Emotional Health and the Power of Choice, or Why Kids Should be Able to Avoid Things

I've mentioned previously in passing that I think one of the benefits of unschooling is in the space it gives people to learn to handle things at their own pace. But I don't think I've ever said more on the subject than that.

So here's me saying more.

I think unschooling helps people to grow up as more emotionally healthy people, in part by giving them the opportunity to not deal with shit when they can't handle it.

I think it's important for people to have the option to avoid things when that feels like the healthy thing to do. What I mean by this is, for example, what I often did growing up struggling with anxiety. When a place or an activity or a person just made me too anxious, I could choose not to go back to that place or activity for as long as it took me to no longer feel anxious about it (whether that was a week or two or forever).

For others, it could mean not having to continuously deal with places or social groups where they're bullied, or things that feel too overwhelming.

Non-schoolers of various stripes are often accused of sheltering their kids, and while the type of sheltering that includes no sex ed and only teaching creationism might be problematic, the type of "sheltering" I favour is that of children learning to protect themselves by not dealing with more than they're capable of handling. Being able to make that call, instead of having no choice but to go to a place every single day where you might feel extremely overwhelmed and anxious, depressed, or be bullied and abused, is powerful. I'm so grateful for that.

I'd like to think I'm happily avoiding things that made me anxious
by practicing keyboard here.

Then of course you get a whole bunch of people saying "then how will they ever learn to deal with difficult situations?!" My response is that, firstly, why should anyone be subjected to harm, whether that's physical or emotional, if it can in any way be avoided? And secondly, that difficult situations and people are simply impossible to avoid no matter how "sheltered" a person is. What you can do is:

1. Not deal with actual abuse. No one, no matter their age, should ever be forced to deal with abusive people and situations. Ever. 
2. Wait until you feel ready to deal with something. Maybe it's impossible to avoid, but you need a bit of time to think things through, and prepare yourself. Everyone deserves that breathing space, if they need it.
3. Avoid the things that just aren't necessary. Maybe a certain activity is full of people who just love drama. Maybe you don't feel it's worth it to go to that activity, because it provides more negatives then positives in your life. So you can just, you know, stop going.

Because ultimately, difficult things are impossible to entirely (or sometimes even mostly) avoid. Your friend groups will have fights and issues, you'll have to support your friend who's going through something really rough, relationships will end, you'll run into abusive people, and sometimes you'll feel that you have to deal with an environment that feels really toxic.

But what unschooling can do is let you avoid some of the worst situations and some of the unnecessary ones. It gives children and teens a lot of the same freedom adults have, to quit a job with an abusive boss or stop going to that quilting class where people keep talking behind other peoples' backs. 

I think that children and teens, when given that freedom, can't help but be at least a bit healthier, happier, and better equipped to deal with difficulties in more intentional ways. 

And really, isn't that what we should all be striving for?

Anxiety: A Memoir, or How Living With a Mental Illness Sucks

For a long time now I've been wanting to write this post. It's been rattling around for months now, as an idea, and as something I feel almost compelled to share before I can even think of writing other posts. But I haven't until now because, honestly, writing has felt so hard, and this subject is so scary. It's a real baring of my most intimate life and insecurities, and there's always the terror of  not knowing how people will react.

But now it's mental health awareness week in the US. It isn't here in Canada: our mental health awareness week is in May, apparently. But seeing posts about mental illness starting this week from various networks of mine, it felt like a sign, or perhaps more just the final push I needed.

I have a (or more than one) anxiety disorder. As for what precisely in that category of various anxiety based disorders I live with, who knows. I think generalized anxiety disorder sounds most accurate, my GP thinks panic disorder and maybe obsessive compulsive disorder. I haven't sought the official diagnosis of a psychiatric professional for some very good reasons that I don't want to get into here. And really, I don't particularly care. I only care that I can say "I have an anxiety disorder" because it can help me find people who understand, and because I really hope that people will take me seriously (though with how shitty people dealing with mental illness are often treated, I'm probably hoping in vain). I'm not just kind of stressed, or worried, or what have you. I'm anxious. All the time.

I've been making a conscious effort in the past year to be more open about my anxiety, but I find myself easily slipping into talking about it in a colder, more detached way, or simply in a super brief and non-explanatory way. I have an anxiety disorder. I deal with a lot of anxiety. It's not actually that hard to say that. What's hard is talking about what that actually means in my life.

I've struggled with anxiety for most of my life. As a small child, I can remember holding my pee for hours when I was out, because I desperately didn't want to use the public toilet. When I eventually did, if any part of myself, my clothing, or my bag so much as brushed any part of the toilet (or perhaps even worse, the sanitary napkin disposal box), I would just shut down. Any further enjoyment I might have gotten out of the day was ruined, and I'd barely interact with anyone after that if I could help it. Because internally it was all about that moment of contact in the bathroom, paying attention to everything that that contaminated part of my skirt then touched: side of hand, purse, knee. So that I could make sure that I washed everything that was contaminated once I got home. When other children would come over to visit, I'd hang around near the bathroom door when they used it, to make sure I heard them wash their hands (and would go to my mother panicking if I didn't hear those taps go on).

