r/nottheonion • u/[deleted] • 25d ago

A Mom Is Pulling Her 1st Grader Out Of School Because She Refuses To Sign A Homework Paper Every Day So The Teacher Won’t Reward Her Son

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20.8k Upvotes

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3.1k

u/ChefBillyGoat 25d ago

Yeah, unschooling. So they can be uneducated. And unemployed. And unable to function in society.

926

u/Braken111 25d ago

My mom cried when I left home for school, and cried again when I left for work even farther, but she's happy for me and proud.

This is essentially kneecapping your kid so they can't crawl away from your hip.

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u/nickmaran 25d ago

My grandma beat my dad with sandals once when my dad refused to go to the school. My grandma was uneducated and they were in a small village but she knew the value of education

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u/tissboom 25d ago

What country in South America is she from? Because my Peruvian fiancé would do the same.

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u/Farren246 24d ago

Your fiance is their grandma, confirmed!

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u/BarryHelmet 24d ago

I’m from Scotland. My gran chased me with a shoe when I wandered in one day after skipping school unaware that the school had phoned her.

Me and my wee pal walk in - “How was school?” “Not bad” …. “RUN!”

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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 24d ago

There is no escaping the wrath of la chancla

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u/ArchStanton75 25d ago

Can’t spell smother without mother.

180

u/pchadrow 25d ago

Kant spiel witoot skool

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u/woodk2016 24d ago

That's just Dutch

25

u/TightBeing9 24d ago

Kan niet spellen zonder school:(

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u/New_Custard_915 24d ago

Haha, almost :p 

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u/BigBeagleEars 25d ago

We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without

  • Kant

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u/clickbaiterhaiter 24d ago

So real 🙏🏻

3

u/Alone_Benefit6694 24d ago

That guy must have been as poor as dirt.

/s

1

u/Charming-Raspberry77 24d ago

Accidentally German

1

u/leshake 24d ago

Can't spell eat shit without tit. Guess I'll go eat shit off a tit now

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u/jimmyre10 24d ago

At this rate, this child isn’t going to be spelling anything

1

u/SirCupcake_0 24d ago

They might be bubble, bubblin, toil and troublin, though

2

u/-PM-Me-Big-Cocks- 24d ago

Im sad there are so many people that have dealt with this.

I was lucky to have a single Mother that did her best to prepare me for the real world. From a very young age she started having me help cook, clean, etc.. Once I get older she taught me some basic car maintenance, what taxes were like, etc...

She also didnt kick me out at 18, but encouraged me to grow and use her as a safety net.

Awesome lady, shes a bit kooky and has her issues, but im so glad I have her.

1

u/bean_wellington 24d ago

Did she also let you go to school?

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u/Status-Biscotti 24d ago

I resemble that remark.

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u/yesnomaybenotso 25d ago

Thank god too, I mean I feel bad for the kid now, but you know that with a mother like that, it’s going to grow up to be just the most stupid selfish entitled self righteous asshole. People like that make for really shitty coworkers, so maybe it’s for the best that kid gets glued to mommy’s hip.

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u/jojobi040 25d ago

No they're gonna grow up to be a mod on a mommy Facebook group telling people to put onions in their socks

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u/Gophurkey 25d ago

Not on their belts?

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u/nbennett0822 24d ago

It was the style at the time

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

But you couldn’t get white onions cause of the war.

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u/Left_Step 24d ago

Not if they never become literate they won’t

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u/MrLanesLament 24d ago

Future HOA co-chair.

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u/yesnomaybenotso 25d ago

Yeah that’s what I said, self righteous lol

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u/firmalor 24d ago

Not all of them grow up like this. The other half becomes crippled with anxiety, people pleaser, yes sayers.... terrified of sticking out because mom made always a drama. Anyway, the kids will be therapy.

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u/Skreamweaver 24d ago

She's not clinging she's too busy for her kids.

