Sistermatic Response: Announcing a New Blog!

I love this blog, love writing about unschooling and radical education, and plan to continue writing here for the foreseeable future (hopefully with more frequency than I've been posting lately!).  But at some point, this blog has morphed from being a blog where I can write about anything, to a blog very specifically focused on education (and directly related things like respectful parenting).  That isn't a bad thing at all: I feel the focus and content of this blog is strong, and I like that.  But it has left me feeling a bit like I'm just sticking in my comfort zone in writing almost exclusively about unschooling, and has made me feel a bit restless.  I want to be writing about more different things, exploring in writing my views and experiences when it comes to other important subjects.  So I was absolutely thrilled when I asked my sister Emilie if she would be interested in co-authoring a new feminist blog with me, and she said yes!

That was a few weeks ago, and since then, we've come up with a name (let me give a shout-out to Ryan, follower of this blog, for suggesting the title!), set up a blog, and are working on that in preparation for a launch in early December.  If you'd like to stay up-tp-date on it's progress, read interesting linked articles, and know right away when the blog goes live, you can follow it's Facebook page:

 

(Don't worry if you don't have Facebook, you won't get all the updates, but I will post on this blog letting you know when Sistermatic Response is active!)

Just saying "it's a feminist blog" may not really tell you if it's something you'd be interested in or not (though it might), so here's a bit more info.  Our tagline is Two feminist sisters on sexuality, gender, pop-culture, and resistance, and part of the About page reads:

Sistermatic Response came about when two sisters, sisters who spent many hours swinging on swings and staying up into the wee hours of the morning, realized that all the things they regularly discuss--such as sexism and gender oppression; sexuality; gender identity; gender roles and expectations; racism, heterosexism, cissexism, classism, and how those all tie into each other and tie into sexism; the problematic (and positive) themes and tropes they regularly saw in their favourite (and least favourite) TV shows, novels, movies and comic books; and the dismantling of and resistance to the various and complex systems of oppression that make up this culture--could be written about, too, and shared with others.

And so this blog idea was born, as a place for us to publicly discuss, dissect, and rant about the world we live in and the things we experience on a daily basis.

All issues and movements and subjects overlap and interweave, and I'm sure there will be occasional cross-posting of posts on I'm Unschooled. Yes I Can Write. and Sistermatic Response, but largely, this blog is my education blog, and Sistermatic Response will be my (shared with my sister and best friend) social justice and political blog.

I hope at least some of you share at least some of my excitement about this project!  If you do, come join us on Facebook, and look for news on this blog about SR's launch in December.

Unschooling is Learning From Everything

Unschoolers say all the time that we learn from everything.  Even if it doesn't look like learning, even if at first glance, some people would think it was a waste of time (if they were the type of people who think "education" is more important than enjoyment, anyway).

We really do learn from everything, but as unschoolers, even if the learners and their parents know that there's learning going on, it's often hard for outsiders to see, or it's something non-academic enough to not impress most school-minded people.  Sometimes, though, the learning that's happening looks enough like what learning is "supposed" to look like, that even the stodgiest person can see it.

I want to share some recent learning going on in this house of the latter sort.  Not because I think it's more valuable than the non-visible learning, but because I love when things people often scorn (like TV) lead to things people usually hold in high standing (like learning languages).

My sister and I are obsessed with the TV show Supernatural.  What's it about, you ask?  The short TvTropes description: "two hot, dysfunctional brothers drive around the country fighting monsters, later accompanied by a hot male angel, with a revolving door of hot recurring stars/guest stars. They Fight Monsters." (and I feel a strong urge right now to assure you that it's better than it sounds).  There's an overarching plot that stretches through the entire show, not just each individual season, which culminates in season 5 with the biblical apocalypse (that's the last season we've seen, since season 6 is currently airing and we don't have cable).  Watching the show, with all the angels and demons and omens and horsemen of the apocalypse, it seemed, from my knowledge, like they'd really done a lot of research into actual Christian mythology while putting the show together.  Emi confirmed this, having done a lot of research herself for last years NaNoWriMo novel (a story with the working title of Soul, about the fight between heaven and hell, though not between good and evil...).

Sam & Dean Winchester, heroes of Supernatural.

They even used a couple of quotes in the show that we were pretty sure were actually from Revelation.  So, our interest piqued by the show, we pulled out Emi's bible (the story of which is mentioned here), and started reading The Book of Revelation.  Man, is that one trippy story.  But very interesting (and Emi is very good at reading dramatically aloud)!  As well as being entertaining, it says a lot about the culture of the time. 

Going back to the show, in all that apocalypsey stuff found in Supernatural, there are a LOT of demons, and the Winchester boys (main characters) are busy exorcising them and throwing around holy water left right and center.

So Emi did the logical thing in this situation: she memorized the entire most commonly used Latin exorcism found on the show.  She also translated it, and we discovered that it definitely isn't bullshit Latin, but actually makes sense (there's lots about unclean spirits and Satan).  She also translated the exorcism used in an episode of Angel (another favorite show...  Are you sensing a theme here?).  And with all that translating and memorizing of Latin, my very good-with-languages sister started telling me how interesting the grammar structure is, and how there isn't any punctuation as we know it.  She recognizes multiple words already, and was talking about the various Latin roots of multiple English words.

Oh, and in our reading of Revelation, she also read the translation notes (because she's fascinated by translation), and was telling me a bit about how the Greek version differs from the English one...

All this from watching a TV show.

Not to mention the friend who I've been lending my Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD's to.  He's been going through it very fast, and recently while making his way through season 5, decided to carve some stakes  (woodworking FTW)!  He named the first one Mr. Pointy, but then his dog ate it.  Anyway, he has a small collection now, and gave one to both Emi and me.  He's also learning how to draw a Devil's Trap (used to trap and immobilize demons in Supernatural), and Emi's learning how to bless holy water (I think you're supposed to be a priest to do it *properly*, but I suppose it'll work for our purposes.  Besides, Sam and Dean do it all the time!).  So when the supernatural apocalypse comes, you definitely want to be hanging with us!

Any Buffy fan knows how authentic this looks!

