The Only Person Dumber Than You Is Your Kid

I recently saw a Yahoo news story that referred to two terms I had never heard before: Unschooling and Consensual Living. These are two of the most terrible ideas I've ever heard of, and the more popular these ideas become the more fucked I think we're all going to be. Since I can't find the article, I've chosen to site the Wikipedia definitions of these terms. First, we'll look at unschooling(Just so you know, the only information I removed for that elipses is the origin of the word unschooling, because it doesn't matter for this discussion):

"The term 'unschooling' refers to a range of educational philosophies and practices that differ markedly from conventional schooling; while often considered to be a subset of homeschooling, unschoolers may be philosophically as estranged from most homeschoolers as they are from the advocates of conventional schooling...While there is significant variation in what is meant by "unschooling", generally speaking, unschoolers believe that the use of standard curricula and conventional grading methods, as well as other features of traditional schooling, are counterproductive to the goal of maximizing the education of each child. Instead, unschoolers typically allow children to learn through their natural life experiences, including game play, household responsibilities, and social interaction. Exploring activities is often led by the children themselves, facilitated by the adults. Child directed play is a key tenet of the unschooling philosophy."

While there are a lot of fancy wordings in there, the core of that statement is this: Unschooling is a form of homeschooling that rejects the use of cirriculum and grading to allow children to learn on their own in activities directed by the children. Proponents of unschooling will argue that it isn't homeschooling, but their kids are expected to learn at home instead of at school, ergo homeschooling. The fact that these parents can't even properly define the world "homeschooling" should be the first major indication that they are completely unqualified to teach anyone anything.

I'm against homeschooling in general because it deprives children of the social interaction that will first help them develop relationships and general social skills that are important for every day life and will then result in them being ridiculed for their every bit of individuality until they emerge a bitter, broken down, productive member of society...with good communication skills. Of course, the whole basis of homeschooling relies on simple truth: the homeschooling parent feels that they are so smart that they can do a better job teaching their kid than the public school system can. Of course, schooling a child is an intensive job that takes a lot of time each day, so it requires that you not only be brilliant, but brilliantly unemployed.

Unschooling, on the other hand, requires that your child be brilliant, or at least that they care about things that no child gives a shit about. In unschooling, everything is supposed to be led by the child. There's a great deal of philosophy behind this regarding the curious nature of children and all sorts of other bullshit that sounds good but won't work in real life. Why won't it work, you ask? There are two simple reasons that your child will not get the proper education simply by being curious and playful:

1. No matter how curious and adventurous your child is, they're not going to run around your house playing and stumble upon anything that suddenly fills them with a yearning to learn their multiplication tables, the history and importance of the Louisiana Purchase, or the difference between the words "there", "their", and "they're".

2. If left to their own devices, your children will be far more interested in discovering what happens to Littlefoot in "The Land Before Time XII" (Yes, it really exists) or finding the level 8 warp pipe in Super Mario Brothers than actually doing anything constructive.

If you think unschooling sounds like the worst idea ever, then you clearly haven't heard of consensual living. Once again, from Wikipedia:

"Consensual Living, CL, is a philosophy derived from the principles of consensus decision-making which advocates a consent-based approach to conflict resolution. The process of finding solutions in this model usually includes the communication of individual needs and the brainstorming of possible solution which will successfully address the needs of all parties, based on finding a common preference.

CL adopts the democratic principle of equality by which the wants and needs of everyone involved are considered equally in the process of problem solving, regardless of an individual’s age or position. Because of this stance, CL is sometimes regarded as a parenting philosophy, where children are considered to have an equal say in family decision making."

Translation: Your child's opinion is just as important as yours and they get an equal say in everything that happens. The problem with this? Your child is a fucking spoiled idiot. Here are some of the many ways in which this can go wrong:

1. You are a single parent of two children. Your two children want ice cream for dinner. You have been outvoted, and the entire family becomes diabetic and dies because your children are fucking idiots.

2. You and one of your 13 year old daughter are at the mall. She insists that she wants this ridiculous outfit that even a hooker would be embarassed to wear. When you say no, she starts throwing a fucking tantrum because your child is a spoiled brat. Since her vote counts as much as yours the decision is deadlocked, but as an adult you understand the concept of being the bigger person (Something that harlet will clearly never learn), and you put the outfit in your shopping cart. This example was actually a real story in the article I read, where the daughter was throwing a tantrum so the mother put the article of clothing in the cart, patted her daughters head and asked "There, don't you feel better now?" Anyway, now that your daughter has this outfit, creepy old men decide that she's "asking for it" and Bob Saget rapes and kills her, just like Bob Saget raped and killed a girl in 1990.

3. You have a doctor's appointment but your three year old child doesn't want to sit around the doctor's office. Because their opinion is just as important as yours, you reschedule the appointment for a month later and hope that your idiot child is up for it that day. You finally go to the doctor only to find out that you have a tumor which has become inoperable. If they had caught it a month earlier they could have removed it, but now you are going to die a slow and painful death because you're a terrible parent.

Of course, not EVERY example is going to end in death, but there's a pretty good chance that one of them will. I don't know why anyone would think that the vote of a baby who doesn't know anything except how to eat, throw up, and shit themselves should be equal to their own, but they deserve whatever terrible fate their children vote them into.

dr_jeebus@sydlexia.com

I find it hard to believe that someone so young could have risen to the rank of admiral