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Trivia

Enough trivia will create a detailed model of the universe.

What is trivia? For school kids, trivia is (by definition) a waste of time. It’s something that will not be on the test. It’s “extra” stuff. For unschoolers, though, in the wide new world in which EVERYTHING counts, there can be no trivia in that sense. ❉

Below ar some snippets from pages where trivia was mentioned, described, praised, and might not be even full sentences, but there are links!



Here's a trivia site on time and measurements

The "game host's" name (which we had never had reason to note before) is "Felix Hypotenuse." "Felix" is from Latin, and is related to "felicity," another word they sing in Pirates of Penzance. It's fun for me that Holly enjoys that sort of trivia.

you can get to LOTS of other things (flags, maps/geography, trivia, art/icons, older anthems, a BBC radio quiz on national anthems, how to draw the Union Jack...)

As they got older, and war games, movies about history, and international celebrities came over their intellectual horizon, so did trivia about the borders of countries. What's with Tibet? Taiwan? When did Italy and France settle into their current borders? Why does Monaco have royalty? The Vatican really has cash machines in Latin? What's the difference between UK and Great Britain? Is Mexico in north or central America? Were Americans REALLY that afraid of and ignorant about the Soviet Union in the 60's? In answering those questions, the terms and trivia of history, geography, philosophy, religion and political science come out. The words are immediately useful, and tied to ideas and pictures and knowledge the child has already absorbed, awaiting just the name, or the definitions, or the categories.

foreign stamps trivia books (not quite trivia, but yesterday I left a little What would Buddha Do? book in the bathroom—

(about Encore:) This is one of many trivia games, though it's one of the most unique.

There was a trivia book and a "roadside history," but the map book was the star of that show.

English — oddities, trivia and mysteries

I'm talking about collections of trivia. These are gold and diamond mines for unschooling.

Chess art, trivia, interaction, cartoons and a list of movies involving chess...

there are sounds, sights, smells, tastes and textures for them to process and build their internal model of the universe from

as I've gotten older and my personal model of the universe has continued to expand, I've come to understand what he meant.

Their model of the universe is better than mine was when I was their age.

Each little experience, every idea, is helping your child build his internal model of the universe.

A huge amount of learning is taking place, and the child's internal model of the universe is starting to form up. You can help!

Each child builds his own model of the universe. School tries to insert one but it can't.

all of their facts are starting to gel into a model of the universe
[Print/PDF transcript, or original audio file]

Trivia is what knowledge is made of. Enough little bits form a rich whole.

Sometimes to understand a joke, people have to know three or four different things already. Sometimes a piece of humor ties together LOTS of trivia/learning in ways other things can't do.

I'll ace any trivia quiz you bring on
I'm fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon
—Weird Al



Textbooks for Unschoolers
or Triviality
 (1998 article)

Wheelbarrows connect to everything

Your Own Model of the Universe