If someone knew almost nothing in the world but trivia relating to
popular music for the past 100 years, that would make a HELL of a good
grid over which to lay other things. And I don't think a thorough
knowledge of pop music (in any culture or language) over this
particular past hundred years, which saw the proliferation of recorded
music available in homes, the advent of radio broadcasts, movies with
music, television variety shows, transistor radios, cassette players
in cars, CDs, iPods and cell phones that store a ton of music could
help but create a timeline of the culture. Wouldn't songs from Marx
Brothers or Fred Astaire movies remind people of The Great
Depression? Can anyone hear big-band swing music and not also think
of the hairdos and costumes? Does "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy" not remind
anyone of WWII? Knowing some of the context of Gene Autrey and Roy
Rogers brings up LOTS of stories about where those songs were first
heard.
The lyrics of some of the songs make specific mention of historical
events, and that could help dating things, too, if a person were
trying to figure out what came first.
Any hobby delved into deeply becomes another portal to the whole
world—real and imagined; past, present and future.
"Trivial" connections are real
video from Young Frankenstein, 1974
Directed by Mel Brooks
Written (in part) by, and starring, Gene Wilder
There is something oh so sweet about a child doing something without being asked.
Vega who is 8, cleaned out our fridge one day because he saw it needed it. Dutch 6, came over on his own to help bring in plates from outside. He hated helping out when I used to make a big deal out of it. These small instances happen more and more often and are very special moments for me.
There have been fleeting moments of seeing unschooling at work in our house. I would love to share them with you all.
Just this evening the children were watching a Fred Astaire movie (we'd been talking about dancing/old movies etc for a while and happened upon a dvd yesterday) and a scene was showing a college student talking about 'passing'. My 9 year old said "What's passing?" My 5 year old said, "Silly, it's passing, you know, going past something."
I see this as a little success story. They've forgotten or have become unaware of grades, tests, and performance. Another step in our deschooling journey.
—Kerryn
Australia
Reports of "Seeing It"
SandraDodd.com/seeingitcomments Photographer unknown; adults looking at a musician, child dancing, at an Always Learning Live event in Albuquerque. Perhaps this is one of Lydia Koltai's children. I'm sorry I don't know who took it.
Parents who are afraid their unschooled children won't learn enough might have forgotten how little learning actually happens in school. Short-term test-taking "learning" isn't nearly the same as the kind of learning unschooled kids gain from their hobbies and games and friendships. Even though I had read John Holt in college, and studied "the open classroom," I was still pleasantly surprised at how much learning came so easily, to everyone in the family.
I once described the difference between teaching and learning as where you shine the spotlight. In teaching, the spotlight is on the teacher. There may or may not be a learner taking in what the teacher is doing.
With learning, the spotlight is on the learner. The source is unimportant. There might be a teacher. There might be a set of blocks. There might just be the learner's thoughts.
If that's called "teaching" then it pulls the spotlight away from the learner. The light shines on the source as if it were the actor in the process.
I think parents like to feel like a child's learning is their project. If the teacher isn't in the spotlight, then something they aren't in control of or directing is happening.
Kids who are in school just visit life sometimes, and then they have to stop to do homework or go to sleep early or get to school on time. They're constantly reminded they are preparing "for real life," while being isolated from it.
Unschooling is living a rich life and letting learning drop into your lap and into your ears and mind while you laugh and listen to music and play games. Unschooling is seeing the magic in every day, and the joy in yourself and the people around you.
Remember that things seem different different times to different people. My perspective when I'm stressed or sad will be colored by that. Things shift and change.
For unschooling to work, parents need to stop looking into the future and live more in the moment with their real child. BEING with a child is being where the child is, emotionally and spiritually and physically and musically and artistically. Seeing where the child *is* rather than seeing a thousand or even a dozen places she is not.
When Kirby was 13 he was asked whether he liked homeschooling better than school. Most 13 year olds asked a question by an adult will look down and mumble "It's okay," or "I like it." Kirby made eye contact and said "I've never been to school. I have no basis for comparison."
So with no basis for comparison, my kids have just life.