Mary had a little lamb
Amy McCormick
My daughter has been playing with two laundry baskets (big laundry day all day today) for hours now, turning them into a train, cars, a sled, baby carriages, bunk beds, cat/dog carriers (one on top of the other with her inside), turtles, traffic obstacles, an obstacle course, one of those drop-a-quarter-in rides outside of Walmart (she even made her own paper quarters), and more that I didn't actually pay close attention to other than to make sure we wouldn't be presenting to the Emergency Room today. This itself doesn't fascinate me, but the fact that she is going on about hour 6 playing with them does.
Anyway, as she was playing at one point she began singing Mary Had a Little Lamb and came to ask me what "against the rules" meant. It turned into a big discussion about school, rules, what learning should be like, what we would do if a lamb followed her home, etc. I had never really analyzed a nursery rhyme from this particular perspective, but this song itself is a good argument against school-style learning: The lamb follows Mary to school, which was against the rules. Wouldn't want any surprises or serendipity to enter that sterile environment. It made the children laugh and play! But oh, wait, that is BAD for children to laugh and play while learning, discovering, and exploring! So the teacher turns him out, banishing all joy from school and learning, not to mention the opportunity for some exciting discovery about lambs, sheep, wool, weaving, clothing, farm animals, animal sounds, and whatever else little imaginations (or big ones) could come up with.
My daughter (5) now wants to write an "unschool" version of the song - after she is done playing with the laundry baskets. :)
Amy
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Anyway, as she was playing at one point she began singing Mary Had a Little Lamb and came to ask me what "against the rules" meant. It turned into a big discussion about school, rules, what learning should be like, what we would do if a lamb followed her home, etc. I had never really analyzed a nursery rhyme from this particular perspective, but this song itself is a good argument against school-style learning: The lamb follows Mary to school, which was against the rules. Wouldn't want any surprises or serendipity to enter that sterile environment. It made the children laugh and play! But oh, wait, that is BAD for children to laugh and play while learning, discovering, and exploring! So the teacher turns him out, banishing all joy from school and learning, not to mention the opportunity for some exciting discovery about lambs, sheep, wool, weaving, clothing, farm animals, animal sounds, and whatever else little imaginations (or big ones) could come up with.
My daughter (5) now wants to write an "unschool" version of the song - after she is done playing with the laundry baskets. :)
Amy
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Elizabeth Roberts
Amy,
Sounds like a great day to me! I hadn't thought of the poem that way, but yeah, isn't that AWFUL!??!!!
My kids really enjoy the laundry baskets too...Logan likes to make his a train when it's not a race car!
MamaBeth
Amy McCormick <cottagevt@...> wrote:
My daughter has been playing with two laundry baskets (big laundry day all day today) for hours now, turning them into a train, cars, a sled, baby carriages, bunk beds, cat/dog carriers (one on top of the other with her inside), turtles, traffic obstacles, an obstacle course, one of those drop-a-quarter-in rides outside of Walmart (she even made her own paper quarters), and more that I didn't actually pay close attention to other than to make sure we wouldn't be presenting to the Emergency Room today. This itself doesn't fascinate me, but the fact that she is going on about hour 6 playing with them does.
Anyway, as she was playing at one point she began singing Mary Had a Little Lamb and came to ask me what "against the rules" meant. It turned into a big discussion about school, rules, what learning should be like, what we would do if a lamb followed her home, etc. I had never really analyzed a nursery rhyme from this particular perspective, but this song itself is a good argument against school-style learning: The lamb follows Mary to school, which was against the rules. Wouldn't want any surprises or serendipity to enter that sterile environment. It made the children laugh and play! But oh, wait, that is BAD for children to laugh and play while learning, discovering, and exploring! So the teacher turns him out, banishing all joy from school and learning, not to mention the opportunity for some exciting discovery about lambs, sheep, wool, weaving, clothing, farm animals, animal sounds, and whatever else little imaginations (or big ones) could come up with.
My daughter (5) now wants to write an "unschool" version of the song - after she is done playing with the laundry baskets. :)
Amy
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Sounds like a great day to me! I hadn't thought of the poem that way, but yeah, isn't that AWFUL!??!!!
My kids really enjoy the laundry baskets too...Logan likes to make his a train when it's not a race car!
MamaBeth
Amy McCormick <cottagevt@...> wrote:
My daughter has been playing with two laundry baskets (big laundry day all day today) for hours now, turning them into a train, cars, a sled, baby carriages, bunk beds, cat/dog carriers (one on top of the other with her inside), turtles, traffic obstacles, an obstacle course, one of those drop-a-quarter-in rides outside of Walmart (she even made her own paper quarters), and more that I didn't actually pay close attention to other than to make sure we wouldn't be presenting to the Emergency Room today. This itself doesn't fascinate me, but the fact that she is going on about hour 6 playing with them does.
Anyway, as she was playing at one point she began singing Mary Had a Little Lamb and came to ask me what "against the rules" meant. It turned into a big discussion about school, rules, what learning should be like, what we would do if a lamb followed her home, etc. I had never really analyzed a nursery rhyme from this particular perspective, but this song itself is a good argument against school-style learning: The lamb follows Mary to school, which was against the rules. Wouldn't want any surprises or serendipity to enter that sterile environment. It made the children laugh and play! But oh, wait, that is BAD for children to laugh and play while learning, discovering, and exploring! So the teacher turns him out, banishing all joy from school and learning, not to mention the opportunity for some exciting discovery about lambs, sheep, wool, weaving, clothing, farm animals, animal sounds, and whatever else little imaginations (or big ones) could come up with.
My daughter (5) now wants to write an "unschool" version of the song - after she is done playing with the laundry baskets. :)
Amy
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
"List Posting Policies" are provided in the files area of this group.
To unsubscribe from this send an email to:
[email protected]
Visit the Unschooling website and message boards: http://www.unschooling.com
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To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UnschoolingDiscussion/
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