My unschooler is interested in...

At the Wide Sky Days Unschooling Conference in 2012, Pam Sorooshian and Laura Flynn Endres gave a talk together and did a really cool thing: they put up posterboard around the room; asked people for kids' interests to put in as headers for the boards, such as Harry Potter, acting, Fibonnaci sequences, whatever; and then gave sticky notes to everybody in the room (about 100 of us, I suppose). We all went around the room putting sticky ideas onto the boards for ways kids can deepen their involvement in and exposure to the posted interests.

It was a remarkable experience, the hive mind at its finest. We created such a vibrant, varied library of resources. I wanted to do more and more.

So, after we got home from San Diego, I started a Facebook group that runs along the same principles. People create posts about something their kids (or they - we're not age-ist!) are interested in, and other members put in ideas for learning more. I have discouraged commentary on other people's suggestions, since you never know what a given family will find enriching and many families might use the same posts for ideas. I have also discouraged discussion of unschooling philosophy itself. There are many other places where that can happen; I don't think people need one more place to argue.

The result has been pretty freaking cool, far beyond what I imagined when I got it started. In a little over five months, we have gathered 1250 idea-makers together. People post topics ranging from... Well, I'll share a few of the ones at the top of the group today. That will give you an idea:

- physical comedy
- Japanese
- boats and water
- g.a.m.e systems and a.p.p.s (trying to avoid spam)
- narration
- Legos
- and much, much more.

It is fun, inspiring, and WAY too busy for me to keep up with. Fortunately, with so many contributors, people are assured of having some collaborators whenever they post.

If you're interested in some ideas for your kids or yourself, come join us. My unschooler is interested in...

What's on our coffee table today

Netflix - Beasts of the Southern Wild
VHS - Moonstruck
Magazine - Seventeen with Ke$ha on the cover
CD - Greybeards' LiG song list
DVD - Labyrinth
Books:
- Dinosaur A-Z: For kids who really love dinosaurs
- Calvin & Hobbes 10th Anniversary Book
- a few coffee table books that never leave
Hi-Q (a little puzzle game for one)
Coasters - because "Use a coaster" is one of the rules we do have in our house
My wrist brace (I never leave home without it)
MJ's bottom (attached to her body of course)

Friday night poetry

Long conversations at midnight.
Oh-dark-thirty, he murmurs,
as we cover our yawns
and take turns being
Interested.


--------------------------------------------------------------


Didn't we do this before?
Were we here once before,
In this place of madness and pain,
Or was it only a dream?

It's all so familiar.

Rededicate ourselves

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/24/presidential-proclamation-women-s-equality-day-2012

Money, money, money, mon-ey

This started out as a comment on an unschooling forum. I think it works as a standalone post too, and it's LONG, so I'm saving it.

Our kids are 19 and 20. The older one doesn't live at home right now but soon will again. We support both of them financially. Come September, they will both be in college, which we are paying for right now but which will eventually need to become a group effort. They each get a weekly no-strings allowance, which they don't have to do chores to earn and which they spend on whatever they want.

That's our situation.

Our philosophy is one of cooperation and sharing, with a healthy dose of ignoring society's arbitrary, different-from-country-to-country rules about the ages by which kids **should** be doing certain things like driving cars, paying their own way, moving out, and so on. Society doesn't get to decide those things, we do.

The ways this philosophy has paid off are many, and somewhat immeasurable.

Where to start? The biggest benefit has turned out to be that they get a modicum of relief from the pressure they are under -- that ALL kids are under, no matter what their parents say and do -- to become independent adults. Our kids talk to us, so I can see that this pressure is staggering and probably worse than any "gotta earn a living" pressure they will feel later in life. ANYTHING I can do to ease that pressure and give them a little breathing room to "figure this shit out" is a good thing. We reassure them repeatedly that there is no hurry. They don't cost more now than they did at 13 or 15 or last year. We know we can afford this lifestyle, just as it is, which means we can joyfully continue to be a safe haven for them as long as it takes them to find their paths.

Do I think I will still have kids living with me five years from now? Judging by their personalities and by what their older unschooling friends have done, the answer is, sadly, no. I'm on Empty Nest Watch whether I like it or not.

The other benefits are more, well, ordinary, and the reasons we went with the no-strings allowance to begin with. They got to practice budgeting and math and learn what it feels like to have money on payday and be broke by the end of the pay period. And Frank and I got to stop always being the bad-guy money decisionmakers. "Can I have this?" they still ask, and all we have to say is, "It's your money."

If you want a little friendly feedback, your setup [kids do chores to earn allowance, with commentary about kids beginning to pay their own way at 16] sounds pretty stressful and somewhat adversarial! All that keeping track. All that wondering about where YOU should draw the line. Don't draw any lines. Figure out what the allowance is, hand it over with a smile, and then sit back and watch *them* figure out where the lines are and how to make the most of what they have. I bet they'll surprise you. (I should tell you sometime about the $5 megaton of candy the girls bought.)

