Spirals of Self-Hatred

Confidence and self-esteem, those two so closely tied together things, are tricky.

Sometimes I really think I have this confidence thing down.  In a workshop, I speak enthusiastically to and with the large group, everyone's eyes upon me, with not even a twinge of fear.  I go up to individuals afterward to tell them how much I liked that comment about sustainability they made, or simply to introduce myself with a smile and a firm handshake.  I say "yes" without pause when asked to speak somewhere, and think cheerfully of how much fun it'll be.

This confidence leads into self-esteem: wow, people like hearing what I have to say, like meeting me, like me.  I have some awesome friends.  That's cool.  I'm proud of what I've done and do.  I like who I am.  I like me, too!  Hell, I love me!!

But...

Then I'll say or type something seemingly inconsequential without putting much thought into it.  Or, even worse, think long and hard, then realize only just after I've opened my mouth or hit the send key how stupid whatever I said just sounded to me. Then comes the twisty feeling in my gut: how could I have said something so stupid??

Then, like the opening of a dam, usually kept tightly closed off in some part of my mind, comes the rush of all 10,000,000 other things I've ever said or done that have made me wince: brought on waves of shame and regret, or even just mild twinges of it.  Every single thing...

This tends to happen especially when around certain people, people I think are especially cool, or especially cute, or especially smart, that I seem to be unable to say or do anything cool or intelligent when around them or in communication with them.

It only takes one event, or one slightly low mood and a surfacing memory, to make me spiral down this path of self-hatred.

Of course, in an hour or two, I'll likely get a nice email, or have a friend say something, that gets me all happy and confident and self-loving once again.

I feel like this is probably a fairly normal occurrence for a lot of people.  But really?  It sucks.

-------------------------------

It feels really strange to be posting this, actually.  I've come to feel obligated to write a *certain type* of post on this blog.  Posts that are of a higher quality with more constructive content.  But...  I'm trying to keep in mind what I want this blog to be, and that's to be a place I can freely express myself online.  That expression often is about unschooling, and often is in a more article-like format.  But when what's on my mind is something far more...  I don't know, personal, I guess, I want to feel that that's okay too.  Which is why I'm posting this, despite reservations!  That is all.

Peace,
Idzie 

Unschooling Beyond High School (Unschooling is Forever Part 4)

I give you the 4th and final part of the speech I gave at the Toronto Unschooling Conference, dealing with a subject I'm currently very interested in thinking and talking about: Unschooling beyond the traditionally compulsory schooling years. Unschooling as true lifelong learning.

Read part 1, part 2, and part 3.

The college & university years

This Fall marks the first time that both my sister and I are officially past the high school years.  Now at age 19, I would have graduated two years ago, and had Emi been in school, she would have finished up this past spring.  This is probably a good time to explain that in Quebec, high school only goes until grade 11, so people graduate at age 17 (or 16, depending when their birthday is).  "Higher education" in Quebec consists of CEGEP (sometimes called College), which is free for Quebec residents and usually takes two years to complete the chosen program, which is then usually followed by university, which works the same as everywhere else, except that if you've gone to CEGEP, university only takes three years for a bachelors program.  This is what both my sister and I are watching the vast majority of our peers doing, while we follow very different paths.

I know that to some, unschooling is simply an educational philosophy that covers the traditional elementary and high school years, something that's a good preparation for moving on to higher education, perhaps, but something that does have an endpoint. Yet to embrace unschooling as true life learning (learning as something that's inseparable from life) means to accept that learning never ends, and to truly become a lifelong unschooler. Now, to me being a lifelong unschooler can definitely include college or university, but it can just as easily not. It's all in how you approach life, and how you think about learning and education, not in whether some of your life learning happens in a school building or not.

For me, I doubt college or university will be part of my life, and if it is, it certainly won't be in the near future.  I know it isn't the right choice for me right now for several reasons:

1. I have a fundamental disagreement with the institution of schooling.  With the structure, how it's run, how it's looked at and what it means to most people, the hierarchy and the commercialization of education.
2. The thought of spending my days in a classroom seems positively stifling to me, which tells me that's definitely not where I should be right now!
3. Of all the things I'm interested in doing with my life, all of the things I think I might do to earn money, a degree is necessary for none of them.
4. The cost.  Especially considering all of the above, to go into debt for a degree I don't want and will likely never use seems ridiculous!

I've managed to learn everything I've wanted and needed to know up to this point without going to school, so the idea that a school building it absolutely necessary all of the sudden is counter intuitive to me, and feels just wrong.  I've quoted it many times before, but this quote by Eartha Kitt always comes to mind:

"I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma."

Learning, the knowledge and skills and experience that's absorbed every single day simply by living life, can and does continue past high school, even if you choose, as I have, to pass on institutions of so-called higher education.

