This brief article describes exactly what unschooling looks like, in my opinion, and why it is so brilliant. From one simple thought flows other thoughts and questions, leading to other thoughts and questions of more complexity. The one simple question leads to a plethora of natural learning from the child's innate inquisitiveness. From just letting it flow! No coercion, no grading, no artificial environment, no rules, etc., just learning in it's raw, authentic form.
The author, Holly, was a public school teacher. Now she is a passionate unschooling mom. She keeps a blog called Unschool Days where she articulately discusses many unschooling topics.
While having trouble opening her Fruitabu fruit roll packet this morning, Luna noticed that the trusty "tear here" portion was missing its little head start indentation that ordinarily helps get the fruit roll rolling. "How do they make each package exactly the same?" was the question that followed.
"With mechanization," I replied. "These are made in a factory, and they use machines to process and package them." Naturally, this led us to Youtube where we typed "factory automation" into the search box and soon found ourselves hypnotically glued to a video montage depicting life in a mattress factory (complete with soporific elevator soundtrack). Luna was hoping to find a video of the actual Fruitabu factory itself, but such a search yielded no results. So we settled for an equally engaging video of the bubble gum - making process.
These videos led to a discussion of mass production, fossil fuels and the industrial revolution, urban migration and unionization. Oh, and in our search for candy factory videos I inadvertently introduced Luna to "I Love Lucy" via the classic scene in the chocolate factory, easily among the top ten funniest pieces of television ever created. And to think, all this from a Fruitabu.
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