tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88053234684072418092024-03-13T04:00:43.575-04:00I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write.Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.comBlogger210125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-39819956799229420152020-11-11T16:41:00.003-05:002020-11-11T16:49:30.013-05:00Education or Propaganda? Why Remembrance Day Needs to be Re-Examined<div><i>CONTENT WARNING this post contains multiple references to and mentions of genocide, rape, the murder of children, and other disturbing topics related to war.</i></div><div><br /></div>When I was a child, I was taught to observe Remembrance Day the way most children in Canada are. We would watch the ceremony in Ottawa live on TV, complete with solemn music, speeches about <i>sacrifice</i> and <i>heroes</i> and <i>freedom</i>, and the recitation of <i>In Flanders Fields</i> (a poem I memorized, because memorizing poetry was very much my thing). <br /><br />But as I grew older, and as my political understanding grew along with my knowledge of history, I started understanding that what I had learned, the ideas I’d been inculcated with, were not merely neutral and apolitical, but a deliberate interpretation of history and current events, a deliberate shaping of individual and national identity. What I had been taught was nationalism, and once I saw that, it became startling to me how many people--many of them quite a bit older than myself--refused to engage in any deeper consideration of the <i>whys</i> involved in the wearing of a poppy. What are the stories that are being internalized, and should they really remain unquestioned?<br /><div style="text-align: center;">__ </div><br />I’ve started referring to November as Poppy Hell season. <div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnDgo8yjCzJov2_yYSGYUPFl-BS782Y_9vrkMQEDDTq3WDe-9N_HIvjNC_9Mf6d88ndkwbrd_MiuXZFxg_HVVTrHqGJj_h_A8nEMlArBzdqVW5vLeAEmSQSwp_qeMajqoSO8VSoPzx4Gc/s2048/james-wainscoat-Q0urVtjbocQ-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnDgo8yjCzJov2_yYSGYUPFl-BS782Y_9vrkMQEDDTq3WDe-9N_HIvjNC_9Mf6d88ndkwbrd_MiuXZFxg_HVVTrHqGJj_h_A8nEMlArBzdqVW5vLeAEmSQSwp_qeMajqoSO8VSoPzx4Gc/w400-h266/james-wainscoat-Q0urVtjbocQ-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@tumbao1949?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">James Wainscoat</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/poppy-pin?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br />There's a reason I react this way to Remembrance Day in particular: you won’t see me write something negative about, say, D-Day commemoration ceremonies, or monuments to soldiers who died in WWII, or anything like that. Recognizing specific losses, from specific conflicts, is something I know can be really important for survivors and those who love them.<br /><br />Remembrance Day is something different. <br /><br />There are multiple reasons I feel this way. First, the idea that soldiers "fought and died for our freedom" needs to be examined. That is one of those phrases that is absolutely meaningless outside of its purpose as propaganda. Who's "us"? What "freedom" and for whom? Was the Korean war, the Gulf war, or the Afghanistan war even remotely for "freedom" for literally anybody, never mind Canadians? Of course not. Those were wars fought for oil, for political gain, to support allies engaged in imperialistic pillaging (and for the Canadian state to do some pillaging for themselves).<br /><br />Many people bring up WWII when defending the valorization of soldiers and wars, because it's one of very few conflicts where it clearly was right to join. Most people who aren’t fascists know that fascism is extraordinarily dangerous, violent, and needs to be fought on all fronts. However, I am deeply disturbed by how simplistic the role Canada played has become in popular memory. Again, reiterating that I am very glad that Canada fought the Nazis, and that fascism is a true horror, I still think it's important people go far past the idea that the allied countries were benevolent liberators. It might make people feel good to think that way, but I think often instead about the Canadian state’s <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4630464/canada-justin-trudeau-jewish-refugees-apology/">deliberate exclusion of Jewish refugees leading up to and during the war</a>. How the Canadian head of immigration at the time <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=YBZ2DQAAQBAJ&pg=PT67&lpg=PT67&dq=%22Pressure+by+Jewish+people+to+get+into+Canada+has+never+been+greater+than+it+is+now,+and+I+am+glad+to+be+able+to+add+that,+after+35+years+of+experience+here,+that+it+has+never+been+so+carefully+controlled%22+frederick+blair&source=bl&ots=7sgNdptrG-&sig=ACfU3U1PTvoCIzWx9kcZSohitT6drqNuBg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjl-MDWsvvsAhVlGVkFHSYuBRAQ6AEwA3oECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=%22Pressure%20by%20Jewish%20people%20to%20get%20into%20Canada%20has%20never%20been%20greater%20than%20it%20is%20now%2C%20and%20I%20am%20glad%20to%20be%20able%20to%20add%20that%2C%20after%2035%20years%20of%20experience%20here%2C%20that%20it%20has%20never%20been%20so%20carefully%20controlled%22%20frederick%20blair&f=false">bragged about how good he was at keeping Jewish people out</a>. That of the 800,000 Jews who fled Nazi controlled countries in the 30's, Canada accepted under 5,000, leaving so very many who were turned away by country after country to die a horrifying death. I think about how popular eugenics was as a philosophy in North American governments and the UK. I think about how impressed by Hitler many European and North American leaders were, including prime minister Mackenzie King (he wrote in his diary of Hitler that "He smiled very pleasantly, and indeed had a sort of appealing and affectionate look in his eyes. My sizing up of the man as I sat and talked with him was that he is really one who truly loves his fellow man and his country ... his eyes impressed me most of all. There was a liquid quality about them which indicated keen perception and profound sympathy (calm, composed) - and one could see how particularly humble folk would come to have a profound love for the man."). I think about how much world leaders underestimated the threat posed by a fascist Germany, because they <i>liked</i> fascism. A "strong Germany" was seen, for a while, as a good thing, until they started realizing that Hitler's expansionism threatened them too, not only the people they didn't give a shit about.<br /><br />Considering that's the political context of the second world war, it should be clear that it was not fought for any noble reasons, it was just a war of self-protection, and in Canada's case a war to support Britain.<br /><br />And going back to that phrase, "fought and died for our freedom," I want people to consider for a moment the conclusions that are reached when that's your starting point. If soldiers are heroes, who fight and die for something as noble as freedom, well then, if they're fighting somewhere, anywhere, it must be for freedom. If they're heroes, they must be doing good wherever they're sent.<br /><br />Repeat it often enough, and people believe it without question. Soldier heroes fighting the good fight for our freedom! It's a cudgel used by the state to justify any conflict they choose to engage in. <i>What? You say this war is bad? What are you, against FREEDOM? You claim war crimes were committed? How dare you! Don't you know that soldiers are HEROES?</i><br /><br />It's a toxic, dangerous mentality that works to foster a nationalistic, militaristic attitude in the general population, where soldiers are above reproach, and wars, while regrettable, are fought for the “right” reasons.<br /><br />Equally dangerous is the call to "support our troops." The "our" assumed in that is yet more phrasing that, when you actually look at it, is far more about playing on emotions than a meaningful statement in itself. How are they ours? What say do you and I have in what conflicts are waged? The closest we get is voting for the party that will possibly, if we're lucky, engage in less war. That's an utter perversion of the idea of "choice."<br /><br />They're not our troops, whether we personally know any soldiers or veterans or not. They're a weapon of the state, most often used to prop up the imperialism of the US and UK, or to support the economic interests of Canadian corporations.<br /><br />I suppose you could say that Remembrance Day isn't about the leaders and their reasoning, or why a war was entered into, it's about soldiers. But while I'm happy people fought the Nazis, I still think it's a dangerous flattening of a nuanced reality to name all veterans martyrs and heroes. Allied troops, including Canadians, <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/world/allied-soldiers-including-canadians-raped-thousands-of-german-women-after-second-world-war-research">participated in the rape of tens if not hundreds of thousands of German women after Germany surrendered</a>. I saw a Facebook friend relating on this day that his grandfather, a WWII vet, had told him how Canadian troops shot Italian children in the street for sport. Wars don’t produce any heroes. They are universally a horror that lead to some complicated mess of victims, survivors, and perpetrators. The way so many veterans who survive end up changed forever by that incredible trauma is a tragedy. But they're still not heroes.<br /><br />I also take a big issue with the messaging around Remembrance Day that treats war as tragic but<i> necessary and unavoidable</i>. As if war is a natural disaster, something no one has any power to prevent and must merely be endured. This lays the path for future violent conflict, when a populace is told again and again that wars just… happen. As if there aren’t hundreds, thousands of steps leading up to a conflict, countless choices to be made, options that might mitigate harm or even stop the course of war entirely. We can’t know what may or may not have happened had people made different choices in the past. But I do know that the way people talk about war now will lead to more war. As if it’s inevitable. As if that’s just the human condition. As if we have no power to stop it. As if the powerful don’t benefit immensely from ongoing conflicts (never forget that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/canada-doubles-weapons-sales-to-saudi-arabia-despite-moratorium">Canada is still selling arms to Saudi Arabia</a>, who are almost certainly using them to murder Yemenis).<br /><br />All Remembrance Day is, is an opportunity for the state to twist people’s understandable grief and horror towards a nationalistic agenda, to make sure their path towards any future wars they want to engage in or support remains smooth. It’s an empty gesture that pays lip service to “peace” while taking absolutely zero steps that could actually contribute to peace. Those who don’t perform patriotism by wearing the poppy and gushing piously enough about freedom and heroes are met with social censure, especially if they’re people of colour, as evidenced by <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/online-backlash-against-don-cherry-for-comments-on-immigrants-and-remembrance-day">Don Cherry’s tirade last year</a> (thankfully, after years of racist rhetoric, he was finally fired). If this day was REALLY about peace, people would look at the horror of war without the comforting veneer of catchy propaganda phrases, and without telling stories that prop up Canadians' sense of a positive national identity. Instead we would look at history and current engagements with clear and critical eyes; immediately cease all sales of weapons and armoured vehicles; cease the support, either material or diplomatic, of British and American “interventions” in foreign countries; and make the legal changes necessary to require a referendum before this country is allowed to engage in any military conflicts.<br /><br />With all the violence, at home and abroad, that the Canadian state has enacted and been complicit in, that still wouldn’t be enough. But it would be a start, a sign that this “remembrance” could actually be part of an attempt to do better, instead of the act of war-worshiping it is now.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">__</div><br />When you know better, you have the opportunity to do better. It’s easy to repeat simple stories--Canada as peacekeepers (just don’t look too hard at the peaceful machine guns “our” soldiers are carrying), Canadian soldiers as liberators (who, along with the rest of the allies in WWII, sent “liberated” gay men <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/persecution-of-homosexuals/chapter12.php">straight from the concentration camps to prisons</a>)--but these stories, as comforting as they might be, are half-truths and distortions. Children deserve truth from the adults in their lives, deserve people who will ally with them in learning that goes beyond the surface, in thinking critically and questioning the motives of the powerful. And far more so the world deserves people who do not repeat the same justifications for colonialism and imperialism, who do not support their country in it’s exportation of war.<br /><br />I don’t have an irrational hatred of poppies. I just hate the way this holiday acts in service to violence.</div>Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-2107566133918777372020-06-29T17:20:00.001-04:002020-06-30T17:46:37.090-04:0012 Unschooling Misconceptions (and Why They're Wrong)<span id="docs-internal-guid-d170dfa8-7fff-cd4e-2f6f-01ba6cc2fc66"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what unschooling is, how it works, what people mean when they use the term... So I wanted to do a post on the topic addressing some of the biggest misunderstandings that seem to crop up repeatedly.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #1: unschooling is just a synonym for homeschooling.</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While unschooling falls under the homeschooling umbrella, it is its own unique approach, lifestyle, and understanding of how learning works and how children should be treated.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While "homeschooling" frequently means school-at-home, unschooling is delight-driven, interest-based, self-directed life learning. It's children owning their own education, learning what, where, when, how, and with whom they want (within reasonable constraints).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTcfaYvCxxYrjmFa1_-s4JpVOc4Rae1ts6Gc5Gieu3VLHqeID21aLyXTACRh6irjAsvd3sQflI3oISUMOXBczZj-_QjjIezr57FT03hTK5FkKQ6Z-VYvzciJ0qQaoQAKRxTPINSaNziWo/s7952/annie-spratt-ajY31ULBU2M-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5304" data-original-width="7952" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTcfaYvCxxYrjmFa1_-s4JpVOc4Rae1ts6Gc5Gieu3VLHqeID21aLyXTACRh6irjAsvd3sQflI3oISUMOXBczZj-_QjjIezr57FT03hTK5FkKQ6Z-VYvzciJ0qQaoQAKRxTPINSaNziWo/w400-h266/annie-spratt-ajY31ULBU2M-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@anniespratt?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Annie Spratt</a> on <a href="/s/photos/kids-playing?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #2: Unschooling is just educational neglect.</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unschooling does NOT mean abandoning children to their own devices. Adult carers take an active, involved role in the lives of unschooling children, acting as guides and partners in learning, finding resources, and creating environments that foster exploration,. Their role is just collaborative, instead of that of "teacher."</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #3: Parents must just be sneakily "teaching" their kids, then.</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nope! </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/yesicanwrite.blog/posts/10157670883238411" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I said recently on Facebook</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">:</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“[That belief] seems to rest on the assumption that children directing their own learning is such an absurd idea that there MUST be a mastermind carefully crafting the process behind the scenes…</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And while there is certainly a great deal of parental involvement, it's not through subterfuge.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unschooling as a philosophy is about respecting children, not tricking them into learning. They WANT to learn, they just need the resources and support to do so.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unschooling requires a shift in understanding about what learning is and how children should be treated. Trusting and respecting children is central to unschooling, and trying to manipulate children into doing what the adults want would completely undermine that. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf_-hfeZcjg8cIyVYqZBJ75-2SBWtNfY8XReJ2rg6hibR6IO4lv0ezijhMHTxN-eT5SoM2MnMSTFnvqFa4JbY1M8laIJpX98IGJPMQ_qzilYRTtXUbjMZrIJYmp2BRAfMOnUnTGUGB41s/s3953/element5-digital-OyCl7Y4y0Bk-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2791" data-original-width="3953" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf_-hfeZcjg8cIyVYqZBJ75-2SBWtNfY8XReJ2rg6hibR6IO4lv0ezijhMHTxN-eT5SoM2MnMSTFnvqFa4JbY1M8laIJpX98IGJPMQ_qzilYRTtXUbjMZrIJYmp2BRAfMOnUnTGUGB41s/w400-h283/element5-digital-OyCl7Y4y0Bk-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@element5digital?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Element5 Digital</a> on <a href="/s/photos/teaching?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #4: You can unschool part time.</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The assumption behind this claim is generally that weekends and summer break can be for "unschooling," after the REAL learning has taken place in school. But as I hope is becoming clear, unschooling is a </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lifestyle</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it's a whole different way of approaching living and learning with children. It's not something you stuff into spare moments, and it can’t be done without challenging dominant ideas about schooling.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See </span><a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2018/10/why-cant-you-just-unschool-part-time.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why Can't You Just Unschool Part Time?</span></a></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #5: Unschooling is just a way for parents to isolate their children from the wider world, to keep them away from the "wrong" sorts of people and influences.</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think it's hard to convey to those outside of the community just how wide a schism there is between religious and secular homeschooling/homeschoolers. The ideology is NOT the same.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Members of the fundamentalist and evangelical homeschooling movement often DO want to isolate their kids. Unschoolers, though, tend to fall heavily on the secular side of reasons-for-homeschooling (whatever their personal beliefs or religion are), and do not want their children isolated at all.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I tend to make the distinction between those who want kids to have MORE access to the world than school provides, vs those who want kids to have LESS access. Generally more = good, less = bad in terms of the experience kids have.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See </span><a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2018/08/homeschooling-right-way-more-of-world.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homeschooling the Right Way: More of the World, Not Less</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></i></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #6: Unschooling means you stay at home all the time.</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I mean, right now most people are home all the time. But NORMALLY, and expanding on the above point, that is not at all the case.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unschoolers usually see plenty of other people, have friends and activities, and spend lots of time out and about. At various points my sister and I had Sparks/Brownies/Girl Guides, nature club, homeschool co-op, Air Cadets, classes on a wide variety of different topics, lots of informal gatherings… Unschoolers are plenty "socialized."</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See </span><a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-ultimate-unschooling-socialization.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Ultimate Unschooling Socialization Post</span></a></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7uifzTIiw2Uz-nktbQY_J_aODal5Qd5GePVOg0m7Mdc6QEw-PiqQMeDYbiTEzcfS6pyXG1KZ0wlwyOaB5HeRLF02CGCad_Spgc_eQ1byer-uQ3bA4WPQ3YCQY__M8dpoKb89nQW9b6CE/s4000/andrew-seaman-ey5zZOkYL0Q-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="4000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7uifzTIiw2Uz-nktbQY_J_aODal5Qd5GePVOg0m7Mdc6QEw-PiqQMeDYbiTEzcfS6pyXG1KZ0wlwyOaB5HeRLF02CGCad_Spgc_eQ1byer-uQ3bA4WPQ3YCQY__M8dpoKb89nQW9b6CE/w400-h400/andrew-seaman-ey5zZOkYL0Q-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@amseaman?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Andrew Seaman</a> on <a href="/s/photos/child-looking-out-window?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #7: Kids (and people in general) are inherently "lazy" and won't learn unless forced to. </font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I feel like there are two components to address here. The first is "laziness" as a concept, which... </span><a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2014/08/i-dont-believe-in-laziness.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I do not think exists</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also think that the fantastic article "</span><a href="https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Laziness Does Not Exist (but unseen barriers do)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">" by Devon Price is a must read on the topic. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the second part of the misconception is that kids, being "lazy", must be FORCED to learn, with the inherent assumption that learning must be hard, and that no one would willingly do it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In reality, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">schooling</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the unpleasant thing that many children resist, finding it stressful or boring or de-motivating. That's the part that kids don't like. Schooling and learning are not synonyms, and learning does not have to be that way.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unschoolers know that living is learning, and that children just need supportive and resource filled environments in which to thrive. As long as their needs are met, they will learn enthusiastically, joyfully, fiercely.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #8: Children will never do hard things on their own.</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Obviously similar to misconception #7, but I thought this one still deserved its own attention. Because obviously... Learning CAN be hard!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Learning new things is often difficult: sometimes it's joyful work, but frequently it’s also frustrating. The thing is though, that people--children included--will do hard things if they feel there's a good reason to do so. If they’re excited, or see how it will be useful in their lives, or they feel it contributes to an important goal of theirs, they will put in the work.