gertrude lee

Hi,
I am delighted to fine Sandras website and this group.  I am mom to my just turned 3 yo ds Krishna and 7 mo dd Lakshmi.  I have known i wanted to unschool my children before i ever had children and i never thought i ever wanted children.  I hated school at as small child and made attempts at college but could never make it past a semester.  In grade school i had awful attendance much to the frustration of my sahm she once sugjested she could home school me to wich i replied "you can do that ?"  I begged her and pleaded for her to be my "teacher"  she never could bring herself to do it. Both my parents are graduates of ivy league schools i am the youngest of their 6 children all of them college graduate except me. I was occasionally a  A+++ student, usually history or english and somtimes science but usually i just barely passed.  I rememer loving geometry but failing miserably, I loved the diagram type problems that artisticly took shape but
the answer never formed correctly, had i been home schooled i would probably worked on it until i did find the answers.
 
I have to admit i am still learning exactly what unschooling is.  I am devouring John Holt books from the library these days.  Now that my son is 3 when i tell people i am going to "home school" ( i dont feel confident enouf to engage in conversations about unschooling yet) i get drilled about my reasons.  I am realizing it is not so much unlike unassisted birthing.  I had to avoid many a well meaning friends because of their concern for me.  
 
I feel my problem is with my lack of education.  Not only do people raise their eye brows at me for home schooling, they seem shocked i barely made it out of high shcool.  When i first read about unschooling i thought yeah, i can finally feel confident that i can learn in a authentic way and do it at the same time with my children.  My excitement is getting a bit daunted by "expert" opinions now.
 
 I know unschoolers dont use curriculums, but my question is do those unschoolers that lack education them selves look at curriculums to make sure they give exposure to all the things that schooled kids get.  And if so where is a good sourse to find that information.  I have been on the web looking for curriculums and keep on becoming uninterested in them because of the sales pitches they come with.  I am looking for a nuts and bolts curriculim that i can lay infront of my kids and let them assemble it as well as bringing in other interests to put it all together.  When i read a excerpt from Jan Hunt in one of her unschooling articles she mentions her 3 yo doing square roots and how she would never had thought of teaching square roots at that age let alone the method the child used.  I thought i dont even know what a square root is any more and if my child did some how do this in play i would not even notice probably. 
 
I am sure my question is probably in the archives of this chat group, it seems like a common question and i have been trying to find that answer and i just keep on finding other interest to read about.  I am getting so hung up on it now that my son is 3 i want to hunker down and focus in on what kids are learning in elementary and high school these days and figure out how i can find real life experiences that would demonstrate them.  with knowing this i feel like i would better be able to talk to people about home schooling and unschooling and why our family is choosing it.  Right now i feel like my reasons for choosing unschooling are more intuitive than concrete knowledge.  Sorry this is so chatty but i hope some of you might be able to help me focus.
 
Start where you are,












Gertrude Caroline Arora, yoga mom
Burlington,NJ
609-386-0425
free classes available






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Sandra Dodd

Moving the best to first:
-=- Right now i feel like my reasons for choosing unschooling are more
intuitive than concrete knowledge. -=-

No problem whatsoever! The concrete knowledge will be the stories
you'll be able to tell of how your own child learned, as the years go
by.

-=- Now that my son is 3 when i tell people i am going to "home
school" ( i dont feel confident enouf to engage in conversations about
unschooling yet) i get drilled about my reasons.-=-

"Unschooling" isn't in anyone's laws. It's a method of
homeschooling. Don't let anyone tell you different.

When (and if!) a place's laws allow for home education of some sort,
this is home education. It's a really specialized, intensive kind of
home education very few people can figure out even if they try. <g>

One tweak might help you:

Say "I'm thinking about homeschooling" or "I'm looking into
homeschooling."
Less pressure on you; they won't jump you so hard. Or you could ask
them what they know about homeschooling because you've been thinking
about it. Either they will know things that will help you, or they'll
reveal how much they don't know. Either way will keep you from
feeling defensive, maybe.

-=- Not only do people raise their eye brows at me for home
schooling, they seem shocked i barely made it out of high shcool.
When i first read about unschooling i thought yeah, i can finally feel
confident that i can learn in a authentic way and do it at the same
time with my children. My excitement is getting a bit daunted by
"expert" opinions now.-=-

They wouldn't be shocked that you barely made it out of high school if
you didn't tell them that.
Unschooling will probably be therapeutic for you and you'll probably
find a new and better way to think of and describe your own teenaged
experience.

I think you should read The Teenage Liberation Handbook, not for your
daughter's sake, but for your own! Let it be a flight of imagination
about what you might have done if you'd had the opportunity. See
yourself in all those stories, and I bet you'll feel twice as big and
three times as happy when you're done.

