Park day

Wednesdays are park days, the staple of any good homeschooling week. Today was a small group. We sat in the shade, and I sang to the baby while he laid looking at the trees and squawking.

#100happydays #200happydays day 9

Dragontree

My mom and a few of her friends started Dragontree park day, a weekly get together of unschooly folks in long beach, many years ago. I was one of the oldest kids when it started, and pretty quickly was too busy with college and stuff to go every week, but whenever I could I'd go back to park day. Recently I realized how important this group really was to me, and started making an appearance more often, and then prioritizing my schedule so I could go more and more.

Yesterday I brought Wyatt,  the first second-generation dragontree baby to his first park day. He's the youngest dragontree-er, but just barely. This is a picture of Tsiri, a mere four weeks older than Wyatt. Hard not to imagine them getting older and playing together, since they are so very close in age...

and then a hero comes along...

I've been asked a lot about my college experiences. It's such a huge topic for me - I started when I was 13, and went on and on til I received my Master's at the age of 27. I took many breaks for traveling, etc. I took a lot of different types of classes. I had a lot of experiences with other students. So the big question "what was going to college for you like" will have to be broken down into a lot of smaller posts. Here is one of them.

It was August, 1998. I was 13 years old. I was about to take my first college class.

The weekend before I had been at the HSC conference in Sacramento - a huge and wonderful conference (possibly the largest homeschooling conference in the US?) where I had just met and fell in love with the people who would be my best friends for the next ten years. I was pumped on their energy and creativity. I had had one shy moment, at the Friday night dance (the conference was a Friday/Saturday/Sunday deal - so this dance was at the very beginning). I remember standing at the edge of the room feeling awkward and weird and shy and then realizing that I had total control. I decided right then to never be shy again. I walked to the middle of the room, met some folks, and then proceeded to have a life-changing weekend.

So with this fresh in my mind - this decision to never be shy again - I still asked my mom to walk me upstairs to where my first class was. My mom has taught at Cypress Community College for the past 29 years. Some of my very earliest memories are of being there. She's taught at other colleges too - college campuses were a very familiar and homey place to me. But I still wanted a little hand-holding. 

We went upstairs to the 3rd floor of the Fine Arts department, where I'd have my first class - beginning voice with Helena Decoro. I still remember the teacher's name, because - like with everything else I did at Cypress, I did it all the way. I took multiple classes from her, and moved on from that voice class to spending years in Vocal Eclipse - a vocal jazz ensemble. When we got upstairs I asked my mom to leave me there - I had just glimpsed the room we'd be in - a big stage, piano, microphone - and I remember thinking "oh, right. I can do this. I want to do this!" 

At the end of that semester I sang a Mariah Carey song (Hero. I was thirteen, after all.) with live musical accompaniment, onstage in front of an audience. I think I was taking another class, but I honestly can't remember what it was. The next semester I took the next level of voice, and added Psychology and English. After that, I was a full-time student at Cypress, taking as many units as they'd let me. 

I had mostly only good experiences with the other people in my classes. I had only one blatantly disrespectful "you are too young to be here" moment, and it was from another classmate in my Critical Thinking course. The teacher defended me, and told the other student that they were being rude. I left that class a little shaken, a little more aware of how other people might think, and went to the ceramics lab where I was engulfed in a community of people who got me. I've had many, many, many more experiences with people who mask downright rude judgements in the form of "I'm just wondering..." I honestly do not think some of them realized how rude they were being. I don't think being curious about this 13 year old in college, or asking questions about it was rude - but there are ways and ways to ask a person questions. I had one other time, when I had transferred to a university - and was on a wilderness kayaking expedition - where we were pulling in the kayaks for the day, and my background came up. Now remember - at this point I was the same age as everyone else, and so it was my choice to divulge or not divulge whether or not I homeschooled. I don't remember how it came up, but I do remember the kayak leads digging into my fingers as I pulled, wishing I could escape the conversation. There was one of me, and about 8 of them. I felt bullied. No one was asking anything to learn, they were asking pointed and accusatory questions to prove their own points. It was terribly disappointing, because I really liked this group of people. Also - I was on a wilderness expedition for three weeks with this group. I had to decide right then how I wanted the outcome, and make it happen myself. I could decide to call them out on some of the insulting things that were being said, or take a deep breath and preserve the rest of the expedition. I chose the expedition. Part of me still feels regret about that day, that I wish I could have broken out into some Aaron Sorkin-esque passionate speech, changed all of their minds as the music swelled, and we'd leave the kayaks sitting there while we walked arm in arm back to the campsite. I wonder if they left that experience thinking less of homeschoolers because I wasn't able to "defend" myself. I then wonder if they realize that I left thinking less of the 8 of them because I felt like I needed to defend myself against attackers.