I think it's easy for people to feel guilty about spending their time doing something as "useless" as watching TV, and forget not only that enjoyment is worthwhile simply for enjoyments sake, but also that we're constantly making connections, and learning is ever-present.

When you let go of your preconceived ideas of what learning is and where learning comes from, a whole world opens up to you, a world in which anything can spark an interest, and where learning is truly exciting and just plain fun!

Which is why I try to keep the guilt away while happily watching, discussing, laughing over, learning from, and enjoying my favorite TV shows.

Growing Up Unschooled...With Siblings

I read this post recently over at Un-Schooled, and all I could think as I read it was how very much I related to it.  Not the great-musicians-touring-Europe bit (I wish), but the relationship, the closeness, described between siblings.  And I just had to share my own relationship with my sister, and how I feel that relationship has been affected by unschooling.

Emilie (most often referred to as Em or Emi, if I'm the one doing the referring) is hands down my best friend in the entire world.

Emi, in summer '09.

She's 2 1/2 years younger than me (the half especially mattered when we were younger: doesn't a bigger sibling always want to claim as much of an older-and-thus-obviously-more-mature advantage as they can?), so when I first started going to kindergarten (which I continued to do for half a year) she was still too young for school (this was long enough ago that three was still considered too young for school!).  Every day when the bus came to pick me up, my mother would walk me the short distance to the end of our street, while Emi would stay by the window watching until I was picked up.  I think she was envious of me: that I got to go somewhere that seemed, at the time, exciting (though I was personally pretty ambivalent about my kindergarten experience, even at the time).  More than that, I think she just missed me.  We were used to spending all of our time together.

Me and Emi, circa '96 or '97

Once I left school, we fell back into a more familiar rhythm.   We spent our days playing, creating art, and going to various group activities.  When Emi reached school-age, there was never any suggestions of her going to school.

So we grew up together.  We played, learned, squabbled, and everything else siblings are supposed to do.

We liked baking... Circa 2000.

I mean, we certainly fought, and continue to fight, at times. When she was just a toddler I bit her on the face, and just a couple of years ago I gashed her arm open with my nails (then felt extremely bad about it for weeks, long after it had healed), among hundreds of other small fights that resulted in less spectacular displays of physical violence.  For a few years, when I was in my preteen to very early teenage years, we lost a lot of closeness, as I had definitely hit a new developmental stage, felt a lot older, and Emi was still a little kid.  But once she reached the preteen stage, we regained that closeness once more.

Me and Emi, with our dog, Flora, in '02.

Of course, virtually all siblings--be they unschoolers, homeschoolers, public and private schoolers, or freeschoolers--love their siblings.  Many, no matter what type of education they have, are even close to their siblings.  But sadly, there are also many who are not.

 To me, one of the greatest benefits of unschooling is the relationships I've developed with my family, which I definitely attribute at least in part to unschooling.  When in school, siblings spend every day appart from each other, in separate grades, classrooms, and even schools (though seeing as you're not supposed to be socializing in class, I suppose it wouldn't make much of a difference if siblings where in the same class, anyway).  Evenings are usually spent doing homework, or spending time with other friends.  There's a stigma attached to hanging out with people of different ages, and I've definitely also encountered a stigma to liking family members.  To many young people, actually liking a sibling enough to spend time with them just isn't cool.

So as unschoolers, we missed out on internalizing any siblings-are-uncool-and-so-is-anyone-younger-than-me messages.  But far more than that, we simply had the time to become such good friends!

Because that's what we are now: best friends.  Emi is now 17, and I'll be turning 20 in March.  Though we no longer share the same activities, we still share a fair amount of friends.  We hang out together.  We giggle and squee over sexy guys, watch shows and movies together, and endlessly discuss the plot, characters, and where it all might be heading.  We also discuss a huge array of other things: like sexism and anarchy, oppression and media and racism and gender and how we want to live our lives.  Problems with friends and things people said and how we can make a difference.  Sometimes we curl up together and talk until 4:00 am or later. 

Laughing at who knows what. Taken in 2007.

We've been known to laugh in synchronization, and even to burst out singing the exact same song at the exact same time, completely out of the blue.  We make comments and references that cause us both to burst into laughter, when no one else has a clue what we're talking about.  We exchange plenty of secrets that never go further than the two of us, and we almost always know what the other is getting at, even if we're exhausted and making no sense (which, being the very late night people we are, is a fairly frequent occurrence).
 

At a dance, in 2008.

Perhaps we would have been just as close had we gone to school.  But I'm oh so glad that our relationship was never put under the strain of the both of us growing up separately in school, so glad that our friendship could grow unhindered as we ourselves grew up!

Both of us looking kinda silly, but happy! June, '10.

Yeah, okay, I'm feeling kind of sappy now.  But, well, she's my sister.  I could go on so much longer: I could talk about how we've always looked out for and defended each other.  I could talk about how awesome (and witty, intelligent, hilarious, social, thoughtful, compassionate...) my sister is, and about all the cool things she does (like play snare drum in a Highland band, and be a Ninja--really, she takes Ninjitsu--and write novels, and sew plushies...), and all that jazz.  But I think I'm going to stop here, and finish instead with this quote from Kate, of Un-Schooled, who says it all so much better than I've managed to in this post:

"Going to school doesn’t mean not getting to know your own family. It doesn’t mean not becoming good friends with your siblings. But being unschooled means getting the chance to hang out with them all the time. To learn with them the way kids in school learn with their classmates. To learn with them in ways that classrooms can’t really ever encompass. Being unschooled means living together during the day as well as the evening and the winter as well as the summer. Not knowing that you’re supposed to be divided up into grade levels and younger kids are supposed to be boring and older kids are supposed to be off limits. Being unschooled means being in it together. Every day.

And I am so thankful that I got the chance to be with my brothers like that."

Emi's new blog, and changes to this blog!

