The biggest delight of my brand-new-app-based-smart-phone-that-is-not-an-iPhone, is the application I downloaded for my camera: Fx Camera.
I busted it out for Homeschool Central at the Boys and Girls Club.

XiuMei was as excited as I was, and an incredibly gracious, patient, and beautiful model for me!

Her excitement was contagious, soon I had models lining up, offering bits of face and limb for the art.

Most o'Willow's Face

Suggesting their own combinations of pattern…

Some poses had to be held just so for the magic to happen!

Some of my models had perfect distraction from my project…

This was a fun shot to set up and execute; some of my favorite books, too!

Willow made sure I took this picture for Linda, please take it and use at your pleasure!

I like this new party toy!

(almost makes me forget the standard camera really, really, really sucks.
And it sucks BIG, too – 5 mp of sucky (or very very fun!!) pictures!)

I only have about eight days left of work. It could be an extra day or two but not likely any more than that.  I will be back to parenting full-time in no time!

We also found out that my husband got this well-paying short term contract starting in January and that allows me to take the rest of December off guilt free.

And boy do I have plans. My husband and I plan on sleeping, cuddling, reading, going sledding, and spending time playing games etc. as a family. How great is this December going to be!

It’ll also allow me to get caught up on sewing projects, scrapbooking, painting and baking.

I can’t wait to be part of my children’s learning again. It is so hard to find the patience, energy and time while juggling a full-time job. It will be nicer for them to get back into a regular routine around the house (one that doesn’t involve waking them up and getting them dressed so that their Daddy can drive me to work).

Yay for sleeping in! Yay for craft time and regular blogging! Yay for homemade bread! Yay for me time!

I am just thrilled, thrilled, thrilled!

And the boys will be too since Trey asks me every single morning if I can stay home that day.

youtube=http://www.youtube.com/user/ReelLinkFilms

What are we doing to our children?

Watching the above film trailer brought up a host of emotions for me. A lump in my throat formed and I felt like I was going to cry…

As I listened to the articulate and thoughtful voices of the young people, I saw myself. I was that stressed out, over achieving child. Twenty years ago I was fully engaged in the “race to nowhere”.  I believed in the insanity…

Buying into the whole notion that I always had to strive and focus on competition and the future was hugely unhealthy; I didn’t eat or sleep properly; I was depressed, stressed and generally lacked in joy…

I really wouldn’t recommend it. Thankfully, I made it through the illusion and have chosen to approach things differently with my own kids. 

Recognizing the inherent, foundational flaws in the system we made a choice.

We’re forfeiting the race this time around.

 We un-school.

Though unschooling isn’t for everyone and it definitely isn’t a “perfect” solution,  it allows for the the individuality and the essence of our children to shine and blossom. They are learning to listen to their hearts in a safe, supportive and non-competitive environment…

At the moment, this looks and feels better than what these poor kids are going through….   

Namaste,

Shannon

Updates:  Stuff I’ve added since we last met:

• Quotes
• Essays:
  • Strong at the Broken Places?  Not So Much
  • The Work of Local Affection

Portals & Paths for 11/24/2009:

• Archdruid Reports’ John Michael Greer offers a compelling analysis of the collapse and re-ordering of society using the  Roman Empire as a basis of comparison in How Relocalization Worked.

• From Idzie at I’m Unschooled.  Yes, I Can Write, in a post written by her sister Emi, we get a beautiful example of how unschooling unfolds in the world of words.  Here’s a sample:

Reading Haiku in the original Japanese, seeing the patterns of syllables and the visual beauty, is wonderful for me.  To think, not only does a Haiku share a moment and emotion along with many more potential layers of philosophical meaning, it also has a flow to it, a beauty to the sound and placement of the words, and all of that while still conforming to the rules of five, seven, five.  It’s seriously mind blowing to me.

• Punk  Rock Permaculture E-zine has been making the connection between the music and the movement for many moons.  Here they offer up a documentary on the band CRASS and its permaculture farm in Essex, England.

