Posts in category "unschooling"
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How Not To Teach
So this other day, me and my daughter were watching a video where the author was talking about infinity and how if you divide a number by zero you get infinity. My daughter could not understand how anything can be divided into zero parts. Or how attempting to divide something into zero parts blows up into this huge number that we call infinity. Being the smart alec that I am, I thought I could explain her how division works and how something divided by zero gives you infinity. As you can imagine, I made a huge mess of it and it showed me how little I knew about teaching to kids. If you take pleasure in seeing a grown man fumble with math, go on.
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From Unschooling To Schooling
Our daughter is now almost 11 years and she has been unschooled for almost as many years. Well, truth be told, she went to pre-school for almost a year when she was 3 years old, if you can call that school. Since 4, she has never attended school and neither have we actively taught her anything at home – hence unschooled. Some parents teach their kids at home and follow some curriculum and they are labelled as home schoolers. But since about a couple month ago, our daughter is going to school. So from unschooling, straight to school! Yeah, I know that should come as a shock :).
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What Unschooling Kids Might Be Missing Out
I have only seen two kinds of responses when someone learns that we are unschooling our daughter. Either they are worried about education or they are worried about social skills. The former manifests into questions such as “how will she manage life without knowing math and science”, or “how will she get a job or go for higher education without a certification” etc. I understand their anxiety in this matter and sometimes even I wonder how we can be so chill about it. The fact of the matter is that I know she can’t get a high paying job, But if she can understand that living happily on a small income is better than seeking peer praise and recognition for a lot of money and living in stress, then my job is done. Or at least that is what I have come to realize after all these years on the planet.
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My Daily Routine: 2023 Edition
It has been a couple of years since I gave my last “daily routine” update. A reader of my blog also asked me to give an update, so here it is. There is almost no change in my routine since about 2 years ago which is nothing to be surprised about since that was the whole plan in retirement. Just chill, take it easy and live life on the absolute slow lane. Almost nothing in our life is urgent since early retirement. Things will happen when they happen :).
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Right To Education At Any Age
In the Indian constitution we have an article which specifies that children in the age group of six to fourteen years have the right to get free and compulsory education. It is a pretty good amendment to the constitution. But what I don’t like about it is the specific age that is mentioned. Why shouldn’t it be a fundamental right to have education at any age? Some kids or even adults may not be able to learn at a young age, and may prefer to learn at a later age. Of course no one is stopping them for learning, but it may not be free. However, with the advent of technology and internet, learning can be free at any age.
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DIY Newton's Cradle
It has been a while since I wrote anything about the projects I do with my daughter. Actually we haven’t built anything in a long time. I was doing some small cardboard projects but nothing to write home about. However, recently we built a newton’s cradle just for fun and I thought it might be an interesting project to blog about. I think my daughter came across Newton’s cradle somehow in one of her videos and she was explaining to me about this toy where balls would swing like a pendulum. I immediately understood what she was trying to explain and decided to built it.
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Our Children's Future Will Be Different From Ours
As parents, we always want the best for our kids. Almost every parent thinks this way irrespective of their background. But how far into the future can we see and make a good enough prediction for our children? After all, our predictions will be based on our experiences which is basically something that happened in the past. How much does the past experience help in predicting the future outcomes? Every generation has a disconnect with the next generation in terms of how they see the world and how they perceive the future. That is very strange given that we all share the same world. How is it possible for the next generation to see the world differently from us?
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A Reader's Dilemma
From time to time I get emails from readers of my blog asking me for some advice or suggestions regarding their situation. Most of them are not unusual and a general advice does suffice. So usually they are not worthy of a blog post. But every once in a while you get some really interesting questions and that’s exactly what happened a few days ago. A reader wrote to me asking for some advice and I responded. Then I felt like it may be useful advice if there are others in a similar situation. Also I wrote a lot about my own thoughts about why I am unschooling my daughter and what the repercussions could be. So I thought I should copy-paste my response here in my blog. With the reader’s permission I am reproducing our conversation with some information redacted.
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Internet Addiction Is A Thing
As parents of an unschooled kid we never really have any restrictions on most things our daughter wants to do. However, in the recent past, we had to bring in some restrictions. As you might recall, I am an ardent supporter of technology. And so, I believe that kids should also grow up with technology if they want to find their place in this world. My spouse on the other hand does not quite agree with me in this regard :). Anyway, the point of this post is not about whether technology is good or bad for kids, but more about whether they can self regulate addictive behavior.
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The Time I Could Not Resist Teaching My Kid
Normally I don’t teach anything to my daughter unless she specifically asks me about something. This is inline with our belief that kids learn best when they are curious themselves, rather than explaining something that we want them to learn. All part of the whole unschooling journey that we are going through. However, from time to time I make some exceptions. One such exception happened recently where I had to teach something to my kid without her asking me because I could not stop myself :). Guilty as charged! But let me explain.
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