kgharriman1@...

Someone recommended this book called 'Project Based Homeschooling: mentoring your self directed learner' by Lori Pickert and I was wondering if anyone here has read it and if it's in line with unschooling principles? From a glance it seems to be though I might be missing something.

It doesn't include any mention of watching movies/tv/video games so I wonder if it's bias is on art/craft/ creating amazing things (our kids draw and paint a bit but they never make 3d models or explore ancient egypt in depth... and then do a landscape model of pyramids and design costumes from that Era and draw up a time line etc..... it could go on amd onI using an example of a classic description of how homeschool kids homeschool... substitute ancient pyramids for constellations or architecture overy time or any other topic and how as a home schooler you delight in seeing your self directed learner embrace the project and experience learning in its fullest and richest... these examples make me feel edgy and guilty as I watch mine play Roblox or watching tv.... they do creative things spontaneously like cook, make up tunes on piano, create skits and dress up and paint and draw and do lego (my son is 7 but finds making things from scratch with lego hard) but not every day or even every week. Just when the mood strikes. Am I meant to make this happen more? We have been unschooling for 3 years now, home schooling always with 4 kids, eldest is 11) as a preference to watching or playing video games. I get edgy when I hear/read other homeschool kids create amazing projects.. they have a project here and over there and everywhere! Mine don't really. Are they meant to? Am I missing something. They create in other ways like making up stories witg Barbie and Ken OR making up dances or little movies on imovie...

Kelly Callahan

I love Lori Pickert's writing, and we started with project based homeschooling, using her stuff as a guide. She is definitely pro technology and I think writes about it in a way that helps parents see the learning that is happening there. But she doesn't shout 'no limit s!' from the rooftops, but rather focuses  on the learning- which I think is very in line with unschooling. 
I find her newsletters to be especially good- she digs into current educational trends and dissects them, all favoring real- world, self directed learning. 

I tried to incorporate her suggestions while deschooling when we first took our kids out 3 years ago, which didn't work for us. I should have just let my kids be and so it was confusing for me because I thought they would love this project based approach but rather than looking with learning eyes, I was still looking through school-y eyes. It wasn't until I just decided to fully unschool that we were really able to deschool, and only 2 years in we are way further along, but still in progress! 

I don't find her suggestions to be counter to unschooling for me at all, though obviously she is advocating something different because she calls it Project Based Homeschooling and not unschooling! I found that once I got to unschooling I could better understand what she was trying to say, but not the other way around, if that makes sense. And then once I found my way to unschooling there was no reason to track back :) 



Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 4, 2017, at 5:12 PM, kgharriman1@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:

 

Someone recommended this book called 'Project Based Homeschooling: mentoring your self directed learner' by Lori Pickert and I was wondering if anyone here has read it and if it's in line with unschooling principles? From a glance it seems to be though I might be missing something.

It doesn't include any mention of watching movies/tv/video games so I wonder if it's bias is on art/craft/ creating amazing things (our kids draw and paint a bit but they never make 3d models or explore ancient egypt in depth... and then do a landscape model of pyramids and design costumes from that Era and draw up a time line etc..... it could go on amd onI using an example of a classic description of how homeschool kids homeschool... substitute ancient pyramids for constellations or architecture overy time or any other topic and how as a home schooler you delight in seeing your self directed learner embrace the project and experience learning in its fullest and richest... these examples make me feel edgy and guilty as I watch mine play Roblox or watching tv.... they do creative things spontaneously like cook, make up tunes on piano, create skits and dress up and paint and draw and do lego (my son is 7 but finds making things from scratch with lego hard) but not every day or even every week. Just when the mood strikes. Am I meant to make this happen more? We have been unschooling for 3 years now, home schooling always with 4 kids, eldest is 11) as a preference to watching or playing video games. I get edgy when I hear/read other homeschool kids create amazing projects.. they have a project here and over there and everywhere! Mine don't really. Are they meant to? Am I missing something. They create in other ways like making up stories witg Barbie and Ken OR making up dances or little movies on imovie...


Julie

I wrote this Amazon review on the book some time ago:

 

I really wanted to like this book. But even after reading it a few time, I still find this book deeply flawed. To begin with, she took the content of an article and tried to make a book. It is thus poorly written, redundant, repetitive, and boring. More importantly, while I commend her for bringing focus to self-directed learning, her approach is problematic. By creating a "work space" and making "representations" of learning the focus, she feeds capital, not learning. By trying to create a culture of "meaningful work," she devalues everything else. Learning and meaningful experiences happen at almost every moment. Learning isn't about "representations,” it’s about being able to make new moves in life based on new knowledge. The evidence is in the living, not in the making. Products aren't real symbols of learning. Furthermore, by valuing "work" through projects and representations, this author devalues the place of thought and reading without purpose - of contemplation without product or direction. Reading for projects isn't more valuable than reading for fun. Project work is only more valuable if you devalue all other individual interests.

As Homeschool educators, I hope we see ourselves as facilitators of ALL interests and opportunities for learning. By drawing a distinction between "work" and "play," she furthers a problematic conceptual framework that actually ignores real learning. In play, in flow, we fall into that magical place where we are connected, engaged, a part of something larger than ourselves, and in there, real learning, real connections are made. You can't force flow or play, it just happens. It happens while playing with dolls, Legos, or while playing with words.