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Certain things need to be in place to make hard things more manageable (a topic I’ve </span><a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2014/05/unschooling-doesnt-mean-theres-no-hard.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gone into more thoroughly in the past</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), but ultimately, it doesn't require force. It just requires support.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ESG60bR7AbLclWleC4HkeB5E6D9G7GpA8oAaTVvMKuSo0mQdsZkkjAgNH4Iklqp22KD5PqiAe-Zu0zD1uZFI3oCC1YURBdChyphenhyphen570_XwGDT28Hqld5fSkTh-mudDRaD8CtAqIdAd257o/s5760/tamarcus-brown-eKkeKfDt1Vk-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3840" data-original-width="5760" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ESG60bR7AbLclWleC4HkeB5E6D9G7GpA8oAaTVvMKuSo0mQdsZkkjAgNH4Iklqp22KD5PqiAe-Zu0zD1uZFI3oCC1YURBdChyphenhyphen570_XwGDT28Hqld5fSkTh-mudDRaD8CtAqIdAd257o/w400-h266/tamarcus-brown-eKkeKfDt1Vk-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@tamarcusbrown?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Tamarcus Brown</a> on <a href="/s/photos/children-concentrating?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #9: Kids will "rule" the household if adults aren't busy controlling their every move.</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This one... Well, it seems to be coming from people who have a wildly different, very negative view of human nature in general and children in particular as compared to unschoolers.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you see the world through a starkly hierarchical and authoritarian lens, if you think people need to be ruled, and that homes should be run like miniature dictatorships, unschooling might seem like it could never work (respect and trust children?? Surely not!).</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact it DOES work, that there are lots of parents trying to undo their own authoritarian conditioning and create non-hierarchical models based on consent in their homes instead, which children then thrive in, shows that those doubters do not understand human nature as well as they think they do.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unschoolers of all backgrounds (including those whose parents made the decision and those who left school themselves as teens) show that not only do parent-child relationships not have to be based on control, but </span><a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2014/07/breaking-down-hierarchies-in-learning.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">teacher-student hierarchies can also be disrupted</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People of all ages really are capable of cooperating, collaborating, and learning together in ways that aren't based on coercion and control.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #10: Unschooling means no teacher, textbooks, classes, or structure.</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here is where it's important to emphasize the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>self-directed</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">aspect of unschooling.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The idea isn't to do away with any and all school-like trappings, it's to respect that the learner gets to call the shots in their own education. This means unschoolers are absolutely free to utilize a variety of resources, including classes and teachers, which many choose to do.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At various points I was in classes ranging from French, to history, to principles of aviation, to doll making. Structure is in no way incompatible with unschooling, as long as that structure is freely chosen by the learner.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is probably a good time to point out that unschoolers can also choose to go to school! It's not at all uncommon for unschoolers to move in and out of the school system over the years, sometimes trying out school briefly, sometimes going and staying. The important part is self-direction/</span><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">choice</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></i></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>See </i></span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2015/10/no-classes-no-teachers-no-books-reality.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><i>No Classes, No Teachers, No Books? The Reality of Structure in Unschooling</i> </a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8WP6WVra9LNe-TEDB0y4xH60bTpxQW_nbr67XsQL-yZeor-2CBhMyLKxsE2Pi2Vn_IRURt5r3SVjGS1H-5cTzHGw3roabi8m7eB8xQ3lkWZZKmsO3DWurLobs-ZjIfG6RWHTaVeNYKMI/s5616/sharon-mccutcheon-eMP4sYPJ9x0-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3744" data-original-width="5616" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8WP6WVra9LNe-TEDB0y4xH60bTpxQW_nbr67XsQL-yZeor-2CBhMyLKxsE2Pi2Vn_IRURt5r3SVjGS1H-5cTzHGw3roabi8m7eB8xQ3lkWZZKmsO3DWurLobs-ZjIfG6RWHTaVeNYKMI/w400-h266/sharon-mccutcheon-eMP4sYPJ9x0-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@sharonmccutcheon?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Sharon McCutcheon</a> on <a href="/s/photos/books?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br />Misconception #11: Unschooling will only work for "motivated" children.</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honestly, I hate this one SO much. I hate the hierarchy, the division it creates between the supposedly "smarter" or "more motivated" and the supposedly... Less. As if there are some children who deserve more respect, trust, and freedom, and some who don't, which seems like such a profoundly broken way of looking at other people.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">children, if given the needed support--a safe environment, caring adults, access to a variety of resources--are capable of self-directed learning. There isn't some special type of kid who deserves to learn more freely than others.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Access</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a whole different thing: because we live in a capitalist hellscape, most people don't have the financial means to unschool. Because our society does not value children, they are segregated from the rest of society instead of being a crucial, integral part of daily life.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But all children </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>can</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>should</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> be trusted and respected, and in any revolutionary vision of a different society the needs and rights of children should be considered of utmost importance.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also think there are a lot of models (agile learning centers, homeschool co-ops, free schools, etc.) that provide inspiration for what could be, if they were fully publicly funded and accessible to all children who don't have the option of unschooling.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Misconception #12: Unschooling is elitist and incompatible with "social justice".</font></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I feel like I started to address the issue of privilege in my previous point, and now I want to shift focus a bit and point out that </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">schooling</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is incompatible with social justice. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't personally see unschooling as any type of solution in a vacuum: I think the necessary changes to create a truly just society (societies?) are revolutionary. I don't think any tweaking of the current system will ever be enough.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, I absolutely agree that unschoolers (along with everyone else) need to understand how power, privilege, and oppression function in order to start chipping away at their own oppressive views and actions, and take steps towards greater justice.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just feel very strongly that treating children badly, in controlling and disrespectful ways, is, you know, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>bad</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Ageism is an oppression that needs to be addressed, and I think unschooling can be a way to combat that.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also think it's completely counterproductive to try to teach children to be anti-authoritarian and anti-oppression by treating them in authoritarian and oppressive ways.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I talk a lot more about my understanding of the ways unschooling and "social justice" relate in </span><a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2019/08/yes-there-are-things-every-kid-should.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes There ARE Things Every Kid Should Know</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxMCSHx_1exmUYFQNjfbH6YlSSmUFrlFcTTkCpDJRQ0BV5sYbiSmN7yzbAFYk8_TU8zzEWiwsWuaHhh-VVNx6qrGKTDjtpQcELopXsMzLBPCC5_32GCLJ3FSwsCH-LZOqXY8vMqcgedL8/s5274/rachael-henning-J31bEnW8pO8-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5274" data-original-width="3516" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxMCSHx_1exmUYFQNjfbH6YlSSmUFrlFcTTkCpDJRQ0BV5sYbiSmN7yzbAFYk8_TU8zzEWiwsWuaHhh-VVNx6qrGKTDjtpQcELopXsMzLBPCC5_32GCLJ3FSwsCH-LZOqXY8vMqcgedL8/w266-h400/rachael-henning-J31bEnW8pO8-unsplash.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@shesmorphine?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Rachael Henning</a> on <a href="/s/photos/no-justice-no-peace?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Okay, I think that covers it! I hope this clarified some issues you may have been wondering about, and gave you a better understanding of what unschooling can be all about. It’s an approach to living and learning with children that I think can provide a lot of inspiration if people simply understood it better.</span></p></span>Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-16818046773003434182020-06-26T16:05:00.000-04:002020-06-30T17:44:20.039-04:00Happiness, Productivity, and the Fall of Capitalism (or We All Deserve to Live Joyfully)<span id="docs-internal-guid-23b685df-7fff-7f83-0718-441457b099f2"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do parents care about their children's happiness? I think it's an easy answer to say overwhelming they do, very much so. And yet, they don't necessarily prioritize it in the daily lives of their children.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I feel like a lot of parents erroneously believe that academic success will </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lead</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to happiness, and that if they can just keep their kids on the "right" path they will eventually be happier for it. This belief in future gains lets them absolve themselves of the need to make sure that their kids are happy NOW.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While there are plenty of people out there who will inform you with great indignation that kids these days want everything </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">now</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I think it’s actually the reverse: our society has a delayed gratification problem. We’ve come to believe that happiness is something best deferred to a later, more convenient time and date. After school hours. After you’ve finished your homework. On the weekend. During summer vacation. In your one week of vacation from work. After retirement…</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxlf-RQ91ItP9wkKiXPfDT0t1mx-27LLKxcpdjV9sPUN0Q9a4QDhD-dcm87623jHTRCFaXGz474UnqWt9fcyDIVHN3YFnM-V9Ibgcp-zJ2HOPCxwKawtbH6K1kuXzdCbtkXcRx_E1P_y4/s960/99416952_10157825757673411_3523649482409377792_o+%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="716" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxlf-RQ91ItP9wkKiXPfDT0t1mx-27LLKxcpdjV9sPUN0Q9a4QDhD-dcm87623jHTRCFaXGz474UnqWt9fcyDIVHN3YFnM-V9Ibgcp-zJ2HOPCxwKawtbH6K1kuXzdCbtkXcRx_E1P_y4/w374-h500/99416952_10157825757673411_3523649482409377792_o+%25281%2529.jpg" width="374" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Capitalism has forced this situation onto people in a material way, but too many have also internalized it, and come to take a strange sort of pride in stealing joy from themselves, in working hard not only out of necessity or for a worthy goal, but treating constant busyness, productivity, and even stress as some type of merit badge: proof they’ve earned their place in this world through labour.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This attitude is then extended to children. They, too, are treated as if they have to earn their joy, their free time, their play, their right to make their own choices. Happiness is something you only get to experience once you’ve done everything “essential,” a situation made even worse by the fact that judgement of just what IS essential is always made by the adults in a child’s life, not the child themselves. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This could be the place to point out that, as Jean Piaget said, play is the work of childhood. I could point to research that free play improves children’s social skills and grades. But to do so seems to be using the logic of a toxic culture in order to justify healthy, essential human behaviour that doesn’t--or certainly shouldn’t--need any justification. When we make those types of arguments, it allows us to stay safely inside the framework of our current system, which is why I think we have to go deeper than that, and question why it is we’ve been taught to value productivity (sometimes masquerading as “good grades,” “good jobs,” “hard work,” and “success”) above all else. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are not placed on this Earth to serve the interests of billionaires, we do not need to prove ourselves worthy of simply existing, and children should never have to meet adult demands in order to earn what they should be able to enjoy freely. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t pretend to know the steps necessary in dismantling capitalism, but I do think part of it has to be examining the ways we’ve internalized and enacted ideas which are actively harmful to ourselves, our communities, and the environment. We need to start sorting out what values should truly be at the heart of our lives, and what we communicate to children about how they should live their lives. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doesn’t happiness seem like a better goal than being good at capitalism? And I don’t mean “happiness” in a shallow or individualistic way, I mean it expansively, generously, a communal effort to re-organize society in such a way that everyone can live well--can, hopefully, be happy.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a mistake for parents to prioritize productivity. And if they prized their children’s happiness instead, perhaps that could even be a little bit revolutionary.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>This post was originally published on Patreon. <a href="https://www.patreon.com/idzie" target="_blank">Become a supporter</a> to see more like it, most of which will remain available only to Patrons.</i></span></p></span>Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-46288979140555657142020-05-23T14:05:00.000-04:002020-05-23T14:05:26.487-04:00Education Outside the Fishbowl: Observation, Evaluation, and How Children (Really) Learn If a child learns in the forest, and there are no adults there to see it, did they really learn at all?<div>
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The summer my sister turned 13 was spent in a patch of woods--one of the few semi-wild spaces near us to be spared from development--with a group of neighborhood kids. They dragged in used furniture found on big-pickup trash days, set up complex political systems, and built and played from when they staggered out of bed in the early afternoon until everyone got too hungry and made it back to their respective houses for supper. There was arguing and conflict resolution, wild creativity and hands on problem solving. Sometimes I’d tour the small world they’d created, hidden away behind suburban backyards (though being an entire 2 ½ years older than my sister, I was definitely too cool to participate myself).<br /><br />This was long enough ago that a group of 11 to 14 year olds disappearing all day, unsupervised, was considered pretty normal by everyone’s parents (something it seems is increasingly unusual now), but I think my mother was probably the only one of the lot who saw what was happening as <i>learning</i>. All the other adults seemed more likely to see it as kids just messing around, albeit in a harmless way, which was fine and definitely better than, I don’t know, drugs or partying or any of those other things parents start panicking about as their children ease into teenagehood. So they got to spend their summer days in peace, playing and learning under the trees.<div>
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<br />I have to believe that most adults realize, at least on some level, that learning happens outside of the classroom (after all, that’s the way most of them have been learning since they left school). Yet they often behave as if they don’t. “Every week without learning is causing a lifetime’s worth of harm!” cry the politicians and pundits, eager to “reopen” an economy in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and parents nod along in concern. How can you just let kids not-learn for so long, after all? Isn’t that irresponsible?<br /><br />Learning happens all the time, as any unschooler will tell you. Yet to many, it’s invisible. Their eyes slide over it. They can’t hear its rhythm in joyous laughter or in focused silence. “Learning” is supposed to occupy a specific place, to conform to a certain shape, and to follow all the correct rules (in the proper order). Learning, to them, means <i>schooling</i>. Anything else is a distraction.<br /><br />I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to guess that the reason many parents don’t see learning when it happens for their children is because they don’t see it for themselves. They may learn informally, but without an official stamp of approval, I wonder if that learning remains invisible, too. One of my favourite John Holt quotes reads: “To trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves...and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.” <br /><br />This (mis)understanding of what learning is and how it happens has lead to the strange phenomena of seeing learning (with all its incumbent change and growth) not as something arising primarily through a learner’s experience, play, socialization, fascination and dedication, but as something done to children by properly certified adults. If, as Paulo Freire said, students are seen as “vessels to be filled” then when left unattended, they’ll simply sit empty. </div>
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<br />Learning, though, is not only something which must be <i>done to</i>, it must also be <i>seen by</i>. If learning isn’t witnessed by an appropriate expert, or if it can’t be evaluated by those same experts in an easy to measure way after the fact, does it really count?<br /><br />If a child learns in the forest, and there are no teachers there to see it, did they really learn at all?</div>
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<br />School isn’t a place where students get much privacy. In fact, every effort is made to make sure they get as little time away from prying eyes as possible. Some of this is genuine concern about what harm might be done to students by each other when no adults are watching. But I think it goes beyond that, as well. To know that learning is happening, children must be observed. If they’re not being observed, they’re probably not really learning (children, remember, cannot be trusted). <br /><br />To be contained in a school building is to be almost constantly watched, assessed, and judged. Carol Black refers to <a href="http://carolblack.org/the-gaze">the “evaluative gaze” of school</a>, noting:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“There is something profoundly deadening to a curious, engaged child about the feeling of being watched and measured, or even, some <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201210/unsolicited-evaluation-is-the-enemy-creativity">studies</a> suggest, the anticipation of being measured. Sure, some kids seem to dig it. They preen and pose for it, they compete with their friends for it, they want to be better than everybody else. But everybody can’t be better than everybody else, and this business of being constantly scrutinized and compared to others does something insidious to the life of a child. I've seen kids drop what they're doing in an instant when they realize they're being observed in an appraising way. A wall goes up. The lights go out.” </blockquote>
It’s always been clear to me, in my own life, that I need a lot of privacy to learn something new. I need to be able to struggle and make mistakes--to forget important facts and miss important steps--without the weight of eyes on me, correcting and judging and getting in the way. Even as an adult, to know you’re being evaluated can make you shrink, become stilted and overly cautious, the focus no longer on discovery or improvement but on <i>not making any mistakes</i>. The goal shifts to that of performing competence in a way that makes you look smart and accomplished. Actual learning, in all its messiness, gets shoved behind stage, where the audience can’t see any missteps.</div>
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Learning can be both shared and social, deeply private and personal. Sometimes it starts as one and morphs into the other, or switches back and forth based on an individual’s comfort (and other people’s openness and ability to withhold critique unless asked for). The role of teacher and mentor can be important (as can that of friend, parent, neighbor, librarian, peer), and there is definitely a time and place for evaluation of one sort or another. But <i>when</i> and <i>where</i> and <i>how much</i> and <i>what sort</i> and <i>by who</i>? Those are all important questions, and the answers should often be <i>when a learner asks someone for their opinion or assistance</i>, and <i>in situations a learner has chosen to be in</i>, and <i>much less</i>, and <i>varied and flexible</i>, and <i>by people the learner respects and trusts</i>. But the default, the normal, the everyday of childhood should not be one of scrutiny and evaluation. <br /><br />We as a culture have come to believe that learning is something which only happens in captivity, in carefully controlled environments and under the keen observation of experts.<br /><br />But that’s not the way learning really works. It’s not the way children grow best, not the way any of us feel the most confident and brave and excited and free, not how we live our best lives.<br /><br />When we go to the forest--wandering through dappled shade, identifying frog calls drifting in from nearby wetlands, standing very still so as not to spook a nearby woodpecker, and plucking sumac berries to chew on--the learning is real and true, no matter who’s there to see it. <br /><br />Children deserve to learn in peace, wherever it happens. </div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-16948781026058599742020-03-20T15:35:00.000-04:002020-03-20T15:35:06.998-04:00Homeschooling in the Age of COVID-19: Advice from Six Unschooling ParentsWe are living in difficult times. Around the world, people’s lives have been upended as everyone struggles to deal with this crisis. And one of those changes has been that suddenly, countless people who never expected to be in such a position are doing some version of homeschooling.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Before I go any further, I’d like to make it clear that this is not what homeschooling normally looks like, not how it’s supposed to be. The “home” bit doesn’t mean that school-free families are used to being chained to their houses, as homeschoolers generally take full advantage of various classes, homeschool co-ops, organized sports, community centers, museums, parks, clubs… And you’d be hard pressed to find a group more broken up over library closures. It’s an isolating time for all of us, most definitely including those who normally don’t go to school. <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #111111; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "San Francisco", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; white-space: nowrap;">Photo by </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/@thethinblackframe?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: border-box; color: #767676; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "San Francisco", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out 0s, opacity 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; white-space: nowrap;">David Clarke</a><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #111111; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "San Francisco", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; white-space: nowrap;"> on </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/library-sign?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: border-box; color: #767676; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "San Francisco", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out 0s, opacity 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; white-space: nowrap;">Unsplash</a></td></tr>
