The Life Without School Community Blog

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 Natural Products of Our Training

by Laureen

I'd like to direct your attention to this article in the Washington Post, "Pearls Before Breakfast." That article illustrates to me that public school in America is absolutely successful at what it sets out to do, and that the vast majority of us are the natural products of our training.

The article covers a social experiment conducted by some of the Post's staff writers:

 

He emerged from the Metro at the L'Enfant Plaza station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most  measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a  long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a  small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he  shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money,  swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play...

 

In the three-quarters of an hour that he played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang  around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven  gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change.  That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three  feet away, few even turning to look.

 

"He" is Joshua Bell, arguably one of the best violinists of all time, and what he played was a sampling of some of the best music ever written for violin. He played for free, on his Stradivarius violin, posing as just another busker at rush hour, to see if beauty could transcend context.

These people, these passersby, are largely government workers.   The world does not end if they're ten or fifteen minutes late, but we are so conditioned by the bell ringing to be in our seats on time or face the direst consequences the bureaucracy can throw at us, that we no longer are even able to stop for beauty. We have a time clock to punch, and that is the all-important priority in the morning. We have to be in our seats on time, and twelve years of public school indoctrination has drilled that into our habits so completely, that as adults, we're still doing it, and allowing it to be done to us. "Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?" asks the article.

In this case, the opportunity cost to these people of this habitual behavior was to miss out on something irreplaceable. Something that they will never see again, was determined by their force of habit, to be less worthy than being to work on time.

 

In his 2003 book, Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life,  British author John Lane writes about the loss of the appreciation for  beauty in the modern world. The experiment at L'Enfant Plaza may be  symptomatic of that, he said -- not because people didn't have the  capacity to understand beauty, but because it was irrelevant to them.

 

"This is about having the wrong priorities," Lane said.

In the subsequent article, it was determined that most of the passersby didn't even recognize the music for what it was. We don't listen to music outside our own very narrow preference range, usually. There's no benefit to it. We listen to whatever the radio's playing, with no time or appreciation or attention for whatever isn't. It was noted that at least one person rushing by couldn't even hear what was being played, due to his iPod. It's especially true of urban dwellers, but as a culture we're increasingly surrounding ourselves with us-ness, and cutting ourselves off from the  experiences that could illuminate, expand, or challenge us. Which is hardly surprising, since we've spent twelve years being told to read the book and only the book, and answer questions only on the material the teacher deems important and that therefore by extension anything else is either wrong or irrelevant. If it was important, I would have been taught it somewhere along my educational career, right? So if I don't know what it is, it must not matter.

 

It was all videotaped by a hidden camera. You can play the recording  once or 15 times, and it never gets any easier to watch. Try speeding  it up, and it becomes one of those herky-jerky World War I-era silent  newsreels. The people scurry by in comical little hops and starts, cups  of coffee in their hands, cellphones at their ears, ID tags slapping at  their bellies, a grim danse macabre to indifference, inertia and the dingy, gray rush of modernity.

 

Even  at this accelerated pace, though, the fiddler's movements remain fluid  and graceful; he seems so apart from his audience -- unseen, unheard,  otherworldly -- that you find yourself thinking that he's not really  there. A ghost.

 

Only then do you see it: He is the one who is real. They are the ghosts.

Our need to rush on to the next thing, to keep our schedules, to ignore the fascinating things happening all around us isn't inherent, it's trained. Trained by years of having just 50 minutes per class, then ten minutes to rush to the next thing, sit down, settle down, focus on the next checkbox until the next bell. We are not born this way.

 

A couple of minutes into it, something revealing happens. A woman  and her preschooler emerge from the escalator. The woman is walking  briskly and, therefore, so is the child. She's got his hand. "I  had a time crunch," recalls Sheron Parker, an IT director for a federal  agency. "I had an 8:30 training class, and first I had to rush Evvie  off to his teacher, then rush back to work, then to the training  facility in the basement."

 

Evvie is her son, Evan. Evan is 3.

 

You  can see Evan clearly on the video. He's the cute black kid in the parka  who keeps twisting around to look at Joshua Bell, as he is being  propelled toward the door.

 

"There was a musician," Parker says, "and my son was intrigued. He wanted to pull over and listen, but I was rushed for time."

 

So  Parker does what she has to do. She deftly moves her body between  Evan's and Bell's, cutting off her son's line of sight. As they exit  the arcade, Evan can still be seen craning to look. When Parker is told  what she walked out on, she laughs. "Evan is very smart!"

