Introduction and a bit of rambling...
Trish
Hi.
My name is Trish and this is my 5th year homeschooling. My kids are
great and I have been using the WTM approach and Charlotte Mason
philosophy but am feeling burnt out! I am quite intrigued by the idea
of unschooling (have read some of John Holt and know people who do
unschool) and think that it would renew my kids' love of learning.
(Some subjects they groan at and I just don't want that for them!)
Anyway, I'm not ready to fully jump in but I do want to learn more
about it. I am unschooling in Science and that's about it...how on
earth do you unschool in Math and feel confident that they're learning
everything? I realize that math is all around us but I guess my
confidence in my ability to unschool needs to grow a bit! Thanks for
the floor and I look forward to learning lots from you all!
Trish
My name is Trish and this is my 5th year homeschooling. My kids are
great and I have been using the WTM approach and Charlotte Mason
philosophy but am feeling burnt out! I am quite intrigued by the idea
of unschooling (have read some of John Holt and know people who do
unschool) and think that it would renew my kids' love of learning.
(Some subjects they groan at and I just don't want that for them!)
Anyway, I'm not ready to fully jump in but I do want to learn more
about it. I am unschooling in Science and that's about it...how on
earth do you unschool in Math and feel confident that they're learning
everything? I realize that math is all around us but I guess my
confidence in my ability to unschool needs to grow a bit! Thanks for
the floor and I look forward to learning lots from you all!
Trish
Joyce Fetteroll
On Sep 27, 2007, at 9:39 PM, Trish wrote:
school learning. And that school learning looks as it does not
because that's how the best learning looks but because of the
compromises schools need to make in order to meet a goal that *isn't*
providing the best learning for each child.
Real learning isn't linear. It isn't testable (in the one size fits
all school way). It doesn't cover everything in the traditional way
of thinking.
Real learning travels the child's path of interest, from one bit of
information that interests them to the next. Real learning is self
testing by how well it works in the situation the child needs it for.
Real learning is about understanding enough to make something work.
Schools have different goals than real learning. And that's important
to realize. They weren't designed to provide the best education for
each student. They were designed 100 years ago to cheaply raise the
general education level of the masses. Teachers and parents and
educators 100 years later *want* schools to be more, want schools to
provide what every child needs. But 1) real learning would be too
expensive and 2) they don't trust learning that doesn't look like
school learning because: they're trapped by never having experienced
real learning on the level that unschoolers do, needing to prove
learning is taking place (to parents and the state) so need a process
that's testable, needing something that's "cheap" (for example 30
kids and only one adult, one set of information for every child.)
The fact is that learning the way schools teach is really hard. It's
why it takes 12 years!
If kids were taught how to build with Legos the way schools teach
everything, they'd first -- before kids had ever seen a Lego or even
had the desire to build with them -- be made to memorize all the
colors Legos come in, then the shapes, then ways Legos could be
connected, then systematically go through architectural styles (since
that would be practical knowledge that could be useful for future
careers), engineering principles. Then the kids would be given plans
and told to put the Legos together exactly according to the
instructions. (Points off for any bricks out of place.) And then the
kids who were truly gifted in sucking up this information would be
allowed free access to Legos.
When your child was first acquiring language, did you worry that
because he wanted to talk about balls and dinosaurs and favorite t-
shirts that he would never be able to discuss how nuclear fission
differs from other forms of radioactive decay?
Think about the non-academic interests he can speak knowledgeably
about and how he acquired that knowledge. Did it come from building
an abstract foundation of knowledge before beginning to tackle what
he was interested in? Or did it come bit by bit picking up more
information as he used what little information he had? Basically
doing something before he understood it.
That's how unschooling works. Kids build up knowledge about what
interests them. They have a vested interest in understanding what
interests them.
(Unfortunately for new unschooling moms, what interests them usually
doesn't look academic. It looks a lot like playing. (Play is how kids
are created to learn!) Learning looks like video games and Harry
Potter and making videos and reading and watching TV and playing with
friends and pretend and chatting on line.) It's really only after
kids are grown and following their interests into college and jobs
that we can see how what they did led to where they got. But the
ongoing process doesn't look at all like school.)
Kids don't learn to ride bikes by studying the physics of rotation.
They learn by getting on and falling until they build up enough
understanding to keep it upright. Even once they have it upright,
they don't know everything. They know just enough to do what they
want to do. As they want to do more, the acquire more information.