Those two memories stand out, because they were pretty isolated events. I've talked about homeschooling and unschooling in almost every class I've ever been in. So let's see - 5 classes a semester, 3 semesters a year - say 15 classes a year, give and take a couple, til I was 27 - for 14 years - 30 people in each class... that's a lot of talking to people about homeschooling. I have never, not even once, had a teacher who said anything negative to me about being young in college. I have had teachers who have said positive things. Sometimes I talk about homeschooling and do not mention the unschooling thing - and let people come to the wrong conclusion about what it is that homeschooling looked like for me. It depended on how invested I felt - and if I wanted to get something else out of that moment other than yet another homeschooling talk. Other times, I have felt like it is my responsibility to represent this radically different and yet oh so sense-making idea to the world.

black and white unschooling

I went to my very first homeschooling park day in the fall of 1995. That is almost 20 years of park days, field trips, conferences, camp outs, and sleeping on homeschooler couches in homeschooler houses. I mention this because I've been around enough of them that I have seen many trends in unschooling come in, take their turn, and flow right on back out the door. I've seen the compensating and then the overcompensating. 

Right now there is an interesting dynamic happening where I have started to see some unschooling parents decide to remove themselves, that unschooling and "child led learning" means minimal parental involvement. This makes me cringe. I wrote in a previous post about how much work I think it should take to unschool - it should take more involvement, not less. Involvement might look different than what you think, but it should all be based on your specific kids, and you should know your specific kids because of how attentive you are, which should guide your involvement. 


Other people are noticing this, and there has been a new backlash - of parents saying "oh, those froofy unschoolers are just neglectful and I am An Involved Parent which means If I Know what Is Best but my kid disagrees, they still need to do what I say." That ALSO makes me cringe. Both are so knee-jerky and reactionary to the other.

An example I saw on facebook today was that if you are trying to go somewhere, but your kid doesn't want to wear their seat belt - one type of parent would say "fine, don't wear your seat belt, I don't want to say no to you." The other type of parent is saying "the bigger picture of loving you means keeping you safe so wear your seat belt even if you are crying." 

This is so black and white it makes me crazy. And one of the problems with this type of black and white/either-or thinking is that it makes two teams. You become adversarial with your child. It's suddenly you versus them, instead of you and your child on the same team. It becomes What You Want and What They Want, and so now it's a matter of winning, and if you win your child is still unhappy. So where's the parenting win there? There are so many other things to try - that protect your child's safety and your relationship. All it takes, and that I have been seeing people lack, is creativity.

In the seat belt example, some creative ways of doing this, just off the top of my head are: find out if there is something physically uncomfortable with the seat belt and adjust, explain the reasoning behind seat belts, leave your kid at home with someone else, take the bus, don't go where you were going to go, take them to somewhere they want to go, decorate the seat belt with stickers..... whatever the situation is, it seems to me that with a little bit of thinking outside the box and creativity, you can come up with a solution.

The thing that kills creativity is panic and desperation. I think that's what happens when a parent is sitting there, looking at their unhappy kid, thinking "if only you understood you'd do what I asked AND be happy about it!" I can imagine the panic rising, the breath getting short, the tunnel vision zooming in, and soon the voice starts rising, and you speak in the language of your own parents, or your worst version of you. It's when the threats, commands, and punishment happens.
So instead? A deep breath. Think logically about "what is the worst thing that could happen now if we don't get in this car." Re-examine your "have to's" and "need" and "should's." Do you HAVE to pick up the dry cleaning right now? It might be inconvenient for someone? Is that worth more than your relationship with your child? Someone needs their medication ASAP? Call a friend. There are options. Go back inside (or go outside) and come up with a few. And then, after this situation has passed, think realistically about the future. Might this come up again? What can you set up or talk about or put into place now, to make the next time better? Don't wait until things are desperate again. 

my little sisters, playing backgammon at a camping trip, the year we started homeschooling

What do you think? Do you agree with this? Do you have your own examples? Post them in the comments section below.

will I homeschool my own children?

