Yearly Archives: 2010

Book Bias

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I love books.  I love to read them and write them and make them.

I also love this post from Sandra Dodd, from her daily blog, Just Add Light & Stir, entitled Crippled by Books.  Here’s a snip:

If Abraham Lincoln had had full-color DVDs of the sights of other countries, of people speaking in their native accents and languages, and of history, he would have shoved those books aside and watched those videos.

Sometimes we privilege the familiar just because it’s familiar.  It’s good to re-examine our biases from time to time, and release the ones that don’t hold up.

Read Sandra’s whole (brief) post here.

An Unschooler’s Thank-You Note

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(It’s a woefully incomplete list.  If you’re reading this, consider yourself on it.)

…to all my years of schooling, for showing me what not to do.

…to my homeschool co-op, for teaching me that getting the kids out of the school was not enough; I had to get the school out of me.

…to John, and John, and Grace, for putting wisdom into books so I could find them and learn.

…to Wendy, and Sandra, and Ronnie, and Joyce, and so many others, for putting wisdom online so I could find it and learn. Continue reading →

You Have to Be Carefully Taught

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Apropos of… oh, I don’t know… how about “enhanced pat downs” and “full body scans” and all the rest of it we’ve been hearing about as the holiday travel season approaches?

This is from 101 Reasons Why I’m An Unschooler.   One of the more political passages.

School students have no inherent right to privacy.  Anything in a student’s possession, on their person, or in their school locker, is subject to search by a member of the school staff.

Students can be forced to empty the contents of their purses, pockets and backpacks when told to do so by a staff member…. When taken to court, at least one school has argued that strip-searching students is their right. (…)

It’s difficult to see how a person might learn what it means to be free of involuntary search and seizure when they have been schooled for thirteen years in turning out their pockets at the whim of the state.

Indeed.

Moving Day

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About a month ago — feels like longer — I wrote the last post on my old Blogger unschooling blog, Crooked Mile, and put my unschooling thoughts in storage for a while.

I knew I’d be unpacking them sooner or later, but I wasn’t sure where it would be.  Or when.

Looks like it’s going to be here.  And now.

I’ve left Crooked Mile in place for archival purposes, but I hope you’ll make the move with me and keep in touch with me here.  There’s an email option in the sidebar that you can click on to get post updates in your inbox.  Or put me in your feed reader, if you do that sort of thing.

I always thought the Mile was kind of all over the place, and maybe you liked that, but I’m needing a bit more focus these days.  So you can look for a bit more focus here.

Unpacking is good.

Unschooling is awesome.

That’s all for now.