Sometimes we even need the random. This author counsels to not take random field trips, to try to facilitate connections by grouping experiences. As any experienced thinker knows, sometimes the random is where the “ah ha” moments are. You can’t predict or construct the connections. They just happen. They can't be forced, and sometimes something totally unrelated and random is what is needed to open up the necessary perspective to make a new connection.

Learning happens. It happens every moment. It’s what you do with those experiences that matters, but it’s gravely mistaken to think you need to produce or act for there to be real learning. In fact, this demand for representations shows a lack of trust in the learning process itself. Learners don’t have to be trained animals that produce or show signs. Only a capitalist, factory model of schooling requires this. As home educators, we can free ourselves from such demands and allow children to explore and imagine without demands that create limits. Let them freely “write” plays while they imaginative play with other kids. Why sit them down and write it out? That constipates flow, destroys the imaginative, and puts real constraining limits on the possible.

If you value self-directed learning, then free the learning. Let children be free to learn. Create a culture that values learning through freedom and choice, not through meaningful work.

 

Julie Varvaro


Jo Isaac

I haven't read the book, but just from the title, I wouldn't think it's in line with unschooling, no.

Project based homeschooling sounds like something that might be attractive to eclectic or relaxed homeschoolers...

Why would unschooling need to be 'project based'?


==Mine don't really. Are they meant to? Am I missing something. ==

I think you are thinking of projects in a schooly, or narrow 'arty' way? My son dives into interests - most often they are learning about a new video game, or a new anime show - you could call that a 'project', though I don't. But they aren't physical things around the house - he dives into them on his computer - researching, watching YouTubes, playing, sometimes looking at merchandise, books on the game, visiting an expo, etc.

My son has never liked lego.

I briefly looked at the website - it talks about 'the perfect homeschool curriculum'

It says 'PBH is centered around helping your child direct and manage his own learning. ' That is not what unschooling is centered around - unschoolers are a team with their children - supporting and facilitating their learning - we aren't aiming to get our children to 'manage and direct' their own learning.

It talks about 'educational goals' - unschoolers don't talk about 'educational' at all.

== I get edgy==

Then I'd say that is a red flag against getting this book for sure, and a sign you need more deschooling.
Jo





Sandra Dodd

-=- Am I meant to make this happen more? We have been unschooling for 3 years now, home schooling always with 4 kids, eldest is 11) as a preference to watching or playing video games. I get edgy when I hear/read other homeschool kids create amazing projects.. they have a project here and over there and everywhere! Mine don't really. Are they meant to? Am I missing something.-=-

You are meant to keep your lives aswirl with newness and input and joy.
Be involved with your children’s interests—directly or as backup. I don’t want to answer more questions about what I mean and how. I hope that the person asking such a question will (as Jo suggested) dive back into deschooling, consciously, thoughfully, seriously.

If it’s been three years and you’re still not confident, start again (yourself, start again—leave the kids alone to do what they’re doing) and re-examine what you believe about learning. LOOK FOR, and find, the learning in all kinds of things that you currently don’t think about, haven’t looked at.

Besides my deschooling section, I have two recommendations for you. Don’t just live in here, but maybe two or three times a day, for a while, find a page and read until you find something to think about or to try or to do. Don’t talk about it to your kids, but maybe to your husband or other unschooling friends. Examine and practice, and sneak in more and better interactions.

http://aboutunschooling.blogspot.com
There are about 1500 pages listed there, on my site. You could search for a word or phrase, and follow a trail, or use the randomizer, or the “You might also like.” Don’t read for quantity. Read for quality.
Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com
Quotes and soothing images with links to more, most on my site but not all.
Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

You don’t have forever to gain confidence. Get more confidence soon!

Sandra

kgharriman1@...

Thankyou for reminding me of some core principles of unschooling. I have gone off rail a bit in last 12 mths and stopped reading about unschooling after a couple of years of reading lots. We are surrounded by schools where we live now (we moved from outback qld to the coast 12 mths ago and it's been a very stressful year) and where we go to church and where the girls dance are all schooled kids. We have met some home schoolers, no unschoolers. Slowly but surely I think my confidence has declined and do I pick up a book like the one this thread is about and I second guess myself because I have gone off track. I do need to refocus on the moment by moment learning because when I do I see it in abundance. Thankyou for helping me to bring back focus.

Another thing is my eldest asked to start Distance ed (in Australia you can enrol your child on a School that offers Distance education where they get boxed curriculum and it's assessed by teacher. Legalities on Qld dictate it's either this or enrol with the Hone Ed Unit which also requires samples of learning in an annual report) . She asked at start of last year but didn't enrol her and she was still keen this year so I thought it's her choice for her own reasons so I enrolled her and she has her box of curriculum for this term. I have taken the approach of placing the choice with her to read the material and do the schook work or not but I won't force her to do it. My second daughter was enrolled for 2 weeks and she wants to go back to learning organically so I am withdrawing her. She found the work dry and boring and because she has always unschooled it made no sense to her how learning happens in this way nor could she see the point. My eldest wants to be a vet and she feels the needs to engage with the school process to enable her to go to university. And she also wants to feel like she is in line educationally speaking (as in school curriculum) with her friends who attend school in case she decides to go there. She senses if she went into a classroom now (at grade 7) she would not know what they were doing and feel behind. So doing this has messed with my head slightly and kind of pulled me into schooly thinking which I have spent the last few years removing from our life. I have felt confused. So I was recommended this book. That's some background.

