A bit of Geography, a dash of English and a splash of Unschooling

Have you heard of "unschooling"?  I stumbled across this word during one of my many online investigations into home education.   Here is a nice quote: 

"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge,

not knowledge in pursuit of the child."

- George Bernard Shaw 

Here is a link that explains some more.

I think I'm going to have to learn some "unteaching".

Now that I'm not a class teacher one of the many things I have to let go of is the pressure of having to have a final product that clearly illustrates to people that were not present at the time of learning the learning that took place.  I wonder if that makes any sense?

Take a look at Mr. R's Australian animals activity.  I printed out the animals, he cut and glued then labeled them.  That's pretty obvious right?  (I wanted him to learn about the animals in Australia as well as work on his English.)  So what's the deal with those lines all over the page?

I have to admit I had to bite my tongue.  Mr. R came up with the idea of sorting the animals.  He looked at them and explained to me that the wombat, koala and kangaroos were similar and that the cockatoo was similar to the platypus.  He sorted them by drawing lines.

That prompted me to talk about how unusual the platypus was.  It has some features similar to a bird and some features similar to a mammals.  They lay eggs and have webbed feet  and a bill like a duck but still have fur.  Mr.R then drew another line from the platypus to the kangaroo and koala.  

Even though Mr. R's final piece of work may not look like much to a person that wasn't there at the time those wonky lines are the result of some unplanned and significant learning that was lead by the observation and curiosity  of Mr. R himself.  :)