The Life Without School Community Blog

Welcome to Life Without School

For some, life without school begins as a conscientious choice that is whole-heartedly embraced.  For others, it begins as a quest for second chances, new opportunity or even as an internal prompting led by the desire to meet the needs of a child.  No matter how we come into this lifestyle, the purpose we most commonly share is reflected best by this one question: "What is right for my child?" Life without school is not for all families or all children, but it is a valid and valued lifestyle choice for many.

How life without school looks and works for one family may be very different from how it looks and works for another family.We are all unique as we live out our need and right to be the empowered charges of our own lives and our own families, as the parents of our own children.  The lifestyle cannot be standardized or institutionalized to fit in one mold of existance or wayof being.  Life is a smorgasbord of choice and opportunity.  Living and learning is personal and individual.  As one homeschooler described life with her children, "It's a living, breathing thing." 

Life without school is the focus of this site.  We are real people living real lives without school.  We share a common belief that life without school is a valid and valuable lifestyle choice.  This is not a platform for school choice or educational choice or lifestyle choice other than life without school, although diversity of lifestyle is welcomed as a part of who we are and thus may be reflected in our postings.  In this venue, school oversight (publicly supported)  is not for all families and is not best for all children. Life without school is about living life outside the publicly supported umbrella of “school,” whether brick and mortar or home-based. Our shared purpose is to validate life without school as we live it as a legitimate option for those who choose it.

As we paint our lives in this living cyber-book, we hope it becomes a full and just representation of "About Us" and that it grows into a real-life living breathing panorama of what life without school can mean.  Welcome to our views of life without school!

Special Note: This blog is on hiatus for an indefinite period of time. We hope you find the posts here a beneficial resource and send others our way.

Please feel free to express your experience, perspective and personal opinions in the comment boxes that accompany posts!

Final Post

by Robin

I created the Life Without School  blog in the Winter of 2006 with an idea in mind to convince a few authors to join me on an adventure into group blogging about life without school. At the time, I was fresh off unschooling lists where arguments continued to erupt over the definition of unschooling and who and who was not an unschooler.  I was also fresh off politically minded lists where I saw and participated in quite a few discussions over who is a homeschooler and who is not a homeschooler.

The intentions of the blog were to (1) address  homeschooling and homeschoolers  operating independent of the public school system and to stay out of the argument over who and who is not a homeschooler (2) serve homeschoolers and unschoolers as defined by the individual (3) to explain and expand upon  the concepts and practices of homeschooling and unschooling as education and lifestyle for our own edification and as an outreach tool to the community at large.

Little did I know the blog would take off as it did and become transformed by the fantastic and talented authors who graciously gave of their time and skill to make this blog a day to day reality for 3 years.

Today, we are choosing to let the blog go. Health issues that I am dealing with don’t make time for me to give my full attention to maintaining and developing the blog further. You can learn more about Lyme disease here:

http://www.ilads.org/lyme_disease/about_lyme.html

http://www.underourskin.com/film.html

http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/emerging-diseases

I am so very grateful for everyone who has helped make this blog a reality, from Shay Seaborne who was my mentor as I processed though the idea and worked to make it a reality, to the original authors who put themselves on the line to believe in the idea to begin with and then to make this blog a reality, to the authors who stepped up over the ensuing months and years to add flavor and expand our horizons even more. All such gracious, kind, supportive, and talented people I am blessed to also call friends. Thank you all.

I want to send a special thank you to all guest authors who also made this blog expand with thought and perception, just as I had envisioned and beyond.

I can speak for all of our authors and say thank you all for your support and your honest and thought provoking comments and contributions.

We are especially grateful to Steph W. for taking over blog management when I was struggling to keep up.

The blog will remain as a static site while I focus on regaining my health. When you visit and send people our way, you will see a page which will introduce the blog as an archived static site. As time rolls on, I hope to have the energy and brain space to make the site easier to navigate set up as a website.

If and when conditions are right, we may start rolling again. If not, we hope the blog/site will remain a useful resource for all homeschoolers to refer to for years to come. The writings contained in this blog  have consistently impressed me with the depth of thought, humanity, art, and skill of each author.

Best wishes to you all and power to all homeschooling  bloggers out there! Isn’t this a great medium to share ideas, perspective, and support and to share who we are with the world?

Take care and many blessings to you all,

Robin

Homeschooling and College Scholarships

by Jena

I like to take questions on my blog, and here's one from Kimber:

I've been homeschooling since my 19 year old was about 4... We have graduated him now. I also have a 15, 12, 9 and 7. So my work is not done. I am interested how you got a full ride (or any) scholarship.

Peter did most of the leg work on his scholarship. He read through collegeboard.com and princetonreview.com, researching everything related to getting into college. He got some mail from Questbridge about scholarships, and over time, realized this was really a pretty good deal. So we jumped through all their hoops and he ended up getting a full ride to the University of Chicago. They needed a transcript and a record of his extra curricular activities, so I created those documents and have attached them below for you to use as you please. They also asked us to describe our schooling, get recommendations and have Peter write a couple essays. Their deadline is around the end of August at the beginning of a students senior year.

All in all, I found that being a home schooler applying to college can be an advantage. We don't fit the mold, so we have to explain more and that makes the child more real to the admissions officer. They are forced to look closely at this student as a human being, not just as a class rank, GPA, or test score. As a matter of fact, on Peter's transcript, his grades were all "Pass." He believed that letter grades were not applicable to him. Well, OK. So I explained our Pass/Fail philosophy and he still got the scholarship.

We wrote his transcript in hindsight--that means we looked at all the things he was doing and gave each one a name and a place on the transcript. For example, he listened to a class online at UC Berkley and read the textbook. That became a high school class. If he read a bunch of books on a particular topic, that became a class. He participated in local theater and that became his drama class. Working out at the gym can be PE. It all translates. You should do this at the end of every semester, starting in 9th grade, otherwise you forget and it's practically impossible to create an accurate transcript a few years later (unless you've kept good notes all along).

I assigned each semester "class" a credit based on how our local high school does it. They give one credit for each completed semester class. You can look at credits two ways: time spent or content covered. If you look at it as time spent, that's 50 minutes a day, five days a week. But then take into account how much direct instruction takes place in a 50 minute class and in reality, it's a lot less. If you look at earning credit as content covered, a child can complete a semester's worth of coursework in a few weeks--summer school accelerated classes prove that.  

Some colleges ask to see a homeschooler's reading list or textbook list. That can be tricky if you don't have a textbook type of high school. If you just love this college, talk to an admissions counselor about your unique situation and try to arrange an interview with your child. If they really want you, they'll work with you.

If your child excels at something, play it up. For Peter, it was his test scores and braininess. For Meg, it will be her theater talent. We'll apply to schools that value an acting resume and give scholarships in that area. We might even have her start at a community college. They are generally much cheaper and have very basic admissions requirements. Ours only requires a GED score for home schoolers. From there, a student can easily transfer to an upper level school with fewer questions about high school because they already have a college background. And I know there are scholarships for transfer students, but I haven't explored that area yet.

The Home School Legal Defense Association has a useful page for homeschooling high school. They have a lot of links on all aspects of high school and preparing for college.

Hope that helps, and thanks for the question!

Here are the forms I mentioned. If you want to print one, click on the iPaper icon for choices. You may notice that the extra curricular form is basically the same as the transcript. The different sized boxes are due to me deleting Peter's activities and not knowing how to remake the form. But I'm sure you get the idea. You can remake the forms on any spreadsheet. I just discovered Scribd.com--makes uploading documents like this a snap. Hurray, a new toy!

Home School High School Transcript

Publish at Scribd

High School Extracurricular Activities Template Publish at Scribd

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next  pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is in public school (her choice). In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next  pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is in public school (her choice). In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

The Knowing of Practical Things

by Laureen

Because we live in a marina, which is like a very small town, and we have a ton of interaction with our neighbors, we get quizzed a whole lot on what it is to be homeschoolers, mostly by people without children and without a real stake in the argument. Often, these discussions can be discharged relatively briefly, as over time we've accumulated several staunch non-parental defenders of this choice who have no qualms whatsoever about reading people the riot act over stupid, ill-thought-out questions.

I'll never forget the day that, after interacting intensely with my children for several hours at a marina BBQ function, someone asked me "but what about socialization" and was rewarded with a solid punch in the arm by a neighbor from a few docks over, who said "What are you, stupid? You've been talking to that kid for hours and he's kept you busy! Clearly, he's more socialized than you are!"

But above and beyond those sorts of questions, I have my own dark demons, as do we all, I think, about what they learn and how they learn it and if it's the "right" stuff to be learning. We are following an unschooling path, with the faith that they'll learn what they need to know as it confronts them, more effectively than having a bunch of disconnected edu-triva thrown at them.

A boat is a learning-rich environment, but does it apply? Kestrel is majoring in tool usage and boat repair. He fetches whatever Jason needs to do whatever he's doing; power tools, hand tools, rags, cleaners, keys, whatever. He's just now, at age three and a half, beginning to anticipate, and fetch the right tool before it's requested. He knows what a solenoid is and what it does. Rowan is our Monkey; he can climb the shrouds nearly to the top of the mast (that's 55 feet straight up, my friends). At six and three, neither of my boys are reading yet. But both of them can gleefully recount the stories of some of our more colorful boating moments. Does that count as "Retell a story including details"?

They both have gotten to where they understand the seriousness of certain tasks, like steerage, as you can see in the picture above, where Rowan's manning the rudder of the port hull. He's five years old in that picture. Doesn't really look it, does he? Officially, Rowan should be able to "Understand spatial relationships (top/bottom, near/far, before/behind)." I suppose that being given real responsibility to steer the family home, a 47' catamaran, is practical application of that. The fairway he's steering our boat down in that photo involves two 90-degree turns and only five feet of clearance on either side. And if he made a mistake, the results would be catastrophic to say the least. He handled it beautifully, and now, at six and a half, he routinely takes the helm in straight-sailing situations. Is that too much pressure? Or is that "Assignments should be challenging, but only enough to encourage your child to do the most he can on his own"?

So how do I get from the place where my confidence in them and my pride in their knowing of practical things trumps bystanders' demands of standard curricula, and their desire to impose that set of values on my children's learning, and my choices for their learning paths? How do I explain, in casual (?) conversation, that although it is not on the curricula, that having a stake in the tasks the family undertakes, and responsibly executing those tasks, counts for far more in a successful life than sitting down for their expected 20+ minutes of homework every day? And how do I walk the line between enough challenge, and other people's perception of "too much"? I am exhausted from living up to other people's expectations; they don't read, that's bad, they drive the boat, that's too much, they climb the mast, that's too dangerous, they watch TV, that's bad, they watch the nature channel, that's good. It's a constant balance between too much and not enough, and the constant judgment is onerous.

Perhaps life would be easier if "mind your own business and suspend your own judgment" was on someone's curriculum.

Laureen is a writer, a professional editor, a scuba instructor, a beginning sailor, a traveler, and an obsessive researcher who's chiefly focused on, and delighted with, her husband Jason, her sons Rowan and Kestrel, and her daughter Aurora. She's a lifelong Californian, which lends a very distinctive spin to both her ideas and her politics, and she's discovered, in her peregrinations, that the world is far smaller yet far more fascinating than anyone gives it credit for being. She holds forth her opinions on that in her blog, The ElementalMom.

The Socialization Question

by Jena

If you decide to home school, you'll find that everyone is concerned about the socialization of your children. Complete strangers will make comments and relatives will sincerely worry your kids are suffering from lack of socialization. But in all honesty, the socialization issue convinced me to home school.

I met my first home schooler in 1990 when my oldest was around one year old. Because I was trained as a classroom teacher, I viewed her with quite a bit of curiosity. She had school desks in her kitchen and educational posters hanging in her hallway. Hmm...school at home? I liked the idea, but I just wasn't sure it was educationally sound. It had been a few years since I'd graduated, so I went to the library and consulted some of my favorite educational theorists. What stuck out to me was the social engineering behind schooling and the overarching goal of "making good citizens." It sounds nice. I didn't want Peter to grow up to be a bad citizen, but I also wanted him to have a free mind and be willing to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson or James Madison, standing up to his government if that's what his conscience dictated. I didn't want him to melt into the crowd and become another cog in the social machine.

That imagery reminds me of several Calvin and Hobbes cartoons by Bill Watterson. One of my favorites shows Calvin holding a snowflake for Show and Tell, a "unique and exquisite crystal that turns into an ordinary, boring molecule of water...when you bring it in the classroom..."

But socialization is good. Why keep kids from it? I think we have a narrow view of socialization. Here are some definitions:

From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Socialization: the process whereby an individual learns to adjust to a group (or society) and behave in a manner approved by the group (or society). According to most social scientists, socialization essentially represents the whole process of learning throughout the life course and is a central influence on the behavior, beliefs, and actions of adults as well as of children.

From The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy:

socialization
Learning the customs, attitudes, and values of a social group, community, or culture. Socialization is essential for the development of individuals who can participate and function within their societies, as well as for ensuring that a society's cultural features will be carried on through new generations. Socialization is most strongly enforced by family, school, and peer groups, and continues throughout an individual's lifetime. (See also acculturation.)

Socialization is a life-long pursuit of learning how to function in your world, wherever that might be. But are schools the best place or the only place a child can be socialized?

To help me decide, I thought through a typical day at school. The child enters a classroom in the early morning, has an assigned seat in which he is to sit and be quiet and pay attention for about 50 minutes. Then a bell rings and he moves to another classroom (I know, early elementary classes don't usually change rooms, but stick with me). There he sits quietly, pays attention, the bell rings, repeat. If he tries to socialize during these classroom periods, he gets reprimanded.

What might my child learn from this daily, weekly, monthly experience? I think he'd learn to pass notes when the teacher isn't looking. I think he'd learn ways around the system that keeps him sitting still and quiet for hours, trying to focus on things he's not interested in. I think he'd bond with kids his age because they are all trapped in the same system, with no voice for real change, trying to make the best of their situation. That bonding would alienate him from kids in "other groups," and he'd learn to resent the adult in the room.

If that sounds too negative, a good student who seems to cope well in school learns to "play the game" to get the grades and teacher recommendations to get into a good college. He also learns to view his peers as competition and probably won't be too willing to help them succeed.

Eventually, he finishes 12th grade and graduates. He'll probably go on to college, where he'll experience a little more freedom in his day. In fact, he'll probably be so relieved that he'll have to fight the "caged animal set free" syndrome I see everyday here in my university town.

Then finally, graduation from college and on to a job! But wait, at his job he won't switch topics every 50 minutes. And he'll have to talk to and relate to people of all ages. In fact, that same-aged peer group has now scattered. He's on his own, skilled at bucking the system but not improving it, and forced to make decisions when most of his life has been dictated for him. Where's the preparation and "socialization" in that?

I had (and continue to have) other concerns about doing school the traditional way. I wonder about personality numbing, that phenomenon that occurs after a few years of schooling when your playful child becomes afraid to show his true self to his peers. I see it as a rainbow becoming shades of gray so it blends in and won't draw attention to itself. I also wonder about unhealthy coping mechanisms that go undetected because parents aren't around their kids during the day and because teachers have their hands full. And I am concerned about over-worked, disrespected teachers who are poorly paid and expected to perform miracles with thirty kids of various abilities.

I wanted to give my child a chance to experience life without any of these concerns. If I would become a student of my child and give him all the encouragement and opportunity possible, I believed he would flourish. If he could take park district classes, music lessons, volunteer at the local historic site, join non-school sports teams, or get involved in community theater, I believed he would become confident in his abilities and know how to work with people of all ages. If he was allowed to delve deeply and uninterrupted into his interests, I believed he would learn how to find answers, would love the process of learning, and become an expert in many areas. At least that was my theory when I started.

And so far, with my kids, I was right.

photos: international travel and new friends, and Meg as Gabriella in High School Musical

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Schedules and Lists and Things

by Diane, guest author

Funny things happen when you begin to take away the structure from a previously-over-structured kid. I don't think I would have ever been able to grasp just how programmed my child is/was - that is, until we began homeschooling. It also hadn't occurred to me that Cole has been picking up my organizational habits and methods his entire life, and more pertinently, since he's been home with me, working, almost every day.

When we made the decision to pull Cole out of school, I knew I wanted to pursue a classical ("trivium") method of homeschooling combined with an unschooling environment. I spoke to experienced homeschooling parents and hung out with their families. I liked what I saw - open, loving, intelligent and engaged families. Four months later, this is still my ultimate goal.

Though I know it will realistically take years to achieve, I hope to provide a true unschooling environment for Cole with rich and diverse resources, activities, and groups available to him. I know in my heart this is the key to his success and joy in learning. There have been glimpses of it from the beginning. So, I'm starting to relax into our new life, and this new calm gave me the courage to begin loosening the reigns in Cole's daily schedule and giving him the opportunity to naturally discover learning situations throughout the day or an opportunity to create them to his liking as the ever-nagging boredom monkey on his back dictates.

I wasn't quite sure what our days would bring, but I knew Cole would be excited by the freedom, and I was excited by the new lesson in self-direction and responsibility Cole would find in occupying his time productively. For six long years, someone else has always told him what to do and when to do it without bothering with the why to do it, necessarily. This was going to be a tremendous change. When I told Cole of my idea, he was, as expected, very happy and proud to be trusted with this almost incomprehensible freedom. What would happen the following day, I could never have guessed.

.....

The next day found me up early working at the computer as usual. Cole lumbered out of bed, mumbled a good morning, and plopped himself down on the couch. I replied and kept working away. I was in the dining room, and I could see the top of Cole's head just above the couch in the living room. He was so quiet and hadn't moved; I assumed he fell back asleep as often happens during the week. So, I kept working.

Pretty soon, I was startled by Cole jumping up abruptly to make his way over to me. He was carrying a spiral notebook and pen, and I realized about half way through Cole's trip from the living room to me that he was describing the schedule he had just worked up for himself for the week!

SCHEDULE! Schedule?!

Really? Hadn't I JUST abolished this idea of restrictive and prescribed learning? I thought I'd liberated us both from constraints and deadlines, but alas, after covering the 20 short feet from the living room to the dining room, the kiddo had reinstated...The Schedule. LOL.

At least it was a schedule to HIS liking, and being the overly-organized person I am, I smiled proudly at the little man for his wisdom in planning out his day. It may have been scheduled learning, but it was still his day filled with his choices. And, how smart to plan to have all of your studies done just in time for your friends to be home from school? I believe Cole was so excited by his new control; he expressed his joy in meticulously rendering this detailed agenda in which Monday included reading, language arts, math, and art; Tuesday was much the same with a little computer work and time outside with the dogs; and so it went.

What did I learn here? There is a difference between being programmed to do something a certain way every day verses scheduling a list of chosen activities.

Cole asked what his daily "Special" was going to be every day for three weeks after we pulled him out of school. A Special is an activity outside of normal classwork such as Library, gym, computer, art, and music. It's taken Cole about four months to realize that if he wants to make a poster or work on a drawing rather than doing his math at any given time, he can. If he wants to go hang out in his den and dig on some music while playing with his Army men, that's great. Cole is allowed to go outside to play with the dogs at any point in the day. He knows when he's antsy and needing to burn some energy.

 In fact, as long as Cole completes a certain amount of reading, writing, and math each week, he can do as he pleases most of the day. We are all learning that Cole knows more of what he needs than anyone (including US). That's not to say he doesn't need some direction; he is only 11, but my point is that given a learning environment rich in resources, he will take advantage of it - and not just the art and music and time with the dog - though all of those are wonderful learning experiences. Two weeks ago, Cole asked if instead of looking up spelling words in the dictionary if I would consider making a crossword for each list. !!! Brilliant! Cole still learns the definition of the words and gets to work a puzzle in figuring it out. He never complains about this weekly task as he has ultimate buy-in; it was his idea!

So, what did we learn from this experience? In the most basic terms, I learned that even unschooling can exist within a scheduled environment (and I like it that way too! ha ha ha - no surprise there.), and Cole has found there are days when there's nothing you can do but set aside the worksheets and the pencils and the schedule to simply hang with the dogs, listen to some tunes, and think. Cole and I are finding our brains work so much more effectively and creatively if we allow our tasks to mirror our moods and to stop worrying so much about checking off the list; rather, we use the list as a map in the event we feel lost.

We are truly independent adventurers in our own journey in learning!

 

Diane is an writer, an artist, and a work-from-home, small business owning and homeschooling mother to her 11 year old son, Cole. After five agonizing years of watching her son struggle within the public and private school systems in their area, Diane overcame her fears and began homeschooling in the Fall of 2008.  With the support of her family, friends, and network of homeschooling buddies, Diane hopes to provide a more natural, respectful, and FUN learning environment for Cole.  Her current challenge is the transition in unschooling the institutionalized learner - "trying to get the school out!"    Diane's blog: Rants and Raves of a Homeschool Mom

The Value of Lazy

by Becky

Dinner with unschooling friends; kids mixing and mingling all around, is the perfect place for a blog post to begin.  Lively conversation, intense debate; it's all excellent fodder for my brain to percolate on educational philosophy and our collective parenting culture.  This particular evening led to lots of conversation about the way our culture views laziness. 

Webster's says that the definition of lazy is: averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion; indolent.  Sounds pretty negative, huh?  Particularly because we live in a culture which values work and productivity above many other things.  We've created a system of pay-offs and incentives to train children to become workers so that we can continue making more, being more, doing more, and then we hurry up and do a little bit more so that we can finally relax when we're 70.  Interesting system, I think.  And not very supportive of creativity, mindfulness, or letting things unfold in a gentle manner.

As we sat around the table and debated, a visiting grandfather insisted that his skepticism of unschooling stems from the belief that structure and discipline must be taught, and that said structure and discipline are necessary in  order to achieve future success.  He was educated in England, and when he looks back on his childhood, he is certain that if he had not been required to go to school, he would have been completely and totally lazy.  He also believes that he would never have accomplished the things in life that he has, had it not been for his education.  When I asked him about the word lazy, he explained that he probably would have laid on his bed and read most days, and would never have been motivated to explore or learn anything new on his own.  And here lies the question:  What does it mean to learn something new?  Why isn't reading a book all day as valuable as attending a compulsory class?

This fascinates me.  And I'm also not surprised to hear it.  If you've been educated by a system from a very early age which maps out your learning and schedules your time for you, of course you are going to wonder whether it is possible to do anything of your own accord.  Many of us who are raising unschooled children were not unschooled ourselves and have had to work hard to re-train our brains in this way.  What I realize now, of course, is that a child who chooses to "laze around" and read all day is learning a whole lot.  To some it may look like laziness, to me it looks like an education. 

Chances are good that folks like this particular grandfather may indeed have never become lawyers or accountants or physicians, had it not been for the gold stars and incentives handed out in school.  But the bigger question to me is certainly, what else would they have accomplished at their own pace and in their own time?  The external motivation that school places on kids to work hard for future success is tempting.  However it involves handing over our children's internal motivation to a team of adults who may or may not have their best interests at heart.

And what about success?  Why can our culture not value the success of the child who chooses to become as juggler as highly as the one who chooses to study law?  Imagine the possibilities in a community where a child's internally motivated choices are valued regardless of standardized test scores, future earning potential, or eventual retirement benefits.  Imagine the sense of health and well-being that would radiate from a community of people following their internally motivated passions freely, pursuing lifestyles in alignment with their interests and talents.  Quite possibly, road rage, stomach ulcers, and ridiculously jam-packed schedules would become a thing of the past.  People would become human beings, not human doings. 

From the outside looking in, I suppose our unschooling lifestyle could be considered lazy, by conventional standards.  We go to bed when we're tired.  We wake up when we're not.  We eat when we're hungry and we read or play and take adventures when we feel like it.  Some days we're busy and some days we're not.  Some days just not killing each other is the best we can do.  But it's rarely about productivity and it's never about anyone else's agenda but our own.  We focus on ourselves, each other and our place in our community as well as the world.  We build relationships and explore possibilities.  We don't call it lazy, we call it our unschooled life. 

Becky is the unschooling mother of three (Janey, 12, Macy, 10 and Charley, 7) attempting to raise her children with compassion and respect.  She taught elementary school for 9 years before discovering unschooling when it was time for her oldest to go to Kindergarten.  She credits Sandra Dodd, Mary Griffith, Jan Hunt, and just about every other person she interacted with at her first HSC Home=Education conference 6 years ago, as her inspiration to find a more natural way of living and learning with children.  She is a passionate and radical transportation activist and is starting a non-profit carsharing organization in her town.  You can read more of what Becky has to say at http://lifewithoutschool.blogspot.com   She can be reached at ashlandcarshare@gmailcom.

Peace Through Breakfast

by Laureen

I have been working on provisioning the boat lately. For you landlubbers, "provisioning" and "stockpiling" are the same thing. But provisioning is generally tougher than land stockpiling, because everything gets wet and alternately hot and cold, and thrown around a lot, and weight's a consideration. So there are challenges.

Because of these challenges, I've been tending more towards dried foods, like beans, and then looking at multiple-use things... for example, what kinds of recipes include beans for breakfast? Thus, I found this spiffy little site, Mr. Breakfast. I love Mr. Breakfast. I don't even eat dairy or gluten, so a lot of the stuff on the site is unusable to me, but I was utterly charmed by his entry, "Breakfast in Iraq".

