Blog of the Zombie Princess

I love this photo

2011-12-19T20:19:00.000-08:00

Except me

2011-12-17T10:41:00.000-08:00

For the past couple of years on this blog, I've been writing about accepting people as they are. During that same timeframe, I've been doing some work on accepting myself as I am. I have a ways to go there. You see, acceptance applies to everyone but me. I must be perfect.
I have no idea what the hell "perfect" is except that I know when I'm not being that. Which is often.

Recently I've been putting in very long days at work. They start at 6:30 a.m. and, counting commute and the occasional hour of so-called downtime (when my brain remains dominated by work thoughts), they end at about 11 p.m. I'm doing the work of two people, and I'm doing it damned well.

But I'm short on sleep, and I'm tired, and most nights I go to bed feeling like an utter failure because there is always so much that didn't get done that day. The work is never done, and my personal commitments are suffering. I have nothing left for my family except snarky comments about the housework that didn't get done while I was working. The only one who gets any quality time is Rigby, and that's because she attacks me or cuddles with me until I pay attention to her. (That's the solution, Frank and MJ and Chloe and Emma: pounce on my feet or get in my face if you want some time from me.)

I suck, and I refuse to accept that this is Who I Am.

Let's try that again. I don't suck. But I'm ridiculously human. And accepting me for Who I Am is a process rather than a switch I can flip.

That's true with the kids too, of course. They are also human, with foibles and preferences and habits and their own varying capacity for daily accomplishment. Living with them involves some daily adjustment of my expectations and my attitude. But I don't look at, for instance, Chloe's foibles and preferences and habits and accomplishments and think, "She sucks." I don't think, "There she goes again, being imperfect." And I don't qualify "human" with "ridiculously" when I talk about her humanness. Only my humanness is ridiculous in degree.

I'm special that way.

For the last couple months, I've been doing this thing where I take those "special" thoughts in my head and amplify them by saying them out loud. I am trying to hear myself better, trying to hear how hard I am on myself. What's been the most illuminating about this practice is how very distressing my family members find it when they hear me say these things. They find them vicious and frightening and cause for immediate remediation, not of anything I've done or failed to do but of the underlying belief that I'm expressing.

They are horrible beliefs.

What gets really tricky is that accepting myself as I am includes accepting that I have them.

I expect perfection in/of myself. And that's okay.
I am really hard on myself. And that's okay.
I can practice loving-kindness with everyone but me. And that's okay.
I have less time for my personal life when work is busy. And that's okay.

Except none of those is really okay. They are all things I'd like to improve. And that's okay too.

This acceptance business ain't for sissies.

Fitting parenting to the child

2011-12-17T09:39:00.000-08:00

MJ is 19. She doesn't live with me anymore. When she's at her home in Salem, I typically have no idea of her daily plans: whether she's going anywhere, where she's going if she is, how late she'll be out, who she'll be with. I don't worry about her as long as I "see" her via text, phonecall, or Facebook occasionally, which here means every 5 to7 days or so, and which "sighting" does not necessarily have to include me. For example, if I see her post something on her wall on FB, my internal mom-timer gets reset, and I don't worry.

I also have no idea what she's eating, how much she's exercising, what she's learning, how she's learning, whether she's tidying up after herself, whether she's minding her manners, how she's spending her money, what music she's listening to, how much TV she's watching, whether she's brushing her teeth and wearing her retainers, and so on and so on. I don't ask, she doesn't offer, I just don't know.

In other words, in the absence of evidence to the contrary or complete radio silence, I trust that she's healthy and happy enough, and I know she's quite competent enough to handle what life throws at her, either on her own or by picking up the phone if she needs help.

And then she comes home for a visit. Something happens inside my brain, and MJ moves from the "MJ's responsibility" compartment to the "My responsibility" compartment.

Last night she went out with her cousin Chelsea. As she was walking out the door, she said she'd either be home "later" or stay the night at the friend's they were headed to. I opened my mouth to request a rather more specific plan, and to go through my usual magical-thinking routine of questions designed to reassure me that she would be safe.

And then the absurdity of that struck, and I said, "Have fun" and closed my mouth again. This child-of-mine, despite her name and similar appearance, is not the same person she used to be. She no longer needs (if she ever did) the type of parenting I had been about to offer.

It's up to me to catch up.

Unschooling my cat

2011-12-10T20:31:00.000-08:00

Catchy title, right?

This is my cat:

She's bigger than that now, but you get the idea. This amazing, bright-eyed little being has entered our lives and transformed our home and our routines.

Sound familiar? Yeah, it's a lot like having an infant again.

Several years ago, I read something Sandra Dodd wrote about things she did to make her dog more comfortable. She didn't say she was unschooling her dog, but somehow hearing the changes she was willing—no, happy—to make, to her home and routine and the arrangement of her furniture, in order to meet her dog's needs and make her dog happy really helped me see what the unschooling lifestyle is all about.

Fast forward a few years and my kids are pretty much grown. While we continue to adapt our home and routine as needed to meet their needs, everything is pretty settled these days, and we take even the surprises in stride because adapting is habitual by this point.

And then along came Rigby.

She is named for Eleanor Rigby, thus continuing our mini tradition of naming cats after Beatles' characters (our last two cats were Desmond and Molly). I am allergic to cats, so she was only supposed to be a visitor, and I was quite prepared to fall head over heels in love with her and give her away anyway.

What I was not prepared for was for her to fall in love with us. And she did. Within a day after I found her cowering under the neighbor's car, beyond thrilled to be found, she had bonded completely with all of us. This is where she slept:

And there I was, an unschooler and attachment parent riding on nearly nine years of unequivocally meeting the needs of the beings I love, confronted with a little loved one who clearly did not need to be separated from another family. Surprise!

So we adapted. We kept her (and my allergies are learning to live with it). She's a fair bit bigger now, but she's still attached. She sleeps on whichever of us is not moving, and she struts and sprints around the house like she owns it. Which I suppose she does.

My next surprise was the unschooler refresher course that having her in our home provided.

She likes to play with the cords on the mini-blinds. We don't especially want the mini-blinds to come crashing down, so we tied a string to chair. It has a bead tied on the end, in as close an appromixation of a mini-blind cord as I could conceive on short notice. She loved it.

She has daily periods of astonishingly high energy. We call this Satan Cat Mode, and Honey Badger has nothing on Satan Cat. What Satan Cat Rigby needs is someone to romp with her. It doesn't matter that we'd rather sit on the couch or go to sleep. (Cats are mostly nocturnal, remember.) We have acquired a collection of toys and other items that she finds entertaining, and I spend close to an hour every day creating opportunities for her to chase, tackle, climb, pounce, sneak, destroy, and gnaw. Very often with me as the target. This is in addition to the time that Frank, Chloe, Emma, MJ, and whoever happens to be visiting contribute to the cause.

She loves plastic bags and cardboard boxes. We have had varietal bags and boxes littering our floors for eight weeks.

She needs to claw something. She would like to use the oriental rug, while we would prefer for her to use one of the alternatives we have provided. We can occasionally be found dragging our fingernails over the surfaces of these alternatives to show her how it's done. She's getting the idea.

She needs to be with us. We leave doors open so she can follow us around. We make sure not to leave her alone for too long. We talk to her and generally provide companionship. I sit in weird positions so she can drape herself across my neck or my lap while I work.

She needs to cuddle. I know this is true because if we are too slow about noticing when she's ready for a cuddle, she will climb on shoulders, laps, keyboards, books, or faces until someone does their damned job, thank you very much. It's usually not too hard to get someone to cooperate. She prefers cuddling on her favorite blanket, so this blanket is usually adorning one or the other of us. (This last might become more problematic in August.)

And of course she needs a litter box and good food and medical care. Check, check, check.

But in terms of illustrating unschooling principles, the need that is the most interesting and, yes, entertaining is her obsession with the bathroom. She loves the bathroom. She needs to explore the bathroom. We have no idea why. It is the strangest cat behavior we've ever seen. If someone goes in to pee, she literally runs after them so she can watch. She hangs out in the sink. She sleeps on the toilet lid (the seat is heated so this one is less puzzling) and considers the toilet tank a prime perch. If someone goes in and closes the door, she sits outside and waits for them to come out. And she showers with me every day, spending some of the time hanging out at the foot of the tub and the rest in the safe zone between the shower curtain and (clear) shower liner.

We don't get it. But the thing is, we don't have to understand her need in order to respond to it. We just have to care that her need is met. That is pretty much the prime directive of unschooling.

Gotta go. My cat needs me.

Dissonance

2011-09-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

SOFIE
So you really think having two opposing ideas in your head does some kind of damage?

MUMFORD
Sometimes, yeah... pulling in two different directions at once. It makes tiny little tears in our fabric.

SOFIE
Well then, my life has been some kind of huge rip.

From Mumford

Self-care

2011-09-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

There is a fair amount of content out in the self-improvement sphere devoted to helping us see the difference between self-care and indulgence. You will get more genuine comfort, they say, from a brisk walk than from a jelly donut or a trip to the Nordstrom shoe department. Maybe so.

But unschooling with my kids—accepting and staying calm about their choices—has shown me something very important:

Self-care is not only doing the things that you know are good for you—eating right and exercising and getting plenty of sleep—but loving and accepting the part of you that can't be "good" all the time.

Blogs I read religiously

2011-09-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

1. Raptitude.

2. zenhabits.

3. mnmlist.

4. Tiny Buddha.

5. Just Add Light and Stir.

6. Yours, of course.

How to meditate

2011-08-06T00:48:00.000-07:00

I just did a quick search on Tumblr for "meditation." Holy confusion, Batman, do people have some funny ideas about what it takes. This is my attempt to set the record straight, at least for my little circle.

You don't need quiet.
You don't need a special space or any special equipment.
You don't need to change who you are.
You don't need to be more or less religious than you are right now.
You don't need to believe it will help.

All you need is you, and your breath, and a moment or two or twenty.

Close your eyes or leave them open.
Sit comfortably or stand quietly or lie down.
Breathe. Feel your breath come in and out.
If there are sounds, hear them.
If there are sensations, feel them.
Try to notice without reacting.
Breathe some more.
Enjoy meditating for its own sake.
When you are done, take a deep breath and return to your regular activities.
Try to do it again tomorrow. (That's what makes it a meditation practice.)

That's all there is to it.

Silent language

2011-07-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

I react to grief as I react to most stressors: weariness. I am tired down to the bone. But that's not all. My anger is there, hovering, seeking a handy target no matter how disconnected from the true source: that our world is forever changed, that my mother is left alone, that life is unfair.

And I cry. I cried over oil and vinegar salad dressing in the Microsoft cafeteria. I cried over spaghetti, and the thought of a phone call I have yet to make. I cried over a grave, not empty and yet so empty of what I hoped to find there.

I'm restless. I walk and walk and walk and still can't be still.

Returning to work brought some solace in the form of distraction. Busy, busy, busy.

Being busy makes me angry. I am pissed off about how busy I am. Busy doing nothing that matters. Busy because it's easier.

Being still makes me cry.

It's two weeks tomorrow. An eyeblink. An eternity.

I want to go home. I want to go back. I want things to be as they were but better: no pain, no cancer lurking in the wings, just ordinary, boring life, with no threats or vulnerabilities that can't be ignored no matter how hard we try. I want the luxury of complacency.

There's no going back. There's only figuring out what comes next. How we do this, how we go on without him. Who we are now, as individuals and as a family.

It is knowledge I would rather not have.

Soothing

2011-07-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

I just had a walk in the woods. It was very soothing. I found the damp green smell of slightly soggy Northwest woods, barely ripe blackberries (Papa Tom's favorite kind!), perfectly ripe huckleberries that made me miss Molly-pop, my grandniece and once-and-future huckleberry hunting pal, and a couple of not too shy rabbits that sat still while I checked them out.

But, most importantly I think, I found spots where no human eyes were on me. I am such a self-conscious creature; it is all but impossible for me to relax when people can see me. But there in the woods, even with human sounds all around, I was alone.

I think I'll be heading out to those woods every day for a while.

Anti-school quotes

2011-07-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

What Einstein, Twain, and Forty-eight Other Creative People Had to Say About Schooling

In loving memory

2011-07-19T18:58:00.000-07:00

Thomas B. "Tom" Canonica passed away on Sunday, July 17, 2011, after a bout with cancer. He was born on January 29, 1940, in Everett, Washington, the son of Angelo B. "Razz" Canonica and Aleta Norvell Canonica. He grew up in the Summit neighborhood of Riverside, where his dad ran the family store, home of the famous Razz Burger. Tom was part of a large Italian "Garlic Gulch" family and regularly treated family and friends to fabulous Italian dishes made from old family recipes. He graduated from St. Edwards Seminary at 16 and attended Everett Community College. He was very proud of his service in the U.S. Marine Corps and his long career with Washington Natural Gas Company, from which he retired in 2000. He was a past president of Sertoma and the Marysville Sons of Italy and was also affiliated with the Everett Elks and the American Legion. He lived at Priest Point in Marysville for the past 26 years.

He is survived by his wife and best friend, Mary Minshull Canonica, and the children they shared with each other: Chris and Denise Canonica, Ronnie and Frank Maier, Lynn and Artie Kavanaugh, and Erin Sorbo. He is also survived by his mother-in-law, Anna Lee Minshull; his 12 grandchildren, MJ, Chelsea, Chloe, Megan, Maddy, Emma, Ella, Colin, Lila, Ryan, Jerry, and Chiara; his brother and sister-in-law, Larry and Sandy Canonica; nephews and nieces Pat and Allison Punteney, Vince Punteney and Monica Morris, Tammy Punteney, Debbie Hann and Jerry Lundin, Larry Canonica, Jr., and Stephanie Simmons, and Mike and Anita Canonica; Stacy Bosman, Todd Cudaback, and numerous beloved grandnieces and nephews, cousins, in-laws, out-laws, and dear friends.

Tom was preceded in death by his parents; his grandparents Ferdinand and Patrina Canonica of Barolo, Italy; his grandmother Rose Wemmer of Warm Beach; his sister, Sharon Rose Punteney; and his nephew Nick Punteney.

Some of his fondest memories were of sailing the Caribbean, sitting on the beach in Cabo San Lucas, hunting dove and deer with "the boys," traveling Rocketman-style through the Northwest Territories, enjoying the Southwest (especially Canyon De Chelly and the Navajo culture), and gathering with the family for Memorial Day in Grand Coulee, Columbus Day in Long Beach, and above all, the 4th of July on Priest Point. Tom was always happiest at home on his own deck, and never more so than when surrounded by his family. He loved crabbing and clamming with his girls, whose earliest memories include fun times on Papa's boat. His warmth, humor, and gusto della vita made every holiday, birthday party, weekend barbecue, and drop-in visit special. He was our pirate, our Batman, our Christmas Eve Santa Claus, and our go-to guy. We have lost our Papa and our hearts are broken, but we'll carry him with us always. We'll smile when we think of him, when we eat pesto and blackberry pie, and when we remind each other, always, "Alla famiglia."

Memorials may be made to Perpetual Help Catholic Church/St. Vincent de Paul Food Bank or to St. Mary Catholic Church in Marysville.

Services:

Thursday, July 21, 2011 - Evergreen Funeral Home in Everett
Viewing from 3 to 6 p.m., rosary at 7 p.m..
Friday, July 22, 2011 - St. Mary Catholic Church in Marysville
Memorial mass at 9 a.m. with reception following

My kids living up to their potential

2011-07-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

Just by being them.

4th of July, 2011
Photo credit: Erin Sorbo

Figuring out what I want to be when I grow up

2011-07-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

There were three of us, always: Lisa, Kristin, and me. We were the straight-A students.

Jesus, it's so easy to see now how little that phrase says about the people we were, but at the time it was our all encompassing shared identity. We were the straight-A students. Enough said.

I think Lisa and Kristin were friends. I always thought of them as such, anyway, but I honestly don't know. I was friendly with them and sometimes sat near them in our classes together, but we weren't really friends then. I didn't know them. In fact, it's occurred to me recently that—thanks to Facebook—I know them better now than I ever did in high school—and Kristin and I aren't even friends on Facebook! But I know Kristin is an avid runner. Lisa is a deeply conscientious veterinarian, Christian, and liberal in her politics.

Really. That's more than I knew about their personal lives back in high school. But back then I presumed to assume—and worse, the teachers and administrators did—that I knew all about them, or at least that I knew enough. I won't speak for Lisa and Kristin, but I know the teachers and administrators presumed to think they knew all about me.

