Janet
20-08-2008, 01:24 PM
Saved from old forum
I found this article (http://www.joyouslearning.info/index.php?view=article&catid=34%3Adeschooling&id=46%3Adeschooling&option=com_content&Itemid=63) on deschooling by Sandra Dodd to be a fantastic read! It challenged a few preconceived ideas I had about how I would educate my children at home. It's so great that I emailed Sandra this morning to request permission to reproduce it on our website. I hope she says yes
The article explains how to 'deschool' your thinking, this quote says it best:
Stop thinking schoolishly. Stop acting teacherishly. Stop talking about learning as though it’s separate from life.
To re-wire our thinking we need to replace words like "teaching" with "learning", "I taught him" with "he learned", etc. She also challenges expectations. Thinking in terms of overacheivers, underachievers, what 'level' your child is at is very limiting and not how learning happens. Learning about a particular thing can occur in short intense bursts, go away for a couple of months, come back, etc. It's all a wonderful flow of learning a bit of this, and a bit of that.
Definitely worth a read :)
how have you let go of your own institutionalised learning experiences as you try to go with the flow of unschooling? (i assume that you were not unschooled)
What are the points that you have found hardest to deal with or where have you put most effort in countering your conditioned response to provide an environment of learning rather than trying to "teach" etc..
How has unschooling shifted your attitude to your own learning journey... for example if you wanted to learn a new skill or get a new job etc, would you 'unschool' yourself through the process rather than primarily rely on an institution or course?
do tell :)
arun
i wasn't really unschooled... but homeschooled most of my childhood (few stints at schools for short periods...)
but i always seem to be the first of my friends to think about finding a person who does what you want to do and going and picking their brain!! Or hanging out or working out some way to bargain for teaching direct from someone you admire... this has worked well in my career but then I am in the arts so maybe that is different....
I seem to learn best if i can see the NEED to learn it to be able to do what it is I want to do... otherwise my mind just doesn't hold the info!!
even so unschooling for my kids... the hardest part to deal with (SO FAR) in my own conditioned response is that I am afraid they will miss out and maybe be upset at me when they are older... not feel as equipped as they should or have as rounded knowledge or be able to keep up with their peers. (this kind of plays around my mind a little). Also i am very new to the whole UNSChooling thing... (though not new to HS) and i often catch myself wondering if all this building of cubbies and playing dolls is really going to help her... and i have a quiet panick to myself
Deschooling oneself: the biggest issue regarding unschooling, I think. If you can deschool yourself totally, unschooling will go on sails, really easily, I reckon!
Bit by bit I am seeing (rather than merely thinking) that I can trust them to learn. I know the theory, but with my eldest being 5, I'm just starting to do the practice (in terms of them learning what "they are supposed to learn" in conventional schools). So, see, I'm even catching myself here not being deschooled! (For god's sake, starting to see that they can learn by themselves at 5... As if I hadn't seen him learn heasp of stuff until now!. That's the degree of inculturation, sadly...)
I am loving it, more and more convinced every day.
Unschooling myself: Well, if I wanted to learn about something I did not have a clue about, I would probably take a course so that I could benefit from what people who know about it have to offer.
But it's already happened that, in topics I am fairly familiar about and I have the tools to go already, I do it solo.
i guess the big one for me was before i knew about unschooling. DD started to teach herself all of the letters in hebrew and english at around 18mo. by 20mo, she knew all the alphabets and the names of all the letters, as well as the sounds they made. she was starting to spell out words, and would ask a lot about spelling things.
we would sit at the bus stop and she would read out everything on the bus stop. passers by were usually amazed.
so i was fully into it, and i started drilling her on letters, and on spelling. i got into making this big alphabet frieze with her and trying to get her to write. she learned the letters on the keyboard pretty quickly, and i made her a gmail address, and she used to type a lot of emails.
but by the time she was 2, i had been pressuring her so much to progress with reading that she clammed up and refused to do any of it any more.
