Unschooling.com's MidApril Newsletter
Unschooling.com Newsletter by way of He
Unschooling.com's MidApril Online Newsletter
~ An "Ignorant" Man
~ Poetic License
~ Set
~ Excerpt from "The Prophet"
~ Purdue OWL News
~ On Unschooling and Life
~ Logical Contradictions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An "Ignorant" Man
by John Holt
Growing Without Schooling Issue #7
www.gwsholt.com
Let's take a look at one of those "ignorant" men that Conan Doyle was
worried about. In his book Travels Through America, first published in
Esquire Magazine, Feb 76, Harrison Salisbury described his efforts to trace
the Westward path of some of his ancestors. He describes one of them thus:
". He (Hiram Salisbury) was a man of his time (1815). I scan the journal for
clues and reconstruct the post-Revolutionary American. I list his skills,
one sheet of scratch paper after another. He knew every farm chore. He
milked cows and attended the calves in birth. He physicked his horse. He
plowed, he planted, he cultivated, hayed, picked apples, grafted fruit
trees, cut wheat with a scythe, cradled oats, threshed grain with a flail on
a clay floor. He chopped the corn and put down his vegetables for winter.
He made cider and built cider mills. He made cheese and fashioned cheese
tongs. He butchered the hogs and sheared the sheep. He churned butter and
salted it. He made soap and candles, thatched barns and built smokehouses.
He butchered oxen and constructed ox sledges. He fought forest fires and
marked out the land. He repaired the crane at Smith's mill and forged a
crane for his own fireplace to hang the kettle on. He collected iron in the
countryside and smelted it. He tapped (mended) his children's shoes and his
own. He built trundle beds, oxcarts, sleighs, and wagons, wagon wheels and
wheel spokes. He turned logs into boards and cut locust wood for picket
fences. He made house frames, beams, mortised and pegged. With six men's
help he raised the frames and built the houses. He made a neat cherry stand
with a drawer for a cousin, fixed clocks and went fishing. He carved his
own board measures (yardsticks) and sold them for a dollar apiece. He fitted
window cases, mended locks, and fixed compasses. He hewed timber, surveyed
the forest, wrote deeds and shave shingles. He inspected the town records
and audited the books of the Friendship Lodge, the oldest freshwater Masonic
lodge in the country (still running). He chipped plows, constructed carding
machines, carved gunstocks and built looms. He set gravestones and
fashioned wagon hubs. He ran a bookstore and could make a fine coffin in
half a day. He was a member of the state's General Assembly, overseer of
the poor, appraiser of property and fellow of the town council. He made
hoops by the thousands and also pewter faucets. For many years he collected
the town taxes.
I have not listed all of Hiram's skills but enough. I do not think he was
an unusual man. Put me in Hiram's wold and I would not last long. Put Hiram
down in our world, He might have a little trouble with a computer, but he'd
get the hang of it faster than I could cradle a bushel of oats.
******
John Holt - I tend to agree with Harrison Salisbury that Hiram, though
perhaps not an unusual man in his time, would be a most unusual one in ours,
for more knowing, skillful, intelligent, resourceful, adaptive, inventive,
and competent than most people we could find today, in either city or
country, and no matter how schooled.
But the real question that I want to raise, and answer, is how Hiram learned
all those skills. To be sure, he did not learn them in school. Nor did he
learn them in workshops or any other school-like activity. Almost
certainly, he learned how to do all those kinds of work, many of them highly
skilled, by being around when other people were doing them. Nor were these
other people doing the work in order to teach Hiram something. Nobody raised
a barn just so that Hiram could see how barns were raised. They raised it
because they need the barn. Nor did they say to him, "Hiram as long as I
have to raise this barn, you may as well come around and learn how it is
done. ""They said, "Hiram, I'm raising a barn and I need your help". He
was there to help, not to learn --but as he helped, he learned.
Almost a century later John Dewey was to talk about "learning by doing."
