Versatile (chaotic?) blogger

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

1. I can't resist a blog meme.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love this photo

Photo credit: Snugabell Mom & Baby Gear

Except me

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

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

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

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

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

1. Raptitude.

2. zenhabits.

3. mnmlist.

4. Tiny Buddha.

5. Just Add Light and Stir.

6. Yours, of course.

How to meditate

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

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

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

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

In loving memory

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

Just by being them.

4th of July, 2011
Photo credit: Erin Sorbo

Figuring out what I want to be when I grow up

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

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

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

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

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

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.