Links to interesting postings - 4 Feb 06

I enjoyed David Friedman's discussion about reasons for unschooling. David effectively challenges the assumption that there is a large core of knowledge that everyone has to learn, and that it takes 12 years to learn. David says that everyone does need to learn to read, write or type, and do simple arithmetic. But after learning those basic skills, it is reasonable for children to learn different things, in different sequences, at different rates. He makes the point that public schools dictate what children are taught, and when. The result is: "...children spend most of their time being told things they have no interest in knowing. "
(Hat tip: Chris O'Donnell of O'DonnellWeb.)


Izzy at The Homeschooling Revolution (Update 71) found an article in the Sunday Times which reports that 11-year-old children in the UK are two to three years behind children of the same age back twenty years ago. When I heard things like this I often think of:

"Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy, and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents."

from A Nation at Risk, page 13, published 1984. It is sad to realize that there have been serious problems with public education for a long time, and things are not getting better.