Tim and Maureen

Sounds like more evidence for proving the premise in "Punished by Rewards," by Alfie Kohn (sp?). Most Unschoolers have seen that book, I presume. Anyone have thots to discuss on or offline?

Tim Thomas
tmthomas@...

----- Original Message -----
From: SandraDodd@...
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 12:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] re: vendors at conferences



<SNIP>

I had told them that if they filled the whole book up with
writing, single sides, any writing, copying from comics or anything, and that
I would buy that kid a video game cartridge of his or her choice.

Not one of them did it. Holly's has lots of drawings. Marty's has notes for
a video game. Kirby's is lost (he looked for it when he took driver's ed,
said he had seen it when they cleaned his room the week before).

Notebooks last a long time here! <bwg>

Sandra


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[email protected]

In a message dated 4/29/03 5:29:34 PM, tmthomas@... writes:

<< Sounds like more evidence for proving the premise in "Punished by
Rewards," by Alfie Kohn (sp?). >>

Yeah. Bribery isn't a good unschooling tool.

They were starting to whine about having bad handwriting, and I figured
rather than "lessons" I would make a simple challenge to them with a payment
at the end. IF they had done it, they would have been writing by the end of
120 pages or whatever it was. They didn't. So what I gained was they didn't
complain to me anymore about not having been taught to print or write cursive
either one.

Holly writes more than the boys did at her age. Marty has a notebook where
he prints in caps, small and neatly, the notes for a game he's designing.
Holly writes a very girly, artsy mostly illegible (too artsy) cursive. Kirby
prints tiny.

Sandra

Mary

From: <SandraDodd@...>

<< Yeah. Bribery isn't a good unschooling tool.>>



I've heard this suggested quite a few times though. Paying a child to do
something no one else wants to do. Or paying a child to do something they
really don't want to do but you want them to. So if it's isn't a good tool,
why suggest it??

Mary B

[email protected]

In a message dated 4/30/03 11:27:49 AM, mummy124@... writes:

<< I've heard this suggested quite a few times though. Paying a child to do

something no one else wants to do. Or paying a child to do something they

really don't want to do but you want them to. So if it's isn't a good tool,

why suggest it?? >>

Because sometimes it's the best tool at the moment.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 4/30/03 11:27:49 AM, mummy124@... writes:

<< I've heard this suggested quite a few times though. Paying a child to do

something no one else wants to do. Or paying a child to do something they

really don't want to do but you want them to. So if it's isn't a good tool,

why suggest it??>>

forgot to say...

Not all jobs have anything to do with unschooling and learning.

Researchers have proven that people will work for nothing rather than just
sit around with nothing to do. Kirby goes to work and gets paid. That's no
crime. Marty helps people move sometimes, and they pay him, and buy him
lunch. His biggest benefit is hanging out with adult friends, though, and
seeing other people's housefuls of stuff, and playing truck-tetris.

There's a difference between paying someone to practice handwriting for his
own benefit and paying someone to strip the paint off the deck and stairs.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 4/30/2003 2:53:34 PM Central Daylight Time,
SandraDodd@... writes:

> playing truck-tetris.
>

HA! That's so cool!

We move a lot. a LOT. And I always look at loading the truck as playing
Tetris. Unfortunately, my husband always loads the truck, and he sucks at
Tetris. So we argue a lot during truck-tetris. lol.

And I worked in the Fed Ex hub pushing boxes off a conveyor, and sometimes I
would put them in the containers that go in the airplanes. And that was
container-tetris. I would find myself putting groceries in the cart in
container-tetris fashion. Sometimes I still do.

Tetris rocks!

Tuck


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