 

The  poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born  with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart  is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the  poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

 

...But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent.  Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and  watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

Those children  knew what over a thousand adults passing by had been conditioned to ignore; that something fantastic was happening, something worthy of attention. And their parents, who were on a time crunch (for what? We'll never know) physically blocked that spark of curiosity, that urge of their child's, to explore what they were hearing. At three years old, Evan got the message that schedules and time crunches and whatever he was going to be being taught that day was more important than hearing the art coming from a man who can command $1000 a minute for his talent, who was sharing that talent for free, in exchange for nothing more than a temporary, almost fractional pause, in the daily grind.

 

Bell headed off on a concert tour of European capitals. But he is back  in the States this week. He has to be. On Tuesday, he will be accepting  the Avery Fisher prize, recognizing the Flop of L'Enfant Plaza as the  best classical musician in America.

Something fundamental, something primal and critical and necessary has been crushed out of the American people. Is it unreasonable for me to think that we are behaving just like well-trained monkeys? Twelve years of steady conditioning is not inconsiderable. It takes far less than that to achieve results with rats. Have we become a juggernaut of widget-crankers, incapable of spending even  scant minutes on glory?

Apparently. 

We can do better, we must do better, and as parents making the choice to step away both from the training and the scheduling, we are making our stand against the pressure to mindlessly conform. We have the opportunity to model for our children that art both great and small is happening all around us all the time, and that these transcendent, transitional moments of grace are available to be captured in the soul. As fortune favors the prepared, creating a life that allows for effervescent moments to be experienced, I think, is something that is a calling.

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 and her sons Rowan and  Kestrel. 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.

Farmers' Market

by Laureen

If someone wanted to see what learning looks like in our family, I would have to take them to the farmers' market. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they're smallish, "please pick me up a head of lettuce on the way home" kind of affairs. But the Saturday Berkeley Farmers' Market is a sight to behold. Snuggled up alongside a large park, the Saturday event takes up two full blocks, and you can find things there you can't find anywhere else. Stalls of fruit and vegetables side by side with meat vendors and raw food stalls, flower booths, prepared food, coffee drinks, pastries, fresh cheeses, honey straight off the comb.

And that doesn't even begin to address the wonder of the people. Kaleidoscopic. 60s burnouts, modern activists, families, local color of every size, variety, and description. The boys and I adore our Saturdays at the market.

We arrive around 10 AM, which is the civilized hour at which this particular market opens. Sometimes we find parking, sometimes it takes a few circlings of the block, with Rowan and Kestrel in the back, singsonging "parking fairies parking fairies parking fairies!" to help me out. Space found, we grab our cloth bags, Kestrel hops into the Ergo, and away we go.

We stop at the end of the market closest to the police station. There are several bright road cones there, and every week, Rowan and I discuss that if we get separated, he's to make his way there, and wait for me, and not allow anyone he doesn't know to tell him I'm somewhere else, that I will come there for him no matter what. And then we stand there for a minute, while he orients himself. Once that's accomplished, I open my wallet, and we discuss how much money we have, and how many things we need to get, versus how many things we want to get.

From there, we meander up the market, tacking wildly from side to side to watch the buskers, smell the fruit, admire the sales pitch. We talk about which stands have the best persimmons, which farmers met our eye, which booths are new. Before we know it, we're at the other end. And this is where the serious strategizing comes in. We discuss what we want to buy. Kestrel chimes in with whatever he's decided is best. And then I hand the cash over; Rowan gets 1/4 of the money in my wallet, to spend in whatever way seems best to him.

It is absolutely fascinating watching Rowan do his thing. Sometimes, he spends every penny on apple juice. Sometimes, he zigzags through the stalls, buying one of these and one of those. Sometimes he buys me flowers. Sometimes he buys cookies for the family. One week he divided his money (with my help; he's not doing division in his head yet, although he clearly understands the concept) between the five buskers along the route, because the music made him happy. I never quite know what he's going to buy, or what's motivating him this week, and I'm glad there's no  reason for me to try. I can just enjoy it as it unfolds.

Once our money is spent and our gastronomic imperatives indulged, we head over to the park for the boys to run off some energy. I usually sit on tree stump and dole out snacks to boys who are bouncing between energetic and hungry. And sometimes, I muse about what we're doing.