You remember Emi, right?  I've even shared some of her writing on here!  And I've long lamented the fact she doesn't keep her own blog.  Well, now she does!!  It's called...  *Drumroll*

The Creations Of A Scribbling Face

And this is what the description on that blog says:

Hello and welcome to my writing blog, or, as it's officially known, The Creations of a Scribbling Face! I am said scribbling face, and I'll be using this blog as place to post some of my poetry and prose, as well as my ideas, inspirations, epiphanies, dilemmas, and general musings on creative writing.
I love receiving feedback, whether it be encouraging praise or bluntly honest critique, so if you have something to say please go ahead and say it! I really appreciate every comment. (Don't worry, I appreciate every silent visitor too ^_^).
And now, on to the scribbles! :) 

I HIGHLY recommend you check it out!!  It's just started, so there isn't much to read yet, but just follow along, and I'm sure it'll soon be a wonderful place to hang out...


In other exciting news (to me, anyway, since I'm such a blogging nerd) Blogger has FINALLY added the option to add "Pages" to a blog!!  Woo hoo!  I've been waiting for this for a very long time.  You'll now notice that at the top of my blog, there are multiple pages.  More will be added soon, as well, and in the coming days, all the varied and very messy, hard to find, info located on the sidebar of this blog will be slowing disappearing, and moving into the far more organized and pretty pages at the top of this blog!

The Links and Resources page is proving to be quite a project, and I'd LOVE some help with it.  Please feel free to share your favorite websites, posts, and articles on unschooling with me, so I can add them to the page.  I'm hoping to put together quite a collection of helpfull stuff!

Peace,
Idzie

The Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering 2010

So, in case you couldn't guess, I'm home!!  I had a really great week, spent time with many truly wonderful people, and took way too few pictures.  But I'll do my best to tell the story with only a few shots...

Last Saturday, we headed off toward Pittsburgh, to stay with a family we met at last years UWWG.  We were originally supposed to arrive much earlier, but by the time we actually got there it was midnight, and by the time we all stopped talking and hanging out in favour of bed, it was pat 3:00 am!  Emi, mum and I were thrilled to find out that not only were Jody, Bethany, Timmy, & Sam awesome people, they were also just as much night owls as we are. *Grins* The time we spent with the Hagensen's was great, and involved lots of conversations around the table in the sunny kitchen, about a variety of topics.  I love how with unschoolers, age matters so much less.  Between our two families, there were ages 9, 15, 16, 18, 18, and parents (I don't think they'd be thrilled if I tried to add their ages as well... ;-)), and all of us would happily sit around talking to each other...  That just makes me really happy.  As do the Hagensen's.♥  I really hope I get to see all of them again soon!

Here are Sam, Emi, and Timmy playing Smash Bros on Nintendo...

Their adorable, fluffy, crazy, cat.

 Isn't he cute?

On Monday, we headed to the Kalahari, for the third annual Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering!  We took Timmy along for the ride, since his family was leaving a bit later in the day, and he wanted to have as much time as possible there!  On the way, we spotted the official Girls Gone Wild bus.  Seriously.  We found that hilarious!

Yeah, I know you can hardly see it.  But trust me, that's what it was!

The first night there I was sooo tired I nearly fell asleep in John Taylor Gatto's keynote address!  That first day though, it struck me how very different it was for me just a year from my first unschooling conference.  I knew SO MANY PEOPLE!  I could barely take two steps without running into someone to hug hello, chat with, or just enthusiastically wave hi to.  I was even greeted by a lovely gift in one case.  It was a truly great feeling. ♥

The next day, I attended John Taylor Gatto's workshop.  I find what he has to say very interesting, though I don't agree with all of it.  He's very Libertarian, and I'm definitely not, so I found myself feeling uncomfortable with some of the surrounding assumptions and beliefs in many of his statements.  Regardless, I really enjoyed his talk, and found that he seemed like a genuinely nice guy.  Not arrogant at all, and very friendly. 

   

It's blurry, but that's him!

The conference centre was filled with hoards of happy teenagers...

 

People with interesting clothing...

And cheerful goofing off.

I enjoyed myself, spending time in the waterpark and in the conference centre, with teens and with parents...  Sadly, since I'm the photographer here, I have no pictures of me having fun! *Grins*

We also had the great pleasure of seeing the world premiere of the short documentary about Not Back To School Camp!  This film is seriously, absolutely and completely, AMAZING.  It captures so perfectly what NBTSC *is*.  I love it. ♥ Both Emi and I can also be glimpsed in several scenes...  I highly suggest you watch it now!!

Not Back to School Camp: A Glance Within from Allen Ellis on Vimeo.

On Wednesday there was a marketplace, complete with advertisers!

Emi was very happy with the stuff she sold, and felt she got a good idea of what sold well and what didn't, what price ranges worked, and similar useful info.  She also met some very kind and helpful people, who shared their experiences with both selling handmade items and traveling.

 

A friend kept her company while she sold her Creations...

Emi introduced one of her favorite games, Werewolves, to her friends, and they played some pretty intense rounds, or at least so I've heard...

 

Apparently playing Werewolves is much more fun than dancing. ;-)

You know, I really don't have all that much to say.  I hung out with awesome people, had lots of cool conversations, played in the waterpark, went to a couple of talks...  Of course, that's a lot of stuff.  But at the moment, I don't really feel equipped to elaborate on all of that!  So I'll just say that I had a good time.  Oh, I did also get to meet a few blogging and Twitter peeps whom I hadn't met before, which was cool, and got to know some people whom I'd only met briefly at earlier conferences and gatherings, which was also great!

On Friday, we left the Kalahari, with much sadness.  After an unschooling gathering, home seems pretty lonely...  I really want to make sure that I keep in touch with people this year!  

But anyway, we left the Kalahari and headed to my grandfathers, whom I haven't seen in several years.  I was a bit nervous about seeing my granddad and step-grandma, honestly.  Having had only brief phone calls for the last few years, it felt a bit strange to be visiting.  But I'm really, really glad we did!  It was really great to see them, and I was a rather sad when it was time to leave the next day.

 My step-grandmother and my grandfather, with their adorable but VERY yappy little doggy.

Me, my grandfather, and Emi.

Then, on Saturday, we came home.  It's always surreal coming back home after being away.  The tap works the same way, the dishes are all in the right spots, and the bed is in the same state of dissaray it was when I last saw it, yet it all seems different somehow...