If you'd ever like to make these Iraqi dishes for a friend, you may want to tell that friend about a great Iraqi custom: It is not fit to return a neighbor's dish empty. From sharing breakfast from communal trays to making sure no good breakfast deed goes unrewarded, the tradition of breakfast in Iraq should show us that most Iraqis are decent people.

The Iraqi people may not like us too much sometimes. They may see American men as gluttons and American women as sluts. But you know what? When I'm in a bad mood, sometimes I see the world that way too. A lot of Westerners generalize the Iraqi people as the enemy. That's what you do when you're dragged into war. But we have to remember that in the end, we're all just people... we all go to sleep at night and we all get up in the morning. And through it all, when we wake, the first thing our bodies crave is not democracy, religious solidarity, or blood... it's breakfast... one meal... one important way that we might find that it's better to learn about cultures and possibly even respect them, before we blindly consider them weird or immoral and denounce them. May breakfast bring our nations closer together as it does our families. Amen. (The same closing for both Christian and Muslim prayer, although in Iraq it is often spelled "Aameen" and spoken with rolling gargle sound after the first syllable.)

Can I just say, the approach to peace entrances me? I've already written a lot about how my family tends to associate food and learning about different cultures. I honestly hadn't connected food to peace in quite this way, despite a professor I had in grad school, who insisted that we bring food to class, because "you must put down your weapons to pick up your food."

I think about the typical rushed schooling family's breakfast; whatever can be grabbed while careening out the door. That tends to be our culture's approach to a lot of larger issues that are just too overwhelming to contemplate. It had never occurred to me, as Mr. Breakfast suggests, that breakfast is itself a learning opportunity. But I like it a whole lot. The idea that the meal we begin a day with might bring us closer to understanding people, and might be the perfect touchpoint, appeals greatly.

Bring on the bigilla.

Laureen is a writer, a professional editor, a scuba instructor, a beginning sailor, a traveler, and an obsessive researcher who's chiefly focused on, and delighted with, her husband Jason, her sons Rowan and Kestrel, and her daughter Aurora. She's a lifelong Californian, which lends a very distinctive spin to both her ideas and her politics, and she's discovered, in her peregrinations, that the world is far smaller yet far more fascinating than anyone gives it credit for being. She holds forth her opinions on that in her blog, The ElementalMom.

Learning to Love Reading

by Marian, Guest Author

A child only pours herself into a little funnel or into a little box when she's afraid of the world when she's been defeated. But when a child is doing something she's passionately interested in, she grows like a tree in all directions. This is how children learn, how children grow. They send down a taproot like a tree in dry soil. The tree may be stunted, but it sends out these roots, and suddenly one of these little taproots goes down and strikes a source of water. And the whole tree grows. ~ John Holt

My son is what I call a 'square-peg child'. He has a condition called Sensory Processing Disorder that makes him uniquely sensitive to outside stimulus such as noise, light and quick transitions. You can imagine that school was a nightmare.

I came to homeschooling through my experience with my son. I realized that he was an unusual child quite early on and started reading about homeschooling then, but always thought it was a pie-in-the-sky notion of mine. When I realized just how damaging school was to my son's fragile ego, it happily had to become a reality.

One of the most troubling things to come out of the school experience was the fact that my son, the son of two avid readers, hated books. He hated not only books but anything to do with reading.

Well, no wonder. The readers that were sent home from school were published in England. They were incredibly dull books with no meat to them. And then, there was the whole concept of 'levelled readers'. While the teacher never made mention of levels, the children, of course, knew exactly what they meant and knew who was reading at which level and were not shy about comparing their successes with their peers.

What was more disturbing was that the second a child succeeded in reading a level with only a few mistakes, they were given a harder book. There was never any ease or comfort in reading. It was always a hard, boring chore. Children were not allowed to linger in a level to acheive fluency, to enjoy the reading, they were always being forced to struggle through to the next stage to try to keep up with provincial requirements.  My son was giving a D in reading on his first grade one report card. Imagine giving a small child a D.......how is anyone supposed to pick themselves up from a blow like that?

Once we started homeschooling, I quickly realized that unschooling was where we needed to be. I completely back away from the whole concept of teaching my son to read. I stopped asking him to read to me. I continued to surround both of my children with good books and created a comfy space for reading. I read to them frequently. Occassionaly, I'd find my son poring over book and muttering to himself. He mentioned casually, that he could read some of the Dr. Seuss easy readers, but had no desire to read them to me. Suddenly, he started reading signs and posters on the streets.

Then one morning he read a two page comic to me. He proudly announced that he had learned to read in secret.

Self-directed, reading for enjoyment.....all that reading of John Holt suddenly rang so true for me.

Marian is an ex-teacher, software trainer to "special needs" children and a home-schooling mom to two fabulous children.

 

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

by Jena

My oldest son Peter likes to think and learn about education.  One day he ran across this video on ted.com by creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson. The website describes it this way: Ken Robinson "challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence." He's not a home schooler or a home school advocate, as far as I know. He's an academic, speaking to the establishment. But he's anything but boring. Trust me, if you are on this blog, you will love this guy. Just listen to the first two minutes and you'll be hooked. The video is about 20 minutes long. Get some hot chocolate, a cozy blanket, and enjoy!

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Pacifying the Beast

by  Becky

Every once in a while it happens.  For some of us, it happens a lot.  Fear and panic grip us, and we worry that unschooling can't possibly work.  After all those years of schooling and being schooled ourselves, living in a world where school = learning, it is very easy to trip and fall on the slippery slope of self doubt and worry.  Here's what I do:  I make lists. 

In the early years, they were actual lists, on paper, with numbered columns and check marks.  It helped...a lot.  These days, my fears and worries rarely make it on paper.  When I start to let my mind wander into the murky depths of the future homelessness, mental illness and unemployment of my children as a result of their unschooled life, I make mental lists of the things we do, every day, all day long, which prove my children are learning. 

Here's what a list for today would have looked like:

1.  Morning Walk - pedestrian & traffic safety (social studies), pollution, air quality, seasons, climate, hemispheres (science, meteorology)

2.  Flag Football Game - lost jersey: negotiation, compromise, problem solving, prioritizing, communication (health, social studies), teamwork, communication, following directions, (physical education & social studies)

3.  Laundry - sorting, folding (spatial relations, geometry), reading labels (language arts)

4.  Lunch - health, nutrition, gardening (science, home economics)

5.  Clean Up - (health, home ec.), negotiation, fariness, communication, teamwork, equality, priorities, respect, sharing, cooperation (health)

6.  Wrapping Gifts - creative expression, compassion (geometry, art, health)

7.  Cleaning Sea Shells - vinegar vs. bleach (chemistry lab)

8.  Grocery Shopping - reading, writing (language arts), price comparisons, budgeting, financial planning, estimating, rounding, calculating (math), decision making, event planning, nutrition (home ec.), route planning, (geography), patience, cooperation (health)

9.  Story Telling - personal history, oral communication, speech (social studies), self confidence, stand up comedy (health)

10.  Hanging out at Home -  visit from neighbors (social studies), conversation about music (music history, science, music appreciation), looking through old photos (family history, chronology, math), letter writing (reading, spelling, language arts, art), snowman building, cooperation (geometry, physical education)

11.  Dinner - following recipes, meal planning (reading, math, nutrition, health), communication, cooperation (social studies, health)

12.  Read Aloud/Sleepover with Friends - reading comprehension, & discussion, dramatic play with friends (language arts, creative arts, drama), listening to music (music appreciation)

All of this really happened.  And all of this happened without an adult deciding that it was going to because a particular set of skills needed to be learned today.  When I think back to the lesson planning in my elementary teaching days, I would have been satisfied to cover a fraction of this list in the classroom.  Reviewing this list reminds me that my children are living a rich life every single day because they are creative and curious human beings.  I know this intuitively.  Some days I just need to be reminded.  Making a list can help pacify the beast.  Next time fear creeps in and threatens to sabotage your unschooling life, don't rush out and buy a new curriculum.  Don't head down to the school office to enroll your kids.  Try making a list.  You might be surprised at what you'll find.

Becky is the unschooling mother of three (Janey, 12, Macy, 10 and Charley, 7) attempting to raise her children with compassion and respect.  She taught elementary school for 9 years before discovering unschooling when it was time for her oldest to go to Kindergarten.  She credits Sandra Dodd, Mary Griffith, Jan Hunt, and just about every other person she interacted with at her first HSC Home=Education conference 6 years ago, as her inspiration to find a more natural way of living and learning with children.  She is a passionate and radical transportation activist and is starting a non-profit carsharing organization in her town.  You can read more of what Becky has to say at http://lifewithoutschool.blogspot.com   She can be reached at ashlandcarshare@gmailcom.

Some Practical Advice on College Entrance

by Bettina

The goal of many homeschooled students it to finish high school and head off to university. These days college entrance is fairly simple for homeschoolers. I am going to share some practical advice from my travels through the wilds of college admissions.

 (1) Have your child prepared for the application process. Have them read and research online and in college catalogues.

(2)Every university I've explored has a clear outline of college preparatory classes that students are required to have taken before they will be considered for entrance.

 (3) Have your child take the SATs late in their Jr year. This gives plenty of time to retake if the scores are too low for comfort regarding entrance to the school/s to which applications will be submitted.

 (4) Check out the Princeton Review online for info on GPAs and SAT scores for the institutions your child has expressed interest in.

(5) Don't try to make your child attend a college because you think its best. Guidance is great, overbearing egotism is not. Back off and allow your (grown!) child to find the school that is the best fit.

 (6) The College Board website provides links to online practice tests, information on SAT prep courses and tons of other information. Exploring there is a good idea.

 (7) Get that FAFSA filed! The Free Application for Federal Student Aid is a form that everyone hoping to receive any sort of financial aid must fill out. Give yourself some time; you will need to submit tax info and perhaps other financial documents. It can be time consuming.

 (8) Are you looking for scholarship information? Go here for tons of scholarships. It's a sort of clearinghouse for scholarships. Once you create an account, you will receive emails informing you of scholarships you/your child may be eligible for as well as competitions for scholarship money. You should read about the different types of scholarships and familiarize yourself with the language. Chances are your university will have scholarships that are particular to that school and for which you can apply as well.

 (9) Have a transcript of courses, either in a notebook or on your computer. There are templates online but you can make a fine one using Excel or any spreadsheet generator. Here is a starting point but you can Google around until you are comfortable making your own or until you find a template that you like. You will need course names, grades, the grade translated into a 4 point scale and totals for these. Grades 9-12 should be included.  

(10) A diploma is nice if your state homeschooling statutes allow you to award one or do not expressly forbid it.

 (11) Go look. Harvard and MIT sound  great on the news and on TV shows, but the only way to get a real feel for the campus, the 'vibe', and whether or not your child will be comfortable there is to visit. Most (all?) universities have a program in which prospective students can stay the night on campus with a host student. This is a great way for a homeschooled Senior to get a feeling for what living away from home might be like. Your child may be better off at a less well-known   school that provides the size, classes and activities that will mean a successful college experience. 

(12) Community College is a wonderful place for homeschooled students to get some college experience  and  establish a real-world GPA while still living at home. A personal note: My daughter's 4.0 GPA at our local community college was key in her acceptance at both universities she applied to, as well as her being awarded a substantial merit scholarship. Don't underestimate the value of even 1 semester at your local CC.

 (13) Be reasonable. The Admissions people are not out to get you because you homeschooled your child. If they ask for information you can't provide, tell them and offer them the alternatives you can provide. Example: My daughter applied to a University in New York but we live in North Carolina. The University requested some information that is available from a state agency for NY homeschoolers but which is unavailable in NC. I called, explained the differing homeschool statutes and requirements and told them what we had. They were fine with that. No problems.

Certainly there are a million other things you can do to help market your student to potential colleges such as academic, art and sports portfolios, AP exams, ACTs, etc. I hope this information will be helpful to some who are just beginning the exciting road to higher learning.

Bettina Colonna Essert is a native of the Virginia/North Carolina borderland. She currently lives on a 'farmette' in rural NE NC with her husband, 2 home schooled children and a menagerie of farm animals. Bettina is an Equine Sports Massage Therapist.

AlI I Needed to Know About P.E. I Learned from Jackie Chan

by Laureen

I have mentioned, in a few other posts and a few other places, that we, uh, you know... watch videos.

We watch them for fun. Not for, um, educational purposes, other than that study after study proves what parents have known since time immemorial; kids that spend time with their families, discussing things, are more confident, inquisitive, and engaged people.

We are massive Jackie Chan fans. From his early days, to the Golden Harvest films, to Rush Hour, to him singing one of the songs in Disney's Mulan, we've never met a Jackie Chan film we didn't like. They're fun, they're funny, and they're a fabulous example of what the human body can do. We usually snuggle up on the couch together, drink tea (chinese oolong, of course), and talk about Jackie and China and martial arts and Cory Yuen's spectacular fight choreography and all that kind of stuff.

Not a teaching moment, yeah? Pure escapism and shoddy parenting, right?

Wrong.

A few days ago, while we were out of town visiting my in-laws, a friend of the family stopped by to visit. He's a martial arts teacher, and can't resist new pupils. So he asked Rowan, "if I grab your hands like this..." and in the blink of an eye, Rowan was out of it. "How'd you know to do that?" the friend asked, puzzled. "Jackie Chan!" Rowan announced proudly. They went on to play martial arts together, Rowan displaying an astonishingly wide knowledge of attacks, defenses, stances, and implements.

It was marvelous. While I thought we'd just been goofing off, enjoying the entertainment value of the films, Rowan was sucking down the information, processing it, storing it, and retrieving it, in a way I would never have dreamed he could. I had no idea he was studying martial arts. I thought we were, y'know, engaged in mental escapism. Interestingly, not only had Rowan internalized the basics of the moves, he'd also internalized Jackie's style. The friend is more of a wing chun, Bruce Lee kind of guy, while Rowan had that lighthearted "Drunken Master" kind of motion going on, and it suited him nicely.

It was an excellent wake-up for me, that they really are learning constantly, and that there really isn't any way to "just" do anything. There's always another dynamic, learning happening on some level.

But I'm really, really nervous about letting him watch Spiderman now.

Laureen is a writer, a professional editor, a scuba instructor, a beginning sailor, a traveler, and an obsessive researcher who's chiefly focused on, and delighted with, her husband Jason, her sons Rowan and Kestrel, and her daughter Aurora. She's a lifelong Californian, which lends a very distinctive spin to both her ideas and her politics, and she's discovered, in her peregrinations, that the world is far smaller yet far more fascinating than anyone gives it credit for being. She holds forth her opinions on that in her blog, The ElementalMom.

Crucial Elements

by Shay

(this is a recycled post from March of 2006)

I was lucky to have an unconventional youth, during which short periods of my life were defined largely by who I was and what interested me. These were my halcyon days, upon which I still look with pleasure.  Some time ago, I made a brief list of the elements that were crucial to these idyllic periods:

• learning by following my heart and by doing
• feeling accepted and welcomed
• engaged in meaningful work
• peaceful surroundings
• having my private space
• a strong sense of self
• feeling loved
• participating in enjoyable physical activities
• enjoying a healthful lifestyle
• feeling in love with life
• feeling safe
• knowing I make a difference

Looking at this list now, I see that my daughters are far luckier than I was; their unconventional youth affords them great sweeping expanses of life defined by who they are and what interests them.

Recently I have concluded that fun and magic are crucial elements in the design of my life today. They are nearly as essential to me as air and water. Without fun and magic, it would not be my life.

My children have repeatedly demonstrated that they are much more perceptive than most people give kids credit for. They pick up on nuances, read between lines, hear between words, scrutinize the examples we set. Scanning our lives for ideas, traits, thoughts, and ways of being that they can welcome or reject, they reflect who we are by being who they are, not our little dittos. I wonder what this revelation, about the essentialness of fun and magic, will signify. How it will affect my children's view of their own lives, and how much of their lives will they look back upon with pleasure?

Shay Seaborne is an edgewalker, known to leap empty-handed into the void. Fun and magic are crucial elements in the design of her life. Shay filed her first Notice of Intent to homeschool in Virginia in 1995. She loves living and learning with her two daughters, who are turning out well despite being raised far from the turbid waters of the mainstream. Shay’s homeschool blog is “Anecdotal Evidence.”

by Shay

(this is a recycled post from March of 2006)

I was lucky to have an unconventional youth, during which short periods of my life were defined largely by who I was and what interested me. These were my halcyon days, upon which I still look with pleasure.  Some time ago, I made a brief list of the elements that were crucial to these idyllic periods:

• learning by following my heart and by doing
• feeling accepted and welcomed
• engaged in meaningful work
• peaceful surroundings
• having my private space
• a strong sense of self
• feeling loved
• participating in enjoyable physical activities
• enjoying a healthful lifestyle
• feeling in love with life
• feeling safe
• knowing I make a difference

Looking at this list now, I see that my daughters are far luckier than I was; their unconventional youth affords them great sweeping expanses of life defined by who they are and what interests them.

Recently I have concluded that fun and magic are crucial elements in the design of my life today. They are nearly as essential to me as air and water. Without fun and magic, it would not be my life.

My children have repeatedly demonstrated that they are much more perceptive than most people give kids credit for. They pick up on nuances, read between lines, hear between words, scrutinize the examples we set. Scanning our lives for ideas, traits, thoughts, and ways of being that they can welcome or reject, they reflect who we are by being who they are, not our little dittos. I wonder what this revelation, about the essentialness of fun and magic, will signify. How it will affect my children's view of their own lives, and how much of their lives will they look back upon with pleasure?

Shay Seaborne is an edgewalker, known to leap empty-handed into the void. Fun and magic are crucial elements in the design of her life. Shay filed her first Notice of Intent to homeschool in Virginia in 1995. She loves living and learning with her two daughters, who are turning out well despite being raised far from the turbid waters of the mainstream. Shay’s homeschool blog is “Anecdotal Evidence.”

If You Can't Find It

by Robin

This has not been the best year of my life, or so I tend to think these days. This year, I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease and several other tick borne diseases.

I've been sickish and progressively sicker for at least 5 years and took a neurological dive this past summer into the fall. Lyme disease, contrary to popular misperception, can develop into an entrenched chronic immune suppressive infection unless quickly treated with the proper antibiotics for at least 28 days to 6 weeks. It is a neurological infection just like its "cousin," syphilis. It can make you insane, and that's about how I have been feeling the past few months. Neuroborreliosis, aka Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb)/Lyme disease can be an underlying cause of ALS, Parkinson's, MS, lupus, CFS, fibromyalgia, Alzheimer's, senility. Add in the fact that ticks often carry a plethora of diseases that they obtain from their vector host (the white footed mouse), we often see what some are calling Lyme complex, which means a lot of pathogens having a party in an immune compromised host.

I am infectedwith Bb, two forms of babesia (the American malaria), and hemobartonella. I know folks who also have CMV, Epstein Barr, HHV-6, and other viruses running loose as well. I have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue (which translates to chronic pain and incapacitating fatigue), chills, tremors, joint problems, and various neurological symptoms. My head buzzes and spins, most times a low hum of firey fuzz. I can't think or talk straight at times. Lights hurt my eyes and noise my ears. Sometimes I can't remember what I am talking about or what I did a few minutes ago. I can feel unstable, emotional, anxious, depressed. I can slur words and get a "buzz out" kind of dizzy feeling that makes me feel as if I am losing consciousness.

My digestive tract is on strike. I lost 30 pounds almost overnight. My body aches, and I can be ragged out tired for a day or so; I recover and I have energy again; then, I am hit once again. I tremor and shake. Old childhood fears have resurfaced. (How do you ask your daughter to stand in the crack of the door of the public bathroom that you persist must not be shut tight because you are terrified of being locked in?). When I take medications that kill the Bb in my brain, I experience strong herxheimer reactions (die off where the toxins from the bugs explode into the body and cause symptoms to increase) which can drop me into a deep depression almost overnight, or cause my Lyme induced anxiety to surface big time. I can't drive for over 30 minutes without experiencing severe hypersomnia. My body goes into tremors when I vacuum the house, sometimes one room will do me in. Last time I did the whole house, the tremors lasted 3 days. I can't get alot done at once. I have to slowly pace myself. I am unreliable. You cannot depend on me.

In the midst of my struggles with Lyme complex, I am a homeschooling mother with two children who are depending on me, one who is undergoing treatment for infection with Bb that we think we caught before "late stage" chronic (often children with Lyme infection do not manifest chronic infection until puberty). They depend on me to take them to fun and interesting places with their friends. They depend on me to make sure they are not left out of social gatherings as much as possible. They depend of me to forget my worries and live in the present with them as much as possible. They depend on me to be a strong, sure, safe presence for them. They have missed outings. They see a mom almost constantly in pain, sometimes too involved in getting well to pay attention to them. They have seen me crawl into a ball and weep for hours. I have failed them. I am not the image of the mom that I want to be for my children.

I recently posted my lamentations and concerns to my local Lyme disease support group e-list. What I heard in response was uplifting and has given me a light to place at the end of my tunnel. Several people talked about how their children have become more compassionate and stronger because of their illness. These children received gifts in the garbage and are grander, fuller people because of it. Moms talked of days in bed playing boardgames with their children,watching movies together, talking with each other. They talked of how their children adapted and how they all found blessings in the curse, so to speak. Down time became its on special time.

So, I too have made a conscious effort to seek the blessing. I still feel tremendous guilt and anger at my situation (and myself) at times, especially when the bugs are acting up in my head. But I am trying to look past that and to look at what my children are gaining from this instead of what they are losing. I'm trying to let go and believe in the process of healing.

Learning happens in all kinds of thrilling and everyday and even nasty looking situations. Each event in our lives is an opportunity to grow and learn, and how we chose to frame that is important.

What are my children learning?

Today my children are learning compassion. They are learning how mom is a human being and that human beings are imperfect and survive that, and they are learning that they can survive my imperfections. We can even laugh about them sometimes or at least put them into perspective.. oh.. its the Lyme again...

They are learning to help out because it is just plain helpful to do so and because they have to at times to get what they want or need when they want or need it. They are learning to do things on their own like cook, clean, and generally take more responsibility for themselves.

They are learning that they will survive if they miss a few events with their friends. Their friends will not forget them or find new friends to take their place. Bumps in the road of life do not have to define reality. They are bumps and we move on, and friends are friends.

Today my children are learning about the human body, the human psyche, and Spirit. They are learning how all are interconnected and how one effects the other.

They are learning about biology! How could they not? We talk about these things and look information up on the Internet, check out books at the library just like we do with any other interest. We have been delving into quantum physics as well, and getting a kick out of our U- Tube searches on string theory and genes. Here are a few of our favorites:

General search on string theory:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+string+theory&search_type=&aq=f

Series called Ghost in the Genes:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ghost+in+the+genes&search_type=&aq=f

They are learning about nutraceuticals, herbs, and supplements and why we might need them and what foods to eat to avoid the supplements.. that was my youngest who demanded I look *that* (magnesium) up on the Internet.. then I bought a lovely illustrated book about foods and their nutritional values.

They are learning about healthy foods and how unhealthy eating habits can make one more prone to imbalances in the body. They are learning to eat better because they see the value in it and because we learned that we all are gluten intolerant. Talk about adding insult to injury. On the other hand, we are learning to enjoy foods we would have probably not touched before.

Today my children are going on with their lives despite my oft designated spot lump form on the sofa and despite my preoccupation with my situation. They are learning to ignore me when they need to and to laugh and play despite "where I am" physically or emotionally, although they will check in with me. They often refuse to buy into my fear of ticks (and believe me, this is a problem for many of us with tick borne illnesses since treatment can take so long.. years, and some can never come off of antibiotics). They are learning that I do not and should not define their reality. That's a huge lesson, and they are learning it with patience and with frustration. That's life. They are beautiful children.

They are learning that life is not perfect and that we sometimes have to shift gears, change habits, and change perspectives. We sometimes have to adjust our expectations and perceptions and go with the flow, and sometimes, it's mom who needs most of the perception adjusting.

It is not easy for any of us right now. But they will survive, and so will I. It's a process and learning happens. It's all a part of life.

To repeat myself (because I need to hear it more than you):

Learning happens in all kinds of thrilling and everyday and even nasty looking situations. Each event in our lives is an opportunity to grow and learn, and how we chose to frame that is so important.

In this season, when the human spirit especially longs for and looks to give and receive thanks giving, faith, hope, love, and peace, while you are slowing down to acknowledge the good things in your life and give them their Proper Due, I share these quotes for me and for those who need to hear them as well.

If you can't find it, you're trying too hard. - Eric Pearl

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. - Melodie Beattie

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude. - Denis Waitley

Robin is a homeschooling mom of two and a natural living enthusiast currently in the school of hard knocks taking graduate courses in Lyme disease. 

An Interview

by Jena

Questions, questions, questions...they help us get to the point, don't they? Here's what My friend at Stone Age Techie recently asked me:

1) Have your children always been home schooled? How did you develop your unschooling philosophy?

Yes, we've always home schooled. The only exceptions have been when Peter went to a private school in 9th grade that only met on Mondays and Wednesdays. Missa is doing public school for the first time now in 9th grade. Meg, a high school junior, is pursing her own version of an arts high school at home.

