Knowledge is Power?

[Carrie Labinski]

I've been unschooling for under a year.  I tell myself that I'm going to let go of my schooling mind and let my daughter learn when she's ready - and just enjoy life.  It's all peaceful and THEN...I see another child who seems to know a lot more than my daughter whether it be math or countries around the world or science.  It seems that in our society parents are trying to have their child know as much as possible because that will give him/her the edge to be a success - "Knowledge is Power." 

If I just let my daughter learn as she lives, she's not going to have as much knowledge perhaps about the world than if she's had been given lots of info from doing cute projects/classes/etc.  Even homeschoolers can be pretty creative and think of fun activities to help their child learn geography, etc.  Sure, if she's an artist she doesn't need to know about how storms are formed but that'll help her in future conversations - she won't be the quiet one when the subject of meterology comes up. 

My main reason for homeschooling isn't to stuff her head with knowledge but I still have fears.  Can you help eliviate my fears?  Thank you!

[Joyce Fetteroll]

I think the TV show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader is very telling.

First, anyone older than 5th grade *was* a 5th grader and if they get stumped by elementary school questions it means the knowledge didn't stick. All the time spent getting that knowledge into them was wasted. They could have spent the time doing something that was personally meaningful that they would remember or build from.

Second it says that memorized facts are equated with being smart. Not true. Understanding is smart. Being able to figure something out is smart. In a crisis I'd much rather be with a clever person who can figure things out than a person who has memorized lots of facts from books! In a social situation, I'd much rather be around someone who has delved into their passions than someone who as memorized what someone told them was important.

I once described unschooling as looking back on all you've drawn on in your life that has gotten you where you enjoy being. Unschooling is just doing that and cutting out all the stuff you forgotten or found useless. Since we end up using such a small portion of all the information that was forced into tus, that leaves loads of time to explore interests deeper and explore other interests.

Richard Feynman, a renowned physicist who was also skilled at making complex subjects understandable, had this story about his father:

'See that bird?' he [his father] say. 'It's a Spencer's warbler. (I knew he didn't know the real name.) 'Well, in Italian, it's a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it's a Bom da Peida. In Chinese it's a Chung-Iong-tah, and in Japanese it's a Katano Takeda. You can know the name of the bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You'll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let's look at the birds and see what it's doing - that's what counts!

Memorizing facts isn't knowledge. It's parlor tricks. Understanding, asking questions, seeing the relationships between things is knowledge.

Being a walking textbook is not smart. It's annoying ;-) It's amazing when kids can rattle off all the state capitals -- or all the original Pokemon and their sounds :-) -- but it's annoying if someone thinks their memorized facts are the foundation of social interactions between people. Listening and being interested in someone else is a far better skill than spouting off facts :-)

If an adult is reciting facts they memorized in grade school about weather, that's dull. If someone's passion is meteorology and they can share that energy and excitement, *that's* interesting. But in terms of general conversation, why do you think she won't absorb something about meteorology? If *you're* not using it, is it reasonable for you to think she needs it? But, really, you should have it running through your lives just as a source of information. It's useful! So use it :-) Check the weather when it's important for your plans. Check the Weather Channel for shows. Memorizing cloud shapes and names can turn kids eyes away from the clouds. But the power of weather is cool! We have a couple of little pocket books about clouds I kept in the glove compartment and my daughter knows far more about clouds than I remember from school.

[Slinky]

If everyone in a conversation knows all the information pertaining to that conversation what a boring conversation that would be. Maybe if she is not taught meteorology instead of being the quiet one she will be the inquisitive one who makes the conversation worth having because she is actually interested in learning what the other person has to say rather then just listening to the same information she already has.

I am filled with thousands of useless facts that makes for great conversation. I would rather be the quiet one much of the time.......

[Sandra Dodd]

-=-It seems that in our society parents are trying to have their child know as much as possible because that will give him/her the edge to be a success - "Knowledge is Power." -=-

The knowledge that will empower you needs to be gained gradually, as you look at yourself, your friends, your relatives and as soon and as well as you can, at other, older unschoolers. What do you use today that you learned in elementary? Are there things you avoid today because of the way it was presented or treated in school? Can you recite things that are useful to you? Look at your friends who are the happiest. Are they doing things (for jobs or hobbies) they learned outside of school? In school?

As part of your own deschooling, turn your thoughts toward an analytical look at what and who and when and where of your years of experience with school and life.

You don't need "fun activities to help your child learn geography" if you have a globe and a map and you're willing to look things up for her. My son learned to read maps from a player's guide for Super Mario Brothers. Jigsaw puzzles of maps are my husband's favorite, so we often have one nearby. You could play with google maps or google earth, just goof around, don't "teach." Look for grandma's house, for Disneyland, for the Colisseum in Rome.

Play around with things and ideas and words and songs and art.
http://sandradodd.com/playing