Quotes Make Me Happy

So I figured I'd share some!  Many (though not all) of these have been posted recently (as in the last month) on my Facebook page, so if you follow that you may already have seen them.  You also might not have.  Several of the quotes featured below were found in the book Walking On Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution by Derrick Jensen, which is very good (really.  You should read it!).

"On your own, you have to face the responsibility for how you spend time. But in school you don't. What they make you do may obviously be a waste but at least the responsibility isn't charged to your account. School in this respect is, once again, like the army or jail. Once you're in, you may have all kinds of problems but freedom isn't one of them." Jerry farber

"So long as we only believe in the justice of the state, of the law—made by those in power, to serve those in power—so long will we continue to be exploited by those in power." Derrick Jensen

"If you’ve told a child a thousand times and he still does not understand, then it is not the child who is the slow learner." Walter Barbee

"Grades are a problem. On the most general level, they're an explicit acknowledgment that what you're doing is insufficiently interesting or rewarding for you to do it on your own. Nobody ever gave you a grade for learning how to play, how to ride a bicycle, or how to kiss. One of the best ways to destroy love for any of these activities would be through the use of grades, and the coercion and judgment they represent. Grades are a cudgel to bludgeon the unwilling into doing what they don't want to do, an important instrument in inculcating children into a lifelong subservience to whatever authority happens to be thrust over them." Derrick Jensen

"Modern schools & universities push students into habits of depersonalized learning, alienation from nature and sexuality, obedience to hierarchy, fear of authority, self-objectification, & chilling competitiveness. These character traits are the essence of the twisted personality-type of modern industrialism. They are precisely the character traits needed to maintain a social system that is utterly out of touch with nature, sexuality, & real human needs." Arthur Evans

"The function of high school, then, is not so much to communicate knowledge as to oblige children finally to accept the grading system as a measure of their inner excellence. And a function of the self-destructive process in American children is to make them willing to accept not their own, but a variety of other standards, like a grading system, for measuring themselves. It is thus apparent that the way American culture is now integrated it would fall appart if it did not engender feelings of inferiority and worthlessness." Jules Henry

‎"School is indeed a training for later life not because it teaches the 3 Rs (more or less), but because it instills the essential cultural nightmare fear of failure, envy of success, and absurdity." Jules Henry

"A truth's initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic." Dresden James

"People don't mind being in prison as long as no one else is free. But stage a jailbreak, and everybody else freaks out." William Deresiewicz

"Schools have not necessarily much to do with education...they are mainly institutions of control where certain basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school." Winston Churchill

“School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught.” Ivan Illich

“Think of reading like riding a bicycle: One doesn’t consciously name the muscles involved or the particular actions required of each, or the parts of the bicycle, or Newton’s laws of motion, or the physics of gears, or the changes in brain chemistry associated with balance. One gets up on the seat and starts to pedal.” David Albert
"The founding fathers provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called education. School is where you go between when your parents can't take you and industry can't take you." John Updike

"There were no sex classes. No friendship classes. No classes on how to navigate a bureaucracy, build an organization, raise money, create a database, buy a house, love a child, spot a scam, talk someone out of suicide, or figure out what was important to me. Not knowing how to do these things is what messes people up in life, not whether they know algebra or can analyze literature." William Upski Wimsatt

“Children are not our own art products to be turned out well, but their own life work in continual process.” Jan Fortune Wood

"You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." Martin Luther King

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.  Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.  All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.  Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.  Begin it now." W. H. Murray

Why I Think Unschooling is the Best Option... For Everyone.

I think an easy to digest, and common, opinion about unschooling is that it's not for everyone, and won't work for some kids.  This is an opinion held by many unschoolers, and that's quite fine.  But it's not my opinion.

What that opinion says to me, is that some children have the right to choose, the right to live in a way that nurtures freedom, and some?  Some don't.  I believe that freedom, on both an individual and community level, is a fundamental right for every person and community.  So deciding that some children deserve to be given as much freedom as possible, yet some don't, just really doesn't sit right with me.

Which leads me to the fact that as far as I'm concerned, unschooling is the best choice for everyone, and should be the default.  By saying that, what I mean is that everyone should be given the freedom to choose from the start.  With that freedom of choice, it's quite fine if some kids or teens decide to go to a school, or to structure their days in a rigid manner, or not.  The key is choice.

Because I don't just see unschooling as one option among many, but as something that should be the default, sometimes I worry that people see my opinions as being somehow exclusionary or judgmental to anyone who doesn't unschool.  Yet I realize that not everyone is going to agree with me, and that I'm not going to "convince" everyone.  I don't expect all my friends, my Facebook friends, all the people I follow on Twitter, or all the readers of this blog to share this opinion.  All I ever attempt to do is share my opinions and experiences in an honest and authentic way: to share my truth as best I can.  And that's what I'm doing when I say that I believe that everyone deserves freedom, not just a select few individuals deemed worthy or capable of dealing with it!  I believe we all have the innate ability to make our own decisions, and to live consensually, these abilities just need to be nurtured and allowed to grow properly.

Update: I expanded on some opinions expressed in this post here, which may help clarify a few things that were brought up in the comments on this post..

Unschooling Questions? Ask An Idzie.

Thank you to everyone who gave me feedback on yesterday's post!!  Just wanted to let you know that there's now a page on the left sidebar entitled Have Unschooling Questions? Get Answers!

And she'll do her best to answer!

All the details can be found on that page.  (There isn't yet a donate button, but there probably will be one in the near-ish future.)

A Horrible Idea? Or a Good One...? Looking For My Wonderful Readers' Opinions!