So my confidence has taken a hit and I need to go and deschool again.

I am hoping this distance ed experience will be short lived... that she will learn that it's nowhere near as fun as playing video games! But maybe she will enjoy it. So far she hasn't really wanted to do much because she prefers to watch things that interest her.

amberuby@...

I asked a question similar to this one in the Unschooling Mom2Mom group on Facebook. You can read the thread here, if you’re a member of the group. Some of the original responses seem to now be missing, but it might still be helpful: https://www.facebook.com/groups/UnschoolingMom2Mom/permalink/1689579914599248


When I came across Lori Pickert’s book and website on Project Based Homeschooling, I was in a different stage completely. My daughter was around 1.5 - 2 years old, and I had not even heard about unschooling yet. At the time, Lori’s ideas were super inspiring. In wanting to be a better role model for my toddler, I started a business, began exercising more, even trained and participated in a half-marathon. I rearranged my daughter’s playroom, started to keep my things more organized, paid closer attention to things my daughter liked, began printing out photos of things we had done or seen, kept a post-it note pad holder in my purse and jotted down ideas or questions or quotes.


Back then, Lori’s ideas were fresher in my mind, and I wrote, “[Pickert] talks about setting up an environment for exploring, reflecting their interests back to them, certainly strewing, keeping a journal as a parent in which to document their ideas and work and questions and requests for materials ... She isn't saying strew with expectations or stop them from working on/exploring non-project related things. Rather, build in routines in which you're giving them your undivided attention.” All of those things sound great, and I think they parallel a lot of what unschoolers do, or can do, without messing up the parent/child relationship.


From the link I posted above, Pam Sorooshian responded: 

“I like her ideas about how children learn in general. I think what she offers is a great shift away from the more conventional ideas of how education works these days. I'd encourage people to consider it as an alternative to other types of school-at-home if unschooling isn't an option for some reason.


I don't quite understand the urge many people have to adopt and use someone else's program wholly. Use what seems to fit your family well. Everything out there is just material for you to pick and choose from.


Lori's project ideas are pretty cool. Her parenting isn't entirely in line with my own. So I could get ideas from her projects and ignore the rest as being pretty much the same old conventional parenting stuff that I've already thought through and rejected.”


So, even though her ideas worked for me as an adult exploring my own projects, I ended up letting my business fade away – for several reasons, really, but a big one was that I did not want to spend the time it would take to try and make it profitable. I wanted instead to be there for my daughter while she is still young (Sandra’s chart on this page helped with that decision: http://sandradodd.com/howto/precisely). I also stopped reading Lori’s ideas and focused on reading about unschooling instead. At the beginning, I think it was important for me to immerse myself in learning about unschooling, reading, trying, waiting and watching (http://sandradodd.com/readalittle). 


Nowadays, being more than 2 years into my own learning about unschooling, I feel I’m in a better position to go back to Lori’s book and figure out for myself whether or not the things she suggests are going to get in the way of unschooling and/or the relationship I have with my daughter. Certainly the things you mention – comparing my kid to other kids, getting caught up in whether or not she’s making anything that is Pinterest-worthy, worrying about whether she’s working on a project versus playing video games, freaking out if she doesn’t demonstrate or do something with what she’s learned – I don’t see that being helpful. However, thinking about your family culture and values, thinking about your home and how it’s organized, suggestions on what to include as part of an art studio, documenting and journaling – those are ideas that I have used or continue to use in our unschooling life. 


So if you’re solid in your unschooling, then her book, website, and online forum can give you some cool ideas. And if you’re not solid, then I think they can be distracting and possibly push you further off course.


Have you checked out the group “My unschooler is interested in” on Facebook? That might be a good place to get some ideas. This link will take you directly to a post where someone was asking for ideas for their 10 year old who was interested in being a veterinarian (you'll need to be a member of the group to read it): https://www.facebook.com/groups/383815885025681/permalink/1303072359766691/


~Amber

Sandra Dodd

-=- “[Pickert] talks about setting up an environment for exploring, reflecting their interests back to them, certainly strewing, keeping a journal as a parent in which to document their ideas and work and questions and requests for materials ... She isn't saying strew with expectations or stop them from working on/exploring non-project related things. -=-

Did the quthor really use the term “strewing”? Or were you putting it in your own words for unschoolers?

Sandra

amberuby@...

--Did the author really use the term “strewing”? Or were you putting it in your own words for unschoolers?--

It has been several years since I've read her book - I do have it in Kindle form, and did a search just now for the word "strew" or "strewing" and neither term is in there.

However, the term *is* being used on her website, both in articles and tip sheets she publishes, as well as within the private forums: http://project-based-homeschooling.com/search/node/strew

She does say that her methods/ideas work with unschooling (http://project-based-homeschooling.com/what-is-pbh-project-based-homeschooling#faq-unschooling), so it's possible that some readers familiar with unschooling were the ones who brought the term into the forums? I would need to do some digging to see if I could figure out where it was first used.

They also use terms like "invitation" and "provocation" when describing the act of putting something out on a table or floor or place to be discovered.

