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!

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?

Sometimes I don’t even know what I need. I go looking for one thing and find another. Sometimes I cast that odd other thing aside thinking I don’t need it and sometimes I hold on to it for dear life, like a new treasure to add to my collection. But funny thing is, that collection has to start somewhere. Often times it begins with a second or third or fourth exposure  (because sometimes I am slow, stubborn or deaf)  to that odd other thing that I cast away earlier. It keeps popping up and continues to catch my eye and then fills my thoughts and I begin to obsess over it. Then I go back searching for those tidbits I tossed aside earlier. I sort through stuff trying to remember wear I saw it. I find other things along the way to add in and after some back tracking and hard work I have the beginnings of a wonderful collection.

For years I have  had this vision of what I wanted my family to be. It sort of looks like an old Kodachrome, or an 8mm movie camera playing a film of strawberry blond kids, happily running through a meadow. Ridiculous, I know. But I am a visual person and the part that sticks out in that picture for me is the happiness and joy part of the picture. The part that I feel is missing from my picture,  my family.

At the end of 2009 I told my friends that I was turning over a new leaf. I was going to be a nicer person. When really I meant I was going to find MY joy and happiness. I think I have been looking for it in all the wrong places. No one is going to bring it to me, it’s not in a book or off of a shelf. Recently I  realized it  has been with me all along. And I didn’t even know it. Happiness really is a choice, it is within my power to just Be Happy. Stepping outside of my normal response or mind set is just a beginning of bringing on that  happiness.

I am going to tie this all together I promise!

Last week we attended The Unschoolers Winter Water Park Gathering for 4  days. This is the third year we have attended but this is the longest we have stayed and the most actual conference sessions we have attended.  These speakers said exactly what I needed to hear. Not what I wanted mind you, but what I needed. We rehashed these conference discussions 12 billion times over the next several days and a funny thing happened-I went from being dumbfounded and even pissed off a little to questioning and  then more discussion and then to an openness that I didn’t anticipate in the least.  See, unschooling is about so much more than just not doing school. It’s even more than just letting your kids decide how they want to fill their time and how they want to dress or not cut their hair and dye it blue. I knew that, but I learned again that  it is so much more also.   This is not the first, second, third or even tenth time I have read or heard or even been exposed to Radical Unschooling but it is the first time I actually listened to it.

I am not much in to  “the Secret” but that’s just me casting aside the odd thing for the second or third time now. But holy crap…I heard what I was searching for. Fate maybe? I do believe in fate. I didn’t consciously  put it out there, I wasn’t looking for joy at this conference. I was hoping to hear something other than Yes, your unschooler is learning all they need to know, Yes they can go to college, Yes, they will be functioning adults.  But not that I have the power to be happy and joyful right inside me-this whole time! I was there to hear about unschooling- Well I guess I  did put it out there that I wanted to talk about meatier subjects. I wanted a seasoned unschoolers discussion-even worse I helped lead that discussion. (But I am still not sure about “The Secret!”)

Of course I am living off the conference high since we returned but life feels easier and lighter.  Changing MY attitude goes a long way (about 90%) and simply realizing a few things:

*  Everything is a choice-I don’t have to do anything but I can choose to do it (the dishes, taking the dogs out for the 12th time in a row etc..)  Once I choose to do something it takes away the chore or dread and unpleasantness of it. I always thought this was stupid-just psycho babble-I have been humbled!

* Saying Yes  not my knee jerk No-OMG that makes life so much easier!!!!  HELL-O

*Simplifying and lowering expectations goes a long way in lowering stress levels and making everyone happier. -Duh

*My kids don’t care about the future (or the clean house or all the time it took me to plan, get, prepare and clean up food), they care about NOW (they want me NOW, not when I finish something else, to be present NOW,  not listening with one ear while multi-tasking) And they really want me-to spend time with them-what a huge compliment. I should  feel honored that they want to hang out with me!

*My family doesn’t have an agenda or pre meditated reasons for leaving their stuff around, It has nothing to do with me (detachment)so why be resentful??!

So much of this may seem obvious but it has really been a light bulb switching on for me. Some of it is just looking at things differently.  In a nutshell-I went looking for what I thought was Unschooling info and came home with so much more. So much information that I cast away as craziness  or just didn’t pay attention to while hearing it over and over again.  My collection is beginning to grow, so many new treasures and I plan to hold on to each new piece for dear life.

