Thursday, October 27, 2005
~Why I Named My Blog~
My kids learn by living life. I started this blog to keep good records of what my kids were learning so that when homeschool evaluation time rolled around (every May) I could print out all the lists and daily schedules and 'prove' to the school board my kids were learning. Here's the thing, I am not organized. I do not work well with organization skills. I've gotten better but lets not push it. So I made this blog into whatever the day brings for me or my kids and our lives. It was when I stopped feeling bad that I wasn't listing stuff etc I realized the core of unschooling: You are always learning something because you are living.
That doesn't mean I don't want my kids to learn to read, write, add, subtract, learn about history or science etc. But rather that I want them to do it their own way as they are interested. Think about it. When I was in school, I would study and do homework, and got all A's and after that test for what ever it was had been done, if I wasn't interested in that subject to begin with, I would promptly forget about it. Now I'm not saying that a person uses nothing they've learned in school. And I am not saying they use everything they learn in school. I'm saying chances are that they remember it only b/c they enjoyed something about it. They can do that at home. Plus you don't have to raise your hand to pee, you just knock on the door and go. You study something as long as you want and whatever you want.
Also, my family does things on the spur of the moment...like travel, go to the beach. We sleep in, stay up late, go to bed when tired, get up when rested hopefully. Eat whenever. If there is something Britt wants to see on modeling or interior design and it is only on at 11pm or whatever, she can stay up and watch it. Kallee taught herself to read this year and she's 5. I didn't sit down and say ok its reading time. She started out by playing with the alphabet magnets on the fridge and graduated to messages on it and then I thought of the idea of taking a compositon book and wrote on the front "Kallee's Word Book" so that any time she asks how do you spell---, she adds it to the book. Then she can look a word up at any time and she even goes thru just reading them!
We have kid size chalk boards that I bought at the dollar store and lots of paper and washable markers and crayons. Dallas loves video games and especially his Leapster. He is not the kid of kid that will sit down and trace letters or numbers, but he has learned to spell a few 3 letter words in the past few months. They count everything. Snacks ie: gummy bears. Also add and subtract them. They swim and play house, doctor's office, restaurant and things that make no sense to me but they're having fun!
We talk allot about weather and storms and hurricanes (look where we live) we talk about strangers and what to do, we talk about animals and have all kinds of books that name them and their babies and what they eat, how they live etc. We followed the news about the shuttle going into space and what space is and the moon. We talk about the war in Iraq. And since we made a friend who was there, things became allot more relevant and real. Obviously I don't tell the little ones stuff they don't need to know at such a younge age, but it has really opened Britt's eyes.
We talk about missing Natalee and the other girls/women and what situations they were in and what decisions they made etc. We talk about far away places and go to the library. We have pets that need taken care of and loved, we have traveled. They know what maps are and Britt is a great navigator! They live life. Britt bought a nice digital camera with her bday$ and takes pics all over the place, she loves to change around the rooms in the house. She has computer programs to design homes inside and out. She has become interested in what is going on in the world. This is the girl I pulled out of 7th grade b/c we fought every day to get her out of the house and to school and then I found out she didn't know her times tables! I fugured I certainly couldn't do any worse!
My wish for my kids is this: That they can succeed in the world doing something that makes them happy and provides the life they want. I'm betting thats what every parent wants, we all just go about it differently. I found some statements today that I wanted to post..maybe they'll make sense to y'all.
It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mostly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.
--Albert Einstein
"My mother taught us everything without teaching us anything," Quinn says. "Everything I know I've experienced myself, I've taught myself, I've learned myself. The whole childhood was magical."
Lundgren had rejected her Lutheran upbringing but discovered the ideas of John Holt, who began in the '60s to advocate what has come to be called "unschooling." The child directs his education, deciding when and if he wants to learn reading, math, science, anything or nothing.
"What I have learned to do is withdraw from the societal expectations that exist for my child and ask some basic questions," Lundgren says. "Does he seem happy with himself? Is he making inquiries into things he's interested in?"
Homeschooling's stepchild, the unschooling movement has quietly spread, especially in Texas, where there are virtually no legal restrictions against it. It produces either--as proponents contend--creative thinkers who are self-motivated to learn or, as critics maintain, illiterate young adults who can't read a menu or make correct change.
"If kids are allowed to learn how to research, to learn critical thinking, to question things, they can take those skills and apply them in the future to whatever they need to learn. They can conquer math in two months or six months or a year, instead of 12 years. They retain it. The difference is night and day."
Holt, a fifth-grade teacher, described the dynamics in most classrooms that inhibit learning, like kids terrified to answer questions for fear they'll get something wrong and be humiliated. He pointed out that little children learn an enormous amount by age 5, sometimes teaching themselves to read. At traditional schools, that enthusiasm for learning is stomped into the ground by mediocre teachers, peer pressure and curricula centered on boring stuff they couldn't care less about learning. What they needed: parents who could guide their interests without imposing expectations. In such freedom, they'd learn what they needed to learn when they needed to learn it.
Mama loves u... 7:30 PM
