Re: [Unschooling-Discussion] Digest Number 3860
Ren
"Sandra, I've been reading what you've written for almost two years, now. I've
often wondered how you got so much wisdom. Never once did I think you stole
your words from someone else. If someone reads your essays and then what you
write on the daily boards and lists they would have no doubt that you live what
you say and that your words are your own. "
You know, sometimes *I* feel like I am a thief. When I'm talking to people at my group, or explaining unschooling at work or writing online, I think "these aren't MY words, this is what I learned from Sandra/Anne/Joyce/Pam etc..." and I feel somewhat strange as the words pour from my mouth. Like I'm just borrowing them.
These ladies fueled my passion for self-directed learning. They honed what was in my heart and they gave me a venue for my voice. I am eternally grateful.
Although I believe these things were in my heart all along, the words were not mine to begin with...I borrow these thoughts/words all the time.
Ren
often wondered how you got so much wisdom. Never once did I think you stole
your words from someone else. If someone reads your essays and then what you
write on the daily boards and lists they would have no doubt that you live what
you say and that your words are your own. "
You know, sometimes *I* feel like I am a thief. When I'm talking to people at my group, or explaining unschooling at work or writing online, I think "these aren't MY words, this is what I learned from Sandra/Anne/Joyce/Pam etc..." and I feel somewhat strange as the words pour from my mouth. Like I'm just borrowing them.
These ladies fueled my passion for self-directed learning. They honed what was in my heart and they gave me a venue for my voice. I am eternally grateful.
Although I believe these things were in my heart all along, the words were not mine to begin with...I borrow these thoughts/words all the time.
Ren
Crystal
-=You know, sometimes *I* feel like I am a thief. When I'm talking to people at my group, or explaining unschooling at work or writing online, I think "these aren't MY words, this is what I learned from Sandra/Anne/Joyce/Pam etc..." and I feel somewhat strange as the words pour from my mouth. Like I'm just borrowing them.=-
I know this feeling. When I was in college I had to write a paper on someone I knew nothing about. It was so hard because I felt like if I knew nothing about him, then anything I could write I must have gotten from someone else. What happened was that I used a 4 color pen. I wrote all the quotes from different books in different colors. I used a pencil for all my own words. I was really surprised to find that most of the words were my own. I don't know where they came from.
When we live what we've learned from someone else, and then go on to teach those lessons to someone else, those lessons come from who we are. Those words do become ours. I don't know if I'm making sense, but nothing was ours to begin with. We just make them ours.
Crystal
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I know this feeling. When I was in college I had to write a paper on someone I knew nothing about. It was so hard because I felt like if I knew nothing about him, then anything I could write I must have gotten from someone else. What happened was that I used a 4 color pen. I wrote all the quotes from different books in different colors. I used a pencil for all my own words. I was really surprised to find that most of the words were my own. I don't know where they came from.
When we live what we've learned from someone else, and then go on to teach those lessons to someone else, those lessons come from who we are. Those words do become ours. I don't know if I'm making sense, but nothing was ours to begin with. We just make them ours.
Crystal
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected]
In a message dated 7/23/03 9:22:46 PM, starsuncloud@... writes:
<< Although I believe these things were in my heart all along, the words were
not mine to begin with...I borrow these thoughts/words all the time. >>
John Holt stirs up some stuff in me that way.
I think when you read something that puts words to what you didn't have words
for from some earlier point in your life, you end up reviewing lots of prior
stuff, and it turns into your own words about your own experiences. But some
experiences seem locked up like rocks until someone identifies the individual
parts of them for you somehow.
That's how it seems to me, anyway. If it never occurred to "an A student,"
for example that each A they got kept someone else from being top, they might
never have thought of how important it might have been for the person who kept
coming in second or third to be first JUST ONCE. Of it might never have
occurred to someone who was great in gym or sports that other kids might have been
trying MUCH harder and wanting success MUCH more, but just didn't have the
talent.
Reviewing those kinds of things in new light can make it EASY in some ways to
see what unschooled kids need and need to avoid, and what we can say or point
out to them to help them be compassionate about other kids' relative talents
and successes.
