Abstract

Natural Curiosity is a warm and contemplative insight into one family's experience of moving from mainstream schooling to home education, and learning through the lens of nature and natural history.

Since becoming 'unschooled', the two children have thrived on a diet of self-directed play and learning, amassing life skills, confidence, responsibility, and a vast array of knowledge along the way. This thoughtful book touches upon important themes in education and environmentalism, such as children's rights in schooling, the use and place of technology in learning, and the absence of the natural world in mainstream education. It gives a considered, balanced view of home schooling, interspersed with entertaining tales including constructing life-sized mammoth skeletons and living for a day as historically accurate Vikings. It offers an understanding of how this type of education works and what inspires the choice to pursue it.

In a world filled with endless distraction, Lisa Carne passionately and wisely guides us along more relevant paths designed to stimulate young learners to discover the wonders and magic of the natural world as a fundamental part of their learning experience. To thrive with some degree of health in these uncertain times, these are the encounters our progeny will need to have no matter what our cultural background. Read this important book.
Bernie Krause PhD, Author, Soundscape Ecologist, Composer and Sound Designer
Lisa Carne is a home schooling mother of two, she lives in rural Suffolk, England.
This book is refreshing and insightful. Given the constraints of a formal education system, Lisa Carne successfully reinforces the importance of the natural world as a key learning tool in a child's development; an area of our society that is sadly being eroded with the explosion of technology. She emphasises the tools of observation, mindfulness and the importance of our elders, as essential ingredients in providing a child a balanced and healthy existence into adulthood; skills that are so readily overlooked in our society today. I highly recommend this book.
Tara Golshan, Executive Director for Education, Jane Goodall Institute
This book is a warm and charming reminder to encourage the curiosity of children, to retain it in ourselves, and never to let our instinctive sense of wonder at the intricacy and beauty of the nature all around us be worn away.
Max Barclay, Collection Manager, The Natural History Museum, London
An excellent introduction to the principles of unschooling, demonstrating how child-led learning can cover an entire curriculum - and more - and how children can flourish when encouraged to follow their passions and spend as much time as they wish on any project or interest. Definitely recommended.
Sue F
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