As you're probably starting to realize, anxiety around cleanliness has always been a big thing with me. Health, too, relatedly (those "signs of a heart attack everyone should know!" things that go around the internet are really hard for me, as hearing about horrible diseases/illnesses I might have often leads to my having to spend several hours or more talking myself through my anxiety, and convincing myself I'm almost certainly not dying of something awful). And really, when it comes to cleanliness related anxiety, I've gotten a whole lot better. I learned, over the years, how to cope a lot better, and there are plenty of things that no longer bother me at all. There are still lots of things I do on a daily basis, lots of habits, that keep my anxiety about cleanliness specifically at bay, but the only time I have major meltdowns or shutdowns about it are when I'm already struggling: almost always when I'm away from home (the place I get to have control over, minimizing triggering things), tired, in a new or especially stressful environment. When those breakdowns do happen, it can be discouraging realizing I maybe haven't come as far as I'd thought I had, but I try to focus instead on how very much progress I have made.

Which is really part of the reason this past year has been so difficult. I stopped writing so much on this blog because, as I said about a year ago, unschooling and alternative/radical education is no longer something I feel as passionately about. Or, more accurately, I'm just not interested enough in it any longer to focus as much time on the subject as I had been. But I didn't mean to drop this blog as completely as I did. That happening has more to do with how much my mental health went down the toilet last winter, and has stayed at pretty much toilet levels since then.

It confused me, at first, because my primary relationship to anxiety has always been through the specific areas of cleanliness and health, yet my anxiety around those things has been at fairly steady levels for years. That didn't really get worse. But the constant fairly low-ish levels of anxiety I was used to living with started going up. And when the anxiety you constantly. Feel. All. The. Time. Gets to a certain point, you start to no longer be able to deal with even the smallest stressors, and even getting out of bed, getting dressed, and leaving the house start to be really, really hard. Anxiety has always made those things more difficult for me than for plenty of other people, it's seemed, but this seemed to be new levels of difficult, or at least more difficult than I'd experienced in years.

Physical health problems I'd dealt with in small ways for years started getting worse and worse, until I finally realized that it wasn't normal to constantly feel weak, to wake up never feeling rested, for my shoulders to be constantly knotted in lines of tension, for my heart to regularly race, to feel dizzy, shaky, and short of breath every single day. The multiple headaches (some mixture of tension and migraine headaches) a week I've been experiencing for years started to feel harder and harder to deal with. I didn't know what was wrong with me, physically, because I never imagined mental illness could have such a huge physical effect.

When I was a teenager, I'd sometimes get panic attacks. For those who've never gotten one before, it's a feeling of absolute terror, like you're dying. My heart would race, I couldn't breath, I'd have hot and cold sweats, shake violently, and yet with all of that also feel the strangest sense of detachment (which I quickly learned was known as "disassociation"), as if I was removed from my body. My previous experience with panic attacks made it confusing for me now, as I wasn't having full-blown attacks so felt my anxiety couldn't be *that* bad, even if the fear of having one still came regularly with a racing heartbeat, lying in bed in those hours between 2 and 4 am, when everything is too still and all your fears can find you. But because I could talk myself down enough for the panic to not get that bad, I felt my anxiety couldn't be all that bad, right?

Until a scary and embarrassing 911 call, made when my hands cramped up so badly from hyperventilating that I couldn't move them at all. That, and seeing a doctor, something terrifying and difficult and a decision made when the terror of not knowing what was going on with my body outweighed the terror of seeing a new doctor, made me realize that I'd literally been hyperventilating daily, for weeks, and just been unaware of it. Tingling hands, shortness of breath, dizziness? Just a regular fixture of everyday life, and also likely what's known as limited symptom attacks.

It was hard to realize that most of the health problems I've been dealing with are almost certainly anxiety related. And it has been difficult, yet also felt very important and healing, to finally, finally stop minimizing and dismissing my struggles. After years of going it's not so bad. Other people have it worse. I mean, I'm not *really* ill. Years of missed opportunities and meltdowns and regrets all because of anxiety. To finally be honest with myself, and say: this is a problem, I'm sick, and neither ignoring it nor putting myself down for it is helpful or healthy.

And about a month after making that conscious decision, I am doing a little bit better. I'm hyperventilating a lot less, and getting better at stopping the panic faster. I've tried out some meds to help reduce the amount of headaches I get. I feel like recognizing I have an illness and realizing I need to make conscious, deliberate steps to improve my health has been a bit of a turning point, and I'm doing better. Not good, but better.

And now I find myself turning outwards, not being solely focused on internal struggles, but also wanting to communicate my struggles, explain to people what's going on. Which is scary, not the least of which because people often react in really unhelpful ways. Without knowing about my illness, people have been saying hurtful things for years. As I wrote in a Facebook note about a year ago, my first time publicly talking about my anxiety:

people say the most hurtful shit to me, without having the faintest clue how hurtful it is. People crack jokes about me being a clean freak, tell me I should have a clipboard/respond with a “yes boss”/otherwise imply I’m being unreasonable and bossy, and similarly make an issue of my saying “that’s not clean” or “please wash your hands” or “please don’t put that on the table.” Which makes me feel really bad, to the point that sometimes I feel like bursting into tears (though luckily I generally manage not to). I feel really self-conscious about how others see me and my anxiety, and the best possible reaction is for people to at the very least act like they don’t find anything I’m doing, or politely requesting that they do, odd. I don’t want people to notice my anxiety, and I REALLY don’t want to be mocked for it. My family can make jokes about it without it being hurtful, but unless you know me well enough to feel you have a really good idea of whether I’ll be hurt by your joke or not, you shouldn't make it.

