Pam Laricchia's Blog, page 39
October 12, 2016
EU041: Unschooling Dads & Board Games with Jamie Maltman
Jamie Maltman is an unschooling dad and avid board gamer. And in this episode, he shares with us what he loves about both these passions. We talk about how he built trust in process of unschooling, ways to stay connected as the working parent, learning through board games, and some great suggestions for new board games that might spice up your family fun!
Quote of the Week
“A child only pours herself into a little funnel or into a little box when she’s afraid of the world—when she’s been defeated. But when a child is doing something she’s passionately interested in, she grows like a tree—in all directions. This is how children learn, how children grow. They send down a taproot like a tree in dry soil. The tree may be stunted, but it sends out these roots, and suddenly one of these little taproots goes down and strikes a source of water. And the whole tree grows.” ~ John Holt, Learning All the Time
Questions for Jamie
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family, and how you came to unschooling?
I’d love to hear what your kids are enjoying at the moment. What are they interested in?
How did you build trust in the process of unschooling? What were the pieces that resonated with you and helped you feel more confident in choosing this lifestyle?
What has been the most challenging aspect of moving to unschooling for you?
As a working parent, how do you stay connected with what the kids are up to?
I really enjoy the glimpses I get on Facebook of your love for board games. You play regularly, and you share your insights as a contributor to the podcast, What Did You Play This Week. Can you share with us a bit about your gaming journey? How did this passion develop?
Your segment on the podcast is about learning through and with board games. Can you talk about the learning you see with your own kids, and what tips do you have for playing with younger kids? Do you stick to less complicated games? Change up the rules?
For people who might like to bring some more board game fun into their unschooling lives, can you give us a couple of recommendations for games to play with young kids, kids, and teens/adults?
Links to Things Mentioned in the Show
Ontario Federation of Teacher and Parents website
Sandra Dodd’s website and email group, Always Learning
Sandra’s “leaning on a truck”
What Did You Play This Week podcast
Games Jamie talked about:
Ticket to Ride My First Journey
Board game websites:
Play-through videos:
Jamie’s website: jamiemaltman.com, and @JMaltman on twitter
Episode Transcript
October 5, 2016
EU040: Paradigm Shifts with Cindy Gaddis
Cindy Gaddis is an unschooling mom to seven kids—and one son-in law! She’s also the author of The Right Side of Normal, a book about understanding and honouring the natural learning path for right-brained children. In this episode, we talk about helicopter parenting and control, cultural expectations, society’s focus on being busy, family relationships, and what unschooling looks like in larger families.
Quote of the Week
“Where did childhood go? Time and space to just be, play, explore, create, wonder, feel, discover. It’s so important to the well-being of a person, which is so closely connected to happiness.” ~ Cindy Gaddis
Questions for Cindy
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family, and how you came to unschooling?
Often we talk about deschooling as being time to recover from time spent in school and to shift away from seeing learning through the conventional school lens. All very true, but it doesn’t really seem to do justice to all the cultural paradigm shifts that are wrapped up in there, does it? I’d love to dive deeper into some of those shifts today. First up, helicopter parenting. Parents have good intentions, but they can find themselves controlling every aspect of their children’s days. How does that perspective shift as we move to unschooling?
The next shift I’d like to talk about is around socialization. It’s a question we’re often asked by others when they learn our kids don’t go to school. We can easily point out how there are lots of opportunities for children to engage with other children, with other people, outside of school, but it’s bigger than that, isn’t it?
Another shift on the deschooling road revolves around the conventional tendency to keep kids busy, scheduling their days with extracurricular activities. This seems to be wrapped up in “being a well-rounded person for college applications” and the “over-achiever mentality as the definition of success.” How does this perspective shift as we move to unschooling?
The shift to unschooling also encompasses big shifts in how we look at family relationships. One of the big ones for me was around the idea of fairness. Did you find that a valuable shift as well?
I also wanted to ask you about what your unschooling days looked like with a larger family. There’s the idea that you need more control the more children you have. What has your experience been?
What tips would you share for larger families starting to move to unschooling?
Links to Things Mentioned in the Show
Growing Without Schooling magazine
Pam’s talk: A Family of Individuals
Cindy’s websites: therightsideofnormal.com and cindygaddis.com
Episode Transcript
September 28, 2016
EU039: Q&A Round Table
Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table!