• Amid the swirl of assertions about health care reform, My Political Side rejects the beloved cowboy archetype and calls for a New Myth.

• Will Potter at Green is the New Red continues to follow the animal-rights-activists-as-terrorists story in all its twisted madness.

• And, because it’s that time of year in the USA, a critique of Thanksgiving from Robert Jensen, who isn’t about to let us off the hook on this one.   Be thankful he’s not at your table this year.

(for links from previous weeks you can click here, or use the Portals & Paths tab at the top of the page.  They’ll both take you where you want to go.)

A while ago, I posted A New Plan, and I meant what I wrote at the time. But, things change, sometimes very quickly. What changed for me as I trotted along the path of my new plan was that I missed blogging.

I discovered that I am a blogger at heart.

So, now I’m a two-blog woman, a blogamist instead of a bigamist. For unschooling and life in general, you can find me here, and for all things political you can find me there.

And I’ll be looking everywhere for things to blog about. Hope I see you!

And that’s the new new “new plan.”

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Hello Friends,

Just a quick post right now while I try to finish up some writing I have been working on. I recently started journaling again, and my desire to put pen to paper has consumed me. I did find a few nifty links for you to check out though, so enjoy!! The Living Revolution is all around us…

Check These Out!!

Radical Simplicity

Wildroots Homestead

Homegrown Revolution

Unschooling

These are some examples to encourage you that the Living Revolution is already in progress all around us! There are so many ways to undo the mess we have made of the world, let’s go get our hands dirty and have some fun! Until next time…

Peace.Tobias.

Community: a group of independent organisms that share something in common, such as a common residential area, interest or knowledge base.

Communities are the core of every neighborhood, every small town. They’re the origin of every country, every online forum, every business hierarchy. They make up any common group of people who may or may not be otherwise completely uncommon and independent from each other. They are a social construct naturally formed by like-minded individuals, usually originally without knowledge of how their community will continue to expand.

On that note, I believe that every person in this world has the in-born ability to find a community to belong to, be it social, structural or otherwise. Many people nowadays shun others from society if they do not act at least somewhat alike (“mature”) as many others do. But who’s to say that those same people, shunned from a social community at large, can’t find a community to reside in on their own terms?

That’s where I put in my signature Unschooling Tip of the Day, or rather… few days. Because unschooling (or perhaps even many homeschooling) students are unable to partake in the constant groups and communities found in “standard” public school system, they must find communities of their own to belong in.

Everyone can belong somewhere.

I already mentioned how I take part in a homeschool group that meets regularly, since we are technically schooled from home. Well, that’s just one of the social communities I participate in. On that note, I bet you take part in more communities than you think. Go to church? That’s a community. Post on an online forum? You’ve now participated in a community. Gathered together with some family members? …You thought I was going to say “That’s a community”, didn’t you? Well, congratulations, I’m starting to become predictable to my blog readers in that case!!

But in all honesty, it’s hard for almost anyone to leave without any kind of social interaction. Even if you barely go outside at all, you probably still subconsciously clamor for human contact! A healthy being should get together and spend time with other people, and joining a community gives a sense of belonging. With the rise of homeschool groups and such, hopefully almost all homeschoolers, unschoolers, etc. will have a place to belong outside of school too now.

‘Til next time,

Diese Frage stellt sich für jeden – und jeder beantwortet sie anders.

Ich will nun unsere neue Deschooling-Antwort geben. Sie formuliert die Frage komplett um: Wie kann man es sich leisten nicht zu Unschoolen – Deschoolen?

Der Lehrplan ist nutzlos, denn wenn die darin gelernten Dinge Nutzen hätten, dann käme sofort eine Zunft daher und würde Streß machen.

Wären Mummy1000Sunny und ich also Unschooler gewesen (von Geburt an und nicht erst so spät), dann hätten wir wahrscheinlich folgende Dinge gelernt:

-Wie versorge ich mich selbst mit Essen?

(ab 4 Min)

-Wie baue ich mein eigenes Fortbewegungsmittel?

