Re: #3 about Teaching and Learning
This question is almost as hard as the last. I had maybe fourteen teachers at school age, including ballet and music teachers but I'm probably missing a few: I don't remember my ballet and tap teachers from when I was very small. Another fifteen or so at college,? plus five at a music summer school I attended. I don't even remember the names of most of them.
Bernadette.
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 at 00:45, Sandra Dodd < Sandra@...> wrote: Question #3 of 7, for thinking about teaching and learning, from some ancient list I made. :-:
How many teachers have you had in your life?? (You might count private lessons, classes outside school, Sunday School, this workshop, other workshops, campe counselors, Scout leaders, 4-H leaders)
?
2020 note:? That was written to and for people in New Mexico at a homeschooling conference in the 1990s where most were Christian homeschoolers, so the assumption that they knew what 4-H was and might've gone to Sunday School at one time, or still, was not unreasonable under the circumstances.? Amend it to your own life and experiences without thinking I'm a prejudiced dork, if you can.? :-)
?
?
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Re: #3 about Teaching and Learning
I think I might have been more awash than Sandra! My grade 1-7 elementary school only had "self-contained" classrooms in first grade. After that we had "homeroom"? for core subjects and moved to various other teachers for P.E., auditorium, music, art, gym.? And overcrowded high school had 7 periods. Different Sunday School and Training Union and Girls Auxiliary teachers every year until I stopped as a teen. Girl Scout Troop one year had 3 leaders! And youth choir and summer camp.
Thanks Sandra. I had not considered how great the number of "formal" teachers might be.?
Lots of learning in my case in? "informal" settings.
Vicki
On Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 10:29 PM Sandra Dodd < Sandra@...> wrote: Elementary, six teachers.??
Jr. High, 6x3
Summer school, two summers, 3 teachers
high school, I left a year early, we had some six-week-rotation electives...? two teachers repeated...? I'll say 12
Public school 39, give or take, adding substitutes sometimes.... never mind them.
Sunday school, only one I really remember.
Piano, one
Flower arranging through 4-H, one
University 30? (I didn't really count.? I allowed six per semester, to include one-hour classes and psychology lab techs, and biology lab guy.? I went to summer session twice; called those two one semester)
Those three I mentioned before for guitar, recorder calligraphy
Seventy-five teachers by the time I was 21
Sheesh!
Oh.? Caliigraphy, I was 25.? Fine.? Then some grad school, dropped out, twice...??
My life was awash in teachers, and I really wanted to become one, too (and did)
Sandra
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Re: #3 about Teaching and Learning
Oh, I forgot Miss Lopez my early-elementary music teacher and Florencio Montoya, art in elementary and Jr. High...? so I counted him for Jr. High already. Miss Lopez, I never knew her first name, but we would go to her room for music, when I was in 3rd and 4th grade, and it had been my 2nd grade classroom, which might be why I remember. She was young, and loved Stephen Foster, and played piano.? Stephen Foster songs are the most politically incorrect things in my head, and I know several of them, thanks to her. :-) Florencio Montoya was a silversmith, and would sometimes work quietly on jewelry while the students were drawing.? He was quiet, and his classroom was often really quiet. I could tell lots of stories about his house, his son, his life, where they moved later...? So many stories in so many people.? I bet you're all full of stories, too, in all directions. :-)? Tell some of you want to!! Sandra
On Sat, Jun 27, 2020 at 5:45 PM Sandra Dodd < Sandra@...> wrote: Question #3 of 7, for thinking about teaching and learning, from some ancient list I made. :-:
How many teachers have you had in your life?? (You might count private lessons, classes outside school, Sunday School, this workshop, other workshops, campe counselors, Scout leaders, 4-H leaders)
?
2020 note:? That was written to and for people in New Mexico at a homeschooling conference in the 1990s where most were Christian homeschoolers, so the assumption that they knew what 4-H was and might've gone to Sunday School at one time, or still, was not unreasonable under the circumstances.? Amend it to your own life and experiences without thinking I'm a prejudiced dork, if you can.? :-)
?
?
The list, if you want to go full speed on your own, is here:??
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Re: #3 about Teaching and Learning
Elementary, six teachers.??
