A letter from a curious family member
[email protected]
This is a letter I received from my cousin in response to an email he had asked me to send outlining the definition of unschooling. I had written to him, defining unschooling and providing quotes from Sandra's site from the definition page, also passing on the interesting zenhabits unschooling link. would some of the queries raised in this letter be helpful to bat around?
==That sounds like a very promising premise to me. I might just be being a skeptic in saying this, but questioning things hasn't lead me astray yet: If my training and cumulative knowledge is anything to go by, I always thought that it was important for the parents to guide their children, seeing as children haven't yet learnt what is best for them. They're still learning about the world and the fact that an unschooling parent is willing to answer all that child's questions and do whatever the child wants, within reason, seems greatly positive and liberating, but still it seems that parents still need to steer their kids in the right direction, not based on biased world view but proven parenting strategies.
Because obviously children don't have foresight enough to see that under the current system, one needs to make use of the current education system to get into university, etc. As well as the fact that a child, innocently enough, might choose to play all day and not develop a yearning for learning until a much later age.
So, it is proven that children learn best by being subjected to problems that they have to solve autonomously. Leading questions can be asked to make a child think in the right way, but being told the answer to something directly has never been the most effective way to learn. If a toy breaks, they try to hash out how to fix it. The parent can give guidance but within reason it's up to the child to fix the toy, so next time, it knows how, and learns not to rely solely on the parent for learning.
You can teach children to draw incredibly well using known strategies, but, I'm torn with that one, because it seems natural expression that way makes sense. It just seems that a kid can develop a sense of self and be autonomous at a much earlier age because it hasn't been coddled it's whole life. It's learnt for itself and can now use that self-knowledge and apply it to other problems, and other thinkings.
The best thing seemingly about unschooling is, that the child develops their own sense of the world, untainted by personal opinion or indoctrinated thought, which is quite positive. I wish I hadn't been raised in the church, but I was young, and was able to question it when I came to an age where that was possible. Ideas of conventional beauty, a sense of success based monetarily, a respectful job... all these things were drilled into me by people in my world as I grew up. I've had to sit down and actively reverse these harmful ideas, but from every angle I was bombarded with them. Starting out on the right foot seems entirely liberating and I'm all for this idea!
I'd love to see it in action sometime, to see how you guys do your thing!
- Mitch. x
==That sounds like a very promising premise to me. I might just be being a skeptic in saying this, but questioning things hasn't lead me astray yet: If my training and cumulative knowledge is anything to go by, I always thought that it was important for the parents to guide their children, seeing as children haven't yet learnt what is best for them. They're still learning about the world and the fact that an unschooling parent is willing to answer all that child's questions and do whatever the child wants, within reason, seems greatly positive and liberating, but still it seems that parents still need to steer their kids in the right direction, not based on biased world view but proven parenting strategies.
Because obviously children don't have foresight enough to see that under the current system, one needs to make use of the current education system to get into university, etc. As well as the fact that a child, innocently enough, might choose to play all day and not develop a yearning for learning until a much later age.
So, it is proven that children learn best by being subjected to problems that they have to solve autonomously. Leading questions can be asked to make a child think in the right way, but being told the answer to something directly has never been the most effective way to learn. If a toy breaks, they try to hash out how to fix it. The parent can give guidance but within reason it's up to the child to fix the toy, so next time, it knows how, and learns not to rely solely on the parent for learning.
You can teach children to draw incredibly well using known strategies, but, I'm torn with that one, because it seems natural expression that way makes sense. It just seems that a kid can develop a sense of self and be autonomous at a much earlier age because it hasn't been coddled it's whole life. It's learnt for itself and can now use that self-knowledge and apply it to other problems, and other thinkings.
The best thing seemingly about unschooling is, that the child develops their own sense of the world, untainted by personal opinion or indoctrinated thought, which is quite positive. I wish I hadn't been raised in the church, but I was young, and was able to question it when I came to an age where that was possible. Ideas of conventional beauty, a sense of success based monetarily, a respectful job... all these things were drilled into me by people in my world as I grew up. I've had to sit down and actively reverse these harmful ideas, but from every angle I was bombarded with them. Starting out on the right foot seems entirely liberating and I'm all for this idea!
I'd love to see it in action sometime, to see how you guys do your thing!
- Mitch. x
Sandra Dodd
-=-This is a letter I received from my cousin in response to an email he had asked me to send outlining the definition of unschooling. I had written to him, defining unschooling and providing quotes from Sandra's site from the definition page, also passing on the interesting zenhabits unschooling link. would some of the queries raised in this letter be helpful to bat around?-=-
Helpful for this discussion? Helpful for you? :-)
His arguments are the same old, same old.
I'm guessing he doesn't have children, as he referred to a child as "it."