Oh! If you read the comments on this page, she is actually arguing against strewing (or what she perceives as strewing?): http://project-based-homeschooling.com/camp-creek-blog/open-thread-psychology-parental-control

Lori's words: 

" You might think about *not* strewing those art materials ;) and instead expressly offer them. If you say, “I know you chose those books about drawing zombies — I thought you might need these,” then you are acknowledging his work and showing your support and admiration of his effort.

Similarly, if you make sure he has a great place to draw and gather his books and materials there — and if you ask permission to hang up a couple of his completed drawings — you are really demonstrating your family culture (valuing the work) and creating more opportunity for dialogue between the two of you.”

“Rather than continuing to strew as a habit, we want to be intentional about what we’re doing and why — and when we need to deliberately be more direct.”

“Sometimes it feels like the only option left is to drop books and materials around like Easter eggs and hope that your child picks them up and gets interested without realizing you’re the Bunny.

But this round-about way of engaging with your child can become a habit you continue long after it’s necessary or productive. You can get so used to “strewing” it becomes your default way of passing resources to your child. It can become the default way you support their interest: passively and secretly rather than deliberately and openly.

It’s important to keep your overall goals in mind. If your goal is to build up trust between you and your child so he knows you are NOT trying to take over, does strewing support that? At some point, you need to make your mentoring visible. You need to deliberately show that you are listening, recording, and thoughtfully responding without attempting to take over.”

“If your goal is to help your child direct and manage her own learning, then you don’t want to strew resources for her interest — you want to help her go out and find those resources on her own, examine them and weigh relevance, choose them and explore them more deeply, then employ critical thinking in determining which suited her needs best. None of that comes into play if you are providing a steady stream of materials that simply appear on the end table.”

“Another thing worth pondering: If you are seeding the environment with things you wish your child would do, strewing can verge into manipulation. What we want to do is support our child’s true interests, not try to woo them away from video games to do something we think is better.”

 
This is maybe a great example of how reading her ideas can get messy for unschoolers? ~Amber


amberuby@...

re: "I would need to do some digging to see if I could figure out where it was first used."

The forum is private and only readable to registered members, but the posts in the private forum that use the terms "strew" or "strewing" show up on her general website search results. The earliest I found were back in 2012, and I read them, and the term was introduced by readers/members, not by Lori herself.

She does use the term in her tip sheet called "Before You Strew: Stealth vs. Deliberate Support"
 

Sandra Dodd

-=-This is maybe a great example of how reading her ideas can get messy for unschoolers? -=-

It’s also an example of how a flawed understanding of proven, useful unschooling practices can be used against unschoolers.
She is either purposefully or ignorantly misrepresenting strewing. :-)

So many words and false concepts:

-=-Similarly, if you make sure he has a great place to draw and gather his books and materials there — and if you ask permission to hang up a couple of his completed drawings — you are really demonstrating your family culture (valuing the work) and creating more opportunity for dialogue between the two of you.”-=-

“Demonstrating your family culture”?

When relationships are good, people are talking. They don’t need to “create more opportunity for dialogue.”

-=-It’s important to keep your overall goals in mind.-=-

My overall goal was to create a peaceful learning environment so that learning never paused, never ceased. I’ve kept that goal easily in mind.

From the quotes brought here, it sounds that she’s trying to put down unschooling and to create something of her own devising that sounds technical. She uses big words and long phrases, but isn’t saying much.

-=-If your goal is to build up trust between you and your child so he knows you are NOT trying to take over, does strewing support that? At some point, you need to make your mentoring visible. You need to deliberately show that you are listening, recording, and thoughtfully responding without attempting to take over.”-=-

Strewing isn’t about taking over, nor is it about mentoring. If a mother has been helpful, why would a child want to know that her “mentorin was visible”? What would that even MEAN? Being there is being there. Answering quesetions, providing materials, a clean table—kids know whether moms are being helpful and supportive or not.

-=-You need to deliberately show that you are listening, recording, and thoughtfully responding…-=-

This is not a need parents have. It may be a need that her method has, but parents who are looking at a child and his interests first will be doing all those things as a natural part of the relationship.

Too much noise, too little clarity.

Sandra

amberuby@...

Another thing I wrote back in 2015:

'I also question where the line is between encouraging kids to do their own "work" on their projects and helping them - an example being wanting to wrap toys in playdough and my kid getting frustrated at making it flat enough. Lori might say hey, your kid can flatten her own dough, and Sandra might say hey, your kid is only 4, help her out when she asks because that's a nice thing to do.'

(I was doing the "what would Sandra do/say" even before your chat on having a witness!)

So yeah, there are many spots where Lori's ideas can be problematic. Lori used to run a Reggio Emilia based school before homeschooling her own kids, so that influences a lot of her ideas. I tried to figure out what she meant by "generous limits" but then gave up and stuck to unschooling instead.

Kelly Callahan

What happened with me- and I think the previous poster - is that when you find PBL first,  it feels so much more generous and child- centered than what you were doing before. But then if you start reading and truly engaging in unschooling, Much of what you pointed out Sandra, is true and many of her suggestions are irrelevant. 

Not to mention that she only writes about PBL as a homeschooling approach- there's no explicit parenting component. Moving into radical unschooling renders a lot of her suggestions moot again. 