-=- I know unschoolers dont use curriculums, but my question is do
those unschoolers that lack education them selves look at curriculums
to make sure they give exposure to all the things that schooled kids
get. And if so where is a good sourse to find that information. I
have been on the web looking for curriculums and keep on becoming
uninterested in them because of the sales pitches they come with. I
am looking for a nuts and bolts curriculim that i can lay infront of
my kids and let them assemble it as well as bringing in other
interests to put it all together. -=-

As I read through that I thought these answers:
Yes! Even college-educated moms.
and
YES!
and
NO! NO, no, no, oh god no.

Sure, look at a curriculum (not at a school-in-a-box, but at a list of
topics and skills). Yes, what's in there is full of sales pitch, but
there are other options. And NO< don't put it in front of your kids.

http://sandradodd.com/unschoolingcurriculum

Be sure to look at the Acme Academy part that Pam Sorooshian wrote,
and the World Book "Typical Course of Study." Just reading through
some of it once might give you the courage to get started, and you
won't need to check back much.

Sandra










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Jenny C

>>>> I feel my problem is with my lack of education. Not only do people
raise their eye brows at me for home schooling, they seem shocked i
barely made it out of high shcool. When i first read about unschooling
i thought yeah, i can finally feel confident that i can learn in a
authentic way and do it at the same time with my children. My
excitement is getting a bit daunted by "expert" opinions now.>>>>

It occurs to me that you could tell people, that you'd like to avoid
what happened to you in regards to schooling. The mandatory schooling
you received didn't meet your needs and left you barely graduating and
that for every school "success", there is a school "failure" and by
homeschooling, you would like to avoid that dynamic altogether.


> >>> I know unschoolers dont use curriculums, but my question is do
those unschoolers that lack education them selves look at curriculums to
make sure they give exposure to all the things that schooled kids get.
And if so where is a good sourse to find that information. >>>

Unschooling does something different than education. The focus is on
learning, not the imparting of knowledge into an empty vessel. What do
you know? What do you love? What do you do? How did you learn about
those things? If you didn't learn them in school, how did you?

>>> I am getting so hung up on it now that my son is 3 i want to hunker
down and focus in on what kids are learning in elementary and high
school these days and figure out how i can find real life experiences
that would demonstrate them. with knowing this i feel like i would
better be able to talk to people about home schooling and unschooling
and why our family is choosing it.>>>

This is the wrong direction to face. Stop looking toward school.
Clearly it didn't serve you well, nor does it serve most kids well, even
the ones that were successful within that pardigm. All that stuff is
about passing tests, to get funding. Your children don't have to do
that. All that stuff in school exists in the real life we live in, only
instead of being in zoo, it's out there in the wild, freely living their
lives. Math exists, reading exists, science, art, all of it exists
outside of the walls of school. Schools take those things and reshape
them to fit into the school setting, they are out of the context in
which they naturally exist.

To really get unschooling, you need to find a way to see those natural
settings. Answer your child's questions. Play and explore the world as
your child's partner. My kids have allowed me to see and explore so
many things, simply because they were interested, and I encouraged and
explored with them.

Joyce Fetteroll

On Feb 23, 2009, at 12:59 PM, gertrude lee wrote:

> i want to hunker down and focus in on what kids are learning in
> elementary and high school these days and figure out how i can find
> real life experiences that would demonstrate them.

Maybe this would help. It was part of a response to a mom who said
pen pal letters were good handwriting practice for her son. And,
though he could send a picture to the pen pal if he didn't want to
write, the fact was there that pen pal letters were a way to practice
handwriting since it can't be a bad thing to have good handwriting.
So while there's awareness that force isn't good, there's still the
hyperawareness of skills being learned.

The focus of unschooling should foremost be the relationship, between
child and parent *and* between child and what they're doing too.

Maybe a useful-to-beginning-unschooling way to look at pen pal
letters (and other real life activities kids take on) is a multi-step
process:

1, See *lots* of the skills an activity touches on. For the pan pal
activity it's: geography, handwriting, writing, social connections,
social awareness, art, math, postal service and so on. If mom focuses
on one of those skills and pressures the child to do the activity
because it's good for handwriting or geography, she runs the risk of
1) creating unpleasant associations with the activity and skill so
the child will want to avoid other opportunities that remind them of
the unpleasantness, and 2) the child deciding the activity isn't fun
so dropping it and missing out on the other connections.