The tone of his writing gave me the impression (could be wrong) that he's justifying his own life and his parents' actions and pressures, whether he knows that or not. And that's fine. You don't need to disturb his peace, nor let him disturb yours.
If he's really interested, buy him a copy of Pam Laricchia's book. It's only $10 and 100 pages, and would answer lots of his questions. Or send him to her site, maybe, if you don't feel like buying him a book. :-)
http://www.livingjoyfully.ca
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Helpful for this discussion? Helpful for you? :-)
His arguments are the same old, same old.
I'm guessing he doesn't have children, as he referred to a child as "it."
The tone of his writing gave me the impression (could be wrong) that he's justifying his own life and his parents' actions and pressures, whether he knows that or not. And that's fine. You don't need to disturb his peace, nor let him disturb yours.
If he's really interested, buy him a copy of Pam Laricchia's book. It's only $10 and 100 pages, and would answer lots of his questions. Or send him to her site, maybe, if you don't feel like buying him a book. :-)
http://www.livingjoyfully.ca
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Joyce Fetteroll
On Oct 7, 2012, at 2:35 AM, blossomholly@... wrote:
So thoughts on what "children" need can seem right but actually apply only to schooled children.
While unschooling parents certainly offer guidance it isn't what most people picture as guidance for kids. it's not guidance towards what's "best for them".
It's guidance in the journey of discovering how the universe works, who they are, what's best for them. It's support in figuring out how to make choices and decisions -- rather than the "right" choices. It's support for their wants and needs in ways that are safe, doable and respectful of them and others.
It's guidance that most (undamaged) people want when they want to explore something on their own. They want to explore the good and bad of many paths to discover why people prefer to do things "this" way rather than "that" way. They want someone to step in if they're about to do something imminently dangerous or destructive. They want someone to be aware enough of their needs to give tips when wanted and keep the tips to themselves when not wanted ;-)
Guidance also comes from conversation and interactions. I showed my daughter Kat how and why I made choices based on what was important to *me*. So I showed her how I scanned the ingredients on labels for things that sounded more like chemicals than food when choosing between two products. (It was *one* strategy, a way to choose fewer chemicals in general, not a caution never to eat them.) The topic of nutrition came out many times over the years and I shared what I knew, what I used to make decisions. Not as a way to tell her how to choose but helping her figure out how to choose what was best for her.
If it's something that affects only them, then support them exploring and choosing and deciding.
If it's something that impacts others, help them find ways to meet the need that's as safe as it needs to be and respectful of others needs.
Sandra likens it to being on a team. The goal is the teams goal is child exploring. The parent's part is to do the parts the child hasn't yet figured out or physically or developmentally can't so the child can absorb how needs can be met without hurting others, how to look at the bigger picture to take more factors than just the need into consideration, how to pull the problem apart to tackle smaller parts, how to dig beneath problem and look at the underlying needs the child's solution is seeking to meet, how to look at the problem from many different angles to see many different solutions.
http://sandradodd.com/haveto
People choose to go the university route. I'm guessing this is from England where a university degree is seen as an indication that someone isn't a slacker. Is that the only "not a slacker" route? What other avenues are open? What paths don't require a university degree? Can the university degree be acquired later? Is a college degree from America -- where the entrance requirements can be a lot less onerous -- just as good?
First that play isn't learning. Many people will say, yes, it's learning but ... There's no but. Play is how kids -- people really -- learn best. Play is exploration. It's discovery.
What keeps people from trusting that *profound* learning can come from play is school gets in the way. But unschoolers know. They can see that what most parents would label play and entertainment is kids figuring out how the world works and who they are. And it's not only profound but much deeper, more foundational than what happens in school. Yes, it's hard to believe!
Of course, for unschoolers, it's not just letting kids play. It's kids exploring what interests them in a rich, supportive environment where the parents are curious, where the parents are running interesting bits of the world through their kids lives.
A few ways that school interferes with people seeing how profound the learning is that kids can get from exploring:
First schools force kids to memorize rather than creating an environment for understanding. Our brains don't memorize well, especially not when forced. (We can pull in a lot of information when we've built a framework of understanding from exploring interests for it and really want to fill it.) That makes learning seem hard. (And being hard gives it the *illusion* of value.) It makes people believe that what looks like school learning is real learning.
Second, all that forced learning makes kids want to avoid not only the school type of learning but quite often whole subjects themselves because the atmosphere from school taints them. So even
Third, kids need down time from the pressure of all that forced learning. So they seek play and entertainment that feels as little like school as possible. Just as adults often unwind from work by watching TV. So it looks from the outside as if kids avoid learning unless made to. When the truth is kids avoid learning *when* made to.
Unschooled kids have none of that. They learn by doing and needing and wanting. It works for learning how to speak. :-) Their learning need never look like school unless they find that way works for them for what they want.