Some people's childhood memories are almost completely closed off, and so
they don't have that to draw on and are somewhat at a disadvantage in
understanding what kids are thinking and feeling. It's better if you can remember being
eight instead of just trusting that you must have been, and having a photo,
but no real memories.
It's one thing to just quote a person. It's a whole other thing to filter
your memories through their words or ideas so that you end up maybe saying the
same things, only behind the words you have vivid real KNOWLEDGE of how that
worked (or didn't) in your life and how it is working in your child's life.
Sandra
<< Although I believe these things were in my heart all along, the words were
not mine to begin with...I borrow these thoughts/words all the time. >>
John Holt stirs up some stuff in me that way.
I think when you read something that puts words to what you didn't have words
for from some earlier point in your life, you end up reviewing lots of prior
stuff, and it turns into your own words about your own experiences. But some
experiences seem locked up like rocks until someone identifies the individual
parts of them for you somehow.
That's how it seems to me, anyway. If it never occurred to "an A student,"
for example that each A they got kept someone else from being top, they might
never have thought of how important it might have been for the person who kept
coming in second or third to be first JUST ONCE. Of it might never have
occurred to someone who was great in gym or sports that other kids might have been
trying MUCH harder and wanting success MUCH more, but just didn't have the
talent.
Reviewing those kinds of things in new light can make it EASY in some ways to
see what unschooled kids need and need to avoid, and what we can say or point
out to them to help them be compassionate about other kids' relative talents
and successes.
Some people's childhood memories are almost completely closed off, and so
they don't have that to draw on and are somewhat at a disadvantage in
understanding what kids are thinking and feeling. It's better if you can remember being
eight instead of just trusting that you must have been, and having a photo,
but no real memories.
It's one thing to just quote a person. It's a whole other thing to filter
your memories through their words or ideas so that you end up maybe saying the
same things, only behind the words you have vivid real KNOWLEDGE of how that
worked (or didn't) in your life and how it is working in your child's life.
Sandra
Julie Solich
Oh, this is a keeper!
Julie
Helen Hegener (HEM-Editor@...).
Julie
>remember being
> Some people's childhood memories are almost completely closed off, and so
> they don't have that to draw on and are somewhat at a disadvantage in
> understanding what kids are thinking and feeling. It's better if you can
> eight instead of just trusting that you must have been, and having aphoto,
> but no real memories.the
>
> It's one thing to just quote a person. It's a whole other thing to filter
> your memories through their words or ideas so that you end up maybe saying
> same things, only behind the words you have vivid real KNOWLEDGE of howthat
> worked (or didn't) in your life and how it is working in your child'slife.
>the moderator, Joyce Fetteroll (fetteroll@...), or the list owner,
> Sandra
>
>
>
>
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Pamela Sorooshian
My husband's childhood memories are extensive and vivid, but his
childhood was SO different than that our our kids that I'm not sure how
much they help him.... he is from a little town in Iran.
I've never felt like he was able to fully comprehend why the girls do
what they do -- often interprets their behavior in ways that seem very,
hmmm, "foreign" to me <G>. Luckily he mostly trusts my interpretations
- it is when we don't think to talk about it that I sometimes find out
later that he was on a very different page than I was.
-pam
childhood was SO different than that our our kids that I'm not sure how
much they help him.... he is from a little town in Iran.
I've never felt like he was able to fully comprehend why the girls do
what they do -- often interprets their behavior in ways that seem very,
hmmm, "foreign" to me <G>. Luckily he mostly trusts my interpretations
- it is when we don't think to talk about it that I sometimes find out
later that he was on a very different page than I was.
-pam
On Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 06:03 PM, Julie Solich wrote:
>> Some people's childhood memories are almost completely closed off,
>> and so
>> they don't have that to draw on and are somewhat at a disadvantage in
>> understanding what kids are thinking and feeling. It's better if
>> you can
> remember being
>> eight instead of just trusting that you must have been, and having a
> photo,
>> but no real memories.