How did I develop my unschooling philosophy? I went to college to be a teacher and I never once thought I'd be a home schooler. Home schoolers were some weird off-breed of humanity who were outside my world. But when my first child was a baby, we attended a church that had a homeschooling family and they seemed pretty normal (this was around 1990). So I was intrigued. I went to her house to see what homeschooling looked like. They had desks in the kitchen and school work taped to the walls. Interesting! That got me thinking. So I went to the library and got some education books. I thought back to my schooling and it dawned on me: the purpose of education is to make "good citizens." That's not a bad thing, but I translated that to mean "good followers." I'd rather my child be a leader, a free-thinker and even a reformer. I didn't want him sucked into a system determined to maintain the status quo. That was the first serious push in the direction of homeschooling.

A few months later I attended a homeschooling conference (he was not even 2 years old yet) and realized this homeschooling thing really was a possibility. To think I could create my own version of school at home with my favorite students! That's heaven, in my opinion.

So now, how was I going to "do school?" It's true that humans are born learners and parents are their first teachers, so I just slid into this unschooling philosophy. My kids loved learning, and so did I. Why did we have to ruin it all with schedules and someone else's curriculum plans? I decided early on that my goal in raising children would be to "maintain the joy of childhood and the joy of learning." If my kids were interested in something, I'd help them get the resources they needed to pursue that interest, and it just kept going year after year.

There were times I'd pull in the reigns more, question this philosophy and buy a canned curriculum. But it never lasted. It would be fine for awhile, but after it drained the fun out of life, we'd abandon it. I didn't think any curriculum was worth keeping if it taught my kids to hate learning.

I liked to look at check lists (I had the Core Knowledge Sequence and other books by E.D. Hirsch). I used those once in awhile to give me ideas of what we could be learning about, what books or videos I could check out, what field trips we could take, etc. But if my kids weren't interested, that was OK. There's always something else around the bend.

2) What was it like in the early days, before homeschooling was even on the radar for much of the country? Did you home school before Google, while the only Internet available was really, really limited? If so, what was that like?

This question is my favorite. It never occurred to me that home schooling before Google would be of interest, but as I think about it, I understand. Getting information is so much easier now than it was ten years ago. Maybe that's why I felt so isolated in my schooling style. But here's the answer: my kids read constantly, especially Peter, and they played dress-up and created worlds of their own. We bought and borrowed books, watched PBS, went interesting places, and just did what seemed fun. That's about it.

3) (Here are my own insecurities coming out) How did your children learn "academics," especially writing and mathematics? I favor the unschooling philosophy, but I still feel reluctant to do math and writing this way. If you did unschool even these subjects, could you provide some examples of what worked for different learning styles? I'm assuming 3 kids, 3 learning styles...

Math is a natural in the world of games. Anything that requires keeping score is addition and subtraction practice. Battleship teaches x and y coordinates. Yahtzee gives multiplication practice. Denise Gaskins produced a few little booklets that I bought at a homeschooling meeting. One is Gotcha! Strategy Games for Math and Logic. They are basically ancient paper and pencil games that make you think. Family Math and others were also fun resources to try out once in awhile.

I did have them memorize the multiplication tables, complete with rewards for progress. But I'm not too good at forcing things on my kids, so it wasn't a complete success. Now Peter is in college and even in the 99th percentile in math on the SAT and ACT, he can't remember basic elementary math facts. But that's true of most everyone and that's why people buy calculators.

When Peter got to 6th grade I bought a math curriculum. That was his first experience with formalized math. From that point on, I tried to require daily math in a workbook or computer program. When he went to the private school in 9th grade he had a wonderful teacher and a class of only three kids, so it was basically a tutoring situation. It was perfect for him. Looking back, I think I should have been more of a dictator in this subject. Find tutors, computer programs, workbooks, videos or Internet resources to keep moving forward in math. It's just too hard to cram all of elementary and high school math for college entrance exams. 

Writing/spelling/grammar is much, much easier. Have them read examples of good writing (books) and give them a journal to express themselves anyway they want. When their imagination creates wonderful worlds, have them write it down for "posterity," not as an assignment. The computer program will alert them to spelling and grammar problems that they will naturally want to fix. Then a couple months before the ACT/SAT, teach them about the five paragraph essay and have them practice writing a few. Probably before they graduate high school, teach them how to write a research paper. But even this is not necessary. Colleges expect to teach freshmen how to write the way that institution wants them to. Besides reading good books, focus on helping them develop organized thinking. Discuss, question, debate--these will all contribute to your child's writing ability. Even blogging, MySpace, IM, and email are all are great ways to practice communicating. My kids are constantly asking me to check their spelling and grammar when they do those things--they don't want to look stupid.

The key to teaching writing? Imagination, logic, and conventions. They can learn conventions by being exposed to them in print (by reading) and through games and workbooks (sparingly). My favorite, very fun book on writing conventions is Woe is I.  Imagination is best developed with freedom to be themselves, and logical thinking comes from talking to others about their ideas. 

4) Have you ever had to defend homeschooling to school officials, relatives, or schooled friends? If so, how did you handle it?

Yes, but not to school officials. Since I have a teaching degree, my parents thought it was fine. They did worry about socialization, but they didn't hassle me. And over time, they saw what great kids they turned out to be and now are very glad I kept them out of school. I find it best not to argue my point but let my life and my results speak for themselves. If someone really wants to argue, I just drop it, smile and thank them for their concern. Often giving them my philosophy--maintain the joy of childhood and the joy of learning--was enough to get them to agree with me! And as far as socialization goes, I'd just mention all the lessons and activities they were in. If your kids are nearby, have them talk to this person and they'll see that home schooled kids are often better socialized than public school kids because they aren't afraid to talk to adults in an intelligent way.

5) We have found home schooling works well for our whole family, in terms of fulfillment of the spirit (spending time out in our community, reading and learning, socializing...), taking care of our home, getting ready for winter (we're semi-locavores), and the day-to-day cooking, cleaning, and nuts-and-bolts parts of our lives. Have you found the same to be true?

Absolutely. Life and learning involves all us together. That's the fun of homeschooling and why I think I'm missing Peter so much, this his first semester away at college.

6) Is there anything you'd like to share that I haven't asked about, regarding homeschooling, parenting, or life in general?

Unschooling works best when you communicate a respect and trust of your child's innate abilities to learn and succeed. This is crucial. Listen to your child and take her seriously. See the unique contribution she has to make in the world. If her conclusions and life-direction don't match up with your ideal, that's ok. That's great, as a matter of fact! Your children need the freedom to be who they are and to discover the joy of life.

If they can get through high school with their love of learning intact, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Someone who loves learning is unstoppable. When they face an obstacle, they will know how to tackle it, be that getting into college, preparing for a job, or starting a business. In fact, I recently wrote a post about this, relating to Peter's experience in his Calculus class. There is a world of facts out there, but what use are facts if you're sick of them or don't know how to find and apply them? A child raised to develop his or her passions will continue to pursue passions forever and be a happy, successful adult.

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Making it Up As We Go Along

by  Becky

Today was one of those days that I relish as an unschooler.  It looked like this: 

Got out of bed when we felt like it.  Ate when we were hungry.  Spent time together.  Spent time apart.  Laughed a little.  Smiled a lot.  Argued and discussed.  Played.  Friends stopped by for an unexpected visit.  Worked in the yard.  Watched a cool program.  Snuggled on the couch.  Knitted.

Sadly, not all of our days look like that.  Some are filled with outings and activities that keep us away from home for most of the day.  Some are filled with paperwork, computer work, phone calls, meetings, laundry and fighting children; grouchy moms, bank statements and messes no one wants to clean up.  Sigh.  But days like today remind me that my kids are learning far more than I realize every single day.

After breakfast, we started a game of Monopoly.  I could tell it was going to be a long one, so I made an extra large cup of coffee and settled in.  I hadn't played in several months, so I was surprised to see that Charley, my 7 year old, needed very little help in figuring his transactions.  As a matter of fact, I had to bite my tongue several times when I felt the urge to hurry him up during his turn.  Had I done so, I would have missed out on his newfound obsession with converting his bills.  When he was cash poor, it was all about 1s and 5s.  When he was rolling in the dough, the constant goal was trading in for 100s and 500s.  Two months ago, he was bored out of his skull while waiting for his turn.  Today, he was figuring mathematical calculations in his head for two and a half hours straight!

Years ago, when I was an elementary school teacher, the educational value of games was not lost on me.  I stocked the shelves in my classroom full of fun stuff like Monopoly, Dominoes, Chess, Checkers, and Scrabble;  all to be played after regular work was completed, of course.  Deep down, I knew kids should be able to play as much as possible.  But back then, I still was plagued by the old belief that somehow it was cheating if learning was too much fun.  Fun learning needed to be balanced by dull, tedious learning; to build character, or to prepare students for standardized tests or college or whatever inevitable discomfort lay ahead.

After 7 years of unschooling and living with three children who have never been to school, I'm aware that the old belief that learning must be difficult, has nearly left my awareness.  Every once in a while, however, it pokes it's head out to remind me that 7 years is nothing compared to the nearly 25 I spent as a student and teacher.  Today, as Macy, my ten year old, was calculating the amount of change she should give me, she got frustrated and looked at me for help.  The old teacher-me lapsed into that tell-tale, high-pitched voice and I found myself explaining the groups of tens and ones and how simple it would be to count backwards from.....

Macy rolled her eyes and pleaded, "Remember Mom?  I don't have to know this unless I want to....remember?  Just tell me how much change I'm supposed to give you and let's get on with it."

Oh.  That's right.  Thankfully, I shoved that old belief back under the surface and on with it, we went.  On with our day.  On with our learning and growing.  Choosing to live life without school comes from my belief that kids should be in charge of their own learning.  Just like they decided when to talk, crawl and walk, I trust that my children will intuitively know when they need to read, write and calculate.  The large amounts of time that we spend together as a family allows for our relationships with one another to be our primary focus.  We deliberate, negoatiate, compromise, bicker, and discuss every single day. I see my most important role to be more "experienced resource person", than wise teacher.

All this time we end up spending together also allows me to witness the miracle of their own self discovery.  Numbers are pondered and sums figured, but chances are good,  it happens in the produce isle at the grocery or peddling up hill on our bikes.  This afternoon, on our bike ride home, Charley explained his theory about day and night and the 24 hour clock.  The conclusions he draws amaze me on a regular basis and the ease with which he connects new pieces of information reinforces my decision to let these kids do life, and learning, in their own way.

In the beginning of our unschooling journey, I worried that there was no plan.  After years of goal setting and curriculum planning with my students, it felt odd to essentially make it up as we went along.  But I've come to realize that this is the beauty of an unschooling life.  It can change at any time.  A few months ago it was ballet and soccer.  This week it's knitting and football.  Our time and our energy is put into whatever it is that makes us feel alive and whole.  I think this quote from Howard Thurman says it all:

"Do not ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive and do that, because what the world needs is those who have come alive."

Becky is the unschooling mother of three (Janey, 12, Macy, 10 and Charley, 7) attempting to raise her children with compassion and respect.  She taught elementary school for 9 years before discovering unschooling when it was time for her oldest to go to Kindergarten.  She credits Sandra Dodd, Mary Griffith, Jan Hunt, and just about every other person she interacted with at her first HSC Home=Education conference 6 years ago, as her inspiration to find a more natural way of living and learning with children.  She is a passionate and radical transportation activist and is starting a non-profit carsharing organization in her town.  You can read more of what Becky has to say at http://lifewithoutschool.blogspot.com   She can be reached at ashlandcarshare@gmailcom.

Tipping Sacred Cows

by Laureen

As you know, if you read my first post here, birth is a big thing for me. I'm actively involved in several birth advocacy groups, and I talk pretty much incessantly about how birth is messed up in this culture, and how women need to be empowered to make better choices outside a system that's inherently flawed.

The other day, on an email discussion list, a person who is a luminary in the birth community, someone who is known internationally for her wisdom and clarity, made a statement that I found to be completely at odds with both my experience, and with the ideal. I thought about it, I stewed on it, and then, politely and with much respect, I called her on it.

She responded gleefully, and a good conversation ensued. But she also commented that she was trying to provoke discussion, and was surprised by the lack of commentary. And then the floodgates opened, with women saying "oh, I'm glad someone else spoke up, because I disagreed too...."

So why am I writing about this on this blog? This blog is about school, or not-school, right? Well, yes and no. This blog is about life and how we live it. That elist has nothing to do with school, it's only about birth, and it's full of women who self-identify as seekers after truth, women for whom their intersection with mainstream birthing was unsatisfactory, and they're asking questions. And yet this group of women, when confronted with a strong but inaccurate statement by an acknowledged authority, were unwilling to indulge in a little tipping of the sacred cow.

I could cry, and maybe sometime later, I will. But for me, that was absolutely tied into the culture of our educational system.

One of the most chilling concepts in the writings of John Taylor Gatto is the idea that compulsory public education is designed not necessarily to educate, but to train compliance. We don't question authority, or we are penalized. We don't even get to go to the bathroom without consulting someone who has the power to tell us whether or not we are allowed to eliminate when we choose. Twelve long years (at a minimum) of moving to a designated place when the bell rings, sitting in rows, regurgitating information that may or may not be germane or in any way relevant to the requirements and demands of life outside the classroom. It's a wonder to me that any questioning, revolutionary spirit could endure such training.

If you read much in the news these days about Web 2.0, you'll see that one of the themes of this progression into online communities and away from point-source learning is that it creates a more vox populi idea of information. It eliminates sacred cows. And if you're at all familiar with the concepts of classical logic and the identification of logical fallacy, you're having a field day with the products of mainstream media, who are not informing the US people with anything resembling intellectual rigor. We're expected, in every way, to do what we're told, to not argue too much, and to accept the party line without discourse.

One of the reasons this country was even created, is because a group of extremely determined people had not only a questioning spirit, and a solid belief in the validity of their own thinking, but a certain glee in the tipping of sacred cows. The Founders of our nation were never in public school, and I'm quite sure, never had to raise their hands to ask to go to the bathroom. I like to think that by sparing my children a course in compliance, I am helping to raise the sorts of people who will grow up to carry that revolutionary torch. I like to think that the constant questioning we receive as their parents will translate into a constant questioning of those who would call themselves "leaders", and that if those "leaders" fail my children, that they'll get the same sort of pushback that we their parents get when we make a boneheaded call on something.

But in the meantime, while they're little, let's see what kinds of tipping leading I can do by example.

Laureen is a writer, a professional editor, a scuba instructor, a beginning sailor, a traveler, and an obsessive researcher who's chiefly focused on, and delighted with, her husband Jason, her sons Rowan and Kestrel, and her daughter Aurora. She's a lifelong Californian, which lends a very distinctive spin to both her ideas and her politics, and she's discovered, in her peregrinations, that the world is far smaller yet far more fascinating than anyone gives it credit for being. She holds forth her opinions on that in her blog, The ElementalMom.

We don't do grades!

by Robin

(This post is a LWoS Golden Oldie dating back to March 2006. My children were 5 and 8 at the time. Today they are 8 and 11. Although my daughter remembered her “grade” in this account on this day, fast forward to the future almost 3 years, and she, her brother, and I still sometimes scramble to remember what grade they are in when asked, which happens every so often... obviously not often enough to etch in our brains the correct answer. Most times, we look at each other and start calculating trying to figure it out based on age or what we told folks last year (if we can remember) plus one. LOL! We’ve learned it’s quicker to fill in the blank than to explain the whole concept of "not doing grades"… even with the scramble time figured in.)

People don't understand that the concept of grades is personally foreign to my children. We do not do grades. My children are growing up just fine and learning all the time, really they are. All is well here, and we do not do grades.

My children are not in a grade. They do not do "grade work." When you ask them what grade they are in, they personally have no concept of what you are talking about. I have informed them that if they were in school, they would be in second grade and kindergarten.

Today we went to our new dentist office for a check- up.  This is a very friendly place, complete with a cool salt water fish tank, with very friendly and accommodating staff.  The hygienist was eager to help my children feel comfortable with her, so she started a conversation. 

"What school do you go to?" the dental hygienist asked.

"I homeschool," replied 8, who feels this word does not describe her life properly at all.

"What grade are you in?" the dental hygienist asked.

"Second," responded 8, more at ease and confident with each experience. (She is giving a fill in the blank response that means nothing to her personally.)

"Your brother is in Kindergarten?" she asked.

"Yes,” was the response. Then 8 leaned forward so I could see her face and smiled.

You see, the hygienist started the conversation as most people who take the initiative to greet my children do. Most, if not all but other homeschoolers, expect a child that they meet to go to school, to be in a grade, and to want to talk about it. The thing is, none of the above could be true. 

As this conversation came to an end, the questioner was somewhat satisfied because she only wants to connect with my child and an answer tells her "a connection" was made.  She does not understand that we do not do grades and that my children do not connect to those questions or by answering them.

Robin is a homeschooling mom of two and a natural living enthusiast currently in the school of hard knocks taking graduate courses in Lyme disease.  
 

Should I Homeschool My 16 Year Old?

Q: Hi, I have a 16 year old daughter who has struggled with school from basicly day one.She is in the 9th grade, I recently withdrew her from school looking for different alternative schools for her to attend, even thought about sending her away to job core. She is a very intelligent for her age and has always made good grades on her end of grade tests.She would fail all year and score high at the end of year.She doesn't like the classroom environment at all.She has been diagnosed with adhd around age 7 and we have tried medication several times but she is old enough now and refuses to take it. I am looking into homeschooling her in order for her to get her diploma.I have come across alot of websites that says that a ged or diploma is not required to get a great job but i have learned from experience that not having one makes it almost impossible to get a high paying job. I am 34 and dropped out at 15. My question is how to go about starting,and is there a certain amount of time it takes to homeschool her in order for her to receive a diploma? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

(Note: This question came from our "Ask Us" page.)

A: Hi Angel,

You've asked a lot of questions here, but it basically boils down to this one question: How do I help my daughter succeed?

There are several issues that you need to consider before you can find the answers to your concerns. The answers will most likely come from within you, and from your daughter's heart. The information you get here or anywhere is simply a way for you to find the answer you already have.

That said, your daughter, first and foremost, is smart, capable, and has everything she needs to succeed. Your job is to help her find that, not to tell her how to live or who to be. It's not a matter of grades, or ADHD, or whether you got a GED. Success is a matter of self-worth and self-appreciation. That comes from an attitude towards life and experience, not a piece of paper.

The main thing you want is your daughter to have experiences that reinforce the truth that she is capable and successful. In order to find those kinds of experiences, you need to listen. What excites her? What are her dreams? What does she like to spend her time doing? What makes her feel good? What kinds of successes does she seek out?

Then, do research into your resources - what's available in your area? Is college really the only thing she has available? What about a trade school? Volunteering? A job? A mentor? A work/study program? Starting her own business? Online courses? Self-study? Tutors? Study groups? The list goes on and on. Depending on what she wants to do, and what kind of learner she is, some of these options will be better suited than others. You won't know until you try.

Another important thing to remember is that failure is not failing. When we fail is the only real time that we have a chance to learn. Instead of looking at all of her "problems" as problems, see them as challenges, and opportunities. Because of what she's been through, you know what doesn't work. You know her better, and she knows herself better. You know to avoid those kinds of learning situations. Rather than look back at things that didn't work as a failure, look at them as opportunities to grow and move forward. And when the next roadblock comes along, look forward to it...it's part of the process. If we go through life only expecting success, we will always be unhappy and unsuccessful.

You said that you dropped out of school at 15. Did you get your GED? Did you get your diploma or go to community college? If not, I'm wondering if your transferring your disappointment of yourself onto your daughter. If so, be aware of this. It's really not that complicated to get a GED. It's also not difficult to get into community college. Your daughter is 16. She has plenty of time to get her GED or take a high school equivalency test (depending on your state). She can also start taking classes now at the community college, and online.

We are lucky to be living in the United States. In our country, there is no excuse for not being educated. Any age, any ability, and any interest, education is freely available. If you want your daughter to succeed, the best thing you can do is to adopt that kind of attitude yourself. You need to change your view on education, and on success, and find how your own life is full of wonderful opportunities to grow and learn. If you didn't get your GED, now is the time. Do it with your daughter. If you did get your GED, to back to school, or do a self-taught course. Be a role model, and make it clear to your daughter that no matter what, no matter how much we fail or stumble or waste time, we can ALWAYS set ourselves straight and learn more.

I promise, that although it might take time, it will be your attitude, and your attitude alone, that will be the biggest contributor to the whether or not your daughter's next two years of learning will be a success or failure. You are her mom, and her guide. If you get your educational act and attitude in a positive place, she'll see what it really takes to do that, and learn. If you spend all of your time telling her what she's supposed to do, and lecturing, but not living the example, she won't have any reason to believe you.

Don't be a model of what not to do. Be a model of what TO do. It's easier on both of you, and in the end, you'll both be happier.

Now, that didn't answer your question on whether to homeschool your daughter. In my opinion, it doesn't matter. If you have an attitude that life is full of wondrous learning opportunity, no matter where you go or what you do, you'll be successful.

If you do decide to homeschool her, I highly recommend joining a homeschool group in your state, and joining a Yahoo group for your state so that you can fully understand the legalities and responsibilities of a homeschool parent. If you are unwilling to do that on your own, I'd say stick with school.

Good luck to you! Happy learning, no matter which direction you choose to travel.

Tammy Takahashi lives and learns with her three children (10, 7 and 5) and supportive husband in California. She is the author of Deschooling Gently: A Step by Step Guide to Fearless Homeschooling. She also serves as the editor of the California HomeSchooler magazine, a bi-monthly publication for the Homeschool Association of California. You can read more from her about education and homeschooling on her website. And you can email her at tammy.takahashi @ gmail(dot)com.

Core Strength

by Shay

I have a second definition for the term “core strength.” My definition refers not to the fitness of muscles that stabilize the spine and pelvis, but to a characteristic that some might call resiliency.

I first tapped into my core strength as a teen enduring a period of sustained abuse. At the peak of abuse, I discovered what storyteller Brother Blue calls, “the Middle of the Middle of me,” which I also recognize as the part of me that nothing can harm. Tapping that core, I found the essential ability to fight back, which resulted in my being freed from that dangerously oppressive situation.

The building of my core strength from there was slow and indeliberate, but it served me well in the following years, helping me walk away from suicide, endure bleak times, mend a crushed heart, weather the grief brought by several deaths, and, most recently, withstand the painful dissolution of my marriage coupled with the daunting challenge of the enormous lifestyle change brought by re-entering the workforce, buying my own home, navigating a legal maze, and ensuring financial survival for myself and my children.

Now fully settled into a new life that I enjoy very much, I regularly hear feedback from friends and acquaintances who remark upon my strength, my resiliency, my joie de vivre. Yes, my core strength was essential through this transition, and as I drew from that strength during the shift, it increased. Examining this strength, I consider there are 3 elements to resiliency: knowledge that “this, too, shall pass”; an attitude of determination that says “I shall not give myself up to darkness”; and a strong connection to one’s self and to the larger world. These are things I have taught my children in their life without school. Being with me for long hours in their formative years, they saw how I handled the loss of three dear friends in the past decade, the way I faced the unexpected need to make myself marketable in the business world, and that I used challenges to clarify who I am, what I know about myself, and to define the kind of life I wanted to create.

Among my handicaps were the after effects of being raised in my family of origin, where  individuation was strongly discouraged. My parents' house was a place where to be one's self was to risk being shamed, shunned or even banished. Therefore, it was relatively late in life that I discovered the simple truth of what sustains me as an individual: my circle of amazing friends, periods of solitude, regular physical activity, and spiritual connection. In keeping these crucial elements close during my change of life, I learned to love myself and to accept the gift of help from friends, acquaintances, and total strangers. These, too, kept me going.

My hope is that my children learned from my modeling how to nurture their resilience, that they know the value of recognizing and holding onto what sustains them, that they build their own circle of amazing friends, and that they love themselves. If they can master all of that while they are young, then they will be saved a lot of grief and early on they can create lives that exemplify their own definition of success and their own measure of joy, and that will be priceless.

Shay Seaborne is immediate past president of The Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers, founder of the VaEclectic  homeschool discussion list and Skipper of Sea Scout Ship 7916. She lives with her two daughters in Woodbridge, Virginia, where she writes, homeschools, rides her bicycle and sails whenever she has the chance, and improves her core strength a little every day.

(c) 2008, Shay Seaborne.  All rights reserved.

Agreeable Differences

by Missy

My youngest child walked over to my oldest a few minutes ago.

"Hey, Adria. Look!" he pointed at his knee, "I pulled the scab off!"

"Oh," said Adria, "that's...nice, Sterling."

"Yeah. I have it here, in my pocket! Wanna see it?"

And no, the exchange has nothing to do with homeschooling. Except that at the time it happened we were home and not in school. So that conversation, along with a thousand other little moments, would never have happened if we didn't homeschool. Not that we wouldn't have some of those moments, there just wouldn't be nearly as many.

