was thinking
these moms seem to be doing this so that their kids can’t be independent people, they seem to be obsessed with being in control of everything their child does
You're saying bring kids into this chaotic world and traumatized them to a point of having oedipus complex? That's some narcissistic psychopathy right there.
Growing up I knew a rural family who unschooled their kids. The daughters were being groomed into being perfect little christian wives, so the parents didn't think it was very important for them to know anything beyond home ec. The son really struggled with academics so they didn't try beyond the bare minimum, because they had a family friend that promised to give him a mechanic apprenticeship when he was old enough. The family friend passed away when the boy was almost old enough, so he had to enroll in a local technical school. However, the technical school required some very basic "math for business" classes. Think of a "math for liberal arts" class at normal colleges, but even more practical/simple. Last time I heard from these people, he was on attempt FOUR of the math for business class. These people are setting their kids up for failure and dependence. "Unschooling" is just a code word for "too stupidly conspiratorial to put my kids in normal school, too lazy to homeschool them properly, and just loud enough to tell everyone what a horrible parent I am".
Yes! Most of these parents are so deep in conspiracy theories or religious ideology that they can't or chose not to understand the detriment to their children. It makes me wish homeschooling was illegal due to this
I’m a Born-Again Christian, and that makes me very sad.
I’m currently tutoring a young man (17) who was unschooled. He started learning to read 3 years ago. He has been emancipated from his parents (with the help of his grandparents) and is a welder but would like to go to college so we’re studying for his GED. I have watched him sob because he thinks he’s stupid. He is currently reading at a 7th grade level and loving longer chapter books. He’s such a sweet kid.
His parents did him and his siblings such a disservice. They set him behind significantly. He’s currently helping his younger siblings (11,12,14) with reading but his parents are AWFUL.
Getting to a 7th grade reading level in three years is something to be proud of! I hope deep down he knows that, even if he feels frustrated or sad about it sometimes. I'm genuinely tearing up. Reading is so great and every kid deserves to know how to do it.
Tbh getting to a 7th grade reading level in only three years is pretty impressive. That's half the time it takes a normal kid
@@sersergv You can learn to do quite complicated things as a teenager. This is why first learning to drive as a teenager, despite the fact you may not be so reliable as a person, is a good idea. Similarly, if you only pick up a musical instrument or begin a new language aged 13 you can become pretty competent in a few years with some dedication, which is why it's okay to start learning at the beginning of middle or high school.
So if we can intervene in young people as young teens, there's still a good chance that they can function relatively well, which is good news.
Wow… THANK YOU SO MUCH for taking the time to teach him ❤️ I’m sure he will always be unconditionally thankful for you 😭❤️ my eyes are filling up with tears of joy just reading this.
@@vf1923 I would say that leraning new things till 25 has good results: I myself started learning italian at 19 and now at 21 I’m at a B1/B2 level.
It’s important to learn new things while our brain still grows.
How do you teach a kid to cook that cannot READ and comprehend a recipe, measure ingredients or add, subtract, multiply and divide?
They think they'll learn it from the cooking 😐
@@CandiceWilson-u9p so through excessive trial and error? Sure, but that comes with risks and waste that could have been avoided by... * checks notes* reading a recipe. So why make learning a basic skill much harder by skipping out on the foundation skill of reading? Senseless no matter how you look at it.
There are plenty of recipes where you can just wing it. Last risotto that I made I only put rice by the book, everything else was in wrong amounts and it still ended up pretty decent. In my, fully functional family, if you cook by the numbers you are called a chef.
@@Camper_Lv Not the point at all
@@Camper_Lv How do you know to buy the rice if you cant read it on the bag? How do you know what spice youre picking up if you cant read it unless youre already inherently familiar with what the ingredients look like?
9:28 “egg… jar… lion. This is him copying down words from other places, doing this on his own.” That’s not the flex you think it is at six. That’s like late Kindergarten to first grade age, he should be able to write “the lion runs. The jar is open. The egg is broken.” That’s where he’s expected to be rn
This has to be one of the dumbest moms and one of the saddest ways to grow up. The kids are doomed
It was very shocking that he was 6, when I was entering reception at primary school age 4 I could write my name, and from 1 I could speak a few sentences about a limited range of subjects. I feel awful for her kids. I truly hope they will be okay.
Honestly rereading this, he should be able to write something like, “the lion runs fast.” Not a big difference, but… it’s a big difference, especially when compared to just copying the word lion
I had to do a double take when I saw the words there, I wasn't sure I understood her son's age well. I honestly believed the kid was like 2/3.
I was literally writing short stories when I was six and reading storybooks aloud to other children in my class with theatrical flare.
The palpable relief of Oliver when he could read the grocery store aisle signs...how could you not cry and root for him.
I’m very concerned by the fact that the “education” these parents describe is just the basic things parents are supposed to teach their kids outside of school. Like they’re just taking their kids away from a proper education for no reason
Crazy thought: I went to school…*and* I went outside. I learned about plants and how they grow in kindergarten. All the things these unschooling parents say they want to teach their children, I learned in school.
Right?! What do they think they're meant to be doing outside of school time???
@@jasper_the_techie I learned to read early before kindergarten. My parents were both English majors though.
@@WilcoxNotreallythere that’s awesome!
@@jasper_the_techie it's why I have a problem with this whole thing. I learned from my parents even though I went to public school.
On the first lady: How is a kid supposed to ask about something they have no ideas exists? If they dont know about it and you never bring it up, there is no way they will learn about or get interested in that thing.
That was exactly my thought. So depressing and stunting.
Not only this but that's just like....day to day interactions with your kids lol "hey what's this?" Oh, that's a thing. It does stuff. "Cool. Thanks. _goes back to playing_"
Exactly. That’s the quiet part that they’re not saying. They don’t want their kids to know about anything the parents don’t want them to know about
I see it a lot. people think that others should already know what they themself know, & if you imply to them that isn't the case, or that something they know is actually false, they get extremely defensive & hostile. they don't view "education" as important because they just. don't remember being educated on things. they don't remember not knowing, because you can't really imagine the absence of knowledge. everything, to them, maybe subconsciously maybe not, should be known inherently & not taught, & the things they already know should be defended vehemently, again, because they can't not know things or be wrong or make mistakes.
so, they're not teaching their kids how to read. looking forward to the day I hear a post like "AITA for giving my children freedom? I never taught them how to read & now they want nothing to do with me."
Yes, this is the saddest part. I’ve heard this concept called the “adjacent possible”. The idea that we can only learn and discover what’s in the spaces just surrounding our current knowledge. I came across it as a way to work with depression and hopelessness, when you can’t see any way forward. The idea is that of course you can’t see a clear path to get where you want to go, because we can only see the possibilities that are right next to us, but by moving forward in whatever small way is available, we will be able to see the next set of options. Then the next and the next. This is really how nearly all scientific achievements have occurred. No one cures cancer out of the blue. They learned one thing, which lead to an interest in another thing and another after that. Eventually they’ve hopscotched their way to a place they never could gave imagined when they started. These kids will never experience that process if their adjacent possibilities are so limited.
This is one of the reasons why homeschooling is forbidden here in Germany. All children HAVE TO go to school. Keeping your child at home will result in heavy fines and can even lead to your children be taken away from you. My daughter is mentally disabled. She is 31, but mentally only about 7-9, intellectually even less. But she knows how to read at an end of year 1 level. She can read (and understand) simple Disney books. She can read grocery lists and baking recipes. I am so thankful for that. i know if I have 2 bottles on the table. both with pictures with apples on them. One says "Apple juice" the other "Apple Schnapps" she read both labels and understand them.
Here in Germany "simple reading" is taught even in special schools for mentally disabled children. Simply because reading, even at a simple level, means not only freedom, but safety.
As someone who is Irish we have the Burkes of Castlebar as proof of the dangers of homeschooling.
Here in Finland where I am homeschooling is legal, but fortunately quite rare, and if you do it, you still have to follow a curriculum. Homeschooling parents also have to do standardized testing and present the kid's learning results. That is in theory, I don't know how well it actually work. I would happily outlaw homeschooling entirely to be honest. Leave that shit to schools, let your child out of the house for once.
Part of having freedom is that some people will missuse it. It is always sad when it is children who suffer from others exercising their freedom irresponsibly. However, there are many, many, many students who benefit from being home schooled.
Public schools in America by in large, are terrible places. And private schools are way too expensive for most families. Homeschooling offers a viable, affordable alternative where kids receive an education without the toxic social environment.
There are more and more alternative forms of schools emerging because parents are recognizing that the public schools are a failing institution. There are charter schools, and micro schools, and pods, and co-ops. These schools wouldn't be popping up if public schools were actually doing their jobs. But public schools "graduate" illiterate kids all the time. Why do you think the illiteracy rate is so high? Most of those illiterate folks attended a public school.
Americans Need an alternative for our children to be actually educated. And having the freedom to pursue that is a good thing.
@@sarahcover7248I don't think most people want an alternative, they want better functioning, safe, and well funded public schools.
The way the US organises its public education is fundamentally flawed
@@sarahcover7248Public schooling in the US depends heavily on state and region. If I had to generalize it, I'd say it averages about mediocre. The shittier places are often the lower income ones, and lower income parents aren't exactly known for their free time or capacity to educate/socialize a kid.
There certainly are some people who benefit from unschooling/homeschooling, but they're absolutely the exception, not the norm. For each child that is better off due to it, others very much are not.
For now, I reckon there should be guidelines that homeschooling parents have to follow, as well as extensive testing to make sure the kid isn't getting left behind. If public schooling funding becomes standardized and improved, I think it should be required.
We are at a strange time. Our ancestors had been fighting for things like education, freedom of choice, women’s rights, etc. And now you see people feeling that we have too much education, freedom of choice, women’s rights, etc and going against these exact things older generations would die fighting for.