As I happily go through another not-back-to-school season, and while many of my peers are heading back into the classroom, I'm instead following  my own personal, ever changing and evolving "curriculum" (though it looks startlingly like just living life) that currently does or may well include:

• Speaking at the Toronto Unschooling Conference, and at other events, about freedom based education, and specifically unschooling;
• Organizing, with the assistance of a great group of co-conspirators, a freedom-based education conference in Montreal, which will include a wide range of speakers and workshops that give people the knowledge and tools to step outside of the mainstream views on education, learning, and life;
• Continuing to write regularly on my blog to an ever increasing audience;
• Starting to write the first draft of a book about unschooling;
• Finding and implementing creative and non-traditional ways of making money;
• Publishing the second issue of DIY Life Zine, a self-published magazine;
• And helping to further the cause of freedom-based education in Quebec, which includes collaborating with people involved in both starting a freeschool and a lobby group, among other projects.

As you can see, my life currently revolves around both unschooling and writing, two things that I hold very close to my heart.  I feel like I'm following a calling right now, and doing what I'm really *supposed* to be doing in my life.  That doesn't include college, and that's quite fine to me!

I also want to address the frequency with which I see people, even unschoolers, putting a huge gap between pre-eighteen and post-eighteen life.  As if, along with the end of unschooling high school and the start of college, turning eighteen means there suddenly has to be a huge shift in the way you act, what is expected of you, and how you’re treated.  I know that leading up to my eighteenth birthday I felt a HUGE amount of pressure!  To be doing something vastly different suddenly, to be taking on a ton more responsibility all at once!  As if eighteen was a kind of magical number and age.  Yet, I was still the same person on the day before my birthday as I was on the day after.  Still growing and changing, yes, but not making any huge jumps in that growth just because I’d passed a day that a bunch of people have decided holds special significance!  I see much talk among unschoolers about allowing your child to grow at their own pace, respecting their natural timeline and not attempting to force an external measure of when they should be doing what upon them.  Yet many seem to think that philosophy no longer applies after age eighteen.  You’re an adult now: act like one!

I encourage parents to realize that there is no magical age, and that their kid is still the same person, and no matter what their age should not be held to any external measure of what they “should” be doing.

So, Where do I go from here?

At my age, people now want to know what I’m going to do with my life.  Because seemingly, a decision must be made before age 20, and changing your mind frequently, or heaven forbid, moving into and through adulthood without a solid plan, is unacceptable.  People think that you have to have answers: goals and 10 step plans and ‘where you want to be when you’re forty’.  The time to decide what the rest of your life will look like is now, so many people think.  Yet to me, over-planning feels stifling.  I’d rather take life as it comes, make short term plans only, try lots of different things, focus on what’s truly important to me at each point in my life, and just do my best to make things work out.  Sometimes, the sheer spontaneity and lack-of-certainty of this non-plan seems terrifying to me, but looking at people I admire who are in their thirties or forties and have basically lived this way for years gives me courage.  They don’t usually have much money, but they’re happy: and to me, that’s what’s important!  I don’t want to be rich, I just want to be happy, to contribute my best self to the world, to do good, and to live by and act on my personal ethics and morality.  To me that’s true success, not the gaining of social station or monetary profits.  

The power of life learning

In closing, I want to reiterate what I said earlier: that true life learning never ends.  We’re always learning, growing, and discovering.  And as unschoolers, we’re in a marvellous position to think, see, and live outside of the box.  I make YouTube videos about unschooling sometimes, and in one video I interviewed my sister.  One of the questions I asked her was what does she think the best thing about unschooling is?  And, after saying she can think of LOTS of good things, she said:

“You get to have freedom in shaping yourself, and I think you really come to know who you are and what you want to do...in life. I often encounter people in school with the mindset of ‘oh, this is just the way things are, well I’m just going to do this, I guess’.  I think not having that sort of close-minded, narrow path kind of outlook on life is the best thing you get from unschooling.”

If you know and trust yourself, if you feel confident in your ability to direct your own life, you have the tools to see where you want to be, where your unique skills and passions can best be put to good use.  You have the courage to change your mind, and choose a new path when the old one no longer feels like a good fit.  By giving children and teens the power over their own lives, you create individuals who can enact important changes in their lives, the lives of those around them, and the world itself.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with another quote by Wendy Priesnitz:

"Personal empowerment begins with realizing the value of our own life experience and potential to affect the world.”

Blog Button, Anyone?

I've wanted to have a blog button for a while now.  I mean, they're just cool, aren't they?  So with the help of my sister Emi (who actually knows how to use Photoshop) I (we) made one, and with the help of this eHow article, I actually managed to put it in the sidebar with a nifty code box so that you can copy the HTML and stick it on your own blog/site! If you feel so inclined, of course. Here it is!

(If you have a Blogger blog, all you need to do is go to Layout, then Add Gadget, choose the HMTL box, and paste the code below into the box provided. Voila! I'm assuming other blog platforms have a similar gadget.)






