claramont@...

Hi! I have been reading not writing for a while, but have been constantly grateful for this place. I wanted to say thank you for Joyce’s new website, which is just terrific: Radical Unschooling | Joyfully Rejoycing

And on Sandra’s site, I read this: http://sandradodd.com/knowledge
"It is truly awesome to experience our kids learning. Reading and swimming (two activities that many folks believe must be taught) arose spontaneously, easily, with joyful confidence.”  (Tori)
which made me think about the difference for me between reading and swimming: It’s been straightforward for me not to have an agenda about reading, while occasionally pushing a bit for swimming (which my 7 year old is absolutely not interested in!): “Are you sure you don’t want to join this great class?” or "Are you really sure you don’t want daddy, or me, to show you?” And I’ve told him how he can not only save his own life, but also save other people (or animals.) Of course I realize it’s because of the security issue in swimming, as we are in LA and some of our friends have pools, and I feel like I’ll be able to relax when my children know how to swim. My daughter (at 1 1/2 year old) and I were both sitting by a pool, fully dressed in winter clothes, when she decided to dive in. I jumped in and got her at the bottom (but somehow my mind took the time to have me say“shit!” before I jumped in, as my son later pointed out!), I took her out, she nursed a bit and was totally fine. I happened really fast and I was so glad I was literally *right there*. Which of course I want to be with a non-swimming child near a pool.
But anyway I thought it was interesting how when there’s security involved - possibly life - it’s harder not to be impatient :-) I want to treat swimming like other things one can chose to learn one day - or not. I know adults who never chose to learn to swim, and I need to live with the fact that my son may never choose to learn to swim. I wasn’t given the option, as a child. 
Now I can hear some voices (outside from the Unschooling, Mindful Parenting world) say, “A good thing you weren’t, it was for your own good, it’s an important life-saving skill!”  I guess they will choose whether they want this important life-saving skill to be a part of their toolkit. Yes, it’s easier to learn to swim as a child, but you can learn at any age.

Any thoughts?
Thanks,

Clara


Sandra Dodd

-=-And I’ve told him how he can not only save his own life, but also save other people (or animals.) -=-

CPR saves lives! Driving can save lives—being able to rescue people (or animals) and take them to hospitals (or vets).
Reading can save lives. You could read “danger,” or instructions.
Being able to build fires and shelters can save lives. Boy scouts used to learn to do those wilderness survival things. Maybe not so much anymore (or maybe so).

I can’t swim.
Joyce Fetteroll’s husband learned just a few years ago, because he wanted to participate in triathlons. He could bike and run already, so he learned to swim, in his 50’s, I think.

It won’t be good if he feels he’s endangering the lives of other people and animals by not wanting to take swimming classes. But I think you’ve missed the point, about swimming and reading. Would you teach math and let science “be unschooled”? Would you teach reading and figure kids will pick up history? It’s another one of those things.

Of my three kids, Holly swims best and she learned informally. Kirby and Marty took lessons. Marty’s better than Kirby. Kirby didn’t really want the lessons.
We live in the desert. Not so many pools, either, but some.

Sandra

Clare Kirkpatrick

Look up intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. Learning something boring because of extrinsic reasons is hard and you're likely to damage your relationship with him and future learning if you push it. Go to swimming pools for fun. Have fun in pools. Swimming will come or it won't. If you push it, he may learn but he also may hate it forever and never do enough of it too actually be of any use in an emergency anyway.

Re. Sandra's point about other things that save lives that only some people can do. I'm a nurse. I'd be pretty useful if I came across an accident. More useful and possibly life-savingly useful than any non-medical people present, even first-aiders. First-aiders know what to do in theory but probably have never done it in real life. They're not as familiar as I am with equipment and unlikely to be as quick as I would be at assessing the situation and they're likely to be very scared. I've seen trained first aiders freeze when their training is eventually required making them as useless as if they'd not been trained.  A swimmer who never swims could well do the same if they saw someone fall in a pond who need rescuing.

So go to pools a lot but only for fun. Confidence and enjoyment in the water is what you want...unless you've already harmed that by pushing lessons. What about going with friends?

Clare

Alex & Brian Polikowsky

As someone who grew up by the beach and with a pool I can say that learning to swim is no guarantee the person/child will not drown.

Specially kids that learn to swim in classes before they were fully comfortable In the water or knew their limits I have seen several close calls with those kids.

My husband graduated from swim school and although he does swim he is NOT comfortable in the water not does he like it.

Me and my siblings and our many friends growing up Learned to swim by playing in the water. I remember well all the little steps and testing my limits until the day my grandfather ( who was a fabulous swimmer and played with us in the water a lot) realized I was swinging and called me over and kept backing up until I had swam a long distance, more than I was used to, and I realize that hey, I could swim!

Both my kids learned the way I did!
Playing in the pool. I remember my son was about 5 the winter he learned to swim. He went from not putting his head under water to swimming by playing with friends weekly at the pool.

My daughter the same way. All little steps until they were comfortable enough and knew their limits and wanted to push them so they could play.

I have done scuba diving and surfed , mostly bodyboarding, for many years when you and I am very comfortable in the water and I did not learn with lessons either. So I tell people that the best way to learn is exposure and play!

I heard a lot growing up near the beach that most drownings happened to good swimmers because they took more changes and sometimes did not understand the ocean because they were pool swimmers. 

Also parents think that a young child that has had swimming lessons are drown-proof and are much more likely to not pay attention to kids around water.
Panic is a huge factor in drowning. Once the person panics they are I real trouble and it does not matter how  well they swim.

My kids learned to swim and read by living a rich live with lots of available print and water to read and swim.
Alex Polikowsky

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 3, 2016, at 11:55 PM, Sandra Dodd Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:

 

-=-And I’ve told him how he can not only save his own life, but also save other people (or animals.) -=-

CPR saves lives! Driving can save lives—being able to rescue people (or animals) and take them to hospitals (or vets).
Reading can save lives. You could read “danger,” or instructions.
Being able to build fires and shelters can save lives. Boy scouts used to learn to do those wilderness survival things. Maybe not so much anymore (or maybe so).

