Re: [UnschoolingDiscussion] Scaffolding, by unsch. parents
[email protected]
In a message dated 2/17/2005 4:37:41 PM Eastern Standard Time, Elizabeth Hill <ecsamhill@...> writes:
Can we talk about "scaffolding" (as PamS sometimes has) as a technique for supporting learning in unschooling families? I think I might be ready to "get it" now. <g> I think before I was too much of a knee-jerk Rousseauvian and that interfered with my ability to really embrace the idea. A little more scaffolding might be just what I need around here...<<<<<
Now, I KNOW that my computer is sick, Really sick. Tax refund is due any day, and I'll get a new laptop and won't have to deal with all this sluggishness and missing junk and general difficulties...... but have I missed something COMPLETELY?
Scaffolding? with RE:[UD] in front of it? I must have missed a bunch of e-mails somewhere!
I may have been asleep, but OH! Maybe at the CA conference? Scaffolding?
I'm interested in what it is. And what it means and whatever...
Pam?
And Betsy---if you're really ready to 'get it', you can come to the L&L conference: we'll work on you HARD! <bwg>
~Kelly
Can we talk about "scaffolding" (as PamS sometimes has) as a technique for supporting learning in unschooling families? I think I might be ready to "get it" now. <g> I think before I was too much of a knee-jerk Rousseauvian and that interfered with my ability to really embrace the idea. A little more scaffolding might be just what I need around here...<<<<<
Now, I KNOW that my computer is sick, Really sick. Tax refund is due any day, and I'll get a new laptop and won't have to deal with all this sluggishness and missing junk and general difficulties...... but have I missed something COMPLETELY?
Scaffolding? with RE:[UD] in front of it? I must have missed a bunch of e-mails somewhere!
I may have been asleep, but OH! Maybe at the CA conference? Scaffolding?
I'm interested in what it is. And what it means and whatever...
Pam?
And Betsy---if you're really ready to 'get it', you can come to the L&L conference: we'll work on you HARD! <bwg>
~Kelly
Pam Sorooshian
Gosh - that was a discussion years ago and I'll have to dig to remember
much.
I know that I was reading something by Howard Gardner, at the time, and
he talked about scaffolding, and I brought it up online and Betsy and I
went round and round about it for a while.
The main idea is that teachers and parents build culture-specific
social structures up around kids that help them lift themselves up as
they work on building their own skills and knowledge base. It has to do
with the kids constructing their own learning by alays building on what
they already know - but with the help of "scaffolding" so that they can
extend themselves - to do things that are otherwise JUST outside their
own reach.
Scaffolding could be an adult there to talk things through with or to
offer to drive the kid to the hardware store or library or wherever. It
could be making sure they have the supplies they need. Lots of it would
most likely be conversation, transportation, and access to resouces. I
think it is the part of unschooling that gets sort of "left out" of the
definition when we say, "We don't do school."
We could say, "We provide the scaffolding that supports our kids in
learning what they want to learn."
In schools, this is a big deal because the question of how you can
provide that "scaffolding" when you have one teacher and 30 kids - is
difficult to answer. But as unschoolers, "scaffolding" is what we do
when we say we "support our kids' interests."
-pam
much.
I know that I was reading something by Howard Gardner, at the time, and
he talked about scaffolding, and I brought it up online and Betsy and I
went round and round about it for a while.
The main idea is that teachers and parents build culture-specific
social structures up around kids that help them lift themselves up as
they work on building their own skills and knowledge base. It has to do
with the kids constructing their own learning by alays building on what
they already know - but with the help of "scaffolding" so that they can
extend themselves - to do things that are otherwise JUST outside their
own reach.
Scaffolding could be an adult there to talk things through with or to
offer to drive the kid to the hardware store or library or wherever. It
could be making sure they have the supplies they need. Lots of it would
most likely be conversation, transportation, and access to resouces. I
think it is the part of unschooling that gets sort of "left out" of the
definition when we say, "We don't do school."
We could say, "We provide the scaffolding that supports our kids in
learning what they want to learn."