I don't understand these parents. Just because you send your kids to school (be that a parochial, private, or public school) doesn't mean you negate your parenting responsibilities. My kids go to a public school. I still take them to museums, read to them, take them to nature parks, have a ton of non-fictional and fictional books at my house, watch documentaries with them, travel with them, take them to planetariums, send them to camps, etc. They get both my knowledge and experience and enrichment activities while also benefitting from the knowledge and experience of others who bring to the table different skills and knowledge than what I have. It's the best of both worlds.
I used to teach in junior high and most (if not all) of the kids who were grades behind had negligent parents. I strongly believe that 99% of kids "left behind" simply lacked parental supervision. I'm talking parents who never showed up at meetings, never answered the phone or did so carelessly, never checked if their kids had done their homework. Offering enriching activities is what's right, of course, but it sounds gucci when so many parents treat school like some sort of glorified childcare.
Yes, now please say it like a hundred more times. I'm surrounded by homeschool parents at my church, and they all love to talk about how, "My kids wouldn't have been learning about ___ in public school." Except my son is in public school, and we still go to museums, take walks in parks, learn math in grocery stores, etc. It's not an either/or. It's an and.
And the reason I even can make him figure out which package of chicken gives us the most meat for the best price is because he learned those fundamentals in school.
My son also runs his own business with a couple of his friends after school. So they're learning how money works in a very real way outside of a classroom setting.
@@liatm3042Yep, all of the late graduates that I know either had neglectful/abusive families and/or untreated disabilities, usually ADHD or dyslexia
The responsible homeschoolers I know have kids who were genuinely suffering and struggling in school due to severe bullying and/or due to the school being unable or unwilling to accommodate their needs, and are themselves well-educated and enthusiastic about knowledge.
The irresponsible ones hated school themselves and have baggage around it and/or are just plain lazy people who hate getting up before 11am and having to stop what they're doing to drive their kid places or help them with homework.
@dinosaysrawr Some parents want to remain as busy in the workforce as possible in order to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table otherwise they'd have to deal with the serious consequence of the entire family getting evicted from the home. This is why I'm glad my mom finally retired so that both of us can finally spend more quality time together.
The things most of these unschooling parents list (laundry, groceries, gardening etc.) are life skills taught by parents. What they're doing is normal parenting they should be doing in addition to the kid going to school. Yes, you need to teach your kid how to pick the right stuff in the grocery store. Yes, you absolutely should teach your kid how to do stuff in the household. Yes, it's a great idea to teach children how to tend to a garden, especially if you have one. But that is not replacing a professional education, that is just you doing your job as a parent.
To be absolutely fair, if your child is spending 8 hours in that setting and then bringing home homework they are expected to do, not to mention all of those extracurricular things mentioned like the sports and field trips and rehearsals and so on... no, you DONT have a lot of time to teach kids how to be mature adults. If schools were handling that, it'd be one thing - and if schools were not handling that, but only handling the essentials of basic education (reading, writing, arithmetic) and then leaving the child plenty of time at home to learn homemaking skills - then it'd be different. But unfortunately a whole lot of the system IS bloat, bloat that's required and non-negotiable (or at least heavily pressured.)
The alternative is NOT completely abandoning the education fundamentals though; it's reducing school hours or trimming the fat in the system
Yeah most of those lessons can happen in High school though or in the late teen yrs. I do agree about it being in addition to other things, like actual subjects.
@@drawingdragon these are skills your kid learns while in primary and middle school age. They don't start studying so much and doing so much extra-curricular activities until High School.
The US truly complains with their stomach full. Y'all have some of the easiest education in the entire world, with college level entry exams that are middle school levels in other countries, with way less hours than a lot of countries, and you can't seem to stop complaining about "how hard things are"
@@blahblahblahblah729thats because i want my son to get a full nights rest, not loose hair because of stress, and not expect me to cook and clean for him until i can pawn him off on another woman because all he knows how to do is take a test.
@@drawingdragonThere's only so much in the way of maturity you can learn from your parents. Kids will learn it while out on those field trips, playing sport, rehearsals, etc., and if they are having a sit-down meal with their parents every night then there is time. Maturity is not a strictly taught skill like literacy; it's more a way of being you develop organically from many sources, through mistakes and lessons. "It takes a village to raise a child."
I love the idea that it's either you teach your kids basic lessons (grocery shopping, cooking, etc) OR they go to school lol. Great stuff.
@@EckhartsLadder oh my goodness hey Eck!
Hey, I recognise you
Right? I'm a father of two, 3 and 1 years old. What the hell are you doing with your kids before this 'unschooling' trend picked up that you think going to the grocery store is something you cannot do if they go to school? LOL
This is what I thought the whole time, you can still teach ur kids whatever u want when they get home, you can still explain stuff about finances or help them with math by taking them to the grocery store and having them help u, u have all their summer break to set up hands-on learning activities, or stay up to date with what they're learning at school and do a hands-on activity related to that. Not to mention, schools do usually do that (idk if it's less now, I'll admit technology is getting a lot more incorporated into things, but I'm sure they still show how baking soda and vinegar bubble up or whatever). This somehow feels lazier than that, even though they're completely in charge of their kid's (un)schooling.
and the basic lessons is just parenting 😭
So many ppl don’t understand the difference between education and parenting. The school system can’t teach everything, but it focuses on reading, writing, math, science, etc. other non school subjects like cooking, basic finances, and whatever the kid is interested in can still be learned at home from the parents. You don’t have to choose one or the other. The school gives the basic skills for the kid to then learn whatever they want
Those non school subjects were all something we learnt in my middle school. I remember doing a lot of projects on budgeting in math class, and home ec was required in 8th grade and it taught us basic household and kitchen stuff. Then in high school there were various electives. And those were the classes that kept kids in school through math and English class.
@@thepinkestpigglet7529 yeah true most schools do teach these things, people just like to complain probably because they weren’t paying attention in class
Unschooled 33 year old here. I am still very much struggling to catch up in life and it’s hindered my success in almost every area. It’s infuriating to see these parents put their kids in the same position for selfish reasons.
It definitely seems like weird ego things with these parents. I'm so sorry you had to through these struggles. Kudos to you for working hard to catch up!
I'm a 29 unschooled person, and I'm in the exact same boat. Trying really hard to get my university entrance at the moment but I'm at a 5th grade level.
Vote Damnit!
@@cyclos12🤘
I've been ahead in reading my whole life, same with most school stuff. I've felt no benefit from those skills at any point.
My husband couldn’t read. He was mortified by it and we worked endlessly to improve his reading and comprehension.
His mom is a sick woman who loves having adult children who are trapped in her gross system of complete dependence.
how well can he read now? what was it like dating an illiterate person? did his emotions and other stuff suffer too or was he generally a well rounded normal guy besides?
I used to teach English to newly arrived immigrants. A lot of people were construction or truck drivers or laundry workers. But they'd gone through school in their home countries and got the hang of it in a few months. One man, though, didn't know how to hold a pencil. It wasn't English he was learning, but writing at all. I realized I was way out of my depth. I had a classroom of 40 adults. He stopped coming after a few weeks
Oh that is so sad to hear, especially given how few options there are for adults who need to learn the very basics. Thank you for your time teaching, that is not easy!
I work with guys like that and it’s incredibly frustrating that we allow people who can’t read or write in their own language build homes in America just because their labor is cheaper.
@@frankdevo5715I feel like you ran with the wrong takeaway here brother
@@frankdevo5715there's plenty of native-born Americans who are unable to read or write American English. And if you are wanting everyone in the States to speak one language, then maybe The States should have a national language instead of legislations that encourages and supports diversity in languages.
@@enginerdy What’s the “correct” takeaway I’m supposed to have here?
Am I just supposed to be “sad” that our government allows cheap, uneducated labor that depresses our wages to flood our country for the benefit of large corporations?
To me, it seems like a control thing. YOU want to control what your child does all day, what they learn, who they meet and befriend, etc. What's also telling is that this way, their children will forever depend on them as caretakers because they won't have the appropriate tools to explore the world independently. Maybe in a way, that's what these parents want.
People who have gone through the education system, and through that system learned without realizing it, and then falsely believe they learned nothing and magically taught themselves everything, so their kids can too.
Exactly my thoughts!
I had the impression that the major motivation for unschooling was "I hated school, my child will not attend school"
@@frankfahrenheit9537similar attitude to people who benefit from things like affordable housing or affordable college and turn around and take those things away from the next generation.. “what’s you’re problem, we did just fine!”
Yup they didn’t appreciate the very real privilege they had in going to school.
I actually enjoyed school, but I realised I actually learned precious little. I was simply not interested. I liked playing and drawing. I didn't unschool our kids because I didn't like school or even because I didn't learn enough. I unschooled them because experience taught me that our family doesn't tend to do well in school and I don't only mean academically. I did fine until I left towards the end of high-school. I home schooled them so they would have a happy childhood and then it became evident that kids (mine at least) learn so much more happily, efficiently when they own it.
@@Zzz2x Going to school is a privilege for some, but not for all. There are good schools, excellent teachers and there at bad schools and not so great teachers. School, like anything else in life, is a gamble.
I also work as a remedial reading teacher in a public school and I have at least 10 children (out of 70 in our program) who were “unschooled” and they are the lowest levels in the school. I’m talking teaching these kids how to read the word cat for the first time at 11 yrs old. It is heartbreaking because you can see the defeat in their eyes. Learning the sounds of the alphabet is super fun when you’re 5-7 and you learn it through cute little songs and babyish games… but I’m sitting there trying to find basic phonics worksheets for teenagers… its shocking.
that’s heartbreaking :/
at that age they also realize they're far behind their peers. watching other people your age being able to read signs like it's second nature and realizing you can't even identify the letters in the words must be very discouraging. and they know they could've been even a little bit better off if they'd been sent to regular public school or been homeschooled with a proper curriculum
@@Fromabigailwithlove Look up the Wired For Reading program.
