Another grown unschooler speaks about being unschooled

Here is a video I found by a grown unschooler upset by the recent negative portrayal of unschooling in the media.

Read Radio Free School/ Grace Llewellyn:Substitute 'life' for 'education.'

Grace Llewellyn is the author of the famous Teenage liberation Handbook; How to quit school and get a real life and education. She is the founder of Lowry House Publishers and Not Back to School Camp.This is an excerpt from a phone interview we did a few years back for radio on Radio Free School.

So would you call your approach to living and learning, if you had to define it, anarchistic? 
 

Anarchistic? Ten years ago I probably would have; but no. I don’t think I would use that term now. I’m not sure what term I would use. I would call it natural. Like looking for what is natural in a human being and even in creating a healthy society I would call it creative.

I don’t know if you are familiar with a book called Cultural Creative?
It’s kind of a hot book in this country in the last few years and it makes a point that we often tend to think in terms of classes. There’s the professional class, there’s the working class but that there is sort of a separate class- the creative class that’s shaping some new directions, that really doesn’t think in terms of conforming or fitting into society as it’s already established but rather thinks in terms of ‘how can I live my life?’ or ‘how can I learn in such a way that maybe I’m pioneering new ground, and creating a new society.’

So in that sense I would call it creative, natural- wanting to support a really natural way of learning and developing. I mean I could use the term anarchistic in the sense that it’s so much about leadership from the ground up.

You know, individual people discovering what’s right for them and following their own path rather than top down, rather than following a system dictating how we should live our lives and how we should learn.

I would love to see us as a society not thinking in terms of education but rather thinking in terms of life. I would love to see a very broad spectrum. I would love to see all of the fruits and vegetables in the grocery store are grown organically.

I think that we tend to see things in boxes, in categories that really don’t belong in boxes and categories. When people say ‘education’ I like to say, well if you substitute the term ‘life’ for education, or every time you say the word ‘education’ and ‘learning,’ substitute the word ‘life,’ and see how that makes you look at things differently.

In terms of our society, I would love to see us think less in terms of categories- over here we have health, over there we have learning, over here we have work. I would love to see a less institutional society, a more integrated society.

Sir Ken Robinson:Human resources are like natural resources- you have to dig deep.

The latest Sir Ken Robinson's talk on TED argues that not only is there a climate crisis we have to deal with, but there is also a crisis of human resources; as humans, we make very poor use of our talents.

Unlike the recent interviews and posts (bring them on folks) from unschoolers grown up who love what they do, SKR says most people he meets "endure rather than enjoy" what they do. When he meets that person in the minority who loves what he does, he loves what he does "because it speaks to his most authentic self."

"Human resources are like Natural resources-you have to dig deep. They are not just lying on the surface," SKR argues.
"We need a revolution not an evolution but a transformation."

Uhmm. Unschooling anyone?  Unschooling is about challenging the industrialized one size fits all model-challenging by its very nature what is unversally taken for granted-the norm.

SKR has it right when he says that "life is not linear it's organic." And so is learning and education; "We have to reconstitute our abilities."

"It's about passion; what excites our energy, our spirit," he continues.
We need to make the move from an industrialized, manufacturing model based on conformity ....to a model based on principles of agriculture, since human flourishing is an organic process we should be creating conditions under which flourishing it. Personalizing education."

I would like to use another metaphor-that of the hunter/gather model where we hunt for knowledge; where we stalk it, where we are aware of proportion, boundaries,where we take with these natural limits in mind, where we revere the world that we live in and give back what we take. It's more exciting,more of a challenge!

November:Our 14 year old daughter composes

http://idealist-vs-world.blogspot.com/2010/05/november.html

I have written about letting things stew as concerns learning; nurturing an idea,letting it germinate and not hurrying it. The idea that you can't 'help' a chrysalis along into becoming a butterfly- you can't prod it, poke at it and ask it, "Are you growing?" and checking on it to see if it is evolving fast enough, or well enough.
Another idea has come to me from this. The idea that we need to have space in our minds to recognize what is important to use. We need to make this space available and how can we do this if we are constantly bombarded with useless information (to us at least)?

