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.
Bridging from the Fediverse to Bluesky (or not)
2 months ago
