mvm34534

My daughter is 6. By default, I guess we've been unschooling since she was born, but not with intent. When she was 5 I started introducing a few formal lessons in daily reading and math. At first she liked it, then she complained a lot, then I backed off but felt guilty, then I tried again--only more fun this time--and the cycle repeated. I keep thinking that if I can just make it more fun, she'll enjoy doing it. As a result, I've become an "edutainer".

I don't like it.

In some ways it's really working--she picks up quite a bit of knowledge, she retains it, and she gets excited about it (after the initial complaining that we have to do lessons). But unfortunately, if it's not fun she's not interested, which is escalating faster than my creativity and energy can keep up. I keep hoping that soon she'll find something to get really excited about and she'll run with it on her own, but she hasn't yet.

So I'm looking for a better education philosophy and I keep circling back to unschooling, but I have concerns. Can unschooling work for a kid who likes to be in charge but doesn't take responsibility for anything, who gets bored with things that are easy but fears challenge, who has a short attention span and looks to others to keep her motivated/engaged, who immediately rebels against anything that looks/sounds/feels schoolish, who wants to experience new things all the time but isn't at all interested in exploring anything deeply?

And if unschooling can work for kids like this, how do I go about shifting from "edutainer" to unschooler?

Margaret

haydee deldenovese

It feels like you have described my daughter, so it will be very
interesting to read the others comments...
Haydee


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Joyce Fetteroll

On Sep 26, 2012, at 10:07 AM, mvm34534 wrote:

> Can unschooling work for a kid who ...


Unschooling works for all kids.

The question, though, is Can unschooling work for a MOM WHO SEES HER KID AS a "kid who likes to be in charge but doesn't take responsibility for anything, who gets bored with things that are easy but fears challenge, who has a short attention span and looks to others to keep her motivated/engaged, who immediately rebels against anything that looks/sounds/feels schoolish, who wants to experience new things all the time but isn't at all interested in exploring anything deeply?"

Right now your child is failing to be the child you want. Unschooling won't help you "fix" her into that ideal child.

What it can be, if you embrace it, is a way to love and appreciate who the child is that you have.

You can start right now by shifting your view.

* She's someone who has strong opinions. This is a great characteristic for leaders. Such kids can be helped -- AS THEY'RE DEVELOPMENTALLY ABLE -- to be open to others and their ideas. The best way you can help her is by being open to her ideas, by working your own needs in when you're meeting her needs, by working others needs in when you're meeting her needs.

* She's 6. There's a reason people aren't allowed to sign contracts until they're 18. She *shouldn't* be expected to "take responsibility." You should trust that she's still figuring out how the world works.

If by "responsibility" you mean she does damaging things and doesn't seem to care, if you can give us examples, people here can help you see more clearly what's going on. It might be age. It might be a response to your attitude towards her. It might be the result of many little things that have built up. Whatever it is, it's something that makes sense to her in order to protect herself. If so, the deal then would be to find what she feels she needs to protect herself from and get that out of her life.

* She is someone who is grazing right now. She wants to skim the surface to gather a bit about everything. She may get deeper when she's older. Or she may always enjoy knowing a little about everything. That's how her brain makes sense of the world. If you can only respond to certain types of brains, rather than being able to feed what your unique child is reaching for in the way she's reaching for it, unschooling will be very difficult for you.

* She's someone who enjoys sharing the experience of discovery with others. For her it's a social activity. At 6 she realizes you have way more ideas about the world, can show her way more than she can discover on her own with the much lesser skills she has right now. *Right now* doing is far more engaging for her than searching and exploring blindly. As she grows, as her exploring skills grow, that will change, but it's probable she'll always enjoy doing some or most things with someone else rather than on her own.

* She's someone who enjoys learning in ways that are different from what they must limit themselves to in school in order for 1 teacher to pour the exact same information into 30 kids at a time. It's actually surprising that anyone survives it, let alone likes it.

If you can see her for the wonder that she is, if you can embrace her exactly as she is, then you'll be able to create an environment that supports her exploring what interests her. If you can't, you'll be less likely to damage your relationship if you put her in school so at least you aren't the one pushing her to be someone other than who she is.

Joyce



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D. Regan

What stands out to me from what's written is your lack of appreciation for your daughter. It's a problem that needs addressing before addressing the "looking for a better education philosophy".

For your daughter to flourish (no matter which educational philosophy) she needs your love and support for who she is. It is also fundamental to unschooling.

Perhaps you can take a break from trying to educate her and start to try to get to know and appreciate her as she is. At the moment you're seeing the things about her that frustrate you because you're focussed on outcomes that are of little or no interest to her. And she has enough spark in her not to simply comply with your wishes.

If you were to spend lots of time with her on her terms, genuinely supporting her in her plans and desires and ideas, you would be getting closer to unschooling. And you would be helping her to grow and learn in the ways that are most meaningful to her.

Unschooling doesn't require children to be of any particular type. Fundamental to the philosophy, is that children are accepted for who they are. Parents support them in their explorations of the world and embrace their unique ways of living and learning.

That is quite a different approach from what you're used to, so start with stepping back from trying to educate her. At the same time, notice more the things she's interested in and how she explores them. She is trying to learn about the world and it would help her to have your support in her endeavours.

Debbie.
On 27/09/2012, at 12:07 AM, mvm34534 wrote:

> My daughter is 6. By default, I guess we've been unschooling since she was born, but not with intent. When she was 5 I started introducing a few formal lessons in daily reading and math. At first she liked it, then she complained a lot, then I backed off but felt guilty, then I tried again--only more fun this time--and the cycle repeated. I keep thinking that if I can just make it more fun, she'll enjoy doing it. As a result, I've become an "edutainer".
>
> I don't like it.
>
> In some ways it's really working--she picks up quite a bit of knowledge, she retains it, and she gets excited about it (after the initial complaining that we have to do lessons). But unfortunately, if it's not fun she's not interested, which is escalating faster than my creativity and energy can keep up. I keep hoping that soon she'll find something to get really excited about and she'll run with it on her own, but she hasn't yet.
>
> So I'm looking for a better education philosophy and I keep circling back to unschooling, but I have concerns. Can unschooling work for a kid who likes to be in charge but doesn't take responsibility for anything, who gets bored with things that are easy but fears challenge, who has a short attention span and looks to others to keep her motivated/engaged, who immediately rebels against anything that looks/sounds/feels schoolish, who wants to experience new things all the time but isn't at all interested in exploring anything deeply.