(My husband wants to know why it took me 1,000 words to say this! It was cathartic, honey!)

We haven’t been too crafty around here-well Ginger and I haven’t been. Molly on the other hand decided to make a hat on Sunday so she sat down with a measuring tape and paper and pencil and started measuring her head in all different ways and then doubling some numbers and dividing some and even quadrupling some. Asking me what I thought and honestly I had no idea. It really didn’t make too much sense to me but she is touched in that creative,       “I can see things in 3D”, sort of way so I knew she didn’t really need help, just needed to say it all out loud. She was making the hat with several panels, hence all the math.  She used tissue paper to make sort of a pattern and then a quick trip to the fabric store with her money and coupon in hand. She remembered Lina had a hat shaped like the one she wanted to make and thought it might be a good idea to look at hers. That hat was made a little differently than she had patterned. About 30 minutes later she came upstairs wearing this!!! Complete with her first time using the  zig zag stitch for the  eyes. Well done!

As someone that barely sews-Can you tell how impressed I am????

And it fits perfectly! All that real math. She did not use a typical equation or traditional route to get her answers but obviously by the fit, her answers were correct. It’s moments like this that re-enforce my unschooling choices!

I have been spending lots of time reading unschoolers blogs and really wanting to learn more about unschooling. Although we have been unschoolers for a while I am feeling the need to learn more and the need for more support lately. Not because I doubt it but more because I want to embrace unschooling more fully. I feel as though I may have been just talking the talk so to speak. Like giving my kids freedom to make choices with their time, money etc… and then inserting my opinion or worse taking back the control. I am feeling the need for an unschooling boost. So I have been reading Swiss Army Wife,    An Unschooling Life,   Kelly Hogaboom,   The Expanding Life,  The Organic Sister,   Childs Play,  Radical Unschooling,    Joyfully Rejoicing, Organic Learning. Whew! That is a lot of reading!!

But I am so interested in learning all I can about unschooling. I have even been listening to a few podcasts.  So between reading, writing, listening to and discussing unschooling, I have really immersed my self in learning all I can about it. I seem to do that often.  For awhile I will eat, sleep and breath recipes and cooking or raw food or photography or running. I seem to devote all my time to my current passions and then when I feel I have mastered the subject or exhausted all there is to know about soup, or I lose interest and find something else to investigate, I move on.  Often times I come back to the things that interest me although sometimes not.  Sometimes I have learned all I need to on say, how to make my own laundry soap but not really interested in the chemical make up of it. Leave that to the scientists, the people that are interested.

I see my kids acting quite the same way. They fill their time getting their questions answered or their activity, level, or project mastered whether that takes an hour or several days.   Once their needs are met they feel satisfied to move on.  They are setting internal goals and following their own timetable. How appropriate! And how real.  As Molly demonstrated it often involves math and reading or science and history and all those school subjects that seem to continually creep back into our lives as a measure of competency.   Can’t it just be what it is. Can’t it just be Wow-Molly made a great hat without all the educational baggage that comes with it.( For Molly it was this way-she didn’t know she was “doing math” she was just figuring out how to make the hat fit her head.)

I say educational for lack of a better term, school curriculum? I am constantly learning and educating myself as is everyone else in the world every second of every day-yet it often goes unnoticed when it occurs outside of formal school. The term “self taught”  usually comes with a wow factor or a a sense  of  “can you believe he/she learned that on their own?”   Really??? We are all self taught when it comes down to it. Even those who went to school for umpteen years-you didn’t learn everything in school. Some stuff we learned on our own, by following directions, looking on the internet, watching other people and by doing it ourselves.  It is those that earn that self taught label that followed their passions far enough to be accomplished publicly or are making a living at something they loved enough to practice and perfect.

The way that I am pursuing my interests isn’t any different from the way my kids are living their lives-yet no one is looking at me funny. Giving my kids the freedom to learn all the time in their own way, whether it be all crazy, and mixed up front to back or back to front or for two weeks or two minutes is huge. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine if you could spend your time learning  what ever you wanted. In the way that best suits you-reading up on the subject, joining a group, watching movies about it, talking to others that have knowledge on the subject. Really immersing yourself in that topic. Well our kids are doing that every day. And not just in one area because as so often times it  happens that one thing leads to another. So many things are related to another and learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in life. And in real life math is not separated from english from science from history. Only in school.