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But at the same time, there ARE aspects of our current reality that are more familiar to families who practice homeschooling of one sort or another. The no school bit is self-evident, but also spending a great deal of time together as a family, and plenty of unstructured time. </div>
<br />With that in mind, I hoped it would be helpful to share some thoughts and advice from several different unschooling parents, people who practice self-directed life learning outside of school. There is overlap in what they have to say, but also some interesting divergences, and I hope at least some of their words will resonate with you, will give you ideas or comfort.<br /><br />It’s a trying time, and I just hope we can all make it through it with as much kindness and calm as possible.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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One of the defining characteristics of our current western society is separation. So many families - whether out of choice or necessity - spend the better part of our days separated from each other. <br /><br />Often, with separation comes disconnection. <br /><br />This prescribed physical/social distancing has gifted us with togetherness. But togetherness, when we’re used to separation, isn’t always easy. So we need the other C - compassion, as we learn to be together, to find a common rhythm as we dance around and with each other. <br /><br />So dance! Dance and delight in being with your children. Forget the online lessons and the infinite lists of activities that sustains continued separation and embrace connection instead.<br /><br />These lists have value. As tools. Not goals. <br /><br />Make your own lists. Lists of the different ways to build connection in your family. <br /><br />There are as many ways to build connection as there are people. Connection looks like conversations, telling jokes, making favourite foods, sharing dreams and secrets, playing fantasy games, creating, sitting in silence, sitting in togetherness and sitting in solitude. Connection looks like finding the shared language for you all to advocate for you needs, for your mental and spiritual health. But mostly connection comes when we toss judgement out the front door and expectations out the back door and we just be with our children and embrace what emerges. <br /><br /><i>Zakiyya Ismail, parent of three unschooling kids aged 21, 20 and 13. You can find her on her website <a href="https://www.growingminds.co.za/">Growing Minds</a>, on <a href="https://twitter.com/zerebral">Twitter</a> and on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/zerebral/">Instagram</a>.</i><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<br />1. Relax. I know it is tempting to replicate school at home, but I would suggest parents find their own rhythm and groove as a family. The coronavirus has put us in uncharted territory, and we honestly do not know what tomorrow will bring. This uncertainty gives us the opportunity to disconnect from the ways school does things and do things in the way that’s most beneficial to our individual children. <br /><br />2. Enjoy them. What do you enjoy doing with your children? Making a special recipe? Playing video games? Having conversations? Drawing pictures? Reading together? Whatever you like doing with them, do more of it now. Your bonds will be strengthened through the time you spend with them. Play with them and let them play. Let them play more than you think they should. Children learn a vast amount through play. Make time to laugh with your kids. It won’t just help you feel more connected to each other, it will also help ease their anxiety during this confusing time.<br /><br />3. Let them learn through life. Children are remarkably resilient, and they understand far more than adults usually give them credit for. Right now, they have a freedom they normally only have during summer vacation. Now is the chance to let them be curious and self-directed in their education.<br /><br />Finally, my advice to unexpecting homeschool parents is to contemplate how you want this time to be remembered. Maya Angelou famously said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Your children will forget the content of the worksheet packets and virtual learning websites they had to do during their homeschooling experience, but they will not forget how it felt being home with their family during this time. They will remember how their parents responded to the situation because they are watching you and learning from you how to deal when things are unpredictable.<br /><i><br />Tiersa McQueen, parent of four unschoolers aged 14, 12, and 9 year old twins. You can find her on <a href="https://twitter.com/tiersaj">Twitter</a>.</i><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<br />This pandemic is really a mirror showing us all the inequitable facets of our society, including this part where it has become acceptable for adults to wield control and power over children. It’s not a judgment on anyone as a person but an important social commentary I needed to give because if anything good should come from this, it’s that we can use this opportunity to reflect on all of the things this crisis is shining a light on. Only then can we start creating something new.<br /><br />If you can sit with the discomfort you feel from all of that, here’s my unpopular advice:<br /><br />Just let your kids play.<br /><br />Yep, just let them play! It’s already a stressful time for all. Skip the strict Coronavirus schedule I see being shared left and right among parent groups. Please! Don’t replicate school at home.<br /><br />Don’t squander this opportunity to give your kids unstructured time and space to just be.<br /><br />Right now, your kids may not know what to do with all that freedom, especially the ones who have been institutionalized longer. Your kids are used to having a schedule and having someone else decide what they should spend their time doing.<br /><br />So give them this gift of freedom.<br /><br />Give your kids the gift to just play, to explore what they would do with this newfound spaciousness, discover a new hobby, find things you would truly want to do with them together. Let them direct their day. Let them be bored. Boredom is such a gift. It is amazing what emerges out of boredom.<br /><br />If complete freedom to let kids just be gives you high anxiety, then create flexible and loose rhythms that feel good for everyone.<br /><br />Do life with them.<br /><br />Trust that your kids are learning all the time.<br /><br />And here is the most radical idea of all: Let them CHOOSE.<br /><br /><i>Vina Joy Duran, parent of two unschooling kids aged 11 and 4. Vina kindly allowed me to share this excerpted/edited version of a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/vinajoy/posts/10157827366416013">longer post that she published on Facebook</a>.</i><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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These are uncertain times. A lot of people are scrambling trying to figure out childcare, or where their next paycheck is coming from. If you do find yourself with the opportunity to suddenly be at home with your kids, be thankful! It is an opportunity not available to many. While your child’s school may be sending home assignments, or switching over to virtual classes, your job is to just enjoy. Treat it like a vacation. Enjoy having your kids around. Enjoy getting to spend this one and one time with them. Enjoy having this brief moment of time that you otherwise wouldn’t have gotten. Take this time to connect with them. Watch them play their favorite video games (and ask lots of questions!), read with them, bake with them, play board games, do crafts, make a big batch of popcorn and watch a movie, play music together, let them teach you their favorite Tik Tok dances, make silly videos and take lots of selfies. Talk to them about their lives and their friends and their classes. Assuage any feelings of fear or uncertainty they may have. Remind them that they are safe. Get to know them on a whole new level. Meet them where they’re at. Shift your focus to one of gratitude rather than one of panic. This unexpected time with your kids is a blessing, not a penalty. Take this time to truly see your kids, to truly appreciate and enjoy them, and do not worry about what they may be “missing” in school. This is a strange and confusing time in their lives, and what they’ll be getting from you, the person they trust more than anyone in the world, is so much more valuable than anything they could be learning at school.<br /><br /><i>Jennifer Vogel McGrail, parent of four unschoolers aged 23, 19, 15, and 12, and author of the blog <a href="https://www.jennifermcgrail.com/?fbclid=IwAR2VipEaRo4vLWvmBFzA9Hdcp4HNFM68L5Z05wORoWfPqhXqfy7E8rMADu4">The Path Less Taken</a>.</i><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<br />Most of us have been conditioned to compartmentalize the lives of adults and children. Adults usually go off to do adultish things, children go off to do childish things, and never the twain shall meet except during the few hours of chaos before bedtime. Adults know how to control children, entertain children, “educate” children, and keep children occupied, but we really don’t know how to simply live life <i><b>with</b></i> children without doing things <b><i>to</i></b> them.<br /><br />The situation with COVID-19 is scary and overwhelming, but it can also be an opportunity for us to practice being with children in ways that honor their agency, boundaries, individuality, interests, and needs…as well as our own.<br /><br />Here are some thoughts about how we can begin practicing BEING WITH rather than DOING TO: <br /><br /><u>Connect.</u> Don’t worry too much about academics. In these uncertain times, the last thing that matters is whether or not our child can add fractions! Instead, make relationship and connection our goal over “productivity.” Hold space for all the big emotions that may arise.<br /><br /><u>Respect their autonomy.</u> Staying emotionally connected doesn’t mean we need to be attached at the hip. In fact, it can mean that we are more comfortable doing things independently because we trust each other. Instead of trying to micromanage and schedule every minute, give children the freedom to decide and self-direct their day. Support them if they need ideas or structure, but avoid coercion and ultimatums. <br /><br /><u>Communicate boundaries.</u> Have a family meeting about how to keep everyone safe and how to get everyone’s needs met. Brainstorm together about win-win solutions so that kids and adults both feel valued and respected. How can the kids experiment with papier-mâché without making a huge mess that you’ll have to clean up? How can you have peace and quiet for your online meeting when the kids want to play Nerf tag in the house? When we as the adults are willing to compromise and listen to our kids, they’re usually willing to do the same. <br /><br />It is a radical paradigm shift to learn how to have relationships with children that are based on collaboration and connection rather than coercion. Now is as good a time as any to begin practicing.<br /><br /><i>Iris Chen, parent of two unschooling children aged 12 and 10 and author of the blog <a href="https://untigering.com/">Untigering</a>.</i> <br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<br />Besides the economic and practical adjustments that affect us all, the thing I'm seeing most schooling parents and carers worry about is their children being bored, or their children "falling behind" on schoolwork.<br /><br />I see a lot of unschoolers responding with a version of, "don't worry, just chill out, take time to relax" and of course as lifelong unschoolers I know what is meant by that. My family has been “homebound” in that sense for almost twenty years - and we've never been "bored" nor fallen "behind"! But the fact is, schooling families are used to schooling concepts and attendant lifestyle and worldviews. Parents and children are experiencing a lot of anxiety right now and many adults won't be able to confidently switch to an unschooling mindset under this kind of strain.<br /><br />Confidence is key, and confidence can be in short supply in times like this. My suggestion would be for parents to practice self-care, tune into the news for only short durations (then tune back out!), and employ whatever healthy behaviors best care for their bodies and soothe their anxiety. As a parent, it has benefitted me a great deal to care for myself with a dedicated fierceness so I wasn't constantly transmitting my anxiety to my children. We can leave our emotional processing needs for the most part to our safe grownup friends, our support groups, our therapists, and our spiritual mentors. Let's take care of ourselves so we can care for our children.<br /><br />Most children are connected online and likely have some great communities and friendships to bolster them at this time. The things children and teens need most is a safe, nurturing, connected, and calm home. What can we do to move things in that direction? It's never too early, or too late, to make those kinds of changes.<br /><i><br />Kelly Hogaboom, parent of two unschoolers aged 16 and 18, as well as clothier and designer at <a href="http://bespokehogaboom.com/">Bespoke Hogaboom</a>.</i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #111111; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "San Francisco", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; white-space: nowrap;">Photo by </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/@joshapplegate?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: border-box; color: #767676; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "San Francisco", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out 0s, opacity 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; white-space: nowrap;">Josh Applegate</a><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #111111; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "San Francisco", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; white-space: nowrap;"> on </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/children-inside?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: border-box; color: #767676; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "San Francisco", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out 0s, opacity 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; white-space: nowrap;">Unsplash</a></td></tr>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-40127431692681209222019-08-31T15:13:00.000-04:002019-08-31T15:13:59.014-04:00Yes, There ARE Things Every Kid Should Know: Social Justice and Self-DirectionI’ve seen some interesting discussion from fellow leftists in and around the unschooling world in regards to social justice and the importance of children--all children--knowing certain things. The issue raised is this: if we can agree that there are important issues of power and oppression that all children should understand, how do you reconcile that with an approach which, on the surface, looks like children learning whatever they want, regardless of what anyone else thinks?<br /><br />I agree that there is a baseline of knowledge and understanding necessary in order to be a thoughtful and kind person, and in order to engage in the work needed to dismantle structures of oppression. How are children to understand the current context if they don’t know the history of the Holocaust, of American slavery, of British colonialism, of Canadian residential schools? Children are generally taught about the ways in which they themselves are marginalized either by a hostile world which never lets them forget it, or by loved ones looking to prepare children for that world. But what about making sure all children, no matter their background, are equipped to challenge power and behave conscientiously towards those around them?<div>
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<br />I believe the concern that these things won’t be learned if children just “do whatever they want” rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what unschooling is, or at least my understanding of it. I’ve often described unschooling as self-directed learning that is guided by the desires and needs of the learner <i>and their communities</i>. We exist in a world full of other people, and I would never disagree about the importance of living as morally and justly as we can, which requires being educated about important topics.<br /><br />However, using oppressive and authoritarian methods to try and teach anti-oppression and anti-authoritarian politics is ridiculous and counter-productive. People learn what they live, and no matter how great the content being taught, if the structure or ways of relating reinforce hierarchies, dominance, and oppression--if children are learning that people who are bigger and older are entitled to control and dictate to those younger and weaker, they will not be learning the lessons we want them to. It’s simply unjust to use force and coercion to try to “make” children learn something, and the belief that the ends justify the means is just the type of attitude that sustains modern schooling, that continues a system built on the denial of children’s autonomy, and the enforcement of a colonialist Western model of education and social organization. <br /><br />I think becoming educated on important topics can be achieved through unschooling. I further believe it’s imperative to try and nurture these qualities respectfully, and detrimental to try and do so any other way. <br /><br />After all, people don’t tend to remember the things they’re taught against their will, when they don’t see the relevance or real world implications, when they’re somewhere they don’t want to be and are being taught by people they may not like. There’s a quote by Katrina Gutleben that goes “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.” This is why I don’t believe a mandatory curriculum covering everything any of us might decide ALL children should learn would be any more effective than current curriculums, where most information that’s taught is never truly learned.<br /><br />One of the things that’s always appealed to me about unschooling is the anti-authoritarianism baked into an ideology that treats education not as something done to children by learned adults, but as an organic, collaborative, community-rooted process. It embraces horizontal ways of relating to other people, across age divides, and invites us all to question the oppressive structures we’ve been told are just and necessary. It is one way to start creating a different world, to live as we wish things to be instead of recreating harm.<br /><br />Do all unschoolers feel this way? Not remotely. There are unschoolers with politics I consider terrible, who have very different goals than mine when it comes to embracing self-directed education, and who are passing on a lot of harmful ideas about the world to their children.<br /><br />Here is where I agree with the people who believe that some things just need to be learned in order to challenge injustice. Unschooling, on its own, is not enough. Respectful parenting alone is not a complete solution.<br /><br />So what to do? Well, here is where I think the importance of family and community culture comes into play. Who is part of a child’s life? What are their perspectives, experiences, and values? If children are surrounded by people who talk about and embody different ways of existing and living outside of the dominant culture, who discuss inequalities and structural violence, important history and current events, who work to unlearn their own prejudices and fight for justice, who care and learn and struggle and include children in all of that--then that is what they will learn to do themselves. <br /><br />While some disagree, I’ve never seen unschooling as a way to shelter children, or as a way to control what they learn. As <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2018/08/homeschooling-right-way-more-of-world.html">I’ve discussed before</a>, I see unschooling as a way to open up more of the world, not to restrict it. I’m also never going to argue against having firm boundaries about, say, not using slurs or derogatory language about marginalized people. I am not suggesting that unschooling is a free-for-all, but that there are far better, more authentic, more consensual ways for children to learn than an “anti-oppression curriculum.”<br /><br />I also think it’s important to note that while children do not have all the knowledge and experience that adults generally have, and so of course it’s important for adults to be role models and help children gain those things, we must recognize that children, too, have valuable experience and perspectives that add to adults lives, and to social justice and liberatory movements themselves. There’s a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/yesicanwrite.blog/posts/10156744386818411?__xts__[0]=68.ARA5k7kDmqgPBvvgEKrCVr-Hjc1g4FydV1UFPdCBf-wnGrMbv4RudDl2P2hX0q76U7Y9SPVH12HxEmtF4SjKcLKWrifeKV1AaIALYfa_PmdpVdZjxv4frthaWQ074RO7qkcM-wEGURJ7P7KeVieGww-96LdyN5N6F5uut6Wo5tWAmx1u8AtdFj8zO6MO6DH-lHthiCYLCW9yjM1AnvC7oreEB3vyA3DzM-utQZFFc6B7vjt5NK2pRHjl7rWEKgG-zL6rBT3zNGe_Xkos5gYB9847Gt7Otn7QuO1O8UBo73_Wv3gufcNUYoFKZj06tAlaAmwfOQ089TkaSA1YezVUaJ11vq1VjlelAcG5smWp1UV5CZsuiWc8rTTXFxZxTuunWZgbQFTL7N6xwuHRV_CFDrqYc0nBe4VHtzXRwWDrPXKVu9GAqChTRYLJLfWDlNO9J72KQp5WmaOpxxKeT9DpfCxgrjKEm8-UaeI2bUjuZji_dgMj&__tn__=-R">great meme</a> I’ve shared before on Facebook, that states in part “Children's innate tendency to question the status quo as well as their ability to imagine an ideal world without limits makes their active engagement in organizing efforts an invaluable resource as we move together towards ultimate liberation for all.”<br /><br />It’s easy to fall into the trap of seeing children as empty vessels to be filled, as people in training instead of people <i>now</i>, when the reality is that everyone has things to both learn and share, everyone has something to add across the spectrum of ages. And if any movements are seeing children solely as almost-people in need of molding they’re both perpetuating oppression and missing out.<br /><br />To bring it all back around, there is definitely knowledge that is important in attempts to challenge injustice and create better ways of living. However, the best way to acquire it is to live it, to be surrounded by people who care. Kind of the same way adults gain the knowledge and skills necessary to make positive change. Children, though their needs, their experiences, and their development may be different from adults, are still every bit as deserving of basic respect, to be included instead of condescended to, to have relationships with people who see their involvement as valuable. <br /><br />If we really care about making things better, we can’t do so by recreating the same power structures that oppress us all. Instead, we need to recognize every person as a potential ally and partner in the struggle for justice… including kids.</div>
Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-73526703319928701812019-07-09T15:40:00.000-04:002019-07-09T15:40:08.086-04:00On Seasons and Cycles: Unschooling and Nature<div>
<i>This post was originally published on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/idzie">my Patreon</a> in February 2019. While most of my Patreon posts will remain exclusive to financial supporters, occasionally I share an older one over here as well.</i></div>
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You know winter is truly over when you hear the spring peepers. Even living in the suburbs, the wetlands, tucked discreetly behind houses with manicured lawns, would fill with with tiny frogs, their distinctive chorus echoing down streets and bouncing between buildings. A local zoo that focuses on fauna native to the Saint Lawrence River Valley would open up the gates at the back of their property when the peepers came out, allowing groups of people into areas generally reserved for zoologists and grad students, where we’d shine our flashlights around as darkness started to fall, trying to spot the small bodies clinging to stalks of grass. You could hear them before you even turned in to the parking lot, but as you made your way into the marshes the sound rose to deafening heights, exhilarating and consuming.<br /><br />I can still hear the peepers from my house, when the snow has melted but the temperature still drops below zero some nights. The sound has grown fainter over the years as wetlands have been filled in for new housing developments, patches of forest whittled down, but they’re still there.<div>
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<br />Instead of heading closer to the city for activities, growing up we were more likely to head in the opposite direction, where suburbs faded into more rural surroundings. We’d go on hikes and on frog catching expeditions, learned to spot wood that had been gnawed on by a beaver and admired their dams, chewed on tart sumac berries and kept a lookout for poison ivy. We’d watch turkey vultures spiral high above us, and spot red-tailed hawks and downy woodpeckers.<br /><br />There are children who are more nature literate than me and my sister were--quite a few of them and quite a bit more knowledgeable--but for children of the suburbs, we spent more time in wild spaces than most of the other kids we knew.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<br />When you grow up without school, you get to create your own structure, the what, where, how, when, and who of your choosing, which means that one of the “where’s” you can choose to focus on is <i>outside</i>. Without the segmentation of semesters and school vacation, you can allow other forces to guide you instead: the turning of seasons, the weather, when your favourite flowers bloom in the fields, that perfect stretch of time for hiking in the autumn when the leaves are at their brightest. You can fade into partial hibernation in the winter months, a fallow time for thinking and creating. <br /><br />And, taking inspiration from the natural cycles, you can embrace the way learning itself follows its own patterns, periods of intensity and growth followed by stretches of absorption and rumination. <div>
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<br />When I think of my childhood, I think of it in seasons.<br /><br />Spring was peepers and fat tadpoles. It was burying peas in newly thawed ground, cold earth lodging under my fingernails. It was a carpet of white trilliums rolled out through the woods, ghostly on dusk walks, punctuated by occasional red ones, foul-smelling if you leaned too close. As spring grew into summer, we’d spend afternoons picking strawberries at the farm up the road, the sun hot on our backs.<br /><br />Summer was for frog and grasshopper catching. It was fields filled with bright flowers. It was black raspberry picking, thorns sharp as they caught on purple-stained fingers, and fruit bright on my tongue. It was lying on soft-prickly grass and sunning on big, sun-heated stones like some warm-blooded lizard. For years when I was small we’d head northeast, following the Saint Lawrence all the way to Gaspe, right as summer started to fade into fall. I’d spend hours picking wild blueberries, running through un-mown fields and bushwacking my way through the woods to marvel at ancient, twisting crabapple trees. I’d walk along the beach, mesmerized by crashing waves, and sometimes seals would swim close to the shore, watching us with the same curiosity with which we’d watch them.<div>
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<br />Autumn was leaves shading into yellow and orange, red and purple, and crunching most satisfyingly underfoot. It was ponds stilling and reeds browning, the scent of decomposition in chilled noses. It was carefully deliberating over the selection of decorative gourds at the farmstand, fingers tracing stripes and ridges. It was the excitement of halloween, clamoring over prickly straw bales, and trying to catch the first flakes of snow on our tongues.<br /><br />Winter was chilled faces and sparkling fresh snow, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing in the strangely quiet, creaking woods under the muffling blanket of a heavy snowfall. It was the bright red flash of cardinals against a white backdrop, tottering out in ice skates onto a frozen pond or rink, or sliding carefully along in boots, arms outstretched for balance. It was winter festivals and toes too long in the cold, bright pain burning as they thawed out near a warm fire, or merely the car heating vents.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<br />Kids who don’t go to school do not have a monopoly on outdoor exploration or seasonal traditions, not by any means. But what I want to highlight is the flexibility life learning provides in allowing families to choose where and how they spend <i>all</i> the hours of their days, instead of only being left with a handful of evenings and weekends to do with as they wish. I want to celebrate the way that seasons can take precedence over a school calendar in structuring life, how nature can be the primary force that shapes your days, instead of a schedule set up with the best interests of an institution in mind, not the best interest of children. <br /><br />When you’re not in school, you simply have time. Time to be outside, time to lie in the grass, time to organize last-minute group hikes, time to stay up late watching bats, time to go on a trip when other kids are in school. Not going to school doesn't necessarily mean you’ll spend more time in nature. But it means that you have the time--boundless, limitless time--to do so.</div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-39936495777969705172019-05-07T19:59:00.000-04:002019-05-07T19:59:39.567-04:00When Learning is Like Breathing: On Awareness and EvaluationOne of the biggest revelations offered by people who live outside of schools and enforced curriculum is just how effortless, how ever-present, how natural learning can be. People sometimes ask me how I learned a specific thing, growing up, and I often have trouble answering. Both because, by now, my childhood was quite a while ago and my memories aren’t as clear, and also because, when you’re not using a curriculum, the exact mechanics of how learning happens are not always so easy to track.<br /><br />This is definitely the case when it comes to writing. The short answer is that I just… started doing it, and got better over times as I gained more skill and experience. <br /><br />Sometimes learning is as natural as breathing, and like breathing, when you become too aware of it, too conscious of lungs expanding and expelling, you can throw it off, start breathing too fast or unevenly, a natural process made complicated through hyperawareness. <div>
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<br />An author who was writing about self-directed learning once offered to pay me to document how I learned a new skill. At first, I agreed, but I quickly found that the act of scrutinizing the process irrevocably <i>changed </i>it, made it into something stilted and self-conscious. Even my own gaze could be turned into something that felt like evaluation, could be made somehow external and detached from self.<br /><br />There’s a difference between that type of assessment and picking part of the process to offer for critique and observation. It’s a part of life to take a specific result--an essay or piece of art or demonstration--and present it to others for evaluation of some kind, and I have done that willingly, even cheerfully, many times over. It is not the same as intently watching and cataloguing each step, asking over and over is <i>that</i> learning? What about<i> that</i>? And, even worse, finding yourself judging which parts <i>aren’t</i> learning. To internalize that evaluative gaze is to self-police, to place yourself on a narrow track and administer scoldings when you stray too far into the bushes.<br /><br />I think it’s important, for individual learners and those journeying with them, not to get too caught up in the details of what’s happening right now, if you can help it. It’s one of these things that forms a more complete picture only when looking backwards, when you can see how the different pieces of the landscape came together--a mountain dropping to valley below, that collection of happy little trees--to complete the whole. <br /><br />I learned to write because I had something to say. Before I was capable of putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard myself, I dictated to my mother, a child’s stories and thoughts laid out neatly in her clear print. Once I could read myself, writing seemed like a natural extension, and my stories and thoughts started to sprawl out far less neatly in scattered notebooks, and soon in Word documents and blogs. I did not consider whether I was writing at “grade level,” I was not compelled to write about what other people thought I should be turning my thoughts towards. I was not entirely free of what <a href="http://carolblack.org/the-gaze">Carol Black refers to</a> as “the evaluative gaze of school,” since as she further notes about parents who take their children out of school, “to their grief they may find that the gaze is inside them, and gets to their children through their eyes.” It is, I think, impossible to fully escape it. But I was cushioned from it. Protected, for the most part. <br /><br />Learning can be as natural as breathing. But a gaze bent on recording and analysing learning, whether it comes from outside of us or is our own gaze turned inwards, has a weight to it, a heaviness that drags everything into its orbit, turns life into something that seemingly can’t function without scrutiny. If we want learning to happen as it should, to be a process owned wholly by the learner, then we must become aware of the evaluative gaze, and put our foot down, raise a shield: on this, you cannot gaze.</div>
Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-61044885583312137272019-03-21T15:48:00.003-04:002019-03-21T15:48:41.771-04:00Why Hitting Kids Will Never Be Compatible With UnschoolingUnschooling is all about respecting and trusting children. So when people who have liked my unschooling Facebook page start defending the practice of hitting children, I’m baffled as well as upset.<br /><br />Because the thing is, and I can’t state this strongly enough, <i><b>violence against children will never be compatible with a philosophy of respecting children.</b></i> There is very little in this world that is less respectful than striking another person. (And while I’m not a pacifist, violence in defense of self or others is wildly different from violence used to intimidate, hurt, and gain the compliance of people you claim to care about.)<div>
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<br />People have a lot of justifications, a lot of things they tell themselves (and often aggressively insist to other people) to try and make it sound better. There’s the euphemisms, like “spank” and “swat” that attempt to obscure the fact that what’s happening is an adult striking a child. There’s the deeply disturbing claim that violence done in the name of love can’t be bad (a claim countless abusers have used to gaslight their victims). There’s the assertion from adults that they were hit as children and “turned out fine,” a questionable claim when their version of “fine” includes hitting children.<br /><br />No matter the excuses, the words used, or how little force is supposedly put behind palm striking skin, the act of doing so is domestic violence. Using fear and pain in order to gain compliance is the action of an abuser. And the research at this point is abundantly clear: <a href="https://news.utexas.edu/2016/04/25/risks-of-harm-from-spanking-confirmed-by-researchers/">“spanking” causes a whole lot of harm</a>, without even achieving the goals its proponents claim to be aiming for.<br /><br />I should be clear at this point that I don’t think parents who have hit their children are horrible people. But I DO think they’ve visited harm on a small person under their care, and the correct course of action is to immediately cease causing that harm, make amends, and put in the work needed to learn better strategies, ones that don’t involve using violence as a means of control.<br /><br />We do not live in a world where parenting is in any way easy. People are overworked, have little support, and they can fear that if they don’t use violence to make sure their kids stay in line, others will use greater force against them. Yet I keep thinking of the quote by L. R. Knost, “It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.”<br /><br />Do parents really want to be the first people to raise a hand to their child? The first people to hurt them? Do they want to introduce fear and pain into a relationship that’s supposed to be built on trust and unconditional love?<br /><br /><div>
I don’t think there’s any moral excuse for hitting children. And if someone thinks that they can both unschool and strike their children, then they’ve failed to grasp the most important part of what unschooling is.<br /><br />Trust and respect children. Base your actions on an ethos of love and consent. It might not be easy, but it’s the right thing to do.</div>
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<i>My thanks to Nola for reminding me that simple is often better and suggesting this title when I was stuck.</i></div>
Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-49436139027755761842019-02-26T13:37:00.000-05:002019-02-26T13:37:08.138-05:00Children Are More Trustworthy and Capable than People Think<div>
<i>This post was originally published on Patreon in January of 2018. If you<a href="https://www.patreon.com/idzie"> become a supporter for $1 a month</a> you gain access to a brand new, patron exclusive post every month, along with the entire back catalog of Patreon posts. A few of them eventually make it onto this blog, but most remain available only to financial supporters! </i></div>
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As I shared <a href="https://www.facebook.com/yesicanwrite.blog/posts/10155532623103411">on Facebook a couple of weeks ago</a>, I am continually surprised by just how little faith people have in children, in their ability to learn, to make choices, to do just about anything really. And since I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, I wanted to take the time to explore the topic a bit further, and to address some of the things people erroneously believe about kids…<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Me and my sister were always welcome in the kitchen.</i></td></tr>
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Children have to be taught how to learn</h3>
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This one even crops up in self-directed learning spaces every now and then, and seems to show such a strange view of how humans function. It’s as if some people think that we’re born as blank slates, so devoid of any desires or drives that we must be taught to do even that most basic of all things: to learn. In reality, we come with that particular drive fully intact. It seems like a truly profound lack of respect to think children are incapable of this, when in fact it’s one of the things they’re absolutely best at.</div>
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Children will always make awful choices</h3>
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There seems to be an assumption that children want to make dangerous choices, and if given half a chance will waste no time in doing so. Yet while it’s certainly true that children lack the experience, maturity, or impulse control of adults, that doesn’t mean they lack all caution, all sense, or all desire to do good. Further, the way children learn is by doing. As my friend Nola said, “Use it or lose it. If you make your own decisions, over time, you figure out how to make better choices. It works for adults, and for kids too.” With a little guidance and reasonable expectations, children can be perfectly capable of making their own choices.</div>
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Children can’t pick what they like</h3>
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Content, be it books, games, or otherwise should be educationally enriching, so the thought goes, and if that’s the case then surely children can’t be trusted to pick out their own things. It must then be left up to responsible adults to choose what’s best for their children to engage with. I’m saddened by this theft of discovery, taking away the joy of picking out your own books at the library, your own shows on (kids) Netflix, getting to develop your own unique tastes and style that’s separate and distinct from the adults in your life. It’s such a simple thing, to allow children to make their own choices about their media (as long as it’s within age appropriate bounds), but it means so much. Children deserve to express their own likes and dislikes, to have their own interests, and adults shouldn’t be getting in the way of that. <br /><h3>
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Children aren’t allowed to participate in real work</h3>
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So often the smallest dangers are blown out of proportion when it comes to children: a vegetable peeler in the kitchen turns into fears of ER visits, and children are barred from any work with any possibility of danger. While I’m certainly not suggesting getting a 3-year-old to help you chop wood, often fears of danger seem overblown, now even more so than when I was a child (and they were frequently overblown then). Children are capable of being careful. Children usually want to help. And the way that they learn how to be safe is by practicing, using tools, gaining skills and proficiency, and building on that base as they grow. As Laura Grace Weldon said in <a href="https://lauragraceweldon.com/2013/02/06/a-childs-place-is-in-the-kitchen/">a piece on bringing children into the kitchen</a>, “We spend much time and money on enriching activities and products for our children, but if they don’t get the chance to take on real responsibilities, we’re depriving them of key components of adult competency.”</div>
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<br />There are myriad ways that children’s abilities are frequently undervalued and many avenues to gaining greater competency that are often denied to them. But in taking a life learning path, there are a lot more opportunities to respect children, to trust them, to allow them greater freedom, and to engage with them in meaningful activities. I hope that the more examples there are of living respectfully with children, the more others will see just how capable they can be.</div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-75355574531056732112019-02-17T16:55:00.000-05:002019-02-17T16:58:33.502-05:00Unschoolers Aren't ProductsEvery now and then, someone talks about what type of people unschooling “produces.” They want to know about the products at the end of the line.<br />
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I flinch, a little, when I see that. I know the phrasing isn’t intentionally bad. Usually, people are genuinely curious and not in any way trying to be offensive.<br />
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But the thing is, <b>I’m not a product.</b><br />
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<b><br /></b>Unschooling does not produce products, or even results. <i>Life</i> produces <i>people</i>, and all of our experiences, including education, shape us into who we are.<br />
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Sometimes I see unschooling being described as mere trickery. It’s a way to convince children to learn. You just sneak lessons into everyday activities, you see! With a wink and a nudge, one adult to another, they tell you that unschooling is just about making kids learn important things without the kids realizing what’s happening.<br />
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Thankfully, these erroneous definitions of unschooling generally come from people who are not, themselves, unschoolers. But they certainly leave me shaking my head in frustration and disappointment, to know that some people see <i>trust and respect children</i> as a mere euphemism for <i>manipulate them into doing what you want them to, but in such a way that they can’t even tell they’re being manipulated</i>.<br />
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I think that these two ideas go together: the belief in controlling children, and the idea that it’s possible to mold children into exactly the person someone else wants them to be. If you believe that, I suppose it’s natural to think that unschooling can have predictable results, can reliably create a certain type of product.<br />
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In an excellent, concise article on the topic of <a href="https://www.life.ca/lifelearning/1902/right-thing.htm?fbclid=IwAR1HNaUZuCAUDbF44FnhAhQVMK0wkZpUvfg8EY7Zbk80WbjCTPCfncTaDD4#.XGB4cbg5RTc.facebook">life learning success</a>, Wendy Priesnitz had this to say:<br />
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“In our family, the foundations of life learning and parenting (which were interwoven) were respect and trust. And we didn’t raise our daughters with respect and trust because we had an idea about how we wanted them to turn out. In fact, I think having that sort of agenda would be counterproductive to trust and respect. We did it because treating them like we would any other human being was the right thing to do.”<br />
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What a relief that sentiment is, to me, seeing it laid out like that. I want children to be treated with trust and respect because I, too, believe it’s the right thing to do. While I offer my experiences, my writing, in the hopes it can contribute to more children being trusted and respected, doing so also opens up my life to a lot of outside scrutiny. <i>“What do you do now? Can you support yourself? How is your social life? Did you ever go to college?”</i><br />