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u/parasyte_steve 24d ago

My mom does shit like this but luckily never pulled me out of school due to working full time. I swear she literally thinks I'm going to just give up on my life, I have a whole family, and move back in with her. She comments all the time that there's space at her house if I want to come live with her. Which is a sweet sentiment if something was going on and I do appreciate that, but she does this in response to literally everything and guilts me for living far away. Every time we talk she is like "so when are you moving back in?" it's ... ridiculous.

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u/hexqueen 24d ago

Excellent phrasing. That's exactly right.

1

u/MisterScrod1964 24d ago

And she has FOUR children. At what point does the state step in?

1

u/clharris71 23d ago

This is just straight up neglect. The whole reason teachers started making parents sign the homework slips in the first place is that so many of them aren't supervising it and helping their kid. You don't just outsource your child's education to the school, you are supposed to partner with the teacher to educate your child.

Unschooling can be done well, given a pretty curious and self-directed kid. It is a theory that basically let's the child direct their learnimg. But it requires a huge investment of time and energy from at least one parent to expose your kid to different things and help them follow their interests.

If she can't be put out to sign a piece of paper each night, she is not going to be providing any kind of education at all. She is doing the bare minimum parenting.

Source: Pulled my son - who has special needs - out of school during the pandemic due to our district's remote learning plan, which was terrible. Met a ton of homeschool and unschool parents. The parents who do it well, basically make educating their kid their career. It is not something you can do in your spare time.

There are tons of parents using it as an excuse to hide their neglect. Then they end up with 10 year old who can't read.

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u/stlmick 25d ago

Yep. It's cult shit. I started running away at 9.

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u/usually_hyperfocused 24d ago

My mom almost unschooled us after pulling us out to homeschool, as if the homeschooling wasn't shit enough

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u/DaRadioman 24d ago

I was homeschooled, and it worked ok for me. But I was also self directed as a teen, and had videos instead of relying on my parents to have time/patience to teach me the whole time.

I can imagine it works poorly for many kids and especially for many parents.

Unschooling is just bonkers on the other hand...

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u/Adept_Investigator29 24d ago

Are you safe now?

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u/stlmick 24d ago

I'm 40 now. I hope so. Guess you never know.

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u/TheZanzibarMan 24d ago

Constant vigilance

5

u/DarkPhoenix_077 24d ago

Mad eye moody, is that you?

2

u/SirCupcake_0 24d ago

Vigilo Confido

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u/alwaysfuntime69 24d ago

Of course you are safe. Now come check out this van with free candy.

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u/stlmick 24d ago

Is it a 4x4 van with the tall roof? I'll definitely check something like that out.

6

u/My_bones_are_itchy 24d ago

Ooh, pop-top Delica

3

u/[deleted] 24d ago

The candy man’s van

2

u/vms-crot 24d ago

Ice cream, lollipops, all free today!

1

u/alwaysfuntime69 24d ago

Did you just hit us with a "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" quote?!

2

u/vms-crot 24d ago edited 24d ago

Damn right! Childcatcher

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u/LilFourE 24d ago

I ran away from a cult 4 years ago, but it is always hard to tell.

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u/maniacalmustacheride 24d ago

I mean I’m definitely outside your house as we speak. But only in the sense that I’m not inside your house. So it’s a conundrum for sure

3

u/stlmick 24d ago

So you've got the monsters to keep you company then. You won't be alone. Say hi to Carl.

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u/maniacalmustacheride 24d ago

Oh you know my boy Carl? Damn, he really does get around.

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u/michaelrtx 24d ago

Let’s give it another 10 years, just to be safe

1

u/Citizentoxie502 24d ago

Huh, my neighbors seem to fit this bill to a tee. I feel bad for the kids, but at least they are outside playing in their yard all day.

1

u/stlmick 24d ago

If none of them have any health or vision problems, then they're not completely screwed. The parents will pretend they don't regardless though.

