Schoolless

Who? Me? Radical?

"A strong democratic sense of your being the world's equal lets you take what you will from the endless advice it offers, and then set blithely out."
(from Out of the Labyrinth by Ellen & Robert Kaplan)

A friend whom I otherwise admire enormously sometimes wears a t-shirt that makes me absolutely crazy. On the back it says: "I think, therefore I am vegetarian."
One of the reasons I admire my friend, is that although she clearly has her own convictions and principles, she has never made me feel that whatever convictions and principles I have are any less valid.
Her t-shirt has.
My friend allows for a diversity of views.
Her t-shirt does not.

Sometimes in life, we are called upon to defend our choices and beliefs. As homeschooling parents, we are accustomed to periodically coming up against criticisms, questions and doubts from the society at large, and we are fairly adept at countering its arguments and standing our ground. We've come to expect some criticism from those quarters, and we are not that surprised on those occasions when we are asked to justify ourselves. Do we resent being thus questioned? I suppose it depends on who is doing the questioning and how they go about it. An individual who has a preconceived notion of the type of person you might be, or starts from a misguided premise that you are a bad parent, is clearly a very different case than one who questions from a point of genuine curiosity or maybe mystification of disbelief.

As I said, I've gotten used to those questions coming from outside the homeschooling community, but I've never before had an experience of being taken to task for my choices from within it. I guess when I first started reading homeschooling blogs, I picked up on a bit of a dissonance between those of a Christian bent, and those of a more inclusive persuasion. But, although I've met many different homeschoolers,  I have never come into direct confrontation with anyone whose homeschooling principles were different than my own. For one thing, I assume that, as homeschooling families, we are always in pursuit, rather than in possession of answers. For another, I believe we have chosen the homeschooling lifestyle so that we could retain the flexibility to choose what is best for ourselves and our children, and that our choices might change over time, as needs change.

I am really happy that two years before, I joined a real community of unschoolers in Chicago. During these two years after I've taken my son from school and decided against sending my daughter there, I have gradually migrated in my approach and beliefs to the unschooling end of the homeschooling spectrum. It hasn't been a particularly harrowing journey, but it was one that I undertook with a lot of trepidation, commitment, self-questioning and eyes and ears wide open to the suggestions and experiences of others.

Throughout this process, I spent a lot of time reading in print and on the internet, and talking to more experienced homeschooling and unschooling parents. As I searched, the question foremost in my mind was "what is best for my children and for my family". After a couple of years into my search, I feel that I am by no means an expert, but that I certainly have valuable input to contribute to the discussion on the topic of educating children at home. These discussions are extremely useful to both new and seasoned homeschooling parents, because, as I have observed, we are perpetually in search of something that might solve an old problem better, help address a new problem, or validate something that we have undertaken with success. And, as generous and kind-hearted souls, we are eager to share our triumphs with other families.

In my experience, what we share are not prescriptions for doing things better. We understand that each family, each group of completely unique individuals comprising each family, is entirely unlike any other. Therefore, what we exchange with one another are merely suggestions: this has worked for us; try it, if you think it might help, and see how it goes. What was engaging and helpful about these discussions is that no one knew it all. New and experienced families were all on a journey of self-discovery, ready to to offer and hear new ideas. No one had found "the way". Everyone was still searching, still learning.

It was in this spirit that I joined an online discussion about video games on Radical Unschoolers Network, a virtual community. I felt I had something in common with the woman who began the discussion and was looking for help because she did not like what was happening to her 12 year old after he had played a lot of video games. After scanning the 80+ comments submitted, most of which more or less advised her to leave the kid alone a let him play as much as he desired, I thought I'd share the fact that we have had some positive results with simply having our son write down how much time he was spending on different activities, including video games. We, as parents, were also jotting down how we spent our time, because we were curious why it sometimes seemed that we had very little of it to spare. I also disclosed that I had purchased a book called "The Kids Are Alright" on the benefits of playing video games, and invited my son to read it.