I can’t swim.
Joyce Fetteroll’s husband learned just a few years ago, because he wanted to participate in triathlons. He could bike and run already, so he learned to swim, in his 50’s, I think.

It won’t be good if he feels he’s endangering the lives of other people and animals by not wanting to take swimming classes. But I think you’ve missed the point, about swimming and reading. Would you teach math and let science “be unschooled”? Would you teach reading and figure kids will pick up history? It’s another one of those things.

Of my three kids, Holly swims best and she learned informally. Kirby and Marty took lessons. Marty’s better than Kirby. Kirby didn’t really want the lessons.
We live in the desert. Not so many pools, either, but some.

Sandra

Joyce Fetteroll

> On Feb 3, 2016, at 10:42 PM, claramont@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> “Are you sure you don’t want to join this great class?” or
> "Are you really sure you don’t want daddy, or me, to show you?”


What if you put "reading" in the above?

“Are you sure you don’t want to join this great reading class?”

"Are you really sure you don’t want daddy, or me, to show you how to read?”

If those were the only opportunities to learn to read, how well would that work?

Kids learn to read while unschooling because they're immersed in opportunities. The printed word is everywhere. Their favorite things (like video games) may have words they need to recognize in order to play. They're being read to. Other types of stories (TV, movies, audio books) are all around them.

To learn to swim kids need easy, casual experiences with a pool.

Growing up we had a small free standing pool. It was only 2 feet deep and 10 feet across. It wasn't enough to really swim but enough to get used to floating, trying out strokes, opening my eyes underwater all while playing and trying all sorts of things out. Not all were directly connected to swimming. We played games so some was social. We played with water and what bodies can do in water so some was science.

When I was 6 we bought a cabin at a small resort in the mountains where they had a pool we could use on the weekends. That's where I got to expand on my paddling about with some bigger personal challenges to tackle. I would watch others for new ideas and to see how they did things. My strokes improved. My underwater swimming improved. I figured out how to jump off the side, dive off the side, eventually got brave enough to use the diving board.

It was all very casual, never any lessons, and I'm a good enough swimmer that no one needs to worry about me around a pool ;-)

I learned because I was having fun playing in the pool. Right now you're treating learning to swim as something to soothe your fears. Why would that be incentive for your son to learn to swim?

Joyce

lucy.web

We have a small above ground pool, about 3ft deep and 14 foot across. My girls learned to swim by playing in it, splashing about, having fun. They played as mermaids and liked to pick up stones from the bottom. No encouragement from me needed, certainly no lessons. I did once show them a short youtube video of someone swimming strokes.

When we went on holiday last year to a resort where there was a 'proper' pool they seemed to be moving through the water and keeping afloat just as well as anyone else. Not the smooth recognisable strokes that we think of as 'swimming', but they were safe, confident and secure, even when the wave machine was on :)

I was a very strong swimmer when I was younger and also did lifesaving courses, etc. I still recall swimming lessons with a vague sense of dread, though.

Lucy




Sent from my iPad
> On 4 Feb 2016, at 04:42, claramont@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I want to treat swimming like other things one can chose to learn one day - or not. I know adults who never chose to learn to swim, and I need to live with the fact that my son may never choose to learn to swim. I wasn’t given the option, as a child.

claramont@...

-=- It won’t be good if he feels he’s endangering the lives of other people and animals by not wanting to take swimming classes.-=-

Right! I just shared the info with him. When I say pushed, it’s been asking a 3-4 times over the years if he wanted to learn it, and feeling like I was interested in his answer being yes, but it’s been very light. I don’t think he feels bad at all about not being interested in it! But yes, wow, reading can save lives, pretty much any skill could potentially save lives and that’s not a reason to push them.

-=- Both my kids learned the way I did! Playing in the pool. -=-

Thanks Alex, it’s so cool to know that when you want to learn how to swim, you just do it, like anything else. I don’t know why it seems to me like it’s such a difficult thing to learn by oneself. Possibly because I had to take classes and be pressured to go past my limits and tricked etc ! (My mom, in order to “prove to me” that I could swim, convinced me to swim with only one arm thing, and while I was swimming, took the air out. Yes - she was right, I didn’t drown. And I see where she was coming from, she was trying to empower me. But I remember feeling so betrayed.)

-=-Would you teach math and let science “be unschooled”? Would you teach reading and figure kids will pick up history?-=-

Yes. Exactly. Which is why all I‘m doing about this swimming thing is work on myself about my fears related to non-swimmers and pools! It’s incredible how fast people drown - and how silent it is. In some stories, the parents were really close to the pool and didn’t notice anything. Once on a trip my mom almost drowned in a giant wave and a helicopter came to rescue her. Once I got in trouble in waves and surfers checked me out from a distance, almost having to come and get me out. We’re both excellent swimmers, and could very well have drowned.

"Would you teach reading and figure kids will pick up history?” Some people I know do :-) Though of course they aren’t saying they’re Unschooling. This reminds me of a lovely mother of 6 children I met in the UK, at HES FES (the Home Educators Summer Festival.) Her children were aged 3 weeks old to 12 when I met her. She told me that she felt like she had to teach them reading, writing and basic maths so that they could be fully autonomous. She said that having so many children, she felt like it was important for them to be able to seek the information by themselves, and that when you can read, nothing can stop you from learning and you can do it by yourself. So she said she wasn’t technically doing “Autonomous Learning” (one of the UK terms for Unschooling), though she felt like she was empowering her kids to be really autonomous. (She was also talking about how she’d noticed that before the age the 6, it was so easy for them to learn to read, whereas after 6 they started to be self-conscious and it became more difficult.)

