Language?
Barbara
Hi all. My 8 year old son really doesn't like language. We've cut down so many of our subjects to try to unschool more, but I want him to learn grammar, verbs, nouns, etc. How else will he learn?? He likes doing the math bookwork, but not much else! HELP!
Beth Williams
>Madlibs.
> I want him to learn grammar, verbs, nouns, etc. How else will he learn??
>
-Beth
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Joyce Fetteroll
On Nov 26, 2009, at 6:36 PM, Barbara wrote:
though school never existed. What you do *instead* is embrace the world.
What it sounds like you've unconsciously done is tossed the school
activities he doesn't like out the school room window and now you and
he are in the school room and all that's left are math workbooks.
You need to get out of the school room!
School rooms and math work books exist *not* because they're the best
way to learn. They are, in fact, a very poor way to learn. But
schools work that way because it's efficient and cheap.
Which sounds like a snarky put down but is in fact what modern
schools were designed for. They were designed as a cheap way to raise
the educational level of *the masses*, an overwhelming number of whom
were immigrant children who couldn't speak English.
They weren't designed to provide the best education for each
individual child.
Educators *want* to provide each child with the best education for
that child, but they're basically trying to do fine needle work with
a hammer. The school system, that looks a lot like a factory when you
step back from it, isn't designed to accommodate the needs of
individuals. They are designed to treat a classroom as uniform raw
material, apply a single process to it (the year's curriculum), then
pass it onto the next factory worker (the next grade's teacher).
It's not coincidence schools look like that! Factories were new and
all the rage when schools were designed. They were cheap ways of mass
producing what had been expensive and labor intensive. And the goal
was mass education done cheaply, not individualized education.
If you want your son to be another uniform product on the assembly
line, then curriculum is a good way to go! If you want to nurture who
he is, nurture his strengths and interests -- the two things that
will be the sources of future directions through out his life -- then
it's best to get him out of the factory and put away the factory
manuals ;-)
Here are two pages that might help you let go:
Products of Education
http://sandradodd.com/joyce/products
Why You Can't Let Go
http://sandradodd.com/joyce/talk
So what do you do *instead*? What do you replace school with? And how
do you how do you gain confidence that it's as good as school?
find useful when they communicate.
The problem you're having is that an 8 yo doesn't need to communicate
formally in writing with other people so why would he care? When he's
12 or 14 or 16 and talking to friends around the world on message
boards, email and IMs, he will know it's lots easier to understand
someone's meaning when they're using standard spelling and grammar
and *that's* why he'll use it himself, not because he did a bunch of
workbooks when he was 8.
But I will point out, that unless he's saying things like "Juice
wants I grape," then he knows grammar, nouns and verbs. He doesn't
yet have the formal language to label them but that takes moments to
learn once he has a mature grasp of language. He can learn them in 15
minutes before the SAT ;-)
You can, though, play Mad Libs with him. *Don't* do it to teach him
the parts of speech. Do them because they're fun. If he asks what an
adverb is dozens and dozens of times, answer cheerfully -- and with
humorous examples! Make his experience with grammar pleasant so that
when -- *if* -- he needs to identify adjectives in a sentence, he
won't shy away from learning.
It's important to realize that just as he speaks perfectly
understandably without being able to label his nouns, when he's older
he'll be able to write perfectly understandably without that
knowledge. He won't be writing verbs for nouns ;-) *Before* he's
older, if he does want to write stories, the writing is bound to be
wonky. It will *self* correct. The important part isn't spelling
"friend" the standard way. That's mechanics. That's what computers
can do. The profoundly important creative part is creating the
stories. And only he, unique in all the world, can create his stories.
goes to bed at night he's doing math workbooks?
If you're viewing the world through a microscope labeled SCHOOL, it's
only going to focus on activities that resemble school. Real learning
happens when kids explore what interests them. Real learning happens
when moms are interesting and run things they think are cool through
their kids lives.
This isn't just some squishy rosy theory! Humans (and probably all
creatures) are designed to learn by freely exploring what we find
intriguing, by trying things out, by exploring all interesting paths
(not just the "right" ones!) to see where they lead. We aren't
designed to memorize someone else's predigested view of the world
(through textbooks). We're designed to learn from what's not working
as well as what's working, to pull patterns out of chaos, to
reassess our guesses when the theories aren't explaining how the
world works so we can come up with new ones.
