I’m unschooled and think it’s clearly better, even if you factor in my parents being significantly above average in parenting. Optimistically school is babysitting, people learn nothing there while wasting most of their childhood. Pessimistically it’s actively harmful by teaching people to hate learning/build antibodies against education.
Here’s a good documentary made by someone who’s been in and out of school. I can’t give detailed criticism since I (thankfully) never had to go to school.
EDIT: As for what the alternative should be, I honestly don’t know. Shifting equilibria is hard, though it’s easy to give better examples (e.g. dath ilan, things in the documentary I linked.) For a personal solution: Homeschool your kids.
I think school is huge in preventing people from becoming smart and curious. I spent 1-2years where I hardly studied at all and mostly played videogames—I wish I hadn’t wasted that time, but when I quit I did so of my own free will. I think there’s a huge difference between discipline imposed from the outside vs the inside, and getting to the latter is worth a lot. (though I wish I hadn’t wasted all that time now haha)
I’m unsure which parts of my upbringing were cruxes for unschooling working. You should probably read a book or something rather than taking my (very abnormal) opinion. I just know how it went for me :)
Epistemic status: personal experience.
I’m unschooled and think it’s clearly better, even if you factor in my parents being significantly above average in parenting. Optimistically school is babysitting, people learn nothing there while wasting most of their childhood. Pessimistically it’s actively harmful by teaching people to hate learning/build antibodies against education.
Here’s a good documentary made by someone who’s been in and out of school. I can’t give detailed criticism since I (thankfully) never had to go to school.
EDIT: As for what the alternative should be, I honestly don’t know. Shifting equilibria is hard, though it’s easy to give better examples (e.g. dath ilan, things in the documentary I linked.) For a personal solution: Homeschool your kids.
I would very much assume that you have a strong genetic disposition to be smart and curious.
Do you think unschooling would work acceptably well for kids who are not smart and curious?
I think school is huge in preventing people from becoming smart and curious. I spent 1-2years where I hardly studied at all and mostly played videogames—I wish I hadn’t wasted that time, but when I quit I did so of my own free will. I think there’s a huge difference between discipline imposed from the outside vs the inside, and getting to the latter is worth a lot. (though I wish I hadn’t wasted all that time now haha)
I’m unsure which parts of my upbringing were cruxes for unschooling working. You should probably read a book or something rather than taking my (very abnormal) opinion. I just know how it went for me :)
“Homeschool your kids” isn’t an option for, like, more than half of the population, I think.
I was directing that towards lesswrongers reading my answer, not the general population.