<center><a href="http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_09MeNbUN4hI/TKuajMU4NYI/AAAAAAAACHM/JRay5-xrjvk/idzie%27s%20blog%20button%20small.jpg" /></a></center>

P.S. Notice how the pictures are supposed to represent unschooling, vegetarianism, animism, green anarchy, and hippie-ism. I figured that was a good way to do things!

Also, if you notice any problems with it (or if you think the size of the button should be changed), please let me know so I can fix it.  Thanks a bunch!!

The Need For Schooling

I've gotten more negative comments on this blog in the last couple of weeks than ever before!  They have been kind of nasty (I think I deleted one, because it really bothered me), ignorant, defensive, and rather hostile.  Several have been responded to wonderfully by other commenters, I've responded to a couple, and some I've decided have enough in them that I'd like to really take the time to respond not only in the comments, but in an actual post.  This is one of them, a comment that was posted (anonymously, of course) on my post Unschooling is Forever Part 3: Isolation, Socialization, and Doubters.  The comment is in italics, my response in regular font.

Schooling and life learning are not mutually exclusive. Schooled children learn in a structured manner on school days for approximately 6 hours. The rest of their life is spent learning freely.

Really?  Only six hours?  What about transportation to and from school?  The hours of homework to be done after school?  It seems to me that school takes up quite a bit more time than six hours a day, and that for the majority of schooled people, very little time is left over to "learn freely"!

Not all parents are as patient and nurturing as you experienced with your mother.

Of course they're not.  But what other experience am I expected to write from besides my own?  I write and speak about unschooling from my own experience, my own observations of others experiences, and research (reading anything about freedom-based education I can get my hands on).  But, mainly, from my own experience.  I don't claim and have never claimed to speak for or represent all unschoolers: I represent myself only, and my mother is a wonderful, nurturing person.  I hope that comes across whenever I write about her.

However, there are lots of other unschoolers out there with very different experiences (though I'm happy to say the majority of unschooling parents I know are very "nurturing").  Some have bad relationships with their parents.  Some unschoolers left high school to unschool entirely against the wishes and without the support of their parents.  Each experience is different.

There are many children who benefit greatly from the structure and separation that school provides. In some cases there are sad situations behind that reality. In other cases, it just works well.   There are also many families who do not have the luxury of the stay-at-home-parent.

Now, I see a couple of points that need to be addressed here:  firstly, unschooling is NOT against structure.  What unschoolers are against is *forced* structure.  Unschooling is all about personal choice: putting the power over their own learning and life into the learner's/student's/individual's hands.  It's then up to that individual to choose how much or little structure they want in their lives.  Sometimes (fairly frequently, actually), unschoolers decide to try school!  Many end up choosing to leave again at a later date, some stay.  Unschooling isn't a philosophy against structure: it's a philosophy against force and coercion in the choosing of what and when to learn.

By sad situations, I assume you're talking about bad home lives.  I agree, that's incredibly sad, and in such cases, which are way too common, unschooling definitely isn't an option.  In low income families, again, I agree that unschooling can be extremely difficult, and even impossible, to do (I should mention that I do know unschoolers who either are on or have been on welfare, so some low income families definitely manage to unschool!).  But there's a reason I say I'm not just in support of unschooling, but of freedom-based education.  Under that umbrella of freedom-based education, I place both unschooling and something else called freeschooling.  The most basic description of freeschooling would be unschooling in a building!  Virtually every freeschool I've heard of is dedicated to accepting as many people who want to go there as they can, no matter their economic backgrounds.  This certainly holds true for the freeschool starting up near me, as the organizers have a strong social justice bent and envision something truly wonderful, community based, and inclusive!

There are many children who would not have the drive to learn to read, as you did.

Oh dear, here I do believe you're showing your ignorance in having never interacted with the unschooling community, and seen the results! As Peggy Pirro, who writes one of my favorite unschooling books, said:

“We learn because we want to learn, because it’s important to us, because it’s natural, and because it’s impossible to live in the world and not learn. Then along comes school to mess up a beautiful thing.”

And that's how unschooling works.  As humans, we're creatures who love and want to learn, creatures who will learn everything they need to function in the society they're born into, simply by being a part of that society.  However, when you dis-empower people by telling them that they're not smart enough, not mature enough, not trustworthy enough, to control their own learning and life, you create people who no longer know how to learn if not from an "expert".  Schooling creates people who look to a higher authority for the answers, and don't trust their own power.

I have yet to meet an unschooler who *didn't* learn to read, and at this point, I've been lucky enough to meet hundreds of unschoolers in real life, and dozens more online.  And yet at the same time, I don't think literacy, knowledge of math, or any other academic achievement should be used as a measurement, *the* measurement, of success for any human being.  Memorizing stuff, learning to read?  That's easy.  And there are plenty of very well educated people who are miserable, depressed, and suicidal.  Is being "educated", as defined by having a body of knowledge that has been judged the Most Important Things To Know by some far off authority, really the most import thing out there?  I'd ask instead: are you happy?  Do you have a knowledge of your own value?  Do you love?  Do you feel loved?  Are you living in a way that makes you feel good?  Are you giving your best self to the world?  These are what I would consider measures of success, not whether you can do algebraic equations.