>
> And if unschooling can work for kids like this, how do I go about shifting from "edutainer" to unschooler?

Sandra Dodd

-=-* She's 6. There's a reason people aren't allowed to sign contracts until they're 18. -=-

Sixteen is a contract-signing age for some things. :-)

But 6 isn't a contract-understanding age for anyone.

-=-So I'm looking for a better education philosophy ...-=-

Better than what? What is your educational philosophy now?

-=-So I'm looking for a better education philosophy and I keep circling back to unschooling, but...-=-

You said you're "circling back to it," but it doesn't seem you understand it well. That's fine. Not understanding it is everyone's starting place. :-)

-=-By default, I guess we've been unschooling since she was born, but not with intent.-=-

This bothered me. You have NOT been unschooling, ever. There is no unschooling by accident. There is no unschooling by default. There is no unschooling without intent. But it seemed to you that making your opening statement that you were unschooling for five years would be good?

http://sandradodd.com/deschooling
Please pay special attention to that story about pouring tea. You came on exactly like that guy.

Sandra




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mvm34534

I apologize for coming off as a braggart in my original post. Being new to unschooling and not fully understanding it, I should not have presumed to use that term. I should have used the phrase "learning through living" which is what I called our early education philosophy before I had heard of unschooling.

"Learning through living" for us means just that. We go about our daily lives as a family and the children learn about the world around them as they go. We try to provide exposure to many different activities, places, people, ideas, and things. We provide open-ended toys and supplies, books of all sorts, educational items, and lots of free time. We do puzzles together, pretend play together, cook dinner together, go to the gas station together—and through all that my oldest (6 years—the others are 2 years and 8 months) picked up letters, numbers, counting, colors, walking, using the toilet…she became a well adjusted, age-appropriate, social, happy, experienced and knowledgeable 5 year old.

(At this point I would ask that you please let me know how my "learning through living" differs from your "unschooling".)

I admit to feeling societal pressure for formal schooling. When she was 5 I tried a few formal lessons. These took 10 minutes or less per day and were meant to be fun, yet structured (games and books mostly—no worksheets). She didn't seem to like it. So I made them more fun, yet still structured. She tired of it. More and more fun has been applied and I now feel burned out by it. Besides that, I don't care for the approach. It bothers me that I'm trying to force her (however fun it's supposed to be) to learn something that is uninteresting to her simply because it's the next lesson in the book.

I want something different. And I don't mean school at home. In fact, I don't at all care for that and I realize that she doesn't respond to it anyway. I'd like something informal--learning through living as we have been for years--but with a certain end-goal in mind. For example, I'd like her to be able to "think like a scientist", but I don't need her to memorize scientific knowledge on an arbitrary timeline. I'd like her to be comfortable with the language of math, but I don't need her to complete a calculus course by the time she's 16. I'd like her to eventually be able to read well, but I don't need her to do it before the end of "first grade". Above all, I want her to enjoy learning and to see it as part of a fulfilling life, not some boring thing that must be done to please someone else.

My original question was "can unschooling work for my child?" and the answer was yes—thank you, I get it, it can work for every kid. I also see that I need to ask if unschooling can work for me—and I can only answer that once I truly understand unschooling, which apparently I don't. So I'll ask a different question: is there room in the unschooling philosophy for an end-goal—a vision of a basic education/set of values that can be worked toward as a part of "living through learning"?

(I imagine I'm still asking the wrong question. Is anyone else feeling as frustrated as I am right now?)

I listed some of her personality traits not as derogatory descriptors, but as practical realities. I love her, she has many awesome strengths, I enjoy spending time with her, I respect her and accept her for who she is. But part of her is that she shies away from challenges, responsibilities, and hard work. She always has. I know from many experiences that if she is given a push, she can work through the discomfort and come out the other side very proud and successful.

Unfortunately, I've been feeling kind of…stuck…with my daughter because in "learning through living" she has become bored and stagnant when left to her own devices. I hoped a gentle push could relieve the boredom. The push I've been giving is in trying to make "introducing certain things through living" super fun, but that's not working. Leaving her to her own boredom feels like abandoning her. I continue to provide interesting outings, interactions, toys, books, ideas, discussions, free time, etc. on a daily basis hoping that something will strike her fancy and she'll be interested and we can go from there, but that's not happening. I'm not sure what to do, and I don't feel I have a clear picture of what model I want to seek advice from…

(Am I still misunderstanding every concept in a completely offensive way?)

Margaret

Sandra Dodd

-=-(Am I still misunderstanding every concept in a completely offensive way?)-=-

Maybe not every concept, but you do seem to be trying to backpedal and assure us that you don't really need to know what we know. I'm not sure why. A bad habit, perhaps. :-)

If you're sure you understand so much, why isn't it working better?

In case you didn't really follow the link I sent, here it is again:
http://sandradodd.com/deschooling

The reason people here send links is so that they don't need to rewrite things they've written before for many, MANY people. This list alone is 11 years old, and the archives are filled with things written long before you were a mother, by people who were unschooling children who are grown now.

If you're willing to read a little, try a little, wait a while and watch, you will be able to find some profound ideas here. But if you write more than you read, you'll probably leave frustrated.