The only thing they didn't know, and the question that I was supposed to have the answer to, was what I wanted to be. There wasn't much discussion of my potential, because (as far as they knew), I was living up to it at the time and would continue to do so.

I was a good girl.

But my potential hung there in the air around me just the same. What did I want to do with all that potential? What did I want to BE?

I had no idea.

Actually, that's not true. I wanted to write. I can't really say that I was encouraged in this, but I was only actively discouraged once. Maybe once was enough. I don't know.

At any rate, for whatever reason, I thought (without thinking about it) that writing wasn't a good enough plan. I had to find a better one. (As an aside, this is completely in character for me. If a plan is not picture perfect, I will agonize endlessly trying to find a better one. It's crippling, because of course no choice is perfect.)

I finally settled on programming and headed off for college. I was very enthusiastic about going to college (but less so about actually doing any coursework). I puttered around at one school for a while, then transferred to another and puttered around there. Then I dropped out. Then I went back. Then I dropped out again. And then I got a contract at Microsoft and I haven't been back in a college classroom since.

In favor of a perfect plan, I stumbled my way into a career. It is not a career I would ever have purposefully pursued back when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to BE. Technical Indexer? *snort* Technical Writer? Ha! Maybe to pay the bills while I worked on my novel. And now I'm a Program Manager. I don't think I'd ever heard of being a Program Manager when I was 18.

So, this morning I'm thinking about all that potential I had. Did I live up to it? Did I?

Who the fuck cares? Seriously. Who cares? Nobody. Not even me.

What matters now, to every single person in my life, is that I am able to provide for my family, and—shockingly enough—that I am happy. Nobody cares what I do for a living except as a point of curiosity. There might be the occasional person who is impressed, just as there is certainly the occasional person who is underwhelmed, when I describe my job. Most people just nod and offer a polite but clearly disinterested response. My employment is a footnote. It's a shrug.

Do you know what people really like to hear about? They like to hear about my thoughts and opinions and ideas, and most of all they like to hear about my adventures and experiences. People like to hear my stories.

It occurs to me that instead of asking the teens in our lives what careers they want to pursue, we should ask them what stories they want to be able to tell first.

And it occurs to me, shockingly enough, that I have just figured out what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be someone who has more and more and more really good stories to tell.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors
where there were only walls. ~ Joseph Campbell

Unschooling snapshot

2011-06-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Mary Gold and I spent over an hour in Barnes & Noble watching our 17-year-old unschooled daughters, Qacei and Chloe, as they lusted over a particular display of books. The sign on the display? Required School Reading.

LIFE is Good lessons

2011-06-01T13:20:00.000-07:00

LIFE is Good 2011 was not a perfect conference. Things went wrong. Pranks were pulled. Friends' gifts to each other went missing. Another friend spent the end of the conference grieving the loss of her mother. Even so, I loved it. It made me happy. It gave me some more amazing memories to add to my burgeoning "Unschooler Love" file, and I received a good dose of inspiration and renewal. I came away smiling, energized, exhausted, and content with my life.

And then last night I got on Facebook and the LiG group, looking for photos and shared memories and more fun. I found those things. But I also found regrets and complaints and reports about even more unfortunate events that had taken place. I got rather depressed.

But driving to work today—Sitting in Traffic Meditation—something occurred to me: If every conference we attend has a theme, the theme of this one was not "A Series of Unfortunate Events" but "How Unschoolers Respond to Suffering."

Two fire alarms were pulled. We learned that false alarms cost the hotel $500 each and that Mary Gold, our beloved Conference Diva, was deeply distressed. How did the unschooling community respond? They opened their wallets and reminded each other that young people are curious and impulsive.

Some of the treats left by Fairy Godparents (secret pals) went missing. How did the unschooling community respond? They came up with replacement treats and reminded each other that people who take are needy people.

A friend received word Sunday night that her mother had died. How did the unschooling community respond? With an outpouring of love, with songs, with laughter and space for tears. It was a wake to remember.

As always LIFE is Good provided me with an opportunity to learn, to expand my horizons, to experience acceptance, and to see with better eyes. What I saw was unschoolers at their best, responding to the pain of life and the shortcomings of others with grace and generosity. That is the theme and lesson of this conference. I will carry it with me for the rest of my life.

The lessons of time

2011-04-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

MJ, Frank, and Chloe—yesterday
My sister-in-law never got to hold her first baby. I have one friend whose son died at four or five and another whose daughter died at nine. One of my aunts lost her oldest son—and my grandmother, her first grandchild—when he was in his twenties.

If you need a reason to be nicer to your kids, any one of these women could give you one: Today could be your very last chance to do it.

Beyond the death card, as the mother of two young women who were toddlers one moment and teenagers the next, I can tell you that a childhood is incredibly short. Today may not be your last chance to make your child's childhood happier, but it is one of your last chances. And make no mistake: your chances will run out, and faster than you think.

Get busy! Right. Now.

Trust

2011-02-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

This is an excerpt from one of my talks at LIFE is Good 2009. It was titled, "Unschooling Teenagers: RATS in the House." RATS stands for Respect, Acceptance, Trust, and Support.

Here’s my little bombshell: I don’t trust my kids.

What I mean is, I don't trust my kids in the way traditional parents mean when they talk about trusting their kids.

Think about it. When a mainstream parent says she trusts her teenager, what does she really mean? I think she means she trusts her teenager to make good choices. And what does that mean? What constitutes a good choice?

Well, that’s subjective, isn’t it? I knew a woman once whose father had encouraged her to be promiscuous when she was a teenager. To him, sleeping around was a good choice. But maybe more conventional philosophies come to mind. Maybe you think about abstinence, or condom use, or saying no to drugs, or putting money in a savings account, or looking both ways before you cross the street. Maybe you think about safety issues.

Fair enough. So, teens who make good choices keep themselves safe.

It sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? But here’s a question: When are our kids safe enough? Where do we draw the line between safety and experience? And more importantly, where do they draw that line?

A couple of years ago, Frank and the girls and I loaded ourselves into a small sailboat and crossed the Gulf of Mexico. During hurricane season. My mother probably thought we had lost our ever-lovin’ minds. And, considering it was the year of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, she just might have been right.

But my point is, we made our own choices. My parents didn’t choose for us. Now, was our choice a good choice? That’s debatable. Every one of you probably has an opinion on that. I'm sure my mother does.

But here’s the thing: The right and wrong of every single choice each of us makes is debatable. All we can know when we judge another person’s choice is what we would have chosen in the same situation.

So what a traditional parent really means when she says she trusts her kid to make good choices is that she trusts her teen to make the same choices she would choose for him. She expects her kid’s brain to be an extension of her own, to assess and react to a situation just as she would, and to choose the behavior that she would choose.

Well, like I said, I don’t trust my kids that way. The idea that their brains are an extension of mine is silly. Their brains are their own. They will assess and react and choose in their own ways, not mine.

How many of you have seen the movie "Risky Business"? Joel’s parents are out of town, and when they call to check in one evening, they can tell by the noise level that he’s having a party. “Just a few friends,” Joel tells them, and his mother says it’s all right. “You know we trust you.” Of course, at that moment, Joel is running a brothel out of their home and there are prostitutes wearing his mother’s clothes.

Now, my point with this little story is not to say that teenagers are not trustworthy. It is simply to say that even good kids like Joel make their own choices. And then they handle what comes. In the movie, Joel does a lot of scrambling to handle what comes, but he does in fact handle it.

And that is where my authentic trust for my kids comes in. I trust my daughters to make their own choices and to handle what comes. I also trust them to ask for help if they need it.

Learning mystique

2011-02-03T22:05:00.000-08:00

On Twitter today, someone referred to unschooling as "the lazy parent's approach to school." The author's username includes "sarcasm," so I didn't take offense. But this opinion of unschooling is one we hear from time to time. It has its roots in the multilayered belief that (1) teaching is hard,
(2) the stuff they teach in school is terribly important but so obscure that no one in the real world is likely to stumble upon it anywhere else, and if they do they won't be able to figure it out on their own, and (3) learning the terribly important things must be insisted upon, enforced, and even coerced.

Viewed from that belief system, I can see why unschoolers look like lazybones. We skip the hard part, let our kids play video games if they'd rather, and don't seem to care very much about the terribly important stuff (obscure or not).

But let's take a closer look...

Teaching is hard.

You bet your ass. Teaching is damned hard. Classroom management is hard. Engaging one or two little brains that would rather be playing video games is hard; engaging 25 to 30 of them is all but impossible. Butting up against district policies that get in the way of that engagement is hard. Sacrificing class time to idiotic curriculum choices is hard. Hurting kids to make a living is hard (see the last paragraph on the first page of that link, which is the resignation letter of John Taylor Gatto, who at that time was NY State Teacher of the Year).

And at home? Sitting your kids down at the kitchen table with a lesson plan and standing over them until they complete it is hard. In many cases, it is so hard that the kids end up back in school because neither the kids nor the parents can take it anymore.

Do unschoolers skip all that? You bet your ass.

The stuff they teach in school is terribly important...

Let's do a little experiment. Yesterday, somewhere between playing Minecraft with some friends from Not Back to School Camp and looking at vlogs, Chloe learned about Queen Ranavalona the First.

So, let's pretend I'm the school board and I have determined that it is terribly important for people your age—yes, your age, the exact age that you are right this minute as you read this blog post—it is terribly important for you to learn what Minecraft is and how much it costs, what the policy is on bedtimes at Not Back to School Camp, and all about Queen Ranavalona and why she might be of interest to an unschooler.

What's that? You don't think those things are terribly important? Welcome to the life of a schooled child.

But since we're pretending, let's pretend that one of those items in my little curriculum has piqued your interest. Maybe you're a teen or the parent of a teen who is interested in attending Not Back to School Camp and you would actually like to know about the bedtime policy. Or maybe you've never heard of Minecraft or Not Back to School Camp or Queen Ranavalona or vlogs, and I've made you curious.

Welcome to the life of a lucky schooled child.

But what about the basics?

They call them the basics for a reason. To reach age 15 without learning everything that is taught in elementary school is virtually impossible, provided no one has gotten in your way.

Don't believe me? Take a look at the typical course of study for grades 1 through 5.

But what about math?

At the very first LIFE is Good, my friend Mary Lewis gave a talk about math in which she discussed the work she was doing teaching math to math-phobic adults—that is, adults who had been through 10 to 13 years of school math and were so traumatized by it that they would freeze in terror if someone asked them to add some numbers together. Mary said these people would be far better off if they had never had a math lesson. This article by David Albert certainly makes her point.

But what about core concepts/a balanced education/learning history so it doesn't repeat itself/etc.?

I could argue (and if I can find an article I read recently about the origins of the phrase "balanced education" I just might). But let's say I concede the point. Let's say there is a core set of knowledge that an educated person must have. Terribly important stuff.

...so obscure that no one in the real world is likely to stumble upon it anywhere else...

But the obscure stuff—like Queen Ranavalona to your average American—is stuff that doesn't belong in the core set.

...and if they do they won't be able to figure it out on their own.

The rest? The not-obscure stuff? Kids will encounter it in the real world. When they do, they will have a reason to learn about it, and they will seek out the latest information about it instead of relying on some possibly propagandized, probably censored information they got a decade or more ago.

How will they do that? Well, let's go back to our pretend school and find out. I am your teacher now, working from the curriculum I've received from the school board, here to give you your assignment for the day: Open a new tab right now and find out who Queen Ranavalona was. If you already know who she was, find out the bedtime policy at NBTSC or how much Minecraft costs.

Everybody, get to work! You have two minutes.

Two minutes later... I suspect at most a third of you have done your assignment and the rest of you are faking it and hoping there won't be a test.

But even the fakers should be able to get my point here: what a person needs to know, she finds out.

Learning must be insisted upon, enforced, and even coerced.

Today, after hearing a radio snippet about the U.S. cutting aid to Egypt, Emma asked why we send money to other countries instead of spending it here. Why did she ask me that? Because she didn't understand. Because she was curious. Because it's relevant to her life, being related to current events that we've been discussing a bit here and to the financial situation of people she knows who are struggling in the recession.

Also today, Chloe finished reading "Lord of the Flies." Why? For entertainment. Because it's relevant to her life, having been mentioned in a vlog she's been enjoying. Because it's classic fiction that gets mentioned occasionally and she was curious.

Also today, you are reading the blog of an unschooling parent. Why? Why are you here? You don't have to answer that. Just think about it. What drove you to come to this page of the Internet? No wait, I changed my mind. Leave me a comment and tell me why you're here. I am curious.

And that's the answer to the test we're not having: Human beings are inherently curious. We seek out new information instinctively, even greedily. Learning does not need to be coerced; it is a given.

The greatest trick the educational system ever pulled was convincing people they couldn't learn without it.

The school system is not what it appears to be. It is past time to start looking beyond the disguise.

Point, meet counterpoint.

The other origin of unschooling as "the lazy parent's approach to school" is the idea that unschooling is easy. Umm, no. Unschooling is fun, make no mistake, but it is also quite a lot of work. My post The cons of unschooling describes some of the work that is involved.

Do you really want to be that guy?

2011-01-22T13:04:00.000-08:00

We all have our preferences. Frank hates finding electronics left on in an empty room. I hate reaching for the scissors only to discover that whoever used them last didn't put them away.

When I was growing up, it often seemed that our house revolved around the preferences of my former stepfather. We weren't to have snacks after school for fear of spoiling our dinner, even though lunch had been several hours before. My mother was not to drive us to school because it would do us good to walk. The primary result of his tyranny was a lot of quiet rebellion: Mom drove us to school anyway (despite his occasionally spying on her to "catch her" doing it!), and my sister and I had snacks anyway.

The secondary result was that we all lived in fear of his anger. He was that guy, the one whose family dreaded his arrival home from work, the one whose family was quietly relieved when he went away again.

I think a lot of families have a guy like that. I have been that guy, and I don't mean before unschooling. Up until a couple years ago, I was going into work every day and then arriving home to whatever state the house was in. My unschooling readers—especially the working parents among my unschooling readers, and doubly especially my mom who occasionally drops by my house—can understand what it's like to walk into an unschooling house at some random moment. To the untrained eye, it's chaotic. To the trained eye—meaning the eye of a person like me who knows that life and learning are messy...

It's still chaotic.

There is a rhythm to an unschooling day, but you kind of have to be in it to see it. When I'm in the house with her, I know that Chloe's pile of notebooks is spread across the couch while she herself is painting at the kitchen table because something she discovered or thought of while working in those notebooks inspired her, and she rode that inspiration straight to her easel. Or maybe she was writing and needed to look something up on the Internet, and then she got drawn into a really fun Facebook conversation with her friends (socialization!).

When I'm home with her, I understand how this happens. I see the sparks. I hear her peals of laughter from the computer, or I see a painting in progress and hear her animated descriptions of her vision. And I know that she knows the notebooks are there, and I know she has every intention of getting back to them. It all makes sense. There's no chaos. The abandoned-for-the-moment notebooks are part of the rhythm. Do I know there might come a time when I need to ask her to clear the couch so we can sit down? Sure. But there's typically no urgency around that awareness.

When I'm working away from home, it's easy to forget all that. It's easy to walk in the front door and see

M E S S

"Come on, guys," I whine or snarl (depending on how tired I am). "Can you clean up a little, please?"

What changes for my family is the insertion of that guy into their happy unschooling rhythm. I become the random moment at which they must interrupt their flow and take care of MY needs.

In a little more than a week, I am starting a new job that will take me out of the house again. This post is my statement of intention to not return to being that guy. I am resolved to enter my home as if I'm an explorer, one who has every expectation of discovering all the wonder and creativity and unique joy that I missed while I was away.

Head over heels

2010-12-23T11:41:00.000-08:00

"Life, I really believe, is about falling in love.
With ideas, with stories, with experiences, mistakes, adventures, poetry, imaginations, old books, new books, movies, music, and, of course, people.
Everything that is worthwhile in this world is worth falling in love with,
and I can’t imagine a better way to live one’s life than
to be always head over heels."
~ Anonymous via Idzie via various others

Worry less

2010-12-14T19:10:00.000-08:00

I've read in a couple of sources recently about the two types of worry-thinking. One is productive: you are sifting through solutions and making decisions. The other is, well, not. I do entirely too much of the latter type and always have. Today in my Morning Pages I started developing my personal strategy for changing that. Here 'tis, a work in progress.

Step 1: Notice the stress. (Regular meditation practice makes it easier to notice when you are experiencing stress.)

