lilyfoil

I just wanted to chime in that I don't think Leideloff should be dismissed entirely, of course her book suffers from the innate problems of anthropology, but she does have some really deeply important ideas to share.

(This is in regards to a comment on the previous thread).

All best,
Elizabeth

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

Its been a long time since I read that book and it was after I had been reading about unschooling for a while when I read it.
I really got nothing out of it that I can remember.
I am sure there were good parts but nothing really jumps out in my memory.
I enjoyed a lot more reading Meredith Small books about how different cultures raise children around the world.
 
Alex Polikowsky
http://polykow.blogspot.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmn/

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

DJ250

I just looked up Meredith Small and wondered which of the books you like
best, Alex (and anyone else!)



~Melissa, in MD :-)





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of BRIAN POLIKOWSKY
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 9:17 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] continuum concept





Its been a long time since I read that book and it was after I had been
reading about unschooling for a while when I read it.
I really got nothing out of it that I can remember.
I am sure there were good parts but nothing really jumps out in my memory.
I enjoyed a lot more reading Meredith Small books about how different
cultures raise children around the world.

Alex Polikowsky
http://polykow. <http://polykow.blogspot.com/> blogspot.com/

http://groups. <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmn/>
yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmn/

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



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

Lyla Wolfenstein

our babies ourselves is the one i am familiar with...although i not alex :)

lyla








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

Schuyler

The comments about Leidloff were on the Unschooling Basics list and not Always Learning. I'm trained as an anthropologist, so my negative comments were in no way comments about the paucity of anthropology, although I could probably go there if it were required ;). I know many people have gained a new view from Leidloff's work. I suppose I'm a bit like someone who can't read The Education of Little Tree without knowing that the author was lying about who he was and what he lived. I can't read Leidloff and get beyond her racist view of the Yekwana and other tribal people.

Schuyler




________________________________
From: lilyfoil <seafaces@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, 19 January, 2010 0:11:49
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] continuum concept

I just wanted to chime in that I don't think Leideloff should be dismissed entirely, of course her book suffers from the innate problems of anthropology, but she does have some really deeply important ideas to share.

(This is in regards to a comment on the previous thread).

All best,
Elizabeth




------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links



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

Schuyler

I like Meredith Small a lot. Our Babies, Ourselves is good and Kids is pretty good too. Amazon.com linked to her blog, which I'd not discovered before: http://meredithfsmall.wordpress.com/ if you want to read her writing for style and content first. I like the way her books have followed her life. She wrote What's Love Got to Do with it, presumably when she was dating, or just married. Our Babies, Ourselves when she was moving toward having a baby and Kids after her daughter was just beyond toddling, I guess.

Schuyler




________________________________
From: DJ250 <dj250@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, 19 January, 2010 2:40:50
Subject: RE: [AlwaysLearning] continuum concept

I just looked up Meredith Small and wondered which of the books you like
best, Alex (and anyone else!)



~Melissa, in MD :-)

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

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

Yes I have those two books, Our babies and Our Kids.
Continuun Concept just left me a sour taste in my mouth. Maybe it is because I am from Brazil and hava  a little more knowldge of the Natives like in that tribe.

Alex Polikowsky
http://polykow.blogspot.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmn/
 




________________________________
From: Schuyler <s.waynforth@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tue, January 19, 2010 2:26:51 AM
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] continuum concept

 
I like Meredith Small a lot. Our Babies, Ourselves is good and Kids is pretty good too. Amazon.com linked to her blog, which I'd not discovered before: http://meredithfsma ll.wordpress. com/ if you want to read her writing for style and content first. I like the way her books have followed her life. She wrote What's Love Got to Do with it, presumably when she was dating, or just married. Our Babies, Ourselves when she was moving toward having a baby and Kids after her daughter was just beyond toddling, I guess.

Schuyler

____________ _________ _________ __
From: DJ250 <dj250@verizon. net>
To: AlwaysLearning@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Tuesday, 19 January, 2010 2:40:50
Subject: RE: [AlwaysLearning] continuum concept

I just looked up Meredith Small and wondered which of the books you like
best, Alex (and anyone else!)

