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LLMom
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| Posted: Sept 27 2005 at 6:28pm | IP Logged
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Please help me with these questions. THis has been swimming around in my head about unschooling and the effects of original sin. The one in particular that keeps jumping out at me is the fact that we tend to take the easy way out and avoid unpleasant things. Now I did read the idea in Homeschooling with Gentleness and wasn't really convinced by her idea. I know I personally don't like to do certain things but do them because I must. How do kids learn this? I assume I learned it by doing some school work that I hated. Does this style of schooling breed laziness? Also what about order. I have heard people say that we as Catholics should be orderly because God is a God of order.
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Karen E.
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| Posted: Sept 27 2005 at 9:59pm | IP Logged
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LLMom wrote:
| I know I personally don't like to do certain things but do them because I must. How do kids learn this? I assume I learned it by doing some school work that I hated. Does this style of schooling breed laziness? Also what about order. I have heard people say that we as Catholics should be orderly because God is a God of order. |
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Dear LLMom:
I'm about to head to bed, so this will be quick -- I hope it doesn't sound terse, because I don't mean it to. I'm just tired and hurrying. 
My kids have to:
get up in the morning
make beds
shower, get dressed, brush teeth
clean up, pick up room
do dishes
help with laundry
feed the cat, the hamster and check the hermit crabs
play with their baby sister
help with bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting, etc.
help with meals
help with yard work
follow my rules re. TV, computer and radio
follow my rules re. bedtime
and ... well, you get the idea
Their fallen nature leaves them not particularly wanting to do any of this stuff, but they do it because I'm teaching them that we do things for love of God and family. Life, in my opinion, is full of plenty of things we don't want to do without throwing in 37 math problems just for practice.
As far as order, it's certainly entirely true that God is a God of order, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all people learn all subjects best in a linear fashion. I think it's faulty logic to say that one follows from the other. God designed a wide variety of temperaments and learning styles. If only anecdotally, it's clear to me that we do not all learn in the same way, and linear study is not necessarily a superior method for a given child, though it may be for some children, and may be more so for certain subjects.
This is a quick answer, and I'm actually working on a longer defense of Catholic unschooling, but it's a work-in-progress in its beginning stages, so I don't really have much more of substance to add just yet.
I'm off to bed!
__________________
God bless,
Karen E.
mom to three on earth, and several souls in God's care
Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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Leonie
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| Posted: Sept 28 2005 at 12:21am | IP Logged
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I don't think I am qualified to answer your question , but I did want to mention your point re order.
We actually are an orderly family. We have routines in place. I strew in an orderly fashion.
We live a (mostly) orderly life.
Our unschoolish-ness ( is there such a word?) doesn't affect this order.There is order in the children's lives and in their learning - but the order in the learning depends on the child, on his gifts, on the topic, on the different ways of learning.
How do my kids learn to do things they don't want to do? Well, part of this is solved just by living in a large,busy family. We all pitch in.
Part of it is solved by my exhortations and example.By compromise and discussion.
Part of this comes up through our celebration of the Sacraments, through our reading and discussion.
Nobody does what they want all the time. As a corollary, nobody does what they hate all the time.
Life is a mixture and unschooling, I think is not about everybody doing what they want.
The way I see unschooling is the family learning together, being child and family oriented and not necessarily learning in a schooled fashion.
Just my .02!
__________________
Leonie in Sydney
Living Without School
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tovlo4801
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| Posted: Sept 28 2005 at 6:26am | IP Logged
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I think Karen and Leonie answered your question wonderfully. I'm glad because as I contemplated your question last night, a bit of a tangent from it crossed my path. I didn't want to muddy the waters, but I think I'll post it now that there has been such a good answers to your question.
My tangent is almost the flip side of your question. You wonder about the necessity of sticking to a task and not floating about wherever desire takes a child. I'm doing an on-line Ignatian Retreat. The following quote was from the instructions for this week:
"Stay where you find fruit. This direction from Ignatius is very wise. If I've experienced fruit - consolation, some wonderful insight, a closeness to God, even a new awareness - I can trust that that gift is a signal from God: "Look deeper here, my dear friend, for I have so much more I want to give you." Another way of looking at this is to imagine receiving a gift, all wrapped in paper and ribbon and a big bow. I can know it's a gift, and even know who the giver is, and even say "thank you," without opening it. This direction from Ignatius invites us to explore the gift and discover what it really is."
As I thought about your question and then added this instruction to the mix, it occurred to me that sometimes by pushing through a program for the sake of discipline we miss God's inspiration. There needs to be a balance of course, but I think Karen and Leonie have demonstrated how that balance can be achieved in a home through means other than a structured school program that doesn't leave room for the exploration of fruits of interest that God grants to our children.
Then today I was reading the meditation in my Magnificat and it occured to me again that there was a message there about being willing to follow the flow God provides to our life rather than clinging to our man-made plans. (The meditation was about sudden horror at our sins for context.)
"...These thoughts come to you suddenly, when your mind is far removed from them, to teach you that this is a pure grace. Why, you ask, did you formerly have such exactly opposite feelings when remembering the past? The reason is that formerly you would not have endured this spectacle of your imperfections without complete despondency. Your need then was a surpassing hope; your need now is that blessed horror of self in which lies the heart's true penitence. When God gives you such thoughts, accept them peacefully, gratefully, and with thanksgiving; and when they pass away, let them go, abandoning yourself entirely to all that God pleases to do in you, and for as long as he pleases; but do not cling on to any of the interior dispositions he may will to give you, and do not regret those he takes from you."
While these two writings both refer to spiritual insights, I don't see the desire to learn differently. To me learning is the desire to know God more deeply. I guess what I thought as I contemplated these two writings, is that we should not always assume that a desire to learn something that then after a period of time goes away is simply original sin and a desire to avoid difficulty. It might actually be true inspiration from God and then the passing of that inspiration to a new task from God.
Again, I think you're question is a good one and one best not forgotten so that we don't fall into laziness and a lack of discipline, but just wanted to offer up another perspective on following your interests.
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Leonie
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Richelle,
Thank you for adding your comments. They remind me to focus on prayer and to remember to factor in the spiritual realm.
__________________
Leonie in Sydney
Living Without School
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Karen E.
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| Posted: Sept 28 2005 at 7:48am | IP Logged
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tovlo4801 wrote:
"Stay where you find fruit. This direction from Ignatius is very wise. If I've experienced fruit - consolation, some wonderful insight, a closeness to God, even a new awareness - I can trust that that gift is a signal from God: "Look deeper here, my dear friend, for I have so much more I want to give you."
..........
As I thought about your question and then added this instruction to the mix, it occurred to me that sometimes by pushing through a program for the sake of discipline we miss God's inspiration. |
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Richelle,
What a beautiful post. Thank you.
tovlo4801 wrote:
| Again, I think you're question is a good one and one best not forgotten so that we don't fall into laziness and a lack of discipline, but just wanted to offer up another perspective on following your interests. |
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Yes, and I want to second that it is a good question, and definitely one worth sorting out as we view unschooling from a Catholic, rather than from a secular, perspective. I think there's a great deal of difference.
And again, I know there are some who would say, "If you have all these ideas and plans and do so much guidance, why even call it UNschooling?" For me, "unschooling" is just a more convenient label (though as I said in a post on the self-direction thread, I don't like to label our homeschool ... too long a label!) Unschooling is more accurately a "code" for what Leonie described: non-traditional, child/family oriented, open to child-led interests, and all that .... 
__________________
God bless,
Karen E.
mom to three on earth, and several souls in God's care
Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: unschooling & original sin