-=-I listed some of her personality traits not as derogatory descriptors, but as practical realities. I love her, she has many awesome strengths, I enjoy spending time with her, I respect her and accept her for who she is. But-=-

The "but" undoes the rest.
You could see more of her strenghts, respect her more deeply and actually accept her instead of just saying you do. We can help you, if you want.

Sandra

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Joyce Fetteroll

On Sep 26, 2012, at 3:53 PM, mvm34534 wrote:

> (Am I still misunderstanding every concept in a completely offensive way?)

I promise you, no one's offended. Sandra's "bothered me" is not about offense but about seeing an over confidence in understanding such that it will make it very difficult for you to see where you're on the wrong track.

Better for growing *any* new understanding -- not just unschooling -- to assume you know nothing and start from scratch.

> she has become bored and stagnant when left to her own devices. I hoped a gentle push could relieve the boredom.


Those aren't the only choices. A better choice for unschooling is *trusting* the living that you've been doing -- "interesting outings, interactions, toys, books, ideas, discussions, free time" -- *without* looking for a way to "go from there". Look instead for engagement. Engagement indicates she experiencing something that's connecting dots for her.

If you enjoyed making souffl�s and your husband had been waiting and watching for an interest in you that he could "go from there" with, how would that feel? Wouldn't it feel like he had some agenda to improve you? That he didn't really care that you were enjoying your souffl�s. What he wanted from you was progress, to show him that you were improving in a way that he could see and appreciate.

Most people don't like feeling like other people's improvement projects.

> I listed some of her personality traits not as derogatory descriptors


If you read the list of traits about someone else's child, you would have seen them clearly as negative. And that's something you'll need to work on to allow unschooling to flow: that you can write out a big long list of negative traits and call them "practical realities." "Practically" speaking a half filled cup is both half empty and half full and yet it makes a huge difference in how someone approaches life which half they focus on.

If you can reframe what you wrote in positive terms, you'll not only be a step closer to unschooling but a step closer to an even better relationship with your daughter. Positive doesn't mean easy! Positive won't change who she is, but it will change how you see her.

Half full? Or half empty?

> is there room in the unschooling philosophy for an end-goal�a vision of a basic education/set of values that can be worked toward as a part of "living through learning"?


Not in the way you're asking.

What you want from unschooling -- "thinking like a scientist", reading, understanding the language of math -- *does* come -- more or less depending on a child's natural inclination -- by living a rich, full life being supported in exploring interests, by you being engaged with her explorations, by being her sounding board and asking questions because you're interested.

What's getting in your way is not having seen this happen. Most people are only familiar with kids who are force fed learning and kids who avoid learning (to recover from the force feeding.) It's not much to base trusting that kids will learn what they need without being taught.

What will help is reading about unschooled kids. Going to conferences. Those of us with now grow unschoolers had to take the end result "on faith" ;-) But now there are lots of grown unschoolers who have shown that they do learn how to weigh what they know and understand to make decisions, do absorb how math works by using it to help them make decisions, do learn to read by living rich, supported lives of exploration. They go to college. They hold jobs. They get up on time and act responsibly.

Unschooling doesn't work well when Mom has an agenda for the child that isn't the child's agenda or isn't part of what will happen naturally. It's okay to have an "agenda" that an unschooling child will learn to read, be able to say please and thank you, be able to wipe her own butt, be able to calculate a tip by 18 ;-) But expecting a child to demonstrate a particular type of learning that isn't part of who she is when mom gets worried will get in the way of unschooling. The child will feel it as the mom not being happy with who she is, wanting her to be a different child. Just as you would feel if your husband's expectations of you didn't match your own expectations for yourself. It would feel like he was trying to mold you into his ideal wife rather than loving the person he married.

> At this point I would ask that you please let me know how my "learning through living" differs from your "unschooling"


It differs because she turned 6! -- the magical school age -- and then you didn't trust it any longer to get her what she needed.

It's why many unschoolers will insist that unschooling can't be happening until a child would be in school. It's easy for parents to see how kids can live up to 5 without being taught what they "need". There's loads of examples of kids doing exactly that all around us. But once 1st grade starts and the pressure is all around that the stuff they "need" is hard to learn and must be pushed in starting as early as possible *THAT'S* what separates the "we've been doing this since birth!" folks from the unschooling folks. You trusted it for 0-5. But you lost confidence that it would work beyond 5.

Joyce



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CarenKH

=-= I listed some of her personality traits not as derogatory descriptors, but as practical realities. I love her, she has many awesome strengths, I enjoy spending time with her, I respect her and accept her for who she is. But part of her is that she shies away from challenges, responsibilities, and hard work. She always has. I know from many experiences that if she is given a push, she can work through the discomfort and come out the other side very proud and successful. =-=

But it's apparent you see the "practical realities" as negative traits.

=-=But part of her is that she shies away from challenges, responsibilities, and hard work. She always has.=-=

That sounds very derogatory! How about...

She knows herself well enough to not invest time in something she's determined isn't worth the effort.

At 6, she knows mom should be her partner, sharing in responsibility, so doesn't take on things she knows shouldn't be solely her job.

She can assess whether a challenge is worth taking on, and it takes something quite special to hold her attention.

My daughter is a strong enough person that she doesn't mind showing me she doesn't value the same things I value.

=-=I know from many experiences that if she is given a push, she can work through the discomfort and come out the other side very proud and successful.=-=

But whose success is it? Does she hold complete ownership over what she did? Did she value the outcome enough to keep going, or was she seeking your approval?

Successful as defined by whom? Success might have meant stopping when she was bored; she would be successful at learning what *she* values.

Caren

plaidpanties666

"mvm34534" <mvmartin@...> wrote:
>> I admit to feeling societal pressure for formal schooling.
and
>>I should have used the phrase "learning through living" which is what I called our early education philosophy
****************

There's an interesting new fad happening, as an aspect that "pressure for formal schooling" and it's that people have stopped say things like "we're not doing school yet" or "we're taking a break from school" - and instead say "unschooling". Or "learning through living". It's something to think about. Your kids are little. Why did you feel a need to justify their early childhood by giving some kind of lable? You don't have to answer that, it's a food-for-thought kind of question.