That's how your son learned to speak. He went from not knowing
language existed to fluency in a few years. He did it without
workbooks. He did it without a plan. He just used it in whatever way
he thought might work and got better at it *as a side effect* of
using it. He learned (without even thinking about it) what worked and
what didn't work through his natural interactions with others.
Real learning looks like play. *That's* how we're designed to learn.
Free exploration. It quite often looks like cartoons and video games,
especially in the preteen years as they're shifting from child
interests to more adult interests. It looks like Legos and computer
games and manga and Magic tournaments and cooking and playing with
friends and soccer and Fibonacci numbers and fart jokes.
And that last question I asked "And how do you how do you gain
confidence that it's as good as school?" is a toughie because as long
as someone is looking for unschooling to give them the same form of
comfort that schoolish work does, then they'll miss what unschooling
is best at. What helps is reading and reading about people's real
life experiences. It's the relationships. It's the kids moving on
seeing a world of possibilities rather than one schoolish path
they're locked onto. It's seeing how kids are learning what they need
for their lives by living their lives.
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> Hi all. My 8 year old son really doesn't like language. We've cutUnschooling isn't just dropping school. Unschooling is living as
> down so many of our subjects to try to unschool more, but I want
> him to learn grammar, verbs, nouns, etc. How else will he learn??
> He likes doing the math bookwork, but not much else! HELP!
though school never existed. What you do *instead* is embrace the world.
What it sounds like you've unconsciously done is tossed the school
activities he doesn't like out the school room window and now you and
he are in the school room and all that's left are math workbooks.
You need to get out of the school room!
School rooms and math work books exist *not* because they're the best
way to learn. They are, in fact, a very poor way to learn. But
schools work that way because it's efficient and cheap.
Which sounds like a snarky put down but is in fact what modern
schools were designed for. They were designed as a cheap way to raise
the educational level of *the masses*, an overwhelming number of whom
were immigrant children who couldn't speak English.
They weren't designed to provide the best education for each
individual child.
Educators *want* to provide each child with the best education for
that child, but they're basically trying to do fine needle work with
a hammer. The school system, that looks a lot like a factory when you
step back from it, isn't designed to accommodate the needs of
individuals. They are designed to treat a classroom as uniform raw
material, apply a single process to it (the year's curriculum), then
pass it onto the next factory worker (the next grade's teacher).
It's not coincidence schools look like that! Factories were new and
all the rage when schools were designed. They were cheap ways of mass
producing what had been expensive and labor intensive. And the goal
was mass education done cheaply, not individualized education.
If you want your son to be another uniform product on the assembly
line, then curriculum is a good way to go! If you want to nurture who
he is, nurture his strengths and interests -- the two things that
will be the sources of future directions through out his life -- then
it's best to get him out of the factory and put away the factory
manuals ;-)
Here are two pages that might help you let go:
Products of Education
http://sandradodd.com/joyce/products
Why You Can't Let Go
http://sandradodd.com/joyce/talk
So what do you do *instead*? What do you replace school with? And how
do you how do you gain confidence that it's as good as school?
> I want him to learn grammar, verbs, nouns, etc. How else will heHe will learn because those all serve a practical purpose that people
> learn??
find useful when they communicate.
The problem you're having is that an 8 yo doesn't need to communicate
formally in writing with other people so why would he care? When he's
12 or 14 or 16 and talking to friends around the world on message
boards, email and IMs, he will know it's lots easier to understand
someone's meaning when they're using standard spelling and grammar
and *that's* why he'll use it himself, not because he did a bunch of
workbooks when he was 8.
But I will point out, that unless he's saying things like "Juice
wants I grape," then he knows grammar, nouns and verbs. He doesn't
yet have the formal language to label them but that takes moments to
learn once he has a mature grasp of language. He can learn them in 15
minutes before the SAT ;-)
You can, though, play Mad Libs with him. *Don't* do it to teach him
the parts of speech. Do them because they're fun. If he asks what an
adverb is dozens and dozens of times, answer cheerfully -- and with
humorous examples! Make his experience with grammar pleasant so that
when -- *if* -- he needs to identify adjectives in a sentence, he
won't shy away from learning.
It's important to realize that just as he speaks perfectly
understandably without being able to label his nouns, when he's older
he'll be able to write perfectly understandably without that
knowledge. He won't be writing verbs for nouns ;-) *Before* he's
older, if he does want to write stories, the writing is bound to be
wonky. It will *self* correct. The important part isn't spelling
"friend" the standard way. That's mechanics. That's what computers
can do. The profoundly important creative part is creating the
stories. And only he, unique in all the world, can create his stories.