It's easy for people to make such comments in ignorance, because if I don't tell people about my anxiety, they don't know. I'm good at hiding it. Seeing as I've struggled with it since I was 6 or 7, you could say I have a lot of practice. I've carried on conversations with people while hyperventilating, my hands shaking heart racing, and they can't tell anything is wrong at all.

But even when I tell people, even when they do know, people say the most insensitive things. Become Buddhist! Try meditating! Just take deep breaths! Don't worry! All of which, to someone who's been constantly anxious for almost as long as they can remember, can feel like a slap in the face. Thank you, it never occurred to me to just take deep breaths. And offering meditation alone as a "cure" feels to me like handing a bandaid to someone with blood gushing from their slashed femoral artery and saying that will make it all better! 

I'm not saying that religion or meditation or mantras or many other things can't help people deal with their anxiety, because it can, but for someone without anxiety to think they can solve someone else's extremely difficult struggle with a perky suggestion of a lifestyle change, as if it was that easy, feels more insulting and hurtful than anything else.

Now as I come to the end of this post, I'm trying to feel out what the purpose of writing this is. And it's that I'm trying to be more open about this struggle, because hiding it makes me feel worse, not better. Because I hope that by sharing this struggle, as someone whom apparently other people admire, I hope people carrying stigmas about those with mental illness can examine any prejudices they might hold. And because I know how very, very helpful it has been for me to know I'm not alone in these experiences, and I hope that other people can know that too.

I'll be okay. I have supportive people in my life, and I don't want any of you kind people to worry. I just wanted, as always, to share.

Learning Advice from a Learning Life

Learning is something very personal and very individual, so having found myself being asked for generalized learning advice, I find myself both eager to share but hesitant about what to share!

So I'll simply do what I always strive to do: write from personal experiences. Share what I've found to be important in my own learning and in my own life, and hope that others can find it relatable or otherwise helpful. Much of this seems really obvious, yet at the same time I've never actually sat down and attempted to list all the things I find most important in my own learning, and seeing it all laid out like this is proving really interesting and revealing to me...

Be comfortable learning just enough and nothing more

Read the Wikipedia article, and if you're satisfied with that, stop. Go by your interest level, and don't feel an obligation to learn a lot about a subject if you're not interested in doing so.

Be comfortable focusing on one subject to the exclusion of (almost) all else

Sometimes digging deep and truly immersing yourself in something can be a wonderfully rewarding experience, and leaves you with a very deep knowledge of something or a high level of skill. If something seems wonderful enough to you to do that, go for it.

Learn alone

Books are great. So is the internet. So are solitary walks in the woods.

Self-taught ukulele player

Seek out groups, teachers, or mentors to learn

Sometimes learning with other people really feels best (for some people often, others, rarely). Whether it's in a group where big interesting discussions can happen, or finding a teacher who can help you gain the level of skill you want to have, learning with other people can be wonderful. There's nothing that says just because you're a self-directed learner you can't direct yourself towards lots of other people!

Don't force it

If you find yourself reading the same paragraph half a dozen times because you're just not taking it in, stop. Put the book down. Maybe permanently, maybe just until the next day if it seems interesting again then. But I do find, in my experience at least, that anything I've ever had to choke down or really force myself through, I've forgotten. Every single time. That doesn't mean you might not want to force yourself through a boring chapter in an otherwise interesting book on occasion, or get through a not-so-interesting article online because it's the only place you've found to get that specific information you want. Just that if you're really not enjoying something and there's nothing forcing you to do it (as in, you're not studying for a test you really want to pass), then give up. If you're not enjoying it and not taking it in, what's the point?

Learn to quit

We live in a society that despises "quitters," and we're reminded of this in small ways on a very regular basis. Quitting is usually equated with "failure" (something else we're taught to avoid at all cost), when in fact quitting is sometimes the best and healthiest thing to do. If you thought you wanted to learn ballroom dancing, but then find you hate ballroom dancing class with a passion, stop going. If you loved a subject deeply and spent all your time studying it, but now find yourself no longer feeling it's draw, find something else you want to devote your time to. If everything you've been doing for years has been towards achieving a specific goal, yet you come to the realization that that's no longer a goal that will make you happy, let go of it. This is a lot harder in practice than in theory, but I know I've found much happiness when I realize something's no longer working for me, no longer what I want, and choose to let go.

Ask for help

Even for unschoolers, who usually strive to learn from their community, asking for help can be hard (or at least it can be for this perfectionist unschooler!). But I've had to come to realize that sometimes, you really do need to just ask for help. People are usually very happy to oblige in sharing something they know about and enjoy doing!