Recently my next-door neighbor pulled me aside to warn me about a conversation she had with another neighbor. A few days before, the other neighbor had watched me arrive home and go into the house with the kids, and then turned to the other woman and said, nodding toward my house, "You could report her to the authorities, you know."

Why?

Because the kids aren't in school and we don't follow a structure that this woman identifies with learning.

We don't sit down with textbooks and worksheets for seven hours a day and so it follows that we're neglecting their educational needs.

For a few days, I panicked. Not like the running-in-aimless-circles-pulling-my-hair-out sort of panic, just a festering sort of worry that I got over. Because my kids are clothed and well-fed and reading above grade level and capable of engaging most adults in a political discussion. Math is hard for Adria, but getting better. And, you can currently see the floors in every room except the boys' bedroom, which is carpeted with Legos, and, yes, a few pairs of dirty sweats.

Interestingly, the woman who made the comment depends on my daughter for pet-sitting. Because we're home. She depends on us to occasionally run lunch to her daughters, in school. Or to drive her daughters to school when they oversleep. Or to grab some wet laundry out of their house to put in our dryer in the middle of the day because their dryer broke and her girls need something specific that evening.

We can do all that because, conveniently for her, we're home and our schedule is relaxed. And it never bothered me until now and now I want to tell her exactly where she can shove this whole neighborly facade except that doing so would drag the other neighbor into it and, dammitall, I'm 40, not 14.

But it's just another reminder of how programmed we are. Learning has to be at once familiar and tangible, something we can touch that is a part of our own school experience, like worksheets or a textbooks. There has to be a structure that we can identify that includes a desk and a schedule and tests. For some people, anything else is so far outside of their experience that they can't even recognize it as learning.

That becomes dangerous when a person's views are so restricted by their own lens that they can't see beyond it, and then they evaluate and judge others bases solely on that perspective. True community depends on respect; it depends on being able to step outside of yourself a little, to listen to others and to understand that there is a reality outside of your own. It means lowering your defenses enough to hear what others are saying without taking it personally because the beliefs and lifestyles of others are not a direct statement against you.

In my childhood development classes, I think the inability to see beyond yourself was referred to as egocentric and I think in some ways the increasing use of the internet to develop communities has contributed to that. It's hard to have a good discussion, a healthy exchange of conflicting views, when you remove the personal element and it feels like you're talking to a computer screen. The conflicting view is a flat argument instead of someone else's reality and it lacks the emotional depth that  real-life discussions used to have. That impersonal climate sometimes seems to overlap into our real life exchanges and I've wondered if, in a world of condensed communication via the internet and texting, our children will ever develop real discussion skills.

(Yes, see, this is coming back to homeschooling in a round about sort of way...)

My boys, ages 9 and 6, aren't making me feel much better. Yet.

Their discussions: 

Langston: Let's play Monopoly.

Sterling: No, let's play Life.

Langston: I don't want to play Life. Let's play Sorry.

Sterling: FINE! I go first.

Langston: No, I go first.

Sterling: No, I'm the youngest; I go first!

Langston: FINE! But, you're stupid!

Sterling: AW! That means you're stupid!

Langston: OKAY, FINE! I take it back.

Sterling: You can't take it back.

Langston: FINE! It's your turn.

I'm starting to feel better about Adria though. At 13 years old, she's learning how to have a discussion involving conflicting views with another teen and still walk away from it as friends. She's learning how to listen and to use thoughtful counterpoints that don't rely on comments about the other person's personal hygeine or mental abilities.

After the boys are in bed, she usually stays up with me. It's a presidential election year, which means we are living and breathing politics and government. We've watched both conventions, all the debates, and Saturday Night Live. Often, while I'm on one computer writing, she's on another, either working on her blog or participating on a mom-approved message board.

Unfortunately, it was on this mom-approved message board that she got drenched in the racism that is currently circulating.

It took her a few minutes to regroup.

She'd wanted to talk a little about the issues, and this other child was talking about Obama painting the White House black and how he was going to make all the white people slaves. It went on and on and on, and she wasn't sure how to respond to that degree of hate and ignorance.

She tried countering false claims with facts and got, "Well, you just like him 'cuz he's black!" She tried redirecting it back to the issues, and got, "Oh yeah??? Well, you're just stupid." At which point she decided it wasn't worth her time; the other person wasn't interested in a discussion. She walked away shaken and angry, but a little wiser. Because the arguments and insults spouted at the other end of that connection were the same arguments and insults spouted by adults across the country and were very probably the same arguments and insults the other girl heard at home.

Arguing with the other girl wasn't going to be any more productive or satisfying than my arguments with adults who say the same thing this child was saying. Adria learned something that I know I still struggle with:  sometimes you just have to walk away.

The other girl wasn't homeschooled and I'd love to say, "Ha! See? There ya' go!" But most of the girls Adria's engaged in discussions in real life aren't homeschooled, either, and those exchanges are extremely thoughtful and focused, while some of the nastiest arguments I've seen have been between homeschoolers.

It's more about what kids see, what they absorb. If they see adults engaged in thoughtful discussions, they learn. If they're exposed to a range of ideas and perspectives, it opens their minds and their world. Part of it means moving beyond the scripted communication of texting and stepping away from the computer. Those aren't things that are limited to homeschooling, but we have a definite advantage.

We have time, time to engage our kids in conversations, time to explore resources together and to step outside of our comfort zone and challenge  our world view with the views of others. We share a space with our children and, in that space, we can listen and observe and know how our kids are interpreting their experiences. We can provide opportunities that allow them to think and to analyze and weigh decisions. And then, sometimes, we learn from how they react.

Right now Sterling is lying on the floor, pretending to be a rock. Which means he's quiet. But it won't last. Eventually, he'll start talking again, and eventually something he says will get on Langston's nerves and they'll argue again, but, maybe, eventually, someday, they'll start hearing each other.

I've thought about approaching my other neighbor with information about the spectrum that is homeschooling, but I've known her for several years; I thought of her as a friend and I thought she was listening when we talked about homeschooling. Apparently, though, her world view stopped mentally at, "Oh, yeah?? Well, your way is stupid!"

So, I'm walking away now, into my own universe.

Missy's homeschooling journey began when she realized that the walls surrounding her daughter's classroom were too narrow; there was no room for exploration, no space for stretching. Now, she and her three children stretch and explore the world together. My blog: caffeinatedjive.

When it Looks Like They're Not Learning

by Jena

I recently got this question from  Unschooling Blogger:

This is the only time of year that I get antsy and start worrying about unschooling. I'd be so interested in hearing about how you encouraged learning with younger kids. Or did you just let them play until they came and asked? I find mine haven't been asking much lately and I worry it's something I've done - or do they perhaps go through spurts as they do in physical development? (She has four kids and the oldest is eight).

My kids did go through spurts in doing school-type things and that would make me feel better, but that didn't mean they weren't learning the other times too. Some days were just watching PBS or playing dress-up. I'd get nervous and try to whip up some school-like activity, but really, that's not necessary. That's me trying to control the learning that's going on all the time anyway. 

On days I felt compelled to do some "real" learning, a trip to the library would do the trick. Browse the shelves and let the kids bring home whatever they are interested in. Since mom gets to bring home books too, I'd think through topics I thought they should know about. I'd get ideas from a book called The Core Knowledge Sequence.It's a list of what kids in each grade are supposedly learning. This is all theoretical because we don't have a nationalized curriculum, and I don't believe education is "filling a bucket" anyway, but it was helpful to be reminded that kids in 3rd grade probably know all about the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock. Why not get Who's That Stepping on Plymouth Rock? by Jean Fritz? I love her style.  Read aloud time with her books becomes a whole elementary school history curriculum!

I also like Kathryn Stout's Design-a-Study series. It's the same idea as the Core Knowledge Sequence because it has content listed by grade level, but it has more suggestions for activities. If you are motivated and enjoy directly teaching once in awhile, and your kids are happy to have you do it, go for it. We'd often call it "playing school."

Some Specifics on Fostering Interest


When one of my kids was in early elementary school I thought she should know about the periodic table of elements. So I set up a lab with a big periodic table poster, science lab materials, experiment books, and one of her dad's white shirts as a lab coat. Then I left it to see what would happen. She spent a lot of time in there and learned a great deal (it was actually set up under her loft bed). And when she lost interest, we put it all away.

That science lab was really a learning center. These are simply table tops or plastic tubs or drawers that have everything you need to dive into your topic. We still have the dress-up chest and the drawing desk. But you can be more specific and have a rocket science corner with library books, toys, videos, Lego's, or whatever you think you need to introduce and explore that topic. A geography area would have a globe, map, workbooks, map puzzle, etc. These are simply little places of hidden treasure. And when they are no longer interesting, put them away and try something else. The goal is to learn about your child and what he loves, then provide what he needs to go that route to the fullest.

I always had a read-aloud book going at bedtime, and I'd purposefully choose books to follow some historic period. I also had a time line thumb tacked around the bedroom, so when we read, I could point to the spot on the time line and if they wanted, they could write or draw what they learned on it. I usually found some sort of visual for them to attach too.

Mom's enthusiasm can go a long way in fostering interest in something. I personally love biology, so one of my favorite memories is doing The Body Book.The book's description says, "easy-to-make hands-on models that teach." You make card stock copies of the skeleton and organs, and with some scissors and tape you have a model of the human body. We did various parts of this book over several years. The kids loved it too since it was like doing crafts with mom.

In a nutshell, remember your main job is to foster a love of learning and their natural talents.  If your child would love to do workbooks all day, let her. If your child is emotionally mature and wants to go to public school, let her (gulp--that's my situation now). If your child wants to play video games all day, let him. Seriously. There is a lot of good research out today that says video games are very good for kids. But also encourage them to be responsible with their bodies--don't forget to eat and get up and let your blood circulate once in awhile.

A View from the Down the Road

A few weeks ago Melissa came home from her third day of public high school and commented about her English class. She said, "It must be hard for some kids to write stories. What if you're not creative? Anyone can learn grammar or punctuation, but how can you learn creativity?" I told her I was glad she had all those stress-free elementary years to play, pretend, make up stories and develop her imagination.

Meg, my learn-at-home high school junior just finished watching a Netflix instant documentary and was disappointed. "I didn't really learn anything. I think I'll try to find something educational to do," she says as I sit here typing this.

Before college started this fall, my homeschool graduate started reading The Brothers Karamazov, an 800 page Russian novel, because he was listening to online lectures from the UC Berkeley that talked about it. Is that how most graduated seniors spend their last weeks before college?

And 90% of their lives has been unstructured and interest-led.

Have hope.

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

General Knowledge

by Becky

I had a conversation with an unschooling friend not long ago.  We were talking about the way concerned family members express their doubts about unschooling.  She shared that her own mother rarely asks about their unschooling life because it's just easier to not know all the details.  My friend figures that by not asking for details, her mom can create her own, more easily digestable version of what their homeschooling life looks like.  This makes sense to me.  Unschooling confuses lots of people.  No school?  How ever will they learn?

My friend did go on to report, however, that her mom recently dipped her toe in the pool, so to speak, and asked a few questions.  They were chatting on the phone and her mom asked how the kids were and what they were up to.  After my friend responded that all was well and that their circus class was a highlight, her mom cleared her throat.

"Honey, I'm just wondering,"  she stammered.  "How are they going to get, you know, general knowledge, without ever having been to school?"

My friend and I laughed as she continued telling me about the conversation.  Admittedly, our laughter comes from a place of total confidence in our children and their healthy development and full, vibrant lives.  Long distance relatives clearly don't have the same advantage.

But she brings up an interesting point, I think.  General knowledge.  Hmmmmm.  Let's see.  Does she mean those mundane and completely irrelevant details that we all spent hours and hours memorizing in school so that we can to this day amaze our friends when we play Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy?  Or maybe she's talking about the information someone needs in order to successfully navigate the world around them.  Could general knowledge also be the set of skills which allow someone to complete a particular task?  Could it be that general knowledge is simply a term people use to describe the kind of smarts that a person should have so as not to appear stupid or ignorant?  I don't know about you, but I didn't learn "general knowledge" in a classroom.  I learned it everywhere else.

When I reflect on the times in my life when I have felt that I should have known something that I didn't, I am unanimously reminded of school.  Tests, exams, oral reports, pop quizes.  I learned at an early age that it was very important to have the right answer at all times, and to never look foolish.

The thing about unschooled kids, though, is that they usually don't struggle with the same need to perform.  Feelings of inadequacy are rarely associated with how much you know about a particular topic. Because learning is not associated with performance and is something done purely by internal motivation, unschooled kids often skip this unnecessary and painful rite of passage.  If you don't believe that memorizing bits of information to please and amaze your teachers and friends at school is important, then it doesn't matter anyway.

I shared in a post recently that my daughter Macy didn't even flinch when a well meaning friend asked her to name a particular state on the wall map.  When I say she didn't flinch, I don't mean that she answered the question immediately.  She didn't.  Rather, she asked a question in return:  "Why?"  I was stunned, and proud.  I took her question to mean:  "What relevence does that bit of information have for you and why are you putting me on the spot?"

My unschooling friend and I agreed that in this day and age, it takes about 12 seconds to Google something and find out that little factoid you never knew.  I recall at some point in Junior High or High School memorizing the three branches of our US government and their particular functions.  I passed that test way back then and maybe even wrote a paper about it.  I don't remember those details today.  I don't need them.  But when I do, I know who to call and where to look.  That works just fine for me.

My kids are learning that I don't know everything and that learning who to ask is half the fun.  At a family gathering recently, a distant relative asked about homeschooling.  "So you are the children's only teacher?"  I smiled and tried not to laugh.  I politely explained that I was only one of many, and that I learn just as much from my children as they are learning from me.

Becky is the unschooling mother of three (Janey, 12, Macy, 10 and Charley, 7) attempting to raise her children with compassion and respect.  She taught elementary school for 9 years before discovering unschooling when it was time for her oldest to go to Kindergarten.  She credits Sandra Dodd, Mary Griffith, Jan Hunt, and just about every other person she interacted with at her first HSC Home=Education conference 6 years ago, as her inspiration to find a more natural way of living and learning with children.  She is a passionate and radical transportation activist and is starting a non-profit carsharing organization in her town.  You can read more of what Becky has to say at http://lifewithoutschool.blogspot.com   She can be reached at ashlandcarshare@gmailcom.

Homeschooling and Fitness

by Bettina

Homeschool Physical Education is a topic that surfaces every so often on homeschooling lists. Somehow it always surprises me, the country mom whose day begins with feeding the horses and saddling the pony, but I realize that my life isn't typical. This is a real question and a real issue in today's world where obesity is rampant and opportunities for exercise must be sought out. Gone are the days when a kid got on his bike and took off for the day to explore woods and creeks, play ball with his friends and fish. So, in the world as it is today, how does a homeschool family organize physical activity?

The real question is: Should you offer a course in Physical Education, as most schools do, or should you simply incorporate physical activity into your daily life? I think the answer is obvious.

I will begin by mentioning recreational league sports. Most communities have organized sports teams for children from kindergarten to high school: soccer; baseball; football; cheerleading. Participating in these seasonal activities could serve as both exercise and playtime. They are also generally inexpensive and close to home.

If you aren't a fan of organized sports why not try dance, roller skating, bowling or horseback riding lessons? Some of these options can be quite costly (riding, dance) and others (bowling, skating) are relatively inexpensive. Look in your telephone book and see what your community has to offer. Check at the library and community center. Churches also often have extra-curriculars, especially in small towns where there aren't a lot of options to keep kids, teens in particular, occupied, in shape and out of trouble.

If you just can't afford to pay for your child to participate in anything with a price then you're just going to have to be creative. Try doing morning calisthenics, jog together, ride bikes or power walk. Play Mother-May-I or any of a hundred other movement games. If you have teens assign them tasks like mowing the grass or washing the car. Movement does not have to be conscripted to a physical education class. My friend, Melina, is a health coach and she believes that it's dangerous to relegate PE to specific time slots. Kids need access to physical activity all of the time and especially before serious lessons take place (author's note: especially for kinetic children!). 3x a week for 20 minutes is the way schools handle physical education but this does not set up a healthy approach to staying fit. It's a lifestyle, not a course.

On the subject of homeschool P.E. another friend, Lydia, says:

"After experiencing a few at the YMCA, I have decided I don't have any time
for "Homeschool P.E." classes. I have all kinds of time for bike-riding,
swimming, hiking, wrestling with the dog, martial arts, cartwheels, climbing
trees, kicking a ball around, dancing, and playing instruments. I am trying
to teach them PE as part of an active lifestyle involving all kinds of
different pursuits, and have no plans to teach him what a side-out is, or
why some kids have to sit on the bench, or how to stand and watch other kids
climb a rope. "

Both of my parents were body builders and opened a health food store in the early '60's. Dad was Mr. Virginia once and Mom held the Guinness World Record for Women's Squats (weight) for a while. Dad is still fit, Mom not so much. I grew up in a household where working out was just a natural part of daily life, like watching the news or taking a shower. It has stood me in good stead as I come into middle age and while I don't have access to a gym for working out, I do a lot of physical activity each day and eat well. I watch as many of my peers struggle daily with weight and more importantly with horrible body images which often are not realistic. I know from experience that incorporating physical activity into our lives can pay off big and am trying to pass this on to my own children.

Like all things homeschooling, you have to put in some thought and work to find the proper approach for your family but try to think outside the 'Health and Physical Education' box. The best thing you can teach your child is to enjoy physical activity, whatever form it takes. That's truly what will set them up for a lifetime of fitness and confidence.

Bettina Colonna Essert is a native of the Virginia/North Carolina borderland. She currently lives on a 'farmette' in rural NE NC with her husband, 2 home schooled children and a menagerie of farm animals. Bettina is an Equine Sports Massage Therapist. .

Documenting the Process

by Laureen

Today, October 1, the day I'm writing this post, a month before you see it, is the day I filed my PSA here in the Great State of California. We are now officially the Excellent Adventure Academy, where the World is our Classroom, and Rowan is our first official student. We are, according to the government, one more family contributing to the roughly 200,000 homeschoolers in the state.

Which now means that I have to keep records. The very thought makes me break out in a sweat. I am not a paperwork-oriented girl; I like the big picture just fine, but panic when someone asks me for an official title for the head of our school (we settled on "headmaster" because it sounds like "headwind" which is what you get on boats sometimes). But even scarier than the thought that I might dot the wrong "i" or cross the wrong "t" is the thought that I now have to not only keep attendance, but that I have to document a course of study including english, science, social sciences, health and physical education, visual and performing arts, and mathematics. And I stare at the blank screen before me, and I ask myself, how am I to begin separating the thread of these topics from the tapestry of his life?

For example, in the EAA, we definitely have "school" on Saturdays, at the Farmers' Market. We live in one giant science experiment, since a sailboat is a neverending opportunity to see physics, oceanography, biology, meteorology, geography, and astronomy at work. When they've had enough outside entertainment (it's not swabbing the deck, it's physical education!), they come inside for visual and performing arts (watching videos) and more english (reading stories and working on more items for the Word Collection). Then there's naptime, which is more physical education (because listening to your body telling you it's tired is important) or maybe social sciences (because many nations of the world have siesta, which is such a sensible way to structure your day).

I could babble on. But the fact is, Rowan is steeped in learning, day in and day out, in a thousand different ways, all the time. Even when all we're doing is hanging out on the couch watching videos, which by our culture's standards is "nothing", there's something "educational" we can take from that. I'm not quite sure when learning, and therefore by the standards of the State, "schooling" ever really stops. Is it still considered "attendance" if we can knock out a whole school year in no time, because we're learning 24/7?

On the one hand, it's all school. On the other hand, it flows so much better if it's just life, and not merely a string of teachable moments. We play word games because they're fun, not because I'm trying to teach him English. We bake bread because it's yummy, not because it's science. We  revel in the world around us, and follow our interests. I'm not sure what the best way is, for documenting the process of a young mind expanding, but I'm absolutely thrilled that we are taking the opportunities as they present themselves. Let's see what happens next.

And if you've got a great idea for how mere documentation can keep up, let me know in the comments.

Laureen is a writer, a professional editor, a scuba instructor, a beginning  sailor, a traveler, and an obsessive researcher who's chiefly focused  on, and delighted with, her husband Jason, her sons Rowan and  Kestrel, and her daughter Aurora. She's a lifelong Californian, which lends a very distinctive  spin to both her ideas and her politics, and she's discovered, in her  peregrinations, that the world is far smaller yet far more fascinating  than anyone gives it credit for being. She holds forth her opinions on  that in her blog, The ElementalMom.

How My Local Homeschool Group Works For Us

by Robin

I belong to an eclectic local homeschooling network e-list. The e-list description states:

We are an eclectic and inclusive homeschool support list for homeschoolers and those seeking information about homeschooling. We are a secular (not religiously affiliated) list valuing diversity and tolerance. We appreciate and accept that everyone homeschools and parents in accordance to their own methodologies, styles, philosophies and conscience and are united by our common love of our children. Each individual family and child is unique and valued here. New members are welcome!

Our goal is to provide an open atmosphere where all feel free to share information, ask questions, organize, coordinate, plan and/or participate in events and activities that best support their families. We hope that the network will serve as a gathering point for ideas that anyone or any group of individuals can take off with as they desire.

Please feel free to create what you need here! The more the merrier. Remember that it only takes two families to make a play group, field trip, park day, etc. Several events have started that way and some happily continue that way. Co-ops and planning groups are asked to plan off-list but encouraged to post events to the list.

As Earl Gary Stevens describes in his article Our Non-Directed Support Organization published in the 1995 May-June issue of Home Education Magazine, our network is a non-directed support venue. We have no organizational structure. We have no fees. We have no requirements to join other than one be a homeschooler or interested in homeschooling. Anyone can create, plan, organize what they need. Anyone can inform others of and invite others to activities or events that they might wish others to join them in.

What makes our network work is the desire of parents to meet the needs of their children and their families. What works is allowing people to define what works for them and to create what they need. So far this year, as individuals, as groups of individuals, and as separate planning groups we have created and invited others to the following:

• Park Days

• Game Days

• Brownies

• Junior Girl Scouts

• Cloverbuds 4-H

• Geography Club

• Liberty Belles

• Our World Magazine

• Roots and Shoots

• Homeschool Skate

• Homeschool Bowling

• Homeschool Swim

• Seasonal Parties and Events

• Middle School Book Club

• Middle School Events and Outings

• Waldorf/Earth Centered Festivals

• Various Field trips

• Putt-Putt Day

• Homeschool Yoga

• Odyssey of the Mind

• Various Learning Co-ops

Each creation listed above has its own community, and we participate with others across these communities. No one person or group of people controls the list or the activities that we plan.

The network list serves as a venue for people to connect to plan and coordinate. One group of planners does not monopolize the list or the flavor of the list. The specifics of planning are taken off the list to other venues ( either personal meetings, personal emails, or to smaller more specific on-line planning venues). This keeps the network list clear of planning chat details that others may not be interested in or able to keep up with and hopefully keeps the network list relevant, concise and easy to stay tuned in.

What I like about our network list is that it allows people to be different. It also allows people the freedom to be individualists who create and participate here and there as they feel comfortable, and it allows people who like to plan and work with others consistently to do so. No one personality or style rules the direction of the list; no one personal or group desire or need rules the direction of the list; no one homeschool or parenting philosophy rules the direction of the list. We are all free to be who we are and to create what we need with others who have similar needs.

We, for instance, are “unschoolers” and do not plan group oriented teaching/learning activities. We like to plan for play time with friends. We participate in Park Days, Our World Magazine, Roots and Shoots, Seasonal Crafts, Waldorf/Earth Centered Festivals, Junior Girl Scouts, Middle School group activities, and field trips that appeal to us. Many families are more structured and directed in their learning objectives for their children and plan activities that mirror their goals. Some like to plan learning co-ops with others. Some might participate less in organized activities if they spend more instructional time at home, or within the community at large. Other homeschool organizations and community facilities offer classes for homeschoolers, and there are many activities outside the homeschool community that list members participate in such as dance, gymnastics, fencing, and so on. I know some families who participate in almost every activity listed above while some participate in one or two, tops; and yet still others sporadically participate in activities as they feel comfortable fitting them in. We all are free to create and participate in what we need. If one park day does not work for you, create another one. If you want to organize a Spanish class with a local instructor, create it.

I like this freedom. To me it represents the spirit of homeschooling and reflects and supports the reason we all homeschool. We like to be in charge of our lives, and we all want to meet the individual needs of our children and our families as we best see fit. We are free to create and free to change direction at any time. If plans don’t work for us, we can ditch them, revise them, and move freely forward in the direction that best fits individual needs. This is what the freedom to homeschool allows. No strings attached. No obligations other than to oneself, one’s children, one’s family, and one’s community as much as one desires.

What I also like about a non-directed, “create what you need” venue is that it allows for diversity of thought and action that keeps doors open to ideas and perspective, while allowing one the right to be who I am today. I am constantly learning from others. I am coming out of my shell of insecurities as I learn from others taking charge of their own lives. I am reinforced daily that what works for you may not work for me, or maybe sometimes, I can learn a thing or two from you.

Robin is a homeschooling mom of two and a natural living enthusiast currently in the school of hard knocks taking graduate courses in Lyme disease. 

Horseback Riding and Writing

by Steph W.

