letter from my husband to his mother
[email protected]
I thought this list would really like to hear my husband's words to his mom
after she asked about this "unschooling". She's not said a word for over
three years since Ben said, "This is OUR decision." Here is his response!
~Kelly
Mom-
Thanks for breakfast and the conversation on Friday morning. I'd have enjoyed
extending our conversation, but our time was limited. We can continue at any
time; my schedule is open.
Thank you also for asking about the boys' learning and for your concern for
Cameron. Since our decision to unschool the boys, I think that was the first
time that I felt that someone in my family actually was curious without
interrogating me about why we'd taken the boys out of school. I certainly
will accept some of the responsibility of not helping where that was
concerned. To help your curiosity, I'm providing you with some suggested
books, websites, and other resources to have you read. Taking the time to do
this will answer many of the questions that you have while giving you tons of
other questions which are certain to come up. While I don't mind answering
the questions, these resources will help you to understand at least partly
where we're coming from; you can then ask questions which are more in-depth
and from a point of learning vs questioning the decision and whether or not
it is the right one. The "why" is less important than the process that we
followed to get to the decision as well as the process of the boys' learning.
One note from our conversation: I truly meant what I said about children and
decisions. I think that adults spend way too much time trying to tell
children what's right and wrong vs listening to their children to find out
what's right for that child. Children who have the freedom that Cameron and
Duncan have understand this, and, more often than not, make excellent choices
for what is right for them. While direction is offered, we offer it only
when requested. Does this mean that Duncan and Cameron don't understand our
principles and values? Far from it. They know that we'll freely provide
whatever direction that they need; we just don't believe in imposing our
respective wills, morals, rules, or any other restrictive bias onto them just
because we may have been brought up a certain way or because we're bigger or
because "we said so". In the end, we are also learning as we go with this,
too; the difference is that we know this is the best decision that we have
made to help them with their "education".
Additionally, adults, for the most part, forget what it was like to be 4 or 7
or 13 or 17. Those of us who remember do not make it a habit of directing
our children's destiny or dictating what they should do and when. Our
children are not drones, told to learn what the State (re: school system)
will have them learn, nor expected to be a success based upon what society or
friends or relatives or we define as a success. We believe that our children
are free to define when, where, how, and why they learn something; that they
are free to determine their own meaning of what is successful or not. Most
adults don't even know what success is. They just believe what society tells
them, and they go along with that, never living up to the potential of where
their dreams truly lead. Cameron and Duncan will know how to learn, know the
value of learning, know that there is more than one way to learn, and know
how to use their imagination and dream. Equally important is that they'll be
able to determine for themselves what success is and how to truly define it,
and they'll be able to do this before the age of 18.
One final note along the lines of how we see children: they are not flowers
waiting to bloom at some special age; they have bloomed already. We must
treat them with respect for who they are at age 1 or 4 or 10 or whatever age
they are and trust them at those ages as well. If we wait until they're 18
and on their own, we'll have missed a 17+-year opportunity to provide them
with the most basic guiding principle of being human: treat others as you
would have them treat you. I'd worry that my kids would resent me more for
not allowing them to learn this (notice that I wrote "learn" and not "teach"
-- there is no such thing as a teacher if someone is not truly willing or
ready to learn) before I'd worry about resentment for not having sent them to
school. I can live with this because we've given them the authority, tools,
resources, and freedom to define their own "education".
I offered those three prior paragraphs as a small insight to me and, to a
large degree, Kelly and how we think. It is not meant to be seen as right or
wrong or a "that's the way it is, so f--- you" attitude. I offer no
apologies and expect no evaluation or criticism of our thought pattern. I
merely offer it as information and, coupled with the resources below, as an
opportunity for you to understand what we know about unschooling and our
children.
I love you-
Ben
Books about Unschooling:
The man that coined the word "unschooling" was John Holt. The "Father of
Unschooling", he died in 1985---but he was the instigator of modern home
learning and is still the "authority" on learning. You can find all his books
at the library. He began as a school reformer, but soon realized that schools
were unreformable. His first books are attempts to change the way schools and
teachers teach and respond to children; the later books show how learning
really occurs and that children are naturally curious, creative, and
intelligent---that they are natural learners: "Fish swim, birds fly, humans
learn."
