Time Team History of Britain

I used to watch the Time Team TV programme when it first aired, I think it was about 17 years ago... With our recent interest in Archaeology, I came across this really great book by the team: The guide to the history of Britain, through its archaeological sites.

I bought it mainly for myself but something interesting happened last night. I was watching the TV programme that goes with it and Reuben not only was really interested in watching with me (we then went on to watch another...)  but he pulled out the book and was trying to follow the illustrations and photos of the sites. Not bad for a nearly 5 year old! He was particularly interested in the Mesolithic era and the hunter gatherers!
You can watch the programme here: The way we lived

The book is very useful in a home education environment as it is a great reference tool and relates to real places we can visit in the UK as well as being connected to the programmes we can then watch together.

Paper Sculpture by James Cochrane

After seeing a really cute piece of papier mache on a friend's page, this gorgeous book came to mind: Paper Sculpture by James C. Cochrane.

The cute and quirky mentioned on the front cover is very very true! The projects are gorgeous, we did the fish you can see on the cover and the starfish project. The rest was a little too advanced for my boys but I would highly recommend it to adults and older children.

Cochrane is an artist and illustrator, his website is full of wonderful whimsical pictures and photos, well worth a look.

Clay projects for children

When we ordered the potters wheel, as I know very little about clay and making things with it, I thought it would be a good idea to get a book on projects I could do with the children. So I ordered this very nice book by Monika Krumbach, a ceramicist who has been teaching pottery courses and running workshops for many years.

This book is filled with clay projects that can be done with children of all ages. They go from the simple to the more complex and are imaginative and fun to do. The book is aimed at the adult working with children but the projects do not require any previous pottery training on the part of the adult, a good reason for me to buy it! I went to Art school but was always very bad at anything three dimensional.

 

As Reuben was busy with the wheel, I set up a workspace for Isaac on the floor (we used air dry clay from the local craft shop), and here is what we did:

I bought a large plastic tablecloth to put on the floor for
messy activities, we used the book for inspiration but also
made whatever we could think of ourselves

Opening the clay

Our first attempt: palm trees

A joint Isaac/Mummy effort

My favourite: the sea monster

A dry and painted sea monster

The Snail and the Whale live

We have now seen quite a few theatre adaptations of Julia Donaldson's books (the Gruffalo woman) and they have ranged from very dull to very imaginative so we don't quite know what to expect anymore. And that is good! We remain a hugely optimistic and excitable bunch of people so a trip to the theatre is always a very joyful event. Our favourite local theatre is Curve in Leicester, and that's where this performance was.

As usual, as soon as the show starts, I REALLY wish I hadn't read the book as I feel it detracts from what I am seeing. The story here was quite different from the book, it is all about the relationship between a girl and her father, he is in the navy and is often away so the show is a bittersweet remembering of a favourite story shared between the two.

The snail leads everyone to the rescue

A girl/snail with an itchy foot

The snail and the whale swim away

Daddy's voice

The boys as usual loved it, I'm looking forward to more critical discussions in the cafe afterwards but as they are only (nearly) 3 and (nearly) 5 I am content with: Mummy I loved it! And my favourite bit was when...
More details on the show here.

Our first balcony seats, Isaac's head  in the foreground

We listen to sea shanties on the violin before the show
starts

Punished by Rewards, by Alfie Kohn

This is not a strictly home education book, in fact I think it just mentions it in passing. But it was an extremely influential book for us, a sort of slap-in-the-face at every page turn book.

Alfie Kohn is an American author and lecturer who has explored a number of topics in education, parenting, and human behaviour. He is considered a leading figure in progressive education and has also offered critiques of many traditional aspects of parenting, managing, and American society more generally, drawing in each case from social science research.
Kohn's challenges to widely accepted theories and practises have made him a controversial figure, particularly with behaviourists, conservatives, and those who defend the specific practises he calls into question, such as the use of competition, incentive programs, conventional discipline, standardised testing, grades, homework, and traditional schooling.

The premise is that the reward system is a very flawed one, as I had strongly disliked the behaviourist ideas when I studied them in my psychology degree course, this book offered a mirror to my own feelings. It is not just punishment that is harmful, but rewarding children (and people in general) for doing a task, reading a chapter in a book, solving a maths problem, etc. greatly detracts from the enjoyment of the task itself. It moves the person from intrinsic motivation (and a love of learning) to an extrinsic motivator (I will learn because I have been promised a reward, who cares what it is I am learning... I will probably forget it all after I have received my prize).

The book looks at the punishment and reward system in parenting (he is also the author of Unconditional Parenting, another huge eye opener of a book), education and the work place. Kohn offers ideas and solutions to the problem and advocates a respectful approach towards children and workers alike. These ideas are very controversial as they ask us to question our whole culture and the way we do things, but I think that our strength as human beings comes from a drive to question and better the world around us, just because things have been done in the same way for generations does not mean these things are right for us, now.

 .