In schools, this is a big deal because the question of how you can
provide that "scaffolding" when you have one teacher and 30 kids - is
difficult to answer. But as unschoolers, "scaffolding" is what we do
when we say we "support our kids' interests."
-pam
On Feb 17, 2005, at 4:50 PM, kbcdlovejo@... wrote:
> I'm interested in what it is. And what it means and whatever...
>
> Pam?
[email protected]
-=-have I missed something COMPLETELY?
-=-Scaffolding?-=-
Ditto me.
If Pam's discussed something and used the term "scaffolding," maybe it was on a local California list.
Sandra
-=-Scaffolding?-=-
Ditto me.
If Pam's discussed something and used the term "scaffolding," maybe it was on a local California list.
Sandra
Elizabeth Hill
**I may have been asleep, but OH! Maybe at the CA conference? Scaffolding?**
Yup, Kelly, you fell asleep, and Pam and I decided to form a
window-washing business. <bweg>
Yeah, it's from Pam's talk last year at the Sacramento conference about
unschooling. (The conference is not exclusively unschooling, but Pam's
talk was.) I was listening to Pam's tape today.
The topic was discussed on this, or a related list, but it was more than
three years ago. I think it is too far back for me to pry it out of
the archives without spending an hour hitting the "back" button. I was
hoping Pam would still have her ideas on this topic right on the tip of
her tongue.
I'm personally still struggling with the feeling that our unschooling
(at my house) isn't active enough and that I'm coasting too much, and I
thought "how we discover and support our children's interests" would be
a fruitful topic. (I have problems with both parts of that.)
I'm still harping a bit on the theme that sometimes (on list) we talk
more about what not to do than we talk about what *to do*. (Yeah, yeah,
I recognize that it varies from person to person.)
Betsy
Yup, Kelly, you fell asleep, and Pam and I decided to form a
window-washing business. <bweg>
Yeah, it's from Pam's talk last year at the Sacramento conference about
unschooling. (The conference is not exclusively unschooling, but Pam's
talk was.) I was listening to Pam's tape today.
The topic was discussed on this, or a related list, but it was more than
three years ago. I think it is too far back for me to pry it out of
the archives without spending an hour hitting the "back" button. I was
hoping Pam would still have her ideas on this topic right on the tip of
her tongue.
I'm personally still struggling with the feeling that our unschooling
(at my house) isn't active enough and that I'm coasting too much, and I
thought "how we discover and support our children's interests" would be
a fruitful topic. (I have problems with both parts of that.)
I'm still harping a bit on the theme that sometimes (on list) we talk
more about what not to do than we talk about what *to do*. (Yeah, yeah,
I recognize that it varies from person to person.)
Betsy
[email protected]
-=-Yeah, it's from Pam's talk last year at the Sacramento conference about
unschooling.=-
I don't feel so bad then. I wasn't there.
I don't remember discussing it by that name (scaffolding) years back or ever, but that's okay. I understand the concept, I think. I think of it as a nest, but then my "nest" involves my own mental model of what homeschooling should ultimately cover (which could be a scaffolding, concept/shapewise), which is an awareness that before they leave to live somewhere else, there are some things I'm hoping they know. And rather than wait, those things come along once in a while, and I'm glad, and that's about it.
Things like what?
How to address an envelope, how to use the post office; how to pump gasoline, how to take care of a bank account, how to operate appliances... These are things anyone who moved here from another continent might need to learn. What if the toilet tank keeps running? <g>
The more academic things, they've pretty much picked up easily here and there, and so while I'm happy it happens, and while I look for opportunities to arise naturally, I don't plant them.
Holly was in here a minute ago to ask me about umbilical cords, and how babies poop. We talked about blood and waste, and oxygen and blood, and I was scratching her back while we were talking, and used the example of a sore or a zit, and some of the waste/dirt/germ will be carried away inside the body by the blood at a cellular level, and some goes to the outside and goes away that way. I said I hoped Marty's spider bite went away. I was willing for the conversation to end at any moment, but I would have been as happy (and not lots happier) if it had gone on quite a while.
