SCHOOL SUCKS

For the last 3 days I have been helping a friend that's in a true bind. Three of her children have been sleeping at my house. So come 6:30 in the forsaken AM, I have to get up. Then I have to wake them up. Then I have to feed them, tell them and help them get dressed, teeth brushed, hair combed, shoes on, potty?, where's your booksack?, come on let's go! OH, and don't forget to take your "medicine" . Rush, rush, rush, rush, phooey! And then right smack in the middle of my day, I get to go back to retrieve them. Then it's rush them home, rush myself home, make dinner and get my family fed, relax for about half an hour, then go pick them up again to sleep at our house so I can get them to school the next day. All of the time they spend at home (all of 4 hours)is spent fighting over getting homework done.

For quite some time, these kids have made no secret of how they envy Gregory's not having to go to school. Lately, they've said they want me to homeschool them (Yeah, Right!). Yesterday afternoon my friend asked me some questions about the cost of homeschooling. So we talked about the basics - our state laws, using PS curic., using full curics., using bits and pieces, and a very basic description of unschooling. Truth is, I spend less than $50 per month on things that could be considered related to homeschooling (field trips, mag. subscriptions). She said her kids are always saying they want to be homeschooled. In fact they say they want me to homeschool them "because Gregory is so smart!" Wow. That suprised me. Not that they think he's smart, he is smart, but I was not expecting that to be their main reason. I'd love to see her homeschool. Now, she's one of the most mainstream people I know. We parent very differently. I'm sure she'd be a school-at-homer, but it would still be so great to see them out of school. I know she'd love to get them off medication. Over time she has stopped spanking (still punishing tho), stopped letting her babies cry (she's had 4 since I've known her), and even allows some co-sleeping now and then, so there is hope. Baby steps...

Church...

I wish I'd have had my camera at church last weekend. We have about 30 minutes of great jump-up-and-down worship before bible study. It's a very active crowd, and it's often the most excercise I get all week :) . Anyhoo, I spotted a scene right up front that I wish I'd have been able to photograph. Right in the front row I see two hands in the air in worship. One man had his left hand in the air. His long sleeved light blue oxford was freshly pressed. Immidiately to his left stood a man with his right hand in the air. His roughly tanned arm was covered in tatoos. To see those two arms, the oxford and the tatoos, raised in worship beside each other summed up what I loved about my church so well. All are welcome. It is a no snob zone.

We have peanut butter!!

Our lives changed on February 14, 2007:
"The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers not to eat certain jars of Peter Pan peanut butter or Great Value peanut butter due to risk of contamination with Salmonella Tennessee (a bacterium that causes foodborne illness). The affected jars of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter have a product code located on the lid of the jar that begins with the number "2111." "

I don't know about you, but my child is made of peanut butter. It's the one thing that I could always turn to when he was picky and hungry. And suddenly it was gone. No other peanut butter would do. He settled for peanut butter crackers, but that's pre-packaged with who knows what, and I knew the nutritional value could not be compared. In May I read that the company was hoping to begin production in July. I told Gregory that, and he said that I'd better not get him peanut butter for his birthday (late in July). Truth is, he'd have been thrilled to have it for his birthday. I later read that they were aiming for late August. Imagine if you can my amazement when I saw Peter Pan peanut butter on the shelves of WallyWorld Saturday. Can I tell you that I had tears in my eyes thinking about coming home and making my child a peanut butter sandwich? I felt like Walter Fielding in Money Pit discovering they have stairs - "We have peanut butter!"

Now I'll have to start buying more bread again!

I am a Violet What Flower Are You?

The square peg...

Nobody IRL gets me. Well, that's an exaggeration. My hubby gets me, and he's still here. I am truly blessed that he's always seen parenting as my career (not just a job), and he's allowed me to do the research and come up with what works for us. That doesn't mean he's hands off. Far from it. He's just allowed me to be the expert here. He respects my choices and feels I can make good choices for our family. He sees the results of those choices, and it is good.

Lately, I'm running into people who obviously (to me at least) are threatened by or are resentful of the freedoms I've chosen to create my world. As my son gets older, I've become less and less coersive with him. Everyday it seems I have another mini-lightbulb moment about one thing or another. Things are constantly changing in our house.

I'm not too big into writing, so I may not go on and on about the details of each day. I'm a photographer, and I do a lot of photo-journaling. So you can expect many photos.

Oh, we saw Underdog yesterday and really enjoyed it!

More later!
P

can you unschool school?

My short answer - NO

I see "unschooler" and "unschooling" a bit differently. An unschooler can decide to take a formal class, and this doesn't mean they are no longer an "unschooler", but they are not "unschooling" at the time. Of course, an unschooler would bring a different perspective to a class than other "schooled" students, but if the goal is getting credit for the class, class rules must be followed, class goals and deadlines muct be met, which makes it schooling.