(ab Sekunde 40)

-Wie baue ich meine eigene Wohnung? Und auf Wikipedia. Hier noch ein Buch über den Selbst-Hausbau.

-Und zusätzlich: wie gewinne ich Energie und baue mir technische Dinge?

Leider habe ich nichts von alledem gelernt und habe also ge-lohn-arbeitet wie eine Drone. Je mehr ich aber verdiente, desto mehr wurde ich in den Kreislauf gezogen, musste noch mehr verdienen und wurde noch abhängiger (ich kriege heute noch liebe Briefe vom Finanzamt).

Ich sage nicht, dass wir wieder zurück auf die Bäume sollen und die Spezialisierung abschaffen sollen. Aber wir müssen ein gesundes Gleichgewicht finden. Hierzu zählt auch die Fähigkeit sich selbst erhalten und versorgen zu können.

Chopper macht zur Zeit die ersten Schritte in diese Richtung. Vor zwei Wochen hat er gelernt sich Nudeln zu machen, dann Brot zu streichen und heute hat er sein erstes Schokoladeneis hergestellt und ist nicht mehr abhängig davon jeden Tag 0,90€ zu dem Eishändler zu tragen.

Ich habe die letzten 3 Jahre etwas sehr Wichtiges gelernt: Wie ich ohne jede fremde Hilfe Bildung produziere (wobei ich durch meine Unfähigkeit im Unterricht wach zu bleiben, schon immer ein guter Autodidakt war).

Und auch ich habe diesen Sommer eine der größten Fähigkeiten gelernt, die ein Mensch haben kann: Ich habe gelernt physische Gesundheit zu produzieren. Und gleichzeitig habe ich gelernt, wie ich massenhaft soziale Beziehungen knüpfe, ohne eine Institution.

Die Lektion dieses Winters wird sein: wie ich auch noch psychische Gesundheit produziere.

Und dann kommt ein Auto…. nicht so ein Schrott-Industriell-Fabriziertes Auto wie wir jetzt haben, sondern ein total cooles super-duper Auto. (Da ich jetzt nämlich firm in Pädagogik, Psychologie usw. bin will ich mich der Physik und der Chemie zuwenden).

Man stelle sich vor solche Dinge stünden im Lehrplan. Autofabrikanten, Häuserbauer, Zünfte, Nahrungsmittelindustrie, Ärzteverbände, Pharmazieunternehmen, Gewerkschaften, Arbeitgeberverbände usw. würden diesen Lehrplan in den Medien zerreißen lassen. Insbesondere die Regierung lebt davon, dass sich Leute über Geldströme versorgen, die einer zentralen Steuerabführung unterworfen sind (was bei jeglicher Selbstversorgung entfällt).

Und das ist ein weiteres strukturelles Problem der Schule: Ihr Lehrplan muss nutzloses Wissen vermitteln, das einzig erlaubt sich schneller in industrielle Strukturen einzufügen (von der Bewerbung über Unterordnung bis zum sozialisierten Zuarbeiten).

This magnetic wall would be a simple thing to put up at home (on a smaller scale of course.)  I am seriously thinking about it.  You could then just put magnets on pvc pipe and let the kids build and drop marbles down.

Isabel loved the animal hospital section.

She has decided that she wants to be a veterinarian.

Hazel LOVED these ugly babies.

One hand at her mouth of course and the other patting and poking at the baby while looking around, worried and suspicious that someone was going to take her baby.

Hazel would scream whenever this cute little girl would get anywhere near “Hazel’s” baby.

Like a lot of people, I need balance in my life. But for some reason, I’m always attracted to extremes. When I was a child, I wanted to be Amish. I also wanted to be a nun.

Yeah.

Back when I first decided to homeschool, and I thought it was nothing more than school-at-home, I tried creating my own curricula.

Boy, was that a mistake.