The way for students to learn (for example) how pottery is made is not read
about it in a book but to make pots. Well, OK, no doubt about its being
better. But making pots just to learn to how it is done still doesn't seem
to me anywhere near as good as making pots (and learning from it) because
someone needs the pots. The incentive to learn how to do good work, and to
do it, is surely much greater when you know that the work has to be done,
that it is going to be of real use to someone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic License
http://www.poeticlicense.org/
Carol had this to say about the review copy of the Poetic License video:
"When I sat down to watch, I didn't imagine I would witness
such a powerful, heart-rending portrayal of kids reading their own
words at poetry slams across the country. I was moved to tears and
had to turn it off to catch my breath several times. The raw emotions
and deeply insightful poetry of dozens teens from diverse communities
simply overwhelmed me. The sight of these kids taking over the
National Poetry Competition and refusing to compete under time
limits, instead supporting each other and cheering for each other so
everybody won, still brings tears to my eyes. This is a film about
some incredibly talented and caring young people (one of them a
homeschooler Megan Cohen)"
Produced and directed by David Yanofsky, Poetic License showcases the
vibrant and compelling voices of American youth. Along with the video
there will be future curriculum materials with a study guide, a 150-page
teacher's guide (to be published by Heinemann Press in fall 2001), and a
website where teachers and teens can share their work and passion.
April is National Poetry month and PBS will be airing the video across the
nation, please check the website for times in your area.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you
with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Khalil Gibran, from the Prophet
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Set
http://www.setgame.com/set/puzzle_frame.htm
While looking for a few math/logic websites I ran into an old favorite.
Set, the card game, is great fun despite being good for the brain. The
website turned out to be very cool. Each day they lay out 9 cards and you
make the sets online. Once you find all the sets the computer records them
and your time and then enters you into a drawing for a deck of Five Crowns
(another wonderful card game) They lay out the cards so there are 6
different sets on the screen. It's HARD! Especially if you are used to
yelling "set" and raking up the cards, thus shifting the visual aspect. Here
the 9 cards stay put. So, if you're looking for 10 minutes or so of logic
every day, bookmark this page. Just don't tell the kids, they'll probably
beat you!
You can also download a Shareware version of the game for the computer. I
showed much restraint and did not add this to my collection of games. If I
had, I would not have finished this newsletter!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purdue OWL News
http://owl.english.purdue.edu
OWL stands for Online Writing Lab, and while this is not the most visually
appealing site, it is very useful to those interested in writing. There
are Hypertext and Powerpoint slide shows for those of us who are visual
learners. The information is sometimes very basic, but still worthwhile.
There are sections for spelling, punctuation, creating bibliographies. If
English is not your first language, there is section just for you. One of
the most useful aspects of the site is their link page to other online
writing labs and resources.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Unschooling and Life
Ruthe Matilsky
For years I've smugly parroted the unschooling party line: "Provide your
children with a stimulating environment, and they will learn what they need
to know to get on in life," and outside of homeschooling circles I've
refused to admit that I have a care in the world. However, I'm uncomfortably
aware that I'm nervous.
Being a homeschooling parent has meant being "different." There has been no
formula for us to follow and no prescribed set of goals and achievements to
mark the way. While I do it because it feels right, there are times when I
envy the parents who unquestioningly accept the School Education Plan. How
nice it must be to adhere to the Program and march right along, complaining
sometimes, but basically feeling secure that following someone else's script
is the right thing to do. How reassuring to have someone else lay out the
rules - car pool her to preschool, be a first grade class mother, help her
with her homework, join the P. T. A., sign up for Operation Graduation and
drive her to college, and your child will be a success. How unsettling it is
sometimes when I think that we have scoffed at the script and now we have to
take responsibility for how it all turns out. If we'd done what was expected
of us, nothing would ever be our fault. Right?
Of course my husband and I don't believe that, but I can't help worrying.
The standard good-parent line is, "All I want is for my child to be happy."
That's easy to say when the kids are little, but what about a
twenty-one-year-old daughter who is not on the college track? When I was her
age I didn't even know anyone who wasn't college track. I realize that if
she had started some business and was making a hundred grand a year I'd be
basking in my know-it-all-homeschooling-mother smugness and who'd care about
college. The fact that she's not completely supporting herself at twenty-one
is not so unusual, but I worry. Will she ever find enjoyable work that will
make her economically independent? What if she can't make enough money to be
happy? What if a childhood of following her rhythms leads my daughter to a
lifetime of dissatisfaction with boring jobs? What if she just settles into
being a housewife out of default?