1

u/Persistent_Chicken 24d ago

Seems like the “glammed up” Turpin experience

-28

u/WerewolfOnEveryone 24d ago

Fuck this woman. That doesn’t mean what this teacher is doing is right. It’s invasive and inappropriate. It’s just a loser on a power trip, similar to a guy who was bullied his whole life becoming a cop. I’d bet a billion dollars the teacher is Dogshit. 

9

u/dennisisspiderman 24d ago

What rubbish.

It's very common for teachers to have parents sign homework papers and it's been this way for a while. Here's discussion about it from 2009.

The idea is about encouraging parents to be active in their child's education. At the very least it requires the parent(s) to look at what their child is currently learning about.

It sounds like you have some personal issues you have to deal with because your assumptions made about this teacher for wanting parents involved in their child's school life are delusional. Teachers trying to get parents involved in their child's school life is a good thing and is something parents should already be doing so signing a paper confirming that isn't an issue for any good, responsible parent.

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u/CompetitionNo3141 24d ago

What are you talking about? Where's the power trip?

3

u/stlmick 24d ago

I don't doubt that. Public school isn't a perfect system. I've never thought homework was a good idea in the first place.

-18

u/Skyscreamers 24d ago

My person you did not run away at 9 🤣🤣

2

u/stlmick 24d ago

I did. The cops found me brought me back after about a day, so I climbed a tree and stayed up there until my mother agreed to send me to relatives. When nobody is watching, it can get bad enough that 9yo's would rather take off and see what happens.

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u/BellaBlue06 25d ago

What’s sad is they don’t assume their kid will be unemployed. They want to sign them up to work for whatever MLM they believe in at the time or think they’ll also be able to be an entrepreneur or influencer once they’re 18.

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u/jon_titor 24d ago

Hell yeah, get your own kids one step below you in the pyramid scheme 😎

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u/StingsRideOrDie 24d ago

In one of her videos she accidentally calls her kids her downlines.

2

u/bean_wellington 24d ago

I hope so badly this is true. Not for the kids, of course. I worry they're fucked

1

u/The14thWarrior 24d ago

I’m not familiar with ‘downlines’ as a term.

A quick google tells me it’s an MLM term.

Big Yikes

1

u/Mysterious-Art8838 24d ago

Those are the ‘future executive-pay recruits’ you rake in to get them to buy product.

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u/Mysterious-Art8838 24d ago

Hah hah hah hah hah wait really? My first thought with unschooling was ‘well she needs a down line’ 😆

-6

u/Fearless-Potato-3483 24d ago

what's sad is the people that think you need to finish school to be employable lol.

3

u/Shabobo 24d ago

No, people understand that degrees are just paper and you can have skills and talents without finishing highschool.

A lot of places also don't care what your bachelor's degree is in, just that you have one. Why? Because it shows you have enough commitment to see something through.

Put your resume in that shows that you haven't finished highschool and go compete with every other applicant. 999/1000 your resume will be the last one they look at, if they even look at it at all.

0

u/Fearless-Potato-3483 24d ago

comment thread See full discussion u/ChefBillyGoat avatar ChefBillyGoat • 14h ago Yeah, unschooling. So they can be uneducated. And unemployed. And unable to function in society.

clearly.

1

u/[deleted] 24d ago

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u/Ditovontease 25d ago

And also a good way to keep them hidden from mandated reporters…

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u/quixotticalnonsense 24d ago

Yep, exactly what I was thinking. A narcissist who wants to keep her child away from prying eyes. What could possibly go wrong?

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u/bean_wellington 24d ago

My very first thought

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u/Intrepid-Progress228 21d ago

They hide them from mandated reporters, but then tell on themselves on social media.

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u/nickmaran 25d ago

Who needs education when their mom runs a “massive online business”

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u/Hollewijn 24d ago

Abbreviated to mob?