She also shared about how confusing the fine line between Autonomous Learning and neglectful parenting can be. She said, when do you know you're doing autonomous learning and you’re not neglecting your kids? She said sometimes parents thought they were doing Autonomous Learning and they were just leaving their kids abandoned to themselves.
Which I think is something Pam describes in the dangers of using the term Child-Led Learning, which can lead to misinterpretations.
https://learninghappens.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/unschooling-is-not-child-led-learning/

The last paragraph is : "Calling it “child-led learning” gives the wrong impression. It leads to people thinking unschooling means waiting for a child to tell the parent, “I want to do math.” That’s not at all how it works.”

I’d like to be sure I’m understanding what Pam means. 
So: First, while we parents are obviously not saying “Let’s do math now”, we can still have, for example, fun math related games available and offer to play with them (accepting the idea that a particular child might never be interested in a specific game.) I guess the way I understand it, in a nutshell, it mostly that there is math everywhere, and that life is constantly offering opportunities to be doing math at all times while living (cooking, shopping, playing games, planning stuff), and also that you can offer suggestions - while at the same time having no agenda - which again is a fine line, because if you’re looking at getting change at the shop like an opportunity to be doing math when the child hasn’t asked anything, that’s can be a bit pushy and it is having an agenda. But just answering questions is doing maths, without calling it “doing maths”.

Clara


---In [email protected], <lucy.web@...> wrote :

We have a small above ground pool, about 3ft deep and 14 foot across. My girls learned to swim by playing in it, splashing about, having fun. They played as mermaids and liked to pick up stones from the bottom. No encouragement from me needed, certainly no lessons. I did once show them a short youtube video of someone swimming strokes.

When we went on holiday last year to a resort where there was a 'proper' pool they seemed to be moving through the water and keeping afloat just as well as anyone else. Not the smooth recognisable strokes that we think of as 'swimming', but they were safe, confident and secure, even when the wave machine was on :)

I was a very strong swimmer when I was younger and also did lifesaving courses, etc. I still recall swimming lessons with a vague sense of dread, though.

Lucy




Sent from my iPad
> On 4 Feb 2016, at 04:42, claramont@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I want to treat swimming like other things one can chose to learn one day - or not. I know adults who never chose to learn to swim, and I need to live with the fact that my son may never choose to learn to swim. I wasn’t given the option, as a child.

Sandra Dodd

-=- She told me that she felt like she had to teach them reading, writing and basic maths so that they could be fully autonomous. . . .So she said she wasn’t technically doing “Autonomous Learning” (one of the UK terms for Unschooling), -=-

Please divorce those two things in your head. “Autonomous Education” is a term, it’s true, but it’s not the same as unschooling.
“Autonomy” from the government is one aspect. “Autonomous learning” as you’ve used it above is neither of those.

So for the purposes of this discussion, please don’t try to meld and mesh all the things you’ve ever heard together and expect us to comment on it or help untangle or clarify it.

Let’s just look at radical unschooling as discussed her. It will be easier.

-=-I see where she was coming from, she was trying to empower me. But I remember feeling so betrayed.-=-
http://sandradodd.com/issues
When parents have personal issues that are affecting their parenting, unschooling itself might help them, as they review what they think and remember, and why, and how they might need to let go of it to parent their own children better. Unschooling can be healing, for parents if they can see it clearly enough.

http://sandradodd.com/issues might help.

-=-She also shared about how confusing the fine line between Autonomous Learning and neglectful parenting can be.-=-

Let’s not talk about what that mom, with a different philosophy thought or said, please. Let’s talk about the positives of radical unschooling.
http://sandradodd.com/help has many useful links.

-=-I’d like to be sure I’m understanding what Pam means.
So: First, while we parents are obviously not saying “Let’s do math now”, we can still have, for example, fun math related games available and offer to play with them (accepting the idea that a particular child might never be interested in a specific game.) I guess the way I understand it, in a nutshell, it mostly that there is math everywhere, and that life is constantly offering opportunities to be doing math at all times while living (cooking, shopping, playing games, planning stuff), and also that you can offer suggestions - while at the same time having no agenda - which again is a fine line, because if you’re looking at getting change at the shop like an opportunity to be doing math when the child hasn’t asked anything, that’s can be a bit pushy and it is having an agenda. But just answering questions is doing maths, without calling it “doing maths”.-=-

Your questions are very schoolish and basic.
Instead of us answering those questions, which takes all the readers the wrong direction, please re-read what Pam wrote—not in a read-fast school way, not read and be prepared to summarize and answer questions (or ask questions). The kind of reading that helps, with the links people leave here, is different. It should involve thinking of your relationship with your child, as you read, and internalizing ideas and principles.

http://sandradodd.com/feedback/rippy
There are many good ideas on that page about how to best utilize the type of information shared here.

Sandra

Joyce Fetteroll


On Feb 4, 2016, at 8:44 PM, claramont@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:

I‘m doing about this swimming thing is work on myself about
my fears related to non-swimmers and pools! It’s incredible how fast people drown ...

Which you then follow by a whole bunch of examples about drowning. That's not working on the fears. That's hoping they'll go away while they keep popping up to scare you.

Every time one of those fears pops in your head, turn away from it. Immediately think of something positive. 

What i picked up from your writing is a pull towards the unschooling ideas. But you don't believe in them. Your head is chock full of reasons why unschooling can't work. They're all tangled up around the  still forming unschooling ideas, choking off their growth.

What do you fear about unschooling? What's the worst you picture happening? Do you think that will happen in a year? In two years? What if you took two years off from worrying about far future effects and instead helped him do what interests him right now? What if you spent two years watching him explore, question, learn, had conversations, showed him new things? What's the worst that could happen if you did that? Would he be ruined for life?

Unschoolers who go onto college, some don't need any prep. Some take the one semester math and/or writing prep classes that colleges offer (for schooled students.) So unschooled kids can take off math and writing instruction for 9 or 10 years and then get up to speed into 4 months.

So even if you only followed his interests and did nothing like school learning for the next two years, the end effect would be what?

What do you fear?

Joyce

Clare Kirkpatrick

" I don’t think he feels bad at all about not being interested in it!"

