Aha! Moment

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kelly Ripa for expanding my thinking in the area of unschooling. Kelly Ripa? Really! I was watching Live with Regis and Kelly (something I haven't done since Evie was a tiny baby) and Kelly was talking about trying to help her son with his 4th grade homework. She commented that she has always had trouble with long division and that when she was first introduced to the idea (notice I didn't say "when she was first learning it") she made up her mind never to understand because she figured she would never use it. Then on the show she said, "And I never have! That's what calculators are for! Why would I crowd my brain with things I can find elsewhere? I can't find my thoughts and ideas in any device, I need that room in my brain"(I am paraphrasing but that is the gist--it was two days ago).

Ding, ding, ding! Why spend so much time memorizing facts or formulas that are not useful when they can easily be accessed elsewhere! It is handy to know HOW to add, subtract, multiply etc. because for quick, on-the-spot calculations it is useful. Is it really necessary to know your 14 times tables? I'm not so sure.

It was a reassuring moment in the solidification of my thoughts that living life is all the "learnin'" we need.