> He likes doing the math bookwork, but not much else!Really? From the moment he gets up in the morning, to the moment he
goes to bed at night he's doing math workbooks?
If you're viewing the world through a microscope labeled SCHOOL, it's
only going to focus on activities that resemble school. Real learning
happens when kids explore what interests them. Real learning happens
when moms are interesting and run things they think are cool through
their kids lives.
This isn't just some squishy rosy theory! Humans (and probably all
creatures) are designed to learn by freely exploring what we find
intriguing, by trying things out, by exploring all interesting paths
(not just the "right" ones!) to see where they lead. We aren't
designed to memorize someone else's predigested view of the world
(through textbooks). We're designed to learn from what's not working
as well as what's working, to pull patterns out of chaos, to
reassess our guesses when the theories aren't explaining how the
world works so we can come up with new ones.
That's how your son learned to speak. He went from not knowing
language existed to fluency in a few years. He did it without
workbooks. He did it without a plan. He just used it in whatever way
he thought might work and got better at it *as a side effect* of
using it. He learned (without even thinking about it) what worked and
what didn't work through his natural interactions with others.
Real learning looks like play. *That's* how we're designed to learn.
Free exploration. It quite often looks like cartoons and video games,
especially in the preteen years as they're shifting from child
interests to more adult interests. It looks like Legos and computer
games and manga and Magic tournaments and cooking and playing with
friends and soccer and Fibonacci numbers and fart jokes.
And that last question I asked "And how do you how do you gain
confidence that it's as good as school?" is a toughie because as long
as someone is looking for unschooling to give them the same form of
comfort that schoolish work does, then they'll miss what unschooling
is best at. What helps is reading and reading about people's real
life experiences. It's the relationships. It's the kids moving on
seeing a world of possibilities rather than one schoolish path
they're locked onto. It's seeing how kids are learning what they need
for their lives by living their lives.
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Faith Void Taintor
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 26, 2009, at 6:36 PM, "Barbara" <barbaracolwell@...>
wrote:
Language is all around us. We learn to speak it by listening and
doing. Children don't need workbooks as toddlers and they don't as
children.
I think reading on here and really thinking wholistically about having
a better relationship with your child will bring a lot more clarity to
what it means to unschool. It takes a lot of trust.
for you to fill. He is a human with needs, wants, desires, ideas,
thoughts, etc. What does he want to do?
Faith
On Nov 26, 2009, at 6:36 PM, "Barbara" <barbaracolwell@...>
wrote:
> Hi all. My 8 year old son really doesn't like language. We've cut***if it is as important as you say, how will he NOT learn it.
> down so many of our subjects to try to unschool more, but I want him
> to learn grammar, verbs, nouns, etc. How else will he learn??
>
Language is all around us. We learn to speak it by listening and
doing. Children don't need workbooks as toddlers and they don't as
children.
I think reading on here and really thinking wholistically about having
a better relationship with your child will bring a lot more clarity to
what it means to unschool. It takes a lot of trust.
> He likes doing the math bookwork, but not much else! HELP!Then stop doing the things he doesn't like. He is not an empty pitcher
>
for you to fill. He is a human with needs, wants, desires, ideas,
thoughts, etc. What does he want to do?
Faith
>
plaidpanties666
--- In [email protected], "Barbara" <barbaracolwell@...> wrote:
What are they ways your son likes to communicate? Does he like to talk? Then he's learning about the art of conversation. That doesn't mean he's necessarily skillful yet, but one doesn't need lessons to be skillful. People are motivated by a desire to be understood! Over time he'll shift his communication style to accomodate his listeners naturally, as his awareness grows, and he has a chance to practice.
That's true in writing too. People want to be understood. People **choosing** to write for others will actively look for ways to Be understood.
My 8yo reads a lot of instructions, so she's developing a good grasp of what an effective set of instructions look like. That's a different art from descriptive writing, or writing newspaper articles, or research papers. When my 8yo wants to write some instructions, she thinks about what "works" in the instructions she's read and uses those tactics. She does something similar when she writes comics - she uses the kind of tactics she's seen in other comics. In that case, the "grammer" of the medium includes ways to express things in images as well as words. When she wants to write dialog for a story, though, she uses story tactics, which are somewhat different from comics. She's never been taught to do this, but she's interested in expressing herself clearly. If nothing else *she* wants to be able to reread her own works and enjoy them without trying to remember what she "meant" when she wrote them.