For anyone reading who doesn't know, I have been homeschooled since I was about 10. My mom removed me from school the summer between fourth and fifth grades, and we never went back. My family "unschooled" - which is a lifestyle where not only have we chosen to remove ourselves from public school, but we also do not try to mimic it at home. We did no lesson plans, no testing, no standardized anything. Instead, my parents spent a great deal of time and energy in providing a really interesting life, where we had time to follow our passions and knew that our parents respected what we were interested in.

My awesome mom, letting me practice my fine art technique

I speak at a lot of conferences, and am sometimes the only homeschooler, much less unschooler, in any group. I get asked a lot of the same questions pretty frequently. Recently, one of the first people I met in our first homeschooling park group, started a blog with her mom. They also get asked some of the same questions -- this blog is in response to those folks.

So! The question - will you homeschool your own children?
Like I said, I've been asked this question since I was about 10 years old. For many years, it was just a vehement "yes!" Since then, and now being married to a very real husband with a different background than mine (he was not homeschooled) instead of a hypothetical one who of course agrees with every decision I make, how I arrive at my answer has changed. I still say yes, but I have three conditions:

1. I will always have to do a better job than the alternative.
2. I will make decisions based on prioritized values that my husband and I determine, together.
3. It does no harm (to my family's happiness, to my relationship with my husband)

Painting on the most available canvas

1. I will always have to do a better job than the alternative: Putting a child in school is easy. There's even a chance that they will have a perfectly nice experience, and limited damage will be done. There are even alternative private schools, with a focus on the arts or lots of free time. If I choose to keep my children out of these, our life has to be better than it could be if they were there. I think it will be -- I think I can do a much better job than any school. I will be an expert in my children. That means more time spent with them, for them, and about them. It means more money spent. It means a huge amount of attentiveness and energy. It means going places, seeing things. It means that when my kids love horror movies, and I grew up disliking them, I will jump into their interests with both feet and watch with them, look up characters on IMDB, take them to movie premiers and exhibits of movie costumes and tell them about nanowrimo's screen play camp, and more. It means when they are absorbed in a video game, I will ask if I can learn how to play also. I will make characters, improve my hand-eye coordination, bring them plates of food so they don't have to stop, and take them to the store at 6am on the day their new game comes out. I will watch for when they are tired and cranky and do what I can to make the environment what they need. If I can't do these types of attentive and engaged things, I should put them in an environment that would be better.

2. I will make decisions based on values that my husband and I prioritize: There are going to be things I want my kids to learn, but I have to be able to think big-picture to make day-to-day decisions. For example, I already know that I really want my kids to play piano. But more than that, I want them to appreciate music. So if there is ever a situation where my desire to have them play piano might damage their appreciation of music, then I have to make the choice in favor of them appreciating music. My mom said that she made her decisions based on what made our eyes light up. I have some ideas as to what my guide would be, but have not had this particular conversation in enough depth with my husband to say definitively (I would imagine it will be a number of conversations, continued over the rest of our lives). And if we strongly disagree? That brings me to point #3...

3. It does no harm, specifically to my relationship with my husband or with my family. If there is a clash about homeschooling that is so strong as to do harm to any of these relationships, I choose the relationships. I think it is more important to have a happy marriage, working together and on the same team for our children, than it is to homeschool. Now, based on my experience and what I've seen happen, I think that unschooling does amazing things for all types of relationships. So I do not have much fear in this area. But it could happen - I've seen it happen. I've seen mothers cling so hard to the label "unschooler" that they alienate their partners. I've seen people want so desperately to Be Unschoolers that they forget other values while they hang on to the title. First things first, I suggest losing attachment to the name. If my husband doesn't like the idea of "unschooling" but does like the idea of supporting our children in their interests, respecting them, engaging with them, etc. then why do I need to call it anything? At this point, the principles of unschooling are a part of how I live my own life. I can't imagine the personality transplant that would have to occur for me to not treat my children this way, no matter what the extenuating circumstances.

So. Will I unschool my own children? Yes!


Were you homeschooled? Do you agree? Will you be homeschooling your own children? What other questions do you have for a grown unschooler? Ask in the comments!