"Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how. They want to, and they know how." -John Holt

Friday, May 25, 2007

Unschoolers Blogs

You know how you can get so easily lost in the maze of blogs, linking from one to the next, minutes -or is it hours?- slipping by until you end up reading some stranger's post in Oklahoma who has every disease under the sun, was a teenage mother and high school drop out yet now homeschools her 3 kids and is studying for the GED. (Yes, it's all true except maybe the OK part.)


Okay, maybe you don't know, so just in case, I thought I'd link some funny, interesting, informative posts I've happened upon lately....

These first two are from the same woman who lives in Maine. She's got some funny musings on FAQ's (and answers) regarding unschooling. And another one on a typical day in their family's life. I vicariously enjoyed her brief foray into fresh goat cheese. Scroll to the end if you don't have much time...

This post, by a mom and writer who lives on a boat! with her unschooled kids, wrote this great piece about the assumptions made by passersby in their every day lives.

What Really Matters is a great perspective on well... what really matters...! I'll be committing a lot of her good points to memory to add to my arsenal.

A quick, light read this unschooling mom's post about the strange looks she gets while out and about during the school day. (Hey and I just realized, this is from the woman I quoted on the top of my blog. She's a real living person! What a coincidence...)


I'll stop now in case no one really cares to read any of these but beware of getting lost in the maze if you dare! (And because I don't believe in posting without at least one picture, here's Simone wearing her baby in the sling a friend made for her. Thanks Susan, she loves it!)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOVE the cabbage patch sling :)

Thanks for the link.

-T

Susan Burke said...

YAY! It is So great to see the doll sling I made in action!

"By nature people are learning animals. Birds fly; fish swim; humans think and learn. Therefore, we do not need to motivate children into learning by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do - and all we need to do - is to give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for, listen respectfully when they feel like talking, and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest."
John Holt
"In the end, the secret to learning is so simple: Think only about whatever you love. Follow it, do it, dream about it...and it will hit you: learning was there all the time, happening by itself." -Grace Llewellyn
"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child."
George Bernard Shaw
Real, natural learning is in the living. It's in the observing, the questioning, the examining, the pondering, the analyzing, the watching, the reading, the DO-ing, the living, the breathing, the loving, the JOY. It's in the joy. ~Anne Ohman
"How could youth better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?" -Henry D. Thoreau