Step 2: Identify the problem.

Step 3: Admit that the problem cannot be solved. (Or if it can, go do that.)

Step 4: Stop worrying by employing one or more of these techniques:

Meditate to clear the brain.
Write Morning Pages or do The Work. (Writing things down seems to send a stronger "knock it off!" message to my brain than mental resolutions.)
Find a distraction, and don't feel guilty about it because distraction is a perfectly valid approach to dealing with pointless worry.

Step 5: Enjoy all the freed-up brain time!

Anti-school quotes

2010-12-02T21:51:00.000-08:00

Post your favorite anti-school quote from songs, movies, plays, or books. I'm hoping to re-create a really fun thread we had on unschooling.com back in the day. The purpose is to show that—despite the widespread support that formal schooling receives—people really do know that something is wrong with it.

I'll start:

"I want to run through the halls of my high school, I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I just found out there's no such thing as the real world, just a lie you've got to rise above." ~ John Mayer, "No Such Thing"

Un-class photo

2010-11-28T14:00:00.000-08:00

It's been six months since LIFE is Good 2010, so I figured it was about time to get my photos off my camera. Here's my favorite, our poor isolated homeschooled kids in their version of a class photo. The age range in this classy, classless group is about 13 to about 20. Click the photo to see it larger. Friends on Facebook can see it with name tags here.

TSAre you kidding me?! and DHScuse me?!

2010-11-24T08:48:00.000-08:00

I am disturbed by the new backscatter devices and even more disturbed by the grope frisking that is your only alternative. I think both "options" are un-Constitutional and a highly suspect addition to our airport "security" processes.

But I wasn't moved to blog about it until I read this deeply disturbing rumor. It seems the Department of Homeland Security has a new policy of not only seeking out people who object to the new security measures but having them investigated.

The terminology contained within the reported memo is indeed troubling. It labels any person who “interferes” with TSA airport security screening procedure protocol and operations by actively objecting to the established screening process, “including but not limited to the anticipated national opt-out day” as a “domestic extremist.” ... For individuals who engaged in such activity at screening points, it instructs TSA operations to obtain the identities of those individuals and other applicable information and submit the same electronically to the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division, the Extremism and Radicalization branch of the Office of Intelligence & Analysis (IA) division of the Department of Homeland Security.

You don't have to object to the new security measures to object to this labeling as extremists peaceful American citizens who are exercising their Constitutional rights. As citizens of this country, we have the right to object to unreasonable searches. And we have the right not only to disagree with but to peacefully protest the actions of our government.

I hope you will join me in objecting to this. Be loud, be proud, and stand up to the kind of Fascism that I had hoped we were done with when Bush left office.

The anti-shame toolbox

2010-11-18T22:48:00.000-08:00

This is a list I put together of things that can help with your feelings of shame. No single technique will be right for all people, and most of us need a collection of techniques and tools. I hope something in here helps you.

The Work
www.thework.com

Emotional Freedom Technique
My own brief explanation/diagram is here. It will get you started and provides links to another couple of sites.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Wikipedia overview

Meditation and mindfulness
Some of my favorite resources are listed on my site here.

Recognize thought distortions
Thought distortions are when you take something that you've done or that's happened and blow it all out of proportion. "I screwed up. I should just go die." Simply noticing when you're doing this can help counteract the effects of the thought distortion.

Reframe mistakes
"Mistake" is a label you apply in retrospect. ~ John Bradford

Mistakes are: Warnings for the future. Gifts that allow spontaneity. Learning opportunities.

Become an imperfectionist
A great article by Christine Kane.

Talk to your younger self
Walking through a painful memory with someone who responds to you in a non-shaming way can actually modify your memory of the event. For best, safest results, do this while working with a therapist.

The Shame Siren
When you notice that you are feeling shame, turn on the shame siren. Imagine it whooping like an air-raid siren, alerting you to an urgent shame situation. Try tugging on your ear, à la Carol Burnett, and then, when you get the shame feelings and thoughts under control, tug your ear again to turn off the siren.

Write
Journal. Blog. Do Morning Pages.

Breathe
Always. Breathe. Completely.

http://www.sandradodd.com/breathing

Play
Reclaim the things you were shamed for. Laugh.

Learn more
Some books to read:

Rising Above Shame by Stan Wilson
Heal the Shame That Binds You by John Bradford
For Your Own Good by Alice Miller (includes the Poisonous Pedagogy that is the root of most traditional parenting)

The [Big] Doings Report

2010-11-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

Last I heard, Frank and Chloe and MJ are all doing NaNoWriMo. I have been writing some fiction, and I think I'm going to characterize it that way so it stays fun.

Work has been somewhat intense recently, but I've been really pleased with the work I'm doing. I'm making a significant contribution. (Yeah, yeah, it'll all be obsolete in a year, but if people in the computer industry were to think about that for too long, there might not be a computer industry.)

Chloe went to Corvallis for Halloween, where much fun was had by all.

Qacei and Chloe in Corvallis
Photo credit: Mary Gold

Chloe got home yesterday and promptly announced that she wants to go back in less than two weeks for another costume event: the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. Ah, well, it's her money.

MJ and Sean and Anders and Jamie were here for Halloween. They came up for a big camper Halloween party in Seattle, and spent Halloween day with cardboard and spraypaint and makeup. I was a bad mom/hostess and didn't get photos of them in their costumes. Sean and Anders were skyscrapers, and Jamie was a airplane. MJ was very scary.

MJ De Vil
Photo credit: Pat Punteney

And the big news is...

MJ and Sean are engaged!

Photo credit: Lynelle Wilcox

MJ has a lovely engagement ring (which I also failed to photograph) and seems really, really happy. (In fact, I had commented on her happiness before she showed me the ring.) They are only barely thinking about wedding planning at this point. MJ says it will probably not take place for a couple of years.

But that hasn't stopped me from thinking about shopping for wedding dresses... Heh heh heh.

All you have to do

2010-11-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Kinect came out recently. As part of the launch, there are new signs and other promotional materials around the company. My favorite of these are the clings they have on every bathroom mirror. They say:

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BE YOU

Wow! That's a pretty powerful affirmation. Interestingly, my instinctive reaction to it is, "Nuh-uh."

Hmmm...

Avoiding zombies

2010-11-03T22:22:00.000-07:00

The other night, Frank was watching that new zombie series on AMC, "The Walking Dead." At one point, a ~10yo boy spots his zombified mother outside the house. He bursts into tears, and his father tries to quiet him because, hey, if the zombies hear them, things are going to get ugly. What was interesting was that the scriptwriters chose to have the father respond compassionately. He snuggled his son close, spoke in loving tones, and offered the boy a pillow so he could cry into that.

That is peaceful parenting, folks, and I am so pleased with the writers for showing it that I might even give the series a try, blood and guts and all.

The sad thing is how infrequently one sees that kind of compassion out and about in the world. Instead, it seems like people want their kids to BE zombies, stifling their emotions and walking the earth in a mindless, hungry shuffle. Their kids' emotions (and probably the parent's too) are too much work, too much noise, too much mess. Sure, they might dredge up some compassion when their kids are suffering a huge, gaping wound of a hurt (as this boy was), but the rest of the time they just want their kids to suck it up and move on. They want things to be easy, which means they want their kids to be quiet (without having a fraction the motivation this dad had).

Consider the possibility that, to kids, smaller wounds are just as gaping and scary and overwhelming. Consider that kids with smaller wounds are just as deserving of compassion as that boy with the zombie mom, and that they are just as entitled to some time and space to feel what they're feeling. And consider that asking them to bottle their emotions is just another way to lose them to the zombies.

Writing time

2010-11-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

The bulk of yesterday's blog post poured out of me while I was doing my Morning Pages. A couple of days last week, my Morning Pages became work on my God-like novel (it's omnipresent, and believing that it exists takes an act of faith). A new character appeared there, quite out of the blue, as if she had walked onto my notebook determined to introduce herself.

I enjoyed Morning Pages from the get-go, but it is only now, after several weeks of doing them, that I begin to see why they are part of The Artist's Way. They are unlocking my creativity and, more importantly, giving me time every day when I have pen and paper in hand and am ready to receive it.

The red badge of unschooling

2010-11-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

From time to time, one encounters people who really, really want to call themselves unschoolers. In some cases, they do this even though their lifestyles are way off the mark. "We're unschoolers," they say, even as they sit their kids down for lessons. Or they say, "We unschool on the weekends." Other times, the lines are fuzzier, and the people claiming the label are so close to what I consider real unschooling, but they can't quite let go of x, y, and z. So they cling to both the label and to x, y, and z.

People in either of these categories will occasionally be challenged by someone to live up to the label they are claiming. In certain forums on the Internet, they will be challenged with vigor.

That's side A.

On side B is an online friend of mine who recently rejected the label of unschooler. She did this not because she grew to dislike the term (as some unschoolers do) and not because she's doing anything more schoolish than she was before. What happened was, she got tired of feeling guilty for living her life the way she wants to live her life.

As someone who has issues with guilt, I can understand her decision. (Living up to unschooling ideals can be work, and there do come times when you want to stop all the work and just live.) And as someone who is weary of the side-A people who insist on using label when they reject one or more of the ideals, I found her approach quite refreshing.

Personally, I love calling myself an unschooler, and the pressure and ideals that come with the label are a big part of why. The pressure and ideals keep me mindful. They keep me on my toes, and they keep me aware during my interactions with my kids—and with other people's kids for that matter.

Putting together side A and side B leads me to offer these guidelines:

If you want to do whatever you do and call it unschooling, people are going to challenge your use of the term from time to time. If you don't want to be challenged, find another label, or do like my friend and live without one.

If you keep the label, use it. Use it to question yourself and your assumptions. Use it to help you give your kids the benefit of the doubt, always. Use it to help you say Yes more. Use it as pressure to tolerate the discomfort that comes from having your kids make choices that you wouldn't have made for them. Use it to encourage you to choose the kind, generous, cooperative thing in every interaction. And use it to inspire you to go after more of the benefits that real unschooling offers.

A Must Read for newbie unschoolers

2010-10-31T19:43:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Chloe and I attended a talk by Blake Boles. He's a staffer at NBTSC and an advocate for unschooling and teen (ad)ventures of any stripe. During his talk, he recommended Drive by Daniel H. Pink. I put a hold on it at the library and have been waiting my turn.

Well, I started reading it tonight, in between trick-or-treaters and football plays. In the first few pages, I found all the reassurance I would have needed back when I was a newbie unschooling mom.

You should read the book. But I think this is too important not to summarize.

In the 40s, Harry Harlow and a couple of other researchers gave some rhesus monkeys some mechanical puzzles to play with. Their intent was to give the monkeys time to get acquainted/comfortable with the puzzles before they began testing their ability to learn to work the puzzles. They thought that without basic-needs motivation (food, water, sex) or extrinsic motivation (punishment or rewards), the monkeys wouldn't learn. What happened instead was that the monkeys learned to work the puzzles just fine, thank you very much. Just because it was fun to work the puzzles. Just because they were curious.

This was a major psychological and cognitive discovery: intrinsic motivation not only exists but works.

But what really surprised the researchers, and what would have made a big difference to my nervous newbie self, was that when they began their formal study of the monkeys' learning and began to introduce rewards, the monkeys' performance got worse. Harlow wrote, "Introduction of food in the present experiment served to disrupt performance..."

For some reason (and maybe Pink attempts to explain it later in the book), our educational system has completely ignored this research. Our educational system is entirely based on extrinsic motivation.

But unschooling? Unschooling is entirely based on intrinsic motivation.

Q.E.D.

----------
Update 11:09 p.m. -- A friend directed me to this cool animation based on Drive.

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing with routines

2010-10-31T07:25:00.000-07:00

I read in Less that the Dalai Lama, when asked what one word he would choose to describe the secret of happiness, said routines.

I imagine there are personality types for whom this is not true. It's true enough for me that I've been giving it some thought since I read that. I have a couple of examples of small routines that give me tremendous pleasure, and that have definitely helped with my fall gloomies.

Green smoothies – From the gathering of ingredients to the feeding the blender to the actual consumption, these magic drinks have transformed my morning into a blissful little session of self-care. And knowing that I've given my body such an infusion of healthful things makes me feel healthier, all day long. Two months of almost daily smoothies later, that's a whole lot of healthier!
Books on CD – Each day that I commute to work (which is more days recently than usually), I go out to the car with a spring in my step because I know I get to listen to a story all the way to work. I check my disc-and-track note from the previous drive, pop in the correct CD, and cruise down the freeway feeling like I'm on vacation. The entertainment and its fabulous distraction from the frustrations of city driving can't be discounted, but it is the establishment of the routine that has given this sanity-saving measure its oomph. Every commute is fun—even the ugly ones, even the one where I limped home on the tiny spare tire, even the ones where people are rude or slow or both. Every commute. Do you know what a transformation that is for me? This post might give you a clue. (Aside: I read once about a study that people who commute are more likely to have heart attacks. I have to wonder if those stats would be different for commuters who listen to stuff they love while they drive.)

Inspired by the success of these routines, I added a Morning Pages routine, a salad-for-lunch routine, a walk-in-the-door routine, a tweeting-while-watching-football routine, a meditation-at-work routine, and an evening routine wherein I write a one-sentence journal, tweet my gratitude list, and put checkmarks on my resolution list. Each routine adds an anchor point, or perhaps a GPS waypoint, to my day. Each routine gives me comfort and enjoyment. And each routine contributes to a feeling of well being, a feeling that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing and taking care of me. I really think the Dalai Lama might be on to something here.

So now I'm wondering what other routines I can add to my day...

----------
This concludes my NaBloPoHalfMo effort for October. Tomorrow I either start NaNoWriMo or decide a blog post per day is enough of a commitment. You'll be the first to know which I chose.

Happy Halloween!

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing with single-tasking

2010-10-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

At its roots, Microsoft is a single-tasking company, and the task is computing. Beyond the roots, things get complicated. The company produces hundreds of products, provides continuing support for multiple releases of each product, and involves itself in dozens of industries in order to provide targeted software for those industries.

That multitasking approach trickles down. The team I'm working for at Microsoft is responsible for three key products and a number of smaller ones. Several releases of these products are planned, developed, and supported simultaneously. As a tech writer, I am involved in all three phases for most of them: I review and contribute to specifications, I write documentation to be included with new releases, and I write materials to help existing customers.

In addition, the environment here is one of fast-moving collaboration. Everybody is juggling multiple projects and multiple responsibilities for those projects, which means not a day goes by without someone being in urgent need of information or a deliverable that only one or two people on the team can provide. Meeting those urgent needs is part of what one signs on for when one works here. You stop what you are doing and respond.

With multitasking at the core of my professional life, and with my professional life taking up such a large percentage of my whole life, it can be a real challenge to make a shift to a more focused approach. But every instinct I possess is telling me that's what I need. That's why I was drawn to meditation and enjoy it so much. That's why I'm researching ways to slow down, simplify, get clear, focus, and do one thing at a time.

Doing one thing at a time... Funny that something so simple would be something I have to research, something I have to work at and practice. But it's a big change; I've been striving for "maximum efficiency" for a lot of years now.

Small example: Eating. Do you know how often I sit down to a meal without doing something else while I eat? Maybe twice a week. The other day, Chloe fixed dinner and set the table and got us all to sit down and eat together. Day before yesterday, I ate my lunch salad without checking email or surfing the 'net while I ate.

That's it. But each of those meals counted for SO much in terms of how I felt about my day and myself. It felt like I chose the proper prioritization for once. (And that I would tack "for once" on there is both accurate and disturbing.)

Those meals and moments also made me greedy for more. I want more one-thing-at-a-time moments. I want more chances to give focused attention to what's in front of me.

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that while I was writing this blog post I did nothing but write this blog post. And, miracle of miracles, I experienced no interruptions while I did it.

If you want to read more about single-tasking, try these:
http://zenhabits.net/start/
http://zenhabits.net/light-life/
http://mnmlist.com/distractions/
http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2008/05/27/the-4-taoist-secrets-to-doing-less-and-getting-more-done/
http://doingless.net/

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing with history

2010-10-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

One of the professors in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books is the history teacher, Professor Binns. His story is that after he died, he got up (as a ghost) and went right on teaching his classes. He is exceptionally boring, and his classes are a good chance for the students to catch up on sleep.

Ms. Rowling couldn't have chosen a better metaphor for how schools approach the study of history.

