Just Ask

My upbringing led me to believe life was about struggle, the world is full of mindless droids that follow the status quo, there will be resistance waiting at every turn and I will have to fight to achieve any sort of positive change or success, even personal success.

Naturally, when I realized our assignment sheets from the charter school were having too negative of an effect on our love of learning and life, I was ready to go in with my tail bristled, to fight. I wrote our overseeing teacher an email about how the coerced reading, repetition, static assignments and worksheets have negative effects.  She wrote back asking what did I think would work. I wrote her about child-led learning, free-ranging, spontaneity, teachable moments, and integrated lives. Learning happens in every moment, at every turn. I wrote about how difficult it is to fit Ramona's mind into the public school package, how her backing off from subjects is often a preliminary to a breakthrough in that subject...

Later that day I head into the meeting triweekly meeting, I have that tinge of pre confrontation anxiety. After we go over her work from the last few weeks, the teacher tells us that, instead of writing our assignment sheet for the upcoming 3 weeks, she would like to write it at the end of the three weeks.  Basically, she is going to write the assignment sheets retroactively from now on.  My job is merely to jot down what learning activities we do and then she will filter that into a form that will please the powers that be. Wow. Sometimes I forget that I might be able to have my cake and eat it too (I don't like that saying, but I used it anyway), at least a little...

It's true: when you step out of line the are cards stacked against you. It takes a lot of finagling to homeschool children.  And it is MUCH harder than it was before compulsory schooling came along.  Children's culture has moved into the classroom, and it's extra work to find child spaces during daytime hours.  But things are changing a little, especially here in Sonoma County.  Montessori and Waldorf Public Schools, Independent study schools with non-compulasary classes...exploding numbers of homeschool families, along with groups meetings, activities, and support is growing.  Things are changing.

A society where the average parent feels that not sending their child to school is a viable option is a society I would love to live in. I homeschool because it is part of my utopia. I envision the future I would like to see, and then I live it right now. Living our future now is the only way I know to get there. The more of us that do this, the easier it is to move on to that future.

So, no more reading drills - we get to do reading on the fly. We changed our maps workbook into a study of culture and environment.  We're still going to do math by the book, its easier that way...I cross of pages whenever she does math activities on the computer or otherwise. We are free...freeish anyway.  The more the better.

So, I guess the lesson here is...ASK. You never know. The system may be against what you are doing, but the people in it are...people.  Not droids. At least not all of them. Some folks are in education cause they actually value education and they might envision a future not so different from you and I.



PS: In other news, I want to change the name of this blog. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Your house will look like its lived in

If a home is bustling with life, education, creativity and children... it probably won't be a very clean house.  It won't sit empty and alone all day, waiting for the family hubbub that comes at 3pm, or at 5:30 or 6 or 7.  It won't be like some homes, meticulous arrangements, as if a display case, showcasing it's inhabitants.  We have our art tables, hula hoops, a trampoline, and carpentry projects in the living room.  We've got a comfy chair in the dining room, so we can relax, cook, and chat all at the same time.  Sometimes R's room gets cleaned spic and span, but after focusing all that cleaning energy on one room, the rest of the house shows the neglect.

It's us too.  I need to work with R, but of course she is six and I am one (person that is). I was also never taught to clean as a child. I was taught to keep my mess in my room.  Our mess is always from 100 different places.  The legos go for a space ride and end up under the table of veggie starts, someone needs a crayon to write a note, and they leave it on the dining room table next the the hair tie I just pulled from my hair.  And R doesn't like clothes, so often strips in the middle of whatever activity and the clothes get forgotten...

If you spend half you time at schools and offices you have a maid or a janitor to clean up after you.  You also have your learning and work materials in another place.  The bulk of creation happens somewhere else.  Homeschooling, work-from home, artistic people have the cards stacked against them.

A creative mess is better than tidy idleness, as the meme says...below is R explaining about her messy room.  Not sure it qualifies as a "creative mess" or just the messy sort of mess.

