Pepper Paints

Unschooling And Absolute, Profound Trust

Hello out there. It’s been a while since I have posted. I have had sick kids for what seems like the entire month of Jan! But things are finally looking up!

My local unschooling group has been entertaining the idea of starting a co-op. There has been much discussion on our list. I have been doing a lot of reading and writing about unschooling the past few weeks (it must be Feb.)– I thought I would give my local group a break from my long winded posts and listen to myself over here for a change!

I was listening to a podcast the other day and loved what the lady (who is heading up a free school in Pa) had to say so much I kept rewinding and replaying the interview so I could write it all down:

**Trust is the most important part-Fundamental trust between parent and child. Trust that kids direct their own learning and activities and parents have no agenda or “shoulds”. We are all born curious and if you give support to build on that curiosity tremendous amounts of learning happens in a short amount of time.We trust that kids have that instinct and they will run with it.   Our goal is to  nurture that instinct it and get out of the way.

I remember watching the Astra Taylor video and hearing her talk about how much trust her parents had in her. She used phrases like this to describe her unschooling childhood:

The trust was absolute, Interests were respected. She viewed her parents as- fundamentally encouraging and facilitating . The trust needs to be profound.

Absolute, profound trust. That is huge. Each time I read those words they fill me. I love applying those 3 words to my family– absolute, profound trust. It is scary and liberating and difficult and comforting. They go against everything we are taught.

As for the idea of unschooling being a continuum and where we all fit on that line—that line isn’t always straight, it isn’t always forward moving and it is ever changing. There is no end or finish line. We will never arrive. That is the difference between unschooling and the rest of the world. So for me–re reading the importance of trust always hits right where I need it. My kids age span puts one still sleeping in my bed, another in tweendom and another out driving around in cars with friends. Trust is what I often cling to.

**This is not word for word–I tried-but I think it is pretty close!!

If anyone is/has been part of an unschooling co-op or resource center please leave me a comment. I would love to talk to you more about your experience!

Candy Experiments

Last year I pulled a page out of Family Fun all about Halloween candy experiments. And this year I book marked a page from Mothering Magazine and another link a friend posted on facebook. Low and behold—they are all from the same website …. Candy Experiments.

My kids trick or treated twice this year, so to say we have lots of candy is an understatement!! They went through their stash and donated all sorts of goodies in the name of science.

We tried several experiments from the website. The most exciting being floating M’s and S’s.

Put some M & M’s in a glass jar and some skittles in another.

Add water and watch……..

Floating M’s and S’s!!

We made some sculptures with the sticky candy

We also tried color separation (chromatography) by adding m&m’s to a few drops of water and then dipping a coffee filter in. We waited until some of the color was absorbed and you could see the colors separate.

Did you know that laffy taffy floats?

We did a lot of mixing, soaking and poking.

And we still have lots of donated candy to play with tomorrow!

Unsupervised Kids With Kool Aid …. gasp!

If you ever pass me while running you may wonder why I am smiling or giggling-it’s probably because I am listening to a funny podcast. I love to listen to podcasts and while I run is a good time to try keeping up with them all. Lately I have been listening to  The Moth, RadioLab, This American Life, Fresh Air—Love NPR!

Recently I listened to House On Loon Lake on This American Life. The story takes place in the 1970′s –back when I was a kid. The main character, Adam,  and his friends are pretty  young-I think the story begins when he is about 10. (I listened to this several weeks ago so I forget the exact details but have been stirring up this post in my head ever since)  Adam  and his friends discover an abandon house during their summer vacation. To quote from the website:

Adam Beckman tells the first part of his story, about how, back in the 1970s, he and his friends broke into an abandoned house in the small town of Freedom, New Hampshire. The home turned out to be a perfect time capsule, containing the furniture, letters and personal effects of an entire family … abandoned for decades. It seemed like the family just vanished one day, leaving salt and pepper shakers on the table, notes on the bedroom mirror, and a wallet with money still inside. Adam and his friends read the letters, saving some as clues, and never forgot.

The thing that really struck me about this story is the fact that these young boys spent their summer vacation-unsupervised, sifting through this abandon house for an entire summer.They were having an adventure of a lifetime. But the fact that they were actually having this adventure is what is so cool to me. Their time was their own. It was their summer vacation. It wasn’t over scheduled with sports  practices and games and camps and mini-classes and summer gym to free up an hour during the regular school year to cram in more credits for real classes. Nope–no schedules. It was summer vacation.

