Learning as we go…

My kids are reading informational books about animals, their favorite topic! Last few library trips they have been reading in the car as we drive home......aloud!!! and sharing!!! happy to be reading and enjoying what they are finding out about the animals!! Yeehaw! I do not know how they are learning to read, though, as far as how they are actually learning...to....read. But they are....one ever so slowly and the other ever so seemingly fast.

I am resisting. I know I am doing this. I am not accepting the fact that my children are so independent to the point that they do not want me to direct them in any way unless it makes sense to them. I know to the unschoolers out there this makes perfect sense, but this is really frustrating. Sometimes I wish they would just want to "do like mommy because mommy does it...like that." Does this make any sense?

This is part the way I have raised them and part who they are. My 9 year old does not even want to follow directions on how to make a root baby for our nature table (ala walforf). It has to be totally from her head. Nature tables and root babies make sense to her. Following instructions or just getting ideas from a book do not...most of the time. She is more than willing to copy the penguin halloween outfit from Family Fun Magazine. What's the difference? She completely resists instructions most of the time, then she wants to read every story in a book (currently a book of Norse myths) in the order that they are "supposed" to be read. What's going on? She is definitely deciding when...I just can''t figure out the "why" for the when or the when not.

Yes, I know...why do I want them to do things the way I want to do them? Because....maybe it includes reading and writing and math and sometimes like the rest of most of us, I freak out! I worry. Don't you wanna just sit down and do a few math problems. Well no...it doesn't make sense.

I either have to let this go or find a way for it to make sense.....

Anyone else with highly independent children like this? How's it going?

"According to the United Nations, there are 12 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone, and in four short years that number will skyrocket to 18.4 million. That means AIDS orphans will make up 15 to 20 percent of the population in some African countries."I just saw this documentary tonight. It followed In God's Name: A Global Summit with President Clinton. I just have to wonder what exactly in God's name people are doing and what in God's name people should be doing. Nice juxtaposition, don't you think? I am frankly sick and tired of actions that seem to only serve to feed the religious extremes instead of creating a peaceful world through acts of kindness and love and common sense. How much money have we spent war-ing when we could have spent that same money making peace and helping people heal. I realize that there are fanatics out there. That is obvious, but feeding their frenzy and cause with our reactions makes no sense to me.

Africa Infectious Disease Village Clinics

Riders For Health

Anyone else have other charities to recommend?

I'm adding one: Romanian Child.org

These children are basically born and left to rot in orphanages. They are made mentally ill and deformed by pure raw neglect.

Depak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success starts with the Law of Pure Potentiality. He sums it up with these three commitments:

(1) I will get in touch with the field of pure potentiality by taking time each day to be silent, to just Be. I will also sit alone in silent meditation at least twice a day for approximately 30 minutes in the morning and thirty minutes in the evening. (My sister uses walking meditation, and as I learn more about that I will post it. For me, allowing moments even of peace and being in peace is helpful when I remember to do that! Those moments can be at the park or in the car and anywhere really, but especially in nature)

(2) I will take time each day to commune with nature and to silently witness the intelligence of every living thing. I will sit silently and watch a sunset or listen to the sound of an ocean or a stream, or simply smell the scent of a flower. In the ecstasy of my own silence, and by communing with nature, I will enjoy the life throb of ages, the field of pure potentiality and unbound creativity.

(3) I will practice non-judgement. I will begin my day with the statement,"Today, I shall judge nothing that occurs," and throughout the day I will remind myself not to judge.

(What is "funny" is that my children know these things. They do not like it when I judge other people and situations. It makes them uncomfortable. I wonder how much we teach our children to judge by our reactions to life. "When you judge people, you are pretty much not saving your energy for how you can use your energy. You can use it for something else," says my 9 yo. We agree that identifying "what is" or the truth as we see  it today is a good thing. Harping on and living in judgement is where energy to live life is wasted. I know that I get upset when people abuse children and nature, but I can focus on judgement or I can focus on "what can I do to make things better.") 

From Depak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success:

(1) Today I will commit myself to detachment. I will allow myself and those around me the freedom to be who they are. I will not rigidly impose my idea of how things should be. I will not force solutions on problems, thereby creating new problems. I will participate in everything with detached involvement.

(2) Today I will factor in uncertainty as an essential ingredient of my experience. In my willingness to accept uncertainty, solutions will spontaneously emerge out of the problem, out of the confusion, disorder and chaos. The more uncertain things seem to be, the more secure I will feel, because uncertainty is my path to freedom. Through the wisdom of uncertainty, I will find security.