Quote of the Week
“All I am saying … can be summed up in two words: Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.” ~ John Holt
Listener Questions
1. I am thoroughly enjoying your podcast and get excited when one appears in my feed. Thank you. Listening to parents share insights and wisdom has helped me on my own journey with my 8-year-old son.
I am at a point in our journey where I doubt whether I am supporting him and exploring with him in ways that he needs me too.
Some background:
He is our only child and we are older parents. I’m 52 and husband is 56. We both work from home with a flexible schedule. We belong to a local homeschool group and attend weekly field trips and park days. We enjoy our time with them.
I feel he looks to me to figure out our plans for the day. Like, “mom what are we doing today?” or “mom what are we doing tomorrow?” Some days we don’t have plans so we hang at home. He primarily spends his time watching videos of Minecraft which he’s started to play a few months ago and also videos of kids playing nerf wars, etc. I offer up different kinds of videos which he usually isn’t interested in. But I still offer now and then just to see. We play nerf wars in the yard and swing. He started to play Minecraft with a friend over Skype.
I guess I’m confused because I think he’s seeking more, hence the question of what are we doing, and yet falls back to watching videos. So am I to continue to support his video watching or keep trying to find things that pull him away from that? Or both?
He’s not interested in me reading books to him, nor playing with his toys. His interest in Legos has dropped off considerably these last few months to almost no interest. No interest in learning to read or write. Taking classes he can do without.
I feel like I’m lacking in being a playmate, because he needs someone to play with when at home, as well as lacking in my role as unschooling mom.
Just wondering if you can shed some insight on what this scenario looks like to you.
2. My eight-year-old only son has been home from school since February, when we chose unschooling. He has found gaming to be his thing this entire time. He currently loves Halo. It is his choice above all other activities. He will take a break on occasion to do research or enjoy videos on YouTube, to go with family on various outing or trips, and to hang out with friends when invited. Friends who come to our house are very happy to be left alone for hours to enjoy gaming with my son. I have just been letting him pursue this as he desires.
My question is: am I too relaxed in my involvement? Pam mentioned in a post (and I’ll paraphrase. Correct me if I didn’t get this right, Pam) to figure out what the child loves about the game and find things along those lines to strew. Well, I have asked him and what I’ve been able to get from our conversations is that he likes the cool armor. He likes the “good overcoming evil” aspect, and I know he likes getting better at the game and seeing himself rank up. It also allows him to play with others that are much better than his parents, through a multiplayer aspect.
Do I NEED to strew? A few weeks ago I bought a Halo novel that I thought we’d read together. He was happy to see it and held it and looked it over but hasn’t asked me to read it with him (probably too complex for him to read on his own right now). He used to draw nearly every day (often Halo related images) but doesn’t any longer (which I miss, but just hope he’ll pick up again later). Or, should I just continue to chill and let him immerse himself in this thing he’s finding to be so satisfying, strewing when he seems to lose interest and seem at a loss?
I would like to add,
– Anne’s description of her oldest son fits Gabriel to a T. Paraphrasing here, ‘his wonderfully obstinate refusal to let anyone hijack his mind and spirit brought about our decision to unschool.’
– Gabriel is still deschooling and he is still resistant to doing most things that he didn’t think of on his own. I feel remorseful everyday for sending him to school. I feel like I ruined his wonder of the world and his excitement for exploring it, his openness to discovering with me at his side. He spends most of his time playing video games and watching YouTube, researching questions about the games there as well.
I don’t know if his resistance will ever lighten up, although I think it will as it seems like a knee-jerk reaction to any invitation to look at something or go some place with his parents. It comes so fast that he couldn’t possibly have given it any thought. Two things he doesn’t react this way to are going swimming and watching most videos.
I have coaxed him into some things, a hike for instance, where he said he liked the destination so much that he was sorry he complained the whole way, and some excursions into town for various reasons. The latest was after a rainstorm when he marveled that the clouds were so low that they looked like paint on blue canvas. But it took a lot of talking of why it was important to me/us as parents of why he come along and then it was a grudging “Fine, I’ll go.”