This is sort of how this project felt…crazy.

First off  you will need some flat leaves for this project. Next, you will need a tablecloth to decorate. A quick trip to my local thrift shop got me a gold tablecloth-perfect!  You will also need fabric paint. So,  a hopeful run down the one craft aisle at my grocery to find fabric paint and save me a trip to the craft store,  revealed fluorescent colors. Boo!! But then out of the corner of my eye, on the clearance rack, I spied the perfect Fall colors of permanent acrylic paint. Score again! I love when things are easy and work out that way! It doesn’t usually happen, so I was indeed happy with my lucky finds!

So I cleared the way in my kitchen to spread the table cloth on the floor. My kitchen is small and my floor isn’t spic and span-eww- and the tablecloth took up all the available floor space. That meant we were constantly walking all over the tablecloth–eww again-it also meant the material kept getting wrinkled up. I begin to get annoyed.

OK-next I spread out some newspaper and paper plates with the paint, leaves and brushes.

You will also need more newspaper and a rolling pin for this project.

Paint the underside of the leaf—the veins will give you a better print.

Then carefully put the leaf, paint side down, on the tablecloth and cover it with wax paper or a sheet of newspaper. Carefully so that the paint that is all over your fingers doesn’t get all over the tablecloth.  Then again-carefully, so that the leaf doesn’t slide around, roll over the top of the newspaper with your rolling pin a couple of times.

Remove the newspaper and then carefully peel your leaf back up-so that you don’t just drop it back down creating paint splots on the tablecloth. And watch were you throw your cover piece of paper-it has wet paint on it. Are you feeling my blood pressure rising??

Can you see that I was a little too invested in the product of this project!!! Part of it was this was a little messy for my kitchen floor and tables. Water colors or tempra are one thing but permanent acrylics are another. As Ginger walked over the wet paint back onto the wood floors and I am yelling, “Don’t step in the paint, wipe your hands off, don’t get that paint on my rolling pin, you’re wrinkling the tablecloth” etc… etc….  But surprisingly-they endured my fussiness  and the leaf prints came out great. We plan on using this on  our Thanksgiving table.

So the moral of this story is…if your looking to make this a really perfect looking tablecloth…do it your self. If your looking for a fun project for your kids…protect all surfaces and  shut your mouth. Allowing the kids to make it without being over supervised (and probably taking most of the fun out of it)!! It will look great either way! Another lesson learned!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Last week, my husband and I  were with our homeschool friends Amy and Brad. My husband has been on a kick lately of telling me to send Ginger to school. Partially because he believes it and mostly because he likes to annoy me. Amy and Brad know my husband likes to yank my chain (a lot!!)  so they mostly just laughed at him but also tried to set him straight!

I have sort of become anti-school. If my older kids decided to go to school I would support them but I would have a really hard time with all the rules and regulations that I guess need to be in place for crowd control reasons. The homework–what the heck do they do in school all day that they need to do more when they get home????    Grades?  You are “smart” if you get good grades  (know how to work the system) or your dumb and lazy (bored) if you don’t get good grades.   Arbitrary awards like pizza parties for being quiet and getting high test scores? Now that’s a true love of learning not just a love of pizza! The longer my kids are home, the more happy I am with the choices we (I) have made. I am pretty sure I  have become one of those homeschooling snobs. I’m sorry.  I don’t really look down on you, but I do feel my kids are lucky. They have it pretty good. Obviously, I don’t hold book smarts high on the list of proof of being “smart” or proof of getting a good education.  (Right here insert my super excitement to see John Taylor Gatto at our Annual Unschooling Conference in Feb!!!!!!!!!!)

I certainly wouldn’t tell someone that was thinking about homeschooling that it’s easy or the perfect choice. My kids don’t cooperate all the time or get along well even 50% of the time.But they are in command of their time,  their choices and their learning the majority of the day. And by learning I don’t mean workbooks or texts. I mean real life learning. Part of being an unschooler is living a rich life. Which is one of the not so easy parts of being an unschooling parent.

