Unschooling

Read it Before you See it

Get the kids excited about an upcoming movie and read the book(s). Or see the movie and read the book.
Need suggestions?
The Chronicles of Narnia, Narnia Ser.
Shelf Location: Young Adult/ Independent Reader > Young Adult > Young Adult - Science Fiction/ Fantasy/ Horror
Walden Media and Walt Disney Pictures will release The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on December 9, 2005.

I also hear tell Eragon , will soon be set to film in 2006 . Then of course you many of you may have have heard of this kid named Harry Potter. He's made some movies as well.

DVDs Inspire

We have been watching a lot of  Spy Kids 3 and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D after I bought it for the kids.  Cool thing is, director Robert Rodriguez created Sharkboy and Lavagirl with the help of his son, Racer Max. (includes this story in the dvd's extras)
Now I have read a lot of bad reviews, but from a kids perspective (and depending on their taste) his films can be fun to watch and empowering.

My critics sometimes like to watch for movie goofs like, Sharkboy's back fin falls off of his back ....in the next shot, it reappears. 

Creative minds may be eager to try their hand at creating 3D pictures. 
Well, with a PC, digital camera, and the help of this tutorial,  you too can make 3d pictures

Learning from the newspaper

Here's a Column about another great way kids pick up knowledge all on their own.

"..young people read the youth content but they don't stop there; they too like to read about their friends, the ball game, and want to know what is going in the community. They just need adults to set the example."

...

"I always encouraged my children to read the newspaper and it became a family ritual to read the newspaper each morning over breakfast. My daughter, Britainy, was asked to write a paper in her freshman year at East Carolina about something she had read that had changed her life. Britainy wrote about how she started reading the newspaper to take the comics away from her brothers. Later she read it in self-defense so that she could discuss with her teachers what I had written that week. In her senior year of high school when she did an internship at the district attorney's office, she said that she could discuss the cases with the attorneys because she had read about them in the newspaper. She said that she learned from reading the newspaper that knowledge is power, the power to learn."

This sounds pretty good to me... Of course, John Holt wrote extensively about this, below is an example.  (click here for more great quotes)

"What children need is not new and better curricula but access to more and more of the real world; plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out.
- John Holt, in Teach Your Own

Poems - Fun for Kids

Caroline Kennedy speaking about a book of poems she pulled together that her mother loved best. I included my favorite exerts as a little reminder of how poetry can inspire and empower children (and adults). Complete article HERE

"... I think nothing is more important than the way we raise our children. One of the gifts we can give them is to set them on their own path, encourage their curiosity about the world and [help them] understand themselves. I think poetry is a really good way to do that."

....

"..I think poetry can be enjoyable for children because [poems] are short, so it’s not as daunting as being handed a chapter book, especially if you’re a kid who hates reading and finds it difficult."

....

"Did you have to learn them by heart?"

"No, but we did learn some short ones. I think it’s fun for kids because it gives them a sense of accomplishment, if you can do without them feeling really pressured and nervous. The ones I learned were three lines. It was fun. Everyone was very congratulatory when I recited them."

Play's The Thing

More information on about the importance of play can be found HERE.


Play's The Thing
Kids need the playground just as much as the classroom. Having fun builds bigger, better brains, says Bryant Furlow.
 

PLAYING is a serious business. Children engrossed in a make-believe world, fox cubs play fighting, or kittens teasing a ball of string aren't just having fun. Play may look like a carefree and exuberant way to pass the time before the hard work of adulthood comes along, but there's much more to it than that.

For a start, play can be dangerous, and even costs some animals their lives. For example, 80 per cent of deaths among juvenile fur seals occur because playing pups fail to spot predators approaching. It is also extremely expensive in terms of energy. Playful young animals use around 2 or 3 per cent of their energy cavorting, and in children that figure can be closer to 15 per cent. "For evolutionary biologists, even 2 or 3 per cent is huge," says John Byers from the University of Idaho. "You just don't find animals wasting energy like that," he adds. There must be a reason for this dangerous and expensive activity.

But if play is not simply a developmental hiccup, as biologists once thought, why did it evolve? There are scores of theories, but none is totally convincing. The latest idea is perhaps the most audacious--it suggests that play has evolved to build big brains. In other words, playing makes you intelligent.