3. Hi Pam, Anne and Anna,
We are around 2 months into our unschooling journey. My 10 year old daughter and 12 year old son are currently deschooling. We took them out of school as my 10 year old daughter was being bullied and my 12 year old son had had nothing but a tough time for the almost 8 years he had been at school. We had numerous meetings with teachers over the years, he had endless detentions, a diagnosis of ADHD (which I don’t feel is true as he is just a spirited young boy) and both have a diagnosis of Dyslexia (all of these tests were requested by the school, I didn’t feel the need to have my children labelled, however this is the way the cookie has crumbled – just a little back ground for you). My son in April lost one of his really good friends in a tragic accident, he did not cope too well and he’s a really loving empath. I feel he is holding onto much grief still as he will mention this friend every week or so. We had been looking for schools as none of us were happy and the morning tears all around and huge trauma to get to school each morning was taking it’s toll on myself and the kids, wearing us down. We could not find the right fit for both of my children, so during the July holidays I decided to take the plunge and pull the kids from school much to their delight to deschool and subsequently unschool.
Now here comes the bumpy part. My son decided that he would like an Xbox one around that same time and it was his birthday, he also wanted a game Grand Theft Auto in which he has been begging for since its release a few years back. My husband and I always felt that the content of the game was not appropriate, however along my journey and search I found many positive articles about how the game has more to offer than the violence. I explored and decided after chatting with my husband that if might be a good idea to let him have an explore the game as he had already watched so many youtube videos on the subject he was well versed in the content anyway. He has been playing day and night and even for up to 30 hours in one sitting on numerous occasions. The last time was just two days ago where he woke at 7am played until 4.30pm at which time the internet failed and he loudly expressed his frustrations and cried himself to sleep. Slept for 3 hours, woke at 8pm then played for another 30 hours non stop until midnight of the following night, where I could see that little things in the game were starting the frustrate and upset him and I could see that he needed sleep, so suggested that he come have a snuggle in bed and chat for a bit (he promptly fell asleep actually).
He’s been doing a heap on the game. Only yesterday I helped him to gather the funds by selling vehicles, so that he could purchase and office and warehouse in the game. I heard him later online telling his friends of how we had changed the structure and that he was now a CEO of his own company. He was very excited and he just loves the game immensely.
Here comes the downer. My husband works long hours and often is away from the home for 12 hours each day. All he sees is my son gaming when he leaves and also gaming when he returns, then into the night. It’s causing him a lot of angst. This has been building for a number of weeks now and he feels that our son is not learning sufficiently, learning how to rob people, will end possibly end up in prison due to all of this, has noticed my son has started calling us cuss words quite frequently, won’t know how the real world works due to such huge exposure to the game and would like him to either go back to school or for me to stop unschooling and move to school at home with set work and allocated times for gaming (he doesn’t want to remove the game completely, just reduce the time spent playing).
I have tried to negotiate a deal with my son as it’s really affecting the whole family and the tension in the house is insane (we can hear him gaming all night even though he has a headset and on quiet, so we are not sleeping more than a few hours each night). I have suggested perhaps he might go for a bike ride, come swimming, come meet up with friends to play Minecraft, go for a surf, play with the dogs and even asked him if he could go anywhere or do anything what it would be.
However, he is not open to negotiation on doing anything else, he just wants to play on his Xbox one, he may however change games from time to time if a friend on the forum suggests it (Call of Duty). He also likes to game out where he is part of the home and where the wifi is optimal, so we can all hear from no matter where we sleep due to an open plan home.
Pam, Anne and Anna, I’m so sorry for such a long post, however I wanted to shed the full light on what is happening here and hope that you can help me in any way shape or form to regain some sanity in our lives and to repair our relationships as our home is not the happiest right now and I can feel things tearing apart, whilst I’m between a rock and a hard place trying to glue it back together and make everyone happy.
4. I have twin boys 15 years of age who began unschooling in January 2016 when I pulled them out of the public school system. Now they are entering 11th grade studies and would like to attend an art institute after graduating 12th grade to become a multimedia artist.
My question is: how do I prepare a transcript/diploma of what they’ve learnt, studies they’ve taken in English, math, history, etc in order to enroll them in a college or an art institute? AR community College wants some type of transcript in order for them to be enrolled there and I’m assuming that an art institute would want something of that kind as well.
Thank you for any suggestions or advice that you may have.
5. Hi. What would you advise to a mother who wants to unschool while her husband does not want to? Thank you!
Links to things mentioned in the show
Anne’s Shine with Unschooling Facebook page
The books Anna mentioned around question 4: book, The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine Aaron, Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander, and Dying to be Me by Anita Moorjani.