It's hard to grasp that the majority of my daughter's math understanding came from using numbers to make decisions in video games. At 14, with only 2 months of formal math in 2nd grade ;-), she was among the best in the college statistics that my husband teaches. I believe it was a sophomore class so the other students had 12 or more years of formal math. But from using numbers for real reasons, she understand how to work with them. The other students had years of memorizing formulas they had no use for and consequently didn't care to understand.
If we were to gather statistics, people learn the most in the shortest amount of time when they're immersed in a problem they're solving on their own. But the "most learning" doesn't come from solving a problem on their own. The "most learning" comes from engagement. That's the important part.
Where educators have taken a wrong turn is in assuming that if you force kids to go through the motions so the outside looks like engagement -- that is they're made to solve a problem on their own -- then what goes on inside will look the same.
But without the engagement, it's just kids going through the motions.
If a child *does* learn from being made to solve a problem on his own, it's because they discovered something that interested them. But that's completely inadvertent. When a child *doesn't* discover something interesting, it's frustrating, irritating and potentially damaging to their future interest and potentially to their trust in their ability to learn through curiosity. And the child is seen as at fault.
*What* damage forced learning causes depends on personality, the problem, the pressure. The child's relationship to what they're learning is *vitally* important to the quality of learning. Schools, since they are focused on mass education, can't take personality and individual needs into account. They're looking for one way that gets *testable* results -- which really tests memorization, not understanding -- and works on half the kids.
But if the answer is a universal Truth, the child can't help but discover it. Gravity works the same for schooled kids as it does for unschooling kids ;-) 2+2 won't equal 5. King Tutankhamen won't have met Queen Elizabeth. The more necessary the understanding is for the child to understand how things work, the sooner they'll figure it out.
Being irritated, being someone's improvement project, is poor for building relationships with learning AND people.
I think from people knowing only schooled kids -- and schooled adults -- they get the idea that people don't want to learn and prefer to be dependent on others. But unschoolers can see that isn't true. Kids are *driven* to be competent -- on their own schedules. They *want* to be able to do things themselves. What can damage that internal drive is someone taking over to push it on a different time schedule, on a different path than the child would choose to explore on their own.
There's a really good video about what drives people to do difficult tasks:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
People *fear* kids will stick around until they're 40 ;-) So they push for signs of independence. Which, makes kids feel pushed *away*. Which makes them cling tighter. And then parents fear the clinging means independence isn't natural, that kids need to be pushed. So they push more.
It depends on the child's personality what effect the pushing away has on them. Kids can get the idea their parents don't care. (If they cared, why wouldn't they help? Why would they push them away?) They can get the idea the parents are stingy with help so the kids stop asking. It may look like independence if kids don't ask but it's really giving up on asking. And they can also realize "If you don't put yourself first, no one else will. It's a dog eat dog world." And some kids grow into independence as they're being pushed so it feels even to them like they *needed* the push or they'd still be clinging.
From what unschoolers see -- and many are now grown to adulthood, living on their own -- all of that thinking is false. All of that thinking causes damage to the child and to the relationship between parent and child.
But how has that helped us be better as people and as a society?
Isn't there a great deal of selfishness in modern society? Not only are people not asking for help, but they aren't giving it either. Just as they were raised.
Radical unschooling parents have found that when they are generous with their help -- and *sensitive* to the *child's* growing autonomy so they aren't pushing help on a child who is trying to do something on their own -- that the kids grow up not only independent but willing to be of help to others.
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> If my training and cumulative knowledge is anything to go by,Most people's cumulative knowledge of kids is cumulative knowledge of *schooled* kids. People think kids are kids. But unschoolers can see a huge difference in how kids are when forced learning is removed. Unschooled kids respond differently to challenges. Unschooled kids respond differently to their parents' help. Unschooled kids respond differently to learning.
So thoughts on what "children" need can seem right but actually apply only to schooled children.
> I always thought that it was important for the parents to guide their children, seeing as children haven't yet learnt what is best for them.Yes, when most people first hear unschooling is about not teaching they picture a child figuring it all out alone.
While unschooling parents certainly offer guidance it isn't what most people picture as guidance for kids. it's not guidance towards what's "best for them".
It's guidance in the journey of discovering how the universe works, who they are, what's best for them. It's support in figuring out how to make choices and decisions -- rather than the "right" choices. It's support for their wants and needs in ways that are safe, doable and respectful of them and others.
It's guidance that most (undamaged) people want when they want to explore something on their own. They want to explore the good and bad of many paths to discover why people prefer to do things "this" way rather than "that" way. They want someone to step in if they're about to do something imminently dangerous or destructive. They want someone to be aware enough of their needs to give tips when wanted and keep the tips to themselves when not wanted ;-)
Guidance also comes from conversation and interactions. I showed my daughter Kat how and why I made choices based on what was important to *me*. So I showed her how I scanned the ingredients on labels for things that sounded more like chemicals than food when choosing between two products. (It was *one* strategy, a way to choose fewer chemicals in general, not a caution never to eat them.) The topic of nutrition came out many times over the years and I shared what I knew, what I used to make decisions. Not as a way to tell her how to choose but helping her figure out how to choose what was best for her.