Jr. High, 6x3
Summer school, two summers, 3 teachers
high school, I left a year early, we had some six-week-rotation electives...? two teachers repeated...? I'll say 12
Public school 39, give or take, adding substitutes sometimes.... never mind them.
Sunday school, only one I really remember.
Piano, one
Flower arranging through 4-H, one
University 30? (I didn't really count.? I allowed six per semester, to include one-hour classes and psychology lab techs, and biology lab guy.? I went to summer session twice; called those two one semester)
Those three I mentioned before for guitar, recorder calligraphy
Seventy-five teachers by the time I was 21
Sheesh!
Oh.? Caliigraphy, I was 25.? Fine.? Then some grad school, dropped out, twice...??
My life was awash in teachers, and I really wanted to become one, too (and did)
Sandra
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Re: About Teaching and Learning #1
-=-And I¡¯m only stopping there as the rule is 5!!! -=-
Feel free to continue if you're still in the mood!
The numbers were on that page partly because it was a way for people to get in the mood while they waited for the session to start. It was purposefully very schooly-seeming, thought the topic was very "are you ready to step away from school?" :-)
The conference that year was very awkward, and resulted in a split of the state homeschooling organization in New Mexico at the time, because there were too many heathen unschoolers, finally, and the too-serious Christian homeschoolers began to feel affronted. So I spoke at two conferences, 1996 and 1997, and it ended up being the last two I went to. They went off and had their conferences after that without inviting unschoolers. :-) :-) Everyone was probably better for it. I wasn't the only unschooler, but few of the unschoolers were quiet, and several spoke. Too many, apparently. :-)
They were quite into the competitive show-off aspects¡ªstandardized testing, spelling-bee, geography competitions (identifying things on maps and answering questions about places and history). Unschoolers weren't joining in on those things.
But I knew the questionnaire would help them stumble upon some things, in their memories, that they hadn't looked at from any new or different angle yet. It worked. It didn't hurt me, and it didn't hurt any of them. Even if they stayed as they were, they did it with less assuredness. :-)
Sandra
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#3 about Teaching and Learning
Question #3 of 7, for thinking about teaching and learning, from some ancient list I made. :-:
How many teachers have you had in your life?? (You might count private lessons, classes outside school, Sunday School, this workshop, other workshops, campe counselors, Scout leaders, 4-H leaders)
?
2020 note:? That was written to and for people in New Mexico at a homeschooling conference in the 1990s where most were Christian homeschoolers, so the assumption that they knew what 4-H was and might've gone to Sunday School at one time, or still, was not unreasonable under the circumstances.? Amend it to your own life and experiences without thinking I'm a prejudiced dork, if you can.? :-)
?
?
The list, if you want to go full speed on your own, is here:??
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Re: About Teaching and Learning #1
¡°List five things you learned after the age of twelve that you learned totally outside of school.¡±
One time i was sitting around chatting with some friends on a music playing weekend and they were asking me about home schooling etc. I started talking about the ¡®University of You Tube¡¯ as we like to call it in our house, which led to a great conversation amongst all these adults as to what they had learned from it. One person, who was a surgeon, had learned how to do ear lobe fillers from it! I thought that was amazing, that a surgeon was learning his craft from YouTube, (but also that having your earlobes filled was even a thing! ).
Others had learned how to fix a toilet cistern, repair a car, sew a button on, tune a double bass -its a great conversation starter and I¡¯ve used it since!
Things learned this month alone, (some with and some without the help of YouTube):
All about wheelchair types so as to make an appropriate purchase and how to safely push someone in it.
How to care for Rose bushes so they keep flowering, and how to take cuttings so i can have the same roses as my mum has in my own garden
How to trim a dogs nails (quite complicated and stressful and may well go back to taking her to the groomers).
How to ride a horse (not up to cantering yet but can trot and make him go mostly where i intend...)
All about cellos and bows so i can make an informed purchase for my daughter who is upgrading from a hire instrument.
And I¡¯m only stopping there as the rule is 5!!!
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Re: #2 about Teaching and Learning
I could only think of one. The pastor at the tiny country church where I'm choirmaster never went past high school and Vietnam-era military service. He studied on his own extensively and delivers a decent sermon. He has a heart for people and does well at hospital and sickbed visits. He has turned out to be a good match for the elderly congregation.
On Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 1:51 PM Sandra Dodd < Sandra@...> wrote: "Try to think of three friends who make a living at things they learned outside of school (list by occupation/skill)."
(#2 of 7 from a set of questions I wrote up when I was newly speaking about unschooling)
?
I'll amend it for 2020:? Who made a living at one time, or could have made a living.? Those amendments might be useful when thinking of people who are older, retired, or who didn't work so they could stay home with kids, but could have. :-)
Sandra
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Re: About Teaching and Learning #1
5 things I learned outside formal schooling: - how to retrofit a pedal assist motor to a cargo bike (age 31) - crocheting and sewing (mostly...I did have a home arts class I took in grade 9, but really learning to see happened around age 28). - how to design and load custom Minecraft skins (I figured it out so I could be tech support for my 8yo who wanted to design her own earlier this week). - how to parent differently from how I was parented (started pre-kids in my mid 20s..it was _really_ important to me) - how to play ukulele (age 36 - during this pandemic in fact)
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Re: #2 about Teaching and Learning
My brother took a "computer class" for children who were labeled "learning disabled" as well as "gifted", the kids finished the planned 8 week program in less than two weeks, so the college students teaching the class taught the children how to actually code. My brother was 8 at the time. That was his first and last formal computer class. He left high school at 16, bounced around a few different jobs as a mechanic and kept "playing" with computers at home. He started fixing computers for a friend that actually worked as some sort of computer professional. Her company needed someone to fix something and she recommended my brother. He continued to work in the computer field as a systems engineer until his death.?
A friend of mine left college without a degree, he worked as a sou chef at a dinner theatre until his dad called him and asked for some help with computers. He has been working for a major tech company as a coder. As far as I know, he has taken a couple of certification classes, but mostly just gets the books and learns what he needs to know.?
My husband finished college with a degree in history and went into the Air National Guard. In the guard he trained as a weather forecaster. One of the other people in his unit was going away for at least 6 months of training in another state and needed someone who would temporarily take his position at a D.C. "beltway bandit" company that managed Dept of Defense contracts. He started at that job as a temporary administrative assistant. His friend took another position at the same company in a different state and they asked my husband to stay on in the admin asst job permanently.? He worked at that company for about 5 years until the owner dissolved the company. When my husband left, he was the Director of IT. He now works for another large government contractor in information security.? At some point he did get a Master's Degree in the field because the government wants to see degrees, but the degree was paid for by one of his employers and was gotten years after he had been doing the work. But in the early days, he would often bring home a book or manual and say, "I need to do this thing by tomorrow, so I need to learn it tonight."
My mother was a wonderful example of learning from books and then practice in real life. She read the manual to an electronic book keeping system and then was placed in charge of it at work. She read about identifying and valuing gems and managed to amass an amazing collection of fine jewelry from pawn shops for a fraction of their actual value. She was offered a job as a buyer by the appraiser she had hired to evaluate a few of her rings when she told him how much she had paid for a particularly lovely ruby ring.
My mom also learned how to crochet, knit, make macrame, tatt, and how to sewing on her own with some books, all (except for the tatting) before the age of youtube tutorials. chris
On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 1:51 PM Sandra Dodd < Sandra@...> wrote: "Try to think of three friends who make a living at things they learned outside of school (list by occupation/skill)."
(#2 of 7 from a set of questions I wrote up when I was newly speaking about unschooling)
?
I'll amend it for 2020:? Who made a living at one time, or could have made a living.? Those amendments might be useful when thinking of people who are older, retired, or who didn't work so they could stay home with kids, but could have. :-)
Sandra
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Re: #2 about Teaching and Learning
1. Computer programming - My husband James, who went to school at a time when schools didn't teach computer anything. He did try Computer Science at university, but dropped out after a year and got a job doing real programming instead. Now mostly using computer languages that didn't exist when he was college age.
2. Violin teaching - My mother, who failed her eleven-plus, left school early to do arts and a teaching diploma at Cambridge Tech (not degree level anything) and dropped out of that when she got married at 19. Learned to teach Suzuki violin when my sisters' teacher left Riyadh and there was no replacement. Ended up with a full-time job for many years, with pupils that she taught gaining scholarships to the Julliard and Royal College of Music and Vienna Conservatoire, among others. Now retired.