" And I see where she was coming from, she was trying to empower me. But I remember feeling so betrayed"

Whatever our children say, we don't really know how they feel about something we've said, done or even feel or fear. They may not even be aware that they feel something in response to our stuff - it may be entirely subconscious for them. They may only realise many, many years later that they felt a certain way and that that influenced them from then on.

I thought I wasn't creative and didn't like art for the first 30 years of my life. It wasn't until I had an experience with an art teacher and my own children that I realised that an art teacher of mine sparked those feelings by 'improving' on my artwork for me. She thought she was being kind. In fact, without me really understanding the feelings or being aware of them at the time, she was telling me my art wasn't good enough.

So don't assume you know how your words affect your children and definitely watch out for using that assumption to assuage any feelings of guilt you may subconsciously harbour. I'm not having a go at you, just trying to make you be more aware of your words.

I wonder if your mum had any idea you felt betrayed by her helping you learn to swim the way she did...? Just something to think about.

" Once on a trip my mom almost drowned in a giant wave and a helicopter came to rescue her. Once I got in trouble in waves and surfers checked me out from a distance, almost having to come and get me out. We’re both excellent swimmers, and could very well have drowned"

Sounds like it would be better to have conversations about safety around water when you're going to be near the sea or whatever. Adults who are excellent and experienced swimmers drown when they don't make sensible decisions. Your son will be safer if he's unschooled because unschooling, by it's nature, fosters critical, clear thinking in all members of the family.

" So she said she wasn’t technically doing “Autonomous Learning” (one of the UK terms for Unschooling"

I'm in the UK. I used to do autonomous learning thinking it was the same thing by another name. I was wrong - it isn't the same.

" also that you can offer suggestions - while at the same time having no agenda - which again is a fine line, because if you’re looking at getting change at the shop like an opportunity to be doing math when the child hasn’t asked anything, that’s can be a bit pushy and it is having an agenda. But just answering questions is doing maths, without calling it “doing maths"

" She also shared about how confusing the fine line between Autonomous Learning and neglectful parenting can be."

When you understand unschooling, you'll realise that these are not a fine lines at all.

" But just answering questions is doing maths, without calling it “doing maths"

If you really understood unschooling, you'd see that this sentence isn't true at all. If I answer my child's questions about money, I'm not doing maths with them without saying the word 'maths', I'm simply answering her questions. If a colleague asked me to explain to her how to do a drug calculation, I wouldn't think I was doing maths with her, I would think I was showing her how to do a drugs calculation. It's no different with my children.

(Sometimes unschoolers will talk in those terms to explain to those new to the concept how children learn these things without schooling. But they're not actually thinking about their children's lives and learning in those terms)

And uschooling is the very opposite of neglectful parenting and those who think it is anything like it or close to it are totally misunderstanding it. Some people misunderstand unschooling and do it wrong and end up neglecting their children, but that's because they're not taking the time to learn about unschooling properly. They're reading a couple of things about it, thinking it sounds cool and that they get it and then stepping back and letting their kids do their own thing, expecting them to learn everything from social norms to advanced calculus by magic. Sometimes they come to realise things have become chaotic, blame unschooling (instead of their flawed understanding) and suddenly enforce loads of rules and lessons, which confuses and messes up the children even more.

So listen to Sandra. It is so, so important to put the work into really understanding unschooling and into moving slowly. Go back to Pam Larrichia's introductory emails and read her books. Start from scratch so your unschooling foundation is more solid.

Clare

claramont@...

Answering Clare, then Joyce (I’m just out of a bad-bad sinus flu.)

 

-=-I'm in the UK. I used to do autonomous learning thinking it was the same thing by another name. I was wrong - it isn't the same.-=-


Oh, interesting. The people I met in the UK thought it was – and I met a few people (who called them Autonomous Learners & Unschoolers) at Hes Fes. (Prof Alan Thomas from London University, Institute of Education, has written about it saying its just different words for the same thing.) So, thanks for the clarification. I had no idea. I’ve never lived in the UK or spent enough time with a British family to know it wasn’t.

 

-=-" She also shared about how confusing the fine line between Autonomous Learning and neglectful parenting can be."

When you understand unschooling, you'll realise that these are not a fine lines at all. -=-


That was a British mom. Not me. I know they aren’t! And I’ve shared many times Sandra’s page on neglect http://sandradodd.com/neglect

 

-=- If a colleague asked me to explain to her how to do a drug calculation, I wouldn't think I was doing maths with her, I would think I was showing her how to do a drugs calculation. It's no different with my children.

(Sometimes unschoolers will talk in those terms to explain to those new to the concept how children learn these things without schooling. But they're not actually thinking about their children's lives and learning in those terms) -=-


That’s exactly what I meant. In life we don’t separate in “subjects”, neither with adults, nor with children. But for those asking “when do they learn maths”, the answer is all the time, when they ask questions for example.

 

-=- What i picked up from your writing is a pull towards the unschooling ideas. But you don't believe in them. Your head is chock full of reasons why unschooling can't work. They're all tangled up around the  still forming unschooling ideas, choking off their growth. What do you fear about unschooling? What's the worst you picture happening? Do you think that will happen in a year? In two years? What if you took two years off from worrying about far future effects and instead helped him do what interests him right now? What if you spent two years watching him explore, question, learn, had conversations, showed him new things? What's the worst that could happen if you did that? Would he be ruined for life?-=-


That’s very strange, b/c I don’t have any reasons why unschooling can’t work. I’m so completely convinced by it that it’s hard for me not to sell it to everyone I meet. I don’t have fears about unschooling. I don't think about far future effects. We have such a joyful life and we credit unschooling for playing a big part in the entire family’s happiness.

 

-=-So even if you only followed his interests and did nothing like school learning for the next two years, the end effect would be what? -=-


That’s what we do. We’ve never done anything like school and wouldn’t dream of doing it – or see any reason why to.

