[email protected]

In a message dated 8/24/02 1:40:13 PM, listmail@... writes:

<< I don't think I would draw a line. When I'm in my mind observing
someone's
method, or reading a post, I usually don't think "that isn't unschooling,"
but I really might think "that sure doesn't seem to be working for them," or
"damn, that sounds like a lot of work for nothing."
:-) >>

I really like words. They're my favorite toys and collectibles. So I don't
like people pointing at a handtruck and saying "wheelbarrow," but I don't
mind at all if they point at a handtruck and say "dolly."

Some things are the same and some things are not even nearly close enough.

A sow bug might be a roly poly might be a millipede, but the flow of options
only goes so far, and it is NOT a bumble bee.

What I don't care as much about is politics. Some care a great deal about
politics.

I care about how people learn, and with many people, they learn by
categorizing and comparing and contrasting. And those things, when it comes
to ideas and philosophies, take words.

So for my personal interest in learning and unschooling, terminology is the
toolbox I use.

And in addition to keeping an unschooling home (in the way some people keep a
kosher home, I mean down to the cabinets and calendars), I also help
unschoolers outside my family.

If I'm asked to speak about unschooling (which I'm doing in town here in a
couple of weeks) it just won't do for me to stand up and say I don't really
know or much care what it is, and that there's no one clear definition so
whatever they do when they leave there can be unschooling if they want, or
not.

I could tell them to call a couch a footstool, but it would make them look
like dopes if they went to buy one, or had company and said "let's all sit on
this big footstool!"

And that's a victimless footstool. I mean couch.

If I mislead people about the potential wonders of unschooling, they could
waste years on some kinda-schoolish structured unit studies coercion "I'm the
teacher but they mostly have freedom" stuff instead of moving directly toward
something LOTS of us know can work gloriously.

I like the idea of helping people move directly from confusion to glory if
possible.

Sandra

[email protected]

<<And that's a victimless footstool. I mean couch.>>

SOFA.

I really liked the relation of unschooling to keeping a kosher home. It gave
me an instant image of something to strive for.
~Elissa Cleaveland
An unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractic'd;
Happy in this, she is not so old
But she may learn.
W.S. The Merchant of Venice III, ii, 160

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/24/02 2:07:53 PM, ElissaJC@... writes:

<< SOFA.>>

So fa so good!

<<I really liked the relation of unschooling to keeping a kosher home. It gave
me an instant image of something to strive for. >>

I just thought it up as a way to indicate that it's more than just physical
plant and it's more than just philosophy, but it's partly both.

Sandra

[email protected]

Me:<<I really liked the relation of unschooling to keeping a kosher home. It
gave
me an instant image of something to strive for. >>

I just thought it up as a way to indicate that it's more than just physical
plant and it's more than just philosophy, but it's partly both.
Sandra

Me again:
The Law of unschooling.




~Elissa Cleaveland
An unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractic'd;
Happy in this, she is not so old
But she may learn.
W.S. The Merchant of Venice III, ii, 160

Nanci Kuykendall

<<And that's a victimless footstool. I mean couch.>>
>SOFA.
Davenport. That's what my grandma always says.

I agree with Sandra. Muddy definitions lead to
meaninglessness. Either a word means something or it
doesn't. It can't mean everything. By the same
token, either a philosophy has some guiding principles
or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then it's not really a
philosophy or a belief, or whatever, it's nothing.

Nanci K.

Nancy Wooton

on 8/25/02 2:16 PM, Nanci Kuykendall at aisliin@... wrote:

> <<And that's a victimless footstool. I mean couch.>>
>> SOFA.
> Davenport. That's what my grandma always says.
>
> I agree with Sandra. Muddy definitions lead to
> meaninglessness. Either a word means something or it
> doesn't. It can't mean everything. By the same
> token, either a philosophy has some guiding principles
> or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then it's not really a
> philosophy or a belief, or whatever, it's nothing.


From the A Word A Day list:

--
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a
living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the
circumstances and the time in which it is used. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,
poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)