My older daughter recently started taking horseback riding lessons. It takes some faith and courage to get on a horse for the first time. You are far off the ground on a creature that is exponentially heavier than you. I watched as she groomed "her" horse, Tiny, and climbed on his back for the first time. The facilitators of the horseback riding program made it possible for her to mount Tiny by herself by setting a scaffold -- basically a large set of wooden steps -- beside the horse. Then they stood by as she climbed on his back and walked beside her as Tiny trotted into the riding ring.

The role of a home schooling or unschooling parent is a lot like that, I think. A child chooses a direction -- as my daughter decided she wanted to learn to ride a horse. Her mentors provide the support she needs to succeed, not unlike a simple, sturdy wooden scaffold, and walk beside her. However, the real experience -- riding  a horse and learning to communicate with it and guide it -- is a journey no one can take for her.

This is a difficult thing for me. It's akin to what unschoolers mean when they talk about trusting the child -- and say that this is the heart of their philosophy and they way they live. It is hard to stand beside my child, providing the resources and other supports she needs, and not guide. Yet there are times in our homeschooling journey when we need to do just that, because this is what the child needs to achieve her goal and own her accomplishment.

Knowing when this is one of those times -- a moment neither to guide or push -- is hard for me. Allowing myself to trust my own instincts, and actually do this, is even harder.

My older daughter recently decided she wanted to write a novel. Naturally I have plenty of ideas on how she can develop her plot and characters and enrich the story she's writing. I am full of ideas for other people's work, even if my mind seems sterile when it comes to my own. :-) Instead I provided a little scaffolding (a term I borrowed from RDI) by helping her type her manuscript, because she has difficulty with keyboarding. (I'm a lot faster. You'd be surprised how fast you can hunt and peck after 30 years of practice. :-) ) And I walked beside her in the ring -- I sat with her while she wrote and I muddled through a project of my own. We listened to music and worked together. When she wanted to read her developing manuscript aloud, I listened.

The experience seemed to flow smoothly for both of us. The writing process is kind of like the a stream, which gathers the richness it needs -- as it flows -- from the minerals in the stream bed. Then -- unsurprisingly -- I stopped letting myself trust my instincts. I started giving advice on character development, and her spark dimmed a bit. I remembered a time when I was about 10 and excited about starting a coin collection. I gathered some money relatives had brought me from different countries and began to sort them and label them. When my dad offered to help, and seized responsibility for directing my project, my interest waned. I no longer owned what I'd wanted to accomplish.

My son did not start writing -- beyond an occasional line or two -- until he was about 10. Having been a fairly precocious writer, and being well schooled in what children "should" be doing to avoid  "getting behind" in their writing development, this was a real test of faith for me. One by one, we tried different methods: phonics games, narration, copywork, and workbooks. Each one, in turn, was laid to rest as we saw that they did not fit his learning style. Copywork was a particular cause of angst. And although he could narrate fluently, when prodded to do so, he would prefer cleaning toilets or taking out the garbage.

However, he enjoyed hearing and telling stories. He and his older sister, now 14, still stay up late at night telling each other wild fantasy adventure stories that they create as they go along. Although I didn't see it clearly before, this was probably his apprenticeship in writing.

This year, my son turned 10 and we started doing "Breakfast School," which includes -- in addition to board games and a few other things -- Five-Minute Freewrites. I didn't expect my son to take to this willingly, and was prepared to put it aside for a few months, or years, as I had many times in the past. But he wrote a few lines, and I was pleasantly surprised that he did that without too much anguish.

Despite the fact that I'd assured him that I am not worried about spelling or mechanics, he wrote his sentences out carefully, choosing simple words he thought he could spell (Even so, he misspelled many words. :-) ) Here's what he wrote (I corrected spelling and punctuation):

Aengus and Me Playing YuGiOh! We both got good hands. He got a Dark Hole and Witch of the Black Forest and Heavy Storm and Hammer Shot and Armed Dragon N7! And I got these!!

Then he went visual -- which is his normal learning mode -- and sketched 5 YuGiOh cards. We read the freewrite together, and I thanked him for his hard work. We didn't say much else about it. The next week, his freewrite was much different. It was a few sentences long, and the spelling and mechanics were thoroughly atrocious :-)  (I corrected them here). But I LOVED it.  He risked bringing his imagination into the process and doing a bit of vivid, original descriptive writing:

Helicopters were flying above as the dark howling creature began to screech. People fled from the giant form waving its arms like a three-year-old having a tantrum.

I got excited about these lines, and -- trusting my instincts -- I certainly didn't comment on the mechanics or urge him to "finish" it. He read his work to everyone in the family. His sister and dad encouraged him to continue the story, and he seemed interested in doing that. We continued to do freewrites off and on, encouraging him to write a line or two each time. Gradually his story blossomed into three pages, full of suspense, adventure, and rich descriptive detail.

I think -- for him -- the scaffolding is simply providing a quiet time to work without allowing the distractions of video games and other diversions during that time. I don't guide him in his writing, but I do set aside "study time" in for him to work on these things. I also walk beside him in the ring, listening to him read passages aloud, when he wants me to, and highlighting aspects of his writing that I think work particularly well.

As I write this, my daughter is in the riding ring, riding and guiding Tiny, with brilliant fall sunlight flowing in along with the smell of grass and wild onions. In moments of stillness, between flurries of dusty hoofbeats, I hear the slow, lazy song of crickets,  I am thinking about the way the kids are growing and slowly gaining faith in their own gifts and ideas. I am looking forward to the adventures that are ahead and to many more moments when one of them will move away from a scaffold, begin to move into a trot, and eventually gallop away, safe yet marvelously free. 

Stephanie W. lives with her family in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. She has been learning at home full time with her three wonderfully creative, feisty and quirky children since 2003. Her other interests include literature, writing, editing, and the internet.

Homeschooling with Little Ones in Tow

We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves. ~Francis J. Braceland, O Magazine, April 2003

An Ask Us Question has inspired a post and this page.

Ayesha Asked:

I have 3 young learners and a 4 month baby. I have developed a learning program for my older girls 7 and 5 1/2, yet my 4 year old always seems to be left out. How can I incorporate her into the program so that she benefits from the day and feels apart of the family?

We are families! We homeschool or have homeschooled older children with little ones in tow.  Thus, many of us have experienced this situation. Our solutions might be strikingly similar or different based on how we choose to homeschool and/or the personalities and needs of our children.

Thus, we appealed to our homeschooling peers for answers to the question: What to do with the littles?

These stories, commentary & vignettes offer a view into how and why we live life without school.

Vignettes

I have 8 yo twins and a 3 yr old. Whatever topic I am working on with the older girls, I make sure to have some sort of coloring sheet or age appropriate worksheet for the younger one. As an example, if we are learning about ocean animals, my 3 yo will have a choice of coloring sheets of sharks, dolphins, and starfish, or a worksheet where she can match pictures or complete patterns with the images of ocean and/or seashore animals. She also has her own notebook when we are writing in our journals, so that she can "write" too. When we are playing bingo with some of my homemade bingo games, her cards will have pictures rather than words. I am working on a set of math bingo cards and will use colored dots or other figures rather than numbers on her cards. She also likes to take a turn playing in our geography games where I ask questions and each child has to find a state that answers the question. The 3 yo will get things like, "What state do we live in?" The older girls will have to find: a state that shares a border with an ocean and another country, or a state that has four right angles, or 3 states that start with "w".  And, of course, everyone loves storytime, whether it is mom reading or one of the bigger girls. My 3 yo will occasionally turn the tables and "read" her favorite books to us. I never tell her that she can't write or can't read. I accept her assertion that she can, until she asks for help. Generally she is willing to "hang," as long as she has her "schoolwork" to do too.

~Kriste

I teach three grades and have a 2yr old in tow.

Using a set of plastic storage drawers, each child has their own drawer for supplies and storage. I gave one to the 2yr old, with a small variety of things he can 'do'. It has watercolors, a couple of crayons, paper, etc.
When the 'big kids' call "time to do school", they get out the drawer for my 2yo, so that he feels like it's school time for him, too. When we're finished with a lesson, or when 2yo gets bored, we put the drawer away 'for next time'. By not leaving that drawer out all the time, it became a special drawer.

I also have rotating bins with books, toys, lap-size dry erase & marker, etc. I rotate them, so they seem new and fresh when they see it again. Since there's so much 'school' talk, we call them school bins. All the contents must go back into the bin, and by calling them 'school' my 2yo feels like he does school too.

This all has helped to show my 2yo that 'school' means at home for us. Even though neighbors may 'go to school', our school is right here.

~Jill (WA)

I started homeschooling with a 5th grader, a 2nd grader and a toddler.  My 5th grader struggled, my 2nd grader was gifted and my toddler was . . . . (To put it nicely) ACTIVE!  I could pretty much present learning projects at the same level for my older two, and I’d come up with something for my toddler . . . .if my older boys were coloring, say, in their USA map coloring book, I had one for my toddler.  He sat up in his high chair next to the table where they worked, and he had his chubby crayons and so what if all he did was scribble?  He felt included and part of the fun.    If we were playing the history game (a board game with dice and cards) he had a marker, his own set of dice and we read his cards to him and helped him move his marker.  If he got bored and wandered away, I had a playpen (large) with puzzles and blocks and other toys that he could play with.  If we were singing songs he sang, too.  Too bad he couldn’t read the words but he did learn them eventually, along with the tunes.  When I read aloud to my boys, our toddler had another set of toys I got down just for those occasions.  He would play in the center of the living room while we cuddled on the couch.  When he got sleepy (I usually did this after lunch) he would crawl up and cuddle, too, and eventually fall asleep.  Your 4 year old should be able to be included very simply by adapting whatever you are doing with your 5 ½ year old.  I know that my toddler wanted his own workbook (an old already used math workbook was fine) and whatever his older brothers had, he wanted one, too.  Make up her own little projects for her to work in, that “matches” or “goes along” with what the older kids are doing.  You will be amazed at what she will pick up along the way.  But please, don’t really worry about “teaching” her; 4 year olds are sponges and she’ll learn plenty just by listening and participating.  Enjoy! 

~ Marsha

When I took my son out of school in 5th grade, we had a 3 week old baby in the house. She is a very low-key kid and easy to entertain but here are some of my solutions:

Spend 15-30 minutes with the little one before you need time with the older kids. Read, do a craft, have tickle-time and then set the wee one up with some blocks or some sort of 'station' activity that is reserved for School Time.

Rotate your wee one's toys so that there is something new each week to pull out for when you need some time with your older kids.Give your toddler a drawing pad and crayons and let her color.For those who are pro-media, turning on a Leap video like The Letter Factory or Sesame Street is a good way to get 30 minutes to yourself.

Be reasonable about how much time you need to spend 'teaching' and your toddler should be able to self-entertain.

~Tina

Stories and Commentary

So What About the Littles?, by Cindy

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Help make this page. See What to do with the Littles.

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What to do with the Littles?

Help create our page called Homeschooling with Little Ones in Tow.

An Ask Us Question has inspired a post and this page.

Ayesha Asked:

I have 3 young learners and a 4 month baby. I have developed a learning program for my older girls 7 and 5 1/2, yet my 4 year old always seems to be left out. How can I incorporate her into the program so that she benefits from the day and feels apart of the family?

We are families! We homeschool or have homeschooled older children with little ones in tow.  Thus, many of us have experienced this situation. Our solutions might be strikingly similar or different based on how we choose to homeschool and/or the personalities and needs of our children.

Thus, we appeal to our homeschooling peers for answers to the question:

What to do with the littles?

Share your stories and ideas with us!

We are interested in stories that celebrate finding your own way with your family and your child that are personally real and non-judgemental. Thoughtful, respectful personal commentary is also welcomed.

Vignettes are also welcomed and do not need to be of length; in fact, a paragraph will work best.

A vignette is an answer to a question or questions, or a snapshot of your life experience and is less than 500 words.

A story is a biography or story of your life experience. A commentary discusses your thoughts and feelings on a topic.

A collection of personal stories, commentary and vignettes will be used to create this page called Homeschooling with Little Ones in Tow.

You can submit your writing (story, personal commentary, vignette) to the editor at editor-lwos@comcast.net

When addressing the editor, specify "What to do with the Littles" and give your name as you would like it published.

If you find that you have a story of length to share, follow the instructions for Guest Author in the Writer Guidelines.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Back to REAL STORIES: REAL LIVES

Help create our page called Homeschooling with Little Ones in Tow.

An Ask Us Question has inspired a post and this page.

Ayesha Asked:

I have 3 young learners and a 4 month baby. I have developed a learning program for my older girls 7 and 5 1/2, yet my 4 year old always seems to be left out. How can I incorporate her into the program so that she benefits from the day and feels apart of the family?

We are families! We homeschool or have homeschooled older children with little ones in tow.  Thus, many of us have experienced this situation. Our solutions might be strikingly similar or different based on how we choose to homeschool and/or the personalities and needs of our children.

Thus, we appeal to our homeschooling peers for answers to the question:

What to do with the littles?

Share your stories and ideas with us!

We are interested in stories that celebrate finding your own way with your family and your child that are personally real and non-judgemental. Thoughtful, respectful personal commentary is also welcomed.

Vignettes are also welcomed and do not need to be of length; in fact, a paragraph will work best.

A vignette is an answer to a question or questions, or a snapshot of your life experience and is less than 500 words.

A story is a biography or story of your life experience. A commentary discusses your thoughts and feelings on a topic.

A collection of personal stories, commentary and vignettes will be used to create this page called Homeschooling with Little Ones in Tow.

You can submit your writing (story, personal commentary, vignette) to the editor at editor-lwos@comcast.net

When addressing the editor, specify "What to do with the Littles" and give your name as you would like it published.

If you find that you have a story of length to share, follow the instructions for Guest Author in the Writer Guidelines.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Back to REAL STORIES: REAL LIVES

The Power of Play

by Jena

Alfred Adler once said, "Play is a child's work, and this is not a trivial pursuit." He's right, I think. When children play they are working things out, testing theories, role playing options, dealing with fears, and imagining experiences.

Robin S. Vealey from the University of Ohio-Miami claims that imagining a task is like performing it, that the mind learns new pathways and repetitive imagining blazes a trail for future success. I tell my kids, if you walk down a grassy trail several times, you'll eventually have a path, and if you practice a skill over and over again, that path gets easier to take.

Those days when all the kids want to do is play dress-up and build with Legos, I say, let them do it. They are finding their way through the grassy path of possibilities. Our house has been a zoo complete with stuffed animals in cages and a costumed zoo keeper, an art museum with posters and descriptive labels, a reenactment of Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, a vet's office, a scientist's laboratory, a bakery, a detective agency, a hiding place for Jews in WW II, a modeling agency, an opera (there were years of Meg singing instead of talking), and the list goes on, but you get the picture.

So how does all this play really make a difference? Well, in my family it turned out like this:

Melissa, our 14 year old is "freakishly coordinated," as her older brother says. Given a little bit of time, she can do anything in the physical realm (OK, she can't fly, but...). She can climb the rock wall in our sanctuary in no time flat, she roller blades and plays hockey (backwards, while texting), at flags practice she's the one who can do maneuvers even her coach finds difficult. And my response? She's got natural ability but she also has not been sitting at a desk half her life. She's been out playing those nine years of elementary school. She's developed the skills and the confidence to try things and succeed.

When Meg started taking voice lessons a couple years ago, the teacher commented on how mature her voice was. She asked if she'd been taking voice lessons all along. No, but she's been free to sing and experiment with her voice anytime she wanted since she was born. When Meg joined a theater group two years ago, she became a leader and an example of a hard-working, talented performer. Had she taken any classes? No, just ballet when she was really small, and no acting classes of any kind. BUT she lived the theater everyday at home, even trying to corral neighborhood kids into creating a production of Treasure Island in 6th grade.

Peter chose to spend most of his time reading and exploring on the computer. That made him an expert at learning. He knows everything, as his sisters say, and if he doesn't know it, he knows how to find it. He's also discovered the fun of singing, theater, and dance, thanks to Meg. Now he's at college, on a full ride scholarship, choosing which electives he wants to add to his intense list of classes.

The freedom to play allowed my kids to bloom and blossom without the constraints of  crowd control or peer disdain in the schools. They were allowed to truly become who they are. Yes, play is the main job of a child, and it seems all that work is paying off.

photos: Missa as Buzz Lightyear, Missa swinging from the harness of the rock wall, Meg as Gabriella in High School Musical, Peter and Meg in A Christmas Carol

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Checklist for the New Unschooler

by  Becky

Fall is in full swing around here and it's hard not to notice the changes.  Friends and neighbors that we played with all summer have long disappeared back into school rooms.  Well meaning adults in the community are constantly asking my kids why they're not in school.  Even though we live in a place where homeschooling is not necessarily an unusual choice, we are reminded daily of our unique choice to live life without school. 

Fall doesn't mean back to school or back to homeschool classes for us.  As unschoolers, we make choices based on what suits our family's interests, Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.  But I do find at this time of year, that it is comforting to remind myself of why we do what we do.  Explaining this to the clerk at the grocery store or the volunteer at the library refreshes my memory and helps me to stay clear as I navigate this unschooling life with my children.

All of this reflecting and pondering made me think about what it was like to be a new unschooler.  One thing I wish I had been given was a checklist.  Something to hang onto and refer to when fear and self-doubt were looming large.  The outside world and mainstream culture don't usually offer much comfort.  It's helpful to have some back up when you really need it.  So, here goes: 

My Checklist for the New Unschooler

1. Remove the word "educational" from your vocabulary.  Resist the urge to ask yourself whether or not the games, videos, comic books or activities your children choose are worthwhile.  It's all worthwhile in the grand scheme of things.  If you just can't let go of the need to have a hand in what they choose, simply leave interesting things "laying around" the house (with no expectations, of course): a new library book or a deck of cards on the coffee table, a roll of stamps and some stationery on the kitchen table, you get the idea.

2.  Slow down and relax.  Don't feel the need to fill up your days with loads of activity.  Leave room for spontaneity and just hanging out, with no agenda.  Don't over schedule.  The beauty of an unschooling life is that there are no musts.  If life gets busy and overwhelming, stop.  Breathe.  Take a moment to decide how to proceed in a way that will align with your values.  Try to ignore the belief that more is better.  Take advantage of the time you have just being together as a family and see what happens.  Creativity and wonder creep in easily when you're not racing around and busy all the time.

3.  Make sure that cool stuff is within reach.  This means games, puzzles, art supplies, kitchen staples, books, maps, notebooks, pens, staplers, duct tape, hole punches, envelopes, address books, dice, clay and anything else that your kids like to get their hands on.  Keeping items within reach makes it a whole lot easier for your kids to be independent and get creative on their own terms. 

4.  Make time for the things you enjoy.  If you love to garden, paint, swim, read, sing, cook, ride your bike, hike in the forest, browse book stores, or make jewelry, then be sure to do it!  Your children will notice that you do what you love, and they'll be freed up to do the same.  Passion and creativity are contagious.  They may even join you!

5.  Have fun.  It's what children do best, and with some luck, we adults can follow their lead.  If there's one thing our children have to teach us, it's how to stay fully in the moment.  Anything is more fun when you're focused and free of worry and fear.  The laundry and the dishes will still be there when you're through.  Go have some fun.

6.  Don't be afraid of being called a flake.  Unschoolers are notorious for dabbling, which to schoolish folks appears flaky.  Choose your activities carefully and don't be shy about speaking up when some thing's not a good fit.  The beauty of life without school is that there is no need for compulsory anything.....anything!  If you or your child can't remember why you've decided to do something and the joy is gone (or never existed in the first place) it's time to reevaluate.  Your sanity and quality of life are more important than someone else's idea of following through.

7.  Allow yourself to be imperfect.  We're all human.  We all screw up and snap at our kids or say the wrong thing.  Spending more time with your kids means a higher likelihood of losing your cool.  Don't sweat it.  Learn to say you're sorry and move on.  It'll be okay.  If nothing else, you'll be giving your children permission to do the same.  Children (and adults) who are allowed to feel their feelings (all of them) and take responsibility for them, end up being emotionally healthy people.

8.  Remember that what other people think of you is none of your business.  Chances are, if you're chosen unschooling, you stand out a bit in the crowd.  Not everyone understands why we do what we do, and that's a good sign.  It means you're challenging mainstream beliefs about kids and adults and families.  You know what works for you, and that's all that matters.  Spend time with parents who interact with their kids the way you do (or the way you'd like to).  Limit your time with people who challenge your self esteem, especially in the beginning.  Surround yourself with allies in person and otherwise, if necessary (read unschooling blogs, books, e lists, and magazines), to counteract that little voice questioning your every move.

9.  Chose the relationship over your need to be right.  Preserving your relationship with your child will prove to be the high road when it comes to petty arguments and power struggles.  Try, "I'm sorry." , or "You might be right."  instead.  Unschooling as a parenting style means choosing to spend more time with your child than the average parent.  Use that extra time to strengthen your relationship rather than break it down.

10.  Trust your children.  Completely.  Wholly.  Unconditionally.  It will be scary.  You will wonder, at times, if you've gone completely bonkers.  You won't, however, be sorry.  Before questioning or second guessing your child's intuition, ask yourself if you would respond in the same way to an adult.  If not, think twice before speaking up.  Children treated with respect and trust are more equipped to reflect that back to the world around them.

Well, there you have it.  Just ten steps.  Good luck.

Becky is the unschooling mother of three (Janey, 12, Macy, 10 and Charley, 7) attempting to raise her children with compassion and respect.  She taught elementary school for 9 years before discovering unschooling when it was time for her oldest to go to Kindergarten.  She credits Sandra Dodd, Mary Griffith, Jan Hunt, and just about every other person she interacted with at her first HSC Home=Education conference 6 years ago, as her inspiration to find a more natural way of living and learning with children.  She is a passionate and radical transportation activist and is starting a non-profit carsharing organization in her town.  You can read more of what Becky has to say at http://lifewithoutschool.blogspot.com   She can be reached at ashlandcarshare@gmailcom.

Choosing What's Best for Your Family

by Bettina

In the beginning there was a Mom and her child and it was good. And they bought some books and began home learning and their lives were enriched. Then co-op started and the child took seven classes and Mom taught two and they also began piano lessons and soccer and equestrian vaulting, because who would pass up an opportunity like that? They also participated in 4-H and community service and volunteered at the Food Bank. In order that this child should not be left behind and should also have not one single hole in her education, Mom also enrolled her in classes with the nice lady next door, a former school teacher, now a tutor. And it was not so good any more and Mom hid in the bathroom and cried and the child practiced piano and pen-and-ink drawing and equestrian vaulting on the barrel horse Dad built in the back yard and handwriting and Latin and Spanish and creative writing and algebra and soccer and finally Dad came home one night and no one even noticed that he was there. And this was not so good.

It's so easy to get caught up in the stuff that we forget what's really important to us and our children. These things may be different for each family.  For ours, it's the ability to move at our own pace and to learn quietly at home. I've been soccer mom, baseball mom, horse show mom, high school athlete mom and more. It's fun and exhausting and I'm done with that for now. I have kids who are basically grown and whatever holes I left seem to have filled in on their own. At this point in my life I have realized that it is okay to pick one thing and do it well and that it's okay to look past great opportunities every so often. We cannot do it all. My Dad's famous advice is true, "People are like tires. Every one has a flat spot," and that's okay. I also believe that sometimes our flat spots are what make us who we are.

Living in an area with an active homeschooling community is fabulous. I greatly admire those adults who get out there and do things like found a co-op or sponsor a Creative Writing Contest. These things can be wonderful for homeschooling parents who are hoping to find a friends for their children, chat with other adults or who pine after one special class that they just cannot teach at home. Often these things can be found (or founded) at your homeschooling co-op. It is also possible, though, that your days will be eaten up by lessons and classes and sports to the point that you can no longer realistically call what you do 'homeschooling' because little or none of the learning is done at home. When this happens you might want to examine if any in-depth learning is happening, regardless of where, and make sure that you are satisfied with the answer.

Something that has been immensely helpful to my family is for the parents to sit down and make a list of what's important to us. Here are a few of our categories: how much family time do we want; what do we want our children to believe is important; what subjects do we want or need to focus on with the children; where do we want to spend our discretionary dollars; how much are we going to spend on purchased curricula; where will our children's social life happen--at co-ops or park days or play dates, etc; what sort of adults do we want our children to become; what are we doing to help them become those people. These questions, or ones you make up for your family and circumstances, help to focus your thoughts away from the smörgåsbord of activities and put them back on your children and their education and upbringing.

It's always difficult to look away when you see a message offering Junior Toastmasters or Monart at the local co-op but if it's not on your list, it becomes a bit easier. It also helps to have a couple of kids who are turning into the wonderful people you dreamed of way back when.

Bettina Colonna Essert is a native of the Virginia/North Carolina borderland. She currently lives on a 'farmette' in rural NE NC with her husband, 2 home schooled children and a menagerie of farm animals. Bettina is an Equine Sports Massage Therapist and also handcrafts a line of fine, organic bath products, Alchemy Redefined.