Anna mentioned the book College without High School by Blake Boles
podcast episode 32, Choosing School with Alex Polikowsky
Episode Transcript
September 21, 2016
EU038: Time to Think, Pam’s conference talk
This week I thought I’d try something different! I want to share one of my conference talks, Time to Think, with you.
With a few months of Q&A episodes under our belt, one of the threads we’ve seen running through many of the questions is the fear that bubbles up when we project our current situation into the future. The “what ifs” come fast and furious and can spark a challenging downward spiral. In our answers, we often talk about the value of bringing ourselves back into the present moment.
In this talk, I dig into the ideas of being present in the moment, of being patient with our children, and of giving them time to process their experiences and connect the dots in their own way. I also talk about mindfulness, choice, trust, and more. It’s fascinating how time weaves its way so significantly through thinking, learning, and being—in other words, through unschooling.
And one of the things I loved about writing this talk was weaving it together with some of the wonderful insights found in A.A. Milne’s books Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, first published in 1926 and 1928, respectively. I’ve loved Christopher Robin and his gang of stuffed animals since I was young.
I hope you find it helpful!
Links to Things Mentioned in the Show
September 14, 2016
EU037: Ten Questions with Carol Black
Carol Black unschooled her two daughters, now 22 and 26. Years ago she was in a teacher education program, but when she read John Holt’s How Children Fail the light bulb went off and she dropped out. Since then she has written some wonderfully insightful essays about unschooling, which you can read on her website, carolblack.org, and she directed the fascinating documentary film, Schooling the World.
Quote of the Week
“One of the things that is most disturbing to me — on a level of justice and morality — is that you have an institution that is in place globally that is labelling millions and millions and millions of innocent people as failures.” ~ Manish Jain
Ten Questions for Carol
1. Can you share with us a bit about you and your family, and how you came to unschooling?
2. What are your children up to right now? Looking back, can you see a thread of interests and activities that has brought them to this point?
3. I love the bigger picture lens through which you see and talk about unschooling—through the essays on your website and through your film, Schooling the World. What brought you to explore how children learn across different cultures and incorporate that into your view of unschooling?
4. I’ve seen your wonderful essay, A Thousand Rivers: What the modern world has forgotten about children and learning, being shared in unschooling circles for years. In it you make the point that people today don’t know what children are actually like—they only know what children are like in schools. Your classic quote is, “Collecting data on human learning based on children’s behavior in school is like collecting data on killer whales based on their behavior at Sea World.”
Controlling a child’s learning—content, pace, and style—has such a profound effect on how they see themselves, as both learners and people, doesn’t it?
5. Another great observation you share about unschooling children is that they want their learning to be their own. Can you talk about some of the ways we can interfere with that?
6. You published a new essay on your website earlier this year, On the Wildness of Children: The revolution will not take place in a classroom. In it, you note that compulsory schooling is basically a social experiment originally conceived in the late 1800s to adapt children to the new industrial age—to train them in the skills needed for this new era of manufacturing. Yet in only about seven generations, school has become an integral part of childhood, this background forgotten.
With unschooling, we choose to leave this experiment behind and look at how children are naturally wired to learn. We soon come to see that learning isn’t really a special activity at all, but a natural by-product of being alive in the world, and spending much of their days in, what researcher Suzanne Gaskins calls, a state of “open attention.” Can you describe what that looks like?
7. Now I’d like to shift and talk about your documentary, Schooling the World. Here’s something you wrote by way of introduction: “The film “Schooling the World” asks us to re-examine some of our deepest assumptions about knowledge, learning, ignorance, poverty, success, and wealth. The purpose of the film is not to provide all the answers, but to ask a question, to open a conversation. Our hope is that you will be able to use the film with your friends, colleagues, students, or organization to begin conversations that will be deep, challenging, and inspiring.” I love that your goal was to spark conversations. So let’s do that.
First, let’s talk about the culture of schooling. What are some of the differences between the culture of schooling, which basically defines modern childhood, and the culture of childhood in a traditional society?
8. In conversations about traditional cultures, it is regularly suggested that those who appreciate their ways are romanticizing traditional cultures, downplaying problems like infant mortality and infectious diseases. What the film brings out so clearly is that maybe we are romanticizing our own culture and our version of education when we export it overseas. We’ve seen through experience that the school structure also brings with it consequences like lasting damage to children’s creativity, and branding so many children as failures. We also often fail to consider the depth, breadth and complexity of the knowledge systems that we are displacing.