I should mention that the Tuesday we were away, we got some bad news.  My great-grandmother, Eileen Boyle Caputo, passed away at age 99 on the day we left, Saturday the 6th of February.  I wasn't very close to her, having only known her in her later years, but my mom was, and it hit her hardest.  I don't think any of us really thought she was going to die soon.  She always seemed like the Energizer bunny: you just expected her to keep going forever!

So I will leave things at that for now...  I hope everyone had a great week, and there are, as there often are, several post ideas bouncing around in my head, that will hopefully turn into actual posts soon!

Peace,

Idzie

Interview on Unschooling

Emi doesn't often consent to go along with my random whims, so I was pleasantly surprised, and pleased, when she agreed to answer a few questions about unschooling on video!  Here is the resulting short interview:



It can be found on YouTube here, if you prefer to watch it there!

Peace,
Idzie

Emi and I giggle and talk about stuff

You may have heard of the channel SevenAwesomeNBTSCers before, but now there's a new kid on the block!  The YouTube channel AwesomeNBTSCers aims to get as many campers as possible vlogging at some point or other on their channel, instead of having a regular selection of vloggers like SevenAwesomeNBTSCers does.  Both are cool, just different. :-) But anyway, today Emi and I made a vlog for that new channel!  We giggle and talk about stuff.  I invite you to check it out below, or to go here if you want to see it directly on YouTube.



Peace,
Idzie

Introducing Emi

I've been feeling lately that what I share of my personal world on this blog is not all that fleshed out, because although I'll briefly mention my family members, I've hardly talked about them as *individuals*.  I'll just say that I went downtown with Emi, or had a conversation with my dad, but neither of those things says much about who I'm actually sharing my life with!  So I decided to do a bio of sorts on each family member.  My apologies if this isn't the most fascinating subject ever (I mean, *I* think they're fascinating, so maybe you will too! ;-)), but I want to give more of a background on my life, so I plan on having the links to each family members 'page' on the sidebar once I've written them all (they'll probably be spread out over the next couple of months).  A neat list of those people (animal people included) most important to me.  But enough with introductions.  Or maybe not.  Just a different *type* of introduction... 

Meet Emi.

She's a self proclaimed Otaku, one obsessed with manga, anime, and Japanese culture in general.  She loves to "cosplay" (dress up as characters from a manga, anime, or even video game), and adores going to the annual Montreal anime convention.  In full cosplay, of course.

She's also learning to speak Japanese (she'll greet and say goodbye to people in Japanese a good portion of the time, and regularly decides to confuse her poor family and friends by throwing in random Japanese words and phrases into normal conversation), and plans on visiting Japan in the next couple of years.  She says that in her learning of the Japanese language, she's come to understand the intricate workings of the English language better, and to really gain a whole new respect for the power of and beauty of language.  Oh, and have I mentioned that she loves Japan?  Yeah.

Emi is a writer, and a good one at that.  She's been doing writing "role-playing", where two authors collaborate online to create a story, scene by scene, since she was something like 10 years old, and thus has written hundreds of thousands of words of fiction.  That's her main form of writing, but she also occasionally writes non-fiction in the form of really good responses in online debates and discussions, has recently developed a love of poetry, especially haiku, and has turned out a couple of haiku that I really like, though she's more critical of them (unsurprisingly).  She also tackled NaNoWriMo this year, and finished victorious on November 29th (one day before the deadline!) with 50,014 words.

Emi has been playing the snare drum for four years now, and the highland snare specifically for two years.  She goes to drum lessons once a week at a pipes and drums school, and drum practice once a week with the pipes and drums band she belongs to, that does paid gigs I might add.  She earned her first money ever for playing drums just a couple of weeks ago!

I should also mention that Emi has a crazy non-biological twin named Trevor.  They decided they were twins last year (he's the cute twin and she's the smart twin), and like to do similar things, wear similar clothes, claim each others mother for their own, and say all personality traits that they have in common are thanks to their shared DNA.  They even fight like siblings! ;-)

She also has three adopted big brothers, one of whom she's actually informed of this fact. ;-)

In case you were wondering, Emi is 16, and unlike me, with my half a year of kindergarten, has never been to school a day in her life.  She's probably the best in my family at arguing in favour of unschooling, because unlike me, she's pretty good at not putting people on the defensive.  Obviously, sometimes that reaction can't be avoided.  But when it can be, she'll usually manage to!  She's just generally good at debating, as well (usually issues of unschooling or green anarchy, since those are the two most contentious things she's likely to talk about).  She argues both logically and calmly.  She just doesn't usually get ruffled or angry, and if she does, she hides it well!

Most importantly to me, Emi is my best friend.  We talk late into the night about things both vastly important and deep, and things merely gossip worthy.  We argue over which guys are cute or not, people watch together, talk about our shared love of writing, about human behavior, about politics and religion and a million other things...  I'd seriously be lost without her!

Oh, and I have to mention that she also loves art, loves spending time on the online artists community deviantART, and loves making plushies.  Check out her dA account here!  

And that is my introduction of Emi.  In case you didn't gather it from what I've written above, she's a majorly cool person.  Friendly, talkative, loyal, intelligent, fun and funny.  I think I'm pretty lucky to have her as a sister, personally!

Peace,

Idzie

The power and beauty of language

My sister Emi's equivalent to a blog is her deviantART journal, and I absolutely loved a recent entry of hers on her love of language, so I wanted to share a couple of excerpts here.

I've been thinking a lot about the power of language lately. You can describe a simple thing with tons of words, and you can describe an indefinably large abstract idea with only a few. You can discover a myriad of things about cultures, time periods, places, and individuals through what words they use. You can learn the attitude of a society from the language they use and how they use it. You can blow someone's mind with a single sentence and talk for hours straight without saying a single thing they care about.

