开云体育

On Mar 21, 2010, at 4:50 PM, Rebecca McClure wrote:

My son (9 years) also really enjoys the motorized pre-fab projects. He has
learned so much about Lego construction principles from doing sets like
this, it's amazing! I used to be a bit of a snob about this stuff,
thinking that "open-ended" was best, but I've changed my mind based on
watching my son apply what he's learned via the project-based sets to his
own projects.

I got some Lego Educator sets on gears, pulleys, and so on. We like them a
lot, but when we messed around with the gears projects Eric had already
figured it all out from doing Lego Star Wars sets that used gears.

I was just mentally ranting about the "open-ended" thing the other day,
having been with some moms who were sort of parroting the idea; it's a
really easy thing to say that I'm not sure every writer or person talking
about it has really thought through. I used to kind of vaguely agree with
it, that all these "build this very model!" Lego sets were somehow bad
compared to the enormous boxes of rectangles that were all you could get
when I was a kid. But watching Eric really changed my mind.

For one thing, he didn't used to keep most sets made the way they were. He
would build them according to the instructions, then almost immediately
start taking them apart and re-configuring them. He never took the
instruction booklet as gospel. (Now, he has some sets he keeps built--his
"collection"--and some he is willing to play with. Sometimes we have ended
up with two of the same set if he has both wanted to keep the model AND use
some of its specific cool pieces in another project.)

He has actually in the past built a couple of very small models and then
made instruction booklets for them. Eric takes ownership of everything he
does-- he doesn't see Lego instructions as something made by these experts
off somewhere that he can never be one of, or whose rules he has to follow.
He can invent a set, make a booklet of instructions, package it all in a
box, and give it to his brother as a gift. Likewise, he really likes
computer and video games that include "build your own level" features, and
he will spend a lot of time with those. And I always tend to brag on this
board game he made year before last that was actually playable! Not a great
game (too easy to win) but it had coherent rules and you could actually play
it.

I suppose it's _possible_ that there are some kids whose creativity are so
weak that giving them a pre-designed Lego set kills it. On the other hand,
there may be lots of kids who are like me--I do not have the kind of mind
Eric does, that can imagine something in three dimensions and then create
it. But working with him and Carl, I have really enjoyed building complex
models from Lego kits. For me, doing kits has made Legos fun and satisfying
in a way they never were before (I could never do more with those
rectangular bricks than make a wall, as a kid). Maybe some kids who like the
models but don't do their own "creative" Lego building are like me--it's not
that they're not creative, but that doing that kind of building was _never_
going to be the direction their creativity took them. But maybe people look
at them and say, "Oh, look how doing the pre-designed kits has destroyed
that kid's creativity," and they let that reinforce their belief.

Su, mom to Eric 8; Carl, almost 6; Yehva, 2.5
tapeflags.blogspot.com



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---------I don't see it as political to discuss whether unschooling seems
almost impossible for some families and possible for others. Go ahead.-------

Okay....

I'm not going to talk about the economic reasons why I think unschooling is more accessible to the middle and upper classes as these are pretty self-evident. Instead, I'll talk about one of my own personal problems with homeschooling, which is that I often feel as if I've turned my back on the rest of the youth in our country. This pains me. I wish that all children had the chance to grow and learn freely and that they could all be nourished by caring adults who've decided to make them a priority. Imagine our world!

But this just isn't the case. It isn't true for the schools and it isn't true for many families. I remember how active my parents were in the public school I attended until 6th grade. They actively fought to change a broken system and they were surprisingly successful. Lots of young people, not just their children, benefited from their actions.

So in some ways the point about "middle-class privilege" draws me to the reverse side of the equation: if the people who care the most about reform (homeschoolers) are the people who take their kids out of the schools, who will be left to fight for the change our kids so desperately need?

However, I'm not willing to sacrifice my daughter to a system I feel is harmful--and I think I'm *allowed* to make this choice because I come from a place that gives me confidence I can succeed without "the system."

If you caught the Discovery program last night, you heard the unschoolers' neighbor talk about her concerns--there was genuine fear in her voice when she asked something like, "how can you go to college if you don't spend your life in school?"

People, parents especially, have been led to believe that they lack the knowledge to do something--anything-- without an expert (or institution) leading the way. School has been touted as the great equalizer; if you "stay in school" you can be anything you want to be. It is hard to turn your back on the hope schooling offers when you're surrounded by people living "hopeless" existences.

I know that there has been research showing that the level of parent schooling has no bering on the success of homeschooling, but that doesn't help people who don't know how or where to look for such comforting "facts."

I used to talk about homeschooling with the woman who cleaned my office. She is from Mexico and went to school until she was twelve. The most important thing to her, was making sure her granddaughter finished school. This woman is one of the wisest women I've ever met. Yet she would never believe herself capable of facilitating a decent education for her granddaughter.

Most of the unschoolers I know are very well educated. I know my own education has shown me how easy it is to learn when I'm interested (and how much crap, which I immediately forgot, had to be swallowed just to get to the part I was interested in)--and this in turn allows me the ability to feel safe with our decisions to unschool. I think it is a much harder choice for people who feel they could have gone farther in life had they only had a better education. It isn't a *lack* of an education that makes unschooling impossible, it is the fear that goes along with the lack. It is my suspicion that this fear is built directly into the educational system--the system that gets citizens ready for the hierarchies they'll need to deal with for the rest of their lives.

I'm tired and not sure I'm getting my thoughts across clearly. More anon...
Brie













Homeschooling means, most of the time, that one parent needs to be home. This is especially true with homeschooling young ones. The economic considerations alone are enough to make many people I know push the possibility off the table.