Teacher-taught Highland snare drummer

Don't fear mistakes

Again, this is something that even unschoolers can struggle with. Personally, I generally hate learning brand new skills in groups, because I feel really self-conscious about not being good at something, and making mistakes in front of others. But as for the above, sometimes you really need to learn with and around others, and mistakes aren't something to be ashamed of.

Don't compare yourself to others

I fail at this one all the time, yet I always strive to do better at it. Don't compare your body of knowledge to other people, your level of skill in specific subjects, how long it takes you to learn something, or how you learn something. It won't help and it will most likely leave you feeling self-conscious and inadequate (or the reverse, and give you the mistaken idea you're smarter or better than someone else, instead of just that you have different strengths).

Don't let others' ideas about the right way to learn get in your way

If a particular way of learning something suggested by a friend, a teacher, a parent, or a book is working for you, awesome. But just because somebody says that X way is the best way to learn, doesn't mean it's the best way for you. Experiment, be flexible, be suspicious of anyone who says there's only one way to learn anything, and most importantly just go with what works for you.

What have you found helpful to keep in mind when it comes to your own learning? What advice would you give to others? As usual, I love hearing what you all have to say!

What About College?

I’ve been asked some variation on “are you going to college?” more times than I can count, and I don’t generally give a more elaborate answer than “no.” Occasionally, when pressed, I say that what I want to be doing (cooking!) doesn’t require a degree. Or that I’m doing more interesting things (to me) than going to school. But when I was asked that question online recently, I finally wrote a response that explains in more detail why I’m not going to university*, and that response has been re-worked into this post. You can also find this article posted over at Cooperative Catalyst.

So, am I ever going to go to university?

I don’t like to say never, because lots of things change, but I definitely can’t see myself going to university full time or for a degree in the foreseeable future. I’m sort of vaguely considering just taking a class or two sometime in the next year, or maybe, possibly, going to culinary school at some point, but I haven’t really made any decisions on either of those possibilities yet.

Why don’t I want to go?

As for why I don’t plan on going to university full-time, I have many reasons. A list of bullet-point reasons, even.

• There is nothing I want to be doing right now as a job or “career” or whatever that would require a degree, so the only reason (and this is a good reason to go to university for many people!) would be for pure enjoyment/learning purposes, which leads me to…
• I’m not very into more academic subjects, as a rule. Most of the things I enjoy doing tend to be really tactile and immediate. I like cooking and gardening and having one-on-one conversations. Sure, I like reading about feminism and social justice and radical education. Hell, a major focus of my life for a few years was reading and talking and writing about unschooling! But I sort of feel that what I really want and need to be doing in my life right now is just that: doing, not studying.
• I don’t enjoy learning-for-the-sake-of-learning (and having said that I swear I can almost hear a horrified gasp from lots of people in my unschooling community). For me to enjoy and take in information or learn a skill well, it has to feel genuinely important and relevant in my life and/or the lives of the people close to me, my community, etc. I’m very happily reading through a large book on fermentation (Sandor Ellix Katz is awesome) because I want to be fermenting more foods and beverages. I’m going to pick up a really awesome looking book (The Forager’s Harvest by Samuel Thayer) on wild edibles soon, because I want to be foraging a lot more with my sister come spring. Social justice issues, radical politics, and radical sustainability are important because I want to be a good person, act in as kind and non-oppressive a way as possible, live in a genuinely sustainable way, etc. University has always seemed to me to be so incredibly removed from the rest of the world, and I really don’t want that, or think that that removal is generally a healthy thing.
• I hate how inaccessible academia is. Both the price, though that is at least less of an issue where I am than many other places**, but also the very language and culture of universities and academia. Though I’ve seen and been bothered by this on multiple occasions, a specific instance that stands out to me was one time when I was at a talk, and this one dude just started bringing up objections and questions in the most ridiculously academic language you can imagine, and referencing books and authors I’d never heard of. As the conversation between the speaker (an academic herself) and the audience member continued, I had absolutely no clue what they were talking about. And I say this as someone who is generally read as well educated (by people unaware of my being an unschooler, since then of course folks start to think otherwise), a native English speaker, and someone usually considered skilled with words. It just hit me very profoundly that if this seemed inaccessible to me, how much more inaccessible is it to so very many other people? It just doesn’t sit right with me.
• Also, when I think of being in classrooms for some four years or more, I feel like I’d be trapped. I’m literally mildly horrified at the idea. It does not sound appealing at all.

There are more personal reasons, and there are far more nuanced critiques of the institution of university to be found out there. But from my perspective, those things are a very good overview of why I have no plans or desire to go to university.

Really, there are so many more interesting (to me) things I want to be doing right now in my life, things that are relevant and exciting and hands-on. No classrooms needed.

*I say university not “college” because here in Quebec, college (also known as CEGEP) is a between high school and university thing, and is not synonymous with university.

**In Quebec the average tuition per year is $2,519 (source: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/educ50f-eng.htm)

The Frustration of Being That Unschooled Person

You know, sometimes I'm overwhelmed simply by how much my priorities, ways of relating to others, and just myself in general, has changed this past year.