At this age and stage in their lives, I'm most concerned about teaching them personal safety and awareness. According to Gavin de Becker, author of Protecting the Gift, and my all-time hero, I'm teaching Rowan to be safe in public. I'm teaching him about finding safe places, and talking to safe people. We are exploring his intuition when it comes to assessing the motives of people, in the safe context of who he's willing to give money to and why, and that is helping him to become more confident in his ability to trust his instincts. He's also learning about the value of customer service, and the lesson that people spend money with people who have time for them, and they don't with people who are rude, abrupt, or condescending. He is learning that he is no less a customer because he's five, and that he has as much right to the vendor's attention as anyone else. He is learning to vote with his feet and with his dollars.

He's learning about economic value. In the knowledge of finite (financial) resource, he is learning that he could buy one  cookie, or he could buy six  apples, and he's learning about the consequences to himself of making those choices, from  lessons of instant gratification ("but I want the cookie *now*), to  lessons of economy ("but if I buy these apples and take them home, we can make them into something yummy for days!"). Implicit here is the concept of budget, and a general sense of family finance.

He's learning math. He's reading prices, he's receiving change and counting it, he's dividing his money between desires, he's learning when he has enough or does not have enough, he's checking to make sure that if he has ten dollars and the softball-sized avocados with silken flesh and divine taste are two dollars each, and there are four in the bag, yes he can get another, or he could put one back and still have enough for the tub of pumpkin quark he was drooling at on the way up. But which would he rather have, the extra avocado, or the quark? And if he gave the farmer a twenty dollar bill, how much should he get back? Better than worksheets, this is math-on-your-feet, with real consequences.

He's learning nutrition. He's learning agriculture. He's learning about seasonal food, about buying locally from the people that grow or make the food, and about how things like weather affect what he's able to buy. He's learned about beekeeping, about what an early frost or unseasonable rain do to the crops, he's learned that the best tomatoes are in summer, and that the beginning of colder weather is when all the "orange fruits" (pumpkins and persimmons) become available.

He's learning art, and music. He's learning about street theater and about street music, he's learning that music is made by real people who you can talk to and ask questions of (between sets), and that patronizing artists in every form is a high social calling. And he's also learning that personal expression for the sheer joy of it is a potential source of delight.

Who needs classrooms? We have markets.

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 and her sons Rowan and  Kestrel. 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 the Music: An Intellectual Jam Session

by Tammy

Have you ever been to a jam session? Where maybe a guitarist, bassist, pianist and drummer come together and just mess around with their instruments? Each person has their interests and expertise, and brings something different to the table. Yet, by playing together, they learn not only about their own instrument, but also about working together with the other players. The purpose isn't to learn. The point isn't to see who is the better player. It's just about playing. All the learning and growing just happens.

My son and husband are both learning how to play instruments. They are both naturally musically talented. Sometimes, they sit down together and one will start a riff, or rhythm. The other will listen for a while, then step in and add to it. With their own rhythm. It's a musical conversation. Going this way and that. A conversation where nobody's trying to be right. Nobody's trying to teach the other anything. Nobody's trying to test the other's knowledge of their instrument. It's a movement of exploration, curiosity. Wrong notes are accepted. Right notes repeated. Uneven rhythms adjusted. Laughing together, as the process is not always smooth. Listening to find a place where they can fit in with each other's style.

Imagine for a moment, a conversation like this. Where we are with our friends and neighbors and family. And as we talk with one another, we listen, try to fall into their rhythm, appreciate where they are at and what they bring to the table. Imagine for a moment, talking politics or religion or education or any of the other volatile topics with people where we treat it like a jam session. We're all passionate about our instrument (our perspective), and we each have our own style (how we phrase our opinions), and instead of trying to play over each other, or trying to point out how each other is not a very good player, we listen to each other, try to find the rhythm, then see how we can bring our own instrument into the conversation. How we can add to the music. Instead of trying to control the song.

In the writing community, we have an event called National Novel Writing Month. It's a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Why in the heck would 76,000 people choose to write a book with 50,000 words that nobody else is going to read? Why would a real writer ever waste his time working so hard on something that doesn't get seen and assessed by others? That doesn't earn money? That is probably horrible? Why bother putting words on paper that isn't furthering our career? It's a jam session for writers.