 

I hadn’t posted in a long time and didn’t feel any fear :-) about posting here anymore, after so long. I was back an avid reader here, on the sites & blogs. Reading the same pages a few years later, it’s great to see how it’s common sense for me now when it was a delicious revolution for me back then, and how, wow, I’m so grateful I was lucky enough to have access to this info when my first child was a baby (and when I had so much more time to read b/c babies nap so much and I only had one!) 

 

Tori’s “reading and swimming” image on the Knowledge page triggered this thought that with swimming, it’s like the only thing out of all the zillion things that one can choose to do or not to do where, probably b/c my 1 year old daughter fell to the bottom of a pool, I could see myself thinking “it would be cool if they learned this”. Which is not the kind of thought I’ve had about anything else. Maybe I shouldn't have posted b/c it wasn't an issue, just a passing thought (so no need to pollute this busy forum with a passing thought), but the post's motivation was, I can see now, more like a desire to say hi and thank you for being here, after all these years, still being here, still volunteering your time and kicking our asses and giving us no easy way out and demanding that our thoughts are clear & thorough and our wording meticulous & our sharing honest.

 

Blessings, and gratefulness this week for some precious pages I (re)discovered: the Spouse page, Becoming a Better Partner page, the Sex page, the Negativity page w/ the new video, the Masters of Love link…

 

Despite it being an ecological aberration (these pages are LONG!), I’m printing stuff to bring to the beach for myself, or to give my husband, who can’t stand more time at the computer than the many work hours – though too much “paper time” is to be feared as well :-)

 

(I like printing b/c I can hand out to people – the Screen time page for ex is one that I printed for a bunch of parents I know who brought up the “damages of medias” last week. I do hope it’s OK to print out/hand out, Sandra ? Of course it has the site’s link on every page. Pls do lmk if it’s not OK and I won’t do it.)

 

Clara, who's sure that something in her message is going to be fairly picked on but who can't afford to spend more time at the computer b/c my kids can't stand it and I owe it to them to listen to that.



---In [email protected], <claremkirkpatrick@...> wrote :

" I don’t think he feels bad at all about not being interested in it!"

" And I see where she was coming from, she was trying to empower me. But I remember feeling so betrayed"

Whatever our children say, we don't really know how they feel about something we've said, done or even feel or fear. They may not even be aware that they feel something in response to our stuff - it may be entirely subconscious for them. They may only realise many, many years later that they felt a certain way and that that influenced them from then on.

I thought I wasn't creative and didn't like art for the first 30 years of my life. It wasn't until I had an experience with an art teacher and my own children that I realised that an art teacher of mine sparked those feelings by 'improving' on my artwork for me. She thought she was being kind. In fact, without me really understanding the feelings or being aware of them at the time, she was telling me my art wasn't good enough.

So don't assume you know how your words affect your children and definitely watch out for using that assumption to assuage any feelings of guilt you may subconsciously harbour. I'm not having a go at you, just trying to make you be more aware of your words.

I wonder if your mum had any idea you felt betrayed by her helping you learn to swim the way she did...? Just something to think about.

" Once on a trip my mom almost drowned in a giant wave and a helicopter came to rescue her. Once I got in trouble in waves and surfers checked me out from a distance, almost having to come and get me out. We’re both excellent swimmers, and could very well have drowned"

Sounds like it would be better to have conversations about safety around water when you're going to be near the sea or whatever. Adults who are excellent and experienced swimmers drown when they don't make sensible decisions. Your son will be safer if he's unschooled because unschooling, by it's nature, fosters critical, clear thinking in all members of the family.

" So she said she wasn’t technically doing “Autonomous Learning” (one of the UK terms for Unschooling"

I'm in the UK. I used to do autonomous learning thinking it was the same thing by another name. I was wrong - it isn't the same.

" also that you can offer suggestions - while at the same time having no agenda - which again is a fine line, because if you’re looking at getting change at the shop like an opportunity to be doing math when the child hasn’t asked anything, that’s can be a bit pushy and it is having an agenda. But just answering questions is doing maths, without calling it “doing maths"

" She also shared about how confusing the fine line between Autonomous Learning and neglectful parenting can be."

When you understand unschooling, you'll realise that these are not a fine lines at all.

" But just answering questions is doing maths, without calling it “doing maths"

If you really understood unschooling, you'd see that this sentence isn't true at all. If I answer my child's questions about money, I'm not doing maths with them without saying the word 'maths', I'm simply answering her questions. If a colleague asked me to explain to her how to do a drug calculation, I wouldn't think I was doing maths with her, I would think I was showing her how to do a drugs calculation. It's no different with my children.

(Sometimes unschoolers will talk in those terms to explain to those new to the concept how children learn these things without schooling. But they're not actually thinking about their children's lives and learning in those terms)

And uschooling is the very opposite of neglectful parenting and those who think it is anything like it or close to it are totally misunderstanding it. Some people misunderstand unschooling and do it wrong and end up neglecting their children, but that's because they're not taking the time to learn about unschooling properly. They're reading a couple of things about it, thinking it sounds cool and that they get it and then stepping back and letting their kids do their own thing, expecting them to learn everything from social norms to advanced calculus by magic. Sometimes they come to realise things have become chaotic, blame unschooling (instead of their flawed understanding) and suddenly enforce loads of rules and lessons, which confuses and messes up the children even more.

So listen to Sandra. It is so, so important to put the work into really understanding unschooling and into moving slowly. Go back to Pam Larrichia's introductory emails and read her books. Start from scratch so your unschooling foundation is more solid.

Clare

Sharkeydawn


-----When I say pushed, it’s been asking a 3-4 times over the years if he wanted to learn it ----

I don't understand why you didn't just go to the pool and play? By asking if he wants to learn to swim it becomes a process that needs to be conscious. First he must want to learn to swim, then the learning can begin. Same here:

-----Thanks Alex, it’s so cool to know that when you want to learn how to swim, you just do it, like anything else.------

But that's not how it is in my experience. My six year old is now swimming with a float jacket. Not strict recognisable strokes but confidently and fluidly moving through the water, in control of where he goes and happy even when he can't touch the bottom for a while. He didn't want to learn to swim or decide to do it. We just spent lots of time in the pool and it happened! 