Then someone introduced me to homeschooling methods and I was so grateful that I wasn’t going to have to reinvent the wheel. When I began reading about homeschooling, I was drawn to complete unschooling (but not radical unschooling…radical unschooling makes me shiver), and paradoxically, classical education via a strict interpretation of The Well-Trained Mind. Two rather extreme methods of homeschooling.

(And yes, I know I’ve talked about extreme homeschooling before, and about methods dozens of times, and I may have made a promise that I no longer would, but please bear with me.)

So I opted for classical, but found it stifling. In an attempt to soften it up, I decided to follow (strictly) the wisdom of Charlotte Mason. But I’ve realised that Charlotte’s methods can be extreme as well.

The authors of WTM state that a grammar-stage child should be saturated with information. They shouldn’t be forced to dig for it; the parent should provide the child with a feast of words and information for them to absorb.

I was in two minds about this. Initially this  made sense to me. But when I started reading about Charlotte Mason, I really began to question this advice.

Charlotte felt differently, and herein lies what I feel to be the primary difference between WTM and Charlotte Mason: Charlotte, although not completely opposed to reference books, felt all children should gain, in reverse order of importance: facts, information, and ideas through living books. And to do this, a good amount of digging is required. Living books do not spoon feed facts, information, and ideas. The child’s mind must work, and work hard.

Great, I thought. I want my child’s mind to be exercised in this way. Surely this is a better way.

But when I began following Miss Mason’s advice, my son actually complained, ‘Too many stories!’

What? Really?

Previously, we had a mix of stories, living books, and the Usborne/DK type reference books. He loved these reference books. They’re bright, lively, and engaging. He gained lots of information from these books. He also loved his stories. And his mind crunched and munched through the living books.

But once we put the fun reference books away (I felt they were bad; I wasn’t opposed to books such as bird guides, but those reference books were guilty of too much spoon feeding and so were banished), it all became too much work; the balance was lost.  And so he stopped crunching and munching. He even stopped enjoying Story of the World. His brain was just flooded with too much literary-type learning.

A balance was needed.

Now that we’ve welcomed Usborne and DK back into our house, he’s livened up and crunching away again. Those books are living books because they elicit excitement and encourage him to participate; he’s not passive when these books come out. He points to things, asks questions, makes comments, makes up little stories, draws pictures, and just plain gets excited. His mind is working and digesting the information.

And he likes learning facts. Learning facts really has a bad reputation in the homeschooling world, but I feel a good store of facts is necessary and helps with the knowledge/ideas bit…it’s a bit like learning  a foreign language…you can’t learn just grammar (i.e. knowledge), you’ve got to have lots of vocabulary (i.e. facts) to really be able to communicate fluently. You don’t want to be pulling out your foreign language dictionary every few minutes/

But that’s a moot point. He isn’t just storing up facts and filing them away. He’s using what he learns in his art, in his play, and in his conversations. And here is the crux of it:

He’s creating the ideas himself.

The ideas that Charlotte tells us are so important aren’t just being picked up from books, but are actually being created by what inspires him. Fabulous.

I suppose this formula is closest to WTM: a good mix of stories, living books, and reference books. But to be honest, I think I’m a little tired of the whole methods thing. I’ve realised I need to do two things: listen to my son and follow my intuition. I’ve had lots of people tell me that, but I had to learn the hard way, which sometimes is the only way: through experience. WTM and Charlotte Mason are good reference points, and I’ll continue reading about them and following a lot of their advice and book recommendations, but I’m not going to worry about casting ourselves into any mould.

P.S. I’m not going to promise not to blog about methods. I like reading and talking about methods and I feel the authors of WTM and Charlotte Mason have a lot of experience and wisdom that I do not. I’ll take what they know and use it with what I’m learning to create what works for us.

This morning I went to a story time with Sylvia at the Dusenberry River Branch Library while Luke and Isabel sat at a table there and read.  I am happy to discover that the library is pretty close to us, small and clean (once again, small library = good), and their library online to reserve books is great as well.  Afterward we ran a few errands.  While we were eating our Costco hot dogs, I apologized for “putting a TON of mustard on them.”  Isabel said, “Mom, I don’t think you put two thousand pounds of mustard on our hot dogs.”  Our little Amelia Bedelia, oops, I mean Isabel, thinks it’s very funny to take everything literally…sheesh.

