The “Knowing It Exists” Technique

Anna    Learning     education, foundations, Learning, memorization, process, resourceful, resourcefulness, theory, traits, unschooling

Those of us that have gone to school know the drill.

Literally.

Students have to go through an endless amount of repetition. Teachers bring up the same topic, again and again, in an attempt to cram their students with the right recipe of information. It’s just part of the way schools work.

When it comes to lifelong learning, focusing on repetition and drills is a bit like trying to build a pyramid from the top down.

A dictionary will tell you that memorizing something means you’re learning it by heart. Resourcefulness comes from using a number of resources and aids, instead of just relying on your memory.

Memorization and resourcefulness are the differences between someone who knows what he’s been shown in the past and someone who knows how to learn more in the future. Knowing how and where to find information is important.

Let me go back to the pyramid I spoke about. Like I said, memorization alone is like building a pyramid from the top down. You might’ve guessed how it should be built: from the bottom up, with a sound and solid foundation.

In learning, our solid foundations come from our resources. If all our learning comes from the same resource (school, for example), then our pyramid’s foundation will be small. Instead, our learning is best when it comes from a variety of resources.

I like to call my way of remembering information “knowing it exists“.

It’s a lot like remembering your favorite recipes. After finding a resource useful, you keep it at hand. When you want to know something, you use your new resource. The more you use a resource, the more you remember.

Would you prefer to have a resource prove itself to be useful, or spend days memorizing something you might never need to know again?

Questions Are More Important Than Answers

Anna    General, Learning     comparison, curious, curiousity, enjoying, examples, fun, Learning, learning from life, questions, relevant, school, unschooling

Today I played a game: I asked questions inspired by the things around me.

The result? A list longer than even I had expected. I stopped playing after a few dozen questions, but the game does prove a good point: we can learn everything we need to know just by paying attention to what is around us.

Why is learning from your environment better, though?

That’s easy to explain.

Let’s say two children are learning about chlorophyll at the same time. The difference is that one child is coming across it through school, and the other child is curious about her environment.

Now, the child in school (let’s call him Jimmy) is being told this information by his teacher and his textbook. The facts are presented to him in a very concise, step-by-step way. Jimmy hasn’t thought about plant color before.

The unschooler (let’s name her Jill) is out having fun in the park with her family. Jill looks at the trees before she asks why leaves are green. Her parents explain and they have a conversation about it.

Both children are told the same information, but I’ll tell you why Jill is at an advantage: read more

What Choice REALLY Means

Anna    General     choice, choices, choosing to learn, having to, self-discipline, wanting to, what do we have to learn

Unschooling brings up a lot of choices. You choose what you learn. You choose when you learn it. You even choose why you learn it.

What does choice really mean, though?

It means you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Whatever you’re doing, you’re doing the things you want to do. Yes, even chores. Yes, even painful, embarrassing experiences.

How does that work?

We do things that we aren’t passionate about for the same reasons we do anything else. We do what we do because we want to. You want clean dishes to eat your food on. You want clean clothes to wear. You go through painful experiences to mourn, forgive, apologize and get over your fears. Because you want to. Because you choose to.

A lot of skeptics question unschoolers and their ability to discipline themselves to learn what they have to. The question is, when you see the world through the eyes of wanting to vs having to, do we still need self-discipline?

What do we have to learn that no one wants to learn? Is there something we need to know, that we can’t motivate ourselves to learn without strict discipline and force?

I doubt it. Whatever we need to know, we’ll want to know.

What does choice mean to you?

It’s Been a Month!

Anna    General     anniversary, april, coming soon, five, march, month, posts, top, unschooling, upcoming

It’s been a month since I relaunched Adversarian, and I’ve been having a blast!

Here’s a review of the top five posts so far, in case you missed them. There’s lots more to come, and I have a few extra special goodies up my sleeve. Stayed tuned for upcoming freebies! (It’s a surprise!)

10 Skills You Practice By Playing Video Games
Video games have a bad reputation, but they use your brain more than you think.

Self-Ed 101: 5 Reasons Why You Should Unschool
The most common reasons for unschooling.

Empowered Learning: Unschoolers Are In Charge of Their Education
There’s a certain power in being responsible for your own learning.

Leonardo da Vinci the Unschooler
We’ve all heard about Leonardo da Vinci, but did you know he was self-educated?

Self-Ed 101: Deschooling
Deschooling is the first step to unschooling. Find out how you can ease the process.

Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on new posts and cool stuff. If you want to chat you can find me on twitter and on facebook.

Happy learning!

Have an unschooling blog? Why don’t we exchange guest posts? Send me an email at contact@adversarian.com, or use the quick and easy contact form.

Learning on the Right Side of the Brain

Anna    Learning     brained, creative learning, creativity, holistic, how the right brain works, intuitive, jill bolte taylor, Learning, left brain, right brain, right hemisphere, right side of the brain, spatial, thinking, visual, visual spatial, what the right brain does

We live in a predominantly left-brained culture. Everyday things like language, numbers and the symbols we use to identify the world around us are understood by our left brain. Many jobs require us to be detail oriented. That’s left brain thinking, too.

The arts are commonly associated with right brain thinking. Certain traits, like left-handedness, are considered right brained. However, right brained thinking is more than just the arts. It’s about creativity.

A Side-By-Side Comparison

Our two brains are complete opposites, and we need both of them to understand the world the way we do. Let’s compare the two.

Left Brain:

- Logical: Draws conclusions according to rational information.
- Analytic: Figures things out step-by-step and part-by-part.
- Detail Oriented: Focuses on small bits of information.
- Symbolic: Turns information into symbols.
- Linear: Understands information in a linear one-thing-follows-another way. Is time oriented.

Right Brain:

- Intuitive: Bases itself on feelings, patterns, hunches, and visual information. Makes leaps in insight.
- Spatial: Understands relationships and how parts form a whole.
- Big Picture Oriented: Sees how things are structured into a whole. Recognizes patterns. Jumps to conclusions.
- Realistic: Sees things as they are, without symbols or short cuts. Lives in the present, without recognition of time.

What the Right Brain Does

We all use our right brain in some way or another, no matter what type of thinking we prefer (visual, kinesthetic, auditory, etc). The way we see the world relies just as much on the right brain as on the left. The right brain does a lot: read more