2. Seeing lots of *other* ways life draws on those skills. That way
it doesn't feel like one activity is any more important than any
other activity. It helps us let go of the irrational fear that if he
doesn't write pen pal letters, how will he ever learn to write!
During the time a child is writing pen pal letters, they're *not*
making labels or cartoons or playing with letter stamps. They're also
*not* doing something that may be more meaningful to them in their
right now life that involves art or math or physical skills or strategy.

3. And then, completely let go of the idea that activities lead to
skills :-) Focus on helping kids find activities that they enjoy.
Focus on letting go of the less fun parts and/or find ways to make
them enjoyable. Be confident in the knowledge that basic skills are
drawn on for loads of activities. (It's why they're basic!)

4. Focus on your child. What does he love to do? Help him find more
of that and expand on it to the level that *he* wants :-)

4. Let yourself occasionally look at the skills and school subjects.
(This is most helpful after someone is fully confident that life
activities draw on lots of skills.) I think it's easy for our own
biases of favorite activities to skew what we choose to strew. I know
I strewed more books than out of the house activities. I got lucky
that Kathryn was very similar to my personality but the more an
unschooling mom reaches beyond just her own likes for potential new
interests the more helpful the strewing will be since our kids are
not us :-)

> I feel my problem is with my lack of education.
>

I think what's hampering you isn't lack of education but *believing*
that lack of education is a problem. It's an important distinction!

If unschooling is not doing school, then more school wouldn't help!

“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” -- William
Butler Yeats

Being passionate, being curious, being observant, questioning and
thinking about everything is a lot more useful to unschooling than a
head full of someone else's knowledge that's been poured in.

> When i read a excerpt from Jan Hunt in one of her unschooling
> articles she mentions her 3 yo doing square roots and how she would
> never had thought of teaching square roots at that age let alone
> the method the child used. I thought i dont even know what a
> square root is any more and if my child did some how do this in
> play i would not even notice probably.
>


And teaching her square roots wouldn't have guaranteed an
understanding. What was important to her in the moment was that she
saw a pattern and played with it. Unless Jan Hunt's daughter is a
prodigy, she wasn't looking at a square root radical and magically
spouting off the answer. ;-) Maybe she put 9 blocks into a square and
noticed both sides are 3. (And it's okay if most much older kids
aren't doing that spontaneously, though having blocks and *playing*
with them can be useful for kids who like them.) Noticing the
squareness is more important than knowing how to do or what a square
root is. Thousands of schooled kids are being "taught" square roots
but wouldn't grasp that it has anything to do with being able to make
squares!

Joyce

John and Amanda Slater

On Feb 23, 2009, at 12:59 PM, gertrude lee wrote:

> i want to hunker down and focus in on what kids are learning in
> elementary and high school these days and figure out how i can find
> real life experiences that would demonstrate them.



****
I heard a great story this week on NPR. http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2009/02/20

It was an interview with the man who produces the voice of Wall-E and R2-D2 and others. He said he makes the robot voices by doing same noises he made in 3rd grade and got in trouble for making. I'm sure his teacher thought she was helping his future by making him pay attention to the lesson, but now he is making a living at producing strange sounds. Just goes to show, you never know what will be useful later in life.

Amanda
Eli 7, Samuel 6





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diana jenner

Yesterday, because it came up in one discussion or another, I checked out
the World Book standards page.
http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?curriculum
School-think hasn't been part of our life for a long time, so in going there
I made sure I was clear of fears and concerns and that I was driven by a
pure curiosity ;)
I giggled when I got the 4th grade list. 1st of all, I can't think of
parenting a 4th grader without thinking "South Park" - Hayden's a 10 year
old to me, not an Xgrader, oops, a 10.5 year old :) And, in the course of
our regular life, without a niggle of school-peer comparisons, we've covered
the entire list. As a family.
For us, it's easier to live the life... knowing the educationese will be
there, should we *ever* need it (though mostly we don't!)
~diana :)
xoxoxoxo
hannahbearski.blogspot.com
hannahsashes.blogspot.com
dianas365.blogspot.com


On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 7:02 PM, John and Amanda Slater <
fourslaterz@...> wrote:

>
>
> On Feb 23, 2009, at 12:59 PM, gertrude lee wrote:
>
> > i want to hunker down and focus in on what kids are learning in
> > elementary and high school these days and figure out how i can find
> > real life experiences that would demonstrate them.
>
> ****
> I heard a great story this week on NPR.
> http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2009/02/20
>
> It was an interview with the man who produces the voice of Wall-E and R2-D2
> and others. He said he makes the robot voices by doing same noises he made
> in 3rd grade and got in trouble for making. I'm sure his teacher thought she
> was helping his future by making him pay attention to the lesson, but now he
> is making a living at producing strange sounds. Just goes to show, you never
> know what will be useful later in life.
>
>
>
>


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