[email protected]

**I worry about the whole 'sequence of activities' thing, that there may be
holes in

her 'education'.**

May be? Of course there will be. If you unschool her, if you school her at
home, if you send her to private schools or public schools, if you hire
tutors, no matter what you do, there will be holes in her understanding.

I'm 45 years old, and every day I learn at least one thing I didn't know
before, something that illuminates the world or my place in the world.
Sometimes it's a big important thing I can't believe I never understood
before!

Your job isn't to make sure she learns "everything she needs to know". You
can't know what everything she needs will turn out to be, anyway. But you can
and should help her to explore the world and everything in it, help her to
find the people she can learn from (people to talk to, people to read, people
to watch), help her to understand the world as it presents itself to her.

That's my opinion, anyway, on our obligations as parents.

Deborah in IL

helencolbeck

--- In Unschooling-dotcom@y..., dacunefare@a... wrote:
> **I worry about the whole 'sequence of activities' thing, that
there may be
> holes in
>
> her 'education'.**
>
> May be? Of course there will be. If you unschool her, if you
school her at
> home, if you send her to private schools or public schools, if
you hire
> tutors, no matter what you do, there will be holes in her
understanding.
>
> I'm 45 years old, and every day I learn at least one thing I didn't
know
> before, something that illuminates the world or my place in the
world.
> Sometimes it's a big important thing I can't believe I never
understood
> before!
>
> Your job isn't to make sure she learns "everything she needs
to know". You
> can't know what everything she needs will turn out to be,
anyway. But you can
> and should help her to explore the world and everything in it,
help her to
> find the people she can learn from (people to talk to, people to
read, people
> to watch), help her to understand the world as it presents itself
to her.
>
> That's my opinion, anyway, on our obligations as parents.
>

I think that is a wonderful way to put it. As a fledgling
un/homeschooler, I am still struggling, and trying to build up the
matrix for this great adventure - part of which is my own 'letting
go' of all the school-is influences I have carried around for so
long. I still hear the niggling voices, and feel comforted (despite
my best efforts not to) when we do something 'schooly' :-)

I'm working on it, though... <g>

H.

[email protected]

In a message dated 9/7/02 10:21:34 PM, dacunefare@... writes:

<< help her to understand the world as it presents itself to her >>

The same way we do that with babies, naming things and explaining them, just
continues with older kids, with unschooling.

Language learning continues all our lives. Much of EVERY "branch of
knowledge" is just vocabulary. The names of countries becomes knowledge
about those countries in SO many instances. The names of geometric shapes
and their parts. The names of different kinds of dogs. Trees. Birds.

And so you answer questions (with words, or finding more pictures or video or
things to touch and smell and take apart) and they show they understand more
by doing the things, recognizing them the next time, understanding how to use
them, or talking about them with words.

Things we learn build on and are attached to and connect to other things we
knew. With words you get concepts. Concepts are the building blocks of our
internal models of the universe.

Sandra

Alan & Brenda Leonard

> **I worry about the whole 'sequence of activities' thing, that there may be
> holes in
>
> her 'education'.**
>
> May be? Of course there will be. If you unschool her, if you school her at
> home, if you send her to private schools or public schools, if you hire
> tutors, no matter what you do, there will be holes in her understanding.

What's truly depressing to me is how much I'm learning from unschooling my 6
year old. I have 13 years of public education, 4 years of college, and 2 of
graduate school. Sheesh, you'd think I'd at least know enough to teach a 6
year old! But I don't. So we learn together, and have quite a bit of fun
at it, once Mom gets past her hangups!

I was reading John Taylor Gatto's Dumbing Us Down again the other day, and I
think it's in one of the introductions that John or someone else (David
Albert?) points out that the body of knowledge is expanding so fast, that
it's unreasonable to expect children to learn a set amount of stuff. But
that the most important parts are that they learn to think critically, and
learn to find information when they need it. I can't think of a better way
to teach those two things than by unschooling.

brenda

zenmomma *

>>But that the most important parts are that they learn to think critically,
>>and learn to find information when they need it. I can't think of a
>>better way to teach those two things than by unschooling.>>

We were playing Trivial Pursuit last night and this very thought occurred to
me. When Casey didn't know an anwer, she usually knew where to get it.
(Looking up an answer is always permissable in our games like this. ;-)) If
there was a geography question she looked on the globe. There was a question
about who starred in Jumanji and she ran to get her copy of the movie to
read the jacket cover. She reasoned out a question about the function of red
blood cells by telling us that she knew white blood cells fight infections.
So she figured it must be the red ones that carried the oxygen. I was very
impressed.

Life is good.
~Mary

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