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cathhomeschool
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| Posted: May 05 2005 at 10:29am | IP Logged
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mumofsix wrote:
| Another thought: maybe analyse what it is about Star Wars that attracts them? |
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Another great idea, Jane! They are definitely into battles, war and heroes. They love LOTR and the Trojan War, though those things still don't draw them like Star Wars does. I see that this really could be a springboard to some deeper discussions and study. Wow!
Richelle and Julie, thanks for the suggestions!
The timing of this whole thing in my life is interesting... I had sort of been floundering about what to do with school. Something wasn't right. The stress level was going up. Macbeth's and Maureen's talks in Austin a couple of weeks ago, Julie's Bravewriter and Writer's Jungle, the opening of this unschooling forum... It's one of those times in my life when God uses everything around me to point in one direction... Thank you, ladies, for helping me see the light again!
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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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Willa
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| Posted: May 07 2005 at 2:20am | IP Logged
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About twaddle, Janette --
My kids seem to phase in and out as Julie described. Right now my 12 and 9yo are into those Choose Your Own Adventure books. But just before that, my 12yo read the LOTR series, and now my 9yo is reading Sherlock Holmes.
My 12yo who loves football went on a spree of interlibrary loaning and got about 5 biographies of Brett Favre. He practically memorized whole passages and asked me about different terms used in the books and did long narrations completely on his own initiative, including comparisons of the different facts and emphases in the different bios. Well, this isn't exactly first quality literature but that was what I was thinking about when I wrote how the skills acquired this way transfer over to other kinds of reading. His vocabulary and level of thinking took a jump after that little spontaneous unit. There's something else rather hard to describe, a self-possession that comes when a child has pursued something like that on his own. I suppose this is what unschoolers want to see in their children, and work hard not to get in the way of.
He also devoured Treasure Island in a single day.... that one was my idea. I give him books that he might not pick up on his own, and that was one of them, but if he isn't really getting into them, he has the option of dropping them. Most times, he doesn't.
I don't restrict reading unless it is outright unwholesome, but usually I haven't even had to make that judgement. I remember reading plenty of twaddle as a child but I also managed to read most of the major childhood classics. I could tell the difference but sometimes I just needed the hiatus, so I'd go back to the Three Investigators or the Asterix comics, even as a teenager. The only things I regret reading now are the outright BAD evil things, and I do try to protect my kids from those. That's a parenting decision, not an educational one.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: May 07 2005 at 7:52pm | IP Logged
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Okay, so I haven't read any unschooling threads in well over a week because they got so long, so fast, that I was completely intimidated. I have, however, had the distinct privelige of several lengthy conversations with Suzie Andres in the interim. I've been breathing deeply of her fresh air, so I'm on the same wavelength as you all are.
Now, my most pressing question, in light of the pending arrival of Episode 3, is, "What would a Star Wars unit look like?"  Seriously, look for that thread on Rabbit Trails. Perhaps some of the "big boys" will contribute ideas.
I'm very tired and I've just read this entire board, so I've not much brain matter available for the task of writing but I have enjoyed my reading tremendously.Julie, I especially appreciated your sharing of your high school worries and their resolution.
Michael came to me last night and announced he'd like to go to college in 'o6 instead of '07. This was a purely athletic decision, not an academic one. My first instinct was panic. He doesn't have nearly the courses necessary to make a portfolio attractive to an admissions committee. He binges on things which interest him and leaves the rest alone. So he spent some time online, really looking for what seems to be the first time, at what is required for admission. And now--drumroll please--he OWNS the mission.  He knows where he wants to go and he knows what it will take to get there.
As far as timing goes, 'o6 is a terrible idea athletically; he's missed his recruiting window and he could use the extra year of physical growth. Academically, it approaches impossible. But the entire conversation and the research were a great exercise in ownership  . And I'm much relieved.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Lissa
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| Posted: May 09 2005 at 1:31pm | IP Logged
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I've been swamped here, unable to respond to these fabulous posts here (though dying to and intending to jump back into the discussion asap), but for now I wanted to chime in with a quickie Star Wars thing--don't know how relevant this is, but Scott was discussing the movies with one of his comics-writer pals a while back and they were agreeing that Phantom Menace (film #4, I think? or #1 depending on how you count) isn't a good movie--but the friend said he'd listened to the director's commentary on the DVD and when he heard what George Lucas was *aiming* for with each scene, he was blown away by the vision. Still thinks the vision failed, but was intrigued by what Lucas was *trying* to do. Made me interested to listen to the commentary myself, though we've not gotten to it yet. I do enjoy listening to director's commentary on movies & hearing about what's behind various shots. Of course it isn't always PG, the commentary, and I have no idea how kid-safe the Phantom Menace commentary is. But I thought I'd mention it anyway for those of you w/ Star Wars enthusiasts...There can be a lot of great discussion generated by looking into what an author/director/artist was hoping to convey and what he actually did convey.
