puzzling (was historical interests of 9 yr. old boys.)
[email protected]
In a message dated 8/12/2002 10:03:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
books that were NOT intended to teach them about history. It created, over
time, a really good outline of background concepts and the big picture.
A "model" of learning that I have in my head is based on puzzles. You know
how younger kids' puzzles have that cardboard behind them that has an outline
of the shapes of the pieces so that the kids can more easily fit the pieces
together - they can look at the whole "design" of how the pieces will fit
together, while they are trying to fit the pieces to each other, too. That is
much easier than jigsaw puzzles - lots of small pieces without a backing that
has outlines to use as a guide.
Schools teach in a pure jigsaw method - and, what's more, they only give you
some of the pieces at a time - if you are lucky maybe 30 pieces from some
little section of a thousand-piece puzzle so at least they fit together with
each other even if they don't show the whole picture, but more often they
give you 30 isolated pieces taken from all over the whole puzzle - pieces
that don't even FIT together with each other because there are too many
missing ones. You're supposed to study those pieces, memorize their shapes
and other attributes, so that someday in the future you can fit them together
with other pieces you studied, also in isolation, in different school years.
Oh - and they NEVER EVER let you see the top of the puzzle box so you can
actually SEE the picture of what you're trying to "puzzle out." In fact, this
is like a double-blind experiment - most of the people (teachers) giving you
their pieces don't even know what the whole thing looks like - they long ago
settled for only ever dealing with small pieces.
Unschooling is different. Unschooling is like those puzzles with that
background outline -- kids build those outlines themselves, slowly over time,
for many many puzzles. They build them by having TIME (since they aren't busy
studying the attributes of a few isolated pieces) to learn all kinds of
things, without any pressure. As they play and learn they build up background
concepts and skills and then, when the background is well established (all
the outlines are drawn), they will either suddenly get really focused on
something and intensely put together all the puzzle pieces or they will
slowly, over years, keep adding pieces to create a particular puzzle. And at
that point it is WAY easier - plus they get the advantage that the big
picture isn't being withheld from them - they can look at it and go back to
their puzzle to do more on it, anytime they want. They never have to study
isolated pieces and they never have the frustration of having pieces withheld
from them and they don't even have to TRY to put the puzzle together until
they feel comfortable that they've got a good enough background outline.
AND - unschoolers know, all the time, that there (paradoxically) is no puzzle
<G>.
In school they act like there is a given body of information to learn --
educators spend endless hours in committee meetings deciding what needs to be
learned - which translates into them spending endless hours picking out which
puzzle pieces they'll make the kids study.
But that is an illusion. There is no puzzle to complete. There will never be
a moment where you say, "Done!" --- never a time when you'll see the whole
big picture at once and how all the small pieces fit together just perfectly.
Nope. Life isn't really like that.
--pamS
National Home Education Network
http://www.NHEN.org
Changing the Way the World Sees Homeschooling!
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected] writes:
> *Movies and videos, whether specifically meant to portray a historical eventMost of what my kids have learned of history has been through movies and
>
> or not. Sometimes just seeing a different time period portrayed leads to
> questions and answers.
books that were NOT intended to teach them about history. It created, over
time, a really good outline of background concepts and the big picture.
A "model" of learning that I have in my head is based on puzzles. You know
how younger kids' puzzles have that cardboard behind them that has an outline
of the shapes of the pieces so that the kids can more easily fit the pieces
together - they can look at the whole "design" of how the pieces will fit
together, while they are trying to fit the pieces to each other, too. That is
much easier than jigsaw puzzles - lots of small pieces without a backing that
has outlines to use as a guide.
Schools teach in a pure jigsaw method - and, what's more, they only give you
some of the pieces at a time - if you are lucky maybe 30 pieces from some
little section of a thousand-piece puzzle so at least they fit together with
each other even if they don't show the whole picture, but more often they
give you 30 isolated pieces taken from all over the whole puzzle - pieces
that don't even FIT together with each other because there are too many
missing ones. You're supposed to study those pieces, memorize their shapes
and other attributes, so that someday in the future you can fit them together
with other pieces you studied, also in isolation, in different school years.