Last week Holly asked about what's inside the palm of her hand. Lots of muscles and tendons, but there's no "palm bone," I said--finger bones go to the wrist. Keith came by, who knows a lot about anatomy, so while he felt her hand and had her flex this and that and he told her in words what was there, I pulled up google's image function and found her some diagrams of hand anatomy. The whole thing took less than ten minutes.
I might not be talking about what Pam was talking about at all.
I do worry sometimes about parents who don't have a model of the universe in their own imaginations/thoughts, but those parents are people who went to school, so that says something about school when they're lacking in confidence in their knowledge. And I have worked with (and taken classes from) teachers who seemed to have NO spark, no curiosity, no creativity, they just had the ability to apply for a job, show their teaching credentials, show up to work everyday and do the bare minimum.
Rambling...
Sandra
unschooling.=-
I don't feel so bad then. I wasn't there.
I don't remember discussing it by that name (scaffolding) years back or ever, but that's okay. I understand the concept, I think. I think of it as a nest, but then my "nest" involves my own mental model of what homeschooling should ultimately cover (which could be a scaffolding, concept/shapewise), which is an awareness that before they leave to live somewhere else, there are some things I'm hoping they know. And rather than wait, those things come along once in a while, and I'm glad, and that's about it.
Things like what?
How to address an envelope, how to use the post office; how to pump gasoline, how to take care of a bank account, how to operate appliances... These are things anyone who moved here from another continent might need to learn. What if the toilet tank keeps running? <g>
The more academic things, they've pretty much picked up easily here and there, and so while I'm happy it happens, and while I look for opportunities to arise naturally, I don't plant them.
Holly was in here a minute ago to ask me about umbilical cords, and how babies poop. We talked about blood and waste, and oxygen and blood, and I was scratching her back while we were talking, and used the example of a sore or a zit, and some of the waste/dirt/germ will be carried away inside the body by the blood at a cellular level, and some goes to the outside and goes away that way. I said I hoped Marty's spider bite went away. I was willing for the conversation to end at any moment, but I would have been as happy (and not lots happier) if it had gone on quite a while.
Last week Holly asked about what's inside the palm of her hand. Lots of muscles and tendons, but there's no "palm bone," I said--finger bones go to the wrist. Keith came by, who knows a lot about anatomy, so while he felt her hand and had her flex this and that and he told her in words what was there, I pulled up google's image function and found her some diagrams of hand anatomy. The whole thing took less than ten minutes.
I might not be talking about what Pam was talking about at all.
I do worry sometimes about parents who don't have a model of the universe in their own imaginations/thoughts, but those parents are people who went to school, so that says something about school when they're lacking in confidence in their knowledge. And I have worked with (and taken classes from) teachers who seemed to have NO spark, no curiosity, no creativity, they just had the ability to apply for a job, show their teaching credentials, show up to work everyday and do the bare minimum.
Rambling...
Sandra
Pam Sorooshian
On Feb 17, 2005, at 7:00 PM, SandraDodd@... wrote:
what you were doing and talk, you both had some anatomy knowledge to
pass on, you knew how to use Google.
The idea of scaffolding is just that it is mechanisms by which kids can
reach a little farther than they could have on their own. Holly could
have sat there and felt her own hand, flexed it, thought about it, but
in fact she has mechanisms already existing around her to support her
little bit of wondering about the anatomy of the hand.
Scaffolding supports the kid who is doing their own learning - the
scaffolding doesn't DO it for them.
There is a bunch of stuff on "scaffolding" in the education literature
- and lots of it is just junk (like lots of professional education
literature).
I like the image though - I like that the scaffolding does something
important, but is still clearly not the active element in a
construction process. That's the role I see for unschooling parents -
important in the support sense, but not the builder.
-pam
> Last week Holly asked about what's inside the palm of her hand. LotsThe "scaffolding" would be that you two were there, willing to stop
> of muscles and tendons, but there's no "palm bone," I said--finger
> bones go to the wrist. Keith came by, who knows a lot about anatomy,
> so while he felt her hand and had her flex this and that and he told
> her in words what was there, I pulled up google's image function and
> found her some diagrams of hand anatomy. The whole thing took less
> than ten minutes.