How Children Fail, How Children Learn, and Learning All the Time are three
good ones.
Grace Llewellyn wrote The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and
Get a REAL Education. The parable at the beginning alone is worth the price
of the book.
John Taylor Gatto, New York City and New York State Teacher of the Year, who
finally QUIT when he realized that school was not only not helping children,
but seriously harming them. He wrote Dumbing Us Down and The Underground
History of American Education
Alfi Kohn:
Punished by Rewards about the harm imposed on children by extrinsic
motivation
Jean Liedhoff:
The Continuum Concept
also a website: www.continuum-concept.org
Frank Smith: The Book of Learning and Forgetting
Magazines: Home Education Magazine (HEM) and Life Learning are both
excellent, and I can give you copies.
Websites:
http://www.unschooling.com Read the essays and then visit the message
boards. No need to post, but read. If, after reading for a couple of months,
you STILL have questions, then ask questions. Almost all questions you may
have have been asked and answered more than once. Pay special attention to
the words of Sandra Dodd, Joyce Fetteroll, Anne Ohman, Pam Sorooshian,
Miriam/Lisa Bugg, and Mary (Zenmomma) Gold.
Things that worry most "grands" are socialization/college/unsupportive
relatives/reading/tv/video games/math. These and others are examined in great
depth.
Sandra Dodd, the "guru" of unschooling, is the Keynote Speaker at the Live &
Learn Unschooling Conference in Columbia this August 22-24.
http://www.SandraDodd.com/unschooling <A HREF="http://www.sandradodd.com/unschooling">Click here: UNSCHOOLING</A>
National Home Education Network www.nhen.org
And our website:
http://schoolsoutsupport.org
If you have any other questions, both of us are more than willing to respond.
Between the two of us, we've read every book, have subscriptions from
several magazines, and are constantly in touch with numerous people on the
websites that we offered. We also will host a night (on Friday, April 25th)
with David Albert, author of And the Skylark Sings With Me, in Columbia and
our 2nd Unschooling Conference the weekend of 22-24 August. You're welcome
to come to both or either of these. I'll be leading a talk about principles
vs rules on Saturday, 23 August. See our website: schoolsoutsupport (above)
about details for the talk and the conference.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
after she asked about this "unschooling". She's not said a word for over
three years since Ben said, "This is OUR decision." Here is his response!
~Kelly
Mom-
Thanks for breakfast and the conversation on Friday morning. I'd have enjoyed
extending our conversation, but our time was limited. We can continue at any
time; my schedule is open.
Thank you also for asking about the boys' learning and for your concern for
Cameron. Since our decision to unschool the boys, I think that was the first
time that I felt that someone in my family actually was curious without
interrogating me about why we'd taken the boys out of school. I certainly
will accept some of the responsibility of not helping where that was
concerned. To help your curiosity, I'm providing you with some suggested
books, websites, and other resources to have you read. Taking the time to do
this will answer many of the questions that you have while giving you tons of
other questions which are certain to come up. While I don't mind answering
the questions, these resources will help you to understand at least partly
where we're coming from; you can then ask questions which are more in-depth
and from a point of learning vs questioning the decision and whether or not
it is the right one. The "why" is less important than the process that we
followed to get to the decision as well as the process of the boys' learning.
One note from our conversation: I truly meant what I said about children and
decisions. I think that adults spend way too much time trying to tell
children what's right and wrong vs listening to their children to find out
what's right for that child. Children who have the freedom that Cameron and
Duncan have understand this, and, more often than not, make excellent choices
for what is right for them. While direction is offered, we offer it only
when requested. Does this mean that Duncan and Cameron don't understand our
principles and values? Far from it. They know that we'll freely provide
whatever direction that they need; we just don't believe in imposing our
respective wills, morals, rules, or any other restrictive bias onto them just
because we may have been brought up a certain way or because we're bigger or
because "we said so". In the end, we are also learning as we go with this,
too; the difference is that we know this is the best decision that we have
made to help them with their "education".
