Natural learning is about making connections, in history, philosophy, belief and practice. Tie in music, art, science, geography, patterns, religion, animals, minerals or vegetables. This is unschooling practice and strewing practice, except that it's as real as anything.
Part one, to which I want to add other stories. This reminds me of a story from the book Strange Survivals, by Sabine Baring-Gould, which I hope to find and bring.
It's about an excavated Easter Island statue: "The excavation team also found about 800 grams of natural red pigment — nearly two pounds — in the burial hole, along with a human burial." This is from a current UCLA project to excavate a couple of the "heads."
(click image to go to article)
Thor Heyderdahl had already excavated one in the 1950's. This image also came from the article above.
I've added this song to my "Small Words" page. "Shack" was originally of the desert southwest/Mexican origin (probably), and "gull" is from Welsh (long ago), but otherwise the words are old to ancient English. Though the stereotypical "anglo-saxon words" are four letters, the longest word ("evermore") is plenty old and English. It's two four-letter words stuck together.
Musically, this is (as is the song "El Paso," also written by Marty Robbins) in the style of Mexican music. Marty Robbins grew up in Arizona. This song has quite a calypso and seaside element, whereas "El Paso" is in the traditional "ranchera" style (northern Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas).
I told Mary about us,
I told her about our great sin.
Mary cried and forgave me,
Mary took me back again,
Said if I wanted my freedom
I could be free evermore.
But I don't want to be,
and I don't want to see
Mary cry anymore.
Oh, Devil Woman,
Devil Woman, let go of me.
Devil Woman, let me be,
And leave me alone.
I want to go home.
Mary is waitin' and weepin'
down in our shack by the sea.
Even after I've hurt her,
Mary's still in love with me.
Devil Woman it's over,
trapped no more by your charms,
Cause I don't want to stay.
I want to get away;
Woman let go of my arm.
Oh, Devil Woman,
Devil Woman, let go of me.
Devil Woman, let me be,
And leave me alone.
I want to go home.
Devil Woman, you're evil,
like the dark coral reef.
Like the winds that bring high tides,
you bring sorrow and grief.
You made me ashamed to face Mary
barely had the strength to tell.
Skies are not so black,
Mary took me back,
Mary has broken your spell.
Oh, Devil Woman,
Devil Woman, let go of me.
Devil Woman, let me be,
And leave me alone.
I want to go home.
Runnin' along by the seashore,
runnin' as fast as I can.
Even the seagulls are happy
glad I'm comin' home again.
Never again will I ever
cause another tear to fall.
Down the beach I see
What belongs to me,
The one I want most of all.
Oh, Devil Woman,
Devil Woman, don't follow me.
Devil Woman let me be,
And leave me alone.
I'm goin' back home.
_______________________
There are a dozen or more songs on the Small Words page. Here's another post from this blog that led there, too, through the song Sunshine, by Jonathan Edwards.
On my Lyrics Game group on facebook, in the same month someone put up "lions, tigers, bears, oh my" (play any of those), and someone else put up sleepwear.
I posted this, after playing in both from the same songs:
Songs with "bear/bears" and "pajamas" both.
These things might have come up because there's a six year old at my house.
I'm not makine a serious play, just pointing out that in one day, these two came up: Bananas in Pajamas theme song, and "Down By the Bay" by Raffi. smile emoticon
It's possible there's a third. The world is weird like that.
Teddy Bear's picnic is close, but no... pajama.
(And no specific bedclothes, when their parents take them home to bed.)
I didn't post the videos there, but will here:
Brie Jontry brought this:
I had to Google a little to make sure this was right - it is! I remembered it from an "Alaska songs" radio show smile emoticon
"Talk of your cold, refrigeratin' mamas,
Brother, she's a polar bear's pajamas!"
