Einstein Never Liked Schools and He Turned Out OK

Daniel of Key-Words pointed out the Salon article "Endless Summer" and it covers a bit of unschooling but, if you ask me, poorly presents it.

For one, there is no mention of Sudbury Valley School one of the few private schools which actively live out the unschooling philosophy, and they have been in business for almost 40 years. Sudval has many graduates so Salon should have at least interviewed one of the early graduates (I've seen on Japanese TV a mother who graduated from sudval and was sending her child to the same school).

For another, books like "Einstein Never Used Flash Cards" point out the value of unstructured learning (at least for preschoolers). Moore Foundation has done studies on the value of delaying schooling until 8 or 10 years (or even later).

I guess what's really needed are books like "Einstein dropped out in highschool but ended up with Nobel Prize" -- OK the title maybe not quite true, but he wasn't your typical obey the teacher and keep his nose to the grind kind of student. He was so "bad" that when he finished college, he had to settle for a patent office job rather than university teaching/researching position.

A side comment: whenever I hear of young child or teenager getting into college I smirk, since those children are precisely the kind of students who will always be good students (i.e., followers) rather than some innovator or revolutionary. Many of the tech innovators are college drop outs: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates (some would argue that Gates was never innovative but he didn't become the richest because he wasn't creative on the business skills), and Michael Dell. They had visions and passions that no amount of degrees would have helped. (Those with degrees innovate in spite of their schooling, if you ask me.)