I think this idea that learning to swim is a conscious process which he must decide to undertake, may be off putting. What if he can't do it? What if  he can't swim then can't save someone's life?! It's a lot of pressure.

I would make water fun again. Maybe instead of the rectangle pools which speak of swimming lessons have other fun in the water. Splash parks, paddling, pools that have waves and slides and stuff. A big leap in my sons  swimming came when we had a holiday at a place with a "subtropical swimming paradise" four days and he was fish like. No rectangular pools but lagoons and rapids and nooks and crannies to explore. Slides and waterfalls. It made getting around in the water fun and attractive. Pretty much the opposite of having to learn the thing in case of a crisis. 

Dawn 

Sandra Dodd

-=-I do hope it’s OK to print out/hand out, Sandra ? Of course it has the site’s link on every page. Pls do lmk if it’s not OK and I won’t do it.)-=-

Things that are in public are public. :-)

If I didn’t want people to see it and share it, I wouldn’t have put it in a webpage google can find so easily. :-)

-=- (Prof Alan Thomas from London University, Institute of Education, has written about it saying its just different words for the same thing.)-=-

He’s wrong.
But even the person who wrote the book (the magazines/newsletters for years) about Autonomous Ed has said it’s not the same. That was after YEARS of shutting down anyone who talked about unschooling with “Well, we call it Autonomous Ed here.”

YEARS, and years of the potential for people in the UK to understand unschooling better was shut down by people (I think; I could be wrong) who wanted money and influence. I hope I’m wrong about that.

What I’m right about is that there are many peaceful benefits of the kind of unschooling we’ve discussed here for a long time (and in other places before this). It’s not just my kids who are now grown and out in the world without compromises, without “sort of” or “kind of” or “mostly” unschooling. It’s not another word for something they’re doing in the UK. :-)

If Alan Thomas or Peter Grey misunderstands the finer points of unschooling, that’s fine. Their research on reading and learning are still useful. It doesn’t make them experts on unschooling AT ALL, that they’ve met and interviewed or spoken with or spoken to unschoolers and other home ed families.


Sandra

Sandra Dodd

-=-I think this idea that learning to swim is a conscious process which he must decide to undertake, may be off putting. -=-

I agree.
And it’s false.

When people write (happily and hopefully) “When he decides to learn to read, he’ll be able to teach himself!” or “If he wants to learn to read, he can,” those statements are cheery, and very unlike school, but they’re also wrongheaded and very unlike unschooling.

Kids learn to read when they start to see the patterns and discover on their own the several parts of reading. It doesn’t come from wanting it or deciding. And a parent who expresses those ideas to children will be sending a different message from school’s grade level and time table, but also could be setting the child up for frustration and failure.

It’s not possible for a child to fail to read the words start to make sense.
It IS possible for a child to fail to read when she wants to, or to decide it’s time, and find that he can’t do it.

Deciding, wanting, undertaking…. those aren’t how unschooling works. DOING, being, exploring, talking, watching, hearing—those things lead to all other things. :-)

http://sandradodd.com/connections

To learn to swim, kids will need to be around water, just as for learning to ride a bicycle there needs to BE a bicycle. Horses. Trampoline. Without the convehance/material/substance, the child can’t try and learn and polish. Nobody will learn to play ball without a ball.

Sandra

Jo Isaac

I'm jumping into this discussion after having missed the start, while I was away in the UK.

So I apologize if I cover something that's already been covered.


==To learn to swim, kids will need to be around water==

Absolutely. Also, some kids will find swimming harder than others, no matter what. My son (9) has always been around water - this summer we've been in the local pool at least 2 or 3 times a week, and is confident, but he finds swimming - especially freestyle - hard work. Because he's muscly...he sinks very easily. He finds it hard to float on his back. It's a physical thing that is well known - kids and adults with lots of dense muscle don't float so well, so find it harder to swim. He finds breast stroke easier as his legs and middle don't sink so quickly...his Dad and Granddad have the same problems with swimming.

I guess if he swam every day, and really wanted to become better, he would build up other muscles to make that possible. But he can do about 400m now, and he's happy with that, and he likes diving. 

Jo


.

claramont@...

-=-Kids learn to read when they start to see the patterns and discover on their own the several parts of reading. It doesn’t come from wanting it or deciding. -=-

There are things you learn as a side-effect of living in your society. Like reading. Like learning to speak the langage(s) of your family or the place where you live. When I wanted to learn Portuguese to be able to communicate with my Brazilian then boyfriend who didn’t speak French no English nor German no anything but Portuguese when I met him, and I wasn’t living in Brazil or Portugal, I (thought I) decided to learn it so that I could communicate with him. I (thought I) made a conscious decision to do it. I wouldn’t have needed to decide anything if I was living in Portugal or Brazil, but I wasn’t. I wasn't even with him, as we met, spent a week together and then work kept us apart for 2 months. I spent hours (6 or 7) every night working on it, self-motivated by THE great motivator, love. But it was certainly a decision for me - or I thought it was until this minute. :) 

My mom has been talking about wanting to learn Portuguese for years, to be able to communicate with her daughter’s husband’s mother (is there a word for that? :)), who doesn’t speak anything but Portuguese and who’s a great little woman we all adore. She has a book by her bed - same book I used (hours every day) to learn Portuguese. Same book my dad used when he learned Portuguese b/c he "wanted to”, “ decided to” (or so I thought until now) before going to Rio Carnival in the 70ies b/c he was in love with Samba & Bossa Nova. But my mother never so far made the decision to do it, so she’s not even looking at the book that she keeps by her bed, and she’s definitely not speaking Portuguese. :)

My dad, married to a German woman (my mom) and a big fan of Wagner Operas, would say things that suggested he loved the German langage and would be thrilled if he could read Goethe or Rilke in the original langage, but he never really “ decided" to do it b/c it probably wasn’t that important for him. And he didn’t learn German as a side-effect of living with my mom, b/c they were living in France.

