HOME EDUCATION MAGAZINE: Free Range Learners


/Washington News Articles/ - TONASKAT, WA, May 01, 2008 - http://www.homeedmag.com - April 8th, 2008 - In the March - April 2008 Home Education Magazine
Laura Weldon writes about "Free Range Learners."

She writes:

"Don't help, Mom," Claire says as I go to pick up the three-day-old chick. So I watch instead. It's peeping helplessly at the side of the ramp leading up to the chicken coop. The mother hen and her other chicks are already at the top but this chick can't find the way. The hen answers each cheep of distress with distinctive low clucks. After a few attempts to hop directly up to its mother the chick turns and scurries back, finds the bottom of the ramp and hurries to the comfort of her waiting wings.

"See?" Claire says. "It's already learning."

I'm amazed that a chick that tiny could go away from the sound of the hen's voice in order to ultimately find its mother, but it did. I guess I still need to trust that things tend to work out fine without well-intended intervention.

Once reams of instructional books languished on our shelves. Shiny packaged educational programs with CDs or tapes sat waiting for my children to learn foreign language, history and math. But they always had better things to do. Sometimes that looked a lot like reading a book on the couch, looking things up on the net or lying by the pond with the dogs. Other times that looked like someone running around gathering oddities from the dusty basement for an experiment. Or like all of us hustling off to a field trip with friends. The textbooks came in handy as references; the fussier educational materials were packed away in boxes to pass along. We know a new homeschooler may need to go through the same ritual of grumbling over them.

My children have ample opportunities to explore their interests out here in the country. Currently Ben restores old farm equipment in anticipation of running his own farm some day. He's so busy that some of his projects have become long-term decor out near the beehives. Flowering vines decorate the hay rake tines and birds nest atop a tractor. Right now he's making a custom desk out of a circular saw blade for a friend. The garage glows as he welds, one of the many skills he taught himself."


To read the rest of this encouraging article, visit Home Education Magazine here: http://homeedmag.com/HEM/252/freerangelearning.html

Author Laura Weldon is writing a book on the way s interest-led learning can enrich our lives and communities. Add your input to her book by joining the discussion at her online site: www.freerangelearning.ning.com

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Mary Nix
Home Education Magazine
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PO Box 1083
Tonaskat, WA
USA 98855
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