How can we grow an awareness a sensitivity to the things that are meaningful to us when we have no mental space left after the day to day?
And how do we make this space available?

Lend your pen: Help German Home Educators

Many of you might be aware of the fact that homeschooling is still illegal in Germany. There is now an online petition to the German government, running until June 16th, requesting homeschooling to be legalized. Anybody can sign the petition, irrespective of their age, nationality or place of residence. Please help us get as many signatures as possible:
https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/index.php?action=petition;sa=details;petition=11495
All necessary explanations in English:
http://educatinggermany.7doves.com/2010/05/05/epetitionen

Read Radio Free School: Excerpt from the Aaron Falbel interview

"Rather than being an equalizer, school is the great discriminator, the great sorting mechanism." Aaron Falbel

Aaron Falbel of Thunder land, Massachusetts is an organic farmer, writer and works part time in a public library. Falbel had the great privilege of having known and befriended the late John Holt, who many people might have read his books as an educational and social critic, as well as the late Ivan Illich- who was a friend of Holt’s and “one who might have been one of the few people who influence Holt.”

The idea of education hasn’t always been around. Let’s talk about what’s wrong with it-what’s wrong with education?

Well, education has many functions aside from anything that has to do with learning or anything that has to do with the welfare of children. It has functions an I suspect that a lot of these functions have to do with the fixation that the authorities in any country have and that is a means of sorting people into winners and losers because most of us live in a hierarchal society- with very few good jobs, winner slots at the top and many more loser positions- bad or menial jobs at the bottom.

So society needs some mechanisms, if it’s shaped that way of deciding who gets into the high places and who doesn’t.

And education is the way in most industrial societies that we use to do that. Prior to that, it had to do with inheritance or lineage but now education does the job. And of course, we know that it doesn’t do so in a fair or meritocractic manner but in every society where such things are measured, educational achievement correlates almost perfectly with social- economic status.

In other words, the people who already have those scarce “winner” slots make sure that their children are the ones who succeed in school and sort of have a leg up to succeed in school and so they get into the good schools and get into those good slots.

Of course, there are some few exceptions where a poor kid gets into Yale or Harvard but that’s an exception-there may be 1 in 10,000. So education is necessary to work in the way it does- in other words, to distribute privilege unequally.

Education thus upholds a systematic injustice that our society needs in order to keep functioning smoothly. If everyone were to be winners, if everyone did all the work that schools says that their trying to get them to do, society would fall apart because society needs winners and losers and more losers than winners.

And the reason that kids are being forced back to school is because they want to make sure that this idea of winning and losing is stamped on them like an indelible mark and that they internalize that indelible mark- stigma so that they then blame themselves for not having made it.

That’s one of the reasons Ivan Illich saw the educational process as so pernicious because not only did it enforce this systematic injustice but it was a way, I think he called it self inflicted discrimination where you internalize the process to such an extent that you blame yourself. For not having made it; for not having been a successful at school.

You’ve written about education as a scarce resource. Can you talk a bit more on that?

Why do we have the idea of education to begin with? Why do we have to make special arrangements for learning if learning is biological process that happens in every human being? What Illich does, he defines education as learning under the assumption of scarcity.

In other words that valuable learning is scarce in society. Not something that happens readily. Because if we just left it up to chance or up to the personal initiative of the learner well they would not learn those things. So education is institutional arrangements wherein scarce knowledge is imparted.

It’s basically an institution that says we don’t trust you to learn, we want to make sure that you learn. We have to compel you to learn, coerce you to learn and if you don’t learn then it’s your own fault. We gave you our best shot. Today it’s almost second nature to believe that people have educational needs or learning needs. That they are born with learning needs.

Illich created a Latin phrase to describe this type of human being; he calls it homo educantus; the human being born  in need of educational treatment. And this is a fundamental believe of most people today: that just like we have a need for food and shelter, we have a need for education and if we don’t acquire this treatment then we are deeply deprived stigmatized and disadvantaged.