Chris Baty, creator of NaNoWriMo wanted to have a place where jamming with words was encouraged. "People get together to make music because it feels great—it feels wonderful to lose yourself in that sound, in that noise. For some reason the writing world has been so slow to catch onto that. The idea is that unless you’re on the New York Times bestseller list, or are headed there, you are woefully off course. That’s so strange. In the music world, there are so many groups and performers that just play once a month in a bar or play in the student center and put out their own CDs, and that’s as high as they want to get on the ladder of fame, because it comes along with its own sense of satisfaction."

Do we have the same expectation about learning? That if we aren't getting A's on our papers or heading towards Ivy League, we're "woefully off course"? If we're not academically minded, putting all of our efforts into skills that get us into college or allow us to become a doctor or lawyer, than we're not worth being taken seriously? Why do we not find value in intellectual jam sessions where there's no goal, no interest in using our talents for making money or getting a grade?

From my experience, homeschoolers have more opportunity and interest in knowledge jamming. You know, when we talk about things just because they are interesting - not because we are trying to understand it for a test, or to prove our smarts. Homeschooling allows for more impromptu idea volleying. For more side-by-side interest sharing. For more practice just for the sake of practicing. Not because we've been assigned, or because he have to, or because if we don't, we'll "lose" what we have.

Real life can be like a huge jam session. Until there's a reason for some serious music making, then it starts looking more like a career. But, if it's not a career yet, why make it look like one? And, I bet, most musicians, even when they are in their careers, still make time to sit around and jam, just for the heck of it - without any intention of coming up with a hit song.

It reminds me a bit of the image of Einstein and colleagues sitting around and debating about math, philosophy, religion and science. How often do people do that in today's time (without being called super-geek)? Why do we have to make sure that all the math we do is to "learn" so we can do harder math? Why do we have to write papers on philosophy or religion so that we can learn how to "think critically"? Why do we have to do science experiments in order to "understand science"? Why can't we do these things simply for the joy of doing these things?

Thinking about things, talking about things, writing about things, doing things - they all contribute to a full and happy life. But somewhere along the way, we learned that if we don't make these things difficult, focussed and productive, then it's a waste of time. Somewhere along the way, we are taught that unless there is some obvious benefit, then why even bother at all? That there's no time for all that playing. Playing is for people who aren't serious about their life.

I believe in the importance of having a meaningful and purposeful life. I also believe in balance. If we don't spend time jamming to the rhythms of our passions and interests, then we can get so caught in the "meaning" of everything, that we forget to take time to enjoy the things that we are working so hard to achieve.

Doing NaNoWriMo is my way of finding balance. So is writing my blog. I enjoy writing for the sake of writing. I like volleying ideas around, for the sake of playing with perspectives. I like having "debates" for the sake of hearing new ideas and perspectives (and learning how to better express my own in an effective way). Most of it doesn't get read by more than a handful of people. And that's OK. Just like it's OK that most of the "work" that my kids do, doesn't get assessed or judged.

Letting my kids have their own intellectual jam sessions, that's what we are doing when we let them follow their interests. And when I can (which is pretty often), I jam right along with them. And together, we make music.

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.

Suzuki Instruction and Child-Led Learning

by Christine-Guest Author

Music is such a complex means of expression.  It can arise from so many varied emotions and feelings and at times seems to spring out as if by accident. My son, Ezra, who is 7, always seemed to have music rising from within himself from early on. He loves to dance, sings continually while playing and set out to play cello from the moment he saw the instrument played on television.  As a toddler, his grandma gave him her ukulele and he played it like a cello, fashioning a bow out of a drumstick. We later bought him a toy violin and he played that too like a cello.

When Ezra turned 4 we decided to try out some first formal lessons. Fortunately for us, his first cello class was a group introduction to holding the instrument, noticing rhythms, dancing and basically just having fun while the teacher sang or played along.  His interest in the cello continued, so we decided to pursue the next step: cello lessons with a private teacher.

Though it seemed to happen quickly, this was a very big step in our son’s homeschooling. As an unschooling family, my husband and I want our children to pursue interests from their own initiative first and foremost. However, as neither of us were able to instruct him on playing cello correctly, we decided it was time to seek a teacher for him. Throughout, our main question, the one we came back to time and again was: Is he having fun and does he like to play his cello?

And time and again, he’s shown that he still possesses the motivation to continue. Now having had lessons for nearly 3 years, we have come a long way, since his days with his grandma’s ukulele. Through his private lessons, he has learned how to read music and has shown that he wants to challenge himself beyond what’s expected of him. But, with each lesson book completed, more and more challenges arise and the same question pops back into our heads. We are continually attempting to balance the need for structure in music learning with the need to keep Ezra’s natural enthusiasm alive.