So. At the time of my original post, I was viewing swimming like learning Portuguese was for me or like German would have been for my dad. Something that I would not learn unless I “decided" it. Not something I would learn just by living in this society. Am I missing something here? Thanks!


-=-Deciding, wanting, undertaking…. those aren’t how unschooling works. DOING, being, exploring, talking, watching, hearing—those things lead to all other things. :-) -=-

Yes. I get that. So I was exploring Portuguese every day for hours because I’d chosen to. And not because I "decided I wanted" to do it?... :)

-=- I don't understand why you didn't just go to the pool and play? -=-
-=-To learn to swim, kids will need to be around water, just as for learning to ride a bicycle there needs to BE a bicycle. Horses. Trampoline. Without the convehance/material/substance, the child can’t try and learn and polish. Nobody will learn to play ball without a ball.-=-

We go to pools and he rarely gets wet. :) Most of the time, he’s not even interested in putting on a swim suit. He says he doesn’t enjoy being in water. We’d naively assumed that after a water birth (and being a water sign! :)) our baby would be a water lover. It didn’t work out that way. Maybe it was the opposite even. Maybe there was a birth trauma involving the water - who knows. It was a beautiful birth but very different from our second water birth with our daughter (and she loves water!) - the big difference being that he was born in a hospital and she was born at home. I had no idea how two unmedicated natural births could be so different based on that little “detail” - in terms of stress, pressure for time etc.

When we went to a terrific "subtropical swimming paradise” in France with dozens of families of Unscholers last May, his least favorite thing about the trip (which he loved) was the water :) That’s why I originally posted that I need to be OK - and really, I am! - with the fact he may never choose to be a swimmer. 

Clara

Alex & Brian Polikowsky

-Thanks Alex, it’s so cool to know that when you want to learn how to swim, you just do it, like anything else.---



And that is not what I was saying at all when I wrote about learning to swim.

Me and my kids were just playing and learning to swim was one of the things they learned as a consequence.

Just like my son learned to read playing Roblox and trying to communicate to other players!

Alex P. 
























Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 18, 2016, at 6:04 PM, Jo Isaac joanneisaac@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:

 

I'm jumping into this discussion after having missed the start, while I was away in the UK.

So I apologize if I cover something that's already been covered.


==To learn to swim, kids will need to be around water==

Absolutely. Also, some kids will find swimming harder than others, no matter what. My son (9) has always been around water - this summer we've been in the local pool at least 2 or 3 times a week, and is confident, but he finds swimming - especially freestyle - hard work. Because he's muscly...he sinks very easily. He finds it hard to float on his back. It's a physical thing that is well known - kids and adults with lots of dense muscle don't float so well, so find it harder to swim. He finds breast stroke easier as his legs and middle don't sink so quickly...his Dad and Granddad have the same problems with swimming.

I guess if he swam every day, and really wanted to become better, he would build up other muscles to make that possible. But he can do about 400m now, and he's happy with that, and he likes diving. 

Jo


.

Lisa Celedon

<<I’m so completely convinced by it that it’s hard for me not to sell it to everyone I meet.>>

I wanted to pull this out, because I think it's important to not try to 'sell' unschooling to anyone.  I think there can be a way of talking to others about unschooling that turns into seeking validation yourself.  That if other people agree that this thing you're telling them about is so awesome that they want to do it too, that you have indeed discovered the 'right' and 'best' way of doing something, then everything is okay.

"Selling" in this sense is persuasive, manipulative.

I'm not writing this in direct response to the original poster, because, I don't know her and I have never heard her talk about unschooling to other people.  
Sometimes when people talk a lot about unschooling, as if they're trying to sell other people on the idea, it comes off as a sort of anxiety about having others in agreement (even though it's probably not their conscious intent, I think the surface intent is to share something wonderful, to help others find it too).  

I have seen misunderstanding about unschooling spread among groups of people speaking persuasively to one another, or trying to obtain validation or group support about ideas that on some level they're personally anxious or confused or ambiguous about, rather than focusing on their own growth.  It gets sloppy too, when kids are unhappy or having issues, and people are talking persuasively about doing something they still don't understand a lot yet.  It's an easy way to spread misconceptions.  And I think some of the misconceptions I see are potentially dangerous, even.

People walk away from very very good unschooling discussions and books and webpages with misconceptions. I did!  Three years later I'm still learning about and unlearning misconceptions I had about unschooling when I started, and I'm more careful now than I used to be about assuming I understand something well enough to tell others about it.  And anytime I make that assumption, and then talk, I usually learn something new about what I don't actually know yet. ;)

I have also known people who don't talk a lot directly about it, but live it really well, and when you're around them and their kids, it's pretty clear they're doing something wonderful.  Those people have been the most positively influential on me, among the people I have met in person.

I used to talk more about unschooling, which was pretty silly--presumptuous too-- because I still am not technically unschooling.  My oldest would now be in kindergarten and I live in a place where kindergarten is mostly non-compulsory.  I'm glad I didn't talk about it very much very often.  But I did feel that impulse for awhile, being excited about something amazing and wanting to tell everyone all about it--  I wanted to spread the good news!  Like some sort of evangelist. ;)  
I tend towards shyness and not wanting to create conflict, or causing people discomfort, so fortunately for everyone--me included--I didn't make a good evangelist.

Anyway, the deeper I got into my own deschooling, the more I saw how little I really understood well, and how problematic it could be for me and for others for me to talk much about it, especially without an actual invitation to talk about it. Even with an invitation to talk about it, right now I say very little, I explain I'm learning about unschooling, and direct them toward better resources than myself.  I do more discussing in online forums where more experienced unschoolers can point out where I might not be clear on something.