I think what is valuable about her work is that she is helping some parents see their children's interests- whatever they may be- as learning, and valuable and it doesn't have to look like school. Better if it doesn't! And classes are not necessary, and some solid ideas for how to support their child's interests without taking over. This is a huge leap for many adults and the kids benefit. And maybe having made that step they can consider unschooling. That was my experience. When I first pulled my kids out, I thought unschooling was doing nothing, and there was no way I would do that. 

In reading her writing, it helps to remember who her audience is- it isn't radical unschoolers. And if you are on the unschoolingmom2mom page on Facebook, you can see how many people are there and they are still asking curriculum questions! I don't understand that. But regardless, those "unschoolers" may find themselves unschooling more by reading Lori- at the very least dropping the curriculum and seeing everything their kids' are doing through learning and actively supporting it,  rather than agonizing over how to sneak some math in today. 





Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 8, 2017, at 1:46 AM, amberuby@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:

 

Another thing I wrote back in 2015:

'I also question where the line is between encouraging kids to do their own "work" on their projects and helping them - an example being wanting to wrap toys in playdough and my kid getting frustrated at making it flat enough. Lori might say hey, your kid can flatten her own dough, and Sandra might say hey, your kid is only 4, help her out when she asks because that's a nice thing to do.'

(I was doing the "what would Sandra do/say" even before your chat on having a witness!)

So yeah, there are many spots where Lori's ideas can be problematic. Lori used to run a Reggio Emilia based school before homeschooling her own kids, so that influences a lot of her ideas. I tried to figure out what she meant by "generous limits" but then gave up and stuck to unschooling instead.


Sandra Dodd

-=-In reading her writing, it helps to remember who her audience is- it isn't radical unschoolers. -=-

I would agree with you if she weren’t using the term strewing (MY term) and then pooh-poohing it. She has either read my stuff or is reacting to others having brought questions there from having read it.

She wouldn’t be the only one, though. There have been some unschoolers who have said it sounded manipulative, too, but they can’t say that if they’ve read what I wrote and have DONE it themselves without being mainupative. Each time, it has been someone trying to discredit me to some degree. Someone who wanted to reject more of unschooling and waved “strewing” around, or wanted to take a dig.

Someone said one time that she wasn’t going to practice strewing beause she wanted her house to be clean. Putting one thing on a table for a day or two isn’t going to trash the house. :-)

Sandra

Joyce Fetteroll

*** I would agree with you if she weren’t using the term strewing (MY term) and then pooh-poohing it. She has either read my stuff or is reacting to others having brought questions there from having read it. ***

I keep reading in various unschooling forums “strewing” being used to mean “creating opportunities” or “supporting their interests.”

New unschoolers ask, “How do I strew math?” “My daughter is interested in horses. How do I strew horses?”

I guess people want an official word to mean, “Stuff I can do to get them actively exploring.” So they’ve latched onto strewing.

Just like people wanted an official word for, “Letting kids learn outside a curriculum” and glommed onto unschooling for that.

I correct when I can. But I suspect they’re picking it up “out there” somewhere. The word fits what they picture. And the idea is hard to dislodge once it’s in people’s heads.

Joyce

Sarah Thompson

Strewing feels like a skill you can hone over time. It's taken me a couple of years to figure out how to anticipate what my kids want in a smooth way. For instance, we have lots of really nice art supplies. When I was a kid, my dad let me use an account at a fine arts store and I took full advantage:) So, I have all these lovely things but they are a bit special to me. However, my kids are artists and I want to share. At first I kept everything put away but let them know it was available. I noticed that they were always getting out the colored pencils. So after YEARS of putting the colored pencils away every day, I put them out in nice jars on the kitchen table-tidy but readily available. Suddenly, there are notebooks FULL of art, EVERYWHERE! It turns out my kids like to draw *while* they do other things, like watch shows. So then I added jars of markers, and I discovered that my 7yo *really* liked those. So now I've bought a desk-elevator to put the laptop on so that my 10yo can keep his electronic drawing tablet out. And on it goes. 

Same thing happened with videos. I would say, "hey, let me know if you're interested, and," but that was too abstract. If I just emailed something and told Wallace to check his email, he would watch and then follow the path if he wanted. So it seems like there is no way to say, "this is the philosophy of appealing to my kids interests." I try to anticipate AND be responsive, depending on the energy-if they're into something deeply they won't be receptive to something unrelated, but sometimes there's a window where I see a desire for something fresh, or something old that can be new again. 

That last part is a lesson I am learning again and again, too. Sometimes the kids will get a gift that they asked for or that someone else is really excited to give them, but it goes ignored almost immediately. At first the giver would feel hurt ir rejected, or I would think, "I guess I'll return it," but then, in a week or a month or a year, it gets discovered and enjoyed intensely. So strewing seems to me to be an extension of "be interested and interesting," rather than a means of creating "project-based learning." When I'm with eclectic homeschoolers and they use that latter term, though, I take it in the spirit of "interested and interesting," and I go that way.

Sarah

Sarah Thompson

I made a typo. My kids' interests, it should say. 

And I wrote "however," but that's the wrong word. A better way to say that would be "my kids are artists and I want to share my supplies with them but still keep them tidy and organized."

Sandra Dodd

Joyce wrote:
New unschoolers ask, “How do I strew math?” “My daughter is interested in horses. How do I strew horses?”

