re: educational
[email protected]
In a message dated 1/9/2002 5:09:43 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:
But -- interestingly, among some of my good friends (all unschooling types),
we find ourselves using that word in a very different way. "The tour was
okay, but a little too 'educational,'" or "Well, we tried that but it was too
'educational' for us." "I found these scripts of plays the kids might enjoy
putting on -- they're pretty cool even if they're a little overly
'educational'.
So - it is a sort of codeword, I think, for stuff that is just too
....something..? Too fake? Too superficial? Too contrived. That's it, I
think.
If someone said, "Oh, yeah, we went to that museum. It was very educational,"
I wouldn't know if that was a good thing or not. I'd just like to hear, "Oh,
yeah, we had a great time at the museum and there was cool stuff there and I
learned a whole lot about it." For so many of us, "educational" carries the
implication that someone shoved something down some poor kids' throats <G>.
And of course there is the argument that you're probably making, Ren, that to
say one thing IS educational implies that other things are not. From an
unschooling point of view that is sort of a nonsense position.
--Pam
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected] writes:
> I'm over at the unschooling.com e-mail list trying to explain why theI'm WITH you on that one Ren.
> terms "educational" would best be dropped from the vocabulary in
> order to fully embrace the unschool mindset.
>
But -- interestingly, among some of my good friends (all unschooling types),
we find ourselves using that word in a very different way. "The tour was
okay, but a little too 'educational,'" or "Well, we tried that but it was too
'educational' for us." "I found these scripts of plays the kids might enjoy
putting on -- they're pretty cool even if they're a little overly
'educational'.
So - it is a sort of codeword, I think, for stuff that is just too
....something..? Too fake? Too superficial? Too contrived. That's it, I
think.
If someone said, "Oh, yeah, we went to that museum. It was very educational,"
I wouldn't know if that was a good thing or not. I'd just like to hear, "Oh,
yeah, we had a great time at the museum and there was cool stuff there and I
learned a whole lot about it." For so many of us, "educational" carries the
implication that someone shoved something down some poor kids' throats <G>.
And of course there is the argument that you're probably making, Ren, that to
say one thing IS educational implies that other things are not. From an
unschooling point of view that is sort of a nonsense position.
--Pam
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]