What do we teach in unschooling?

Well, to me, unschooling is all about learning and being together with my son. To unschool him would means to allow him to be himself. To allow him to be the master of his life. Many a times I wished and itched to step in and rein in his obsession; but I've learnt that to impose any restrictions on my son would mean him rebelling against it. So my philosophy is why create a battle when we can resolve this amiacably? Not that I am being a bad parent by allowing him to do whatever he wants, but instead I am being a good parent by allowing him to learn how to make good decisions, by making bad decisions. DS know should he need an opinion, he can seek counsel with me. By allowing him all the space he wants, he will soon get to the bottom of whatever he is obsess with, and will move onto newer pastures. By not focusing on controlling DS, I am free to concentrate on what I want to do, and get on with it. And DS will learn to moderate himself if he wants to aligned himself to my routine.

All of the above have made my child believe nothing is too small, too big, too silly, too serious, too difficult, too impossible to explore and everything can be discussed.

Now that all mental barrier to learning is remove, it is my job then to bridge any handicap that my child presents, mentally or physically. If he cannot spell, I will spell for him. If he cannot draw, I will draw for him. If he doesn't want to write, I will scribe for him. If he cannot stop for food, I will feed him.

The objective is to help him reach his goal, and accomplish that, he will, despite numerous handicap, place there by himself or society.

Example:-
My son will read any book from a very early age, despite the fact some of the books he picked is too mature and deep for him. But nevertheless, it never stopped him from picking up a very thick and heavy book to take home. Because he knows I will help him carry this book home, and I will read this book to him. Hence, he knows, no book is too difficult and too heavy to access into.

By unschooling means to dis-regard all the conventional thinking and follow our own instinct. Only by unschooling can we feel free enough to break away from all those chains imposed onto us, and finally see sense in learning about living and life, in it's natural order.

Homeschooling and Socialising

My child is happy being on his own. He plays on his own, he doensn't really do crowds, and at times should he fancy company, he'll then ask to visit a friend or 2. Really, it is about socislising at his terms. Which explains forcing him to socialise in the school grounds, whether he likes it or not is more detrimental to him than beneficial.

And I have great confidence that he'll grow up to be a happy, confident and friendly soul, perhaps not the loud and animated type, but the quiet confident type, for he do respond and chat with anyone who approaches him.

Great article about homeschooling and socialising

http://www.drlaurablog.com/category/home-schooling/

Unschooling at work via the PSP

We have be unschooling for 1 /12 years now, and it's amazing how time flies. We started out by de-schooling with the PS2, as evident with my first few blogs. And between that time till now, we have few but significant examples of how unschooling is working at it's best, via the computer and handheld games. My child is a computer junkie and his day to day is occupied by this ratio - 50% computer/internet: 30% tv: 20% toys (lego/transformer).

DS has been on his late-night pc games routine again. Been on the "I hate Maths" and "Star Wars Droid factory". He's also playing alot of his "Spelling Challenge" on his PSP, and is doing very well on spelling for a kid fo 7 yrs old. His Transformer game also instigated the discussion of the Hoover Dam.

The past 4 months he's been playing the 300 game on his PSP, on and off. Because of this fascination with all the blood and killing, he's took to YouTubing for some home-made movies. Instead of blood and gore, he found music videos with the Spartan character- hence learned about music video and rapping. Along the way, he's also found Jaws LOL!

Anyway, based on DS's fascination, we wikipedia the 300 spartans, and out came the true history behind this show. I was struggling with all these Latin names, and surprisingly DS corrected me on all of them, for he's learnt it all from playing the game on his PSP, LOL! Well, another example of learning without realising it LOL!

300, March to Glory is a story about one particular battle (don't remember the name) during the ancient history of the Persian Empire/ Greece, between King Leonidas and King Xerxes. We've managed to track Persia (now Iran) on the map.

Feeling all fired-up, I went to the library the next day to get more books and got the dvd for the movie 300. We watched the movie, learnt (absord more like it) fantastically alot in just 1 hour, about how people dressed and talk in the olden days, we noticed the different apperance and dressing between the Greeks, Persian and all the diffrent nations that came forth to war, under the one Eygyptian looking king.

Very intersting for I managed recognised a few of the clans, all with thier distinct and unique talents, the Mongolians, the Indians with thier elephants, and many more warriors from the vast Byzantine empire.

Got to know about the different type of battle tactics and weapons utilised in the olden days and believed it or not, mode of communications (from the used of messengers on horses to the sound of the horn to trigger off the next round of assault (arrows, lots of them) before the invention of tele-communications LOL! If one can overlook the violence and gory of the movie (it is a battle movie afterall), I think this is a fantastic movie to showcase the magnificence and richness and brilliance-ness of our past ancient civilization.

In those days, it truly is about how much have you got to show for. And it shows why all those kings and ruler send thier vast armies to conquer other countries, to capture and owned the most precious commodity of all. Other than land, human power(armies, slaves, philosophers and citizens) must be one of the most valuable recources, for with more soldiers and warriors, one must be truly stronger and capable of expanding one's empire.

Today DS created his own comic with the Spartan/ Persian storyline, (with a Jaws-twist at the end) for his dad. He dictate and drew all the pictures. Not bad for a kid who doesn't like writing.