It's all kind of incredible... I have, like most people, used language since I was a very small child, and I've written stories, poems, essays and more since I was a slightly older child, but I don't think I've ever put as much thought into words and language as I have in the past half a year. Learning Japanese has opened up my eyes to all sorts of grammatical subtleties, rules, and terms, all of which I knew but never really considered as such. I can speak and write with proper grammar, but I'd never really thought about why one sentence made grammatical sense and another one didn't. It's very interesting to look at, at least for me...
I've also developed a lot of interest in poetry. I used to read poems with my mom and sister when I was younger, and I liked some of them well enough, but I was just never really into poetry. My recent interest with all poetry was sparked by my interest in Haiku. The way a few words, so strictly contained by the number of syllables that have to be used, can evoke such powerful emotions and images is completely incredible. Reading haiku (and reading about haiku) helped to solidify thoughts I was having on the power of words. Reading Haiku in the original Japanese, seeing the patterns of syllables and the visual beauty, is wonderful for me. To think, not only does a Haiku share a moment and emotion along with many more potential layers of philosophical meaning, it also has a flow to it, a beauty to the sound and placement of the words, and all of that while still conforming to the rules of five, seven, five. It's seriously mind blowing to me.
------
It's funny: there are some things in life I feel discouraged about when I see reminders of how little I can really do, or when I look at the work of maters of that craft, but writing is not one of those things. When I see reminders of how far I still have to go, I feel inspired to write write write until I get there! I feel inspired by the great works I read, whether it be great work by published authours, other amateur writers, poets, or even non-fiction writers. Seeing words used well, to convey beauty, power, eloquence, humour, facts, or any number of other things, is a wonderful, fun, moving, insightful thing. Writing really is a huge passion of mine...
All these thoughts kind of make me wonder how all the people out there who use words every day of their life never bother to really look at the language they're speaking or appreciate it at all...

Just reading that reminds me how much I love language as well!  It's such a powerful, beautiful thing.  You should also keep in mind that my unschooled sister has never had a grammar or writing lesson in her life.  What a great harm my parents did by keeping her out of school, eh?  I love reading her work, and it makes me so proud of her seeing the wonderful stuff she creates!  Yeah, I'm a proud big sister. :-P


Peace,
Idzie

Bits and pieces

The poll just closed! The results are below:

What subjects are you most interested in me writing about?

Unshooling	25 (32%)
My daily life/what I'm up to	9 (11%)
Green Anarchy/Anti-Civilizationism	11 (14%)
All of the above	31 (40%)

Total votes: 76
----

Also, I know that a couple of people asked me to keep them posted on how the zine was going, so I'll give a litle update on that! About 30 people have said they will, or probably will, contribute to the zine, which is really exciting! I've actually received 5 different things from 3 different people, and am hoping to get more stuff soon... ;-) So that's going well.

In other random news, we, we being my mom, sis, and a friend, went to the Anti-Colonial Thanksgiving dinner a few nights ago, where we ate delicious vegan food made by a local collective, watched a very interesting, moving, and thought-provoking documentary film called Club Native, listened to a couple of interesting speakers (notably a woman from BC who had some very interesting things to say about the Olympics, organizing against the Olympics, and similar things), and just left with lots to think about. And talk about! From the moment we left, we were having fascinating conversations on Indigenous rights, colonialism, sexism, minority groups, counter cultures... I love the wonderful conversations mum, Emi, and I have! Emi also commented how very much she likes being around the more radical type counter cultures, including both unschoolers and anarchists (the type of people to attend an anti-colonial dinner are not exactly State loving types)... I agree that it just tends to be so much more of an open and friendly environment!

Oh, and as a funny side note, I commented that I was mildly surprised at how many people there were who were dressed "normally", and Emi looked at me as if I was crazy. "Idzie", she said, "you've forgotten what normal is. You think if someone doesn't have huge holes in their pants and political buttons attached to their blue hair, they're normal. And they're not." Well, excuse me. :-P Apparently most of the people at the dinner were dressed in "that flaky hippie style, wearing clothes from thrift stores that were 'normal' years ago, then adding a knit hat"... According to Em, that's a style that many unschoolers also favour. I love my sister. :-P And while we're talking about Emi-isms, she recently described anarchists as a whole as being "hippies without all the flowers", which sounds pretty accurate to me, actually. She says all of this with an air of slightly exasperated affection, which is not in the least insulting, and considers herself an anarchist (though she's not as loud about it as me), though she does not consider herself a hippie (she really isn't at all), just in case you were wondering. Yeah. I really love my sister.

And that little bit of rambling is all there is for now, folks.

Peace,
Idzie

Another view of unschooling...

I haven't been feeling much inspiration lately in terms of blog writing, which I'm hoping will sort itself out soon, but in the meantime I wanted to share something written by someone else with you guys... I know that a large percentage of the readers of this blog are very interested in unschooling, so a while back when my sister Emi was having a written debate with some friends and let me read it, I asked her, since she doesn't blog herself, if I could share what she'd written on my blog. She said yes, which I am very thankful for! It got lost and forgotten about entirely for a while, but she kindly dug it up for me when I asked her to! Keep in mind this was written at something ridiculous like 2 or 3 at night, so I've fixed the typos that are unavoidable at that time of night (morning?), as well as editing out the names of those involved in the debate!

------

First, to (name removed): I don't understand how you can say you 'don't see how far in life you could get in unschooling'. I know people who have gotten through their entire lives (or at least their lives so far, up to the age of thirty-something, in the case of the oldest unschooler I know), and done just fine. Well, more then fine; really well, actually^^. So yes, you can get through life wonderfully being unschooled, that has been proven by many people.

People in high school get to choose their own paths only to an extent. While you are in high school, you must take certain classes and follow certain rules. You have much less freedom then an unschooled person. You can choose your own path once you leave high school, but by that point most (don't jump on me here, I'm saying most, not all) people have developed a narrow view of what their options are. Unschoolers (again, on a whole, not in the case of every individual), having lived free lives, can often see many more possibilities for how to live their lives, often not in the mainstream way most people do. And just to point out, by saying you choose your path by what classes you do well in, you're proving my point that you don't /really/ get to choose your own path. What if you'd never been interested in math, never done well in math class, then in your last year of high school you developed a burning passion for science and decided you wanted to be a scientist? Since you'd never done well in the math required, you'd probably just go into some other CEGEP course and never realize your dream of being a scientist. Whereas an unschooling person, who'd spent their entire lives knowing that they could learn what they want, when they want, and in whatever way they want, would find ways to learn math, then go into university taking science courses, and become a scientist like they wanted to be. Unschoolers have never had their education restricted by false notions that one has to learn certain things at certain points, or that certain doors become closed to you after certain points, all because of arbitrary rules.