I don’t want to be there when people start strewing horses! Yikes! Poor horses.
As to math, that’s about deschooling, about the parents seeing patterns that don’t look like school worksheets. I hope the respondents come up with long lists of puzzles, dice, games, bocks, music….

On the side, someone showed me one of the… handouts? lessons? from the project-based project that’s not freely available. I glanced over it and responded:

__________
Thanks.
I can’t stop her.
And I can’t pull all uses of the idea back, but it WAS my idea in the first place, and it’s not manipulative nor even “stealth.” It’s creating a rich environment.
_____________

It’s frustrating for me when someone is selling my ideas, badly rephrased, or has a secret group where plagiarism doesn’t show, but what can I do? I can remind people once in a while that the ideas are freely available and that they’ll lean more by participating in large discussions longterm than by paying one person to give them one person’s perspective.

My website, and Joyce’s and a few others, have quotes and exchanges pulled from some of the best of larger-group discussions over the years, too. They’re “best of” collections. :-)

Anyone who is becoming discouraged or stuck might want to go and listen (for the first time, or again) to some of Amy Childs short podcasts. They’re just 15 minutes each, and very well edited from longer interviews—she grouped them by topic, after interviewing people on several topics. It’s not a fifteen minute exchange, but hers, too, are best parts.

http://unschoolingsupport.com

Sandra

Sandra Dodd

-=-Strewing feels like a skill you can hone over time. It's taken me a couple of years to figure out how to anticipate what my kids want in a smooth way.-=-

Ah…
Well my idea of strewing was to put something out that they’d never heard of, never seen, might not even know what it was.

If you know what they want, that’s supporting an interest, and not (by the model in my head) “strewing.”

-=-That last part is a lesson I am learning again and again, too. Sometimes the kids will get a gift that they asked for or that someone else is really excited to give them, but it goes ignored almost immediately. At first the giver would feel hurt ir rejected, or I would think, "I guess I'll return it," but then, in a week or a month or a year, it gets discovered and enjoyed intensely. So strewing seems to me to be an extension of "be interested and interesting,”-=-

#1, it would help you not to think of your own learning as “lessons.” If it’s a lesson you’re learning again and again, what’s happening is there’s a stuck place in you, and you could look at that and try to dismantle it as part of your own deschooling. Once something is learned, and known, and can be practiced, it can’t be “learned again and again.”

#2, LOTS of toys or gifts are things the kids aren’t interested in yet, but if you put it up for a while and bring it out again, it will be new again.

We had some wooden crib toys that we had after the kids were older. They were never up over a crib, I mean, but they were “simple tools” kinds of toys. Pull this strap and something moves something else. So sometimes they were brought out and hung up and toddlers or young kids would pull the levers. One rang a bell. One, I forget—something spun or something. :-) Then I’d put them away for a while, and bring them out someday, later, and as the kids got older, they saw them not as toys, or mysteries, but as physics demos (though they wouldn’t think the word “physics” but would see the mechanism working.

At different ages, they saw different toys, stories, books, music, with different eyes and thoughts, and made new connections.

-=-So strewing seems to me to be an extension of "be interested and interesting,”-=-

YES for sure. Making a house interesting. Being interested enough in the world to spot something you know would inspire new ideas.

Sandra

Sarah Thompson

I think there is a stuck place where I think I need to get rid of things because my house is small and I get swayed by the trend of "decluttering." But my kids' stuff is not clutter! It's their stuff. If they aren't using something *right now* that does not make it mine to take away. It is a stuck place, though, of deschooling the idea that everything has to be picked up, put away, actively in use, or passed on. That idea was pushed on me from well before I ever started school. Pretty much infancy, really. 

Sarah

Kelly Callahan

Yes, I totally agree that Lori is using 'strewing' in response to unschooling, and also that she is taking it at face-value, probably not having engaged with it deeper. 

To be fair, I have also heard other long-time unschoolers in their various writings/media downplay or critique strewing. Not to create a gossip session, but more to highlight that while it appears to be a simple concept, it's hard to do well and it doesn't appear to be a universally accepted practice even within the unschooling community. 

I appreciate your response, Sarah. I still haven't really figured out the strewing piece, or it hasn't landed well the way I have tried it. My kids are *very* sensitive to what they perceive as suggestion or placement with a motive. Even when I don't have a motive, a gentle remind of something they had said interested them or something they wanted. Or an event that would go with an interest, an app, or software. One recent example is my son seems really interested in comedy and cartoons- more than just watching for pleasure we talk about plot and character and all kinds of stuff. Recently I was exploring an animation app as a potential tool for a class I'm teaching, he came by while i was looking and said- i might like that. I told him he could go ahead and download it if he wanted- it was only 10 bucks. 

He didn't and I dropped it. 

So last night when i finally was exploring the animation app i settled on, I told him and asked if he wanted the login so he could play with it. No- it looked too basic, he said. 
I'll take him at his word, it's not what he wants. But i know that if i say anything more about it, he may stop sharing with me. Knowing him, the best thing is to just let it be. Talk with him about his shows as he wants to talk about them. Any suggestion or offering on my end seems to land like a push. I still do it and do my best to check my own attachment- and make sure to suggest/offer with no expectation. My perception is that my offers/suggestions are declined more than accepted. 