(3) I will step into the field of all possibilities and anticipate the  excitement that can occur when I remain open to an infinity of choices. When I step into the field of all possibilities, I will experience all the fun, adventure, magic and mystery of life.

Stephanie at Throwing Marshmallows has a quote: Learning can only happen when a child is interested. If he’s not interested it’s like throwing marshmallows at his head and calling it eating.” - Anonymous

I saw marshmallows flying the other day and it was cool! We went to a farm and were given a hayride through the cow maintenance and care. It was a dairy farm. We didn't get to see the cows be milked, but we did get to see where the cows are kept, how they are kept, fed and so on. While the tour guide (the famers' daughter, also a farmer herself) explained the operations over her microphone (she did a great job), my kids felt free to eat those marshmallows or let them fly. I ate more than they did because I was interested. Did you know the cows wear  computer chip anklets that let the people folk know when movement patterns have changed?

Later the kids and I talked about it all. They corrected me on the age at which the calves are separated from their mothers (12 HOURS!), but I think the rest was a rain of marshmallows. Since it was not a big deal whether they obtained/retained (whatever) any information or not, they were free to have fun and experience the whole trip, and did they! They will remember this adventure as they day they fed the sheep, goats, pigs, cows, and chickens for hours. They did. They made this their experience and that made the experience good learning. They can tell you what it feels like to have a cows tongue wrap around a cob or corn. They can tell you how a pig's nose feels and how a pig will attack a cob of corn and fight over it with another pig. They can tell you how a sheep feels and how a goat will nibble food out of your hand and attempt to walk a cat walk high over head. Can they really do that?

They learned how a farm smells and what it feels like to be with farm animals. This wasn't so much a field trip as an adventure. I may be taking Stephanie's quote totally in the wrong direction, but as I was thinking about our adventure today, I saw marshmallows; and I was grateful that marshmallows are not bricks. Take them or leave them.I am so glad my children do not feel they have to eat them, but can enjoy them if they find them relevant. I have come to see forced information as as harmful as no information when it is needed or more harmful. It takes away the hunger for information and exploration and experience when you are being force fed.

I think I have probably totally made mush out of marshmallows and the quote.....

I've neglected my children's education enough to know that they need a life, not an education. So I ask myself how I can give them a life. So much of the rest seems to take care of itself when I do, when that is my focus...living life, smorgasbording, being "lazy" and letting it all sink in, taking adventures, "slacking" at home, giving to life (helping others) and taking from life (enjoying). All of these experiences take skills; require skills; develop skills; give skills/learning time to seed, grow and bloom. Children do wan to live life and be empowered to live life. That requires every skill it requires. 

Life without school obviously does not have to mean a life without education. School educates. Life educates. A question may be, "What kind of education?" Another question might be, "What does it mean to be educated?" Yet another, "What is the purpose of education?" Another, "Do these purposes apply to all people and must the goals of such purposes be met the same way?" Can the "how, what when, where, and why" people learn be different?

What if one entity/group of folks, determined the "how, what, when, where, and why" every other person in the world was educated? What if one entity/group of folks determined the "how, what, when, where, and why" every other person in the world ate, drank, obtained spiritual fulfillment, and..you fill in the blank. What makes education a dictatorial component of a free society? Why can't the government ban junk food and propose a program of food consumption for my children? Why doesn't the government control these things and more? What makes education different?

Surely a non-educated society can affect a nation as a whole. So does a physically unhealthy society. I can expand this string of thought to compliment my personal belief system and say that a society of addictive consumption and commercialism also affects this society.

Where and why does education come into the arena of government domain? What would happen if mandatory school attendance was stricken down? Would children go out of control? Would they start roaming the streets and commit crimes? Would they stop learning? Would they learn the "wrong things" and not learn the "right things?" What would happen?

I don't want to get into the political aspects of whether the goverment should fund education at all. But I do ask why the government needs to enforce education and police parents in the education of their children under a compulsory attendance law. 

One could debate that life is school. As long as one is alive, one is learning something. What something is more important than another something? Learning to read and write? Learning about a democratic society? Learning to wait to be told to learn to believe that a test can actually determine the quality of your learning life? Learning not to ask questions unless told to? Learning to be bored and powerless in your own boredom because you cannot learn, explore, investigate what is not on the officially sanctioned list?

Compulsory attendance does not say compulsory education or compulsory learning. From what I understand, if it did, then the public school system would be accountable and that is proving to be a disastrous experiment with NCLB, isn't it? The results have been the "dumbing down" of how children really, truly naturally learn. It has taken a social, personal, natural process and reduced it mandatory paint by numbers, an assembly line curriculum for the masses. What has resulted is a one dimensional, "regurgitate the facts I feed you" life for a child. You cannot mass produce education because children are individual, living breathing  human beings. You mass produce objects and people/children learn who they are by how you treat them.