Peter Gray had an article in Psychology Today about how the study of child psychology has become the study of educational psychology. It has become common practice to conceptualize childhood in terms of education. The looser and looser use of "unschooling" is part of that.

>> is there room in the unschooling philosophy for an end-goal—a vision of a basic education/set of values that can be worked toward as a part of "living through learning"?
>
> (I imagine I'm still asking the wrong question. Is anyone else feeling as frustrated as I am right now?)
*************

You're asking very normal "new to unschooling sorts of questions! That's okay! In a sense, they're always the "wrong" questions because they're starting from outside unschooling - but there's nowhere else to start ;)

You're starting by looking at goals - your goals for your kids. That's not terrible in and of itself but those goals have been defined by an educational process you're not very happy with. Take a break from looking at those goals and look at learning itself: what is it? how does it work? Look at the ways adults learn - not how they learn in colleges and technical schools but how they learn at home, with friends, with their hobbies, on the job. How do 20 year olds learn to be 30? How do men and women learn to be parents?

Learning is so natural and so very, very personal that trying to set "learning goals" for another person is a bit bonkers. Try to imagine doing that for another adult and that makes sense. Where people tend to get bogged down applying that idea to kids comes from a deep-seated belief or concern that children can't or won't learn the "right" things unless they are taught. The trouble is, teaching doesn't have a very consistent track record! The "good" kids learn what they're supposed to learn and the "bad" ones don't (at least not easily)- because learning isn't about teaching. A whole lot of the time, it's a side effect of living.

In that sense, your daughter is "bad" - she's not agreeing to learn what you want to teach. Congratulations! You'll have a much easier time unschooling, if that's what you choose to do, than if you had a "good" kid. Really, you're daughter will make a good check on you - she'll let you know when you're too busy looking at your own agendas instead of at who she is and what she finds wonderful.

So start there: what does she find wonderful? I suspect part of the problem you're having is you don't really know - you're looking in the wrong directions: at your goals rather than at who she is right now.

>>I continue to provide interesting outings, interactions, toys, books, ideas, discussions, free time, etc. on a daily basis hoping that something will strike her fancy and she'll be interested and we can go from there
*****************

Yup, that's where you're getting stuck - you're imagining "interest" will look a certain way. Interest in "learning". Step back from that. Interest looks like a child having fun. What's fun for her? What does she enjoy? Not "what does she enjoy learning about?" but what does she actually like to do? Play with dolls? Run around in the sprinkler? Watch Spongebob? Jump on the bed? Talking to you or a friend? Those are interests - real interests that real little kids have while living life. And! while they're doing those things they are learning.

>>I'd like her to be able to "think like a scientist"

What does that mean? Especially when you consider how many scientists are quoted as saying good science comes from thinking like children! Do you mean you want her to go on being curious about the world? Then feed her curiosity without overwhelming her with more than she wants. When she says "look mommy!" stop and look - be curious too. Offer her new and interesting things, but don't push them on her - nothing kills curiosity like pushing.

Do you want her to ask lots of questions? Ahhh, now, that's a problem - because some kids don't ask. My daughter, for instance, isn't a questioner, she's a theorist. She jumps right to "that happens because". And then later she'll revise that theory to suit new data. Asking questions and posing theories are both aspects of scientific discovery - which a person starts with has more to do with personality than anything else.

>I'd like her to be comfortable with the language of math

Which math? I've done a number of different things over the years and needed a different "language of math" for each. I don't need to consider surface area to volume ratios in my current profession. In my last, I didn't need to worry about seam allowances, the turn of the cloth, or correcting for stretch. My partner also works with math and doesn't need to know any of those things - and I can barely understand him when he starts talking about fret spacing and scales and I don't know what all. Neither of us learned the math we've used in real life in schools - we learned it through hobbies and on the job.

Unschooling kids learn about math in ways which are often surprising to adults because they don't look anything like learning math. They learn by figuring things out and by doing things. Sometimes it's really obvious, like when my daughter says "I'm looking for a 2x3 lego" - oh, hey, she's learning about arrays! Sometimes it's less obvious like when she divides something into quarters in her head and I'm left wondering how she learned to do that (well, it's half of a half, mom <eye roll>).

>>Above all, I want her to enjoy learning and to see it as part of a fulfilling life
***************

In order for that to work, you need a better grasp on what learning is. Right now your biggest problem is you have a very incomplete picture of "learning" in your head. Here's a nice place to start getting a bigger, more complete picture:
http://sandradodd.com/connections/

Read that, follow some of the links, spend some time learning about learning. Not too much time, because you're a busy mom, right? ;) Read a little and then go hang out with your kids and relax into the learning that's going on around you. You may have a hard time seeing it all at first, that's okay. You're learning too.

>But part of her is that she shies away from challenges, responsibilities, and hard work. She always has.
****************

She's a little kid. It's Okay if she doesn't climb Mt Everest this weekend ;)

Different people learn in different ways. One of the ways some people build confidence in their skills is by sticking with what they know until they're confident enough to try something new. Others leap into new things and struggle along, maybe giving up half-way, maybe pushing through. In addition, it's common for people to learn different things in different ways - so some people will be very conservative trying new things in some areas and launch into new endeavors happily in others. For instance, I don't like challenges involving my car - no, no, no. But give me a challenge involving fabric and I'll work my tail off learning something new.

>>I know from many experiences that if she is given a push, she can work through the discomfort and come out the other side very proud and successful.
********************

Sometimes people like to be coaxed or nudged. But even people who like to be coaxed don't Always like to be coaxed - it's a situational sort of thing. Pushing can feel like bullying - or hazing. People go along with hazing because it feels so good to get to the other side and then turn around and haze the next newcomer, having learned it's a good idea.