My son was an 11 year old who could barely write the alphabet. Not educational neglect, just complicated special needs. Details of the diagnoses not relevant. Suffice it to say there were major barriers for all forms of language.
It took 5 years and a lot of work, but he's fully literate now. He reads slowly, but he can read legal documents. At 6 he tested between the .1 and..001 percentile in every area of expressive and receptive language. He's now around the 37th percentile and starting college.
Feel free to share his story with your disheartened kiddos. They CAN do this!
It's got to be the most embarrassing thing I'd imagine. The majority of the material is made for little kids with their interests in mind with a rhythm that's meant to keep them entertained. Older children find that cringey because they've mentally long moved on from that phase. They know it's for little kids and that little kids are even better than them at it because they've been exposed to it longer than them at the young spongy brain age when language acquisition is just second nature and here they are struggling to read books meant for preschoolers.
@@Fromabigailwithlove How weird, my comment vanished. Look at the Wired For Reading program. Lots of good resources there.
There's also an entire category of "high interest, low vocabulary" books designed for adult English language learners, once they get past basic phonics.
I know a 6th grader whose mother “unschooled” him from 2nd grade until 5th. When I met him, his grandmother had enrolled him in a public school to ensure he got an education. He read at a 2nd grade level. He couldn’t do basic math (5x0=? and he guessed 5, 10, 50, 1 and couldn’t understand why the answer was 0). He couldn’t read a clock or tell time. He had spent his unschooling time running around outside and watching RUclips on an iPad without supervision. He was so emotionally and socially stunted, which further isolated him from his peers. I genuinely felt so bad for this kid because his mother failed him. Kids need structure. Kids need exposure to diverse opinions, ideas, cultures, and people. I will always advocate for public schools because while they’re not perfect, they’re a whole lot better than letting parents do whatever they want.
I went to private school for the first 10 school years of my life.
Then I decided I was done with Jesus and went to a [well-funded] public school. Best decision I've made in my entire life. I would not be the person I am today if I had not done that... I'd be a huge PoS. I got to experience new perspectives, people, cultures, ways of thinking, etc. that I would have never been able to if i stayed at private school
That’s why a good home school curriculum is necessary. A child should learn everything that school teaches, but with respect to their biological needs, with an interest focus.
Kids that get non neglectful unschooling at home end up being further along and more advanced than those taught at public and many private schools
@@richeyrich2203 So first off, [citation needed]. Second, I'm having trouble understanding how a stay at home parent (at the best of times) can also teach everything in a school curriculum at the same level that a literal professional with a masters can and offer an even more specialized approach with specific learning techniques. The group of people that can honestly do that is probably a fraction of homeschoolers. Why do people presume to be better teachers than people with master's degrees?
@@richeyrich2203 yeah but that's usually a sign of priviledge. this kids are probably that far ahead because they live in a household where one parent makes enough money to provide for the whole family, while the other has enough time and previous education to properly teach school subjects.
@@vickytaa1Or it's a sign that the family sacrifices to make do on one income.
This is actually awful, unschooling is child abuse. I’ve also noticed this anti-intellectualism agenda that has become more popular during recent years, which is truly concerning.
Homeschool kid here! I got lucky with good parents and a solid curriculum, and I can tell you firsthand how important reading is. Half the things I know and have learned are from reading, and if my dad hadn’t taken the time to teach me not only how to read but how to analyze what I read I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Not helping your kids to learn how to read is just straight up child abuse, reading is the primary method of gaining information we have nowadays, and depriving kids of that is genuinely disgusting behavior
Yes! Most of my curriculum is just reading classic books, ones about science, history, or even stories that have been around for decades like beowulf! I read Grammer book and books about meteorology as well.
You structure to learn, and I am blessed to be able to have a decent structure in learning!
Fellow homeschooler here- my mother taught me how to read and let me tell you it took a LOT of effort on her part. I hated when she would bring me a new book and make me read it and then freaking QUIZ me about it afterwards when I thought I was done. But thank God she did- if my mother hadn’t taken an interest in me and my education I’d be a neglected child who can’t read.
Yes. Homeschooling can be great if done right. Parents who truly teach you, parents who also put you into social activities. If youre in regular school, you almost exclusively see the good homeschooling situation, at least social skill wise. Because the ones that are being isolated by their parents don't take part in activities like sports.
But I also met some kids who switched to regular school after being homeschooled for years and that really struggled and had to repeat grades because they were too far behind. They were smart, just had a bad homeschool curriculum.
I was homeschooled up until highschool. And it was at the same time awesome and frustrating.
Awesome because I didn't have to sit at a desk all day, it sucked because my mom DRILLED me in math, reading and writing. And there where days where I'd just get so angry with my inability to grasp some of the concepts, however its important to push through and do the work, every day, every year.
Homeschooling can be a double edged sword. If you had a great teacher like I did, you will a lot of times be ahead in everything, but if you are not willing to take the time to sit down with your kids, pick a curriculum and do the work with them, then its not going to end well for the kid.
I am homeschooling, but I have the advantage of their grandmother’s decades of teaching experience giving me advice and coming over to help, a solid curriculum is incredibly important. That along with diligent study and religion will go a long way.
There's no excuse not to do the work. You have to.
@AJJesko not true
Oliver is a fricking inspiration. My heart breaks for him but also rejoices at the sheer humility and resilience. I hope his journey inspires others.
Absolutely, couldn't have put it better myself.
Fr, mad respect
yeah those clips made me cry like a baby. he's an incredibly impressive person. i wish that he had not been failed by the system in his youth, but i really dont think many people would be able to do what he's doing now and that's so admirable. i hope someday to check in on him and see him reading everything his heart desires!
His recent clips are impressive, the dude has learned so much already.
He is manlier than every other man on Tiktok in my eyes. I can't imagine how hard it must be to be this open and vulnerable about lacking something that's viewed as easy and fundamental. I'm sure there will be people out there ridiculing him on the hellsite that is Tiktok but he's really showing the world how damaging unschooling is. He's going to change people's lives and raise awareness and I want nothing but the best for him.
My younger sister couldnt read till she was 9 years old. She went to public school and no matter what we tried she wouldn't learn and the teachers would tell us to be patient and to continue practicing. It was her fourth grade teacher who told us she had dyslexia. With her help we were able to get her professional help. Now she is obsessed with reading, we visit the libary three times a month.
A similar thing happened to my best friend. They didn’t realize she needed glasses until she was in like fourth grade, so she never knew she loved reading until they addressed her vision issues
One of the advantages of sending kids to school, is teachers can potentially spot learning difficulties that may otherwise go undiagnosed. More eyes on the kids, especially from people who have studied how kids learn, means a better chance to catch things early.
Good for you and her, reading is great and want is this world coming too when parents actively steal this from their kids?
I was looking for a comment like yours. Growing up in the 80thies the existence of dyslexia wasn’t as common knowledge as it is today. So my teachers were as puzzled as my parents why I had such a hard time learning reading and writing. I managed somehow but my grades were low. My mom having read to me from a very young age had installed a love for books in me that helped me staying motivated through this very hard phase until I was diagnosed in third grade and got professional help. And like your sister I became a very regular guest at our library. If my parents had waited till I was ready to learn reading on my own, we’d still be waiting - but instead I went to university and moving companies now hate me because of my extensive library.
honestly so heartfelt to see oliver be so vulnerable abt his illiteracy, i can’t imagine the shame he felt his whole life, he rly was failed by the education system bc he’s right , he should already know how to read, but it’s so sad bc ppl and systems failed him and he’s humbly taking it into his own hands to do it himself as an adult
I was a math teacher at community college for decades. I had some brilliant homeschooled students whose parents were doing it right: fourteen-year-olds taking a college calculus class because they had passed up their parents and the parents knew it.
But I had one heartbreaking case of a student whose parents had taught her nothing academic. At age 22 she was taking beginning algebra. When she was 18 she realized how unprepared she was for life. She enrolled in remedial courses, and because she was naturally bright, in four years she had brought herself up to a seventh-grade level. She was furious at her parents, and said their neglect amounted to abuse.
Not gonna lie I'm glad that last student of yours was able to catch up in her education, becuse from other cases I have read of iliterate women; many only recourse in life ends up being marriage, and many end up in abusive marriages they can't leave because of that.
It’s strange how most educated people rightly recognize what a hindrance it is to suffer from low levels of literacy, but they don’t bat an eye about poor numeracy.
The vast majority of parents homeschooling their children have neither the training or experience to do it right. If teaching was that easy, then everyone would be doing it and there wouldn't be 4 year degree programs training people to be educators.
It is a painfully hard thing. I think it's very fair to interpret neglect as abuse.
As a sociologist from India
Any parent that lets their child (unless they're differently abled kids) remain illiterate
Is just abusing their child.
What the bloody hell is wrong with these people.
And as a special educator, I'd argue this kind of "unschooling" is even worse for many disabled children. Many of my students (with autism and an intellectual disability) know how to read. Some can only recognize their name, others know some words, others sentences. My reading curriculum is more structured and repetetive than for children without those challenges - because many pre-reading skills don't come naturally to them. I'll forever be glad my country has compulsory school attendance, reading is such a nuanced skill to teach well and so many children miss out on that.
Never teaching your child to learn to read is very different than not pressuring them to read until they are more capable of learning it. And learning at 4 or 8 has no affect on your long term educational experience.
@@daltonbrasier5491 That's true, we teach around age 6 or 7 here. But what those parents are doing, at least from what they advocate for in their videos, is not teaching their children to read. With few exceptions, children need explicit phonics instructions to learn to read well. Otherwise they'll know sight words but be unable to read words they've never read before.
There's also a period where children can decipher words but are too slow to get the story. Not all children have fun practicing that, but it's necessary to get to the fun part of reading.
