Sandra Dodd

"The effect of belief on length of life" isn't really what I mean. I
mean how does what one believes about length of life affect how one
acts?



From the discussion from which I am banished:

KathyJo:
You seem focused on, “What if we die tomorrow?” I’m focused on, “What
if we live forever?”

Sylvia:

I think it’s possible to do both. We certainly expect to live a long
time and are doing our best to make sure our kids have the skills and
knowledge they’ll need to live full, joyous, self-sufficient lives.

======================================

I have for a long time had this justification or rationale about
whether to hurry or dawdle:

If I'm going to live for years, I have time to do this later.

If I'm going to die tomorrow, this wasn't important to do.



With my children, too. When Holly was nine years old and not
reading, part of my calm acceptance was that tool I already had,
which was to think "If she's going to live a long time, she has time
to learn to read. If she's dying tomorrow, it doesn't matter whether
she could read."



Sandra

Jenny C

> "The effect of belief on length of life" isn't really what I mean.
I
> mean how does what one believes about length of life affect how
one
> acts?
>
>
>
> From the discussion from which I am banished:
>
> KathyJo:
> You seem focused on, "What if we die tomorrow?" I'm focused
on, "What
> if we live forever?"
>
> Sylvia:
>
> I think it's possible to do both. We certainly expect to live a
long
> time and are doing our best to make sure our kids have the skills
and
> knowledge they'll need to live full, joyous, self-sufficient lives.


A large part of my internal acceptance of unschooling was getting rid
of the timeline. If kids are in school there is always a timeline in
which things must be done, taught, learned, etc. School at home is
like that too. The woman with the blog is very invested in that idea
as well, to impart all of her motherly wisdom and embed it in her
kids while they are still young and moldable, to ensure that they get
all that she thinks they need to be successful people.

Every time I've gone down that path, my kids have shown me other
ways. If a child doesn't see the need to know a particular set of
knowledge, then whatever they get from it, isn't what you think they
will get from it.

For a long time, I wondered wether Chamille would ever understand
mathematical concepts. It wasn't that I was giving her math lessons
and she was rejecting them, it was more that she has showed little to
know interest in it, so wether she knew any, was/is hard to tell.

Getting to know Chamille and really focusing on what she IS
interested in has shown me other skills and knowledge sets that
aren't particularly valued by the educational system, but valuable in
and of itself, and especially valuable because it was/is part and
parcel of who she is as a person.

Margaux is fascinated with numbers and mathematical concepts. They
are swirling around in her head all the time. It is part of who she
is as a person.

What bothers me about the classical education approach (I know we
weren't really talking about that) is that it assumes a set of
knowledge that must be known or the person is deemed uneducated. It
is the same with public schooling and school at home, the idea that a
certain set of knowledge must be learned in order for a child to be
considered educated.

I have to kids that are really great, and really value knowledge, not
the knowledge that I find of value, but knowledge they find of
value. How can it be any other way? There is nothing in the world
that supports the idea that knowledge, not valued by the holder, is
valuable at all.

If I died tomorrow, I die knowing what I know, liking what I like,
valuing what I value. If I live much longer, I get to add to what I
know and what I like and what I value.

Jenny C

> If I died tomorrow, I die knowing what I know, liking what I like,
> valuing what I value. If I live much longer, I get to add to what I
> know and what I like and what I value.
>

Besides, according to the old lady at the bus stop when I was 19 and
waiting for the bus, told me that she had a vision of me living well
past 100, so I have nothing to worry about right?

Joanna Murphy

> What bothers me about the classical education approach (I know we
> weren't really talking about that) is that it assumes a set of
> knowledge that must be known or the person is deemed uneducated. It
> is the same with public schooling and school at home, the idea that a
> certain set of knowledge must be learned in order for a child to be
> considered educated.

And the problem with this, from what I saw on her discussion, it that just because you as
the parent value something--like classical education--that doesn't mean your kids will,
or that all your kids will--so there will be those who succeed and those who fail. With
unschooling, there is no "failure."

I have to think that the school-at-homers are experiencing the same phenomena that
happens in every classroom that I've ever known. Heck--every situation, including a
discussion at our house in which my kids have lost interest before I have--that if they
aren't interested there's no learning taking place.

And so then you get into coercion--how to make them pay attention, etc.

Joanna

Jenny C

> And so then you get into coercion--how to make them pay attention,
etc.
>

Don't you know, you do that by telling cute yet totally untrue stories
about killing astronauts.

It's where you get into the whole teacherly coersive techniques of
making it "fun" so they will learn.

cathy

Hi

I am enjoying this discussion. And I really liked what Jenny wrote:

> If I died tomorrow, I die knowing what I know, liking what I like,
> valuing what I value. If I live much longer, I get to add to what I
> know and what I like and what I value.
>
This morning, my 15 year old is writing her GCSE English Literature exam at
a local community college (for students ages 12 – 16). We arrived along with
1000 or so other teenagers arriving for school, all rushing in one direction
or another. We went to reception, and waited there for about ½ hour until
the invigilator arrived to take Kerrin down to the exam centre. There was a
screen in the reception area, showing footage of what all the school had to
offer. So many great activities – sport, art, drama, travel. The general
atmosphere was one of activity and purpose. Sitting there, I felt a
momentary sadness: Could I possibly give my children these kinds of
opportunities? It seemed like so much was available. And then I thought
about how real opportunities are chosen, taken, not enforced upon people.
These kids have a lot offered to them. But they do not have the option to
say ‘No thank you’. Kerrin and I were talking about how nice it would be if
kids could come to places like this to do things that they want to do, and
skip the things that do not interest them. So, after a bit of faltering, I
was reassured. My kids may not have as much ‘offered’ to them. But they can
go out and find what they would like to do and pursue that.

