Unschooling Voices: March’s question.
March 1st, 2008 at 12:31 am (Unconditional Parenting/unschooling, blog carnivals)
What do you do, as an unschooling parent, when your child expresses an interest in a particular topic and you don’t know how to help them in a way that doesn’t involve lesson plans and curriculum?
This question stumped me. I don’t know that I’ve come across this. I think we always resort to the internet, or I ping it right back at my kids and get them to come up with ideas of how to find out about what they want to know about … and they usually come up with something that isn’t bound by the blinkered thinking we get from having been in school or teacher training.
I think these sorts of questions/needs usually come up in a real life context that seems to supply the solution in itself.
Maybe I’m missing something and will need to look more closely at this in the future if and when my kids’ learning maybe becomes more abstract and less connected to life contexts?
I’m going to be well and truly interested to see what others write about this.
Stephanie said,
March 1, 2008 at 9:40 pm
That’s what I believe also it completely depends on the topic of interest.
Alison said,
March 5, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Seems like a completely bizarre question to me. I can’t see how lesson plans and curricula would be the obvious immediate response to any expression of interest. My general knowledge, books, the internet, asking other people – don’t think we’ve come across anything that’s not covered by those 4 yet!
(Which reminds me, I’m supposed to be looking up gas holders and earthdog tests!)
Elle said,
March 18, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I agree with Alison completely. We love books and here and spend a lot of time at the library. Alot of our learning happens after a trip to the library! Internet is brilliant, of course, but you can surf for ever and ever and get completely side-tracked (which can be a good thing sometimes too). Sometimes I take a seeky peek at lesson plans on the internet, but 9.9 times out of 10 the peek lasts for a split second!
Love the blog graphics/paper (whatever it’s called) by the way.
Elle
slingmumma said,
April 1, 2008 at 5:00 pm
it’s called Japanese Fleur by Lorelei … see link at the bottom of the page.
xxx