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.

The Myth of "Social Awkwardness" Among Homeschoolers & Unschoolers

This bothers me to no end: the argument that if not in school, kids will naturally be something schooled folk refer to as "socially awkward".  I believe that every single person I've ever talked to who's against homeschooling has at least one story about a misfit homeschooler they know/have met whom they're sure would have been quite "normal" had they been in school!

Now, I should first point out that it's ridiculous to judge an entire group of people and an entire range of educational philosophies on just one or two people you don't even know very well.  And that there is a vast amount of proof that homeschoolers and unschoolers turn out just fine, as evidenced by thousands of grown un and homeschoolers.  But right now, I want to specifically address the whole socially awkward thing.

A few things come to mind when I think of why these people could possibly be considered socially awkward (oh how I hate those two words when put together):

1. Like any other skill set, social skills differ greatly from person to person, regardless of their schooling (or lack thereof).  For some people social interaction is extremely easy: they find knowing what to say and when to say it, how to behave around different people, to be second nature.  Others have to work hard at it: to make a conscious effort to learn what is socially normal and then work to be that if they want to.  How easily those skills come, despite what a ridiculously large amount of anti-homeschoolers have to say, does not make a person any better or worse a person for it.  It's simply yet another thing that varies vastly between individuals.  (As a side comment, I'd say I'm someplace between the really-easy-social-interaction and the really-difficult-social-interaction.  As are probably most people!)
2.  Sometimes people who refuse to dress or act in a way that conforms with societal expectations are considered weird or outsiders (this definitely overlaps with number 1, as well).  I'm thinking of some nasty comments on a video interview of Emi along the lines that because she's wearing a cloak in the video, she must not know how to "be normal"/interact with "normal" people.  I mean, that toooootally makes sense! (/sarcasm) And of course, blaming this phenomena on the fact someone doesn't go to school is pretty silly, considering how many schooled people have unique styles (though I must admit that in the interesting clothing and hair category, I think unschoolers are leading. :-P)!
3. There is a certain...type, I guess, of homeschooler I've come across, where the kids interact mostly or entirely with other homeschooled kids and often within certain belief systems.  This sometimes leads to teens and young adults who don't have the vocabulary of slang, or the (overtly expressed) knowledge of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that most other young people seem to.  This is then, apparently, interpreted as social awkwardness.

For those who fall in the first group, those who have a harder time socially, I have seen absolutely no difference between homeschoolers, unschoolers, public schoolers, or private schoolers, EXCEPT that the unschoolers who do have to work harder with social stuff are generally far more confident, far more aware of their worth, whereas the schooled people are often made to think that they're losers, that they're uncool, so have serious feelings of worthlessness.  Really?  That's what school has to offer kids that you're so upset un/homeschoolers are missing out on: making anyone who doesn't fit a very narrow definition of normal feel like they're a failure??

For those who fall into the second group, well, the same applies: if someone doesn't fall into that narrow "normal" category there must be something wrong with them. I find that view so sad and misguided, especially considering how the most respected and admired people in our society, not to mention all the revolutionaries and change-makers, don't exactly fit into the commonly held definition of normal!

For the third group, I believe negative reactions towards them shows a lack of respect for different social/cultural groups.  Because that's basically all it is: the differences to be found in different social circles, groups, and cultures! 

Of all the arguments against school free education, few are as aggravating to me as the whole socialization/weird homeschoolers one.  And few make as good a case *for* school free education, to me!  If schooled people have that hard a time accepting any differences, it begs the question of why people continue to value that brand of elitist "socialization"!  I'm quite happy to stick with the far better socialization I've received as an unschooler, thanks.

A big thanks to Kelly for being my copy editor for this piece!  It's better because of her.  You can read her work at her blogs Kelly.Hogaboom.org and Underbellie.com, and find her on Twitter at @kellyhogaboom and @underbellie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guest Post: Eat & Be Free

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

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

 ~Kentucky farmer & writer Wendell Berry

 

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

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

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

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

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

Today it looks like a Faustian pact.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You are not a stranger here.

~Alan Watts

Guest Post: Unschooling Everything

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

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

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

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

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

Unschooling and Anarchy

I don't really separate the different aspects of my life: every belief, opinion, and interaction is intertwined with all other parts of who I am and how I live.  So although I might not talk about it specifically all that often on this blog, my anarchist views--my belief that humans have the innate ability to control their own lives and as such do not need to be, and are happier without being, ruled--infuse everything that I write and think, including what I write and think about unschooling.

 My history

I find it interesting that my becoming anarchist went hand-in-hand with my embracing of unschooling.  Coming out of a not-so-great time in my early to mid teenage years, a time characterized by feelings of depression, of feeling like an outcast, and of not knowing who I was as a person or what I should be doing, I started reading extensively about both unschooling and anarchism.  And, not long after I decided, with both relief and a new found conviction, that unschooling really had been the right thing for me, and really was an amazing way of looking at and living Education, I finally found a political view that truly spoke to me, that felt right in the most fundamental way.

For me, the questioning of the education system--something so close to the hearts of so many people, something almost universally heralded as an amazing achievement for a democratic country, and the best way to Get An Education--and the realization that it was not only not the best option, but something truly horrible to inflict on the vast majority of youth, really startled me, and led me to start questioning all the other rarely examined or thought about aspects of society.

That questioning, starting with unschooling, was a process that led me very organically to rethinking almost every aspect of life and how we live in this world.  It was pretty mind-blowing.  So as you can see, for me unschooling and anarchy have always been tied especially closely together!

Unschooling

• Unschooling, or radical unschooling more specifically, is a philosophy that recognizes that children are people, too, and as thus have a right to control their own thoughts, activities, and by extension their own education and learning.
• Parents thus abdicate their role of authoritarian presence, dictator and teacher, in favour of becoming their children's partner, supporter, helper, and guide.  It removes hierarchy from the family unit, and replaces it with mutual co-operation.

Anarchy

• Anarchism is the belief that individuals are fully capable of being self-governing, so do not need to be ruled, controlled, or governed.
• Taken from An Anarchist FAQ "anarchism is a political theory which aims to create a society within which individuals freely co-operate together as equals. As such anarchism opposes all forms of hierarchical control as harmful to the individual and their individuality as well as unnecessary."

So to me, unschooling is basically putting anarchy into practice in daily life.  It's going past the philosophy and the can-it-really-work and proving that people, *even* children, are far more capable of controlling their own lives than anyone gives them (us) credit for.

Intertwined

Yes, I most definitely realize that unschoolers are not all anarchists.  Most aren't (though there are definitely more anarchists in your average group of unschoolers than you'd find in your average group of random people).  I just find that, from my point of view, the two philosophies are extremely complementary.  Both emphasize living in co-operation, living in freedom.  Both involve a lack of dependence on the State or other higher authorities.

At their core, what both unschooling and anarchy mean to me is living in (when possible), and striving for (when necessary), true freedom.  If anarchy is getting rid of all forms of domination and oppression, hierarchy and authority, then unschooling, the freeing of children from school and the empowering of children and teens by giving them back their own lives, is an important part in moving toward an anarchist, co-operative society.

As usual, I'm not trying to start any debates or upset anyone: I'm just sharing my views on things, and if they strike a chord with you, or make you think of things in a new way, or even if you just like hearing my perspective, then I'll be happy!

Peace,
Idzie