Hacker News Reader

Comment by somethoughts | Hacker News Reader

I think a safer approach would be "home after schooling" or to follow this new terminology "unafterschooling".

Basically give kids time for unstructured learning using the hours after school/after homework study time that are currently effectively used up toiling at zero sum, super structured activities strictly aimed at getting into college.

View on HN

So you're going to send kids to 7 or so hours of being pressured into paying attention to stuff they're generally not that interested in learning, then some amount of time doing mostly make-work activities, and you expect them to be interested in exploring learning opportunities in the minimal remaining bits of time? (And for older grades, they're also getting up well before their bodies want to.)

Would you be able to sustain enough interest to really delve into something when you're that tired out?

Structured activities still work, because the motivation is largely external. I reserve judgement as to how good that is for the kids doing them, but I will agree that it's a workable setup.

IMHO, you can't go halfway. Either you fill up their time with supposedly educational/socializing opportunities, or you give them enough time and space to explore based on intrinsic motivation. With your "unafterschooling", your kids will naturally use it for playtime or zombie screen time. One, or possibly both, of those is likely to be the best possible use of that time, so that's ok; just don't expect them to pick up new skills when you've stacked the odds against it.

(Yes, I'm biased. I'm homeschooling -- not unschooling -- my kids, and there was a major readjustment period to get free of the "school attitude" before things started to click. We couldn't have done that when school was still in their headspace.)

Kids learn through play and curiosity. I learned vast amounts after school from video games, and I read before going to sleep.

Personally I could have used more socialization, but there is plenty of time after school to learn.

High Schooler here. I've been teaching myself Vulkan and am writing a videogame, but I'm so exhausted on weekdays from my course-load that I only work on it on weekends and breaks. I wish I could put more time into it but trying to program after 6+ hours of school and then homework is a nightmare, and that code usually ends up being buggier than my normal output, with low productivity.

I spent years of my precious spare time making games from junior high through college. Lost out on some social development, and made too many fan projects based on other people's IP.

I'd recommend trying to keep life balanced. If it refreshes you then enjoy. Just don't burn out on it or get stuck in perfectionism. Find that happy zone where you can feel productive or entertained or have something to share.

This is great, but I think, learning Vulkan and writing a video game can be hard within the same project. Don't burn out.

If you want a suggestion, I'd keep learning Vulkan on a side, but chose a higher-level graphics library for actually programming a game. Just to keep yourself interested and to see progress quicker. There are so many decisions and design choices in making a good game, so keeping graphics simple and small can give you more creative freedom. (If that's your final goal.)

That's awesome - I think that would be the ideal as it pretty much replicates life after you graduate from college as a software engineer.

As the other two comments allude to, I think the keys are using it as a learning process to learn time management (i.e. avoid burn-out and over committing) and how to make it social (i.e. find other classmates to work on it with you).

Huh, most of the time I went to school in Germany it was 4 and a half hours (6 time slots, 45 minutes each)

> (And for older grades, they're also getting up well before their bodies want to.)

So true. There's nothing about the school start time that makes sense other than enabling parents to go to work afterwards.

Though I feel the same about my morning standup as a 38 year old...

I agree - homeschooling by parents who are able to, experienced and motivated is by far the best option. Not all parents have that ability/motivation.

I think the key is to not have it get into a 7 hours of structured school plus 4 hours of structured after school extracurriculars (i.e. sports, piano or any other competitive zero sum activities etc.) where an 'adult' is telling what activities to complete. Basically in such a schedule in no part of the day has the child done any activity where they thought for themselves.

Would much rather give them time in their remaining 4 hours to provide some structure on how to research an area/project for focus and create something self directed.

I would have thought this too until the pandemic forced my wife and I to see exactly what our first grader was “learning” at the 10/10 school. It was shockingly below his abilities, hyperbolically shocking. Forcing him to do that work and then expecting him to do actually enriching work is at best unfair. We’re trying to figure out what to do next but both private and homeschooling are asking a lot :p

I noticed the same thing. COVID and at-home-Zoom schooling has been an eye opener about the curriculum for my seven year old. When I have a work break, I occasionally sit in her learning area and watch. She's so bored as they again and again go over subjects she already mastered last year. She learned how to open another window and tile them, so now she does her entire slate of homework in parallel on the side while the class re-does single-digit addition because a few kids still don't know it.

Not sure how much of this are special challenges specific to remote learning and Zoom and how much of it is just that the curriculum has to be tailored towards the slowest learners.

In other words, a 1970s childhood.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com