Joyce Fetteroll

There's a very unschool friendly article in the NY Times today --
that isn't even about unschooling. :-)

Written by a researcher, she's discovering what we already know but
with the added patina of science to give it more weight.

Your Baby Is Smarter Than You Think
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/opinion/16gopnik.html

(At one time you needed to register to see articles. Not sure if
that's still true.)

Excerpt:

> Babies and young children are designed to explore, and they should
> be encouraged to do so.
>
> The learning that babies and young children do on their own, when
> they carefully watch an unexpected outcome and draw new conclusions
> from it, ceaselessly manipulate a new toy or imagine different ways
> that the world might be, is very different from schoolwork. Babies
> and young children can learn about the world around them through
> all sorts of real-world objects and safe replicas, from dolls to
> cardboard boxes to mixing bowls, and even toy cellphones and
> computers. Babies can learn a great deal just by exploring the ways
> bowls fit together or by imitating a parent talking on the phone.
> (Imagine how much money we can save on �enriching� toys and DVDs!)
>
> But what children observe most closely, explore most obsessively
> and imagine most vividly are the people around them. There are no
> perfect toys; there is no magic formula. Parents and other
> caregivers teach young children by paying attention and interacting
> with them naturally and, most of all, by just allowing them to play.

Joyce

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