I reread an early post and it got me thinking...

I reread an early post and it got me thinking...

I wrote "DS then spends the rest of the day life learning and pursuing his interests.
He is fiercely independent and resists teaching, but we are working on coming to a full understanding of WHY his father and I think these things are important, and how we can come to a place where everyone's needs can be satisfied."

Hmm... I'm working towards something here.... maybe what I need to do is tell ds what I think are the benefits of being 'educated' in the way I mean- and see if I can get his buy-in (without manipulating!!) and if not let him life learn and expose him to as many varieties of things as possible. I'd love to hear comments!!

I am so stuck because I have two wonderful amazing kids and one of them would very much like to 100% control his own destiny (which also scares him and causes anxiety). This means that we've had battles in the past that neither one of us wants to repeat, and yet our family really values education (not the school variety.... the kind where one learns to communicate effectively and use logic and enjoy their creativity and so on and so on) .

I am really proud of the educational program we've created. It is "custom designed" just for us :-). I'll blog my thinking on it and the famous quotes that inspired it soon in order to gear up for our next year. Even thinking in terms of education years now seems a little strange .....

A Day

We are enjoying.. ok sometimes only enduring, our Arizona summer. The adaptive thing to do is wake really early or stay up really late but our family life doesn't work optimally with the latter and the former is still a starry eyed future dream for the chronically night owled portion of our family ; namely me and the kids :-).

Despite thoroughly accepting my night owl status I actually prefer having an early morning start to the day. It is for me , a lovely clear and clean feeling. Alas, there is always some novel or other that I can't keep away from and there begins the self sabotage :-). Even the sabotage is lovely, though ... I think I might be an obnoxiously positive person under my crusty exterior .

It's only July 7th and already people who school at school are gearing up for the new year. Yikes! I need to be thinking about it too, because my littlest (dd) is thinking about attending Kindergarten. She is so social I am willing to bet that it would be a good fit for her if it is half day and yet I am procrastinating. I am actually fine with very early education and will let her attend as long or as short as she would like.

I'll have to summarize our whole school experience in another entry. I bet that will help clarify things for me. Do you find that writing helps to clarify your thoughts? I hate it when I want to express something that seems very obvious but I can't find the right words. Not such a problem when I'm typing though :-) Especially with the delete key so handy :-}

 I want to talk openly about religious vs. secular homeschooling and I want to open the dialog about the way we condescend to each other about so many things (method of hsing for one!). I want to talk about mixing homeschooled and traditionaly schooled and unschooled and lots of other controversial and interesting topics I mentioned in my long ago but closely printed "inaugural blog" entry :-)

I am reading a book called the The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene which I am finding very informative and helpful. If the title resonates read it :-)

I'm writing this as I sit on my back porch listening to the sounds of the wind chimes and turning away from the keyboard as much as my limited typing skills allow because there is another spectacular arizona sunset (complete with smiley face moon) that stretches from the setting sun in the west to the pinkpurpleblue clouds it is kissing in the west and a dimpled patch of orangebrownpurple spackling the sky to the south. Dreamy. The birds are singing too. time to zone out!

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Enjoy your sunsets!!

Musings On Matters: Home Education

I will post my thoughts and our family adventures as I move inexorably towards our own version of unschooling... can't call ourselves unschooled right now b/c I intend to share what I consider to be very important  information about world history and a few other subjects. My friend uses the term Life Learner which is good but I'm still not sure that its what we do.
I will have to come up with my own name ... I found only one "published" home educator with thinking similar to mine and she seems to have disappeared off the internet but not before getting an awesome article out there where she called her version of homeschooling "Relaxed Homeschooling".

I really enjoyed the process of examining what is REAL and what matters... What is educated?, what is the benefit of an education? what is the best way to learn? what do the educational "experts" have to say on the subject?

I had a fun phone call from Dad today... he is so high on the whole home/unschool thing and is also in agreement with me about the vital importance of philosophy/world history.

Its cool that my Mom is supportive and nonjudgmental and interested, and even DH's Mom (a former teacher, we've seen that before!)

DH's focus is on problem solving and we are so excited to find fun ways to incorporate all these elements together.

At this point in time... just one month before we break for 2 months ...DS does a total of about 5-6 hours a week of World History, Science, Writing, Life Math, French (more on French later), Critical Thinking exercises,Computer Teaching and then each of these once a Month; Arts and Crafts, Art History , and Music Studies.

DS then spends the rest of the day life learning and pursuing his interests.
He is fiercely independent and resists teaching, but we are working on coming to a full understanding of WHY his father and I think these things are important, and how to come to a place where everyone's needs can be satisfied.

DD is the ultimate freeschooling pre-schooler She loves to explore her interests and, like her brother before her, taught herself to read. She spends lots of time on art, lifemath, story telling and reading. She also adores our science experiments. She does lots of workbooks, letters, numbers, dot-to-dot and so on, but MUST do them her way or not at all . Another fiercely independent one I can see!

Here are some of the topics I want to cover through this blog (better put it down "on paper" so I don't forget :-)

1. Analysis of "what matters" in education - Quotes, Holt, Gardner, Gatto, Dodd, Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, Self Cofidence, Scaffolding etc. etc.

2. Discussions of HOW we go about our life learning and education (schedule)

3. Discussions of how/if I want to move entirely to unschooling - esp. focus on Is that what John Holt really meant? (NO schooling at all)

4. Thoughts on starting an unschool facility / learning center/ resource room - see? lots of ideas :-)

5. Simplifying, Self Judgement, Wading out of the Mainstream, What Matters

6. Thoughts on being part of the formation of the Homednetaz.

7. Home Ed and Religion - Unschooling and Sanctimony (;-)

8. Whats in a name? Unschooling, Relaxed Homeschooling, Eclectic Homeschooling, Freeschooling, Radical Unschooling, Life Learning....

Lookin' forward to lots of Exploration!!!


Here's my Actual "Inaugeral Entry" copied and pasted from a previous bloghost.