The danger of "Lazy" and other thoughts
Phrases to hear and avoid
Words, words, words...
Learning mystiqueOn Twitter today, someone referred to unschooling as "the lazy parent's approach to school." The author's username includes "sarcasm," so I didn't take offense. But this opinion of unschooling is one we hear from time to time. It has its roots in the multilayered belief that (1) teaching is hard, (2) the stuff they teach in school is terribly important but so obscure that no one in the real world is likely to stumble upon it anywhere else, and if they do they won't be able to figure it out on their own, and (3) learning the terribly important things must be insisted upon, enforced, and even coerced.
https://zombieprincess.blogspot.com/2011/02/learning-mystique.html
Blame it on the Puritans or the capitalists or the social engineers, but wherever you place the genesis — maybe it's in Genesis — I think it's time to call bullshit on the cult of productivity and make-work and let lazy have its due.Her article goes beyond unschoolers and unschooling to quality of life, the economy and retirement.
http://pspirro.com/2011/02/05/lazy-so/
Rather than saying "dawdle isn't a nice word, you shouldn't use it" I think it is more sensible to say "OK, she dawdled, but is that necessarily bad?Others had pointed out that saying her child was "dawdling" could be a problem. Whatever her daughter WAS doing was probably better and more sensible than a mom defending that negativity in public.
Homeschooling parents usually say to me "But when left alone, my child will just play videogames all day" or "unschooling is great for a highly self-motivated child, but mine is lazy and needs to be exposed to other things."
Definitions of UnschoolingI find my one son getting very lazy and not interested in other activities.
But anything sufficiently interesting will keep one from being interested in other activities. And "lazy" is a very negative picture from the outside. You don't see him moving, but you don't see him learning. I'm guessing (possibly wrongly!) that you aren't looking for learning very hard because you've already decided it's lazy and the absence of other (better) activities.
Unschooling with the TV in the house Won't they end up lazy?
Do they expect other people to make their life good?In response to that question posed at a conference, I shared information about Kirby's work resume.
"Won't they end up lazy?"