~Melissa, in MD :-)

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




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

Marina DeLuca-Howard

Schyler I agree, and I too found it really racist and offensive. Its been
over fifteen years since I looked at it, but I remember gay "bashing",
racism, mother blaming...just a world view that was so unlike my own which
is about accepting and respecting everyone and seeing our multiple voices as
creating a lovely peaceful harmony of being in the world.

Marina


>
>
>


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

Sandra Dodd

-=-Schyler I agree, and I too found it really racist and offensive.
Its been
over fifteen years since I looked at it, but I remember gay "bashing",
racism, mother blaming...just a world view that was so unlike my own
which
is about accepting and respecting everyone and seeing our multiple
voices as
creating a lovely peaceful harmony of being in the world.-=-

I read it when Kirby was a baby, so over 20 years ago.
What I took from it is that there are other cultures in which children
are not set aside into kid-ghettos and nurseries, and that it seemed
they were learning fine, or better. That it was possible for parents
to have their children with them more often, or to think more
positively about the idea of children seeing and being around everyday
adult activities.

I didn't take that we should become another culture, just to know that
our own was pretty screwed up and some others didn't have the "normal"
problems we considered normal.

As to "mother blaming," there was a great objection to psychiatry and
psychology when they first came around because people became less
happy with what their mothers had done.

If there is to be an opposite of that, would it be that nothing
mothers do could possibly harm a child?

Sandra

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

Marina DeLuca-Howard

I suppose you were reading that book at a time when the message of
integrating children in society was confined to very few places. I think it
is amazing that you and others were able to pioneer that renaissance in our
society, though, as I see watered down versions in the heliocopter parents
and "alternative" parenting blogs have taken root.

But there were so many other resources fifteen years ago for me to find that
message, that the medium mattered...though others gleaned other things about
respecting children, I sadly looked at the message and the context and
didn't get past it. That message was so ingrained for me by the time I saw
it in that book, all I could see were the other things<grin>
Marina

2010/1/19 Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...>

>
>
> -=-Schyler I agree, and I too found it really racist and offensive.
> Its been
> over fifteen years since I looked at it, but I remember gay "bashing",
> racism, mother blaming...just a world view that was so unlike my own
> which
> is about accepting and respecting everyone and seeing our multiple
> voices as
> creating a lovely peaceful harmony of being in the world.-=-
>
> I read it when Kirby was a baby, so over 20 years ago.
> What I took from it is that there are other cultures in which children
> are not set aside into kid-ghettos and nurseries, and that it seemed
> they were learning fine, or better. That it was possible for parents
> to have their children with them more often, or to think more
> positively about the idea of children seeing and being around everyday
> adult activities.
>
> I didn't take that we should become another culture, just to know that
> our own was pretty screwed up and some others didn't have the "normal"
> problems we considered normal.
>
> As to "mother blaming," there was a great objection to psychiatry and
> psychology when they first came around because people became less
> happy with what their mothers had done.
>
> If there is to be an opposite of that, would it be that nothing
> mothers do could possibly harm a child?
>
> Sandra
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>



--
Rent our cottage: http://davehoward.ca/cottage/


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

Schuyler

<--"I didn't take that we should become another culture, just to know that
our own was pretty screwed up and some others didn't have the "normal"
problems we considered normal."-->

I suppose that is one of the problems that I have with the book. It argues for such huge differences between people, it is a cultural determinist approach. As an evolutionist I don't predict that the differences are that great. From people I know who work with indigenous, tribal, peoples, the differences aren't as great as Leidloff paints.

I think one of the problems with a book that is starting from a lie, like Margaret Mead's Samoan stuff, is that people become sure that what they live isn't biology, it is culture. I think it is environment and biology melding together into whatever is presented. Because that is my bias I don't believe that unschooling will make Simon or Linnaea radically different to someone else, but I do believe that it will give their biology different expression than if I traditionally parented. Leidloff didn't get me there.

