Unschooling Bentley Family on The Today Show, October 14, 2011

[lovelyxskinny]

they're obviously never going to have a job that pays if they have no common knowledge of anything. they'll surely be made fun of and they should be but it'll only be their parents fault.

[hortulanus94]

I was homeschooled.

But i'm gonna unschool my kids :)

[RussellsParadox]

This was not as abysmal as some of the mainstream coverage on the unschooling movement, but holy hell, is it cringe-worthy. Just look at Matt Lauer flailing his arms. "I'm not even remotely familiar with the topic that I'm reporting on on national TV, but boy is it a bad idea!"

Ultimately, this piece is saying, "Yeah, unschooling would be nice, but only if you're super rich and you're not worried about your kid being a little stupid."

I mean, Christ. Get a clue.

[elizabethbarone]

It irks me that people are worried about how to compare children to each other. Stop comparing them! All children are different.

[undave242]

The republic school system is rarely anything more than tax payer paid daycare.

[gdbentley]

Zoë has already chosen to take college courses in algebra, geology, chemistry, and astro-biology (in addition to her independent study in those and many other areas). Unschooling just means following your child's interests; it doesn't preclude taking classes.

[dannonstewart9]

I like how one of the young ladies wants to be a NASA scientist and has no "formal" education. I'm not saying that unschooling your kids is a bad thing, but what I'm thinking is that wouldn't she need someone who is trained in the sciences? At her age she would be a sophmore in high school and would learn pre-calculus by now, a math requirement that is going to be useful in the field that she wants to be in when she grows up.

[areyoublinddenver]

Lauer just doesn't get it.

[mamalac]

Woohoo! I love seeing how this WORKS! So tired of the old arguments about "gaps" in education....Honestly, what person does NOT have gaps, no matter how he or she learns?! :P

[lumwu]

I don't remember anything that I learned from private, public school, and college except for reading, writing and some arithmetic. School is nothing more than about exercising your memory skills, so are tests. I have aced all sorts of academic tests, yet I have forgotten everything that I haven't used on a day to day basis. Everything I learned to make an income to support myself, I learned on the job site. In fact I had to unlearn a whole bunch of bs I learned from school.

[TheTravelfool]

Wow this was just yesterday!