Guest Post: You Can Unschool with Limited Resources by Sara Schmidt

A big thanks to Sara for sharing her experiences here!  Enjoy, and think about sharing your own stories in the comments section.

I am broke. But I can still unschool.

One of the most common misconceptions about homeschooling and unschooling is that you have to be wealthy to do so. I actually do get this comment from both parents of children who attend public school as well as some curriculum-using homeschoolers, many of whom are quite well off and do not seem to understand if we cannot afford an expensive field trip or microscope.

This idea, however, is a bit ironic to those of us who consider homeschooling something of an ancient practice, the way all humans learned until the development of compulsory schools—which, in America, was only around 100 years ago. How on earth did our ancestors learn anything, I always want to respond, when they were too busy working the fields, caring for one another, doing chores, and, well, living every day? Funny how literacy rates were higher back then, too. 

But I digress. Of all of the unschoolers I know, many of them are in the same boat I am in. I was laid off in 2008, followed by my husband’s layoff last year. Together we went from an income of about $65,000 to one that was, until this month when he got a new job, under $18,000. This was very difficult (and still is, as we pay off debts such as student loans) and we have had to make a lot of cuts, but we are still quite happy and healthy—and we still unschool.

You don’t need any additional funds to unschool (or homeschool, really; if you want to use a curriculum, there are several free ones available). Unschooling is simply living with your child every day, allowing him or her to make his or her own decisions. No additional materials or programs are required; only your time and attention, if that. Unschoolers rely on experiences rather than overhead projectors and expensive curriculum sets. And now, with the Internet easily at your fingertips, there’s really not much you cannot learn.

Even so, many of us unschoolers don’t believe that money is all that valuable. Gasp! There, I said it. Sure, we need it for food and electricity and other essentials, but we don’t usually buy a lot of the same things our neighbors do—multiple cars or cellular phones, televisions, video games, cable, whatever. We do a lot of secondhand shopping (my daughter enjoys yard sailing very much!) and we buy what we need, usually nothing more. 

Our values tend to reflect this as well; indeed, our definition of success is does not include how much money or how big of a house you have, but how happy and healthy you are, how meaningful your life is to you, and how kindly you treat one another and the earth itself.

I am lucky enough to work from home, and my husband works very early morning shifts so we can both usually be with our daughter; but I know unschoolers who take children to work, swap childcare with other unschoolers, or even utilize a good childcare program for part of the day while they make their living. Your child is going to learn no matter where he or she is or what he or she is doing, so why worry? There are so many options available to you if you just look outside the box a bit—which is, of course, what unschooling is all about!

Please do not get me wrong: there is absolutely no reason for you to feel guilty if you absolutely cannot unschool due to finances and a need to work very long hours. So please don’t feel guilty! But that might not have to be the end of the story for you, either. If money and/or childcare are the only things standing between your family and unschooling, see if you can come up with a solution. Try brainstorming with other unschooling or homeschooling friends (or on this blog!) and with your family and maybe you’ll be able to come up with a creative way of life that is unique to your own family’s needs—one that will allow you to live life the way you always wanted to. 

(A note from the blog owner: just a reminder to please be respectful in the comments.  Each person is the expert on their own life, so if someone says they really can't unschool, please respect that!  Of course, if people are asking for suggestions in how to make unschooling work for them, that's something entirely different.) 

Sara Schmidt is an unschooling mom, writer, artist, activist, and intermittent graduate student from Missouri. The former editor of YouthNoise, she has written for The Whole Child Blog, Teaching Tolerance, The Institute for Democratic Education in America, BluWorld, Ecorazzi, and dozens of other blogs, printed materials, and nonprofit organizations.

Guest Post: The Future of Unschooling by Jeff Landale

I found this post to be very relevant personally, as when I received it a couple of nights ago I was in the middle of writing in my unschooling book about how we present unschooling, and how I feel we often sell it short, in not recognizing how much of a truly radical impact it could have...  I feel that Jeff really illustrates some interesting and important points here, and I hope you like this post as much as I do!