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I have, with my own actions and invitation, opened myself up to that, and I do not resent the people who ask such questions (as long as it’s done respectfully, and in the appropriate times and places). But at the same time, it feels like an immense weight, people hanging all these judgments on the experience of a single person, where my words can tilt people in one direction or another. <br />
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We are, each of us, made up of many things. Shaped by our genetics and the people who raise us, by where we live, what we like, who we make friends with, and where we spend our days. Unschooling undoubtedly has an impact on those who are raised with this philosophy, but it is just one part of a whole... and it’s also a way of approaching education that takes as many different forms as there are people living it. <br />
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It’s important to listen to grown unschoolers, I think. More than our parents, even, we have firsthand knowledge of what unschooling is like, what worked and did not in our own unique lives. Yet each of us, as individuals, is just that: a unique individual. Meeting an unschooler and hearing about how they lived and learned says more about them than it does about unschooling as a whole. It is neither rational nor fair to view individuals as products of unschooling, or to use us as the guidepost for whether you should<i> really</i> trust and respect children. <br />
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Children deserve trust and respect regardless of anything else. Regardless of perceived “results,” regardless of expectations met or not met. <br />
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Treat children well, today and every day, because of the inherent worth in all of us, because it’s the right thing to do. Everything else will work out as it will.</div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-5686357721264767862019-01-04T20:46:00.000-05:002019-01-04T20:46:11.334-05:00Ending the Tyranny of the ClassicsI’m someone who loves to read, loves books with a depth of feeling I find hard to convey in words. If you’re a fellow book lover, you know what I mean. But I’m also a reading rebel, of a sort, who believes strongly in people’s right to develop their own relationships with stories, read what they want, or not read at all. Prescriptivism only ever gets in the way of enjoyment.<div>
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We pick our way through prickly grass, shriveled and brown from an excess of sun and shortage of rain, shake out our slightly musty lawn chairs, and settle in front of the stage, a simple fake-stone structure serving as backdrop to one of the most well-known plays in the Western canon.<br /><br />My mother used to bring me and my sister to see a Shakespeare-in-the-Park show every summer when we were growing up, and after years of missing it, I’ve picked up the tradition once more as an adult. Two years ago the production was an all-women version of Julius Caesar. Last year it was a 50’s themed take on Much Ado About Nothing. And this year, a very queer Romeo and Juliet. Our local theater company that puts on these productions likes to do something fresh and modern with such well-worn material, as many great modern Shakespeare companies do. They’re also incredibly skilled, the actors featured often winning awards for their performances.<br /><br />I’m watching the performance with my sister, who’s long been in love with both musical theater and Shakespeare. She’s watched the recording of the 2014 Donmar Warehouse production of Coriolanus multiple times, and tries to convince all her friends to see it, too. She once drove 2 ½ hours to Ottawa to see a National Theatre Live show that wasn’t going to be airing in our home city of Montreal. When she was backpacking in the UK, a highlight of London was seeing a production of Macbeth at the Globe Theatre. <br /><br />I, on the other hand, am a much more casual fan. For the most part I’m purely a Shakespeare-in-the-Park person.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1uCXFp4cxnF4bxY1oBnfBxIOuSub_5VKrnTdJBNNVafbO9jneTRuywv2ybM_0M0xM9ACx4mLhV-IBXnS_0w9fs-FReHlUjxKMIjDgCnuxLzrD2qAYvYuvVSZg1M9Pnhut1RzwEv5srig/s1600/37403460_10160731677605472_4112026797569212416_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="768" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1uCXFp4cxnF4bxY1oBnfBxIOuSub_5VKrnTdJBNNVafbO9jneTRuywv2ybM_0M0xM9ACx4mLhV-IBXnS_0w9fs-FReHlUjxKMIjDgCnuxLzrD2qAYvYuvVSZg1M9Pnhut1RzwEv5srig/s400/37403460_10160731677605472_4112026797569212416_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Romeo & Juliet: Love Is Love, put on by Repercussion Theatre.</td></tr>
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Needless to say, we were never taught Shakespeare in a formal context. We were never forced to read plays, of all things--an exercise about as useful as teaching kids to read music so they can study the scores, instead of going to a concert. But when something so permeates a culture as does the works of Shakespeare, and when you live a life filled with books and media and other human beings, it’s impossible not to bump up against countless references that give you basic outlines of what you’re missing, or lead you to dig into the topic further, to understand for yourself why your culture has become so saturated with these works of art, and whether you think all the fuss is worth it or not<br /><br />As my sister and I headed home from the play, shirts buttoned up against the surprisingly chilly summer evening, we were laughing about some of our favourite amusing bits (from the first half, before everything becomes tragic) and discussing the thematic relevance of making Romeo and Juliet a lesbian couple, with parents hell bent on their children only partnering with the “right” people. Sometimes classic works can really be imbued with a sense of timelessness, and bring joy to people long, long after their creators could have ever imagined.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<br />When I first started this post, I was thinking of “the classics” as the Western canon generally foisted upon high school students. But I quickly branched out to cover “classics of the genre,” and just anything that’s held up as classic in one way or another. The works people place on a pedestal. The ones people are told they <i>have</i> to read.<br /><br />There’s a devotion in our culture to those canons, an awe felt towards works that have, as far as I can tell, been chosen as<i> best </i>somewhat arbitrarily. It’s not that classics aren’t generally good in some way (though some are, in my opinion, genuinely bad and just dressed up in enough pretension to fool people who aren’t looking too closely), but best? Out of everything countless people have created and produced and shared? When it comes to art and literature, I don’t think there is such a thing as “best,” a judgement that’s just far too subjective. <br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<br />My family’s home has always been filled with scores of science fiction and fantasy paperbacks. It’s easily the most popular genre in this house. And as I reached the beginnings of my teens and started looking towards adult books, I tried picking up some of the supposed sci-fi greats, people you’d surely recognize even if you're not a reader of the genre yourself, like Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. And that’s the first time I can remember questioning the place of “classics,” and whether the works endowed with such a title were really so deserving of my time.<br /><br />There’s a certain way that those male writers talk about women, and though I didn’t have the vocabulary or understanding back then to fully recognize why those books I attempted to read (and often gave up on) made me uncomfortable, I now know the simple reason is “misogyny.” Undaunted, I dove into genre fiction, preferring the fantasy end of the spectrum, and gravitating towards newer releases.<br /><br />I’ve been loving SFF for many years now, choosing my reading material primarily from the ranks of genre fiction, but I found that same frustration I had all those years ago with big-name male writers creeping back in. Time and time again I’d read stories by very well respected male authors and find that the women characters were nothing but props and prizes or cartoon villains, cardboard cut-outs of straight male fantasies or “bad” women who didn’t perform femininity “correctly.” To say I was becoming disillusioned with all of those writers held up as masters, who seemed completely incapable of writing interesting women with engaging storylines, would be an understatement.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIB804D38_I04pe-US1JhX7U4rSsBvnudTjva3xg7kNpN-v5ITk3UXCXY9JexmAwRy-109-5lfuxFiCtdA0hqJ1Uvi0ZCe9NTbZq2KbmTAoQN7PVQWtLaacf-jFGDEDoFQ1gMZP_up-do/s1600/48426187_10161371870020472_6670411186548244480_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIB804D38_I04pe-US1JhX7U4rSsBvnudTjva3xg7kNpN-v5ITk3UXCXY9JexmAwRy-109-5lfuxFiCtdA0hqJ1Uvi0ZCe9NTbZq2KbmTAoQN7PVQWtLaacf-jFGDEDoFQ1gMZP_up-do/s400/48426187_10161371870020472_6670411186548244480_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This Christmas I was gifted with a favourite, and somewhat obscure, fantasy<br />trilogy: The Fall of Ile-Rien by Martha Wells. An author who writes amazing<br />characters of all genders!</td></tr>
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<br />This is emblematic not only of sci-fi and fantasy, but of the majority of what are held up as great literary works, books that are strikingly white, male, and straight, and tend to have embedded in their pages either a callous disregard for or outright animosity towards all those people who aren’t white, or male, or straight. In Erin Spampinato’s piece <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/04/incel-movement-literary-classics-behind-misogyny">How does the literary canon reinforce the logic of the incel?</a> she questions what topics have been enshrined in our collective psyche as important:<br /><br />“I was trained to accept that male sexual frustration was a serious issue because I read hundreds of pages about it before the age of 20, far more than I read about issues of undoubtedly greater social import, like the legacy of slavery, the alienation of women and people of color from public life, or the violence of the settler colonialism on which the United States was founded. Perhaps these novels even coached me into taking male sexual frustration seriously through a kind of frightful education: look what happens, they seemed to say, when men don’t get what they want. “<br /><br />For myself, I just decided several years ago that my reading world would be richer and more rewarding if I severely cut down on authors most likely to write terribly about women (aka men), and I have never looked back. I haven’t cut out books by men completely: I still read some books by male authors I already know I like, books by marginalized men, and books by men that have been recommended by people whose taste I trust. But to put it in perspective, I’ve read more books this year by nonbinary authors than by men, and out of the 55 books I read in 2017 only 4 were by men. <br /><br />I imagine this choice will strike some people as unfair, but I have only so much time to read, only so many books I can read in my lifetime, and each book I choose to read means another book left unread. Each book that leaves me disappointed is time that could have been spent on something that enchants me instead. My parameters for choosing books are designed to prioritize the books I think I’m most likely to like, and my experience has taught me that I generally prefer books by people who aren’t men. So that is what I read.<br /><br />I also almost exclusively read newer books, those published in the last fifteen years or so. It brings me great joy to stay on top of new releases in my chosen genres, to read books that are extraordinarily timely (as they’re products of the world we are currently living in), and ones that will likely end up on the ballots of my favorite awards. I’m constantly asking my library to purchase new and upcoming books, and delight in discovering promising emerging authors. In choosing to focus on newer books, I also read more diverse books, since the industry is changing and the authors who used to get shut out--authors of colour, queer and trans authors--are at least starting to be recognized. <br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<br />As I mentioned previously, there can be a lot of gatekeeping in the SFF genre (and, I imagine, other genres as well), with ideas that you have to start with “the classics” when entering a genre. That you have to read Tolkein if you want to read fantasy. I almost finished The Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings trilogy bored me immensely, meaning I never finished the first book, and if I’d believed those gatekeepers back in the day, the ones who say there’s only one door that everyone must pass through, I would have missed out on an entire world of literature that makes my heart sing. <br /><br />As bestselling fantasy author <a href="https://www.tor.com/2018/08/13/in-search-of-doors-read-v-e-schwabs-2018-j-r-r-tolkien-lecture-on-fantasy-literature/">V. E. Schwab has said about her own disinterest in Tolkein</a>, “I have a very strong belief that reading should be an act of love, of joy, of willing discovery. That when we force someone across the wrong literary threshold, we risk turning them away instead of ushering them through.” (That linked article is well worth reading in full, by the way.)<br /><br />Or, as another successful SFF author, John Scalzi, <a href="https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/1076184248875388929">put it on Twitter</a>, “Most ‘classics of the genre’ (whatever the genre) are just unbelievably dated and anyone who demands new readers to genre ‘start with the classics’ is going to ensure they hate it. Give new readers new books they have a better chance of relating to. They can work backward later.”<br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<br />I tried reading Jane Eyre at some point in my teens, and was deeply bored. I picked up a couple of other very old books in my teens and found myself similarly uninterested. It’s only this year, after diving into the world of modern historical romance, that I decided it might be time to give some books by Jane Austen a try. An audiobook would be a good medium to tackle such a novel, I decided, and I picked a narrator I was familiar with, one I knew I liked, out of the dozens, perhaps hundreds of recorded versions. I know the story of Pride and Prejudice quite well thanks to countless film and book riffs on the story, and I’m happy to say I’m enjoying it! The immersion in a different time period, the sly humor, the differences in story construction between a Georgian and modern novel. It’s not that I’ve decided everything old is bad, just that newer generally means more relevant, unless you’re specifically interested in understanding the history of a genre, or a time period.</div>
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If someone came to me and said “I want to start reading SFF. Where should I start?” by now it should surprise no one that I’d pull out modern suggestions, by women, as my top picks. Something by N. K. Jemisin, either The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms or The Fifth Season, depending on how dark and complex a read someone was looking for. The Ancillary series by Ann Leckie, for certain. I’d say they should definitely pick up something by Naomi Novik and Martha Wells. I’d make sure to note some new authors to watch, like Ruthanna Emrys and Rebecca Roanhorse, C. L. Polk and Alexandra Rowland. I’d let them know about some of my very favourite series, like Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire, and the Spiritwalker trilogy by Kate Elliott.</div>
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But I’d also be very sure to make it clear that my beloved books might not be theirs, that the experience I’ve built in the genre is tailored specifically to me, to my interests, to the themes I find captivating. Maybe they would like entirely different authors, different stories, different experiences.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVPq5-L6wkuaavjMU-M2q5vgIRywz-OxtBy3UczaTvbILCxZtv_d_TautswsUgbWRJdD7cspSt4JmyxnzM-tiHarsEp3ozjwnBqJ7wq36yCPjCtIkzg1SyXwdGKqHZzgik3i1mmMhk-4E/s1600/34103737_10160536472125472_1699816586807869440_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="768" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVPq5-L6wkuaavjMU-M2q5vgIRywz-OxtBy3UczaTvbILCxZtv_d_TautswsUgbWRJdD7cspSt4JmyxnzM-tiHarsEp3ozjwnBqJ7wq36yCPjCtIkzg1SyXwdGKqHZzgik3i1mmMhk-4E/s400/34103737_10160536472125472_1699816586807869440_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A statue I came across in Quebec City, by the <br />sculptor Rose-Aimée Bélanger</td></tr>
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<br />My argument against attempting to force anyone, children most definitely included, to read “classics” feels like a very personal one to me: I don’t read many, and I’m fine. But going deeper than that, I credit not being forced to read things other people decided were best for me with allowing me the space to find what I, personally, loved about books and reading. I wasn’t turned off of reading, or turned off of a certain genre or type of book, by being forced across a threshold that was not meant for me. Letting people come to things in their own time, when and if they want to, allows them to figure out what’s right for them, which parts of the literary world they wish to explore and which parts they want to steer clear of. </div>
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In trying to force the same set of books on everyone, you push people towards things that most will find irrelevant, outdated, and not at all in line with their interests. You turn what could be something positive for some percentage of those people into a chore instead. <br /><br />There’s a big difference between introducing works you think are interesting and important, and deciding to dictate to another person what they themselves should like and care about. In the relentless amplifying of so-called classics, too many people fall into the latter category. <br /><br />The world of books and reading can be a fantastic one to explore. Lets stop ruining it for others by insisting there’s only one path to take.</div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-24776726232582913832018-10-30T16:28:00.000-04:002018-10-30T16:28:58.090-04:00Why Can't You Just Unschool Part Time?In every collection of unschooling skeptics I’ve come across--such as that found in the comments section any time unschooling is covered in a major outlet--you’ll always find the question of why people can’t just unschool <i>part time</i>. Why does it have to be a full-time gig? Can’t children just go to REAL school to get a REAL education and do that self-directed nonsense in their downtime?<br /><br />I’ve found myself explaining, over and over, with as much patience as I can muster, that they’re missing the point. Here’s why…<div>
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Time</h3>
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Between school, and homework, and extracurricular activities, and things like sleeping and eating, your average child has very little actual free time. And in what little free time they have? They’re tired. They need to relax, to unwind, to veg out. That time can certainly be an important part of learning, as I’ve discussed before. But to suggest that all the richness of a self-directed education can be squeezed into what little free time a child has leftover is completely absurd.<br /><br /><h3>
Values</h3>
<br />The way education is approached in school, the fundamental ideas underpinning it, are antithetical to unschooling. Children in school are being taught that learning is something done to them; that learning can only be imparted by experts; that other people know what’s best for them and hey get no say in how their education unfolds; that children are not capable of making any decisions about their learning; that learning is always difficult and complicated. Unschoolers, on the other hand, know--and live the knowledge--that learning is ever-present, and happens with all different people in all different places; that play should form the basis of childhood (and of learning!); and that children are perfectly capable of directing their own education. Ideas about what education is and how people are educated differs dramatically between conventional schooling and unschooling, and without making a conscious effort to reject strict school-based ideas of how education works, you can’t really unschool.<br /><br /><h3>
Lifestyle</h3>
<br />Unschooling is a way of life. It’s a full-time commitment to living a rich life with children, providing a safe and resource-filled environment, building respectful relationships, seeking out opportunities in the community, and trusting that children are incredibly capable learners. Unschooling is a philosophy that trickles into every aspect of your life, colouring all your relationships with a greater understanding of everyday consent and principles of non-hierarchical living. <br /><br />While families unable to unschool can certainly take inspiration from unschooling in the ways they parent, talk about learning, live together as a family, or treat the children in their communities, that alone is not unschooling. There is no way to simply squeeze unschooling into the bits of life left over after school and on weekends. It’s too big to just fit into six weeks of summer vacation. <br /><br />You can’t unschool part time, and those who ask why this self-directed learning thing can’t just be supplemental are showing a profound ignorance of what unschoolers are attempting to do.<br /><br />*A note that sometimes unschooled kids/teens go to school by choice, and that is most definitely practicing self-directed learning. I think the most important part about unschooling is the bit about respecting children’s rights to make their own decisions as much as possible, which means fully supporting them if they decide they want to go to school. I hope it’s clear that what I’m talking about in this post is not that, but rather the skeptics who don’t believe in young people’s right to truly direct their own learning.</div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-42352619705846631492018-09-21T17:15:00.000-04:002018-09-21T17:15:22.667-04:0020 Ways to Make Kids Hate Learning<div>
<i>This post originally appeared on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/exclusive-post-8547195">my Patreon</a> in March '17. Occasionally I'll share an older Patreon post on the main blog, but most of them remain <a href="https://www.patreon.com/idzie/posts?tag=exclusive%20posts">accessible only to patrons</a>. Join me there to see all of them!</i></div>
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I talk a lot about ways that self-directed learning works, and how to embrace and encourage it... But now I’d like to take a moment to talk about the opposite, the anti-unschooling, what could more readily be referred to as--dare I say it--<i>schooling</i> (whether it actually happens in a school building or not). If you were to sit down, as I did, and say, <i>how could I best discourage self-directed, delight driven learning?</i> this is the type of list you’d come up with (or at least, it’s the list I came up with). What do you do? This is what you do:<br />
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<li>Tell them learning--or at least important learning--only happens in a specific place.</li>
<li>Only allow them to learn about certain topics, in a certain order, and from a select few people.</li>