---Meredith (Mo 8, Ray 16)
>That sounds funny, like he doesn't want to communicate! It might help you to think about what "language arts" are really for: they are the tactics people use to expresses themselves well in specific formats.
> Hi all. My 8 year old son really doesn't like language.
What are they ways your son likes to communicate? Does he like to talk? Then he's learning about the art of conversation. That doesn't mean he's necessarily skillful yet, but one doesn't need lessons to be skillful. People are motivated by a desire to be understood! Over time he'll shift his communication style to accomodate his listeners naturally, as his awareness grows, and he has a chance to practice.
That's true in writing too. People want to be understood. People **choosing** to write for others will actively look for ways to Be understood.
My 8yo reads a lot of instructions, so she's developing a good grasp of what an effective set of instructions look like. That's a different art from descriptive writing, or writing newspaper articles, or research papers. When my 8yo wants to write some instructions, she thinks about what "works" in the instructions she's read and uses those tactics. She does something similar when she writes comics - she uses the kind of tactics she's seen in other comics. In that case, the "grammer" of the medium includes ways to express things in images as well as words. When she wants to write dialog for a story, though, she uses story tactics, which are somewhat different from comics. She's never been taught to do this, but she's interested in expressing herself clearly. If nothing else *she* wants to be able to reread her own works and enjoy them without trying to remember what she "meant" when she wrote them.
>>He likes doing the math bookwork, but not much else!It may also help you to step away from the idea of "subjects" entirely and look at all the things your son is doing in his life. People learn as a byproduct of living. You can put some trust in that and focus on helping your son enjoy his life (and therefore enjoy learning). You could also, if that sounds too scary, actively look for what your guy may be learning from what he's doing. Not just "subjects" because there's far more to life than that, just like there's more to communication than where to put a comma.
---Meredith (Mo 8, Ray 16)
Jodi
Hi,
I'm a bit of a lurker here, but I am listening to my son(10) and his father sitting in our room going over a letter DS wrote to a friend, who coincedentally is named Barb, of ours last night by the light of his nightlight. He wrote it fonetticly;o) and with much pride and scaring the daylights out of me he comes into the livingroom and shows me his work. I love it. He is taking the initiative He asked his dad to help him neaten it up this morning. They just finished it and he is getting ready to mail it. I have to go now, but I would like to recommend a book my children love to have read to them. It is called 'Nouns and Verbs have a field day' by Robin Pulver. It is great fun and not a chore to read. My children are also asking to watch a lot of the schoolhouse rocks series Grammer Rocks. DS was really big in math workbooks also. Until, that is, word math problems started popping up then he lost interest in them as well because he was not reading well at the time even with me reading them to him. He is really math oriented and does very detailed drawings. Give your son time and he will get there.
Jodi
I'm a bit of a lurker here, but I am listening to my son(10) and his father sitting in our room going over a letter DS wrote to a friend, who coincedentally is named Barb, of ours last night by the light of his nightlight. He wrote it fonetticly;o) and with much pride and scaring the daylights out of me he comes into the livingroom and shows me his work. I love it. He is taking the initiative He asked his dad to help him neaten it up this morning. They just finished it and he is getting ready to mail it. I have to go now, but I would like to recommend a book my children love to have read to them. It is called 'Nouns and Verbs have a field day' by Robin Pulver. It is great fun and not a chore to read. My children are also asking to watch a lot of the schoolhouse rocks series Grammer Rocks. DS was really big in math workbooks also. Until, that is, word math problems started popping up then he lost interest in them as well because he was not reading well at the time even with me reading them to him. He is really math oriented and does very detailed drawings. Give your son time and he will get there.
Jodi
--- In [email protected], "Barbara" <barbaracolwell@...> wrote:
>
> Hi all. My 8 year old son really doesn't like language. We've cut down so many of our subjects to try to unschool more, but I want him to learn grammar, verbs, nouns, etc. How else will he learn?? He likes doing the math bookwork, but not much else! HELP!
>
gruvystarchild
~~We've cut down so many
of our subjects to try to unschool more~~
Not possible. Unschooling is not subjects. Unschooling is seeing the world as a place full of information that interconnects, not lessons or subjects to be taught. Unschooling isn't cutting back on subjects, it's letting that entire notion GO.
Unschooling means living as though school did not exist. If school does not exist then information is not separate from other information. If school does not exist then we live for the purpose of living, each person doing what brings them joy. Let it go....you might find what unschooling is all about.
