[email protected]

In a message dated 4/28/03 10:47:35 PM Central Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:

<< I didn't push or keep offering. The panic was MINE alone. She looked at
it
shrugged, that was the end of it, EXCEPT for my panic that maybe it was the
WRONG stuff. >>

But Glena, you offered something that when she REJECTED you felt the need to
give her the "you're going to HAVE to have this some day" lecture.
That is what you told us.
That is not the best way to foster a love of anything.

We've told you over and over where you're still thinking schoolishly, but
you're refusing to see it.
You still think she needs to have X, Y, Z for her life. That isn't true.
You still think that there is an "end result" that we're all after, whether
it's using school or a "better method" (such as unschooling) but actually
there is NO end result in my world.
I am on a journey with some incredible human beings. I get to be a really
important part of their journey, especially right now. But their whole lives
are a big adventure and where on earth would the "end result" be measured.
At 18 when they are legal adults?
Upon marriage or having their own children, should they choose that route?
When they die?
Just when is it that a person "turns out"? I am not unschooling for some end
result.
I am unschooling because I believe each and every day should be lived for the
moment and in pursuit of passions, interests and living joyfully.
End results are schoolish thinking.

Ren
"They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible
spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the
moon."
--The Owl and the Pussycat
Edward Lear

Deborah Lewis

***Isn't in the end the result/goal the same? Happy productive citizens?
***

No. Schools want productive citizens. Unschoolers have joyful kids,
right now, this minute.

***but the goal is learning isn't it?***

What if the goal is the best *today* your child can have?

***It's about FOSTERING a LOVE of math. ***

Why is it your job to foster a love of math in someone else? Why do
you think she's not capable of fostering for herself what ever love she
discovers?

*** I want her to have a love of all things
learning, ***

You want? You think this is something someone else has to give her?
You think this is something someone else CAN give her?

***No matter if it's poetry or algebra, art or geometry I want her to be
able to
embrace each part ***

YOU WANT! Stop, stop, stop with the "I want" and live with what your
daughter wants. How can you even begin to see what she wants through
this frantic desperation?

The advice to think about things is good advice. Your daughter is
young. There is no crystal ball can tell you what she will need in five
years or ten years. SHE will know what she needs when she needs it.
You guessing for her is no different than the school guessing for her.

Glena, we get that you care about your daughter.
You need to calm down and have some tea. You need to ask your daughter
what she'd like to do tomorrow and NOT ponder where it will take her or
how you can get her to do more of it. You will never understand
natural learning if you insist on planning her learning.

Deb L

Bill and Diane

I think one of the realities, not goals, of unschoolers is that by
living in the present rather than considering the present merely a
preface to the future which really counts, is that if something were to
happen to our children before they turn 18, they still would have lived.
We wouldn't have to be caught up in the woulda, coulda, shoulda and
guilt of only having prepared for a future which never will be.

:-) Diane

>No. Schools want productive citizens. Unschoolers have joyful kids,
>right now, this minute.
>