Public Broadcasting System (PBS) tv station KLCS sponsors a blog on new media and how it is changing the world. It is called "MEDIASHIFT: Your Guide to the digital media revolution," and the host is Mark Glaser. On July 14th he wrote a very interesting entry about unschooling - he compares the kind of learning that unschoolers are doing to the kind of learning that is going on all over the internet in, for example, gaming and fan fiction online communities. Here is an excerpt:
"The Harry Potter and anime fan fiction writers, the Civilization players, and the Wondering Minstrels would be surprised to be discussed as “unschoolers.” As far as they are concerned, they aren’t participating in an educational activity at all. They are simply having fun and exploring topics that matter to them. But that’s precisely the point. As we talk about informal learning or “unschooling,” there are no rigid boundaries between school and the rest of what we do with our lives. Learning is driven by passion; we follow our interests where they lead; we engage with others who share those intellectual and recreational pursuits; and in the end, we master complex content. For all of these groups, the web is proving to be a most hospitable environment — a new version of Bertozzi’s “curiosity cabinet” full of rich resources and materials but also a social network that links us with others who are following a similar path. As my father told me years ago, “never let schooling get in the way of your education.”
Read the rest of his post at this url: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/07/never_let_schooling_get_in_the.html
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2 comments:
The url to read the rest of the article seems to be missing... or is it just me ?
Thanks, Phoebe. I've repaired it.
That guest column is by the professor of a master's candidate at MIT who just finished a thesis for which she interviewed me, my kids, Joyce and Kat Fetterol (and others). His references to unschoolers come from his having read her thesis.
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