Dumbing us down, by John Taylor Gatto

I had wanted to read this book for a long time as it is a classic critique of compulsory schooling, a few months ago I finally managed it and it was a sobering read.

John Taylor Gatto is a retired schoolteacher who taught in New York for 30 years, more than once winning the teacher of the year award. Surprisingly (or not...) he was (and is) a strong critic of mass compulsory schooling, even expressing his views (strongly) while accepting the awards.

The book was written in the first months after John Taylor Gatto left schoolteaching, it is a hard-hitting reflection on the significance of schools and schoolteaching, the difference between networks and communities, and what lies at the heart of being congregationally American as opposed to corporatively American.
These are the main points, what mainstream American (but it can be applied to the UK and most countries I can think of) school does to children:

1. It makes the children confused. It presents an incoherent ensemble of information that the child needs to memorise to stay in school. Apart from the tests and trials that programming is similar to the television, it fills almost all the "free" time of children. One sees and hears something, only to forget it again.
2. It teaches them to accept their class affiliation.
3. It makes them indifferent.
4. It makes them emotionally dependent.
5. It makes them intellectually dependent.
6. It teaches them a kind of self-confidence that requires constant confirmation by experts (provisional self-esteem).
7. It makes it clear to them that they cannot hide, because they are always supervised

As an ex-teacher myself I recognise the truth in his words. We had already decided to home educate but this book made me very angry at all the wasted talent, creativity and joy of learning that is daily being eroded in children around the globe.

Ken Robinson lectures

Ken Robinson has been very influential in our household regarding philosophies of education and an overview of why schools are the way they are. We decided to opt out of the system for our children as we agree wholeheartedly with his point of view and feel that the boys have a better change to be creative and follow their individual calling outside of the classroom.

A bit about him: Sir Kenneth Robinson (Liverpool, 4 March 1950) is an English author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education, and arts bodies. He was Director of The Arts in Schools Project (1985–89), Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989–2001), and was knighted in 2003 for services to education.
Originally from a working-class Liverpool family, Robinson now lives in Los Angeles with his wife Marie-Therese and children James and Kate.

The lectures we enjoyed were the ones he gave for the TED conference, the first one is called Do schools kill creativity? Pretty much self explanatory...



And then we really liked the RSA animate version of his talk, Changing Education Paradigms (I often feel I'm in a completely different paradigm, not to say parallel universe from most people)



I would also recommend his book Out of our minds, learning to be creative. It gives us hope that we can put passion and creativity in our lives and show the boys that these are a fundamental part of being human.

The Usborne Children's Book of Baking

I cannot stress how great this book is, we have baked from it cover to cover and back again, Reuben loves it and makes biscuits or cupcakes most days with these recipes.

Cooking is very important to us, for the boys it's a lot of fun and of course they like to eat the end result, especially cakes and biscuits! From the learning point of view it's a great activity as the boys need to use numbers, have the ability to measure ingredients, read a recipe (still with my help) and understand how materials can change (freezing, heating) as well as being creative in decorating their creations.
Here are some of them:

Abstract flower shortbread biscuits

A "Reuben" fairy cake

Fairy cakes with buttercream topping

Washing up afterwards

The Unschooling Unmanual

This is a truly lovely and inspirational book, edited by Jan and Jason Hunt, the people behind the Natural child project http://www.naturalchild.org

It is not a guide or manual (as the title suggests) but a collection of writings and quotes on the topic of Unschooling. You don't have to be an unschooler to read it, it is a fascinating insight into how children learn and it challenges perceived ideas that children are passive learners and need teachers to show them how and what to learn. I think this would be of interest to anyone wanting to see how child directed learning works in practice.

I particularly like the passage by Earl Stevens:

"When people ask, 'What do you do?' my answer is that we follow our interests - and our interests inevitably lead to science, literature, history, mathematics, music - all the things that have interested people before anybody thought of them as 'subjects.'

"A large component of unschooling is grounded in doing real things, not because we hope they will be good for us, but because they are intrinsically fascinating. There is an energy that comes from this that you can't buy with a curriculum. Children do real things all day long, and in a trusting and supportive home environment, "doing real things" invariably brings about healthy mental development and valuable knowledge. It is natural for children to read, write, play with numbers, learn about society, find out about the past, think, wonder and do all those things that society so unsuccessfully attempts to force upon them in the context of schooling."

We got our copy from Amazon but you can also get it direct from the NCP website http://www.naturalchild.org/unmanual

The Usborne Complete Book of Art ideas

I can't recommend this book enough, it's divided into Art Ideas, Skills and Projects and we have been able to open at random and give it all a go.

The boys are very interested in different techniques, I studied Art for many years at high school and college so I like to be reminded of long lost projects (tissue paper painting?). There is an overview of techniques, materials and ideas. Our favourite remains watercolour! This book works very well for structured education and lesson plans (each topic is covered in the two page spread) and is equally great for an autonomous approach as children can look through it and pick and choose the bits they find interesting.

