Learning Freely Network » Blue Sky Days

Why call it Blue Sky Days?

admin — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 22:00:00 +0000

Kangaroo’s Paw Some of the best and most memorable natural learning expereinces we have had have been under a blue sky - outside, in the open, on a walk and talking, always lots of talking. The big blue skies we have in most parts of Australia are something we haven’t seen in other parts of the world we have visited. The sky has always been there, just not the same colour or intensity. The sky in St Ives, Cornwall has a strange intesntiy, something to do with the light. The skies over Paris in winter, pale, clean washed blue fter the rain. The skies over Brechin, Scotland, the cold icy blue after the snows blew in, perfectly framing the ruined castle; the hot dry blue skies over Morroco, the horizon fading in heat haze, turning everything a wobbly blue; Spanish blue skies are different again, espcially when on the trail of Luarie Lee and following the same routeas he did through the years of the civil war.
Then different again is the clear blue of the skies over the Alhambra in Spain, mixing the two cultres and histories into one.

Understanding Child-Led Learning

admin — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:00:00 +0000

…about a natural learning family by Robyn We are a natural learning family, with 11 y/o DS. Since before he was born we had decided on this path, and when he was 3 we packed ourselves up, left Sydney and started travelling. We chose 3 ys/o, as his immune system was stronger and he was out of diapers, which made life much easier when travelling. We spent the next 5 years travelling between the UK, USA & Canada, Europe and north Africa. For about 6 months while in England, DS wanted to try things out at a nearby school run by the local Buddhist community. This was a bunch of fun - more like a big playgroup with incense, yoga and meditation. By the time we returned to Sydney, DS had never come close to a school textbook, a curriculum or any sort of formal classroom like lessons on anything. Friends and family, who knew of our family choice and lifestyle were surprised to find that he could speak, read and write. They fully expected that he would be ignorant and illiterate. They were amazed to find DS was pleasant, respectful and interesting, that he didn’t obsess about TV, that he had opinions and was comfortable about expressing them. He had picked up an enormous amount of general and specific knowledge as we travelled, and had none of the attention or behaviour problems so often found in classrooms today. All this - happy child and parents - from never having set our minds to any specific course of study. Now he is 11 - and things are different. DS is now after specifics - he attends Spanish class at night school, piano lessons with a local natural learner mum, plus takes trampolining and weightlifting classes at the local PCYC. This is because of his own desire to know more about these things. He is a voracious reader and loves puzzles. As he now wants to know exactly what he knows, I prepare puzzles and quizzes so DS can test his own knowledge on his favourite subjects for the month: Greek mythology and philosophy. We have recently discovered a great book on math tricks by an Australian bloke called Bill Handley - how to do lightning fast math calculations. We found this because DS was asking how to do math easily and quickly. So was asked around and low and behold: there it was. I learned years ago that if I thought it was important for DS to know it, then that was my problem. If he didn’t think it was important, then he wouldn’t remember a scrap of the information, nor would he have any enthusiasm for finding out more. I often wondered how he would turn out - and he is always better and more wonderful than I could ever imagine. I used to think - what will he do when he is older? But now all I think about is, isn’t it wonderful that he is honest, thoughtful, curious and peaceful. He can do anything his heart desires and it will turn out right - because he is right on the inside. If DS comes to me with an interest in something, then it is up to us both to facilitate his learning. I help with resources and ideas and car rides to the library. He does the rest - the reading, the thinking, the research. The things which he knows about most are the ones where his reaction has been ‘hey wow - look at this!’ That is when I know it has caught his imagination and he will be absorbed by it for the next while - which could be 3 hours (as in reading every sex education/physical development book in the library in one session) or 6 months (learning about scorpions since he caught one in the back garden, then found her a husband. They did the wild thing, she killed him and now she is all broody and secretive.) This is all just to get to the point of our natural learner/child lead philosophy: follow, don’t lead; love, don’t shove; listen with an open heart; and protect your treasure from the nasties (unless they want to keep those nasties in a well sealed container). Robyn Western Australia