If my son decides to go to college, I will still be an unschooler because I will still be a life learner. But my son would be a student of university and therefore not unschooling at the time. I am not unschooling my son. He is unschooling himself.

video games

Yeah, I think we've all gotten stuck at video games for a time. We've been
told forever that they are evil. Fom money suckers to time wasters to brain
rotters. Be ye not afraid!! I have to giggle because I fought it for so
long. Problem was, the more I fought it, the more it became a holy grail to
my son (almost 9yo). When I realized that and began to let go, I began to
see all of the learning going on. Yes it took time. Yes he did little else
for quite a while. Yes I often had moments of panic. But we have reached a
balance. He loves his games. But unlike some of his friends who are limited
in their game play, he can walk away from it. It seems many of them can only
play in the car and away from home. So at park day there'll be a bunch of
kids all playing their hand held games (many are interacting with each
other) and Gregory's the only one who doesn't bring his to the park. In fact
he's only taken his out of the house twice. Both times at my urging because
we were going to be driving for quite some time. One trip he played for a
while. The other he never took it out.

What's he learning? Well, there's quite a bit of reading going on. Games
have *cheat codes* and *unlockables* that can be found online or in gaming
magazines. There are online forums for game users to share experience and
advice. He's doing a lot of research. He's also budgeting. He uses some of
his allowance to pay for an online game rental plan similar to netflix (
www.gamefly.com ). He saves the balance, usually to buy games. He's traded
old games at a local gaming store for store credit - he's saving for an
x-box or a wii. He even ebayed himself a gamecube system for $38! In the
games themselves, there are objectives to be met, widgets to be found, bad
guys to be subdued, allies to appease, etc, etc. There's usually quite a bit
going on at once. Allowing myself to enter his world for a while has been
wonderful. I'm learning about what he's interested in, I'm not putting down
his interest, and that keeps him talking to me about the games and other
things. It's been good for our relationship.

We are all big movie fans. There's something in DH & DS's blood that makes
them remember the smallest of details after seeing a movie once. It's
amazing to watch :) . Anyway, DS loves to get a new DVD and watch all of the
bonus material first. Talk about learning! He likes to watch it in a foreign
language and will often watch it subtitled in another language. He loves the
backstories from the commentary versions.

I'm having trouble getting to the details in my memory, but there's learning
oozing all of the place. You just can't stop it once you get out of their
way. It's a true leap of faith to let go of the notion of needing to control
our children. But our control is an illusion. God is in control. We just
have to let Him do His thing.

a dream

This was a few weeks ago. I only remember a few seconds. I was in the back seat of a car w/my parents in the front seat. We were stopped at an intersection near my (now) best friend's home. I remember hearing and feeling a deep boom. I looked out of the window and in the distance I saw a plume of smoke. At first it was not a mushroom cloud, but my thoughts were "it's a mushroom cloud," and then it became one. A general sence of panic was suddenly all around. My mother was screaming. I remember thinking, "Okay, my God is still in control." I kept thinking it and then I realized I was saying it outloud, louder and louder. My mother turned around and cried, "we could die!" and I replied, "If we die, we go to heaven" in a sort of what-are-you-worried-about manner. Then I woke up. It felt so empowering that my first thoughts were not of panic but of God's control.

"Limits"

No artificial limits on much of anything here. We share one computer and only 1 television has cable feed, so there are some natural limts. I was terrified of game systems and swore I'd never have one (long, long before being a parent. I called them money suckers). Eventually not having one made it that much more wanted by and endeared to my son (8.5yrs).

We bought him a playstation2 about a year ago. We got him a Nintendo DS for Christmas. I was actually pretty happy about that decision as I find the Nintendo games much less violent than the PS2 games. He recently "e-bayed" a Gamecube for himself and got quite a deal. He rents games from gamefly.com which he pays for out of his allowance.True, when he gets a new game, he emmerses himself in it. He learns all he can online about cheats and other codes. He's researching plenty! For a day or 2 he does little else. He stops on his own for a rest now and again, but he goes back to the new game after a while. But he learns so much from the games themselves. There are goals to be met. There's reading the story along the way. There's math in figuring how many widgets he needs to collect to get to the next level. There's often people managing skills needed to get different characters in the game to cooperate. It's all in how you look at what is going on.

And he does walk away on his own when he's had enough. Sometimes that may be hours, sometimes a few minutes. But because he knows they are there for him to use at any time, he has no fear that they will be taken away and no urge to soak up all he can while he can.

Same is true for television. If he doesn't want to watch, he doesn't. He turns it off more often than I do. There's no fear of not being able to watch later.Learning happens all the time. You can't stop it. You can kill the desire, but you can't stop learning. Unschooling is about changing your perspective on what learning is. Living life is learning.

yes, even fractions

Gregory (busy playing Zelda in his room) comes running out and starts telling me about the hit he just survived. It ended with "I had full health and when I fell on the blasters I lost a quarter health and when I fell in the lava I lost another quarter health. But I still have half health now."

:)