One big shift in priorities being the decision to no longer be as involved, online or other places, in unschooling advocacy as I have been in the past, of course. Because at this point? I just get so damn frustrated all the time with the way people look at and treat me, with their swift and wildly inaccurate assumptions, rude queries, and possibly worst of all, simply how much of who I am and how I behave is attributed only and completely to the fact I was unschooled  (am? I'm uncertain what educational labels I currently want to identify with). Especially when it's people who I think are cool and want to get to know better, people I consider part of my community, who seem to be (most likely subconsciously) doing this. It can feel remarkably hurtful to be reduced to nothing more than That Unschooled Person, whether deliberately or not.

Luckily, most of the folks I consider cool to start with really are nice folk, so that phase passes, but it's still pretty frustrating when it feels like this has to happen with most (though not all) of the more traditionally educated people I meet and get to know.

And yes, I do recognize that this happens for many different reasons to many different people. I could just as easily be That Anarchist Person or That Queer Person, I guess.  But, that doesn't really happen to me personally. It's always about unschooling.

I am just so tired of dealing with all that shit.

_________________

I was at a fundraising party for a cool art space last night, and the one unpleasant event to mar the evening was a person, upon finding out I'd never been to school, who somehow imagined it was appropriate to turn to me and ask me a math question. Everyone else at the table I was sitting at seemed as taken aback as I was! 

I got those types of very rude and condescending questions frequently while growing up, but this is the first time in several years that that's happened to me. I'm 21. You'd think that, even to the folks who justify being that rude to kids, that they'd realize that type of behavior SERIOUSLY crosses the bounds of politeness when dealing with adults.  I don't mean to imply that this type of behavior is more appropriate when it's aimed towards kids, and as an adult I certainly have a much easier time handling stuff like that. But it most definitely is more surprising and unpleasantly unexpected!

My response was simply and truthfully that I decided years ago not to answer any quiz questions people rudely asked me.

And hey, I gave them my blog address, so maybe they'll wander on over here and gain a better perspective on what unschooling is, and maybe even behave in a much more respectful manner to the next unschooler they meet.

_________________

For those wondering, no, my new level of frustration with dealing with other people's shit does not mean I regret unschooling. It does mean that I just wish people would get over it already, though.  I thought by now I'd be done with all the annoying questions and reactions, and it's slightly depressing to realize otherwise. I find myself wondering if people will still be quizzing me on my math skills when I'm 40, or if by then they'll be too busy attempting to quiz my own kids, no matter how old they are, and scolding me for being so irresponsible as to unschool them.

_________________

Believe it or not, to give a bit of a life update, I continue to be really happy.  Life is good.  But this blog keeps floating through my head, demanding some acknowledgement, and pouring out a few recent  frustrations felt, for better or for worse, like a cathartic thing to do! 

Me being happy. See, I told you I was!

For the last couple of months, I've been volunteering with what's essentially a catering kitchen, that works to support a really cool new art and community space called Le Milieu.  It's a great project and group of people, and I'm so happy to be involved!

I've also been thinking, recently, about maybe taking a university course or two. Thinking about how much easier my life would be if I could just go through the bit of bureaucracy needed to get into university, and then check "university" off in the next set of little education boxes I need to mark. No longer would I confuse any government or otherwise bureaucratic organization, seeing how I seem all "educated" and whatnot, but not having that piece of paper to prove I'm good at memorizing shit and am thus truly "educated."  It shouldn't matter, and almost always it doesn't end up mattering, but it does take longer and lead to more confusion than I like dealing with. I don't know if I will end up taking a couple of classes, but it definitely is something I'm considering.

And in the meantime, I'll continue to do what I've been doing: work in kitchens, experiment with fermenting various things, hang out with friends, read good books, spend way too much time shopping in thrift stores (though not too much money, since I am pro at this), play music, ponder moving closer to all the action (aka downtown Montreal instead of the outskirts), and generally enjoy life.  I think that's a very good plan.

Making Transitions and Following Passions

The summer was just beginning when I last wrote here. The days were hot, and I was very happy for that heat. Summer is always a season with weather I very much enjoy. And now, the leaves are turning colour, the days are mostly cool, and the nights are downright cold. A whole season has passed, and I find myself thinking that it went both very quickly, and at the same time quite slowly.

Though it might be what you're hoping for, this post isn't about unschooling. Or, at least it isn't about the philosophy of unschooling, simply my own attempts to follow what I'm truly passionate about, and make my way in the world.

A whole season without posts, and somewhat sporadic ones before that. Quite a few people have expressed  disappointment at how little I've been writing here, and a very small part of me feels bad. I don't like disappointing people. But for the most part, I'm okay with it. Because honestly, I have to be open about how I'm just not that interested in  education/unschooling anymore. Not that I don't still care about it, just that I don't want it to be my main focus anymore.

This isn't a post to say this blog is ending, though. I would definitely like to keep writing here, when I feel moved to, and there are a handful of draft posts I really do plan on finishing. But I'm going to continue the recent trend of not writing here very often, for the simple reason that this isn't what's calling to me, my mind is mostly taken up with something else.