You would have thought that I had locked him in a dank dungeon with a clay tablet around his neck, and a chisel in hand, and demanded he stay there until he not only produced a publishable book review, but also accounted for every second of the time he had spent there. My comment, offered in support to the parent who confessed to having a problem, generated an avalanche of questions from others about my  parenting skills, hidden agenda, putting undue stress on my son, and culminated in one reader saying her thirteen year old was "horrified" that I would make my son read such a book. I tried to clarify my position, but I wasn't making any headway. And I didn't like having to measure my choices against some abstract, ideal and perfect way to raise children.

How can a conversation had with people on the internet, whom I don't know, and who, truth be told, care as little about me as I about them, have such a profound effect on me, that it has awakened me at in the middle of the night on a couple of occasions?

It did. I was feeling so unsettled by this online exchange, that I asked my son how he really felt about jotting down how much time he spends doing stuff.

"Uh, it's no big deal. It's like, I just put a mark on a calendar"
"You don't feel stressed out?"
"Nuh-uh."
"And how about that book, about the computer games?"
"Oh, that was kinda interesting. How they made it all scientific."
"So you don't mind reading it?"
"Well, I don't get all of it. But there are a lot of interesting things in it. I'll keep on reading it when I feel like it."

Whew! Turns out I am still more in touch with my son than is the online community.

So, I'm a little bruised. But I still feel a world's equal. And, with my vegetarian friend, I will hold on to my principles. The most important of which is to let other people stand by theirs.

Bowling for evolution

Cruising down route 23 along the scenic Lake Huron coastline, we came upon this arresting sight:

"Jesus-themed bowling alley! COOL!!"

Chris and I apparently both had the same thought.

Alas...

To top off our disappointment, the theme-park was closed, so we could not personally examine the anointed heart of the brontosaurus.

Secrets of the logbook

Last fall, I decided to keep a logbook of our homeschooling activities: what we planned, what we did, how it went, etc.
It is my understanding, that in the state of Illinois, I am not required to keep any such record of our activities. Pretty early in the game, I realized that the desire to keep a logbook stemmed from my own insecurity about the "success" or our homeschooling adventure. I needed concrete evidence of our accomplishments and progress, a tangible proof that we were accumulating a growing stack of knowledge.
Here it is:

In looking back over my logbook at the end of the traditional academic year, I realize this document reveals more about me than about any learning my children may have picked up along the way.
I am really extremely conflicted about how I see my role as a homeschooling parent. I am in awe of the mothers who can say with conviction: "It is not my job to make choices for my child. It is my job to present the options, but the choice is up to them." To those of you who have read some other entries on this blog, this may seem somewhat disingenuous of me. After all, I have written a condemnation of worksheets, a stern critique of punishments and consequences, and a heartfelt plea for letting our children follow their dreams. I've managed to convince you, didn't I?
Well, let me fill you in on a little secret, shall I? There is a fierce tug-of-war going on between my private logbook and my public blog.
But first, another tug-of-war is taking place within the pages of the logbook. Every few pages, the logbook presents evidence of my intense efforts toward controlling the learning process: lesson plans, lists of questions to explore, painstaking notes, in my own hand, on the process and outcome of experiments and activities.
Between my notes there are numerous clues that my children's learning is taking place on a bit of a tangent.
Math worksheets morph into karate master comic strips:

Book reports rely rather more heavily on illustration than on the written word:

Worksheets are abandoned in favor of projects created from scratch:

Pencil studies proliferate when a small guidebook is accidentally discovered:

As I flip through the entries in the logbook, I am struck by the interest my kids show in the visual and tactile arts, and anything that involves hands-on exploration and participation. Looking back at the year, I realize that our greatest successes were not the mastery of fractions, or adding multi-digit numbers, or composing a paragraph. The biggest successes were those things we did that did not involve a plan or an agenda, that grew out of a genuine curiosity, and maintained momentum from our own internal drive. Things like Peter's stop-motion films, Nadia's novels and learning how to read, playing survival of the fittest with legos, looking for and dissecting owl pellets, making recycled paper, making a vacation travelogue, creating a Tree of Life book and other nature books, building a clay undersea coral reef, filling a mailbox with popcorn, and, of course, going back 4,600 million years to understand the history of  our planet.