Oh - and they NEVER EVER let you see the top of the puzzle box so you can
actually SEE the picture of what you're trying to "puzzle out." In fact, this
is like a double-blind experiment - most of the people (teachers) giving you
their pieces don't even know what the whole thing looks like - they long ago
settled for only ever dealing with small pieces.
Unschooling is different. Unschooling is like those puzzles with that
background outline -- kids build those outlines themselves, slowly over time,
for many many puzzles. They build them by having TIME (since they aren't busy
studying the attributes of a few isolated pieces) to learn all kinds of
things, without any pressure. As they play and learn they build up background
concepts and skills and then, when the background is well established (all
the outlines are drawn), they will either suddenly get really focused on
something and intensely put together all the puzzle pieces or they will
slowly, over years, keep adding pieces to create a particular puzzle. And at
that point it is WAY easier - plus they get the advantage that the big
picture isn't being withheld from them - they can look at it and go back to
their puzzle to do more on it, anytime they want. They never have to study
isolated pieces and they never have the frustration of having pieces withheld
from them and they don't even have to TRY to put the puzzle together until
they feel comfortable that they've got a good enough background outline.
AND - unschoolers know, all the time, that there (paradoxically) is no puzzle
<G>.
In school they act like there is a given body of information to learn --
educators spend endless hours in committee meetings deciding what needs to be
learned - which translates into them spending endless hours picking out which
puzzle pieces they'll make the kids study.
But that is an illusion. There is no puzzle to complete. There will never be
a moment where you say, "Done!" --- never a time when you'll see the whole
big picture at once and how all the small pieces fit together just perfectly.
Nope. Life isn't really like that.
--pamS
National Home Education Network
http://www.NHEN.org
Changing the Way the World Sees Homeschooling!
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected]
In a message dated 8/13/02 9:43:19 AM, PSoroosh@... writes:
<< AND - unschoolers know, all the time, that there (paradoxically) is no
puzzle
<G>. >>
And even the model would need to be four dimensional, not flat.
I was making Thinking Sticks this morning, and realized that for each topic
or thing in the world there are some experts. Experts on glass. And they
see the glass in everything. They know glass in history and the future of
glass. They see chemistry of glass, and economics of glass, legal liability
of glass, structural issues involving glass. Storage, transportation,
cleaning, tensile strength, resistence to heat and cold and pressure of glass.
I realized when I was a kid that my dad knew were pipes were. He wasn't a
plumber, but his model of the universe included where pipes were in houses,
and stores, and factories. Where the electrical conduits entered and left.
Where water pipes came from and where sewer pipes went. His map of our town
and the world had pipes. Mine didn't. Mind had front doors and yards.
A person can look at the world through a chesspiece or a piece of leather as
easily as through a pipe or through glass!!
So Thinking Sticks and other such mix-it-up games (which at some point become
the "method" of unschooling, just following whatever all comes to hand to the
other places they lead) are stopping for a moment at someone's specialty or
current interest. Could be shoes. Could be cash registers, or clouds. But
it can lead to every other thing in the universe if you're willing to catch
it and ride.
Sandra
<< AND - unschoolers know, all the time, that there (paradoxically) is no
puzzle
<G>. >>
And even the model would need to be four dimensional, not flat.
I was making Thinking Sticks this morning, and realized that for each topic
or thing in the world there are some experts. Experts on glass. And they
see the glass in everything. They know glass in history and the future of
glass. They see chemistry of glass, and economics of glass, legal liability
of glass, structural issues involving glass. Storage, transportation,
cleaning, tensile strength, resistence to heat and cold and pressure of glass.
I realized when I was a kid that my dad knew were pipes were. He wasn't a
plumber, but his model of the universe included where pipes were in houses,
and stores, and factories. Where the electrical conduits entered and left.
Where water pipes came from and where sewer pipes went. His map of our town
and the world had pipes. Mine didn't. Mind had front doors and yards.
A person can look at the world through a chesspiece or a piece of leather as
easily as through a pipe or through glass!!
So Thinking Sticks and other such mix-it-up games (which at some point become
the "method" of unschooling, just following whatever all comes to hand to the
other places they lead) are stopping for a moment at someone's specialty or
current interest. Could be shoes. Could be cash registers, or clouds. But
it can lead to every other thing in the universe if you're willing to catch
it and ride.
Sandra
Tia Leschke
This whole post is just excellent, Pam.
