Doing what you enjoy / Fending for yourself
settledwater@...
Could you direct me to a link or describe in more detail the line between a child doing what he/she enjoys/wants and fending for themselves from an unschooling/WLU point of view.
semajrak@...
Without know more information about what your concerns are, I like this piece of writing by Pam Sorooshian:
Sandra Dodd
The post’s title is interesting.
“Fend for yourself” is not a modern phrase, and because of that it’s only going to be used by someone channeling an older voice. I have a collection of these phrases:
http://sandradodd.com/phrases
It suggests abandonment, or having been orphaned, or shipwrecked. :-)
So if someone else said “children should be left to fend for themselves,” that’s not very good unschooling (and I doubt it was said). If an outsider said “those children are being left to fend for themselves,” it’s an insult to the mom. Perhaps it’s a deserved insult. I’ve seen moms drinking alcohol and ignoring children by swimming pools and such. Some were unschoolers, most weren’t.
But that brings me to something else from the post which won’t seem important to everyone here, but to others it was a beacon.
“WLU” is not a term used here.
It stands for “whole life unschooling,” and is a term used by people who want to distance themselves from the term radical unschooling. Or rather they want to adopt and promote all the ideas that have been developed in places like this, in serious discussions of radical unschooling, and claim them for their own, or pretend they developed in some “WLU” land.
So for this group, don’t use it. Don’t expect us to defend ideas from elsewhere.
http://sandradodd.com/nest
Children should not be left to themselves unless they’re enjoying the solitude. Parents should be nearby, attentive, supportive, aware.
Sandra
“Fend for yourself” is not a modern phrase, and because of that it’s only going to be used by someone channeling an older voice. I have a collection of these phrases:
http://sandradodd.com/phrases
It suggests abandonment, or having been orphaned, or shipwrecked. :-)
So if someone else said “children should be left to fend for themselves,” that’s not very good unschooling (and I doubt it was said). If an outsider said “those children are being left to fend for themselves,” it’s an insult to the mom. Perhaps it’s a deserved insult. I’ve seen moms drinking alcohol and ignoring children by swimming pools and such. Some were unschoolers, most weren’t.
But that brings me to something else from the post which won’t seem important to everyone here, but to others it was a beacon.
“WLU” is not a term used here.
It stands for “whole life unschooling,” and is a term used by people who want to distance themselves from the term radical unschooling. Or rather they want to adopt and promote all the ideas that have been developed in places like this, in serious discussions of radical unschooling, and claim them for their own, or pretend they developed in some “WLU” land.
So for this group, don’t use it. Don’t expect us to defend ideas from elsewhere.
http://sandradodd.com/nest
Children should not be left to themselves unless they’re enjoying the solitude. Parents should be nearby, attentive, supportive, aware.
Sandra