Movies (was "Good Questions")
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In a message dated 4/7/03 12:12:15 AM, asherbow@... writes:
<< More I am worried that *who* I am is not a good enough
example of this kind of learning. That ultimately I am too well-trained
by our larger culture and its measures and definitions of achievement,
productivity, creativity and success to be able to model the kind of
self-motivated activity that unschooling is supposed to foster in
children.
<<Does this make sense? >>
Sure!
If you have a child who was in school two years, the generally applied
formula says he'll recover from that in a couple of months.
I'm guessing you were in school from twelve to seventeen years. Could be
more. Maybe you were lucky, and it was not that long.
That gives you at LEAST a year to recover. More if you taught and so were
invested in providing and maintaining structured education.
I think movies are the most productive thing for this switchover. It's a
solid vein in a gold mine of ideas. Just start anywhere and step from one
movie to another like walking on rocks in a shallow stream. At the moment
we're on Charlton Heston movies. We've just watched two westerns, Will Penny
and The Big Country. Next we're going to science fiction. Historic epics,
we own and have known for years--Ben Hur, El Cid, The Ten Commandments.
Soylent Green next.
It's not that we're studying Charlton Heston, it's that we're using him as a
thread to decide which dot to jump to next. For a while here it was Kevin
Smith. LOTS of Kevin Smith in January/February (that's Silent Bob, to some
of you, maybe, and "who!?" to others).
And this Charlton Heston thing, it's mostly Keith (my husband) and me. We're
not "making" kids watch with us. They're in and out. We've shown Marty the
good parts, as he has a particular interest in westerns. Charlton Heston
wrote in his autobiography that aside from jazz, the western movie is the
most uniquely American contribution to the arts. (I'll look the exact quote
up if anyone really cares. He said it better.)
So if you start your own movie dot-to-dot, even if it's just one movie a
week, you'll start to see patterns and start to be conversant about details,
and that will lead to reading about the people, and maybe finding other
movies by the same directors, or with some of the other actors.
That's WAY easier (and more useful, I think, for being so multi-faceted) than
assigning yourself to learn about ancient Chinese swords or Faberge
enamelling, where you'll be limited to books and maybe owning one or two
pieces (MAYBE) and the kids might not care.
Movies have costumes, props, sets, MUSIC, dialog, speeches in the scripts
which can take your breath away and change your life, acting, stunts,
horses/tanks/fantasy contraptions.
And they're relaxing, too. And moms who are tense about learning NEED to
relax.
Sandra
<< More I am worried that *who* I am is not a good enough
example of this kind of learning. That ultimately I am too well-trained
by our larger culture and its measures and definitions of achievement,
productivity, creativity and success to be able to model the kind of
self-motivated activity that unschooling is supposed to foster in
children.
<<Does this make sense? >>
Sure!
If you have a child who was in school two years, the generally applied
formula says he'll recover from that in a couple of months.
I'm guessing you were in school from twelve to seventeen years. Could be
more. Maybe you were lucky, and it was not that long.
That gives you at LEAST a year to recover. More if you taught and so were
invested in providing and maintaining structured education.
I think movies are the most productive thing for this switchover. It's a
solid vein in a gold mine of ideas. Just start anywhere and step from one
movie to another like walking on rocks in a shallow stream. At the moment
we're on Charlton Heston movies. We've just watched two westerns, Will Penny
and The Big Country. Next we're going to science fiction. Historic epics,
we own and have known for years--Ben Hur, El Cid, The Ten Commandments.
Soylent Green next.
It's not that we're studying Charlton Heston, it's that we're using him as a
thread to decide which dot to jump to next. For a while here it was Kevin
Smith. LOTS of Kevin Smith in January/February (that's Silent Bob, to some
of you, maybe, and "who!?" to others).
And this Charlton Heston thing, it's mostly Keith (my husband) and me. We're
not "making" kids watch with us. They're in and out. We've shown Marty the
good parts, as he has a particular interest in westerns. Charlton Heston
wrote in his autobiography that aside from jazz, the western movie is the
most uniquely American contribution to the arts. (I'll look the exact quote
up if anyone really cares. He said it better.)
So if you start your own movie dot-to-dot, even if it's just one movie a
week, you'll start to see patterns and start to be conversant about details,
and that will lead to reading about the people, and maybe finding other
movies by the same directors, or with some of the other actors.
That's WAY easier (and more useful, I think, for being so multi-faceted) than
assigning yourself to learn about ancient Chinese swords or Faberge
enamelling, where you'll be limited to books and maybe owning one or two
pieces (MAYBE) and the kids might not care.
Movies have costumes, props, sets, MUSIC, dialog, speeches in the scripts
which can take your breath away and change your life, acting, stunts,
horses/tanks/fantasy contraptions.
And they're relaxing, too. And moms who are tense about learning NEED to
relax.
Sandra