The New York Times had an article it published earlier this year, titled “After Home Schooling, Pomp and Traditional Circumstances”, which, in my mind, illustrated a few of the dangers alternative education movements can encounter as they grow, and also some roadblocks to a greater role these movements can take in transforming the world. The article describes 26 Floridian homeschoolers participating in a graduation ceremony, saying that “just as more home-school families now join co-ops offering weekly field trips and chemistry labs or use the local public school for sports, band or a class, so too do many of them embrace all the trappings of graduation season.” While I don’t want to deny parents the joy of seeing their child participate in a ritual marking their entry into the world (especially given the overall lack of rituals we have in our world), I hesitate when I see alternative education taking the same path that alternative music took in the 90s: a different surface aesthetic, but fundamentally following the same model as what it was ostensibly supposed to be an alternative to.

The article describes how each graduate was given a “Certificate of Completion”, speeches were given, photographs were taken of the graduates in gowns and those square hats with the tassels, so that the homeschoolers can say “I graduated, just like everybody else.” Homeschooling, for these homeschoolers and their parents, seems to be a way of schooling, just by other means: parents instead of teachers, a graduation at the zoo instead of the gymnasium, and so on. By wanting to participate in the cultural touchstone of a graduation ceremony, these homeschoolers are still allied to the ethos of school. There is thus only a superficial rejection of schooling, because the school is simply reconstructed at home. For the students and parents, this can make a huge difference in their lives, but structurally things are the same. Homeschooling, in this way, is a private affair, and a private decision, with no implicit or explicit social ramifications.

While this article does not make a big deal about the pros and cons of homeschooling (Will they be socialized? Will they have friends? How will they live in the real world? Will they learn anything?), it does open up the possibility that these questions are increasingly becoming an irrelevant distraction for people interested in truly radical alternative modes of education. If homeschoolers spend so much time and effort imitating the rituals, structures, symbols, and outcomes of industrialized compulsory education, if homeschoolers work hard to be able to answer the mind-numbing litany of inquiries into the success of homeschooling, then homeschooling itself will be nothing more than school outside of the school building.

And this is where Unschooling comes in. Unschooling runs the same risk of becoming superficially different while structurally similar to the forms of education and learning which we are aiming to break free from. Unschooling as a pedagogical philosophy has the advantage of being able to differentiate itself from both industrial schooling and homeschooling, but only if it differentiates itself critically, and not merely superficially. What are the structural changes we want to see in our lives as a result of Unschooling? What kind of relationship do we want with learning? What are the social changes that would inevitably result from Unschooling, if the logic of the philosophy was allowed to unfurl itself completely?

Writers like John Taylor Gatto (Dumbing Us Down) and Ivan Illich (Deschooling Society) showed not only how schooling damages individuals, but also how it supports so many of the oppressive and exploitative aspects of our society. If we find ourselves engaging in radical modes of alternative education which don’t inherently challenge and disrupt crucial aspects of the world, then we should be concerned that we are actually reproducing the same structures which Unschooling was originally supposed to allow us to escape from. Thus, rather than having Unschooling be that thing which isn’t school or homeschooling, we should have Unschooling be something which, while growing out of critiques of industrial schooling and its sibling, homeschooling, defined in terms of what it allows us to become, and how it allows us to change the world. And this means that in a lot of cases, we should simply disengage from conversations with Unschoolers and with all of those annoying talking heads on TV who ask over and over again whether Unschooling will create the same sort of individuals as school does (except smarter, and harder working, or whatever). With the legal status of Unschooling being mostly settled in the United States and Canada, now might be the time to stop reassuring others and ourselves that Unschooling won’t screw up lots of kids, and start focusing on how self-directed learning can lead to, and be a part of, much broader social movements throughout the globe.

Jeff Landale is an elementary school drop out currently studying Politics and Classics at Simon's Rock College in scenic Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Ostensibly, he is writing an undergraduate thesis on Unschooling and its role in emancipatory struggles, but in reality he spends his time thinking about Indian food. He can be reached at jefflandale@gmail.com

Want to Contribute to this Blog? I'm Looking for Guest Posts!