I love the point Wade Davis makes at the end of the film: “These peoples, these cultures, are not failed attempts at being us—they are unique answers to the fundamental question, ‘What does it mean to be human and alive?’ Their answers have allowed them to live sustainably on the planet for generations.”
How might we move beyond romanticizing either side of this cultural confrontation and have deeper conversations about how we connect and engage with other cultures around the world?
9. Can you share a bit about what the filming experience was like? Your daughters came along, yes?
10. Looking back now, what, for you, has been the most valuable outcome from choosing unschooling?
Links to things mentioned in the show
Carol’s essay: A Thousand Rivers: What the modern world has forgotten about children and learning
Carol’s essay: On the Wildness of Children: The revolution will not take place in a classroom
Carol’s documentary: Schooling the World (You can watch it free at this link for a limited time—if it’s no longer free, I think it’s worth the purchase to watch!)
Schooling the World Facebook page
Episode Transcript
September 7, 2016
EU036: Deschooling with Lauren Seaver
Lauren Seaver is an unschooling mom to 9-year-old River. She first considered the possibility of homeschooling way back when she was in college to become a teacher. Life took some turns, but a year (and three months!) ago, the opportunity to try out unschooling arose and they haven’t looked back. I met Lauren at the Childhood Redefined Unschooling Summit in New York earlier this year, and I really enjoyed chatting with her about her deschooling experience so far!
Quote of the Week
“I think my biggest concern was that our unschooling life didn’t match the picture of what unschooling looked like in my mind. I had these unschooling fantasies about what my own personal unschooling path would have looked like if I were unschooled as a child. Letting go of expectations was so huge for me to be able to really relish what was actually happening in our unschooling lives.” ~ Lauren Seaver
Questions for Lauren
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family and how you first came across the idea of unschooling?
What was the biggest concern that drove your choice to move to unschooling this last year?
What were some of your fears or uncertainties as you began unschooling?
What has your move to unschooling looked like? Pretty smooth? A few bumps? Have you talked to River specifically about it? Or have you found the changes to be more internal to you, with you choosing to change how you respond to River and the expectations you have of him?
Can you tell us a bit about how your definition of learning has changed since discovering unschooling?
Did you find a difference between understanding the principles of unschooling intellectually and living them day to day?
What changes have you seen in River since leaving school?
What’s been the hardest part of your unschooling journey so far?
What has surprised you most about your journey so far?
Links to Things Mentioned in the Show
Shine with Unschooling yahoo group
Lauren’s personal Facebook page
Episode Transcript
August 31, 2016
EU035: Redefining Success with Jo Isaac
Jo Isaac is a zoologist turned science writer and unschooling mom to Kai. She, ten-year-old Kai, and her husband Brett, live and learn in Melbourne, Australia. Her path of learning and unschooling has taken a number of interesting twists and turns and I really enjoyed hearing about some of them as we chat about ways we come to redefine success as we embrace unschooling.
Quote of the Week
“The problem with thinking of [Kai’s quieter time right now] as a cocoon phase is that it implies we’re all putting up with this cocoon phase and waiting for him to come out as a butterfly, and everything is going to be okay then at some point in the future. I feel like that’s the same as what’s wrong with the conventional idea of success: you’re always looking down the road waiting for some kind of ideal in the future and missing what’s happening right now.” ~ Jo Isaac
Questions for Jo
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family, and how you came to unschooling?
I’d love to hear about what your son is up to. What is he interested in right now? How is he pursuing it?
What was the definition of “success” that you heard growing up? And where have you taken the idea of “success” since?
The shift to seeing college as a choice, rather than a fixed landmark on the conventional path to success, can be challenging. It can feel almost neglectful at first, can’t it?
One of the things I’ve found interesting is how differently the conventional focus on pursuing success in and of itself, and the unschooling focus on pursuing personal goals, play out, for both children and adults. Has that been your experience as well? How is life different now that conventional measures of success no longer play a key role?
School has trained most people to believe that work—and school is presented as work for children—is not fun. That’s what weekends are for. Even in the dictionary, work and fun are antonyms: opposites. I think unschooling turns that idea on its head. Has that been your experience?
Can you share with us a quick overview of what it’s like to unschool in Australia? What are the legalities? Are there active local communities?
Links to Things Mentioned in the Show
Caitlin Moran’s website
Jo’s personal Facebook page
The Facebook group where you can find Jo: Unschooling Q&A
Episode Transcript
August 24, 2016
EU034: Q&A Round Table
Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table!
