Seriously, I cannot stop my children from learning! I have been looking into unschooling for a little bit more than a year. In the last 14 months, I have read over 50 books on related subjects I have subscribed and read a couple of unschooling mailing lists for one or two hours everyday I have attended my first unschooling conference I have met many wonderful unschooling families and children I have over 60 or 70 new unschooling facebook "friends" I have talked to many people about education: teachers, parents or anyone who is willing to listen Yes, I have been totally immersing myself in this single subject: parenting/education/children/unschooling And I am still learning. My biggest concern before unschooling was how children could learn without textbook/school/teacher/or being taught. Yes, I read books about it, talked to people about it and thought very hard about it. But the real convincing answer came from my own children: I cannot stop them from learning! Just in the last week or two, we have touched upon the following subjects: Saturn (We watched the Saturn, its rings and moons through a telescope when we wandered at Maui Four Seasons Resort) Mars/Mars Exploration Rover/NASA Moon Frog/tadpole/toad/grass hopper/gecko/snail/bee/bird/ How to make battery/lemon battery/charging old battery with new battery/constructing forts/moving devices... Cave Tank/M1A1 main battle tank/battle field game (tank) Red dirt/Lava rock/pine cone/twig/branch/tree/flower/feather/chicken/egg/cottage/water fall/turtle/fish/crab/urchin/tidal pool/ Reading/phonics/ Telling time/learning numbers (hundred, thousand, million)/math (pattern) Swimming/diving/surfing/sand castle construction/standup paddle boarding/ New favorite games: battle field (tank), Ragdoll 2 (strategy, geometry, physics...), I dig it (business, finance, geology, planning, strategy, math...), Bloxorz (math, geometry, puzzle, pattern...), Gyroball (physics, control), checker/chess Watched many youtube videos on the above subjects, Chinese cartoon, Astro boy, Caliou, Kipper, Pingu, Donald duck, barbapappa, Angelina ballerina... Those are the things my DS 4.75 has done in the last week or two. My DD 1.75 has been into: 1. Talking both in Chinese and English 2. Swimming 3. Potty training herself 4. Communicating 5. Flower/Bird/Dog/Feather/Gecko/Frog/ 6. Astro boy/Caliou/Angelina Ballerina...and others I mentioned above 7. Feeding herself 8. Bathing herself and me 9. Talking on the phone 10. Shoes 11. Dancing/music/piano 12. Trying new foods 13. Moon 14. Testing mom's reaction Now I have no worry about their learning. The only concern is how I will keep up with them. :) They were born with unstoppable desire to learn, explore, and figure things out. They were born with tremendous capacity for seeking out and processing information. They were born with incredible imagination and creativity. They were born with amazing energy and motivation. Right, I cannot stop them from learning. Wait a minute, yes, I can. 1. Forcing them to learn things they are not interested 2. Pre-selecting things "I" think important and valuable 3. Testing and Grading their learning 4. Telling them they are not good enough 5. Telling them they "have to" do something 6. Saying lots of No, even better saying no automatically 7. Making sure what they learn will produce money, business or potential jobs 8. Making sure they achieve GPA4.0 at all cost 9. Making sure they follow the path that will lead to Ive League, starting at 3 years old 10. Making sure they understand "no pain no gain", learning can be painful 11. Banning TV and video games 12. Making sure they are disciplined, especially trained to get up at 6AM, go to school on time and do homework at night for the next 15 years, starting at 3 years old 13. Making sure they "learn" from books, especially textbooks at exactly the same time as his peers, en, the earlier the better 14. Making sure they follow rules and conform. ...... |