There is a nice scene in one of the books (Chloe could tell me which one) where the kids realize that Professor Binns might be able to supply some information that they need. He is quite startled to find himself suddenly facing a roomful of attentive students. That, too, is a good metaphor. First, history is chock full of helpful information, and it is, sadly, all too rare for people to look there for answers. Second, kids are more attentive—their eyes light up!—when presented with information that is relevant to their lives. The books make it clear that the more typically dull eyes of Professor Binns' students reflect a problem not with them but with his snooze-fest teaching style.

Some real life teachers might take a lesson from that.

NaBloPoHalfMo: Equivalency test

2010-10-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

More musings about guarantees...

I hosted a little "Intro to Unschooling" a couple weeks ago (coinciding with the James concert because some really amazing unschooling voices were gathered together for that). I gave a little talk about some unschooling basics and then my fellow concert-goers plus Heather and TJ and Frank formed a panel for a nice little Q&A session.

During my talk, I touched on how some unschooling newbies are looking for guarantees. "Do unschoolers go to college?" many ask. My personal question back in my own newbie days was "What if I ruin their lives?????" (Who's a drama queen, me? Naaah.) The answer to my question was, "What if you leave your kids in school and that ruins their lives?" My answer to the college question is, "Do high school kids go to college?" Some do, some don't. Unschooling is no different and offers no guarantees (except that your kids will know a lot more about what they want and enjoy than your average high school grad).

What I didn't address and wish I had is the question of whether unschooling provides an equivalent education.

Short answer: Not even close.

Longer answer: Schools offer a pretty limited set of classes. Much is typically* excluded from the standard high school curriculum. Here are just a few examples:

Philosophy
Comparative religions
Art history
Accounting
Japanese
Organic chemistry
Hula hooping
Peaceful resolution of conflict
Gourmet cooking

* Emphasis on typical. Yes, I know some schools offer classes in some of these subjects. More power to them.

Unschoolers might learn about one or all of these instead of taking a class on biology. Or they might learn copious amounts about some specific aspect of biology (e.g., cellular mitosis) instead of taking the "quick dip" survey-style course that was all that was offered at my high school.

But the way that an unschooling education is decidedly not equivalent to a high school one is that everything our kids learn is grounded in their real lives, driven by their own interests and experiences, fueled by the love, support, and creativity of their parents, and enhanced in immeasurable ways by the resources offered by the unschooling community. That is something the schools come nowhere close to matching.

NaBloPoHalfMo: This vehicle does not come equipped with seatbelts

2010-10-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

Today, I want to talk about keeping our kids safe.

It's probably what parents want most in all the world, right? For our kids to be safe. Every parental concern, from academics to hygiene to video games, boils down to this.

We had a stark reminder recently that unschooling alone is no guarantee of safety: a teen member of the unschooling community committed suicide. The news has left his friends reeling (What could they have done differently? Why didn't he know he could talk to them?) and us parents taking a hard look at how we support our kids.

I don't have any answers. Over the years, in spite of the accepting environment that is unschooling, my kids have wrestled with shame and fear and feelings of inadequacy. They've had their dark moments. I can only speculate about what has gotten them through those moments and what was missing in this boy's life or psyche that he couldn't do the same.

But his death has been an important reminder to me to Pay Attention. To connect with Frank and my kids Now. If things aren't working, I need to fix them. If they need additional or different support, I need to provide it. And above all, I need to make sure they know that I am a safe space for them. No matter what.

Frank and MJ and Chloe, how can I love you better?

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing with spelling

2010-10-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

Spelling is a wild kingdom, but I like to play there.

A couple weeks ago, my friend Diana complained about something Oregon State University had sent 'round that contained a letter or report from a teacher talking about how a student's interest had been "peaked." In case you are one of the thousands who apparently don't know, if your interest has "peaked," it means it has reached its upper limit. The word this teacher really wanted is "piqued," meaning the student's interest had been awakened.

I recently saw someone on Facebook use "peek" instead of "pique." Yeah. If your interest is peeking, please stay away from my windows.

Peak, peek, and pique are homophones, words that have the same sound but different meanings. Other examples of homophones with which people torture the spelling-and-grammar-minded among us are: too, to, and two; their, they're, and there; and your, you're, and (less frequently) yore.

I'm the first to admit that homophones are a pain in the ass. But oy! Be more careful, folks.

Another interesting category of words is homonyms—words that have the same spelling but different meanings. These can be really puzzling. Take "spell" for example. How do you suppose that one word ended up meaning all of the following:

a magical incantation,
a deep influence (as in, "under a spell"),
colloquially, a brief period of time (as in, "let's sit a spell"),
to write or name the letters of a word, and
to convey or bring about (as in, "that spells trouble").

At least with homonyms misspellings are less of an issue.

Speaking of misspelling, do note that second 's' in there. Misspell is a frequently misspelled word. Ah, the irony.

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing with Less

2010-10-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Marc Lesser's book Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less. I haven't finished it yet and can't offer a complete review. But one thing has resonated so strongly with me that I want to share it right away. He says:

[We can access] something deeper than the drive toward an outcome, which I call "Finding the One Who Is Not Busy." In other words, in the midst of activity, we can always find a calm and connected center. This phrase, by the way, is taken from a Zen teaching story from the seventh century, a time when Zen practice, and apparently busyness, was flourishing.

Finding the One who is not busy... Finding the Ronnie who is not busy...

He's exactly right: she is always in there. So is the Ronnie who is not stressed, or sad, or angry, or lonely. All I have to do is tune in to that calm, connected inner self. All I have to do is tap into my own quiet, my own certainly that I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and my own confidence in myself to handle what comes.

The how is the tricky part. I think meditation helps, though, if for no other reason than it slows me down and gives me time to look.

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing with Dinosaurs

2010-10-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

Frank brought home this gigantic library book. (Click to see the Amazon listing.)

It is quite eye-catching due to both its size (it covers a good third of our coffee table) and the gorgeous, photo-like illustration on the cover. Even so, it sat there untouched most of the day. Long about ten p.m., though, Chloe picked it up and started leafing through it. She began giving the dinosaurs clever, funny names, such as "WasInJurassicParkasaurus" for the compy, and "BadAssMohawkasaurus" for a dapper dino with a snazzy fringe on top.

Emma was staying over, so she was soon drawn into the game, adding her own names and laughing a lot. I pointed out that a few of their made-up descriptive names probably closely matched the meanings of the Latin-ish ones, and sure enough, Chloe started noticing that to be the case.

It was a happy, communal hour, and as such provides for a very nice moment in my imaginary Unschooling Highlights film.

1. When Frank brought the book home, he was strewing.
2. When the book sat there untouched, he and I both were refraining from being bothered by that. (Sometimes strewing "hits," sometimes it doesn't.)
3. When Chloe picked up the book, she made her very own personal use of it. (Sometimes strewing hits in unexpected ways.)
4. Fun and learning happened.

That's how it goes.

NaBloPoHalfMo: Accomplishment

2010-10-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

Note: This post is still for NaBloPoMo, but I am temporarily abandoning the "play" theme because something else is on my mind today.

I believe people are free and able to determine for themselves when is the right time to accomplish something.

I believe people are free and able to determine for themselves what counts as accomplishment.

I believe people are free and able to determine for themselves how much accomplishment is enough—for the day, for the year, for the whole of their lives.

Enough said?

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing fast and loose with the Constitution

2010-10-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
~ Excerpt from the First Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States

I am weary of the attempts of some Christians to circumvent the Constitution. I'm talking to you, Christine O'Donnell.

Try to follow my logic here:

If certain principles are accepted as truth only by a particular religious group, they are tenets of that religion.
If the government attempts to teach those tenets to the children of our country, the government is respecting that religion.

It's really very simple. If you want to argue about it, you either have a religious agenda or you enjoy a good semantic debate. The former is directly contrary to the separation of church and state that our founding fathers intended and that our courts have consistently upheld. The latter just doesn't interest me right now.

NaBloPoHalfMo: Photo play

2010-10-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has a new commercial that shows a mom editing her family photo to wipe out every trace of their real selves. It ends with the tag line: "Windows gives me the family Nature never could."

Um, yeah. Why would I want that?

We had a family portrait done this summer. My cousin Cory Parris did the shoot. He's a terrific photographer, and we ended up with several lovely photos to choose from. Do you know the one I chose? It's the one where our formal pose has collapsed and we're all cracking up laughing. That is the family I love and enjoy and want to remember always.

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing for keeps

2010-10-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Today is an international day of remembrance for people lost to suicide, particularly young people who killed themselves after being bullied or forcibly outed for their sexual orientation. Wear purple in their memory. Speak up against discrimination when you see it. Tell the kids in your life that you love them no matter what, and refrain from hate speech that might cause them to doubt that.

And if you have a kid who is being bullied in school, please consider bringing him or her home. Whatever compromises it requires—lifestyle, financial, social, familial—they are a small price to pay to help your child see that it can get better Right Now.

Some statistics from the It Gets Better Project:

9 out of 10 LGBT students have experienced harassment at school.
LGBT teens are bullied 2 to 3 times as much as straight teens.
More than 1/3 of LGBT kids have attempted to commit suicide.
LGBT kids are 4 times as likely to attempt suicide then our straight peers.
LGBT youth with “highly rejecting” families are 8 times more likely to attempt suicide than those whose families accept them.

The original It Gets Better video

The Trevor Project - Donate here!

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing in the past

2010-10-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

This is a little video of women sharing what they would tell their younger selves if they could go back in time to just before their first baby was born. It's nice enough but left me unsatisfied. This is what I would tell my younger self:

Relax. You have nothing to fear.
Follow the principles of attachment parenting.
Start learning now about unschooling, and get thee to an unschooling conference.
Learn about the effects of parenting with shame. Don't do it.
Make enjoying your babies your top priority.
Laugh.

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing to the crowd

2010-10-18T01:25:00.000-07:00

We made the James photo blog in a big way. I am so happy to have this photographic reminder of a Very Fun night with some amazing people (both the band and my James buddies).

Here is Larry the guitar player's blog. He took the crowd photos from the stage. Shonna and I are on the right side of the Vancouver one, some of our peeps are in the Portland one, and all of us except Carolyn are in the Seattle one.

Here is the direct link to the Seattle photo on the James site. Click to enlarge.

And here is the Seattle photo, just in case the one on the site goes away. Click to enlarge. Photo credit goes to Larry Gott. Look for our "I'm As Big As I Can Dream" custom lyric t-shirts (courtesy of Mary).

Shonna is on the left (making a heart with her hands), then Jacinta and Robin with Renee behind. I'm next to Robin. Scan right, past the lady in the green shirt, to Mary and Diana, grinning madly, with Ginger behind, Donna next to Ginger, and Donna's daughter Hannah next to her. I don't see Hannah's husband, Craig, but maybe I'm missing him. Let me know if you spot him, James pals.

We got acquainted with many of the people in the first couple of rows. These are the die-hard fans, the ones who follow the band and pay extra money to get in early. Great group.

NaBloPoHalfMo: Play of the game

2010-10-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

I'm bored with football. This might have something to do with the lackluster season the Seahawks are having and some weird coaching decisions they've made (trading Housh?! those challenges two weeks ago?!). It also might have something to do with my moodiness, which has coincided pretty distinctly with the football season. (Blame it on football? Sure, why not.)

Frank is not bored with football at all. He, um, encourages the players and coaches through the television screen and likes to spend most of Sunday with the NFL. Days when we get to watch the Saints and the Seahawks are especially good days.

Even he is quite content to do the watching from the livingroom rather than from the stadium. We've got our tickets to all of the Hawks' home games up for sale on the NFL Ticket Exchange. We're leaving it to Fate: if the tickets to a particular game don't sell, we'll go down to Qwest Field and shell out $20 for parking and cheer and listen to Blue Thunder and eat stadium food. So far, we haven't had the opportunity; our tickets have been selling nicely—we've made back almost half the cost of the season.

Play of the game: The arrival of a "Your Tickets Sold" email in my Inbox.

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing movies

2010-10-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, how about SCREENplay. I have movie reviews for "The Invention of Lying" and "Red."

***Spoilers may follow, so just quit reading now if you don't like spoilers.***

The Invention of Lying. I got this one from Netflix and watched it the other night. Ho hum. I have a couple of main complaints:

1. One of the messages seemed to be that we are supposed to look beneath a person's physical appearance to the personality beneath. Uh-huh. So, what exactly was Ricky Gervais' character supposed to have seen in Jennifer Garner's character other than a pretty face? She was fairly unpleasant really.

2. Ricky's conscience won't let him use his newfound ability to lie to trick strangers into having sex with him. I guess we're supposed to like him better for this. But his conscience is perfectly okay with bank robbery, defrauding his employer and the general public, enabling a friend to get away with driving while intoxicated, and subjecting all of society to religion. Yeah. He's a great guy.

In summary, unlikable characters in a ridiculously simplistic plotline. Don't bother.

P.S. I enjoyed Ricky Gervais' performance in "Ghost Town," but found him pretty boring in this one, despite his having given himself a couple of emotional scenes to work in. (He cowrote the screenplay.)

Red. Frank and I saw this for date night last night. LOVED IT. It's billed as an action/adventure/comedy, and that's just about right. The lovely cast appears to be having a fine time through much of the filming (Helen Mirren gets to fire a big-ass machine gun while wearing an evening gown - it is SO clear why she took this role), and the jokes and gags fly as fast and furious as the bullets. Who cares if some of the plot devices are a bit tired? It's just a fun, fun, fun couple of hours. Worth seeing on the big screen.

The pile-it-on strategy for coping with depression

2010-10-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

I have let myself get behind at work. I have procrastinated and gotten behind schedule. I have flaked out for too long and now have some catching up to do.

However I say it, the bottom line is that I need to be a busy worker bee for the ~~rest of my life~~ next few weeks. Unfortunately, I have never felt less like being a busy worker bee, except maybe when I dropped out of college. Since dropping out of work is not an option, I need to get moving.

Strategy #1 for this is to clear the decks (clear ALL the decks?) and Focus On Work. This may yet be what I decide/need to do.

Strategy #2 is to pile a whole bunch more stuff on my plate in an effort to kick myself into that buzzy, adrenaline-fueled, extremely productive place I can sometimes get into (usually the week before a deadline). So, I am thinking about doing NaBloPoMo (NaBloPoHalfMo?) for the rest of October and then NaNoWriMo for all of November.

Insanity? Probably, but at least it would be a different sort of insanity than I have been experiencing recently.

The suggested theme for NaBloPoMo for October is "Play." That's probably not going to work. I mean, I'll try, but I am not in a terribly playful mood.

Play...

Life's unexpected little twists and turns

2010-10-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

I blame unschooling. It's not rational, but I do it anyway. I know intellectually that life was as unpredictable in the time before unschooling as it is now, and I know intellectually that many of the things that surprise me in life are completely unrelated to unschooling. But damn! There sure seem to be a lot of them.

I guess I could instead blame teenagers. It's hardly original—people in our society blame teenagers for a lot—but it's handy. And doing that is at least somewhat grounded in reality, since my teenagers' idea of making a plan often involves a last-minute phone call.

But really, life just happens, with or without unschooling and with or without teenagers.

MJ has been home for oral surgery and ortho appointments. She went home today, which was supposed to mark the actual beginning of our trial empty nest phase. And it does, except that our trial is going to last all of three days. Chloe is coming home. Her host/boss has a family emergency that requires travel, so she isn't going to need Chloe for an indefinite time period.

We're happy to be getting Chloe back, of course, but something about these sudden changes of plans is just hard for me. Have they always been, or am I just weary right now? Who knows, except maybe my mom.

As for Chloe, she seems to be taking it in stride and is excitedly making new and different but typically nebulous, teenager-style plans for fun stuff to do once she's home.

And life goes on.

Gratitude tweets

2010-10-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 9/23
Straightforward oral surgery for MJ; Kim, Alyse, Ginger (my #rawfood gurus); quiet afternoon; neighbor kids who mow; freedom. #gratitudelist

Friday, 9/24
A date with Chloe (who leaves tomorrow), MJ feels better, Sean is here, I don't have to get up early, Justin Long. #gratitudelist

Saturday, 9/25
Gorgeous fall day, a walk with Chloe, safe air travel for Chloe, equanimity, the library. #gratitudelist

Sunday, 9/26
Football Sunday, wins (even ugly ones), uneventful trips to Seattle on game day, Twitter fun, happy reports from Chloe. #gratitudelist

Monday, 9/27
Happy multistop grocery shopping, swimming with girls, quiet time alone, productive contemplation, #Castle. #gratitudelist

Tuesday, 9/28
Tired. Having trouble coming up with a #gratitudelist. How about this: There's always tomorrow.

