Schoolless

Communing with Nature

This is a picture of our toilet on Boblo Island.

You will note, that although it is a perfectly serviceable toilet, it is situated outdoors on a deck, where its normal use is somewhat impractical.
Issues with the toilet on Boblo have a long and colorful history. Last summer, Chris spent two days beating it into submission, and we were finally able to make partial use of it. This time, too, the toilet's capricious nature made it necessary for Chris to remove it from its usual location while he attended to needed repairs.
I mention all this only to explain how it was, that I found myself in the thicket, with a shovel and a roll of slightly damp toilet paper, communing with nature.
While I was thus engaged, I heard knocking. It wasn't the insistent tdtdtdtdtdtdtd! of the woodpeckers I've grown accustomed to in Chicago, but rather the slow, deliberate knock!.... knock!.... knock!... of a much larger bird. I quickly composed myself and pointed my face up into the tree canopy. And there, on a branch not ten feet above my head was the most beautiful pileated woodpecker I ever saw.
I've glimpsed others before, and they were doubtless just as attractive. It's just that none ever sat still long enough for me to appreciate its charms. This one continued its laborious knocking, slowly circling the tree trunk as it went about its business, as if I hadn't been there.
This was, understandably, one of those moments when I didn't have my camera. I rose to my feet and gingerly started to move in the direction of the cabin. The bird continued to ignore my presence. Encouraged by this, I ran to collect both the camera, and members of my family. Alas, while the woodpecker was tolerant of a solitary person in the vicinity, a larger group alarmed him, and he took wing, and disappeared from view. Chris and the kids gave up on him, but I was determined to get a photo. I knew where he had gone, and reasoned that if I stay still enough, as I, after all, had been doing when I first spotted him, he was sure to reappear.
He did. But, sadly, I never got close enough to him to get a decent picture. He was now aware of my presence, and every time I raised my camera, he flew off to a more distant branch. I followed him as stealthily as I could through the damp woods, and I was able to observe him quite well in flight, but this was the best I could do. This one's for Kim, such as it is.

How many steps ago was that?

One of my favorite recent acquisitions is a nearly complete set of Brown Paper School Books. Since the weather was cooperating last week, we did a really fun activity from the Big Beast book of dinosaurs. The cool thing about the Brown Paper books is that while the title suggests you may be learning about one thing (in this case, dinosaurs), you're really learning about a whole bunch of other stuff at the same time. I think in this activity, we were able to combine a little writing, math, crafts, PE, geology, history, a break at the park, and practical skills, like a small grocery shopping trip, using an automated check-out clerk.

We started out making ten signs for pivotal periods in the earth's history, including the present, the appearance of first true humans, last dinosaurs, first dinosaurs, first land animals, etc, etc. Each sign included the name of the period, it's chief characteristic (along with an amusing illustration), and the number of steps we would be taking back in time. Each step was to represent a million years. We had some notion of what a million years looked like, because we had also completed an earlier activity comparing our age, represented by about 1/32" on a ruler, to a million years, represented by a football field. So the steps we would be taking were the equivalent of one football field each, or 1,000,000 years. Got that?

We located a suitable field not too far from our house, and started planting signs. We attracted the attention of a Middle-Eastern grandma with two kids, and a gentleman and his dog, but other than that, no one bothered us.

This is what it looked like after Nadia planted the 7th sign (The first two ones are really close together, so they look like one. Believe it or not, only two measly steps separate the civilized creatures that we are today from our early human ancestors.) We continued to plant signs 8 and 9, and celebrate the milestones along the way.

After sign number 9, we only had one more to plant. But it presented a problem:

To go back to the beginning of time would require us to take an additional 4160 steps (about 2 miles?) for the total 4600 required. So, we decided to cheat a bit. We walked an estimated 1500 steps to the local Jewel, bought some snacks, and supplies for the Jello geology project (there is a bad pun in there somewhere), took a few extra steps around the store for good measure, went outside, and planted our sign.

So the beginning of the earth is now officially at the Jewel-Osco at Foster and Pulaski in Chicago.

If you don't know where you're going...

Earlier this summer I was in SanFrancisco for a couple of days. Alone. When I find myself in a new location, particularly if I've flown there, I experience an irrepressible desire to orient myself. And the best way for me to do that is to walk. It's hard for me to lose my way in a city that's laid out on something of a grid, but just to be sure, and to deal with diagonals and curves, I purchased a map. Then I put on my walking shoes, and lost myself in SanFrancisco.

Click on above image to see it in GoogleMaps.

To say that I lost myself is not the same as saying I was lost. I have a sense of direction. I was armed with a map. Having lived in a large city all my life, I also have a sense about places where I should not be. So although at any given moment I may not have been able to give you my exact coordinates, I was free from the deep unease of someone who has completely strayed off course.

If I had planned my very brief trip to SanFrancisco, I would have made sure I saw all the major tourist attractions. I would have done SanFrancisco. I would have seen all the things one is supposed to see when one visits. But I would not have seen the homeless lying prone along Market Street at 6 am as early morning commuters literally stepped over them; taken a tunnel from Union Square to find myself in another world as I emerged directly into Chinatown; watched a man dance with complete abandon for his morning exercise in front of St. Mary's cathedral or seen the Duboce Bike Mural, a spectacular tribute to a bicycle-centered urban life. I would not comprehend how the neighborhoods flow, change and merge into one another, and how people flow, change and merge among them.

I also would not have seen this bumper sticker:

Right about now, you're asking yourself what all this has to do with homeschooling (or maybe you're wondering how I was able to sneak away alone). Well, let me catch my breath from my reverie...

You know the saying "if you don't know where you're going, any road with get you there"? The implication is, of course, that we should always know where we're going. A civilized human being must be equipped with a mission statement, tangible yet audacious goals, realistic plans, and prioritized to-do lists.

But maybe there is value in traveling the unknown, unplanned road, just for the thrill of potential discovery. Or straying from the thoroughfare to look around the corner and see what we might find. Our kids don't have a life agenda. They don't "know where they're going". I'm not sure that this early in the game it's our job to point them in the right direction. Wandering and discovery are a part of childhood. They are part of education.

There really is no reason they shouldn't be part of our lives, too.