Additionally, adults, for the most part, forget what it was like to be 4 or 7
or 13 or 17. Those of us who remember do not make it a habit of directing
our children's destiny or dictating what they should do and when. Our
children are not drones, told to learn what the State (re: school system)
will have them learn, nor expected to be a success based upon what society or
friends or relatives or we define as a success. We believe that our children
are free to define when, where, how, and why they learn something; that they
are free to determine their own meaning of what is successful or not. Most
adults don't even know what success is. They just believe what society tells
them, and they go along with that, never living up to the potential of where
their dreams truly lead. Cameron and Duncan will know how to learn, know the
value of learning, know that there is more than one way to learn, and know
how to use their imagination and dream. Equally important is that they'll be
able to determine for themselves what success is and how to truly define it,
and they'll be able to do this before the age of 18.
One final note along the lines of how we see children: they are not flowers
waiting to bloom at some special age; they have bloomed already. We must
treat them with respect for who they are at age 1 or 4 or 10 or whatever age
they are and trust them at those ages as well. If we wait until they're 18
and on their own, we'll have missed a 17+-year opportunity to provide them
with the most basic guiding principle of being human: treat others as you
would have them treat you. I'd worry that my kids would resent me more for
not allowing them to learn this (notice that I wrote "learn" and not "teach"
-- there is no such thing as a teacher if someone is not truly willing or
ready to learn) before I'd worry about resentment for not having sent them to
school. I can live with this because we've given them the authority, tools,
resources, and freedom to define their own "education".
I offered those three prior paragraphs as a small insight to me and, to a
large degree, Kelly and how we think. It is not meant to be seen as right or
wrong or a "that's the way it is, so f--- you" attitude. I offer no
apologies and expect no evaluation or criticism of our thought pattern. I
merely offer it as information and, coupled with the resources below, as an
opportunity for you to understand what we know about unschooling and our
children.
I love you-
Ben
Books about Unschooling:
The man that coined the word "unschooling" was John Holt. The "Father of
Unschooling", he died in 1985---but he was the instigator of modern home
learning and is still the "authority" on learning. You can find all his books
at the library. He began as a school reformer, but soon realized that schools
were unreformable. His first books are attempts to change the way schools and
teachers teach and respond to children; the later books show how learning
really occurs and that children are naturally curious, creative, and
intelligent---that they are natural learners: "Fish swim, birds fly, humans
learn."
How Children Fail, How Children Learn, and Learning All the Time are three
good ones.
Grace Llewellyn wrote The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and
Get a REAL Education. The parable at the beginning alone is worth the price
of the book.
John Taylor Gatto, New York City and New York State Teacher of the Year, who
finally QUIT when he realized that school was not only not helping children,
but seriously harming them. He wrote Dumbing Us Down and The Underground
History of American Education
Alfi Kohn:
Punished by Rewards about the harm imposed on children by extrinsic
motivation
Jean Liedhoff:
The Continuum Concept
also a website: www.continuum-concept.org
Frank Smith: The Book of Learning and Forgetting
Magazines: Home Education Magazine (HEM) and Life Learning are both
excellent, and I can give you copies.
Websites:
http://www.unschooling.com Read the essays and then visit the message
boards. No need to post, but read. If, after reading for a couple of months,
you STILL have questions, then ask questions. Almost all questions you may
have have been asked and answered more than once. Pay special attention to
the words of Sandra Dodd, Joyce Fetteroll, Anne Ohman, Pam Sorooshian,
Miriam/Lisa Bugg, and Mary (Zenmomma) Gold.
Things that worry most "grands" are socialization/college/unsupportive
relatives/reading/tv/video games/math. These and others are examined in great
depth.