Illich calls this whole enterprise into question saying,"No we don’t have educational needs." That in fact we are natively equipped with all the resources to learn. We have eyes ears mouth, brains that are curious! Look at babies and young children- they hunger to be involved in everything that is going on around them. You try to stop a baby probably for safety reasons etc and they scream with rage, "NO. Let me do it!" They are upset if they are stopped from trying to do things.

This is a very powerful biological urge and the clearest evidence that we don’t have educational needs, but learning desires that are built into the essence of our beings and rather than being homo educantus we are human beings that are good at learning, at finding things out, innately curious.

Read Radio Free School

In our seven years of producing a radio show, we have interviewed many people about unschooling and authentic learning. Some of these people include Grace Llewellyn, John Taylor Gatto, Pat Farenga, Matt Hern, Wendy Priesnitz, David Cayley, Aaron Falbel, Jerry Mintz, Carol Dweck, Joseph Pierce.

Other interviews include 'pioneer' parents in the field of unschooling such as Sandra Dodd, Linda Clement, Marty Lane as well as fun interviews with authors Kit Pearson, Denis Lee, Gordon Korman etc.

At one point I had the idea to transcribe the interviews into a book.

I am revisiting the idea. As a start, I plan to post weekly excerpts from the interviews to give you a feel for what the eventual book will hold.

Stay tuned for some really insightful reading!

Self discipline and doing things we want to do.

The other day I got this question:
"Can you develop self-discipline when you unschool? I mean if you don't have to do things you don't want to do, how can you develop discipline?'

What the person meant was that schooling teaches you discipline because you have to do things you'd rather not. But if that were true, then why are there so many slackers in all areas of life?

And what is self discipline?

One definition is 'the ability to motivate self': the ability to do what is necessary or sensible without needing to be urged by somebody else. Having control of oneself, having will power. Note the 'without needing to be urged by someone.' The last time I checked, school is all about 'being urged' by someone to do something you don't necessarily want to do.

Ironically, in my experience, my kids and I learn self discipline by doing things we want to do.
How many people do the things they really want to do? How many folks say they want to write that novel, or become a world class chef, or complete that invention and get it out on the market, or paint those master pieces but don't have the time/money/energy to do these things?

Where is the self discipline to get the things they want to do, done?

It's discipline if you love something, want something and you strategically work at getting to that something. It's discipline to set a goal of completing your book -the book of your dreams, your baby and getting up extra early, or using your coffee break to write it.
The fact is, self discipline is more likely to take root and have more meaning when our kids set their own goals and when we model this sort of behaviour ourselves.
What do you think?

"the idea of university popped into my head"

Here is a guest post from unschooler, Stella of Not an Ordinary Teen blog.
Delightful!


When I was four years old, I was kicked out of preschool.

This is significant to me because it was the event that began my unschooling, the event that freed me from the school system, the event that allowed me to be who I was for the rest of my childhood. My parents had planned on sending me to regular public school from K-12th grade, just like everyone else, but after the preschool incident they re-thought their plans.

Now here I am, at age seventeen. After being unschooled my entire life and gaining a wealth of information and experiences simply by being free from the school system, I am now back to the very administration that started off this crazy experience. No, not preschool, but school. University.

In October, I got the GED. I was sixteen, and there was no burning reason that I had to get it -- I just figured that it would be “cool” to get an equivalent to a high school diploma. To pull this off, I had to study. I actually ended up teaching myself geometry and learning that my paragraphs had issues because they lacked structure. But it was all good! Even though I hadn't been formally schooled since preschool, I passed the test on my first try with high scores all around (and even one perfect score in Language Arts despite my previously unstructured paragraphs).

What was next? Well, in November I went to England and France for a few weeks to visit relatives, continued to spend multiple hours a week in the dance studio, and started writing a novel. December was largely occupied with the holidays, but I started a mural project and taught myself how to play piano by ear (with a little help from youtube).

