[email protected]

In a message dated 12/31/2004 5:04:58 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
pmocl@... writes:

1. JJ has been marked as 'advanced'; I was lucky to have graduated high
school.<<<<

And.....soooo??????


>>>2. We do not get the support of our family and friends because they think
only "those crazy people you here about" home/unschool their children AND go
to church (shreeekk)<<<<<

There are plenty of secular homeschoolers----we're just not the loudest
group! <g>


>>>>3. Although I think it is the right thing for my family, I have been
known
to only see things from my prospective and go blind to the rest of the
world.<<<<<
Again......so? <g>

But seriously, the schooled world seems to do this more than the unschooling
world! <G>



>>>>4. Quite frankly: We are poor!!!<<<<

Yeah, that sucks. But would having your children in school change that?

~Kelly


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laurie c

Maybe what I really need to know is..... well, how do I know! How do I know
what to do? Or how to do it? Or if it is right? How do I answer the
questions of a 7 or 8 yo when on occasion I have difficulty answering some
of JJ's 3 1/2 yo questions.
I have no doubt I can raise a man! A man that his future wife will love. I
do however have many questions about how I am expected to get him educated
beyond my 'just let me out of this hell you call school' education.
Am I making any sence at all, or am I just that neive? :)
>


>

>
>
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>

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queenjane555

>How do I answer the questions of a 7 or 8 yo when on occasion I
>have difficulty answering some of JJ's 3 1/2 yo questions.

Google. Seriously. I think just about anything anyone needs or wants
to know can be found somewhere on the internet.

I think the important thing about unschooling is not "staying one
step ahead" of your child, or knowing the answer to every possible
question he may have, but rather helping him find those answers for
himself, with as much or as little assistance from you as he
desires. I also think that with those "unschooling tools" in your
toolbox, you can help him gain a more authentic learning experience,
by that i mean if he is interested in say, astronomy, he may find it
more interesting to talk to a real astronomer, go to a planetarium
as much as he pleases (rather than crammed into a school field
trip), get out the telescope and look at the real stars, instead of
just reading about it in a textbook. YOU dont have to be the expert,
just help him find the info he needs to satisfy what it is he is
trying to learn about.

> I have no doubt I can raise a man! A man that his future wife will
>love. I do however have many questions about how I am expected to
>get him educated beyond my 'just let me out of this hell you call
>school' education.

Just so you know, i graduated school with a B average and went to
college some, and i dont think i'm "qualified" to get my
son "educated". I bet there is a fair amount of people with advanced
degrees who wouldnt feel qualified to be the *only* source for a
child's education. But luckily, with unschooling, you dont have
to "teach" your son, and you don't have to be his only resource.

Katherine

Elizabeth Hill

**

I have no doubt I can raise a man! A man that his future wife will love. I
do however have many questions about how I am expected to get him educated
beyond my 'just let me out of this hell you call school' education.
Am I making any sence at all, or am I just that neive? **

Hi, Laurie --

I think I understand your concern. When I was 6, I was very advanced in "reading" and pretty good in "math". My first grade teacher said to my mom "I can't teach her anything", which my mom thought was a bit silly, as the teacher was a grown woman and actually knew tons of stuff that I didn't know.

If you know how to look stuff up using Google, or are willing to learn, you can be very helpful to your son, even as he grows and leaves you behind in some areas. And lots of us have found that it is really fun to learn stuff about "history" and "science" and how the world works that we didn't grasp when we were kids. It can actually be surprisingly enjoyable. If you have some research skills, and know how to get to the local library <g> and to find people around you who have skills that you don't, you really are good to go.

Caring about your child and about meeting his needs, and being flexible in your approach are the big advantages of homeschooling over formal schooling in an institution.

Betsy

Robyn Coburn

<<<<Maybe what I really need to know is..... well, how do I know! How do I
know
what to do? Or how to do it? Or if it is right? How do I answer the
questions of a 7 or 8 yo when on occasion I have difficulty answering some
of JJ's 3 1/2 yo questions.
I have no doubt I can raise a man! A man that his future wife will love. I
do however have many questions about how I am expected to get him educated
beyond my 'just let me out of this hell you call school' education.
Am I making any sence at all, or am I just that neive? :) >>>>>

It is ok to say, "I don't know. Let's look it up." I do it *all the time*,
and I'm a college graduate with honors and former high school valedictorian.
My education is utterly irrelevant to Jayn's Unschooling journey, although
to be honest I could throw it around to silence doubting acquaintances. I
used to do this more often a couple of years ago, before I had truly settled
in to Unschooling. I don't bother with it now, and can see more problems
with my schooling than I used to - the "deschooling" process at work.