That's exactly how real learning works. Math -- real understanding of
how numbers work -- comes from using numbers for personally
meaningful uses. Games. Video games. Allowance. Art software.
Decisions in the store. It takes *way way* fewer hours using math to
understand it than in school. Schools present the abstract (which is
testable) as a way to get kids to understand the underlying concepts
(which is really hard to test). (And schools often fail, ending up
with more people with math phobia than proficiency. And though
schools take credit for the proficiency, they're no more responsible
for math proficiency than art proficiency. Kids good at math are like
kids good at art. But they *are* responsible for kids fearing math
and hating art and history and science and reading.) The way schools
teach everything is ass backwards and really hard which is why it
takes so much work in schools.
Unfortunately there isn't a short cut from believing learning needs
to look like school to believing that learning by doing is enough.
And some people understand it's enough but still harbor feelings that
it isn't enough. (The messages we pick up from society are pretty
insidious and their roots go deep!) Read about the real learning
unschooling kids are doing. Observe real learning in your own kid.
(And take off the school glasses when you do it! ;-) Eventually
you'll get it. :-) Read here. Read at:
http://joyfullyrejoycing.com
http://sandradodd.com
There's a couple of more sites that others can tell you about.
Joyce
> how onBy coming to the realization that real learning doesn't look like
> earth do you unschool in Math and feel confident that they're learning
> everything?
school learning. And that school learning looks as it does not
because that's how the best learning looks but because of the
compromises schools need to make in order to meet a goal that *isn't*
providing the best learning for each child.
Real learning isn't linear. It isn't testable (in the one size fits
all school way). It doesn't cover everything in the traditional way
of thinking.
Real learning travels the child's path of interest, from one bit of
information that interests them to the next. Real learning is self
testing by how well it works in the situation the child needs it for.
Real learning is about understanding enough to make something work.
Schools have different goals than real learning. And that's important
to realize. They weren't designed to provide the best education for
each student. They were designed 100 years ago to cheaply raise the
general education level of the masses. Teachers and parents and
educators 100 years later *want* schools to be more, want schools to
provide what every child needs. But 1) real learning would be too
expensive and 2) they don't trust learning that doesn't look like
school learning because: they're trapped by never having experienced
real learning on the level that unschoolers do, needing to prove
learning is taking place (to parents and the state) so need a process
that's testable, needing something that's "cheap" (for example 30
kids and only one adult, one set of information for every child.)
The fact is that learning the way schools teach is really hard. It's
why it takes 12 years!
If kids were taught how to build with Legos the way schools teach
everything, they'd first -- before kids had ever seen a Lego or even
had the desire to build with them -- be made to memorize all the
colors Legos come in, then the shapes, then ways Legos could be
connected, then systematically go through architectural styles (since
that would be practical knowledge that could be useful for future
careers), engineering principles. Then the kids would be given plans
and told to put the Legos together exactly according to the
instructions. (Points off for any bricks out of place.) And then the
kids who were truly gifted in sucking up this information would be
allowed free access to Legos.
When your child was first acquiring language, did you worry that
because he wanted to talk about balls and dinosaurs and favorite t-
shirts that he would never be able to discuss how nuclear fission
differs from other forms of radioactive decay?
Think about the non-academic interests he can speak knowledgeably
about and how he acquired that knowledge. Did it come from building
an abstract foundation of knowledge before beginning to tackle what
he was interested in? Or did it come bit by bit picking up more
information as he used what little information he had? Basically
doing something before he understood it.
That's how unschooling works. Kids build up knowledge about what
interests them. They have a vested interest in understanding what
interests them.
(Unfortunately for new unschooling moms, what interests them usually
doesn't look academic. It looks a lot like playing. (Play is how kids
are created to learn!) Learning looks like video games and Harry
Potter and making videos and reading and watching TV and playing with
friends and pretend and chatting on line.) It's really only after
kids are grown and following their interests into college and jobs
that we can see how what they did led to where they got. But the
ongoing process doesn't look at all like school.)
Kids don't learn to ride bikes by studying the physics of rotation.
They learn by getting on and falling until they build up enough
understanding to keep it upright. Even once they have it upright,
they don't know everything. They know just enough to do what they
want to do. As they want to do more, the acquire more information.
