Re: Agile education and pragmatic schooling

On Sat, 2004-06-26 at 23:56 +0000, Greg Jorgensen wrote:
> Are there a lot of programmers who homeschool their kids?

I'm not sure. I know of one father who works as a programmer who has
unschooled their son, now a programmer as well, however:

> I think of homeschooling as an agile approach to education. I didn't care for 
> school and 
> dropped out of college to work f/t as a programmer. I don't know if there's 
> any other 
> professional career where you find as many self-educated people as 
> programming.

That's a sure thing. It is agile. I, myself, am an unschooler, self-
educated in just about everything. I know a good portion of the
unschooling community is technically minded -- and not just of
technically employed parents. The things linking music, programming, the
use of chopsticks and in general what's become known as "Geeking" in our
community of unschoolers, that is to learn things deeply, understanding
them at the foundation (Grok, if you will, and the process of getting
there) are very important to a huge number of us.

> I wonder if programmers are more likely to homeschool their kids than 
> non-programmers. 
> I manage the web site for the Greater Portland Homeschoolers, and my wife and 
> I have 
> been involved with the local homeschooling community for eight years. Quite a 
> few 
> members are technical professionals. I don't know if that's because computer 
> nerds are 
> more likely to homeschool their kids, or if it's because in Portland a lot of 
> the good-paying 
> jobs are high-tech (which enables one parent to not have to hold a job).

I think that's some of each. There's also a disproportionate number of
unschoolers in the west coast, and especially the northwest. Combine
that with the same disproportion of technical jobs, and you can probably
draw the same conclusions I hold.

The homeschooling world is largely single-job families, mostly middle-
class. Unschooling in particular, though, I think tends to be a bit more
broad: Demographically, we come from more two-job homes, more struggling
families trying to buck the system, and more artists where it's hard to
pick out a single source of income.

> Most of the homeschooling parents we know practice what is known as 
> unschooling, 
> which is a very unstructured approach that lets kids learn what they want at 
> their own 
> pace. As I write this my five-year-old son is sitting next to me playing 
> Pokemon on his 
> Game Boy and showing a lot of interest in learning to read a little better so 
> he can 
> understand the game.

That's wonderful! I can attest personally to how unschooling works for
myself and many friends, many of whom are programmers, thoughtful geeks,
and writers.

If anyone here would like more information, or to just chat with some
unschooled kids and adults about education, programming, or anything
else that strikes your fancy, feel free to drop by our IRC space,
channel #nbtsc on the server castle.nbtsc.org.

Good evening to you all, 

        Aredridel




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