Reddit reviews Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life

I'm reading a book about how kids learn best through playing, and how our modern education system holds kids back. The book is called Free to Learn. I recommend it to anyone interested in education or raising kids.

I disagree with this article, personally.

More on this subject:

http://reason.com/blog/2015/03/19/giving-kids-help-at-the-end-of-a-gun#fold

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Learn-Unleashing-Instinct-Self-Reliant/dp/0465025994

https://www.amazon.com/Free-Learn-Unleashing-Instinct-Self-Reliant/dp/0465025994

> No, in principle I'm arguing for socialism in some matters.

In reality, I'm not 100% against a ratio of capitalism/socialism, provided we don't violate fundamental rights as outlined by the constitution and the people get what they vote for.

> That's because private security doesn't have to take the role of police departments. It's not unreasonable to think that if there were no police that the nature of private security would change.

I'm not going to continue arguing this point because in reality, I do (presently) think that police/military are necessary; I was really just poking holes in your logic, but this gets exhausting going down that path.

> Science innovation is a factor which drives the economy. The US government currently provides nearly half of the funding for basic research (although this is a new low; in the 60s, the government provided ~70% of basic research funding, and this share only fell below 50% in 2013, through a combination of less funding for science and more private sector funding for science). If we got rid of government funding of basic research, either private industry would have to double what they provide for research, or research will slow, which will slow economic growth.

Could you provide some sort of source to back up these statistics? I'm very interested to learn about this in full color. On its face, it does seem perplexing that the trend is decreasing and yet it's being used as an example for support of government rather than private industry, but I'll have to make my own judgements.

> If your argument depends on magic to work, your argument doesn't work.

Really? Obviously I wasn't saying there was actual magic. I was saying it more in the sense that the money would stay in my bank account where I could figure out how to spend it rather than relying on other people to figure it out for me.

> I'm pointing out that you wouldn't actually have more money to spend because you'd be putting what would have been tax dollars toward to procuring private services for yourself. Since those private services aren't subsidized by having everyone else paying for them, you would be paying more for the private services than you currently are. Unless you forgo all such services, but at that point you wouldn't have enough time in the day to work a paying job anyway.

Ok, since I'm essentially conceding the point on replacing police with security services, I'm going to skip to your next point.

> Are you arguing that more money would fix the problems with education?

No, as I previously established, I do not believe money is magical.

> I agree that there are problems with education right now. But I also believe that everyone should have access to education, and that's not going to happen unless people who don't have children pay part of the tuition for people who do have children but who can't afford private education otherwise.

Your first argument here is that subpar education is better than no education at all, and sure, I'll grant you that. Your second argument is that subpar education won't happen unless education is subsidized socially, and based on the current system, this is true inside the current set of conditions.

But the current set of conditions, as far as education is concerned, is terrible. I come from a family containing a number of teachers and a recurring issue is that they get burnt out because they can't do their jobs because they are forcing kids to parrot things out of books in a specific way, repeat them for tests and never learn things in an in-depth way. Classes are also geared toward the lowest common denominator. And it's no secret why -- our school system was created to breed factory workers!

This is why we've seen a surge in parents choosing to home school utilizing programs like Khan Academy. Even schools are partnering with Khan Academy for their AP programs. The idea here is that the free market (Khan Academy was started by one man filling a need in a largely unregulated way) provides a SELF-DIRECTED education system of far superior quality than our publicly-funded education ever could. Through the Internet (which came about through government funding, I'll grant you), every person (not just children) in the WORLD (not just the US) has access to a world-class education.

Read Free to Learn by Peter Gray. This is a book that talks about letting kids self-educate altogether (skipping homeschooling and any form of education). Now tell me why skipping all forms of government-run schooling would lead to a situation where more children go on to university than they otherwise would?

I think people put far too much faith in the system without questioning it. This is certainly one of those cases.

> Privatizing education might fix some problems, but it would introduce worse ones.

I'm sorry, but how does Khan Academy introduce worse problems? I think you're arguing with the traditional idea of a private school which is somewhat straw-manish of you. There are a variety of types of private school choices.