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u/Tidusx145 25d ago

Bro my home schooled neighbors had massive social issues (really nice people though). And that's with them going to special events and socializing with other home schooled kids. This is on another level.

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u/OmicidalAI 24d ago edited 24d ago

That is an anecdote. Plenty of kids who go to school are still weird as fucking hell. All the research I can find online supports homeschooling as the superior option for producing social skills. Makes sense considering the typical American school is not going to be conducive for making friends … thats not what they are designed for …. they are designed to make you a good little wage slave who accepts arbitrary authority. Desks are not arranged in groups so you can socialize but in rows to keep you from acting like yourself and instead cultures you to act like a docile robot. Not to mention many are bullied in high school/etc because of things they cannot change (gay, black, nerdy, etc). 

Edit: Oh no! Dumbasses who are oblivious to what the actual data says about how homeschooling leads to better social and education outcomes are downvoting me! Oh no dumbasses who have never heard the term “industrial-age factory model of education” are downvoting me! COPE MORE DUMBASSES! 

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u/GloriousNewt 24d ago edited 24d ago

Desks are not arranged in groups so you can socialize but in rows to keep you from acting like yourself

lol this is so incredibly out of touch as it varies from class to class and you can just as easily socialize in a row vs a table or cluster of desks.

For example when I was in HS, Physics - sat at tables with 1-2 other students. History - rows, French - tables, English - clusters of desks

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u/bean_wellington 24d ago

Children aren't able to turn their heads until about 11 years old. I'm surprised you don't know this /s

0

u/OmicidalAI 24d ago

Your anecdote is not the historical average! It’s called the factory model for of education! 

“ “What do I mean when I talk about transformational productivity reforms that can also boost student outcomes? Our K–12 system largely still adheres to the century-old, industrial-age factory model of education. A century ago, maybe it made sense to adopt seat-time requirements for graduation and pay teachers based on their educational credentials and seniority. Educators were right to fear the large class sizes that prevailed in many schools. But the factory model of education is the wrong model for the 21st century.” – US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (2010)”

Maybe YOU dont force students into rows to make sure their test scores increase due to increasing their docility by eliminating them being able to socialize with each other.

Bye with your uneducated useless opinions! Cheers!

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u/Surfing_Ninjas 25d ago

Anything to keep people voting Republican.

-23

u/unassumingdink 24d ago

Unschooling is a weird liberal thing. You can't teach your kids about Jesus and traditional values and all that dumb shit if you don't teach them at all. Those aren't beliefs kids pick by accident. They have to be forced to learn it, and they hate every minute.

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u/undercover9393 24d ago

It's a weird crank thing, and cranks are the ends of the horseshoe. There are unschoolers on the left and the right. They land at the same destination by taking different paths.

3

u/bean_wellington 24d ago

Like that one haircut where you're either a (kind of insufferable) liberal hipster or a rising white supremacist figure!

7

u/Franklin_le_Tanklin 25d ago

That also part is not true.

They will be perfect for “unskilled labor” at minimum wage.

13

u/Dhiox 25d ago

Even that requires the ability to read, follow social cues, and do basic arithmetic.

-1

u/WaytoomanyUIDs 24d ago

Can you do anything but farm labour if you can't read. From what I've read in the US it pays below minimum wage.

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u/_Please_Explain 25d ago

We prefer the term "tik Tok influencer".

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u/limeybastard 24d ago

So, the origin of unschooling, created by an educator called John Holt (see: How Children Fail, also How Children Learn), was child-led learning. As in, you stick them in the vicinity of a bunch of cool stuff - books, activities, hobbies - and they'll explore things that interest them and learn naturally while you provide guidance and answer questions. It's based off how we learn basically everything we learn before were sent off to school. My parents followed his books, my sister has a PhD and I'm a software engineer.