To be sure, there have been times, when I have had to remind him about his choice to continue cello, times when he has complained about practicing or become hard on himself for not being able to play a piece fluidly yet. And so far, he has not wavered or asked to discontinue cello, as he has done for some other classes he’s taken. My husband and I try to instill the idea that if you ask to sign up for something, give it a chance and if you say you want to continue, make sure you are putting your effort into it too. It’s like the saying that goes you only get back what you put in.

However, the notion of pushing a child to music remains in the back of our minds. We’ve seen other children who have had to endure this kind of pressure and so, we try to step outside of our daily routine to examine things and examine our methods of ensuring Ezra’s class requirements are met. At times we compromise, but at other times, we keep the standard that his teacher has set and wait to see if the challenge might be a motivation in itself.

One of the things that has become a blessing for us is Ezra’s Suzuki based lessons. Through this method of teaching, a child is given the chance to begin their experience with music by ear naturally. Note reading is not started until at least lesson book 2 and a high priority is placed on parental involvement during lesson time and practice time as well.

In my opinion, these are qualities that fit right in with the unschooling philosophy: letting a child experience something naturally in his or her own way and the idea of the parent as a supportive guide. And this is exactly what the parent’s role is during a Suzuki lesson. They listen in, take notes if necessary to remember any pointers or tips that teacher gives, and serve as a guide for the child, who has been given the very special responsibility to learn and care for a complicated and expensive instrument. Lessons can be tailored to fit a child’s needs and learning style if need be. Ability is more important than age when determining a child’s level of instruction.

As with many types of learning, a key component to playing an instrument is regular practice. Just like learning a sport or perfecting the skill of writing, repetition is a way of forming good habits, such as positioning the instrument, posture, and listening skills, which help a child understand the various nuances of music being learned.

Students are asked to listen to an accompanying CD that includes all of the music from the book the child is studying.  It’s very much like the process of “strewing” that unschoolers often engage in.  But instead, it’s just playing the CD at home or in the car during ordinary routines that makes the music a part of the child’s consciousness, therefore making it easier to recall at lesson or practice time.

However, the Suzuki method can vary somewhat, depending on the teacher. When choosing a teacher for your child, ask to have a trial lesson or if you  may be allowed to observe another student’s lesson. And more than anything, always be aware of your child’s desire to make music. This is something that unschooling parents are most surely well aware of from having spent lots of time observing their child’s interests in other pursuits.

There will be times when interest in making music will wane a bit, perhaps when a child begins tiring of playing the same pieces over and over again. This has been the case with Ezra usually near the end of a book, or when he hasn’t had an opportunity to perform for awhile. If this should happen, take the opportunity to speak to your child’s teacher and ask for ways in which a new related activity could be introduced or a new challenge can be created for the child.

Breaks from practicing seem to be beneficial for Ezra, and since summer is usually a time for less formal classes and lessons, we usually take at least several weeks off from practice at this time. You may wish to experiment with this idea for your child, too.

The Suzuki method may not be for every child’s learning style. But, it can be a part of a child-led learning environment if the child’s desire to make music is not hampered by unnecessary pressure or competition.

When a child expresses music from within, this becomes the most motivating factor of all. Allowing the free flow of music in a child’s life is allowing a child to experience the satisfaction of understanding music as a most complex form of expression.

Christine lives in Oak Park, IL with her husband Rey and is the proud mama of two unschooled children who teach her new things about life on a daily basis. She keeps an ongoing journal of their adventures at life-is-learning.blogspot.com.

Assumptions

By Laureen

The Strictly Sail Pacific boat show was this past week. Based on what we've learned about how our family best endures such events, we planned a very casual schedule over three days, that allowed for a lot of time to take seminars, explore boats, and browse vendor booths. We do it up right; we bring yummy healthy snacks of our own, but splurge on hot dogs anyway. We sit and focus on seminars, then go outside and run around the statues there at Jack London Square to burn up as much energy as possible, before heading back into the fray. The boys learn as much at these things as we do; while Jason and I are getting the Full Court Press to buy buy buy, Rowan (and to some small extent, Kestrel) is being subjected to no pressure at all, and is free to observe things about people, about merchandise, and about boating in general.

But that's not what this post is about. This post is about other people's assumptions. And I suppose to some degree, my own.

