In case you missed it in his links, there is a beautifully succinct description of unschooling by the David Friedman, who I am pretty sure is the author of Machinery of Freedom and son of Milton.
He explains it all, bar the bit about why the brain works best when it is not subject to coercion. (Lest we forget: that the mind of the learner must act first in every act of learning and that all successful learning is therefore autonomous. That coercion may be defined as being forced to enact a theory that is not active in the mind, and that this reduces the capacity for creativity, criticism and rationality. )
"He explains it all, bar the bit about why the brain works best when it is not subject to coercion."
ReplyDeleteHow to explain the fact that if many people are forced to learn French with fear of consistent punishment, they do learn French.
The mind works *better* when it is not subject to coercion. Doesn't mean the learner doesn't absorb some things when the outstanding experience is one of coercion...just that this limits the capacity for good thought.
ReplyDeleteOf course probably there were moments when the fear wasn't all encompassing and uncoerced learning did occur.
How do we know the mind works better? Was research made on this?
ReplyDeleteActually, the mind works well during times of distress. You know the time slowing feeling people talk about during a car crash?
Maybe research could be made where a group of unwilling people who are forced to learn French compete with extrinsic discipline and another group willingly passionate about learning French.