Schools do provide a service to our society, even if all it amounts to is increasing literacy of our community.

If everyone graduated high school being able to read, then this might be a more convincing argument.  It might also be a more convincing argument if the tons of people who graduate high school and can read, actually all liked reading, instead of many planning never to open a book again if they can help it.  Forced "learning" (because forced learning is never as real or powerful as true, deep learning, chosen willingly) often sours the subject, makes it hard and boring and distasteful.  Who enjoys being forced to do something against their will?  When you come to something yourself, you come to it without the tangled web of negative emotions and experiences attached to something you were forcibly made to do.

It sounds like your objective is to promote unschooling as superior. What you should be doing is seeking acceptance of unschooling as an equivalently effective method for preparing our children to become productive adults in our society.

That's what I *should* be doing, is it?  I should tell you now, Anonymous, that I don't take well to doing things I *should* be doing.  Everyone has their own idea for what everyone else should be doing, and many feel no shame in sharing their visions of what an individual should be doing loudly and authoritatively with said individual.  Whereas me?  I'm a fan of listening to your own intuition, looking at what you need and want, what your community (human, non-human, nature) needs and wants, and then taking the path that seems best to you.

I believe in freedom: freedom from government, corporation, hierarchy, oppression.  I don't see unschooling as simply one option among many (should I unschool this year, or go with a private school?), but as a method of freeing individuals from a government controlled institution that's intent on turning out well schooled individuals, who don't question the status quo, and happily consume as an empty attempt at gaining fulfillment.  Unschooling isn't just a type of education to me: it's a revolutionary and joyful choice.

So yes, I definitely consider unschooling  to be superior to other so-called methods of education.  No, I *shouldn't* simply be "seeking acceptance of unschooling as an equivalently effective method for preparing our children to become productive adults in our society".  I have absolutely no desire to become a "productive member of society" (=cog in a very large and currently earth destroying machine), or to suggest anyone else do such a thing.  What I want to be, and what I see as being created by unschooling/life learning/freeschooling is *good* (kind, compassionate, passionate, strong) people.  That's my wish and my hope, and more importantly than wishing and hoping, what I'm trying my hardest to be and do.

There are so many children in our world that need schools. 

No.  There are so many children in our world that need love, and food and shelter, and acceptance, and support, and trust.  No one *needs* schooling!

Unschooling is Forever Part 3: Isolation, Socialization, and Doubters

Part 3 of a talk I gave at the Toronto Unschooling Conference.

Read part 1 and part 2.

Isolation and socialization

One of the reasons it took us, as a family, awhile to truly embrace unschooling was how isolated we felt: the fact that we didn’t really know any other local unschooling families.  I know that feelings of isolation are a problem for many unschoolers, who find the local community of school-at-home-ers don’t always provide the support and reassurance needed.  To unschool, for both parents and kids, can feel very difficult at times.  We all need to feel that we have a community, a “tribe” as some people put it.  People who think and feel similarly enough to you that they get it, and I think that finding that tribe is very important when you’re tackling living a lifestyle that’s different from the mainstream.  Finding this community can involve many things: joining Yahoo or Facebook groups, or becoming part of the unschooling or Twitter community online is a good start.  Going to unschooling conferences or gatherings, looking for local unschooling groups, or starting you own are even more important in my opinion, though.  Nothing beats face-to-face interaction, and being around other unschoolers is a truly wonderful thing!  So for anyone who doesn’t have a local group, I’d encourage you to consider starting your own.  I know that I was really surprised when I started a local unschooling group at just how many local families there were!  If you’re in a smaller town, there probably won’t be as many as I found in Montreal, but there are still quite likely a couple of other unschooling families within reasonable distance from you to connect with…

As much as finding other unschoolers can be difficult, finding people in general, the whole “socialization” thing that seems to worry so many school minded people, is not a problem, as every homeschoolers and unschooler knows.  Because this is such a big issue, in that pretty much everyone I’ve come across who’s against school-free learning brings it up, I feel like I should take a moment to address it.

I think we all know how untrue it is that those outside of school will lack in time spent with other people, if they so desire it.  And that’s the important part: if they desire it.  Inside of a school, children and teens experience a version of forced “socialization” found in no other part of life.  Whether they want to be around specific individuals or not, or whether they want to be around huge groups of people all day every day or not, they have no choice in the matter.  That’s just the way it is.  And being in this type of environment, from everything I’ve seen, is not healthy.  In every large group of random high schoolers I’ve ever been around, I’ve felt emotionally unsafe, and nervous about openly expressing myself.  The amount of politics, backstabbing, dishonesty, desperation to fit in, and social manoeuvring is always an onslaught to my senses.  This really isn’t meant as a criticism of schooled people, as much as it might sound like one.  Whenever I see school-free learners dissing schooled kids, it really bothers me.  I think it’s important to remember both all the wonderful schooled people out there, and the fact that even among the schooled social groups I would never choose to spend time around, it’s not their fault.  They didn’t choose to be in an environment where they’re often forced to be either a bully or victim.  That was forced upon them against their will: “for their own good”.