Schuyler




________________________________

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BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

One of the things that bothered me was exactly what happened with the poster of the other  thread about toddlers.
Lots of parents got the idea that you should just let your kid into dangerous situation without support because that is the way the tribe did.
That kids should work disagreements by themselves unassisted.
That toys are not even good and kids are better off without them.
That is what I remember right now. But I know there were many more issues I had with the book.
IT may be good for some parents and a step in the right direction even but I just did not like it at all.


Alex Polikowsky
http://polykow.blogspot.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmn/
 




________________________________


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Sandra Dodd

-=-I think one of the problems with a book that is starting from a
lie, like Margaret Mead's Samoan stuff, is that people become sure
that what they live isn't biology, it is culture. I think it is
environment and biology melding together into whatever is presented.
Because that is my bias I don't believe that unschooling will make
Simon or Linnaea radically different to someone else, but I do believe
that it will give their biology different expression than if I
traditionally parented. Leidloff didn't get me there.-=-

I'm not saying people need to read it. I'm saying that people who
read it and took something useful from it might not be total
dumbasses. (Not that my having taken something useful from it keeps
me from being a total dumbass, but if I am it's not because of that
book.)

Biology is peachy.
Culture is killing people, out in the world. If you can put a
biological overlay on why people like to have cultures to justify
killing other people, that's fine. But when kids are spanked because
the parents go to a church that says they need to spank because God
says so, that's culture.

Sandra

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

Sandra Dodd

-=-Lots of parents got the idea that you should just let your kid into
dangerous situation without support because that is the way the tribe
did.
That kids should work disagreements by themselves unassisted.
That toys are not even good and kids are better off without them.
That is what I remember right now. But I know there were many more
issues I had with the book.
IT may be good for some parents and a step in the right direction even
but I just did not like it at all.-=-

Dangerous situations and kids working out disagreements and not giving
kids toys could be taken from that, but only by people who intend to
be lazy and stupid (in my dumbass opinion).
I only took what I felt I could see good use in, and use within this
culture, because I never for a moment intended to have children and
protect them from the world around them, or keep them separate from
the modern world at all.

Practically speaking, I believe it's possible for a family to get
enough information from my unschooling site and Joyce's that they'll
never need to read another parenting or learning-method book in their
whole lives. But nowhere on either of those sites does it say "Don't
read anything but this!"

Deb Lewis has read more John Holt than I have. She can be the Holt
professor when this turns into a university. [I am joking about the
university; just a joke.] I've read enough Holt to know that it
would be possible to pick and choose passages and quotes that would
suggest what I should have done with my boys was to deprive them of TV
and persuade them to join the Navy as soon as they could legally do
so. I read Holt intending to take what I could see good use in, and
that I could use within this culture.

Leidloff wasn't an unschooler. Holt wasn't an unschooler. Ideas are
ideas.

Sandra

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

Schuyler

So what if kids are spanked because parents have little attention spans and kindness isn't what they are good at? What if culture justifies what is? like laws against incest that most people never even think about going against? What if your culture is just an overlay on the normal range of biology? The Yekwana, Leidloff's population, they hit their kids. Like the Garifuna that we lived with, they hit their kids, they rape their neighbors, and heck, the Yekwana are special in that they have slaves, the Yananomo. So, you may not be a dumbass to be excited by Leidloff's "new ideas" but Leidloff was a tourist travelling with some guys hoping to get their hands on cheap diamonds. Not necessarily the role model of choice.

Schuyler




________________________________



Biology is peachy.
Culture is killing people, out in the world. If you can put a
biological overlay on why people like to have cultures to justify
killing other people, that's fine. But when kids are spanked because
the parents go to a church that says they need to spank because God
says so, that's culture.

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

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

Leidloff wasn't an unschooler. Holt wasn't an unschooler. Ideas are
ideas.

=-=-=-=-
And both of them never had kids!
 Yes there are people that take what they need.
I did that and still do. You did that with Leidloff too.
Maybe its because I had already found your site and Joyce's sit when I read the book.
There are some people that don't question what they read, or they they understand different things than I do.
They read that TV will make their kids brain mush and they take it in a the truth.
THey read that toddlers should be left alone to explore or resolve issues when they clearly need a partner to facilitate.