Geography in the School of the World

by Laureen

Today, Jessica, Peter, Michael and Theo came to visit before their move to Ireland. They're relocating from San Francisco, which is close, to Dublin, which is far. When they left, the boys drug out the big map of the world, in order to see where Michael is going. Tonight, we'll have potatoes and cabbage, we'll talk about the Irish portion of our heritage, and we'll get a sense of Ireland.

This sort of conversation happens at our table all the time. We live in a marina, and people are constantly coming in from somewhere interesting or leaving to go somewhere interesting. The big world map gets taken out a lot. I've gotten into the habit of pointing out who we know, where they are, what they're eating, and what the language spoken there sounds like. It's not comprehensive, but it's enough to be intriguing.

Right now, the marina is swarming with folks heading from all over the place to join the Baja Ha-Ha cruising rally down the coast to Mexico. Mexico! Oh, the food! Oh, the language! Oh, the music! Mexico is easy, because of the proximity. Easier than  the Galapagos, anyway. The boys are already vaguely familiar with the Spanish language because of their exploits in Puerto Rico with Dora. And Mexican food is an integral part of our eating anyway; one of the many bonuses of being Californian. But that's what provided the bridge for them to realize that as you speak Spanish in Mexico and Puerto Rico, there are other languages in other places that you speak when you go there. We've had all kinds of fun playing around with Tahitian, Fijian, and Hawaiian. Especially Hawaiian; the language sounds like a waterfall, and we've found several excellent Hawaiian Rap bands that the boys love listening to. Nothing like dancing with your language lessons, and knowing at least how to say "please" and "thank you" everywhere you go.

Jim and Juanita, who sailed here from Maine (technically three seas away, even though it's the same country), live one dock away from us and will be sailing the South Pacific in three months. We've talked about how you eat there (fruit, fruit, fruit, and fish), and since Jim is big into food and boat cookery, we've talked about dehydrators versus blenders, ovens versus pressure cookers, and fishing poles versus traps. It's on the schedule for the boys and I to make our own solar cooker.

Jeff, the guy docked right behind us, is heading for the Galapagos in November. Because of him, we're watching endless rounds of nature shows on Netflix, about the finches and the lizards and Darwin. And of course, finding the island and the route on the map.

Next week, Jason is flying to Seattle to join up with our pal Toast, to sail their boat down here to San Francisco Bay. They've just finished a circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, and the boys are just bursting with questions to ask Toast's three daughters, who are friends of theirs. The boys have never been anyplace like Vancouver Island, nor have they seen orcas or humpbacks in the water next to the boat, as Toast's family has.

A few weeks ago our friend Zen stopped by. He's planning to voyage across the Pacific to Japan. We've already spent a bunch of time talking about Japan, but the boys hadn't really understood that we could sail there. So this engendered a conversation where we talked about being able to sail to all the places on the map that touch the blue. And that of course leads to being able to read the names of the places in brown and green that touch the blue places.

And that right there, my friends, is what Geography in the School of the World looks  like. There won't be a test, but there will certainly be dessert when we're finished.  And probably dancing.

Laureen is a writer, a professional editor, a scuba instructor, a beginning  sailor, a traveler, and an obsessive researcher who's chiefly focused  on, and delighted with, her husband Jason, her sons Rowan and  Kestrel, and her daughter Aurora. She's a lifelong Californian, which lends a very distinctive  spin to both her ideas and her politics, and she's discovered, in her  peregrinations, that the world is far smaller yet far more fascinating  than anyone gives it credit for being. She holds forth her opinions on  that in her blog, The ElementalMom.

The Real Job of "Socialization"

by Steph W.

At my younger girl's first soccer game, I met a mom who is officially beginning to home school this year; her older daughter is starting Kindergarten. I was surprised and saddened to hear that she is already getting flack about this choice -- from total strangers no less. People stop her in Wal Mart to say "Isn't she old enough to be in school?" When the mom replies that she home schools, they respond, "Why would you do that?" and -- yes, you knew this was coming -- "She won't get socialized."

I am not going to ponder the inappropriateness of stopping strangers in Wal Mart to question their educational choices. Maybe Wal Mart is the modern day agora where citizens gather to exchange gossip and bad advice. I'm also not going to discuss this absurd -- but still prevalent -- misconception about home schoolers and "socialization." I'm not sure how it started. Perhaps there is an urban legend afoot that home schoolers are rearing their children in isolated subterranean caves or sealed compounds. How else would we avoid having our kids "socialize?"Furthermore, we all know that "socialization" -- the process by which kids acquire values and learn to relate to other human beings -- takes place within the family and community. Schools can certainly play a part in that, but real socialization always -- for better or worse -- occurs in the heart of the family and community.

The thing that was running through my mind (aside from being surprised at people's gratuitous rudeness) -- and has troubled me for many years -- was not the way the "socialization" myth does a disservice to home schooling families (though, of course, it does). I was thinking of the way it does a disservice to public schools, and to society as a whole.

People seem to be buying into the notion that the role of "socializing" children -- an incredibly broad and complex task in which families and communities traditionally have led the way -- can be, or should be, taken on the one institution: the public school system. Much has been said about the "failure" of the school system.  Schools struggle in many ways, and artificial, politically motivated "standards"  seem to be exacerbating the situation. But if public schools are "failing," the root of the problem may be that this system is shouldering roles and expectations which they are not designed to handle. In addition to being educators, they are expected to transmit values to the next generation (the real job of "socialization") and play the role of police, psychologist and social worker.  Is it any wonder that they seem unable to rise to the task?

It seems that our society no longer questions the premise that schools should assume the role of educating kids, even though this is a relatively new development in our country's history. This assumption is flawed, since parents of schooled children still need to bear the primary responsibility for their kids' education and development. Schools struggle, I think, to meet the needs of each child in a system that often doesn't allow for letting each child's innate drive to learn unfold at its own pace. But thanks to many talented, devoted teachers and administrators, they move forward and many publicly schooled children thrive.

But their role doesn't stop there. Compulsory education laws have placed the school system in the role of an enforcement agency. They are also supposed to teach values, and they are expected to intervene -- often single-handedly -- when children are unable to learn because of emotional or family problems.

In a previous life, I was a counselor who "consulted" with public schools -- which often consisted of spending a little time each week with the most troubled students and trying to guide their families into therapy. These schools were working with many kids who had difficulty learning in the classroom because they were recovering from sexual abuse, were coping with alcoholism in the family, were abusing alcohol or other drugs themselves, or were victims of parental abuse, among many other things.

Sometimes a child was labeled with ADHD when really he was coping with an angry, abusive parent.  I remember one "hyperactive" boy who told me, between math and reading lessons, that his stepfather got drunk and terrorized the family. Another boy -- a fourth grader -- had already become so angry and violent he had kicked another child in the head until he was nearly unconscious. And yes, as you'd guess, behind that child's behavior was an extremely violent father. There are many stories like this.  Sadly, I am not surprised that there are school shootings. :-(

In the face of all this, despite lack of time or training, teachers and guidance counselors are expected to be therapists, mediators, and violence prevention experts.

Then came the phenomenon of "Values Education" in public schools. Faced with a seeming decline in moral values, the Commonwealth of Virginia decided that schools should add values like "Honesty," "Trustworthiness" and "Kindness" and their already crowded curricula. Teachers and guidance counselors found clever ways to work this in. One school counselor created a bulletin board which focused on one value at a time. For example, one month it focused on "Kindness."  She took photos of children doing nice things and posted them under the heading: "Look Who Was Caught Being Kind."

It was a clever, fun solution. But the problem is clear. True social and moral values are not captured in lessons or curricula or on bulletin boards. For better or worse, children are learning how to live and treat human beings -- from whatever "teachers" are at hand -- every waking moment. If, for whatever reason, families and communities are not helping them build a strong moral foundation, the schools simply can't fix that. The best they can do is try to be good role models during the hours the kids are in school -- teach by example -- and intervene when they can.  No one can design a "curriculum" that will be a magic bullet for society's troubles.  It just doesn't work that way.

I don't have a grand solution to these problems, nor do I have any compelling words of wisdom. But I look forward to the day that the rearing of children -- taking the lead in their education on every level, helping kids in troubled families, and guiding them in their emotional and moral development -- will truly be the job of families and communities. Government-funded agencies, such as mental health and social service agencies, can certainly play an important role in that.

Public schools would be viewed by families and society as a resource -- a place that offers classes, books, and time with talented, encouraging teachers. No one would assume they're there to make sure we're competitive in the world market, hold everyone to the same "standards," teach values, or "fix" troubled kids. No one would look to them for "socialization." They would have some role to play in all that, of course, along with the rest of the community. But we would all acknowledge the real travelers on this journey -- parents, along with extended families, faith groups, and communities.

At that point, life without school wouldn't be seen as lifestyle that is off the beaten track. After all, children's academic, physical, emotional, and spiritual education would l be understood to be the role of families, their support systems, and their communities. Schools would be seen simply as a part of that community and a public resource -- in most cases, freely chosen -- to help them on their journey.

Stephanie W. lives with her family in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. She has been learning at home full time with her three wonderfully creative, feisty and quirky children -- Sarah (14), James (9) & Patricia Elizabeth (4) since 2003. Her other interests include literature, writing, editing, and the internet.

Seeking Chemistry

by Celeste

One of my guilty weekend pleasures involves reading the “Date Lab” column in the Washington Post Magazine.  “Date Lab” is a virtual reality show in miniature---the Post sets up blind dates with young singles, and then interviews the participants afterwards about their impressions of the date.  Occasionally, someone finds their soul mate, but more often the dates end in disappointment, if not outright disaster. 

Often the dating singles in Date Lab look really compatible on paper, but that compatibility doesn’t translate into a real-life encounter.  “Yes, we are both young urban professionals who love jazz, travel, funny movies, dogs, babies, and romantic sunset walks, but……” 

What’s missing?  Usually it’s “chemistry”, that intangible, hard-to-define quality that is so essential to successful friendships and romances.  You know chemistry when you see it, but it’s awfully hard to put it into words, or predict when it will happen.

Just like available singles seeking the perfect mate, we homeschooling parents spend a lot of time seeking the perfect curriculum materials for our children.  We search for “that special something” in homeschooling catalogs or the displays of conference vendors.  Sometimes we even let our friends set us up on blind dates with curriculum:  “My son just LOVED learning to read with this, and I know your son will love it too!” 

Every book, resource, or activity kit on the market comes with rave reviews, but does it have “chemistry”?  Does it have the special spark that will make it the perfect fit for your child?  Sometimes the answers are surprising.

Take Cuisenaire rods, for example.  The veteran homeschooling mom who sold them to me swore that my kids would love these colorful wooden math manipulatives.  And she was right; they did love them--as a three-dimensional building toy.  After the thrill of designing skyscrapers and gymnastics equipment was over, the Cuisenaire rods went back into the box, never to be opened again.  The same goes for a lot of other cool-looking educational toys, books, games, puzzles, and kits, which are now sitting in my basement awaiting a yard sale.

While the Cuisenaire rods were a bust, we got an amazing amount of mathematical mileage from another set of manipulatives.  My 3 year old daughter loved this purchase and played with it daily, mastering one and two-digit number recognition, simple addition, and the concepts of odd and even in the process.  I am embarrassed to admit the manipulatives in question consisted of dice, poker chips, plastic race horses, and a miniature roulette wheel, all found in a beat-up suitcase purchased at a yard sale. It was definitely not your conventional homeschool resource.  But there was a lot of unexpected educational chemistry inside that old brown suitcase. 

Chemistry is often a fleeting affair, as evidenced by our little romance with Latin a couple years back.  My 11 year old son said he wanted to read about Roman warriors and battles in the original language.  There were plenty of books and materials which were informative, easy to understand, and appropriate for beginners.  However, these resources were not compelling enough to attract and sustain the interest of a preteen boy with no prior language experience.

Eventually, we found the Minimus Latin series, which teaches Latin grammar and Roman culture through the cartoon story of a real-life Roman family living in Great Britain about 1700 years ago. While other beginning Latin texts might have been far more thorough or comprehensive,  Minimus offered just the right mix of grammar, vocabulary, history, color, charm, humor, and cartoon mice to appeal to my son.  It was unquestionably the perfect match for my son at that particular time.

Alas, the romance with Latin did not last.  The second Minimus book was a little harder and less appealing than the first one, another beginning Latin resource I purchased turned out to be a major turnoff, and eventually our studies were set aside for another day.  But the cultural knowledge gained from this doomed love affair came in handy this spring during our visit to England, when we visited the Roman ruins in Bath.  And perhaps in time my son will return to Latin, although the last time I talked with him, he was thinking of studying Spanish instead.   

Meanwhile, that little 3 year old roulette player is now 17 and contemplating college admissions.  She seeks a moderately academically challenging school in the Mid-Atlantic region with a good program in advertising, mass communications, and/or marketing, ample amateur theatre opportunities, and lots of interesting people.  Literally hundreds of schools have written to her, claiming they have exactly what she wants.  But most of these appeals leave her cold; these schools have the right package, but not the right chemistry. 

As I write this, one particular college stands out from the rest for its innovation and charm.  Is it “the one”, or merely a passing fancy? We’ll see how this particular chemistry experiment holds up over the next few months.

Celeste  has been unschooling her kids for well over a decade. She does homeschooling advocacy work for her state homeschooling organization and spends way too much time on the computer. In her spare time, she does tae kwon do, plays the piano, and plays a glamorous, powerful, purple lady bunny in an online virtual reality game.

Homeschooling Advocacy and the Secular Community

by Tammy

You've probably heard about the California court ruling from February that homeschooling without a credential was not a "constitutional right." You may or may not have heard about the court ruling being vacated, and a new ruling was handed down in August stating that everything is the same as it was before all the hubbub.

There was a lot of controversy about this issue, all over the country. Some love was sent to California during this time, some finger wagging and warnings, and some downright anger that we would screw everything up for the rest of the states. Even now, there is some debate about the long-term effect of the recent ruling.

In the midst of it all, there was a core group of people here in the trenches here in California. I was lucky to have been privy to many of the discussions and decision-making processes during that time. While at the same time, I was not directly involved, so I had no influence or direct effect on the actions of the various groups. I was a fly on many walls, and this is what I saw, read and heard.

In California, there are three large state-wide homeschooling support groups: HomeSchool Association of California (HSC), the California Homeschool Network (CHN) and the Christian Home Educators Association of California (CHEA). HSC and CHN are both inclusive. I am the editor of HSC's magazine, the California HomeSchooler. And I am also a volunteer for CHN, mostly doing outreach. I speak at both of their conferences. I am not a member of CHEA.

Before the surprise ruling, these three groups pretty much worked independently. There were even some negative feelings between some of the long-time members of the groups. The groups weren't competitive, but they didn't communicate with each other much, or help each other out. This arrangement worked out fine because it had been such a long time since anything truly threatening had happened in California.

Then, that all changed practically overnight when World Net Daily published an article about a recent California appellate court ruling that effected homeschoolers.

CHN and HSC did not respond immediately. The wording in the ruling was ambiguous and didn't change the law. The e-lists were buzzing with talk, and nobody from the CHN or HSC board or legal team would tell us what was going on. Now, I know all of the people who run HSC and CHN, so I knew immediately why they weren't saying anything - they wanted to make damn sure that they understood what was really going on before making decisions.

What I didn't know, at the time, was that HSC, CHN and CHEA representatives were busy phoning each other and asking, "What's really going on here?" This case had come out of nowhere. The family involved had not contacted any homeschooling groups other than the school they attended. Nobody knew what was going on. The legal papers were long and detailed. There was a lot of information to digest in a short period of time. California homeschoolers were suddenly dragged into a court battle that had nothing to do with us. But we had to do something, because the media was closing in, and the phones were ringing off the hook.

Finally, CHN, HSC and CHEA came to a decision and made a joint statement. They reassured us that nothing in the law had changed, and that the ruling did not affect us. Not everyone was convinced. Even after the Governor of California, Arnold Swarzenegger, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O'Connell, chimed in with political support, many Californians, and many people across the country, were convinced that it was now illegal to homeschool in California.

The pressure was on. CHN, HSC and CHEA did not ask to be involved in this court case, but it became apparent that they all had to. Partly, we needed to manage information and the media. And partly, we had to put pressure on the courts to get us out of the case, and strike the homeschooling aspect of the ruling out of the opinion.

Members of the CHN, HSC and CHEA legal teams, and the presidents of these organizations were overwhelmed with requests for interviews from newspapers, radio and TV. They did an amazing job standing tall under the relentless questioning, all while working hard to find legal representation, coming up with a solid plan, and keeping the current California homeschoolers from panicking.

That's where I was asked to help, and I did my best to keep the information flowing on my blog. I hope I helped at least a little to keep us focussed and to reduce hysteria. I wasn't the only one. There were several people on the e-lists and on blogs who did their part to make sure that information was getting out.

Nonetheless, the media thrives on catastrophe. And we could not control the onslaught of stories about how homeschoolers in California were "panicked". I did one interview where the "expert" opposite me assured us that this ruling was "The 9/11 of homeschooling." The media loved this, and fed like sharks on it.

But, in some ways, this worked to our advantage. There was such a high demand for articles about this case, that after a while, interviewing the "experts" was getting somewhat dull. They needed "real people" to tell their stories--and a lot of them. Secular families, like mine, who generally stayed out of the whole hubbub of media, were asked to step up and say "hi" to the world. "We're here." We were scared. We had no bone to pick. We simply wanted to do what we could to help fix this "problem" that was thrust upon us.

In some regards, the reporters were probably frustrated with us. I know they were a bit frustrated with me. We weren't hysterical enough. Family after family was interviewed and quoted to say, "This isn't really that big of a deal. It doesn't effect us much." Also, more and more families who homeschooled for reasons other than religion were getting on TV, radio and in newspapers. It started to become clear that in California, homeschoolers are a diverse bunch.

Of course, not everyone got the message, but the courts certainly did. And so did our legislators. One of the quiet efforts that was never written about in any publication, or talked about publicly on the forums, was an effort to make contact with our Democratic representatives. And those of us who are registered Democrats were asked specifically to call our legislators and let them know our position on this.

The main purpose of this effort was to use the momentum we had to strengthen our relationships with our senator and representatives. We wanted them to meet us, get to know us, and pay attention. At one point, several of the leaders of CHN and HSC drove around for a weekend having in-person meetings with Democratic legislators. They asked what the legislators' concerns were, they gave them literature, and brought the topic up to the surface.

Some meetings did not go as well as others, but overall, the effort was a great success. We now have a pretty solid relationship with a number of democratic legislators.

Even now, after the second ruling was handed down, we are still pursuing this effort. It was so successful, that we realized how important this is to do on a continuous basis.

All of this was preventative. The real work with the court case itself happened between the lawyers and legal representatives of the CHN, HSC and CHEA. The groups worked together, deciding who was going to say what, and which points were absolutely necessary to bring up during the retrial. This is a critical point to understand - the secular and the Christian groups worked tightly together on this. They were calling each other daily, having meetings and redrafting their arguments, all together. This is unprecedented in California. Perhaps, also in the rest of the states. Have there been any other states that have come together - secular and religious - to fight for state-wide homeschooling rights?

For California, this was the hugest benefit of the entire ordeal. This coming together of all homeschooling groups is monumental. What a message we sent to those judges and to the legislators!

Of course, the news never mentioned any of this. Their main focus was on whether or not we're going to be wrangled up and arrested en masse. Once it was determined that there really was nothing to see here, the news lost interest. And what little we do see in the news tries its very best to keep up the drama, even when there isn't any.

Now, the drama is essentially over. There is still a threat that something else will happen. There always is. Even if the law was spotless, there will always be someone who is not happy, and always a chance that we'll be challenged.

After having gone through this year, and coming out unscathed, and in fact stronger than we were before it started, we're ready. We're ready together - secular and Christian homeschoolers and everyone else.

And what this proves to me, is that challenges to our right to homeschool is not necessarily a bad thing. If we really want to see a shift in how the world views homeschooling, and how our laws regulate us, we're going to have to get through these tough times. It's part of the evolutionary process. And there will be resistance and setbacks. We can't let that stop us.

The secular homeschooling community is an important part of our country's future. And so is the Christian homeschooling community. When we can work together, and show that our homeschooling rights run deeper than personal conviction, that they are about democracy, freedom, and independence, for everyone, then we will send a much stronger message than we ever could alone.

I'm confident it will happen someday. And if it doesn't happen, that won't stop me from trying.

Tammy Takahashi lives and learns with her three children (10, 7 and 4) and supportive husband in California. She is the author of Deschooling Gently: A Step by Step Guide to Fearless Homeschooling. She also serves as the editor of the California HomeSchooler magazine, a bi-monthly publication for the Homeschool Association of California. You can read more from her about education and homeschooling on her website. And you can email her at tammy.takahashi @ gmail(dot)com.

A Look at Interest-led Learning

Peter and I had an interesting conversation recently after a friend told him why she didn't like homeschooling (at least the way we do it). She said she thought home schoolers aren't challenged enough, that if something is hard, they just don't do it. He wondered what I thought. We had a great conversation, and I wish I had it recorded, but here's a summary of what we said:

Public schoolers look at life and learning differently than we do, and that's why they come to this conclusion. To most everyone in our society, learning is scripted and preprogrammed by someone else. Learning is like a machine you enter, have things done to you, and when you come out the other end, you are "educated." Some of those prescripted things are fun, some aren't, and if you could possibly refuse to partake in some elements, you would come out "defective."

We look at learning from the other side of the universe, it seems. We see it as a process of discovering who you are as a human being. The things you enjoy and find easy are the things you might be gifted at and are worth your time developing. Then as you pursue your interests, you might come to a wall. Are you interested enough to keep working and break through that wall? Peter is interested in philosophy right now. He's listening to lectures on Heidegger's book Being in Time. This is not easy reading, by any means, yet he wants to understand, so he spends his free time reading, thinking, and talking about this book. How many graduated seniors choose to spend their time this way?

If we subject children to a daily, yearly barrage of information and practice they hate, we are running the risk of killing their love of learning. We are teaching them that learning is a chore that has to be endured. No wonder kids act like caged animals set free when school's out. And no wonder so many adults stop learning (reading, pursuing new things) because they are so burned out by their "education." Or even worse, they've learned they are low on the intelligence scale and had better just give up.

If Peter had to pick a subject that he considers hard, it would be math. He's good at it (99th percentile), has studied up to a beginning Calculus level, but he's ready to stop. He's just not interested in studying any more math. If, however, he decides to go into a field that requires upper level math, he'll take a class in college. It all depends on his goals.

How many stories have we heard of people going to college later in life, even people who were poor students in high school? It's the motivation and eyes on the prize that propel us to do what we really want to do--and succeed. And sometimes we need the perspective of time away from institutional school to see who we are and what we really want out of life. Kids who have the privilege of finding that out early have the advantage and don't have wasted years trying to "find themselves."

What if we could look at learning and education a whole new way? I'm thinking of a children's book by John Trent called The Treasure Tree: Helping Kids Understand Their Personality. I don't own this book, and it's been many years since I read it, but the idea stuck in my head. There are four friends, a lion, a golden retriever, an otter, and a beaver. Each represent different personality types and different strengths. As each uses his strengths, they are able to face challenges and overcome obstacles. But what if they were forced to all have the same strength? What if they lived in a world where they did not have the opportunity to fully develop who they are? For example, what if the lion had to spend most of his time in swimming lessons to make up for his "deficiency," but since the otter found swimming easy, he had to take extra classes in Stalking Prey? Or what if we introduce a bird curriculum developer into the picture. Now all these animals have to take flying lessons. What's wrong with finding out what you are good at and going for the gold? Maybe those things that are hard for you aren't really worth your time unless you actually need that skill to reach your goal.

I guess the bottom line is to give kids lots of exposure to diverse fields to help them find what they love, the things that excite them and seem easy. I'm reminded of a quote by Thomas Edison, "I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun." This quote is from a man who spent every waking hour experimenting until he held over 1,000 patents, including the electric light bulb. Fun doesn't necessarily equal wasted time!

I will say that traditional schooling does a fairly good job of exposing kids to various fields of study. They get to dabble in a lot of things. But the problem is perpetual dabbling, forced dabbling, and no freedom to dive in completely.

Such interesting stuff! Sometimes Peter talks about studying sociology and education philosophy in college. Be still my heart. Could I have raised an education reformer?

photos: Peter on the lights at a theater and Meg (around 10 years old) painting her bedroom door with roses

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Sometimes It's Just a Shirt

by Missy

We were at a swim meet last weekend, and a little boy, maybe five or six, was playing in the sandbox. His t-shirt said, "Homeschool Rocks!"

Cool, I thought. There are only a few homeschooling families in our swim league, and in the midst of an activity permeated by school culture, I was excited to find another family.

So I asked, "Hey, are you homeschooled?"

And he looked at me like I had five heads and said, "Nope."

Oh.

"Ummm, okay. I just thought maybe since your t-shirt says something about homeschooling..."

"It's just a shirt." And he walked very quickly away from the crazy lady who reads t-shirts and actually, I dunno, believes they say something about the people wearing them.

Of course, he could have been homeschooled and just messing with my head. Which, if true, obviously worked because I'm still thinking about it days later. Or, maybe he doesn't realize he's homeschooled because maybe his parents don't talk about homeschooling because maybe he's so immersed in living that schooling, or the lack of it, is not something he connects with himself or with learning.