I too grew up in the 7o’s with this same sort of “supervision”. “Where you going? Be home by dinner time ” mentality. My parents weren’t any more permissive than other parents. They weren’t driving us around and taking us to see every cool thing that came through our town. We occupied ourselves. We rode our bikes, played in the woods and in fields. We went to the pool and ate candy and ice cream and drank pop on a regular basis.  There were few parents at the pool and even fewer at the park. We weren’t obese, we weren’t hovered over, there weren’t too many expectations of us other than maybe 1 practice and 1 baseball game a week, don’t leave your bike behind the car or in the sun because your kick stand would melt into the hot asphalt( and my Dad didn’t like that.)

We ran the neighborhood and beyond. On Friday or Saturday nights my family would gather at my cousins where we would eat steak ,baked potatoes , baked beans and salad and then run their neighborhood, sneaking into the golf course and playing kick the can across all the neighbors yards until well after the 11 o’clock news when  Hoolihan and Big Chuck would start.

I would often spend the night at my cousins and in the morning we would get up and have our “cherry bread” for breakfast. (white bread dunked in cherry kool aid–it was awesome!) Then we would get on our bikes or skate boards and ride down the big hill and hang out on Euclid Ave and in Coulby Park for the day. When we got too hot we would head over to the library for some AC. If it rained we played in the garage. We didn’t have cell phones and we didn’t keep ID in our pockets “just in case.”  There was no talk of  “stranger danger”  or Mean World Syndrome. (it’s a real phenomenon- I didn’t make that up! But why would we be surprised by this–there is fear and distrust everywhere). And kids today are missing this  freedom.

They are missing spending their childhood in a child like way. Kids are tagged and numbered and scheduled and carted around. They are safely delivered to their destination that is well with in walking or biking distance. They are helmeted, sun-screened and not allowed to trust their instincts. Don’t walk in the woods, check for ticks,  watch out for poison ivy, stay out of the mud, call as soon as you get there and wash your hands. Don’t talk to strangers, don’t dill dally and who are you talking to on the Internets?  Parents are making sure to cover ALL the safety bases these days! Kids have so many rules and regulations that when they do get a little bit of free time they don’t even know how to handle it. Let alone how are they going to handle life with out Mom and Dad breathing down their necks and telling them what to do. Can you say–go crazy with all the new found freedom?!

I will not and do not live like this. I want my kids to do daring and dangerous stuff. I want them to know their world and have a handle on it. Go–be independent and figure stuff out with your friends. If you need me I am here. ( But funny thing is, they don’t need me too much for that kind of stuff. They are self reliant and self confident in their world. ) I am a hands on parent but only to a certain degree.  And I think living in the real world where they are making real decisions makes all the difference.  I am not scheduling their days or their play dates  or their bed times. I want them to go into the world, the park, the woods, the bus,  the mall, the library, to restaurants and stores by themselves without me there controlling what they buy and how they spend THEIR money.  They are perfectly capable to interact with kids and adults and make most of their own decisions.

At a conference I attended John Taylor Gatto talked about how when Richard Branson was young his Mom took him for a drive and then stopped the car and asked if he knew the way home. He said he did and she told him to walk. He did and said it was one of the greatest learning experiences of his life. Extreme-yes.  But following your kid around with an appointment book and a bottle of water and a protein bar is also ridiculous.  Let them go. They crime rate in this country is at a 30 year low!!! For goodness sake–turn off your 24 hr news updates and quit reading all the bad news in the newspaper.  Read this article about how CSI Changed Parenting.  Don’t be so afraid to let your kids play outside and maybe even unattended! Let them have adventures. Chances are more than good that they will be unharmed and fine!! And the chances are even grater that they will have fun and learn more real life stuff  than you could ever artificially  schedule for them.

So who is going to join me on  Saturday May 22 for TAKE YOUR CHILD TO THE PARK AND LEAVE THEM THERE day??? Maybe this could be a small step for those who fear the reaper…leave your kids for just a short amount of time until you can get used to the idea that they will be fine with out you. And they can realize just how powerful they are to be able to navigate the playground on their own. There is still time. Summer break is still about a month away. You have time to wean your self from each other just a little bit so that kids can have real, unsupervised adventures this summer!

And don’t send them with water–send kool-aid–they like it better and chances are–that’s not gonna kill them either

Unschooling On Good Morning America And In The Mainstream

Where to start?! The media is, well the media. They are a business.  They feature stories that will boost ratings.  They use shock value  to stir up attention and in turn receive more viewers.

So why we are surprised by  both the Good Morning America and the  Discovery Health reports on Unschooling?  They are typical examples of  biased reporting.  Both were short segments filled more with shock value than facts and true glimpses into real unschooling.

