is it really necessary to cover all subjects?
moonwindstarsky
needed
[email protected]
In a message dated 2/18/2004 2:23:41 PM Mountain Standard Time,
moonwindstarsky@... writes:
needed
=============
Try again, please. We only got one word.
Sandra
================
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
moonwindstarsky@... writes:
needed
=============
Try again, please. We only got one word.
Sandra
================
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
moonwindstarsky
--- In [email protected], SandraDodd@a... wrote:
is it needed? how much is required of each subject?
> In a message dated 2/18/2004 2:23:41 PM Mountain Standard Time,sry i posted too quickly
> moonwindstarsky@y... writes:
is it needed? how much is required of each subject?
> =============
>
> Try again, please. We only got one word.
>
> Sandra
> ================
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Fetteroll
on 2/18/04 10:31 PM, moonwindstarsky at moonwindstarsky@... wrote:
If you want to live life, subjects aren't necessary. Do you see adults
dividing life into subjects? ;-)
If you want to unschool, subjects aren't necessary. Everything is
intertwined so there's no division.
If your goal is learning, you just learn what interests you.
If your goal is college, people's answers can be more focused if you ask how
unschoolers get into college.
So the real question is "Required for what?"
Basically your question really only makes sense in school. In life there are
no requirements. We make of it what we will so you can learn what you need.
But school isn't about learning. They wish it were! But it's about doing
what's necessary to pass a required course, to jump through that hoop.
Basically all kids want to know is high high and how far to jump so they can
move onto the next hoop and leave the last one behind.
Joyce
> is it needed? how much is required of each subject?Depends on what your goal is.
If you want to live life, subjects aren't necessary. Do you see adults
dividing life into subjects? ;-)
If you want to unschool, subjects aren't necessary. Everything is
intertwined so there's no division.
If your goal is learning, you just learn what interests you.
If your goal is college, people's answers can be more focused if you ask how
unschoolers get into college.
So the real question is "Required for what?"
Basically your question really only makes sense in school. In life there are
no requirements. We make of it what we will so you can learn what you need.
But school isn't about learning. They wish it were! But it's about doing
what's necessary to pass a required course, to jump through that hoop.
Basically all kids want to know is high high and how far to jump so they can
move onto the next hoop and leave the last one behind.
Joyce
[email protected]
Re: formal school subjects and whether it's necessary to cover it
all. I thought this was not just about schoolish stuff like administration and
required credits and prerequisites, but more of a philosophical question. "Do
unschoolers need or require what schools offer?"
Probably I am wrong about the questioner's original intent, but here's
my unschooling response anyway! :-)
Asking what subjects school teaches and whether those subjects are
necessary is like asking what the Bible teaches and whether it's all needed. (Or
fill in other sacred texts.) Do humans need and require what they purport to
teach?
We don't go to school or church, but I can't say no.
I see truth and beauty in learning wherever it is found, in the Bible
or school, or outside of either one.
There are strange lessons in both the Bible and school, teachings we
can take on faith or reject, or make of them whatever we will.
Great good and great wrong has been done in the name of both the Bible
and school. Neither can be legally imposed on unschoolers where I live. So
it's reasonable to say I don't need or require the Bible. I don't need or
require school credits.
But none of this is quite the same as saying what's found in the Bible
(or in school) isn't needed or required.
In the Disciplined Mind, Howard Gardner famously proposed a public
school K-12 curriculum based on deep themes of "truth, beauty and goodness." I
would argue it closely tracks the content of the Bible in how it tries to meet
human needs and requirements.
Schools teach PE and colleges often require PE credit and sports
participation. There are ways to into college without a sport or PE credit, and
plenty of other ways to enjoy physical activity and develop healthy habits of
mind and body. So we don't "need" to take the school course (the course may even
make us hate PE! <g> ), but nevertheless, don't we "need" what it purports to
offer us?
Researchers are demonstrating that cardiovascular training causes
significant, physical changes in cognitive function. Schools required sports a
hundred years ago in private prep schools, without benefit of the cognitive
science, and that tradition continues today. I hated PE in school btw.
But oxygen is good for the brain, it seems. Regardless of how we get
it, we DO need it, and benefit more the more we get. No one can force it on us,
but the need for it transcends any delivery system debate.
We don't have to get our truth, beauty and goodness from a sacred text
or from one of Gardner's schools. Unschoolers can get them a thousand ways.
But that's not to say we don't need or require them. :) JJ
fetteroll@... writes:
all. I thought this was not just about schoolish stuff like administration and
required credits and prerequisites, but more of a philosophical question. "Do
unschoolers need or require what schools offer?"
Probably I am wrong about the questioner's original intent, but here's
my unschooling response anyway! :-)
Asking what subjects school teaches and whether those subjects are
necessary is like asking what the Bible teaches and whether it's all needed. (Or
fill in other sacred texts.) Do humans need and require what they purport to
teach?
We don't go to school or church, but I can't say no.
I see truth and beauty in learning wherever it is found, in the Bible
or school, or outside of either one.
There are strange lessons in both the Bible and school, teachings we
can take on faith or reject, or make of them whatever we will.
Great good and great wrong has been done in the name of both the Bible
and school. Neither can be legally imposed on unschoolers where I live. So
it's reasonable to say I don't need or require the Bible. I don't need or
require school credits.
But none of this is quite the same as saying what's found in the Bible
(or in school) isn't needed or required.
In the Disciplined Mind, Howard Gardner famously proposed a public
school K-12 curriculum based on deep themes of "truth, beauty and goodness." I
would argue it closely tracks the content of the Bible in how it tries to meet
human needs and requirements.
Schools teach PE and colleges often require PE credit and sports
participation. There are ways to into college without a sport or PE credit, and
plenty of other ways to enjoy physical activity and develop healthy habits of
mind and body. So we don't "need" to take the school course (the course may even
make us hate PE! <g> ), but nevertheless, don't we "need" what it purports to
offer us?
Researchers are demonstrating that cardiovascular training causes
significant, physical changes in cognitive function. Schools required sports a
hundred years ago in private prep schools, without benefit of the cognitive
science, and that tradition continues today. I hated PE in school btw.
But oxygen is good for the brain, it seems. Regardless of how we get
it, we DO need it, and benefit more the more we get. No one can force it on us,
but the need for it transcends any delivery system debate.
We don't have to get our truth, beauty and goodness from a sacred text
or from one of Gardner's schools. Unschoolers can get them a thousand ways.
But that's not to say we don't need or require them. :) JJ
fetteroll@... writes:
> > is it needed? how much is required of each subject?[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> Depends on what your goal is.
>
> If you want to live life, subjects aren't necessary. Do you see adults
> dividing life into subjects? ;-)
>
> If you want to unschool, subjects aren't necessary. Everything is
> intertwined so there's no division.
>
> If your goal is learning, you just learn what interests you.
>
> If your goal is college, people's answers can be more focused if you ask how
> unschoolers get into college.
>
> So the real question is "Required for what?"
>
> Basically your question really only makes sense in school. In life there are
> no requirements. We make of it what we will so you can learn what you need.
> But school isn't about learning. They wish it were! But it's about doing
> what's necessary to pass a required course, to jump through that hoop.
> Basically all kids want to know is high high and how far to jump so they can
> move onto the next hoop and leave the last one behind.
>
> Joyce
>