Good socialization, in my opinion, is making the conscious choice to be around a variety of people: choosing when to be around people and when to be alone.  Choosing to interact largely with people who lift you up, not knock you down, and having the freedom to leave people or situations that make you feel unsafe.  The option to interact with a wide variety of ages is another big bonus, and is something that I think is very important.  But ultimately, with socialization as with everything else, I think the most important aspect is freedom.  As Adele Caroll said:

“Forced association is not socialization.”

Dealing with doubters

It would be nice if socialization was the only thing that both strangers and loved ones frequently worried about, but sadly it’s not.  Doubters abound, and dealing with doubters usually isn’t much fun, especially when those doubters are people who are close to you, people you care about.  But, like it or not (and I’d generally say it’s a not), if you’re open about being unschoolers, constant questioning quickly becomes the norm.  However, though the repertoire of questions you get (over and over again) is pretty standard, the place individuals are coming from, the way they approach the questioning, differs more widely, and I think can be quite interesting… So I wanted to share something I wrote on my blog awhile back, about the different types of questioners you’re likely to run into…

What I've been thinking about today is the vast array of *types* of question you run into.  There are many different people that ask questions about this lifestyle in many ways, but there definitely seem to be some trends in what feeling is behind the questions.  Now, over-generalizing is rarely a good idea, and that's definitely what I'm doing, but most of the people who've asked me about unschooling do seem to fit (roughly) into one of these categories! :-P

1. The hostile questioner.  "Aren't you ruining your life?  How will anyone ever hire you if you don't go to school?"  This person is instantly suspicious and disapproving.  For whatever reason, be it jealousy that they never had the option of learning (and living more) freely, or something entirely different, they are determined not to believe in any alternatives to conventional schooling, and will do anything to disprove whatever you say.  Their purpose is not to learn, but to devalue the lifestyle you're living.  To invalidate it, and thus validate their own choices as the clearly Right ones.
2. The well-meaning yet ignorant questioner.  "But what about socialization?"  This individual is simply curious, and entirely uninformed, the questions asked being slightly annoying only because of how often you've answered them before!  This person hasn't usually thought through the questions at all, they're just repeating things they've heard before in regards to home and/or unschoolers.  They really do want to know more, and just haven't really thought much about any type of education, other than school, before.
3. The confused questioner.  (After having just explained unschooling) "So, is your mom a good teacher...?"  This person, no matter how many different ways you try to explain things, just isn't grasping the concept.  They're not confrontational or anti-unschooling in the slightest, they're just either very set in their ways of seeing the world, so much so that nothing else even computes, or you just think in a way that's too different from them, and can't explain things in a way that they'll get.
4. The cautiously optimistic questioner.  "So, you can get into university?"  The idea strikes a chord with this person.  They kind of like it, but aren't quite sure they should, and are worried they're missing something crucial.  This is one of the most rewarding scenarios for an unschooler who wants to share this philosophy with others.  This person is very likely to be helped by finding out about unschooling!
5. And, recently at the anarchist bookfair, I've been exposed to another type of questioner.  I'll call those who approach things this way the constructive questioner.  They're coming from a place that's already supportive of freedom, and their questions are intelligent and well thought out.  Their desire is to learn, and build on the basic knowledge they have, not to tear down the idea.  I found that quite delightful, and really enjoyed the panel discussion I was a part of there.

And that’s the end of the blog post.

Read part 4.

Unschooling is Forever Part 2: The Teenage Years

Here is part 2 of a talk called Unschooling is Forever that I gave at the Toronto Unschooling Conference.   

Part 1 can be found here.

How did my parents support me?

Unlike with traditional homeschooling (where a school-like environment is set up at home, and the main tenets of schooling are still adhered to, just on a smaller and more personal scale) unschooling parents do not become teachers.   Instead, they become facilitators, supporting and helping their children when needed, and getting out of their way when that seems to be the best course of action!  But what does that support actually look and feel like during different stages, and how does the parental role change as a little one grows up?

During what would have been my elementary school years, my mother, always a stay-at-home-mom, was very hands on, often suggesting projects, experiments, and crafts, doing them happily alongside us; answering, or helping us to find the answers, to any questions we came up with; making at least one trip a week to the library, where my sister and I would find a multitude of books, tottering out of the double doors toward the car with as many bags of books as our small shoulders could carry.  She was always available when needed or wanted, always happy to participate in whatever my sister and I wanted to do, be that a science experiment or setting up a Playmobil village across the entirety of my sister’s bedroom floor.