It breaks my heart. Most people can see how terrible this is but these parents just ignore it and keep on going. Even homeschooling for some students here in the US isn't enough. I've seen a few cousins be homeschooled. Some did insanely well. Like graduating early from high school WITH a 2 year college degree at the same time well. Then one of my cousins, idk if she even has her GED or has officially graduated from high school.
Not educating children is literally denying them a basic and fundamental human right as outlined in the Convention of Human Rights. It is literally neglect and abuse.
Unschooling: for when you want to feel like you are doing something important while literally doing nothing in the laziest way possible
This!!!!!!
THANK YOU! It reminds me of the old Simpson's episode with Flanders beatnik parents: "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"
*Laziest and most damaging...
It's for stupid people.
They resent the world reminding them how stupid they are.
They reject that world.
They invent a new world where THEY are the smart ones.
Their kids going to school reminds them how stupid they are.
That cannot happen.
@@charlesvanzee4879 exactly lmao
I can’t speak for American schools but I am an elementary teacher in England and the 2nd woman mentions: going to the zoo, going outside, gardening, cooking, sports… I literally did all of those things with my class last year..!!!
"I will teach him how to handle money by going grocery shopping" for a short amount of time after the pandemic, I was working as a math tutor (in addition to school, 3-5 children per group from different levels). I distinctly remember 2 girls in comparison, one in maybe 8th grade, the other in elementary (probably 3rd grade). the one in elementary was way better at math, the older one seemed to have forgotten almost everything due to staying home during the pandemic. the pandemic caused a steep difference between children of capable and willing parents vs. parents unwilling or unable to perform homeschooling.
I’ve forgotten everything. 10th grade. Had to reteach myself long division at some point, struggling in algebra and went back to what I should’ve learned. Some kids can’t even read. The pandemic messed so many kids up, myself included.
i used to be amazing at math, advanced classes and everything. pandemic hit, now im taking algebra for the 4th time and i go to math tutoring twice a week. im supposed to be a senior and im still taking algebra, the math class i was taking in 8th grade in 2020. covid messed up so many things omg
I was amazed at some parents i knew who didnt even read or do other learning activities with their child durjng the pandemic
@@Julie-si3hiDuring*
Also I'm not surprised because a lot of the responsibility was on the mom and a lot of moms were working remotely as well as the father. I heard so many parents getting frustrated especially the mom's who felt like they had to do everything and felt at risk of losing their job if they stepped away for too long.
What really frustrates me about them trying to teach kids to do math with grocery shopping is that they're trying to work backwards. My son is learning math in school, and I use what he's learning to do real-world application in the grocery store. For example, he learned subtraction last year, so now he has to tell me how much change we're getting back.
It's also annoying to me that these unschooling parents think that they get a gold star for doing basic parenting stuff. My son is in school and goes to museums, parks, and the grocery store with me. Believe it or not, you can do both. We don't just sit at home staring at each other evenings and weekends.
Books were one of the highlights of my childhood. I would read under the desk at school, I would read on my way to hockey practice, and I would read at home. I read every second I could. The ability to immerse myself in so many incredible stories and worlds brought so much fulfillment to me, teaching me about life, and science, and people even though all I was reading was fiction. Before bed at night when I was too tired to read I would close my eyes and create my own world and scenarios to explore. If I had not been able to read I would have missed out on all of this. It's horrifying to think kids are growing up without access to the whole world that is written language. Right now I'm learning Dutch and most of how I'm learning is through reading books. I feel like a kid again working through A Series of Unfortunate Events, Harry Potter and the Hunger Games. It makes me wonder if part of what I enjoyed so much about reading was also encountering language I didn't yet understand and furthering the scope of my vocabulary. My point is *how will these kids ever know they enjoy reading if they are never given the opportunity to*
Oh man, _A Series of Unfortunate Events_ was perfect as a kid, and perfect for your usage! They tend to have a lot of frilly language that isn't used in common-day speak. Always found it fun to look those words up
@@idontwantahandlethough and the best part is they explain a lot of vocab in the text it's awesome !
Creating worlds inside your own head is so relatable, I do it to this day, it’s the best way to kill time or fall asleep quickly
I feel the exact same way, I read so much when I was young and I wouldn’t have sought out reading so much if I wasn’t in school with mandated opportunities to pick out books to read!
I had a hearing problem when I was a child and could not always hear what was happening in the classroom. Being able to read saved me because I could still learn and keep up with the class. It involved a lot of extra work at home but I did not fall behind. My only problem area was mathematics because I wasn’t naturally gifted in that area and it was a real struggle for me.
kelsey rae once referred to her descendant as her 'downline'
you can't make this up.
She's high up in an MLM/pyramid scheme. It's why she talked about her "community of women," that's her downline.
She's been covered by the anti-MLM community pretty extensively. She's refused to sign paperwork for her son because it was too much. It's almost a guarantee that his unschooling will involve a lot of time on a tablet, so Mommy can make tik toks to add to her downline.
no downline? just make your own!
Is her kid “free” or feral?
Maybe someone should call the child welfare?
I have heard many reasons why parents homeschool. Homeschooling as a response to school shootings is the most American reason I have ever heard.
Reminds me of Micahel Parenti speaking about the Cuban revolution and other Latin American revolutions:
"And today this man is going to night school. He said “I could read! I can read, do you know what it means to be able to read? Do you know what it means to be able not to read?” I remember when I gave my book to my father. I dedicated a book of mine to him, “Power and the Powerless” to my father, I said “To my father with my love,” I gave him a copy of the book, he opened it up and looked at it. He had only gone to the seventh grade, he was the son of an immigrant, a working-class Italian. He opens the book and he starts looking through it, and he gets misty-eyed, very misty-eyed. And I thought it was because he was so touched that his son had dedicated a book to him. That wasn’t the reason. He looks up to me and he says ‘I can’t read this, kid” I said “That’s okay dad, neither can the students, don’t worry about that. I mean I wrote it for you, it’s your book and you don’t have to read it. It’s a very complicated book, an academic book. He says, “I can’t read this book.” And the defeat. The defeat that man felt. That’s what illiteracy is about, that’s what the joy of literacy programs is. That’s why you have people in Nicaragua walking proud now for the first time. They were treated like animals before, they weren’t allowed to read, they weren’t taught to read."
There are still Nicaraguans who sign with an X. Education got neglected in some areas during the Neo-Liberal era. One thing that keeps people using written language has been texting on cell phones. Learning and not using isn't a good thing.
Met a new Chinese resident whose second language is some English, whose employees are Nicaraguan. Very possibly the only common language is English, but he is learning Spanish.
Similarly, it reminds me of Frederick Douglass. He had to secretly find papers to copy, or talk to kids who were schooled, in order to cobble together his literacy. He knew it was the key to freedom, and he knew it was being kept from him.
One of my all time favorite videos. The quote here doesn’t do any justice to the amount of fire and passion he speaks with.
Holy shit, Yellow Parenti Vid referenced. When he gets going you really feel swept up with him
The most beautiful comment I have read today, under the most disturbing video I have seen today. Thank you.
I think these parents have a problem with the system that goes back to their own childhood. Perhaps they see the system as responsible for their own dissatisfaction with their own childhood and youth. And instead of advocating for the system to improve, they use their children to protest the system, even if it means ruining their lives.
FOR REAL. I firmly believe in the value of education and I had some very discouraging teachers growing up. I loved books and was reading above my grade level and had teachers act weird about it. I firmly plan to send my son to school BUT, its the reason I refused to live where I grew up and I don't take it out on the whole system.
I think they’re just mainlining the anti-intellectualism that is all the rage with certain parts of the population
In the state i am in, the education system has gotten worse than when i was in school. I could vote to change, but one blue vote won't change the sea of red. Lets be clear, unschooling and lacking proper education is a huge problem facing republican states. The Unfortunate part is i dont think republican voters recognize the attempt by the republican party to make their voters uneducated and their kids part of the labor force via new child labor laws.
The most reasonable answer is to move to a state that values education. Yet that still may not be an option for someone who cant afford to move.
You're right. I saw an episode of wife swap where one of the moms was an unschooler because she felt traumatized by her school experience. The other mom came in and set up a homeschool system, the kids were so excited to learn but when mom came back she was very upset that they were doing schoolwork.
@@ashleycnossen3157What?!... Also I'm so confused with what unschooling is since wouldn't that be considered home schooling which should be regulated by the state? Like isn't there yearly state exams they still have to do? How would they even graduate if they weren't follwoiea plan?!
Former Montessori teacher here, thank you for pointing out that the Montessori curriculum actually teaches reading in the pre-school years. Montessori also teaches addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in the preschool/kindergarten years albeit in concrete forms. She wishes her child was on the Montessori educational trajectory. Ha.
Dude, I went to a Montessori school for one year right before kindergarten, and I loved it! Before even starting Kindergarten, I learned how to read, I learned how exponents worked (as in I understood what it meant for a number to be "squared" or "cubed") and I learned all about classical art/art history. My mom still tells me to this day (I'm 26 now) about how we went on vacation to New York City, and when we went to the MET, I was explaining and teaching things to my parents about Picasso and his paintings 😂
Montessori was awesome! I remember it didn't even feel like school. It felt like playing!
@@ArchIVEDCinema That's great! I think that's a big part of it. Learning that feels like play.
@@LeandroVelez7while I fully agree with Montessori for younger students, I truly don’t see how it works for anything past 2nd grade or so. I’ve seen Montessori high schools and it kind of throws me off. I’m not even sure they count as a high school diploma in my area.