Then, one day, the idea of university somehow popped into my head. I had always planned on going to university someday, but then I took a moment to ask myself why it wasn't possible to go sooner, as in, now. What was stopping me? The answer was, simply, nothing. I gasped at that concept for awhile, and then started to think about the reasons I wanted to go to university. What did I want to get out of it? Did I really want to enter the school system again after all these years?

It turns out that there's this really cool program at the university in town, where I could become a part time student and pick out my own classes without having to conform to what someone else thought was right for me. I looked through the list of classes, and was blown away. It was this huge resource right in front of me. Did I want to learn Swahili? Fine arts? African history? There were so many things to choose from, so much stuff I could do, and I got really excited. My dad said that it was like an unschooler's dream, which sounded slightly ironic since it was school, but at the same time, it was true. I had no idea what I was getting in for, but I was ready to try it and see what happened.

My first term started in January, at age sixteen. My class choices ended up being ballet, a basic college composition class, and a class that dissected the relationship between music and dance. Monday morning, I dragged myself out of bed, showered, got all my stuff together and took the bus to school.

That first day was overwhelming, but at the same time, incredible. I remember walking through campus, finding my classroom, sitting down and being absolutely amazed that I was actually there. This journey has been unlike anything I've ever done before, but it's proved to be quite the adventure.

However, I don't mean to make university sound like it's all fun and games. There are some things that I really dislike, but personally, the pros and cons seem to balance each other out to the point where there are more pros then cons. The first writing class I took was terrible. It was a prerequisite for any higher leveled writing course, and a requirement for all freshman. Needless to say, there were a lot of people who didn't want to be there. The professor was, quite honestly, a bit psychotic, and at one point she was failing every single person in the class.

In contrast, at the beginning of this term a different writing professor initiated a Petition to the Academic Requirements Committee in an attempt to get me into his already full fiction writing class. I was surprised and extremely thankful for how much he was pulling for me. His attempt did work -- I'm currently in his class and loving it.

In another class, a continuation of the class where we dissected the relationship between music and dance, I have moments where I feel like crying from sheer joy. The ideas that we are learning and discussing are concepts that sit so soundly in my soul. To bring them up to the surface and to even let them be understood by people who truly feel the same way about music and dance is overwhelming in the most completely fulfilling way. The professor himself is amazing as well, he finds the most fantastic resources for us to use and is more like a guide to learning then a dictator. He never went to high school himself, simply because he was too busy. He hates grades and stays as far away from them as possible. He has the busiest teaching schedule in the entire department, and yet he will always make time for us if we ever need help.

Right now, in the middle of my second term, this doesn't even feel like "school” anymore. I love that my ballet shoes are right next to my notebook, and that my day ends with slow plies at the barre. I love writing fiction scenes for the class to critique. I love, love, LOVE the discussions in the music/dance class that make me feel like maybe I'm not the only person in the world who is so obsessed with the arts. All my current professors are funny, kind, caring people. I am happy here.

Starting university at age sixteen is out of the ordinary, and a lot of people are shocked when they learn about this. Right now I “should” still be in my junior year of high school! But age has always been kind of funny to me. Why limit yourself just because of how long you've been on the Earth? Sure, there are some natural disadvantages to being young, but you should never ever be told that you can't do something simply because of how old or young you are. If there is one thing I have learned from being unschooled, it is that I can do anything I put my mind to.

Brenna McBroom:More time is more freedom

Twenty year old potter (and many other things besides) Brenna McBroom shares her views on unschooling, success and--well read it and be amazed by the eloquence of this mind.






Going against the entrenched mainstream belief that to have a successful life you have to get higher ed, can you define your idea of what success means?

To me, the question of success is inextricably linked with the question of how I choose to spend my most valuable and non-renewable resource: my time. In my mind, a successful person is one who utilizes her time to its fullest potential, relentlessly pursuing those things which she is most passionate about and which bring her contentment and satisfaction (with the caveat that those things being pursued must not have a damaging or detrimental effect upon humanity).