When they make mistakes -- and they will, we all do -- I make purchasing mistakes all the freaking time *g* -- don't say, "See! I told you this wouldn't work!" Instead, recognize that it HAS worked. Mistakes lead to learning. If they buy too many potions and lose them [on a gaming site where cyber items are purchased for real money], they will learn how yucky it feels to get nothing for their money.

I have lots more to say but this is a novel already. Here are a couple of relevant posts from my blog:

http://zombieprincess.blogspot.com/2010/06/stuff-and-money-and-space.html

http://zombieprincess.blogspot.com/2010/05/date-with-reality.html

Geographically inclined

I shared this image in Facebook. Neat, isn't it? As I introduced it there: "Fun way to learn geography *and* put some popular (and not so popular) movies into a geographical context." My friend Emily asked me to talk a bit about what we did for geography as an unschooling family, and about how learning geography can be fun.

To answer the first question, well... First I have to admit that we didn't consciously do a darned thing to expose our kids to geography. What we did, as always, was have fun as a family. But in retrospect, I can see that we did a lot. We traveled. We talked. We pulled out maps, nautical charts, globes, atlases, and Google Maps often and with bright interest and a need to discover something in particular. Geography is not some esoteric subject in our house but an extremely valuable tool. Plus, it's just interesting. Topography is interesting. Distances between places we'd love to visit are interesting. The impact of geography on world events, current and historical, is interesting.

Another thing we did was to become part of the unschooling community. We have friends and online acquaintances all across the U.S. and Canada, plus several other countries. The unschooling community has personalized the entire world for my kids. Destinations are not foreign and distant but possible. This means we don't hear a mention of a destination in England and think "oh, yeah, that place where the Queen lives." We think, "What part of England? I wonder how far it is from Schuyler's house. Maybe someday we can go stay with Schuyler and go there! Yeah, wouldn't that be cool?"

And there's the Internet. Cool stuff like the map above abounds. Maps come up automatically with many Internet searches. You can see graphical representations of voter patterns, Native American tribe locations, current weather conditions (with useful tools like hurricane trackers), and the paths followed by favorite fictional characters. Maps are everywhere.

Books! Every time my kids read a book they add to their knowledge of geography. When we travel, we visit places that we previously visited in books. Some books have maps as the frontispiece. Some maps are fictional, which inspires kids to draw fictional maps of their own. This gives them a gut-level understanding of scale and the challenges faced by map makers to show topography, distance, and relative size.

And music! Do you know the song "Battle of New Orleans"? We went to that battlefield! When my kids sing the line about "til we seed their faces well," they know where the Americans were waiting. They know the Mississippi River was a stone's throw away. They know how far the field is from New Orleans, and how far New Orleans is from our home near Seattle.

Planning for travel has been huge. Road trips. Unschooling conferences. Not Back to School Camp. Visiting friends in other states. Sailing in the Gulf of Mexico. Looking at maps and deciding where to *actually* go is FUN. (You can have this same experience with a city map, by the way.)

Kids learn geography when geography has context and meaning. And to answer the second question, the learning is fun for those very same reasons. It's fun because it's attached to fun things, and it's memorable because it becomes an integral part of the kids' personal memories.

Versatile (chaotic?) blogger

Shan gave me an award. Cool! You can read the meme rules and stuff on her blog. I am breaking all the rules except the fourth one, which requires me to tell you--my versatile (chaotic?) audience--seven random things about me.

1. I can't resist a blog meme.

2. I've been neglecting my blog and various other online spheres because my attitude is not the best since we lost Tom. It feels rude to jump into someone else's life and spew negativity.

3. I have not been neglecting Pinterest because, there, I can tuck all my negativity in one place and those who don't want to see it don't have to follow that pinboard.

4. About the time Frank got some relief from the pinched nerve that had been making his right arm alternately numb and painful, my right arm started wigging out. It aches, my fingers tingle, it makes me cranky. But ice helps, so I am so far resisting going to the doctor.

5. After a couple decades of settling for inadequate garments, I have found a style of bra that fits me, meets my strict requirements for comfort, and is reasonably attractive. I periodically buy a new one as older ones wear out, so I currently have this bra in four colors in varying states of repair. I don't care that each new one is $60. I would pay more than that. It is pure joy to know it will fit (without having to try it on, which I hate), feel as good as a bra can feel, and work under all my clothes. If Wacoal ever stops making this bra, I will cry bitter tears.

6. As of two weeks ago, I have no children. (Chloe turned 18!!!)

7. My favorite ice cream is rocky road, but I always, always dish it into a tall glass and pour milk over the top to make a quicky milkshake. The nuts left at the bottom of the shake are my favorite part!