I found this blog and I wanted to share it with you. It has a lot of great ideas to share. I have to admit that lately my posts have been iffy. I haven’t had a lot of time to get my own thoughts straight in my own head. I feel like it’s all been pouring out of me “stream-of-conciousness” style.
Anyways, here it is:

http://www.unschoolingblog.com/

Unterricht am Küchentisch
Wenn die Schulpflicht verweigert wird

ZDF, “37 Grad”
Dienstag, 24.11.2009, 22:15 – 22:45 Uhr
Länge: 30 min
Dokumentationsreihe, Deutschland, 2009
Wdh. am 24.11.2009 02:30 Uhr

Als Moritz zunehmend mit Krankheiten und aggressivem Verhalten auf den Schulbesuch reagiert, geben die Eltern Dagmar und Tilman Neubronner dem Drängen ihres damals achtjährigen Sohnes nach, ihn von der Schule abzumelden. Seitdem lernt Moritz zuhause, sein jüngerer Bruder Thomas auch – trotz Schulpflicht in Deutschland. Als die Behörden davon erfahren, werden Neubronners hohe Zwangsgelder auferlegt mit der Androhung weiterer Zwangsmaßnahmen, falls sie ihre Kinder nicht zur Schule schicken.

Aus Furcht, das Sorgerecht zu verlieren, verlässt die Familie Deutschland und hält sich größtenteils im europäischen Ausland auf – bis heute. Unermüdlich kämpfen die Eltern für die Lernfreiheit ihrer Kinder, damit die Familie ein normales Leben in Bremen, wo ihr zuhause ist, führen kann. Heute sind Moritz und Thomas zwölf und zehn Jahre alt und wären eigentlich in der siebten und fünften Klasse. Stattdessen lernen die beiden freiwillig zuhause und bestimmen ihre Lernziele selbst. Neubronners gehören zu den so genannten Unschoolern. Sie folgen einer Philosophie, nach der Kinder gern lernen und dies am besten ohne Zwang.

Auch Rosemarie und Jürgen Dudek widersetzen sich der Schulpflicht. Sie unterrichten ihre Kinder zuhause wie in einer Zwergschule. Der Stundenplan richtet sich nach dem offiziellen Lehrplan. Von ihren sieben Kindern sind derzeit vier Kinder schulpflichtig. Dudeks wollen ihren besonderen Glauben an Gott und die Bibel leben. Aus diesem Grunde möchten sie ihre Kinder nicht staatlichen Schulen überlassen, wo sie ihre Werte nicht wiederfinden. Im Gegensatz zu anderen strenggläubigen Christen gehören Dudeks weder einer religiösen Gruppe an noch versuchen sie, ihre Kinder von der Welt fernzuhalten. Soziale Kontakte knüpfen sie bei der freiwilligen Feuerwehr, im Schwimmverein oder bei den Pfadfindern. Wie die meisten Eltern wollen auch Rosemarie und Jürgen Dudek nur das Beste für ihre Kinder.

Damit ihr ältester Sohn Jonathan seine Schulzeit mit einem staatlichen Schulabschluss beendet, besuchte er im letzten Jahr die zweite Hälfte der zehnten Klasse einer Realschule. Mit der Note 1,1 schloss Jonathan das Schuljahr als Klassenbester ab. Seit fast zehn Jahren unterrichten Rosemarie und Jürgen Dudek ihre Kinder inzwischen zuhause. Aufgrund von Wohnungswechseln blieben sie lange von den Behörden unentdeckt. Im letzten Jahr wurden die Eltern zu je drei Monaten Gefängnisstrafe verurteilt, ohne Bewährung. Dudeks gehen in Revision und müssen vorerst nicht ins Gefängnis. Jetzt warten sie auf das endgültige Urteil.

