Natural Learning and Simplicity and Survival
What are you up to today? Can you name the learning that occured? Pick one incident and describe what happened, why it happened and what was learned - both intentionally and unintentionally.
I learn all the time and the bit that makes me buzz with joy (yep, truly buzz with joy and a fair bit of excitement) is that I never know before each moment what I'm going to learn in the next.
I have a fair idea most of the time. That's because I'm a control freak. I haven't met a kid yet that wasn't hung up on control. That's what drives most kids to not do anything, especially in public, unless they get it perfect first time! I often wonder what sows the seeds of this need to control everything in our environment, or if it's imprinted in our DNA?
Humanity goes to amazing extremes to control the environment - spacial and temporal. What other critter does that? Most engage in controlling behaviour, and it's pretty obvious that much of that is directly related to survival.
When homeschooling and living, I did my best - which wasn't never good enough, by the way, to satisfy me - to keep focussed on the survival stuff. Natural and simple living and learning reflects a focus on survival. What do we need to survive? But beyond survival is thriving... Humanity can't afford to keep thriving at any cost though. We need to pull our focus back to survival for a while.
What happens when we model our homeschooling lives around this idea? When we scale back our learning programs back to the daily essentials? What are the daily essentials? What do you think they are? What does a child really need to know and be able to do on the way to becoming an adult? How many of us focus on what we consider to be the most important survival tasks each day?
When I look at how I go about surviving each day I'm appalled at how fogged up by complexity these simple tasks have become. I seem to make them thus, in order to justify my existence. Most of my worries grow from this complexity too. And all of the distractions that clutter my life! They form a weird kind of salve that soothes the underlying disquiet as they feed my addiction for busy-ness!
I feel the time is right to develop a natural learning curriculum that truly focusses on the basics, and then lets the individual get on with the business of playing with the rest...
© Beverley Paine
You may reprint the above article provided you include this information:
Have a homeschooling question? Become a member of the friendly Homeschool Australia Frequently Asked Questions email group. Visit Homeschool Australia for more original content. No time to visit the site? Subscribe to the FREE bi-monthly Homeschooling Australia Newsletter, or sign up for Daily Homeschooling Tips
Visit www.alwayslearningbooks.com.au for a great range of homeschooling, unschooling and books on natural learning!
I learn all the time and the bit that makes me buzz with joy (yep, truly buzz with joy and a fair bit of excitement) is that I never know before each moment what I'm going to learn in the next.
I have a fair idea most of the time. That's because I'm a control freak. I haven't met a kid yet that wasn't hung up on control. That's what drives most kids to not do anything, especially in public, unless they get it perfect first time! I often wonder what sows the seeds of this need to control everything in our environment, or if it's imprinted in our DNA?
Humanity goes to amazing extremes to control the environment - spacial and temporal. What other critter does that? Most engage in controlling behaviour, and it's pretty obvious that much of that is directly related to survival.
When homeschooling and living, I did my best - which wasn't never good enough, by the way, to satisfy me - to keep focussed on the survival stuff. Natural and simple living and learning reflects a focus on survival. What do we need to survive? But beyond survival is thriving... Humanity can't afford to keep thriving at any cost though. We need to pull our focus back to survival for a while.
What happens when we model our homeschooling lives around this idea? When we scale back our learning programs back to the daily essentials? What are the daily essentials? What do you think they are? What does a child really need to know and be able to do on the way to becoming an adult? How many of us focus on what we consider to be the most important survival tasks each day?
When I look at how I go about surviving each day I'm appalled at how fogged up by complexity these simple tasks have become. I seem to make them thus, in order to justify my existence. Most of my worries grow from this complexity too. And all of the distractions that clutter my life! They form a weird kind of salve that soothes the underlying disquiet as they feed my addiction for busy-ness!
I feel the time is right to develop a natural learning curriculum that truly focusses on the basics, and then lets the individual get on with the business of playing with the rest...
© Beverley Paine
You may reprint the above article provided you include this information:
Have a homeschooling question? Become a member of the friendly Homeschool Australia Frequently Asked Questions email group. Visit Homeschool Australia for more original content. No time to visit the site? Subscribe to the FREE bi-monthly Homeschooling Australia Newsletter, or sign up for Daily Homeschooling Tips
Visit www.alwayslearningbooks.com.au for a great range of homeschooling, unschooling and books on natural learning!
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