Deborah Greenspan

Wow! This looks interesting. Thanks!



We may explore zoos and science museums, I guess. I'm in California, but
I'll pass along the website to see if anything sparks.



She's into rabbits, now. She has convinced us she will care for them. I
wonder. do unschooler parents request a book report or research, or is it
"just" experience? I fear we are going to be taken over by animals! There is
a zoo magnet high school, that she might enjoy later. I just don't
understand how the unschooler thing works when it's time to get a college
degree or a job. Please enlighten me.



All the best,



Deborah :-)



_____

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of plaidpanties666
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 10:37 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Re: Special Needs Unschool: Mine or Hers



--- In AlwaysLearning@ <mailto:AlwaysLearning%40yahoogroups.com>
yahoogroups.com, "Deborah Greenspan"
<dgreens1@...> wrote:
>She likes animals, bugs, and watching
> movies.

Hey, she sounds like fun! Does she like movies *about* bugs? There's
a whole glorious genre to explore, from the tacky B-movies to the
really chic artsy films like *Microcosmos* - has she seen that? Its
scrumptious!

That may all sound beside the point since the question was:

> How does one unschool a reluctant learner?

But really, the difference between a "reluctant" learner and an
enthusiastic one is that for the latter learning is part of her own
internal process of joyful discovery. There's nothing joyful about
being "made" to read or "do math".

What would happen if you helped her explore her interests rather
than insisting she ingest something unpalattable to her? Where might
she go, what might she do with animals or bugs or movies or some
combination - or maybe one of those would lead her in a direction
neither of you can yet imagine.

She may not be able to articulate what she *wants* to do at this
point, so you may have to offer or strew ideas - but they should be
Fun ideas, offered for the potential joy, not entomology textbooks
or worksheets on animal tracks. Here's something fun, although you
may be half a world away for all I know, its a neat idea:

http://www.life <http://www.life.uiuc.edu/entomology/egsa/ifff.html>
uiuc.edu/entomology/egsa/ifff.html
(Its an Insect Fear Film Festival and there's a list of all the
films they've shown in the past if she's interested).

There's also no need to "tie in" to some strange new curriculum of
Animals-Bugs-and-Film, but the bug thing is really exciting to *me*
so I can't resist. That's a place to *start*, but don't discount
anything that you think she'd enjoy.

---Meredith (Mo 5, Ray 13)





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Sandra Dodd

-=-I just don't
understand how the unschooler thing works when it's time to get a
college
degree or a job. Please enlighten me.-=-

It involves learning gradually and from real-world sources.

For you to learn about it you, too, need to so some of your own
exploring and not ask us everything you think of.

You should read some John Holt before you post much more. There's
enough online to give you an idea--poke around here:
http://sandradodd.com/johnholt

Joyce's site would probably appeal to you:

http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/

There are stories about teens here:
http://sandradodd.com/teen

Sandra

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Joyce Fetteroll

On Feb 10, 2007, at 2:18 AM, Deborah Greenspan wrote:

> She has convinced us she will care for them.

You shouldn't expect her to. It will set her up to fail and it will
be a tension that will seep into the atmosphere of your home. You
will look at your daughter as less than perfect. She will feel less
than perfect. The tension will seep into her appreciation of the
rabbits and she'll feel even less like taking care of them.

Parents should expect to take care of animals. Parents should do it
joyfully. It will model setting aside our own needs to care for
someone else who is dependent on us. And by doing it joyfully, when
you invite her along to do it with you, she'll not only be more
willing, she'll have pleasant associations with caring for her animals.

(It is, of course, easy to say "Do it joyfully"! It takes a lot of
work and mental shifting of gears to work into that mind set. And
it's easy to slip out of it, and grumble and resent it. That's an
indication of not filling yourself up enough and feeling like the
things you (and others) do for you are in short supply and you need
to take from others joy to fill your own joy. It's hard work to find
ways to get off of that path and ways to avoid stepping back on it
but it's well worth it. And people here can help with things that
have worked for them.)

> do unschooler parents request a book report or research

If you wanted a new mixer, how would you feel if your husband told
you to research it and write up a report for him?

