|
|
|
from Natural Life magazine,
January/February 2009
It Takes a Community to Help Children Learn
Creating a Community Learning Center for Homeschooling
Families
by Marilyn Firth, Mona
Sobkowich, Karen Ridd
|
|
Envision this: It is a bright fall day and, as you drive up to a
beautiful old church in the downtown part of town, your children call out to
friends playing on the grass. You pull in and they leap out of the car,
gathering board games, snacks and project materials, and soon join their friends
for an outdoors game. Soon, everyone gathers inside for a community opening and
programs begin. On offer this week are sculpture, electricity, baking and
clay-animation. Opportunities abound for self-directed interests: drawing,
reading club, board games. It is the beginning of another day at your community
learning center.
There are many models for learning centers, but in my
experience, they are dynamic places for life learning families to gather weekly
to share learning and social opportunities. Rather than a drop-in, a community
learning center is a cooperative community of families who gather together
weekly for programs, discussion and games, field trips, science fun and music.
Children learn with other children of all ages, led by parents in the group.
Sometimes, children lead programs, patiently showing others how to make chain
maille or design a clay-animation.
I have enjoyed helping create two such learning centers,
one in Kitchener, Ontario and the second in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Over the
years, I and the others have organized many enjoyable programs at those
learning centers, including electricity, bridge design, rocket science,
drawing, painting and sculpture, slime science, tie-dying, history
fairs, baking and candy-making, French and Spanish and many more. They
involve the things that real learning is made of: interest, opportunity,
fun and sharing.
There is a recipe for starting a learning center and
another recipe for running one. These two go hand-in-hand, of course,
and one is not complete without the other.....
To read the rest of
this article,
subscribe to Natural Life's
online edition.
|
Marilyn Firth and her partner Bruce have enjoyed life-learning
with their three children, Noel, Liam and Graeme, since 1993. Last year, they
changed careers to become market-gardeners in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Mona Sobkowich is a community minded, organic loving, stay-at-home
mother of three energetic kids. Karen Ridd (who collected the quotes from
the children, right) is an activist, educator, retired clown and delighted
unschooler who appreciates her children for tossing her the biggest growth
curve in her life.
|
March/April 2010
January/February 2010
November/December 2009
September/October 2009
July/August 2009
May/June 2009
March/April 2009
January/February 2009
November/December 2008
|