And this brings me, in a circuitous sort of way, back to the original tension I noted between the secrets of the logbook, and ideas voiced in the blog you are now reading.
The blog expresses my more rational ideas, considered and formulated at relative leisure, after I've had a chance to reflect on all the facets of a particular challenging event. At that leisure, and in a clear frame of mind, there seems little doubt to me, that we all -- children and adults -- learn and do our best, and become better, when we are free to follow our own choices and make our own decisions.
On the other hand, the logbook contains the tangle of mixed emotions, indecisions, questions and self-doubt, with which I react, as I try to balance the interests of my children and family against the demands and pressures of our society.
Maybe one day I will stand unequivocally with the moms I quoted earlier. But not yet. Not quite yet.

enormous incomprehensible overwhelming

What does this have to do with Barbie dolls?
Visit chris jordan photography. You'll find an answer to this question, but you will also find many more questions unanswered, as the artist grapples with the issues of consumption in modern society. This from his own statement:

The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.

Check it out. You won't look at statistics the same way again.

Confessions of a budding filmmaker

(A rough draft of this post, composed by Peter, and eventually typed by me.)

I became interested in making stop motion shorts, when I first asked my dad how to make a movie without showing my hand holding on to Luke Skywalker. And dad said to try taking a picture, then moving Luke Skywalker a little bit, taking a picture again, etc. etc. Kind of like a flip book.

On a scale of 1 to 10, dad helped me 1, and mom helped me 1/8 of one.Dad told me that to make an aircraft fly, you need some thread. You tie it around some kind of flying object and you hold the string. While your hand is out of the photo, you take your shot. Mom just told me where I can make my movies.
Basically, she got me started by helping me find a place that had instructions for making stop motion shorts. Mom also showed me iPhoto, iMovie and Photoshop Elements on our computer, but she really didn't know how to use them. So after that no one helped me. It was trial and error. But eventually, it was more like trial and success!

I can't wait to make more stop motion shorts! Usually, I can spend 30 minutes to a few hours making stop motion. With a couple of breaks, I can watch the day slip by.

Although in the early days I've made movies of dog-eating socks, and clay, and Badger muscle rub containers moving across the table, my all-time favorite actors are Lego Star Wars minifigures and vehicles.  I started with simple elements, such as clay for laser, or my hand holding a part of a ship that was  not in the photo, so that you couldn't see my hand. Later I experimented with new strategies, such as using Photoshop to add lasers, and using invisible string instead of my hand.

At first, I didn't know how much I had to move my Legos to get the effect of motion from one photo to another. But with practice I learned that you should move them about 4 millimeters to no more than an inch. When I first started to make stop motion, I didn't know that I had to keep the camera in one position. I moved it around, and when I put the photos together into a movie, the picture jiggled all over the screen like there was and earthquake, which would only be good if you wanted to make a movie of an earthquake. Another mistake I made was when I tried to make a droid explode. I used some red-and-orange clay, and connected a disassembled droid. It didn't look like and exploded droid; it looked like an exploded tomato!

I learned to add lasers using Photoshop Elements. I figured out that I had to open the photos in Photoshop, and then I could doctor them any way I wanted. I started by looking at the toolbar, and using trial and error. Then I tried reading the instructions, but I gave up and went back to trial and error until I got it. But I am still looking for the perfect way to add lasers. I've seen other stop motion with perfect laser-like things (it's a little long, but funny).

It took me a while to figure out how to add sound. It's a lot of fun. My favorite sound effect is what I like to call "gun shot". It's really the sound of a camera shutter, which makes the action seem funny, not violent.

A stop-motion short requires about a thousand photos, though a very short one can be made with about 30 photos. I've never made a movie-length stop-motion, like Wallace and Grommit, but I'll bet they have something like a million photos!

It may seem boring to an outsider but to me, making stop-motion is like playing an involved game. When someone interrupts me, it's like "let me finish this scene" or "QUIET!" And after three or four days, I get a pretty good movie.