> but still it seems that parents still need to steer their kids in the right direction, not based on biased world view but proven parenting strategies.But right for who?
If it's something that affects only them, then support them exploring and choosing and deciding.
If it's something that impacts others, help them find ways to meet the need that's as safe as it needs to be and respectful of others needs.
Sandra likens it to being on a team. The goal is the teams goal is child exploring. The parent's part is to do the parts the child hasn't yet figured out or physically or developmentally can't so the child can absorb how needs can be met without hurting others, how to look at the bigger picture to take more factors than just the need into consideration, how to pull the problem apart to tackle smaller parts, how to dig beneath problem and look at the underlying needs the child's solution is seeking to meet, how to look at the problem from many different angles to see many different solutions.
> Because obviously children don't have foresight enough to see that under the current system, one needs to make use of the current education system to get into university, etc."Needs to" -- and "have to" -- is a phrase to be alert for.
http://sandradodd.com/haveto
People choose to go the university route. I'm guessing this is from England where a university degree is seen as an indication that someone isn't a slacker. Is that the only "not a slacker" route? What other avenues are open? What paths don't require a university degree? Can the university degree be acquired later? Is a college degree from America -- where the entrance requirements can be a lot less onerous -- just as good?
> As well as the fact that a child, innocently enough, might choose to play all day and not develop a yearning for learning until a much later age.There are many misconceptions just in that one sentence ;-)
First that play isn't learning. Many people will say, yes, it's learning but ... There's no but. Play is how kids -- people really -- learn best. Play is exploration. It's discovery.
What keeps people from trusting that *profound* learning can come from play is school gets in the way. But unschoolers know. They can see that what most parents would label play and entertainment is kids figuring out how the world works and who they are. And it's not only profound but much deeper, more foundational than what happens in school. Yes, it's hard to believe!
Of course, for unschoolers, it's not just letting kids play. It's kids exploring what interests them in a rich, supportive environment where the parents are curious, where the parents are running interesting bits of the world through their kids lives.
A few ways that school interferes with people seeing how profound the learning is that kids can get from exploring:
First schools force kids to memorize rather than creating an environment for understanding. Our brains don't memorize well, especially not when forced. (We can pull in a lot of information when we've built a framework of understanding from exploring interests for it and really want to fill it.) That makes learning seem hard. (And being hard gives it the *illusion* of value.) It makes people believe that what looks like school learning is real learning.
Second, all that forced learning makes kids want to avoid not only the school type of learning but quite often whole subjects themselves because the atmosphere from school taints them. So even
Third, kids need down time from the pressure of all that forced learning. So they seek play and entertainment that feels as little like school as possible. Just as adults often unwind from work by watching TV. So it looks from the outside as if kids avoid learning unless made to. When the truth is kids avoid learning *when* made to.
Unschooled kids have none of that. They learn by doing and needing and wanting. It works for learning how to speak. :-) Their learning need never look like school unless they find that way works for them for what they want.
It's hard to grasp that the majority of my daughter's math understanding came from using numbers to make decisions in video games. At 14, with only 2 months of formal math in 2nd grade ;-), she was among the best in the college statistics that my husband teaches. I believe it was a sophomore class so the other students had 12 or more years of formal math. But from using numbers for real reasons, she understand how to work with them. The other students had years of memorizing formulas they had no use for and consequently didn't care to understand.
> So, it is proven that children learn best by being subjected to problems that they have to solve autonomously.People learn best by exploring what interests them. They learn best by building their own understanding of how the world works. In other words they will observe, create theories, try things out, observe what happens, revise their theories. They'll also take in and test out other people's theories And repeat until their theory fits what's happening. And they'll revisit that throughout their lives -- mostly without realizing they're even doing it.
If we were to gather statistics, people learn the most in the shortest amount of time when they're immersed in a problem they're solving on their own. But the "most learning" doesn't come from solving a problem on their own. The "most learning" comes from engagement. That's the important part.
Where educators have taken a wrong turn is in assuming that if you force kids to go through the motions so the outside looks like engagement -- that is they're made to solve a problem on their own -- then what goes on inside will look the same.
But without the engagement, it's just kids going through the motions.
If a child *does* learn from being made to solve a problem on his own, it's because they discovered something that interested them. But that's completely inadvertent. When a child *doesn't* discover something interesting, it's frustrating, irritating and potentially damaging to their future interest and potentially to their trust in their ability to learn through curiosity. And the child is seen as at fault.
