Sunday, April 13, 2008

A quick thought

You know how we try to really say what we mean and speak literally about learning. For example unschoolers don't teach they facilitate...

Quoting Sandra Dodd here:

" The question about how to research something sounds to me pretty schooly.

I know it might not be what was thought, but it was the way it was stated, and I'd like to riff on that in general.If we were in a graduate class, researching it would involve finding recent studies done probably by other grad students or PhD candidates.

How do people learn naturally about such things, though?

Observation, conversation, comparisons, extrapolating from what you know already about various things:

If "How do we learn more?" replaces "How do we research this?" the answer becomes clearer and way more about unschooling, too."

This is not her whole post I was just interested in the researching point.

I use that word often and while it does sound very schooly to me I wasn't sure how else to say what I meant.

It reminds me of School of Rock where Mr. S asks Freddie what he like to do, he says, "I don't know, burn stuff."

Doesn't pyrotechnics sound more interesting than burn stuff?

I have no idea where I'm going... I think that choosing our words carefully is important especially when we are talking about unschooling to those who may be new to the idea. We should be as specific as we can and not use a lot of fluff, just put it out there. I can simply say *I like to learn instead of research*

Truthfully research sounds boring and drawn out where learning is fun.

It's ok if you don't follow me, my thoughts have been so jumbled lately that I need to start writing them down.

6 comments:

Tina said...

Wow, that hits so close to home. For years now, Nick in particular, has shut down when I've said....let's research this. I've never been able to adequately come with up a different way to explain what I've meant. So much so, now, "research" is a family joke. Great thoughts.

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

SO true .... I end up saying "Let's look it up" a lot to Jody when he asks me something I don't know the answer to. I know that means that I am the one doing the "looking" but that's ok since we both sat down to Google something and had an inappropriate site come up. That probably means we just need more books so he can do it instead! LOL

justjuls said...

It's pretty interesting.
I was talking with a lady at co-op this morning who found out that I was an unschooler - and she said she was "gearing up" for that this coming year - and I wondered what in the hell she was talking about.
I have also heard people say "I tried homeschooling, but I asked the kids what they were interested in, but they couldn't name anything." I think that people still want to "make it happen".
I never know what to say - because they just don't get it.

Jenny said...

Thanks for reminding me that I need to watch School of Rock someday ....

piscesgrrl said...

I follow. It is good to be mindful of the words we choose, I agree. Even though then sometimes I don't know what to say at all! LOL