Megan

I’m just here to lurk.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@its_robin___ @PillarCatholic

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@Joeinblack Take my money, Father!

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@eilitto712113 @HannahPosted Yes, Peter Gray has child direction as one of the features that defines play. Adult-directed activities, even games, can be fun, but they aren’t play. And our kids get so little true play, which is how they teach themselves many very important things.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@Romy_Holland @datepsych The Genetic Lottery by Kathryn Paige Harden is a great read on this topic. In my experience, most academics have a blind spot for this, because they’ve spent most of their lives in segregated bubbles of gifted/honors peers.

[Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 @lymanstoneky]

Because there are still people who don't understand how abysmally bad prenatal testing is, I want to give you the regular reminder that even tests for extremely-recognizable conditions like Down's Syndrome are mostly wrong.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@danielleweisber My kids would go in like an Instacart shopper with “shopper’s choice” replacement freedoms. Sorry mom, we couldn’t find eggs, coffee, pasta, etc so we subbed for 30 clamshells of blueberries.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@WuZetia01933632 @selentelechia Thanks for replying. I might need to give it another try!

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@WuZetia01933632 @selentelechia Can you explain a bit more? I checked this book out at the library and was put off by the script, and my kid was meh about the idea still, so I returned it. What made it work for you?

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@ratpostingstuff @TheFoxMatriarch My mother-in-law has quite a shopping addiction and she kept buying us more diapers. Like, nope, the whole point was that they’re reusable! And no one (diaper banks, Goodwill, etc) will take them as donations either.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@Corvidaemon @GeorgistCB @CartoonsHateHer I gotta be honest, this sounds like what unschoolers are aiming for - you had the motivation and ability to teach yourself sufficient to get on track for an engineering degree? In your experience did other unschoolers struggle more than you with filling gaps?

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@IDK716421 @sewistwrites @UpTambourine Oh for sure, school instruction aimed at the median child can be useless and sometimes even harmful for the outliers. Every reader uses phonics but not every child needs explicit phonics instruction.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@TheFoxMatriarch Do you have any links about the window? I was under the impression most people can catch up awfully quickly once they get phonics instruction.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@LynnetteMKnapp @sewistwrites For now I’m taking a pretty unschool approach to math, but that’s because I lucked out with a huge numbers weirdo in my 6yo. Seems to be somewhat contagious for his younger brother. 🤞

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@mmmirele @sewistwrites My oldest is at this stage and it is SO cool to watch. In February he was struggle-bussing through “Kit can swim” and now we can’t have a dinner conversation because he’s reading the entire ketchup label. There was a period of about three weeks where I watched it all just click.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@LynnetteMKnapp @sewistwrites Yup. I am happy to be very relaxed about other subjects, but damned if I’m not gonna sit my kid down and make him struggle through the early sound-it-out phase until he’s reading eagerly enough to ask me about spelling variants he encounters. Reading unlocks other knowledge.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@IDK716421 @sewistwrites @UpTambourine But I agree with you that saying “all” kids must be taught is not quite true. I know several Deaf people who taught themselves to read when they were still mistakenly thought to be intellectually disabled and thus not being educated for literacy.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@IDK716421 @sewistwrites @UpTambourine At some point though he must have inferred the phonics rules from extensive exposure plus keen observation. Not all kids need to be explicitly drilled on phonics, but knowledge of how letters represent sounds is a necessary component of English literacy.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@emzanotti Thistle taller than my toddler, too. Dunno how you get the monoculture in the picture

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@AlexGodofsky @LeahLibresco I enjoyed teaching science fair students at the middle school level, because there seemed to be more genuine focus on sound methods. But I had to constantly battle parents who wanted “fancier” topics.

[Megan @MeganFromTheLab]

@MotherGrundy The trampoline is in the living room in a mostly-unsuccessful attempt to divert all of the couch jumping, next question