*What* damage forced learning causes depends on personality, the problem, the pressure. The child's relationship to what they're learning is *vitally* important to the quality of learning. Schools, since they are focused on mass education, can't take personality and individual needs into account. They're looking for one way that gets *testable* results -- which really tests memorization, not understanding -- and works on half the kids.
> Leading questions can be asked to make a child think in the right way,True, if the goal is "the" right answer. If the goal is the child discovering what answer is right for them, then leading questions will lead them towards the parent's right answer. It's far more likely that will result in memorizing than understanding.
But if the answer is a universal Truth, the child can't help but discover it. Gravity works the same for schooled kids as it does for unschooling kids ;-) 2+2 won't equal 5. King Tutankhamen won't have met Queen Elizabeth. The more necessary the understanding is for the child to understand how things work, the sooner they'll figure it out.
> If a toy breaks, they try to hash out how to fix it. The parent can give guidance but within reason it's up to the child to fix the toy, so next time, it knows how, and learns not to rely solely on the parent for learning.If I broke my car and my husband's inner goal was for me not to rely on him and for me to know how to fix it, it would be incredibly irritating. When I have a problem to solve I'd *much* rather someone's agenda be in helping me, not having some agenda to make me the better person *they* think I need to be.
Being irritated, being someone's improvement project, is poor for building relationships with learning AND people.
I think from people knowing only schooled kids -- and schooled adults -- they get the idea that people don't want to learn and prefer to be dependent on others. But unschoolers can see that isn't true. Kids are *driven* to be competent -- on their own schedules. They *want* to be able to do things themselves. What can damage that internal drive is someone taking over to push it on a different time schedule, on a different path than the child would choose to explore on their own.
There's a really good video about what drives people to do difficult tasks:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
> It just seems that a kid can develop a sense of self and be autonomous at a much earlier age because it hasn't been coddled it's whole life.Is being autonomous as early as possible the goal, though?
People *fear* kids will stick around until they're 40 ;-) So they push for signs of independence. Which, makes kids feel pushed *away*. Which makes them cling tighter. And then parents fear the clinging means independence isn't natural, that kids need to be pushed. So they push more.
It depends on the child's personality what effect the pushing away has on them. Kids can get the idea their parents don't care. (If they cared, why wouldn't they help? Why would they push them away?) They can get the idea the parents are stingy with help so the kids stop asking. It may look like independence if kids don't ask but it's really giving up on asking. And they can also realize "If you don't put yourself first, no one else will. It's a dog eat dog world." And some kids grow into independence as they're being pushed so it feels even to them like they *needed* the push or they'd still be clinging.
From what unschoolers see -- and many are now grown to adulthood, living on their own -- all of that thinking is false. All of that thinking causes damage to the child and to the relationship between parent and child.
> It's learnt for itself and can now use that self-knowledge and apply it to other problems, and other thinkings.What kids learn from the current parenting and schooling focus on independence is that help is something that they should feel wrong for wanting. That they're "right" when do it themselves and don't expect others to help them. Especially not their parents.
But how has that helped us be better as people and as a society?
Isn't there a great deal of selfishness in modern society? Not only are people not asking for help, but they aren't giving it either. Just as they were raised.
Radical unschooling parents have found that when they are generous with their help -- and *sensitive* to the *child's* growing autonomy so they aren't pushing help on a child who is trying to do something on their own -- that the kids grow up not only independent but willing to be of help to others.
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
sheeboo2
Two things:
-----Because obviously children don't have foresight enough to see that under the
current system, one needs to make use of the current education system to get
into university, etc. -------
At my last job, one of the "perks" was sitting on the Admissions committee (at a well-ranked state-university). "Unschooling" wasn't a word anyone on the board was familiar with, but they did actively woo home-educated applicants. That's not rare, and friends in similar positions at other universities have told me that their Admission committees do the same. Homeschooled youth have proven to be excellent university students and schools welcome them.
-----As well as the fact that a child, innocently enough, might choose to play all day and not develop a yearning for learning until a much later age.-------
This is probably the number one question I hear from people who have never spent real time with at children at play. Play IS learning, and until someone is ready to value what children do, naturally, I don't think he will ever understand unschooling. It amazes me that parents of young children can think this--have they not answered 100s of questions or listened to a string of hypotheses in the past day(s) about things ranging from the make-up of clouds to the life-span of a cat, etc? What is that if not a "yearning for learning?"
You might send him to Peter Gray's blog Freedom to Learn. The older posts are mostly focused on play: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn?page=2
Also useful might be Pam's very to-the-point Principles of Unschooling: http://sandradodd.com/pam/principles.html
Brie
-----Because obviously children don't have foresight enough to see that under the
current system, one needs to make use of the current education system to get
into university, etc. -------
At my last job, one of the "perks" was sitting on the Admissions committee (at a well-ranked state-university). "Unschooling" wasn't a word anyone on the board was familiar with, but they did actively woo home-educated applicants. That's not rare, and friends in similar positions at other universities have told me that their Admission committees do the same. Homeschooled youth have proven to be excellent university students and schools welcome them.
