Leaping From The Box

Just this week on the Unschooling List (my very favorite e-mail list!) we were talking about “how children learn” and whether one can teach a child how to learn. The example given was that there are a few curricula available that say they teach a child how to learn. So that was on my mind Wednesday when I visited Kat and was able to watch Miss Munchkin in the process of learning. Of course, to the adult it would look like she was just playing, but she was hard at hard learning how to navigate this new and wonderful world of hers. And doing a fine job of it too!

Miss Munchkin spends a lot of time in her walker right now. Her feet just hit the floor, but she loves sitting in it, being able to sit up and look around, have her toys on the tray where she can drop them and pick them back up again as she wants. Last week Kat told me that Miss Munchkin had not really figured out how she was getting from here to there in the walker. She would have this look of surprise when she’d go from point A to B like she didn’t know what had happened. Wednesday, though, it was obvious she has figured out that she is the one propelling the walker. Kat had pulled out a box of baby cereal, with it’s nice shiny crinkly plastic wrapper still on it, and was looking at the box. Miss Munchkin, across the kitchen in her walker, saw that box and in two seconds flat was across the floor, hands outstretched trying to reach the box! I am pretty sure she has not had any lessons on how to work the walker! And yet she managed to figure it out.

You can certainly teach someone a particular skill, such as how to compose a nice essay or how to play the flute. It’ll cut down on their trial and error time, prevent the “reinventing the wheel” process. But you are not teaching them how to learn. They are using their hardwired learning skills to pick up the skill you are showing them. Even teaching them to think more logically or how to use certain study skills, like listening better or taking notes of key words in a lecture, is not teaching them to learn. If they didn’t already know how to learn, they would not be able to listen to you, observe what you want, absorb the lesson and integrate it into their behavior.

It sure is fun watching a little one figure these things out!

Miss Munchkin crawling, almost too fast to get a good picture!

Miss Munchkin in her walker with her ever-present teething ring.

Well, he’s alive and knows how to use the phone! David called yesterday and he was doing great! And he sounded like it was going great. It seems that his FlexPlan Menu card allows him to get food at the sub shop where they sell pizza and root beer. And it’s just a short walk from his dorm. His Internet speed is about 100 times faster than our dial-up connection. And he and five other guys (one being his roommate) all went bowling, which David has always enjoyed. So life is good!

Classes began yesterday (Wednesday) and David was calling because he needed to buy some additional books. And so he needed to check his bank account online, which he didn’t set up before he left home, even though mom had advised him to! Not only that, but he did not have his bank account number with him nor the pin number he needed to access his account online. Nice to have a mom who keeps things like that on file and knows where they are.

It was nice to hear, though, that he was doing so well and enjoying himself. Of course, his dad is worried that he’ll enjoy himself too much! We shall see!

And yesterday while Charles was at karate, I went to visit Kat and play with Miss Munchkin. Took some pictures, which I have yet to look at. Watched her scoot around in her walker and crawl. She certainly is mobile! Tomorrow I will write more about Miss Munchkin.

Well, we survived D-Day! It was a long, long day Saturday.

We left home before noon on Friday, so we were in Evansville by 6 p.m. That gave us time to swim a bit, go eat supper and get a good night’s sleep. Saturday we got to the college at 9 a.m., which was the earliest you could begin moving in. There were lots of fraternity guys there helping with the unloading, so I didn’t have to carry anything, which was good because David’s room is on the 4th floor. But there was some delay in the bed lofts arriving … an outside company handles those and they were not very organized. We waited for bed parts from 10 till 2, with bits and pieces of it arriving throughout that time. So you had to wait in line to get your first pieces and then keep checking back to see if more had arrived. It certainly frazzled a lot of parents. So it was 3:30 before we finally left Evansville. And 9:30 by the time we got home.

David called Sunday noon … I had told him to call me Sunday night. He was in line for lunch, so he couldn’t talk long. But he sounded okay and said everything was going fine.

And so far I only see one thing he forgot to take … the summer reading book he was assigned when he went to orientation in June. That was sitting in the chair next to him computer, hiding under a magazine. So I will have to ship that to him today.

It did seem a little weird yesterday without David around, but I am sure we will adjust. David was definitely ready to leave home, ready to be at Evansville, ready for us to leave him there. It made it a lot easier for me knowing that he wants to be there and that it seems like a good place for him. And it’s only four weeks until the Parent Weekend!

David at Evansville under the “lazy tree.” He’s moved in and ready for Mom and Dad to leave!

Charles being lazy on the “lazy tree.” He really liked this tree. It’s called the lazy tree because so many of it’s lower limbs are on the ground.

The picturesque main entrance.

David, taken the day before he left for Evansville (August 17, 2006). Also the day he passed his road test and received his driver’s license!