You'll need to visit this month's issue of Home Education Magazine for the
rest of the article. While you're there fill out the form to receive a
sample copy, for while the online articles are great, the magazine itself is
even better! Not to mention you can take it outside ;)
http://www.home-ed-magazine.com/HEM/182/maunschool.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Logical Contradictions
A 'power outage' occurred last night during the time I was working on this
newsletter. While reading a magazine by candle light, I contemplated how
utterly ridiculous it was for me to be the editor of anything, given that I
cannot spell well nor use commas correctly. Then I ran accross this by Ann
Kreilkamp:
Back in 1966, when I was a first year graduate student in philosophy, I took
a course in something called "Formal Logic."
I was 23 years old, a "good girl," outwardly following the rules of society.
Inwardly, however I was beginning to hold the system at arm's length. The
rules of logic bored me. They felt arbitrary and suffocating. Not that I
was aware of this feeling. The "proof" of it came during class one day when
all of a sudden I no longer could sit silently, squirming. I raised my
hand.
"Yes?"
"What's wrong with contradiction?"
(The rules of logic are one long continuous avoidance of contradiction.)
The teacher's mouth fell open, and he just stood there staring at me. Time
slowed down. I watched his face turn beet red. Finally, he sputtered,
fuming: "From a contradiction anything follows, ANYTHING!"
And there you have it. Unschooling, along with my title of editor, is a
'logical contradiction' where anything and everything can follow!!
Hope you enjoyed this month's newsletter. See you in MidMay!
Lisa Bugg, Editor
www.unschooling.com
LisaBugg@...
Helen and Mark Hegener, Publishers
www.home-ed-magazine.com
HEM@home-ed-magazine
~ An "Ignorant" Man
~ Poetic License
~ Set
~ Excerpt from "The Prophet"
~ Purdue OWL News
~ On Unschooling and Life
~ Logical Contradictions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An "Ignorant" Man
by John Holt
Growing Without Schooling Issue #7
www.gwsholt.com
Let's take a look at one of those "ignorant" men that Conan Doyle was
worried about. In his book Travels Through America, first published in
Esquire Magazine, Feb 76, Harrison Salisbury described his efforts to trace
the Westward path of some of his ancestors. He describes one of them thus:
". He (Hiram Salisbury) was a man of his time (1815). I scan the journal for
clues and reconstruct the post-Revolutionary American. I list his skills,
one sheet of scratch paper after another. He knew every farm chore. He
milked cows and attended the calves in birth. He physicked his horse. He
plowed, he planted, he cultivated, hayed, picked apples, grafted fruit
trees, cut wheat with a scythe, cradled oats, threshed grain with a flail on
a clay floor. He chopped the corn and put down his vegetables for winter.
He made cider and built cider mills. He made cheese and fashioned cheese
tongs. He butchered the hogs and sheared the sheep. He churned butter and
salted it. He made soap and candles, thatched barns and built smokehouses.
He butchered oxen and constructed ox sledges. He fought forest fires and
marked out the land. He repaired the crane at Smith's mill and forged a
crane for his own fireplace to hang the kettle on. He collected iron in the
countryside and smelted it. He tapped (mended) his children's shoes and his
own. He built trundle beds, oxcarts, sleighs, and wagons, wagon wheels and
wheel spokes. He turned logs into boards and cut locust wood for picket
fences. He made house frames, beams, mortised and pegged. With six men's
help he raised the frames and built the houses. He made a neat cherry stand
with a drawer for a cousin, fixed clocks and went fishing. He carved his
own board measures (yardsticks) and sold them for a dollar apiece. He fitted
window cases, mended locks, and fixed compasses. He hewed timber, surveyed
the forest, wrote deeds and shave shingles. He inspected the town records
and audited the books of the Friendship Lodge, the oldest freshwater Masonic
lodge in the country (still running). He chipped plows, constructed carding
machines, carved gunstocks and built looms. He set gravestones and
fashioned wagon hubs. He ran a bookstore and could make a fine coffin in
half a day. He was a member of the state's General Assembly, overseer of
the poor, appraiser of property and fellow of the town council. He made
hoops by the thousands and also pewter faucets. For many years he collected
the town taxes.
