On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 15:13:53 -0400, prodigal1 wrote:

Frank wrote:
Thanks, Larry,

We're John Holt-style *un*schoolers.

sweeping generalizations about school snipped

The "socialization" I'd be more concerned about is the programming they
get in US society to be unquestioning little consumers. It isn't the
schools that teach kids to be sheep. It's so-called "popular culture"
which is of course nothing more than advertising for consumer goods.

It's not much different anywhere in the Western world, but it's worst
(or most developed a system of persuasion, depending on your POV) in
North America. We figure that an important side benefit of living on a
boat (with occasional school terms ashore in foreign countries) will
help our kid develop the critical thinking skills so he can make his
own choices.

As a marketer/advertising writer, I know how most "choices" are
illusory. Life at sea is a good teacher, by contrast, on how to think
clearly and rationally while maintaining a mystical relationship with
nature and the sea.

R.

rhys wrote in
:

As a marketer/advertising writer, I know how most "choices" are
illusory. Life at sea is a good teacher, by contrast, on how to think
clearly and rationally while maintaining a mystical relationship with
nature and the sea.


Could you have become a "marketer/advertising writer" if you'd spent YOUR
childhood at sea on correspondence courses?....or would you have become one
of those poor slaves hauling out someone's nasty engine from the bilges?

In other words, name 4 very successful people you know who were home
schooled at sea by correspondence course....It's an interesting search.

--
Larry

You know you've had a rough night when you wake up and your outlined in
chalk.

Larry W4CSC wrote:

rhys wrote in
:


As a marketer/advertising writer, I know how most "choices" are
illusory. Life at sea is a good teacher, by contrast, on how to think
clearly and rationally while maintaining a mystical relationship with
nature and the sea.



Could you have become a "marketer/advertising writer" if you'd spent YOUR
childhood at sea on correspondence courses?....or would you have become one
of those poor slaves hauling out someone's nasty engine from the bilges?

When people do something they really love, they tend to excell at it.
Life at sea doesn't have to consist entirely of just boat related
things. There are correspondence courses and ways to learn almost
anything, considering books, the internet, satellites, etc.

The key advantage of unschooling is that the person is doing something
they really are enthusiastic about. When people do things they love they
tend to master it and move on to other things, or just have fun the rest
of their lives mastering what they mastered, and making a good living at
it even.

The key problem on a boat is the child needs to have opportunities to
explore what interests them. This could present some major challenges to
the homeschooling parent on a boat.

In other words, name 4 very successful people you know who were home
schooled at sea by correspondence course....It's an interesting search.

Plenty of very successful people have been homeschooled and unschooled.
You have a point about it being more rare and difficult on a boat, but
it's not impossible. What if they decide to *facilitate* the child's
schooling by, say, going to places for the sake of the that sometimes?


--
Stephen

-------

For any proposition there is always some sufficiently narrow
interpretation of its terms, such that it turns out true, and
some sufficiently wide interpretation such that it turns out
false...concept stretching will refute *any* statement, and will
leave no true statement whatsoever.
-- Imre Lakatos

Stephen, I like what you're saying and I wanna comment on this:

You said: The key problem on a boat is the child needs to have
opportunities to
explore what interests them. This could present some major challenges
to
the homeschooling parent on a boat.

Hey! Drop the phrase "on a boat." This is the key problem for a
homeschooling parent in New York City, suburban San Diego, or East
Podunk. It's also the key problem for any kid, schooled by any method,
in a school or otherwise.

As for it being a challenge for a homeschooler on a boat, that's
certainly true; but that's what the www is for. However, it's just as
true for a kid sitting at his desk in P.S. 101, prepping for the latest
round of "standardized testing" when what he wants desperately to
investigate is plate tectonics. The difference is that the homeschooler
can tell his folks that and off they go on an exploration of the world
of plate tectonics. Meanwhile, the kid at P.S. 101 is still stuck at
his desk learning how to give the "correct" answers on the latest
"measurement device" (test) to ensure funding under the "no kid is left
behind" extortion scheme. Behind what, I'm not sure.

Frank wrote:

Stephen, I like what you're saying and I wanna comment on this:

You said: The key problem on a boat is the child needs to have
opportunities to
explore what interests them. This could present some major challenges
to
the homeschooling parent on a boat.