3. Supermarket management - I don't know if this one really counts, but my friend Peter, who left school having failed all his A-Levels and got a job stacking shelves in a local supermarket for the summer, meaning to retake the exams and go to college. Only he was offered a promotion, and then sent on a course, and given another promotion, and is now a senior regional manager for the same chain. He did get a lot of training, within the company.
On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 at 18:51, Sandra Dodd < Sandra@...> wrote: "Try to think of three friends who make a living at things they learned outside of school (list by occupation/skill)."
(#2 of 7 from a set of questions I wrote up when I was newly speaking about unschooling)
?
I'll amend it for 2020:? Who made a living at one time, or could have made a living.? Those amendments might be useful when thinking of people who are older, retired, or who didn't work so they could stay home with kids, but could have. :-)
Sandra
_._,_._,_
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Re: About Teaching and Learning #1
Five things that I learned after age 12: stage craft?(set design and building, makeup, costuming)? acting singing sewing developmental psychology (or a lot of major theories about it)? writing for a purpose other than to fill up pages to get a grade
Looking at this list, I realize that being schooled really dented my creativity. :) Most of the things that I find really useful, that I really enjoy,? I learned mostly outside of a school environment. And the stuff that I learned in college was voluntary (except one class, my only "C" in college), chosen out of interest or in furtherance of a personal goal.
Probably a big part of the reason why I chose to homeschool and then we fell into unschooling because I saw that my kids were learning so much more than I could "teach" them by just following along and helping them choose and pursue their own interests and goals. Trying to force my kids to adhere to some contrived "scope and sequence" was just too painful and just seemed like a waste of everyone's time.?
The one thing that I resented most about school was how much of my time it wasted with all of the "make work" that was involved with everyday school and the rules that seemed designed to just keep children "in their place".??
Chris
On Wed, Jun 24, 2020 at 9:47 PM Sandra Dodd < Sandra@...> wrote: I have something to help stir up ideas here.? It's a questionnaire I made for a talk I gave in Albuquerque in 1997.? It was passed out as people came into the room, and we didn't talk about it specifically, but just answering the questions takes a person one giant step closer to not needing to think so much about learning.??
There's a great irony, from that day, and that is that I said (in nervousness, I hope, or habit) that "Kirby taught himself to read."? DOH!? So I stepped everyone back a couple of baby steps.? Still, the giant step...
The full set of seven question is at this link, but if you want to, just answer one by one as I bring them here.? Either way might be fun.? If you want to print a couple out and go through it with a husband or grown kid or friend...??
First question:
List five things you learned after the age of twelve that you learned totally outside of school.
(If you can't think of five, list what you can think of. I'll come back tomorrow and share my own list.)
Sandra
?
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Re: #2 about Teaching and Learning
== "Try
to think of three friends who make a living at things they learned outside of school (list by occupation/skill)."==
Every job I've ever had a I learnt to do outside of school - myself and my husband have PhD's in Zoology - but that didn't help us actually *be* zoologists/ecologists in our current jobs, not really. I've also been a cleaner, a bar tender, a waitress, a chef,
a freelance writer - all learnt 'on the job'.
Friends though...hmmm..
- A
friend who is currently becoming a personal trainer
- Yoga
teacher (though did a course, I think)
- Potter
(I seem to know a few potters!)
Jo Isaac, PhD
Research~Writing~Photography~Teaching
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
"Try to think of three friends who make a living at things they learned outside of school (list by occupation/skill)."
(#2 of 7 from a set of questions I wrote up when I was newly speaking about unschooling)
?
I'll amend it for 2020:? Who made a living at one time, or could have made a living.? Those amendments might be useful when thinking of people who are older, retired, or who didn't work so they could stay home with kids, but could have. :-)
Sandra
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Re: About Teaching and Learning #1
>>List five things you learned after the age of twelve that you learned totally outside of school.>>
1. Photography skills - good composition mainly, how to take a photo that shows what I want and is interesting for others to look at 2. How to tow and to reverse a trailer 3. Camping skills 4. History of Afghanistan - I loved Modern History at school, but discovered afterwards that all the focus on remembering dates and analysing everything that happened meant that I didn't really retain all the information. Learning about a country by myself and absorbing the information that meant something to me has led to a deeper understanding 5. That I can learn anything that interests me enough and that I am capable of picking up new skills. sometimes quite quickly (I did well at school, but came out of it thinking that I couldn't learn new things, especially not without a lot of study)
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Re: #2 about Teaching and Learning
Only three....?