I spent a year at a small liberal arts college when I turned eighteen, and my reasons for going were as uncomplicated and misguided as ‘because this is what I’m supposed to do’. (This, ironically, after six years of radical unschooling. Socio-cultural messages are pervasive.) When I chose to leave after a year, it was largely because of the realization that my time is finite, and that I couldn’t sacrifice four years of it in pursuit of a degree that I might not ever use.

Are you working at things that bring satisfaction as well as $$?

An unschooling mom that I greatly respect is in the habit of saying ‘do what you love and the money will follow’. I started throwing pots on the pottery wheel about two years ago, keeping that piece of advice in mind. I did it because I loved it and because it fed and satisfied me, but the money has started to slowly follow. Right now it’s not enough to pay a mortgage or buy a Mercedes (or probably even a Hyundai), but it’s enough to help fund travel and my ceramics addiction.

I’m very lucky: my parents see this as a time in my life for me to be pursuing an education whether I’m inside or outside the walls of a college. Because of this, they are happy to assist me in funding travel, internships, and other educational opportunities.

You've grown up with hardly any institutionalized schooling. What have been the pros and cons of this type of lifestyle?

I would say that the primary positive result of this type of education is that my time is my own, to spend or squander as I wish; it does not belong to a teacher or an institution. Because of this freedom, I’ve been able to pursue the things that I’m passionate about to their fullest potential, without any hindrance, and I’ve had the chance to learn what I’m passionate about, what I love, through direct, hands-on life experience. I’ve also been able to learn in the way that I choose.

For example, I’m an extremely visual creature; auditory processing is not my forte by any means. If I had gone to traditional school I would have struggled while listening to lectures, but as an unschooler I could simply make the choice to learn things by reading about them. I can’t think of more important lessons, to be honest: learning how to learn, and learning what you love.

It seems to me that many in the unschooling community are hesitant to criticize themselves, which is understandable. However, I think that, in order for our movement to remain a viable and vital one, we much undergo a nearly constant process of self-evaluation and self-criticism as a means for growth. Because of this, I’ll cite a real and omnipresent ‘con’ that I’m struggling with in regards to unschooling.

I feel that a lot of new unschooling parents are very hesitant to do anything that resembles ‘controlling’ their children, and so they fail to stop their children when they are behaving in ways that are disruptive or damaging to others or the property of others. Unschooling conferences frequently feature the worst displays of such behavior; a damaging trend when you consider that such events are one of the primary ways that we represent ourselves to the ‘Muggles’.

To me, this problem is only one symptom of a larger disease; namely, that many unschooling parents passively accept the principles of unschooling as gospel, rather than actively examining them.

Do you like the world you live in? How would you like to see it changed?

I love the world that I live in. Were I to change it, I think I would alter attitudes and beliefs rather than attempting to change governments or institutions, because, in the end, it is the things which we believe and the values which we hold highest that shape our world. I would change the belief that qualification and ability are inextricably linked.

For example, in the eyes of many, the twenty four year old MFA graduate possesses more ability to instruct ceramics students than the self taught ceramicist who has been operating a functional studio for thirty years, merely because of his qualifications. I’m not saying that qualification and ability never come hand in hand; merely that they don’t have to.

I would change the belief that learning is hard. I would change the belief that success = money. I would cure psoriasis and give everyone a Snuggie; I mean, while I’m at it, why not?

What words of advice can you offer a young person who is not sure if school/higher education is the right place for her at the time?

Trust yourself! If you have a niggling, nagging feeling that institutionalized schooling isn’t right for you at this point in your life, then listen to it. College can be a wonderful tool to get you where you want to go, but it’s just that: a tool. It’s important to keep it in its proper perspective; that is, a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.

If you’re struggling with the college question, a good litmus test is to ask yourself ‘I’m planning to go to college to what end? What am I trying to achieve?’ If your answer is something like ‘because I want to be a veterinarian’ or ‘because it’s an efficient way for me to learn everything that I want to know about classical philosophy’ then you’re probably on the right track.

If, on the other hand, your answers are something like ‘because otherwise I’ll end up working in a fast food joint’ or ‘because I don’t know what I want to do with my life’ then I would suggest you do a bit more soul searching.

