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Archives -
April, 2009
The New (and Greener) Era of Thrift – April 29, 2009
People are re-evaluating what is important in their lives, according to a newly
published
study by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project.
Researchers have found that, compared to just two years ago, an increasing
number of Americans have decided they can live without microwave ovens,
television sets (they’re gardening instead), home air conditioning,
dishwashers and clothes dryers. This reversal in defining what is essential has
to do with saving money, of course. But it can’t help but be good for both our
health and that of the environment. Let’s hope that, when the good times roll
once again, these energy-efficient lifestyle trends remain in place.
Posted: 2009/04/29 11:07 AM
Why Kids Don’t Like School – April 27, 2009
I was reading an essay last night by a highly educated mother who was unhappy
about the chaos in her son’s grade three classroom, and with the fact that he
was lethargic at school and not reaching his potential as a “scholar.” She
was equating his lack of interest with society’s expectations of black males.
No doubt that’s a problem, but as a white woman, I had lots of sympathy with
her son after reading her description of the classroom and school, where
maintaining “smoothly running classes” seemed to be the main focus. The
description was full of descriptions of kids behaving like they weren’t
engaged in what was going on or even wanting to be there. One of the assignments
in which the boy and his classmates had no interest involved writing a letter to
the drama teacher explaining the meaning of a play – a sure-fire way to
destroy anybody’s interest in reading, writing, plays and scholarship, all at the same
time!
I am always amazed at why people don’t get that forcing
people to do things “for their own good” is counterproductive. But today, a
news release came across my desk from the University of Virginia that gives me a tiny bit of hope that things could change. “If you ask high school students if they like to learn
new things, almost all of them will tell you they like to learn,” says
Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist. “But if you ask those same
students if they like school, many of them will tell you they don’t.” He
addresses these issues in a new book Why Don’t Students like School?, in which
he explains how the mind works – and what it means for the classroom and,
reportedly, for homeschooling parents. The mind is actually designed to avoid
thinking, he says, and forcing students to think makes them turn off.
“Thinking is a slow process; it’s effortful and even uncertain. People
naturally want to avoid that process, and instead rely on memory, the things we
already know how to do and are successful at.” However, he continues, people
also are curious and, paradoxically, we enjoy thinking.
He says that to teach somebody effectively – to
“create learning experiences that last” – one needs to find that “sweet
spot, a level where learning is neither too simplistic to be interesting, nor
too difficult to be enjoyable.” I do not believe we can create learning
experiences that last for other people. We can, however, create circumstances
that allow for real learning to happen. We can, in effect, trust people to find that “sweet spot”
for themselves. That is what happens naturally when kids are engaged in a topic
that interests them: Their learning is in context, builds upon previous learning
and is at exactly the right level to satisfy their urge to explain the world
without turning them off because the experience is too difficult or too boring.
The best learning experiences – those that create real learning – are those
instigated by learners, based on curiosity and interest…and on the trust that
they won’t have to regurgitate what they have learned in some meaningless way
like writing a letter to someone to explain something they already know.
Posted: 2009/04/27 12:52 PM
You Know You’re On the Right Track When… – April 24, 2009
Apparently, pesticide producers are feeling threatened these days. In Canada,
Ontario has just activated the toughest cosmetic pesticide ban in the country (it
has some faults, in my opinion, but it’s a good start) and Michelle Obama
has had some of the White House lawn dug up for an organic garden. However,
word is that at least one industry organization is
trying to do something about it. The Mid America CropLife
Association (MACA), which represents more than 60 U.S.-based chemical companies,
has sent a letter to the First Lady
(wish there was a better term for her) trying to educate her about the value of
toxic chemicals in agriculture. The text, which has upset locavores and the
organic community alike, condescendingly informs her that, "We live in a
very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs
with the needs of children and aging parents. The time needed to tend a garden
is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of
sufficient productivity to supply much of a family's year-round food needs...”
Well, I guess they do not know much about the general population, which is
growing its own food in a major way right now...mostly to avoid the pesticides and other nasties their industry peddles.
MACA also sends its ambassadors into the classroom to spread its toxic
propaganda about the place for toxins in agriculture. Here’s a petition of support for the Obama’s garden.