>
> I might not be talking about what Pam was talking about at all.
what you were doing and talk, you both had some anatomy knowledge to
pass on, you knew how to use Google.
The idea of scaffolding is just that it is mechanisms by which kids can
reach a little farther than they could have on their own. Holly could
have sat there and felt her own hand, flexed it, thought about it, but
in fact she has mechanisms already existing around her to support her
little bit of wondering about the anatomy of the hand.
Scaffolding supports the kid who is doing their own learning - the
scaffolding doesn't DO it for them.
There is a bunch of stuff on "scaffolding" in the education literature
- and lots of it is just junk (like lots of professional education
literature).
I like the image though - I like that the scaffolding does something
important, but is still clearly not the active element in a
construction process. That's the role I see for unschooling parents -
important in the support sense, but not the builder.
-pam
MomtoLJ
scaffolding is the hot new term in education!
today we watched a movie... an inspirational movie for the kids during
class, and another one for the teachers after school during planning
time. I was thinking that probably some of the kids in both movies, at
least the actors, were homeschooled, and even if they weren't "really"
homeschooled, they were while on the set...
it was a funny thought.
The movie for kids was about bullies and how one person can make a
difference. After hte movie my class talked about it. The kids all
said bullies are a part of life and you have to deal with it. I tried
to explain that no, not really. That people can create communities
where there is support and love, where if something unfair happens,
children deal with it in positive ways. The kids dont' see the world
like that. sad.
Joylyn
Pam Sorooshian wrote:
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
today we watched a movie... an inspirational movie for the kids during
class, and another one for the teachers after school during planning
time. I was thinking that probably some of the kids in both movies, at
least the actors, were homeschooled, and even if they weren't "really"
homeschooled, they were while on the set...
it was a funny thought.
The movie for kids was about bullies and how one person can make a
difference. After hte movie my class talked about it. The kids all
said bullies are a part of life and you have to deal with it. I tried
to explain that no, not really. That people can create communities
where there is support and love, where if something unfair happens,
children deal with it in positive ways. The kids dont' see the world
like that. sad.
Joylyn
Pam Sorooshian wrote:
> Gosh - that was a discussion years ago and I'll have to dig to remember----------
> much.
>
> I know that I was reading something by Howard Gardner, at the time, and
> he talked about scaffolding, and I brought it up online and Betsy and I
> went round and round about it for a while.
>
> The main idea is that teachers and parents build culture-specific
> social structures up around kids that help them lift themselves up as
> they work on building their own skills and knowledge base. It has to do
> with the kids constructing their own learning by alays building on what
> they already know - but with the help of "scaffolding" so that they can
> extend themselves - to do things that are otherwise JUST outside their
> own reach.
>
> Scaffolding could be an adult there to talk things through with or to
> offer to drive the kid to the hardware store or library or wherever. It
> could be making sure they have the supplies they need. Lots of it would
> most likely be conversation, transportation, and access to resouces. I
> think it is the part of unschooling that gets sort of "left out" of the
> definition when we say, "We don't do school."
>
> We could say, "We provide the scaffolding that supports our kids in
> learning what they want to learn."
>
> In schools, this is a big deal because the question of how you can
> provide that "scaffolding" when you have one teacher and 30 kids - is
> difficult to answer. But as unschoolers, "scaffolding" is what we do
> when we say we "support our kids' interests."
>
>
> -pam
>
> On Feb 17, 2005, at 4:50 PM, kbcdlovejo@... wrote:
>
> > I'm interested in what it is. And what it means and whatever...
> >
> > Pam?
>
>
>
> "List Posting Policies" are provided in the files area of this group.
>
> Visit the Unschooling website and message boards:
> http://www.unschooling.com
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> * To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UnschoolingDiscussion/
>
> * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> [email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]?subject=Unsubscribe>
>
> * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>.
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>No virus found in this incoming message.
>Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005
>
>
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Elizabeth Hill
**
There is a bunch of stuff on "scaffolding" in the education literature
- and lots of it is just junk (like lots of professional education
literature).**
Probably because a Russian education theorist named Vygotsky talked a lot about kids needing tasks that are just a little harder than their current level of capability to challenge them and lead to learning. I thinking the buzzword "proximal development" goes with this idea.
On an episode of Recess, TJ went into the teacher's lounge and ranted about Vygotsky. (Don't ask me why.) You can learn a lot watching cartoons if you pay attention. <g>
Betsy
**
I like the image though - I like that the scaffolding does something
important, but is still clearly not the active element in a
construction process. That's the role I see for unschooling parents -
important in the support sense, but not the builder.**
We enable and we facilitate, but we don't take over and do it for them, or check up on whether they do it the way we expected? Right?
There is a bunch of stuff on "scaffolding" in the education literature
- and lots of it is just junk (like lots of professional education
literature).**
Probably because a Russian education theorist named Vygotsky talked a lot about kids needing tasks that are just a little harder than their current level of capability to challenge them and lead to learning. I thinking the buzzword "proximal development" goes with this idea.
On an episode of Recess, TJ went into the teacher's lounge and ranted about Vygotsky. (Don't ask me why.) You can learn a lot watching cartoons if you pay attention. <g>
Betsy
**
I like the image though - I like that the scaffolding does something
important, but is still clearly not the active element in a
construction process. That's the role I see for unschooling parents -
important in the support sense, but not the builder.**
We enable and we facilitate, but we don't take over and do it for them, or check up on whether they do it the way we expected? Right?
Heidi
Not having read any of the literature on this...
Scaffolding seems a terrific word picture in this context. It is a
framework, with some stability, providing places where one can "hook"
new ideas. It reminds me of the connections that Sandra talks about.
Teen Titans has a character who is a cyborg...well, you might have a
little bit of reading under your belt about advanced technology in
limb replacement. Which might hook up with the story about that man
whose arm got trapped under a boulder, and he survived by amputating
it and hiking out of the desert. He now has a high tech "arm" with a
pick feature, because he still climbs.
in my mind's picture of "scaffolding" it's the older, more
established facts that you have in your mind, upon which you hook new
facts. It supports the new thoughts, but is mostly open.
eh.
blessings, HeidiC
--- In [email protected], Elizabeth Hill
<ecsamhill@e...> wrote:
their current level of capability to challenge them and lead to
learning. I thinking the buzzword "proximal development" goes with
this idea.
watching cartoons if you pay attention. <g>
Scaffolding seems a terrific word picture in this context. It is a
framework, with some stability, providing places where one can "hook"
new ideas. It reminds me of the connections that Sandra talks about.
Teen Titans has a character who is a cyborg...well, you might have a
little bit of reading under your belt about advanced technology in
limb replacement. Which might hook up with the story about that man
whose arm got trapped under a boulder, and he survived by amputating
it and hiking out of the desert. He now has a high tech "arm" with a
pick feature, because he still climbs.
in my mind's picture of "scaffolding" it's the older, more
established facts that you have in your mind, upon which you hook new
facts. It supports the new thoughts, but is mostly open.
eh.
blessings, HeidiC
--- In [email protected], Elizabeth Hill
<ecsamhill@e...> wrote:
> **literature
>
> There is a bunch of stuff on "scaffolding" in the education
> - and lots of it is just junk (like lots of professional educationa lot about kids needing tasks that are just a little harder than
> literature).**
>
> Probably because a Russian education theorist named Vygotsky talked
their current level of capability to challenge them and lead to
learning. I thinking the buzzword "proximal development" goes with
this idea.
>ranted about Vygotsky. (Don't ask me why.) You can learn a lot
> On an episode of Recess, TJ went into the teacher's lounge and
watching cartoons if you pay attention. <g>
>something
> Betsy
>
> **
> I like the image though - I like that the scaffolding does
> important, but is still clearly not the active element in aparents -
> construction process. That's the role I see for unschooling
> important in the support sense, but not the builder.**them, or check up on whether they do it the way we expected? Right?
>
> We enable and we facilitate, but we don't take over and do it for