I haven't felt satisfied with the bio I had on the About Me and the Family page for a while now. It was a couple of years old, and though still pretty much accurate, just didn't really feel right anymore. So today, I wrote a new (longer) one! I also updated my photo on that page and my family's bios. Go check it out! Or just read my updated bio below:
My name is Idzie Desmarais, and I'm a 20 year old lifelong learner who lives in Montreal, Quebec with my wonderful family.
Very short bio: I'm an unschooling vegetarian animistic
green-anarchist feminist hippie child. I'm a writer, thinker,
dreamer... A woman, a sister, a daughter, a friend. I'm also an
unschooling advocate/activist, a lover of food, and a radical.
Much longer bio: I'm a kindergarten drop-out who, excluding those six months of
kindergarten, has never been to school. Instead, I grew up following my
passions and figuring things out in my own time. In my late teens I
became fascinated with the education (often referred to as unschooling)
I'd grown up with, and started reading everything I could about
unschooling and freedom-based education, going to unschooling
conferences, and writing the blog I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write.
At this point, as well as still doing all of those things, I'm also
very involved with the freedom-based education movement in my home city,
as well as the wider unschooling/freedom-based education community
through the making of connections and friendships with people scattered
across North America (and beyond!). Basically? I think unschooling is
really, really cool, and that the ideas found in that philosophy can be a
powerful tool of both personal and social transformation.
I'm a radical creature, a green anarchist and feminist, who leans
strongly towards anti-civ thought. I'm against hierarchy and rulers,
imposed authority, capitalism, patriarchy/kyrarchy, and similar nasty
stuff. I try to be as aware as I can of oppression and privilege (in
the interest of knowing where I'm coming from in my writing, I'm a
white, cisgender, able-bodied, lower-middle-class, not-quite-straight
woman), and to basically just not be an asshole. I'm currently super
interested in radical sustainability; communal, cooperative, collective,
and community-based living (especially intentional communities); queer
and gender stuff; feminism; getting stuff for free/living on very
little/no money...
I love food. As in, REALLY love food! I've never been very successful
at actually doing so, but I am interested in growing food, foraging, and
dumpster diving, as well as sharing and trading food, farmers markets,
and basically anything that involves me getting food. I love cooking,
cooking for others, and eating. I love trying new foods, new
restaurants, and I even like doing food prep. I'm vegetarian, and have
been since age eight, but though I don't really plan to change my diet
anytime soon, or start cooking with meat, I'm no longer as attached to
the idea of always being vegetarian as I used to be (though I know if I
do start eating meat at some point, I will be VERY picky.).
My spirituality is
closely tied into to the realization that all life is of equal worth,
that the Earth/Nature is sacred, and that humans are animals, and like
all animals, we belong in functioning living communities. Sometimes I use the term animist to refer to my spiritual beliefs.
I often say I'm a hippie, which isn't really a word with a clear
definition, but when I use it it basically just means that I'm a
radical, tree-hugging, non-shaving, organic-farm-loving person who
sometimes likes to wear tie-dye.
I value honesty and genuine expression greatly, and only really feel
comfortable when I feel I'm being genuine. I seek to share my trials
and difficulties in my writing, how I'm actually feeling about things
and my true opinions, not just what will sound good, or what will get
the best reactions. I feel like I'm mostly successful in this, though
not always.
I love getting comments, though I don't respond to them nearly as often
as I should. Same for emails: I can be contacted at unschooledwriter@gmail.com, and though I read every single email I get, I
am VERY bad at responding to them (I usually respond eventually, but it
takes me a very long time)! If you really want to talk to me, the best
way to do so is through Skype. Just email me (unschooledwriter@gmail.com)
to set up a specific time, or add me: idziee
(two e's), and just poke me when I'm online. I really like meeting and
talking to new people, and I'm happy to answer questions!
I can also be found on:
Twitter
YouTube
Tumblr
I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write. Facebook Page
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Breaking News: Unschoolers Not as Good at School as Schooled People
Seems there was a study that came out a few weeks ago, which came to the conclusion that unschooling does not "work" as well as either schooling or structured homeschooling.
I realize I'm a little late on addressing this one, considering it's a study that was published in early September, so has already been blogged about pretty extensively, but with how little time I've spent at home (or at the very least in my home city--my family is currently staying in an apartment while some major repairs/renovations are going on at our house) in the last month (I've been in Ontario, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine) this is the first time I've been able to get around to it!