See inside your body

This book is currently one of Reuben's favourites, it's from Usborne Publishing (http://www.usborne.com) a great source of resources for us.

Reuben likes to look through it and lift the flaps, but it works best when he notices something in "real life" like when he drinks something and it goes the wrong way or if he can feel his heart beat quickly, and he can run to the book and find the corresponding part of the body to see inside and understand what's going on.

You can find it on Amazon (where we got our copy) or on the publisher's website
http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/catalogue.aspx?id=1927

Sarah Richardson for Tate art books

To follow on from the previous Tate related post, we particularly like these two resources from Sarah Richardson (a London artist and teacher) available from the Tate shops:

Art in a box

The box contains twenty A5 cards each depicting a work from Tate's collection, with a range of related art activities detailed on the reverse including painting, collage, textile, photography and sculpture. What I really like about it is that the boys can open the box, scatter the cards on the floor and pick the one they like best, easier than looking things up in a book!

Make your mark: the drawing book for children

A really nicely designed drawing aid for children, it is a creative journey based manual, it begins with scribbling, they then learn how to create tone, line, shape, texture and pattern, eventually arriving at the more sophisticated principles involved in drawing animals and people and mastering perspective.

You can find more information (and the chance to buy them) in the Tate online shop:
http://shop.tate.org.uk/shop/children/icat/children and on Amazon

How Children Learn by John Holt

This book is a true classic and it played a big part in helping us along the road to home education. I have a great love for John Holt and find it hard to believe he passed away in 1985, his words are so fresh and so real, they truly speak to me. But before I get too emotional, here is a bit about him: Holt was an American educator, author and home education pioneer, he founded the magazine Growing Without Schooling that ran from 1977 to 2001 and coined the term Unschooling to indicate that children can learn in significant ways that don't resemble school learning and that don't have to just take place at home.
His first book, How Children Fail, was a collection of diary entries and observations written during his time as a teacher, his bafflement at the children failing to learn despite all the school and teacher efforts, and his attempts to find an alternative, are very touching.

John Holt (1923-1985)

Disillusioned with the school system and the difficulties in making alternatives acceptable to authorities and parents, Holt concentrated on the home schooling movement, editing the GWS magazine and writing extensively.

How children learn is the flip side of How children fail, through his wonderful observations, Holt enters the world of childhood learning and draws some very important conclusions, mainly that for small children "learning is as natural as breathing" and that all the interference, as well meaning as it might be, from adults is in fact putting the breaks on a very natural process. He sees children as small scientists who approach the world through experimentation and learn through making "mistakes", he argues that there is no need for adults to intervene and give the child the "right" answer as this would take away the joy and feeling of accomplishment when they do get it right. And sometimes there isn't a "right" to be found, children need to experiment with, to experience words, ideas, materials, in Holt's words to "mess about" with things before they can begin to see how they work. He was a great believer in just leaving things lying about for the children to mess about with (famously his typewriter) and familiarise themselves with them, under no pressure, just following the natural instinct to "see what makes them go".

I personally really love reading his observations of the children, I find my own boys fascinating to observer and I was also a teacher for some time (not as long as Holt though, I struggled too much with the system that I felt cared very little for the individual child and very much for test results) but where I felt hopeless, Holt looked for alternatives, and ultimately I came to the same logical conclusion: that children learn in a happy, safe environment with no pressure to perform, that learning really is natural and that all the planning and testing in the world will not result in true understanding and love of a subject for our children. For us that means at home.

For more information (and a chance to look through the GWS magazine archive): http://www.holtgws.com/index.html

William's Words in Science

We met William Hirst at Hesfes (the annual home education festival in the UK, will talk more of that soon) as he had a stall promoting his book and did some really nice science demonstrations/workshops. William is a science teacher with a background in biochemistry, biophysics and bio-engineering (he has degrees in all of these!) and has written a dictionary of scientific terminology and basics.
We bought the book as it is really useful when Reuben asks a question like: what is DNA (well, I know that one... but things like: how is wind made, or what exactly is a chemical?) but it is mainly aimed at secondary/high school level. Reuben really liked William's model of the human body and would often stop to try and rearrange the organs... William would not lose the opportunity to quiz him: what is this organ? Reuben: I don't know. William: yes you do! Reuben: the lungs? Not many people would talk to a four year old as if he was fourteen! I liked that.
You can find more information on the book on his website, he also has some free resources and puzzles.
http://www.williamswords.co.uk

Inspirations

I was thinking about how we started on this journey and the writers who inspired us. I guess the big one has to be John Holt (I will write A LOT more about him in the future) followed by Alfie Kohn's ideas of unconditional parenting and education without punishments and rewards. We also appreciate the work of Ken Robinson, Jan Fortune-Wood and John Taylor Gatto but ultimately it was my experience of teaching English as a foreign language for 10 years that helped me see what DIDN'T work and that coercion does not result in a child learning from the heart. I will cover all these authors separately as well as sharing some of the theories I have encountered while studying Psychology.