What is the definition of "unschooling"? Is it a game mechanic or player support?

[awolfinthewind]

Success Criteria:

1. Unschooling defined and added to the glossary.

OR

1. deprecated from use altogether and replaced or dropped from the LG lexicon

[simonlguild]

Adam: I'm a little conflicted about the word "unschooling" I like the idea of inviting people to challenge their experiences at schools and demand more/different But I'm concerned about the idea of having anything "school" related in our glossary because it seems to draw us into a conversation that we don't really need to have.

[simonlguild]

Will: I am not very attached to the word unschooling. What matters is a direct examination and critique of the values, behaviors, systems of thought and habits that schools create in people. My experience in New Mexico with BLAST was that being direct about that early was a central part of people's ability to rethink -- and re-feel -- their relationship to education. Even with that, it was something we had to work on consistently within ourselves. It is definitely not enough for us to just offer a new way. 12 years of school imprints on people from an early age and shape people's patterns of thought. Offering a new system without examining that is equivalent to saying "Lets not be sexist." Its not just the external forms, it is the internal patterning. People bring schooling in with them. Its implicit. That's all theory, though. I see that what I need to do is define the specific learning outcomes so that you can look at them concretely.

[simonlguild]

Proposal: Drop the word 'unschooling' from both front and back of house at LG. Use the term 'unlearning' to include a broader range of influence such as family, cultural as well as schooling. @WillGrant, @awolfinthewind, @tannerwelsh, thoughts....

[tannerwelsh]

:+1: to unlearning over unschooling. Understanding that learning is happening all the time, and often in ways that form dysfunctional abilities/knowledge/beliefs, and that we can also learn to unlearn – these are all critical skills of a self-aware learner.

[tannerwelsh]

Unschooling or deschooling may come up in a systemic approach to unlearning, but it doesn't need to be a primary focus IMHO.

[awolfinthewind]

Agreed. I prefer unlearning to be a general bucket and we can create challenges around family or school or any other system of influence and "pre-game learning" for Players/Teams to decide which ones they want to pursue.

On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 8:26 PM, Tanner Welsh notifications@github.com wrote:

Unschooling or deschooling may come up in a systemic approach to unlearning, but it doesn't need to be a primary focus IMHO.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LearnersGuild/learning-os/issues/110#issuecomment-179414472 .

[simonlguild]

Proposal: Drop the word 'unschooling' from both front and back of house at LG. Add the term 'unlearning' to the glossary Unlearning defined as: Learning is happening all the time, in both functional and dysfunctional ways and is influenced by past experiences of learning, both functional and dysfunctional. Unlearning is to examine the way that one learns, explore what has influenced the ways that one learns, examine the efficacy of the ways that one learns, and discard, or unlearn, those ways that are not effective.

My orientation is to default to make what we think is important part of the game mechanic. I propose that this be part of the game mechanics and that we develop challenges that explore these issues.

[simonlguild]

For review https://github.com/LearnersGuild/learning-os/blob/sm/unschooling/GLOSSARY.md

[simonlguild]

@shereefb

Also not sure where to log the proposal to make it part of game mechanics...

[tannerwelsh]

Reopening because looks like this got closed in Asana, not here.

[tannerwelsh]

Created PR #204, needs review