Tia
Eleanor Roosevelt
*********************************************
Tia Leschke
leschke@...
On Vancouver Island
Tia
>In school they act like there is a given body of information to learn --No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
>educators spend endless hours in committee meetings deciding what needs to be
>learned - which translates into them spending endless hours picking out which
>puzzle pieces they'll make the kids study.
>
>But that is an illusion. There is no puzzle to complete. There will never be
>a moment where you say, "Done!" --- never a time when you'll see the whole
>big picture at once and how all the small pieces fit together just perfectly.
>Nope. Life isn't really like that.
>
>--pamS
>
>National Home Education Network
>http://www.NHEN.org
>Changing the Way the World Sees Homeschooling!
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>If you have questions, concerns or problems with this list, please email
>the moderator, Joyce Fetteroll (fetteroll@... ) or the list
>owner, Helen Hegener (HEM-Editor@...).
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>[email protected]
>
>Visit the Unschooling website: http://www.unschooling.com
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Eleanor Roosevelt
*********************************************
Tia Leschke
leschke@...
On Vancouver Island
[email protected]
---------- SandraDodd@... writes:
It is amazing just how big the world is, or how many worlds there are. My dad collects stamps (he's a philatelist, a word I learned when I was really young because of him). When I get any mail with stamps, I carefully slit the envelope and save it, and then I bring them to him. To me, they all look about the same, although I'm starting to catch the interesting cancels and the coil numbers, if I look. To him, though, it's a whole world with it's own intricacies and meanings. He bought an old stamp collection at a yard sale a year or so ago and it was a wonderful find, first because it included about $150 in "postally unused" US stamps that he can now just put on letters, but also because the rest was so disorganized that he had hours of joy just sorting through it all.
He also dabbles in lepidoptery (butterfly collecting), and can tell at twenty feet that a yellow butterfly that looks just like all the other yellow butterflies flying around a meadow is something totally different - maybe because of the way it's flying, or some other minute detail. Again, the minutiae involved is amazing. I've learned just enough to realize how much I don't know (I can identify common butterflies like monarchs and painted ladies and the ubiquitous cabbage white) but he knows a lot more... and he still talks about other people who are more-expert, about this guy living in this small town who is an expert on a certain kind of little green moth.... do you realize how many little brown moths have never been identified or classified? There are so many of them... there are probably moths coming to your outside light at night that have no name at all...
I remember watching a movie once about the world living in a drop of water, and I think I'm just now realizimg how many drops of water there are, how many worlds. It's all truly incredible, and I feel like a guest at a huge and wonderful feast, sitting before a table piled high with knowledge of all shapes and sizes. It's wonderful!
When I was little I thought I knew every animal in the world, because the same ones appeared over and over in storybooks and zoos and no one ever suggested there were others. Seeing a llama rocked my little world, and opened doors to knowledge I had never imagined was there.
I think unschooling is seeing how many worlds there are to know, and being free to immerse yourself in the ones or ones that you chose.
Dar
>>>I was making Thinking Sticks this morning, and realized that for each topicor thing in the world there are some experts. >>>
It is amazing just how big the world is, or how many worlds there are. My dad collects stamps (he's a philatelist, a word I learned when I was really young because of him). When I get any mail with stamps, I carefully slit the envelope and save it, and then I bring them to him. To me, they all look about the same, although I'm starting to catch the interesting cancels and the coil numbers, if I look. To him, though, it's a whole world with it's own intricacies and meanings. He bought an old stamp collection at a yard sale a year or so ago and it was a wonderful find, first because it included about $150 in "postally unused" US stamps that he can now just put on letters, but also because the rest was so disorganized that he had hours of joy just sorting through it all.
He also dabbles in lepidoptery (butterfly collecting), and can tell at twenty feet that a yellow butterfly that looks just like all the other yellow butterflies flying around a meadow is something totally different - maybe because of the way it's flying, or some other minute detail. Again, the minutiae involved is amazing. I've learned just enough to realize how much I don't know (I can identify common butterflies like monarchs and painted ladies and the ubiquitous cabbage white) but he knows a lot more... and he still talks about other people who are more-expert, about this guy living in this small town who is an expert on a certain kind of little green moth.... do you realize how many little brown moths have never been identified or classified? There are so many of them... there are probably moths coming to your outside light at night that have no name at all...
