Anna Wolfe

Another take:
Children do produce. They produce for their schooled
parents/grandparents/teachers/neighbors/other
children/etc., and from
a
process of binging & purging, those coveted A's.


No, I think that's just the literal "grading" of the
products owned by
those
parents.
"My product is GradeA quality, and yours is not."


this brings up my favorite ps pet peeve from my own
6th grade. straight A's up until Teacher told me that
6th grade Math was all review of grades 1 thru 5 and I
decided not to do my homework, got 100% on all my
quizzes, got a "0" entered M thru Thurs for homework
and a "100" entered for quiz which supposedly tested
concepts learned (reviewed!) from the homework. I
assumed I would get an A in Math since I got all the
quizzes right every Friday, no, grade card came home
with a D.
I learned a lot from that experience about the purpose
of public school.
Also, my son got good grades in public school up until
the 4th grade, but all this was ignored by the system
in favor of my status as a single mom and the fact
that son was frequently late or absent (even in my ps
days, I had this odd idea that if he needed to curl up
with me on a rainy day, why not?)


He was not producing the budget for the ps that day, I
was not producing the proper results for their
program, as I was supposed to be learning obedience to
rote behavior, not math concepts

both of us were judged substandard as we both were
raised by countercultural parents
education had nothing to do with it
Anna

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Anna Wolfe

>>>>> I'm interested to hear how others
answer these questions because it's coming up more now
that the kids
are getting older and joining more stuff outside the
house. When they
see an activity they want to do, I let them be in
whatever grade the
activity requires them to be. For instance when my
daughter saw an
opportunity to go to a summer camp and it said you
needed to be in at
least 6th grade, that's what grade she was in, but
when she needed to be a
fifth grader in order to play on the same softball
team as her friend,
then she became a 5th grader. I'm curious to hear how
others handle
this.


I'm realizing as I'm reading these very interesting
discussions that I have been unschooling all along,
even when he was at daycare, school, etc. altho' I was
calling it attachment parenting since I read that term
somewhere, and calling it using my intuition or just
"parent child bonding" before that...
I follow my son's lead on talking to other people. at
first we were both very defensive as we had a crisis
in public school and had to leave unexpectedly and got
flack from everyone...
he is gaining in confidence the more TIME I spend with
him (even just yacking with him about his fantasy
video games)
the other day we rode our bikes downtown during school
hours. i was surprised that he wanted to go to grocery
store alone while i watched the bikes but I let him.
if I overhear him getting into a conversation with an
adult that he seems not to know how to respond to, I
may step in and say firmly & cheerfully "we
homeschool." and leave it at that.
I'm still working with my EX on the fact that I
homeschool, don't know that I will ever discuss
unschooling with THAT adult.
Anna



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In a message dated 5/21/2005 3:34:09 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
yoginiballerina@... writes:


I'm realizing as I'm reading these very interesting
discussions that I have been unschooling all along,
even when he was at daycare, school, etc.


I don't think so.
If unschooling has nothing to do with being out of school, it becomes
meaningless.

I have no doubt you were being a mindful parent and all, but "unschooling
all along" can't co-exist with daycare and school.

How does attachment parenting even coexist with daycare?

Things get better fast when kids and parents can be together for long
stretches of time without pressures. It's cool.

Sandra




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