Comments on: Updated links

By: Jentle

Jentle — Wed, 12 May 2004 07:22:31 +0000

When I was a little kid my mom and I would play backgammon and I never wanted to use the rule where you can jump on a single piece and put it on the wall… It just felt mean, and I remember once getting really upset when she tried to talk me into taking her piece….

So I get that non-competitive thing.

By: Carrie Pavlin

Carrie Pavlin — Wed, 12 May 2004 05:46:50 +0000

Hey, Holly - I have a Logan too.

Dawn - I want to school Logan at home, I really do. I’d like to think that we’re teaching him already, he’s 15 months old and he’s learning a lot - he has to get that from somewhere. But I don’t have any experience with home/unschooling at all. I just know that his father and I both dropped out of high school, for various reasons having nothing to do with how smart we were, and we don’t want to inflict that artificial structure and hideous social pit on him. I need to do more research.

By: Holly

Holly — Tue, 11 May 2004 19:56:20 +0000

Homeschooling would work very well for Logan, unschooling in particular. Unfortunately I am not disciplined enough to be a good homeschooling parent - there’s not a very large network of homeschoolers in this area (there was in Texas and when we lived there, we intended to HS) and I am too introverted and too lazy about my introversion to seek out social contacts for my kids. I don’t know if homeschooling Adam would work as well because his personality is different. I think unschooling can really work. Logan has learned almost everything except how to read through unschooling (he asked to learn how to read, so J taught him using “Teach your child in 100 easy lessons”). Adam learns stuff without being formally taught too - the other day he shocked me by pointing to a stop sign and saying it was a red octagon! - but I think all kids do if their parents interact with them.

We’re lucky to have some good schooling options outside the home to compensate for my inability/unwillingness to find a network of people who would offer social contact for my kids. Both Logan and Adam at least seem like their giftedness requires a different schooling environment than standard public school. At the same time, I’m totally open to the possibility that someday we might homeschool for various reasons and I’d have to suck it up and find a way to make it work.

By: Sara

Sara — Tue, 11 May 2004 19:29:28 +0000

I love reading what you have to say about Noah and homeschooling. I lost my hearing in kindergarten, and ended up schooling myself since I couldn’t understand what was going on in the classroom most of the time–a fact that I didn’t realize until much later. If I was interested in the class material I’d get A’s, if I was disinterested in the class material I’d find my own material and I’d know more on the topic than anyone else–but overlap would determine my grade.

Noah’s a lucky kid to not have to worry about something silly like grades getting in the way of him devoting himself to learning what he’s intererested in.

By: shannon

shannon — Tue, 11 May 2004 17:54:47 +0000

I was certain I would not homeschool, but wanted to read up on it anyway, because I enjoy education theory and am always looking for ways to improve my teaching.
Post-John Holt (as per your recommendation) I have all but decided to homeschool through about age 9, at least–my partner’s unquestioning agreement was the clincher (I really expected her to object)–if only because the type of school we’d want to send our kid to is A) not available where we live now and B) really expensive even if we move by school-age.
I realize that indeed, I learned more out of school, self-directed, than in school, as a kid. I just sort of always assumed that was how it just was.
But I don’t suppose it has to be.