Skip to main content

The Joy of Unscheduled (Unschooled)) Learning

Unschooling has become a bit of a breeze for us in the last few weeks.  We put in our work: we have socialization opportunities setup for the kids, we have places for them to go, things for them to do, adventures for them to have, and learning resources for them to work with if they’d like.   It’s taken me probably two weeks to realize that we’re in this state.  The hardest thing for me at the moment is to learn to just sit back and relax now.

So, along those lines, let me tell you about an awesome unschooling ‘learning’ that’s been taking place for about the last month.  Six year-old No. Two and I got to spend three days camping in Hawaii last month.  While we were there, Two watched people head out on kayaks to the nearby island, Chinaman’s Hat, as well as just to toodle around with no destination, or perhaps to go fishing.  He desperately wanted to go on a kayak, but there was a problem, he didn’t know how to swim.  I explained to him there was no way we could do something like that till he could swim.



And there it was, Two—who had not been particularly interested in swimming for the last two years—was locked in.  Swimming was the thing he wanted to know how to do!  Now!  People talk about finding passions?  I think for unschooling kids almost everything is a passion.  Especially when they’re in charge of it.

Two chose not to wait for the swim lessons that had already been promised this summer.  He chose not to wait till we got home.  There was an ocean right there.  What else did he need?  I’d told him for months that the first, biggest step would getting his whole head in the water.  Up until this trip, he hadn’t bothered.  Now that he knew the stakes and what he wanted, Two headed into the water to give it a try.  An hour later he was dipping his head in whenever he pleased.

Things kind of rocketed along from there.  I suggested that he try floating.  Two did his hallmark thing, acknowledging that I’d said something, but giving no indication he might ever actually try it out.  A few minutes later though, there he was, working on his float.

When we got home,  He convinced his sibs that they too needed to learn how to swim, and we’ve been practicing at least three times a week in the mornings at our public pool ever since!  Two’s swimming  is coming along quickly with 8 year-old One right behind him, and four year-old Three steadily working on the basics.

With unschooling, learning happens when the kids think it should, and then?  Watch out!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

More Cowbell! Record Production using Google Forms and Charts

First, the what : This article shows how to embed a new Google Form into any web page. To demonstrate ths, a chart and form that allow blog readers to control the recording levels of each instrument in Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" is used. HTML code from the Google version of the form included on this page is shown and the parts that need to be modified are highlighted. Next, the why : Google recently released an e-mail form feature that allows users of Google Documents to create an e-mail a form that automatically places each user's input into an associated spreadsheet. As it turns out, with a little bit of work, the forms that are created by Google Docs can be embedded into any web page. Now, The Goods: Click on the instrument you want turned up, click the submit button and then refresh the page. Through the magic of Google Forms as soon as you click on submit and refresh this web page, the data chart will update immediately. Turn up the:

Cool Math Tricks: Deriving the Divergence, (Del or Nabla) into New (Cylindrical) Coordinate Systems

Now available as a Kindle ebook for 99 cents ! Get a spiffy ebook, and fund more physics The following is a pretty lengthy procedure, but converting the divergence, (nabla, del) operator between coordinate systems comes up pretty often. While there are tables for converting between common coordinate systems , there seem to be fewer explanations of the procedure for deriving the conversion, so here goes! What do we actually want? To convert the Cartesian nabla to the nabla for another coordinate system, say… cylindrical coordinates. What we’ll need: 1. The Cartesian Nabla: 2. A set of equations relating the Cartesian coordinates to cylindrical coordinates: 3. A set of equations relating the Cartesian basis vectors to the basis vectors of the new coordinate system: How to do it: Use the chain rule for differentiation to convert the derivatives with respect to the Cartesian variables to derivatives with respect to the cylindrical variables. The chain

The Valentine's Day Magnetic Monopole

There's an assymetry to the form of the two Maxwell's equations shown in picture 1.  While the divergence of the electric field is proportional to the electric charge density at a given point, the divergence of the magnetic field is equal to zero.  This is typically explained in the following way.  While we know that electrons, the fundamental electric charge carriers exist, evidence seems to indicate that magnetic monopoles, the particles that would carry magnetic 'charge', either don't exist, or, the energies required to create them are so high that they are exceedingly rare.  That doesn't stop us from looking for them though! Keeping with the theme of Fairbank[1] and his academic progeny over the semester break, today's post is about the discovery of a magnetic monopole candidate event by one of the Fairbank's graduate students, Blas Cabrera[2].  Cabrera was utilizing a loop type of magnetic monopole detector.  Its operation is in concept very sim