Wednesday, 9/29
"This number has been disconnected," Chloe home for Xmas prob'ly, apricots & almonds, a bigger venue, spitting games w/Rudy. #gratitudelist

Friday, 10/1
Decent work day, sunshine, red leaves, being able to turn to Frank & MJ when I'm overwhelmed, texting with @someonenotchloe. #gratitudelist

Mindful tricks

2010-10-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

...I noticed that if I put the word "meditation" after any activity,
it suddenly seemed much more high-minded and spiritual:
when waiting for the bus, I'd tell myself I was doing
"bus-waiting meditation"; in the slow line at the drugstore,
I was doing "waiting-in-line meditation."
~ Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

I tried this twice yesterday. It really works! The first time, I had just gotten into my car to head to work, and I was feeling extremely stressed and anxious, suffering the torn-in-two conflict with which I am often afflicted when I must work instead of spending time with the family (and often vice versa). I thought to myself, "commute meditation," and instantly the tension eased, and I knew I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

It worked last night, too. I've always been sensitive to caffeine, but since I began eating so much healthier last August, I really feel it. I now get the same buzz from a cup of half-caff that I used to get from a cup of regular. But some days I just want my coffee, and yesterday was one such day. Come bedtime, I was still wide awake. Frank and I chatted for a while (he is long accustomed to talking me down), and then I settled into my favorite sleeping position and lay there, eyes wide. "Insomnia meditation," I murmured, and Frank chuckled, and I relaxed and began to enjoy the time to think, and before long I was asleep.

A quick review of the book mentioned above: I am enjoying it very much. It's not so much that it contains anything startlingly new as that it pulls the research and advice into one place, all made accessible through glimpses into Gretchen's family and professional life. And the book provides focus and guidelines for reshaping one's life with happiness as a core goal. It's just what I need right now.

Green smoothie heaven

2010-09-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

I have discovered a few more tips for making green smoothie fixing fun and efficient and delicious.

1. Buy bags of organic greens at Trader Joe's. Currently, I have a bag each of their Southern Blend "greens for cooking" (mustard greens, turnip greens, collard greens, spinach), baby lettuces, and arugula. It makes getting a variety of greens SO easy, no washing is required, and they keep well.

2. Unless you like spicy smoothies, go easy on the mustard greens.

3. Add cilantro (if you like cilantro). I put in three or four stems, chopped, and it's perfect: just a hint of flavor.

4. You know those non-green vegetables that you know you should be getting but don't especially want to eat? Put them in your smoothie. I don't feel like eating whole reds and oranges right now - not even on salads - but dropping some chopped orange bell pepper in my smoothie is painless.

Pulling up my socks

2010-09-25T22:39:00.000-07:00

When I get into a funk, I always throw everything I can think of at it, which makes it hard to tell if one of those things in particular is what helped, or a combination of things, or a hormone shift, or just pure coincidence. That means I can't get on here and share with you Ronnie's Sure-fire Cure for the Blues.

I can share my most recent collection of things I've tried. Something in here has helped!

Morning Pages which often include...
The Work

Green smoothies for breakfast and...
Huge reduction in gluten and refined sugar consumption as part of...
A new diet that is about 50% raw

Daily #gratitudelist post on Twitter

Going to the pool with Emma once or twice per week

A limited surrender to what I cannot change
An attitude of acceptance toward what I need and what I don't have energy for right now

10 essentials

2010-09-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

Idea stolen from GQ via mnmlist.com. I think I've done something similar before, but it never hurts to reexamine one's priorities.

My glasses
My inhaler
My laptop
Notebook
Pen
A place to live, preferably with electricity, heat, and running water
The well-being of my tribe
My own well-being
Time to write
Hope

Unschooling in 140 characters or less

2010-09-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

Another great unschooling conversation, tracked in tweets:

Tweet #1
Convo in the other room: ROUSs, urination, internal organs, prophylaxis, body scans, modern surgical methods, weather patterns.

10 minutes later
The convo continues: kidney donation, stones; hydration; fuel for bodies; waste filtering; blood circulation, types, donation.

6 minutes later
More convo: shock, amputation, wilderness survival, outswimming sharks and outrunning bears, decoys, plans for the day.

Gratitude in 140 characters or less

2010-09-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

My friend Laureen inspired me to start tweeting a daily gratitude list. I like it a lot, and I don't want to lose the little hints into our daily lives, so I am gathering them here on my blog. Probably. Maybe. If I continue to care about preserving them.

9/17
Employment in a recession. Patient people. Having many outlets for what I need or want to say. Love of family. Books on CD. #gratitudelist

9/19
Simple pleasures: Morning Pages, green smoothies made greener with Green Goddess, HDS, football Sunday, new beginnings. #gratitudelist

9/20
Friends who share their babies, daughters who come home for visits, e-banking, conversations with Frank, self-compassion. #gratitudelist

9/21
Simplifying, saying enuf, dh who picks up slack, too-short traffic jams thx to wonderfully melodramatic books on CD, MJ home. #gratitudelist

9/22 a.m.
Snuggles w/my *adult* dd, optical illusions w/Emma, sunshine & a full moon on the autumnal equinox, having options, C. Kane. #gratitudelist

9/22 p.m.
Kind text messages from daughters, a job that accommodates my #procrastination (mixed bag), my cozy home, JK Rowling, love. #gratitudelist

Warty, warty mom-warts

2010-09-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

Ronnie today

I am in an exceptionally bad mood for no good reason. This seems like an excellent time to post about my flaws.

Attention: You are now entering a shame-free zone. If you are feeling judgmental, go somewhere else. Thank you.

----------
My best buddy, Steph, said something to me in a recent email, in response to my comment that I was looking forward to our upcoming empty-nest trial period. She said, "In public you are the invincible 24-hour RU mom. I forget that you are susceptible to weary-of-momness."

Steph knows me very well. We've been friends since, oh, about 1985, and we have talked or corresponded most days since the day we met. If Steph can be surprised by my moments, it means I am not being forthcoming enough about those moments, and I am painting an unfair picture of what being an unschooling parent looks like.

So, here, for the record, I state unequivocally that sometimes I just simply SUCK.

I have bad moods. I snap and snark at family members. I get tired and overstimulated and sometimes decline to engage with a kid or spouse who is interested in talking with me.

I have helicopter-mom tendencies that occasionally eclipse my awareness that my kids don't need that kind of parenting. I say things I shouldn't say, offer reminders about things that are none of my business, and ask for "courteous" status updates at times when the real issue is my own fears.

I am sensitive to noise and too often ask people in my house to quiet down or take their movie-watching selves to the other TV. I am ridiculously irritated when other people fail to adhere to my systems and do really heinous things like attempting to recycle the lid of a bottle, or not putting the scissors where they go, or leaving a dish on the counter even though I for once have emptied the damned dishwasher.

I am currently going through a period of life-weariness that feels like swimming in molasses, so, yeah, I am looking forward to our upcoming empty-nest trial period. In the meantime, I am more than usually self-involved and reclusive and grouchy and prone to resentment.

So, what does all this mean to our unschooling?

Short answer: Not a damned thing.

Long answer: The members of an unschooling family really live together, and our particular unschooling family is fully together a lot since I work at home. There are not many secrets in our house, you know? Frank and my kids know my flaws and failings all too well; whatever smokescreen I manage online does not carry over to our in-person life. They have no choice but to be used to me.

This means that, while they do not necessarily take my lesser moments in stride, they certainly know that they are moments. I am not defined by my bad moments but by my whole self, and my whole self is
Ronnie Maier, dedicated unschooling mom, peaceful partner, and woman who never stops trying to do better.

Unschooling and the relationships between family members in an RU household don't flourish because we have found some magical way of avoiding bad moods, screwups, and sad times. No, they flourish because the philosophies we live by—my infamous RATS: Respect, Acceptance, Trust, and Support—are not just for good moods, successes, and happy times; they're for all times. And those philosophies don't flow only from parent to child but from child to parent and partner to partner.

We are not perfect, and I am certainly not. But we are in this together. We give each other the benefit of the doubt, a Get Out of the Doghouse Free card, or simple forgiveness as needed. And we never stop trying to do better.

Morning conversations

2010-09-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

When people first learn about unschooling, and usually react negatively thereto, there is much that they don't understand about what it looks like and how it works. A prime example is the starring role that conversation plays in our daily routines.

Now that school is back in session, niece Emma is spending her days with us again. She arrives about 7:30, well before Frank and Chloe wake up, so she and I spend the mornings chatting, just we two. These conversations are sometimes, oh, mundane I suppose: what we did last night, what we're thinking about doing today.

Other days—many days—these conversations are simply brilliant unschooling gems. Last Friday was one of those days. In the space of about an hour, Emma and I talked about green smoothies (I was making one), multiplying 9s and all the cool patterns you end up with, the formation of the Traveling Wilburys (I started singing "Handle Me With Care" after spilling something), how the Beatles and the Stones fit into rock culture, Dr. Hook and "Cover of the Rolling Stone," and then—because of this cool story from Wikipedia:

In the United Kingdom, the BBC Radio network refused to play "The Cover of the Rolling Stone," as it was considered advertising a trademark name, which was against the BBC's policy. The song was re-released with a host of BBC DJs shouting 'On the cover of the Radio Times!' over the band's vocals in the choruses. The song was released as "Cover of the Radio Times" for the UK market. The BBC found no problem in playing the record, since they published the Radio Times, weekly. The single found real cult status after that.

—trademarks and copyrights.

This free range conversation—especially when combined with ready interaction with Google—is a core element of unschooling, since it is in exactly that type of conversation that we weave the web of learning, making connections between apparently disparate subjects (even Dr. Hook to trademark law!) and providing the foundation for future learning. Sometimes the connections are conscious—"Oh! That reminds me of..."—and sometimes they're not—I can't remember how the 9s multiplication tables fit in there—but they are always effortless and uniquely our own and fun. And that makes all the difference.

Size to fit

2010-09-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

Our family recently bumped up against what I'll call institutional response. It's the way institutions respond to situations, which is to say, rigidly and without creativity. Institutions usually have reasons for their rigidity, and these usually run along the lines of "the alternative is logistically and/or financially too hard to handle" and "if we make an exception for you, we'd have to make an exception for everyone."

I have managed an institution (a traditional family is one), so I understand both the temptation and the seeming good sense of those reasons.

What unschooling has shown me, though, is that those reasons are cop-outs. There are myriad ways to run an institution (as this article shows), and rigidity is the very least of them. As unschooling parents, as human beings, we prefer to focus on the individual: the individual situation, the individual (and often extenuating) circumstances, and, above all, the individual person standing in front of us.

There is a lot of theory wrapped up in unschooling and a lot of ideals. Both of these leave a lot of room for institutional response. For instance, if one abhors school, one might be tempted (and this "one" was) to refuse to allow one's child to set foot in a school, or to decline to spend any money on formal schooling, including college. But to take either of those positions is exactly contrary to what unschooling is all about. Unschooling parents help their children attend school if the kids want to, often suffering tremendous angst and a fair amount of compromise and outright inconvenience to do so. (Imagine the dilemma faced by a friend of mine who has a nightowl household and a family that travels a lot, and who now has one daughter asking to try school.)

Other examples: Suppose an unschooling parent holds a firm belief that toy guns contribute to the violence in the world, or that plastic toys are an abomination, or that meat is murder, or that TV rots your brain. Suppose he or she believes that Christ died for our sins or that the Law of Attraction works. The institutional response to these beliefs is rules and close-mindedness: "You can't" or "You must." In her mind, the parent who employs an institutional response might have excellent reasons for the rules she sets. She might not call them rules, and she might approach the rules with gentleness and respect. She might believe she is implementing the rules without punishment. And she might perceive cooperation and understanding from her kids and think everything is hunky-dory.

But here's the deal: Any time you let your belief system or your convenience come between your child and your child's wants, goals, or desires, that is institutional response. It's rigid and it's inherently disrespectful of the individual. Also, it is punishment because when you keep your child from having what he wants, you are punishing your child, and I don't really care how you pretty it up.

The alternative to this rigidity and disrespect is adaptability and acceptance. Adapt to your child. Accept your child for Who He Is, both in this moment and in the larger sense. And always, always respond as an individual and to an individual.

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

That should be the end of this post, but as I was writing it, I could just hear the comments coming in. So, let me add a couple of footnotes to head some of those off:

Convenience and compromise - Having the wants and interests of one child conflict with the wants and interests of another child is probably the hardest situation an unschooling parent faces and you have my sympathy. The complexities of such a situation are not covered by this blog post.

Your excellent reasons - I do not care what they are. Your child has excellent reasons for his or her choices, too. They count, too, and often they count more. You have had your whole life to build your belief system. Share it with your child, live it in front of your child, and then get out of his way and let him build his own belief system. He will almost certainly make some choices that you don't like. You will survive this, I promise.

New connections

2010-09-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

We were looking at one of the girls' old picture books today, "Animalia" by Graeme Base. It is a unique and beautiful alphabet book with dozens of starts-with-the-letter pictures to discover on each page. Today, about ten years after we first read this book, we made a new discovery. On the D page is a drawing of a Dalek. Chloe gasped and then whooped when she saw it.

It's but a small example of how our perspective and knowledge base change as we tuck more years under our belts.

Unconscious mutterings #397

2010-09-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

Want to play? Go here.

1. Gangs :: Listen
2. Contact :: Space
3. Surprisingly :: Delicious
4. Penciled :: In
5. Ignore :: Snooze
6. Let’s go! :: Come on, Barbie, let's go party.
7. Cornerstone :: Life
8. Influential :: People
9. Holistic :: Medicine
10. Lovesick :: Swain

Starting week 3

2010-09-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

I am still loving the changes I've made to my diet, and I seem to be settling onto a plateau in terms of how far I'm going to take this for now. Here's my food routine most days:

Breakfast: Approx. 20 ounces of green smoothie with varietal fruits and greens plus some flaxseed oil.

Lunch: At work, a salad. At home, it varies. One day I had salad left over from the previous night. Another, I had leftover spaghetti and stirred some raw romaine into it. YUM! Today, I ate some California rolls, probably one of the most processed foods I've had in two weeks. But many days, I don't really eat lunch—those smoothies are filling!—and will instead snack on a handful of raw almonds until dinner time.

Dinner: Whatever Frank fixes. He's playing along a bit, so our dinners include more whole, organic, and/or free range foods than they used to. We're buying better meat (and eating less of it), which makes dinner taste SO good.

Snacks: Raw almonds, dried apricots, snap peas and other veggies, ginger snaps from Trader Joe's, and the Trader Joe's peanut butter cups that Ginger just HAD to leave behind to tempt me.

Drinks: Water, about 3 cups of coffee per week, and a very occasional glass of juice. I'm not drinking very much actually—I'll get myself a glass of water and it'll just sit there—so I think I'm getting a lot of hydration from the fruits and veggies.

As I've said previously, I'm not in this to lose weight, but I think I have, 4 or 5 pounds. We'll see if they stay off. If they do, I'm quite sure it's from the reduction in complex carbohydrates.

And I'm feeling good. I've been a little moody this week, but that's not unheard of around here. :-)

Quote of the day

2010-09-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

Conventional parenting, which gets accepted as good parenting, is destination oriented. It's getting kids into college. It's stopping the tantrums. It's making sure kids stay away from drugs. It's about getting kids from point A to point B. It's about molding kids into what we think will help them the most.

If there is one thought that will help you understand unschooling and respectful parenting it is this: The primary goal is joyful living. All other goals are secondary.

All decent parents, of course, want their children to be happy. But they assume that sometimes happiness needs to be sacrificed to get something better.

But for unschooling, peaceful parents meeting any goal must also meet the goal of living life more joyfully.

~Joyce Fetteroll
(emphasis mine - and how!)

Why we unschool

2010-09-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

A friend on FB asked her friends to tell her why they've made the educational choices they've made. The responses from the unschoolers are fascinating and run on a theme: honoring their children's choices and building stronger family relationships. Very cool.

Here's my answer:
Chloe was unhappy. That started it. We always planned to homeschool for middle school (aka, the place where we send our 'tweens to be tortured), but Chloe was done by the middle of 3rd grade. MJ initially planned to stay in, but after a couple of weeks at home, she decided she liked it, too. The reason we were willing to try it early was that we were just kind of unimpressed. School wasn't horrible (with Chloe's 1st grade year as a big exception), but it was so... blah. We knew we couldn't be any less inspiring. :-)

I go into more detail here.