As for coming into public school, I am wonderfully happy with being unschooled, so I don't want to try public school. The reason I suggested that you guys try unschooling is because I've gotten the impression from all of you that you're not happy with school. (I know for sure that two of you have directly said you dislike school to me before).

To (name removed): That 'well it works for you, but it wouldn't for everyone' argument is one I hear quite often, and it is a reasonable concern, but I disagree. It is true that by high school, there are indeed a lot of people who wouldn't know what to do with themselves without teachers telling them what to do. But that is because they've spent their entire life being instructed in how to spend their time, what to learn, what to do and what not to do, etc. All children are born with the instinct to learn. Babies touch things, put them in their mouths, mimic adults, and learn naturally. Toddlers still have that curiosity about the world, the urge to explore, to figure things out, and to ask questions. School puts a child in a classroom where they cannot learn naturally by interacting with the world, forces children to sit still and keep their hands to themselves, squashing their natural urges to learn. They aren't allowed to follow their particular interests and passions, they're not allowed to learn about what they love; instead, they're forced to learn a prescribed set of things, whether they find those things interesting or not. They're forced to learn for fear of disappointing their parents, being told that they've failed, being looked at as stupid by their peers. And through being forced to memorize facts that they don't want to, and by being kept from learning about the world in a natural way, that instinctive desire to learn is dampened and sometimes destroyed entirely. By the time a child reaches high school, chances are good that they don't know what to do with themselves without instruction. They probably have no desire to learn on their own, because learning is synonymous with work.

So in a way, you might be right; Maybe you would have no motivation to do anything, and maybe a lot of teens wouldn't. I know that I, for one, sometimes don't have much motivation either, but because of my natural tendencies towards laziness and procrastination, I've learned ways of dealing with that and motivating myself.

Also, it might be good to mention here that a lot of people, even by high school, would be motivated to learn about the things they're interested in. I'd bet the great majority of people wouldn't be motivated in the slightest to learn a lot of the stuff taught in school, and that's okay. People don't need to know everything taught in school to get by in life. You can argue that people do need most of what's taught in school to get by in life, but I know many, many people who were unschooled, learned little of what schools teach, and are now adults functioning well and earning money in the 'real world'.

As for your second point, you are assuming that everyone wants to go to CEGEP or trade school or get a job at that age. Some people give CEGEP a miss and go to university; some people give CEGEP and university a miss and never go to any sort of school; some people already know a trade, and don't need to go to trade school; some people do want to go into the traditional path of university or trade school, but want to spend some time getting used to the freedom that leaving school gives them, and just doing (and learning about) what they love before they follow that path. My point is, regardless of your age or how long it takes you to adjust to being out of school, it's never too late to leave.

Of your argument, the point of parents is the only point I agree with. Sadly, that is a huge reason that does stop people from unschooling. I just hope that more parents will be more open minded and put more trust in their children and their children's capabilities ^^.

To (name removed): First point, the world being anarchy would be better then it is now in my opinion, but that's a whole 'nother debate :P. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but basically you're agreeing that school is controlling and directs people onto certain mainstream, pre-determined paths, and that this is a good thing, because otherwise people wouldn't all work mindlessly in our current societal system. I'm honestly not trying to be snide here, but really, that seems like what you're saying, and I couldn't disagree more. To have a system that controls people and molds them into certain lifestyles that the government deems worthy is completely immoral, in my opinion. As for peoples' general stupidity, I believe that it is in good part because they have gone through a school system that discourages thinking outside the box and teaches obedience of authority without question. As I touched on before while replying to (name removed), if people were allowed to learn naturally from the world around them, they would (as a whole) develop into more open minded, thoughtful people who were better capable of handling new situations, new problems, and new ideas. I know that the people who are unschooled now are certainly all of those things.

Moving along, I find the term 'real schooling' kind of insulting. There is nothing less 'real' or valid about unschooling. Also, again to do with your phrasing, in my opinion nothing should be imposed on the masses, but once again let's leave that for another debate. You say that if school is not imposed on people, they will be ignorant and poor, but this is just not true. I don't know how many times I've said that I know lots of intelligent, well rounded, socially adept, money making unschoolers, but it seems I need to say it once more at least. Clearly, as thousands of unschooled people prove, unschooling does not breed ignorance or poverty. So why do you think, if more people were unschooled, that that would change? Unschoolers aren't some elite group of people who were genetically pre-determined to be motivated and intelligent; the lifestyle leads to those qualities. About not being taken seriously in the work force, again, that's just not true, and I feel the need to delve into a few different reasons why. First, no one puts 'unschooled' on their resume. If a person goes on to CEGEP and/or university, they would put those qualifications on a resume, and no potential employer would care what they'd done through their high school years. Ditto if they went on to trade school and acquired papers touting their qualifications there. Secondly, you are assuming that all unschoolers want to get traditional jobs and join the regular workforce, with is an incorrect assumption. Again, I draw on examples of unschoolers I know who are self-employed, people who have started their own businesses, who have become midwives or massage therapists or travel tour guides or one of any number of other nontraditional jobs. If an unschooler wants to make money through being self-employed, they can, and and if an unschooler wants to get a traditional job, they can go through university/trade school/courses to get what they need to get hired for that job. The key thing is that unschoolers know how to learn and accomplish things on their own, without being instructed or forced, so they're capable of taking whatever path they choose and doing well on that path.

In that whole first paragraph of yours, what you seem to be saying is that if everyone was unschooled, it would unbalance our current society. This is most likely true, and I think that a society that breeds such ignorance, bigotry, violence and poverty as ours does would be better off with the changes that free-thinking, open-minded, curious, competent unschoolers could bring to it.

On to your second paragraph! (Whoof, getting tired typing fingers here :P... Hope you guys are still reading and understanding all this... I'm falling asleep at the keyboard^^'!)