>> We go about our daily lives as a family and the children learn about the world around them as they go. We try to provide exposure to many different activities, places, people, ideas, and things. We provide open-ended toys and supplies, books of all sorts, educational items, and lots of free time. We do puzzles together, pretend play together, cook dinner together, go to the gas station together
**********************

Does your daughter enjoy those things? keep doing them! If she's getting bored, she may be ready for something new. That's a common phase around age 6 or 7, kids are outgrowing "little kid stuff" and want something bigger and more, but aren't sure what and don't want to be overwhelmed. If you throw out examples of things your daughter enjoys, people can help you brainstorm - or if you're on facebook, there's a page for getting exactly those kinds of ideas called "My Unschooler is Interested in..." (just list one or two things, though, it's an idea page, not a bragging page!)
http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/383815885025681/

---Meredith

Karen

>>>>>But part of her is that she shies away from challenges, responsibilities, and hard work. She always has. <<<<<

Lifting her head was a big challenge, I bet. Walking, probably challenged her in ways you weren't even aware of. Talking must have given her brain a workout :-) One habit that was really helpful for me to break, was talking in terms of "always" and "never." Choosing not to use those words allowed me to see more clearly what was really happening.

Here's an example...My son isn't a big book guy. If I thought reading only happened from being engaged with books, I might say that he shies away from reading. In truth, Ethan reads a lot. Just tonight he was enthusiastically reading aloud to me pages of statistics from a game he started playing recently. There are pages and pages and pages of these statistics, and he must have half of them committed to memory already. If I didn't see the value in what he was doing, I would miss all of learning that is happening. My perception of his strengths would be incomplete. My evaluation of his weaknesses would simply be wrong. I might believe he didn't like reading or math, despite the reality that he was reading and using math for fun every day!

Taking the time to notice the challenges your daughter *does* take on might help you see past the ones she isn't interested in or ready for yet. It might also help you see what *her* goals are for herself more clearly. From there, you can really start to be her partner! Partnering in learning is the coolest part of unschooling for me. It opened the world right up!

Schuyler

Rather than trying to play in front of her, or entertain her, play with her. Be with her. Hang out with her. Explore with her. Get on your hands and knees and draw on the sidewalk. Dress Barbies, have tea parties, play World of Warcraft. Whatever it is that strikes her fancy, let it strike yours as well. Play with her. Don't teach her, don't look for education in her every activity. Assume that learning happens with living, and live with her. Play with her. 

Schuyler

____________________________________

Unfortunately, I've been feeling kind of…stuck…with my daughter because in "learning through living" she has become bored and stagnant when left to her own devices.  I hoped a gentle push could relieve the boredom.  The push I've been giving is in trying to make "introducing certain things through living" super fun, but that's not working.  Leaving her to her own boredom feels like abandoning her.  I continue to provide interesting outings, interactions, toys, books, ideas, discussions, free time, etc. on a daily basis hoping that something will strike her fancy and she'll be interested and we can go from there, but that's not happening.  I'm not sure what to do, and I don't feel I have a clear picture of what model I want to seek advice from… 

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Sandra Dodd

-=->>I'd like her to be able to "think like a scientist"

-=-What does that mean? Especially when you consider how many scientists are quoted as saying good science comes from thinking like children! -=-


Christine Alvarado, on how she played with My Little Ponies
and became interested in math and engineering.
http://sandradodd.com/mylittlepony

Mae Carol Jemison: Star Trek leads to Science and Astronautics
http://sandradodd.com/t/startrek

Gilligan's Island, Deep Thoughts and Science
http://sandradodd.com/t/gilligan

Einstein wrote or said (I don't know when or where, but I've heard it for 40 years now): “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

None of them are talking about six year olds. They're all talking about older kids.

Sandra

Schuyler

________________________________


I listed some of her personality traits not as derogatory descriptors, but as practical realities.  I love her, she has many awesome strengths, I enjoy spending time with her, I respect her and accept her for who she is.  But part of her is that she shies away from challenges, responsibilities, and hard work.  She always has.  I know from many experiences that if she is given a push, she can work through the discomfort and come out the other side very proud and successful. 


____________________________________________________________________________

I shy away from challenges, responsibilities, and hard work. I always have. Instead I do things that engage me, that I find interesting and  my life seems to work just fine within that framework. I love the things I do. I don't have to push through discomfort to be proud or successful, I do the things that interest me and that I enjoy and somehow the things that might be classed as chores tend to get done in the mix. 

If you only see her learning in the things that you think are challenging you may want to re-examine learning. I learn from a lot of repetition. I learn from new things as well. I learn from quitting something when I'm done with it as much as I learn from continuing on with something that I'm interested in. Quit pushing. And quit looking for her overcoming something as evidence of her being afraid of hard work. 

Schuyler

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Lisa

>
> ++---=+++ So I'm looking for a better education philosophy and I keep circling back to unschooling, but I have concerns. Can unschooling work for a kid who likes to be in charge but doesn't take responsibility for anything, who gets bored with things that are easy but fears challenge, who has a short attention span and looks to others to keep her motivated/engaged, who immediately rebels against anything that looks/sounds/feels schoolish, who wants to experience new things all the time but isn't at all interested in exploring anything deeply? ====+++++


This could describe my son well. Or could have anyway at 6, when I was still describing him in kind of a negative way.

Now, it's just who he is, and there's nothing wrong with it.

These personality traits used to scare me though - i would look at him, describe him in these ways, and tell myself a story about how it would mean a hard and horrible life for him, and how I better get in there and change it right now so his life could be different.

What bullshit.

My son is 9, almost 10 now. And brilliant. I bet your daughter is too, and you left that out.

My son has found a few things that he explores very deeply. Computers, programming, video games, love for animals (especially sea animals), social skills, pretend play, and interest in human behaviors are the things that stick in my mind right now that have spanned several years. If I had known what to look for when he was 4, 5, and 6, I would have seen these interests then too.