Quote of the Week
“Worrying about the future takes us out of this moment.” ~ Anna Brown
Listener Questions
1. I have been unschooling for a year and am loving it. Though my doubts and fears are creeping back since everyone around me is starting school again. I am a beginning deschooler and can’t help to want to be a step ahead in regards to what I can do to help my son in the future.
I was wondering if you had any insight in starting a student, digital portfolio. I have been keeping pictures of things my son does on Evernote but wondered if I should do something else on top of this. The year he was born I bought his first and last name dot com domain (I plan to give it to him as a gift when he is a young adult). I figure that is the future and that it will be a good idea to reserve it should he need it as an adult.
Oh, and by the way, my son is only six years old, haha. I may be over thinking this. LOL!
2. My 17-year-old daughter’s dream is to just be the best gamer. She has had unlimited use of screens since her adoption from Cambodia in 2001 when Gameboys were the thing. I’ve provided her with latest versions of Gameboys as they advanced to two screens, iPods, iPads, gaming, and computers. She has built a mega-computer with multiple screens, learned on her own, with assistance from Google. She has travelled to Hawaii, to spend time with a gaming team she met online and they have a deep, sisterly connection.
My question is, how do I, at 73, not worry about the unlikelihood of her getting a paying job by gaming, when I realise the market is flooded? I’m not chewing my nails over this but the worry is lurking.
3. I live in France with my husband who is American and I am a mother of a wonderful, two-year-old, unschooled-to-be son. I have a question regarding a place I take him to, a place that he loves but which is located in a nursery or kindergarten. It consists of a two mornings a week, session, open to kids and parents from birth to six years old. Kids play there and have lot of fun. There’s no curriculum or programming involved but it does take place inside of a school building.
What is concerning is that my son now associates this place with school. When we walk by during the week and he sees other kids playing outside he wants to go to school and play with them. Is it a good idea to take him to such a place? I really don’t know what to do because on one hand he loves it. He meets friends, I meet parents and it’s a nice atmosphere. But on the other hand, I don’t want to give him a taste of something he’s not going to have. Could you help me with this question?
4. My question would be, how do I get my 14-year-old to relax and make time for herself to explore something else? When I suggest unschooling because she is already anxious about how overloaded she knows she’s going to be in public high school. Her eighth-grade year was so busy; we barely saw her head out of her books. She worked very hard on so much stuff that she just had to memorize to test well. This created a wedge between all of us with her because it was overwhelming for her in addition to the uncharted territory of my first teenager in the house!
I don’t want to lose her again for all of that nonsense. I want her to learn on her own. She is so driven, and interesting, and interested in everything—mainly theatre. I’ve explained that I’d do whatever needed to help her put serious energy into that passion as well as any other she has. I think the system has scared her from leaving. Local families had a hard time digesting that my middle daughter was unschooling. “What does she do all day? How does she learn?”
I worry too many derogatory comments got into my eldest’s head. Plus we live in a very competitive, affluent community. I’m swimming against a rip tide here! I want her home away from the influence of the rat race to nowhere (we watched Race to Nowhere). She’s on the fence, it’s obvious. Just afraid to hop down on her sister’s side. I want to be more connected with her and I fear the intense overload she is heading for is going to have an adverse effect. I’m a very joyful, positive, happy 48-year old just wanting to savour the time we have here on this planet. Minimalist, and never a follower of the herd.
5. Hi. We have two daughters, Talia, age 4, and Naomi, 16 months. We’ve been toying with the idea of unschooling for a while now and I’m excited by the possibilities. However, we wanted to check out the local public school and we went to the open house. She was enthralled and of course wants to go to school and be where all the other kids are. I fear, there’s that word again, she may resent us for keeping her away and yet my husband feels that as parents we are responsible to make the decision based on her best interests.
How do we decide as a family? We have had many conversations with Talia about homeschooling and what it could look like, including being involved in extra curricula’s that she is interested in, like gymnastics, soccer, singing lessons. She also enjoyed a half-day, summer camp for a week recently and we explained that these sorts of activities would be like school for her. She loves all these things and we only put her in activities she has shown she likes and she wants to be there. Yet, she maintains she wants to go to public school. When asked why, her response was, “I like the snacks.” We saw the school kids having their lunch during the open house.