If you let go of your expectation that *you* are doing the educating it may
help you get to Unschooling with joy quicker.

My dd is 5. She often says, "Let's look up ..... on the internet". This
internet is a fantastic resource, if only to get a bibliography on a topic
of interest to take along to the library.

Our children are growing up in an informational world that is swiftly making
the school and even college educations of many of their parents hopelessly
inadequate and outdated. The key is knowing how to seek and find the
information we, and they, want.

The real questions that are tough are those that are answered by the heart
and soul, rather than the intellect like, "What happens when someone dies?"
or "My friend won't listen to me say sorry". Others may have more examples.

Since your child is so young, you might enjoy adding Always Unschooled to
your library of e-lists.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlwaysUnschooled/

Robyn L. Coburn

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[email protected]

In a message dated 12/31/2004 10:35:34 P.M. Mountain Standard Time,
dezigna@... writes:

My dd is 5. She often says, "Let's look up ..... on the internet". This
internet is a fantastic resource, if only to get a bibliography on a topic
of interest to take along to the library.



=========

Marty is fifteen (nearly 16) and just got his own first computer. He set
it to open up to google.com. Kirby's is set to open up to the website of the
store where he works.

Minor, but having the option of having any opening screen those are their
current choices.

Sandra


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[email protected]

In a message dated 12/31/2004 10:14:34 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
pmocl@... writes:


Maybe what I really need to know is..... well, how do I know! How do I know
what to do? Or how to do it? Or if it is right?<<<<

How do you know anything?

Trust.

>>>>How do I answer the questions of a 7 or 8 yo when on occasion I have
difficulty answering some of JJ's 3 1/2 yo questions.<<<<

Well, just wait until he's 16! <g>

You answer what you can. You look up others. And you find people (mentors)
who share his passion(s) for everything else.

My 16 year old is into music and film-making and magic and art. He has a
drumming teacher in Danny (Danny's older than I am by a generation or so! <G>).
Skip Pearson is older than that and plays sax; he's taken Cameron under his
wing and shown him a few ropes. His newest buddy is Brian, a 25 year old
violinist (who is incredible). They talk about ALL sorts of things, and Brian has
opened Cameron's eyes to many things other than music (Buddhism and politics
and ----well, just TONS of things) because he's easy to talk with and is
knowledgeable in many different areas. Brian is a natural unschooler who went to
school----he's a sponge that Cameron doesn't mind squeezing every now &
then!

Then there's magic with John Tudor and Jeff McBride (40's). And art and film
with Christian Thee (late 50's/early 60's). Film with Morgan and Stewart
(both in their 20's) at the movie house and Chris and Nick (40's) at the Film
Commission in Charleston.

These people are mentors in fields that I have limited knowledge. I couldn't
BEGIN to have all the answers to his questions! My job is to help ferret
these folks out, make introductions, whatever. *He* does the rest. He's gotten
pretty good at it too! <g>

The best you can do is to lead when you can, just keep up with them some
days, follow along on others------and learn to enjoy the ride! <g>

~Kelly






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[email protected]

In a message dated 12/31/04 8:14:33 PM, pmocl@... writes:

<<

Maybe what I really need to know is..... well, how do I know! How do I know

what to do? Or how to do it? Or if it is right? >>

I think you change your definition of "right."
Each time you make a decision (and that's hundreds of times a day), give
yourself two choices and make the better choice. If that worked out, next time
choose between that and something even better (newer, more imaginative, warmer,
more sparkly). Gradually you will go from an unsure afraid position to a
spinning, twirling easy dance of unschooling.

There are some "how and what" things collected here:
http://sandradodd.com/unschooling

Just poke around with that list of links on the right side.

-=-I

do however have many questions about how I am expected to get him educated

beyond my 'just let me out of this hell you call school' education.-=-

Don't try to get him educated.
Try to learn to help him learn.
Move now (not next month, not next year) toward creating a learning nest.

Sandra

[email protected]

**How do I answer the questions of a 7 or 8 yo when  on occasion I have
difficulty answering some of JJ's 3 1/2 yo  questions?**

Truthfully, the sooner a kid learns that mom can't answer everything, the
better, as far as succesful unschooling goes. As long as you can answer most
everything they ask, neither of you has much incentive to look farther afield. But
every time you can't answer, you have the opportunity to show them how people
go about finding things out, and how they decide what resources to use in
finding things out. Do you look on the internet, in a book on your shelves, in
the library, or maybe all three? Do you call a friend, a relative, a friendly
professor? And so on.

