John Lennon

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I wrote down "happy". They told me I didn’t understand the assignment.

I told them they didn’t understand life.

John Lennon

Hi Everyone,

Thought I would share an example of the beauty of intrinsically motivated learning.....

My 14 year old daughter Alexandra has recently being trudging through her year 10 maths requirements. She's been doing well enough, but has been far from inspired. That was until a week or so ago when she came to me and said:

Mum, could I study business maths this year because I've just been doing some on the computer and I really like it. It's something I can actually use in my life, and it makes sense.

Since then, Alexandra has been doing maths everyday without prompting and is mastering levels that are more appropriate (acc to curriculum content) to a level or so above what she's been doing.

I am not saying that maths is her strongest suit or that she is wanting to be a mathematician, but she is doing well because it is meaningful to her and she is motivated to learn it for a purpose that has more value to her personally than a tick or a letter on a piece of paper.

I think this is worth noting because if I add up the number of hours I spent during my childhood mindlessly churning off irrelevant information it is staggering. I was always surprised when I got a particularly 'good' or 'bad' grade because to me it was not something I could predict according to how much of myself I had invested in the exercise. Consequently it meant very little to me in a larger sense.

Eventually I learned to do what I needed to achieve fairly reliable grades but this exercise always seemed like jumping through hoops to me and I believe I lost some of my joy in learning and creative drive for a while as a result.

For all of these reasons, I'm pleased that Alexandra is taking the time to decide what is right for her and what will serve her best for her future learning.

I'll finish with a quote by Johann Gottfried Von Herde:

Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.

Talk Soon, Cynthia x

The Natural Child - Book Review

Hi Everyone

The Natural Child is a gorgeous book which I enjoyed from cover to cover. It's written by parenting counsellor and director of The Natural Child Project, Jan Hunt. It is full of compassion, ideas and gentle promptings about how we can all improve the quality of life for the children around us.

The Natural Child is divided into sections dealing with issues such as parenting with empathy and trust, living with a baby, siblings adjusting to baby, living with children, guiding children, helping children learn and advocating for children.

I particularly like that Hunt has not left off caring for our children's emotional needs once they pass infancy. Children remain highly sensitive and impressionable beings well into childhood and attachment parenting is advocated throughout this book not as over protection or neurosis but as a necessary connection to maintain with your child to ensure independence in thought and emotional well being through to the teen and adult years.

Hunt shares her experiences as a homeschooling parent, and offers suggestions about how to best serve the learning needs of children, including those with a learning disability.

In The Natural Child, Hunt advocates caring for all children within our community rather than just our immediate family. She believes that children are the responsibility of the society they live in and that if they are suffering through dysfunction, then we as a community are all accountable. She offers practical suggestions for improving the experience of the parents and children around us, and shares that even if we see no immediate effect from our actions

the sheer act of standing up for the child can have a
significant impact on the child herself

Definitely something to consider.

I will finish with the concluding paragraph because I believe it sums up the book better than I ever could...

When we believe in our child fully, we trust that they are doing the very best they can at every moment, given their age, past experience and present circumstances.......Having someone dependably "on their side" is absolutely critical if a child is to grow into adulthood with a generous capacity for love and trust.

If we aren't on their side, who will be?

Talk Soon, Cynthia x

Teach Your Own - Book Review

Hi Everyone,

Today I'll review John Holt's classic homeschooling book Teach Your Own . Holt wrote this book originally in the early 1980's when homeschooling was a very alternative mode of education and his theories were even more radical for this time.

Holt is a person I see as one of the original (modern) proponents for natural learning and the unschooling of children. His philosophy is clearly one of trusting children to want to learn and facilitating that as a parent wherever you can. This may mean providing music, art, singing, drama lessons for children with a particular creative bent. It may mean trips to art galleries, museums, national parks, whatever will best serve to motivate and inspire your child in their passion for learning.

Holt also cites many examples where he found incidental openings to teach children without making himself separate from or above his pupils. He openly shares where he's made mistakes along the way and how he simply changed what he was doing for a more favourable result. He takes a lot of the pressure off of homeschooling parents to be perfect and simply encourages you to self correct and get on with it and to encourage your children to do the same.

I find Holt's original work fascinating, enlightening and inspiring if a little idealistic for functioning within our current society and education guidelines. For this reason I enjoy the edition of Teach Your Own updated by Patrick Farenga (2003). Farenga is a homeschooling parent and co-producer of Growing Without Schooling an unschooling magazine founded by Holt 1977- 2001.

In this edition, Farenga updates John Holt's revolutionary works around subjects such as homeschooling and the law, reasons for homeschooling, learning difficulties, how to get started, school response to homeschooling, current learning materials, homeschooling organisations etc.

I strongly recommend this book to any homeschooling families who are interested in getting all the information before deciding which education model they will use. John Holt has a massive amount of practical experience with children which he shares generously and without jargon for the benefit of all, and that alone makes him worth reading in my opinion.

Talk Soon, Cynthia x

Changing Education Paradigms

Hi Everone,

I was given this link about the changing paradigms of education in our society presented by Sir Ken Robinson and I thought it worth passing on. It has a bit of information about the history of education, self esteem in learners, the increasing medication of children for ADHD, outcomes of the current education system and other theories and research findings. This presentation is given in a fascinating, sketchbook style. Definately worth checking out.

Talk Soon, Cynthia x