thyme4change
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Joined: Dec 26, 2010 13:54:08 GMT -5
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Post by thyme4change on Apr 22, 2013 11:30:40 GMT -5
FWIW, I have no doubt that there are fantastic unschoolers out there. I think the success of the philosophy is totally reliant on the quality of the parents, and excellent parents will make excellent unschoolers. I think, though, that excellent parents would also make excellent parents of kids in public schools. Children of excellent parents will do well in most any situation because their parents care enough to put in the time/effort to help their kids. You would think a "good" unschooler would find a way to introduce a subject - at least to test the child's interest level. If the kid is bored, then you put it away. But, my kid wouldn't suddenly become interested in the War of 1812 if he had never heard of it. So, I could see how you would need to really creatively drop in certain subjects and see if the kid wants to learn more.
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Deleted
Joined: Jul 2, 2024 22:44:01 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2013 12:09:07 GMT -5
Story of the World on audio. Just enough not to catch your interest if you want to learn more, or know enough to not appear stupid if you don't ...
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Deleted
Joined: Jul 2, 2024 22:44:01 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2013 16:01:31 GMT -5
I do like Story of the world. We are on our second trip through, lol. The first time we did about a book a year the first two years, then the next three years we combined Story of the World 3&4 with Joy Hakim's The Hisory of US 1-10. Audios are our linear timeline/ jumping off point for history. I have the books and audios, but we usually do audios.
now daughter was really young the first time we started, so this year I found an 8 th grade history text, it covered the same topics as SOTW 1 & 2, so we combined that all for this year, giving them another listen. Interestingly enough, while sometimes the 8th grade text gave more info, sometimes SOTW was the better reference.
as always, if we want to know more, we read or watch doc, etc. fom there.
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Phoenix84
Senior Associate
Joined: Feb 17, 2011 21:42:35 GMT -5
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Post by Phoenix84 on Apr 22, 2013 16:27:09 GMT -5
I have not read most of the responses.
My take on it is I think it's fine for very young children learning basic concepts like ABC's and counting and the like. But It's not appropriate for teaching more advanced and abstract topics that people need to know. Especially with math, sometimes it's a slog to get through, but it's something you need to know.
Plus there's something to be gained from trying something that's hard. If all learning is self directed, people will usually choose what's most "fun" and "easy." So you'll likely end up not trying new things and fall into a rut where you'll only do what's fun and easy for you. In addition, lots of things are hard and not so fun when you first start them. It takes time, effort, practice, and discipline to get good. But once you get good at it, you unlock it's poential. A good example is music. It can be hard going at first and boring, but many people stick with it and master it and find a lot of enjoyment in it.
And there is something to be gained from perserverence through something long and hard.
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thyme4change
Community Leader
Joined: Dec 26, 2010 13:54:08 GMT -5
Posts: 40,506
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Post by thyme4change on Apr 22, 2013 22:23:32 GMT -5
I'm unschooling my kids on piano. Tonight I let them play the same song, over and over and over and over - even though their teacher gave them several things to practice. I hope they become interested in another song soon.
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