Friday, November 17, 2006

Two ends of the spectrum

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8143.asp

BellaOnline: The Voice of Women has an article on Unschooling by the site's School Reform Editor by their school-reform editor, Kristen Houghton, who was largely unschooled herself.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19225776.100
Home-schooling special: Preach your children well
11 November 2006
New Scientist Magazine

This is a print magazine is in the U.K. and the article deals primarily with revisionist science and with Patrick Henry College.

Monday, October 2, 2006

MSNBC article A new chapter in education: unschooling

Quotes are from the article which is here.
Comments are by Sandra Dodd.

"Controversial home-taught approach lets kids take the lead in learning"
That was the subtitle of the article, which probably came from the editor of the site, and not from Victoria Clayton, the writer. It doesn't make any sense in the "home-taught approach" part, and as to kids "taking the lead," it clearly implies that either the parent "takes the lead" or the child "takes the lead," thereby ignoring how unschooling works.

"But not all unschoolers stick to the plan so religiously."
That followed on a bit about a five year old who had just recently started to read, as though she had had a plan and stuck to it.

A quote from a professor:
“If the parents are highly educated and/or from a higher socioeconomic level, the kids are going to get all kinds of rich experiences because the nature of the home is going to be about books, experiences, education and learning,” says Myron Dembo, a University of Southern California professor of education.
It's possible articles misquote professors as easily as they misquote unschooling parents, but the mention of "education" in that list didn't show very clear thinking, and the fact that he named "experiences" and "learning" shows, again, an ignorance of the very basis of unschooling.

Unschooling isn't easy to understand, even for those who work at it, with children, for months. Those who do get it are enthusiastic. I have yet to see a reporter really get it, even those who spend weeks hanging out with a family.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Kansas City Star article on Unschooling

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/living/15398950.htm?source=rss&channel=kansascity_living

A new article on unschooling.

What's coolest about it is the expert they quoted was basically supportive!

Someone said "I turned the TV off because I was tired of fighting with the cartoon network"
or something and I think the same person was quoted as saying "I 'strew their paths'".

Sunday, August 6, 2006

Tuesday, August 1, 2006

Carnival of Unschooling

Unschooling Voices #2 is up at Joanne's place. This issue's topic is "Do you extend the principles of unschooling (trust, freedom, etc) into any other areas of your child's life"?

The topic for September is from Laurie: "I would love to hear other unschoolers thoughts regarding allowance or payment for odd jobs or whatever you want to call it. I see a major benefit from the kids managing their own money but I’m not sure that I want to pay an “allowance” to the kids every week. But if I pay per job, do I pay to have them clean their room or do I only pay for odd jobs? Anyway, I’d love to hear the other thoughts/ideas/methods other unschoolers incorporate".

Go to Unschooling Voices to find out how to submit a post.

Friday, July 28, 2006

MEDIASHIFT Article

Public Broadcasting System (PBS) tv station KLCS sponsors a blog on new media and how it is changing the world. It is called "MEDIASHIFT: Your Guide to the digital media revolution," and the host is Mark Glaser. On July 14th he wrote a very interesting entry about unschooling - he compares the kind of learning that unschoolers are doing to the kind of learning that is going on all over the internet in, for example, gaming and fan fiction online communities. Here is an excerpt:

"The Harry Potter and anime fan fiction writers, the Civilization players, and the Wondering Minstrels would be surprised to be discussed as “unschoolers.” As far as they are concerned, they aren’t participating in an educational activity at all. They are simply having fun and exploring topics that matter to them. But that’s precisely the point. As we talk about informal learning or “unschooling,” there are no rigid boundaries between school and the rest of what we do with our lives. Learning is driven by passion; we follow our interests where they lead; we engage with others who share those intellectual and recreational pursuits; and in the end, we master complex content. For all of these groups, the web is proving to be a most hospitable environment — a new version of Bertozzi’s “curiosity cabinet” full of rich resources and materials but also a social network that links us with others who are following a similar path. As my father told me years ago, “never let schooling get in the way of your education.”

Read the rest of his post at this url: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/07/never_let_schooling_get_in_the.html

News sources and resources

Laura is so busy with fun things she forgot this blog was here, and has opened the back door for some others to rev and revive. So I'm dusting off the chairs and turning on the coffeemaker and it's okay if there are few to no customers because it's a big wide internet.

How do you get homeschooling news, if you do, or if you like that sort of thing? I use Yahoo! Alerts, which is why I got to read "Why I'm an Unschooling Mom" by Jan Zeiger, on BellaOnline, a site I'd never even heard of! And from that article there are were other links. Here it is: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art44206.asp

If you want to set up Yahoo alerts to your own e-mail, go here: http://alerts.yahoo.com/ (I get them to show me new articles about Sam Rockwell and Russell Crowe, too. You can get snow reports, sports, custom auto mentions...)

What are some other ways and means for gathering news? Any favorite sites, feeds, lists, or tricks? If knowledge is power, let's empower the heck out of anyone who happens by here.