When Langston was five, people started asking him about school. "Are you in school yet?" (No.) "Are you going into kindergarten?" (No.) "What school do you go to?" (I don't.) Three years later, his answers haven't changed much. The difference is that three years later if his answer isn't followed by a mumbled, "I'm homeschooled," I don't rush to volunteer it.

When we first pulled Adria out after third grade, people often asked her why she wasn't in school during the day. Her standard response? "I'm an elementary school drop-out."

Eventually I stopped cringing.

During the school year, I start to forget that homeschooling is that unusual. Even when everyone (meaning Sterling) is healthy and we're able to do something with a group, it's generally with other homeschoolers. When we're at home, even though our neighbors don't homeschool, they know we do, and we had the mandatory philosophical discussions about our educational choices so long ago that it's now a non-issue.

Then swim team starts. The team is huge and the first year I was able to stay largely under the radar. Now, several years later, people recognize me and come up to talk and, inevitably, the conversation turns to school. Which means the questions begin. The why and the how...and I've figured out how to read people a little better so that when the questions start about curriculum, I can usually tell if I need to be a little vague about the concept of "relaxed eclectic". If I mention the area's museums and parks and I see something click in their eyes and they start nodding a little, I go into it a little more. If their eyes still look a little fuzzy and unsure and they respond with a "Yes, but which curriculum do you prefer?", I give a non-answer and change the direction of the conversation. Because, generally, I just don't feel like justifying how we do things. If the question comes up about socialization, I just point to my kids. Who tend to be in the middle of a group.

I forget that homeschooling confuses people. I forget that the idea is intimidating to some. I forget that we have become programmed into believing the tests and trusting this assembly line education that even teachers acknowledge doesn't work.

Which is something else I've noticed. The parents who are most confused about unschooling or more relaxed homeschooling aren't educators. Most teachers get it, particularly if they've been in the school system long enough to watch the tests take hold of the curriculum. My husband is going into administration now after more fifteen years in education and sometimes his co-workers question why his own children are homeschooled, but the questions don't last long because then they really think about it and it's pretty obvious.

It's weird in the summer to be immersed again among adults who introduce themselves as "Mr. or Mrs. Lastname" because I stopped being "Mrs. Lastname" a long time ago. It's weird to watch the middle school drama unfold and to watch the girls decide who they'll exclude this week and to watch my daughter recognize it happening and quickly include the girl in her own group of friends and so then watch the lines between groups blur a little.

It's interesting to watch the structure created in the public school blend with the lack of structure in our homeschooling life, and to watch others absorb it while we watch our own children respond appropriately to the social mores and expectations that we've been told they wouldn't learn. (Because, you know--they're sheltered. Undisciplined. Hell, they can go to the bathroom whenever they want--how are they ever going to survive in the "real" world?)

But then, maybe I think about it too much.

Maybe sometimes a t-shirt is just a t-shirt.

Missy's homeschooling journey began when she realized that the walls surrounding her daughter's classroom were too narrow; there was no room for exploration, no space for stretching. Now, she and her three children stretch and explore the world together. My blog: caffeinatedjive.

One Family's Experience at Polyface Farm

by Bettina

On Saturday, July 12, 2008 my family attended Field Day at Polyface Farm in Swoope, VA. For those who are not familiar with Polyface Farm and the Salatins who reside there and operate it, Polyface (farm of many faces) is a forerunner in the environmental livestock farming movement. Joel Salatin has written several books on his experiences in raising various animals on pasture. He laughingly admits that he had to 'learn how to think' and by doing so he has healed his pastures without chemicals, fed  the masses chemical-free, hormone-free meat and taught many of us new ways of raising our own food.   

I thought it would be interesting to share our experience with you from many points of view, so I briefly interviewed my family about the "Polyface experience."  M-Martina (who is 6), T-Travis (who is 16), MO-Mark (my husband) and B-Bettina (me)

Q: What surprised you about Polyface Farm Field Day?

M: How different their pork tasted. The grass fed pork was good.

T: The number of people there because I thought it would be a small event--more local than that.

MO: The lack of modernization. They are making everything work in the most simplistic way.
B: I, too, was surprised by the masses of people there. Mark heard that there were over 1,800! What was most surprising to me about the farm, though, was the size of the pastured poultry boxes. They were far larger than I expected and far larger than our tiny, little tractors which hold 2 laying hens each.

Q: What did you find most interesting at Polyface?

M: The poison ivy growing all over a pile of wood.

T: The Racken house. The way the rabbits and chickens work so symbiotically.

MO: The Racken house where rabbits and chickens cohabitate.

B: The poultry processing set up. Here at MTBar, we work with a minimalistic processing set up but I see how Polyface has taken minimalist and made it really, beautifully fuctional. Stainless steel is nice. Really nice.

Q: What did you learn about rabbits?

M: Umm...

T: That they can eat themselves out of house and home because their manure is so fertile that clover grows where they poop and clover is too rich for them to eat.

MO: The local breeds are better than the imported breeds. (Daniel told us that rabbits raised near where you live are already bio-adapted to your region.)

B: I learned a lot about line breeding and also the number of weeks at which a bunny can be bred, should be weaned, pastured, butchered and rebred. I also loved the Racken house and hare-pen (isn't that a *great* name?).  I've been convinced that rabbits would do well in a tractor situation, similar to the ones we keep our hens in, but Mark wasn't so much convinced. Now he is, and because he's the lead carpenter, maybe we can get moving in that direction now.

Q: What did you learn about chickens?

M: If the chickens weren't there, the rabbits wouldn't be there. (regarding the Racken house, where both rabbits and chickens are housed.)

T: Hmmm...

MO: You can fit a lot more of them in a small space than I thought you could.

B: This is more of a reinforcement, but the chicken served at lunch was really good. It was barbecued and a bit burnt, and still it was obvious that the meat had more texture and flavor and less of that jelly-like, mushy quality than commercial house-raised chickens have.

Q: What did you learn about processing chickens?

M: I didn't ask her this one because she has not been an active participant in this activity yet.

T: That people really like to use machinery! Some of those pluckers look like they could hold 5 or more chickens at once.

MO: 145 degrees for 90 seconds. (Speaking of scalding before plucking.)

B: That processing can be done in a small area if you have your set-up right.

Q:What did you learn about internships at Polyface Farm?

M: Interships?

T: They accept 2 per year. The youngest was 16 and the oldest in his 40's.

MO: Only 2 per year for 12 months.

B: That most of the focus for interns seems to be on the chicken processing  facet of the operation. Also, they are booked up years in advance. Being accepted into the internship program is a huge deal, as it should be. You basically become part of the Salatin family.

Q:Are you interested in environmentally sound farming practices?

M: Yes.

T: Yes, very much so.

MO: Yes.

B: Duh. We paid a lot of money to buy those tickets and spend the weekend in the mountains! We are trying hard to incorporate sane farming into our lives and into our menu.

Q: What is the most important or useful thing you learned?

M: Not to climb on the hay because it might tumble down or have snakes in it.

T: That the hay racks in the cow barn are movable and can go up as the cow's manure and hay build up the floor level. MO: Keep it simple. It doesn't take a lot of money to make it work.

B: That it's much easier to produce and sell rabbit meat than poultry because it's still such a small, niche market.

I came home feeling like I am doing the right thing for my family by trying to raise much of our own food. We are still heavily dependent on markets but there are days when we sit down to supper and I realize: "Hey! We grew all of this." It's a great feeling and I thank the Salatins for sharing their lives and farming practices so freely with us. Because of Joel and his family, our lives are easier. I am also trying to keep in mind and take to heart the idea of sharing my farm with others, to quote Mr. Salatin, "Farmers and eaters occupy center stage here." It's not just about people who are trying to grow food. It's about those people who care about what they eat.

Bettina Colonna Essert is a native of the Virginia/North Carolina borderland. She currently lives on a 'farmette' in rural NE NC with her husband, 2 home schooled children and a menagerie of farm animals. Bettina is an Equine Sports Massage Therapist.

4 Shooting Stars and No School Supplies

by Becky

My three kids and I live in a community of 9 homes that were all built at the same time. Actually, we built them, all of us....nine families, together....all at the same time. It took us ten months and plenty of blood, sweat, and tears; but we did it, together.

It's Labor Day weekend. The last hurrah for those on a school schedule. Today, we held a yard sale to sell the last of the power tools that we now no longer need because we are done building our homes. There are 12 kids living in these 9 homes, so of course we sold cookies and lemonade as well. We baked and wrapped and squeezed and made cardboard signs most of the afternoon yesterday and the kids set up their bake sale tables, while the adults organized the tools, the random boxes of nails, the extension ladders and hard hats, and that dang shop-vac that we've all been tripping over in the shed. There was so much excitement in the air. We moved into our homes back in December, and many of us needed to majorly hibernate for a few months after such a huge project. So now, when we get together for a potluck or an outdoor project, there is a familiar energy. Something like picking up that old guitar again and remembering how to play.

Most of the tools sold by the middle of the afternoon. The bake sale was a huge success. The kids made enough money for us to plan an ice cream party later in the week. Macy (middle daughter, age 9) made nearly 6 bucks face painting. I think she only got up out of her chair twice in 6 hours. She was in heaven, and now we are all walking around with little flowers and pumpkins and rainbows on our cheeks. One of the highlights of the day was the potluck. Sunny played his guitar the kids played basketball and rode scooters and bikes and skateboards until well after dark. We ate and laughed and and sang, and the kids played some more. Friends and neighbors dropped by.

I was tired. The kids were winding down. I thought for sure we were saying our goodnights and on our way to bed. And then I looked up. The stars. I laid down on the sidewalk and stared. Wow. Every time I do this, I can't believe how long it has been since the last time I found time to do this. Absolutely breath taking. Within minutes, 6 kids (my three and three others) had joined me. Janey, my 11 year old saw her first shooting star. Is that really possible? I had a moment of guilt. Maybe we haven't been looking up often enough. She, however, was thrilled. Gus, our 5 year old neighbor, came racing over when he heard our collective ooohs and ahhhs. Janey tried explaining to him what a shooting star looked like. She finally settled on: "Just keep looking up. You'll know it when you see it."

We laid there, mostly in silence, broken only by the gasps and ponderings: How do the satellites not fall to Earth? Where is Orion's belt? Which planets can we see right now? Are stars hundreds, thousands, or millions of miles away? What's that cloudy stripe down the center? Will the sun ever be a shooting star? What would it be like if there was no sun? Could we still eat pork sausage if we had no plants? And my favorite, "Are we upside down?"

These are the moments in life when I am reminded of why I choose to be an unschooler. Our life is rich and full and the learning is spontaneous and relevent. It's Labor Day Weekend. There's not a school supply in sight. And I saw 4 shooting stars tonight.

Becky is the unschooling mother of three (Janey, 12, Macy, 10 and Charley, 7) attempting to raise her children with compassion and respect.  She taught elementary school for 9 years before discovering unschooling when it was time for her oldest to go to Kindergarten.  She credits Sandra Dodd, Mary Griffith, Jan Hunt, and just about every other person she interacted with at her first HSC Home=Education conference 6 years ago, as her inspiration to find a more natural way of living and learning with children.  She is a passionate and radical transportation activist and is starting a non-profit carsharing organization in her town.  You can read more of what Becky has to say at http://lifewithoutschool.blogspot.com   She can be reached at ashlandcarshare@gmailcom.

The Lesson of Failure

by Laureen

Many years ago, I attended a very small high school with an extremely aggressive college prep program. My compatriots and I took all the same courses, read all the same books, had all the same teachers, and spent more than our fair share of time discussing ulcer medication. The group of about 30 of us went all the way through school together, with almost no exposure or cross-mixing with the rest of the school. We were insulated as we clawed our collective way to the top.

Our history/civics instructor, Mr. Barnes, was one of our favorites. It takes a lot to impress kids like we were, but T.O. Barnes managed it. He had been a tank commander in WWII, and his lectures on the strategy and troop movements in that war were nothing short of inspirational. He asked us to read more and do more than any other teacher; he pushed us hard and we adored him for it.

For some reason that we never understood, our hero worship threatened someone in the administration, and they decided that we should have a semester with a different instructor. His name was Ed Cabrera. He mostly taught special ed and problem students, so we all immediately took umbrage at being "stuck" with him. We didn't like him from the start; he was not one of us. Which was odd; he was a recent graduate, young, full of fresh ideas. Maybe that was the problem...

One day, we arrived in class to be met with a pop quiz. Now, we were the sort of students who know precisely how many points we've missed in a class. We were the sorts of students who knew both our weighted and unweighted GPAs (remember the ulcer medications? Ohhhhh yeah). So for us, pop quizzes were a form of aggression on the part of an instructor. And Mr. Cabrera had just declared war. A pop quiz. On material we hadn't covered yet. The following two chapters, in fact.

One of our more outspoken compatriots said, "But you can't test us on material we haven't covered! It isn't fair!"

He asked us to do our best anyway. A few folks actually burst into tears. (The pressure in my classes was always high. We were the kids who didn't take art courses because the grading was subjective, and we couldn't afford the risk of losing points.)

The next day, the quizzes were returned to us. Most of us hadn't done too well. Naturally, it was material we hadn't covered yet. A few of us had gone home and read those two chapters in order to figure out the answers, but most of us were so freaked out by missing points on the pop quiz that the material was irrelevant. The parents of two or three of the top achievers amongst us went to the Principal to complain, and the following Monday we were back with T.O. Barnes, to everyone's collective relief. We all went on to be spectacularly overeducated. I have no idea what happened to Mr. Cabrera or Mr. Barnes.

So why the tiptoe through memory lane? I was watching my husband, Jason, and my son, Rowan, working on something here on the boat the other day. It's something Jason has never done before, and he's really nervous about doing it wrong. He's researched. He's talked to other boaters here in the marina. He's talked to the guys at the chandlery. But he's hesitating getting started. Rowan wants to just plunge right in, but Jason is very hesitant.

And so I thought, as I have every time I find myself in the same situation, of Mr. Cabrera.

The human animal learns from failure. We blow it; we learn from that; we move on better and stronger and more confident. But the key there is that the failure must not cripple us physically or emotionally. And that's the problem. Institutionalized schooling has created so much pain, so many strong emotions around failure, that something as fundamentally educational as missing some points on a pop quiz turns into angst that echoes down 20 or more years later.

I remember being that frustrated girl, not having the information. And I also remember reading the chapters when I got home, and having the information surf into my head far more easily because the bits from the quiz stuck in my mind. But so many of us are so afraid of the consequences of failure that we're incapable of beginning or of finishing. We research and then hesitate, handicapped by the fear instituted by years of terror over grades, terror over making the wrong choice. Because we're unwilling to sacrifice points (which in and of themselves have zero value), we avoid art. I'm not sure what we're so afraid of any more, now that the specter of not being accepted to the college of our choice is neither being used daily to beat us with, nor even relevant to our world. But after twelve years of that flavor of abuse,  the cringe is automatic.

I am grateful to Mr. Cabrera for his lesson of failure. It can't have been easy to face down hostile students, hostile parents, and a hostile administration to try to pass on what was probably the most life-relevant lesson we learned all year. Too bad we were all so deep in the culture of forced academic success we didn't figure out the value of that until it was too late to say so.

Laureen is a writer, a professional editor, a scuba instructor, a beginning  sailor, a traveler, and an obsessive researcher who's chiefly focused  on, and delighted with, her husband Jason,  her sons Rowan and  Kestrel, and her daughter Aurora. She's a lifelong Californian, which lends a very distinctive  spin to both her ideas and her politics, and she's discovered, in her  peregrinations, that the world is far smaller yet far more fascinating  than anyone gives it credit for being. She holds forth her opinions on  that in her blog, The ElementalMom.

The Homeschool Grassroots Advocacy Guide

Empower Yourself!

Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning.

You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result.

~  Mahatma Gandhi

This page is about homeschool grassroots activism and self-empowerment. Rarely is a problem so big that we cannot solve it together. Please check the links section below for additional information and a listing of state organizations that provide state specific information and support.

Note: Nothing in this article is meant as legal advice. For legal matters, contact a competent attorney.

A few questions we hope to address:

• How do I organize a grassroots effort to protect my rights to homeschool?
• When and how is the best way to act?
• What does a productive letter to the Editor look like?
• How do I write my representatives and local officials?
• What is the best reaction to a local threat?

How? What? When? Why? Where?

Courtesy of The Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers & Celeste Land

(please bear in mind, that some information contained in the articles below is state specific)

Play an Active Role

Dark Side of Legislative Alerts

Homeschooling Advocacy: Step 1 - Know the Law

Homeschooling Advocacy: Step 2 - Know the Players

Homeschooling Advocacy: Step 3 - Know Your Local Policies

Homeschooling Advocacy: Step 4 - Know How to Write an Effective Letter or Email

Homeschooling Advocacy: Step 5 - Know How to Write Effective Talking Points

Experience, Examples, and Commentary

Handling it Ourselves, by Shay Seaborne

Links

A to Z Home's Cool State Homeschool Organization Listing

A listing of state organizations actively providing information and advocacy.

Contribute

Help make this page:

Grassroots Advocacy: How? What? When? Why? Where?

Back to REAL STORIES: REAL LIVES

Grassroots Advocacy: How? What? When? Why? Where?

Help create this page:

The Homeschool Grassroots Advocacy Guide

This page is about grassroots advocacy and self-empowerment.

A few questions we will address:

• How do I organize a grassroots effort to protect my rights to homeschool?
• When and how is the best way to act?
• What does a productive letter to the Editor look like?
• How do I write my representatives and local officials?
• What is the best reaction to a local threat?
• Why should I support grassroots advocacy?
• Where do I turn to for help and to help?

We are interested in thoughtful, respectful, and productive experiences, commentary, and advice on grassroots homeschool advocacy:

• Examples of letters to the editor, local and state representatives, local authorities
• Advice on when and how to organize an advocacy action
• Advice on if, when, and how to act alone
• Opinion of why grassroots advocacy can be effective
• Examples of grassroots advocacy in action

A collection of your submissions will be used to create The Homeschool Grassroots Advocacy Guide.

Submit your writing to the editor at editor-lwos@comcast.net

When addressing the editor, specify The Homeschool Grassroots Advocacy Guide and give your name as you would like it published.

Follow the instructions for Guest Author in the Writer Guidelines.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Back to REAL STORIES: REAL LIVES

Handling it Ourselves

by Shay

New homeschoolers understandably worry about meeting state requirements and interacting with division superintendents. Even veterans may feel intimidated by the presumed authority of the school officials with whom they necessarily have contact. This apparently was the case with an experienced homeschooling mom who called me in mid-July, wanting to know whether I had already "asked permission" to homeschool this year. Shocked at hearing that term from a seasoned Virginia homeschooler, I uttered the refrain I repeat on discussion lists, via email over the phone and in person: "We are not asking permission to homeschool; we are notifying the superintendent that we are homeschooling."

The following day a mom on the VAEclecticHS statewide discussion list put her finger on the crux of the problem when she wrote, "The school system did its job on me. I'm afraid to question their authority!" This is maybe the reason that many homeschooling parents - full-fledged adults - feel intimidated in the face of school officials. Those old feelings return - the same that arose when we received the threat of being sent to the principal's office. Kafkaesque specters of interrogation and a sense of impending danger may also haunt us. Being aware of this, we can choose to empower ourselves by knowing the law, by providing only legally required materials and by learning from, and joining with, other homeschooling parents. Through these measures we can face our fears and respond confidently and appropriately when dealing with school officials who may ask for more than the law requires.

When homeschoolers provide more information than required by the Virginia Home Instruction statute, the superintendents can become used to the additional materials, and start asking for them from others, unwittingly creating the perceived need for "legal protection." It is a vicious cycle. As children we learned to fear school officials' powers. When we homeschool, they present themselves as the authority, through the use of such phrases as "requesting permission to homeschool" on their documents. We are afraid, so we give them whatever they want without examining whether the request is in alignment with the law - hoping they'll leave us alone. But doing so simply shows the officials that we are compliant, and they ask for more because we've demonstrated that we'll give them whatever they want. They continue to ask for more, we feel threatened, and we think we are incapable of stopping the cycle without intervention from an organization.

But, we homeschooling parents are our own best protection. It isn't necessary to call in lawyers and conjure visions of lawsuits when a school district requests more than the law requires. Most superintendents are reasonable and are just trying to do their job to the best of their ability. They may simply be unmotivated to learn the complexities and details of our murky home education statutes. With a little support and encouragement from each other, homeschoolers can effectively respond to superintendents' offices that overstep their bounds.

Some groups encourage homeschoolers to submit the tables of contents of books when filing a "description of the program of study." My county, Prince William, has been asking homeschoolers to provide the tables of contents of books, which is beyond what the law requires. I responded with a simple, cordial letter stating that I had read the law and saw no provision for what they asked. However, if they could point out the specific wording of the law that required me to provide what they ask for, I would be happy to comply. Of course they couldn't furnish wording to back up their request, and they sent the so-called "approval" letter a few days later. This year they did not ask me for more than the law requires, because I stood up for myself the year before.

Other local parents also responded effectively. In a few cases the county's response was to say the papers wouldn't be processed until the "required" items were submitted. But these homeschoolers were not waiting for that "approval" letter; they did what the law requires, and if the county fails to process the papers, that is the county's choice. When homeschoolers handle the small encounters themselves we prevent them from snowballing into more serious difficulties. By dealing directly with our local school divisions, we avoid falling into being dependent upon an organization to take care of us. We can retain our individual power and autonomy and demonstrate that homeschoolers are confident, polite and proactive, rather than fearful and aggressively reactive.

Issues such as these are often discussed on state and local homeschool e-mail lists, where members can ask for help and learn the nuances of dealing with education officials. One member of the statewide list wrote that she found her county's erroneous form "rather intimidating," and that, had she "not been on this list" and learned otherwise, she "would have believed" the county form was accurate.

Through individual courage and commitment to providing only what the law requires, we protect our homeschooling rights. It is in our best interest to claim that responsibility on an individual level as much as we can, and to encourage others to do the same.

A new homeschooler, filing for her first time, confessed to me that she is "not fearless, like you are." But I am not fearless. Rather, I vowed, after a bad experience years ago, to avoid taking action based on fear. I still am afraid at times, but I face my fear, utilize the resources available, and trust that everything will turn out all right. And it has.

Note: Nothing in this article is meant as legal advice. For legal matters, contact a competent attorney.

Interacting with the School Division:

• Read your state law and ask questions of knowledgeable people until you understand the law well
• Keep a copy of the current Virginia Home Instruction statute on hand
• Answer superintendents' queries in a timely manner
• Respond politely and confidently
• Communicate with school officials in writing and keep copies of all papers, so you have documentation of all exchanges
• Consider sending mail certified with return receipt as proof of compliance
• Seek information and support from other homeschool parents in a local support group or discussion list, before looking for an organization to act on your behalf

Resources:

The National Home Education Network's Legal and Legislative Information

NHEN Legislative e-mail discussion list on legal and legislative issues related to homeschooling

For learning in-depth about homeschooling legal issues, peruse Larry and Susan Kaseman's articles at Home Education Magazine and at the American Homeschool Association here

Shay Seaborne is immediate past president of The Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers, founder of the VaEclectic  homeschool discussion list and Skipper of Sea Scout Ship 7916. She lives with her two daughters in Woodbridge, Virginia, where she writes, homeschools, rides her bicycle and sails whenever she has the chance, and improves her core strength a little every day.

2001 Shay Seaborne. All rights reserved. Re-printed with permission. Originally published in the newsletter of the The Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers

Mismeasuring Intelligence and Learning

by Steph W.

Home schoolers and unschoolers have long understood the limitations of standardized academic standards and testing. We know that intelligence and learning are living, dynamic things that can't be easily pinned down and studied like dead creatures used as specimens. It is interesting when psychological researchers say the same thing.

I recently read some of the work of Robert J. Sternberg. He offers a three-part theory of intelligence:

• Analytical Intelligence-- solving problems and judging the quality of ideas

• Creative Intelligence -- developing your own ideas and problems to solve

• Practical Intelligence-- using these abilities effectively in everyday life.

We learn best and work most effectively when we balance these three abilities. Yet, according to Sternberg, only one -- analytical intelligence -- is measured on tests or valued in the classroom. He points out that part of the danger of this artificial, unbalanced way of teaching and assessing students is that many people will never explore a field that would fulfill their gifts and interests. Having their skills and ideas judged in a warped way, they may conclude that they are "not good" at something at which they would have excelled.

In Successful Intelligence, he writes (words in italics are my own comments):

I went to my son's English class one Parents' Day. They were studying The Odyssey. A good book -- actually, a great one. The teacher read a quote, and the students had to identify who said it, or what was happening at the time. For students who loved to memorize, that was just fine. But no one who excelled in that class was showing the talents of either a writer or a literary critic. (Or even a person who just genuinely enjoys literature, mythology, and history) And among those who did not to do well was, for all we could tell, one who had the potential talent to be the next Shakespeare.

I believe that many imaginative writers conclude early on that they are "not good at writing" because they are judged on spelling or mechanics instead of the quality of their ideas. Similarly, students with potential in math sell themselves short because they are convinced math is about computation, neatness and accuracy rather than challenging concepts and creative problem solving. This way of judging our abilities diminishes us and makes our complex intelligence seem like something one-dimensional.