That something else being, as you might have guessed if you follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook, food. I love food. As in, really, really love it. Going to farmers markets is one of my favorite outings, lovely vegetables make me skip with joy, cooking something new makes me giddy with excitement. If I'm inside, there's probably at least one cookbook within arms reach. If I'm outside and not directly interacting with someone, I'm probably looking around spotting the edible plants I know, and wondering if the ones I don't recognize are edible. When I watch TV, it's mostly food shows, and if my family had cable, I would probably skip sleeping and just watch The Food Network all night, every night instead. I think you're probably getting the picture.

I like growing food to, because plants are awesome & I get food.

Lest this seem sudden, I've always really liked food, and enjoyed cooking for most of my teens years. And even this more intense passion for food has been around probably two years now. I guess what's mainly changed, as silly as it sounds, is that I've realized food can be my main focus. For some reason, that didn't occur to me at first.

It makes me a bit sad to see that alternative/freedom-based ed has gotten pushed to the side, becoming only one of many interests hanging around at the sidelines of my life, but at the same time, it feels good. What I really want to be focusing on right now, what I'm really interested in, is food firstly, and then radical sustainability, both of which overlap and fit together nicely. It's sad to realize that in many ways, an important phase in my life is over, but at the same time it feels so, so good to genuinely and truly know what I want to be doing. I don't feel like I'm floundering anymore. I might still not know how to go about getting what I want, but now I know what I want!

So right now, I'm trying to get the experience and knowledge necessary to cook professionally, since I really want to be doing that. I've looked into culinary schools, but most aren't really what I'm looking for, and the couple that look interesting are very pricey. Besides, I'm not even really sure that route feels like the one I'd like to take. What I'd really love to do is find some type of apprenticeship or internship type situation, with someone/some restaurant into vegetarian or local/sustainable food. Or possibly bread baking. Though I'm pretty flexible: as long as it's high quality cooking being done, and I don't have to personally do butchering or deal with raw meat, I'm good. An apprenticeship to me would be ideal! So, you know, if any readers have any ideas on how to pursue that, I would be very, very grateful if you'd share them!

When it comes to simply writing online, I think what feels best for me right now is to remain fairly quiet other than occasional posts on this blog. I have considered starting a food themed blog, but I've started so many failed blogs, I don't just want to add another to the list, since I'm really not sure I'd keep it up. I am trying to write down recipes, and write about cool food related experiences, so maybe if I collect enough of those I'll decide a blog might be in order. We'll see. Until then, I still post frequently, though now mostly about food, on Twitter, and if enough people are interested in reading short food-related updates, recipes, and food links, I could always start a Facebook page devoted to that (since I prefer to keep my private Facebook page, where I do a fair bit of that, private)!

I feel a need to thank all you readers for all the encouragement and support and enthusiasm you've shared with me over the years. I'm deeply, profoundly grateful for you all! And I hope, as I make transitions in my life and follow new passions, that you'll choose to stick around so we can continue to connect with each other, share experiences, and all that other stuff that's made me so highly value blogging, and the other online communities I'm a part of!

With best wishes,
Idzie

Occupy Education Conference Talk

I wrote a fairly short introductory talk on unschooling for an event that happened last weekend, the Occupy Education conference. The attendees were a mix of homeschooling and unschooling parents, striking university students (there's a pretty incredible social movement going on here in Quebec. Google "Quebec student strike" and you'll find lots of info!), and educators. It went really well. Lots of interesting group and one-on-one discussions! And since most readers couldn't be there, I wanted to at least share the talk I wrote. It's nothing I haven't said before, but I hope you'll enjoy reading it nonetheless.

My name is Idzie, and I'm a kindergarten drop-out.

The early years

When my parents first took me out of school, they had the idea that they'd homeschool me. And most people have at least a vague idea of what homeschooling is (though they usually also have a whole bunch of misconceptions). Instead of being taught by teachers, kids are taught by their parents. Usually at least some curriculum, bought or put together by the parents, is used, and, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the family, you do school at home. That's the idea that we started with. But my mother always trusted a lot in the innate ability of children to learn, so from the beginning we were very relaxed homeschoolers, and by that I mean that there wasn't a curriculum that my sister (who also didn't go to school) and I were expected to, but my parents still expected us to work on certain "school" subjects, namely math.

As we grew older, those expectations started to dissapear, and I finally said no, I'm no longer going to use those math textbooks, which is when I'd say we truly became unschoolers. I was probably around 10 or 11.

What is unschooling?

Unschooling, on the other hand, is something that people know less about.  It can be described in several different ways, all accurate, just different. I've decided to share this passage from my blog, slightly changed from the original, because I think it's the most thorough description of unschooling that I've ever written.

Version #1: Unschooling, which is considered a type of homeschooling, is student directed learning, which means the child or teen learns whatever they want, whenever they want. Learning is entirely interest driven, not dictated or directed by an external curriculum, by teachers, or by parents. For an unschooler, life is their classroom.

Version #2: 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 every aspect of my life, every activity I do, be it discussing politics with a friend, gardening, reading a novel, or simply daydreaming. 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.