There are five Ryerson graduate students making a documentary about unschooling, which is pretty exciting!  Today, I spent a little while talking on Skype to the reporter for the story, about growing up unschooled, and some other basic questions (they're still looking for both a grown unschooler and an unschooling family, in the Toronto area, who would be willing to be interviewed/filmed, so if you're interested, let me know and I'll put you in touch!)... 

Right after that, I started looking through my "to respond" folder, which stretches back several months, and feeling really guilty about all of the unschooling questions people have asked that I've yet to answer.
And then I started thinking how easy it is to answer questions on Skype.  How I both usually enjoy it more, and how it takes about five minutes on Skype to answer a question that would take me fifteen minutes if I were to answer it in email (thinking about phrasing and proofreading and all that.  When answering questions about unschooling via email, I feel like I'm just writing a private post!  No less effort goes into it.).

So I thought "hey, I can tell people that if they want to ask me questions, add me on Skype, arrange a time to chat through email, or just poke me if I'm online!".

But then, quick on the heels of that thought, came the thought that lots of people like asking me questions.  Grown unschoolers aren't always easy to find, and thus are in high demand when they are found!  What if that ends up taking up a lot of time?

At which point another idea came along...  What if I put up a donation button?  And said that I am happy to answer questions for anyone who feels a need to ask, and don't expect any compensation, but if you want to give me a little something for my time, if you have it to spare, that would be really great.

So the point of this post is simply to ask if you think this is a horrible idea, or if this might just be a good one?  I have this huge feeling that what I say is SO not worth anyone spending their money on, but if it's an entirely optional donation button and is just sitting there if people want to use it, then it's out of my hands and thus in theirs, right?

You can probably tell I'm very unsure of this idea that popped into my head a mere fifteen minutes ago.  So, your feedback is very much appreciated!

Asian Inspired Tastiness

Now, there are some things you should probably know about my food and cooking preferences before I jump into this post, and share a couple of (vague: I rarely measure) recipes:

1. I firmly believe that kale is the greatest leafy green ever.  It's one of the first veggies you can get at the farmers market in early spring and one of the last in late fall.  It's extremely healthy, and it actually tastes good (I should mention at this point that I'm not a big fan of most greens, so that's saying something!).
2. I love Asian inspired food.
3. I love tamari soy sauce.
4. I eating food in these awesome, perfectly large sized clear glass bowls we have.  Eating food out of them makes me feel all happy and cozy.

Now on to the food!

Stir-fried Kale With Quinoa

Pretty simple really: I chop up some kale (chopping up the leaves and stalks separately) and some bell pepper, cook it with tamari soy sauce, water, and a bit of this seasoning powder called Nonya (which is made up of onions, garlic, chillies, and lemon), adding chopped kale stalks first and cooking for several minutes before adding the leaves, then after another few minutes the pepper, to make sure that everything is cooked enough to become tender, but not too soft.  When done, serve over warm quinoa.  

Vegetable Chow Mein

About 6 smallish stalks of kale, leaves & stalks chopped up separately
1 medium onion, sliced
Some baby bok choy (maybe half of a head?), white part and leaves used, sliced
2 small red bell peppers, cut into smallish pieces
1 small hot pepper, ribs & seeds removed, chopped finely
A bunch of thin egg noodles (about 250 or 300 g uncooked)
Tamari soy sauce (I just add it by what looks and tastes right!)
About 1 tsp Salt
About 1 tsp Sugar
Olive oil or other vegetable oil, for cooking.
Toasted sesame oil

1. In a large frying pan, put enough veggie oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Add kale stalks (not leaves!) and let cook for a few minutes. (If I don't let them cook longer than the other ingredients, they end up tough)
2. Add kale leaves, onion, and hot pepper, adding more oil as/if necessary.
3. Sometime during first two steps, cook egg noodles as instructed on package then rinse in cold water and set aside.
4. When onions are fairly soft and kale looks nearly done add the bok choy and bell pepper (continuing to add oil on an as needed basis). Continue cooking for a couple of minutes, until bok choy and pepper are lightly cooked, crispy yet tender.
5. Put the cooked veggies in a large pot (I use the same one I cooked the noddles in), along with the noodles, enough veggie oil that everything won't stick, a splash of sesame oil, the salt and sugar, and the soy sauce.
6. Stir until everything is warmed through and the noodles are just starting to stick to the bottom of the pan, and serve!

I made this for supper tonight, and every single picky family member enjoyed it!

Garlic Noodle Soup

Veggie stock with some water, tamari soy sauce,  Nonya seasoning (powdered onions, garlic, chillies, and lemon), makes up the broth.  Then I fry (with a bit of oil then water added as needed) kale, bell peppers, onions, and LOTS of garlic (this is the type of soup I like to eat when sick) until tender, add to soup broth, add uncooked noodles to soup and cook until ready, then eat and enjoy.

Sushi Salad

This is what I eat when I feel like sushi, but don't feel like spending the two hours needed to make it!  It's pretty simple:

Sticky rice/sushi rice
Chopped up cucumbers, bell peppers, avocado, and any other veggies I like i my sush
Torn up nori (seaweed)
Sweet pickled ginger

And as a dressing:
Equal parts rice vinegar (seasoned or plain) and tamari soy sauce
A pinch of sugar
Wasabi powder to taste (I'm assuming fresh would be better, it just seems I only have powdered left every time I make this).

Mix it all up, and enjoy the yummy-ness!!

I love experimenting with food, never following recipes exactly, making up my own recipes, and just having fun with it.  I hope the stuff I've shared here can maybe inspire you to go make some yummy food of your own! :-)

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!!