Another Great Unschooling Book Rec!

Well, I've done it again - I've finished another great unschooling book. This one I stumbled upon in the library - I had never heard of it before. It's called Child's Work: Taking Children's Choices Seriously by Nancy Wallace, who was a close personal friend of John Holt's. It is basically a beautifully written account of one family's experience with unschooling two very talented children. But besides that it is chock full of great insights for the general public! Here are some choice quotes (I copied about 50 of them out of the book, but here are some of my faves):

. . . any time we decide to teach our children the things we are sure they can't learn from experience in the real world, we not only remove them from the very world they are trying so hard to understand, by creating artificial learning situations for them, but we imply that they are incompetent learners and need to rely on our greater expertise and knowledge in order to learn properly.

***

By reading within whole contexts, [my children] guessed at strange words in order to make sense of phrases and sentences. I know a nine-year-old girl who can read books like Stuart Little fluently, but still can't read random lists of words out of context with any degree of accuracy. (Hence, the school considers her unable to read because she does so poorly on their reading placement test, which is exactly that: random lists of words.)

***

Children who, as John Holt put it, "observe, wonder, find, or make and then test the answers to the questions they ask themselves" have no conscious sense of "wrong" because like scientists, they are involved in a continual process of moving closer towards what is right - of defining and redefining their views of the world.

***

Children lose interest in us as teachers as soon as we make ourselves mere passive conveyors of knowledge, like most teachers in school, who try not to reveal their own personal biases and passions for fear of unduly influencing their students and preventing them from learning to think objectively. But children want us to reveal ourselves to them. Just as important, they want and need to be able to reveal their own feelings, ideas, and personal biases to us.

What I've been Obsessing Over this Week

I reread John Holt's How Children Fail last week, and it sure is a different book when you have a school-aged child! Last time I read it, I only had a baby.

Last time I read it, I was slightly scandalized, but this time I read it, I was not only totally scandalized, but also appalled, horrified, and enraged. You know why? Because this book was written in 1960 (updated in 1980 - when it was *much* improved by the author's added comments.) And yet, so far as I can tell, it isn't included in the teacher trainings anywhere in this country. PLEASE tell me if I'm wrong about this! I did as much web research as I could. . . but the truth is I don't think any teacher program could withstand including it. Because I think they would lose 100% of their enrollees . . . I think.

Of course, I am also wondering if this information has been somehow synthesized into a more recent work. . . though it seems to me that the book in its entirety is uncondensable, since it's the progression of one man's understanding of children.

I would love for someone who is a teacher to read this book and tell me if it can be interpreted any other way. I do so want someone to take me up on this challenge, and the one presented in an earlier post, which was for anyone with kids in school to read a few books off my reading list (right hand bar of blog) and then not want to pull their kids out of school. I really want to know if there are other people's brains that can work that differently from mine. Am I insane?

As T.S. Eliot says:

I should really like to think there's something wrong with me —
Because, if there isn't then there's something wrong,
Or at least, very different from what it seemed to be,
With the world itself — and that's much more frightening!

Quote Break

Time out for a quote. I just love quotes! Here's John Holt again:

“True learning – learning that is permanent and useful, that leads to intelligent action and further learning — can arise only out of the experience, interest, and concerns of the learner.”

The Continuum Concept

What you see here is a photo of my favorite book.

It's not an unschooling book - it's more like a renegade anthropology book.

But anyway, the "continuum concept" described within is the backbone of my educational philosophy. And that backbone is a belief that children do not really learn by being taught. They learn by observation, experience, and just teaching themselves whatever interests them.

It was through discussing The Continuum Concept that I came to meet many unschoolers.

It also just so happens that the book has many brilliant insights into the psychology of humanity and childrearing as well!

I think that anyone who is interested in unschooling, or even interested in people, would do themselves a serious favor by reading this book. The problem is I get so emotional about it that I can't explain it! But here is some good information about it:

http://www.continuum-concept.org

Please note that one of my fave authors, John Holt, is quoted on the cover as saying, "If the world could be saved by a book, this just might be the book."

I'm not sure if there is time anymore for this book to save the world, but so far it's done a great job of saving thousands of families!