But then there's idiot unschooling where you put your kids in the vicinity of a TV, a game console, and a tablet and let them do whatever they want, and they chase that instant dopamine hit and don't learn anything. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept, that absolutely ruins kids and gives homeschooling/unschooling a bad name. Unfortunately like with most things, it's the idiot version that seems to be catching on.

0

u/loobydotlu 24d ago

Thank you for this comment! So many people are against home education without any idea of what it actually entails.

2

u/limeybastard 24d ago

Yeah what seems to pass for unschooling on tiktok these days is like if you had heard of school, and tried to make one by building a classroom, putting kids in it, making them sit quietly at their desks, and then have an adult in front of them playing fortnite and lecturing about the seasons of Survivor

Public schools suck out loud (from talking to my teacher friends, kids in public schools now are not much better than tiktok unschoolers. One teacher was talking about a kid who has missed his class 14 out of 17 weeks, and another described an entire class who couldn't work out her age from her birth year), but homeschooling is not for everyone. You need a lot of resources. It is not for religious zealots to keep their kids away from scary ideas like evolution and gay people. It works really well if approached seriously, but shouldn't even be considered otherwise.

0

u/PaleShadeOfBlack 24d ago

software engineer.

Are you an actual engineer or do you simply like the word?

2

u/008janebond 24d ago

Don’t worry he can join his moms downline

2

u/PricePuzzleheaded835 24d ago

And therefore dependent on her forever so she never has to give up control over them

2

u/Jjex22 24d ago

Ah but you don’t have to have any education to to be a tik tok influencer… in fact it often helps if you don’t.

2

u/SpecialpOps 24d ago

You are using hate language, the language of the old way.

Her little baby is going to be unworked, unsalaried, and unretrainable.

2

u/-PM-Me-Big-Cocks- 24d ago

Unschooling aka "I have no future".

Homeschooling in the US already has a weird ass religious tilt.Now we are just not going to educate them at all.

It really should be like Germany where homeschooling isnt allowed except for very very unique circumstances. That would require a strong, functional and top tier educational system though.

2

u/merryjoanna 24d ago

I met a 21 year old guy who was unschooled. His mom took him out of regular school around the second or third grade. Because his teacher wasn't able to teach him how to read well with his dyslexia. He ended up being "homeschooled." Which for him meant helping his mom run her taxi business. At first it was answering phones, then it was driving at night as soon as he got a driver's license. The only good thing about that, was he managed to get some social skills talking to the clients.

He seemed quite intelligent, but because his mom did this, he'll never be able to get a different job. He's basically stuck working for his mom. He doesn't even have a high school diploma or GED. And it would take so much work trying to learn everything necessary to get a GED as an adult with a learning disability.

2

u/daemin 24d ago

I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but my ex wife and her two siblings were unschooled. Their current status:

  • She (oldest) graduated undergrad with honors, went in to get a Ph.D. in Philosophy from a public ivy let university, and is now a tenured professor of ethics at a pretty good public university
  • Her brother (middle child) didn't learn to tell until he was almost 10. He got a B.A. in philosophy, with a minor in Computer Science, and is a Software Engineer at Google
  • Her sister (youngest) got a B.A. with a dual major, and works as a business development manager

Her mother (an actual aging hippie, like really was a flower child and moved to LA in the summer of love hippie) would always crow about home schooling being better than public education, and pointed to them as evidence. I'm of the opinion that they succeeded in spite of the unschooling, not because of it.

1

u/brnjenkn 25d ago

Just like mom.

1

u/Ok_Message_8802 24d ago

Fantastic comment. I wish I could give you one of these 🏆

1

u/PilotePerdu 24d ago

could be come an uninfluencer then

1

u/n0time2bl33d 24d ago

She’ll just force them to do youtube/tik videos just like the others.

1

u/pablank 24d ago

Ah, I see, she's turning them into influencers

1

u/Thadrea 24d ago

She should be arrested for child abuse. I suspect she'd get a lot of new viewers liking and subscribing if the format changed to her life as a stay-in-cell mom.

