Paula Sjogerman

on 2/21/04 8:34 AM, [email protected] at
[email protected] wrote:

> I've learned to see the value in everything my kids do


Then there's another thing, and maybe it's a "next step in unschooling."
It's learning that what they do is valuable even if you CAN"T see the value
in it. My kids have done a few things where I think "huh?" Zoe spent hours
and hours tracing, sometimes without making any marks, just using an object
to trace. Sometimes she traced pages of words. I still have no idea what she
got out of that but clearly it was valuable to her.

I totally don't understand the appeal of anime. Both my kids love it. I
figure it's like when older folks said they hated rock n' roll - I just
don't get it. But that's my problem, not theirs. I'm not going to tell them
that their taste is bad because I'm too dim. Same with Magic cards, etc. and
shoot 'em up video games. They are way too hard for me. And that's ok.

Paula

Danielle Conger

Paula wrote:
Then there's another thing, and maybe it's a "next step in unschooling."
It's learning that what they do is valuable even if you CAN"T see the value
in it.
==================================================

I think that *is* learning to see value in it--you value it because they do, but even more than that. When you get close to them, watch and play with them, you can see the value through their eyes and it becomes valuable to you too, maybe even for your own reasons. The trick is to stop saying even just to yourself, "Well, I can't see the value in that!"


Mamabeth wrote:
Here's another thought...what if he goes on from there to design the next big card craze among kids his age...at least those in his neighborhood...from what he's learned? Drawing the cards, computing values for each character, naming and designing them...
=====================================================

Now see, I think it's great to play even if it *doesn't* lead to some future career or fabulous impact on the world. I'm not saying it couldn't or shouldn't lead to that, just that we shouldn't have such expectations or even dreams. We need to leave that kind of dreaming to the kids.

I think we have to let go of the future and really *be* in the here and now. When we start trying to figure out what our children could be doing in the future and how x, y or z is really valuable because it's leading up to that really valuable, real world thing, we fall back into a conventional paradigm that says the purpose of childhood is to prepare for productive adulthood. I don't want a life for my children that says be productive first, live second. I want them to really love and enjoy life, and I have faith that "making a living" will flow from that. I have faith that they will find their own path in this world by following their passion and joy in life. Does that make sense?

--danielle

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]