Seeing, visiting, tasting

Of "experts" renouncing unschooling the first time they hear of it:

I understand that it’s difficult to understand unschooling. Even for those who want to understand it, it takes awhile. I would never speak of something I had never seen, nor write about a country I had never visited, nor review a food I had never tasted.

Debating How Kids Learn
photo by Nancy Machaj, of grafitti in Paris

More calmly alive

Find things that make your children's lives better and that make you and your family feel more calmly alive in the world.

from a post on the Always Learning list
photo by Holly Dodd, of an indoor lizard who poses in various places

How much can one child understand?

Parents can make a big difference by helping children work through their thoughts and theories without scoffing or criticizing. Awareness of this pattern of development can help parents avoid expecting young children to think in ways of which they are incapable, and avoid holding children responsible for "understanding" or "agreeing to" things they can't really comprehend.


Some parents will say, "I explained it and he said he understood." What probably happened was the child heard "blah blah blah blah, okay?" and said "Okay."

SandraDodd.com/piaget
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Can an idea be a tool?

When I was a kid, humans used tools and that made us human, but that's no longer "the truth." Chimpanzees can use a leaf as a sponge to gather water out of a hole. They will lick a stick and put it down a hole to collect insects (termites? ants? I don't know what). They will move things to climb up on to get something they can't reach.

Marty says he thinks maybe elephants will pick up a stick to knock something down that's higher than their trunks. If they haven't, they should.

So what, these days, are "tools"? My computer? Google? Wikipedia? Blogger.com? My new glasses? That electric teakettle I'm about to go and heat water with?

We talk about parenting tools, and people adding to their toolboxes, and those are all in the realm of thought (and action proceeding from thought, but without physical tools).

"Tools" (on the Thinking Sticks blog)
photo by Holly Dodd
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