My son has grown in the last few years. He still likes to "be in charge" and still will rebel against "being taught anything" but none of the rest of those could describe him anymore. He's awesome. He's so fun. and so smart. and so responsible. He's growing, and I can't wait to see what he'll be like as a teenager and a young adult.

Lisa

Joyce Fetteroll

> I know from many experiences that if she is given a push, she can
> work through the discomfort and come out the other side very proud and successful

I'm glad Caren pulled that one out.

That's a big mental block that's hard to get around. If you push and it works it seems the pushing was a good idea.

But what the pushing does is short circuit her ability to trust her own judgement on what's right for her. She's 6. She's still working on figuring the world and her feelings out. *And* she's constantly changing so what was right yesterday may not be right today.

When she's 16 and a boy is urging her to get in the car with her, don't you *want* her to feel full confidence in her ability to judge what feels right to her? Wouldn't it be a bad idea to suggest that other people know what's better for her than she does?

Focus less on the end result and more on the process of decision making.

What you can do is if it's an experience you are positive she'll enjoy, ask her to just give it a try. And let her quit if she decides she doesn't like it. But use that sparingly! Wrong guesses weigh considerably more than right guesses. If the ratio of wrong to right tips towards wrong, you lose integrity.

Joyce

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Sandra Dodd

-=-Focus less on the end result and more on the process of decision making.-=-

Yes. Practice and model good decision making in your life, and it will help her see how it's done.
Here are collections of good examples and ideas from previous discussions:
http://sandradodd.com/choices
http://sandradodd.com/haveto

-=-What you can do is if it's an experience you are positive she'll enjoy, ask her to just give it a try. And let her quit if she decides she doesn't like it. But use that sparingly! -=-

Use the first part sparingly. Letting her quit if she doesn't like it, use that part liberally.

Sandra

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Joyce Fetteroll

> I'd like her to be comfortable with the language of math

I was thinking about this the other day. There's this misconception that people need to understand all of math in order to do it. The reality is they can learn the part they need. My daughter never needed to learn to manipulate fractions to use percents. And yet that's the order they go in school.

Carpenters are whizzes at manipulating fractions in their heads. Can do a good chunk of the math that gets taught in geometry. But the rest of math isn't necessary to use those pieces.

The reason people think all of math is necessary is because of Sputnik ;-) The Russians beat us into space so the was the big push to get kids prepared to be scientists and engineers. To do that, they taught everyone who was able all the math that anyone might need for the sciences. The focus was never on what any individual might need. It was all about a production line that turned out a uniform product ready to feed into the sciences.* The basic idea was to give everyone everything and then they could throw away what they didn't need.

But it's been done that way so long that people think all of math is necessary in order to use it.

*[And I don't mean that image to be negative of schools. The whole point of public education 100 years ago was to raise the general level of education in a population that was largely immigrant and do it cheaply. The goal was getting kids to read, to do basic math, to prepare them to be useful in the workforce. It worked well for that. But the model has persisted. And it's been called on to educate kids in ways it was never designed to do. Now people believe school is the best way to learn. When in reality it's a very poor way to learn, goes entirely against how we naturally learn new things, and why it's so hard for kids to learn there. It's just cheap! Or was before it was asked to do more than it really ever could.]

Joyce

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Dola Dasgupta

Recently another unschooling mom shared with me over phone...how she has
realised that hesitation in her child is not a drawback...but just that her
child is not ready yet...

She saw how her child is not 'introvert' but is yet to connect with some
one like her deeply...

She found out that her four year old twins...like to be around adults and
not kids that age...as they still need help....and kids of that age cause
stress to her twins...

My daughter is 10 and for the last one week she is watching a sitcom on the
iMac..and not even meeting her friends..she gets up only for bathroom and
sleep...food and drinks I take to her...I realised that she is trying to
get away from her grief at just having lost her grandfather and not being
able to meet him as we live in another city and could not make it...she
told me this..when I just let her be...

Dola



On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 7:37 PM, mvm34534 <mvmartin@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
> My daughter is 6. By default, I guess we've been unschooling since she was
> born, but not with intent. When she was 5 I started introducing a few
> formal lessons in daily reading and math. At first she liked it, then she
> complained a lot, then I backed off but felt guilty, then I tried
> again--only more fun this time--and the cycle repeated. I keep thinking
> that if I can just make it more fun, she'll enjoy doing it. As a result,
> I've become an "edutainer".
>
> I don't like it.
>
> In some ways it's really working--she picks up quite a bit of knowledge,
> she retains it, and she gets excited about it (after the initial
> complaining that we have to do lessons). But unfortunately, if it's not fun
> she's not interested, which is escalating faster than my creativity and
> energy can keep up. I keep hoping that soon she'll find something to get
> really excited about and she'll run with it on her own, but she hasn't yet.
>
> So I'm looking for a better education philosophy and I keep circling back
> to unschooling, but I have concerns. Can unschooling work for a kid who
> likes to be in charge but doesn't take responsibility for anything, who
> gets bored with things that are easy but fears challenge, who has a short
> attention span and looks to others to keep her motivated/engaged, who
> immediately rebels against anything that looks/sounds/feels schoolish, who
> wants to experience new things all the time but isn't at all interested in
> exploring anything deeply?
>
> And if unschooling can work for kids like this, how do I go about shifting
> from "edutainer" to unschooler?
>
> Margaret
>
>
>



--
http://homeschoolers.in
<http://thouartthycreator.wordpress.com/>
http://childrenmypartners.wordpress.com/
http://thouartthycreator.wordpress.com/
http://ourcreaivealtar.wordpress.com/

*"Be kind to yourself and others,*
*Come from love every moment you can,*
*Speak of love with others. Remind each other of your spiritual purpose,*
*Never give up hope,*
*Know that you are loved." - Deepak Chopra from Love Sutras...*
*
*
*'Laughter we share generates more laughter, and the love we create
together spreads by leaps and bounds.' *
*
*
*Much love and warmth*
* Dola Dasgupta*