In other news, I changed my mind about the Montessori school for the moment.  R made it clear to me that she doesn't want to go.  I tend to question her a lot.  I am always trying to make sure that I am not influencing her decision too much. I don't want her to think school sucks just cause I think it does.  I hope she learns to trust her inner compass.  She wants to talk when she feels like it.  Morning is her mellow time, not thinking time...  But I still wonder if she would be happier with  Public Montessori education.  I hear it's inspiring.

Dying Easter Eggs

Our first venture into natural dying with Easter Eggs seemed a simple way to get introduced to the world of natural dying.  (natural dying...noooooo..IM NOT READY!) Anyhow, didn't come out quite as we hoped. We learned a lot though, and I don't say that in a sad sort of way; we had a good time and really did learn a lot.  And hell, that's what we are here for. Why waste your time learning beforehand when you can learn during the process?  That's how we fly.  (I wonder if that is why it takes like 25 years for us to finish our projects???)

There are a ton of articles about dying Easter eggs naturally. And since I am not an avid product buyer, I decided to use what was around the house and in abundance mostly.  I tried some cranberry cocktail and grape juice, with some vinegar (they said it would work).  They say 2-3 tablespoons of vinegar per liter of water when boiling ingredients, so I just added vinegar to the juice.  I wonder if boiling would have made a difference.  When the cranberry juice looked to be failing at its job, I added a bit of red wine.  The juice dyes both came out grayish-lavender and grayish-purplish shades, perhaps leaning more towards gray.  Luckily we decided to decorate the eggs with crayon first to make them a bit more festive and interesting.  However, we were hungry when we were dying, so by the time we finished dying there were only 8 of the dozen left.

For green we debated grass or spinach.  Grass is abundant so we ran outside with our scissors and a basket.  For yellow I boiled the skins of oranges and lemons.  Finally for blue I boiled red cabbage.  The red cabbage dye came out the fastest, and we even ate the shell pink cabbage (now that all the blue had been boiled out).  It's interesting, cause when I have clothing made of natural dyes, blue is always the first to fade. Blue is so transmutable. The red cabbage blue was by far the most vibrant color. I boiled it for about 15 minutes in the water and vinegar mix and then let it cool.

The orange peels on the other hand boiled for more than an hour and didn't dye at all.  The grass boiled the same time and after soaking ALL night, turned the egg a greenish, orangish yellow.

Next year I will go with beets for pink, those things work.  When I was a kid, working in the blueberry fields at a neighboring farm, I would come home each day and eat two Ramens for lunch.  I always threw in a little slice of beet, so I could have pink Ramon.  Beets are the king of pink.  I have heard red onion skins are great for vibrant color as well.  I think I might try blueberries for purple, since they stain.  Turmeric for yellow....cause it stains too.  Maybe spinach for green.

I also want to try boiling the eggs in the pot with the dye ingredients.  I guess the drawback to that is that any crayon drawn on would be melted off.  Over and out.

Control

Unschooling is my main approach to homeschooling.  Sometimes its hard to give up that kind of control.  Unschooling requires that I have faith that my daughter will learn what she needs to, with out coercion.  Societal hang-ups tell me I need to "develop" her academic talents.  Like the West tries to develop the "under-developed" of the world into its own image.

R has taken on the academic with ease and always been "ahead" of in the race (that leads to the rat race); it seems I have set the bar at that level, always ahead.  The fear of average has set in.  I don't want to be average. I was an "advanced" child, I really had a lot of potential. Now I am just average. That's the mantra that plays in my head.  And I blame my parents.

Homeschooling shines a bright light on the structure and state of the relationship between a parent and child. And also how that relationship is intrinsically intertwined with the parent and the parents' parents; the whole ancestry and family history of rearing children.  Homeschooling has been demanding but rife with opportunities to grow as a person and give up pride, control, the need to be right, and the need to know how things will be. It presents the opportunity to embrace humility, self-discipline, right speech, trust, and hope. Because I am in contact with my child so much more I can't hide from our relationship. There is a real depth of work here. Choosing to interact mindfully with your child is a discipline. It's work. And it's rewarding. And then I will get it wrong and I try to shrug it off and try again with a sincere and open heart.  I just hope I start getting it right more often.