Increasingly I see compulsory education as a great moral wrong.

Regards

Cathy



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

Sandra Dodd

-=-If I died tomorrow, I die knowing what I know, liking what I like,
valuing what I value. If I live much longer, I get to add to what I
know and what I like and what I value.-=-

This is a cup full enough, cup still being filled view of life, isn't
it? Pretty sweet!



Someone I know (and have tried to like) has this on one of her online
profiles. She had the choice of anything and everything on earth and
in her head, and chose to show this to the world:



"Uhhh, yeah...whatever."

She's not a homeschooler at all. She is a mom, and that's a bummer.



I look at what unschoolers have put up on Facebook and Myspace and
Livejournal and Blogspot and such places and it's all HAPPY and
upbeat and hopeful and joyous.



Sandra

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

Sandra Dodd

-=-Besides, according to the old lady at the bus stop when I was 19 and
waiting for the bus, told me that she had a vision of me living well
past 100, so I have nothing to worry about right?-=-

Worrying won't help you live longer, I'm pretty sure. <g>

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

Sandra Dodd

-=-With
unschooling, there is no "failure." -=-



I think a family could procrastinate and say they'd make their lives
rich and interesting soon, or later...

Sandra

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

Bob Collier

--- In [email protected], "Jenny C" <jenstarc4@...> wrote:
>
>
> A large part of my internal acceptance of unschooling was getting rid
> of the timeline. If kids are in school there is always a timeline in
> which things must be done, taught, learned, etc. School at home is
> like that too. The woman with the blog is very invested in that idea
> as well, to impart all of her motherly wisdom and embed it in her
> kids while they are still young and moldable, to ensure that they get
> all that she thinks they need to be successful people.
>
>

I want my son to get what I think he needs to be a successful person,
too, but in our relationship from my point of view it works more like
a dance of opportunism. He does his own thing, I throw ideas into the
mix and if he's not interested, he's not interested, if he is, great,
we can explore further. And I keep it abstract. Non-specific. Because
I really don't know what the specifics are. I want my son to become an
adult with 'marketable skills'. Which are? Whatever he decides they
are. It was the same with my daughter. There's no way in the world I
could have predicted when she was 12 that her main interest at
20 would be forensic investigation; and there's no way in the world I
would have been able to say to her at 12 that those were specific
skills she needed to have.

And Latin? There's a webpage I know of, don't have the url to hand,
that lists all the Latin words and phrases in common usage, with their
meanings and origins. I'd say to my son, learn those words and phrases
off by heart and then forget Latin. Do something useful with your
time. I did two years of Latin at high school and I *know* now that
that one page I could have learned off by heart in a week was really
all I ever needed.

Bob

Jenny C

>
> This is a cup full enough, cup still being filled view of life,
isn't
> it? Pretty sweet!


> I look at what unschoolers have put up on Facebook and Myspace and
> Livejournal and Blogspot and such places and it's all HAPPY and
> upbeat and hopeful and joyous.
>


One of my own personal struggles in life is to not be cynical about
things. I've been dealing with it since I was about 9, that I can
remember.

It is a constant work in progress, that gets better and better as I
get older and more knowledgable about life. It has to do with
priorities as well. I can choose to spend my time with positive
outlooks and things go better, or I can choose to spend my time
viewing things negatively. It's a shift in perspective that happens
a million times a day. (ok a small exaggeration, but still...)

Even to this day, the thing that I am most cynical about is school.
It was way back when I was 9, and continues to be my cynical
trigger. Through unschooling, I have been able to focus more on the
positive aspect of what we do, rather than what we don't do. Even
with the "un" next to "school", that used to trip me up a lot.

In general life things, I think I've mostly been an optomistic
person, looking for the good in everything, and that has helped me
get through the cynicism that I have towards school. Still working
on it, but I don't let it affect me in my daily life. I just try not
to "go" there, since I know it triggers that cynicism!

The best thing that I know how to do, to counteract cynicism, is to
focus on what is wonderful, and that inherently causes me to put out
good, positive things in the world, rather than yucky.

Jenny C

> I want my son to get what I think he needs to be a successful
person,
> too, but in our relationship from my point of view it works more
like
> a dance of opportunism.

That's exactly it isn't it? Always on the lookout for the next
awesome thing! The focus is on what we have right now and what we
get to have in the direct future that will positively benefit us.

I want my son to become an
> adult with 'marketable skills'. Which are? Whatever he decides they
> are. It was the same with my daughter. There's no way in the world I
> could have predicted when she was 12 that her main interest at
> 20 would be forensic investigation; and there's no way in the world
I
> would have been able to say to her at 12 that those were specific
> skills she needed to have.
>
>

My 14 yr old has changed directions of "what she wants to be when she
grows up" so many times. In her own person, it all connects.
Someone looking from the outside wouldn't see it, but I do, and she
does. If I had taken her desire to work with animals to mean that
she needed to study animals and involve herself in a career working
as a vet or whatnot, I would've done her a huge disservice by telling
her what she needed to know to get there. She would've missed all
that other stuff in between.

Now, she likes fashion, not current popular fashion, more like late
80's club fashion. What led her there was her interest in Pokemon.
Weird but true, and I could write it in a timeline fashion of how she
got there from Pokemon. Pokemon was her first real interest that
fueled her everything, even her love of animals!