From making stop-motion movies, I learned a lot about cameras, computers, patience, duration, ideas, endless possibilities... and, um, let's see, what else? You figure it out.

Thinking of shopping at Best Buy?

...think again!

Pellet or poo?

A couple of years ago, I didn't even know owl pellets existed, let alone what they were.
Today, I went hunting for them.
Although I purchased a commercial owl pellet lab kit, I felt a little sheepish about spending actual cash on something that should be free for the taking for anyone who cares to look. A nature book helpfully suggested that I could find "piles of them in places where a pellet-producing bird, such as an owl, has roosted." No prob: not fifty paces from my front door is a forest preserve with numerous mature trees, and a large population of small animals and birds: a veritable owl paradise. The website for the forest preserve further assured me that both Eastern Screech Owls and Great Horned Owls are permanent and common residents of these parts.
So, today, I went to find some pellets.
I came home with a pocketful of ... er ... something.

Unless you have a barn, where mice figure regularly on the menu for local barn owls, finding owl pellets is harder than it sounds. From my earlier literary experiences, notably Winnie the Pooh, I believed that owls favored trees with holes in them. Large oak trees with solid, and conveniently perpendicular limbs are a common sight in our woods. Many boast inviting and commodious looking holes. Initially, I got very excited about finding little piles of matter under one such tree. I poked the piles hopefully with a pointed stick, eager to uncover ground animal bones, fur, eyeballs, I dunno.
The piles were quite crumbly, and they did, in fact contain copious quantities of fur.

Unhappily, the piles were made up of remarkably consistent cylindrical shapes that resembled the less crumbly, more glistening, and smellier ones scattered nearby. Upon more thoughtful consideration, I realized that in these woods, large, comfortable oak tree holes are most likely inhabited by raccoons. I further speculated that no self-respecting owl would care to share a perch with a noisy and untidy bunch of masked hoodlums. Therefore, I would have to search for my owl pellets elsewhere.
By that time, I was starting to feel a bit dispirited and cold. I examined the ground beneath some trees with fewer holes and a more upright habit. But these efforts were perfunctory. Why, I thought, was it so hard to find evidence of owls? If only I had been conducting research on the eating, not to mention drinking, habits of humans, I could produce ample evidence. Fast food and candy wrappers, and heaps upon heaps of beverage cans and broken bottles may perhaps excite some future archaeologist.

Oh yes, nature!

The title of the previous post included the word "nature".
I almost forgot.
Two natural curiosities presented themselves as we explored the Sculpture Park.

The first one was a chicken (perhaps a rooster, though the absence of a comb and a wattle makes me think it is a female, but I freely admit to being completely ignorant). This one was exhibiting her glorious glossy plumage near one of the busy intersections along McCormick Boulevard. As we approached, she ran eagerly in our direction, but wisely hid under a bush when we tried to get too close. A Russian woman had been feeding her on a nearby bench. But where did this gorgeous fowl come from?!
(I have some theories, but that's a subject for another post).

This is the second natural curiosity. Why, on November 13 in Chicago, is this tree, nearly completely devoid of leaves, and covered all over in its winter berries, blooming?!

This is what I really think

Now that I got that off my chest... nearly stepping in a half-chewed Tootsie Roll, I mean.
Why is this blog awards thing so important, I wonder. Bear with me while I figure it out.
My initial response was that it's very out of character, especially for the unschooling types, to be quibbling over awards. After all, we don't heap gratuitous praise on our kids, don't decorate little charts on their walls with gold stars, don't exclaim "good job!" every time they manage to lift their forks to their mouths without dropping a morsel of food on the floor... Why should awards for grown-ups be any different? Why would we want them?
While I am relatively new to homeschool blogging, I have been blogging in other spheres a little longer. One of those spheres is real estate (see sidebar). Real estate, as many of you doubtless know, is an intensely competitive business. Gold stars, ratings, awards, trophies, million-dollar clubs, "top producers" are par for the course. Self-promotion, and even aggrandizement, are common. Self-effacement and modesty are not. One reason blogging is appealing to some realtors (why it was appealing to me, for example), is that it allows you to express the real you, which in real estate (ha, ha!) is very hard to do. The general public sees the smiling face on your business card, "Top Producer" emblazoned on your yard sign, and they think they know all about you. You're just like all the other realtors they've ever met, or heard about, or think they've heard about.