Without School, Without Work

I have to admit that some of this doesn't seem like very sound advice. Advocating folks to use charters because "it's quite the scam". Further, calling HSLDA for legal information and support on line isn't the wisest choice. Better to look up your state's homeschooling laws, learn and KNOW them instead of relying on someone else to define them for you. Finding a local support group and talking to other homeschoolers who have been around the block will give you a much better understanding, as well as support if you run in to other problems.

from September 14 2005

An article from the upcoming Ex-Worker Newspaper, a radical anti-work publication being released from the CrimethInc. Neighborhood Watch in Des Moines, IA. It is a piece submitted by a teenager who dropped out of school and got his GED while tutoring children. Material provided by his experiences with "working" with charter schools, homeschooling parents and dropping out.

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"Those of us fortunate enough to enjoy the company of children know well enough that kids have no trouble having fun. Initially, play seems to be effortless—washing dishes, eating dirt, illustrating walls, even taking care of each other are all voluntary activities that require no coercive manipulation or insincere reimbursement. School eventually defeats this willingness to participate by installing the seductive logic of transaction to replace the initial desire of interaction. Standardized curriculum asserts that we have nothing to gain by sharing and giving, we must instead trade: swapping what we have and what we can do for more desirable goods and services. Success structure and learning techniques reinforce this competitive ideology and authentic development and strengthening of skills fall behind as the ability to please the supervisor with memorization and specialization become habitual.

The intentions of the “right” to free education eventually become apparent when school becomes, almost completely, preperation for working life. Policy obediance and formula application are strongly enforced and, it is established that judgement calls, generosity and intimacy have no place in the working world. School slowly evolves into the systematic repression of desires as capitalism insessantly forges artificial desires to occupy the ambitious “childish” lust for adventure and pleasure. To relieve the aching boredom of daily life, society offers a wide variety of distractions and sweepstakes which temporarily alieviate the agony of slow-motion suicide."

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We’ve covered just a little bit of the gigantic subject of schooling and radical education here in above piece. For more general information about taking education and what habits our children are being taught head to www.unschooling.com. The really ambitious can seek to sift through the writings of Ivan Illich, most notably his inspirational Deschooling Society. Remember, if you’re not working yet, you won’t have to quit!

                                                                    

 

Article on unschooling- Endless Summer

Salon ARTICLE on unschooling.

"Unschooling is a radical branch of home-schooling
where kids control what and when they learn --
free of teachers, schedules and tests.
Unschoolers say it's intellectually empowering.
Critics call it irresponsible."

HEM's Home Education & Other Stuff Blog and Homeschooling Illinois - Legislation and Learning have really good comments about it.

Unschooling experience # 2153

Found my kids think this is fun..

Copy and paste songs for your hopeful reader that s/he likes. Print them off and see if they enjoy it. As an added bonus it may help their reading skills AND you may learn something about your kid you didn't know.
Some places you may want to search
http://www.lyricsconnection.com/
http://www.azlyrics.com/
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/ or try  a search on http://www.google.com/

Imagine

Imagine a world where people learn algebra as easily and naturally as babies learn to walk and talk. Where everything is interesting, all subjects worth pursuing. Where there is no separation between learning and playing, or between math and science. Where you might become interested in history through reading novels, you might become interested in geography through writing to pen pals, or you might become interested in physics through a fascination with the Space Program.

Imagine a world full of resources, ranging from the library, local museums, mentors either locally or through the mail, the internet, your backyard, or your next door neighbor. Where people share their knowledge and hobbies with others because they share those interests, not because they share the same age.

Imagine a world with time enough for daydreaming and the time to translate those dreams into words, written with the excitement and joy of someone who knows they have something important to share. A world based on respect for each person's individual interests and abilities, for the ways in which they learn best and most easily. A world of limitless possibilities, where no one is held back, or left behind.

Welcome to unschooling: learning as it should be.

Unschooling Explained

There are as many different ways of defining unschooling as there are people doing it. Reading through what many different people have to say about unschooling may help you to a better understanding; it should at least be interesting and hopefully will make you think!

What is Unschooling?

Link: Unschooling FAQ.

Have you ever described 'red' to a person who is color blind? Sometimes, trying to define unschooling is like trying to define red. Ask 30 unschoolers to define the word and you'll get thirty shades of red. They'll all be red, but they'll all be different. Generally, unschoolers are concerned with learning or becoming educated, not with 'doing school.' The focus is upon the choices made by each individual learner, and those choices can vary according to learning style and personality type. There is no one way to unschool.