Sandra Dodd, the "guru" of unschooling, is the Keynote Speaker at the Live &
Learn Unschooling Conference in Columbia this August 22-24.
http://www.SandraDodd.com/unschooling <A HREF="http://www.sandradodd.com/unschooling">Click here: UNSCHOOLING</A>
National Home Education Network www.nhen.org
And our website:
http://schoolsoutsupport.org
If you have any other questions, both of us are more than willing to respond.
Between the two of us, we've read every book, have subscriptions from
several magazines, and are constantly in touch with numerous people on the
websites that we offered. We also will host a night (on Friday, April 25th)
with David Albert, author of And the Skylark Sings With Me, in Columbia and
our 2nd Unschooling Conference the weekend of 22-24 August. You're welcome
to come to both or either of these. I'll be leading a talk about principles
vs rules on Saturday, 23 August. See our website: schoolsoutsupport (above)
about details for the talk and the conference.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
coyote's corner
wow---this is great!!!
----- Original Message -----
From: kbcdlovejo@...
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 3:17 PM
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] letter from my husband to his mother
I thought this list would really like to hear my husband's words to his mom
after she asked about this "unschooling". She's not said a word for over
three years since Ben said, "This is OUR decision." Here is his response!
~Kelly
Mom-
Thanks for breakfast and the conversation on Friday morning. I'd have enjoyed
extending our conversation, but our time was limited. We can continue at any
time; my schedule is open.
Thank you also for asking about the boys' learning and for your concern for
Cameron. Since our decision to unschool the boys, I think that was the first
time that I felt that someone in my family actually was curious without
interrogating me about why we'd taken the boys out of school. I certainly
will accept some of the responsibility of not helping where that was
concerned. To help your curiosity, I'm providing you with some suggested
books, websites, and other resources to have you read. Taking the time to do
this will answer many of the questions that you have while giving you tons of
other questions which are certain to come up. While I don't mind answering
the questions, these resources will help you to understand at least partly
where we're coming from; you can then ask questions which are more in-depth
and from a point of learning vs questioning the decision and whether or not
it is the right one. The "why" is less important than the process that we
followed to get to the decision as well as the process of the boys' learning.
One note from our conversation: I truly meant what I said about children and
decisions. I think that adults spend way too much time trying to tell
children what's right and wrong vs listening to their children to find out
what's right for that child. Children who have the freedom that Cameron and
Duncan have understand this, and, more often than not, make excellent choices
for what is right for them. While direction is offered, we offer it only
when requested. Does this mean that Duncan and Cameron don't understand our
principles and values? Far from it. They know that we'll freely provide
whatever direction that they need; we just don't believe in imposing our
respective wills, morals, rules, or any other restrictive bias onto them just
because we may have been brought up a certain way or because we're bigger or
because "we said so". In the end, we are also learning as we go with this,
too; the difference is that we know this is the best decision that we have
made to help them with their "education".
Additionally, adults, for the most part, forget what it was like to be 4 or 7
or 13 or 17. Those of us who remember do not make it a habit of directing
our children's destiny or dictating what they should do and when. Our
children are not drones, told to learn what the State (re: school system)
will have them learn, nor expected to be a success based upon what society or
friends or relatives or we define as a success. We believe that our children
are free to define when, where, how, and why they learn something; that they
are free to determine their own meaning of what is successful or not. Most
adults don't even know what success is. They just believe what society tells
them, and they go along with that, never living up to the potential of where
their dreams truly lead. Cameron and Duncan will know how to learn, know the
value of learning, know that there is more than one way to learn, and know
how to use their imagination and dream. Equally important is that they'll be
able to determine for themselves what success is and how to truly define it,
and they'll be able to do this before the age of 18.
One final note along the lines of how we see children: they are not flowers
waiting to bloom at some special age; they have bloomed already. We must
treat them with respect for who they are at age 1 or 4 or 10 or whatever age
they are and trust them at those ages as well. If we wait until they're 18
and on their own, we'll have missed a 17+-year opportunity to provide them
with the most basic guiding principle of being human: treat others as you
would have them treat you. I'd worry that my kids would resent me more for
not allowing them to learn this (notice that I wrote "learn" and not "teach"
-- there is no such thing as a teacher if someone is not truly willing or
ready to learn) before I'd worry about resentment for not having sent them to
school. I can live with this because we've given them the authority, tools,
resources, and freedom to define their own "education".