I'd suggest reading the whole press release, though I find these parts especially relevant:
Of course, the author of the study also had to throw in a little comment about how structured homeschooling may provide academic success, but that school is an important place for socialization. I don't think I even need to add any comments to that one.
This study joins the many other studies showing that homeschoolers do better on standardized tests than do schooled kids, which isn't really surprising. And I don't personally feel that yet another study saying so adds anything to the home education movement as a whole. We already know that, and personally, I'm just tired of standardized tests being held up as the one and only sign of success for children and teens. Instead, I worry that, as flawed as the methods in this study are, it will add fuel to the fire of disapproval directed at unschoolers, both from society at large and from within the home education community.
And all of this just brings me back to a question that seems to keep coming up in my life lately: what, exactly, constitutes success? If you're using test scores as your criteria, then those 12 young unschoolers who participated in the study are failures. But if your criteria are different, if instead you're looking--actually looking, not just marking tests and studying at a distance--for things like passion, joy, involvement, curiosity, excitement, learning, then I'm quite sure your results are going to look very different.
And really, which one would you prefer?
I realize I'm a little late on addressing this one, considering it's a study that was published in early September, so has already been blogged about pretty extensively, but with how little time I've spent at home (or at the very least in my home city--my family is currently staying in an apartment while some major repairs/renovations are going on at our house) in the last month (I've been in Ontario, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine) this is the first time I've been able to get around to it!
I'd suggest reading the whole press release, though I find these parts especially relevant:
"The investigation compared 74 children living in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick: 37 who were homeschooled versus 37 who attended public schools. Participants were between 5 and 10 years old and each child was asked to complete standardized tests, under supervision of the research team, to assess their reading, writing, arithmetic skills, etc."
"The study included a subgroup of 12 homeschooled children taught in an unstructured manner. Otherwise known as unschooling, such education is free of teachers, textbooks and formal assessment.
'Compared with structured homeschooled group, children in the unstructured group had lower scores on all seven academic measures,' says Martin-Chang. 'Differences between the two groups were pronounced, ranging from one to four grade levels in certain tests.'Upon reading that, a couple of things immediately come to mind:
Children taught in a structured home environment scored significantly higher than children receiving unstructured homeschooling. 'While children in public school also had a higher average grade level in all seven tests compared with unstructured homeschoolers,' says Martin-Chang."
- The method of judging "success" that was chosen was standardized tests. Schooled kids and schooled-at-home kids practice tests all the time. They get good at taking tests, because they take tests. Young, unschooled children who are not used to tests obviously will not be as good at taking tests, regardless of how much knowledge they have in the areas they're being tested on. Unschoolers don't generally aim to be "successful" by being good at tests: they aim to be successful by being good at living life!
- Unschoolers learn on their own timeline. The children in this study were between 5 and 10, and were being tested on the things the educational system has decided should be known at age 5 or age 7. I couldn't even read until age 8 or 9, so if I had been tested at age 7 or 8, I would have been way below "grade level." However, that doesn't seem to have harmed my ability to read now... I don't really agree with using standardized testing as a way to judge achievement and success at all, but even just going with those by-grade-level tests as a way to meassure such things, I feel that were the study to instead look at teenagers, say, between 14 and 18, the results likely would have been quite different...
- The definition of unschooling that was used seems less than accurate. No teachers or textbooks? As I've said before, unschooling doesn't have to mean unstructured. It just means that unschoolers have the freedom to choose more or less structure. So if (rather unsurprisingly) the authors of the study--the ones separating the children involved into different categories--don't even know what unschooling is, it doesn't seem that that separation will be very accurate.
Of course, the author of the study also had to throw in a little comment about how structured homeschooling may provide academic success, but that school is an important place for socialization. I don't think I even need to add any comments to that one.
This study joins the many other studies showing that homeschoolers do better on standardized tests than do schooled kids, which isn't really surprising. And I don't personally feel that yet another study saying so adds anything to the home education movement as a whole. We already know that, and personally, I'm just tired of standardized tests being held up as the one and only sign of success for children and teens. Instead, I worry that, as flawed as the methods in this study are, it will add fuel to the fire of disapproval directed at unschoolers, both from society at large and from within the home education community.
And all of this just brings me back to a question that seems to keep coming up in my life lately: what, exactly, constitutes success? If you're using test scores as your criteria, then those 12 young unschoolers who participated in the study are failures. But if your criteria are different, if instead you're looking--actually looking, not just marking tests and studying at a distance--for things like passion, joy, involvement, curiosity, excitement, learning, then I'm quite sure your results are going to look very different.