Accounting, Blogging, Author
My husband went to college in computer science, but right now he's running his own tax and accounting business.? Has been for a few years.??
I have a degree in psychology, but have consistently brought in income from my blog.
We're friends with the author Colleen Houck.? She read Twilight and figured she'd try writing and self published Tigers Curse.? Now she publishes with a traditional publisher.
My husband is part of a business network group and the majority of people there are doing something unrelated or only partially related to their education.??
There's a lawyer who does tax mitigation.? He already had his JD and taught himself tax law to move into that niche.
Another guy works for a solar company and does an amazing job.? Knows anything you could think of about solar panels, because he's passionate about them.
On Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 1:41 PM Sandra Dodd < Sandra@...> wrote: welder, computer engineer, authenticator of antiquities
?
Older example:
When my dad was 15, WWII had begun.? He went on a motorcycle from Rotan, Texas to Oakland, California to work in the shipyards.? He learned to use a rivet machine, and he also learned to weld.? He joined the army at 17, with parental permission, and arrived in France a few days after the war ended in Europe, so he was there for a couple of years, mostly in Germany.? "The occupation (of Germany)."? In the army, he fixed jeeps and trucks, and taught people to drive them.? He had not learned any of that in school.? In his later years he was, professionally, a welder.
In the 1960s I was a kid.? My dad was a welder, but many of my friends' dads worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, working with computers.? One of the dads was a machinist (making metal parts as they needed to be made).? I don't know where he learned that.? But everyone working with computers in those days learned it from having repaired radios and TVs, and then learning more on the job, because even universities didn't know anything about computers. :-)? ?Even in the early 1970s when I was at the University of New Mexico, classes involving computer science used punch cards, read by one big mainframe.? All the "computers" in offices and such were remotely connected to "the computer" which took a building of its own.??
A friend my age did art, from childhood.? When other kids made a snowman, he made a dinosaur, or a seal holding a big snowball on its nose.? He went through several media, in series, making each friend a gift and then abandoning forever that beading, glasswork, wooden-box-carving, or whatever it had been.? Finished forever; no repairs; moved on.? He collected road kill, and painted beautiful paintings of birds alive, with fine details he could only get by having the feathers where he could touch them, and the tails where he could spread them out. He procured an antique dentists' drill, with a foot-pedal driving the gears, so he could go fast or slow, with the drill.? With that, he started carving.? He made some wax seals for me and my friends, of our medieval arms.? A duck had feathers; a bear had fur, and claws.? So tiny.? ?He started doing 3-D carvings in stone and shell.? Heishi necklaces with beads he made himself, with holes drilled with that dentists' drill.? Little animals not an inch long, with details.? He was selling them in shops on the Santa Fe plaza, to wealthy tourists.
Continuation of that friend, skipping a few years:? He authenticates antiques for money, now that he's older.? He knows from personal experience the microscopic differences between hand tools and power tools (and that in-between, of band-powered or gear-powered, but not as fast as electric tools).? He has contracts with several museums, I heard recently.? He specializes in Chinese jade, or at least that's his favorite thing, partly because he learned Chinese after he went from Tai Chi in his 20s to Chinese stick fighting, and that led to Chinese muscle liniments which he started brewing himself, and then other Chinese medicine production.??
We had gone to school together in some of Jr. High and high school.? He went to Creighton planning to become a doctor, but dropped out and ended up doing more and more art (and Chinese martial all-kinds-of-stuff, some of which he taught, for money, for years).
People younger than I am, I don't have as much knowledge, honestly, and maybe because "made a living" needs to operate for a few years to be certain. :-)
Sandra
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Re: #2 about Teaching and Learning
welder, computer engineer, authenticator of antiquities
?