What strikes me most about my mother and the role she played, though, besides the fact she’s always been a terrific mom in general, was how very enthusiastic and genuine she’s always been.  She loves learning, loves finding new things, and nothing she ever suggested or did (besides those brief stints of attempting to teach math) was forced or duty driven: it was always done in honesty and honest interest, excitement, or passion.

Changing parental roles & relationships in the teen years

That parental role definitely shifts and changes once you reach teenage-hood.  As a teenager, obviously you’re far more capable of finding the answers to your questions, organizing social outings, and similar things.  So throughout my teenage years, my mother has really become much more of a friend, and someone who is a great sounding board to boot.  Bouncing ideas off of both her and my sister Emilie has been immensely helpful to me for many years now, and the discussions the three of us have are truly amazing and mind-expanding.  When asked how I learn, I like throwing out a bunch of verbs to try and get my point across that learning is everywhere.  But a type of learning that I really love is that of respectful discussion, and I treasure the terrific conversations I’ve had with wonderful people that have really had and continue to have a real impact on my life, how I choose to live it, and how I treat others.

Before my teen years we were definitely not whole-life unschoolers.  As I’ve said, we weren’t even quite at the unschooling stage yet, though we were certainly close!  But during my teen years, things have definitely looked a lot more like not only unschooling, but whole life unschooling.  I’ve marvelled at the amount of control I see, and especially used to see in my younger teens, among my schooled peers.  Constantly grounded for minor infractions of a long list of rules, strict and ridiculously (in my mind) early curfews, personal food choices entirely disrespected, etc. etc.  I’ve also always observed that the parents who wield the most control are also the parents most likely to have the worst relationships with their offspring: the parents whose teenagers are most likely to go against all of their rules, by simply going behind their backs and/or lying to get away with it.

In stark contrast, my own family, with no curfews and having never been grounded or had “privileges revoked” (note the quotations there), no fighting over homework or bad grades, my sister and I have a MUCH better, more honest, genuine, and joyful relationship with our parents.  And not only do we consider our parents to be allies instead of enemies, but so do our friends, who will speak openly in front of and too my mother about sexuality, drug use, and other normally taboo subjects with no worries of recriminations.  They trust, as my sister and I trust, my parents to behave more like friends than so-called authority figures.

And this is not to say that life has never been hard for me: my family, though we were practicing it, still didn’t necessarily fully trust in unschooling during my early teens, which was a really hard time for me in many was.  In my very early teens, being a naturally shy and introverted person, I was a bit of a hermit, refusing to participate in any activities and not really wanting to do much of anything, while at the same time feeling rather lonely.  At age 14, I agreed to try out the Air Cadets, and was part of that program for three years.  I went by choice and stayed by choice, and to this day don’t regret doing so, but it really was a horrible environment.  I feel like I got a small taste of what many people experience in school, as I was spending time three days a week in a highly competitive, hierarchical structure, where an individual’s needs and wants were rarely if ever considered important.  People were demeaned and bullied, and I never felt like I belonged, always felt like an outsider.  During my early to mid-teen years I struggled a lot.  I was often depressed, had feelings of low self-worth, thought I was uncool and un-likable for a while.  I wondered if unschooling was really a good idea, and if all the naysayers were right and I really would be better off in school.  Things didn’t look or feel very good.

Letting go of fear

However, the spring I turned 17 I was really starting to rethink a lot of things.  I left cadets, started reading the Teenage Liberation Handbook, and dove headfirst into any information I could get on both unschooling and radical political philosophy.  And I started to find myself.  I started thinking deeply about a lot of things, questioning things I’d never thought to question, re-evaluating the way I’d been living and thinking about my life.  That’s when I decided that not only had unschooling given me an amazing opportunity to really figure out the world as best I could; not only had it allowed me to truly get to know my self, understand my needs, and where I fit in the world; but I also started really believing that unschooling would be a powerful way of “getting an education” for everybody, as well as an important tool in social transformation.  I started realizing that the way I’d grown up, as well as the way all the other unschoolers out there had grown up, wasn’t just one option among many, but something truly special and important.  That we, as unschoolers, were proving wrong the widely held beliefs of what exactly education was and how you get it, simply by our existence.  Creating another model to live by just by living. 

So I started blogging, writing lots about unschooling and working out my own thoughts and beliefs on the matter through that process.  In the early stages of my new-found love of unschooling, I found it really helpful connecting with unschoolers online.  Here was proof that unschoolers older than me, grown unschoolers, were doing just fine, were doing even better than fine!  And when I started going to various unschooling gatherings (Not Back to School Camp, Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering, The Northeast Unschooling Conference), any lingering doubts I had simply disappeared.  The best way to convince anyone of the efficacy of unschooling, in my opinion, is to expose them to a bunch of unschoolers.  When faced with that, how can anyone not be convinced?