<li>Make sure that they have very little--or even no--free time in which to pursue their own interests (unless, of course, they’re happy to forgo eating and sleeping).</li>
<li>Discourage collaboration by deeming kids interacting with each other to be goofing off, being disrespectful, or even cheating.</li>
<li>Ban or severely limit the use of modern technology (aka “screens”), thus cutting children off from their social groups, and effectively eliminating the easiest way in which to look up information.</li>
<li>Tell them (or imply with your attitude) that their interests are silly, unimportant, immature, and worthless.</li>
<li>Call them lazy and unmotivated when they appear to be doing “nothing,” or doing something deemed, as aforementioned, to be worthless.</li>
<li>Constantly test their learning, compare them to their peers, and create hierarchies of best to worst students based on those tests and comparisons.</li>
<li>Attach strong emotional reactions/acceptance/love to grades.</li>
<li>Strip all real world authenticity out of learning in favour of teaching to the test.</li>
<li>Convince them that learning has to have an obvious purpose.</li>
<li>Focus only on major accomplishments in lieu of recognizing simple progress, no matter how big.</li>
<li>Create an environment that feels critical, unsafe, stressful, or otherwise unpleasant, and mandate that children spend a majority of their time in that environment.</li>
<li>Separate everyone into either “student” or “teacher”--those who have useful knowledge, and those who don’t.</li>
<li>Focus on (potential) future problems instead of current reality.</li>
<li>Turn every pleasurable moment into a “learning activity,” or somehow attach work to everything that could potentially be fun (i. e. book reports). </li>
<li>Force them to take on responsibility that they express clearly they are not ready for. Alternatively, refuse to allow them to take on more responsibility even when they clearly express that they’re ready to do so.</li>
<li>Hammer in the point that learning has no personal relation to what they actually want and plan to do.</li>
<li>Tell them you always know more about their needs/goals then they do.</li>
<li>Make sure they feel incompetent and incapable of making their own decisions. Bonus: act surprised and disappointed when they reach early adulthood and struggle with feeling competent and making their own decisions.</li>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-50262374853391571142018-09-11T14:45:00.000-04:002018-09-11T14:45:43.433-04:00Unschooling in the Positive: How to Live and Learn Without SchoolingThere’s a complaint frequently voiced by a segment of life learners and self-directed education advocates, and it is that the term “unschooling” focuses too much on what isn’t happening instead of what is. That’s certainly the way that many mainstream news coverage treats it, as is the case in a recent article on unschooling in Canada titled “<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article-unschooled-kids-learn-what-they-want-no-curriculum-no-homework-no/">Unschooled kids learn what they want – no curriculum, no homework, no tests</a>.” That article is largely positive (and I love seeing a spotlight on Canadian unschooling in particularly, since I myself am Canadian), but it’s typical in it’s highlighting of the don’t-do’s. So I thought I’d challenge myself to lay out some basic tenets of unschooling, things unschoolers know and do, using only positive language, describing our reality in terms of what it is, not what it isn’t.<br />
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<li>Unschooling is “delight-driven, inquiry-based, self-directed life learning.” That’s how I described it a few years back, and it remains my favorite concise description.</li>
<li>Unschooling is social, learning from adults and children, from relatives and neighbors, community members and teachers.</li>
<li>Unschoolers <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2015/10/no-classes-no-teachers-no-books-reality.html">take advantage of a variety of resources</a>, learning from the internet and books, podcasts and films, from all different types of media and on all different platforms.</li>
<li>Unschooling is as structured or unstructured as the learner themselves wishes it to be, utilizing classes, teachers, and similar formal educational settings when wanted or needed.</li>
<li>Unschoolers embrace the reality that every person is different, and will learn best on their own timeline, picking up knowledge and skills quickly once they’re ready and willing to do so.</li>
<li>Unschoolers see parents and <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2014/07/breaking-down-hierarchies-in-learning.html">other caring adults</a> as guides, mentors, and partners in learning, who help children find the resources they need, learn the skills necessary to function in the world, and cheer them on when the going gets tough.</li>
<li>Unschoolers seek to remove unnecessary struggle from children’s lives, for as <a href="https://twitter.com/ecomentario/status/1036656885531901953">Isabel Rodríguez recently said</a>, “Life tests us. All lives involve a dose of tragedy. Death, illness, heartbreak, natural disasters are all a part of life. But this does not mean that it is ethical to inflict unnecessary hardship on children and call it educational.”</li>
<li>Unschoolers know that <a href="http://www.journalofplay.org/sites/www.journalofplay.org/files/pdf-articles/5-3-interview-play-as-preparation.pdf">free play forms the foundation of all learning</a>, and make sure children have plenty of unscheduled time in order to just play. </li>
<li>Unschoolers know that school is always an option, that a child who’s free to make their own choices might end up entering regular school, and that older/grown unschoolers can go to college or university if they want to (and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/freedom-learn/201406/survey-grown-unschoolers-ii-going-college">many do</a>).</li>
<li>Unschooling is relationship focused, deeply valuing trust and respect between people of all ages, and building education on a foundation of consent.</li>
<li>Unschoolers know that all subjects are interconnected, and take note of the links between disparate bits of knowledge, different skills, and different ways of learning, marveling as they all come together to create a unique whole.</li>
<li>Unschoolers recognize that children are remarkably capable and successful learners, that <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/freedom-learn/201609/biological-foundations-self-directed-education">learning is something we all have the innate desire to do</a>, and when supported, nurtured, and provided with the appropriate resources, we’re all capable of gaining all the education we need (coercion-free!).</li>
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Unschooling can certainly be described in relation to school, an outline shaped by all the things we’ve removed from the equation, which will give you a general idea of what it looks like. But it’s unlikely to give you as complete a picture as if we were to just tell you what we do. Because all the things we do outside of school, the vision of education we’re cultivating outside of those strictures, is pretty great all on it’s own; no things we don’t do required.</div>
Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-49468236176805978522018-08-07T13:48:00.000-04:002018-08-07T22:04:19.173-04:00Homeschooling the Right Way: More of the World, Not LessI follow multiple grown homeschoolers on Twitter. Most of them are unschoolers who, like myself, had positive experiences growing up without school. But a couple of the people I follow had a very different background, coming from the world of Evangelical Christian (or otherwise ultra religious) homeschooling, and finding such a background to be neglectful at best, abusive at worst. I think it’s important to listen to a variety of experiences when it comes to grown homeschoolers, and for homeschooling parents to get a good idea of what not to do as much as what they should do. And I think I would do a great disservice to those who did not have good homeschooling experiences by deciding to ignore them or pretend they don’t exist, just because they come from a very harmful branch of homeschooling.<br />
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However, I also find myself frustrated at times when people who survived awful situations present abusive religious homeschooling as the default. <i>Homeschoolers are like this, homeschooling is like that.</i> We’re always going to view things through the lens of our own experiences, and I don’t think it’s the job of people who had bad experiences to avoid stereotyping something that was, in their lives, <i>bad</i>. But the picture they’re painting looks nothing like what I lived. Their background is so wildly different that it really brings home how “homeschooling” as an umbrella term is largely useless when it comes to describing the details of our different educational experiences. In my life...<br />
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<b>I didn’t miss out on pop-culture, or fashion, or anything else like that when I was growing up.</b> I listened to top-forty type stations as a child, and I can still sing along to more Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears than I would like to admit. I watched Shrek about a hundred times (and can sing along to the entire soundtrack, too). My first solo-concert as a teen was Linkin Park. And though we got our gaming consoles when they were older instead of right when they were released, me and my sister spent plenty of time in our teens playing Mario Kart and Mario Party with friends, on first the Nintendo 64 then Gamecube. I wore clothes that were at least roughly in style. I waited in line for the midnight release of the latest Harry Potter book. In short? I was pretty plugged into pop culture as both a child and teenager!<br />
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One of the (many) reasons it makes me uncomfortable when parents entirely cut off or severely limit “screen” access is because of how valuable it is for interacting with and discovering shared culture, shared media, shared interests and communities. I’ve seen many people who grew up with bad homeschooling backgrounds talk about feeling like strangers in their own culture, having never been allowed to have access to the wide range of media available to most people. That stuff is important, and has been something that’s allowed me to bond with people from a wide variety of childhood backgrounds.<br />
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<b>I wasn’t isolated as a child, and I don’t have trouble fitting in with my peers now.</b> I might be “weird” in some ways, and I might not fit in terribly well with groups that are too “normal,” but the points of difference and of commonality rarely have anything to do with educational background, now that I’m an adult. If I’m hanging out with people who are queer or feminists or radical leftists or geeks who share my specific geekery or yes, unschoolers, I feel perfectly at home. I often felt out of place in my teens, but that’s a feeling almost universal to teenagers, regardless of background, and I often found myself on the sidelines with fellow outcasts who did go to regular school, meaning I never really thought my education was to blame. That point seemed further proved by my unschooled sister, who was very outgoing and seemed to always find or make a friend group wherever she happened to find herself. Some kids find it easier to make friends than others, but as long as they have the opportunity to be around other kids, I don’t think it has much to do with education.<br />
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On the other hand, right-wing Christian homeschoolers are often extremely insular, interacting only with others of their faith and politics, and seeing the broader culture as being filled with bad influences. Children raised to fear the other, raised in isolated surroundings, who don’t get to spend much time with other children (or at least children that aren’t exactly like them), are unlikely to be happy or emotionally healthy, and will be at a disadvantage when it comes time to merge with the broader culture. Isolation, whether from other people or from pop culture, is a bad thing.<br />
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<b>I think everything I’ve mentioned here can really be broken down between the two major groups of homeschoolers</b>: those who want to give <i>more</i> of the world to their children, and those who want to restrict their children’s access to the world. This cuts across homeschooling approaches (though unschoolers obviously by majority fall into the first category), and seems from what I’ve witnessed to be the biggest indicator of whether a homeshooler has a good experience, or a bad one. Was it their parents’ intent in going school free to allow them more freedom, more exploration, more meaningful relationships, more engagement? Or was the purpose to isolate them from the “wrong” influences, “wrong” ideas, “wrong” people? <br />
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Homeschooling shines when it’s embedded in the world, suffused with an excitement for discovery and learning. When it’s instead just a way to exert even greater control over children? Then it’s better labeled simply as abuse.</div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-2350337522999650992018-06-18T15:42:00.002-04:002018-06-18T15:42:09.218-04:00Finding Balance in a Plugged-In World<div>
<i>This post was originally published on Patreon, a crowdfunding platform which allows people like you to make <b>a</b> <b>big difference in my life</b> by <a href="https://www.patreon.com/idzie">pledging $1 or more a month</a>. In exchange, you receive perks like an extra post per month (among other things!). Most of those posts will never appear anywhere else besides Patreon, but occasionally I like to share an older one here as well. I hope you enjoy!</i></div>
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In the ongoing discussion of technology, its usage, and what is and isn’t appropriate for children, something that frequently comes up is <i>balance</i>. I shared a quote recently that I really liked by Zina Harrington that touched on just that:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
"We have to stop pretending that we can 'unplug' our children. Technology is an integrated part of our kids' world--and it will continue to be throughout their lives. We need to change the conversation. Instead of restricting screen time, we need to teach our children balance in a world where technology is abundant. We must shift focus and introduce them to the concept of mindful usage." </blockquote>
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I want to first discuss just what balance means, because too often what someone means when they say <i>balance</i> is “someone doing things the way I think they should be doing them.” There are some things all humans ideally need to feel and function best: food to fuel our bodies; physical movement and exertion of some sort; sunlight and outdoors; access to intellectual pursuits and exploration; places that feel safe; enough sleep; time for leisure and relaxation, daydreaming and calm; human company and support and community… But the ways those needs are met, the limitations and opportunities dictated by each person’s body and mind and environment, and the quantities needed to satisfy each individual will vary wildly. Your balance isn’t my balance. Your balance isn’t necessarily your child’s balance.</div>
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<br />So when I hear words like “mindful usage,” I’m cautious. I like the idea, if what it really means is helping a child figure out what’s right for them. I don’t like the idea if it’s just another euphemism for parents making their children do whatever they think is best for them, working <i>on</i> their children instead of <i>with</i> them. <br /><br />What mindful usage can mean, to me, is adults working in partnership with children to help them decide how they want to engage with technology. This can happen by teaching important safety practices; by creating family/community cultures that embrace a range of different activities on and off screens; by prompting children to listen to what their bodies are telling them; by having open and honest discussions about the benefits and drawbacks of various activities; by modeling a thoughtful relationship with screens (talking about what you enjoy doing on “screens,” and also when and why you choose to take breaks or do something else)… And yes, it can definitely be the job of a parent to intervene when there is an actual, serious issue. But not to preemptively control, just in case your children might make “bad” decisions, or because you think their explorations are different than what you would choose yourself, to stop them in their tracks and never let them find their own rhythms.<br /><br />I’m always cautious to point out that I’m not a parent: the ins and outs of how to parent respectfully, from the point of view of a parent, are better left to others. Instead, the perspective I try to speak from is that of someone raised with very few screen limitations, and someone who now seeks to place all of my writing in the context of children’s and youth rights: their rights to, within reason, make their own decisions about the way they spend their time, the things they choose to focus on, and the mediums they choose to use. I don’t think there’s only one answer, one way of doing things, but I also think that any answer that shuts children out of the decision making process when it comes to their own lives is a faulty one. <br /><br />If balance is truly the aim, then that’s less of a static goal, and more of a constant query, a touchstone of daily life: <i>how does this feel? Is anything off? If so, what needs to change?</i> It’s a collaborative process, not something that must be imposed from above. <br /><br />Children definitely don’t need to be “unplugged,” and instead technology can be an integral part of a well balanced life.<div>
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<i>Related posts: <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2017/07/in-defense-of-screens.html">In Defense of "Screens"</a>, <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2017/07/summer-rules.html">Summer Rules?</a>, <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2014/09/why-some-learning-isnt-better-than.html">Why Some Learning Isn't Better Than Other Learning: Television and Books Through An Unschooling Lense</a>.</i></div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-3317784694454243602018-06-04T17:16:00.000-04:002018-06-04T17:20:08.885-04:00The History in Historicals: Learning Wherever Interest Takes YouI spend a lot of time talking about how ever present learning is, and how learning doesn’t have to look like schooling in order to be valuable. I also believe that fun and leisure are perfectly good pursuits all on their own, whether they lead to learning or not (and they almost certainly will, anyway).<br />
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But I also think it can be helpful every now and then to discuss examples of learning that <i>looks</i> “educational,” found in places that may be unexpected.<br />
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In the last few months I’ve been reading what’s certainly the most maligned of the broader historical fiction category: historical romance. People like to make snide comments about “bodice rippers,” and disapproving comments about what sort of people would read such “trashy” non-literature. Yet I’ve been not only enjoying the genre immensely, but also learning a lot. Shocking, I know! While books within the genre range from quite thoroughly researched and historically rooted to what’s perhaps best described as anachronistic, they’ve all lead to a whole lot of historical fact gathering. Thanks to my friend Google, I’ve been looking things up multiple times for every book I read, seeing what is and isn’t accurate, figuring out when exactly a story is set, and falling down rabbit holes in pursuit of more details about a particularly fascinating event or topic. <br />
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An incomplete list of things I have looked up and learned something about in the past four months of romance reading, in no particular order:<br />
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When (and where and for whom) wigs were fashionable; the British political party of the Whigs; the various “eras” in British history and where they start/end/overlap (Georgian, Regency, Victorian, Edwardian); the evolution of bustles and bonnets; the Peterloo Massacre and the Six Acts; the Cato Street Rebellion; the Corn Laws; history of condoms from earliest examples to mass production; bloodletting and the theories behind it; when the link between hygiene and infectious diseases was first made; what railway surgeons were; history of “sodomy” and other anti-gay laws in the UK, France, and North America; Regency era sex clubs; British nobility, all the ranks and rules around titles and courtesy titles; the differences between various horse-drawn conveyances; Mary Wollstonecraft and the Vindication of the Rights of Women; history of epilepsy and treatment of epileptic people; the anti-slavery sugar boycotts of the 18th and 19th centuries... <br />
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Even the staunchest supporters of learning-that-looks-like-schooling couldn’t find fault with studying history, and all of this gaining of greater understanding of the United Kingdom in Georgian through Victorian eras is thanks to the humble historical romance novel.<br />
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Constant curiosity, the drive to look things up, discuss and consider, is in large part an innate human quality… Though it can, of course, be discouraged and suppressed. Even when that’s the case, cultivating a practice and lifestyle of curiosity can be done, by paying attention to those sparks, the ideas or comments or facts that our brains get snagged on, and seeing where it goes. It helps not to put pressure on yourself to make a passing interest into something it’s not: a passion. There’s no need to force it, just follow it for as long as you’re eager to do so, and veer off down a different path when the mood takes you. Unless you have a specific reason for sticking with something past that point (and if you do have a compelling reason, go you!), there’s no need to do so. <br />
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I’m quickly becoming almost as enamored with historical romance as I’ve been of fantasy fiction for the last 15+ years, and novels in general definitely merit a passionate interest rating from me. But my online historical fact-finding missions don’t usually go very deep: I’m content to know important dates and make connections between different political events and movements without feeling a need to check out six books on the appropriate topics from the library. What’s important to me is that I keep on reading what I like to read, researching where curiosity prompts me to do so, and just enjoying going wherever life learning takes me. <br />
