blueperiod.

paint your own

I go through these emotional/intellectual cycles of fully embracing the unschooling philosophy and holding the thing at arms' length, narrowing my eyes, trying to figure out if I can really trust it after all. During these questioning periods I'm driven to pull out dusty workbooks or seek out advice on handwriting curriculum and math manipulatives. I suddenly have no idea what is best for my children, and I scramble to piece together something that, for the most part, resembles normal. They humor me. They're good sports that way.

Luna enjoys the workbooks— probably because they appear so infrequently. She likes the word puzzles, the pictures of animals, and generally feeling like she is "doing school things." She has a fascination with school. I think more the idea of it than the reality. (The Ramona Quimby influence is strong with this one.)

She breezes through the sections on patterns and sequence. She answers the questions so quickly that I am convinced that she is a genius. And then I recall that she has spent the past two months consumed by Lego-building. I'm talking hours a day, for weeks, devoted to the construction of various creatures and habitats.

"Look, Mama. The walls of this boathouse [for some reason boathouses were big] are red, yellow, green, red yellow green. It's a pattern!"

And all those times I thought we were just playing.

So yesterday I was thinking, 'I really should be better about organizing art projects for them. It's been so long since she's done any painting, and really, how many times can he touch up the silver on his sword?' I made a mental note to search the library catalog for books on art projects.

Less than an hour later Luna's voice calls down from her bedroom, "Mama, can you bring all the paint and some brushes upstairs?"

"Uh, I don't think so," I responded. "I'd rather you paint down here, where it's a little easier to clean up afterwards. I can help you set you up at the easel."

"Well, I don't want to use the easel. And I can't bring the thing I want to paint downstairs. It's my dresser."

Okay. So I guess she'd been storing up some of that creative energy for something a little bigger than your typical preschool art project. There it was, that self-direction fueled by a natural desire to do and learn that all the unschooling folks talk about. Really, it's being born all the time, but I don't always take the time to acknowledge it.

Luckily none of that energy was lost in the redirection from the dresser to a more manageable piece of furniture; at least none that I could tell. She spent the next few hours happily painting the little Ikea table and chair that are normally splattered with paint from other art projects. Orange for the top, and alternating red and white for the legs. Hey, look at that-- a pattern.

peaches

We went peach-picking a couple of weeks ago and somehow managed to pick more peaches than I have ever seen in my life. The whole experience awakened something primal in me and I feel this instinctual rush to consume as many peaches as I can before the season is over, and it turns cold, and our fruit choices are reduced to whatever shiny colorful foods make their way across the country, or even farther, to taunt me at my local supermarket.

I don't know if it's just the general trend in our food-obsessed culture or if it is something particular to Philly, but I have never had so many options for eating almost entirely locally. This means that the bulk of our diet is made up of foods that were grown nearby. This is not too difficult a feat when you have a share in a CSA farm that delivers produce right to your neighborhood; or when you can't walk more than a few blocks without coming across a farmer's market any day of the week. And of course, there is Reading Terminal with homemade sauerkraut, homemade soap and everything in between.

We do miss our own backyard garden and the experience of growing our food, but this experience has helped to make us more conscious consumers; a completely invaluable lesson. We talk a lot about where our food comes from, how far it had to travel, how was it grown, and if it comes in a package, what the heck else is in there. Sol is very much into reading labels these days. 

"This says 'Natural' but one of the main ingredients is high fructose corn syrup." My favorite was when he went off on a rant in the cereal aisle at Whole Foods. "They think if they put 'Organic' on the front of the box you'll think it's healthy and buy it, but look at all the sugar in here. That can't be healthy. They are trying to trick you!" The looks I get sometimes from people.

rerouted rambler

Okay, so it's been a while since I posted. I know that's nothing new here, but as I did pledge to regularly update my blog, not that long ago, in fact, I feel a little guilty for being away so long. I have been writing, however, so I don't feel too guilty. I just finished up something for this story competition—not that I'm really competitive or anything. I just drawn to deadlines and due dates.

Before that I was working on a short story. Yes, the dreaded short story. You were once my Achilles heel, and now I embrace you wholeheartedly, which gives you a new place to stick your poisoned arrow. We are working out the kinks in this complicated relationship. It helps to listen to the New Yorker Fiction Podcasts, and to spend some time actually reading short stories. I've always been a little "anti" the short story, partly because I hadn't read many that were any good; largely because I couldn't write any that were even decent. (I ramble and have completion issues.) I'm slowly coming around.