Yes, do, research! But do it because it's a good idea. Just as you
might sit down with an issue of Consumer Reports to look over their
article on mixers, do some research yourself and do it in a way that
your daughter would enjoy doing it with you. Get adult books and
child level books and look through them together. Share what you're
learning. Don't turn it into something that's good for her to do.
She'll feel that. Do it because it's honestly a good idea for *you*
to know more about an animal *you're* going to be responsible for.

(I'll even hand you a bit of research: My daughter and I volunteer at
a shelter and we've seen maybe a dozen rabbits come through there. (I
honestly don't see the point of rabbits but that's beside the
point ;-) Some of them are very very messy and will poop and pee
wherever they happen to be: food, bedding, etc. Some of them are
quite clean and confine it *mostly* to their litter box. We've had
rabbits come in from the same home that were night and day in
cleanliness so part may be training but part may be personality. (And
part is just the nature of rabbits. They, um, recycle their waste to
have another go at extracting the nutrients ;-) Personally I'd get a
shelter animal so you can see its habits and personality but I know
that would be hard to do with a child who wants one right now. I
think a reputable breeder is the next best source rather than pet
stores or newspapers. They would be a good source for information too.)

> just don't
> understand how the unschooler thing works when it's time to get a
> college
> degree or a job.

Say you had a gardening business and you had an opening for an
apprentice job. Would you feel better about hiring a kid who aces
math and spelling and history tests or a kid who has been playing
with and messing about with and reading about and exploring plants
since she was old enough to dig in the dirt?

Unschooling is like looking back on your life and seeing all the
things you enjoyed doing in the past that lead you to where you are
and then cutting out all the stuff that was done "just because" that
led no where.

Because learning in school (and through schoolish ways) is so hard,
we fear that learning what we need is hard. But it isn't.

Because learning in school is often boring, we fear that kids will
avoid great huge chunks of stuff they need to know because it's
boring (and therefore hard to learn). But it isn't. All of life is
potentially fascinating until it gets tainted by being put in
textbooks and being made to learn it. (Not everyone will be
interested in everything. But everyone will want to know more about
what connects to and helps them explore their interests.)

Unschooling is how your daughter learned to speak. Think about that
for a bit. We take the amazing process of learning to speak our
native language for granted because all kids do it effortlessly. But
it's truly astounding. Kids start with *nothing*. They have no
concept of language but they pull themselves up by their bootstraps
and acquire proficiency in just a few short years. And they do it
without even trying! They aren't actively trying to learn how to
speak. They're living life, using language as a tool to get what they
want, and they get better at speaking *as a side effect* of living life.

Astounding.

But think about how hard it is when learning a language is turned
into a school process, like Spanish or French: taken out of context,
put in textbooks, led through unwillingly step by incremental step.
How much of the foreign language you took in school do you remember?
Is it because you didn't apply yourself? (It's the message most of us
heard.) Or is it because the process is alien to the way we naturally
learn that it's nearly impossible to *make* someone learn that way?

Yes, some kids *do* learn through school. It's because 1) they are
already interested in the subject and 2) learning through reading
matches their learning style. I was good in math in school, not
because I was a good student who applied herself but because I liked
puzzles. It was just inherent in my nature. I was really bad in
history in school because it was a lot of boring people doing boring
things. Odd thing, though, I liked history. I like historical movies
and novels. But school tainted history for me for a long time.

If someone had judged what I would do if I were unschooling by what I
did in school, they'd be certain I'd never do history on my own. The
obvious conclusion is that I needed to be made to study history. But
that would be wrong. It isn't accurate to judge kids by the behavior
of schooled kids. School hugely mucks up kids' natural behavior.
Schooled kids *don't* behave like kids.

What I needed was the freedom to explore the fun parts of history and
in the process -- *as a side effect* -- I would have picked up a
whole lot more about the big picture they tried to ram down our
throats in school. *And* I would remember it. *And* I wouldn't have
the taint of being force fed it attached to it (that makes it a
relief to forget the facts.)