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keetry

== a kid who likes to be in charge but doesn't take responsibility for anything, who gets bored with things that are easy but fears challenge, who has a short attention span and looks to others to keep her motivated/engaged, who immediately rebels against anything that looks/sounds/feels schoolish, who wants to experience new things all the time but isn't at all interested in exploring anything deeply ==

If you can get past the negativity in this, I think it could describe most young children and maybe even many adults. I wouldn't expect a 6 year old to take responsibility or attack every "challenge" with gusto. A 6 year old is not going to have the same attention span as a 10 year old or a 16 year old or an adult in the same way that a 2 year won't have the same attention span as a 6 year old. I rebel against schoolish things. I remember school as being boring. I rebel against having to administer the CAT to my son to meet my state's legal requirements for homeschooling. A child's depth of exploration will be different from an adult's, just like attention span. Any other person's depth of exploration will be different from another's. People are different.

I wouldn't see any of these described behaviors as problematic. They are very normal for that age. Like others have said, stop seeing them in a negative light and just see your child for who she is right now, exactly where she needs to be.

Alysia

keetry

== I'd like her to be comfortable with the language of math ==

What exactly is that? My dad has a PhD in mathematics and was a college professor his entire professional life. He's retired now. I studied math through calculus in college. I majored in a science. I never heard anyone talk of "the language of math".

Maybe it's my age and the "new math" but sometimes I think I must have missed a huge chunk of school because I really don't know what a lot of these schooly terms are. It took me years to figure out what manipulatives were. When I was a kid we just called them popsicle sticks and pennies.

Alysia

Pam Sorooshian

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 4:19 AM, Joyce Fetteroll <jfetteroll@...>wrote:

> But it's been done that way so long that people think all of math is
> necessary in order to use it.>>
>

And -- unschooled kids really sometimes hit 11 to 14 years old and think
they are really missing out because they don't "know" all the math their
schooled friends seem to know. I'm not sure what to do about that. The
reality is their schooled friends are being taught a lot of math (as Joyce
said in her post, schools try to teach it all so that every single child
will have the math background for becoming a scientist).

But the reality is also that their schooled friends are not learning a lot
of math. Lots of teaching; little learning. Most of them are developing
anti-math feelings, resistance, the ability to perform without
understanding, and the feeling that they don't have a "math brain." Most of
the "good" math students are kind of like magicians - they are doing tricks
that make it appear they understand math, but ask them to explain why
something works, how it works, when they would actually ever want to do it
in real life - they hardly have any answers.

Still, not sure how to convince unschooled kids of this reality. Not sure
what to do to help them understand that they got to 12 or 13 or older and
are relatively undamaged in math compared to schooled kids and that they
can learn all the math they want to learn whenever and however they want to
learn it.

School math is a big hoax, for the most part. But how do unschooled kids
know that? I'm not sure how to respond to a kid who is convinced he's
already too far behind to ever catch up or is embarrassed by what he/she
doesn't know. My inclination is to encourage him/her into letting me tutor
them enough that they get it (not that they get all that math, but that
they realize they could learn it if they wanted to).

Other ideas? I am asked this question very often.

-pam


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Pam Sorooshian

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:39 AM, keetry <keetry@...> wrote:

> I never heard anyone talk of "the language of math".
>

Really? In mathy circles it is super super common to talk about algebra as
being the language of science. Algebra being a "language" is one of the
justifications used to require algebra of all students.

>
> Maybe it's my age and the "new math" but sometimes I think I must have
> missed a huge chunk of school because I really don't know what a lot of
> these schooly terms are. It took me years to figure out what manipulatives
> were. When I was a kid we just called them popsicle sticks and pennies.>>
>

I'm 60 so I'm probably older than you are. When people refer to "math
manipulatives" they are usually talking about objects designed and sold
specifically to help kids learn math - unit blocks, cuisenaire rods,
pattern blocks, and on and on. Many of them are pretty cool if you take
them as a toy to fool around with, not something to force kids to do to
learn a particular lesson.

They were quite fashionable to use in classrooms in the early 90's, but
budget cuts and standardized testing have reduced the amount of use in
schools these days.

-pam


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Jenny Cyphers

***But unfortunately, if it's not fun she's not interested, which is escalating faster than my creativity and energy can keep up. I keep hoping that soon she'll find something to get really excited about and she'll run with it on her own, but she hasn't yet.***


One one hand you are irritated with her for not being interested if it isn't fun and on the other hand you WANT her to be interested and excited about something, anything.  Your daughter sounds pretty smart.  Why would anyone be interested in something that wasn't at all fun and interesting to them personally?  Start, instead, with seeing what it is exactly that she is interested in and what she gets excited about.  Don't place things in front of her, watch and see what it is she gravitates to.  Is it dolls, puzzles, music, games, movies, parks?  Then instead of trying to get her excited about something you see as beneficial, YOU get excited about what you see her excited about.

***Can unschooling work for a kid who likes to be in charge but doesn't take responsibility for anything, who gets bored with things that are easy but fears challenge,***

So she likes things to be light and fun?  A take charge kind of person is not a kind of person that always comes along.  What a beautiful gift!  Help her to take charge, don't get in her way.  Do all the responsibility stuff for her for now until she can do it herself.

 ***who has a short attention span and looks to others to keep her motivated/engaged,***

So, she's actively seeking stimulation?  Sounds like she needs more stimulating things in her life.....

*** who immediately rebels against anything that looks/sounds/feels schoolish, who wants to experience new things all the time but isn't at all interested in exploring anything deeply?***


....and maybe those stimulating things need to be more interesting than schoolish things.  Perhaps the "exploring deeply" part is something you are missing, not her.  If you have enough stimulating things around you, you are learning deeply.  She's clearly not a kid that can be easily stimulated and deeply learn with a few things, she needs loads of it, buckets of it, surrounding her and swirling around her so that she can touch everything and see everything and make all kinds of connections.  That's where the depth comes into her exploration.  