I have not listed all of Hiram's skills but enough. I do not think he was
an unusual man. Put me in Hiram's wold and I would not last long. Put Hiram
down in our world, He might have a little trouble with a computer, but he'd
get the hang of it faster than I could cradle a bushel of oats.
******
John Holt - I tend to agree with Harrison Salisbury that Hiram, though
perhaps not an unusual man in his time, would be a most unusual one in ours,
for more knowing, skillful, intelligent, resourceful, adaptive, inventive,
and competent than most people we could find today, in either city or
country, and no matter how schooled.
But the real question that I want to raise, and answer, is how Hiram learned
all those skills. To be sure, he did not learn them in school. Nor did he
learn them in workshops or any other school-like activity. Almost
certainly, he learned how to do all those kinds of work, many of them highly
skilled, by being around when other people were doing them. Nor were these
other people doing the work in order to teach Hiram something. Nobody raised
a barn just so that Hiram could see how barns were raised. They raised it
because they need the barn. Nor did they say to him, "Hiram as long as I
have to raise this barn, you may as well come around and learn how it is
done. ""They said, "Hiram, I'm raising a barn and I need your help". He
was there to help, not to learn --but as he helped, he learned.
Almost a century later John Dewey was to talk about "learning by doing."
The way for students to learn (for example) how pottery is made is not read
about it in a book but to make pots. Well, OK, no doubt about its being
better. But making pots just to learn to how it is done still doesn't seem
to me anywhere near as good as making pots (and learning from it) because
someone needs the pots. The incentive to learn how to do good work, and to
do it, is surely much greater when you know that the work has to be done,
that it is going to be of real use to someone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic License
http://www.poeticlicense.org/
Carol had this to say about the review copy of the Poetic License video:
"When I sat down to watch, I didn't imagine I would witness
such a powerful, heart-rending portrayal of kids reading their own
words at poetry slams across the country. I was moved to tears and
had to turn it off to catch my breath several times. The raw emotions
and deeply insightful poetry of dozens teens from diverse communities
simply overwhelmed me. The sight of these kids taking over the
National Poetry Competition and refusing to compete under time
limits, instead supporting each other and cheering for each other so
everybody won, still brings tears to my eyes. This is a film about
some incredibly talented and caring young people (one of them a
homeschooler Megan Cohen)"
Produced and directed by David Yanofsky, Poetic License showcases the
vibrant and compelling voices of American youth. Along with the video
there will be future curriculum materials with a study guide, a 150-page
teacher's guide (to be published by Heinemann Press in fall 2001), and a
website where teachers and teens can share their work and passion.
April is National Poetry month and PBS will be airing the video across the
nation, please check the website for times in your area.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you
with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Khalil Gibran, from the Prophet
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Set
http://www.setgame.com/set/puzzle_frame.htm
While looking for a few math/logic websites I ran into an old favorite.
Set, the card game, is great fun despite being good for the brain. The
website turned out to be very cool. Each day they lay out 9 cards and you
make the sets online. Once you find all the sets the computer records them
and your time and then enters you into a drawing for a deck of Five Crowns
(another wonderful card game) They lay out the cards so there are 6
different sets on the screen. It's HARD! Especially if you are used to
yelling "set" and raking up the cards, thus shifting the visual aspect. Here
the 9 cards stay put. So, if you're looking for 10 minutes or so of logic
every day, bookmark this page. Just don't tell the kids, they'll probably
beat you!
You can also download a Shareware version of the game for the computer. I
showed much restraint and did not add this to my collection of games. If I
had, I would not have finished this newsletter!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purdue OWL News
http://owl.english.purdue.edu
OWL stands for Online Writing Lab, and while this is not the most visually
appealing site, it is very useful to those interested in writing. There
are Hypertext and Powerpoint slide shows for those of us who are visual
learners. The information is sometimes very basic, but still worthwhile.