-----As well as the fact that a child, innocently enough, might choose to play all day and not develop a yearning for learning until a much later age.-------
This is probably the number one question I hear from people who have never spent real time with at children at play. Play IS learning, and until someone is ready to value what children do, naturally, I don't think he will ever understand unschooling. It amazes me that parents of young children can think this--have they not answered 100s of questions or listened to a string of hypotheses in the past day(s) about things ranging from the make-up of clouds to the life-span of a cat, etc? What is that if not a "yearning for learning?"
You might send him to Peter Gray's blog Freedom to Learn. The older posts are mostly focused on play: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn?page=2
Also useful might be Pam's very to-the-point Principles of Unschooling: http://sandradodd.com/pam/principles.html
Brie
otherstar
>>>>>>>So thoughts on what "children" need can seem right but actually applyThis statement bugs me but I’m not sure why. I think it is because it
>>>>>>>only to schooled children. <<<<<<<<
implies that children that are homeschooled have different brain chemistry
or are fundamentally different. Human nature is the same whether a child
goes to school or is homeschooled. Many of the things that were mentioned
are also used in many homeschooling families. I think it might be more
helpful (for me anyway) if the statement was something along the lines of
‘Thoughts on what “children” need can seem right but actually only apply
when the parent/child relationship is based on control.” (Not sure if that
is what I am getting at.)
The reason that this stood out to me is based on a conversation that my
sister and I had yesterday with my parents. We were at my great nephew’s
second birthday party and my mom was talking about somebody needing
something. It was in the context of control and knowing what was best for
others. My sister and I flat out told my mom, “Don’t kid yourself mom. We
were really good at blowing smoke up your ass when we were kids. We would
let you think/do whatever you wanted but would go behind your back and do
what we wanted anyway.” The conversation progressed a bit and my sister was
telling a story of how she used to love it when dad would babysit (it was
before I was born). Dad would feed them Dunkin’ Donuts and milkshakes and
she loved it. The only problem was that she told mom and got her and dad
both in trouble. I joked that dad had learned his lesson by the time I came
around. : –) If dad and I did something really cool or fun together, he
would tell me straight up, “Don’t tell mom because she will get mad or
jealous.” We all knew what would or wouldn’t upset mom and most of the time
it was really good stuff that would have been really fun to share with her
but we couldn’t. On my 21st birthday, my dad snuck around and took me out to
eat and bought me a beer. During dinner, he asked me not to tell mom because
he was afraid that she would be jealous or that it would hurt her feelings.
We didn’t plan to go out to dinner. We were out and about doing something
else and he had the bright idea to take me to this restaurant because we
were right there and he hadn’t done anything for me for my birthday yet. My
dad has always seemed to understand basic human nature and has treated us
kids accordingly. Yes, we went to school but that didn’t stop my dad (and
even my mom) from trying to do things differently and take into account the
fact that we were unique human beings.
Connie
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Meredith
>>proven parenting strategies*****************
There's a fundamental problem with this premise, which is that it assumes that rule-based parenting is proven effective when it's results are actually pretty random. In fact, the body of evidence provided by "proven parenting strategies" is that there are good seeds and bad seeds and it doesn't matter if you do all the right things, some kids will turn out bad.
The problem is that conventional parenting and educational strategies are divorced from rational analysis. Parents and teachers continue using the same strategies and sharing them as "proven" even when they fail spectacularly. Part of that comes from seeing child psychology and behavior as divorced from adult psychology and behavior - children are seen as students or subjects, future adults, future people, and as such everything known about human nature is set aside in favor of tactics for training or educating them.
Where radical unschooling gets radical is that it applies what is known about human nature and cause-and-effect relationships to children. There have been educational methods, over the years, which apply those principles in classroom situations to great effect. And there have been parents and movements of parents who have applied such principles in the home, also to great effect. These principles have been applied to normal kids, gifted kids, troubled kids, and kids with a wide range of disabilities. The idea that children are human beings, with the needs of human beings and reactions of human beings, and that adults as well as children can learn from adult-child interactions to the betterment of both parties has been proven true over and over. But none of that is reflected in conventional parenting lore or common educational methodology.
>>it seems that parents still need to steer their kids in the right direction, not based on biased world view...************
The human brain is designed to notice patterns and there are patterns everywhere - in speech, in social interactions, in shapes of things, in the relationships between physical characteristics. Some sets of related patterns we call "language" some we call "mathematics" some we call "ethics" and "courtesy". Kids can't help but notice those patterns and think about them because that's what our big convoluted brains do best.