I remember watching a movie once about the world living in a drop of water, and I think I'm just now realizimg how many drops of water there are, how many worlds. It's all truly incredible, and I feel like a guest at a huge and wonderful feast, sitting before a table piled high with knowledge of all shapes and sizes. It's wonderful!
When I was little I thought I knew every animal in the world, because the same ones appeared over and over in storybooks and zoos and no one ever suggested there were others. Seeing a llama rocked my little world, and opened doors to knowledge I had never imagined was there.
I think unschooling is seeing how many worlds there are to know, and being free to immerse yourself in the ones or ones that you chose.
Dar
Tia Leschke
>When I was making baskets, I actually wondered whether I could make a
>
>A person can look at the world through a chesspiece or a piece of leather as
>easily as through a pipe or through glass!!
basket out of al dente spaghetti. Never tried it, but I did see most
things as possible basket materials or not.
Tia
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
*********************************************
Tia Leschke
leschke@...
On Vancouver Island
Tia Leschke
>I think unschooling is seeing how many worlds there are to know, and beingI like that definition.
>free to immerse yourself in the ones or ones that you chose.
Tia
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
*********************************************
Tia Leschke
leschke@...
On Vancouver Island
Jamie Lemon
I am very compelled to say how much I LOVE this puzzle analongy!
I have printed it out and cannot wait to share it with DH & the kids at
lunch time.
Thanks for the insights!
Zan
I have printed it out and cannot wait to share it with DH & the kids at
lunch time.
Thanks for the insights!
Zan
----- Original Message -----
From: PSoroosh@...
A "model" of learning that I have in my head is based on puzzles. You know
how younger kids' puzzles have that cardboard behind them that has an
outline
of the shapes of the pieces so that the kids can more easily fit the pieces
together - they can look at the whole "design" of how the pieces will fit
together, while they are trying to fit the pieces to each other, too. That
is
much easier than jigsaw puzzles - lots of small pieces without a backing
that
has outlines to use as a guide.
Schools teach in a pure jigsaw method - and, what's more, they only give you
some of the pieces at a time - if you are lucky maybe 30 pieces from some
little section of a thousand-piece puzzle so at least they fit together with
each other even if they don't show the whole picture, but more often they
give you 30 isolated pieces taken from all over the whole puzzle - pieces
that don't even FIT together with each other because there are too many
missing ones. You're supposed to study those pieces, memorize their shapes
and other attributes, so that someday in the future you can fit them
together
with other pieces you studied, also in isolation, in different school years.
Oh - and they NEVER EVER let you see the top of the puzzle box so you can
actually SEE the picture of what you're trying to "puzzle out." In fact,
this
is like a double-blind experiment - most of the people (teachers) giving you
their pieces don't even know what the whole thing looks like - they long ago
settled for only ever dealing with small pieces.
Unschooling is different. Unschooling is like those puzzles with that
background outline -- kids build those outlines themselves, slowly over
time,
for many many puzzles. They build them by having TIME (since they aren't
busy
studying the attributes of a few isolated pieces) to learn all kinds of
things, without any pressure. As they play and learn they build up
background
concepts and skills and then, when the background is well established (all
the outlines are drawn), they will either suddenly get really focused on
something and intensely put together all the puzzle pieces or they will
slowly, over years, keep adding pieces to create a particular puzzle. And at
that point it is WAY easier - plus they get the advantage that the big
picture isn't being withheld from them - they can look at it and go back to
their puzzle to do more on it, anytime they want. They never have to study
isolated pieces and they never have the frustration of having pieces
withheld
from them and they don't even have to TRY to put the puzzle together until
they feel comfortable that they've got a good enough background outline.
AND - unschoolers know, all the time, that there (paradoxically) is no
puzzle
<G>.
In school they act like there is a given body of information to learn --
educators spend endless hours in committee meetings deciding what needs to
be
learned - which translates into them spending endless hours picking out
which
puzzle pieces they'll make the kids study.
But that is an illusion. There is no puzzle to complete. There will never be
a moment where you say, "Done!" --- never a time when you'll see the whole
big picture at once and how all the small pieces fit together just
perfectly.
Nope. Life isn't really like that.