There are sections for spelling, punctuation, creating bibliographies. If
English is not your first language, there is section just for you. One of
the most useful aspects of the site is their link page to other online
writing labs and resources.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Unschooling and Life
Ruthe Matilsky
For years I've smugly parroted the unschooling party line: "Provide your
children with a stimulating environment, and they will learn what they need
to know to get on in life," and outside of homeschooling circles I've
refused to admit that I have a care in the world. However, I'm uncomfortably
aware that I'm nervous.
Being a homeschooling parent has meant being "different." There has been no
formula for us to follow and no prescribed set of goals and achievements to
mark the way. While I do it because it feels right, there are times when I
envy the parents who unquestioningly accept the School Education Plan. How
nice it must be to adhere to the Program and march right along, complaining
sometimes, but basically feeling secure that following someone else's script
is the right thing to do. How reassuring to have someone else lay out the
rules - car pool her to preschool, be a first grade class mother, help her
with her homework, join the P. T. A., sign up for Operation Graduation and
drive her to college, and your child will be a success. How unsettling it is
sometimes when I think that we have scoffed at the script and now we have to
take responsibility for how it all turns out. If we'd done what was expected
of us, nothing would ever be our fault. Right?
Of course my husband and I don't believe that, but I can't help worrying.
The standard good-parent line is, "All I want is for my child to be happy."
That's easy to say when the kids are little, but what about a
twenty-one-year-old daughter who is not on the college track? When I was her
age I didn't even know anyone who wasn't college track. I realize that if
she had started some business and was making a hundred grand a year I'd be
basking in my know-it-all-homeschooling-mother smugness and who'd care about
college. The fact that she's not completely supporting herself at twenty-one
is not so unusual, but I worry. Will she ever find enjoyable work that will
make her economically independent? What if she can't make enough money to be
happy? What if a childhood of following her rhythms leads my daughter to a
lifetime of dissatisfaction with boring jobs? What if she just settles into
being a housewife out of default?
You'll need to visit this month's issue of Home Education Magazine for the
rest of the article. While you're there fill out the form to receive a
sample copy, for while the online articles are great, the magazine itself is
even better! Not to mention you can take it outside ;)
http://www.home-ed-magazine.com/HEM/182/maunschool.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Logical Contradictions
A 'power outage' occurred last night during the time I was working on this
newsletter. While reading a magazine by candle light, I contemplated how
utterly ridiculous it was for me to be the editor of anything, given that I
cannot spell well nor use commas correctly. Then I ran accross this by Ann
Kreilkamp:
Back in 1966, when I was a first year graduate student in philosophy, I took
a course in something called "Formal Logic."
I was 23 years old, a "good girl," outwardly following the rules of society.
Inwardly, however I was beginning to hold the system at arm's length. The
rules of logic bored me. They felt arbitrary and suffocating. Not that I
was aware of this feeling. The "proof" of it came during class one day when
all of a sudden I no longer could sit silently, squirming. I raised my
hand.
"Yes?"
"What's wrong with contradiction?"
(The rules of logic are one long continuous avoidance of contradiction.)
The teacher's mouth fell open, and he just stood there staring at me. Time
slowed down. I watched his face turn beet red. Finally, he sputtered,
fuming: "From a contradiction anything follows, ANYTHING!"
And there you have it. Unschooling, along with my title of editor, is a
'logical contradiction' where anything and everything can follow!!
Hope you enjoyed this month's newsletter. See you in MidMay!
Lisa Bugg, Editor
www.unschooling.com
LisaBugg@...
Helen and Mark Hegener, Publishers
www.home-ed-magazine.com
HEM@home-ed-magazine
Judie C. Rall
I haven't read every single post on bullying which has recently been
written, so I apologize if this is redundant.
There was a story on the CNN website today, entitled:
U.S. Study Finds Bullying Common in Schools
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development,
conducted research on 16,686 students in public and private
schools from grades six through 10.
If anyone is interested, the link is:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/04/24/health.bullying.reut/index.
html
Judie
written, so I apologize if this is redundant.
There was a story on the CNN website today, entitled:
U.S. Study Finds Bullying Common in Schools
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development,
conducted research on 16,686 students in public and private
schools from grades six through 10.
If anyone is interested, the link is:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/04/24/health.bullying.reut/index.
html
Judie