Informal Learning

I was just poking around the unschooling.info site (which Sandra kindly took off our hands when our hands were full of all sorts of other things) looking to see what I might wish I had saved if it disappeared, and I came across this video.

Somewhere on the site the singer talks about how he wrote it because his dad used to let him play hooky so they could spend the day together and that feeling of freedom stayed with him. Having lots of memories of playing hooky myself, both dad-authorized and, um, Rue-authorized (I love you mommy!), I can understand being inspired to write a song about that heart-lightening, chest opening up, full of possibilities, walking on air sensation. I don't write songs, but I'm writing a life about it.

This was written by Rudy Rucker. He was talking about writing a novel, but I think it applies nicely to learning and life.

"How precise, after all, is an outline? If, as William Burroughs used to say, a novel is but a map of a territory, an outline is but a map of a map. In the end, only the novel itself is the perfect outline of the novel. Only the territory itself can be the perfect map."

My kids are a perfect outline of themselves. Gnarly.

Uncle Mo brought out his sketchpad and quickly, deftly, drew the dolphins leaping in the air. He said, "They remind you of being a child, with all that curiosity and energy. They remind you that this is what you could be, not what you should grow out of."

~The Wanderer, by Sharon Creech

I watched a cooking show online today that I really enjoyed. I looked it up to show Rowan, and what do you know, the host, Julian, is an unschooler.

Here's the episode I first saw.