Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The other things flow in around it.

(Below is most of my response to a complicated question about the balance of power and relationships, citing Bruno Bettelheim about A.S. Neill, and the assumption that unschoolers were libertarians:)

I've unschooled for over twenty years, and am not a "libertarian," and the unschooling ideals I've aimed for involved learning. They had little to do with Neill or Bettleheim (though I did like reading Bettleheim on fairy tales), but had to do with John Holt, attachment parenting, and observation of other families doing similar things.

Being a child's partner rather than his adversary makes the balance of knowledge unimportant. Nowadays my children drive me around, help me out, read small print and get things off high shelves. For many years, I did those things for them.

SandraDodd.com/partners

SandraDodd.com/balance

Learning first, and partnership and being present close after, and all the other things flow in around it.

photo by Sandra Dodd, of a well dressing in the village of Tissington
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2 comments:

  1. I love this and I LOVE you, Sandra. With the last sentence though, to me it makes more sense to have "being present and partnership first", because the learning just naturally happens around that. I know when I'm FULLY present with my children (which is starting to happen more and more) the learning is inevitable.

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  2. Good point. It makes more sense among experienced unschoolers. I was writing to someone skeptical.

    When I decided about whether to choose one activity or another, or one meal or gift of something-or-other, I always had learning as one of the criteria, though. Was there something in there new, fun, interesting? If so, there would be learning.

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