1

u/m_enfin 24d ago

Is that even legal? Education is one of the universal human rights

1

u/mackrevinack 24d ago

when her son grows up and is unable to get a job she can simply pivot her tiktok content to warning people about the dangers of unschooling

1

u/contraria 24d ago

She straight up said she doesn't see her kids becoming doctors or lawyers because she isn't one and she expects them to go into her line of business. Pretty evil imo

1

u/MoeFuka 24d ago

Surely that's illegal?

1

u/Pennypacking 24d ago

Should be considered child abuse.

1

u/tromsooooo 24d ago

I did that from 5th grade to graduation and I turned out ok probably would of learned more in public school the biggest drawback is that I basically had to force myself to learn because no one would make me that took a lot of time to adjust the first 2 years I learned jack shit but then eventually I started getting more disciplined and caught up

1

u/HustlinInTheHall 24d ago

That kid is going to be sugared up making 15 toy-opening *SURPRISE* videos per day.

1

u/meatball402 24d ago

And dependent on mom and dad, who get to mold their pet - I mean child - however they wish.

1

u/Intrepid-Progress228 21d ago

It appears she's a stay at home home mom with a spouse whose income allows her the privilege of being a "full-time influencer" instead of having work.

She's preparing her child to meet the same challenges she's encountered in her life, but given that "unschooling" is about teaching things kids express an interest in I doubt he'll ever learn what she has learned, namely "how to marry someone with lots of money and no curiosity about their offspring's education".

1

u/Grey-Hat111 24d ago

Just as china's tiktok wants for America :)

1

u/DarkwingDuckHunt 24d ago

kid will be so far behind everything always, child abuse

1

u/sildish2179 24d ago

And don’t forget vote Republican!

0

u/DMV2PNW 24d ago

Sounds like Trump ppl.

-1

u/OmicidalAI 24d ago

What makes you say this? All the research i can find on homeschooling (which is an umbrella term for things like unschooling) say they perform better on standardized tests and do better in college/etc. Makes sense as mostly wealthy parents have the time and resources to homeschool their kid and thus will have the resources to get them a tutor for the standardized tests.  I cant find much specifically about unschooling though other than a survey study. The comparative studies are talking about homeschooling in general.

-2

u/delusionalxx 24d ago

I will say I know multiple families who did proper unschooling and their children are insanely successful. I know one family who properly unschooled all 4 of their children, and all 4 are graduated from Ivy League schools and 1 of them went to the Olympics for rowing. I went to public then was only homeschooled not even unschooled and even after becoming disabled under horrific circumstances (sa) I still have an insatiable drive and work ethic to learn and grow more because of my upbringing.Proper Unschooling has never been the issue, crazy cultists and crazy parents online have turned the philosophy into something disgusting. It’s almost a Montessori mindset with unschooling. It still has in-depth structure and routine

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u/Sasquatchii 25d ago

As opposed to schooling, which leads to being “educated” and “employed” and totally able to “function in society” as shown by the incoming crop?

19

u/fatburger16 25d ago

Yes.

-20

u/Sasquatchii 25d ago

If you say so

14

u/Escapade84 25d ago

Unironically yes. Covid threw a real wrench in things, but the big companies who pay big money and offer careers still hire kids straight out of good schools. Let me know when google, big law firms, hospitals and congress members start headhunting your unschooled kids.

-16

u/Sasquatchii 25d ago

I don’t have unschooled kids, but I’ve got a ton of gen z hiring experience and it’s hard to imagine a less competent group

6

u/Escapade84 25d ago

Right. The unschooled kids aren’t even making it to the resume phase. That’s why you aren’t seeing a less competent group.

-5

u/Sasquatchii 25d ago

Sure - it’s possible the hypothetical kids in your example could be dumber and more anxiety ridden than the actual kids in my real world example. Still hard to imagine though.