I learned through personal experience that college isn’t a good place to find yourself, and that there are much better places for that. Write a book. Save the rainforest. Teach English as a second language. Revitalize your community. Build a house. Live somewhere that you don’t speak the language. Read this blog.

Furthermore, never believe those who tell you that not going to college resigns you to a lifetime of ‘flipping burgers’. The perpetuators of this myth are usually none other than the school faculty and administrators who are completely dependent upon your continued support of higher education for their continued employment. The vast majority of people I know who have chosen to forgo college for the time being are doing amazing things like writing grants, traveling the world, working on farms, or doing web design.

Finally, keep in mind that not going to college NOW is not the same thing as not going to college. I believe that many people would benefit a great deal from taking a few years to experience and experiment with various occupations and lifestyles before they make the decision to attend (or not attend) a university.

'Ours' work.

My house is neat -on the surface any way and in select rooms. The living room, dining room and kitchen are always spic and span. This is because my youngest loves to keep things looking tidy.

Woe betide the person who leaves a butter knife on the counter or library books on the table.
If you peek into the bathroom-things can look a little grubby until I get in there and clean-I can't stand a dirty sink, a questionable toilet.

Dust, well there is often a layer of it on all the furniture but the hardwood floors are always dust free because junior likes to wield a broom as part of her self imposed unschool daily tasks.
My room; clothes everywhere due to a lack of closet space (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).
Kids rooms? Oldest -let's just say she lives in a 'contained' disaster zone mess-the mark of great intelligence and genius (that's her story and she is sticking to it). The other kids? They share. Middle kid has all her clothes meticulously folded in her dresser, books neatly stacked on a shelf, personal possessions in a neat row.
Junior, although tidy downstairs is messy in her own room.
So who picks up the socks? Who cooks the meals? Who does the laundry who does the dishes?
Oldest does supper dishes (we don't have a dishwasher). Middle does laundry (with a lot of prodding and nagging). Husband fetches.
I basically pickup the slack. Somedays more than others. I often feel like I am doing more than my motherly share but slowly I am seeing progress with the housework -which I refer to as 'our' work-all our work, everybody's responsibility.
The expectation has always been that they will help. I find it wrong to live in a household and not do your bit. I know there are lots of people who let their kids off the hook saying that they only ask them to help out if it is absolutely necessary(as in the need is irrefutable) but I'm not one of these people. I have no intention of being the family slave.
Now if only I could be joyful about housework-more meditative. Tips anyone?

Adding value to the community

We've talked about kids working for $$. What about kids work that adds value to the community?

Too often, kids aren't included in adult work because adults don't think they have anything worth contributing. But kids need to see adults at work: they need to be included in adult work.

It's not easy; we are afraid that they will break equipment, or not do things well enough for our liking. Sometimes the work we are doing -especially on the computer- is not something we can include them in.
I try to find ways to if not include my girls, at least let them know what I am working on.

At my job as a project manager for an environmental organization, my daughters will sometimes help flyer, staff booths, educate people etc.One of my daughter's (14) is a strong writer and she has helped edit my writing.

They also have their own work which is meaningful to them. The girls volunteer where they can whether it is joining us in cleaning a creek from the trash that has been thrown into it, or creating documents for an event, or making buttons to promote a cause. Another daughter (12) plays violin and volunteers to help beginner students of the orchestra she is a part of.
My 14 year old keeps her own blog about how she views the world.

All this I call 'adding value' to the community; contributing to the world they live in as opposed to just taking or consuming. What they are doing is work that is well and truly needed-not some busy work designed to keep them off the streets.

When we had our radio project, we were privileged to meet people from all kinds of jobs and occupations who loved what they do (you can still listen to past radio shows by following the links).

Now I am mindful of the need to continue seeking out opportunities for my kids to not only learn about all kinds of work but also to learn from other in the community people.

I asked my youngest today what she wants to be when she grows up. Interestingly she answered, "Self employed as a psychiatrist or a dog whisperer. Or both." Plus she wants to own her own bakery-because she loves to bake.
With unschooling, kids get more of an opportunity to explore their interests which often do lead into self employment as they grew older.