I offered those three prior paragraphs as a small insight to me and, to a
large degree, Kelly and how we think. It is not meant to be seen as right or
wrong or a "that's the way it is, so f--- you" attitude. I offer no
apologies and expect no evaluation or criticism of our thought pattern. I
merely offer it as information and, coupled with the resources below, as an
opportunity for you to understand what we know about unschooling and our
children.
I love you-
Ben
Books about Unschooling:
The man that coined the word "unschooling" was John Holt. The "Father of
Unschooling", he died in 1985---but he was the instigator of modern home
learning and is still the "authority" on learning. You can find all his books
at the library. He began as a school reformer, but soon realized that schools
were unreformable. His first books are attempts to change the way schools and
teachers teach and respond to children; the later books show how learning
really occurs and that children are naturally curious, creative, and
intelligent---that they are natural learners: "Fish swim, birds fly, humans
learn."
How Children Fail, How Children Learn, and Learning All the Time are three
good ones.
Grace Llewellyn wrote The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and
Get a REAL Education. The parable at the beginning alone is worth the price
of the book.
John Taylor Gatto, New York City and New York State Teacher of the Year, who
finally QUIT when he realized that school was not only not helping children,
but seriously harming them. He wrote Dumbing Us Down and The Underground
History of American Education
Alfi Kohn:
Punished by Rewards about the harm imposed on children by extrinsic
motivation
Jean Liedhoff:
The Continuum Concept
also a website: www.continuum-concept.org
Frank Smith: The Book of Learning and Forgetting
Magazines: Home Education Magazine (HEM) and Life Learning are both
excellent, and I can give you copies.
Websites:
http://www.unschooling.com Read the essays and then visit the message
boards. No need to post, but read. If, after reading for a couple of months,
you STILL have questions, then ask questions. Almost all questions you may
have have been asked and answered more than once. Pay special attention to
the words of Sandra Dodd, Joyce Fetteroll, Anne Ohman, Pam Sorooshian,
Miriam/Lisa Bugg, and Mary (Zenmomma) Gold.
Things that worry most "grands" are socialization/college/unsupportive
relatives/reading/tv/video games/math. These and others are examined in great
depth.
Sandra Dodd, the "guru" of unschooling, is the Keynote Speaker at the Live &
Learn Unschooling Conference in Columbia this August 22-24.
http://www.SandraDodd.com/unschooling <A HREF="http://www.sandradodd.com/unschooling">Click here: UNSCHOOLING</A>
National Home Education Network www.nhen.org
And our website:
http://schoolsoutsupport.org
If you have any other questions, both of us are more than willing to respond.
Between the two of us, we've read every book, have subscriptions from
several magazines, and are constantly in touch with numerous people on the
websites that we offered. We also will host a night (on Friday, April 25th)
with David Albert, author of And the Skylark Sings With Me, in Columbia and
our 2nd Unschooling Conference the weekend of 22-24 August. You're welcome
to come to both or either of these. I'll be leading a talk about principles
vs rules on Saturday, 23 August. See our website: schoolsoutsupport (above)
about details for the talk and the conference.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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[email protected]
WOW.
Wow wow wow.
Wow wow wow.
Kelli Traaseth
Kelly, Please tell Ben, what a great letter! I need to do the same kind-of thing sometime. I try and say these things when we talk but can never get it all together. It would be great to have it in writing for them! Especially the sources for looking things up. Kelli
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[email protected]
In a message dated 4/13/2003 2:18:39 PM Central Standard Time,
kbcdlovejo@... writes:
Thank you for this. It made me cry.
Elizabeth
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
kbcdlovejo@... writes:
> I thought this list would really like to hear my husband's words to his momKelly -
> after she asked about this "unschooling". She's not said a word for over
> three years since Ben said, "This is OUR decision." Here is his response
Thank you for this. It made me cry.
Elizabeth
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]