@@LaceBloodhi! I was Montessori through 8th grade and then went on to public high school and I’m finishing undergrad/ heading towards a PhD rn. Montessori is different after kindergarten for sure! We would get a list of tasks to perform independently, and these would relate to concrete lessons or projects we were engaged in. In 1st grade, the task list was daily, 4th grade it was weekly, 7th grade it wasn’t a list and we just kept track of assignments for each subject. We had several hours of independent and unstructured work time a day. In lower grades, a lot of our math/ geography/ science was done using physical props (so like using beads to learn additional or a map with pins to learn geography). There were also reading comprehension and vocabulary and word problems (almost all math in word problems until algebra) in books and cards. During the work time you get help from a teacher. We also had lecture, usually only 1-2 hours a day. Lecture was in very small groups. Then we had a lot of outdoor time, as well as group projects and hands on tasks like groundskeeping, outdoor stewardship volunteering, planning fundraisers and handling the finances and marketing of our school trips, etc. My favorite part by far was the independent research projects. For every science and social studies unit we would usually learn an overview and then we had to complete a few high-level research projects within the subject. For example, a research paper (we were taught how to do 5 paragraph essays, persuasive essays, syntax, etc beforehand) or an art project / model (like making a demonstration of a science principle or history fact). It didn’t work for everyone, but I feel the time management skills, practical skills, study and research skills, and love of learning really benefited me when I had to start really learning facts and sitting for important lectures because I knew how to use that information to do assignments.
@@serenatyran7912that sounds so interesting & like such a useful way to have approached learning. Wow!
My mom used to read to me as a small child. She would do voices and make reading seem really fun. When I was 3 I remember reading the captions on my coloring book all by myself. By third grade I tested at a college reading level(in public school). As an adult I've been published a few times and consider myself a hobbyist author.
After watching this, I'm calling my mom and thanking her. It really does begin at home.
We're the inmates who pay the taxes for her to teach her son not to have a work ethic because in his freedom, he never learns the structure of time.
Unschooling kids are gonna be future tax receivers, while we the working class have to break our backs working to feed them. Unschooling is a crime of not only child neglect and abüse, but also a financial one that nations are not going to be able to survive..
What? Home education families pay the same taxes as everyone else, which means they pay for the government school system they do not utilize.
The taxes you should worry about are the ones you'll need to pay to keep her son alive for his entire life because he can't get a job because folding laundry is done by robots and you need to use a tablet with a mixture of Latin and Chinese characters to operate the iSwab EXX ToiletClean Supervac Industrial.
@Goldenretriever-p9e Under no circumstances should taxpayers subsidize these homeschooling nitwits.
Yeah he’ll be illiterate, naive, and incapable of critical thinking but hey at least he’s not “conforming” 🤡
I think part of the psychology behind unschooling parents is their own poor experiences in public school. As a high schooler, the whiny attitude towards books and reading reminds me of kids I see in my school's writing center, where I work as a tutor. They struggled in literature and English classes when they were in school, and therefore view school itself as bad, or books themselves as bad. I think it stems from insecurity.
Also at the risk of armchair psychology; as someone with severe ADHD myself, it seems very much like both the women in this video were neurodivergent to some level. I actually almost share their sentiment on the most basic level. I struggled with high school hugely and it was the worst time in my entire life- I'm nearing 40 now. If I had a kid, especially if they were as ADHD as me, I genuinely would feel AWFUL putting them through the same high school experience that I had. The guilt I'd feel wouild be huge.
But at the same time homeschooling ain't it.
And ironically it seems like their kids are at primary school level right now, which in almost all states in USA is still hugely hands on and engaging with very very little "book time" because kids that age literally can't sit still and learn like that.
@johnmclawson3982 Exactly why institutionalised schooling is required by law in a lot of countries, and why truancy can get the parents in trouble: school is an excellent way to get an abused child into a safe environment with adults trained to spot said abuse. Also, withholding education is another form of child abuse in of itself
I doubt that. I noticed that this is mostly white moms doing this. I really think that with the outrage of schools allegedly teaching"CRT" being thrown around, they're afraid the government is going to turn their kids against them by teaching tolerance of those different.
They wanna teach their kids to exclude certain people or certain ideas out of their lives so they don't have to deal with it.
Think as I think. Believe as I believe. That's what they think parenting is.
As someone who has auditory processing disorder, derived from ADHD, I cannot imagine watching any piece of media without subtitles. Subtitles are my clutch to understanding context and a lot of what's going on in any movie, anime, RUclips video. I'm Portuguese, and one of the best things the government did to prevent illiteracy was to mandate by law a minimum level of schooling for pretty much any job (escolaridade obrigatória). My grandma was a farmer, she's 85 now and spends her days reading in her retirement, it's her company, her way to keep her brain active, and everyone of us family can tell it's the best thing for her health!
Most states in the US have laws mandating attendance in school until at least 16 years of age, with potential penalties for both students and the parents if not addressed after repeated warnings. However, the US education system is inconsistent and just because they have been in school until 10th grade does not mean they read close to a 10th grade level, with in some of the worst areas having students in 10th grade not reading at 6th grade level.
Make the reading public or a test that is closed behind a door and recorded. Pass people on that and abolish auto-correct on phones as a default setting, better yet. Make it a paid feature... As it should get looked down upon to speech to text unless your job does not allow writing for transportation reasons like truck driving.
@@MaoRattoMaking things harder for everyone won’t encourage illiterate people to learn to read.
I’m dyslexic, and I love reading, but it is exhausting. I’m in my third year of university, and about once a day I will get genuinely upset by my inability to read or comprehend the material assigned to me. I wish people could understand that literacy isn’t just knowing what words mean what, it’s about the mental and physical toll reading takes. I also have dysgraphia (struggling to write on the line, flipping letters, etc.), and it’s the same thing with writing notes. And I was lucky to receive intensive supports when I was growing and developing these skills.
My heart breaks for these kids who will likely struggle for the rest of their lives, and who will probably have the similar experience to me with being upset or frustrated by their struggles.
I’d also like to add that when I came home from school every day, I was EXHAUSTED, because I was spending all day trying so hard to develop these skills.
Maybe I have a twisted view of it, because I’ve only ever been a student with a developmental disability, but school is supposed to be tiring! That’s how you know you’re learning! You’re fitting all this new information in your brain ALL THE TIME!
Nothing like robbing your children of a prosperous future, because some psycho dancing on your pocket screen told you to. What a time to be alive!
trust me, the past times had a lot more bullshit going on
I was homeschooled, but not unschooled per se, however I’m autistic with dyscalulia so my mom wasn’t helpful at all in teaching me math. I excelled at other subjects but math never got any easier. At some point she stopped trying because I stopped trying and she thought I was just being lazy. I never got an autism diagnosis because I was never exposed to a critical school system that would notice the tell-tale signs or autism and learning disability. It was absolutely a hindrance for most of my life. I struggled with math until I actually took a GED math prep course with an amazing teacher who listened to my struggles and knew how to help. I was almost 30 by that point, and felt so far behind my peers because I didn’t have the job opportunities or education until I could pass that damn GED math test. I’m thriving in a public university now and I realize that school is a great environment for me. Some kids need the structure of formal education. Some kids don’t benefit from unchecked educational “freedom“.
How old are you? I am 35 and when I was a kid those diagnosiis werent common and the internet wasnt around to strumble upon it.
This story highlights the importance of our parents taking an interest in their children and their educational wellbeing even if it’s hard for the parent. I too have dyscalulia but my father didn’t give up. He actually introduced me to a program called Microsoft Excel and I still remember what he said to me “If you learn how to use this- whatever your math problems were- they are over” it was exactly what my scrambled brain needed to hear and believe it or not- today I am an accountant (who got my first job based purely on the excellence of my excel skills). My greatest weakness gave rise to one of my most valuable skills. That’s why I think if parents want to homeschool they, CAN’T under any circumstances give up on their children
So happy to hear you’re at university pursuing your education and thriving 💜
I am so grateful that you were able to find some methods that worked for you. I lucked out that I had some great math teachers in school, since we didn't know dyscalculia was a thing back in the day. Still, standardized tests are a nightmare due to the time limit.
I think that all children - even the most gifted and motivated learners - benefit from at least some formal, structured education.
The saddest thing is that she's saying her son is free, but being illiterate is a prison. I am so scared for this child and it is devastating to me that parents are willfully forcing their children into a life of difficulty when it is 100% preventable. That child deserves an education and it is heartbreaking that he is not getting one.
Especially in world with so much written communication. Before writing was popular (1600’s) it was fine and dandy. But reading has been a hand up in society ever since, now more than ever.
I can’t imagine how this is affecting their internal mental development. I have an incredibly strong inner dialogue, I can’t imagine how I would even think the way I do if I was raised this way.
In our State, many of those who are "home schooling" are single parents who fail at the responsibility of getting their child up, dressed, and to school on time. It's heartbreaking.
I’ve seen that a few times myself-absolutely heartbreaking.
how do you know that?!?!
I was "homeschooled" during my middle school years (I was pulled from public school due to severe bullying). I spent all of those years completely ALONE, trying to teach myself without supervision or guidance. I went back to public school in 9th grade, but I was behind in important things like mathematics. Luckily, I was able to eventually catch up, but I struggled.
@@BaristaWithADog I'm so sorry that happened to you. I begged my dad to let me homeschool for the same reason, and he told me no on the grounds that precisely what happened to you, would happen. :( now that I'm past it I'm really glad I stayed, and I hate how common your experience is. as flawed and even terrifying as the public school system is, the alternatives right now are just disastrous to development.
Yes, it appeals to lazy abusive parents. Not sure which one but one of the influencers she showed was in another video saying “Im unschooling my kid cause it frees up my time no pick up, no drop offs from school. It will save you so much time!” Like thats a pro! You cant go pick and drop your kids off at school but you think you can do the job of a teacher all day? Selfish and delusional.
The school in my grandma's village only got to 3rd grade. She had rudimentary reading and writing skills. She worked so that my mom could finish high school, and my mom worked so that I could go to university. I will never forget their how hard they worked for me to get an education, and it's one of the most precious things they could've given me.
that's exactly what's bothering me about these moms. you're taking away the privilege to learn and be educated in a system THEY or their parents fought so hard to be part of.