Mainstream America just doesn’t get Unschooling. They aren’t going to.  For heavens sake only about 25% of American adults have a face book account. I thought everybody was on face book! So imagine how the majority of the world could possibly understand Unschooling?  Especially with the shows that Discovery Health and Good Morning America put out. Yet, it is so easy for me to forget that we are radical. It is so easy for me to forget that my family is so different than almost everybody else.

Partly because I don’t reflect the mainstream and haven’t for so long.  I have my own  fairly large community that I identify with. I belong to a food co-op and rarely shop at Kroger and I love my public radio station where they don’t play anything you have ever heard of. —–That’s weird…… Yeah, I guess.  I recycle, compost, use cloth napkins, shop at the thrift store and line dry my clothes—-Oh, your one of those hippies!….. OK.  My kids don’t go school—-Oh, you homeschool? Will you always do that? Do they socialize with other kids? ……No,we Unschool—— Huh?????? Like those crazy people on TV? Did you see that, they let their kids eat donuts for breakfast—– That is main steam media for you!

I don’t sit round and think about how different we are. We just live. We aren’t purposeful in every move we make. We aren’t living for “the unschooling movement.” We don’t look different. We don’t walk or talk differently. (well maybe a little differently   ) Our daily life is pretty uneventful to the outside world. We get up and go about our day just like everyone else. Only we have learned a little secret that seems so unfathomable to the rest of the world.    Choice

We all have them. Really we do have  choices in everything we do. Yes, some choices make life harder than others but  we have choices in life. And as Unschoolers we have made many, many unpopular choices.

Kids don’t have to go to school–gasp! They don’t have to get up at a certain time of day to be productive—gasp! They don’t even have to be told to learn!  No, really, it’s just automatic. Adults may think they have control over what kids are leaning but kids and adults everywhere are learning ALL THE TIME!

I googled learning and Wikipedia gave me this: (from a very mainstream source even!)

Learning is a process you do, not a process that is done to you. Traditional education focuses on teaching, not learning. It incorrectly assumes that for every ounce of teaching there is an ounce of learning by those who are taught. However, most of what we learn before, during, and after attending schools is learned without it being taught to us. A child learns such fundamental things as how to walk, talk, eat, dress, and so on without being taught these things. Adults learn most of what they use at work or at leisure while at work or leisure. Most of what is taught in classroom settings is forgotten, and much or what is remembered is irrelevant

1. ^ Russell L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg (2008), Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track (pdf) HTML. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
2. ^ Greenberg, H. (1987), “The Art of Doing Nothing,” The Sudbury Valley School Experience. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
3. ^ Mitra, S. (2007) Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves (video – 20:59). Minimally Invasive Education, Retrieved February 18, 2010.

These choices we have made are hard. And Unschooling is a journey of sorts. The vast majority of unschoolers did not wake up one day and decide to make all of these radical choices in one day. But it is easy to forget that.

Beginning with following your heart and letting go of what other people think. It’s your life –who care’s what other people think.  Really–let that go and be the real you. We only have one this one life to live. Live it the way you want to.

Then giving up  the ” should do’s”  and the  “have to’s”.   Really question why you are doing things. Do you really want to? Or are you just doing them because you should do them? What will really happen if you don’t do them? Can you live with that result? Can you make a different choice to get the end result you want?  Then make your decision based on that. It  is a process.  These choices we have made seem so normal and automatic to us now that sometimes we forget how the other 99% of the world is living.  There really are so few have to’s in our lives but we assume that we must do way too many of them. Don’t follow blindly. I want to make my life just what I want it to be. And fill it with what I want. You can to. You have a choice.

So to the outside world our life may seem uneventful but really it’s just the opposite. Really we are choosing to exercise our choices. We aren’t living lives full of have to’s. We are living fully everyday. Not just on the weekends or when we go on vacation. Not just when we have time. And you can too. You have a choice–to put your kids in school or homeschool or really trust yourself and  live your one life freely and Unschool.

My Quick But Long Response to Discovery Health Radical Parenting Show

I have so much running through my brain after reading many negative responses to last nights airing of Radical Parenting on Discovery Health. I am speaking particularly on the Radical Unschooling segment. 20 minutes on TVsure can whip up a lot of opinions!! There was obvious editing and “the experts” were obviously from the other much more traditional side of parenting (and didn’t back up there expert opinions with any facts).