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<i>Related reading: <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2017/11/passion-doesnt-require-purpose.html">Passion Without Purpose</a>, <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2018/02/why-assigning-books-or-reading-time-is.html">Why Assigning Books or Reading Time is a Bad Idea</a>, <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2016/01/fun-is-more-important-than-education.html">Fun is More Important than "Education,"</a> and for Patreon backers only <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/exclusive-post-17806854">How to love what you love, (mostly) guilt free.</a></i></div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-43501918990566683582018-04-30T15:18:00.001-04:002018-04-30T15:18:50.673-04:00Feedback vs Criticism: the Importance of Learning with ConsentWhen it comes to self-directed learning, one of the biggest concerns brought up by those not practicing it is the perceived lack of teaching: <i>people can’t learn things on their own</i>, goes the common thought, <i>they need to be measured and tested, they need that feedback!</i> Of course, people can learn things on their own sometimes, and self-directed learning is by <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.ca/2015/10/no-classes-no-teachers-no-books-reality.html">no means an entirely</a> (or even mostly) <a href="https://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.ca/2017/04/theres-no-such-thing-as-self-taught.html">solitary pursuit</a>. But I do want to discuss the meaning of feedback, and when it is and isn’t helpful.<br /><br />I saw <a href="https://twitter.com/leeflower/status/989875024705327104">a thread on Twitter </a> by Annalee Flower recently that explored, in the context of writing, just what good feedback actually is and pointed out what I really think is the heart of the issue:<br /><br />“The thing about feedback is, it can only be constructive if it’s consensual. Presuming to tell someone how to improve their work when they never asked you is presuming a position of authority.”<br /><br />I think that quote applies whether we’re talking about writing or anything else, and no matter the age of those involved.<br /><br /><div>
Constructive feedback must be consensual. If “feedback” is not consensual, it’s rarely if ever helpful. <br /><br />Though the terms could be used interchangeably depending on context, for the purpose of this post I’m going to separate the two, and use feedback when I mean consensual and helpful, and criticism for the opposite.</div>
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<br />In the decade I’ve been blogging, I’ve had a host of people edit my work for me, at my request or with my agreement, and I’ve also had people appoint themselves as my retroactive editors without my consent, once a piece of mine has been set loose into the world.<br /><br />I’ve had people who’ve never talked to me before send me a tweet pointing out a small typo and saying nothing else. I’ve had strangers send me long emails literally breaking down a post of mine piece by piece to point out every perceived grammatical error (often only some of which are even “errors” to begin with, instead of deliberate stylistic choices). Or <a href="https://twitter.com/Idzie/status/990286526163619840">send me even longer emails</a> telling me all the ways I’m wrong while assuring me they’re just being helpful by sharing their oh so valuable criticism. <br /><br />All of the above are examples of people criticizing my work, to me, without my consent. People who, as Annalee Flower put it, are “presuming a position of authority.” This is, by the way, entirely different than criticizing a piece of work on your own social media channels, with your own friends, or on your own blog. It’s also different than someone respectfully disagreeing with me, saying “well actually, I think it’s more like X…” or “I think you left out some important context” or anything else of that nature. When I put something out there, it is with the full understanding that it will likely be interacted with, shared, and disagreed with. The thing I take issue with is when someone comes to me not on equal footing, but attempting to <i>correct</i> me.<br /><br />If someone writes a blog post responding to one of my posts about how they think I’m wrong, that’s fine.<br /><br />If someone sends me an email “editing” a post of mine without my consent, that’s arrogance.<br /><br />The latter stands in stark contrast to all the countless editors, both professional and amateur, who have helped me with my writing over the years, with my full and grateful agreement. Almost to a single person they’ve been part of my improving skills, and I can’t imagine where I’d be without their feedback. <br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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I’ve used my own experiences as an adult to illustrate the differences between feedback and criticism, but as is almost always the case, the same goes for both adults and children. We all deserve to be treated with respect, and a part of that is considering how consent plays into all of our interpersonal interactions, regardless of age. In this culture where hierarchies are built into every area of our lives, the presumption that adults hold authority over children is taken as a given. Depending on your definition of “authority,” that could be true to an extent: children aren’t capable of doing many things independently, and to develop properly they need adult care and guidance. But then, so too do adults need others to function best. Adults have varying needs and sometimes require quite a bit of care from others. Authority, to me, implies some level of force or coercion, and when adults feel that their position is not carer, guide, or friend to children, and instead a figure of authority, they’re giving themselves permission to work <i>upon</i> children instead of working <i>with</i> them. <br /><br />When adults have embraced their position as shaper-of-child, they take for granted that they have the right to criticize at will: to correct, to lecture, to direct, and to inspect. It never occurs to them, just as it never occurs to the people who email me about typos, that their shouldering of authority might not be welcome, and that it is up to the individual they’re attempting to act upon to decide whether or not they want feedback.<br /><br />If instead we start acting with consent in mind, trying to <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.ca/2014/07/breaking-down-hierarchies-in-learning.html">create respectful relationships</a>, figuring out what each person wants and needs, and attempting to come up with solutions that work best for all involved, you’ll start to distinguish between what’s actually helpful feedback, and what’s unwanted criticism.<br /><br />We all have a right to figure things out on our own without someone constantly peering over our shoulders; to make mistakes without having every single one of them pointed out in real time; and to choose when and from whom we receive feedback.<br /><br />As I touched on previously, feedback can be immensely valuable, and is most definitely important for children at least as much as for adults… But there are ways and ways of going about it, and as with anyone else, if children feel heard and respected, if they know they have a say in their own lives and get to make their own choices, they’ll be far more likely to seek out and accept feedback from people whom they trust. The voice of someone who respects you will always be more welcome than that of someone who thinks they always know best, and that you should be grateful for any criticism they throw your way. <br /><br />It’s okay to set boundaries, to reject unsolicited criticism, and to only pay attention to the people who respect you enough to figure out if you want their help before deciding you need it. It’s okay for children to do all that, too. Criticism and feedback are not the same thing, and it’s time to stop pretending that people should be grateful for the former.</div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-74683373301308543192018-03-12T16:21:00.000-04:002018-03-12T16:21:13.831-04:00What Makes Unschooling Successful? Advice From Grown Life LearnersI’m delighted to be sharing some words from fellow grown unschoolers today, something I’ve been wanting to do more of for a while now. For this post, I asked people to share either something they think their parents did especially well, or an aspect of their experience they found especially positive. The ten responses gathered below are thoughtful and insightful, a collection of anecdotes and advice that I hope will be helpful for parents and carers still in the earlier stages of this journey. I’m always really fascinated seeing what others who grew up with a similar philosophy as my family have to say, and I hope you find these tidbits similarly interesting and helpful.<div>
<br />“[My parents] carefully respected my privacy, especially in my teens, and let me and my brother spend a bunch of time playing video games, reading comics and watching cartoons even as it seemed like the whole world was freaking out. ‘Oh my god, your kids do WHAT all day??’ They just ran with it and looked for the good in whatever we were doing.” -Nola A.<br /><br />“My mother was completely judgment free about how I spent my time, never criticizing me for spending hours on my computer every day. This allowed me to cultivate many of the interests I hold most dear to this day.<br /><br />[She] frequently offered my brother and I the chance to go to school if we wanted to, and supported me when I decided to shadow at local high schools as a teenager. I ultimately decided I wanted nothing to do with high school, but many of my unschooling friend's parents had a lot of difficulty when their teenagers expressed interest in high school. Having parental support through considering what school had to offer empowered me to make my own informed decisions about continuing to unschool.<br /><br /><div>
Going to conferences and connecting with other unschoolers was one of the best decisions my mom made. Having the support of other young unschoolers got me through some of the most difficult times in my life. It made me realize I wasn't alone. Meeting grown/older unschoolers at conferences gave me a way to imagine myself as a successful adult- a thing that can be hard when you've never met anyone like you. Around my fellow unschoolers was maybe the first time I ever felt like I truly belonged anywhere other than with my family, like I was entirely celebrated for being myself, and like no one would question me or my right to exist.” -Emmett D.</div>
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<br />"The best thing my parents did was let me sleep when I needed to. That meant the world to me." -Rachel H.</div>
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<br />“Follow your kids' interests and provide them with resources to find more info. We were all into community theater so our mom would get us books about the plays we were in. When we did Annie Get Your Gun we learned about Annie Oakley, things like that. The trick was to NOT choose the topic for us, but to notice the topics we were already interested in (the plays we were acting in already) and then give us the tools to expand from there.<br /><br />Relatedly, a story about why you shouldn't force kids to learn. I was late to start reading. My parents were new to homeschooling at the time and my mom got concerned and tried to push it, having me do this horrible reading workbook every day which I absolutely despised. It did not work, I made no progress, I hated it, and my mom probably hated it too, so eventually she stopped pushing it. Pretty much immediately I spontaneously started reading random things I'd see without any prompting. So we all learned that I am incredibly stubborn and that kids learn better when they're not forced to learn.<br /><br />Make a learning experience out of EVERYTHING. My dad is especially good at this. He actually built the second largest home owned aquarium in the US in our house (huge conversation piece), which requires a lot of upkeep and for many years we'd help him do the iodine testing. That's how I learned, at like 7 years old, that saltwater life (as well as humans) need a very specific amount of iodine - not too much, not too little - to be healthy. He had to do the testing anyway, so he involved us, explaining why he did it, how the chemistry of the testing strips worked, etc.” -Jennifer L.<br /><br />“The very best thing my mother (specifically) did was pushing us to do everything on our own. Calling to make doctor's appointments, doing our own laundry, taking us to the grocery store and having us weigh the produce (okay, we weren't forced to do that one!), etc. She never hesitated to step in to help if we asked or were really frustrated, but she always had us try before doing things for us. I think this is something a lot of parents are missing (I work in a daycare). Things like having your 2 year old put on their own pants after using the potty, for example, are more important than many would imagine. It not only teaches children real-life skills, it also builds self-confidence and mastery without constant praise (read Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn) or inflating self-esteem (which is different than true confidence).” -Casey H.<br /><br />“Some things I really appreciate that my parents did during our unschooling years:<br /><br />1. Made sure we had library cards and made going to the library a regular thing.<br />2. Honoring season rituals and other ways of marking time. I loved the abundance of unstructured time but having a rhythm to the week and season and year is grounding.<br />3. My parents were able to afford high quality art supplies and we always had access to lots of 'making' supplies which was really wonderful for satisfying creative play.<br />4. They gave us tools and helped us learn to use them to do stuff on our own: make our own snacks, do our own laundry, dress ourselves, etc. We learned a lot of skills participating in regular housekeeping and self care activities. I have really appreciated those practical skills as an adult.” -Anna CC<br /><br />“My parents were good at seeing when I seemed to be lacking direction, and asked if more structure would be helpful. They didn't push anything on me, but helped me set goals and gave gentle reminders when I wasn't doing the things that were most important to me for long periods.” -Julian B.<br /><br />“The best thing my parents did for myself and my sisters by unschooling us was encouraging us to devout our time to what we were passionate about. <br /><br />I spent my high school years drawing and painting and reading books. I'm in my early twenties now, still working to put myself through college, but I have 5 years teaching experience as an elementary grade art teacher in museums, centers, and public school systems. If I hadn't been unschooled I wouldn't have had the time to devote myself to my art, which is one of the major reasons I've received the scholarships I have for programs and college.” -Ashley H.<br /><br />“No ‘screen time’ limits. Instead, we used television, movies, the internet, etc. as limitless resources. These were topics of conversation, which turned into interesting tangents about all sorts of subjects, which turned into questions. Depending on the question, we would either talk with each other about our ideas and opinions, or look up the answer online (or both). Limiting resources would limited possibilities for one thing to lead to another this way.” Zoë B.<br /><br />“Over time, my mother's education mantra became 'the parent/teacher opens the door - it's is the child/learner's decision whether to walk through it'. In other words, I was allowed to try any subject (academic or practical) that I wished, and was often supplied with opportunities for new experiences. It was always my decision whether to participate however, and there was never any pressure on, or judgement of, my decisions.” Flora G.</div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-61397941314980599532018-02-06T16:06:00.000-05:002018-02-06T16:06:11.576-05:00Why Assigning Books or Reading Time is a Bad Idea<div>
<i>This post was originally shared on Patreon back in October. I can't emphasize enough how big a difference my monthly Patreon income, small as it might be, makes in my life. <a href="https://www.patreon.com/idzie">Seriously, by investing $1 or more a month in me and my work you can have such an impact</a>. And you also get extra posts, like the one below, most of which will never end up on this main blog, some of which will end up here many months after their original Patreon publication date. So please consider becoming a financial supporter, and whether you do or not, I hope you enjoy this taste of what I share with Patrons!</i><br />
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I don’t think children should be assigned specific books. I also don’t think children should be assigned specific reading times or amounts. Basically? I don’t think that reading should ever be compulsory. <br />
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Some of the biggest pushback I get when I say this is from people who fondly remember the works they were introduced to thanks to assignments in English class: <i>If I hadn’t had to read Pride and Prejudice I probably never would have.</i> I’m glad to hear of people discovering Things They Love, in whatever way they do. However, I find the underlying assumption that coercion is the best way to <i>force</i> someone to love something to be troubling, to say the least. <br />
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<b>Compulsion is not the best way to create passion. </b>This one should be obvious, really. For everyone who loves a book they were assigned in school, there are probably at minimum two other people who hated it, and decided they’d never go near that author again (or never touch another classic, or in some cases just avoid reading altogether). Humans as a whole do not react well to being forced to do things they don’t want to do, and often develop a strong resistance to the subject or thing they are being coerced into doing. <br />
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<b>Compulsion shows a fundamental distrust of the child.</b> “I know what’s best for you to do, so you should do it and like it.” Nowhere in an assigned reading list is there room for a child to make their own decisions, to explore what they’re most drawn to. And there’s little more room for a child to set their own pace, their own priorities, and their own goals within assigned reading times or logs, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/06/are-reading-logs-ruining-reading/485372/">which turn what should be something joyful into a chore</a>. Every piece of a child’s learning that is taken out of their hands is another signal to them that they are incompetent, untrustworthy, and incapable of learning on their own, which is such a sad message to be sending children.<br />
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<b>Sharing really is caring.</b> Enthusiasm is often infectious. If there are books that had a big impact on someone in their formative years, or that seem culturally important, or that they think a kid will like, it’s great to suggest reading it, to borrow it from the library and leave in a stack of books-I-think-you’ll-like, to initiate a read-aloud...It’s definitely the role of adults in children’s lives to expose them to things, to make suggestions, to share passions. But all that can be done without bringing coercion into the mix.<br />
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<b>Developing a personal relationship with stories.</b> As someone who really, deeply loves novels, who comes from a family of readers, I feel very strongly about the importance of individuals developing their own unique relationships with literature and more broadly with the written word (or spoken word! Audiobooks are great if that’s your jam). As all of us who love books know, they can be truly magical, but only if they remain an enticing option, and not the brussel sprouts of the learning world: do it because it’s good for you, not because it tastes good. <br />
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Ultimately, no one has control over what another person will like, or love, or be curious or passionate about. All you ever have is influence, and when used both enthusiastically and respectfully, you have the power to introduce exciting and beautiful things into the lives of children… Without compulsion.Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-64892632379526536442018-01-04T15:19:00.000-05:002018-01-04T15:19:56.163-05:00My Favourite Novels of 2017I think it’s fair to say 2017 has been a difficult year for a lot of us, both on the world stage and in our personal lives. And for me, no matter how much I’m struggling with depression, no matter how bleak things are looking, books are a source of comfort, a way to grapple with difficult topics in more removed settings, a strange glimpse of other possibilities… And I wanted to share some of my very favorite novels from the past year. They’re all sci-fi or fantasy (because that’s what I love best), but within those genres they vary wildly, from historical fiction with just a sprinkling of magic, portal fantasy that’s just as much literary exploration of identity and abuse, a fast-paced murder mystery in space, and a series of linked short stories that act as a damning critique of the way women are too frequently used and discarded in the superhero comic genre. I tend to read both young adult and adult fiction without distinguishing much between the two, and I believe this list contains about a 50/50 split (I’m not sure how a couple of the titles were marketed). I hope you’ll find something here to love as much as I did!<br />
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<b>Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty</b><br />
A murder mystery on a generation starship starring clones with missing memories, this is the definition <span style="text-align: center;">of a page-turner. I think I finished it in under two days. The pieces come together for you as the reader at the same time as for the protagonists, giving you a genuine chance to solve the mystery, and skilled use of flashbacks serve to propel the plot forward instead of feeling like a frustrating diversion. This is very much a plot focused story, and the characters, though some are intriguing, never have all that much depth. But all in all, a very enjoyable read.</span><br />
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<b>Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day by Seanan McGuire</b><br />
A beautiful little novella about a ghost who just can’t seem to forgive herself for either her own death or that of her sister--so she sticks around, takes in very old cats, and works at a suicide crisis call center. But when other ghosts suddenly start disappearing, she realizes she needs to help her fellow undead, and in the process learns how to finally forgive herself. Fast-paced, but also wistful, lyrical, and moving… A lovely story.<br />
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“The world is full of stories, and no matter how much time we spend in it—alive or dead—there’s never time to learn them all. They just go by so quickly.”<br />
― Seanan McGuire, Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day</blockquote>
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<b>All Systems Red by Martha Wells</b><br />
Continuing with novellas (this year I read quite a few good ones), Martha Wells’ new sci-fi adventure is definitely worth checking out. This is the story of an AI who, unbeknownst to its owners, hacked it’s “governor” program in order to gain independence, a limited freedom which it mostly uses to watch soap operas. Because robot or not, Murderbot (as it named itself) has some serious social anxiety, and is generally much more concerned with being left alone than with murder. But when the small exploratory team on a remote planet that it’s assigned to protect start encountering strange problems, and the signals from nearby settlements go dead, Murderbot puts itself right in the path of danger for the people it’s reluctantly started to actually like… Funny, sweet, and full of suspense, I can’t wait to read more about the surprisingly charming Murderbot in future installments of this series.<br />
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<b>Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys</b><br />