You know how I've been talking about writing a book, or a zine, or an eBook, for a very long time now?  Well, I keep starting, then deciding it's crap and starting afresh, then deciding that one is crap too, then re-writing part of it, then starting another one...  Basically, I haven't been very productive when it comes to writing a book or even a zine.  So about a week ago, with November and thus NaNoWriMo coming up, I started thinking hey, why don't I just basically do NaNoWriMo (in that I'm aiming for 50,000 words by the end of November, 1,667 words a day), only write my book about unschooling instead of a novel?  Because I'll be writing lots this month, and won't really be able to write much on this blog, I figure this is a good opportunity to solicit some guest posts I've been wanting to get for a while now!  Here are the subjects I'm looking for:

• Rising Out of High School. Making the decision, convincing parents, dealing with school staff, how friends react, making the transition/deschooling, etc. I think this is a super important subject, but one I'm not qualified to write about. I fairly regularly get emails from teens in high school who really want to get out, but don't really know how, and I just feel helpless because I have no clue what advice to give!  But I know that there are riseouts who read this blog, and I know that your story would be MUCH appreciated by many people!!
• Unschooling and Marginalization/Unschooling and Privilege.  I'm not really sure that's a good title at all, but basically what I'm trying to do here is make some space for narratives about unschooling that you don't usually see.  The most common unschooling narrative is that of a middle class, white, able-bodied, nuclear family.  When you go to unschooling conferences, they're mostly populated by middle class white people.  So what I'm looking for is people to write about why they think that is; the intersection of unschooling and class, race, physical ability, sexuality, gender; and the lived reality of unschooling when you're not middle class, not white, not straight, etc.
• Unschooling Internationally.  No, I'm not talking about travel.  I feel like there's already lots of interesting stuff out there on that!  What I'm interested in is posts about unschooling in countries outside of North America.  What's it like unschooling in Mexico?  Ireland?  Romania?  India?  I'm looking for stories of people from the country they're writing about please, not ex-pats.

And I think that's it for now!  If you'd be interested in writing an article on any of those subjects, or a combination of any of the above subjects, please email me at unschooledwriter@gmail.com.  If at all possible, I'd like to receive your finished posts during November (though contact me before writing anything to discuss details, please!), so that there can be interesting content here during this month, but if that's not possible, I'm still interested in having your posts at a later date!

Sudbury: the Unschooling Schools, a Guest Post by Bruce L. Smith

I've wanted to share some guest posts on freeschooling and democratic schools on this blog for a while now, and with the recent article on CNN talking about both unschooling and Sudbury schools, this article seems particularly relevant!  So I am very happy to present to you Bruce L. Smith on the Sudbury model schools:

After a few years’ teaching in the public schools of Columbia, Missouri, Bruce L. Smith left to find his true calling as an advocate for the Sudbury model of education. Bruce has founded and/or worked for Sudbury schools in Illinois, Florida, and Colorado, where he’s been on staff at Alpine Valley School since 1998. In 2005 he created the Center for Advancing Sudbury Education to promote the visibility and viability of this uniquely empowering form of schooling. More of Bruce’s writings on the subject can be found at http://www.alpinevalleyschool.com/blog and http://news.change.org/authors/bruce-smith.

I’ve known about unschooling for a long time, and I’ve long been struck by its resonance with the Sudbury model of education. For the past fourteen years I’ve worked for these “unschooling schools,” so when Idzie called for guest posts on the subject, I was excited at the chance to share my views on our respective approaches to self-directed learning.

The Sudbury model was first unveiled in 1968 by Sudbury Valley School in west suburban Boston. Since then it’s spread to a few dozen schools (about two-thirds of them in North America), all based on two simple premises: first, that children are innately, powerfully curious, driven to understand and master the world around them; and second, that the best education recognizes and respects this basic truth, allowing all young people the freedom and responsibility to discover their individual paths.