 
Alex Polikowsky
http://polykow.blogspot.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmn/

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

Sandra Dodd

-=- So, you may not be a dumbass to be excited by Leidloff's "new
ideas" but Leidloff was a tourist travelling with some guys hoping to
get their hands on cheap diamonds. Not necessarily the role model of
choice. -=-

She was not my role model, though. Neither was anyone in the culture
she was writing about.

I can see that there might be some people who "take it too far," who
build a whole "continuum concept" organization about it, etc. But as
to the way La Leche League included some of those ideas to justify
Attachment Parenting, I don't think it hurt anyone, and I know it
helped many children and families.

My role models were Carol Rice McClure, and Lori Odhner, both La Leche
League Leaders, and I didn't know until later, unschoolers.

Sandra

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

Shira Rocklin

la leche league used liedloff's ideas to justify attachment parenting?

do you have any negative opinions of attachment parenting? I'm curious.

Sandra Dodd

-=la leche league used liedloff's ideas to justify attachment parenting?
-=-do you have any negative opinions of attachment parenting? I'm
curious.-=-

I'm guessing those were directed to me.
I thought my post was positive about attachment parenting, wasn't it?

In the 1980's, when I had my first two children, "attachment
parenting" was something La Leche League talked about, and Liedloff's
book was an officially approved book for group libraries. La Leche
League was very strict about what books could and should be
recommended to those who attended meetings.

Since then, at some point, there came to be a separate "attachment
parenting" organization, and I've heard that they've gone in
particular directions that have nothing to do with the LLL origins of
the idea.

For me, it doesn't matter because my kids are already grown, and
because I took what I wanted from LLL and attachment parenting, too.

Sandra




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

Lyla Wolfenstein

i am not sure what you mean by LLL using liedloff's ideas to justify attachment parenting?


----- Original Message -----
From: Shira Rocklin
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 2:09 PM
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Re: continuum concept



la leche league used liedloff's ideas to justify attachment parenting?

do you have any negative opinions of attachment parenting? I'm curious.





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

Sandra Dodd

-=-i am not sure what you mean by LLL using liedloff's ideas to
justify attachment parenting?-=-

La Leche League was recommending attachment parenting, and saying it
was good for moms to carry babies, and let them sleep with them, and
not to press children to leave or to be apart until the children
wanted to walk off or explore.

There were two books recommended, in the mid-80's, at La Leche League
meetings and in their literature and catalogs about that. One was The
Continuum Concept. The other was The Family Bed.

Sandra

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

Robin Bentley

As a former LLL leader, it seemed to me that "we" were saying "wear
your baby," "trust your baby," "include your baby in your day-to-day
routines" and so on because it worked for indigenous peoples (and we'd
forgotten those things in our culture). Her book pointed to a
different way of being with children that most of us had been brought
up with.

It justified what we were saying, in an anthropological way. We
weren't just crazy women, nursing our children for years, carrying our
babies and children in slings, letting them play with dangerous tools,
and trusting their "cues" for nothing! There was proof that it had
been done before we cooked it up <g>.

I didn't like everything in the book, either, but some things made
sense.

Robin B.

On Jan 19, 2010, at 3:21 PM, Lyla Wolfenstein wrote:

> i am not sure what you mean by LLL using liedloff's ideas to justify
> attachment parenting?
>

Robin Bentley

> There were two books recommended, in the mid-80's, at La Leche League
> meetings and in their literature and catalogs about that. One was The
> Continuum Concept. The other was The Family Bed.

I *loved* The Family Bed. And in the 90's, Mothering Your Nursing
Toddler. The book that got me looking into homeschooling was I Learn
Better by Teaching Myself, also recommended by LLL. All three of my
LLL mentors were homeschooler/unschoolers, too.

Robin B.