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It’s been a long time since such a quiet, slow novel pulled me in so easily and completely. When I say quiet, I definitely do not mean dull! Over two decades before the start of this book, the US government became aware of the “Deep Ones,” a small community of people who, as they age, transform into aquatic beings who slip into the ocean depths to spend their remaining millenia. Spurred on by malicious rumours and fear of their strange powers, the government rounded them up and imprisoned them in concentration camps far from their ocean home, where due to neglect and violence both, one by one they died. This is the story of one of the only two survivors, Aphra, who’s reluctantly drawn into an investigation of the potential use of magic by the Russians. Far from a spy novel, this is instead a thoughtful and very real-feeling exploration of prejudice, trauma, family, and recovery. An excellent debut novel by an author I will now be following closely.<br />
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<b>The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee</b><br />
It’s been a long time since I’ve read a novel that’s such pure fun! A historical adventure of a romp across 18th century europe, this story follows Monty, an unrepentant rogue, his best friend Percy, whom he just happens to be hopelessly in love with, and Felicity, his peskily sensible younger sister, as he savors what will likely be his last taste of freedom on his Grand Tour. But things take a turn for the dangerous when he sort of accidentally steals something precious, and the trio is forced to go on the run. While grappling with their feelings for each other, and how to find their place in a world that’s often very unfriendly to our characters (who are queer, multiracial, disabled/chronically ill, and have the wrong pursuits for a woman), this story is ultimately sweet, hopeful, and all around delightful.<br />
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“God bless the book people for their boundless knowledge absorbed from having words instead of friends.”<br />
― Mackenzi Lee, The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue</blockquote>
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<b>Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire</b><br />
An achingly sad novella, one that almost reads like a cautionary fairy tale on what happens when children aren't allowed to be themselves, when parental expectations become so huge, so crushing, that they break something, perhaps irreparably, in the small humans at their mercy. It's an exploration of abuse, and what it can do to someone. It's also a strange story about a strange world, one filled with mad scientists and vampire lords, a red moon and endless moors. One where blood and fear are an everyday companion. With that in mind, it says something that the part of the book which takes place in our world remains the most disturbing. It also says something that Seanan McGuire is the only author to show up twice on this list. She is an absolute master of the novella format, and I will read every single one she writes with great joy. Highly recommended, if you're up for something thoughtful, dark, and moving.<br />
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"It can be easy, when looking at children from the outside, to believe that they are things, dolls designed and programmed by their parents to behave in one manner, following one set of rules. It can be easy, when standing on the lofty shores of adulthood, not to remember that every adult was once a child, with ideas and ambitions of their own."<br />
― Seanan McGuire, Down Among the Sticks and Bones</blockquote>
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<b>Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore</b><br />
I’m sure I’ve said before how much I admire originality in my fantasy novels, seeing as I read so many of them, and this one here? Does not disappoint! On the surface, this is a story about a young woman, Jane, grieving the death of her aunt and surrogate parent, who accepts an invitation to a mysterious mansion. But things quickly start becoming more surreal, and more strange… How different would things be if you made a different choice? Or a different one? Or a different one? Many paths unfold, possibilities both bizarre and terrifying, as Jane seeks to better understand herself and her place in the world. Highly recommended.<br />
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“People tell you that what happens to you is a direct result of the choices you make, but that's not fair. Half the time, you don't even realize that the choice you're about to make is significant.”<br />
― Kristin Cashore, Jane, Unlimited</blockquote>
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<b>The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente</b><br />
This linked collection of short stories is surreal, furious, and sad. There are no happy endings here, as what unites the women protagonists is that they were all either the wives or girlfriends of superheroes (or supervillains) or superheroes in their own right, and that now they’re all dead. Taking direct aim at the “fridging” of women in the superhero genre in order to further the stories of men, this combination novella and anthology is disturbing and captivating.<br />
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<b>Buried Heart by Kate Elliott</b><br />
This is the only book on the list that’s not the first in series or a standalone. Instead, it completes a series which began with Court of Fives, about young athlete Jes, though in this novel the athletics are in short supply. Civil war has broken out as various colonizing Patron factions vie for the throne, and revolution is brewing as the Commoners look to take advantage of the disarray to once more claim control of their own country. Jes’ growth through the previous two novels has been a pleasure to watch, but that pales in comparison to this final instalment, where we see her truly come into her own, and finally realize she has to start picking sides and taking stands. Seeing the surprising roles her whole family play in the rebellion was also one of my favorite parts of this book, and it felt very fitting, because such big themes throughout have been family, loyalty, and doing what’s right. All in all a very good conclusion to a very good series, and as always, I can’t wait to see what Kate Elliott comes out with next.<br />
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<i>Honorable mentions, aka beloved series published previous years that I enjoyed re-reading this past year: The Fall of Ile-Rien series by Martha Wells, The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater, The Spiritwalker trilogy by Kate Elliott.</i>Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-84264680862073858812017-11-20T14:03:00.000-05:002017-11-20T14:03:01.915-05:00Passion Doesn't Require Purpose<div>
<i>This post was originally published on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/idzie">Patreon</a>, a crowdfunding platform that allows supporters to pledge a monthly amount of their choosing (as little as $1) towards my work, in exchange for perks including an extra post each month... Like this one! If you want more like it,<a href="https://www.patreon.com/idzie"> please consider becoming a patron</a>. </i></div>
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I have a confession to make: <i>I really love makeup.</i><br /><br />No, wait, that’s not right. Not the loving makeup part: that’s entirely accurate, but the confession part. While I can sometimes have twinges of embarrassment or uncertainty around interests of mine that are often ridiculed or seen as shallow (like makeup, which I’m sure has absolutely nothing to do with the gender it’s most often associated with…), I’m not actually in the least bit ashamed about it. I try hard to live the idea--which I know to be true--that all interests have merit. The things that are important to me matter, and don’t require justification. What I should say is this:<br /><br />I have a confession to make: I really love makeup, and <i>I don’t plan to ever make a career out of it.</i><br /><br />I’ve often seen people, in an attempt to convince others of the merits of children’s interests, point out that the kid who loves video games might become a game designer; the teen who’s obsessed with Anime might become an author of graphic novels; the child who can’t get enough of baseball stats could become a professional athlete… All of these arguments seem to be based on the underlying idea that each of these passions are worthless on their own, but gain greater status in being seen as a step to something useful: a step towards a career. <br /><br />To be clear, I’m not trying to put down individuals for using these arguments: I’ve said similar myself at times. And if pointing out that interests can lead to financial gain in the future helps a parent relax about video game time, or mollifies a concerned grandparent, I’m certainly not going to say there’s anything wrong with that. But when that’s the go-to justification for “letting” children pursue their interests, I feel like we’re internalizing some harmful ideas about worth--the worth of our own and others’ interests, and by extension the worth of ourselves and others as people. If you see your worth as being tied to your actions, to the way you spend your time, as is true for most of us, then if you think time spent doing some things is worth less, isn’t that going to affect the way you feel about yourself? And if you look at others and think “what a waste of time,” isn’t that going to affect how you think about and treat them?<br /><br />If we fall into the trap of believing that our purpose is productivity, and further that “productivity” has to be about financial gain (or steps towards that goal), then it seems to me we’re undervaluing important work, dismissing joy (focus, excitement, creativity, play) as a worthless goal to pursue, and missing out on a lot of the most enriching parts of life.<div>
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<br />Is money important? We live under capitalism, so of course it is (and we often need it to pursue the things we love most… Makeup isn’t free, after all). But we need to let children, especially, and also ourselves, explore all the parts of life we find ourselves drawn to, all the hobbies and interests that catch our eye, without needing to come up with a reason why we’re “allowed” to enjoy it.<br /><br />I don’t want to be a makeup artist. For me makeup is an important and exciting form of self-expression, something that makes me happy, allows me to be creative, and is a skill which I can greatly enjoy improving. What I get from it might not be as tangible as money, or recognition, or approval (though I’ve greatly enjoyed sharing this interest with others), but it’s important nonetheless.<br /><br />If it enriches your life, or the lives of your children, it has value. It might not be something that you’d choose--I fully respect your right not to wear lipstick--but we each find delight in different things, and that diversity is a good thing. <br /><br />Forget what an interest may or may not lead to in the future. Look instead at what joy it’s bringing, right now, right in front of you. That’s where the learning, and the fun, is happening.</div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-9740061710485814622017-10-30T12:56:00.003-04:002017-10-30T12:56:55.338-04:00What I Learn: Unschooling as an AdultI talk a lot about learning in a general sense, but sometimes people want to know a bit more about my learning, my experience as an adult unschooler, and how that works. How do I decide what to learn next? How do I find the information that I need? How do I learn? I addressed the question somewhat in a <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/exclusive-post-14424836">recent patreon post</a>, but as was pointed out by someone, if your background is one where learning is something divorced from your own interests and daily life, it might not be as obvious as my suggestion that “learning is as simple as living life while curious.” I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that, and so I figured maybe I could try to use some actual examples from my own life to illustrate the various ways I learn about the things I care about most. While the more conventional understanding might be that a curriculum comes first and then it’s followed in order for learning to happen, <a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.ca/2015/05/i-dont-want-to-build-my-own-curriculum.html">that’s obviously not how I approach things</a>. So instead, I thought I’d look back on the past year or so, and try to condense it into something like a portfolio: this is what I’ve been doing, and these have been some of the helpful resources I’ve used. Makes sense? Okay, time to dive in!<div>
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<b>Media studies aka I watch a lot of TV shows and documentaries</b><br />TV watching might have a bad rap (documentaries not so much), but as I’ve discussed in other posts, I actually interact with the shows I watch (as do many people!): I watch them with others, and I look at the content critically (not in an I Only Watch Good shows way, because some of my faves are trash, but with an eye for what is well and badly done story-wise, what biases or unspoken assumptions are at play, etc.). And on the flip side, I watch documentaries not only to learn about their topics, but for the beauty, the experimentation, and the art inherent in a good doc.<br /><b>The how:</b> watch lots of things, read reviews and discussions online, watch video reviews and deconstructions, talk about TV and documentaries with others.<br /><br /><b>Makeup</b><br />This is an art and form of self-expression that I cherish, and I’ve been learning more about it, building skills, and amassing my own personal product hoard over the last couple of years. I admired others for a while before I took the plunge myself, and it can admittedly be overwhelming. There has been lots of Googling, reading of reviews, Instagram inspiration, and trial and error along the way… But mainly? There’s been YouTube!<br /><b>The how:</b> YouTube tutorials, product reviews, hauls, lots of experimentation and practice.</div>
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<b>White supremacist hate groups and ideology</b><br />With the belief in the old adage that it’s important to understand your enemies, current events should provide a pretty clear picture of why I started digging deeper. White supremacist hate groups have been around for a long time, but greater exposure in recent times has lead to a resurgence, and understanding what’s behind it has seemed deeply relevant.<br /><b>The how:</b> News articles, short form journalism, documentaries, long-form journalism, conversations with others.<br /><br /><b>Swimming</b><br />Starting in the winter, I made the huge stride (for me) of actually exercising regularly! Yay phys ed I guess?? It involves working through some anxiety (not about the swimming itself, more about being alone with my own thoughts being difficult), building up stamina after not being physically active for a long time, and finding the meditative moments in leisurely treading water, the swirl between my fingers, and the sound of my own breathing as I float on my back…<br /><b>The how:</b> Buy pool membership, go to pool, swim. <br /><br /><b>Cat behaviour</b><br />Anyone who knows me knows that I’m pretty obsessed with cats. It started when I was a toddler, and I really never grew out of it! But instead of being content simply with cuddling and fussing over the three cats I share my home with, I wanted to understand more about their behaviour and motivations, the ways I can better communicate with and train them, what research is saying about feline cognition, and just generally how to be a better cat guardian and friend to cat kind.</div>
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<b>The how:</b> reading and watching anything I can find by cat behaviorists, keeping up to date on new research, spending lots of time observing and interacting with cats. </div>
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<br /><b>Literature appreciation aka I read a lot of novels</b><br />Since I first picked up a novel as I was learning to read, I never really stopped reading. I am very much in love with the science fiction and fantasy genres, and I’m usually in the middle of one novel or another. Over the past couple of years I’ve even set myself yearly reading goals through the book social media site GoodReads: in 2016 I read 50 books, and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/7392657">my goal for this year is 60</a> (I’m a little behind right now, but still well on track to make it).<br /><b>The how:</b> Get a library membership and go there regularly, request they purchase new books in my preferred genre that are getting a lot of buzz, read books, read book reviews, write book reviews, talk about books with people.<br /><br /><b>Self-directed education</b><br />The obvious one, really, so much so that it seems a bit superfluous to go into it more than this…<br /><b>The how:</b> Read articles and essays on unschooling/self-directed education and current events that influence both mainstream and alternative education, watch education documentaries, maintain a Facebook page on the topic, write my own posts and essays on my blog and other places, talk about education.<br /><br />This collection of interests is not an exhaustive one: there have been plenty of other spurts of curiosity and research and dabbling… But it is a good overview of the things I’ve been most focused on in recent months. The more you do things and learn things just because you’re interested, you’re curious, you care, the easier it becomes. A habit formed of questions and Google searches, a process of letting go of the need to prove the worthiness of a task in favor of just enjoying it. Self-directed education might start out feeling complicated (and it can certainly be difficult, as many things can be, even when we love them), but it doesn’t have to be that way. Learning can be reclaimed, and enjoyed on its own merits, free from unnecessary complication and curriculum. It <i>can</i> be simple.</div>
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805323468407241809.post-21139162977170692022017-08-31T18:36:00.000-04:002017-09-01T13:50:55.931-04:00Why Not Leave Education to the Experts?My mother used to get asked, sometimes, if she was a teacher. Considering my sister and I weren’t going to school, the assumption ran that surely she must be a teacher. Surely she wouldn’t consider something so drastic as to take her children away from the hands of educational experts, and into those of a mere layperson. That remains one of the biggest fears expressed about school-free education: the belief that experts will know best and do best, and so to take away those experts seems to be doing a great disservice to children. Of course, I could talk about the fact that teachers often find a big gap between the more idealized educational practices they learn in university compared with the reality of what they’re actually allowed or able to do in the classroom; the impossibility of fostering any type of truly individualized learning in a class filled with dozens of individuals; the fact that teachers are as prone to biases and prejudice as anyone else, meaning that marginalized students are often served especially poorly… But I don’t really want to get into that. What I want to explore instead is all the ways that unschooling functions without school teachers, but not without teachers; without institutionalization, but not necessarily without structure.<br />
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“One person can’t possibly teach everything.”</h3>
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I agree! But the idea with unschooling is not that the parent becomes a teacher, but instead that they act as a mentor and partner in their children’s learning. They’re not expected to know everything their child might want or need to know, they’re expected to help their children find the answers to their questions. They’re not there in order to “teach” different subjects, and instead work to find their children the resources needed in order to fully explore the things they find interesting and important. Parents or other trusted adults are not expected to be super-people, knowing and doing more than is humanly possible in order to single-handedly provide an education. They’re facilitators, co-learners in a quest for greater knowledge. </div>
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“You’re just isolating them from learned people.”</h3>
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Unschoolers usually find it very important to make connections in their community with various different people who have a variety of different skills. Learners volunteer, find mentors or teachers to guide them in their chosen pursuits, even take classes. They take advantage of book clubs at the local library and free lectures at a university; they use the wealth of information to be found online, including video tutorials and complete courses, long-form journalism and blogs covering an interesting topic. Experts and skilled amateurs alike make their knowledge and skills available to others in all sorts of different ways, meaning that self-directed learners can always find some way to learn about whatever it is they want to learn. Unschooling doesn’t mean eschewing all “experts,” it just means seeking them out only if and when they want to… And it also means that many unschoolers have access to <i>more</i> experts with <i>more</i> in-depth knowledge in their field than children in school do.</div>
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“But surely an actual teacher is best equipped to guide a child through their education.”</h3>
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If you take it as fact that all children should and will learn the exact same things, at the same time, in the same way, and with a similar aptitude and amount of interest, then maybe. But as we all know, that isn’t the case, and as much as many teachers might want to allow for more individuality in learning, the reality of high stakes testing and large classrooms makes such a thing completely impossible. It’s also important to note that while the term “self-directed” has been co-opted in certain circles to mean learning the same things from the same sources but going at your own pace, that’s not what actual self-directed education is. If your goal is not for everyone to reach the same point (just at different speeds) and instead you seek truly personalized education, consisting of what is most wanted and needed by the learner and their community, then you quickly realize that maybe a teacher doesn’t make the best director. Maybe the learner themselves, the owner of their own unique mind and body, is best equipped to shape their own learning.<br />
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When you take out classroom management, and teaching to a test, and whatever the bureaucrats or textbook producers in your particular region have decided is the one body of knowledge all children should have, you make way for much greater diversity between individuals in the shape and content of their education. It’s a reality shift, one that ultimately looks to create not conformity, but a diverse society where varied skill sets, different strengths and weaknesses, unique quirks and passions, can exist without shame from the earliest of ages. If we want a world where everyone is valued for their own unique selves, why do we try and educate every child in the exact same way? Wouldn’t it make more sense to celebrate those differences instead?<br />
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Leaving education to the experts doesn’t seem to be working out too well, so maybe it’s well past time we stop relying on them, and look to the learners themselves show us the way forward.<br />
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Idzie Desmaraishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12782266545123946006noreply@blogger.com4