We had been at the show no more than an hour. We were looking at a catamaran that was for sale from the same broker we bought our boat from. We'd hopped on board to say hello, wish good luck, and see what cool ideas we could steal for our own boat. While standing on the dock putting our shoes back on, this woman walks straight up to me (significantly within my personal comfort zone), and begins loudly and aggressively telling me that I am a terrible parent (?!?) because my child should not be on the dock without a PFD (Personal Flotation Device), I'm risking his life, he could be knocked off the dock and swept under and then he'd DIE and wouldn't I feel horrible then.

All the time she's bellowing at me, I'm holding Rowan's hand. Haven't let go since, well, the moment we walked onto the dock to begin with. Everyone who was on the boat commented about how confidently Rowan moved, and how clearly, he knew what he was doing. Readers of my other posts on this blog know the same thing. But this woman, having observed my little family for all of ten seconds, assumed a lot. And it's those assumptions that are most fascinating.

She assumed risk where there was basically none. We were on a cement dock, on the inner shore, with the entire marina between us and the things that make waves, over perfectly still, non-moving water. The dock was about two arms' lengths wide. The water right there is less than four feet deep, and shallows rapidly to where the ducks were standing up. I'm a scuba instructor and an excellent swimmer; I could probably have him back on the dock before he realized he was wet.  And did I mention, I was still holding his hand? I could go on, but that's not the point. The point is, this woman perceived a huge risk where none existed, not from any angle I could possibly examine it from.

She assumed Rowan was some form of turnip. At least, that's the conclusion he and I came to. Because all of her fear mongering and aggressive speech was right there in front of him (since, did I mention, I was holding his hand? So invading my space was most certainly invading his too.) He couldn't figure out what she was so upset about, and kept looking up at me as if to say, "OK Mama, now what?" But what was interesting, to me, is that all her concern was supposedly for his safety, but there was no respect for him. Not for his space. Not for talking to him to see how he perceived himself in the scheme of things. She never directly addressed him. "Turnip," stated Rowan, and I completely agree.

She assumed that being commanding and aggressive towards me would result in some form of compliance. I mean, she really thought that I'd smack my forehead, curse myself for a dunce, and race back to wherever to find a PFD for my child and put it on him immediately. My lack of action took her aback completely, and resulted in an escalation of both gesticulation and volume.

We stared at her until she wound down (or paused for breath, I'm not sure which), I said "I'll take it under advisement, thanks" and we walked away. I think there was supposed to be a lesson there about safety, or someone's perception of safety, or something, but she was so completely bombastic, I'm not quite sure. And neither was Rowan. His last reference to the incident was a quick question about why that woman thought he needed a PFD, since no one else had one on. I couldn't answer him, except to say that some people think kids are less able to protect themselves than adults are. We both shrugged, and kept moving.

Later in the day, after too many seminars and far too many vendor booths, we retreated to the food court. They had live music, Eric Stone and his band. Rowan was absolutely entranced, dancing in his seat (Kestrel, who had been in the Ergo all day, demanded to get out and dance too.) The boys were enjoying themselves so much, that at the break, the drummer made his way over to ask Rowan what he thought.

So there's our first data point. He didn't ask me. He made eye contact with me, smiled, introduced himself as Gary Haas, (not only famous for being in Eric's band, but also for being a stand-in for Geoffrey Rush in the Pirates films, and for being Courtney Haas's father) but then had his discussion with Rowan. Because he was the one clearly involved. They discussed the cool red bongo drums that Rowan was coveting, the chimes, drumming in general. Gary excused himself, but asked us to stay put. A few minutes later he reappeared, with a pair of autographed drumsticks, and a pirate flag for Rowan. "This is so you keep playing your drums when you're on your boat, and you think about our music when you practice" Gary informed him solemnly, a professional drummer to a beginning one. Inspiration personified. Rowan immediately crossed the sticks beneath his chin and pronounced, "Skull and Cross-drumsticks!" The kid's a natural.

And as Gary walked away, I sipped my drink, and mused upon an entirely different set of assumptions.

• The kid was the one to interact with, if information was going to be imparted in a way that stuck.
• You can inspire devotion with attention.
• Learning can be motivated in all kinds of ways, and it can be killed flat just as easily. It's all in the delivery.

