Melody Flurry

Just thought I would share my recent experience of trying to make connections. The interesting thing is that before I encountered Sandra's unschooling website, it probably wouldn't have occured to me to share this story with my son. I'm so thankful to have found a resource that has opened my eyes to the possibilities of how everything is interwoven. Learning is so much more fun when it isn't segregated into compartments and presented as a dry set of facts to be memorized instead of stories that are related and have real personal meaning in our lives. But you know that already!

This experience begins with me reading a story to my son called "Lei Zu and the Silkworm", which is a legend about the Chinese Emporer Huang Di's wife Lei Zu discovering the silk threads from a silkworm cocoon and having them made into a garment for the emporer. When I finished the story I asked my son if he wanted to know what silkworms had to do with Florence, Alabama. (Although we no longer live there, my son was born in Florence and his grandparents still live in the area.) He looked surprised and interested and said yes, he wanted to know.

I related to him the story of how a man named Nicholas Hentz, who was originally from France, came to the Florence, AL area to start a girl's school called Locust Dell Academy in the early 1830's. Nicholas Hentz had met and married his wife in Mass. and they had moved to Cinncinnati, OH (where we also used to live) and had then moved to Kentucky and started a girl's school there before coming to Alabama. The site where Hentz and his wife built this school for girls is now an administration building at the small liberal arts University where my husband and I graduated. (My son had visited this University and knew the building).

While running this school, Nicholas Hentz, who was an entymologist and more specifically an arachnologist, discovered 124 new species of spiders, and his drawings of these were widely published in academic journals. (He had learned how to draw and paint miniatures in France). Another of Hentz's interesting endeavors was that he tried his hand at cultivating Mulberry trees for the purpose of raising and selling--you guessed it--silkworms. This enterprise ultimately failed because the trees would not grow well in that area and he couldn't make the money he hoped he would.

Later on that evening, we were discussing the civil war (although I don't remember how this discussion started) and I went on to tell my son that the wife of Nicholas Hentz, Caroline Lee Hentz, was a famous author and that she wrote a novel called "The Planter's Nothern Bride", which was a response to a novel called "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Caroline Hentz provided a different perspective on slavery than Stowe. This led to a further discussion of the civil war and of wars in general, and how there are many issues involved in the causes of wars, not all of which are morally motivated.

So the point of all this is that everything IS related--and if I can make connections, then anyone can!

Melody


---------------------------------
It's here! Your new message!
Get new email alerts with the free Yahoo! Toolbar.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jackie Lazzaro

I have 2 dd's ages 8 and 10. We have been easing into hs'g and unschooling
since the beginning of the year. My dh and I agreed to take our older dd
out of public school this past December. We found that unschooling made the
most sense for us. We are now moving toward bringing my 8yo home too. She
will finish 3rd grade in ps but will not go back in Sept.

I have been learning so much from the folks here and on several other lists
I joined. I'm hoping that maybe you can help me figure out how to approach
this situation w/my 8yo. Elysia just does not want to help around the
house. I am trying to figure out how to respect her while teaching her that
we all need to work together to help the house run smoothly. Not to mention
that she is the messiest one of us and she needs to learn to clean up after
herself. The kids do not have assigned chores, nor do they get an
allowance.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thx!

:-)

Jackie





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=-How do I teach -=-

My answer to any "how do I teach" question is "don't."

For unschooling to work as well as it can, you should try to undo all
thought of "teaching."

http://sandradodd.com/wordswords
There are some explanations (reasons and ideas) for replacing "teach"
thoughts and words with "learning" thoughts and words.

I'll recast your question this way:

How might your daughter best learn to help around the house?

-=-Elysia just does not want to help around the
house. I am trying to figure out how to respect her while teaching
her that
we all need to work together to help the house run smoothly. -=-

The more you try to make her do what she doesn't want to do, the more
you will teach her to avoid that thing in the future. Stop teaching
people what is undesireable by making rules about what must and can't
and has to and such. People will respond to rules in ways you
didn't foresee and can't undo.

-=-Not to mention that she is the messiest one of us and she needs to
learn to clean up after
herself.-=-

What if she had a disability that prevented her from picking anything
up? Would you pick up after her then?

Declarations of what our children "need" should always be looked at
twice.

If you want to read what others have written in the past, you could
go to the "visit your group" link at the bottom of this e-mail (or
the "messages" link to the left if you're reading online) and when
you get the search box, put in chores. Some of the best stuff is
also here:
http://sandradodd.com/chores

Sandra

jenstarc4

Elysia just does not want to help around the
> house. I am trying to figure out how to respect her while teaching
her that
> we all need to work together to help the house run smoothly. Not
to mention
> that she is the messiest one of us and she needs to learn to clean
up after
> herself. The kids do not have assigned chores, nor do they get an
> allowance.

Simply don't make her. When I feel that the house is messy, it is my
interpretation of what messy looks and feels like, not my kids' ideas
of messy looks and feels like. I clean to my comfort level, and as a
side effect, my kids get to live in a comfortable and clean
environment.

Just to give you an idea: When my oldest dd, now 13, was 3, 4, and
5, and on up to about 7, when her younger sister was born, she
cleaned up her toys every night. We did it together and it was fun,
she never complained about it or expressed any negativity towards.
At the age of 13, she absolutely doesn't clean up after herself. So
years of doing it didn't teach her about the value of a clean room or
about picking up your own messes.

I clean her room for her about once a week. She loves it when I do
and loves having her room clean, but she doesn't do it herself except
maybe every once in a while. It's something that she values, but she
obviously values other things more than having a clean room. I even
take her plates, cups, and bowls into the kitchen, empty her garbage
for her, pick up trash, wash her clothes, make her bed, and tidy up
her dresser, vaccuum, and all of that. I fold and put away her
clothes for her because I know if I don't they will all end up on the
floor and under bed.

I get criticism for doing this from some of my friends who think she
is old enough to do it herself. If she really was old enough to do
it herself, she would do it herself. If she didn't want me to do
that stuff for her, she would say so. Plus, it's a little like
peeking into her world when I'm in her room cleaning it up. I find
interesting bits of information about my child who doesn't talk a lot
about things that she doesn't find interesting, but I do.

Give the gift of a clean house to your kids, and then one day, they
may just do that for their own kids.