Building A City

Today’s learning was about designing and building a city that included all the essentials, while still keeping environmental impact to a minimum. We talked about the fact that we impact on the environment just by existing… that we can’t make others live more simply or in a less impacting way, but we can design a city in a way that could minimise the ease-of-use or availability of the more destructive practices. We talked about pre-plastic days, and reusing and recycling as a matter of course, about living without supermarkets within easy reach… about seed saving and heirloom varieties, crop rotation and leaving the land fallow… one thing led to another, and each thought brought up a new question. It’s been a (mostly!) fun day.

Along the way, we watched some clips –
This one talks about conflict minerals, leading us to talk about the source of the things we buy and use..

This one was fascinating to the boys – connecting to the internet through lightbulbs!

We looked at some of my previous posts… the woodland house, and changing education paradigms – another go at getting that divergent thinking working! We talked quite a lot today, and will have a lot more to think about…

… and – just because I can (and because it made us laugh!) – here are some cuddly carrots…

Source: 27.media.tumblr.com via Chalice on Pinterest

Changing Education Paradigms

This is another TED talk I came across… it’s quite short and easily digestable (although it seems to end quite abruptly… there may be more somewhere.. 😀 )

Very interesting, and I agree with a lot of what he’s saying…
Our homeschooling journey has evolved over the last few years… I went through the school system (and, by and large, enjoyed it..) so my initial focus was on workbooks and standardised testing. I’ve drifted over to the unschooling side of things since then, although I still cling to “the rules” a bit 😀 .
I think, at the moment, that we should go with the best of both worlds… I agree that divergent thinking is an important trait in any educational situation – the ability to learn, to use the information given, is more important than amassing facts with no connection to reality.
Having said that, I still want my boys to learn facts! I still feel the need for some sort of structure… I don’t want them to get to graduation and realise we forgot to cover an essential subject! I can’t help thinking, though, that a lot of that is based in my fear rather than reality…
A friend posted a link to the updated Australian Curriculum… I haven’t checked it out completely, but I will find it helpful as a basic guideline..

I want my boys to –
Stay curious…
Keep an open mind..
Question!
Be able to distinguish between fact and opinion..
Be flexible..
See, experience, and explore the whole, beautiful wide world out there!

I still need to find the balance between structure and… non-structure? 😀 I think they are steadily learning each day… both in their different ways…. and, in the end, we learn/discover/grow for a lot longer than twelve school years…