more questions
Ren Allen
"I got 233,000 hits on google for "mud wrestling" (reading) <g>
That's a start! <g>"
I could just KISS you Kelly! :) That was awesome.
Ren
That's a start! <g>"
I could just KISS you Kelly! :) That was awesome.
Ren
Ren Allen
"***What about history and math,science?***"
I thought Deb's post was brilliant, and I won't be able to add much,
but what the heck, I feel like posting;
instead of seeing the world as a bunch of school subjects, try to
realize that all of these things surround us in daily life and are
totally interconnected.
Last night, my boys had an unschooling friend over and I dropped
them off at the mall for a while. They walked home, counting all of
their steps from the mall to our front door. Why?
Because one of them (my Jared) said "I wonder how many steps people
take every day?" So one of them said "let's count how many steps it
takes to get back to the house"
and off they went.
They counted by 100 each time, then added all their hundreds up.
Trevor estimated it would take 1500 steps to get home, it took about
1700. They were laughing and sweaty and babbling excitedly when
telling me about this.
They were just having fun with their friends. None of them have
learned that math is something they need to be taught, or anything
painful or difficult (ok, Trevor had some of that many years ago,
but luckily he's healed) it's just a part of LIFE.
That which we are surrounded by, we tend to pick up naturally, like
language.
So things like numbers, arithmetic, culture, history, places,
etc...are things we pick up, because we use them every day.
Things like karate, yoga, oil drilling, flying planes etc...aren't
things most of us are surrounded by every day, so we need to find a
mentor or class to learn them. It's specialized information.
What schools teach is NOT specialized information.
It's out there for the taking.
And the most sad thing, is it's super EASY to pick up if you just
wait a while. Instead of wasting a child's life trying to force some
basic shite on them year after year after year...you can simply
allow them to BE and they'll pick up that "basic" stuff quite easily
at some point.
If every bit of k-8 math can be learned in three months by a child
that is interested, then WHY would people spend years trying to
shove it down their throats to the point that they have major
anxiety over it?
And WHY would anyone want to bring those methods home?
Trust.
It really comes down to that simple word. You either trust your
children or you don't. If unschooling is going to work, you MUST
learn to trust them.
Ren
I thought Deb's post was brilliant, and I won't be able to add much,
but what the heck, I feel like posting;
instead of seeing the world as a bunch of school subjects, try to
realize that all of these things surround us in daily life and are
totally interconnected.
Last night, my boys had an unschooling friend over and I dropped
them off at the mall for a while. They walked home, counting all of
their steps from the mall to our front door. Why?
Because one of them (my Jared) said "I wonder how many steps people
take every day?" So one of them said "let's count how many steps it
takes to get back to the house"
and off they went.
They counted by 100 each time, then added all their hundreds up.
Trevor estimated it would take 1500 steps to get home, it took about
1700. They were laughing and sweaty and babbling excitedly when
telling me about this.
They were just having fun with their friends. None of them have
learned that math is something they need to be taught, or anything
painful or difficult (ok, Trevor had some of that many years ago,
but luckily he's healed) it's just a part of LIFE.
That which we are surrounded by, we tend to pick up naturally, like
language.
So things like numbers, arithmetic, culture, history, places,
etc...are things we pick up, because we use them every day.
Things like karate, yoga, oil drilling, flying planes etc...aren't
things most of us are surrounded by every day, so we need to find a
mentor or class to learn them. It's specialized information.
What schools teach is NOT specialized information.
It's out there for the taking.
And the most sad thing, is it's super EASY to pick up if you just
wait a while. Instead of wasting a child's life trying to force some
basic shite on them year after year after year...you can simply
allow them to BE and they'll pick up that "basic" stuff quite easily
at some point.
If every bit of k-8 math can be learned in three months by a child
that is interested, then WHY would people spend years trying to
shove it down their throats to the point that they have major
anxiety over it?
And WHY would anyone want to bring those methods home?
Trust.
It really comes down to that simple word. You either trust your
children or you don't. If unschooling is going to work, you MUST
learn to trust them.
Ren