Well said.
People don't seem to understand that our grandparents' and great-grandparents' generation would have given a lot to have more accessible education, more accessible medicines and vaccines against serious illnesses (that cut many lives short decades early), and loads of other hard-won conveniences we take for granted.
(Long comment sorry)
I had a unique schooling situation growing up.
The first half of my schooling was spent in a county where just about every family was rich, or paraded like they were rich, but they were still very involved with their children's education. Every week our schools had reading competitions and regular check ups to make sure we were all at the levels we should have been (no we weren't private, just a very competitive public school). I usually ranked pretty average or middle, but that was simply because I just was't a competitive student.
Then life took a turn and my family could no longer afford to live in such a costly area and we moved to a rural area that was very poor and most parents literally couldn't care less if their children failed or not.
This school was very underfunded and we did not have any competitions or check ups for reading at all. That's not to say there weren't smart students, there definitely were who were able to get full ride scholarships to the best schools in the state. A majority of the kids weren't so lucky though.
In high school I loved the english class, but DREADED when it came to reading time because it would always be popcorn reading and it would take a whole class period to get through a chapter or two due to the fact that almost every student in that room of 30 teenagers, could not read/understand the difference between: Your, You're, There, Their, They're, Through, Throughout, Thought, Thorough, and so on. It broke my heart every time knowing that these kids had parents who didn't care to work with them to read. Then I felt super bad when it would come to my time to read, because of my background, I could breeze through passages clearly and without falter and I felt like they were judging me for 'flexing.'
"Bro, how'd you get so smart?" "If only I could read like that."
I tried explaining that it wasn't a matter of intelligence, but I had just simply been taught how to read and if they wanted to improve, our local free library had those resources to assist.
"Nah, my mom doesn't like libraries." "I got football practice, I don't have time to go." "Since when did we have a library?" "You have to be smart to be allowed into libraries."
INSANE
While those students weren't Unschooled, they definitely had literacy issues that hadn't been corrected. We absolutely had teachers sand staff that cared and wanted to help, but teachers can only do so much and if the parents at home aren't invested in their child's education, it affects everyone.
This. The idea that the only way you'll get a terrible education is if you're homeschooled. Unfortunately plenty of public schools are also failing kids.
Yes, parents should be teaching reading skills before they get to school age. I've always had extremely advanced reading skills and I 100% attribute it to my parents buying and doing hooked on phonics with me early
Plus, reading aloud is its own skill! Not just knowing how to pronounce the words, but things like keeping your eyes on track (when you read silently, you might jump back and forth to different parts of a sentence without it impacting your understanding) and keeping your eyes, brain, and mouth synced up correctly is hard!! You have to process the words a little ahead of actually speaking them for proper flow, intonation, understanding, and retention
I can express myself pretty fluently in 3 languages and she denies her son the ability to express himself in one language?? Poor boy 😢
Btw, homeschooling is illegal in Germany…for a reason!
Homeschooling ist in Deutschland nicht komplett illegal, aber es ist äußerst selten und wird in der Regel nur in Ausnahmefällen, wie bei medizinischen Bedingungen, erlaubt.
As someone who was homeschooled, missing out on the (averaged out from 1st to 8th grade in my case) approximately 7000 hours of socialization will absolutely cripple you.
the good thing is, social skills are in the end still skills that you can learn, bad thing you need other people for it. I hope you find someone or a bunch of people that are willing to help you and give you a chance
@@deusex9731 Ive had some excellent friends around me and a therapist that ROCKS that has helped me not only with the social skills themselves but also processing all of the things that in RETROSPECT are... ill be nice... strange about homeschooling lol I appreciate it comrade
I have come to realize that homeschooling is vastly different based on who your parents are and where you were homeschooled. I was also homeschooled, but never missed out on socializing. I was reading and writing at a more advanced level than many of my friends who were in public school. My mom had me in a two separate homeschool co-ops with many other kids my age, and I also was actively involved in Girl Scouts.
My homeschool years honestly harbor some of my favorite memories. Though, I recognize this is not the case across the board.
@@kburdett Vastly different based on the parents AND tends to draw a specific TYPE of parent lol Just based on conversations with other homeschooled individuals your experience is in the minority. Im glad it worked well for you friend!
@@kburdetta friend's 13 year old, home schooled daughter, just started college. Her parents did not ascribe to the "books are for suckers" philosophy.
That second video with woman listing all those activities just felt like one of those sudden bursts of motivation in the middle of the night. Thinking about new existing stuff you will start and how it will change your life....Only to literally forgot about it and/or gave up on it next morning.
“Fucking! Books!” Really cracks me up and her energy is exactly what you describe.
I was just there wondering where she got the idea that people that have their children in school aren't also doing all of those things. Has she never seen children other than her own in a museum or at an aquarium or in a grocery store or playing outside? Or does she just assume that all of those children are unschooled too?
Yes same thoughts
@@snowangelnc I don't actually know if these people do actually go to these things very often, or they never took their pre-school aged children. Anyone who goes to a museum regularly during the week will know that school visits to museums basically sustain museums.
I have dyslexia, if no one forced me to read when i didnt want to, i would have never gotten where i am today. I am thankful to every teacher who has ever pushed me out of my comfort zone.
15:40 She described parenting not schooling and education. Why can't she do all that outside of school hours? Also not letting your kids build their own social life apart from you is a bit cruel. Alot of my best memories from childhood were related to school and friends from school.
My kid is free. That is the biggest lie a parent can tell themselves. Ignorance is a prison. The kid is hampered for life. The ability to read and self teach is taken from them. You can learn by others before you or you can learn from your own mistakes. The latter is more expensive and time-consuming.
I am an adult... And sometimes when you are "forced" to do something, you grow to love it. I hated grammar at school. I went to uni, and I had to take a linguistics class. The teacher was a sadist at exams but his style of teaching resonated with me so much, it made linguistics and grammar so exciting that I grew to love it and read more about it on my own... Sometimes it is good to get our of your own comfort zone.
This is so true. Went to a top uni, my criminology professor challenged us to an insane degree. However, his intellect and style of teaching was inspiring. In the end, the class average was around 3.4(3.0 is program average)
absolutely, I was horrible at math in primary but by the time i got to university I really started to enjoy it
It's true. Typing class was TORTURE in high school. English grammar was so borrrring.
Guess how I made my living for the past 10 years...
Right! I used to hate biology for most of high school but now I'm a vet student with top grades and loving it, if I hadn't been forced to learn biology as a kid I would've never gotten here
In that vein I feel like my parents tricked me into liking art. They're huge art nerds themselves and regularly brought us along to visit art museums and as a kid I hated it but simply by being that exposed to art I now actually like some types of art and I end up getting annoyed at people who criticize art in general even though they have clearly never visited an art museum.
I also had a similar experience with literature and language. I hated those because I had horrible teachers growing up that never listened to me but when I finally got good Danish and English teachers the experience of actually being able to learn something I thought I would never understand ended up being so motivating that I got the highest grades in my class. And now I like those things enough that I can enjoy them as a hobby which makes me happy since having a basic grasp of literary analysis makes you enjoy media so much more, though it sadly also makes you a lot more picky.
What strikes me most about the first lady is her complaint that her kids have no energy after school. I don't know of a single parent in my *life* who has ever had that complaint.
FOR REAL. You know the loudest time of the day? The four hours after they're home.
@@wyattmilliken3320 that's so funny. I dont have any little ones, but with the folks I know, they're all trying to find some way to run em around or get them into stuff after school.
My grandma only had 8 grades of education in her village school, and my great grandmother barely had a few. Because Soviet union. My mother was the first in our family who got a University degree, and she is a PhD in her chosen field and worked as a Dean half her life.
She made goddamn sure I had the best education possible. I knew how to read in 2 (similar) languages when I was 4, learned English as a child and had all the tutors we as a poor family could afford. We didn't always had fruit or meat, but I for sure always had lessons to take.
This type of upbringing has it's downsides - I always need to be the best and am very afraid to fail; but without knowing the joy of learning I would not become the person I am.
Nowadays, with a lot of infrastructure in Ukraine being destroyed due to the war, the biggest challenge parents face is education of their children. It is very hard to have a curriculum with constant shellings and enegry cuts, so education is very patchy and mostly online. Low quality. That one of the big reasons mothers want to take their kids out to not stunt their development.
These delusional selfish idiot mothers blow my mind. They are so locked in on their personal ridiculous issues that they deny their children development. If only they had the understanding of how many people all over the world are striving to be a part of a normal education cycle. I honestly feel like these ladies are an example of degradation and child abuse.
Kinda disgusting how we’ve gone thousands of years with out education and also putting kids in factories, and now that all kids have access to education…these parents are denying them
This is a retarded comment with 57 retards agreeing
It’s like the anti-vaxx movement. People lived for centuries without and knew how bad it was, so when it became available, they raced to get it for themselves and their kids. Now we live in a society where we take it for granted, and some people have forgotten how bad it is when you go without. Worse, they themselves had the benefits that they’re now denying their kids.
well our education system is failing so it’s not like they were gonna learn anything useful anyway.
@Cristofah That tends to happen when right wing religious nuts keeps worming their way into public school boards and pushing for less funding every year
@@Cristofah thats completely dependent on where you live
I worked for a state program to help young adults get their GED/employment and I cannot tell you how many kids were "homeschooled" but were testing at 1st grade levels in reading/math. Their struggle was so heartbreaking. Many of them didn't make it through classes because it was so much work. I was so proud of the ones that were successful but they shouldn't have had to start so far behind. The ones that made me the saddest were the ones that would have been in Special Education classes if they had been in regular school getting support for their needs that they never got at home. It's just so frustrating that public school is available to everyone and parents choose to hold their kids down.
my assigned public school only 2% of the high schoolers have a basic understanding in their grade level math and 18% can read beyond an elementary level. they also won't follow IEP's and 504's even though they legally have to.