While a number of schools talk this talk, I find Sudbury unusually thorough in also walking the walk. As with unschoolers, Sudbury students freely chart the course of their days, months, and years. There’s no hierarchy of pursuits (e.g., academic vs. hands-on), and all learning happens organically—self-initiated, self-directed, and self-evaluated. Classes and other structured learning situations (e.g., internships) do have a place at Sudbury schools, but only as students seek them out. The bulk of learning at Sudbury schools comes in the course of daily life, and much of it takes the form of play and conversation.

In fact, the philosophical similarities between unschooling and Sudbury schooling are so extensive, I’ve often borrowed from the thoughts of unschoolers to help assure families that trusting their children’s drive is not only valid, but leads to the most effective learning. And that in turn reminds me that unschoolers and Sudbury families have this in common as well: many of our relatives, friends, and acquaintances think we’re crazy and/or putting our children at risk. So sharing our successes—concrete reminders, large and small, of how (and how well) freedom works—seems like one big favor we could do for each other.

Beyond their faith in young people’s nature and competence, what really makes Sudbury schools unique is that their structure is determined by the people directly involved. That is, everything from the rules to the budget to hiring is shaped by a democratic process in which a student’s vote is equal to that of any adult. This structure is flexible—within each Sudbury school, and among the various schools—and changes can be made at any time.

So how do Sudbury schools act like schools? Well, first of all, we do have these physical facilities where students gather on a daily basis. Attendance requirements are partly a legal matter, partly a means of ensuring continuity in the school community. Yet as I’ve suggested, there is significant flexibility here: at my school, for instance, students can arrive anywhere between 8 and 11am, and are required to stay only five hours (though our school is open nine hours, and many students stay past the minimum). With an Open Campus policy, most Sudbury students can come and go freely throughout the day, so long as they fulfill their commitments at school.

And these commitments are fairly modest. A Judicial Committee meets regularly to handle complaints about people’s behavior, and people are expected to serve turns on the committee and testify as needed. Also, Sudbury students are typically expected to do periodic cleaning chores. School governance is overseen by a weekly meeting that reviews the work of the Judicial Committee and considers proposals regarding rules and activities that could affect the normal flow of the day (e.g., field trips, parties, visitors). Then there are clerks and committees to whom much of the school’s business is delegated, along with certification (aimed at ensuring safe, responsible use of school equipment) and age-mixing (Sudbury schools are open to ages roughly corresponding to grades K-12).

In this environment, students not only learn to take responsibility for their own education: they also see what it takes to maintain an institution—though much of that organizational learning is optional. Students can attend School Meeting, serve on committees, and become clerks…or not. They’re expected to abide by the decisions of these bodies and officials, but their involvement is not required. Again, attendance, Judicial Committee, and chores are the only mandatory activities—and even here, students can work to change the relevant policies and requirements. Beyond these areas, students are free to do their own thing, so long as they respect everyone else’s right to do likewise.

In addition to all the freedom and flexibility, Sudbury schools also provide an ongoing, mixed-age community in which young people share responsibility for maintaining a culture of respect. Having such a space outside the family sphere gives our students the benefits of a diverse and vibrant “home away from home,” stretching them to try new things, new ways of thinking and being. In this dynamic, Sudbury students develop superlative interpersonal skills. There are constant opportunities to assess and regulate one’s behavior, and to work with people with whom one doesn’t already have a familial bond. Shy kids learn to speak up for themselves; overly assertive kids learn when and how to hold back. All eventually come into their own in the most thrilling ways imaginable.

Indeed, Sudbury schools foster a greater degree of autonomy and personal strength than I’ve seen anywhere else. These are indispensable qualities, since we all know that learning is not simply about pursuing our passions, but also figuring out how to realize those passions in contexts where people are not predisposed to assist us. Not all learning is sought: some is presented to us in the form of interruptions or obstacles—the people we don’t like or don’t get along with, but with whom we must co-exist; the hoops we must jump through to get what we want; things we’d rather put off indefinitely, but which must be done or learned before we can get where we’re going.

Bottom line, the Sudbury model is easily the most empowering form of education I’ve experienced in two decades as an educator: our students exhibit a maturity far beyond their years, while retaining the best child-like qualities. Articulate and self-possessed, they exemplify confidence and playfulness. Full of enthusiasm and free from fear, they are remarkably adept at knowing and becoming who they are, identifying and achieving their goals.