If unschooling (for me) has a goal, it's that my children learn how to find
out what they need to know. If I always know the answers to their questions,
what are they going to do when I'm not around anymore?

Deborah in IL


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[email protected]

In a message dated 1/1/05 11:14:20 PM, DACunefare@... writes:

<< If unschooling (for me) has a goal, it's that my children learn how to
find

out what they need to know. If I always know the answers to their questions,

what are they going to do when I'm not around anymore? >>

This is the best and biggest goal of all, and yet a constant criticism of
homeschooling is that the kids are limited to learning what their parents know.
It's a lame criticism, for sure, but I keep hearing it. I think it has to do
with teacher preparation, and the idea that the teacher or the teacher's
answer book will have all the information needed to present that set of material
(4th grade math, or whatever subset of the universe they've contracted with the
state to "cover").

Here we are, though, presenting to our children nothing at ALL like "4th
grade math," and so their questions and our responses could suddenly jump to
anything in the universe, past/present/future/imagined. If a kid's math question
in school involved science fiction, the teacher could simply insult him or
tell him to wait until college to ask that question. If his question involves
dinosaurs, she could say "ask the science teacher."

If I had a dollar for every time a teacher told me "you don't need to know
that" or "that won't be on the test" or "they'll cover that next year," I could
get a new computer. (And I really NEED a new computer.)

So unschooling, in its nebulous unit-of-the-whole-wide-world thing, can
really only start to work when the mom is fully aware that 1) she doesn't know
everything, and 2) she doesn't need to.

Sandra

Elizabeth Hill

** So unschooling, in its nebulous unit-of-the-whole-wide-world thing, can
really only start to work when the mom is fully aware that 1) she
doesn't know
everything, and 2) she doesn't need to.**

True.

And let me just add that teaching "these are the complete set of right
answers" is a terrible, terrible way to teach science. In fact, it is
flat-out UNscientific. (But schools do it.) Learning by self-motivated
investigation and by screwing around with hands-on stuff gets you much
deeper.

(I think I've phrased this in a twisted way, so if anyone can make it
clearer, please jump in.)

Betsy

[email protected]

In a message dated 1/2/2005 12:17:23 P.M. Mountain Standard Time,
ecsamhill@... writes:

And let me just add that teaching "these are the complete set of right
answers" is a terrible, terrible way to teach science. In fact, it is
flat-out UNscientific. (But schools do it.)


-----------

Just the other day on one of the four unschooling places I frequent (and if
this was the child of someone here, feel free and encouraged NOT to fess up)
someone was talking about a kid having written a report on the truth about
global warming.

"THE" truth about global warming!?
Huh.

There are theories, and there are fears, and there seem to be a lot of
adults forgetting that they *KNOW* that the earth has one through many warming and
cooling phases to the point of (people have evidence to believe) polar
shifts, and yet just as sure as medieval people were that volcanos and earthquakes
and eclipses were proof that God was unhappy with something they had done,
there are people who track geological changes and say "OH MY GOSH, WE DID
THAT!!! EVERYONE CHANGE YOUR LIVES!!!! RUN IN PANIC AND HATE YOUR FELLOW MAN
NOW!!!!!"

If any parent has told a child that the truth about global warming is
available, that parent is doing a disservice.

Sandra



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[email protected]

In a message dated 1/2/2005 9:47:45 AM Central Standard Time,
SandraDodd@... writes:

This is the best and biggest goal of all, and yet a constant criticism of
homeschooling is that the kids are limited to learning what their parents
know.
It's a lame criticism, for sure, but I keep hearing it. I think it has to
do
with teacher preparation, and the idea that the teacher or the teacher's
answer book will have all the information needed to present that set of
material
(4th grade math, or whatever subset of the universe they've contracted with
the
state to "cover").



~~~

I remember the day school was basically "over" for me, for good and forever.
It was the day I realized, fully and to the core, that everything I needed
to know, ever, was in a book somewhere or in someone's experience and I had a
telephone if I needed it. It took that realization several years to get to
a full rolling boil, and I was in high school when it happened. I can
remember the sensations of sitting in a particular classroom, the lights, the
smells, the sounds, and the *IDEA* just becoming a personal truth that I could no
longer deny. I remember it like it was yesterday. On occasion over the
years that moment has been brought to mind again by something someone said on
these lists, and it just happened again when I read this.

I keep thinking I should go to college, but when I remember that day, I
think, "they couldn't pay me enough!"

Just think, now I have GOOGLE!

Karen


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