For those who watched and are now leaving negative  comments on Radical Unschooling all over the place here is some basic information (which many of you seem to be lacking) Radical Unschooling is a way of life, not just an educational choice. Just like someone who is catholic isn’t just catholic on Sundays at mass or a vegetarian only at dinner.  And just like those families that aren’t unschooling, learning is happening all the time. ALL THE TIME. You can’t not learn. Your brain never shuts off. So even those that choose another type of education or lifestyle-you’re still learning all the time too. So don’t give those teachers all the credit!

Radical Unschooling has little to do with school-we don’t “do” school. We (along w/ our kids because we too are learning all the time) learn by living. We read, play games, visit museums, libraries, cook, garden, investigate.  These are the  things more traditional families consider learning opportunities too- you plan trips around this stuff, you do it on the weekends you look back on these experiences with fond memories. We do it everyday.  All those things that are just part of everyday life are learning opportunities  too (grocery shopping -the list making, price comparison, budget making, reading labels…). When we need to know something we find the answers-ask someone, look it up, take a class. We are in charge of our learning. Anything you want to know the answer is out there for you to find. You don’t have to sit in a class room for 12 yrs! Go find the answer yourself.

As a parent it is my job to expose my kids to as much stuff as I can. You never know what will spark an interest. And that interest will lead to more in depth learning-be it dinosaurs, robots, computers or biology. Who are we to say what is important enough to learning and what isn’t. And for those that need it clarified-our learning is well rounded. example….Susie loves rocks. Everywhere she goes she picks them up. So as a parent I plan trips to find good rocks. We look up some places on the internet, we get books out from the library-(reading, english) We pick a place to go (geography, math, science) We go there and dig (earth science) We identify our rocks and figure out why these types of rocks are different than the ones we picked up on our trip out west.(more science, english, math, geography)  And it goes on and on. All the time.  Not just on Saturdays or in the evenings.  Not only in the 4th grade because that’s when you study rocks. And not only for a week because now you have to learn about something your not interested in because your course of study has been pre determined by people who know what and when and how in depth you will be learning certain things.  That is the “school” part of Radical Unschooling.

I say it is a lifestyle because we are not telling our kids what to learn or how to learn it. They are deciding and as a parent I am helping when they need it, yet putting “stuff” out there all the time (with no expectations ). We are respecting there choices. We are trusting them to listen to themselves. I am not telling my kids to put a coat on because it is cold or go to bed because I say it’s time for you to be tired. That’s not to say we don’t have a bed time routine-teeth brushing, jammies, reading books, lights down low. But as an example my 11 yr old, after all of that last night, stayed up watching an animation tutorial on the computer after I fell asleep.

Yes, Sarah Parent read something on the show for one of her kids-If your husband said to you”What does that say” would you stand there and quiz him or just read it for him. There will be loads of opportunities for kids to read-it is an unavoidable part of life. More than 90 % of the population learns to read on their own. Exposure is key!

I think the main difference is an unschoolers definition of success. Success to us would be our children growing up to be happy. Happiness trumps all-sorry! If you are happy working at McDonalds-excellent! Working there fills a need-people like burgers and fries and somebody needs to make em and serve em! If you are happy being a plumber-great! I bet you learned that on the job didn’t you? If you are happy going to college-great. Glad your choice of higher education is working out for you.

One comment I read said it is our job to make sure our kids don’t think they are the center of the universe! What??-why not???  My kids, my family are the center of my universe! They are special and perfect to me. They should be honored and valued as such so that they have the confidence and love for themselves to be the best possible human being they can be. The world will teach them disappointment- it is part of life. I don’t feel the need to knock them down (figuratively) so they get used to it and know what it’s like.

Ok-I have to go-this was typed out super quickly-so don’t judge unschooling by my typos or anything grammatically incorrect. I don’t even have time to read through it a second time!

Because She’s Worth It! (and more unschooling excitement)

It ended up being dinner for 2 tonight, so I made it extra special….because she ‘s worth it!

Wednesday night on Discovery Health at 8:00PM there is going to be a Radical Unschooling piece as part of a Radical Parenting episode. Sarah Parent of Clan of Parents and her family were filmed to be part of the show. Her blog has more details on the filming process.

I am still floating around on my post conference high! I am re-reading Deschooling Our Lives and I just picked up Nurture Shock and Raising Our Children Raising Ourselves from the library tonight. I am also LOVING these podcasts called Whatever, Whatever Amen!!! Our local unschooling group is getting together so we can  watch this Astra Taylor lecture together and discuss it. I have already watched it once-it is long but well worth it. Very inspiring!!

Any body have any other recommendations for unschooling books, blogs, podcasts or websites I should be checking out?