What my embracing of unschooling also signalled was my acceptance of being different, and my realization that fitting in shouldn’t be my goal, and wasn’t a goal that would ever bring me happiness.  Since that time, even though it’s only been a couple of years, I’ve grown immeasurably, most noticeably in confidence and outgoingness.  Really taking control of your own life and your own education is incredibly empowering.

Read part 3 and part 4.

Misconceptions About Unschooling

This blog was linked on an MSN Lifestyle blog called Embrace The Chaos (in a post about unschooling, of course).  Since then, I've been getting a LOT of hits from there, and a couple of slightly aggressive comments to boot.  But that's not what I want to talk about right now.

Because my blog was linked in the article, I broke my no-reading-comments rule, and of course the comments are filled with the same type of anti-unschooling rhetoric you find in the comments section of any unschooling article directed at the general public (one gem was "how do people have the arrogance to say that parents know what is best for their children?").  There are so, so many misconceptions out there, and most of the time I just let it all slide, but today I felt inspired to address a few of them:

Structure  One of the biggest misconceptions about unschooling is that it's about a lack of structure. It isn't. What it *is* about is choice. The freedom for the learner, the unschooler, to choose more or less structure as
they desire.

Un-Educating  Unschooling is NOT "un-learning" or "un-educating".  It's simply a different way of "getting an education" than most people are familiar with.  School is synonymous with learning and education for most of the populace, but unschoolers totally reject that idea.  Many unschoolers see school as an oppressive institution that turns learning (which should be joyful) into an unpleasant act that is more about memorization to pass the test than true, deep learning.  The word unschooling is used in the same way you'd use unbinding or unchaining.  It's not about getting rid of learning, it's about freeing yourself from schooling.

Unschooling Is Not New  In many articles, and if not in the article itself then in the comments, people refer to unschooling as a "fad": a newfangled idea that is sure to fail when these unschooled kids grow up.  What the people making such statements fail to realize is that learning from life (unschooling) is how humans have learned for the vast majority of our existence as a species.  Schooling, on the other hand, is pretty new, and thus the real "experiment" in education, not unschooling.  And even looking only at the last century, unschooling still isn't a new phenomena.  It's been around in it's modern form (as has the word unschooling) since the 70's, and there are hundreds of grown unschoolers (myself included) who prove that unschooling works.

Educated Parents  Many people, if they agree that unschooling might, possibly, in some situations, work, say that you must have highly educated parents for unschooling to be successful.  Well, my mother has a high school diploma, and nearly finished a nursing program in college, which is the extent of her institutionalized education (of course, she loves to learn things without the aid of school, and is a true life learner herself.).  My father is a university dropout, who for years has worked in jobs that usually require a university degree, proving that skills trump pieces of paper.  So to much of the world, I don't think my parents would look "highly educated".  What they are is very good at learning what they need to know outside of a school building!

To Be a Successful Unschooler, You Have to Be Motivated  Now this one I've heard a LOT.  Like, an insanely large amount of times.  It's right up there for me with the socialization thing (though I think socialization still wins).  This is what I hear most often from people who see how happy, articulate, and socially capable my sister and I are, so are forced to realize that unschooling must work some of the time.  But, to preserve their own vision of the world--and to make the years they spent in school/the years they're forcing their children to spend in school, worthwhile--they have to believe that it would only work in special cases.  That it would only work for special people.  People who are especially intelligent and especially motivated.  Now, as much as this is flattering to me as an individual in a sense ("you're really smart so it worked for you!"), this idea drives me absolutely crazy.  Because here's the thing: unschooling does not work for motivated people.  Unschooling creates people who are motivated!  The act of placing the power over learning and life into the individual's hands is both empowering and motivating.  If learning is never made into something unpleasant, then it continues to be something joyful and fun throughout life.  That's what this "motivation" people see in unschoolers really is: it's a joy in learning that is seen far less often among the masses in school. 

Unschooling Could Never Produce Doctors  Well, I know two unschoolers who are pursuing just such a path.  Know how they're doing it?  By taking the tests they need to get into their chosen program, the same as anyone schooled would!  Just because you're an unschooler and was never required to take tests when growing up, doesn't mean that you're unwilling or unable to study for and take tests when that's what you desire.  Remember, it's all about free choice, not lack-of-structure.

An Unschooler Can't Learn Anything Their Parents Don't Know  Where on earth did anyone get the idea that an unschoolers only resource was their parents??  Unschoolers can get the information they need from: the internet; the library; homeschool co-op classes; college classes; people in their community/mentors; cultural and community centers that offer classes...  There are many, many ways to learn every single thing they teach in school plus a million other things, while outside of the compulsory school system.

Now, there are enough misconceptions about unschooling out there to write a dozen posts (at least!) dispelling them, but I think that's enough for now!  I hope this will be helpful to at least some of the people who are just starting to find out about unschooling, and have landed on my blog to do so...

