The Learning in the Great Outdoors Carnival is up

The New Year's edition of the Learning in the Great Outdoors Carnival is up, hosted by Terrell at Alone on a Limb. Terrell writes,

Learning in the Great Outdoors is intended as a trading center for those who use, or want to use, the environment as an integrating context for learning. If you are a teacher, a nature center educator or naturalist, a homeschooler who wants to use the environment in your studies, an amateur or professional botanist or zoologist or geologist or other science buff, a parent, a student --- anyone with an interest in sharing the environment with children, please join us!

Not only are there some nifty and fun posts and pictures to keep you reading for quite some time, but news of some new (and new to me) and helpful blogs, including Open Wide, Look Inside, with links for using poetry and children's literature in just about every subject, from Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

So head out for the limb. After all, as Will Rogers said, "Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is." Thanks, Terrell, for some terrific New Year's reading when we all finally head indoors.

letters to the editor

A couple of different responses to The New York Times article on unschooling, Nov. 26 -- one ahem, one amen:

To the Editor:

I am shocked and saddened to read about the growing numbers of parents who are joining the unschooling movement.

I consider “child-led learning” to be an incredibly foolhardy philosophy. Not even older teenagers, much less the very young, should be put in the position of making unalterable decisions regarding their future welfare.

Achieving a satisfying and rewarding career is tough enough for those with a mainstream education that encompasses the breadth and depth of subject matter.

Many unschooled children may very well become deeply disappointed when, as adults, they find that the doors leading to exciting endeavors in disciplines like science, medicine and technology, among others, are forever closed to them.

Somehow, tossing precious potential to the winds seems a costly and irresponsible way to provide a freedom-filled childhood.

Mary K.

and this:

To the Editor:

We are home-schooling our children. Although we’ve opted to pursue a classical, college preparatory approach to our children’s education, we know many “unschooling” families, including several whose unschooled children have gone on to college and who seem to be well-adjusted adults leading happy, productive lives.

We see no reason to heed the concern and call for regulation expressed by Prof. Luis Huerta of Columbia University. As your article noted, there is little data suggesting that the unschooled population is at risk.

Also, given how many barely literate children graduate from government-run and supervised schools each year, it would be imprudent to divert the attention of our legislators and officials toward unschoolers.

We would rather see our taxes used to address the well-documented and distressing state of our country’s schools and the millions of children who leave them unable to pursue basic college work or to perform skills necessary to support themselves.

Margaret M.
Charles S.

Teaching history with more narrative and fewer "tiny gobbets of chewed-up material"

Found this interesting post from writer (and new home educating father) James Bartholomew, based on this interesting article from The London Times last week.

Worth noting too that The Times article is based on an interview with historian David Starkey before last week's premiere of the film version of the play, The History Boys, which "depicts the clash between two teachers, one who values learning for its own sake and one who sees teaching as a series of artificially selected exam techniques. It is a debate that Dr Starkey believes is worth having, not least because he fears that the current system of exams, targets and league tables is destroying Britain’s education system."

Timely thought for a new school year

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp
Or what's a heaven for?"
from Andrea del Sarto, 1855, by Robert Browning

True for Renaissance masters and especially for children.

Reminded by The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within by the marvellous Stephen Fry. Thanks, Pop.