> We need to find ways to address the problems with the current educational model which preserve guaranteeing access to everyone.

Agreed, and I think we can do that by bolstering these free education systems and increasing expectations rather than lowering them to meet the status quo.

> We also need to ensure that everyone gets the same quality of education. These are difficult problems, and I don't have a solution for them, but I am confident that privatizing the whole system won't fix everything; just look to history - entirely private education systems saw the majority of people simply never getting an education. That's why public education systems were developed in the first place.

Uh, no. That's just false. Public education systems like ours were modeled after factory model schools. In some specific cases, this model was used to increase literacy but mainly, it was to treat children like parts on an assembly line. And that includes throwing out the misfits. Slowly, we've built on it, but building on something terrible doesn't guarantee a good outcome. Compare that to building on something amazing that is imperfect (the U.S. constitution), but generally helps to provide a good outcome.

> They wouldn't have to [compete for your business]. They could be like the cable company, and have it be a race to see who can screw customers over the most without losing them.

They could be like the cable company, except the cable company is a known patchwork of local monopolies. There are certainly ways around this, but lobbying from cable companies has seen that this water has become extremely muddy.

> Capitalistic competition doesn't work as well when what's provided is essentially a necessity for life (in the appropriate time period).

Please provide some cases where pure capitalism in a society/culture like ours has failed to meet the demands for the hierarchy of needs.

> Capitalism isn't about competing for the lowest price, it's about competing for the highest profit.

Agreed. The motive is profit.

> In some cases this can be done by getting more people to pay a cheaper price. But once everyone is buying the product, you can start raising the price until people start to change their provider. If every provider does this, prices go up and people don't have real incentives to switch.

You're describing monopolies (either via one company or via multiple with price fixing). Monopolies are why we have antitrust laws -- the question is whether they actually get exercised and since it's generally not profitable for politicians to carry them out, they don't even go through the motions. Yay for big government, amirite?

> And so you would have less money. I'm not making a moral argument, I'm just pointing out that not paying taxes won't net you more money at the end of the month. The money that you would have paid in taxes would still have to be paid.

Having less money because of paying for things I choose to pay for is far superior.

> I believe that freedom of choice ends when you start harming other people. You don't have the freedom to choose to harm someone else.

Define "harm" here. I maintain that government taking money out of my paycheck without my permission is certainly harmful as it violates some fundamental rights. Few people seem to care about that harm. I think many people see it as "you live in the neighborhood, you pay the dues," and then fail to see how that's like the mafia who offer "protection" in return for "a small monthly contribution."

Try not paying taxes for a year. Men with guns show up. They put you in prison. A prison not meant for rehabilitation, but in reality, made for punishment and trending toward recidivism. You tell me how that's not harmful when you really get down to it.

Sure, this is more roundabout and less direct than, "well, we started paying for everyone's healthcare and now you want to take that AWAY?" But it is skipping its response to a very necessary question: which rights did you violate to begin paying for everyone? This question deserves A LOT more thought, because it's just getting painted right over with the idea that the ends will justify the means.

That's how empires fall.

Yeah, I refer to myself as a recovering A-student. Good at getting A's and doing what others told me to do. Bad at really learning and following my own interests.

I know Peter Gray (blog and recent book) has done some research on self-directed learners and unschoolers. He's very approachable, so feel free to email him and ask. Let me know what you find!

Also, Sudbury Valley published these books about their graduates... Legacy of Trust and The Pursuit of Happiness.

Hm. I've been lead to believe that at school you don't learn real social skills, just how to become part of a peer group (or be bullied by a peer group) your exact age. Even some atheists believe in HSing I just read a book about it https://www.amazon.com/Free-Learn-Unleashing-Instinct-Self-Reliant/dp/0465025994?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_sw_r_pi_dp_FVZFvb0W2DFPH. Think about primitive cultures, the kids ran around in groups of all ages, not segregated into classrooms.

This info is from non witness sources. I don't know any JW in our area who HS, most are actually against it (kids are supposed to be a witness, have their faith tested etc.)

I have no issues with holidays etc although I know DH would. Not trying to argue with you, just share my viewpoint.