Monday, October 6, 2008

This has got me pondering

A friend of mine and I were having a discussion about what unschooling is this weekend. I had always seen her as doing more schoolish stuff than I do but from something I had written and that she had read, she said, "We're really not that much different."

So, naturally, this got me thinking.

My friend said something about waiting till kids are ready to introduce different concepts, ideas....not just trying to "fill that pail."

I know we've all tried to define it as what it is for us...but could it part of it be the idea that we wait until the child is ready to strew material they're ready for - kind of like St. Paul - "When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. "

What do you think? And if this is more a question for the loop, please delete this post.

3 comments:

Leonie said...

I wonder if unschooling is more about letting th child lead the way, not just about waiting for them to be ready. It seems a difference of semantics yet I think it is more than that.

Ladybug Mommy Maria said...

I think it's more than that, too...maybe a combination?

It seems like such a difficult definition to nail down but I see so much learning when it is self-directed - and instinctively they pick it up...

Barbara C. said...

I think it depends on what she meant about "til the kids are ready". If she meant until the kids are developmentally ready, then that seems more like the Moore's theory. If she meant until the kids are interested in initiating, I think that is closer to unschooling. I suspect she meant the former rather than the latter, though.