Learning mystique

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?

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

"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

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

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

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?!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

NaBloPoHalfMo: Playing with routines

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...

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...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

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

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

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

1. My glasses
2. My inhaler
3. My laptop
4. Notebook
5. Pen
6. A place to live, preferably with electricity, heat, and running water
7. The well-being of my tribe
8. My own well-being
9. Time to write
10. Hope

Unschooling in 140 characters or less

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.