What does that mean, to live a rich life? For years I struggled with thinking we needed to move to a farm or my kids needed to have deep seeded interests that took them passionately to the library to research their interests or mentors and daily lessons in music or dance. But the reality is that most kids are not that driven or have a passion that will engulf their lives. It’s those driven kids that ruin unschooling for the rest of us mediocre chumps. The other 95 % (that’s a guess but I bet it’s high) of us  just live and play and learn in our day to day lives.  You hear about those driven kids and think your homeschool life needs to look like that or somehow you’re failing. When in reality…those are just the unschooled/homeschooled  kids you hear about. It makes for a boring read that your kids played a game or two, colored, made cookies, read books or played on the computer for hours before going to the playground with friends while the Moms discuss the following days field trip to a different park for some creeking and a picnic only to run to the rec center for break dancing class then scootering home to  stuff your papers that need to be delivered after dinner. See just day to day boring stuff.

No, we don’t live on a farm. That means I have to look for enriching things for us to do….catching and feeding monarchs before they migrate to Mexico for the winter: (Science, History, Geography, Math)

Watching the navy jump out of airplanes: (Physics, History)

Also, giving them lots of opportunities to cook, create, talk to professionals,  have pets to take care of, visit both local and different libraries, museums, local landmarks and traveling both near and far. (History, Math, English, Art, Science,Literature)

We are getting ready for a trip to Dog Island, off the coast of Florida. For us an event or a trip is the perfect reason to seek out information about things. We have gotten out maps to track our drive and globes to compare our little trip to the great big world. We have read countless  books on the ocean, coral reefs, tides and tidal pools, food chains and the gulf of Mexico. We have watched movies about sea turtles, dolphins and many magic school bus episodes on ocean life and water. We built our Galileoscopes and have our sky maps ready. This is all fun, enriching foot work that we often do before a trip to the apple orchard or camping at a local park. I learned that we don’t have to be boarding a plane or driving across the country to learn or experience something interesting, fun or real life.  But it certainly helps! This is real life learning. (For those that are looking for the learning, that’s-Science, Biology, Geography, Math, Astronomy, Literature)

Remember this post from about a year ago? (the part about all the buckeyes)   Well, a few weeks ago,  Molly shelled, drilled, purchased beads, created the necklaces, got change, biked to campus and sold $90 worth of those buckeye necklaces in less than two hours.  (For those that need to compartmentalize learning that’s-Art, Math, gym, shop)

Molly even gave her helper some money!

She  spent a good chunk of that money on an expensive Halloween costume. Yes, it made my stomach turn to see her dole out that much cash for a few hours of wear but it it is her money.  Of course I put my 2 cents in. But in the end it is her money and deciding when, where and how to spend it is also real life learning. She has a paper route so she has income coming in. She set aside money to spend on vacation and some more to purchase a hair straightener. Oh, and  don’t worry about her future because she puts half of her paper route check in a savings account!  I would say she is learning more than any text book could teach her. (Mucho Math)

Many schooled kids do these same things but homeschooling allows us more time for these learning  opportunities. We don’t have to cram them in when there is time. They are just part of our day to day lives.

Now, back to my husband. I sort of wear the educational pants in our family as my husband wears the financial pants. We may discuss things but the one with the knowledge makes the ultimate decision.  So Ginger going to school is completely out of the question! I may  halfheartedly support my older kids curiosity about school but not so much my early elementary grade kid. What could school possibly teach my wiggly 5 year old that she can’t learn by snuggling up with us reading books, playing games, painting, playing with friends, outside, inside and at parks and museums?   She is experiencing life first hand, with her family and friends. Not at a kindergarten level or in  a specific time frame. She is one lucky 5 year old!

Look–More science!!    See learning is everywhere!!!!!!!!!!

I am still sorting and cleaning and not feeling very creative so that’s why no blog posts as of  late.  But all of that may soon change-I have found a great new (to me) blog that has certainly stirred some creative thoughts. No actions yet-but my mind keeps going back to the work this family creates. I am in awe of their talent and am so intrigued by there lifestyle choices. I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere that their kids homeschool-but I have a feeling they are living the unschooling dream of a rich life. I have told so many people about the Beerhorst family that I thought I would post the link here. Enjoy!!

Studio Beerhorst