Unschooling Blog, Vol. 36 - FLEA MARKET TIME! Learning about money is easy. You don’t need to “do a unit” on it, or go to school.
Of course you don’t.
We use money every day, and our kids see us do so, and are highly aware, if only intuitively at first, of its vastly diverse and inestimable utility in...LIVING!
Just the other day I was fascinated to see my son set up his own “flea market” after visiting one with his mother.
He laid out a blanket on the floor, selected toys he no longer used, and wanted to sell, and wrote price tags for each toy.
His mother and I then entered the room, pretending to be various, different individuals, and bought some of the toys using real Japanese yen.
I was first just “daddy,” then was a bratty kid begging his “mom” (my wife) for toys, and then I was an older man who haggled with him over the price.
This type of play effortlessly teaches children counting, the concept of “change” in money, and interpersonal skills.
It’s seamless, fluid, and most importantly, has real life meaning to kids!
Thanks so much for reading, and never stop learning.
(If you missed the last Unschooling Blog, “Unschooling Blog, Vol. 35 - Catching “Ant Lions”!,” you can find that HERE.)
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
That is so cool that he set up his own little stall when he got home, just goes to show how smart unschooled kids are. A future entrepreneur there my freind.
It is a wonderful thing that you are doing. Your preparing your child for the real world.
Thank you, @thesteemster.
Sorry to post totally off subject but I have just learned that you live in Japan. My favorite reporter, James Corbett, also lives in Japan. I am ashamed to ask such a cliche question, but are you aware of him over in Japan? He does such good work but not many over here know about him.
Yep! I actually interviewed Corbett a while back. His work is second to none man. I gotta agree.
Wow that was a good interview. I wish that I cold have been around for it.
On the subject of bit-coin and it's contemporaries I have my own vision (being a long time silver bug) of how this problem with gold, silver and cyrtocurrency should work it way out. Because it seem that the narrative these days is the world has to go 100% gold and silver or 100% bit coin.
That's a lot like the crap sandwich that James was talking about. Well I agree, it's not for me! My vision works like this, a co-operation between gold and bit coin dealers or maybe even a gold dealer with a block-chain. These bit coin would only be good for transaction in order to remove the incentive to speculate off the value the currency. 1 oz of gold or silver is equal to 1 unit of currency be it the gold currency or the silver version of the same currency. Because the currency in question will only be good for real time transaction we will not have the problem of hypothecation.
At this time what we have is one currency that acts like many, and if the power that be have their way there could be only one. This way the number of currency is limited only by the number of trusted block-chains. If you get some time I would like to hear what you think of the idea. If you like it I hope you spread it to the bit coin community. Also Please check my story on this subject here https://steemit.com/bit/@geneticmemory/bit-coin-a-conversation this conversation/post is where the idea come from.
http://Geneticmemory.org
As much as I hate to type it...O.M.G!!!! This guy literally saved me from being a right wing idiot. I was consumed with fear when msm where showing the refugee crisis and saying thousands of "fighting age males" were coming....LOL I laugh at my old self now but I didn't know any better. I knew nothing of MKultra, Gladio, false flag, banking, big pharma etc etc the list is endless. You are so lucky to have interviewed him but I suppose you must be doing some pretty good work of your own to be able to interview him. Pass on my regards if you happen to speak to him again.
Great interview bro, very well handled, I would be star struck too but you hid it well ;)
His sentiments about us not having the whole jig-saw are echoed in my article(https://steemit.com/love/@article61/i-ll-love-it-when-the-plan-comes-together-but-do-we-have-a-plan)
haha great minds think alike.
Great little message. I remember my Daughter doing the same. In the UK we have Car-boot sales but the characters are the same.lol. I miss all the role play. Good times.
Lol. That's wonderful. Kids are certainly magic.
@kafkanarchy84 - what happens when you haggle over price with children? I am very curious to know if they are more accommodating compared to adults or if they drive a harder bargain...
This time he just drove a harder bargain. He flat out said “no” when I tried to bring him down. Ha!
I like the term "unschooling," which I'd never heard before.
Have you considered home schooling your son? Is that even possible in Japan? It seems like the powers-that-be might be very averse to it.
Then again, you could just inform the authorities that your son is in "permanent juku / cram school." The Japanese would love that!
It’s a challenge, and legally tough, but in many respects it seems like it’s almost going to be a easier than in the states, due to some loopholes.
Yeah, unschooling is homeschooling minus a rigid curriculum. The child simply follows his or her interests.
Haha. They would love that!
I've seen some great results of home schooling. Even my sister's kids, who were kept out of the school system owing to her and her husband's very conservative religious beliefs, turned out to be quite thoughtful, mature, independent and very creative young adults.
Hope for similarly great results for your son (kids?) too. Best of luck.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63309.Family_Matters
That's a really good concept, (and here is where people might say that I am getting on my high soapbox) however when you said yen, I cringed. And some might say what I'm going to say as meaningless concerning your child age but as you have correctly stated
So what my issue? With due respect to my Japanese brothers and sisters the Yen is just like the dollar it is paper. It is currency, but it is not money. The idea of money (not currency) is above many adults heads even without the added concept of cryptocurrencies. Before I get to why I made this reply post. I'd like to give you my ideas of how money and currency differ. After a lot of conversation talking to people about this subject I thought of what I think is the easiest way to understand it and use it in this you-tube comment. Once you know that money is commodities those things we need to live and currency is compressed time (energy compressed into the time took to produce any item) and is way we transmit our energy. (RIGHT CLICK TO VIEW IMAGE)
Use coins not paper in your game!
While I agree with what you are saying here basically, I think you might be assuming a lot of things.
My son also has cryptocurrency knows gold is what is really valuable. We use yen in our daily lives and so used it here in a simple and fun game. We don’t use gold at the grocery store, though I wish that were the case.
I’m interested in what you said about money and currency. Theoretically money is the most saleable good, so yes, I would agree.
Like I said, though, using yen for our game was fine, and if you cringed I’d say maybe you missed the point of the post in a sense.
All the same, thanks for commenting, and I agree that fiat money is just paper garbage that puts people in debt.
You have made very good points. Having children would (of cause) give you more insight as you just given me. So maybe my post is better-addressed to adults more than children as they are with you just about all the time. I stand corrected. Hope you didn't miss the reply to the interview with james above.
Nice one dude, although I have to say that I found economics extremely useful to school leftists ;-)
It certainly is! Sounds like you had a good econ teacher. I am definitely not bashing that.
My econ teacher knew how to teach, but his opinions were garbage. After BTC crashed for the first time at $1,200 he laughed at me. Fast forward 4 years and look where we are now :) Also, all 3 economics curricula I had never once mentioned the Austrian school... Smh government education.
Impressive, well I guess he is ready to go and run his own booth at the flea market :) . Making my first few sales as a kid was an important moment in my life. School of Life all the way! Cheers!
That's great. I think it's so important to learn by doing.
Isaiah is on the right track.. In this way, he will start gaining the numerical accuracy and his confidence level will increase while interacting with people ..