Rowan's been playing with those drumsticks since we got home. Sometimes, he's actually playing his drum set, sometimes he's hitting other stuff and pretending it's bongos, and sometimes, he's just sitting there, playing with the sticks and thinking. Just on a hunch, I asked him about the loud woman yelling about falling off the dock. He looked at me blankly; the incident is already forgotten.

My assumption? It's been blotted out entirely by a pirate flag and a dream of playing glossy red bongo drums.

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 and her sons Rowan and Kestrel. 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 Elemental Mom

Big Homeschool Concerns -- PE and Music

By Marjorie

As I was making a purchase at a museum shop, I asked if they offer a discount to homeschoolers as I heard them offer another customer a teacher's discount. The sales clerk was very nice and said that she would. She started chatting with me about homeschooling. Its always so interesting to hear the different responses and questions that people have when they learn I homeschool.

This sales clerk hit me with a question I hadn't previously been asked -- she wondered about physical education and music. The PE part was a no-brainer. My kids get to play at playgrounds and parks for hours on end, several days a week when the weather is nice.  Sometimes my kids join me in my morning workout to various video tapes (okay, its not a daily workout, but at least a couple of times a week). Thats definitely more than a 30 minute recess once a day that area kindergarteners.  My eldest has taken ballet and gymnastics class and is currently enrolled in a homeschool PE class.  Also, since physical education is just one component of fitness and good health, I will mention that I do not have vending machines with candy, junk food, and soda in my home, though I think many schools have these in their cafeterias.

Music was a bit harder -- what do we do for music? We listen to a lot of music -- all different kinds. Suzanne spends time with a book titled, Story of the Orchestra and has listened to the CD a bit. We love the Classical Kids CDs and they've learned bits about some major composers. We have a piano and piano instruction books in the house and I've plucked out some tunes with Suzanne though she has mostly worked on her own.  We have a recorder somewhere in the house and will bring it out when they're ready.  We have plenty of play instruments.

I'm thinking my kindergartner has had more exposure to "Music" than she would have had if she was enrolled in the half-day kindergarten program offered at the public school in our district. I suppose some private schools may do more in the music department, but people aren't usually thinking about private schools when they ask homeschoolers these kinds of questions.

I couldn't help point out the concern that many public schools are cutting back on PE and music in order to allow more time to review before standardized tests like the SOLs.  Ever see full page ads in national magazines with pictures of famous artists lamenting the cut-backs in arts instruction in schools?  Yeah, I'm worried that I'm denying my children a well-rounded education by keeping them home.

Back to homeschooling music.  I love that I get to learn about what interests me, in the guise of exposing my children to it (isn't that what parenthood is all about?  Were my daughters really interested in the Baseball Hall of Fame, or was my husband mainly choosing that activity for himself?) 

I'm interested in learning about opera so I collect kids' opera materials and strew them about my house (thats the reason its such a mess). Opera has historical, story-telling, and EQ value.  As I said above, I love the Classical Kids CDs. Many in the series focus on composers of symphonies, though a couple touch on operas, like Mozart's Magic Flute, which has two CDs to its credit. Though, Mozart's Magic Fantasy, follows the story of the opera more so than Mozart's Magnificent Voyage,, which includes more historical background of Mozart's life.

We also have World's Very Best Opera for Kids, which I've enjoyed and while we don't own it, I've heard from others who love the Beethoven's Wig series if you like a liberal dose of silliness with your opera (I've listened to the clips on Amazon).

We've looked at a number of picture books for kids that tell the stories of famous operas. I can't say my kids have shown much interest, but I like to have them around. I picked up a beautiful book, , At the Opera, for what seemed like a bargain from Daedalus books ($10), but, alas, its sold out now.  If you get ahold of this book, you may want to read the stories to yourself before you read them aloud.  I had to censor The Marriage of Figaro extemporaneously because I did not heed this warning.  Live and learn and learn again.

Other books we've looked at from the library:
The Barefoot Book of Stories from the Opera
The Random House Book of Opera Stories
Sing Me a Story

If opera doesn't float your boat, several of those publisher's put out similar books of ballet stories (Barefoot books, Random House, Dance Me a Story). Speaking of ballet stories, we like DK's book and CD set..

Marjorie has been homeschooling her two young daughters for just a few years.  Her family chose homeschooling for the freedom it afforded them -- freedom from the school schedule and calendar; freedom to follow her children's interests; freedom from labeling and categorizing her children; and freedom from testing and homework.  She enjoys volunteering with her state's inclusive homeschool association and writing on her blog, unclimber.