Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Daisy Dukes

Hilarious unschooling moment just now. It went something like this:

It started with rendering lard.
Moved on to stereotypes about the South which led to . .
Dukes of Hazard (complete synopsis given by Scott).
Evie excitedly shouts "I just read about 'Daisy Dukes'" in my fashion book!
Which led to a description of Boss Hogg's wardrobe, which led to a discussion of his full name (Jefferson Davis Hogg) which led to a discussion of the episode where his "good" brother is on the show--his name was Abraham Lincoln Hogg. Evie says, "Hey! The Civil War! North vs. South! The Confederacy! " Which led to Scott and I recounting a fascinating story we read in a recent genetics book regarding Abraham Lincoln and Marfan Syndrome.

So that is how Daisy Duke connected lard to Marfan Syndrome with a little bit of the Civil War thrown in for good measure. It is all about sprinkling as many dots as possible and seeing how they get connected!

3 comments:

Stephanie said...

Perfect.

And yep - you're exactly right. Sometimes it takes a minute (or a month) for them to be connected... and it's pure magic when they are!

ItMakesYouSmile said...

I love the dots analogy and use it all the time! I visualize a sort of screen saver where dots (knowledge) appear and eventually fill up the whole screen (page, whatever).

I take it one step further, to explain how I finally came to grips with the difference in my learning style (perhaps influenced by school) and my son's learning style (never been to school.)

My page gets filled up by starting in the lower left corner, and filling in dots across to the lower right corner, moving up one row, and proceeding back to the left side, and so on.

My son, on the other hand (as best I can discern), begins with a random dot somewhere on the page, then another and another in random spots. Then a few "attach" to one of the random dots, to create a growing blob, then other blobs grow, some very fast, others slowly, until it's all connected.

This, I think, is the beauty of learner-led, "grazing" style learning. So many things that you sample here and there will eventually, organically, get connected. It's much more holistic and meaningful, it seems to me.

Oh, and FUN! :-D

Jennifer said...

Great analogy! Isn't unschooling wonderful?!!