After reading many of the posts and comments that have been flying around the blogosphere initiated by Melissa Wiley’s post about patience (relating to parenting and unschooling) and beginning to read just a bit of Sandra Dodd’s website about unschooling, I’ve begun to revisit the idea of strewing. I think something that has always been an issue for me in the past is that I haven’t used strewing with the right intentions. I’ve strewn things in my children’s paths with the hopes that they would do what I wish them to do with these things. I “plan” it out in my mind, what they will do when they come upon these things. Then it’s just the same as when I’ve planned a whole unit study and my little unique personalities do not wish to learn about the topic as I’ve decided we should. Instead I need to strew with the idea that these things I’m placing in their paths are something I find interesting, something that they might find interesting, something that they can choose to look at/intereact with or not. And not have any resentment if they choose not to.
So this is what I did today. I put out a few things… a few books on the coffee table, a website open on the computer, and a whole set of those magnetic poetry words on the side of the newly-cleared refrigerator. That turned out to be the big draw, for Madeline in particular. She noticed the words first thing when she came down to breakfast and was glued to it for most of the morning and part of the afternoon. She moved things around, first gathering words together that appealed to her, then beginning to try out words in combination. This is what she ended up with:
You and me in the gorgeous picture-like garden in Spring. The lake is shining in the moonlight. The forest is sleeping around us. There is a sweet whisper in the air around us like a goddess saying “Place them in a spray of the delicate symphony of true love.” The smooth language like a chant. “Together we are never repulsive.” The elaborate and luscious gifts, a diamond, a rose, juice, honey, a peach. Will the sky keep singing? We have gone, but to her always it is there as she recalls a dreamy, misty, beautiful vision of friends.
Now, it doesn’t all make perfect sense, but I think that it’s rather beautiful, and it definitely evokes a mood. And I love that this really seemed to touch something in her and that she really connected with moving the words around on the fridge. She even decided on her own to write the piece down on paper because she was so pleased with it but knew that we couldn’t leave it there forever. She also, in the midst of this process, looked up the definition of the word “languid” and looked up “fog” and “mist” to find out how they differed (I wasn’t even sure!). I think this was a great activity for her, creatively. Now, Ben was very perturbed that I was “letting” her stay there for so long - it really wasn’t his thing. And he was doing his math (voluntarily… he loves his Math-U-See; that is a whole other post!). But I could see the value in it for her. None of the rest of the “strewn” things were touched/used, but I’m okay with that. I’m really trying to see things differently. I’m hoping to find more and more things to strew around the house and see what happens. I remember that I’ve done this in the past with library books. I’ll just go and load up my bag with all kinds of books from the non-fiction shelves, not about any subject in particular, not all about the same subject as I might a planned out “study”, but just random books that struck my fancy as I browsed. And then it’s always interesting to see who picks up what books. I’ll have to do that again soon.
Now off to my own book before I turn in…