In den meisten europäischen Ländern ist Unterricht zuhause, so genanntes Homeschooling, erlaubt oder zumindest geduldet. Kaum ein Land hält so verbissen an der Schulpflicht fest wie Deutschland, mit allen Konsequenzen für die Betroffenen. Wie viele Familien in Deutschland tatsächlich Unterricht zu Hause praktizieren ist nicht bekannt, realistische Schätzungen kaum möglich. Wer einmal untergetaucht ist, verhält sich so, dass er unentdeckt bleibt, oder verlässt Deutschland rechtzeitig für die Zeit, in der die Kinder schulpflichtig sind.

Film von Gregor Bialas

Quelle: ZDF

Image via Wikipedia

So yesterday, I gave into the whine that had been building up, and gave it free rein.

But today, I have been privileged to sit on the sidelines and watch and listen as my two wonderful young men have made their plans for learning today.  Thanks to the suggestion of Stone-Age Techie, we have begun to read aloud the first in the Percy Jackson series to supplement Uber’s current interest in Ancient Greek culture.

This read-aloud has led to a natural interest on H-T’s part in Ancient Greece as well – - especially the different gods and their attributes. So, the boys have added a documentary on Ancient Greece to the Instant Watch queue on Netflix.  Then, together (yes I said TOGETHER), they have decided to watch that documentary over the network, on our new BluRay player.

Then, as I have sat hear quietly eavesdropping from the bedroom, my two free-form scholars have begun watching and making the most awesome comments back and forth about things like airborne illnesses, Sparta, and the Coliseum.  It is a beautiful thing to listen to!

So I think at least PART of the prescription for the illness that is teenage-dom must be taking charge of one’s own education.  Perhaps it meets some of the cravings for independence that are so common at that age.  Whatever the reason, I’m feeling pretty doggone happy about this educational experiment.

For today, I have my young men back.  And I have unschooling to thank.

p.s. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to head back to Monday’s Topsy-Techie birthday giveaway to enter for a chance to win the Martha Stewart cake decorating kit!

We’ve passed the 25,000 word mark and are almost at  30,000 words. My story is complicated, confusing, and I’m thinking rather boring, even though conceptually it’s interesting. The only way I can think of ending it is to follow a line of thinking that doesn’t philosophically feel right to me, but otherwise puts too much importance on the decisions others make for us before we’re even old enough to understand or change it. Madison and I have discussed this a bit and has had some suggestions.

I’m glad she’s going through this writing process with me because I clearaly do not have all the answers, and she’s had some good ideas. Last night, at about twenty minutes past midnight (I know, not a good bedtime, but we’re having extensive repair work in the house and we’re sort of camping out rather than neatly tucked away in separate rooms), I commented that I find myself needing more details in my story and yet having trouble knowing what is enough vs. too much. She said she had no details, but I pointed out that if she’s written almost 30,000 words and only a week has passed in her story, than she must have tons of detail. She got so excited describing how she was writing that I had to remind her to keep her voice down because it was so late. I haven’t seen her get that excited about anything she’s done in school for years.

She’s already had some suggestions about what our next big project could be.

I still struggle with “am I covering enough of a variety of topics (i.e, enough math) and am I being too laissez-faire in my approach. I can probably answer the first one by re-visiting my goals for this year: allow her to become a passionate confident learner, excited about new ideas, engaged in what she’s doing, able to generate her own learning ideas and goals. We seem to be moving in that direction (not there yet).

But I’m not sure about the second one – it’s a hard balance and work has been full-time plus this month (that’s why I write at midnight!) Defining my role in this “adventure” is challenging. Coach, teacher, mom, co-learner, resource person?  Do I need to be “teacher”? And, on top of it all, one of those 5 (the Mom role) interferes somewhat with the other three (but can’t change that).

I guess I just want so much out of what is really a very short time – one year – before Madison returns to the school routine.

That’s what we’ve been up to the past few days. Yesterday was kind of cold and windy, but that never stops the girls from wanting to go out. On Monday it was really nice out. The sun was shining and it was actually warm out.

