I would like to share with you a note I recently posted with the Northside Unschoolers :
Dear friends from the north side unschoolers, 01/29/2011 Saturday
My name is Cindy Jusino I am new to this area. I have a 14month old son, and although noone I have ever personally known has ever
attempted this I want to "unschool" my child. I need your help to complete this dream. I have a beautiful vision I would love
to have help with. I want my son and any furture children to grow in the love of a "community". I am sick of living next to neighbors
I don't know, I am sad every time I pass someone on the street and say "hi" only to be given a "leave me alone, I don't know you look".
I want us to connnect with old people, young people, and every age inbetween people, we need there help and advice.
We should not be raising our children alone and isolated. I want to have my children learn in an enviroment with mixed ages as
we can and should learn from everyone and every experience. I don't want my child to be forced to learn to read or do math, or
geometry or anyother subject by a certian age. If my child learns to read at age 10 but does it because he loves to and chooses to
learn I believe he will benifit more then being forced to at say the age of 5. I want him to have freedom to choose what, when and
how he wants to learn. I trust he will learn everything he needs to in his own time and in his own way.
So I am writing this to ask for help. I know absolutly none of my neighbors, all my old friends live at least an hour and a half away,
due to a lack of community or at least one I don't see I feel totally alone. Perphaps you guys are already doing all this or know
people who are. If you are can we join you? If not are you or anyone you know intrested in this? My hope is to find others who have
children of all different ages and perphaps we can come together a couple times a week and have our children mix together and learn by
playing together. If they shall take an intrest in certain things we can provide the help for them to learn all they can. We can
also pull together a community of differnt people who know different things to help. Example if our children take up an intrest in
guitar maybe a retired guitar teacher that misses and loves teaching can be found. Even our own talents can be used, I am excellent
at crafts and feel most at one with myself on long walks, maybe I could teach crafts and about nature life. My goal is to stay away
from strict subject teaching, I think things tend to flow into one anouther. For instance a child can be enjoying learning to play
piano which uses a certian balance of math learning the beat and flow, which could lead to art as the beatiful flow of all of it. If
anyone out there is at all intrested in any of this please let me know. I would also just love to meet some people to hang out with
even if our views on education may be a little different. Thanks, cindy atcindyjusino@ ymail.com
I have recieved awsome emails back, one of which lead me not only to a playgroup we are going to be joining, but to a school that supports most of the "vision" I have. Please check this school out at www.tallgrasssudbury.org and www.sudval.org . Check out the videos in the links also. They let the children decide when, what and how they want to learn. They are free to go about as they please and are not forced to sit in a desk 8 hrs. a day. They can even play outside on the school grounds whenever they want too. The thing I wish was different was the whole sense of commuinty isn't exactly as I pictured it. I think it would be nice if neighboors and parents participated more instead of just dropping our children off to be with others all day. But it is a step closer and we are considering this school as a possiblility. I am going to call them tomorrow to set a time we can go see it. Anouther cool thing is children can come and go when they want the are open 9 am to 530 the only rule is they have to be there for at least 5 hrs. (I'm guessing that's a state requirement).
Also here is a psych 207 assisignment I recently had to do if you want to check it out:
Cindy Jusino/Urbanski
psych 207
I really enjoyed one part of this chapter especially, since it applied so well to my life right now. When Mr. Bronfenbrenner described how systems unfold and connect all of us this seemed to speaking right to me. Lately I have been trying to express the importance of a sense of community and how everything is connected. My main focus right now is trying to help others to see how badly inneed of a change our school systems are. I have been saying if we can create a exosystem that supports learning and discovery, and encourages it rather then opposes it it is the base to a beginning to a child that can learn on its own.
I believe to do this we must start at the microsystem and get everyone closest to a child more on board. Instead of separating the child for 8hrs a day 5 days a week from everyone and thing most familiar to the child why don't we include them! Parents, neighbors and friends all have something they can contribute to a learning child. For example maybe the neighbor is a retired piano teacher and would be able to teach the children to play. Perhaps the parent is great at gardening and can show the children how to grow a garden and preserve vegetables. Why are are children spending years of there life in a room with a complete stranger picking out what, when and how they should learn. Then merging not knowing how to do basic things such as cook a full course meal.
Another thing is the macrosystems put in place. The school policies have all children with other children there age only. This is not good for many reasons. Think of how a baby learns to walk, they learn from wanting to do what they see other people doing. This is true in all stages of life school just doesn't recognize it. Children want so bad to be able to do what everyone does. The trick is they have to do it in there own way and there own time. These macrosystems set in place even say the children have to be confined to a desk all day. Who would even want to learn then? Lets stop forcing them to sit still and read what the macrosystem want them to read and when. Lets let them pick what they want to read and when. After all if one child reads at age 7 and another at 11 but at 15 they are both great readers and love to read is it really going to make a difference when they first started to read? No! And since children learn what they live when they only have people near them there age they do the same in life, we live in a time when are old people are shut away, unimportant and worst of all unheard. There is so much "old people" can teach us, wisdom they can teach us that only comes with the trial and error of life.
The rest of the chapter for me was a mostly a repeat of things I already knew.
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Anyways if any of this post in any way shape or form interests you, I beg you to read : A call to Brilliance. This book tells the story of a person that has lived my dream and vision of the perfect education. Here is about the book:( This is a true story, I have a copy if you want to borrow it)
In an engaging memoir, award-winning educator, Resa Steindel Brown is drawn to the astonishing discovery that all children are born brilliant. With insightful commentary, she recalls her own trials as a student and teacher in our industrial, one-size-fits-all educational system. Then she encounters the needs of her young son. Finding a fit is like trying to stuff an odd-shaped child into a square hole. The love for her child propels her on a journey that sweeps her own children, and the children around her, into a learning environment driven by joy, exuberance and passion instead of heartbreak and defeat.
Unable to read until ages nine and ten, they entered college at eleven and twelve, became systems administrators, chief technology officers, trained with the Berlin Opera and Hamburg Ballet, created digital images used in the film "Lord of the Rings," presented software solutions to TRW, Pac Bell, Industrial Light & Magic, NSA, Sony, and more, all before the ages of eighteen.
The Call to Brilliance shows parents and educators how to redirect children's challenges into strengths, discover children's interests, fuel their interests into passions, and their passions into brilliance.
Unable to read until ages nine and ten, they entered college at eleven and twelve, became systems administrators, chief technology officers, trained with the Berlin Opera and Hamburg Ballet, created digital images used in the film "Lord of the Rings," presented software solutions to TRW, Pac Bell, Industrial Light & Magic, NSA, Sony, and more, all before the ages of eighteen.
The Call to Brilliance shows parents and educators how to redirect children's challenges into strengths, discover children's interests, fuel their interests into passions, and their passions into brilliance.