The more standards we create, the more specifics we hold to those standards the more we create an education for a mass entity, not a single child. We forget that are raising children. We forget the child.

 I've rambled. What were my original questions? Oh, right. How do we help our children become empowered in who they need to be? How do we empower parents to meet the needs of their children? Certainly the rest will take care of itself. Certainly there are no perfect solutions, but there can be more reasonable and humane perspective. Where do we draw the line of mandatory government involvement into personal lives? 

My children played all day yesterday. Intensely and with purpose, they played. Webkinz have now have a tent house, a kitchen, a library, a doctor's office and a restaurant.

I remember how it felt to play. I remember being in play and the excitement of roleplaying as if play were real and I was really who I was pretending to be. I sensed that with their play. It made me remember.

There is something that must happen in the brain when children play like that. John Holt said something to the fact that play is how children make meaning out of life. Hope I got that right. I saw them play out making meaning.

This play included reading, writing and math. It included role playing working for a living: earning money, keeping track of it, spending it and the responsibilities that go with earning money.

It involved writing and reading menus and producing mass quantities of menus (organization and planning). It involved writing and reading doctor prescriptions. This is how my eldest is practicing her writing skills, including tattoo art in words~did I mention the tattoo shop?

I really do love to witness my children play. It just amazes me how the need to do~the need to write that menu and read it, the need to play the cook or the doctor, the need to work together, plan and organize~it amazes me to see them play out/work out those life skills as tehy play. Play creates the need to know and gives it a place in the brain that is staged for learning. The cognitive stage is set and ready to go.

Well, I'm on a computer binge roll here. Might as well make the most of it. If I wake up tomorrow with a blackout, I will have these posts to remind me. Oh no...

Spunky writes about Homeschool Snobbery. Spunky has a really interesting and thought provoking blog. Here is what I think. Yes we are snobs. I am a snob. I drink from the Holy Grail of homeschooling.

It is really snobbery, though? The more I think about it and peel away the layers in my mind and heart, I think it has more to do with defenses. I do. I think homeschooling is not yet a comfortable, safe place to be. Why? Because we are constantly defending ourselves to others. Many of us are under government scrutiny (as is the rest of the country when it comes to how we "educate" our children) and that scrutiny and the impending doom of more scrutiny makes one defensive. It is a reaction. The reaction includes the need to criticize the impending doom~public school. Yes. That is one place I do not want my children to go. I do not want public school think  guiding the way I raise my children. I do not want civil servants and public officials telling me to raise my children( educate them) in the way they say I should. I feel this whole heartedly. I ask myself, would I feel so critical if I didn't feel fearful or threatened? I don't think so. I would feel more of a "live and let live" feeling.

Homeschooling is right for me. It is not right for everyone. Public School is not right for my children, but it is right for some children.

Could public school be better? Yes. Does it bother me that public school is becoming more and more standard based and actually leaving the individuality of each individual child behind? Yes. It bothers me alot. I think the fact that I was trained to be a secondary ed teacher, working on a masters in reading instruction before children and wanting so much to "make a difference" in the lives of children makes me feel emotional invested. I still care about the public school system. I want it to change. I probably would not send my children there, though, even if it did change because we like our lifestyle alot. It is right for us and I like choice too much now.

Personal beliefs, personal choices are personal, and I dont have a right to judge what is right for another person. When I feel threatened by your belliefs and your system (be it public education as it is today or environmental practices), I feel stronger in my need to verbalize my thoughts on the matters. I don't want to be a snob. I want to be able to follow my conscience, my mind to do what I think is right for me and my children.

IMO, here is a catch for us homeschoolers: What everyone else senses from us probably affects us in the end in some way or another. Fear and defensiveness do not build bridges. I sure would love to be able to speak my truth without diminishing others. I think referring others to "scriptures" to make up their own minds sounds diminshing. If "scriptures" can speak differently to your heart than mine (or the other Christian, I am not), then I can see saying that.

I also think that the idea that folks feel defensive around homeschoolers because they feel insecure or guilty is not always correct. I think people can feel defensive around defensive people. We create it sometimes. Just like I did in the post below this one.

Another thought on this: Sometimes people are not familiar with openly discussing and disagreeing on topics. That can feel threatening to them. I'm still getting used to it. I'm practicing here.:-)

(The test that I am drafting in is all messed up. Pardon the errors. I literally cannot see them as this font is about sizee 6 and gets squashy when I try to increase it..help?)