@@hayleygrace9137 My public school intended to track my son into a lifetime of institutions. That was their version of "special ed."
I met a young man who's grandfather was actually angry that he tried to learn to read as an adult. Like he was betraying the family or something.
Then, there are people like me who dropped out of high school, got my GED in less than three weeks, entered the workforce for a few years, then went to college and held a 3.9 for most of the time. I was home schooled until third grade, and that's why middle school was a true waste. They were teaching stuff in middle school that my mother taught me in second grade. All I learned in middle school was how evil and stupid kids AND adults can be. My point is that a strong and smart parent can actually outperform the school system by miles. Unfortunately, "can" is the key word here. The women in those videos are clearly not capable of teaching kids in the way my mother was.
When I was a young African American child, I learned a very powerful quote from reading a book about a young newly-freed African American Girl: "There is freedom in your head". Despite my own mental setbacks, I fought hard to read and focus. It was not easy, but I'm glad I know how. For decades, African Americans were literally BARRED from reading, blocked from good schools, and most stayed in those cycles and never learned to read. I'm a Millennial. Our grandparents were the first to know how. To willfully bar your child from experiencing school and structured learning is to deny them a privilege so many others wish they could obtain.
Are you talking about the American girl doll addy ? Because if so I love her and her books
People mean different things by "unschooling". Some people are intentionally teaching things like reading, writing, and math, but they teach it somewhat unconventionally, so they call it "unschooling." But there are also people who think kids will just "pick it up" by osmosis or something without ever being taught anything intentionally. To those people I have to ask, "Why would anyone in the world be illiterate if people just easily picked up reading without being taught?" I think it has been well-documented that speaking can be picked up naturally, but reading and writing must be taught.
You can teach yourself to read if you're consistently exposed to someone else reading where you can follow along.
That's why reading to your child is so important and a lot of little kids programs highlight subtitles of the word being spoken at the time it's said. It gives kids a huge boost because by the time they're learning the fundamentals of reading they already have a recognition for common words/letter sounds, and in some cases the kids who are exposed a lot can already do some reading by the time normal education starts.
Problem is adults who can't read aren't going to be exposed to the same stuff that helps kids learn to read, they have to be taught because the tools to figure it out alone aren't there(although they may be able to learn specific words, like "news" which is repeated so often it on TV it is basically impossible to not pick up on it).
@@scragarproblem with that is, not all phonics work. You read rhe word "cough" now you have "dough"
I hope you reading this can tell that while those 2 words have the exact same spelling after the first letter, but are said much differently. That's literally what the teacher is for! Or things like "live" as in I saw a live band and "live" as in I live in a house. Same word, 2 different meanings. You would never know that if you just followed along. Because there is so much more to reading that physically putting letters together to make a sound! It's sad adults can't seem to figure this out.
@@robingalbraith323this! I had no idea this was such a big issue (my native language isn’t English) but I recently listened to the Sold a story podcast and was blown away.
@@scragar Some kids can learn to read this way. I did. But others need more formal instruction on phonics, etc., before reading “clicks.” (I’m not downplaying the importance of reading to your kids, just recognizing that it’s not always enough.)
Calling kids in school “inmates” is wild. My kids feel the sun on their faces every single day AND they go to school 🤷♀️
I really don't understand the correlation and why both can't be done. Like why cant you go outside before and after school or on the weekends
Inmates also feel the sun on their faces every single day
It's very accurate in some schools. The key word is some.
Literacy is so vital. Life is hard enough. I am a mother of three and I don't understand making the decision to handicap your children. So sad.
re: school gun violence. It does feel like a roll of the dice every day now. Every time it happens I'm reminded that this is so common here that it's just a matter of probability before it lands at my door. But let's be honest. These mothers aren't motivated by that particular fear. They're very likely motivated by the dread specter of wokeness. If they're that dialed in to social media to be a content creator of this particular type, they're definitely being bomarded daily by a thousand memes about this school or that teaching "gender confusion" to kindergartners or whatever nonsense the right is panicking about on any given day. Also, I looked up Mami Onami. She's a survivor of the Children of God cult, allegedly, which... yikes. That's some grim business that explains a few things about her desire to protect her children from the unpredictability of public school. Therapy would do her a lot of good and yet here we are.
What she is describing as “hands on schooling“ is simply parenting. That is literally your job. But there are many things you cannot teach your child, even if you were an expert in child education simply because you don’t know them. No one is an expert on everything. You cannot teach a person to be competent as an adult in maths, literature, arts, music, sports, science, theatre, etc. As someone with a lot of degrees, there is simply no way 🙅
Teachers are not experts in their subjects! In my whole K-12 education, I had three teachers who had degrees in the subjects they taught. Every other teacher had only a surface-level understanding of the topic and was threatened by intellectually curious children.
Additionally, if you are going to boast about your degrees in a comment about education, you should probably use correct grammar to do it. You look foolish.
@@alex_1993 firstly, I never said any of my degrees were in English, Alex. Secondly, your comment speaks volumes about the UK education system, likely post austerity. In my country, post 4 grade, all teachers need a relevant university education related to their field as well as an additional pedagogical certificate and must pass national tests periodically to remain employed. Thirdly, I don’t see any of the mothers in the video posted as having any relevant amount of education whatsoever. It’s best not to make assumptions about people on the internet, Alex, it makes you look terribly ignorant, as well as foolish.
@@alex_1993 I'm sorry you had such a dearth of expertise in you education. This doesn't match my experience growing up, and as someone who works in education now I would be delighted if a student asked me a question I didn't know the answer to. That would give us the opportunity to learn together, and to me the most important aspect of teaching isn't forcing knowledge into children's heads, but helping them learn how to teach themselves and follow their passions. Reacting with hostility is a sign of a very insecure or uncaring teacher.
@Axis32109 Your reply is breathtaking. The fact that you think an English degree is required to use correct sentence structure just shows that your education in elementary and secondary school was sorely lacking. You should have been learning grammar in elementary school, not university.
To your second point: I do not live in the UK. In my country, teachers only need an education degree and not a degree in their field. That is the context that the women in this video are reacting to.
Lastly, I never said the women in this video had any educational training, so you are attacking a strawman. I would not be surprised if many homeschooling parents do have a lot of subject matter knowledge, though.
On my part, I have never gone through a formal teaching program but I tutor high school and university students. I am amazed that even in some of the top schools in the US, teachers have not taught fundamental concepts of writing to their students. I have worked with very bright kids who still did not know how to identify parts of a sentence, properly conjugate a verb, or use good sentence structure. Clearly, the school system is not as great as many commenters imply it is.
@Uhshawdude That is fantastic, and you sound like a great teacher! I would not have so many concerns with the overall quality of schools in the US if we had more teachers with your mindset. There certainly are many great and inspiring teachers. The problem is that great teachers tend to self-sort into communities where kids already have a lot of socioeconomic advantages, leaving a lot of areas underserved.
I went to Montessori preschool and literally could read and summarize passages by age 4 and had immense amount of freedom. These parents know what they are doing, it’s not about freedom and it’s hardly about their children, it’s about being morally superior for them
Actually on second thought, it IS about the children. It’s about keeping them as young and as dependent on their parents as possible. I feel like I see dozens of mommy vloggers bragging about how they get to keep their 8 year old with them 100% of the time because they homeschool
I was unschooled (taught to read but that was pretty much it) and I cannot even begin to explain the irreparable harm it did to me. My parents did this in hope they would get to control me my whole life. They don’t control me anymore but I always need the help of other people because I can barely ever hold down a job and have ptsd from the neglect. We have to make this illegal again. It is child abuse pure and simple. I wish it never happened to me.
It breaks my heart hearing this. I would recommend getting curriculum books for elementary (libraries often have classes for adults or known where you can get them for free) and work your way up. RUclips also has a ton of videos of teachers and professors on every subject. You can still learn, it's never too late. Best of luck to you!
@@SpacemanTheo Thank you. I learned what I could as a kid on my own with no resources and have been trying to just figure out what I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask librarians about curriculum and classes. I will have to do that! I’m sure there will be a lot of adults schooling themselves soon with education being what it is. I like the idea of starting with elementary and will try that. Thanks you for caring and everyone else who has spread the word about this problem.
@@NikolaiH95 Not a problem! Depending on where you are they may be in person or online sessions. Libraries are a massive resource and one that people like me fight to keep open and volunteer for.
RUclips is kinda the wild west of 'libraries' but it's how I learned math and reading when I too, was left behind when teachers wrote me off as 'lazy' when I was struggling.
Your lack of education is most clear when you say homeschooling should be illgal because you had a bad experience.
@@nategalvan3907 That's not what the message stated, maybe you shouldn't shame people for their lack of education if you are not capable of understanding a single paragraph. The lack of empathy for someone who clearly went through a terrible childhood doesn't really paint a pretty picture of you, but I guess it's not as funny as your failure to demonstrate basic literacy in that situation, it's just sad.
Poor Oliver. That’s so sad but also so happy he decided to learn. I couldn’t imagine the struggle.
My oldest daughter had trouble reading when she was younger & I whole heartedly believe it’s because I didn’t expose her to enough books as a toddler. Now she reads at a high school level in the 8th grade, which is great, but if I hadn’t noticed when she was younger she wouldn’t be where she is at today.
I hope Oliver’s reading gets much easier ❤
Loved the video!
