sharon camm

>Could you clarify something for us? You talked about writing >lessons...are you learning about unschooling and still doing school at >home, or have you just recently stopped doing lessons? If you're still >forcing lessons, try unschooling!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is the key difference the "forcing" part? Or do any lessons at all mean it's not unschooling anymore? What if the child asks for instruction?
Sharon

Valerie

***** If she asks for instructions - give it to her BUT allow her to
stop the instructions whenever she chooses. Then it's unschooling.
Forcing is anti-learning imo.

love, Valerie
www.ubpub.com

--- In [email protected], sharon camm<scamm@m...>
wrote:
> >Could you clarify something for us? You talked about writing
>lessons...are you learning about unschooling and still doing school
at >home, or have you just recently stopped doing lessons? If you're
still >forcing lessons, try unschooling!
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------
> Is the key difference the "forcing" part? Or do any lessons at all
mean it's not unschooling anymore? What if the child asks for
instruction?
> Sharon

Robyn Coburn

<<<Is the key difference the "forcing" part? Or do any lessons at all mean
it's not unschooling anymore? What if the child asks for instruction?>>>

I'm sorry I just keep reading this and have this image of little Junior
coming up to Mama.
"I say Mater, I feel an inadequacy in my abilities. Will you vouchsafe to
afford me some instruction in this area?"

The serious answer for me is "yes the forcing is the key issue to be
avoided. Also manipulating, judging and negating". However one of the
problems with the concept of lessons is the idea that you have to start at
the beginning, work through, and then reach the end, and presto you have
learnt something. Natural learning happens more like jumping around a web
than zooming down one fixed highway. (Brief periods may be spent on the
highway, but the "exits" are limitless)

I think most children who are unschooling sometimes ask for help with
specific tasks, and often want to enroll in classes in something outside of
the home like dance, sports or music. What keeps it unschooling is the
absolute freedom to give these up at will when the child has learnt enough
for themselves, or if they discover that it is not what they want after all.

If a child is asking for "instruction" in the way I'm guessing you mean it
(I may be wrong) - a kind of sequential program to learn something, it may
be that they are still DE-schooling. They have not yet rediscovered that
they can trust themselves and their own abilities to learn. They have been
damaged by the school system, but they will heal. In that situation, I would
suggest acclaiming the idea of "it's still vacation! Yay" And then strewing
lots of interesting things about.

Or:

If they are coming up with "I need you to teach me how to read", it may be
that first they need a safe place to express some frustration, and then some
ideas from you then and there. I would avoid taking that as a blanket
request for instituting a whole reading program - unless you find some that
your kid is loving - in which case the same thinking applies as to the
outside classes: freedom to quit at any time without rancour.

Robyn L. Coburn

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