I don't tend to just bring in random things I think are interesting. Sometimes. But as a newer unschooler (2 years) I still have to be careful about my motivation. Our relationships are still healing and unraveling from years of coercion and forceful suggestion. This often makes me feel like I'm doing 'nothing'- and then I re-focus on being here, available, and making things sweet and nice. That they are always receptive to! And it builds the relationship, every time. 

On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Sarah Thompson thompsonisland@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:
 

Strewing feels like a skill you can hone over time. It's taken me a couple of years to figure out how to anticipate what my kids want in a smooth way. For instance, we have lots of really nice art supplies. When I was a kid, my dad let me use an account at a fine arts store and I took full advantage:) So, I have all these lovely things but they are a bit special to me. However, my kids are artists and I want to share. At first I kept everything put away but let them know it was available. I noticed that they were always getting out the colored pencils. So after YEARS of putting the colored pencils away every day, I put them out in nice jars on the kitchen table-tidy but readily available. Suddenly, there are notebooks FULL of art, EVERYWHERE! It turns out my kids like to draw *while* they do other things, like watch shows. So then I added jars of markers, and I discovered that my 7yo *really* liked those. So now I've bought a desk-elevator to put the laptop on so that my 10yo can keep his electronic drawing tablet out. And on it goes. 

Same thing happened with videos. I would say, "hey, let me know if you're interested, and," but that was too abstract. If I just emailed something and told Wallace to check his email, he would watch and then follow the path if he wanted. So it seems like there is no way to say, "this is the philosophy of appealing to my kids interests." I try to anticipate AND be responsive, depending on the energy-if they're into something deeply they won't be receptive to something unrelated, but sometimes there's a window where I see a desire for something fresh, or something old that can be new again. 

That last part is a lesson I am learning again and again, too. Sometimes the kids will get a gift that they asked for or that someone else is really excited to give them, but it goes ignored almost immediately. At first the giver would feel hurt ir rejected, or I would think, "I guess I'll return it," but then, in a week or a month or a year, it gets discovered and enjoyed intensely. So strewing seems to me to be an extension of "be interested and interesting," rather than a means of creating "project-based learning." When I'm with eclectic homeschoolers and they use that latter term, though, I take it in the spirit of "interested and interesting," and I go that way.

Sarah




--
Kelly Callahan CCH 
Concentric Healing Classical Homeopathy

(207) 691-6798




Sandra Dodd

-=-I don't tend to just bring in random things I think are interesting. Sometimes. But as a newer unschooler (2 years) I still have to be careful about my motivation. Our relationships are still healing and unraveling from years of coercion and forceful suggestion. -=-

In a home that’s not recovering from coercion and force, strewing can be a wonderful thing that kids were used to from before they could remember. With babies and toddlers, I knew that they could enjoy “discovering” a toy more than having it handed to them. With a toddler, even the act of handing them something they haven’t seen is an exchange expecting a positive response. Not so, though, just putting something where they see and can reach it.

The dynamic with my kids was that way from the beginning, and when someone asked me how I got interesting things in front of my children, when I was describing unschooling as being about living an interesting life and kids “just learning” (in a conversation with curriculum-users who were very skeptical) I said “I strew their paths with interesting things.”

If people want to criticize me 20 years later, that’s pretty tacky. :-) I was doing it well, I was asked how, and I answered directly and honestly and didn’t charge them money to hear it. I also paid for a website to collect and share more ideas in public. (Thanks to those who’ve helped me with that expense over the years.)

http://sandradodd.com/strewing

-=-as a newer unschooler (2 years) I still have to be careful about my motivation-=-

Deschool.
Be absolutely clear about your motivation.

If your kids have been away from coercion for two years, they should be over the schoolishness, and you should be getting there, too.

Be careful about “have to” (have to be careful about my motivation). If your motivation is to put something interesting on the kitchen counter because it’s interesting, there is no evil, in that, no taint, nothing negative.

You don’t have to, but please don’t blame your kids if you can’t do it without expectation or the feeling that your’e being manipulative.
http://sandradodd.com/haveto

Maybe, perhaps, the things you’re imagining are schoolish. Every time a newish unschooler talks about “strewing books,” I jump up and say “NOT BOOKS!” And it’s not that I don’t love books, it’s that it is about the most schoolish thing to do, and doesn’t show any evidence of deschooling.

There’s an example by Colleen Prieto at the bottom of this page:
http://sandradodd.com/strew/strew

There’s a list halfway down this:
http://sandradodd.com/strew/how

Sandra

Sandra Dodd

-=-I think there is a stuck place where I think I need to get rid of things because my house is small and I get swayed by the trend of "decluttering." But my kids' stuff is not clutter! It's their stuff. If they aren't using something *right now* that does not make it mine to take away. It is a stuck place, though, of deschooling the idea that everything has to be picked up, put away, actively in use, or passed on. That idea was pushed on me from well before I ever started school. Pretty much infancy, really.-=-

In the starkest of 1950s Danish Modern houses, a coffee table was still expected to have a conversation piece.

People would set a big conch shell, or a carving, or a box, there. Some coffee tables were display boxes, or had a glass top with a shelf beneath, and something pretty would be set there, and they were called “conversation pieces. One thing, usually. Stark was in fashion. Because people were smoking a lot, the item might be an unusual ashtray, or a lighter disguised as something else. The idea, though, was that guests would pick the thing up, and ask questions, and conversations could ensue about what it was and where it came from and other stories would flow from that.

