‘If they’re not being assessed and tested, how will you know if they’re learning?’ ‘What do they do all day?’ Today I’m not meaning to go into why ‘testing’ can be counter-productive to learning (but if that catches your eye, please do read Jolisa Gracewood’s bleak report of US testing terror and read or listen to […]
Sure, kids don’t belong everywhere. They’re not a symphony orchestra’s target audience (except when they are). The tense whispers of snooker commentators suggest that toddlers wouldn’t be welcome at tournament finals. But babies and children are legally entitled to be all sorts of places that aren’t always built with them in mind, including, say, courthouses […]
What do kids need to thrive and learn all they need for adult life? Let’s ask Peter Gray! In this two-minute animated summary of a lecture on the value of play, educational researcher Peter Gray gives six fundamentals for self-directed learning. He’s a Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College, specialising in evolutionary perspectives on […]
If you had a six-year-old child, and institutional schooling had never existed, how would you go about preparing them for adult life? In the next few posts on unschooling, I want to tease out a few different issues and discuss them separately. Today it’s the different social experiences schooled and unschooled (or homeschooled) kids have. […]
Indulge me in a little linky celebrating. This is the 200th post on Sacraparental, and I’m sitting in Bristol feeling pretty good about that. Thank you, all. A gaggle of guest writers, a civility of commenters and a quietness of readers (like my collective nouns?) combine to make a welcoming lounge conversation. If you’re a […]
I’ve been reminded this week why the ‘un’ in unschooling is not the same as ‘anti.’ First this challenge from Buffalo Mama, who is unschooling/homeschooling her son after traumatic school experiences: “Unschooling,” maybe, can be seen as an attempt to open up the pressure valve and let some of that build up out of everything […]
I’ve become obsessed with reading about unschooling. If I could wave a wand to make any kind of educational approach feasible for my family, at the moment unschooling is at the top of the wish-list. At first I thought unschooling was the latest, hippest word for homeschooling, but no, it’s its own thing: learning without school […]
Without wanting to profile y’all, there is an extraordinarily high chance that you are a fabulous parent. I have this cocky certainty because you read parenting websites. You’re interested. You realise being a parent is something we do, as well as who we are. I know endless folk who get their advice from www.slackraparental.com, evidenced […]