(Sorry so choppy...writing too quickly to be coherent.)
Lissa
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julia s.
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| Posted: May 09 2005 at 4:22pm | IP Logged
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Lissa wrote:
when he heard what George Lucas was *aiming* for with each scene, he was blown away by the vision. Still thinks the vision failed, but was intrigued by what Lucas was *trying* to do. Made me interested to listen to the commentary myself, though we've not gotten to it yet. I do enjoy listening to director's commentary on movies & hearing about what's behind various shots. Of course it isn't always PG, the commentary, and I have no idea how kid-safe the Phantom Menace commentary is. But I thought I'd mention it anyway for those of you w/ Star Wars enthusiasts...There can be a lot of great discussion generated by looking into what an author/director/artist was hoping to convey and what he actually did convey.
(Sorry so choppy...writing too quickly to be coherent.)
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I thought I'd jump in here -- one of my all time favorite modern directors is Robert Rodrigez He did the Spy Kids movies and the more adult Mexican series about the guitar playing assasin (Antonio Banderez and Johnny Depp). I like him because he is a one man (plus some a few other people) film studio and at the end of all his films there is a ten minute film lesson. He's very generous with his advice and for a mexican american to make it in the film business without any help from the establishment -- well he's awsome. He has Troublemaker Film Studios. (I can't spell very well right now because I'm in a rush, but I think you get the idea  ). I often thought if a child were interested in film making his little insights would be helpful.
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Cindy
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| Posted: May 09 2005 at 6:11pm | IP Logged
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Lissa wrote:
not gotten to it yet. I do enjoy listening to director's commentary on movies & hearing about what's behind various
Lissa |
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Very coherent, Lissa!
My boys (and I) love to listen to all the commentary. Some of the most interesting docs I saw on the SW DVDs were the orchestration and how John Williams did it all.
In fact... my oldest wrote a paper for a Bravewriter course on Irwin Kirshner and the impact he had on the Star Wars series and movies in general! :-) He listened to Lucus, Kirshner and others about the vision and process... very interesting.
(he chose the subject...can you tell?)
Great topic.. thanks for bringing it up!
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It Is About The Journey
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Willa
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| Posted: May 15 2005 at 7:58pm | IP Logged
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Erica Sanchez wrote:
No matter what kind of homeschooler we try to call ourselves, it is very, very clear that we deeply love our children, our faith and our decisions to homeschool in the first place!! For me, to witness how amazingly in touch we are with our children, regardless of homeschooling style, is fantastic.
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I do think that's the bottom line as far as I'm concerned. Everything that originally led me to homeschooling, and strengthened and confirmed my vision of it, was to do with family closeness and the "domestic church" as a seedbed of sanctity and relationships -- with each other, with God, with the outside community and the natural world and our cultural heritage. Not in that particular order, necessarily.
My fourth child spent days in the NICU and my oldest, who had prayed for a new little brother, couldn't be there for him because he had to be in school. That was what led me to make the leap to homeschooling in the first place. All the unschooling resources I originally read -- the early Growing without Schooling newsletters, some of John Holt's books and the Moores' -- showed me how parents and kids could work and learn together and create something unique.
Then Aidan's adventures in the medical world, and Paddy's, only refined this view of Life and Love being the most important things in this world, and all else being a means to an end. The Well Trained Mind came out that same year that we were in SF, and made the choice quite clear -- was my model of homeschooling one where suffering and caring for Aidan was a plus, or a minus? I couldn't go with an attitude that academics were more important than acts of mercy, so I had to clarify and test my intuition that REAL homeschooling was more than just a "well trained" or even "well educated" mind. Without Love, all that is just a clanging of cymbals.... vanity, and a blowing of wind.
The unschooling group at Yahoo says that unschooling is not a method, but a philosophy. In that sense, I don't call myself an unschooler because I can't see how that avoids relativism -- Sponge Bob is just as good as Shakespeare. If there is a way out of this philosophically -- I'm going to dig through the yahoo archives and glean! -- I haven't seen it yet.
But if unschooling is a method, a way of respecting the child and nurturing a love for learning, THEN I'm on board with it, though that's not the only method I use. Again, to me, the goal is a domestic and evangelical one and is deeply invested in my faith life.
So I think the labels CAN be helpful as a sort of summary or "type" of what we are trying to focus on, but our day to day will have to go beyond simple types or we won't have that flexibility to respond to our children and our family dynamics, and take our own needs and our dh's into consideration, and our lives as God's children.
Off my soapbox -- or actually soapboxes, since Paddy opened the jumbo Costco pack of them and they got strewn all over my room, and Aidan took one into the bathroom and turned it into a sea of foam in the sink---
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Unschooling, take 2 (The Tough Questions)