I realised that my intensity had killed her joy of unlocking the secrets of letters and reading.
that was when i found out about unschooling, and let things slide. now we're all good, and i honestly don't have any worries about academic stuff
I found this article (http://www.joyouslearning.info/index.php?view=article&catid=34%3Adeschooling&id=46%3Adeschooling&option=com_content&Itemid=63) on deschooling by Sandra Dodd to be a fantastic read! It challenged a few preconceived ideas I had about how I would educate my children at home. It's so great that I emailed Sandra this morning to request permission to reproduce it on our website. I hope she says yes
The article explains how to 'deschool' your thinking, this quote says it best:
Stop thinking schoolishly. Stop acting teacherishly. Stop talking about learning as though it’s separate from life.
To re-wire our thinking we need to replace words like "teaching" with "learning", "I taught him" with "he learned", etc. She also challenges expectations. Thinking in terms of overacheivers, underachievers, what 'level' your child is at is very limiting and not how learning happens. Learning about a particular thing can occur in short intense bursts, go away for a couple of months, come back, etc. It's all a wonderful flow of learning a bit of this, and a bit of that.
Definitely worth a read :)
how have you let go of your own institutionalised learning experiences as you try to go with the flow of unschooling? (i assume that you were not unschooled)
What are the points that you have found hardest to deal with or where have you put most effort in countering your conditioned response to provide an environment of learning rather than trying to "teach" etc..
How has unschooling shifted your attitude to your own learning journey... for example if you wanted to learn a new skill or get a new job etc, would you 'unschool' yourself through the process rather than primarily rely on an institution or course?
do tell :)
arun
i wasn't really unschooled... but homeschooled most of my childhood (few stints at schools for short periods...)
but i always seem to be the first of my friends to think about finding a person who does what you want to do and going and picking their brain!! Or hanging out or working out some way to bargain for teaching direct from someone you admire... this has worked well in my career but then I am in the arts so maybe that is different....
I seem to learn best if i can see the NEED to learn it to be able to do what it is I want to do... otherwise my mind just doesn't hold the info!!
even so unschooling for my kids... the hardest part to deal with (SO FAR) in my own conditioned response is that I am afraid they will miss out and maybe be upset at me when they are older... not feel as equipped as they should or have as rounded knowledge or be able to keep up with their peers. (this kind of plays around my mind a little). Also i am very new to the whole UNSChooling thing... (though not new to HS) and i often catch myself wondering if all this building of cubbies and playing dolls is really going to help her... and i have a quiet panick to myself
Deschooling oneself: the biggest issue regarding unschooling, I think. If you can deschool yourself totally, unschooling will go on sails, really easily, I reckon!
Bit by bit I am seeing (rather than merely thinking) that I can trust them to learn. I know the theory, but with my eldest being 5, I'm just starting to do the practice (in terms of them learning what "they are supposed to learn" in conventional schools). So, see, I'm even catching myself here not being deschooled! (For god's sake, starting to see that they can learn by themselves at 5... As if I hadn't seen him learn heasp of stuff until now!. That's the degree of inculturation, sadly...)
I am loving it, more and more convinced every day.
Unschooling myself: Well, if I wanted to learn about something I did not have a clue about, I would probably take a course so that I could benefit from what people who know about it have to offer.
But it's already happened that, in topics I am fairly familiar about and I have the tools to go already, I do it solo.
i guess the big one for me was before i knew about unschooling. DD started to teach herself all of the letters in hebrew and english at around 18mo. by 20mo, she knew all the alphabets and the names of all the letters, as well as the sounds they made. she was starting to spell out words, and would ask a lot about spelling things.
we would sit at the bus stop and she would read out everything on the bus stop. passers by were usually amazed.
so i was fully into it, and i started drilling her on letters, and on spelling. i got into making this big alphabet frieze with her and trying to get her to write. she learned the letters on the keyboard pretty quickly, and i made her a gmail address, and she used to type a lot of emails.
but by the time she was 2, i had been pressuring her so much to progress with reading that she clammed up and refused to do any of it any more.
I realised that my intensity had killed her joy of unlocking the secrets of letters and reading.
that was when i found out about unschooling, and let things slide. now we're all good, and i honestly don't have any worries about academic stuff