But yesterday was really hard. It feels like we don't like any of the same things. We are marching to different tunes these days. We have had a couple break-downs the last couple weeks due to her not wanting to do what we are doing.  So I try so hard to find something that works.  And I think it does...for a minute....then she balks and all falls apart. Or I fall apart.  Unfortunately I have had to work the last two nights, in the middle of the night.  I'm not rested.  Maybe her life is boring.

I called the Montessori charter school. I made an appointment to attend an information meeting. The next step would be a tour.  I asked if I could bring my daughter to the tour, and they said children do not attend the tour. Could I really take her education so far out of her hands that she wouldn't even be able to tour the school where she would potentially be spending the next 8 years?

I swallow my  pride and start anew.  I try something different. I tell her that I won't make her do anything, but that I need her to follow through. She says she will.  Will she be able to do that?

I remember when she was 2, and 3 and 4 and all I expected of her was that she be herself and I loved that self so much. She learned so well then, she never ceased to amaze people with her maturity and great personality.   Then I got tired, she felt pressure.  It started with this independent study school. Standards. Assignments. But I don't have a choice.  I need the support.

Today I feel I have it more together.  I am going to go to that informational meeting.  Maybe even the tour. Maybe it will instill in me once and for all that full-time institutionalization is definitely 100% wrong for her. Maybe it won't... Just for today we are homeschooling. I love our time together.

Second guessing.

Who protects the seed? 

Wouldn't it be nice to send Ramona away for the day, not have to think about where she is or what she is doing? To be absorbed in myself and what I am doing.

Shouldn't I go out and have a life? Find some adult love? Work full-time in the non-profit industrial complex so my student loans can be forgiven in ten years and I can have more clout in the activist world. Shouldn't I be making art (MY grown-up made-in-isolation Art)? And wouldn't I be so much hotter if I could go out and do all that hiking and biking and yoga that I would do if I didn't have to take care of my child so much?  The child that I invited into this world...shouldn't I be sending her away to be educated and molded by really nice strangers?

I have been second guessing myself a lot over the last year or...since R was born.  Fortunately, I've learned to live with it.  It's normal to have doubts when what you are doing is outside the norm, because living outside the norm is always work. People will rally against you or make you feel like you are just being silly. I second guess myself for fear of not a being a success, leaving a legacy, missing my chance while I am still young, not living up to my potential. We connect mothering with sacrifice.  It is self-sacrifice, but some amount of self-sacrifice in life is oh so tantalizingly fulfilling.

Success (with a capital S) is a sham.  Its part of a system that pits us against each other while leaving those who love the most and give the most in the dust. Success in our narcissistic culture is based on competition and happiness is based on consumption (or so they say). Are famous people more important than normal people? Are they more content or happy?  Do they commit suicide, do drugs or get divorced less? HA!

Unfortunately, though many are quick to blame the mother every time there their children end up "damaged" or "criminal;" we don't honor parents enough for their important, amazing work. The children don't belong to their parents, they are a gift to the world from their parents. While most of the country struggles to earn more buying power, parents are spinning the future.  And in many cases, schools are.

I want a life full of meaning and grace.  I want to live my deepest motivations and values. My heart and my intellect know what is best for Ramona and me...usually.

Success is happiness, meaning, love and the co-creation of a beautiful future. I plan to experience the richness of my life...it might be the only one I have.  I will experience the richness of motherhood, in everything I hope that it is...be alive. Deeply, happily, painfully and amazingly alive. And I am.

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -Howard Thurman

Learning Naturally with the Little Free Library.

R loves to watch PBS and the Create Channel where they build houses and cook, and they make it look real easy, too.  So R invades my tools and scatters them about the house. Whenever I needed a tool, I often found it missing.  Therefore, my just turned six-year-old daughter got a set of starter tools for Christmas.  Though toys are fun for the very small, real tools can also be added at a very young age.  Montessori has preschoolers hammering nails.