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

Julie V

The main thing I took from the 'Continuum Concept' was to trust our babies/children. Babies cry to get their needs met, they don't cry just to be an inconvenience. The children in this tribe were fully trusted and in turn fully trusted the adults around them. From the time they could toddle around they knew where to go for food, closeness & play. They weren't hindered, they were free. The parents were always available if needed.

The tribe didn't "let" their kids into dangerous situations, these kids from a very young age were around said situations daily and knew how to navigate safely. It's different in our society, most kids can't even jump on the couch or bed because the adults fear they will hurt themselves. For instance my children have never been around horses and I wouldn't feel comfortable letting them be around horses without me, yet when I was 8 I regularly went out and saddled up my own horse by myself to go for a ride because I had been around that my whole life.

I didn't take from the book for us "civilized" people to copy the way these people lived, it's just not possible in our society, but I took a lot from the book that I could apply in my own life and in my children's lives that was for the better.

Julie v.





--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> -=-Lots of parents got the idea that you should just let your kid into
> dangerous situation without support because that is the way the tribe
> did.
> That kids should work disagreements by themselves unassisted.
> That toys are not even good and kids are better off without them.
> That is what I remember right now. But I know there were many more
> issues I had with the book.
> IT may be good for some parents and a step in the right direction even
> but I just did not like it at all.-=-
>
> Dangerous situations and kids working out disagreements and not giving
> kids toys could be taken from that, but only by people who intend to
> be lazy and stupid (in my dumbass opinion).
> I only took what I felt I could see good use in, and use within this
> culture, because I never for a moment intended to have children and
> protect them from the world around them, or keep them separate from
> the modern world at all.
>
> Practically speaking, I believe it's possible for a family to get
> enough information from my unschooling site and Joyce's that they'll
> never need to read another parenting or learning-method book in their
> whole lives. But nowhere on either of those sites does it say "Don't
> read anything but this!"
>
> Deb Lewis has read more John Holt than I have. She can be the Holt
> professor when this turns into a university. [I am joking about the
> university; just a joke.] I've read enough Holt to know that it
> would be possible to pick and choose passages and quotes that would
> suggest what I should have done with my boys was to deprive them of TV
> and persuade them to join the Navy as soon as they could legally do
> so. I read Holt intending to take what I could see good use in, and
> that I could use within this culture.
>
> Leidloff wasn't an unschooler. Holt wasn't an unschooler. Ideas are
> ideas.
>
> Sandra
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

lilyfoil

THank you Sandra, that is similar to what I took from it as well. One of her lines "since the intellect took over with its parade of theories the vicissitudes of the human infant have been many and terrible" sticks with me.
I am sorry I got mixed up about what group that thread was on.
Elizabeth
(also not a fan of the Education of Little Tree)

lilyfoil

All I said was I don't think Leideloff needs to be dismissed entirely. I agree with all of the criticism of her, but I also see her as trying to make a positive impact, and having some good ideas.
I do feel slightly insulted by your responses "maybe some people never question what they read." I question everything, including some unschooling ideas.
Taking a break from the list now, but still very appreciative of it.
Elizabeth

Sandra Dodd

-=-I am sorry I got mixed up about what group that thread was on.
Elizabeth
(also not a fan of the Education of Little Tree)-=-

We've discussed that book here too (both of them, I think), so no
problem!

Some people won't listen to Michael Jackson's music because they think
he might be nasty.
Some families make their kids study Beethoven and Bach, but don't let
them hear Mozart because Mozart didn't become a church organist and
write masses. Insufficiently religious.
Some people will reject reading my books because I embarrassed their
friend's friend one time, they think.

I'm not glad that Bob Dylan claims to have written everything he
touches, so that it's impossible to tell what really was original and
what was borrowed from tradition. So sometimes I get cranky when a
song is really good, or I start humming Bob Dylan. <bwg> The other
day someone sent me links to some of his bizarro recent Christmas
stuff, and he had "copyrighted" the words and music to "Must Be
Santa." AS IF!!! It's like a habit, like a verbal tic, "Words and
music by Bob Dylan." He probably says that after he sings "Happy
Birthday" to someone.

So yes, sometimes there is emotion about an author or artist or
musician. I know that.

Sandra




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