A rise in popularity

Unschooling, or life learning, as some prefer to call it, is the oldest type of learning there is. It existed long before anyone came up with the idea of putting everyone under a certain age into a single building, deciding that they'd best learn how to function in the rest of the world by staying in that building for a number of years. Even the modern unschooling movement has been around since the 70s (when the term "unschooling" was coined by John Holt), yet I've seen a marked increase in interest in this philosophy in my lifetime, and especially in the last few years. There's been a lot more media attention, with a myriad of TV spots and articles from sources across North America. More unschooling conferences are popping up, and people are even starting to recognize the term, even if they're still not sure what it means! I feel this increased interest is a very positive thing, and shows how dissatisfied so many people are with the current system.

Misconceptions and important questions

With the added exposure to unschooling--usually exposure that's presented in a very misleading and sensationalized way--comes a lot of misconceptions about the concept, and it gives rise to a ton of different questions. I'd like to address a few of the ones I've encountered most frequently, just to get them out of the way right from the beginning!

Many people think because unschooling parents or caregivers don't enforce an educational structure on their children, that unschooling automatically means there is no structure, which isn't true at all. Since unschooling puts learning into the hands of the learners themselves, they can and do choose as much or as little structure as they personally want. Thus, from the outside, it might even look like what some unschoolers are doing is school: with a curriculum, a schedule, and classes they take through their homeschool co-op. The difference is that that structure is freely chosen by the learner. They've decided that's the way they learn best, and the way they feel happiest learning. By the same token, unschooling parents may suggest various classes or structured activities, and the learner is free to say yes or no. Unschooling doesn't mean no textbooks or classes, it just means no textbooks or classes unless you want them!

It's also common to believe that, because unschooling parents don't usually "teach" their children (though they may if their children ask them to), that they're uninvolved in their lives and in their learning, which couldn't be further from the truth! Unschooling parents are generally extremely involved, helping their children navigate the world, exposing them to interesting things, helping them access various resources from books to classes to mentors, and in many cases simply sharing in the discovery and wonder their children experience in their daily lives.

And sometimes, people like to say that unschooling would only work with motivated individuals. That only a few especially intelligent or special people could "succeed" with unschooling. And I really couldn't disagree more! I'm not especially motivated or especially special (though I suppose it's flattering that so many people seem to think so). What people fail to realize is that, if nothing gets in the way of the joy, people really love learning. Humans are good at learning, and, empowered by how trusted they are with their own education, unschoolers are motivated to learn. So it's not that motivated people are particularly suited to unschooling, but that unschooling creates motivated people. That learning may not always, or even often, look like the education you'd find in school, but it's most definitely learning.

"If kids get to choose what they do, all they'll ever do is play video games and read comics!", people say, which doesn't take several things into account. First, that those activities have worth, and much can be learned from them. I've heard of some kids who learned to read by reading video game manuals, and my sister has spent quite a bit of time in the past studying Japanese, thanks to an interest in Japanese culture sparked by Manga (so, basically, comic books). The second is that no one wants to do only one thing forever. Unschoolers may go through stages where it seems ALL that they're doing is one thing and one thing only. For a couple of years most of what I did was read novels. Eventually, I started wanting to do other things as well, and, in large part, I credit that time of intense and voracious devouring of books with the skills in writing I have now. It was all-consuming, but it was okay. It was good. Sometimes, people learn best by focusing on one thing for a while.

People also sometimes tell me that learning is hard, and kids don't like to do hard things. Yet babies learn to walk and talk without any forcing, something I'm sure is incredibly difficult. We're driven to be part of the world we find ourselves in, and are drawn to learning the skills we need to function in it. Sometimes learning feels easy, and sometimes it feels hard. Sometimes learning, whether it's harder or easier, is fun, and sometimes it's less fun. But if it seems important and relevant in our lives, and if we have the confidence and support needed to do so, we will learn what we need to learn. Though, again, it may not be on the timeline expected from those in school. I learned to read at age 8 or 9, "late" by many peoples' count, but it hasn't harmed my ability to read or write at all.

Where I am now

Now, as a grown unschooler, freedom-based education and unschooling in particular has become quite important to me. I write a blog about unschooling, I speak at conferences and similar events, and I try to share what knowledge I have on the subject in hopes it'll help others searching for an entirely different way of looking at learning and education. I'm also extremely passionate about food, growing it and cooking it and sharing it with others. Next year I plan to leave home and spend the year living in various rural areas, and working on organic farms. Eventually, I want to be involved in building a radically sustainable intentional community. I'm interested in feminism, non-hierarchal organizing and collective decision making, travel, and writing. There's still a fairly big gap between where I am now in my life and where I want to be, but I feel I'm heading in the right direction. Contrary to what some believe when they hear of unschooling, I do not and never have hated my parents for not sending me to school, or not "making" me learn. Instead, I'm incredibly grateful to them for the freedom I was given, and feel that because of that freedom, I had the time and space to figure out a lot of important things about myself, about the world, and about where I fit (and want to fit) in that world. And that's an important thing to know!

