Fun With Thinking

 

In our house, we’ve been having a bit of fun over the last few weeks thinking about thinking. Now I’m not talking about Socratic argument-type ideas. I’m talking quite literally about ‘how’ we think.

If you’ve been reading about education for a while now, you would have run into the idea that people are either visual/spatial or auditory/sequential thinkers. Now, I’m not going to agree with these – nor really disagree. But I am going to separate them out and include a new category – pattern thinking. BTW This is explained in Temple Grandin’s book – The Autistic Brain*, which is an awesome read.

As well as adding pattern thinking, I’m also not terribly happy with attaching sequential to auditory. That’s because I am an auditory thinker – but I am not sequential. I jump around and make intuitive leaps that do not always follow a logical sequence and tend to hold multiple contradictory ideas in my head in a kind of symbolic stew.

I’m also not keen on the idea of spatial being attached to visual (but they go together, don’t they? – not necessarily). What huh? You might say. Let me explain.

*This is a link to but this book – because if you want to read this awesome book, I want to make it easier for you – I am a book-enabler. But you can always hop over to your local library instead – libraries are cool.

 

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Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, yellowreadis.com Images: Cherry Blossoms

It all started rather innocently. A friend who runs one of the gifted support groups I’m involved with had a mum inquire about home education, so she asked me to have a chat and offer some advice. It was awesome, talking to someone local who was also home educating. And then another group asked if I could be the gifted/2e contact for their home education group – they didn’t get many inquiries, but in case they did . . . So I thought, hey, I could write up an article for them on some of the basics of getting started.

But then I thought – maybe I could organise a group meetup for parents and kids of gifted families who are home educating in Melbourne. (“If you build it, they will come.“) So I contacted the lovely people at GHF to ask them about how to go about organising a group.

And then it snowballed . . .
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Record Keeping With a Natural Learner

Record Keeping with a Natural Learner, yellowreadis.com Image: Child playing with Lego

I know one of the things I really struggle with when I let my kids take the lead is dealing with my own fear. Are they learning everything they need to learn? Are we ‘keeping up’ with whatever imaginary goals I have set – whether that’s state curriculum outlines, or some hybrid of that and what I think they are ready and able to learn? But in reality, it is my fear, not their progress that is really getting in the way.

This post is about how I manage my record-keeping, which I have found to be one of the most important ways to calm down the nagging fear that we aren’t doing ‘enough’, whatever nebulous form that ‘enough’ takes.
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Accidentally Offensive

Accidentally Offensive, yellowreadis.com Image: Crack in Concrete

A while ago I read this post, “8 Things You Shouldn’t Say to a Secular Homeschooler” by NotSuperMom. It caused a bit of a discussion with some fellow homeschoolers about whether it was inclusive or exclusive, offensive or not. I am a secular homeschooler, and I am a non-believer. I did not find the post offensive, but it did get me thinking.

Why did this post rub people up the wrong way? And was this similar to the feelings of NotSuperMom? What was it that jarred so badly? Was it, in fact, accidentally offensive?
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