Letting homeschooled kids play WoW would also teach them socialization and teamwork, often better than the schools do. If a teammate in WoW isn't pulling his weight, you can drop the group (or kick him out of the guild). School group assignments are forced, so you have to carry the deadweight members if you want a decent grade. My wife never liked working in groups until she started doing WoW raids.
I own two copies of Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, one for me, and one for my parents (which I inherited when they passed). Loved it so much that I bought Law's Order as well.
I think this works great for kids descended from David Friedman. You can probably take bright, curious kids and they'll turn anything into a lesson plan. (A whole bunch of Nobel laureates at the turn of the last century set up a little school for their kids where they learned physics from Irving Langmuir, chemistry from Marie Curie, etc.) But a lot of kids will just sit around playing video games and gossiping online and won't turn it into an educational experience without a great teacher like you. I do guess the girls' gossiping will teach them to navigate social hierarchies, but you'll wind up with a populace that doesn't know the Civil War happened or how to add.
Maybe – but even those "lot of kids" that might "just sit around playing video games and gossiping online" without, so you claim, 'learning anything', will – eventually – find all on their own that there's lots of things they want to learn.
I am _extremely_ skeptical that anyone 'sitting around playing video games and gossiping online' wouldn't learn to read and write and learn to add – and learn LOTS of other things – without any kind of (explicitly) "educational experience". Reading and writing are obviously useful for both of the activities you're implicitly putting down, but so is addition (and arithmetic generally, as well as other varieties of math).
I think this post is best understood as one (small) part of a larger and comprehensive alternative vision of 'education'. Beyond using better examples to teach standard topics (which is itself an old idea), it's not obvious that people, or kids, generally do need to learn almost any of the 'standard subjects' at any particular age or in any particular order. There's certainly significant social sanctions to not do so, but those aren't obviously NOT bad either.
I’d like to see game engines used to teach history. Put people in the pivotal moments in time and have them deliver post during the revolutionary war. When they meet Washington they get some overview of his character. Put them in Rome listening to a speech from Cicero. Let them walk around and see the splendour and poverty. Be at the siege of Vienna. Go on a crusade. Meet Shakespeare and go watch a play. Fight the Nazis (actually we have that).
The assassins creed engine is brillant at recreating cities.
I think this would work better for 'historic-ness' versus 'history' (i.e. specific historical events). Games are interactive. If a goal is to 'preserve the actual timeline', player's agency would have to be severely curtailed, which is very much not fun.
But letting the player control a character in a historical setting? And giving them relatively unlimited agency? But also programming the other characters to _react_ to the player's character realistically (and realistically for the relevant historic setting)? THAT would be amazing fun! (Think 'GTA' but historically.)
And, somewhat implicit in your own comment, this DOES exist – kinda – already. The Assassin's Creed games are pretty good in a lot of ways at depicting historic places and people. I personally liked just walking around and, e.g. exploring peasant homes, in "Kingdom Come: Deliverance".
I generally oppose homeschooling because it doesn’t find any new talent. When I was growing up in rural Ireland I was at school with a guy who was a mathematical prodigy, who later became a professor of mathematics at Trinity. His parents were farmers. He needed to get the fundamentals from a teacher. In fact many of us ended up in careers that our parents couldn’t teach us.
> I generally oppose homeschooling because it doesn’t find any new talent.
In my experience, both personally and in others I've observed closely, mathematics is particularly easy to learn without a 'teacher', i.e. a person providing instruction in school. I don't know what exactly what you mean by "fundamentals", or why you're sure anyone would have needed to be taught them by a teacher, but lots of 'mathematical prodigies' taught themselves math beyond simple arithmetic, e.g. by reading. (And they may have picked up even simple arithmetic (mostly) by themselves.)
'Homeschooling' isn't even close to 'only what parents can teach directly'. It's really just not sending kids to a 'standard school' (everyday). Beyond books (and videos, websites, (video) games, etc.), it's fairly common for parents homeschooling their kids to, e.g. hire tutors for specific subjects.
And, more generally, even among kids attending 'standard schools', I think it's common for lots of students, particularly the 'best' (i.e. those that are most 'successful' or those that learn the most), to learn a lot _outside_ of school. It's also common for many/most students to learn, let alone retain, almost anything for many many subjects they're explicitly taught.
I think it's a _separate_ fact that lots of careers _require_ some certain amount or kind of 'standard school'. I don't think that's particularly relevant about anyone's knowledge of specific subjects.
But it still could be the case that you and the "mathematical prodigy" you knew were both well served by going to school – versus any alternative that your parents would have plausibly provided. I don't think it's obvious that any better alternative is _possible_ tho.
There are lots of ways the world could be other than 'homeschooled on a rural farm' (with, e.g. no access to any kinds of math books) or 'forced to go to a regular school'.
I would be (at least mildly) surprised if the place where the person you knew grew up didn't now have Internet access at all. And I'd think there was, back when you both were in school, a public library _at least_ as accessible to your homes as your school was. (Tho maybe you lived at school?)
A lot of 'standard/regular school' detractors make claims like 'school is daycare'. (I think that's basically true.) It's easy to think then that us detractors don't think school is really valuable at all. But it seems pretty obvious that, because most adults work during the day and can't easily also supervise their children, 'daycare' is actually really valuable! But _if_ school is (mostly/'basically') daycare, it's not obvious that kids/students shouldn't be able to do things they'd enjoy more than 'schoolwork'.
Homeschooling now – or at anytime in the past few decades, in the richest places in the world – is very different than 'homeschooling' in earlier periods, or poorer places. It's probably still the case that most people ever, and maybe still in many places now, learned 'at home'.