And really, which one would you prefer?
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Against the Current: Talk from the Toronto Unschooling Conference
I just arrived home yesterday from the Toronto Unschooling Conference, which was a truly lovely weekend. Talking to lots of cool people, hanging out and just relaxing... And, of course, presenting a talk. Being the perfectionist that I am, I still have some feelings of oh, I should have written the talk sooner. I should have practiced it more. I should have spoken slower. But honestly? Overall I'm pretty happy with how it went!
It really is too long for a blog post, yet unlike last year's talk, I really don't feel like this one can be broken up into multiple posts. So, I shall simply post it all despite it's length, with a "read more" option so people who aren't interested don't have to scroll forever to get to older posts... So, here it is!
It really is too long for a blog post, yet unlike last year's talk, I really don't feel like this one can be broken up into multiple posts. So, I shall simply post it all despite it's length, with a "read more" option so people who aren't interested don't have to scroll forever to get to older posts... So, here it is!
Against the Current
Introduction
When
I was six, I went to a street fair with my mother. My little sister was probably there,
too. There were booths, from different
companies and organizations, as there are at every street fair I’ve ever been
to. One of them was about the meat
industry—it was probably PETA—and I think that’s the first time my young self
made the connection between those furry and feathery creatures I so enjoyed
spending time with, and the food on my plate.
Right then and there, I decided I was no longer going to eat meat.
I
don’t even truly remember this incident.
When I try and pull it up in my mind, all I get is the shadowy
almost-memory of a story told so many times, you can almost see yourself there. My mother is the one who always told me this
story, until I got older and started repeating it myself to those who queried
me in-depth about my dietary choices.
I
didn’t stop eating meat right away. As
determined as I was at six, Chicken McNuggets and hot dogs proved too much of a
temptation right up until I was eight and gave those up for good, too.
But
the decision was made at six, the summer after my parents pulled me out of
kindergarten, and looking back now, I feel like that was probably the first
major decision I made in my life that went against the current. It seemed like everyone else ate meat, but
this was not something I wanted to participate in. This is yet another time when I’m so grateful
to have parents that supported such a decision, despite my young age.
Now,
this isn’t meant as a morality tale.
Though I still don’t eat meat, I’m not interested in convincing people
to change their diets, and that’s definitely not the point of this speech.
It’s
just an interesting example of how making decisions counter to those of the
dominant culture started early on in my life.
Just
by virtue of unschooling, all of us here have made a radically different choice
in how we live and learn than that of the mainstream. Whether you chose to never send your kids to
school, pulled them out later on, or decided yourself to leave school, it was a
huge decision, likely accompanied by much soul-searching and thought. Possibly also a large amount of reading and
researching and discussion. Maybe you
just followed what felt right. But
whatever path lead you away from schooling, I’m sure the impact of that choice
was felt in a profound way.
Yet
as big a thing as unschooling is in our lives, sometimes I think it isn’t
apparent to others just how very many choices we’re making differently in our
day-to-day lives. Not only does the
unschooled child answer with a shrug and a “why on earth should I know that??”
look when asked what grade they’re in, the unschooled parent winces when they
hear a parent, as so often happens, threaten to leave their child (who is very
much enjoying themselves sitting on the plastic pony in the mall) behind if
they don’t come right now! The
unschooled parent likely doesn’t understand how parents can scold their
children for getting dirty, or rejoice at the beginning of each school year, or
if they do understand, they shake their head sadly at their memories of a less
enlightened time.
As
an unschooling teen, one may make sympathetic noises when their friends
complain about being grounded yet again, while secretly just not getting
it. Not allowed to go anywhere? Why would parents do that? And why are they listening, anyway? Can’t they just… walk out?
Then
there are the news stories on TV about back-to-school, the article in the paper
about the importance of preschool in a child’s later “academic success”, the
advertisement on the bus shelter about the failure a person will be if they
don’t go to university…
In
a hundred different ways or more, day by day, the society around us is telling
unschoolers what they’re doing is wrong.
And
that’s just unschooling. If you’ve also
made other different and radical choices in how you live, if your views on many
other things are very different from the dominant culture, it gets even worse.
So
how do you navigate in a world where you live so differently from those around
you? How do you find and maintain
community? How do you deal with the
constant pressure to conform to the edicts of the dominant culture? These are questions I think a lot about in my
own life, and am continually attempting to answer.
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