Older example:
When my dad was 15, WWII had begun.? He went on a motorcycle from Rotan, Texas to Oakland, California to work in the shipyards.? He learned to use a rivet machine, and he also learned to weld.? He joined the army at 17, with parental permission, and arrived in France a few days after the war ended in Europe, so he was there for a couple of years, mostly in Germany.? "The occupation (of Germany)."? In the army, he fixed jeeps and trucks, and taught people to drive them.? He had not learned any of that in school.? In his later years he was, professionally, a welder.
In the 1960s I was a kid.? My dad was a welder, but many of my friends' dads worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, working with computers.? One of the dads was a machinist (making metal parts as they needed to be made).? I don't know where he learned that.? But everyone working with computers in those days learned it from having repaired radios and TVs, and then learning more on the job, because even universities didn't know anything about computers. :-)? ?Even in the early 1970s when I was at the University of New Mexico, classes involving computer science used punch cards, read by one big mainframe.? All the "computers" in offices and such were remotely connected to "the computer" which took a building of its own.??
A friend my age did art, from childhood.? When other kids made a snowman, he made a dinosaur, or a seal holding a big snowball on its nose.? He went through several media, in series, making each friend a gift and then abandoning forever that beading, glasswork, wooden-box-carving, or whatever it had been.? Finished forever; no repairs; moved on.? He collected road kill, and painted beautiful paintings of birds alive, with fine details he could only get by having the feathers where he could touch them, and the tails where he could spread them out. He procured an antique dentists' drill, with a foot-pedal driving the gears, so he could go fast or slow, with the drill.? With that, he started carving.? He made some wax seals for me and my friends, of our medieval arms.? A duck had feathers; a bear had fur, and claws.? So tiny.? ?He started doing 3-D carvings in stone and shell.? Heishi necklaces with beads he made himself, with holes drilled with that dentists' drill.? Little animals not an inch long, with details.? He was selling them in shops on the Santa Fe plaza, to wealthy tourists.
Continuation of that friend, skipping a few years:? He authenticates antiques for money, now that he's older.? He knows from personal experience the microscopic differences between hand tools and power tools (and that in-between, of band-powered or gear-powered, but not as fast as electric tools).? He has contracts with several museums, I heard recently.? He specializes in Chinese jade, or at least that's his favorite thing, partly because he learned Chinese after he went from Tai Chi in his 20s to Chinese stick fighting, and that led to Chinese muscle liniments which he started brewing himself, and then other Chinese medicine production.??
We had gone to school together in some of Jr. High and high school.? He went to Creighton planning to become a doctor, but dropped out and ended up doing more and more art (and Chinese martial all-kinds-of-stuff, some of which he taught, for money, for years).
People younger than I am, I don't have as much knowledge, honestly, and maybe because "made a living" needs to operate for a few years to be certain. :-)
Sandra
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Re: About Teaching and Learning #1
First question:
List five things you learned after the age of twelve that you learned totally outside of school.?
...
I?was thinking ¡®almost everything¡¯ so I decided to work backwards. Here are five things I¡¯ve learned just in the past week:
Here are five things I¡¯ve learned just in the past week:
-How to take apart, operate, install, and adjust the hinges on my cabinets
?
-Summer pruning strategies for northern highbush blueberry plants
?
-That Argentina (and other South American countries) has native bamboo species
?
-That one of the kids¡¯ great grandfathers wasn¡¯t a fan of traveling.
?
-That USPS (United States Postal Service) media mail rate cannot be applied to coloring books or puzzle books.
Kristi
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Re: About Teaching and Learning #1
1. Investment accounts 2. Home repair 3. Breastfeeding science/troubleshooting 4. Fiction writing 5. HTML and basic web design
>>List five things you learned after the age of twelve that you learned totally outside of school.>>
1- How to cook (in my teens) 2 - learning all I needed to settle and integrate into a new country and completely new culture(20's) 3 - Social etiquette and how it varies from culture to culture 4 - Managing personal finances 5 - How to be a mum
Rachael
On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 at 2:47, Sandra Dodd I have something to help stir up ideas here.? It's a questionnaire I made for a talk I gave in Albuquerque in 1997.? It was passed out as people came into the room, and we didn't talk about it specifically, but just answering the questions takes a person one giant step closer to not needing to think so much about learning.??
There's a great irony, from that day, and that is that I said (in nervousness, I hope, or habit) that "Kirby taught himself to read."? DOH!? So I stepped everyone back a couple of baby steps.? Still, the giant step...