Posted: 2009/04/24 12:46 PM
How Life Learners Learn to Read – April 16, 2009
Homeschooling researcher and author
Alan Thomas, from the London University Institute of Education in the
U.K. has just been in touch. Alan authored a wonderfully honest and perceptive article in
Life Learning’s March/April 2007 issue about his early research on
how unschooled children learn. Along with fellow researcher Harriet
Pattison, he is inviting unschooling families to help with some new research on
learning to read. Here’s part of what Alan wrote to me just now (I have posted his complete letter)
on the Life Learning site:
“It’s probably no exaggeration to
say that home educators have done more to advance the scientific understanding
of the nature of learning than a century of research based in schools. Home
educating families do not have to adhere to the conventions and traditions that
have grown to surround learning in schools. Instead, they have the freedom and
indeed the compulsion to custom design an education that suits them, their
children and their lifestyles. Nowhere is this freedom clearer than when it
comes to unschooling where the philosophy of the classroom is abandoned as
learning ceases to be a separately definable part of life. The result is a form
of education in which the theories which support professional education in
school are contradicted and questioned at every turn.
“Where home educators lead,
researchers have to follow, trying to unravel how this learning actually
happens. Certainly there is currently no satisfactory academic understanding of
the kind of informal or natural learning demonstrated by unschooled children at
home. Our recent research described in our book How Children Learn at Home
seeks to begin the job of
filling this theoretical black hole.
“In the next stage of our research we are
focusing on th fascinating topic of how unschooled children learn how to read.
If you have a child or children who have learned to read at home, either wholly
or in part, whether from a structured scheme or in any other way, we would very
much like to hear from you and learn about your experiences, good or bad. We have posted a short questionnaire on our website,
where you will also find contact details if you would prefer to get in touch
directly. Whatever you have to say
will be fascinating and valuable to us.”
Posted: 2009/04/16 10:46 AM
Naomi Aldort – April 15, 2009
I have just heard from popular Natural Life columnist
Naomi Aldort about some of the online, radio and telephone work she is doing.
And I thought I’d pass it along in case anyone is interested in going beyond
reading her helpful thoughts. Today, she is doing a
free online radio interview. (Choose the last lecture in the square called
“Have a well behaved child...”) A previous interview with Naomi is also
available on that site. On April 27, she will be interviewed by
Attachment Parenting International as a fundraiser. She also does a telephone
parenting class on the first Sunday of each month at 11am PST. The subject and
other information is on her website, which also has
links to her YouTube videos. Enjoy!
Posted: 2009/04/15 5:08 PM
No Use For Marks – April 15, 2009
Marks have been in the news quite a lot recently. First there was the
University of Ottawa professor who lost his job because he doesn’t believe in marks. (He has other
unconventional and invigorating ideas that don’t sit well with the academy,
that you can read about in the article…in one instance, he allowed a couple of
10-year-olds to register for one of his coursse with their mother – and
supported the filing of a human-rights complaint claiming ageism when the
university said they couldn’t stay.) Then there is the apparent “problem” of private tutors/schools granting higher marks to teens that they
were getting in public school.
Marks are, after all, sacred in schools because they serve as the
currency that makes the educational economy work. They are, as a consequence –
and just like praise and other rewards offered by schools and many parents
–
used
as bribes to get young people to behave in way that society wants. They also
encourage competition, as the second article illustrates. But they have nothing
to do with learning. As Alfie Kohn writes
in his 1999 book Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive
Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes, the use of marks and grades in education
is based on Pavlovian and Skinnerian behavioral theories, which are supported by
experiments with laboratory animals. Unlike rats, people are motivated by
autonomy and choice, as well as curiosity and relevance to their lives. And that
is one of unfortunate problems with the use of marks in schools: Self-direction,
independent thinking and collaboration are traits highly in demand these days
but our educational systems are too fearful of the consequences of those traits
to nurture them. So they plod along defending meaningless and debilitatingly
old-fashioned practices.
Posted: 2009/04/15 4:29 PM
Misplaced Mommy Wars – April 9, 2009
The Atlantic magazine recently published The Case Against Breastfeeding, written by contributing editor Hanna Rosin. In a
nutshell, the author feels that the benefits of breastfeeding are not all that
huge and that a commitment to breastfeeding puts other things at risk,
such as “modesty, career, independence and sanity.” And she’s getting a
lot of media coverage for her attitude.
In a well-time and well-aimed
return salvo (accompanied by a press release claiming to “set the record straight”...apparently
wars sell magazines), Mothering magazine Publisher Peggy O’Mara
eviscerates Rosin’s “cursory review” of the breastfeeding research
and points out that this is a case of misplaced anger.
