Joyce Fetteroll

Susan's sttatement "I realise that part of my problem is that I value
reading more than some of you" got me to thinking.

It often seems that if someone isn't working directly towards
something it looks like they don't care if they reach that goal.

That isn't always the case. And in the case of unschooling it isn't
at all true.

With unschooling, the primary goal is living a joyful life in an
environment that's loving and supportive of who a child is.
Unschoolers *know* that by pursuing that goal, reading (and other
learning) will happen as a side effect. But since we aren't actively
working towards reading or math or science or getting into college,
it seems like we don't care if those things happen or not.

We all want our kids to learn how to speak. And yet when our kids are
infants and toddlers we aren't consciously pursuing the goal of
getting them to speak! We're confident that as long as we're living
life with them they'll speak. It's just a natural part of getting
older for kids and we don't even need to think about it.

Does that mean we don't care if they speak or not?

No, it just means we know that speaking happens as a natural side
effect of living life.

And that's how unschooling works. It's about being confident that
learning happens as a side effect of life.

But that's not all. Like learning to speak, learning in general
doesn't happen in a vacuum. If we don't speak to infants and toddlers
they're not going to learn how to speak. If we don't create an
"unschooling environment", kids' learning is going to be limited.

So what is an unschooling environment?

I like Deb's quote:

> Unschooling works well when parents understand learning is natural and
> does not need to be forced. Unschooling works well when children are
> respected. Unschooling works well when parents are generous with
> their
> time, love, attention, possessions and money. Unschooling works well
> when parents are interesting, positive, thoughtful, considerate,
> generous, passionate, honest, respectful individuals.

I would add in curious about the world since that will help parents
naturally bring the world to their children just because they think
it's interesting.

And I would also point out that thoughtful is a part of attention.
Thinking about them and pointing out or bringing home something they
might like, helping them further explore what they're actions say
interests them (which -- in addition to the interests like astronomy
and analytical calculus that we might be looking for if we're still
stuck in school mode -- might be comedy movies or video games or ATVs
or ...)

Joyce