Re: [Discuss-sudbury-model] Introverts

Re: [Discuss-sudbury-model] IntrovertsBut isn't it "natural" for parents to help their kids? Surely that maternal instinct couldn't be wrong? I would say that neither unschooling or sudbury isn't completely natural, because while it's not natural to be at home separated from your "village" (other interested people of differing ages) as is often the case with unschooling, it's also not natural to be separated from parents and family all day.

Yet one advantage to a Sudbury school I'm thinking we could use some help with is the issue of housework in the home. As unschoolers, my kids play freely and creatively all day and make HUGE messes. I don't know how to get them to clean up without being an authoritarian parent, so I just clean up for them and hope that they will eventually desire to pitch in of their own free will. But the messes are huge and sometimes I end up staying up half the night cleaning up and sometimes I feel resentful about that. If they were at a Sudbury, the huge messes would be less. They'd still play creatively at the Sudbury but they would learn the responsibility of clean up in a less authoritarian way.

Another thing I'm thinking it would help with is that my daughter has become pretty upset about her little brothers lately. They've really been getting under her skin and she never gets a break from them. At the Sudbury she'd get a break from them.

Sheila
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Hilary Tuttle
  To: discuss-sudbury-model_at_sudval.org
  Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 9:41 AM
  Subject: Re: [Discuss-sudbury-model] Introverts

  Hi Jesse,

  I question if it's possible to have an SVS school that is "cooperative", one that is staffed completely by parents. My son is in his third year at SVS in Framingham and as far as I can see one of the most astonishing aspects to recommend this type of school is the fact of each student's individual and complete self responsibility. I know my maternal desire to help and protect my child would be at direct cross purposes with this precious freedom.

  Hilary Tuttle

    From: Jesse Gallagher <fomajes_at_yahoo.com>
    Reply-To: discuss-sudbury-model_at_sudval.org
    Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 05:29:00 -0800 (PST)
    To: discuss-sudbury-model_at_sudval.org
    Subject: Re: [Discuss-sudbury-model] Introverts

    Hello all, My name is Jesse Gallagher. I unschool my 9 year-old daughter and my 6 year-old son, and I'm not certain that unschooling is the best of all possible worlds.

    Our unschooling is emininently successful, but I have come to believe that my children would be best served by a cooperative unschooling arrangement that merges the best of the Sudbury model with the best of unschooling. In other words, the children would not lose freedom but would gain fellowship and the opportunities for synergistic learning that only time spent with friends and peers can provide.

    I'm not yet certain how to make this a reality, but I am in the beginning stages of organizing a cooperative unschooling group that, as best as I can envision, would resemble a part-time Sudbury school with volunteer parents supplanting staff.

    That is the best solution to these issues that I have been able to come up with.

    Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we can't eat money.

    Cree proverb

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Received on Wed Oct 29 2003 - 10:41:41 EST