We took a walk to the store, and they stomped through all of the leaves on the ground. Kicking them, throwing them up into the air.
On our way back home we stopped at the park to swing and slide. I think they enjoyed the sand with the leaves in it most.
They made castles and topped them with the different leaves. They made cakes and used the leaves as the icing and for decoration.
The sand was still a little damp fro the Tropical storm that pounded us days before. So they loved that no matter what they made out of it, it stayed put.

It was so nice to be out and enjoy the sunshine. I played in the sand myself, and I love to swing, so I enjoyed that too.
I’m 14 weeks now and the girls keep asking about the baby. They want a sister so bad. I’m excited to start preparations for this upcoming baby.

We are moving. We found the perfect place around the corner from where we live now. Much more yard space for the girls, and it’s still fenced in. I love that!
More space on the inside too. I’m going to love cooking and doing crafts in the kitchen with the girls. There is even a little cut out under the stairs with a door. I’m sure the girls will use that as their space. Hubby and I already talked about getting some pillows, blankets and lights for them, to make it more comfy.

I love the backyard space. We have room for a garden now, and we can also make the girls a nice size sandbox.
I can also plant lots of flowers and plants by the front door and directly in front of the house. I’m so excited already! I’m constantly thinking of all the different adventures and activities will be doing there this winter and next spring/summer.

I have a lot of great pictures from our day at home yesterday.  Like these balancing pipe cleaners.

Or Maggie’s cursive shopping list:

The girls making cookies together:

Spontaneous four-seasons art work…

and much more that I don’t have pictures of.  Planting garlic.  The girls playing outside with Mopsey.  Maggie attaching a helium balloon to a ball of yarn, and extending it far up into the sky.

But oh my, those pictures and memories do not tell the whole story.  They don’t show the way Maggie had a catastrophic meltdown when she had trouble getting her pipe cleaner to balance.  Or the enormous amount of yelling there was over that precious balloon.  Or all the wrangling and tears and unhappiness was interspersed with the garlic planting.

And while I regret the part that I played in the yelling (oh, I did), I also know that it’s what I see in those pictures that we’ll really remember.  We are, all of us, strong and passionate and spirited.  It’s just never going to be constant smooth sailing around here.  We have our bumps, but seem to always be able to find our way back to one another.  We pile up into grampa’s chair, and laugh and love all over each other.

I’m hoping for a calmer day today.  But also trying to trust that all that big love will see us through.

Sunday, Joey and Luke went for a walk and came back with great sights to tell about.  Today we went out with Luke as our guide to find this supposed “Rock Maze” behind our house.  Sure enough…

Mini Stonehenge….ish?

Today I gave Luke our old camera for him to use to help him start a blog about entomology (or maybe just about nature).  I told him that I thought that a picture of this rusty can would make a really neat picture.  He turned up his nose at it since it is so man made, so I said, “Fine, I’ll put it up on my blog.”  So now here is a pointless picture of an old can.  Enjoy.

Don’t worry, I kept a hat on her most of the time and she only got a few scratches on her face from tree branches.  She loved it!  (Don’t miss Luke in the background.)

dropping rocks down into the sewer.

. . . to submit a post! The December 2009 edition will be here on December 1st, which means that I need your submissions by November 30th.

The categories are:

• Life at Home – What’s been going on in your unschool-y household?
• Out in the World — Where have you been lately and what happened while you were there?
• Inspirations – Who or what has inspired you in your choice to unschool?
• Dark Nights of the Soul – Do you ever have doubts about this “great adventure?”
• Encounters of the School-y Kind — Do you ever run into people who think you’re a radical/hippie/threat to American values because your kids don’t go to school?
• Beginnings — Imagine everything around you getting blurry and swirly as you go back to when your unschooling life began . . . and tell us about it.
• Passages — Tell us what your unschooled kid is doing now that she’s on her own.
• Miscellaneous — Tell us . . . anything about living an unschooled life that you want to share with other unschoolers!