More Work

Someone wrote a comment on the previous post about there being laws against child labor. I think they were implying that kids working at jobs is a negative thing. The person missed the point of that post: kids delight in earning money.

Sometimes it's a necessity as it was for my sisters and I when we were growing up and there was no money what-so-ever to buy anything 'extra.' Even basics like toiletries came out of our own pockets. But we did not feel deprived nor sorry for ourselves; we felt proud that we could get these things ourselves through our efforts of babysitting and sewing.

In our North American culture where mum and dad pick up the tab for most everything, one wonders what will become of that sense of competence, not to mention the problem with kids feeling entitled to whatever the other kids are getting.

My friend, working for a thing adds value to that thing; it also evolves a sense of appreciation of what it takes to actually earn a dollar.
The subject of work is one worth exploring further: look out for more posts to follow.

Kids do Work

My kids like to earn $$. One teaches piano, the other babysits. My youngest is taking care of a couple of dogs. In the past she has made $$ by selling a zine called Kitty Corner at small press fairs. Now that her interest has evolved to dogs she is starting up a new zine that will be focused on dogs.

They have made money entering competitions in poetry and music (though not very reliable as a steady source!).
They will be doing weeding for my sister this summer as well.

I laughed when I read John Taylor Gatto's comment about growing up in Monongahela, Pennsylvania that, "if you weren’t earning money and adding value to the town by the age of seven, you were considered a jerk. I swept out a printing office daily, sold newspapers, shoveled snow, cut grass, and sold lemonade."
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/learn-as-you-go/take-back-your-education

What about your kids? What kinds of jobs are your kids doing to earn money?

Robert Epstein:Taking Teens Seriously

I always have at least 30 books on the go at any given moment and one of the books that I'd like to suggest here is Robert Epstein's newest book Teen 2.0: Saving our children and Families from the Torment of Adolescence. The landmark Program for Awakening the Inner Adult in Every Teen (2010, Quill Driver Books).

The title is an eye full for sure- but reflects much of what you'll find within its pages.
Reinforcing the work in his first book,The Case Against Adolescence), the new book is about the urgent need to stop infantilizing teens and start treating them as we would adults.

It's obvious that teens today have more money then any other generation before them, are better dressed, have unlimited access to the Internet, seem to be born knowing how to work technology and are generally allowed to enjoy their youth to lengths of time reaching into their 20s and beyond.

But according to researchers like Epstein, teens today, treated like incompetent children in maturing bodies are more rebellious, angry and depressed then ever before.
The thing I find interesting is that even when our kids are unschooled, there are still not enough 'adult' opportunities (like work) out there to meet their growing needs.
And being respected, being taken seriously is far from automatic outside the context of 'unschooled' situations.

It's tough growing up in this culture. One of my daughters attends grade 9 at a local high school. She is a proficient writer (years of lying on the bed reading, reading and more reading) and in one of her classes (geography), she was given a writing assignment.

But when she completed the assignment the teacher called her up to question her about the work. It was so well written, he thought she had plagarized it and was very hesitant to give her a deserving mark. A few other classmates who are good writers also received similar treatment. They had to call on her enriched English teacher to have her convince the geography teacher!!!

This is just a minor example of the way teens are held in suspicion. Guilty until proven innocent. Worse, they are not valued as a necessary and contributing part of our daily landscape- to the detriment of society.

In fact,teens as a group have more restrictions that prisoners or the mentally sick according to Epstein's research.

It will be interesting to hear the views of unschooled teens/grown unschoolers;
how the adult world perceives/perceived them; how they've dealt with an in-grained hostility towards teens. How they have overcome this prejudice.

"The time has come to end the isolation{from adults}. Young and old, we will all benefit by restoring the child-adult continuum that existed through most of human history in industrialized nations and that still exists in preindustrial societies today. The teen years need to be what they used to be: a time not just of learning, but of learning to be responsible adults," concludes Epstein.

Definitely worth a read.