It's not about seeing a butterfly under a microscope and learning all about butterflies and their life cycles.  For her it could be looking at everything you could possibly look at under a microscope and then go find more and more things to look at and touch and see and smell, in hundreds of different contexts.  The butterfly lesson is what you are seeing, it's not what she is seeing or even needing.

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Jenny Cyphers

***is there room in the unschooling philosophy for an end-goal—a vision of a basic education/set of values that can be worked toward as a part of "living through learning"?***

Sure, but you might miss the very best parts of unschooling if that remains your focus.

To me, the best parts of unschooling are the interesting bits and pieces of learning that slowly shape the person your kid is and what they will become.  Nobody can predict that.  Schools try to make a standard set of knowledge base to give accreditation.  Yet, even kids in school come out of that system with so many varied interests.  The one thing that seems to commonly define kids that went through the school system is their unwavering conviction that school is necessary for learning, unless of course they hated school, then they come away with a severe distaste for school and sometimes learning and sometimes themselves.

Outside of that standardization of school, or educational/set of values, you don't need to focus on that.  You can really learn through living.  You don't need to have a goal or time frame or set of knowledge base.  The things that you find of value, as a parent and person are things you can give to your children as gifts by practicing those things as a part of your life.  If you find that reading is valuable, then read.  The world is full of words and ideas.  If you find that using math is valuable, then by all means share that value with your kids.  I did this a lot in grocery stores, weighing, comparing costs, adding, etc.  We also play a lot of games.  If something truly has value in life, then kids will pick it up as they need it.  Only individuals can decide what has value for themselves or not.  If I'm the kind of parent that my kids respect, they are very likely to have some of the same values as I am.  

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Sandra Dodd

-=-It's not about seeing a butterfly under a microscope and learning all about butterflies and their life cycles. For her it could be looking at everything you could possibly look at under a microscope and then go find more and more things to look at and touch and see and smell, in hundreds of different contexts. The butterfly lesson is what you are seeing, it's not what she is seeing or even needing.-=-

A friend of mine was a biology and chemistry student in college, and noticed she was choosing classes based on whether they were doing microscopic things. She figured out that what she was REALLY interested in were the microscopes, and became a physicist.

The parents don't need to know what the child is learning in order for learning to be happening.

If a child is bored and agitated, she's not learning. If she's happy and smiling and humming and engaged with what she's thinking, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching or smelling, then she's learning.

Sandra

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CarenKH

~~~
== I'd like her to be comfortable with the language of math ==

What exactly is that? My dad has a PhD in mathematics and was a college professor his entire professional life. He's retired now. I studied math through calculus in college. I majored in a science. I never heard anyone talk of "the language of math".
~~~

I've used the phrase "language of math" before to mean, the language of math equations. Kids who are living engaged lives are learning math! Most know if you have 3 candies and give a candy to a friend that you then have 2. But they might not be able to express that as 3 - 1 = 2, and if they saw that string of numbers, they might not understand what it means in a practical way. THAT knowledge, the "language of math", comes when they have a need or desire for it.

My son knew he could get 25 Pikmin in one part of that game, and if he wanted 100 Pikmin, he needed to go to that place 4 times, long before he "knew" 25 X 4 = 100. That equation and the operations within it are what I know as part of the language of math: times, equals, multiply.

Caren

Joyce Fetteroll

On Sep 28, 2012, at 8:30 AM, CarenKH wrote:

> I've used the phrase "language of math" before to mean, the language of math equations.

I call that abstract math. Formulas. It's more akin to grammar maybe.

Languages are BIG. They encompass not just words and rules but communication. When I refer to the language of math I mean translating the physical world so it can be turned this way and that to pull the information you need from it.

It might involve numbers. But it might not.

It might involve precise calculations. It might be guesstimating. But it also might involve drawing a more intuitive conclusion from what you know.

If I see 70% power left on my video game character or my computer I can combine that with other factors -- involving precise numbers, guesses and gut feelings -- to help me make a decision. Being able to combine those and pull an answer from it comes from being able to understand the language of math.

Joyce

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Sandra Dodd

"Language" is spoken.
This is English: "Most know if you have 3 candies and give a candy to a friend that you then have 2. " :-)

This is about "mathematical notation":

-=-But they might not be able to express that as 3 - 1 = 2, and if they saw that string of numbers, they might not understand what it means in a practical way. THAT knowledge, the "language of math", comes when they have a need or desire for it.-=-

So if you say you want your child to know mathematical notation, that's fine. But the notation isn't the mathematics (nor even the arithmetic).

A good analogy and parallel is musical notation. Notes on a staff on a page don't "make music." They are not, themselves "music."

Music in the air--singing, instruments making tunes and not just noise--THAT is music. One can produce music without having the first idea about musical notation. One can study musical notation and not be musical.

For learning, an understanding of the relationships of counts, values and measures, in regular old native language, is more important than the notation.

It would be possible for a family to press music education so that music theory on paper was "required" of a child, and thereby cause the child to fear or avoid music (even real, natural, normal music) for the rest of his life.

It's rarer with music than it is with math.

Sandra



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keetry

> > I never heard anyone talk of "the language of math".
> >
>
> Really? In mathy circles it is super super common to talk about algebra as
> being the language of science. Algebra being a "language" is one of the
> justifications used to require algebra of all students.
>


Really. I don't recall my dad ever talking about math as a language. My family is full of scientists and I don't recall anyone using that phrase. The only thing I can think of that's remotely like that are math sentences, A + B = C. I did hear that term while in school at some point but that's as far as it went. I thought that was just an easy way for people to describe it. It never occurred to me that people actually thought of it as a language.

Alysia