What led you to start unschooling?

My basic green smoothie recipe

2010-09-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

1 banana, quartered
2 or 3 handfuls of fruit (anything goes)
some leaves of romaine, ripped up to make about 2 handfuls
a small handful of "little sprout thingies" - I'll try to remember to add their real name later - MICRO GREENS - that's it, thanks, Ginger!
varietal dark greens
about a cup of water
about a tablespoon of organic, filtered, cold-pressed flaxseed oil

Variations:
a few raw almonds (soaked) - makes it a crunchy smoothie
other veggies

Tips:
- Put the fruit on the bottom of the blender. If I start with the greens, I have to get a spoon and shove things around.
- Most blenders will work. Mine leaves more texture in the smoothie than Ginger's, but it does the job.

Blend to desired consistency.

Makes about 20 ounces of smoothie, which I drink in its entirety for breakfast. It is surprisingly filling and satisfying. Yesterday, I lost track of time and didn't go down to the cafeteria before it closed. I was fine all day, drank a pint of milk and ate some raw almonds about 5, got home about 9 and had dinner. No problem with low blood sugar (and I usually have a problem with low blood sugar).

Morning musings

2010-09-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

I've been doing morning pages again after a couple months without. I really love it. The idea is to write three pages longhand. Today, I went on to a fourth page, and WOW! Some really good insights.

Remember that little meme I did a couple days ago, where I looked up an old blog post and it supposedly revealed my true nature? Well, it hit me this morning that it worked! My true nature is to report. And that is why I love blogging, Facebook, Twitter, morning pages, journaling, writing, writing, writing. Oh, yeah, and talking. And speaking to an audience.

I also realized one of my own deepest fears, but I just tried to report on that, and no, it's private at this point.

Anyway, morning pages are great!

As I continue musing and reporting, I'm sipping my breakfast green smoothie. Lots of strawberries in this one (because they're starting to turn), and it is really yummy. So, the Increasing Raw Diet continues. Hmm. Diet in the sense of "what I eat." I'm not dieting in the sense of "trying to lose weight." Although of course I won't complain if that happens. :-)

The most surprising thing about the changes I'm making is that it's totally easy. I don't crave anything, I never have to go hungry, and I'm not missing the things I've stopped eating because if I want them, I eat them. What's remarkable is how little I want them. Carbs, for instance. I've gone from carb-junkie to carb-take-them-or-leave-them in a week, with no suffering whatsoever. And junk food? It doesn't taste very good to me anymore. I have a bite or two and I'm done.

In other words, eating healthier feeds itself. My body likes it. The stuff that's good for me has begun to give me the same high as (or better than) the other stuff.

I finished up my contract with the HealthVault team yesterday. I'm a bit sad; it was an interesting product to work on. But today I return to the Retail team, my old stomping grounds, and will have lots of friends and familiarity to enjoy.

Frank's efforts on the housepainting continue now that the rain has stopped/paused. We have our fingers crossed for a sunny September.

When unschoolers screw up

2010-08-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

or "Why I don't ever need to impose consequences or punish"

When people hear about our say-yes, rule-free lifestyle, one of the things they have trouble wrapping their brains around is how our kids will learn to cope with obstacles, disappointments, consequences.

Yeah. At the moment, I really wish my answer were, "They won't!" But the sad truth is that they have no choice but to learn.

Recently, each of my girls has had to deal with an extreme disappointment. (It would help the narrative here if I could describe these to you, but such painful things are private.) Chloe's happened a while back, but she is still dealing with the emotional fallout. MJ's was more recent, and the scope of the emotional fallout is not yet clear. In both cases, I think it's safe to say that they feel they screwed up. I might not characterize things that way, but I know they do.

So, how do unschoolers deal with disappointments and screwups? With an astonishing degree of dignity. With some tears. With conversation and wishes and resolutions for the future. With help from family and friends. With apologies where appropriate.

Over the last few years, they have had some practice in handling disappointment, of course. They have had many small situations where things didn't go their way. They have had to struggle over, under, past, or around obstacles. They have made mistakes and dealt with consequences. I didn't have to create any of it; life just happens. But I hesitate to credit this practice with the coping ability they exhibit now. I think that might be more a factor of their environment. They have respect. They have the benefit of the doubt. They have rich friendships and healthy family relationships. And they have resources when things go wrong, people they can turn to who will help and nurture and support them, even when (especially when!) they screw up, and who will be more concerned with them than with beating them over the head with a lesson.

More alternatives to traditional parenting

2010-08-31T12:05:00.000-07:00

101 Things To Do Instead of Yelling or Spanking

Goes with this.

Unconscious mutterings #396

2010-08-31T09:51:00.000-07:00

Want to play? Go here.

Bangs :: Shaggy
Diaper :: Soggy
Coffee table :: Tired
Cops :: Robbers
Matches :: Sticks
250 :: 300
Hurricane :: Katrina
Bad :: Dog
Confirmation :: Request
Fiber :: Myalgia
(I know, I know, it's Fibro, but this is what came to mind!)

Tool of the Oracle: Your True Nature

2010-08-29T21:28:00.000-07:00

I don't know about my true nature, but this meme from Sarah has certainly revealed the true nature of post-Katrina New Orleans, which is appropriate since today is the 5th anniversary of the storm.

Instructions:

1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

My 23rd post is pretty cool, but neither it nor my 24th post had five sentences, so here are 22 and 25.

22nd post: "The storm surge exceeded 10 feet there, so just about every building is trashed."

25th post: "Our little landmarks were hit hard: Captain Humble’s (the little po’ boy place I raved about); West Marine; the Winn Dixie where we bought our provisions; the ancient, creaky swing bridge at Bayou Liberty; and even the Shell station where we’d been buying our gas."

Discovering green

2010-08-29T10:14:00.000-07:00

So, I don't know from dark green leafy vegetables. I have been doing some research, but at this point I can't keep my kales straight from my collard greens in terms of flavors, nutrients, etc. The only thing that has really stuck with me at this point is "Variety!"

So, when Frank and I went grocery shopping the other day, I knew only enough to recognize the dark green leafy vegetable section in the produce department (and be baffled as to why the lettuces and spinach aren't in it). Pretty much at random I chose a bunch of mustard greens to go with my staple romaine (from the lettuce section). I got the mustard greens home, discovered the mustardy tang, and put just a few in my salad that night. Edible, not my favorite.

By today, a few days and several green smoothies later, the fruits and greens are getting low. The berries are gone, baby, gone, because YUM! Do Ginger and I love berries!

Driven by curiosity about what a truly green (as opposed to berry purple) smoothie would taste like (but not quite brave enough yet to go all green), today's smoothie consisted of romaine, mustard leaves (judiciously), a banana, and some aging grapes I wouldn't eat enthusiastically if I were popping them whole into my mouth.

Oh my gawd, YUM! The mustard tang is probably there, but it is blended (heh) with the fruit flavors, and the result it just light, fresh, green goodness.

Which leads me to the conclusion that I can't really go wrong with green smoothies. Which might be why they are so terribly popular with the raw crowd.

So, here I am on day 6 of my Increased But Not Strictly Raw Diet. (Catchy name, huh? Do you think I should trademark it?) I am having a ton of fun with it, and I'm feeling great. With the novelty and fun factor, with our super awesome houseguests this weekend keeping me high, and with it being a good time of the month, I am reluctant to attribute too much of my euphoria to the changes in my diet. But I do have one distinct physical change to report on.

I lose a lot of hair each day. I mean, a lot. My hair is thick and, um, energetic, so this loss isn't terribly noticeable to the people around me (unless they're the ones picking strands off my clothes). But I notice, and it bugs me, and I fear going bald even though bald is beautiful and even though there is No Sign that my hair loss is anything more than breakage and normal attrition. So I am very happy to report then that my hair loss has apparently stopped. I don't leave a handful of hair behind in the shower like I usually do. I'm not picking strands off my shoulders all day like I usually do. And all the stuff that's staying on my head seems softer and a bit tamer.

After six days of having ONE green meal per day. It's pretty remarkable. YMMV.

A must read

2010-08-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

The Guy on the Plane by Jeff Sabo

The point is that so many parents never "really think about" the parenting choices they make. They don't always pause to think about what success means, what is necessary and what is arbitrary. They think of restrictions and obstacles, instead of alternatives and possibilities. They focus on the way things were or the way things should be, not on the way things are or the way they could be.

Jeff's post touches on (nails!) one of the things that initially attracted me to unschooling, and that is the "what ifs" that unschooling embraces. What if there is a different way to live and build our lives? What if all those things we've been told are so important are really the least important things in our lives? And what if we gave our kids the opportunity to do things differently?

Vegetables and me

2010-08-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

My friend Kimberly and her family recently did a 30-day raw food challenge. Her daughter has Type 1 diabetes, and they were able to very quickly cut her insulin intake by half, and then it continued to decline! Needless to say, their story caught my attention.

And then Alyse, another friend, posted this link along with a matter-of-fact comment about how much her health has improved since she started her raw diet: "I love that I have not only healed my body from some pretty debilitating stuff, but that it goes beyond great health to great happiness - and it was the happiness that came first."

My attitude toward nutrition information is extremely skeptical. Nutritionists and the often-corporate-funded FDA have given exactly the wrong advice too many times over the years. But this was first-hand experiential information from a couple of women who are, well, no flakier than the rest of us unschoolers. (In case you can't tell, this is a compliment, K&A! lol)

But the idea of going completely raw... Well, it intimidated me. So I asked them for some advice on ways to ease into it. Kim suggested trying some ready-to-eat salads with raw nuts and picking up some Odwalla juices. Alyse suggested, among other things, the raw foodists' staple, green smoothies. I got started on Monday.

Day one: Had a Wendy's salad for dinner instead of a burger. It had chicken and cheese on it.

Day two: I took advantage of the loaded salad bar at work and had a BIG salad for lunch. Completely raw, which was actually tricky because so many of the things in the salad bar are cooked. They even blanch the broccoli! Snacked on roasted but unflavored almonds.

Day three: Our anniversary. I ate whatever I wanted. Interestingly, what I wanted most during our fancy steak-and-lobster dinner was the side vegetables. I ate so many of them that I couldn't finish my steak.

Day four: Another big salad at work, mostly romaine and spinach.

Day five (today): I had a bowl of cereal at about 11, munched on some of the aforementioned almonds at about 3, and am just finishing up a HOMEMADE salad of romaine, mustard greens, and gloriously un-blanched broccoli.

So, here's the thing. It is too soon for me to notice substantial effects from such a limited increase in raw foods. On the other hand, it has been a substantial increase in green vegetables. And what I'm noticing is:

Carbs are less attractive (until they're attractive, and then I want them NOW).
My appetite is reduced.
I am craving even more greens.

And suddenly the idea of going completely raw is not so intimidating.

Texts from last night

2010-08-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

...and the rest of yesterday, which was our 20th anniversary.

7:43 a.m. Dropped off the camper and now questing for pancakes with her hubby of TWENTY years
MJ got to NBTSC with her Oregon roomie, Sean, but Chloe still had to do the dawn train run. Then Frank and I went for breakfast at IHOP, using our Seahawks ticket stubs to get free short stacks.

10:54 a.m. Jamming at the EMP
Despite being locals who have a lot of out-of-town visitors, Frank and I had never been to the Experience Music Project. It was very cool, especially the guitar gallery, which is worth the price of admission all by itself. They have a lab where you can play instruments and sing; we spent a fair amount of time in there.

12:39 p.m. Seriously tempted by Firefly action figures and an Alien lunchbox at the Sci-Fi Museum store.
Admission to EMP also gets you into the adjacent Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. It was so fun! It was also entertaining to see how much of their collection is on loan from Paul Allen. The dude knows how to spend his money! No Firefly, Galactica, or Back to the Future materials on display, which struck us as odd. But they did have Firefly gear at the store. I resisted. Barely.

1:22 p.m. Checked into our hotel room! View of Sound, islands, ferries, Pike Place Market. Awesome sauce!
Part 1 of Frank's surprise. I used hotel points to get us a room at the Red Lion downtown. We were on the top (20th) floor with a spectacular view of a spectacular day on Puget Sound. Sailboats, parasailers, shipping traffic, and ferries on the water. Planes and helicopters of all shapes and sizes in the air. Busy tourists down on the street. Loved it!

1:51 p.m. Hey, Frank brought the wine!
Frank surprised me with a nice bottle of Merlot (my favorite). We ordered up a room-service snack and spent a blissful couple of hours eating, sipping wine, and watching the world go by.

7:28 p.m. Napped to recover from an early wakeup and a bottle of red. Now at Ruth's Chris for free dinner.
Part 2 of Frank's surprise: I used credit-card points to get gift certificates to Ruth's Chris Steak House, far and away the best place to get a really good steak but with prices that are usually out of our reach. Not last night! Although we did go over and a bit, so it wasn't purely free: we had to supplement the tip with $3 cash...

We had crab cocktail in remoulade sauce, steak, lobster, beautifully prepared asparagus and broccoli, and bread pudding dessert. Everything was SO yummy.

We realized after dinner that we were sipping our complementary anniversary champagne at about the exact moment of our anniversary. Nice!

9:49 p.m. Watching the lights and the nightlife (yes, Seattle has some). This day has been everything I hoped for.
After a lovely post-prandial stroll through the bustling city streets, we settled back in front of the window. It was a wonderful day, and a wonderful way to commemorate twenty years with my wonderful man.

Here's to the next 20!

Keeping it simple

2010-08-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

The only experts that truly exist on Unschooling
are our children. They do it perfectly.
~ Heather Burditt

I love this. I wish I'd taken it to heart early in our unschooling, not to disregard all the great advice I received from other unschooling parents but to help quiet the doubts that came up.

Back to school... NOT

2010-08-22T00:17:00.000-07:00

The "school year" is starting all across the country. I have grown to resent that term a bit: why should schools get to decide what constitutes a year?! But we are not immune. Washington requires homeschoolers to file a Declaration of Intent to Homeschool at the start of each school year. And I needed to know the first day of school so I would know when Emma would be rejoining us. And of course we enjoy some of the back-to-school sales (10-cent notebooks!!!). But that's about as much attention as we pay to it.

Instead of picking up schedules, finding lockers, and settling into somebody else's agenda, my kids will be off having an experience something like this. That's Peggy Pirro's description of the East Tennessee Unschooled Summer Camp, which took place last month. Not Back to School Camp (NBTSC), the camp MJ and Chloe are headed to on Tuesday, is very similar. These camps really are the happiest place on earth.

My favorite excerpt from Peggy's post:
I will say with complete confidence that not one of the parents at that camp wishes our kids were on another planet. Not one. Is it because our teens are exceptional? Well, sure they're exceptional. They're unschooled. Which means all of the schooly stuff that comes between kids and their parents, between kids and their passions, all that stuff that gets in the way of kids figuring out how to relate honestly with one another, how to respect themselves and others, and how to respond to the needs of their bodies and their minds and their imaginations, all of that stuff that gets mediated by school and by the institutionalized thinking that supports the schooling paradigm, is absent. It isn't even a part of the atmosphere.

My love affair with unschooling is well known to my regular readers, but there is something about the start of the school year that brings it all to the forefront. I am SO HAPPY that my kids aren't caught up in the school machine. I am SO HAPPY that, as much or little as they are aware of the school year, they start it off by going to a place that gives them so much joy, that inspires them, and that provides them with an environment where they can make real connections with people who put their passions first and who treat MJ's and Chloe's dreams as achievable goals.

iUnschooling tools

2010-08-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

Not that kind of tool

Chloe hasn't really cared about having a cell phone. For the last couple of years, this was fine with me. MJ has a cell phone, and Chloe has been reachable because she is so often with MJ. But that has changed: MJ and her cell phone are down in Oregon. So, I laid down the law: Chloe, says I, I am getting you a cell phone. She resisted at first (really), but the idea began to grow on her, and off we went to shop for a phone.

After looking at the available options, the plan requirements, and so forth, she decided to chip in some of her own money and get an iPhone. She has played with friends' iPhones in the past and really enjoys them. So, that's what we've done. She's paying the extra phone cost and the $15/month data plan. I'm paying for the extra line and the family unlimited-texting plan.

So, Chloe has a new iPhone. She's been exploring available apps, building her contact list, playing games, and just generally having a blast with it. And I've been thinking about all this in an unschooling context.