Sandra

sukaynalabboun@...

I have never found strewing or unschooling has trashed the house! We have a puzzle on the coffee table that has been out for a month- still being worked- and I ask if they are done every few days ( they're not) , so I clean around it. We have books, art supplies, knitting, computers, a guitar, etc out all the time. My house is still really clean- and my kids call it comfortably lived in and not sterile. They jump around from activity to activity throughout our days. We talk, go out, eat- and they feel safe knowing they can come back to that thing when they want to. 
They share things with me, with each other, and there is so much learning going on it would be a shame to pack it up every day.  Clean and tidy might need adjusting for learning, passion, peace and fun to happen. I have been really pleased with that trade, and I have learned to smile at guests and gently remind them the untidy state reflects the fact that we learn at home....we LIVE here.
I'm sorry anyone would misread or dig at the wonderful idea of strewing or even letting kids have several (untidy, not dirty) things going on in a home. I learned to love and embrace the swirl of activity- Sandra has said (roughly paraphrasing here) that when they're happily engaged, they're learning.


----There have been some unschoolers who have said it sounded manipulative, too, but they can’t say that if they’ve read what I wrote and have DONE it themselves without being mainupative.  Each time, it has been someone trying to discredit me to some degree.  Someone who wanted to reject more of unschooling and waved “strewing” around, or wanted to take a dig. 

Someone said one time that she wasn’t going to practice strewing beause she wanted her house to be clean.  Putting one thing on a table for a day or two isn’t going to trash the house. :-)



Karen James

***Strewing feels like a skill you can hone over time.***

I think of strewing as putting something out just because I find it cool or interesting in some way, and because maybe someone else will too.  It doesn't feel much like a skill to me.  It feels more like sharing.  For me, it's not about adding to interests.  It's about keeping our home alive with a sense of ever-changing wonder.  

If I aim to bring Ethan or my husband something I think might interest them, I'm more direct about it.  "I thought of you when I picked this up," kind of thing. To me, that's not strewing though.

When I strew, I leave things out in places people pass or gather, like on the kitchen counter, or on the coffee, kitchen and/or hall tables.  I like to leave things in the washroom too.  

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking the beach expecting to see the things I normally see and love--birds, shells, rocks, maybe other sea creatures.  I saw many of the things I was expecting, but I also found a doll with one arm, and a red truck without any wheels.  They were partially buried by the sand, lit up by the low evening sun.  To me, they were surprising and curious and uniquely beautiful.  To someone else, they might have looked sad or creepy or like trash.

I was delighted to have come upon them.  I took pictures of them, thought about what I could make with them, wondered how they had come to be there, who they had belonged to, how long they had been lost at sea.  These were all thoughts I wasn't expecting to have when I set out on that walk.  That's a lot like what I aim for when I strew at home too.

Karen James

On Feb 8, 2017 3:29 PM, "sukaynalabboun@... [AlwaysLearning]" <AlwaysLearning@yahoogroups. com> wrote:
 

I have never found strewing or unschooling has trashed the house! We have a puzzle on the coffee table that has been out for a month- still being worked- and I ask if they are done every few days ( they're not) , so I clean around it. We have books, art supplies, knitting, computers, a guitar, etc out all the time. My house is still really clean- and my kids call it comfortably lived in and not sterile. They jump around from activity to activity throughout our days. We talk, go out, eat- and they feel safe knowing they can come back to that thing when they want to. 
They share things with me, with each other, and there is so much learning going on it would be a shame to pack it up every day.  Clean and tidy might need adjusting for learning, passion, peace and fun to happen. I have been really pleased with that trade, and I have learned to smile at guests and gently remind them the untidy state reflects the fact that we learn at home....we LIVE here.
I'm sorry anyone would misread or dig at the wonderful idea of strewing or even letting kids have several (untidy, not dirty) things going on in a home. I learned to love and embrace the swirl of activity- Sandra has said (roughly paraphrasing here) that when they're happily engaged, they're learning.


----There have been some unschoolers who have said it sounded manipulative, too, but they can’t say that if they’ve read what I wrote and have DONE it themselves without being mainupative.  Each time, it has been someone trying to discredit me to some degree.  Someone who wanted to reject more of unschooling and waved “strewing” around, or wanted to take a dig. 

Someone said one time that she wasn’t going to practice strewing beause she wanted her house to be clean.  Putting one thing on a table for a day or two isn’t going to trash the house. :-)



Sandra Dodd

Sheeesh, sorry. I’m making too many typos lately. Maybe my fingers are getting old and tired.

-=-without being mainupative.-=-

Manipulative.
Maybe I was sleepy, like typing in my sleep.

Manipulative has the same root word that means hand. Manipulate. It’s not an old word, though—200 years or so.

It means to cleverly move things around by hand.
A situation.
Money.
Data.
Recently, images.

It has a negative connotation, when used of doing it to people or a situation. It’s like treating someone as a marionette, or sneaking up on them and causing them to act without their own knowledge.

"Control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly or unscrupulously:” (Oxford Dictionary)
"the action of influencing or controlling someone or something to your advantage, often without anyone knowing it” (Cambridge Dictionary)

Why would I be recommending controlling someone?

http://sandradodd.com/control isn’t good.
Learning is good.
http://sandradodd.com/learning

Sandra