Ren
radicalunschooling.blogspot.com
of our subjects to try to unschool more~~
Not possible. Unschooling is not subjects. Unschooling is seeing the world as a place full of information that interconnects, not lessons or subjects to be taught. Unschooling isn't cutting back on subjects, it's letting that entire notion GO.
Unschooling means living as though school did not exist. If school does not exist then information is not separate from other information. If school does not exist then we live for the purpose of living, each person doing what brings them joy. Let it go....you might find what unschooling is all about.
Ren
radicalunschooling.blogspot.com
Barbara Colwell
Hey everyone, first of all, thanks for all your ideas/advice (the idea about using mad libs was really cool too). I must agree w/ you all, in that, my son does a lot of other things daily besides just math workbooks! He loves video games, watches a ton of sports on espn and follows basketball like crazy right now, goes to a Bible group called Awanas every week, spends time w/ his cousins, is a member of a homeschool group, writes his pen pal, even follows some politics at 8 years old,etc.. So, what I'm saying is, maybe you guys have a point! I've been kinda, well, putting him down somewhat for not doing enough "bookwork" because I"m so used to being that way. I expect any real "learning" to come from him doing pages and pages of bookwork and reading, but I haven't been looking at how he learns by living. This is all really hard for me so I appreciate all your advice!!
Thanks Again
Barbara Colwell
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Thanks Again
Barbara Colwell
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Debra Rossing
Why is it important to you that he know a noun from a preposition? Do
you stop and think about which is which as you write? (did you stop and
think of each part of speech as you wrote your post?) The best way,
honestly, to learn the English language is to see it, hear it, use
it...not dissect it. Talking, reading, even writing (Freely, creatively,
not for a "grammar exercise") are how to learn to use language. I work
with a bunch of technical writers - professionals in the writing field,
they have degrees in writing, and yet when asked, they rarely even think
about parts of speech or grammar (I asked a couple of them out of
curiosity a while back). Dissecting language into its parts is like
dissecting a beautiful ballerina or an amazing running back in football
to see how they work. If it's of interest, great, explore it (some folks
like to dissect things and look at the pieces and how they fit together
- they tend toward things like forensic science). Otherwise, there's
really very little gained in the process except to engender a dislike
for anything that smacks of "language arts" or grammar.
I'd give him a break from all grammar and such for quite a time (like
wait until 2010). Then, pick up a fun Mad Lib to do while waiting or
travelling. Not as a lesson, simply as a fun thing to do while waiting
(equal in value to reading, drawing, playing a handheld videogame,
counting Volkswagons going by). Very painless way (unless you make it a
lesson) to get a handle on parts of speech. If you can't help but want
to make a lesson of it, don't do it. Leave it be.
Deb R
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you stop and think about which is which as you write? (did you stop and
think of each part of speech as you wrote your post?) The best way,
honestly, to learn the English language is to see it, hear it, use
it...not dissect it. Talking, reading, even writing (Freely, creatively,
not for a "grammar exercise") are how to learn to use language. I work
with a bunch of technical writers - professionals in the writing field,
they have degrees in writing, and yet when asked, they rarely even think
about parts of speech or grammar (I asked a couple of them out of
curiosity a while back). Dissecting language into its parts is like
dissecting a beautiful ballerina or an amazing running back in football
to see how they work. If it's of interest, great, explore it (some folks
like to dissect things and look at the pieces and how they fit together
- they tend toward things like forensic science). Otherwise, there's
really very little gained in the process except to engender a dislike
for anything that smacks of "language arts" or grammar.
I'd give him a break from all grammar and such for quite a time (like
wait until 2010). Then, pick up a fun Mad Lib to do while waiting or
travelling. Not as a lesson, simply as a fun thing to do while waiting
(equal in value to reading, drawing, playing a handheld videogame,
counting Volkswagons going by). Very painless way (unless you make it a
lesson) to get a handle on parts of speech. If you can't help but want
to make a lesson of it, don't do it. Leave it be.
Deb R
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This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they
are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify
the system manager.
This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by
MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses.
www.mastercam.com
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Debra Rossing
> But I will point out, that unless he's saying things like "Juicewants I grape," then he knows grammar, nouns and verbs
LOL we sometimes actually DO this on purpose. We'll mix around the
words, play with word order, say words entirely backwards, mess with
where the comma belongs ("I'm going upstairs, but first I'm going to get
a drink of water"...or..."I'm going upstairs. Butt first I'm going to
get a drink of water"....which is kind of tricky since it's hard to turn
on the faucet when you're standing backwards, "Butt first" lol)
Deb R
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intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they
are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify
the system manager.
This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by
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