In conclusion   

If there's something from the philosophy of unschooling that I most want people to get, it's a realization of how capable humans are: children of learning, and parents and caregivers of assisting their children in learning. We don't need large institutions to teach us, or corporations to sell us "educational material," or governments, institutions, or corporations to tell us what we need to be learning. We're capable, as individuals, as families, and as communities, of controlling our own learning and our own lives. In empowering us with this knowledge, I truly believe unschooling as a philosophy has great potential in helping us to really change the world and how we live in it.

Teens, Control, and the Nature of Love

Possibly the article I've received the most angry and condescending reactions to, of anything I've ever written, is my post on teenage rebellion (especially when it was posted, with heavy edits that I did not approve prior to posting, on the supposedly alternative parenting site Offbeat Mama).  And several months ago when that same article was published on Scarleteen, another comment (which we chose to delete because of it's condescending tone and the perspective it seemed to be coming from) got me thinking about the most common (and often very angry) criticism of the respectful parenting of teens: the idea of boundaries.

I feel like the way people talk about boundaries is the same way they talk about structure: as if both are these external things that are very important in creating "Disciplined," "Educated," and otherwise useful (aka "Productive") human beings. Things that the good and responsible adults (parents, teachers, etc.) are supposed to construct and enforce.

But, the same way that structure, when it comes to unschooling, is a mix of the natural rhythms found in the home and community and whatever the unschooler themselves chooses to consciously build in their life, I think boundaries are often similar. There are boundaries, both natural and constructed, in all aspects of life. I feel like everything from physical space limitations and physical abilities to laws, rules, and money could all be considered "boundaries" of a sort. Many of these boundaries should be challenged and pushed, in my opinion, but currently they all do exist, to some extent, for everyone.

Yet when I most often see and hear people talking about boundaries, it's very specifically the rules parents construct and enforce on their children. It's most often in the context of "I can really tell your parents never properly enforced any boundaries for you!" Once, on the aforementioned Offbeat Mama publishing of my rebellion article, someone even said that "Kids need, and deep down WANT, limits and boundaries," which is one of those things that, when writing about it, I need to first take a deep breath before I can go on to calmly discuss and dispute it, since my first instinct is just to say "fuck you," which isn't very helpful. But the incredible superiority and condescension contained in such statements takes my breath away, and brings home to me in a very profound way how terribly teenagers are looked at and treated in this culture.

Every pro-enforced-boundaries discussion comes back to the idea that teens are not full and complete human beings capable of making their own decisions and living their own lives. They're irresponsible, "unfinished," untrustworthy, and otherwise faulty.  I have very little patience for the condescension, rigid attemtps at control, and outright disgust and mockery that teens regularly have to deal with, because ultimately, all of this is sending some very harmful messages: there's something wrong with you. You're not good enough. Because of your age, you don't deserve to be treated well and fairly.

There are plenty of rationalizations made for the treatment teens receive, of course. From the scientific there's-something-wrong-with-their-brains (instead of celebrating the difference as just another stage of life), to "they secretly like being controlled", also known as control as a sign of love. There was recently a discussion on Facebook about teens and access to the internet, with much discussion by some parents in the thread about spying on their children (literally going into their email and Facebook accounts, and looking at their web history), and informing their children they were spying because they love them. Now, I can respect that those parents really do love their children, and that their actions are driven by fear which is driven by love, but I don't think these parents realize just how differently their teens most likely see things. What I posted on that thread was:

Snooping on a teen's internet activities is every bit as bad as reading their diary, as far as I'm concerned. Both are WRONG and a major violation of trust. It's horrifying for me to even think of the betrayal I would have felt had my parents hacked into any of my online accounts, checked history on my computer, or anything else. Good relationships and open communication are what's needed to help keep teens safe, NOT creepy things like reading their email (and Facebook messages, etc.)!

The idea that control shows love makes sense if you're used to there only being two options when it comes to parenting teens: pay lots of attention to your kids by placing lots of rules and restrictions on them, or ignore them entirely and neglect their needs. But once you realize that there are more options than that, you can see that control as love is far from the best way things can be. And in a very personal way, if control equaled teens feeling loved, and a lack of control equaled teens feeling unloved, I, and all my unschooling friends whose parents didn't/don't parent in a controlling and authoritarian way, should feel resentful and unloved. Which is very, very far from the case, as most of the unschoolers I know have really wonderful relationships with their parents. If you have a relationship that includes good communication, which is pretty essential for good relationships of any sort, then the love will be obvious. The idea that control equals love is really just a botched version of attention equals love, and parents can be and are attentive, caring, and loving without being controlling.

People seem to envision a state of utter chaos if teens are allowed freedom in the choices they make and the lives they lead, and while I find that an unlikely outcome to say the least, I do think there's some kernel of truth to the fear. Teens are more likely to be risk-takers. Teens are change-makers. And I imagine an entire population of trusted, respected, empowered teenagers participating actively in the communities around them would really shake things up. There's a lot of adults who really wouldn't like that! But I think it would do the world a great deal of good to embrace the strengths and unique viewpoint that teens bring to the table. Teenagers are important. And their voices and experiences need to be acknowledged as such.

What are or were your experiences, as a teen or as the parent of a teen, with discussions around "boundaries," control, privacy, and similar things? How did the way your parents parented effect you, and what things do you consider positive or negative about the decisions they made? Leave a comment and join the discussion!