We are homeschooling our kids. My wife does 99% of the work and I help analyze and strategize how we structure things. The decision to homeschool has pushed my wife and I deep into analyzing what school actually is.
What’s the point of school?
Or a better question: What’s a good use of those young years in a human life?
A productive use of that time is learning how to learn.
Then you can gain more knowledge and skills, which increases your power.
Your power is your ability to survive and thrive in the midst of an ever-changing chaotic world.
The more power you have, the more likely you are to be successful in any situation.
This type of power gives a person healthy self-confidence knowing they can be self-reliant and independent in life if needed.
Does our modern school system build this type of self-confidence?
Is there a better method than our modern liberal arts education system?
Yes.
Here it is:
A better way to learn
- Choose one thing you’re curious about and learn everything you can.
- Go as deep as possible by consuming all types of information bout it.
- Talk to people who know more about it than you.
- Learn the history of it.
- Read books about it.
- Watch movies and documentaries about it.
- Listen to podcasts about it.
- Experiment with it.
- Play video games related to it.
- Talk to A.I. about it.
- Listen to songs about it.
- View art related to it.
- Eat foods related to it.
- Learn a dance about it.
- Think about it.
- Document your learning journey from multiple angles as you satisfy your natural curiosity.
- Write about it.
- Photograph it.
- Make videos about it.
- Write a song about it.
- Make art inspired by it.
- Write code to build something about it.
- Map out the knowledge you gain as you connect the dots.
- Share what you learn as you go.
- Let your new expertise turn into real projects
- Write and publish a book about it.
- Make a movie about it.
- Build a business around it.
Whatever it is, you’ll gain an actual perspective on the world, life, and people by going extremely deep learning about it.
You’ll pick up useful bits of other subjects along the way, but the goal is to go deep enough to find some actual truth to stand on.
Then you can relate to the world with more context.
This makes it easier to expand your understanding of the world since you can now work from that deep place of understanding outward.
This is also more fun and more effective than government schools’ authorized curriculum.
Once you’ve reached a depth where your curiosity is satisfied, move along to another topic. You may have discovered something along your depth journey that sparked even more curiosity. Go down that path.
Now you’re enjoying the process and becoming an expert in something that is naturally interesting to you.
There is great value you in having deep knowledge and experience on a specific topic.
Why tolerate a lesser method?
There’s no objective reason to tolerate it from the student/family perspective.
But because the government has its own incentives, they attempt to educate masses of students with similar curriculum and optimize for the efficiency of the system.
The current school system has conflicting incentives.
- Student Focused: Optimize for the deep useful education of the students.
- Teacher Focused: Optimize for well-being and convenience of teachers.
- System Focused: Optimizes for administrative efficiency.
- Social Focus: Optimize for social metrics based on current political movements.
- Ideal: Optimize for all humans involved in teaching and learning to thrive during and after school.
Home schoolers have an advantage here since they can design the structure of their learning how they see fit.
Aim higher
Take ownership of your personal growth and the education of your family.
The basic principle:
Build connections with reality by going deep into one area of curiosity and discussing what you learn with others.
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