Unschooling is Forever Part 1: Beginnings

It was a really great experience speaking at the Toronto Unschooling Conference (and it was a wonderfully relaxing and enjoyable conference!).  I should know by now not to freak out over public speaking, because once I get over the pre-talking-in-front-of-a-bunch-of-people nerves (which fade about a minute in), I really and truly enjoy it!  I never thought I'd say this, but my experience in the last year has led me to believe that public speaking is lots of fun!  And the incredibly kind words of those in the audience make all the stress and worry that goes into doing it MORE than worth it. 

The audio recording of this talk will be for sale here sometime soon, unless I'm much mistaken (I believe the cost per talk is $5 Canadian), and I'll be posting the text of this talk in it's entirety here over the next few weeks.  Here's the first part!

I’d like to start with a quote by Wendy Priesnitz:

"I wonder why so many parents still want to keep their children hidden away in schools, when they could be learning in the wonderful, bright, ever-changing, always-stimulating real world."

How I became an unschooler

Before I was born, neither of my parents had ever even considered homeschooling, never mind unschooling. It just never entered their minds. But my mom was, and still is, a bit of a hippie, so she did plan to breastfeed. Because of that, she joined the La Leche League when I was born (or possibly before I was born... I’m not sure how those things work!). Now, my mom had plenty of gentle discipline, unconditional parenting, type books, I was never let to “cry it out”, lived in a sling for ages, and all those other attachment parenting type practices, though I don’t believe that term had yet been coined when I was born.  Point is, she was the type of parent who liked having her kids close by, and wanted to be very involved in their lives.

At the La Leche Lague, she was exposed to an idea she'd never really thought of before: homeschooling. And she liked it! Being the type of parent she was, she didn't like the thought of sending her little girl off to spend her days with strangers.  So she started reading and researching, and decided that she really did want to homeschool! My father, on the other hand, was less enthusiastic. He can be rather traditional minded, and he truly thought that school was the best place for a growing child to learn, so my mother agreed that they would at least try it out. So off I went to half-day kindergarten at age five! I didn't really mind it. Neither did I love it. I had fun sometimes, but I was always happy to head home afterwards, as well. However, partway through the year, we started getting strange phone calls. Obscene phone calls, actually, and when they were traced by police it was discovered that it was a kid in grade 2 making them. Sad, isn’t it? So that was enough to convince my father, and halfway through my first year of school, I was pulled out. That half year of kindergarten remains my only experience with institutionalized schooling.

We started out as homeschoolers, though pretty darn relaxed ones, and for years our "schooling" is a bit of a blur, I'm afraid. I was pretty young! I know that we had various school books and programs and similar stuff, to use if we wanted to. We did lots of fun science experiments, as well as watching Nova and Nature and similar shows avidly (I say we, because my sister reached school age with no one ever suggesting she go to school, so we just continued to learn together!). My mom always read aloud to us: poetry, stories, the newspaper, and I started actually reading myself at age 8 or 9 when my mother was reading Harry Potter too slowly for my taste!  I memorized poetry, and wrote both poetry and stories before I could even read (I'd narrate them to my mother). But what I remember most strongly from these years is how connected and good everything felt.  Playing for hours on end, hiking in the woods, making crafts and art, cuddling and spending time together.  Everything was tactile and immediate, a life free of lectures and homework and intermediaries between my young self and the learning that was all around me.  Throughout this time period, my mom would tell everyone that we were doing "child-led" homeschooling.

And in all that time, the only thing that was ever really treated in a non-unschooling way was math.   When I was about 11, when any existing control around that was let go, I’d say we became true unschoolers.

So, How do you learn?

Unschooling requires a paradigm shift, one in which you must stop looking at the world as a series of occurrences/resources/experiences etc. that can be learned from, and a series that can’t.  The world doesn’t divide neatly into different subjects, and you can’t tell right from the outset what a seemingly unimportant question, interest, or TV show obsession will lead to.  I learn from: wandering, wondering, listening, reading, watching, discussing, running, writing, daydreaming, searching, researching, meditating, hibernating, playing, creating, growing, doing, helping, and everything else that comprises the day to day happenings of my life.

Unschooling can seem like a complicated endeavour, growing up as we do in a society so thoroughly schooled.  A schooled outlook sees learning as something difficult and mysterious.  As Ivan Illich said:

“Schools are designed on the assumption that there is a secret to everything in life; that the quality of life depends upon knowing that secret; that secrets can only be known in orderly successions; and that only teachers can properly reveal these secrets. An individual with a schooled mind conceives of the world as a pyramid of classified packages accessible only to those who carry the proper tags.”

But in moving past that mindset, a more accurate question starts to become how can you not learn, and I truly think the answer to that question is that it’s impossible to live without learning.

Once you’ve realized that, unschooling starts to seem incredibly simple.  Because, well, it is!  Unschooling, at its heart, is nothing more complicated or simple than the realization that life and learning are not two separate things.  And when you realize that living and learning are inseparable, it all starts to truly make sense. 

Read part 2, part 3, and part 4.