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Welcome to these regular musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings by Wendy Priesnitz. Archives - June, 2004 Nurturing
Autonomy – June 29, 2004 Success
and Failure – June 22, 2004 In fact, success is not a condition
or even a permanent state of being. It is a process of
accomplishing what is required to achieve a task or realize a dream,
plus the lessons you learn along the way. And those lessons are
invaluable even if the goal is not realized. Unfortunately, our society
doesn’t see it this way. Success and failure are black or white, good
or bad, proud or shameful. If being successful is good, then failing is
bad. Failure often is accompanied by shame and ridicule. This leads us
to a paralyzing fear of failure. We become focused on trying not to fail
instead of trying to succeed. We avoid taking risks, hold ourselves back
from fully living, from learning and inevitably from experiencing
opportunities for success. Young children are good at
becoming successful. They ask incisive questions, they acquire
information, they experiment...they undertake the process of success.
But they, too, can learn to fear failure if their inquisitiveness
gets turned off by teachers or parents or if they are made to feel
self-conscious if they don’t appear to achieve success. Making
Change – June 21, 2004 In
Charge of Someone Else – June 17, 2004 We
chatted for quite some time and she began to agree that her organizing
was getting in the way of the sort of learning she envisioned for her
family. But I continue to be troubled by our conversation; why was the
definition of unschooling so important to her, I wonder. I hear from
people who frequent email discussion groups that there are often heated
discussions about whether or not a certain person is truly unschooling
in some kind of pure way, and that some people have even been ostracized
from online and face-to-face unschooling groups because their way of
living with their children doesn’t fit the definition. Yikes! That’s
scary. But it is understandable among people who are rejecting the
status quo and who therefore welcome the comfort of an identifiable peer
group, not to mention some rules to define the parameters of an
otherwise unruly life/learning style. And we should not forget that
there is no one right way to help all kids learn all of the time. Sure
there are some principles in which I passionately believe, but they will
not work if both parent and child don’t feel comfortable. To each
their own! Now about those definitions.... Fairytales
– June 16, 2004 Why?
Educators (and many parents) tell me it is utopian and impractical, not
to mention practically impossible for many families. Nonsense! If we
really wanted to make life learning available to all, we could and
would. Even though most adults would have to admit to the poverty and
dullness of their own school experiences, and even though the
experiences of many thousands of unschoolers prove there is a better
way, few people are willing to admit the Emperor Has No Clothes.
Even the majority of homeschoolers believe that children must be made to
learn – at least “the basics” – using workbooks, curriculum
programs and other specially tailored products. Part of the problem is
that those products are part of a huge school industry, which has a
vested interest in perpetuating the myth that tests, texts and teachers
are essential to educational success. But aside from that powerful
influence, I often wonder why it is so difficult for families to take
that leap of faith away from their own familiar experiences toward
something so much better, even when they admit that their own
experiences were not all that positive. Baby
Signs Feedback – June 14, 2004 Baby
Signs – June 3, 2004 This could be seen as an extension
of the gestures most babies learn to make, such as waving goodbye and
pointing to mommy’s breast when it’s time to eat. Or it could
be seen as an extension of the
give-them-a-head-start/teach-your-baby-to-read philosophy, which I
detest. Drs. Linda Acredolo and Susan
Goodwyn and child development specialist Joseph Garcia “discovered”
baby signing in the 1980s. Acredolo and Goodwyn conducted the research
for the National Institute of Health that is said to demonstrate the
language and cognitive benefits of baby signing. Their research seems to
show that teaching babies to sign increases their IQ and enables them to
talk at an earlier age than those who don’t. Babies who sign
apparently do better on infant IQ tests at age two. Age two??? Garcia is the author of Sign
With Your Baby. Acredolo and Goodwyn authored the book Baby
Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk.
And they have written other books, including a whole raft of baby signs
for specific purposes titles and Baby Minds: Brain Building Games
Your Baby Will Love. There are both supporters and
skeptics of baby signing and the claims made in its favor. It seems to
act as a bridge into speech, rather than delaying the spoken word. Some
psychologists feel that any developmental advantages may come from the
close contact between parent and child, rather than from signing
specifically, and say that, like with early reading, everybody catches
up in the end. Signing may reduce parental frustration and thus decrease
family stress – ever tried to figure out whether your fretful baby was
hungry, wet, uncomfortable, cold, hot or otherwise upset? And there
certainly doesn’t seem to be any harm done, except perhaps to the
family bank account.
Like any movement – especially
those that involve parents who are vulnerable to spending money because
they want to give their kids a head start – this one is breeding an
industry of baby sign language instructors, videos, CDs, books, websites
and even home business opportunities.
Next week, I will be on vacation,
which is a rare occurrence. So I will not be posting to this blog until
at least June 13. Return
to current weblog copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2004-2007 |
Topics & Passions: natural learning ~ What I'm reading:
The Rapture of Maturity - A Legacy of Lifelong
Learning by Charles D. Hayes (2004, Autodidactic Press)
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