The Money Mind

admin — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:00:00 +0000

We have recently returned from vacation - a wonderful 2 weeks sitting on a sun-drenched beach under endless blue skies on the west coast of Australia with my family. This was bliss - not doing much, reading, chatting, endless hours playing monopoly - sharing time and fun as a family. The vacation didn’t cost us much, but was priceless for the value we each received out of simply being together. This led me to think about money and how little money it took for us to have a wonderful, memorable time together. We all know how important it is for children to learn about responsible use of money. I have found that the way parents experience money, their children will follow suit. When we first became parents, Phil & I decided we did not want to pass onto Duncan the ways in which we had experienced money as we were growing up. They weren’t positive experiences, and we found ourselves repeatedly in financial difficulties as adults. We figured out we had to change the way we dealt with our finances, and after some interesting experiments, we come up with a way that works well for us. One of the major things we discovered was that we had become caught up in the consumer mindset - we see it, we want it, we buy it - whether we had the cash or not. Dangerous way to go, which leaves so many people in debt, and with a house full of clutter and ’stuff’ which they think must make them happy. A big place we noticed this occurs was with children’s birthday parties. A trend we have seen develop over the past 10 years is for children’s parties and gifts to be bigger and better than last years’, and bigger and better than the kids next door. And always the latest item being advertised in the media. The same was happening with the marketing we were subjected to at xmas, easter and other vacation times. We passionately wanted to not be a part of this over-consumption lifestyle. So we made a decision as a family: we no longer do xmas, easter, mother’s or father’s day, and we didn’t want to ‘make up for it’ by having a big splash and a huge party on birthdays. This has brought some interesting responses from friends and relations. It has also had a wonderful effect on our family, and has been the main way that Duncan, who is 11 ½ , has learned about financial responsibility and how to be happy without ‘things’. In our family we have learned together that we are each special and the birthday is a day to celebrate that specialness, and how to do it without spending great wads of $$$. We all know when our birthdays are coming and we spend time in planning. The birthday is set aside to do things, all 3 of us together - picnic with a basket full of homebaking, or maybe horseriding and favourite food for a homecooked dinner. The birthday person gets to be waited on hand and foot, be told outrageous compliments and pampered. We are sharing and giving of our time and this means more to each of us than any bought gift. When I look at the lives and lifestyles of the people we know who send their kids to school, and then compare to ours, as a natural learning family I can see we are making a huge difference to our son’s life. Not only is Duncan not caught up with the latest fads that infest schoolyards, he has also learned about financial responsibility a lot faster than many of the school bound children his age that we know. I feel that having him fully share our lives means that we can have a more direct influence by showing him how we do things 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - as being extremely low-level consumers. He wouldn’t see this if he were at school all day. As we don’t watch much TV, he doesn’t see much of the advertising directed at children. He is aware of all the stuff that’s available though - he loves to wander through toy stores, but very rarely ever says can I have… I feel he is more sensible about consuming and cluttering his life with stuff. I see it as another way to raise a happy, relaxed child with the beneficial mindset of being a non-consumer. He doesn’t feel deprived or out of it because of this lifestyle choice either. We do give Duncan pocket money, and with our encouragement, he has chosen to receive it in a lump sum only twice a year - on his birthday and 6 months later. This way he can sit and plan in advance what he wants to invest in, to create a budget with this larger amount of money. He doesn’t do the impulse buying thing and blow it all in one day. Today is 6 months from his last birthday and he is very excited. He has chosen a charity to give a %, and he has designed a cat house - a place built on outside his bedroom window for his kitten to play in, instead of letting her outside to hunt the birds and lizards in the bushland. Then we’ll go kitten shopping, he’ll buy his new ballet shoes and some warhammer models, and add some more money to his travel account and to his savings account. He has also allocated a small portion to what he calls ‘wild spendings’ - a trip to the local lolly shop. This has been great for us all - he has learned that getting pocket money each week generally means he will fritter it away. But when he knows the amount he will receive each 6 months, then he can plan and save up for those big ticket items of his choice - and he gets to do it every 6 months. Not all of this has been his idea - I have insisted on some things, like the donation, the travel account and the savings account. And he is happy to do these things now that he is older and he can see the value in them. We have been very careful to discuss with him what’s a do-dad (junk, crap toys, impulse buying) and what will offer him the best long term benefit and happiness - like his kitten and her playroom and his warhammer guys and dance gear. This also has the added benefit of saving us $$$ - in our family we all know that we no longer impulse buy, and that if we really want something, we wait as long as possible before we commit to buying it, to make sure we really want or need it. If there is something that Duncan wants to own really badly he knows he can go have the store put it on lay-by or just wait - he knows the money will be there soon. Best of all, waiting for things has gotten him out of the habit of instant gratification. I am so pleased and relieved that our son will be growing into adulthood free of a mindset which will see him trapped into poor financial habits. This to me is the best way of learning naturally about developing his money mind, establishing financial responsibility and creating it as a habit to ensure a peaceful future.

On Vacation

admin — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 22:00:00 +0000

We have just returned from a wonderful 10 days vacation, and apart from having a lovely relaxing time, we discovered a lot of very interesting things about ourselves and how we deal with the small stuff. This has been a different sort of vacation for us. Ordinarily, we would just pick a time to go, pack up and leave. We used to go on vacation during school term times, in order to avoid the crowds and pay less for accomodation and transport. This year however, Duncan has chosen to attend theatre school - 3 hours of drama, dance and singing every Saturday morning during school term times. This means taking a trip away whenever it suits us doesn’t happen anymore. This isn’t a sacrifice - we are really happy to be able to support him in this. We have been able to help him discover his passion - he wants to be famous, very famous. And to this end he found that all the very famous people he had read about could act, dance, sing and had spent a lot of time working on developing many skills. He spends time each day practising piano, weight lifting and trampolining at the gym several times a week. He has just finished his first term at night school learning Spanish. He has discovered his love for ballet at weekly classes and and is on his path to achieving his tae kwon do black belt. It’s very exciting to watch him make decisions on where he will next spend his time in order to pursue his dream and follow his passions.