It is a good, good thing to celebrate the commonality and the diversity of our beliefs and practices. Unschoolers and Sudbury families alike face a status quo that seeks to invalidate us and make it unnecessarily difficult for us to follow our hearts. Getting to know each other’s approach better, sharing our ideas and success stories, and working to build acceptance for what we do can only help as we lay the groundwork for a future in which all children are truly free.

Guest Post: Answering Negative Questions Doesn't Need to be a Priority

I'm away right now (this post was scheduled, not published immediately), so I'm happy to have something to share on this blog even though I'm not here.  A big thanks to Michele for this post, the last in this summer mini-series of guest posts!  I love hearing Michele's perspective on things, and she's also the only one of the recent guest post authors whom I've been lucky enough to meet in person!  Enjoy. :-) 

Nothing is more important to me than my relationship with my children. That includes your expectations. ~Jenna Robertson

When Idzie first asked me to write a post for her blog, I had lots of ideas running around in my head. I started out writing about 5 different posts, but each one either seemed forced, too fiery or just not quite 'me'. I ended up writing a sixth post, but two days before I was going to send it to Idzie, Jeff Sabo (http://justabaldman.blogspot.com/), had to go and have a guest post (http://frecklesfilledwithlove.blogspot.com/2010/07/very-timely-guest-post.html) at Jean Dorsey's blog and of course, it had to be about the SAME THING my post was about. Procrastination 1, Michele 0. So, after realizing that the subject of not being a perfect parent and NOT striving to be one, had been presented but not exhausted, I rewrote my post and here it is.

When we find that we're going to become parents, whether for the first time or the fourth time, many people will find it necessary (almost as if by some unwritten law) to give us all kinds of advice (especially when we ask them NOT to). This advice can easily be accepted/disregarded with a polite nod and smile or a simple, "Thank you, I'll give it some thought", but what can't be easily shrugged off: Questions.

People will ask you every question under the sun. It all starts with that one friend asking you if you are really having a cup of coffee when you are two months pregnant and then reciting to you ten years of research debating the effects of caffeine on a fetus. Next thing you know, people are lecturing you about how risky (or brave, in some cases) you are to be planning a homebirth and they are also equally amazed and horrified at some of the details ("you're going to do what with the placenta?"). Then there are questions about how long you plan on breastfeeding and advice about your answer (often horrible misinformation that can lead to an abrupt end to breastfeeding) and talk about which kind of diapering is better for the planet (cloth, disposable or those newfangled hybrid ones). Of course, you can always ignore these questions and not answer them, but for some, that makes life even worse than just being brutally honest about things.

But, what really kills are the non-verbal questions. When other parents use their eyes and body language to question your every move as a parent. You can feel their eyes like daggers when you are at a store and your child is pleading for something (some special/favorite type of food or toy) and you can't find it (all the while you are trying to console your child and explaining that you can drive to another store and look -- three stores later EVERYONE is finally happy): "What a spoiled brat. She needs to just take him home for causing such a scene. How can she promise to take him anywhere else?". You see them stare at you at the library because you are 'letting' your child read a 'questionable' comic book: "Really, you think that is appropriate for a seven year old?". You almost gasp at the look of horror on their faces when you are at the playground and your child is on top of the 'big toy' doing a tap dance and singing at the top of her lungs (they might even use their words as well and say, "I can't believe you let her up there."): "Are you crazy lady; don't you know that she might fall?". Out of the corner of your eye you catch your neighbor rolls her eyes or raise her eyebrows when you tell her grandson that he doesn't have to say, 'thank you' or address you as 'Mrs. So & So': "Is that how you teach your child manners?". There are too many of these to list them all.