The full set of seven question is at this link, but if you want to, just answer one by one as I bring them here.? Either way might be fun.? If you want to print a couple out and go through it with a husband or grown kid or friend...??
First question:
List five things you learned after the age of twelve that you learned totally outside of school.
(If you can't think of five, list what you can think of. I'll come back tomorrow and share my own list.)
Sandra
?
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#2 about Teaching and Learning
"Try to think of three friends who make a living at things they learned outside of school (list by occupation/skill)."
(#2 of 7 from a set of questions I wrote up when I was newly speaking about unschooling)
?
I'll amend it for 2020:? Who made a living at one time, or could have made a living.? Those amendments might be useful when thinking of people who are older, retired, or who didn't work so they could stay home with kids, but could have. :-)
Sandra
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Re: About Teaching and Learning #1
On Wed, Jun 24, 2020 at 07:47 PM, Sandra Dodd wrote:
List five things you learned after the age of twelve that you learned totally outside of school.
List five things you learned after the age of twelve that you learned totally outside of school.
1. Guitar.? My mom played, so I had heard her tuning, and when I got a guitar, at 14, could tune it well right away. :-) My mom used a pick and I wanted to fingerpick, and my friend Ymelda showed me the basics, which is top three strings for thumb; bottom three for fingers 2,3,4; little finger is not involved, but can be used to brace if necessary, or for resting the hand without touching strings.? She showed me how to alternate the bass note within a chord so it was thumb/bass - pluck, bass, pluck... throughout the song.? "The Banks of the Ohio" was the first song I learned.? It could be done with three chords at first and the addition of a 7th chord after a few days. :-)? I WAS SO EXCITED!? Within a week, I was doing three variations in the finger picking, and I was OFF after that, copying things from Donovan records, Joan Baez, anything I could find.
2. Recorder.? I didn't own one, but saw that a free class was being offered, either beginning or intermediate.? The beginners class was advertised for those who knew nothing and couldn't read music, and that was no good. So I borrowed my friend's recorder and fingering chart so I could get into intermediate.? Woohoo!? Several notes were just like clarinet, and when I started learning the cross-fingerings, I figured out what all those keys and distant little holes on saxophones and clarinets and modern flutes were for!? When I "half-holed" with my thumb, I fully understood the "octave key" on all those modern woodwinds.? It was a huge series of epiphanies.? I did almost nothing else for a week but explore that alto recorder.? When I got to the class, I was too good for the others, so just started playing in an ensemble with the teacher for a few years. :-)? ?
I still remember the joyous enthusiasm of learning those two instruments.? I was 14 and 17.
3. To drive a big van or big pickup.? It's not rocket science, but spatial reasoning isn't one of my good skills, so it took more conscious thought and mental trickery than some people need, and I'm also a weakling so just getting up into the vehicle and wrestling with a big stick shift was sometimes taxing.? Nowadays the only big vehicle we have is a Ram club-cab pickup, and it has an automatic transmission and air conditioning.? So wimpy, for a big truck. :-)? I'm still not good with trailers, and try to avoid that when I can.?
4. Sewing with or without patterns.? Fancy seams, so that the inside of the garment is as finished as the outside.? Faced facings.? Picked those tricks up one at a time.? I've created some designs myself, and have copied some other pieces.? I can do zippers (and invisible zippers, when those were in fashion), and button holes, but I much prefer things that are nothing but cloth, that pull over, or wrap, because I like the elegance and long life of garments without fasteners.? A friend let me borrow a skirt pattern she had, when I was 14, and told me what the markings on the seams meant, and how to pin the paper to the cloth.? That was one lesson.? My grandmother helped me make a skirt to her exacting specifications, and that was frustrating but ultimately helpful.? I still have it.? Holly wore it for a few years. :-)
5. Calligraphy.? I'm best at blackletter, but can do some other hands.? I used dip pens, not cartridge pens, though I've owned and used cartridge pens and just used my regular handwriting, with a calligraphy nib, which is pretty fun.? I taught a few calligraphy workshops, when I was in my 20s, one for a continuing ed program and that was fun.??
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Vicki Dennis
Sandra Dodd
belinda dutch