I've saved some of the accounts of Learn Nothing Day, for fear the blogs won't always be around, but I've linked to them, so if you like the writing and the family sounds fun, go there and read more about them!
Learn Nothing Day was a fun day, right? We all get the joke and can laugh that we all failed at learning nothing. But it made my head hurt. Really.
Let me be clear: it was not the learning that was the problem. It was the awareness of it.
I was acutely aware of learning happening, all day long, in all of us. Reminded over and over again that we were learning. Then I decided to try to keep track of it all, you know so I could blog about it, of course. Bad idea. Keeping a running tally, then trying to recall that list was exhausting, especially since I was trying to simultaneously do all of the other things expected of me- make lunch, set up a game, read a book, pay the bills.
Imagine it: being reminded all the time oh, look what you just learned, and then this, too and look how well you learned it and isn't that great! Now tell me all about it. Tell me again but this time maybe from the third person perspective. Oh no, wait, tell me while standing on your head- let's see if you can do that! Oh, you just learned something again. You're awesome!
Oh my head hurt.
It made me wonder what it must be like for kids who are in school with exactly these conditions-
A) thrown information,
B) prodded to remember it,
C) reminded that they are "learning" and that's the reason they're there after all,
D) tested on it, which is just another reminder of what learning supposedly happened (or didn't),
E) praised for doing so well or trying so hard.
Reminded and quizzed by parents, teachers, strangers constantly. Good jobbed all the time. (Or better job next time.) What a sorry state in which to live.
So Learn Nothing Day made this very clear. I already knew that learning was readily available. Now I understand that there are side effects if not used as prescribed.
Flo's Radical Unschoolers' Network post
(tha forum is not archived)
July 24 was the first annual Learn Nothing Day. Do you have any idea how hard it is to try not to learn anything for an entire day?
When I found out about Learn Nothing Day I posted it to the list of events on our online community and planned to make the day full of nothing, after all everyone needs a day off. Then I realized that Learn Nothing Day was doomed to fail in our house before the day even happened. I looked at my calendar to see that my son would be at science camp for half of the day. We decided that previously scheduled learning would be allowed to take place, but that was it. No more learning!
I drop my son off at his camp that morning fully intending to learn nothing with my younger daughter that day. We went to the park to play with some friends. I thought we were safe from learning, but then it happened….learning snuck up on us! While we were at the park there was a very friendly parks department worker who loved telling the children all about the beautiful flowers that were throughout the park. We went on a walking tour of the park learning about the variety of flowers that are in the gardens.
After the learning fiasco at the park it was time to pick up my son. The three of us decided to go out for a harmless learn nothing kind of lunch. As we ate we chatted about our food. My daughter was enjoying her mushrooms when my son asked how mushrooms are grown. After explaining the process I realized my children learned something new.
On the way home there was a terrible storm. I am talking about a pull over on the shoulder of the highway, wish you were in your basement kind of storm. As we continued our journey home after the storm blew over, we had a long discussion about weather. Ugh! More learning!
That evening we talked about how hard it was to learn nothing. We came to the conclusion it is really hard to learn nothing in a day. My son said since learning is fun it isn’t something that should be avoided. Smart little guy I have there.
We will try again next year to learn nothing. I already doubt our success since we are always learning about the world around us.
To learn more about Learn Nothing Day visit Sandra Dodd’s site at
sandradodd.com/learnnothingday
A quote: "Midsummer, though, I discovered radical unschooling. With great timing too - right when the Radical Unschoolers’ Network was started, and right before Learn Nothing Day. I decided to try unschooling for a week, and never went back to the old schedule. Unschooling is way too much fun. And I kept right on learning, of course. I thought it’d be interesting to look over that “curriculum outline” from the beginning of summer and see if, by coincidence, I’d learned any of the same stuff by unschooling."
You might like to read more at Follow That Dream, because some of the older posts there are excellent descriptions of unschooling, too!
There was a folder but the forum is gone. What did you Learn on Learn Nothing Day?—a folder on the Radical Unschooling Network forum.