We sometimes find ourselves second guessing our decisions when these things happen, when our choices or beliefs are questioned. It's no different for us whole-life radical unschooling parents: "Do they NOT have a bedtime?", "Surely, you at least limit their screen time or monitor the content of what they are watching/playing/surfing?", "Don't you get tired of picking up after them; shouldn't they be made to 'pull their weight'?" and "Is that anyway for you to 'let' your child talk to an adult?". It can be hard to remain calm and respectful (especially if these don't come naturally to you) when people make judgments on you based on how you parent (even more so when your child DOES something dangerous, harmful or insulting).

Unschoolers get a lot of extra criticism and questions when we fall short in the areas of being respectful to our children. We are not perfect and many of us were raised in some of the most traditional, mainstream and punitive ways, so we were taught to do things the exact opposite from how we are striving to live. We make mistakes, yet we know well enough to apologize to our children and our partners for those mistakes (or 'learning-takes'). Our friends and family can question our ability to parent well or question our decision to be radical unschoolers when they see or hear of us struggling or doing something less-than respectful to our children. They might say or think: "You are the one who wanted to be all, 'love and light and freedom' with your kids.", "Can't you see that he's running all over you? You just don't make accommodations like that for a small child.", "I thought you said you don't yell at your children because it's mean, not respectful and can make them fearful?", "Yeah, I can see how well this is working out for you. I would NEVER let my child do/say that." or "Is this what unschoolers do; let their children cry and scream when something doesn't go their way?".

It's hard to be a parent and each of us is doing the best we can in the present moment. We can always let hind-site teach us about ourselves and others and how to strive to be better parents. We also understand that being human is difficult and that every child and adult out there is doing the best that they can in the present moment. Life is what it is and we need to accept that before we can strive for change. We can't let the fears of other people or the expectations of others hinder us on our journey as parents. Perfect is something I (none of us) will ever be and that's okay with me, because I know that I'm doing the best I can AND that I'm always striving to be a little bit better.

The next time you are being negatively questioned by someone about your parenting and unschooling, remember that what they think and have to say means nothing if it doesn't aim to help you be a more tuned-in, peaceful and respectful parent.

Guest Post: Eat & Be Free

I'm thrilled to feature a guest post from ps pirro, one of my favorite bloggers, a longtime online friend, and author of one of my favorite unschooling books, 101 Reasons Why I'm An Unschooler.  I hope you enjoy this article on food and freedom as much as I do!

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“If people lose their ability to feed themselves, how can they be said to be free?”

 ~Kentucky farmer & writer Wendell Berry

 

I’m not the first writer to point out that, prior to the last century, most of what we ate came directly to our tables from the ground, from the trees, and from the animals with whom we shared the planet.  Nor is it a revelation to note that this is no longer the case, that most of our food now comes from a factory, from a chemist’s lab, from vertically integrated corporate interests.  

You and I didn’t choose this arrangement, of course.  It preceded us.  But, oddly enough, the generations before us didn‘t exactly chose it, either.  What they chose -- and what many people today keep on choosing -- was something this arrangement seemed to offer: Freedom.

As Ben Hewitt, author of The Town that Food Saved, wrote, over the course of the last century, our culture made a bargain with the food industry.  We turned over the growing, raising, processing and delivery of our food to business interests, and in return we were liberated (most of us, anyway) from the dirt, manure, fickle weather, hot sun, long hours and manual labor of farming.  

We gained lives of clean fingernails and shoes that never touched mud.  We gained a professional class, a middle class, leisure time, and abundance.  We gained well-stocked supermarkets and full refrigerators, and the cost of food as a percentage of the household budget went down every year.  

What we gained looked a lot like freedom.  Fifty years ago, it seemed like a pretty good bargain.  

Today it looks like a Faustian pact.

It’s not just that the average morsel of food on our plates now travels 1200 miles to get to us, or that it takes eleven calories of fossil fuel energy to give us one calorie of food energy.  It’s not just the travesty of factory-farmed beef and chickens and hogs, or the loss of topsoil from over-plowing or the salinization and desertification from over-irrigating.  All those things matter, but there is more.  

The bargain we struck in the name of freedom has returned to haunt us on a fundamental level: it has undermined our sense of  what it means to be us.

The food we eat is our most intimate connection to the world.  It’s what becomes us.  It is us.   It’s us as individuals, and it’s us as a culture.  