Hey! Drop the phrase "on a boat." This is the key problem for a
homeschooling parent in New York City, suburban San Diego, or East
Podunk. It's also the key problem for any kid, schooled by any method,
in a school or otherwise.

As for it being a challenge for a homeschooler on a boat, that's
certainly true; but that's what the www is for. However, it's just as
true for a kid sitting at his desk in P.S. 101, prepping for the latest
round of "standardized testing" when what he wants desperately to
investigate is plate tectonics. The difference is that the homeschooler
can tell his folks that and off they go on an exploration of the world
of plate tectonics. Meanwhile, the kid at P.S. 101 is still stuck at
his desk learning how to give the "correct" answers on the latest
"measurement device" (test) to ensure funding under the "no kid is left
behind" extortion scheme. Behind what, I'm not sure.


Yeah, you're right.

Stephen

--
Stephen

-------

For any proposition there is always some sufficiently narrow
interpretation of its terms, such that it turns out true, and
some sufficiently wide interpretation such that it turns out
false...concept stretching will refute *any* statement, and will
leave no true statement whatsoever.
-- Imre Lakatos

"Stephen Trapani" wrote
Frank wrote:
snip

After all the comentary and back slapping nobody responded to Larry's
challenge:
"In other words, name 4 very successful people you know who were home
schooled at sea by correspondence course".

I've done a lot of hiring for well-paying jobs. Employers want credentials.
Your home-schooled kid may be better educated than the product of PS101 but
do you have a paper that says so, or that (s)he has any education at all.
And if I'm to compare several candidates I want to see scores on
standardized tests.

Vito wrote:
snip

And if I'm to compare several candidates I want to see scores on
standardized tests.

The results of standardized testing provide only at best a simplistic
and at worse, an irrelevant answer to the question you're asking.
I'm always surprised when I see/read people comments indicating that
these blunt instruments have some sort of validity.

"Vito" wrote in
:

I've done a lot of hiring for well-paying jobs. Employers want
credentials. Your home-schooled kid may be better educated than the
product of PS101 but do you have a paper that says so, or that (s)he
has any education at all. And if I'm to compare several candidates I
want to see scores on standardized tests.




And, armed with the information this applicant lived the first 15 years of
his life on a fiberglass island like a hermit....would you think he'd fit
into a busy office, factory, "department" in a large, heavily-populated
business? I wouldn't.

Home schooling's isolationists are bad enough. Pile that on top of living
with those independent-minded hermits at the dock and I think you're doing
serious damage to the poor kid. Take him on a cruise, by all means! But
make him live years on a boat....NOT.


--
Larry

You know you've had a rough night when you wake up and your outlined in
chalk.

Stephen Trapani wrote in
:

The key problem on a boat is the child needs to have opportunities to
explore what interests them. This could present some major challenges to
the homeschooling parent on a boat.


There's the point. Maybe the child doesn't WANT to live on the boat
without his friends, particularly his girlfriend, without his bike, without
a real neighborhood full of other kids to socialize with.
But...alas....DADDY DOES and he's forced to go. He may not tell Daddy he
doesn't want to live on that cramped little isolated island in the middle
of nowhere because he'll cause a fight, hurt daddy's feelings, etc.....but
he's lost interest in the novelty...no TV...no internet...no friends...no
school activities...just living on that deserted desert island of
fiberglass.

--
Larry

You know you've had a rough night when you wake up and your outlined in
chalk.

Larry W4CSC wrote:

Stephen Trapani wrote in
:


The key problem on a boat is the child needs to have opportunities to
explore what interests them. This could present some major challenges to
the homeschooling parent on a boat.



There's the point. Maybe the child doesn't WANT to live on the boat
without his friends, particularly his girlfriend, without his bike, without
a real neighborhood full of other kids to socialize with.
But...alas....DADDY DOES and he's forced to go. He may not tell Daddy he
doesn't want to live on that cramped little isolated island in the middle
of nowhere because he'll cause a fight, hurt daddy's feelings, etc.....but
he's lost interest in the novelty...no TV...no internet...no friends...no
school activities...just living on that deserted desert island of
fiberglass.


Yeah, I'm against that.

--
Stephen

-------

For any proposition there is always some sufficiently narrow
interpretation of its terms, such that it turns out true, and
some sufficiently wide interpretation such that it turns out
false...concept stretching will refute *any* statement, and will
leave no true statement whatsoever.
-- Imre Lakatos