Given her limited understanding of what school truly is and our responsibility as parents to help her thrive I’m unsure about giving her complete autonomy over this decision. However, that seems to go against unschooling philosophy of letting the child lead. I would love your insight and advice.
Links to things mentioned in the show
Anne’s Shine with Unschooling Facebook page
The books Anna mentioned around question 4: The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn, College without High School by Blake Boles, as well as his other books
Episode Transcript
August 17, 2016
EU033: Meeting Everyone’s Needs with Gwen Montoya
Gwen Montoya is an unschooling, single mom to Jamie and Zoe. She is pretty adept at weaving her work as a digital marketing consultant into their unschooling days. I enjoy reading snippets of their lives on Facebook, so I was excited when she agreed to chat with me about relationships and the creative ways we can find to meet everyone’s needs as we move through challenges, when we trust each other and work together.
Quote of the Week
“Building the little bits of trust—I mean, it’s not big things that happen; it’s not giant big grand gestures of trust. It’s every single day; it’s little things that build on each other.” ~ Gwen Montoya
Questions for Gwen
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family, and how you came to unschooling?
I’d love to hear about what your kids are up to. What are they interested in right now? How are they pursuing it?
Can you give us a bit of an idea of the general needs that flow through your days? Are you and your children pretty similar personality-wise, like on the introversion-extroversion scale, or is there a wide range?
When conflicting needs or desires arises, what are some of the ways you work with your kids to explore the roots and parameters of what they’re looking for? Like, if they want to do something and it turns out to be at odds with something else going on, it helps to find out how they feel about waiting a day, or a week and so on. This helps you discover the room you guys have to play with possibilities. What does that process look like for you? Are you more likely to do this individually or together with everyone involved?
Especially when we first get started with unschooling, it can be hard to think beyond the conventional approaches to a problem, which usually means there’s a winner and a loser i.e. taking turns with who gets their way. What tips do you have for people about exploring and brainstorming creative ways to meet everyone’s needs? To find that win-win?
Can you share an example of when you guys were facing conflicting needs and how you found a workable path forward that everyone was reasonably comfortable with?
There’s a high level of trust that develops when everyone’s confident that their needs will be thoughtfully considered and accommodated, isn’t there? In fact, I found that after a while, my kids would notice when their sibling was really invested in something and pretty happily back off. They knew that a time would come when something was super important to them and others would return the favour. Have you found that give and take in your family?
You also have a consulting business you run from home, right? Digital marketing. I’d love to hear a bit about how you weave that into your unschooling lives.
Links to Things Mentioned in the Show
Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk Podcast
Online courses: Coursera and MIT classes
YouTube videos: My Froggy Stuff and Disney Car Toys
Sandra Dodd’s groups: Always Learning email list and Radical Unschooling Info FB group
Gwen’s social media: Twitter, Instagram, personal Facebook page, and her business page
Episode Transcript
August 10, 2016
EU032: Choosing School with Alex Polikowsky
Alex Polikowsky is an unschooling mom to Daniel and Gigi. Her family runs a dairy farm in Minnesota, which adds an interesting dimension to their days! I met Alex when I spoke at the Always Learning Live symposium she hosted in Minneapolis a couple of years ago, and really enjoyed the brief glimpse of life on a dairy farm. I asked Alex to join me to chat about her daughter’s choice to go to school last year and what the experience was like.
Quote of the Week
“I am convinced that the best learning takes place when the learner takes charge.” ~ Seymour Papert
Questions for Alex
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family, and how you came to unschooling?
Your daughter Gigi choose to go to school last year. Can you share how that choice came about? What the motivation behind it was?
Did you have any issues registering her? Did she want to do anything beforehand to prepare?
What did she think of the classroom experience her first week? What did she enjoy? And not enjoy?
How did you guys choose to handle the school’s expectations around homework, tests, and grades?
Looking back, how do you see your unschooling principles continuing to support Gigi while she was in school?
You recently mentioned that your son is applying to go to A level of high school in Japan. How did that come about? And what’s he doing to prepare?
Links to Things Mentioned in the Show
Dr Sear’s classic book: The Baby Book
Jan Hunt’s website: The Natural Child Project
Yahoo groups: Always Learning, Unschooling Basics, Always Unschooled (the last two aren’t active, I believe, but the archive is available)
Facebook group: Radical Unschooling Info
Alex’s blog (she no longer posts, but the archive is there) and she’s on Facebook
Episode Transcript