When industrial food producers say, “We’ll make dinner,” they are asking us to relinquish that intimate connection.  To sever our taproot.  To become commodities eating commodities.  They’re also asking us to trust that their priorities as producers are aligned with our own as eaters.  That’s where the Faustian part of the bargain comes in.  Because the priorities of the industrial food producers have never been aligned with our own.  Industrial food producers have always been less concerned with our health and vitality -- and the health and vitality of the world in which we live -- than they are with our appetites.  It’s our appetites they aim to feed, not our deeply rooted need to be nourished.

Undoing the Faustian bargain doesn’t mean we all have to become farmers, but it does mean drawing the food loop a little -- or a lot -- closer to home.  It means educating ourselves about where the stuff we put on our plates comes from, how it’s grown, who grows it and how it reaches us -- and then acting on that awareness.  It means entering into relationship with our food and with those who grow it, something best done locally, right where we are.  

When we break away from industrial food -- even one small step at a time, at the weekly farmers market or in a backyard garden -- we regain some of what was lost in that Faustian bargain: a sense of where we come from, and what we’re made of, and made from, and how we’re a part of the soil and the air and the water, as it is a part of us.  We regain not just our sense of connection, but the actual connection itself,  becoming that which we partake of, drawing into ourselves the stuff of our particular place on Earth.

And that connection, created and sustained in the face of all that divides us, might prove to be the most freeing thing of all.

You did not come into this world, you came out of it, like a wave from the ocean.  

You are not a stranger here.

~Alan Watts

Guest Post: Unschooling Everything

Welcome to the first ever Guest Post Monday!  It won't be a super regular thing, but you will be seeing a couple more guest posts in the coming weeks...  For this first edition, I'm very happy to give you a short piece about unschooling from Sara McGrath, unschooling examiner and author of Unschooling: A Lifestyle of Learning! 

To me, this concept of unschooling, which I have chosen as a project focus, really refers to everything in life. I may check the "education" box or the "homeschooling" box when pressed to classify an article or interest area, but really I choose to focus on "unschooling" because it integrates all aspects of my life (learning inseparable from living and parenting inseparable from living, etc.)

I chose prior focuses, such as "the continuum concept" and "attachment parenting," for similar reasons. Where Western culture expects parents to use day care and school to exclude children from adult activities, CC and AP show a way of life that includes children as integral. I have children. Whether or not they're present with me, they're an inseparable part of my life.

Whole life or "radical unschooling" further dissolves the boundaries that define conventional lifestyles with lots of rules and regulations. I don't set and enforce bedtimes or mealtimes for myself or my kids, for example, because I'm going to help us all get what we need regardless. I've felt drawn to radical unschooling for its simplicity.

I don't do unschooling. It's not an action plan. I just live with my kids. We communicate freely. I help them figure things out. They help me do routine tasks such as housework, cooking, gardening, shopping, etc. We don't have to think about schooling or parenting. We just live a simple, whole life together.

Guest Post: My Suburban, Backyard, Food Revolution...Sort Of

I'm thrilled to present the first ever guest post on this blog!!  In this post, Genevieve shares her adventures in being part of the Food Revolution, also known more simply as having your own veggie garden! ;-) I give you:

My Suburban, Backyard, Food Revolution...Sort Of

I think the fact that I live in the suburbs (of Montreal) still surprises me, even though I’ve been here for almost 6 years. I’ve always felt strongly about issues regarding the environment and peace, but most recently, and perhaps most of all, food. I mention this because suburbia never seemed like the place I could live with a clean conscience with regards to the environment and food. But after university and living in and around downtown for four years, I needed green space (read: yard), clean air and wanted to be closer to the schools where I would be teaching (another story altogether).

