"Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how. They want to, and they know how." -John Holt
Every time we skate I always nag the kids to abandon their crates and try baby-stepping it along and in turn, they always shrug me off and tell me to go skate by myself. Well, today Gabriel said, "I wish ice skating meant you could just do whatever you wanted." So I immediately dropped my agenda (which was what? Olympics 2017?) and thought 'why not?'
Why not, indeed! Minutes later, Simone was demonstrating her new "trick", pushing the crate ahead and skating to it hands-free. Gabriel decided not to let Simone show him up so he did the same. Next thing he knew, he was completely comfortable without the crates at all. So alas, we have unschooled ice skating and it worked. Didn't I already know that it would? ;)
As for the videos, someday I'll learn to keep my mouth shut.
"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
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