This piece is a powerful read as a non-parent and I have all the empathy for everyone living with small humans these days. It also contains a paragraph that shores up my discomfort with self-directed learning.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/what-weve-stolen-our-kids/615211/

Self-directed learning (by nomenclature and design) turns a child's internal life into their entire education. It means their hobbies become school and the line between their internal self and external self is blurred - or blown up - by the adults around them.

Which, isn't to say there aren't advantages to SDE and/or radical unschooling (I actually saw a piece on "feral unschooling" - I elected to not read) but rather, to ask: what are the implications when we organize every aspect of a child's world around their interests?

What are the implications when we tell white children their interests are the driving force adults around them use to organize themselves (which is what SDE and unschooling asks, or at least that's my understanding)?

And the counter-claim to this likely something along the lines of, "well, 'traditional' schooling.. etc. etc. etc." Sure. Okay.

IMO, it's worth reading the Committee of Ten reports where they lay out their argument for a "traditional" education. https://books.google.com/books/about/Report_of_the_Committee_of_Ten_on_Second.html?id=1WYWAAAAIAAJ

The reports are mostly reactive, not prescriptive. They were describing what was happening across the country and what they recommended moving forward - they controlled no policy levers. They were just a group of dudes who liked this thing called "public education."