First off, why didn't she want a cell phone sooner? Unschooling was a factor. Chloe and her friends have Internet access all day long. They don't need phones to communicate. And if they do, they have 24-hour access to their parents' phones.

So, why does she need one now? Well, because I said so, but also because of unschooling. She's free, so she travels. She's independent, so she travels alone. And she's building her own life, even at 16, so the time has come for her to have this tool that so many of us who have our own lives consider essential.

In the months ahead, Chloe will use this phone to let us know she has arrived in Oregon for NBTSC, made the train to come home from NBTSC, and, later, arrived in Texas* where she's starting a new job as a nanny. Then she will use it to find her way around Dallas, to discover places to go with her young charges and shop for the things she needs while she's away. She will call us with all the news, text us all the funny little comments she usually gets to share in person, and find and play games a couple of little ones enjoy.

And she will continue her unschooling. Someone asked on Facebook the other day about essential purchases for unschooling. I replied, "A wireless Internet connection." Perhaps I should have said, "A portable wireless Internet connection." It certainly seems to be an essential purchase for us now.

-------------------
* The family Chloe visited in Victoria has their primary residence in Dallas

The best sort of report card

2010-08-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

This morning, I received the following note from the mom of the family Chloe is visiting (and possibly becoming au pair for).

Hi, Ronnie;

Before Chloe came, I tried very hard to hold back my desire to communicate directly with you. I thought you were the adult and she was the kid. But she proved me wrong. She handled everything really well, better than most adults, IMO.

We were very impressed by her. She shows maturity unusual for her age, yet her sweetness, happiness and "purity" (if you know what I mean) are so delightful and contagious.

O. [4yo son] loves her and already invites her to [stay]. He couldn't get enough of her. It is so interesting to watch him to wait patiently and impatiently outside Chloe's room while she was resting.

M. [1yo daughter] loves her and sneaked to her bed. It is so cute to watch her to be in the same bed with Chloe!

We love her. She communicates very well. She is very patient and sweet with kids. She pays attention to details and she is very proactive. When we talked "business", she is professional!

I have never met a teenager as mature, original, happy, thoughtful, confident and sweet as her. You have raised a wonderful person. I am sure we can learn a lot from her as well.

We are very happy to have her.

The Doings Report

2010-08-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

Ah, Sunday. We are basking (suffering) in a bit of a heat wave. It hit 90 today and is forecast to be "much warmer" tomorrow. How will we ever survive????

Perhaps by imagining what it would be like tomorrow if we were in the south or southwest. :-)

Chloe is visiting friends in Victoria, BC, for a few days. They have two kids, a girl not quite 2 and a boy not quite 5. Her visit is sort of a job interview, or maybe a mutual interview. If all parties are amenable, she will be their au pair for an undetermined while. Chloe wrote her own (very business-like) emails, made her own arrangements, rode the ferry and went through customs alone, et cetera. (Does anybody know where Chloe learned to write with a formal tone? Sometimes—oftentimes—unschooling amazes even me.)

If all parties are amenable, Frank and I will have an empty nest for a while. Jeezum Pete.

My sister is in town. We had a family gathering today, and I got to visit a bit with her and her family. Loved it!

We are also enjoying a visit from MJ, who came up for the aforementioned gathering and for an orthodontic appointment. She likes it here well enough, but she is glowingly happy in her new digs/life and will return there in the next couple of days.

Frank continues prepping two sides of our house for exterior paint. We settled on two sides as an achievable/adequate goal for this summer. We'll do the other two sides next summer. He has scraped and pressure washed and is now sanding. Then primer, then paint. Colors are either decided (if everyone goes along with my green-with-blue-trim preference) or under negotiation. You be the judge.

I continue working. It seems I will finish one contract on Aug. 31 and start the next on Sept. 1. Continuity is a good thing, but I am lately engaged in detailed fantasies of extended roadtrips. Perhaps something can be arranged, since I work from home mostly anyway. It's the "mostly" that's a stumbling block: "mostly" is not the same as "always."

The girls head to camp next week Tuesday with a hundred or so of their closest friends. Camp has been restructured from two one-week sessions to one two-week session, so they won't be home (Chloe to here and MJ to Salem) until after Labor Day. Judging by chatter here and on Facebook, they and the aforementioned friends are all extremely excited. Extremely. Excited. NBTSC is evidently heaven on earth, more fun than anything else (except perhaps a good year at LIFE is Good), but we parents can only imagine since we are not invited. *sigh*

After that, Chloe comes home or heads to Victoria, depending, and MJ heads to Chautauqua.

It's really a shame how isolated and overprotected unschoolers are. Poor, deprived children.

Also next Tuesday (a week from Tuesday) marks the 20th anniversary of my wedding to Frank. Yes, 20 years. Wowza. I have Big Plans for the day, but Frank has not been apprised of these, so I'm not telling. Yet.

Frank and I attended our first Seahawks game yesterday, a preseason battle with the Tennessee Titans. The game was fine, fun, blah blah blah, but the game viewing experience was, in a word, HOT. Our seats are on the sunny side of the stadium, which is a good thing come November but which makes for a bakefest on a summer evening. We sweated it out with about 25,000 fellow fans, watched the Hawks win, and left disgruntled because the Hawks took a knee instead of going for an easy field goal that would have netted each of us a short stack of pancakes at IHOP. Very bad coaching decision that, but I bet IHOP didn't suffer much since by game's end we were all craving pancakes.

Our next game is next Saturday evening. Frank and I are thinking of staying away until about 7:30, when the shade hits our seats.

For the sake of frugality/greed for other things, I'm going to put all of our regular season tickets up for sale. Whichever games don't sell, we'll attend. If any of you have a game you'd particularly like to go to, let me know; friends and family get good prices and first dibs.

I'm off now for a sunset walk. It is *beautiful* out there now, rosy and warm and a reminder of why we put up with the gray skies all winter. Summer in the northwest is how summer was meant to be.

What I have to work on

2010-08-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

Evidently the universe thinks I need more patience. Or evidently I do. Backing up my own feeling that I didn't exercise enough patience in recent comment discussions on my blog, I got two messages today:

This blog post: I've Walked Many Miles in Your Shoes

and this quote:

The job of the spiritual friend is to insult you. . . . If you really want liberation and you really want freedom, you need people around who are going to be provoking you to show you where it is that you still have work to do.
~ Pema Chödrön
My thanks to Jeff for the post and to Laura for bringing the quote to my attention. Oh, and thanks to the spiritual friends who brought me the message, even if it wasn't quite the message they intended for me to receive.

Chloe's school solution

2010-08-11T12:21:00.000-07:00

"I have an idea of what learning could be like because I like to learn. I know how much fun it can be. An educational discussion is my idea of a good time. So, the fact that I don't enjoy school is an indicator of something."

Not compulsory
Smaller class sizes
More respect! "Teachers treat kids like there's something wrong with them."
Conversation-based learning
Lots and lots of resources
Teachers as resources - experts in their field rather than professional teachers
Classes would provide a starting point to explore a particular subject
No required courses - "If you say a class is required, you are dismissing somebody else's opinion about what's important or interesting... You're saying that one field is more valid than another one."
Kids sign up for classes they are interested in
Suited to every learning style - accommodate students

Background: Chloe was in school K through half of 3rd, spent a term at Summerhill (a democratic/free school in England), and attended high school last year for one 6-week grading period. All the rest of the time, she's been unschooled.

Pondering paths

2010-08-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

When I was 19, I applied for two jobs: one in childcare and one in publishing. I got the publishing job, and that set me on the path not only to my current career as a tech writer but also to Frank, MJ, Chloe, unschooling, and everything else. So, no regrets whatsoever.

But I do sometimes wonder about that other path...

Do you think if I had spent the last 20 years with little kids I would now be craving time with words?

Probably...

Valued hopes

2010-08-03T14:21:00.000-07:00

From Lynelle's comment on my previous post: "i kind of believe that as a parent, it's actually part of my job to try to instill certain values in my kids. i try to do that through example, suggestions, sharing experiences, asking my kids questions about their thoughts and feelings and reasons, and talks."

She goes on to detail some of the values she hopes her kids will share.

I've been thinking about this a lot these past few days. What are my values? Are there things that I am SO passionate about that seeing their opposites in my kids would really bother me? For half a minute, as I ran through the list of things people often freak out about, I thought Maybe I'm exempt. I mean, religion is the biggie, and I'm not religious, so...

But there are things I feel religious about. Oh, yeah. Unschooling. Peaceful parenting. Being kind. Making fun a priority. Living a wide-sky life. Certain political and social viewpoints that I hold.

Do I hope for my kids to share those values, and have I tried to instill those values in my kids? Yes, and yes. And do I, intentionally or otherwise, make clear to my kids when they are choosing something that is contrary to those values? Yep.

I try. I hope for. I communicate.

But that's where it stops.

Let's say MJ interacts with somebody else in a way that I characterize as unkind. I might talk to her about the other person's viewpoint, about things I think she could do to make amends, about strategies for interactions with this person in the future that might have a better outcome. All of this is parenting, and it can be peaceful and kind and free from shaming or punishment. (It can also be brief. A ten-second conversation is going to tell me if she is open to discussing this with me. And if she is, a two-minute conversation might be long enough to cover all of the above.)

But if MJ reviews her own actions and is fine with them, or if she does not want to discuss it... At that point, I am left with the relationship that I have with MJ, and the relationship that I have with the person I think she hurt. I can separate those from each other. My relationship with MJ from that point is just as it usually is: accepting, respectful, taken for what is now rather than what is past (and the problematic interaction is definitely past). My relationship with the other person is whatever s/he and I need it to be, and I can respond as a sympathetic friend or sympathetic stranger or whatever is appropriate.

Beyond that, I'm helpless. MJ's relationship with this other person is none of my business. MJ's assessment of her own actions is none of my business, even and perhaps especially when I disagree with her assessment.

One more example: Let's say Chloe becomes a mother and decides that Cry It Out is what works for her family. Phew. Oh boy. First, that is really hard to imagine. Chloe ignoring a needy baby? Not gonna happen. Second, that is really hard to imagine. My poor grandbaby!

Would Chloe hear from me? Oh, yeah. I'd send her the research on the harm that CIO does, and I'd encourage her to see things from the baby's point of view. I'd volunteer to stay at her house and take care of the baby during the night. I'd probably beg.

But if none of that worked... At that point, I'm left with my relationship with Chloe and, separately, my relationship with the baby. I'm still going to want a relationship with Chloe even if she is a sadly misguided mother. And I'm going to believe that the baby needs his grandma desperately, so I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize my contact with him. And of course I'm going to be the most loving, accepting, snuggle-him-up grandma I can be.

Beyond that, I am helpless. It's none of my business.

It is easy to be respectful of our kids when we approve of what they are doing. I think being respectful when we don't really approve is where the "radical" in "radical unschooling" comes in.

The last bastion

2010-07-30T15:12:00.001-07:00

After reading my previous post, Jeff Sabo said, "Values are the last bastion of controlling parenting."

Whoa! What a revelation! I, once the quintessential control freak, have made it past the last bastion. When did this happen? And more importantly, did it happen soon enough? With one kid out the door and the other busy making plans, I am very much aware that the time available for getting there goes by very quickly. It can so easily run out while you're still saying "someday."

Do any of these sound familiar?

"We're unschooling except for math."
"We're unschooling academics only."
"We're radical unschoolers except we limit _________."
"We're radical unschoolers, but we would never let our
kids __________."

If so, you're not there yet. Tick tock, tick tock. This is your only chance to try another way. What are you waiting for?

Values

2010-07-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

I started to write this post as if it's definitively about unschooling, but "unschooling" means different things to different people. Even "radical unschooling"—which refers to the freedom-of-choice parenting that goes along with unschooling for many of us—means different things to different people. I've gotten into trouble (conflicts) in the past when I insisted on a rigid definition of either term. While I continue to be puzzled about why someone would insist on claiming a label that does not really apply to them, I can occasionally, momentarily, acknowledge that some people are simply operating under different definitions than I am.

So let's leave labels out of it and talk instead about values.

We all have 'em. Some values we hold passionately and can defend at great length. Others we inherited from our society or from our parents and live by without giving them much thought. Some of my personal values are represented by some of the labels I accept for myself (liberal, atheist, omnivore, wife, mom, employee—just to name a few), and some of them, as noted above, resist accurate labeling.

One of the biggies in that last category is this:

I value my children's freedom to determine their own values.

I have been called on the carpet over the conspicuous consumption illustrated by my I'm that mom post. In the comments on my follow-up to that post, I responded some to the specifics of that example. I could respond more (and maybe I'm about to) about the factors that led us to decide that trip was okay—that it was MJ's big move-out trip and she was very excited, that the second trip to Oregon wasn't set in stone, that the additional consumption I might really have added to our life was Chloe's return trip home on a train that would have made the trip anyway—and I could talk about what solutions I think might really have a chance of stopping our species' headlong race to self-destruction.

But the thing is, even if I believed we should all reduce our consumption (and I do, even as I doubt it will do much good), and even if the trip decision were exactly as cut-and-dried as I implied in my "I'm that mom" post, I would have made the same decision.

MJ and Chloe know the environmental concerns. They know the time-and-money concerns. And they still enthusiastically chose as they did. And knowing all that, if I had said, "No, we're not doing this because it's not the most environmentally conscious choice," I would be IMPOSING my values on them. If I am the ultimate arbiter of what is an acceptable level of consumption, then in my opinion it's not unschooling and it is a complete violation of one of my most deeply held values.

Living by this value means that I, an omnivore, have had a vegetarian daughter. It means that I, an unschooler, have had a daughter in school—twice! It means that I, an atheist, have a Wiccan daughter. It means that my daughters make purchases that I wish they wouldn't, get piercings (and eventually tattoos) that I wish they wouldn't, spend their time engaged in a few activities that I wish they wouldn't, go off for weeks or months at a time when I wish they'd stay home, move out earlier than I wish they would, and just generally make life choices that I would not necessarily be making for them if I were in charge.

This is something that ALL parents face. Do you really think my mom expected to raise a tattooed atheist unschooler?! Hardly! (Although I think she's mostly okay with it.)

The difference is that I have simply and deliberately chosen to allow my values and my kids' values to diverge before they are adults. Part of my value system is a belief that one doesn't have to be 18 or older to recognize one's own values. And part of what went into my value system is the knowledge that kids who have values imposed on them often end up going in the exact opposite direction. By valuing the things I value and letting them make their own value judgments, even as children and especially as teens, I believe I have provided them with the information that I used to come around to my values without creating an adversarial or guilt-laden environment that might have driven them away from them. For me, that trumps everything else.

a bit more

I really am that mom (who pisses people off)

2010-07-28T18:38:00.000-07:00

A friend of a friend had this to say about my "I am that mom" post.

I find it slightly offensive to suggest that those of us who do not have the time or money to do such things are somehow worse parents than those who do.

Also, I think that children should get everything they *need*, but wants and needs are not the same thing. I think my kids wants are important, to an extent....but nobody gets *everything* they want. I work pretty hard to make sure they have everything they need....I'm not going to kill myself to give them everything they want. What I want is important, too.

To which my friend replied:

mmmm...read more of the blogs. there's waaaaay more to it. I dont personally think ronnie's post is insulting in the way you suggest. Its point is to TRY to do the most possible...
I also disagree the wants and needs aren't necessarily the same thing. I believe it's a matter of priorities: every want is a need to some degree. But I think you know that about me already. ;)

To which her friend replied:

I don't think it's necessary to try to do the MOST possible. I think society needs to learn to be content with ENOUGH. Our kids have never been without food or shelter or access to medicine, and neither have I. We're already more privileged... than much of the world's population. Why do Westerners need sooo much in order to be happy? And even though we have sooo much, so many of us are unhappy, anyway.

The blog post in question....obviously the woman who wrote it does not mind dropping everything to drive an unnecessary 500 miles. I would mind. I like simplicity and I like consolidating errands and trips as much as possible. If the same exact trip was coming up in two weeks, no way would I make the trip twice just to instantly gratify my kids. It's not because I don't care about what they want, but I care about what I want, too. If they get to take a trip, and I get to drive only once, then we all get what we want. The woman who wrote the blog was happy and able to indulge her kids, so she also got what she wanted.

I personally feel that we do our kids a disservice if we teach them that their wants are the only ones that matter. I remember you posting a couple of weeks ago about how strongly you feel about hypocrisy. I feel the same sort of disdain for self-serving behavior.