Hi to Radio Free School Readers

There has been a wonderful increase in Radio Free School followers and I want to welcome all the new people as well as say "Hi" to the old and faithful.

For those who don't know us,we are a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 kids) and the way the blog started was as a vehicle for us to let people know about upcoming radio shows-back when we were still doing radio (we did the show for nearly 7 years).

By the way, you can still listen to our many shows by clicking on the links on the blog.

Nowadays, I,Beatrice, do the blogging mainly (and sometimes Randy too).
We look forward to your comments-we love to hear from you so keep the dialogue coming!
Warmly,
Beatrice
ps. This is a photo of a water fall close to where we live in Hamilton.

Really educated people.....

Okay,okay. So you can tell I'm a huge fan of John Taylor Gatto. Here's a neat excerpt from an article he wrote for Yes!about what, in his opinion makes a really educated person.

Really educated people ...

1. Establish an individual set of values but recognize those of the surrounding community and of the various cultures of the world.
2. Explore their own ancestry, culture, and place.
3. Are comfortable being alone, yet understand dynamics between people and form healthy relationships.
4. Accept mortality, knowing that every choice affects the generations to come.
5. Create new things and find new experiences.
6. Think for themselves; observe, analyze, and discover truth without relying on the opinions of others.
7. Favor love, curiosity, reverence, and empathy rather than material wealth.
8. Choose a vocation that contributes to the common good.
9. Enjoy a variety of new places and experiences but identify and cherish a place to call home.
10. Express their own voice with confidence.
11. Add value to every encounter and every group of which they are a part.
12. Always ask: “Who am I? Where are my limits? What are my possibilities?”

Other adults in their lives

I was chatting with an acquaintance about our kids and what they are up to when she told me about having the daughters of a mutual friend over for the night.
"They always come over," she explained. "If they are having a bad day at home, of if they just feel like hanging out over here the door is always open," she said. "The other night, we sat on my bed in pajamas and talked for hours."

Her son, the same age as the girls, regularly goes over to their house as well.
When I told her how much I loved that sort of interaction and wished it for my daughters, she exclaimed,"Oh good! So many people see this as breaking up the family."
It's a perspective I'd never have considered. I imagine that this kind or reaction comes from parents that feel insecure about their relationship with their children or are over-protective of their kids.
It also made me think about my own rapport with the friends of my own kids: am I a mentor for them? Am I approachable? Do I care about them?

In a book by John Holt entitled Escape from Childhood, Holt questions the institution of childhood and argues that, "not only is the modern nuclear family a very bad model of adult and social life, because so incomplete and distorted, but it is its isolation from the world that creates the need for models."

This is interesting; we often bemoan the lack of models for our kids but if we lived in a world where kids were not isolated from adults, but worked, played, celebrated side by side grown ups, the 'models' would be a given.

Holt continues,

"For many reasons children need a much larger network of people to relate to. The small family is so often unhelpful or destructive because it is so small. The relationships are too intense, too much is always at stake.... The family is so dependent on these high-powered feelings, so shut in on itself, so non-involved with others or with the community, so devoid of purposes outside of itself, that it is fragile, easily threatened by a quarrel. Human relations cannot be only about human relations. If there is nothing in a family but feelings, if it is only an arena for feelings, if its life depends on everyone feeling good about or loving everyone else, if the members have no other way of being really useful to each other, then it is constantly threatened by anything that might upset the good feelings, and perfectly normal differences and quarrels take on too much importance."

Like Holt, I think that children and youth need more adult friends. Like Holt, I'm all for recreating the 'extended family.'
There is one interesting part in his essay where he uses a poem by Robert Frost to illustrate his point. He says:

Robert Frost, in his poem “Death of the Hired Man”, put it very well. The hired man,now too old and ill to work, is sitting exhausted in the kitchen of a younger farm couple.The husband, not quite knowing what to do about him or with him, wonders why he has come to their house, since he has other relatives nearby. For answer his wife says to him -it could not be said better - “Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in.”Just so. Children need many such homes. Perhaps we all do...."