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Example of unschooling maths from the archives

by Beverley

The date was July 2000, something I shared on the natural learning forum:

Just sat Thomas down tonight to do 25 minutes of 'sums'. Remember, this kid is 12 years old and never, or very rarely, does maths on paper. I have been feeling shaky about many things in my life lately, and as usual grope for anything that makes me feel more secure. Some bookwork for my children (Thomas is my last victim) usually helps my confidence lift.

So I figured we'd do some maths over the next week or so. We started with addition - the most obvious place for me, though I am not sure it is a valid place to start.

Well, he conquered the first couple of sums, simple addition, no exchanging, up to two digits. By sum 21, the last one, he was adding up a list of numbers five deep up to numbers in the millions, lots of exchanging, plenty of zeros splattered all over the place. No worries. His sister converted his score into a percentage and then a grade - A.

Not bad for a natural learner who hasn't done sums on paper since, well, I reckon he must have been six the last time we did it....

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