But you are not. And if you have a blog, you can give a glimpse of the person behind the sign. You can show that you have your own subjective and unique views, that may surprise your readers. Some readers may not like to be surprised, but others may find they have more in common with you than they thought was possible. The blog allows the reader to see you not as a type of person (a "realtor"), but as a unique individual, you.

Earlier today, I was talking to my friend and employee about a person she knows who equates "homeschooler" with "right-wing Christian fundamentalist". "Is that what you think?" my friend said to this woman, "That I work for some right-wing Christian fundamentalists?!"
This person, whom I have only met once in passing, thought she knew all about who I was. Not only that, she had already made up her mind what she thought of me. Never mind that she may have heard/had some opinion of me previously, but once she heard "homeschooler", her mind was made up. How did that make me feel? Well, mostly, defensive.
I have been involved in Chicago's homeschool community, specifically through the Northside Unschoolers Group, for nearly a year and a half. While I suspect that Chicago may have some right-wing fundamentalist Christian homeschoolers, I have not met any of them. I have met a larger than expected, fairly diverse group of people, many of whom I have found to be open-minded, intellectually curious, socially liberal, politically engaged, scientifically inclined, informed about current events, concerned for the environment, and, if religious, then pretty private about the whole thing.
How could anyone with half a brain describe this group ad "right-wing Christian fundamentalists"? They couldn't. IF THEY MET THEM. But, most people don't get to meet a lot of homeschoolers. What they know of homeschooling is from snippets they pick up from the media, often second- or third- hand. And the media have not of late been known for their in-depth and insightful analyses of social phenomena. They tend to focus on catchy lines, zero in on a bit of controversy, and draw their conclusions from that. And since both right-wing Christian fundamentalists  and homeschoolers can be seen as somewhat controversial, why not put the two of them together?

The homeschool blog awards debate, has less to do with awards than with identity. Many homeschooling families don't want the term "homeschooling" to be co-opted for the exclusive use of a group whose views they don't share. At it's core, the word "homeschooling" says nothing about the individuals faith, politics, parenting philosophy, familial arrangement or sexual orientation. The only thing these diverse homeschoolers have in common, is that they have decided to see to their children's education at home.
It is up to us to choose whether we let "homeschooling" become a divisive, or a unifying concept.

Devil with a blue dress on

We've been waiting to use this real, unretouched photo of our very shy cat Phoebe.
Happy Halloween!

Speaking of dressing up (since it's Halloween), the kids and I had an interesting conversation. One of our family's old friends, whom I'll call Jack, has been morphing over the past few years into Jackie. Chris and I have a difficult time referring to Jackie as she, because we've known Jack as he for so long. So, despite very visible, and in many ways advantageous changes in Jack/Jackie's physiognomy and demeanor, changes which easily fool newly met individuals, we still see the male face behind the glamour, and continue to refer to Jackie as he. Jackie sometimes uses our garage for various carpentry projects, and our kids have had the opportunity to observe both Jackie's transformation, and our confusion over pronouns.
But they're OK with it. After a recent episode of he-she confusion I asked them if they ever wonder why dad and I can't decide how to refer to Jackie.
Peter: No, not really.
Mom: Why not? Do you think Jackie looks like a man or a woman?
Peter: Dunno. Sometimes he looks like a little bit of both.
Nadia: Yeah, but he doesn't dress like a lady.
Mom: What would you think if he did?
Nadia: Then he'd look like a lady.
Mom: So what would you call him then?
Nadia: A she.
Mom: So you don't think it's weird that we sometimes call Jackie a he and sometimes a she?
Both: Nuh-uh.
Mom (leading the witness): You don't think that's weird?
Peter: All grownups are weird sometimes.
Mom: And Jackie's no different?
Peter: Right.
There you have it. Trans-gender alteration taken completely in stride.