Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] doing your job
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In a message dated 3/19/02 10:48:33 AM, curtkar@... writes:
<< Sandra, I hope I have your permission to post this.
If you would rather that I not do this in the future, just let me know. >>
Once things are put out in public they're public!
Posting it back to a similarly public place (or the same one, I don't
remember <g>) is fine.
<< Sandra, I hope I have your permission to post this.
If you would rather that I not do this in the future, just let me know. >>
Once things are put out in public they're public!
Posting it back to a similarly public place (or the same one, I don't
remember <g>) is fine.
Karin
Hi Heather,
I'm glad that you found something useful in my story and that you can relate. Your struggles and conflicts you are feeling sound so familiar to me. I always felt better after we "accomplished" something during the day. But achieving the accomplishment was always our problem. I think you are well on your way to unschooling, you are listening to your children! Now you just have to work on deschooling yourself a bit more. For me, that entailed reading and reading. Learning about how others went through the same experience and how happy they were now. Knowing that I wanted those things for my family, too. And learning to let go and trust and respect my kids. To live our lives joyfully without chains dragging us down.
I'm not sure if I can do this, but I hope Sandra won't mind. It's something she wrote about what moms can do if they feel the need of accomplishing something, or checklisting their day while still unschooling. I saved it and refer to it sometimes if I feel the need. I really like the ideas she had.
Karin
------------------------
Sandra, I hope I have your permission to post this.
If you would rather that I not do this in the future, just let me know.
Sandra wrote:
One way for moms who love to checklist their days to provide without managing
is to go afield of verbal presentation. Go through a list of the senses.
And if each day you try to provide something interesting to taste, touch,
hear, see and smell, his day will be more full than flat. Too many families
stop at things to hear and see. (Because school stops there, I guess.)
But you don't have to do this until he's 17. You can do it until you're
confident that he's filled with experiences to cross-reference at his own
leisure (in dreams, in fantasies, in future incidents which remind him of
those, etc.) and you feel satisfied that you're not a slacker.
If just "the five sense" seems a lame checklist and you want four dimensional
instead of three, maybe each day work into conversation something about the
past and something about the future. (I can hardly imagine a day without
those coming up naturally in my own family, but in case you're not really
talkative or something, it's something for the checklist.) If it comes up
naturally in conversation you could say "They didnt' even have chainsaws
until... [whenever little gasoline engines were common, or whatever the
seminal technological feature is] and would have had to do all this with a
hand saw, or an axe. (That's if you cut firewood with a chainsaw, not if
you're sitting around working a jigsaw puzzle of tiger cubs in the forest.)
Or you could say "How long do you think we will have these dishes? When too
many are broken, what kind should we get next?" (if you have a girl with
those sorts of interests). Various kinds of mind-casting conversations into
the past (personal past or technological past or cultural past or planetary
past) or into the future (tomorrow, next year, next century) help kids build
their internal model of the universe. I know I've used that phrase half a
dozen times talking about unschooling, but I think it's one of the coolest
ideas.
--------------------------------------
Heather wrote:
Karin,
Thanks so much for writing this - I am going through this exact thing myself. I feel this tremendous guilt sometimes that if I am not "schooling" - then I am not doing my job... Today for example, my 7yr old has a drama class - she loves it. They are doing The Tempest by Shakespeare and the woman who is doing it is wonderful - She gets the kids moving and doing all kinds of fun things while she is introducing the story and the plots - they don't even feel like they are "learning" Shakespeare. Today it snowed and though it wasn't too bad, they must have cancelled class . I come home and feel somehow that we should DO something... and start suggesting - when all she really wants to do is go out and play in the snow. So of course, she does - it may be the last snow for us in New England - but I feel that I have somehow failed to do my job today... as if the day was a waste... I struggle with this constantly... I think I am not totally won over to the unschooling philosophy. I love the idea of it - but when it comes down to it - I think it is that I am impatient and unsure of myself. I love this list - I hope I will get to the point that you did... and really believe it whole heartedly. Thanks for your story - it does help some of us that are struggling with the same issue - to hopefully overcome it :)
Heather
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I'm glad that you found something useful in my story and that you can relate. Your struggles and conflicts you are feeling sound so familiar to me. I always felt better after we "accomplished" something during the day. But achieving the accomplishment was always our problem. I think you are well on your way to unschooling, you are listening to your children! Now you just have to work on deschooling yourself a bit more. For me, that entailed reading and reading. Learning about how others went through the same experience and how happy they were now. Knowing that I wanted those things for my family, too. And learning to let go and trust and respect my kids. To live our lives joyfully without chains dragging us down.
I'm not sure if I can do this, but I hope Sandra won't mind. It's something she wrote about what moms can do if they feel the need of accomplishing something, or checklisting their day while still unschooling. I saved it and refer to it sometimes if I feel the need. I really like the ideas she had.
Karin
------------------------
Sandra, I hope I have your permission to post this.
If you would rather that I not do this in the future, just let me know.
Sandra wrote:
One way for moms who love to checklist their days to provide without managing
is to go afield of verbal presentation. Go through a list of the senses.
And if each day you try to provide something interesting to taste, touch,
hear, see and smell, his day will be more full than flat. Too many families
stop at things to hear and see. (Because school stops there, I guess.)
But you don't have to do this until he's 17. You can do it until you're
confident that he's filled with experiences to cross-reference at his own
leisure (in dreams, in fantasies, in future incidents which remind him of
those, etc.) and you feel satisfied that you're not a slacker.
If just "the five sense" seems a lame checklist and you want four dimensional
instead of three, maybe each day work into conversation something about the
past and something about the future. (I can hardly imagine a day without
those coming up naturally in my own family, but in case you're not really
talkative or something, it's something for the checklist.) If it comes up
naturally in conversation you could say "They didnt' even have chainsaws
until... [whenever little gasoline engines were common, or whatever the
seminal technological feature is] and would have had to do all this with a
hand saw, or an axe. (That's if you cut firewood with a chainsaw, not if
you're sitting around working a jigsaw puzzle of tiger cubs in the forest.)
Or you could say "How long do you think we will have these dishes? When too
many are broken, what kind should we get next?" (if you have a girl with
those sorts of interests). Various kinds of mind-casting conversations into
the past (personal past or technological past or cultural past or planetary
past) or into the future (tomorrow, next year, next century) help kids build
their internal model of the universe. I know I've used that phrase half a
dozen times talking about unschooling, but I think it's one of the coolest
ideas.
--------------------------------------
Heather wrote:
Karin,
Thanks so much for writing this - I am going through this exact thing myself. I feel this tremendous guilt sometimes that if I am not "schooling" - then I am not doing my job... Today for example, my 7yr old has a drama class - she loves it. They are doing The Tempest by Shakespeare and the woman who is doing it is wonderful - She gets the kids moving and doing all kinds of fun things while she is introducing the story and the plots - they don't even feel like they are "learning" Shakespeare. Today it snowed and though it wasn't too bad, they must have cancelled class . I come home and feel somehow that we should DO something... and start suggesting - when all she really wants to do is go out and play in the snow. So of course, she does - it may be the last snow for us in New England - but I feel that I have somehow failed to do my job today... as if the day was a waste... I struggle with this constantly... I think I am not totally won over to the unschooling philosophy. I love the idea of it - but when it comes down to it - I think it is that I am impatient and unsure of myself. I love this list - I hope I will get to the point that you did... and really believe it whole heartedly. Thanks for your story - it does help some of us that are struggling with the same issue - to hopefully overcome it :)
Heather
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]