Letting homeschooled kids play WoW would also teach them socialization and teamwork, often better than the schools do. If a teammate in WoW isn't pulling his weight, you can drop the group (or kick him out of the guild). School group assignments are forced, so you have to carry the deadweight members if you want a decent grade. My wife never liked working in groups until she started doing WoW raids.
I own two copies of Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, one for me, and one for my parents (which I inherited when they passed). Loved it so much that I bought Law's Order as well.
I think this works great for kids descended from David Friedman. You can probably take bright, curious kids and they'll turn anything into a lesson plan. (A whole bunch of Nobel laureates at the turn of the last century set up a little school for their kids where they learned physics from Irving Langmuir, chemistry from Marie Curie, etc.) But a lot of kids will just sit around playing video games and gossiping online and won't turn it into an educational experience without a great teacher like you. I do guess the girls' gossiping will teach them to navigate social hierarchies, but you'll wind up with a populace that doesn't know the Civil War happened or how to add.
Maybe – but even those "lot of kids" that might "just sit around playing video games and gossiping online" without, so you claim, 'learning anything', will – eventually – find all on their own that there's lots of things they want to learn.
I am _extremely_ skeptical that anyone 'sitting around playing video games and gossiping online' wouldn't learn to read and write and learn to add – and learn LOTS of other things – without any kind of (explicitly) "educational experience". Reading and writing are obviously useful for both of the activities you're implicitly putting down, but so is addition (and arithmetic generally, as well as other varieties of math).
I think this post is best understood as one (small) part of a larger and comprehensive alternative vision of 'education'. Beyond using better examples to teach standard topics (which is itself an old idea), it's not obvious that people, or kids, generally do need to learn almost any of the 'standard subjects' at any particular age or in any particular order. There's certainly significant social sanctions to not do so, but those aren't obviously NOT bad either.
I’d like to see game engines used to teach history. Put people in the pivotal moments in time and have them deliver post during the revolutionary war. When they meet Washington they get some overview of his character. Put them in Rome listening to a speech from Cicero. Let them walk around and see the splendour and poverty. Be at the siege of Vienna. Go on a crusade. Meet Shakespeare and go watch a play. Fight the Nazis (actually we have that).
The assassins creed engine is brillant at recreating cities.
I think this would work better for 'historic-ness' versus 'history' (i.e. specific historical events). Games are interactive. If a goal is to 'preserve the actual timeline', player's agency would have to be severely curtailed, which is very much not fun.
But letting the player control a character in a historical setting? And giving them relatively unlimited agency? But also programming the other characters to _react_ to the player's character realistically (and realistically for the relevant historic setting)? THAT would be amazing fun! (Think 'GTA' but historically.)
And, somewhat implicit in your own comment, this DOES exist – kinda – already. The Assassin's Creed games are pretty good in a lot of ways at depicting historic places and people. I personally liked just walking around and, e.g. exploring peasant homes, in "Kingdom Come: Deliverance".
I generally oppose homeschooling because it doesn’t find any new talent. When I was growing up in rural Ireland I was at school with a guy who was a mathematical prodigy, who later became a professor of mathematics at Trinity. His parents were farmers. He needed to get the fundamentals from a teacher. In fact many of us ended up in careers that our parents couldn’t teach us.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this:
> I generally oppose homeschooling because it doesn’t find any new talent.
In my experience, both personally and in others I've observed closely, mathematics is particularly easy to learn without a 'teacher', i.e. a person providing instruction in school. I don't know what exactly what you mean by "fundamentals", or why you're sure anyone would have needed to be taught them by a teacher, but lots of 'mathematical prodigies' taught themselves math beyond simple arithmetic, e.g. by reading. (And they may have picked up even simple arithmetic (mostly) by themselves.)
'Homeschooling' isn't even close to 'only what parents can teach directly'. It's really just not sending kids to a 'standard school' (everyday). Beyond books (and videos, websites, (video) games, etc.), it's fairly common for parents homeschooling their kids to, e.g. hire tutors for specific subjects.
And, more generally, even among kids attending 'standard schools', I think it's common for lots of students, particularly the 'best' (i.e. those that are most 'successful' or those that learn the most), to learn a lot _outside_ of school. It's also common for many/most students to learn, let alone retain, almost anything for many many subjects they're explicitly taught.
I think it's a _separate_ fact that lots of careers _require_ some certain amount or kind of 'standard school'. I don't think that's particularly relevant about anyone's knowledge of specific subjects.
But it still could be the case that you and the "mathematical prodigy" you knew were both well served by going to school – versus any alternative that your parents would have plausibly provided. I don't think it's obvious that any better alternative is _possible_ tho.
The mathematical prodigy was from a poor background, he just wouldn’t have access to those mathematical books.
There are lots of ways the world could be other than 'homeschooled on a rural farm' (with, e.g. no access to any kinds of math books) or 'forced to go to a regular school'.
I would be (at least mildly) surprised if the place where the person you knew grew up didn't now have Internet access at all. And I'd think there was, back when you both were in school, a public library _at least_ as accessible to your homes as your school was. (Tho maybe you lived at school?)
A lot of 'standard/regular school' detractors make claims like 'school is daycare'. (I think that's basically true.) It's easy to think then that us detractors don't think school is really valuable at all. But it seems pretty obvious that, because most adults work during the day and can't easily also supervise their children, 'daycare' is actually really valuable! But _if_ school is (mostly/'basically') daycare, it's not obvious that kids/students shouldn't be able to do things they'd enjoy more than 'schoolwork'.
Homeschooling now – or at anytime in the past few decades, in the richest places in the world – is very different than 'homeschooling' in earlier periods, or poorer places. It's probably still the case that most people ever, and maybe still in many places now, learned 'at home'.
"McGee’s classic article": link is broken
I think I found a stable free link:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/724888?item_view=read_online&seq=1