Rob & Duncun Sometimes he gets tired of it all and has asked ‘is it ok not to go to the gym tonight?’ Our usual answer is - sure, it’s ok not to go, but it’s only ever those who keep going toward their dreams who are the ones who makes their dream reality. We arware of the whole ugly parent syndrome - pushing the children and making them do activities whether they want to or not. I have found that if Duncan says - ‘can I not go’ it’s always because there is something else going on. The last week of term with theatre school found him really resisting, and after some probing we found that one of the other children had told him that he would have to sing a solo in front of the whole audience. After a quick phone to to check on this bit of news - totally untrue information - Duncan was happy to go along. We have found that with a bit of digging into the initial resistance always helps him to discover that he really does want to go, but can’t think of a way to sort out his seemingly insurmountable obstacles. I learned a valuable lesson a few years ago. I had decided that Duncan ought to go to gymnastics. He thought this was a good idea too. So me being the one who always looks for the best, decided on the big competitive gym club about 30 minutes drive away. They have an excellent reputation for preparing young children to become elite gymnasts, and had produced many national and olympic champions. Excellent! All was going well, I thought, until Duncan starting to object, not want to go, be late for sessions, and even hid his gym gear. After some digging, it turned out that while I thought it was the best gym, he thought it sucked big time. I had failed to find out what he wanted to get out of going to gym. I wanted him to be a great gymnast. He just wanted to have some fun. This gym, while being top in the competitions, was not top in the fun stakes. They pushed those kids, and bullied the ones who didn’t or couldn’t keep up the pressure on themselves. It wasn’t until I saw the whole deal from Duncan’s point of view that I realised what he was going through. Then I found out why he wanted to go to gymnastics - he wanted big muscles. That’s it. Muscles. Not the Olympics, not the medals, not the glory. Muscles. Now this, I can work with. We trawled around all the local gyms and found one which offered what he wanted. Olympic Weight Lifting! This is run by the local Police Citizens Youth Club, a 5 minute drive, and the people are nice too - they know he doesn’t want to compete, he just wants big muscles. Now that we all know exactly what he wants, we can all work together to help him achieve this. Which has other benefits not previously considered - after pointing out that people with big muscles only got there by training a couple of time every week, he is early for his sessions. Then when coach told him that big muscles come from eating the right food - Duncan has eliminate nearly all snack food, and pays close attention to what goes into making up a healthy eating regime. He has also discovered that it’s ok if the bar is heavy and it’s hard to lift the weights. It’s supposed to be. That’s the way to build muscles. This has enabled him to achieve more with his other activities - he can now say to himself- that’s hard. Good, it’s supposed to be. And he will be more determined to get it done so he can sit back and enjoy the results - a better performance at theatre school, or succeeding in a nailing down that back flip or one more time on that tricky piano piece. I have often wondered - and worried - how will he learn self discipline? How can you teach anyone that? Some people have said the only way to learn it is at the school of hard knocks, or by going to school or doing something you don’t like. I feel all of these options are lousy. The best I way I have found that helped my child learn what self discipline is, was to help him find what he is passionate about. Once you find the thing you love to do above all else, nothing to do with that will ever be too hard again. All of Duncan’s activities are now considered in the light of : Will this help to make me famous? If yes, then he is into it. If not, then it doesn’t even get another thought. So after all this intense work over the past 3 months, he really needed some time away to relax - hence the vacation. We headed up to a place called Geraldton - 5 hours drive north from Perth, up the west coast of Australia. We had even managed to arrange our business lives so that we could go get away for 10 days and not leave any great burden on our business partner. At the last minute - the night before we left - we had the great news that a contract had suddenly come through. This meant that Phil had to be home within 4 days. Duncan was initially very dissapointed, but again, after some discussions, he found that he could have his vacation and his dad too. Those first 4 days away were totally intense - just Duncan and Phil doing everything together, leaving me to laze away on the beach in solitude. This was good for us all - being the main facilitator in Duncan’s life, I found that we spend so much time together, and he spends very little time with his dad. This father and son time on vacation was perfect for us all. It gave them lots of time to be together and do all that talking about the important things, which doesn’t come up unlesss you have spent many hours in each other’s company. The swam, they fished, they dug holes and built sandcastles. For 4 days straight. Then Phil was gone back to work and Duncan and I had the rest of the time on our own - we swam, we fished, we dug holes and built sandcastles. Duncan did mention at the beginning that he was really angry that work should come ahead of him. This was dealt with in a way which left us all satisfied - we had found that it’s not the stuff that happens - it’s how you deal with what happens that counts. Now, we could choose to get all upset and angry about this or we could just look at it and say - well, that’s interesting. That is all just a part of what it means to be in business for yourself. It’s not a problem, it just is a reality. Dad has to go home in 4 days. Getting upset and angry wont change it, it will just make us all frustrated and resentful. Choose the easier option. Don’t react. It’s just: ok, that’s interesting. Time to get on with the stuff that really matters. Like sandcastles, and fishing.