That's exactly how real learning works. Math -- real understanding of
how numbers work -- comes from using numbers for personally
meaningful uses. Games. Video games. Allowance. Art software.
Decisions in the store. It takes *way way* fewer hours using math to
understand it than in school. Schools present the abstract (which is
testable) as a way to get kids to understand the underlying concepts
(which is really hard to test). (And schools often fail, ending up
with more people with math phobia than proficiency. And though
schools take credit for the proficiency, they're no more responsible
for math proficiency than art proficiency. Kids good at math are like
kids good at art. But they *are* responsible for kids fearing math
and hating art and history and science and reading.) The way schools
teach everything is ass backwards and really hard which is why it
takes so much work in schools.
Unfortunately there isn't a short cut from believing learning needs
to look like school to believing that learning by doing is enough.
And some people understand it's enough but still harbor feelings that
it isn't enough. (The messages we pick up from society are pretty
insidious and their roots go deep!) Read about the real learning
unschooling kids are doing. Observe real learning in your own kid.
(And take off the school glasses when you do it! ;-) Eventually
you'll get it. :-) Read here. Read at:
http://joyfullyrejoycing.com
http://sandradodd.com
There's a couple of more sites that others can tell you about.
Joyce
Melissa
Joyce,
I'm so quoting you on this. Thanks so much!
Melissa
Mom to Josh (12), Breanna (10), Emily (8), Rachel (7), Sam (6), Dan
(4), and Avari Rose (19 months)
share our lives at
http://360.yahoo.com/multimomma
I'm so quoting you on this. Thanks so much!
Melissa
Mom to Josh (12), Breanna (10), Emily (8), Rachel (7), Sam (6), Dan
(4), and Avari Rose (19 months)
share our lives at
http://360.yahoo.com/multimomma
On Sep 29, 2007, at 5:58 AM, Joyce Fetteroll wrote:
>
> On Sep 27, 2007, at 9:39 PM, Trish wrote:
>
> > how on
> > earth do you unschool in Math and feel confident that they're
> learning
> > everything?
>
> By coming to the realization that real learning doesn't look like
> school learning. And that school learning looks as it does not
> because that's how the best learning looks but because of the
> compromises schools need to make in order to meet a goal that *isn't*
> providing the best learning for each child.
>
> Real learning isn't linear. It isn't testable (in the one size fits
> all school way). It doesn't cover everything in the traditional way
> of thinking.
>
> Real learning travels the child's path of interest, from one bit of
> information that interests them to the next. Real learning is self
> testing by how well it works in the situation the child needs it for.
> Real learning is about understanding enough to make something work.
>
> Schools have different goals than real learning. And that's important
> to realize. They weren't designed to provide the best education for
> each student. They were designed 100 years ago to cheaply raise the
> general education level of the masses. Teachers and parents and
> educators 100 years later *want* schools to be more, want schools to
> provide what every child needs. But 1) real learning would be too
> expensive and 2) they don't trust learning that doesn't look like
> school learning because: they're trapped by never having experienced
> real learning on the level that unschoolers do, needing to prove
> learning is taking place (to parents and the state) so need a process
> that's testable, needing something that's "cheap" (for example 30
> kids and only one adult, one set of information for every child.)
>
> The fact is that learning the way schools teach is really hard. It's
> why it takes 12 years!
>
> If kids were taught how to build with Legos the way schools teach
> everything, they'd first -- before kids had ever seen a Lego or even
> had the desire to build with them -- be made to memorize all the
> colors Legos come in, then the shapes, then ways Legos could be
> connected, then systematically go through architectural styles (since
> that would be practical knowledge that could be useful for future
> careers), engineering principles. Then the kids would be given plans
> and told to put the Legos together exactly according to the
> instructions. (Points off for any bricks out of place.) And then the
> kids who were truly gifted in sucking up this information would be
> allowed free access to Legos.
>
> When your child was first acquiring language, did you worry that
> because he wanted to talk about balls and dinosaurs and favorite t-
> shirts that he would never be able to discuss how nuclear fission
> differs from other forms of radioactive decay?
>
> Think about the non-academic interests he can speak knowledgeably
> about and how he acquired that knowledge. Did it come from building
> an abstract foundation of knowledge before beginning to tackle what
> he was interested in? Or did it come bit by bit picking up more
> information as he used what little information he had? Basically
> doing something before he understood it.