To which I replied:

‎"does not mind dropping everything to drive an unnecessary 500 miles"

Actually, it's that I see it completely differently. :-) What I'm doing is *picking up* everything important--my connection to my kids, the extremely fun times we have hanging out with our friends, an attitude that life is full of possibilities and solutions and YES. That makes the 500 miles not only necessary but cheap at twice the price!

"I personally feel that we do our kids a disservice if we teach them that their wants are the only ones that matter."

This is a common criticism of unschooling. All I can tell you is that, in our life and in our family, my wants count for a LOT. I am spoiled rotten. I know it's hard to imagine, but all four of us (mom, dad, two teenaged girls) get MOST of what we want (and I say that after coming off almost a year of unemployment - it's about an attitude of abundance rather than an unlimited supply of money). This makes for a happy family that I could not have imagined in our pre-unschooling days.

But of course our kids suffer disappointments. Life serves up plenty of those without my ever having to do the dishing.

Do you have a reply?

Updated 7/29: I had to add the amazing art Linda found for me. Thanks, Linda! Also, the conversation continues in the comments.

Keep your eye on the swimmers

2010-07-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

When the girls were really little (4 and 3, probably), we spent an evening at a motel out in the desert of California. The girls wanted to swim and I didn't, so I went with them down to the pool and walked around the edges of the pool, chatting with them as they paddled about. They were both swimming by then, thanks to our stint in Florida, so I was completely comfortable with this level of supervision, even when they headed into the deep end. The hotel manager was not. She came blasting out of the office, shouting at me.

It's not a pleasant memory. But what bothers me most is that, because of her shouting, I took my eyes and attention off the girls. It was only for a handful of seconds, but I remember the sinking feeling I got in my stomach as I realized what I'd done, and I remember my relief upon seeing that both girls had, while I wasn't looking, paddled themselves over to the wall. They were hanging on, watching wide-eyed as I dealt with this confrontation. I engaged in a couple of (useless) attempts to point out that the girls could swim, that I was barely two feet away from them, that I would OF COURSE jump in fully clothed if either had the slightest difficulty. She wouldn't listen, having already decided I was untrustworthy, so the girls moved back to the shallow end for a few minutes before we decided we were really done with that pool (and that hotel) anyway.

The lesson I took away from that day is one that still serves me well now. The only time my parenting is insufficient is when I take my attention off the swimmers, my daughters. It is their needs and wants and abilities that matter, not the ignorant observations, however well intentioned, of the people around us.

Formative years

2010-07-26T16:11:00.001-07:00

There is a lot of chatter in the parenting world about kids' formative years. This term can mean anything from infancy to adolescence, but the implication is always the same: that there is a time period during which kids are formed into the people they will be (presumably forever).

I certainly don't dispute the importance of treating children well and raising them in a loving environment. But I really want to challenge this idea that people are ever finished "forming." Looking back over my life so far, I see a lot of formative years, and there are a few in my adult life that were at least as formative as the highest impact years of my youth. (2009 was a case in point! Whew! What a year!)

The accompanying ideas—that kids are merely "forming into" adults, and that they are especially "formable" during certain years—are equally bad. They are booby traps for the unwary, and they can lead us to some thoughts about our kids that are really pretty nasty.

How about this one: "Oh, he'll grow out of it." This usually refers, interestingly enough, to a child's deepest emotional needs or his strongest signals that something needs to change. It's something we say or think (or maybe just hope) when our child's wants or behaviors are inconvenient to us. When accompanied by loving patience and responsiveness to our child's needs, this thought is not the end of the world. But even at its least dismissive, it still carries with it an expectation of—even an insistence on—change. I think it's really hard to hide our expectations from our kids. They always know.

And what happens if he doesn't grow out of it, whatever it is? What do our thwarted expectations lead to? "He's a hopeless case" perhaps, or similar sentiments? Ouch! These are cultural weapons we use to beat up the square pegs among us, the angry ones, the sad ones, the bloody but unbowed ones. They are not like us, therefore they're a lost cause.

I don't believe in half-formed children, and I don't believe in lost causes. There's no such thing. There are only people—learning, thinking, evolving people—for whom every year is a formative year.

We are game-playing, fun-having creatures, we are the otters of the universe.
~ Richard Bach

I'm that mom

2010-07-26T13:56:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Flo's delicious post here. It's an impromptu blog carnival! Join in!

I'm that mom who drives 500 miles because her kids want to see their friends, because her kids don't feel like riding the train again, because her kids want to go now instead of in a couple of weeks when the trip could be combined with another trip. I'm that mom who knows it's a frivolous, indulgent, even "stupid" thing to do but does it anyway.

Why not? We can. We have the time, the money, the free lodging when we get there (thanks, friends), and, whether we are aware of it or not, the energy. We as a family end up with more trips together, more good times on the road rocking or talking, more fun. Frank and I end up with more much needed time with our friends, too, and the good feeling that comes from doing the kind thing. And the girls end up with more driving practice, more familiarity with a long stretch of freeway that is likely to be part of their lives forever, and (most important of all) more awareness that they are supported in their lives, even when what they want is frivolous, indulgent, or even "stupid."

It's a good trade.

Update 7/29: Be sure to check out the links in the comments. The response to this has been amazing! My original thought was that we would each pick one little example of how we are that mom or dad, but some people really ran with it and ended up outlining the core tenets of unschooling. And as things wound down, Flo chimed in again with this amazing piece that put the cherry on top of her breakfast ice cream.

Get your art! Mary made us stinkin' badges. Link to this post or one of Flo's.
Moms
Dads

Tiny tidbits: Learn Nothing Day, Part Trois

2010-07-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Tara commented on my previous post that she doesn't participate in Learn Nothing Day because she doesn't like failure. It made me chuckle, and then it got me wondering: Why do I participate? Why do I, in fact, look forward to this day with moderately gleeful anticipation?

Part of the answer probably stems from its being a rare opportunity for my psyche to experience failure without trauma. But more than that, I enjoy the way it attunes my brain to the learning I do just via my regular activities: tiny tidbits of learning that happen so naturally and so without fanfare, most days I am oblivious to them. I think (and the point of Learn Nothing Day is) that these tidbits are unavoidable. They happen to everyone no matter where they are or what they are doing—even kids in school!

What cannot be predicted is what those tidbits will be. Oh, schools try to control this, with their curricula and textbooks and lectures, but they can't really. Even the learners can't control learning. In many respects, our brains are the sponges they are so often compared to, and like real sponges, they will soak up pretty much anything.

In chemistry class, I learned how to disguise my papers so that I could write notes to Linda instead of taking notes on Mr. Smith's lectures. I also learned that this one nerdy kid was a pretty good friend, that I enjoyed balancing chemical equations, that clocks move more slowly in 6th period, and that the chemical name for lead can be remembered by thinking of Pencil boxes.

In the last couple of days, I learned that "stop" is not a (Merriam Webster) dictionary sense of "enough" (perhaps because MW says interjections are "usually lacking grammatical connection"). I learned that some people believe "exaggerate" is an antonym for "control." NOT. I learned that there are two ferries from Anacortes to Sydney, BC, each weekday and that a 16-year-old can walk across for $13. I learned that the yurts at Kayak Point are extremely popular and run $50 per night. I learned that the Centennial Trail runs from Arlington to Snohomish, and that they are planning to extend it farther north. I learned that Microsoft HealthVault is really pretty cool, that you can upload data from your health-related devices (pedometers, blood-pressure and glucose meters, etc.) to the site, and that some pretty prestigious medical facilities are using sites like these for remote patient monitoring.

Today, I learned that Sandra put up a temporary banner on her unschooling page for Learn Nothing Day, that there is a web site where one can set up a custom marquee banner, that I still love Pachelbel's Canon, and that at least one of my friends, Alex, visits Sandra's site often enough to have discovered the new banner. I learned that Tara doesn't like to fail. I learned that Antonio Meucci got robbed.

I also learned that I didn't gain any willpower while I was sleeping, and that I still find cruising Facebook and writing blog posts WAY more fun than working. Shocker. And I learned that Learn Nothing Day provides a fun and unique opportunity for looking at learning.

The quirks of unschooling

2010-07-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

WARNING: Do NOT read this or any other blog post if you are participating in Learn Nothing Day. Learning may ensue.

Everything is connected, and everything counts. If I needed proof of these two maxims of unschooling, I found it this morning in this little pile of books that has accumulated on our overflowing bookshelves:

The Book of General Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson - A fascinating little book devoted to correcting some common misconceptions. For example, who invented the telephone? Alexander Bell probably stole Antonio Meucci's models from the lab at Western Union.

Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman - An exploration of the evolution of the text of the Bible. For example, it appears that mentions of Jesus getting angry have been softened up or eliminated, such as the evidence that indicates that Mark 1:41 originally said that when the leper approached Jesus to be healed, Jesus became angry.

The Greek Myths: I by Robert Graves

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks - A must-have for every home.

Travellers China by George McDonald

Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things by Cy Tymony - Instructions for making clever devices from things like sugar cubes, aluminum foil, and toilet paper rolls.

How are the books in this quirky collection connected? I'm not really sure except that they all found their way into our house, and, judging by their being piled together on the edge of a shelf, they have all been used in the recent past. That's unschooling for you.

Dragonfly's question of the day

2010-07-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

When we first started unschooling, I got on unschooling.com just about every day and asked a question. My screen name was dragonfly, so these became "Dragonfly's Questions of the Day." Those questions were about unschooling as I tried to make sense of it. Nowadays, unschooling makes perfect sense and what I'm trying to make sense of is school.

Why don't middle schools have playgrounds?

I walked with my 11yo niece to a neighborhood park the other day. She joined a group of 'tweens in a rousing game of tag. Most of those kids are headed to North Middle next year, yet chose to spent a summer afternoon "doing recess," their favorite part of elementary school.

North Middle does not have a playground.

Why not?

True friends write your blog posts for you

2010-07-21T15:28:00.000-07:00

Mary has posted photos of my tattooing and my tattoo here, and I've added a comment to the post about why I chose this tattoo.

Thanks to my amazing coaching team: Chloe, Qacei, Annie, and Mary.

The tattoo artist was Anji at High Priestess.

Transition times

2010-07-12T21:41:00.000-07:00

MJ is moving out at 17.

Moving out at 17. That phrase causes a moment's pause, doesn't it? Usually it signifies strife, and either a desperate escape or a cruel rejection or both. In our case, it is simply a step. Here's how we came to take it.

As I said before, MJ's really been ready to live independently for some time. There's a little garage apartment across the alley from our place that I have long had my eye on for my girls... Ah, well, it was a nice idea.

Instead, MJ and Sean started talking about getting an apartment together. There were various obstacles in the way of this idea—primarily employment in a recession economy—that would have meant many months of delay. So, I got to thinking about it. If the role of an unschooling parent is to facilitate her child's interests, does that role suddenly change when her child's interest is moving out? Despite my reluctance to lose her, I ultimately concluded that it does not.

So, after we all talked it over, MJ let Sean know he would be welcome to move in here. And then Sean's parents, Lynelle and David, said MJ would be welcome to move in there. And then MJ and Sean looked at various practical considerations and decided that she would move to Sean's place in July.

And that's been the plan for a couple of months. MJ has spent that time meeting some prior commitments, enjoying some fun times with family and friends, attending LIFE is Good, and traveling to Oregon for visits. We've researched some of our own practical considerations and readied ourselves for our baby to move out. And I've been calm, as I said.

This morning, I experienced what is probably only my first wave of grief. As we got ready to deliver Chloe to the train for her own visit to Oregon, it hit me that my daughters had just spent what might be their last night living in the same place. Ouch! But it's interesting and—though I didn't anticipate it—unsurprising really that what hits me hard is their separation from each other.

Taking my chances

2010-07-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

"Everything you do in your life is a chance to practice. It is all Dharma. When you do your chores try to be mindful. If you are emptying a spittoon or cleaning a toilet don't feel you are doing it as a favor for anyone else. There is Dharma in emptying spittoons. Don't feel you are practicing only when sitting still cross-legged.

"Some of you have complained that there is not enough time to meditate. Is there enough time to breathe? This is your meditation: mindfulness, naturalness in whatever you do."

~ Ajahn Chah

Moving Miss MJ

2010-07-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

Evidently the doings of my life are not as obvious to everyone else as they are to me. Evidently I have been a bit obscure. Sorry, everyone! Here's the scoop:

MJ, our oldest, who will be 18 in September, is soon leaving on a big adventure: living elsewhere. She is packing up to move down to Salem, Oregon, where she will be living with her boyfriend, Sean, and his family. In true unschooler fashion, their plans are loose but include, among other things, the possibility of moving back into our house later.

So, Moving Day #1 will take place within a week or two.

Frank and Chloe and I are still figuring out what this means for us for the time she is gone. We will have a dedicated guestroom for a while, that's for sure, so let us know if you want to come visit. :-)

My emotions are mixed, as I'm sure you can imagine. I can tell you that this feels nothing like I imagined it would when she was little. I expected to be terribly sad and lonely, and maybe I'll get there, but mostly I'm really calm about it. I like that she's starting out by living with a family and especially with people I like. I like that she'll be so close to families in Corvallis whom we count among our dearest friends. And I know she's ready. She's been ready for some time; if we'd had the financial resources, she and Chloe would have had their own apartment more than a year ago. So, this feels like a pretty natural transition, and I have the comfort of the possibility that she'll be back.

In the meantime, legally she remains our dependent, of course, and financially, she is. But she's taking the reins. She'll do her own budgeting and make her own plans and let us know what she needs.

And I'll try to keep you (better) posted on what this transition looks like.

Jesus would be proud, too

2010-07-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

I LOVE THIS STORY!

"I think Jesus would have hugged him too. It’s exactly what I read throughout scripture: Jesus hanging out with people that religious people would flee from. Correlation between then and now? I think so."

I Hugged a Man in His Underwear. And I Am Proud.

The joy of being uncomfortable

2010-06-30T02:51:00.000-07:00

It is natural to want to avoid discomfort. We shy away (literally or figuratively), change the subject, change the situation, change the channel, change something and make it quick! Most of us have very little experience with simply experiencing discomfort.

And then we become parents, and we discover that, what do you know, parenting is not terribly comfortable. True to form, we get very busy trying to make it comfortable. Change this, change that, change the child, control, control, control, busy, busy, busy.

And maybe it works for a while. Maybe. But what so many people seem never to notice is that any brief victory that we achieve over parental discomfort is fleeting (and probably artificial). By the next day—hell, by the next minute—a new uncomfortable situation has arisen.

When I look back on my control days, I see a long and painful series of attempts to avoid discomfort:

Kid with messy hair = discomfort. Kid with messy hair who resists having her hair brushed and who is going OUT IN PUBLIC = mega discomfort. Battle ensues, "willful" child is subdued and rats are vanquished, discomfort is avoided (unless you count that whole long ordeal with getting the hair brushed) and Mom is victorious. Yay! Cue the triumphant trumpets.

And then that same child wants juice for lunch. Yes, just juice. Battle ensues, etc.

And then that same child wants to stay up past her bedtime. Way past her bedtime. Battle ensues, etc.

It was neverending. And folks, those were the EASY issues. Fast forward a few years, and now my parental discomfort is about late nights out, and driving solo, and sexuality, and alcohol, and Decisions About the Future, and oh my freaking god, MOVING OUT...

What I wouldn't give for some ratty hair to contend with!

But at some point, fortunately well before we got to the teen years, I learned something really, really important to peaceful parenting:

I can survive being uncomfortable.

My discomfort is not something that I have to do anything about. I do not have to react to it. It can just be there, in the background, held at least somewhat separate from my interactions with my kids. (I provided one example of what this looks like here.)

And do you know what? Being uncomfortable is really not that bad. It is not the Big Scary Monster that it seems, that our instincts and habits and culture make it seem. It's just an emotion, and it can be coped with.

What's more, it can be embraced. When I feel parental discomfort, it is a signal that my child is making her own choices just like I want her to do. My child is experiencing freedom and adventure and independence just like I want her to do.

So, I breathe, and I breathe some more. And then I settle into the joy and privilege of observing the life that my child is creating for herself.

The destructive effects of coercion

2010-06-18T10:31:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamt the government was testing a new energy force on soldiers. They issued an order to the soldiers and turned on this force. If the soldiers went along with the order, they were fine. But if they resisted the order, even if only in their minds, the energy force would react with that resistance and the soldiers would spontaneously combust. The only way for the soldiers to survive was unquestioning obedience.

The second set of tests was done on toddlers, and I woke up from a struggle to save the kids' lives and the sanctity of their minds.

Hmmm...