At 6 yrs old I was writing complete sentences. Simple sentences but complete ones. Like: "I love my mom. I love my dad. I love my cats." Simple stuff but I was writing them myself. Not copying them from anywhere. I also knew all my letters too. I learned how to read and such but I did not enjoy it. My parents loved to read and my mom was super pushy about getting me to read the books she read when she had been my age. But I didn't enjoy them or was interested in them. Which would always upset her cause she didn't like how I would look at her when she tried to get me to read. She had said it felt like I was giving her a look that made her feel stupid. I didn't come to love reading until 2nd grade (8 to 9 years old). I had a teacher who really encouraged us to read and had us spend a lot of time on reading. Most of the time I hated it, but not always. I enjoyed some of the books she picked out. It wasn't until I had gotten my hands on a series called "Rainbow Magic" that my opinion on reading changed and it went from "I hated reading" to "I enjoy reading". But that was because my teacher had given me access to books that I enjoy. I don't know if I would have come to enjoy reading if it wasn't for her or if I did. It would have been at a later date.
4th grade was when I really became obsessed with reading as it became a safe space for me as I had been outcasted by my peers. These days though, at 22 almost 23. I read for fun, I collect books of all kinds, novels, light novels, mangas, comics, and fanfics. Just because I love all forms of storytelling, except for audiobooks. I don't care for those. It's not the same as reading the book myself but that's a personal opinion. But I can't imagine not being able to read, it's all I ever do these days, most days. Not just read books, but I text friends online a lot all the time. I even write my own stories when I can. So the idea of not being is such a strange thought to me. I'm glad I was pushed to read, even if I didn't enjoy it at the time. even if I didn't like how my mom went about it. I'm glad my teacher was able to find books that I enjoyed.
I didn’t like reading much in elementary school, until I started reading more to win prizes in an annual reading competition we had. I think I wanted a specific leopard plush they were giving out for… 400 minutes? Along the way I also realized that I was actually enjoying the stories I could read, and I kept reading even after I didn’t have that external motivation. Regularly visiting the library with my mom definitely helped too, giving me a wider selection than at school.
I gradually stopped reading as much after I started being “online” more… But all that reading I did as a kid/teenager built a great foundation for my future English classes, and reading/writing in general.
I think we have the first 7 of the Rainbow Magic books around here somewhere. The series that lasted the longest with me were the Rick Riordan ones, since I liked the humor and have always been interested in mythology.
Yeah, the comparison between the norm, simple sentences, and what she was proud of… it was honestly scary to me, like something out of a horror movie.
In Ireland we had a write a book competition in primary school. It was good fun but the stories of my books did leave a lit to be desired for.
omgg rainbow magic!! loved that stuff as a kid
I'd be very interested if one of these unschooling parents blocked out or covered up every bit of text in their homes. How long would they last without reading. No instructions for the oven or recipes, no idea of what the time is, angry letters in the mail with consequences they can't understand.
YES! Kelsey said they are going to learn how to cook because that's a life skill but lets not actually teach them how to read so they can follow a written recipe.
they wouldn't be able to get a TikTok account without being able to read
How would they TikTok about it then?? This is obviously a ridiculous and pointless exercise! /j
My 14 year old son, adopted from foster care when he was 6, was in public school until 2020, and when we were home, I started working more closely with him on reading. I knew he wasn't great at it, but I became aware of how poor of a reader he was (in 5th grade, read lower than 1st grade level), even though his teachers always said he was doing fine. He learned to adapt to not being able to read. He would listen to someone else reading, or just pick up on context clues in conversation. If it had not been for the pandemic, and us deciding to homeschool "for a year" (turned into 3), I think he would have been one of those kids who graduates high school not knowing how to read. Homeschooling gave us the opportunity to really focus on reading. My thought was if he didn't know how to read the rest of the education probably wouldn't matter that much. He's back in school now and still maybe not at grade level, but he's doing so much better. We are homeschooling my 5 year old now, and he reads really well.
which is how homeschooling should be! my parents homeschooled me and my education was amazing and i didnt have too much trouble transitioning to college
You are allowed to homeschool your children in Austria, but the kids have to take exams at regular schools after each school year in order to monitor their learning progress. If a child fails the exams, the parents are not allowed to homeschool anymore and the child has to enroll in a regular school. I think that this an important policy that protects children from falling behind regarding their education. Language is the key to so many things in life - I enjoyed learning how to read and write when I was a child and I still enjoy learning other languages. The world is your oyster if you are fluent in several languages. In contrast your oppurtunities in life are very limited if you can‘t even communicate effectively in your native tongue.
It is like that in some states in the US, but not all. Each state is kind of a like a different country! I homeschooled my kids in two states that were considered moderate. In one of those states we had to meet with a licensed educator twice a year and present a portfolio of work for each student, and had to pass a checklist. With the other state you had to write a letter at the end of each year explaining how you educated and the progress that the student made, as well as presenting a portfolio of student work samples. Testing was required to be submitted for certain years instead of a portfolio, or you could just submit annual test scores every year if you preferred.
@someonerandom256 In the interest of the children, who are homeschooled I‘m glad that at least some states monitor their educational progress. Personally I think that homeschooling can be very beneficial for some families, but it takes a lot of time, effort and discipline on the parents end to work out. Not everyone is cut out to be teacher - even if they have a good understanding of a certain subject.
The thing that always pisses me off about Unschoolers is what they talk about with life experiences and personal learning. THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO AFTER SCHOOL. Like you said in the video. They act like school stops that from happening it doesn’t. Especially if you can afford to be a stay at home mom.
life experiences are for before school age, after school, the weekends, and summers. which is alot of time to have lifelong experiences
I would like to point out that with the cost of daycare, many people can't afford to WORK. Many would prefer to just stay home and spend time with their kids than go to work just to pay every cent made for child care.
I find the anti literacy stance terrifying. She says she’s scared of conformity but doesn’t like books? The Nazis burned books because they wanted conformity…
As a former “homeschooled” child, this is so sad. It seems as though our country as a whole is moving further and further away from prioritizing education.
Man, Oliver is just one of the strongest and bravest people I’ve seen on the internet in a long time. It takes so much strength to be that vulnerable publicly, especially with a topic where there is so much stigma, and it’s just so clear how hard he is working and how much effort and energy he has and is putting into this goal. Truly, his story and his openness will without a doubt save children from having to go through the struggles he has, and will give people the motivation and courage to stand up and face the things that they are ashamed of in themselves, and to follow his incredible example of improving ourselves in even the hardest of ways. It’s never too late to give yourself the things you needed - and deserved! - as a child.
I'm impressed by how one of these mothers is unable to recognize that a lot of the named activities require some level of language use (reading, writing) and maths.
As you already said: it's not one or the other exclusively - we need both.
Also, had all the same thoughts about the "freedom" quote immediately.
Exactly! I have no idea how this isn’t obvious.
I use a lot of basic math gardening, figuring out how much mulch to buy, fertilizer concentrations, building fences, etc.
@@FrogsForBreakfastI went from knowing nothing about gardening 5 years ago to harvesting pounds of produce for 35-40 weeks out of the year.
A lot of RUclips helped. A lot of trial and error. Audiobooks helped.
The best information has come from university publications, which requires the ability to read.
thats the intellect of most single moms for ya
@@money-ay … my guy how the fuck do you think these women can afford to stay home if they’re single? They’re clearly not living off welfare.
Im pretty certain that Maria Montessori had children reading at high levels by the age of six. The age range is 3-6 for reading, about a year later than we expect in schools.
Im checking my book on her, and they stress phonics, writing, and then reading. So 3-5 should have stronger writing knowledge than if you're teach them to read words on the page without writing the letters yourself first. These are all structured systems! I learned through writing first, and had a significantly higher than average reading level in all grades (mom did this on her own, not through the Montessori method; I was three when I could read simple books). She isn't unstructured. She's tactile; not RANDOM.
Montessori is a great example of a school system that put the child first. I also like that they are encouraged to socialize and help each other. And grow independent in a safe environment.
yes, and I would argue that through the method, the burden of structure falls on the teachers, not the children. An abacus is a fun toy for kids, but with structure and attention, we can teach them so much about arithmetic. If the teacher/parent just gives them one to play with, they won't really learn what it is supposed to teach you. That is the other half I think these parents are missing.
It wasn't until my wife started getting teacher certifications exactly how little regard and respect people have for teachers. They seem to believe teachers are either glorified babysitters, or anti-family brainwashers. She's trying to create the foundations on which your children's future learning can be built. She's not indoctrinating. She's not preaching. She's not converting. She's a teacher. She's teaching. She barely has time (and supplies) for that.
I’m autistic and (from my experience working in retail) it makes me REALLY fucking suck as a “low-skill” employee, like I am comically incompetent at basic verbal instructions and have horrendous emotional intelligence. Having a high level of reading comprehension, critical thinking capabilities, and math knowledge is the difference for me between being chronically unemployed because I can’t do basic tasks and being a well-compensated expert in a field I’m passionate about. If you want to talk about freedom, being educated is one of the most liberating things that happened in my life.
“She’s going to document the Schmidt out of this…”
So, because she wants to be a Social media star she’s going to use her children as props. Very nice.
She's probably gonna try keep them illiterate so that they can't sue her in the future for the money she made off traumatizing them infront of the whole internet.
Children should not be used as content.
NOT Reading Outta a Foocin BOOK" - Someone tell her that e.g. ENGINEERS also learn from "foocin" BOOKS.
The last thing they want to do is raise nerds who spend hours looking at “f’ing books.”
@@amicaaranearum what they don't also realize is that they are willingly helping to increase income inequality. That's very ironic, considering their likely political views.
as a future educator, it’s upsetting that’s she talking about teachers only using paper and books to help learn. I know so many teachers and educators that have studied types of learning and understand that paper and books, although they have their place, are not the most effective way of learning. HENCE LESSON PLANNING AND CREATING ACTIVITIES TO APPEAL TO KIDS
15:49 So she is parenting? Thats what all of us parents should be doing with our kiddos outside of school😂
Seriously, she's just listing things normal parents do in addition to school, not as a replacement for it.