Friday, August 26, 2005

Learning All the Time

I am a skeptic about unschooling. At the same time, I am attracted to its tenets. So this blog is for the purpose of recording learning in our home and to explore the idea of "Learning all the Time". It's called "Every Waking Hour" for that reason.

John Holt wrote a book called the former, and the last essay in the book had the latter title.

Do we indeed learn all the time? How could anyone dispute that? I'm sure my skepticism is a bit better expressed by the question: Are some forms of learning more focused and more effective than others?

Is learning more effective when it's driven by personal desire?

Are some kinds of learning more valuable intrinsically than others? To give an example -- is being an expert on Pokemon (I'm not knocking it! I am sort of an expert myself) equal to being able to communicate in Spanish, or solve math problems?

Not just rhetorical questions! at least, I hope not!

But most of this will be concrete -- I hope -- I want to journal what my kids are actually doing and what I do as well, as their mom and to some extent mentor.

1 comment:

Cindy said...

Willa,

I just found your blog and am starting at the beginning...! I didn't realize you created it to explore the unschooling issue.. wow. I look forward to reading it as I have been going down this same road for a few years now. I always love your insights. Well.. here goes. I look forward to what I find here!

Cindy