That might change over the years, and it might not, I don't know.  But even with parents with older kids I've met, the ones who talk less about what they're doing, and *live* what they're doing instead, have been a better example for me to learn from.
 
I don't never mention it out loud, but I definitely have been working on being more careful and thoughtful about when and where and how to talk about it with others, and that practice has helped me learn better about what my motivations are, and to better sort out and honor my priorities, as well as the dignity of others to make choices that are different from mine.

Lisa Celedon


Alex & Brian Polikowsky

That is different than a parent pushing a child because they think the child has to learn another language or learn to swim.

A parent should be continuously and proactively creating a rich environment for a child to learn and providing the child opportunities to be exposed to many different things including swimming.


Going to to pool here and there may not be enough for a child that does not like water to learn to swim. I have witness a child who had some bad swim lessons experiences and hated to be in the water. One whole Summer she came to the pool with my daughter . They played a  lot in the sand but my daughter loves the water so the child followed her.

I think she was 9 at the time and we went to the pool several times a week. By the end of the Summer this child was diving and having a blast. It was in her terms! 
She started with a life vest and terrified! Little by little she got comfortable.

Now maybe that child would have not had that opportunity  and maybe later in life she may have wanted to learn to swim and wanted classes. That is her choice and goal and I would support that.


I am learning Korean . I am loving it. I may do 15-20 minutes a day and the rest I listen to Korean music and watch Korean shows. So that has been fun and since I live in a town that does not even have a Korean restaurant that is all the exposure I get.


I decided to pursue it but if I could just go to Korea and spend time there I would do an immersion thing.
I don't have a parent telling me I should learn another language and never did -!: I still speak a few languages.

Unschooling does not mean a child will not pursue something more schoolish ever. They might.  It also does not mean kids don't go looking for something with the intent of leaning it or mastering said skill/knowledge.

An unschooling teens wrote something the other day I will quote here as it is a nice explanation between studying and learning:



"I think the biggest difference between the words "learning" and "studying", in this context, is that learning is natural and constant, something your brain does automatically while doing anything at all.
Whereas studying implies research; Like you're actively seeking out an activity specifically to discover info about something you need to know. This is still learning, it's just a more intentional kind, often with "academic" implications.
College students might *need* to study for an exam, but they will automatically learn things in the process. They also use things they learned previously in the same exam.
Studying is learning, but learning is not studying."

Jayn Coburn


It is very important to also understand that teaching does not equal learning.






By the way I am Brazilian but live in the US.


Alex Polikowsky.


Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 18, 2016, at 10:15 PM, claramont@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:

 

-=-Kids learn to read when they start to see the patterns and discover on their own the several parts of reading. It doesn’t come from wanting it or deciding. -=-

There are things you learn as a side-effect of living in your society. Like reading. Like learning to speak the langage(s) of your family or the place where you live. When I wanted to learn Portuguese to be able to communicate with my Brazilian then boyfriend who didn’t speak French no English nor German no anything but Portuguese when I met him, and I wasn’t living in Brazil or Portugal, I (thought I) decided to learn it so that I could communicate with him. I (thought I) made a conscious decision to do it. I wouldn’t have needed to decide anything if I was living in Portugal or Brazil, but I wasn’t. I wasn't even with him, as we met, spent a week together and then work kept us apart for 2 months. I spent hours (6 or 7) every night working on it, self-motivated by THE great motivator, love. But it was certainly a decision for me - or I thought it was until this minute. :) 

My mom has been talking about wanting to learn Portuguese for years, to be able to communicate with her daughter’s husband’s mother (is there a word for that? :)), who doesn’t speak anything but Portuguese and who’s a great little woman we all adore. She has a book by her bed - same book I used (hours every day) to learn Portuguese. Same book my dad used when he learned Portuguese b/c he "wanted to”, “ decided to” (or so I thought until now) before going to Rio Carnival in the 70ies b/c he was in love with Samba & Bossa Nova. But my mother never so far made the decision to do it, so she’s not even looking at the book that she keeps by her bed, and she’s definitely not speaking Portuguese. :)

My dad, married to a German woman (my mom) and a big fan of Wagner Operas, would say things that suggested he loved the German langage and would be thrilled if he could read Goethe or Rilke in the original langage, but he never really “ decided" to do it b/c it probably wasn’t that important for him. And he didn’t learn German as a side-effect of living with my mom, b/c they were living in France.

So. At the time of my original post, I was viewing swimming like learning Portuguese was for me or like German would have been for my dad. Something that I would not learn unless I “decided" it. Not something I would learn just by living in this society. Am I missing something here? Thanks!


-=-Deciding, wanting, undertaking…. those aren’t how unschooling works. DOING, being, exploring, talking, watching, hearing—those things lead to all other things. :-) -=-

Yes. I get that. So I was exploring Portuguese every day for hours because I’d chosen to. And not because I "decided I wanted" to do it?... :)

-=- I don't understand why you didn't just go to the pool and play? -=-
-=-To learn to swim, kids will need to be around water, just as for learning to ride a bicycle there needs to BE a bicycle. Horses. Trampoline. Without the convehance/material/substance, the child can’t try and learn and polish. Nobody will learn to play ball without a ball.-=-

We go to pools and he rarely gets wet. :) Most of the time, he’s not even interested in putting on a swim suit. He says he doesn’t enjoy being in water. We’d naively assumed that after a water birth (and being a water sign! :)) our baby would be a water lover. It didn’t work out that way. Maybe it was the opposite even. Maybe there was a birth trauma involving the water - who knows. It was a beautiful birth but very different from our second water birth with our daughter (and she loves water!) - the big difference being that he was born in a hospital and she was born at home. I had no idea how two unmedicated natural births could be so different based on that little “detail” - in terms of stress, pressure for time etc.

When we went to a terrific "subtropical swimming paradise” in France with dozens of families of Unscholers last May, his least favorite thing about the trip (which he loved) was the water :) That’s why I originally posted that I need to be OK - and really, I am! - with the fact he may never choose to be a swimmer. 

Clara