The trouble with trying to "steer kids in the right direction" is it ignores the human capacity to see patterns - it's the "do as I say, not as I do" fallacy. Adults try to write knowledge onto kids to protect them from having to learn "the hard way" - noble sentiments! but the human brain isn't a tabula rasa. It doesn't work that way, and so kids become aware of the fundamental gaps between what's being taught and the real patterns of real life. That's why teenagers fight with their parents! They have enough perspective by then to see all the ways that adults are impulsive, foolish, self-deluded, contradictory, and rude, and contrast that with how they're told they should behave "if you want to be an adult".
If you step back from the idea that kids need to be steered and see what they do, they explore and respond to the patterns of their environment. Adults can help them - and should! Unschooling is absolutely Not "hands off parenting" it's very engaged, thoughtful parenting. Kids, like adults, don't want to be set up to make disastrous mistakes, but they do want to make their own decisions. Unschooling parents help by offering up other portions of the patterns around them.
---Meredith
Sandra Dodd
Meredith made a really good point, about learning and the disconnect between parental ignorance and teen learning:
I added all this to http://sandradodd.com/rebellion
+++++++++++++++
The human brain is designed to notice patterns and there are patterns everywhere - in speech, in social interactions, in shapes of things, in the relationships between physical characteristics. Some sets of related patterns we call "language" some we call "mathematics" some we call "ethics" and "courtesy". Kids can't help but notice those patterns and think about them because that's what our big convoluted brains do best.
The trouble with trying to "steer kids in the right direction" is it ignores the human capacity to see patterns - it's the "do as I say, not as I do" fallacy. Adults try to write knowledge onto kids to protect them from having to learn "the hard way" - noble sentiments! but the human brain isn't a tabula rasa. It doesn't work that way, and so kids become aware of the fundamental gaps between what's being taught and the real patterns of real life. That's why teenagers fight with their parents! They have enough perspective by then to see all the ways that adults are impulsive, foolish, self-deluded, contradictory, and rude, and contrast that with how they're told they should behave "if you want to be an adult".
If you step back from the idea that kids need to be steered and see what they do, they explore and respond to the patterns of their environment. Adults can help them - and should! Unschooling is absolutely Not "hands off parenting" it's very engaged, thoughtful parenting. Kids, like adults, don't want to be set up to make disastrous mistakes, but they do want to make their own decisions. Unschooling parents help by offering up other portions of the patterns around them.
---Meredith
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I added all this to http://sandradodd.com/rebellion
+++++++++++++++
The human brain is designed to notice patterns and there are patterns everywhere - in speech, in social interactions, in shapes of things, in the relationships between physical characteristics. Some sets of related patterns we call "language" some we call "mathematics" some we call "ethics" and "courtesy". Kids can't help but notice those patterns and think about them because that's what our big convoluted brains do best.
The trouble with trying to "steer kids in the right direction" is it ignores the human capacity to see patterns - it's the "do as I say, not as I do" fallacy. Adults try to write knowledge onto kids to protect them from having to learn "the hard way" - noble sentiments! but the human brain isn't a tabula rasa. It doesn't work that way, and so kids become aware of the fundamental gaps between what's being taught and the real patterns of real life. That's why teenagers fight with their parents! They have enough perspective by then to see all the ways that adults are impulsive, foolish, self-deluded, contradictory, and rude, and contrast that with how they're told they should behave "if you want to be an adult".
If you step back from the idea that kids need to be steered and see what they do, they explore and respond to the patterns of their environment. Adults can help them - and should! Unschooling is absolutely Not "hands off parenting" it's very engaged, thoughtful parenting. Kids, like adults, don't want to be set up to make disastrous mistakes, but they do want to make their own decisions. Unschooling parents help by offering up other portions of the patterns around them.
---Meredith
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Sandra Dodd
-=->>>>>>>So thoughts on what "children" need can seem right but actually apply
implies that children that are homeschooled have different brain chemistry
or are fundamentally different. Human nature is the same whether a child
goes to school or is homeschooled. -------
There are things that school does to kids, though.
-=- Yes, we went to school but that didn�t stop my dad (and
even my mom) from trying to do things differently and take into account the
fact that we were unique human beings.-=-
That's better than not, but there are still things that school creates and affects that unschooled kids avoid.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>>>>>>only to schooled children. <<<<<<<<-----This statement bugs me but I�m not sure why. I think it is because it
implies that children that are homeschooled have different brain chemistry
or are fundamentally different. Human nature is the same whether a child
goes to school or is homeschooled. -------
There are things that school does to kids, though.
-=- Yes, we went to school but that didn�t stop my dad (and
even my mom) from trying to do things differently and take into account the
fact that we were unique human beings.-=-
That's better than not, but there are still things that school creates and affects that unschooled kids avoid.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Schuyler
________________________________
From: otherstar <otherstar@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, 8 October 2012, 1:25
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] A letter from a curious family member
implies that children that are homeschooled have different brain chemistry
or are fundamentally different.