Joyce

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Gold Standard

>>She has convinced us she will care for them.<<

Even though I agree with Sandra that you will be best served with all of
these questions by spending lots of time reading through the links, they
really do have the answers you are looking for and people have done an
enormous amount of work to put them there, I did want to respond to two
things.

Bringing animals into the home can be a multi-faceted, fabulous experience
for the whole family. However, it is the parent's commitment, NOT the
child's commitment, to make sure the animals are well-cared for, and it's
the parent's commitment to do it happily (at least most of the time :o).

Our dd wanted a horse. She had been going to horse camp and reading about
horses and watching horse movies for a long time. When we figured out how to
afford a horse (which was a pretty darn expensive endeavor for us), dh and I
did a bunch of research with dd around for most of it (and she was
interested in much of it, and when she wasn't she was usually nearby and
still catching parts of our conversations and enlightenments) and we visited
horses for sale and eventually bought one and boarded it down the street
from our house. Dd, dh and I went there every morning at 6:30 for feeding,
watering, grooming and stall-cleaning. She took riding lessons three times a
week. We were there many times outside of those times each week. We all
learned to ride and had so much fun, and put out a whole lot of work! It was
a GREAT experience for us...the three of us had real special times at the
stables.

And then she lost interest. Dh and I went to do the work when she didn't
want to, or when she wanted to sleep in. This happened more and more, and at
the same time our financial situation changed and the costs were getting
harder to handle. Wonderfully for us, the boarding facility owner saw what
was happening. She offered to buy Sugar. We talked to dd about this, and she
was glad that our loving neighbor wanted to continue to care for Sugar, and
that she would be right down the street still. So we sold her.

This adventure was not one that I chose, and frankly, I did have to work up
the joy to do it. But when I did, *I* was blessed at the time we had
together.

It would have been easy to get mad at dd's change in direction. It would
have been easy to make her feel bad about it...about stopping the horse
care, about her losing her interest after we had put a lot of work and money
and love into Sugar.

But why would we do that? She was learning about something she was
interested in, and now she knows exactly what horse ownership means, and
what it takes. That is some mighty hefty learning! Something she would
never, no mater how many books she read or how many classes she took, have
truly learned otherwise. And we continue to have fond memories (the neighbor
and Sugar have since moved) and reflections of that time.

A rabbit is a much less expensive and work-related animal (we've had a few),
so if you get a rabbit...go for it! Research it, find out what it takes to
own a bunny (she may lose interest during the research...that's happened to
us many times). Know that you will be showing how to love and happily care
for an animal. She will definitely pick up on that. We have two dogs and
four cats, and have had so many different kinds of animals over the years
that I can't even count...my kids are great with animals and I do think that
part of that was seeing their parents be happy with them.

And one more thing...

>>(It is, of course, easy to say "Do it joyfully"! It takes a lot of
>>work and mental shifting of gears to work into that mind set.<<

I also wanted to suggest that it doesn't necessarily have to be hard to
shift from stressed to joy. They really are just two feelings, and it is
possible to choose. If you can come up with some ways to know that you need
to shift in a moment...it only needs to take a moment to go from irritated
to joy. Maybe you recognize a tone of voice you use...when you hear it,
quick, stop! Take a deep breath in and blow out the irritation. Take another
breath in and make it full of joy. Sometimes I shake my body and jump around
for a minute...shaking off the negativity. The goal is joy in every moment.
And while I'm certainly not there every moment, I do know that I can choose
it in every single moment.

Jacki

Sandra Dodd

-=-I also wanted to suggest that it doesn't necessarily have to be
hard to
shift from stressed to joy. They really are just two feelings, and it is
possible to choose. If you can come up with some ways to know that
you need
to shift in a moment...it only needs to take a moment to go from
irritated
to joy. Maybe you recognize a tone of voice you use...when you hear it,
quick, stop! Take a deep breath in and blow out the irritation. Take
another
breath in and make it full of joy. Sometimes I shake my body and jump
around
for a minute...shaking off the negativity. The goal is joy in every
moment.
And while I'm certainly not there every moment, I do know that I can
choose
it in every single moment.-=-

Sterling.

Sandra

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