A child should not be pressured, by tools such as a marking system, into learning things that they do not want to learn. No one ever needs to be forced to learn; a person will learn what they need to live in our world without being forced. I cannot stress this point enough.

To address your last point: I will start by saying you have been extremely disrespectful in your comments, especially this last one. It seems to me you're saying unschoolers can't socially interact as well as people in public school. (It kills me a little inside to see people still using this ancient 'but if you don't go to school, you must be isolated and un-socialized!' argument -_-'). This is simply not true. Do you think I'm socially inept? I certainly know all my unschooled friends my age, and all my unschooled friends who are adults living in this 'real world' of which you speak so much are doing just fine socially. They interact with many people on a daily basis, they have friends and a social circle (or few), some of them do indeed work side by side with co-workers every day. And they are perfectly capable of doing so. It is perfectly possible, in fact easy, to socially network without school. Let me use the obvious examples of extra curricular activities, such as sports, cadets, guides, 4h clubs, etc. etc. etc. Also through community, getting to know your neighbors and (in the case of teens and kids) people in your neighborhood who are your age. (I think it'd be great if people actually developed a strong sense of community and knew the people living closest to them). Also, through the unschooling community, such as conferences, local support and activity groups, etc. You know, my social life is most fun in the summer, when everyone's out of school, because then I actually get to see, talk to, and interact with my schooled friends a lot, instead of having them trapped in schools (where they're encouraged to sit quietly and learn for most of the day, rather then socially interact as you imply, I might add).

Well, I think that's everything... Sorry if some bits don't make sense or if there are typos, it's 3:09 in the nigh- morning, and I don't want to proof read this heckuva long message -_-'.

-----

Isn't my sis a wonderful writer? She writes fiction mostly (also wonderfully), but I always love seeing her forays into non-fiction, because they are always good. And I am envious of her debating skills (she's even better when it's not 3 in the morning! :-P).

Peace,
Idzie

Tidbits of life

Just wanted to share a snapshot of life tonight... We came home from a visit to my grandmother's house at 12:30 am, to find that Flora, who's an old and now sick doggy (I haven't gone into that on this blog... I'm not sure why. In short, she has a brain tumor, and is on meds that are helping for the moment... That's been a big stress lately), had pooped and peed all over the floor. Not fun to clean up. Now, however, that the cleanup is done, I find myself rather amused by our late night activities... Inspired by Iron Chef, a show we stayed late at my grandma's house to finish watching, my sister, who is SO not a cook, is making a cheese sauce from scratch, with no exact recipe, just a bit of help from my mom! Emi even seasoned it with herbs from the garden. Actually, just a few minutes ago, I was interrupted in my writing of this post, and asked if I could go get her some more Rosemary and Thyme! So out I tromped into the wet grass, flip flops on my feet, my toes quickly freezing, not quite bright enough light attached to my head, to search through the plants in the garden to find the right types of herb... She's now cooking broccoli to dip in it. Also, since my father is out of town for a couple of days, the classic rock station is cranked up, despite the fact that it's 2:00 am! Ah, unschooling...

Oh, and this is my current Facebook status:

A moth just landed on my hand, poked at my skin with it's mouth, antennae twitching curiously, tilted it's head, seemed to clean it's leg, then fluttered off. All of this happened in about five seconds. A creature both utterly beautiful and utterly strange... And for a few seconds of my life, I was completely engrossed in it's delicate world.

Here's to the small moments in life, the interesting things that happen late at night, and finding happiness in even the rockiest parts of life.

Peace,
Idzie

Creations by Emi

My wonderful Manga, Anime, and anything Japanese obsessed sister, really really really wants to go to the Japan. And she's getting the opportunity to do just that, through Eli Gerzon's Worldschool Travel Tours. However, it's a LOT of money. She's therefor doing a bunch of things to raise money, one of which is making and selling bags, pincushions, jewelry, and other lovely things. If you're interested in supporting her, please check out some of her stuff on her deviantART acount. Items will soon be listed in her Etsy shop, CreationsbyEmi. Thanks a bunch, from both of us (I love to see my sis happy)!

Peace,
Idzie

Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering 2009

Yes! I finally have all of the pictures I wanted uploaded onto this post uploaded!! Since blogger only allows you to upload 5 at once, I've literally been uploading for hours. Hey, you guys asked for lots of pictures, right? ;-) They're in chronalogical order, and that's how I'll tell about our trip as well!

My mom, sister, and I started out towards Ohio Sunday, the 1st of February. We entered New York, and ended up staying in Buffalo.

When I saw this truck at night, I just loved it for some reason! My mom was nice enough to stop the car so I could get a good shot. :-P
We arrived in Buffalo fairly early, around 8:30ish pm, I think. We ate supper, then attempted to find a hotel. And that's where the difficulty started. The first one we tried was filthy (like really ew), and then the next half dozed or so were scented. Since both Emi and my mom are allergic to synthetic scents, it's really hard to find places that don't use stuff like Febreeze (which is really bad for everyone by the way, regardless of allergies), we have to try LOTS of hotels before we find one that we can actually stay in. Finally, at 11:30 pm, and after getting lost several times, we were stressed out, exhausted, and nearly in tears, when we finally (finally!) found a non sweet smelling hotel! Woo hoo! I took this pic the next morning.
The hotel gave us some coupons for a restaurant across the street, so we ate there the next morning. It was a really nice homestyle, large portion serving, place, with a really sweet waitress to boot.
We then passed through Pennsylvania.
It was a beautiful sunny day...

And it got steadily warmer the further we went. It was like driving into spring.
We were totally comfortable walking around outside in just our sweatshirts, which is certainly not something you can do in Montreal in February!
The Ohio welcome center was awesome.