Of course R wanted to use her shiny new tools right away, so she started cutting and hammering at random. She then told me she was going to build a playhouse so I needed to go to the store and get some wood.  I tell her it will take a while because she first needs to learn how to build a playhouse (and I sure as hell don’t know how) and that I can help her do that.  She says, “I already know how to build a house.  You just take some big flat pieces of wood for the sides and stick them together, and then you put on a roof.”  Maybe I would have humored her with some shiny new flat pieces of wood had I a penny to spare, but probably not…

But I did realize it was time to learn some carpentry.   Not only is it an educational goal of my daughter’s, but it is also useful.  In permaculture they call it stacking functions. I call it living an integrated life. The more you produce yourself, the more competent you become and the less time you need to spend making money to buy stuff.  We already have a dollhouse and three birdhouses…so I went on a journey looking for something small and useful to build.  I considered a chicken coop or a rabbit hutch, but knew that that leads to chickens or rabbits and I wasn’t ready to commit to that. Then, I came across the Little Free Library and realized it was a perfect project for us.  We would build and promote "Take a book, leave a book" structures that fit in a front yard, by a sidewalk, coffee shop or park and are just big enough to hold 20-30 books that kids and adults can give and take.” The purposes of the libraries are to build community, and to promote reading for children, literacy for adults and libraries around the world.  As we build, mathematics have come alive in the real world, rather than fragmented in a classroom.  We also learn about social sciences and community and I can present and share values and morals with my daughter without dictating them to her.  

Examples of Little Free Libraries. 

So far our journey has been very interesting.  I picked the pictured model (mostly cause there were instructions on the website) and then I posted on a local community sharing/DIY email group that I needed help cutting some plywood into specific shapes.  Not only did I get response, but a women told us she would be happy to help and that she had some plywood laying around that we could have.  We went to her house and she taught us to cut the wood and even gave us the scraps for future projects.  However since she only had a circular saw, we were unable to cut the hole for the door.  So then I went to my neighborhood group and asked if someone had a saw that could cut a square within a piece of plywood.  We were then invited over by a neighbor who helped us cut the hole, then donated some caulk, clear adhesive, some molding for the Little Free Library’s door and some roof tiles. These tiles were the original redwood tiles from their house, built in the 1880’s.  They had just taken the 5 layers of roof off their house and found them at the bottom.

Needless to say, this project is truly becoming a community project. We are excited to see where it all goes and we will keep y’all updated. 

MY NEW BLOG! read me

Hello World.

I decided to write this blog because I like writing, because I outgrew my last blog, and because I can't believe there are so few of us (single-parent homeschoolers)!  Well I actually can believe it cause its true, but I want there to be more of us! I can't believe we live in a world that is so wacky that being unhitched, a parent AND the facilitator of your child's academic, physical and emotional education is so absolutely freakin' ludicrous.  This is especially true for non-religious folks like myself. The majority of single-parent homeschoolers have church support.

I wrote this because I wanted to encourage people to be bold, like I am trying to be.  Yes, it is hard, but it can be done and you can be happy doing it. And it would be nice if there were more crazy parents like me, cause I am sort of lonely.  So I hope to recruit more of you, in Sonoma County and beyond.  The more of us there are the easier it will be.  I have been a single mother since the birth of my child.

I wrote this to share my experience with others as well. I hope for this blog to be useful not only to single-homeschoolers, but all sorts of people. Especially people looking to live a down-to-earth, integrated, family and community centered life.  Many of the issues that come up for me as a single parent homeschooler are also issues of two-parent homeschooling families, single-parent families that use schools, and just people who like to learn together.

So, this is the first post of my new blog, though I have imported some of the posts from my last blog, the more useful ones. Those are the 2011/2012 posts.

BTW the reason "homeschool" is in quotation marks is cause schooling at home doesn't happen a whole hell of a lot. Also, by some standards, I am in fact not homeschooling. We could be considered taking "Independent Study." Ramona goes to a independent study charter school that holds optional classes between the hours of 9:30 and 1:30 twice a week. My daughter is in one of those classes right now as I type this.  I am so grateful I have this option close to me though it is not my ideal.  I would rather that I could offer the group learning situations though my community. I have received absolutely no help from my child's father to raise her, or from anyone else, so I need the help from Public Ed. But even if this "school" wasn't an option, I would have still started "homeschooling" or for a better term, "free ranging." There are so many resources out there, we need to use them, and keep demanding and creating more.

The day that it isn't such a rare bird that the concepts of single-parent and homeschool can hang together, will be a great day in an evolved society.