Davina Harrington, who lives in Western Australia, sent this:
Hi Sandra,
I took this photo the other day while we were out. It reminded me of your "Leaning on a Truck" writing. The kids and I go out on what we call music drives. We hop in the van and my daughter Jette connects my phone to the stereo and we choose songs and sing along and chat as we drive. Sometimes we have a destination in mind, other times we make it up as we go along. Each time we go on one of our jaunts we learn something and we connect. Whenever one of the kids or even myself suggests going on a music drive it's instant excitement. Reading "Leaning on a Truck" helped me to move from being a mum who might not have said "Yes! Let's go" to one who smiles whenever someone suggests it.
I feel less doubt the longer we unschool.
Thank you for the time and effort you put into helping others.
It's a Leyland Super Beaver. We loved the name.
Some exchange of info about these photos:
Me/Sandra: HOW COOL! The story, and the truck. I was sorry, in Australia, not to be where I could see a road train, but this is like a road barge!! (If you read the sign, it says when the truck was loaded they wouldn't drive more than 35 km per hour. That's 21.7 mph. A crawl.)
Davina: We have so many road trains here! I will get some pictures for you Port Hedland also had the world record for the longest train one year too!
Me: The same company also made a "Super Hippo" with cattle cars.
Davina: It's at the Don Rhodes Mining Museum in Port Hedland in Western Australia.
I've brought something written when Holly was 12 years old
April 17, 2003
Holly has asked this week about "worthwhile" and "ruthlessness." She wanted to know what they meant and why they meant that.
Then yesterday we were watching an old Twilight Zone episode, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (with William Shatner) and at the end Rod Serling intones a long speech Holly understood none of. We wound it back a couple of times for me to try to write it down for her. I missed a phrase, but we quit trying. In 1963 nobody could have wound it back or looked it up on google. One pass and probably most of the viewers said "what?"
But after I had it scribbled as well as I could in two passes, we were discussing these terms:
"The flight of Mr. Robert Wilson has ended now, a flight not only from point A to point B, but also from the fear of recurring mental breakdown. Mr. Wilson has that fear no longer, though, for the moment, he is, as he has said, alone in this assurance. Happily, his conviction will not remain isolated too much longer, for happily, tangible manifestation is very often left as evidence of trespass, even from so intangible a quarter as the Twilight Zone." *
conviction
isolated
tangible manifestation (and then discussed "redundant")
"evidence of trespass"
and "so intangible a quarter as The Twilight Zone."
"Quarter" has a LOT of meanings, and a couple of them very intangible kinds of things!
When we were sitting down to watch Twilight Zone, Holly had to move the Tank Girl comic books she had been reading. One was called "The Odyssey." Then the DVD menu came up, and one of the episodes is called "The Odyssey of Flight 33." I was in the next room and she yelled to tell me about that, and I said "You saw the word 'odyssey' twice in an hour? Cool!"
"I saw the word 'odyssey' twice in one MINUTE!
What IS an odyssey?"
I told her it was a long adventurous trip, often unplanned. Reminded her of Jason, fleece/argonauts, and she said "and next comes the saga?"
She's right. Mixing languages and cultures, except where they meet in English.
That's a lot of vocabulary and history tie-in to come in the small space between the 1990s' Tank Girl comics and some late 50's/early 60's Twilight Zone on a Wednesday night, and it wasn't anything I could have planned, but I was happy to go with it when Holly brought it up.
Sandra
Now, years later, technology makes explorations and connections even easier.
Some people might be able to see the episode here: http://www.hulu.com/watch/440824
But it's not any one TV program or book or film that helps. It's a quantity of various things, and having a mind that is not closed down with fear, shame, self-conscious, so that connections will come easily and joyously.
If one wanted to continue down this 20,000 foot path, though, here is something on NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET & EPISTEMOLOGY — a transcript of a podcast called The Sci Phi show. "Epistemology" is a pilosophical term referring to how and why we believe and know what we think we know. That episode is thick with material for those thoughts. Seeing, thinking, expression, reflection.