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Everywhere you look, nature rears its head. No matter how many man-made phenomena there are or will ever be in the world, I guarentee there will always be some sort of natural world for flora and fauna to reign in.

I once did a blog post on my nature-bound journaling excursions a while back (yes, being able to reference old posts is an accomplishment for me!), and I explained how I journal about the natural world. Now, however, winter has set in, and the “natural world” around me has become a lot less sparse with animals hiding and hibernating from the cold, and always unbearable for me save in the middle of the day due to the temperature.

This caterpillar resides on a remote island in the South Pacific, and disguises itself as a tree twig so as to chow down on exotic fruit flies.

So, I’ve found a way to cope. I may not have a fast enough hand to be sketching out or writing about the things I see in them, but I’ve started watching nature documentaries about some of the world’s most amazing natural phenomena. It’s much more than I can see around the neighborhood, in my yard or on a local hiking trail. I’ve seen birds with amazing lifecycles, bees with happy face patterns on their back, trees that essentially pass (toxic) gas when they’re eaten too far… there’s a lot to see in the natural world.

One way I can get myself away from the computer long enough to watch a full documentary is by sitting down with my family at supper. We almost always have some TV show to watch, and recently we’ve been watching several different nature documentaries. We get them via Netflix, and they seem to be enjoyed by all… especially me. One we’ve been watching recently is Wild Pacific aka South Pacific, a documentary about the over 20,000 isolated islands in the South Pacific ocean. The vast array of wildlife on these desolate islands is remarkable, and it sucks you in, making you steadily await the next island they’ll cover.

Anyone can watch a documentary on wildlife. But how many of us focus on learning from it? The amount I learned from this excursion proves once more a general point about education: The more you’re into something, the more you tend to learn from it. I find this to be true of most anything in my life, and in education in general. It’s one of the reasons a free-form education goes well, because being hand-fed the same stuff every other person in the country had to soak up in the same grade you’re in now keeps you from flourishing in your learning, and finding what subjects and content really speak to you.

‘Til next time,
The Free-form Scholar

Because sometimes other people say it better than I can.  And because links add life.  And because sharing is caring.

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It’s been out for a couple of years but you may have missed it (I did) so here is Robert Epstein on the artificial extension of childhood through the teen years and beyond.

A useful e-book on the Transition Movement from Trapese, a Popular Education Collective.  You can visit their site for more resources and to download chapters of their print book DIY: A Handbook for Changing the World.

In the “someone actually paid for this research” department, two studies show that kids ask “why” because — surprise! — they want to know why.

Four simple things that together can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke by 40%, and not one of them comes from a pharmacy.  (Thanks to Rob Patterson for the link.)

Dispatches from the war on tobacco and fat people, from Joe Bagaent.

In a re-post from the sadly-now-defunct Connections ezine, unschooler Ren Allen shares her essay (with photos) on the learning process as experienced by the natural, unschooled mind.

And Richard Power highlights three passionate women who are working to heal the world in The Body Politic Has a Psyche, It Must Be Healed.

Go now, and read in peace.

Go to where the silence is and say something.
–Amy Goodman

I’m sure that that Amy Gooodman of Democracy Now meant something having to do with social justice when she said that, about finding a wrong that needs to be righted and speaking out about it. But I have found a way to relate her excellent words to to unschooling.

It’s pretty simple:

1. Live your life, not the life somebody else tells you you have to live. In that way, you will achieve silence–the silence of your soul, in which you realize what it is you want and need to do.
2. Use your natural mind’s abilities to bring yourself to whatever that thing is.

The part that most people never get past is getting to “where the silence is.” But people have been getting there for centuries. Yogis have done it, monks have done it, saints have done it, artists have done it, scientists have done it.

Even in this world filled with meaningless noise and the clutter of over-consumption, you can do it, too. And then, you can “say something.” You can say your unique, unprocessed something.

Isn’t that what self-actualization really means? And isn’t self-actualization the goal of unschooling? The goal of living? I think so.