>
> That's how unschooling works. Kids build up knowledge about what
> interests them. They have a vested interest in understanding what
> interests them.
>
> (Unfortunately for new unschooling moms, what interests them usually
> doesn't look academic. It looks a lot like playing. (Play is how kids
> are created to learn!) Learning looks like video games and Harry
> Potter and making videos and reading and watching TV and playing with
> friends and pretend and chatting on line.) It's really only after
> kids are grown and following their interests into college and jobs
> that we can see how what they did led to where they got. But the
> ongoing process doesn't look at all like school.)
>
> Kids don't learn to ride bikes by studying the physics of rotation.
> They learn by getting on and falling until they build up enough
> understanding to keep it upright. Even once they have it upright,
> they don't know everything. They know just enough to do what they
> want to do. As they want to do more, the acquire more information.
>
> That's exactly how real learning works. Math -- real understanding of
> how numbers work -- comes from using numbers for personally
> meaningful uses. Games. Video games. Allowance. Art software.
> Decisions in the store. It takes *way way* fewer hours using math to
> understand it than in school. Schools present the abstract (which is
> testable) as a way to get kids to understand the underlying concepts
> (which is really hard to test). (And schools often fail, ending up
> with more people with math phobia than proficiency. And though
> schools take credit for the proficiency, they're no more responsible
> for math proficiency than art proficiency. Kids good at math are like
> kids good at art. But they *are* responsible for kids fearing math
> and hating art and history and science and reading.) The way schools
> teach everything is ass backwards and really hard which is why it
> takes so much work in schools.
>
> Unfortunately there isn't a short cut from believing learning needs
> to look like school to believing that learning by doing is enough.
> And some people understand it's enough but still harbor feelings that
> it isn't enough. (The messages we pick up from society are pretty
> insidious and their roots go deep!) Read about the real learning
> unschooling kids are doing. Observe real learning in your own kid.
> (And take off the school glasses when you do it! ;-) Eventually
> you'll get it. :-) Read here. Read at:
>
> http://joyfullyrejoycing.com
> http://sandradodd.com
>
> There's a couple of more sites that others can tell you about.
>
> Joyce
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected]
-----Original Message-----
From: Trish <fortun8mom@...>
Anyway, I'm not ready to fully jump in but I do want to learn more
about it. I am unschooling in Science and that's about it...how on
earth do you unschool in Math and feel confident that they're learning
everything?
-=-=-=-=-
How do you unschool science and feel confident that they are learning
everything?
More than that. How can *anyone* learn *everything*? <g>
I'm confident that my chldren will learn everything of importance to
them when they are ready. Math is no different than anything else they
may want to learn.
-=-=-==-
I realize that math is all around us but I guess my
confidence in my ability to unschool needs to grow a bit! Thanks for
the floor and I look forward to learning lots from you all!
-=-=-=-
Keep reading. Go back and read the archives---they'll keep you reading
for weeks. Then you could go to www.SandraDodd.com and
www.JoyfullyRejoycing.com and read there for MONTHS! <g>
~Kelly
Kelly Lovejoy
Conference Coordinator
Live and Learn Unschooling Conference
http://www.LiveandLearnConference.org
________________________________________________________________________
Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! -
http://mail.aol.com
From: Trish <fortun8mom@...>
Anyway, I'm not ready to fully jump in but I do want to learn more
about it. I am unschooling in Science and that's about it...how on
earth do you unschool in Math and feel confident that they're learning
everything?
-=-=-=-=-
How do you unschool science and feel confident that they are learning
everything?
More than that. How can *anyone* learn *everything*? <g>
I'm confident that my chldren will learn everything of importance to
them when they are ready. Math is no different than anything else they
may want to learn.
-=-=-==-
I realize that math is all around us but I guess my
confidence in my ability to unschool needs to grow a bit! Thanks for
the floor and I look forward to learning lots from you all!
-=-=-=-
Keep reading. Go back and read the archives---they'll keep you reading
for weeks. Then you could go to www.SandraDodd.com and
www.JoyfullyRejoycing.com and read there for MONTHS! <g>
~Kelly
Kelly Lovejoy
Conference Coordinator
Live and Learn Unschooling Conference
http://www.LiveandLearnConference.org
________________________________________________________________________
Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! -
http://mail.aol.com