___________________________
But, of course, they do have different brain structures. Environment plays a pretty big role in brain architecture. I had a prof rant over the findings that homosexual men had different brains to heterosexual men saying that of course they did, but it isn't necessarily the truth that they started out with different brains. Your children's brains will look different to children who've been to school. I imagine that there are differences between population of testosterone levels of dopamine receptors, those differences would probably overlap, not be totally distinct, but I bet there are different trends within unschoolers and within school children.
____________________________
Human nature is the same whether a child
goes to school or is homeschooled.
____________________________
But human nature is definitely, to some degree, shaped by nurture. There is an interplay between genes and environment. Presumably that's why anyone would examine the choice of sending a child to school or homeschooling them and within those choices what sort of school or homeschool they would opt to use. Otherwise, if human nature is the same, there isn't much point in working to vary the conditions.
_____________________________
Many of the things that were mentioned
are also used in many homeschooling families. I think it might be more
helpful (for me anyway) if the statement was something along the lines of
‘Thoughts on what “children” need can seem right but actually only apply
when the parent/child relationship is based on control.” (Not sure if that
is what I am getting at.)
_____________________________
Maybe it's 'Thoughts on what "children" need can seem right but actually only apply when the parent is working to mould the child. I think schooling can almost work as a proxy for moulding. Maybe it isn't a perfect fit, but I think it takes a very special parent to not be swept up in an environment of grading and academic achievement and learning looks like such. Hell, I've been unschooling Simon and Linnaea for 10 or 11 years (depending on which country you were basing their age at schooling on) and I can get swept up in someone else's child's achievements. It has happened less and less over the years, but there have been moments when I wondered what they could have become if I'd made them.... It's a kind of a hubris, I suppose, not an uncommon hubris, but a hubris that says that someone can become anything if they set their mind to it and that extends out to the notion that you can make someone be something if you set your mind to
it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Su6k6P_AZ0%c2%a0it's like the argument made in the Mr. Show parenting bit, if you deprive someone in the right way, nudge them in the right way, they will become what you dream them to be. It's a tabula rosa argument. It's siding with nurture in the nature versus nurture argument.
Schuyler
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
From: otherstar <otherstar@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, 8 October 2012, 1:25
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] A letter from a curious family member
>>>>>>>So thoughts on what "children" need can seem right but actually applyThis statement bugs me but I’m not sure why. I think it is because it
>>>>>>>only to schooled children. <<<<<<<<
implies that children that are homeschooled have different brain chemistry
or are fundamentally different.
___________________________
But, of course, they do have different brain structures. Environment plays a pretty big role in brain architecture. I had a prof rant over the findings that homosexual men had different brains to heterosexual men saying that of course they did, but it isn't necessarily the truth that they started out with different brains. Your children's brains will look different to children who've been to school. I imagine that there are differences between population of testosterone levels of dopamine receptors, those differences would probably overlap, not be totally distinct, but I bet there are different trends within unschoolers and within school children.
____________________________
Human nature is the same whether a child
goes to school or is homeschooled.
____________________________
But human nature is definitely, to some degree, shaped by nurture. There is an interplay between genes and environment. Presumably that's why anyone would examine the choice of sending a child to school or homeschooling them and within those choices what sort of school or homeschool they would opt to use. Otherwise, if human nature is the same, there isn't much point in working to vary the conditions.
_____________________________
Many of the things that were mentioned
are also used in many homeschooling families. I think it might be more
helpful (for me anyway) if the statement was something along the lines of
‘Thoughts on what “children” need can seem right but actually only apply
when the parent/child relationship is based on control.” (Not sure if that
is what I am getting at.)
_____________________________
Maybe it's 'Thoughts on what "children" need can seem right but actually only apply when the parent is working to mould the child. I think schooling can almost work as a proxy for moulding. Maybe it isn't a perfect fit, but I think it takes a very special parent to not be swept up in an environment of grading and academic achievement and learning looks like such. Hell, I've been unschooling Simon and Linnaea for 10 or 11 years (depending on which country you were basing their age at schooling on) and I can get swept up in someone else's child's achievements. It has happened less and less over the years, but there have been moments when I wondered what they could have become if I'd made them.... It's a kind of a hubris, I suppose, not an uncommon hubris, but a hubris that says that someone can become anything if they set their mind to it and that extends out to the notion that you can make someone be something if you set your mind to
it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Su6k6P_AZ0%c2%a0it's like the argument made in the Mr. Show parenting bit, if you deprive someone in the right way, nudge them in the right way, they will become what you dream them to be. It's a tabula rosa argument. It's siding with nurture in the nature versus nurture argument.
Schuyler
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]