Relevance Matters to Learning... No Surprise to Home Educators!

This article on Edutopia's site (George Lucas's Educational Foundation) explains how the brain "wires in" new information.  If its relevant and connected to previous learning... it'll stick!
According to the article the 3 key points for implementation are:

• Keep it interesting by using intrigue to inspire interest
• Make it student directed. (don't we know it!)
• Connect it to current knowledge and make it relevant to their lives.

Now if you take off the controlling verb (as in you are "keeping" it interesting, "making" it student directed, and "connecting" it) and instead apply it to an individual unschoolishly home educating, you can see how we all find interesting things, decide to explore that which we find interesting, and then experience that joy of connection when we find a relationship to existing knowledge!  Thats what sticks.
My favorite part of home educating is that excited relating my children do when they've made one of these exciting connections... Love It!


 What do you think?

NY Times Article on Effective Studying

For those who want to learn something, you may have to unlearn what you were told about how to study!
Although this article doesn't cover how humans learn "naturally" it does offer exciting information on how to apply techniques that will improve your results for traditional studying.
After you read the article, please pop back in and let me know what you think.
Have a great day!

C-SPAN Presidential Timeline

For those who are interested in our Presidents this is a very cool resource. I am getting it because I am woefully ignorant of the Presidents who presided after Lincoln and before Nixon :-) Its never too late to learn, right?

***2nd Update***
This offer has expired :-(  I will let you know if I find any other sources or if they repost this offer.

**Update***
Our Timeline arrived and I wanted to tell you, it is gorgeous! It is huge and each element is visible. I can't wait to put it up on our wall! Feel free to post any questions!

All those Wasted Resources

As I go over and over in my mind some way... any way... to create a resource center for the local home educating community I realized the despicable waste of resources that is Public School in the United States.

Just think of all that tax money going to management. On the United States Department of Labor site Bureau of Labor Statistics I found the following information:

According to a survey of public schools conducted by Educational Research Service, average salaries for principals and assistant principals in the 2007-2008 school year were as follows:

Principals:
Senior high school	$97,486
Jr. high/middle school	91,334
Elementary school	85,907
Assistant principals:
Senior high school	79,391
Jr. high/middle school	76,053
Elementary school	71,192

Now, don't misunderstand me. Its not that I believe that the *Job Description* doesn't warrant those earnings (all though it does seem a bit too cushy to me - especially when teachers have to buy classroom resources with their own money). No, what I mean may even be more offensive.

I mean that all this talk about school reform is because the schools are failing. And all of that money going to an admitted failure is painful to see when the answer is quite simple.

Let the children mess about!

Take John Holt's sage advice and just let them 'mess about'. All those wonderful resources! Things like math games, gym equipment, books, books, books!

Even more inspiring is all those talented teachers who would love to share their knowledge with kids who want to learn what they love to teach. If only we could take away our need to control these children and let them lead using the amazing resources available in public school. The teachers could be reinvigorated as Scaffolding Experts (see Howard Gardner's work on the concept of scaffolding).

You'd be surprised what children ask to learn when you truly let go of your demands and expectations and just let them Be. They learn what they need. They learn what they want. They retain what they learn.

It may have to stay in the realm of dreams for us for a while, but I know I'm not the only one with Resource dreams. Someday we will see this option available for a large portion of our young people. Dream with me.

Why I Thought We Weren't Unschoolers

I always thought we couldn't claim the title unschoolers because we are natural homebodies! I'm not sure I want the label, it is just the learning style that resonates most with me, not necessarily my children, though!

I think I may have mentioned that I have the two greatest kids in the world (;-) and each child is completely unique, but they share some commonalities. Both intensely dislike being in crowds and my youngest is particularly slow to warm up in public situations (and with strangers). They are both intellectually inclined, big readers, and they both love computers.

For me unschooling is really about life learning and I have seen what a miraculous thing this is first hand. Truly, I feel that in order to learn from life, you have to get out there and join in the ruckus of real life!

There are museums to go to, painting in the park, working in the community garden, going to co-op for a foreign language or science and all of these things are available in spades.

In our particular case, my children don't want to participate in these types of events. So what is a fond proponent of unschooling to do?

Should I, would I, could I force my children to get out more? Unh unh. Not a chance. Not only would that violate our family principles (thank you Joyce Fetterol) but it simply wouldn't work! It wouldn't allow me to raise my children up "whole".

I went through every other option available to me, but I was most pleased when I came to the happy road of acceptance and logic.

The logical and obvious fact that my children are going to end up great, no matter what! My job is to observe, scaffold, listen, and, if I'm lucky, learn along with them.

So, we have taken a different path and worked on Howard Gardner's concept of scaffolding our children's interests in tandem with cooperative learning. So far, this has worked out well for us.

Since I don't force or coerce my children to learn anything, some unschooling schools of thought (ha ha) will permit us to call ourselves unschoolers, and therefore it is now up to me to name ourselves.  Of course it really was all along! 

What are your thoughts?

Well, this is getting repetetive!

2 Years Later.... Again! Almost exactly. I have to apply for a 'worst blogger' award :-p

A Quick Catchup:
We have continued our eclectic home education style, nurturing each child's interests and braving the weird world of quasi-unschooling.
I don't reject curriculum outright and my children often seek to remain on par with their age peers so we combine cooperative, strengths based learning with unschooling.
In my next post I'll explain why we aren't technically unschoolers.