So after buying a house and spending time making it our own, we (my partner and I) thought we should spend some time on the yard. So how do you ‘green’ suburbia? Slowly we got rid of some of our lawn, planted perennials and built, drum roll please...raised vegetable beds! For me, it felt like a revolution was happening in my own backyard. I felt empowered and I was really going to stick it to the proverbial ‘man’. However, that first year, the vegetable garden wasn’t quite the picture of success we had imagined (we really didn’t know what we were doing), though we did harvest tomatoes, beans and lots of various lettuces. In subsequent years, we varied the types of seeds we sowed and focused mainly on heirloom and organic ones. Thankfully, our harvest has been slightly better every year since.

Then, almost 2 years ago, I got pregnant with not one, but two wee ones. So, as you can imagine, last summer’s garden was virtually non-existent (the kids being about 6 mths old at the time), though I did plant an apple tree to commemorate the birth of our lovely babes. Having kids has reaffirmed our need for good organic home-grown food, and the need to get rid of more lawn to grow that home-grown food (not to mention the positive environmental implications of growing your own stuff). We have plans to build a cold-frame using reclaimed (we are proud trash-pickers) to extend the growing season. There is also the dream of owning some chickens and goats and moving to a larger piece of land one day, to expand on this dream of ours to be more self-sufficient. This year we’ve planted or started indoors, so far, 7 varieties of tomatoes, lettuces, sunflowers, melon, peas, broccoli, onions, okra, cabbage and eggplant. If all goes well (and space allows for it) there will be many more seeds planted when the soil warms up.

I wish I had the time to dig up the entire yard and care for it in such a way that I could grow food year-round and feed all of us almost exclusively on what I grew, but that is not realistic. The temperature doesn’t allow for that and neither does time. So, we grow what we can, on the land we have time to till. At this point, we’re not saving that much money by growing some of our own food, but anyway, I don’t think that’s the point. Honestly, I think what I love most of all, is that I know HOW to grow food. That, to me, is just amazing. Maybe the second best thing is that, one day, my kids will know that potatoes grow in the ground and cucumbers on vines, not trees J

So, what is everyone else planting and what are your reasons for claiming parts of your yards for food? Are your motivations political, environmental or romantic perhaps? What does your food revolution look like?

Thank you for this, Genevieve!

If YOU have something you'd love to write about (or make art about!), something cool you want to share, I strongly encourage you to submit it to the DIY Life Zine.  It's a project I'm really excited about, and I'm so looking forward to seeing all the great stuff people come up with for it!

Peace,
Idzie 

Guest Post, Anyone?

I love writing on this blog, but sometimes, I just don't have much to say.  And there are so, so many wonderful people out there with terrific stories, opinions, and ideas to share.  So why not have my very first guest post?  I find that idea pretty exciting!

So are you interested?  Here are a few things you should know:

• What to write about?  Something that you think will be relevant and interesting to the readers of this blog, and very importantly, something that's relevant and interesting to YOU!
• Anyone, regardless of age, political opinions, educational choices, etc. is free to submit something, I just ask that you keep the subjects things that will fit with this blog (unschooling, sustainable living, spirituality, lots of different things, just as long as it's not something that would seem out-of-place on this blog!  Email me with questions: open.eyed.slave@gmail.com)
• This is open to you whether or not you have your own blog.
• If I get more than one entry, I'll choose the one I think would work best for this blog.  I also reserve the right to turn down any posts that I just don't think would work well.  I may do basic editing on the chosen post, but if I change anything more major than fixing spelling mistakes or adding a comma or two, I'll send it to you first for approval before posting.
• It must be a post that has not previously been published anywhere online.
• Send all inquiries and posts to open.eyed.slave@gmail.com!

EDIT: Keep in mind that if there are multiple people interested in writing guest posts, any post/idea for a post that doesn't end up as the guest post, can be included in the next issue of the DIY Life Zine instead (I'm looking for lots of stuff for that. :-))!!  Or, it can be saved as a future guest post, if you'd prefer...

Wow, that seems like a lot of guidelines for a simple guest post, but I'm just trying to answer as many questions as I can before they come up!

This most likely won't be a regular thing, because I feel that if it was, it would be cutting into the submissions I get for the DIY Life zine, and I don't want to do that.  But I definitely like the idea of having the occasional guest post, as long as it works out this time...

So, what do you have to say? :-)

Peace,
Idzie