As Peggy notes, breastfeeding is not the problem. The
problem, as I also point out in my Natural Life magazine article about feminism and
unschooling, is the lack of respect and support for the work of caregiving,
which includes breastfeeding, unschooling and other aspects of parenting. Rosin
writes, “If a breast-feeding mother is miserable, or stressed out, or
alienated by nursing, as many women are, if her marriage is under stress and
breast-feeding is making things worse, surely that can have a greater effect on
a kid’s future success than a few IQ points.” Perhaps. But the
solution to such a sad situation is not formula – in the same way schooling
isn’t the solution to our educational and daycare crisis. The solution is to
fix the
underlying problem. And that requires changing society’s values.
Neither does the solution lie in escalating the war among
women, of which, I think, Rosin is guilty. She disdains the culture of
motherhood and natural parenting, describing mothers who “obsess about
breast-feeding” – “the urban moms in their tight jeans and oversize
sunglasses” sizing each other up “using a whole range of signifiers: organic
content of snacks, sleekness of stroller, ratio of tasteful wooden toys to
plastic.” Revealingly, she admits to breastfeeding her baby son – although
not “slavishly.” Perhaps if she and other mothers felt that their
role was more valued – and if they had more support from the men in
their lives – there wouldn’t be the need for attitude on either side of the
debate. Or maybe the debate could end.
Posted: 2009/04/09 10:38 AM
Home Education Day – April 8, 2009
A woman in Ohio has organized the second annual Home Education
Day in her community and hopes to broaden its scope across the country and
beyond. It will happen this year on April 14. There is a day, week, hour or year
to celebrate just about anything, so why not educational diversity? This just
might be a tool that families can use to publicize family-based,
learner-directed education in their own communities.
Posted: 2009/04/08 12:05 PM
We Don’t Need No Education – April 7, 2009
A wonderful
article has just been posted to an academic journal about unschooling (now,
there’s an oxymoron for you) that documents the process of self-teaching music
and compares it to unschooling. Even more interesting is that it’s written
by an education professor who was inspired by a question from one of his
“curriculum methods” students. He describes the “war” between taught and
self-taught musicians, then goes on to write about his own joyous life-long
hands-on approach to music, his unhappy stint studying music at university and
his subsequent alternative approach to teaching music at the secondary school
level and parallel career as a professional musician. There appears to be hope
for academia.
Posted: 2009/04/07 11:53 AM
Why Trusting Kids is So Hard – March 29, 2009
A woman called me the other day in tears. She misses Life Learning magazine
(now part of Natural Life) a
lot because it helped her trust her children to learn. Why is trusting children
so hard? Why do we find it so difficult to trust them to learn, to eat
properly, to develop “good manners” (meaning to treat others mindfully), to
generally do the right thing? Trusting kids isn’t popular in our
society. We “know” that they can’t make their own decisions, that they
won’t say “thank you” unless we teach them to, that they’ll grow up to
be slobs unless we bribe them to do “chores.” (That word “chores” is a
topic for another day.)
I think it’s because we don’t trust ourselves and,
therefore, can’t trust our children.. And that’s because our parents and our
teachers didn’t trust us. After all, society says children aren’t
trustworthy, and that they are loud, inconsiderate and uninterested in learning
about the world around them unless forced. Growing up, most of us weren’t allowed to
make our own decisions – what to wear, what and when to eat, whether or not we
were cold, what friends to have, what to learn, to participate in family
decision making. We were managed, not trusted. We were dictated to, not allowed
to think. Then, as we became young adults, our parents and teachers worried
about us – not realizing that their lack of trust and the resulting control
had ill-prepared us to make our own decisions. In the end, their lack of trust
became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Most of us broke out of that, learned from the mistakes we made. But many of us have spent a lot of time and money on therapy,
retreats, workshops and self-help books in order to learn to trust ourselves.
And, when we find it hard to trust our children, we are passing along the legacy
of our upbringing and schooling.
Those of us who have decided there is another way need to
be sure the pattern doesn’t get repeated. We need to give our children the
message that they know what is best for them, and that we are available to help and
guide them if they are confused...and ask for our help. By choosing life
learning, we have chosen to protect and encourage their ability to
live their lives with joy and the knowledge of who they are. We can listen to
and treat them with respect. We can model self-respect, mindfulness and care for
others. But we also need to be kind to ourselves as we walk the alternative
parenting path, remembering that trusting kids is not something that we’re
programmed for.
Posted: 2009/03/29 9:43 AM
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