Passing through Cleveland, we spotted this gorgeous building. I love it!
The car door handle just suddenly seemed really photographable...
And we made it there! Finally! It's about ten hours of straight driving, but with the amount of stops we make, it took us much longer.
We arrived at the Kalahari resort, where the UWWG was being held, on Monday the 2nd of February. That night, we were all really tired and spastic. Emi and I went down to the conference center, where everything was being held, for the Winter carnival, but we just felt out of place. I met a couple of people I knew from camp, but overall the carnival was really just for young kids, and all of the teens seemed to have come with their friends. I think we both, in our exhausted depression, decided that we'd have an awfuk time. Luckily, we were wrong!
The next day I woke up and started bouncing around excitedly trying to get my family to go down to the Waterpark with me. Mum was busy, so Emi and I went down. It's an all inclusive resort, so the waterpark, rooms, restaurants, convention center, and spa are all accessible without ever leaving trhe building! Emi originally didn't want to go in the wave pool, or on the slides, since the last time she'd been to a waterpark she was about 8 and it terrified her! However, as soon as she saw that there were tubes for the wave pool, she decided she's try it, and we both had a blast! After that, we tried several slides, which were all extremely awesome!

We wandered down to the conference center after that, and were hailed by a whole group of teens sitting around on couches, including a couple of people I know from camp. They were crazy, chaotic, and very friendly! After everyone split for food, we hung out in the hotel room for a bit...

But when the cleaning staff came to clean our room, we headed back down and met up with people again. They started a crazy girls against guys truth or dare game (I say "they" because I wasn't playing, just taking pictures :-P).
EWW! It got far worse even than that, sadly... :-P
"Why am I not on the cool fish list??"
These lights were on the ceiling of the auditorium/ballroom/really big room, and I just loved them!
I took lots of pictures of the first talent show (it was on Tuesday, I believe), but most were blurry! This little girl was just SO CUTE! She sung a song, and danced along to it too. :-)
The outdoor hot tub was awesome.
This guy was insane. Nice, but insane. ;-P
My mom took a belly dancing class on Wednesday. I took pictures. :-)
The lovely and very talented instructor. It was truly awesome watching her dance.
Mummy!
The endless ghallway that our room was on... The Kalahari resort is the largest hotel in Ohio with over 800 rooms, and also bosts the largest indoor waterpark in North America.
Wedensday night, hanging out in the empty, dark, grand ballroom. They played spin the bottle, we ran foot races, and some people started playing football. Emi just sat on this lion statue. :-P
The view from the windows overlooking the waterpark. A whole bunch of it is cut off at the left edge of this shot...

There were two elevaters that brought us from our room to the lobby. One we named Otis, the other George. George was cooler, because he had a heart on his floor.
Thursday, lying around in people piles. I loved watching these two (adorable little kid and Ben) interact. They just get along so well!
Group shot! Missing a few people that were part of this hangout group, but there's a lot of them here!



Riding the luggage carts was a popular pastime!

Paris Hilton ;-)
Crazy, chaotic, insane, elevator rides.
Such a cute picture! I love how much hugging and cuddling goes on at unschooling gatherings.

This was hanging around at the ball on Thursday night, our last night there. That is a petty intense look, although I have no clue what it's about! :-P
Emi doesn't like this picture, but I do!
Aww :-)
The ball!

Crazy headbanging.

Emi and Max looking lovely.
Swirling lights...
Nate doing a funny pose.
Dancing.


The woman who did the belly dancing class let people borow her coin scarves for the dance. Mum LOVED it and wants one of he own now!

Scattered shoes...
This little guy made friends with a couple of the teens, and was planning on sleeping over with them on Thursday night. However, his parents were leaving halfway through the ball. He was so sad! :-( He gave his shirt, which had earned him his nickname Checkers, to the guy he's made best friends with. :-)
More dancing...
Myself in a mirror.
The next, and final, morning at Kalahari. I realized I hadn't really taken pictures around the lobby, so I did. The tackyness pissed me off a lot to start with, but by the last day I'd pretty much gotten used to it. :-P

The Candy Shack
Signs
More waterpark shots through the windows.
"African" (we're not so sure about it's authenticity ;-)) decor.


People, getting ready to say good bye.
Jack and Emi.
All the group, or at least those who hadn't left yet.
Bethany, the girl in this pic, did an awesome workshop at one point on raw foods. She has a fascinating story (of how she used raw foods to heal herself), and you can check out her blog here. I'm sad that I only really got to talk to her and her mother on the last day! That whole family seems really cool. The three siblings that were there are pictured below. Emi and Timmeh (the bigger brother!) spent the last sleepover night talking, and Emi only got about two hours of sleep!
Jane and Tristram are so cute together! I met both of them at camp.
Their expressions are just made of awesomeness.
We stayed so long talking to people that by the time we got going it was three in the afternoon!

These swans were in a pond just outside of the Kalahari's main doors. I love ducks, swans, and similar birds. :-)
Pretty ice.
The bridge that connected the Kalahari building to the parking lot.
We only got as far as Buffalo again going back on Friday, so we stayed at the same hotel as last time. In the morning, on Saturday, we were up bright and early for the long drive.
Oil is such a fascinating contradiction. Beautiful, yet awful.
It was a good trip, even if the traveling bit coming home was stressful as hell. We were all really tired! But it's always nice seeing other unschoolers. There weren't all that many people my age, and out of the few that were there many seemed rather cliquey, but I still met some really cool people. There's this guy, Eli Gerzon, who's doing world travel tours for unschoolers. Emi was originally interested in the Japan tour, but since she always envisioned going to Japan in a few years, she's not sure if she wants to go as soon as November. Either way, Eli was a very interesting person to talk to, and I look forward with interest to any future trips he plans.

There were also several interesting workshops. I already mentioned the raw foods one briefly, but what I didn't mention was that there was actually food to try! I was rather suspicious of it at first, but the ONLY thing I didn't like was the guacomole, and that's just because I never like guacomole! I also caught the tail end of a talk on radical unschooling by Kelly Lovejoy, which made me sad, but what I did hear was very interesting, and my mom was there for the whole workshop and really felt that she got a lot out of it.

I'd love to catch up on all of the blogs I'm following, but since I follow about 40, I just can't! Because of that, please don't be insulted if I usually comment, yet don't this time! :-S

I'm still looking for unschooling articles for Homeschooling Horizons, and I'd be much obliged (and very happy) if you'd be interested in that!

Peace,
Idzie