I also think the way society tests and evaluates, rather than just being a reflection of prevailing theories of intelligence and learning, shapes our notions of what intelligence is. This is a dangerous trap.

Sternberg offers several interesting examples of how limited professionals are in our ability to view intelligence outside of narrow boxes. For example, he cites Joe Glick's study of the Kpelle tribe in Africa. This researcher tried to get the natives to sort terms taxonomically (into categories); for example -- fruits: apple, orange, grapefruit; vehicles: bus, boat, car. This was meant to be a revealing measure of their intellectual abilities. Instead, the Kpelle sorted functionally (e.g. apple/eat, car/gas)

When he was about the conclude that they simply lacked the mental ability for this task, Glick decided, as a last resort, to ask "How a stupid person would do it?" Then, they sorted taxonomically with no difficulty. Not being shaped by our school system and our standardized tests, they believed that functional relationships were the only thing that made sense. After all, that's the way things work in real life. Only a "stupid" person would do it differently.

Another example of the limitations of testing -- and the assumptions shaped by our test-driven culture -- came from Seymour Sarason, psychologist at Yale. He reported to his first job administering intelligence tests at a school for the mentally retarded. The day started with rounding up the students. They had cleverly eluded the complicated security system and escaped the building. Nevertheless, when they finally got settled down and were tested, they couldn't complete even the simplest levels in the Porteus Maze tests.

Similarly, Brazilian researchers found that Brazilian street children could successfully run a street business, using mathematical ability and practical intelligence. Yet they couldn't answer the same mathematical questions on a test.

I guess this reflects what home schoolers and unschoolers have known all along. Learning doesn't really occur -- nor is it reflected -- in static measures like tests. It occurs in life. Real life -- messy and unstandardized -- where people learn what they need and accomplish amazing things. Things "expert" educators and psychologists "know" they can't do. Things that make them part of their culture and shape who they are. I hope these are the things our kids are gaining through life without school. Even if they never show up on a test report.

Stephanie W. lives with her family in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. She has been learning at home full time with her three wonderfully creative, feisty and quirky children -- Sarah (14), James (9) & Patricia Elizabeth (4) since 2003. Her other interests include literature, writing, editing, and the internet.

Should We Homeschool High School?

by Jena

Many homeschoolers come to the end of eighth grade and start to get nervous. Should we keep homeschooling? Doubt sets in and college looms as an ominous black cloud waiting at the end to devour us. We just don’t have the courage to face it. I know. I’ve been there. When Peter, my first child, started eighth grade, I realized I had to answer some serious questions. What would he do with his life beyond age 18? Were we preparing him to be successful at his chosen vocation? What would that vocation be? Believe me, it kept me awake at night.

I knew he loved to learn and would probably want to go to college and follow some “brainy” path, so I wanted to give him every opportunity to get into whatever college he chose. I knew of a high school that held classes only twice a week. The other days were spent at home doing assignments. It seemed like a good bridge from full time homeschooling, so we gave it a try. He absolutely loved it, and he excelled. But at the end of the school year, we had to move, and it was back to homeschooling.

Now the college prep was all in my hands, so I researched schools and learned their requirements. I realized that test scores are important to many of the top schools, so we started working on test preparation. That was as simple as buying the Princeton Review books on the PSAT, SAT, and ACT. It drove me crazy that he would only study the week before the test. I kept telling him how important these tests were, but his most concentrated study time turned out to be the hour drive to the testing center.

I was much more nervous than he was, but tried not to show it. When he came out of the first test and said, “That wasn’t so hard. I think I missed one or two,” I about fainted! But the truth is, Peter had been studying for these exams all his life. I never censored his reading materials. I never told him something was too hard for him. If he was interested, he’d read and wrestle with the content until he understood it. And that’s half of the SAT and ACT--reading and responding. The other half is math, and he was well prepared. In 9th grade he had a great tutor, and after that he read about math and worked through various Cliffs Notes books and the Straight Forward Math series by Garlic Press.

He also was not afraid of tests. He didn’t have years of accumulated test anxiety. And he was used to sitting still for hours grappling with text--because that's what he likes to do for fun! So a three hour marathon exam was no big deal to him.

Other exams he studied for were AP Literature and AP World History. I bought study guides and used them as reference points. We had a lot of fun watching The Teaching Company lectures and writing essays from those study books. We even invited a friend to join us to add some accountability. He loved our discussions and the reading and writing, but in the end, he decided not to take the tests. If he’d gotten a certain grade, they could have counted as college credit and would have looked good on a transcript. You can learn more about those tests here.

In the middle of his junior year he decided to apply to colleges through a program called QuestBridge. They specialize in helping low income, high-achieving kids get into top colleges. Peter had to submit transcripts (I had a  transcript form and filled in what he had studied), essays, test scores, financial information, and letters of recommendation. It was a long, hard process, but we knew what was at stake. Once he passed through their filtering system, they sent his application on to the colleges he chose from their list.

The University of Chicago was his number one pick. We waited and prayed. Then one day in December last year he got a phone call. I listened in over his shoulder. The woman said, “Peter, congratulations, you are accepted by the University of Chicago with a full ride scholarship!”

As I look back, here’s my advice:

   1. If your child will probably go to college, encourage him to study for and take the PSAT in the fall of his junior year. That could qualify him or her as a National Merit Scholar. Several colleges around the US offer full rides on that alone.
   2. Prepare for the SAT and/or the ACT. You can take those tests as often as you want, but you should know that SAT scores follow you wherever you go, but you can pick and choose which ACT scores to send a college.
   3. Check out QuestBridge to see if you’d be eligible and if any of their partner colleges look interesting.
   4. Check out college websites to see if any SAT subject tests are required for entrance and take those too. Schools often have special requirements for homeschoolers.
   5. Build the extra-curricular resume. For example, let your child volunteer anywhere that looks interesting, do community theater, take music lessons and perform with community bands, attend academic camps, do 4H or Scouts, have a part-time job, start a business; the sky’s the limit!
   6. Find experts to tutor your child in their areas of need and/or interest. Peter had a wonderful math tutor in 9th grade.
   7. See if the local high school lets homeschoolers take classes. Ours does. Peter took choir.
   8. Enroll in community college classes. Peter took Composition and Physics the first semester of his senior year to prove to himself and to colleges that he could do college level work. He also earned some transferable credit.
   9. Many homeschooling groups offer classes. These can fill the "friendship" need and offer foreign language or upper level subjects that might interest your child. 
  10. Let your child follow his interests and become an expert. If I were the czarina of education, every high school would look like that.

I know there is much more to say about homeschooling high school, so please ask questions.

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Jena

Jena began homeschooling in 1994. Her three children are now teenagers; one is graduated and attends  the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, the next one is 16 and pursues life without school in the arts, and the youngest is a freshman, trying out public school for the first time. In 2005 they bought a 7000 square foot church building and converted it into their home. You can read more about their adventures on her blog, yarns of the heart.

Biography

Over the years I’ve been hesitant to talk about the details of my homeschooling. All my friends kept schedules and worked through classroom-type curriculum, but I didn’t. My style of schooling never matched those around me, so I was a little intimidated and rarely had the guts to talk about what I did with my kids....

Homeschooling and College Scholarships

I like to take questions on my blog, and here's one from Kimber: 

I've been homeschooling since my 19 year old was about 4... We have graduated him now. I also have a 15, 12, 9 and 7. So my work is not done. I am interested how you got a full ride (or any) scholarship ...

The Socialization Question

If you decide to home school, you'll find that everyone is concerned about the socialization of your children. Complete strangers will make comments and relatives will sincerely worry your kids are suffering from lack of socialization. But in all honesty, the socialization issue convinced me to home school ...

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

My oldest son Peter likes to think and learn about education.  One day he ran across this video on ted.com by creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson ...

An Interview

Questions, questions, questions...they help us get to the point, don't they? Here's what My friend at Stone Age Techie recently asked me:

1) Have your children always been home schooled? How did you develop your unschooling philosophy?

Yes, we've always home schooled ...

When It Looks Like They're Not Learning

I recently got this question from  Unschooling Blogger:

This is the only time of year that I get antsy and start worrying about unschooling. I'd be so interested in hearing about how you encouraged learning with younger kids...

The  Power of Play

Alfred Adler once said, "Play is a child's work, and this is not a trivial pursuit." He's right, I think...

A Look at Interest-Led Learning

Peter and I had an interesting conversation recently after a friend told him why she didn't like homeschooling (at least the way we do it). She said she thought home schoolers aren't challenged enough, that if something is hard, they just don't do it...

Should We Homeschool High School?

Many homeschoolers come to the end of eighth grade and start to get nervous. Should we keep homeschooling? Doubt sets in ...

Teaching a Child How to Read

Reading is the number one, most important thing you can do for your child's education. Reading starts your child on the path of following his interests as far as he wants to go. That's obvious, right? I am always surprised by the number of moms who stress out about all the things to cover in kindergarten and first grade. My suggestion has always been, "Teach them to read, and then just let them go. Reading is the door that opens the world to them."...

School, an Endless Summer

I've always loved school. I'd come home from kindergarten and play teacher with my younger brother. From those first days, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. That's why I went on to get a degree in education...

All Posts by Jena

It's Just Not About Me

by Becky 

I knew this Summer Theater Conservatory was going to challenge me.  The director was clear from the initial audition that it would be intense.  Fun, no doubt, but intense.  Five weeks, 9am until 4pm, Monday through Friday, plus homework!  Homework!  I'm not sure I'm cut out for this.  The problem is, it's just not about me.

Macy, my ten year old, decided to audition for this camp back in April.  I was shocked.  She's always loved to sing, and she's been dancing with the same instructor for over three years now, but my Macy loves her free time.  I wouldn't have pegged her as a candidate for a completely scheduled summer.  Last Spring, she told me she felt a little over scheduled.  Her weekly knitting class (1 hour a week) and her art studio class (3 hours a week) were feeling like a bit much.   She complained she didn't have enough time to just "hang out".  For Macy, just "hanging out" means time to draw, listen to music, read, or just play with our neighbors.  As an unschooling family, we typically do a lot of hanging out.  Getting a spot in the summer conservatory would mean a lot less hang out time.  It was going to mean a major lifestyle change.

The audition was indeed rigorous.  Kids were asked to prepare a memorized monologue, a memorized Broadway show tune, and be ready to learn and perform a choreographed number.  I figured this was going to be one of those fantastic but disappointing life experiences, where she'd try really hard and give it her all, but wouldn't quite make the cut.  After all, she's only 10.  She'd have years to refine her dramatic talents.  Secretly, I was hoping she wouldn't make it.  I mean, it's not that I don't want my kids to achieve their goals, or be happy.  But, I enjoy our open schedule.  I like being in jammies until noon.

Of course, it wasn't up to me, and she made it in the conservatory.  She was thrilled.  I was thrilled for her.  I was!  But that was way back in May.  Now we're on week 2, and I'm exhausted.  We're up early packing a lunch and getting Macy to the bus stop.  By the time she gets home, she's tired and hungry, and still has homework to do...did I mention the homework? The other night, as I was helping her with a music theory worksheet, I lost it.  She was confused and couldn't remember which notes equaled which counts and it was late.  I began to question the whole experience.  Worksheets?  Monologues?  Memorizing?  Where was the fun?  Where was the spontaneity?  I began composing the letter of complaint to the conservatory director in my head.

And then, I took a deep breath.  I looked at my daughter, dutifully filling out a Musical Math Worksheet and happily filing her Actor's Personal Biography in her binder.  Oohhh, that's right.  This isn't about me.  This is about Macy.  She chose this very intense, very new activity.  She enjoys it.  She's having fun.  I'm the one who is still de-schooling myself.  I'm the one with very strong opinions about busy work and structured classrooms.  Oooops.  One more reminder that this life without school isn't just about me.

It's good for me to be reminded of that.  I find that my passion for my children and for unschooling  can sometimes cloud my vision.  There are times when I need to be gently reminded that the whole point in this child raising gig is to eventually let go.  The fact is, I really miss Macy when she's gone.  I'm not used to her spending most of her waking hours elsewhere and there is a big part of me that would love to be there with her.  But I suppose I can find comfort in the fact that she is doing what she loves because she wants to, not because she has to.  The whole point in choosing unschooling has been to follow my children's lead.  Macy has led us all here.  It wasn't my choice, but I'm here anyway. 

I'm letting go, so that she can eventually come back.

Becky is the unschooling mother of three (Janey, 12, Macy, 10 and Charley, 7) attempting to raise her children with compassion and respect.  She taught elementary school for 9 years before discovering unschooling when it was time for her oldest to go to Kindergarten.  She credits Sandra Dodd, Mary Griffith, Jan Hunt, and just about every other person she interacted with at her first HSC Home=Education conference 6 years ago, as her inspiration to find a more natural way of living and learning with children.  She is a passionate and radical transportation activist and is starting a non-profit carsharing organization in her town.  You can read more of what Becky has to say at http://lifewithoutschool.blogspot.com   She can be reached at ashlandcarshare@gmailcom.

Is Deschooling All that Important?

by Tammy

I first heard the term “deschooling” five years ago on the Homeschool Association of California (HSC) Yahoo! Group e-list. I was new to homeschooling, and I didn’t think the concept of deschooling really applied to me, since my kids had never been in school. Over time, I found the deschooling discussion to be, in fact, the most valuable of them all.

Whenever someone would voice their concern about “doing things right”, or when their kids were reluctant to study, I would read the discussion with rapt attention. I am a perfectionist, and I wanted to do things right. I wanted to avoid potential homeschooling pitfalls. Repeatedly, the advice these parents received was, “take time to deschool.” I was curious about it. Why did the questions that I felt the most inspired to read always lead to a discussion about deschooling?

Commonly, the suggestion offered was to take one month off for every year the child was in school, and basically do nothing. This time frame was about how long experienced homeschoolers said it took them to find their educational sea-legs, and for their kids to feel good about learning again. It was often referred to as a time to detox from school.

As you might have already experienced, this suggestion wasn’t always met with enthusiasm. Spending a few months letting the kids do “nothing”, sounds great coming from the other side of experience. As a new homeschooler, this sounded to me like educational suicide. I wasn’t alone in my fear, as other new homeschoolers would respond hesitantly to this advice, “Do “nothing” for six months? Sit around and watch TV and hope and pray that my child will spontaneously jump up and ask to do school work? How is that going to help my child to love learning again?”

It was intimidating, yet strangely exhilarating, to imagine educating my children in a way that didn’t look like school. Could I do that? Was it possible? What was our life going to look like if it didn’t reflect my own education? I wasn’t confident in the idea of not having my own experience to fall back on. Even though I did want to do something different than school, the opposite extreme of no school at all left me looking at my hands wondering, “Well, if not school, what then?”

I noticed that not everyone had the need to find an alternative to the school-at-home approach. For some families, replicating their own school experience at home was an effective and enjoyable approach. Although that worked for others, my husband and I knew right away that this approach wasn’t going to work for us. We decided to homeschool because we wanted freedom and opportunities. Why make the decision to teach our children differently, and then do exactly what they’d be doing in school? I wanted to create a more personalized learning experience for my children.

Yet, since I had never experienced education any other way, I was reluctant to fully embrace a life without it. I was on a journey to find a balanced way to deschool.

As I became an experienced homeschooler myself, I discovered my own answers to the many questions about how to learn as a family. I was then able to respond to new homeschoolers’ questions with confidence and empathy—I identified closely with what they were going through. The more experience I had as a homeschooler, the more I would help other new families find their way, primarily by relating my own stories and describing some of the effective tools and approaches that other families used. I found myself in the position of being the one who started responding with, “take time to deschool”, because it works.

I have asked myself if there was a way to learn to work together at home without deschooling. I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t moving from one “this is how you do it” paradigm to another. I didn’t want to follow advice blindly simply because I didn’t know what else to do.
Time taught me that while deschooling isn’t necessary for successful  homeschooling, it does come with many benefits. The main benefit of  deschooling is that we go through the process of learning how to educate our children one on one within the context of our family and the world, rather than using strategies best designed for group instruction in a school setting. We learn that whatever teacher role we take on at home has to be different than what teachers at school have to do. There are different variables to consider than what school teachers have to deal with. Teaching at home is like running a small business, not running a large corporation.

I was also concerned because deschooling sometimes seemed like a way to run away from our responsibilities as homeschooling parents. The idea of letting the kids do “nothing” didn’t fit in with my idea of responsible parenting. After time, and careful consideration, I saw that deschooling was in fact the opposite. “Doing nothing” is really another way to say “doing more”.
Deschooling is an exploration into what’s possible. Educating our children without school allows us to see that the world is a limitless expanse of opportunity. But it does take some time and experience to see past the curtains and look outside the classroom. Pattie Donahue- Krueger, in an essay called simply “Deschooling”, describes it as similar to an astronaut re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. It might be a bit uncomfortable, but it’s worth it.

The Good School Kid

I have a Bachelor of Arts in French and one in Psychology, as well as a Master’s Degree in French.

I’m not telling you this to impress you. I’m telling you this to show how thoroughly entrenched I was in the system. My kids never went to school, so they didn’t have to make the adjustment to learning without walls. I’m the one who needed to deschool.

I didn’t plan to be a educational rebel, let alone a deschooling advocate. I grew up a poster child for the success of the American public school system. I was the teacher’s pet, earned good grades and stayed on the honor roll for most of my high school and college career. I was on the fast track to Ph.D. acquisition. I wanted to be a professor.

Then, a few weeks after obtaining my M.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a set of fortuitous circumstances forced me to make a hard choice between my family and my schooling. Although I wished at the time that I could have done both, life pulled me away from school and into motherhood. If my husband and my children hadn’t pushed me to make a choice, I would probably have my Ph.D.  today. Maybe I’d have two. Maybe I’d still be there. I am forever grateful for my husband’s insistence that he have a satisfying job, and my children’s insistence that they be born before I was done with my Ph.D.

When I was in school, I had no idea how trapped I was in someone else’s idea of success and happiness. My whole value system was based on whether my professors approved of me. My grades defined how good my life was. And even as I questioned the validity of the teaching methods I was asked to perform, and I struggled against the status quo, I never once thought of breaking out and finding my true self outside of school. I was eternally happy being miserable: all-nighters studying for exams, piles and piles of reading material that I was always behind on, facts and figures I impressed professors with but which never had time to sink in because I was on my way to something else—all these things made me “happy.”

I was convinced that in order to be happy, I had to be “busy” and “challenged.” I was convinced of this because I never knew anything else in my life.

Not until I was a mom did I figure out what I had been missing.

I had been missing me.

Deschooling Mom

I was enthusiastic about being a stay-at-home mom with my first child. I knew it was the right choice for us. But it was a choice that came with consequences. I was home alone, left on my own to figure out how to fill my completely empty schedule. I spent hours in chat rooms. I walked around Berkeley and San Francisco with my son in the Bjorn. I would go to the classes at Gymboree everyday just to have something to do. I played hours and hours of video games. I watched Oprah. I read sci-fi novels. I did “nothing”.

When my son didn’t do what he was supposed to (like sleep), I found comfort with being obsessed with his schedule. I scheduled meals, my son’s naps, when he nursed, when we played, when we’d go for a walk.  Planning his day made it feel like it when things seemed to be spiraling out of control, it would all be OK.

But my son didn’t like it. Although he was only a baby, we “fought” about what the schedule should be. He was trying to teach me how to live and let go so he could grow.

As he got older, and I had another baby, and then another, I would come to learn more and more from my kids. They didn’t know the latest trends in teaching kids how to sleep, eat, read, talk, walk, or recognize colors, yet they managed to do all these things. I was looking everywhere for answers when the answers were right in front of me.

It was a time of soul searching, experimenting, laughing, crying, exploring, questioning, trusting, worrying, discovering, embracing, playing and learning to let go. I re-evaluated my point of view on education and learning over a dozen times. I swung back and forth between a strict schedule as the solution to my struggles, and a laissez- faire “who cares?” attitude.

When we decided we were going to homeschool, I read many books. I devoured them. I wanted to be the perfect homeschooling mom. I found new and improved answers in each one, with even better ideas on how to educate kids than any book I’d read before. So many great ideas, I couldn’t wait to try them all. My worries would be gone, because we’d finally found the right educational approach.
And while I was going through all of this, my kids went along learning in their own way. Whatever new program I found or new perspective I had, my kids just kept on being who they were, going around me (or trying to) whenever I got in their way.

I had to go through this process of exploration to learn to trust that learning can happen without school. Because I went through my own deschooling process, with the help of my children, I discovered first- hand that people are born to learn. My children have done nothing but prove this to be true. Grades, teacher assessments, or homework – none of that tells me who my kids are, even if they were in school. I know that their truth is already in them, not hiding in school lessons somewhere.

Whether my kids are in school or not, I’m a deschooled mom. My kids deschooled me. In many ways, they continue to do so. I will always be grateful to them for that.

This is an excerpt from Tammy's new book, Deschooling Gently: A Step by Step Guide to Fearless Homeschooling.

Tammy Takahashi lives and learns with her three children (10, 7 and 4) and supportive husband in California. She is the author of Deschooling Gently: A Step by Step Guide to Fearless Homeschooling. She also serves as the editor of the California HomeSchooler magazine, a bi-monthly publication for the Homeschool Association of California. You can read more from her about education and homeschooling on her website. And you can email her at tammy.takahashi @ gmail(dot)com.

Success

by Lune, Guest Author

It has taken me a good while to arrive at an idea of success that sits happily in my own mind. And this idea may seem very ‘insignificant’ to others, because it had nothing to do with grandiose goals or achievements; it is very ‘in the moment’ and very close to the earth. I believe my success is closely linked to my thankfulness for life and therefore it is pretty easy for me to feel successful every single day. I gave up on ‘career’ success a long time ago when I managed to lift the black cloud of depression from my life. All thoughts of material success in the outside world faded at that time. They were part of the reason I became depressed in the first place.

I had found someone who made me feel inspired with every single moment of my life, just as it is. And then I had children. I think part of the wish to homeschool lies in this (selfish) desire to continue living my life ‘in the moment’ with the people who manage to do it effortlessly - my two girls.

My small successes now come in the form of staying true to myself and my inner needs and fulfilling the needs of my family, which actually all roll into one big thing. I have never really thought of it in this way before but success for me is living harmoniously and joyously with myself, with those I share my life with, the immediate environment around me and the world at large. I get to this state through every day moment-to-moment ‘being’. It is as simple as that.

I believe that this is true for a child too. I believe they have no real concept of future goals or achievements. When you look at a child engrossed with the play of water on its hands or fascinated by the movement of autumn leaves caught up by the wind, you get to realise that the only thing that is ‘real’ for them is the present moment. And left to themselves, they will become fully immersed in it, learning all they can from the direct experience of what it has to offer.

When an adult comes along to impose some kind of goal onto the world of a child, requiring that something be produced in order that it may be measured, something falls out of balance. The present moment shifts into a future expectation. The flow is interrupted. Whereas before, a child may be passionately - for instance - writing about something that grips his imagination, totally caught up in the moment and totally at one with and expressing his true self. Now, he thinks about what to write, whether the topic is good enough for the adult, if the handwriting is legible, if it is too short or too long. He may become blocked on a word he cannot spell and so on. When this happens, the present moment will elude him and what may have been something totally satisfying to the passionate child becomes a ‘product’ that he will be measured against.

It becomes a means to an end. He is doing this for someone else, not for him and him alone.

It is in this way that we learn about other’s expectations of us early on. And this translates into what we perceive as success later in life. But how often does this success correspond with what we are truly passionate about?

It is such a shame that we feel compelled to measure success in ourselves and others, though it seems that our lives are becoming more and more embroiled in how we ‘measure up’ to these definitive expectations. And one person’s idea of success may of course, be another’s bitter failure. So why do we have the idea of succeeding at all? Because it is good for society as a whole, yet hard on the individual who must strive for something that doesn’t really exist.

And we feel compelled to impose all these ideas of success on our children in order that they may ‘get prepared’ for the real world beyond school.

We falsely learn to measure our successes on teacher/authority/society’s superficial standards. Set because they are an easy way in which one individual can be compared to another. But true and meaningful successes can only be judged by us and us alone, and we should be left to discover their subtleties in our own time, in our own unique way, without impedance from an outside party. They may be something as ‘insignificant’ as getting along with other members of the family, caring for the world around us or learning how to treat other children kindly, things that could never be judged as a ’success’ by authority, as they are so hard to measure. But it is these indefinable things that ultimately define each and every one of us.

I believe that homeschooling can help our children grow up with these indefinable qualities intact. By teaching kids at home we can step out of the restrictions of enforced qualifications and other imposed measures of success and run free with children who stay true to themselves. It gives them a chance to get caught up in their own joyous exploration of life, safe within a family unit that does not define their successes for them, but is there to provide them with any help they may need in defining their own sense of self-achievement.

Lune is an English mummy who started homeschooling at the beginning of July 2008. She lives in a small mountain chalet in the French Alps with her dear other half and their two girls Bubble (5) and Squeak (2). Follow her on her blog http://quatrepattes.wordpress.com