I'm actually pretty pleased with my recent output, especially considering the many changes in my life. We moved on April 15th to... No, not New York, not Jersey, not anywhere that follows any line of reasoning. We moved to Philadelphia. It made perfect sense at the time, and despite the occasional bouts of "What were we thinking?!?" we stand by our insane decision. So far, so good. I love how walkable this place is; how easy it is to live without a car. And after living in New York for a bit, I greatly appreciate how manageable this city feels. We're digging it.

Luna seems to be totally in her element. The energy of the city suits my aquarian child. She's ready to go every morning; up for the newest adventure or discovery. Sometimes I find her sitting at my bedroom window with the blinds pulled all the way up. She tells me, "I want to see the whole city. I like the way it looks."

Sol is adjusting pretty well. He was initially very put off by the idea of living in a city. I think his exact words were, "I could never live in the hustle and bustle of a city." He now says he likes city-life, but he misses our old house; his secret hide-out behind the hedges on the side yard. He really misses his friends, too. That's been the hardest part for all of us—leaving our circle of friends, our unschooling community.

I think it's being in-between real-world communities that inspires me to rejoin the virtual communities of writers, mamas, and unschooolers. We are still unschooling, and getting better at everyday. Actually, Sol and Luna are naturals; I'm the one who has to work at it.

Happy New Me Year

One thing that gets to me about those really cold days is the tendency towards a little extra television-watching. However, when Luna asks to watch Peep and the Big Wide World—a cute animated program designed to teach science and math to preschoolers—with the Spanish language option turned on, well, how can I complain? In fact, I'm going to call that one a threefer (Science, Math, and Spanish instruction) and get started on my personal goals for 2008.

The first of these goals is to give myself a break, for crying out loud, and relax. Hence, my ability to sit here and post to my weblog while my children watch a DVD in the middle of the day. And that brings us to another of my personal goals for 2008: to post to my weblog with a bit more regularity than once every quarter of a year.

Note: I use the words "personal goals" because "Resolutions" sounds so formal, and, you know, destined for failure.

there is little sleep at sleep-away camp

When I was a kid I dreamed of going to sleep-away camp. That's where it all happened. Whatever monumental (or even somewhat meaningful) thing that was going to happen to you in your young life required a backdrop of  campfire sing-alongs, compulsory activities, demonstrations of athletic inferiority, and matching shirts. There seemed to be little to do with actual sleep.

I resigned myself to the fact that I would never experience such wonders. For one, it was financially and logistically impossible for my family. For another, it was hard enough for me to make it through the occasional sleep-over without becoming unbearably homesick. The reality of sleep-away camp was not for me, but the idea of it was so powerful that twenty years later I packed up my family and headed us off to the Catoctin Mountains. Four days of homeschool family sleep-away camp.

Adam called it Bike and Scooter World because with sixty children and paved paths winding through the dormitories and common spaces of the large camp, what else would it be? I like to think of it as My Flirtation with Communal Living. We shared responsibilities like cooking and cleaning. We ate together. We looked after each other's children. There were no matching shirts, no compulsory activities, and even the campfire sing-along got rained out on the last night, but the reality of sleep-away camp was better than the idea.

The food was better than I'd expected, too. Some people seemed to view their cooking night as a chance to flex their culinary muscles. The dishes were mostly vegetarian and some vegan. Our contributions, chosen for their ease of preparation and transportability, were embarrassing. The baked sweet potatoes and homegrown salad were too basic next to the vichyssoise. The vegetarian chili, which was hearty and flavorful at home on Saturday, was watery and slightly charred after defrosting and reheating on Wednesday. We like to think ourselves quite capable in the kitchen. We do not like to serve boring or unappetizing food. We avoided eye contact with anyone in the kitchen that evening.

The setting was lovely— green, tranquil (when there wasn't a kid flying past you on a scooter), with open spaces and secluded nooks. The weather was mild and fairly cooperative, except for two rainy nights and a brief hailstorm. And for those times when scooting, biking, and wandering unburdened by adult anxieties, got to be old—which was never for my children— there were scheduled activities. Some of the most memorable offerings were: sushi-rolling, rock-painting, friendship bracelet knotting, hiking, yoga, and the ever-popular "Capture the Flag."

There were some bumps and bruises, literal and figurative. Sol wiped out on his bike attempting a stunt on a course the children dubbed "The Devil's Pass." Luna disappeared for about ten minutes on the last day. We found her, after searching the entire camp, waiting in the van with her doppleganger. Adam deserted us for a wi-fi connection at a McDonald's in town so he could follow Steve Jobs's keynote address. It was our first day at camp, and I was a bit overwhelmed. And annoyed. My personal hurdle was shaking the feeling that I was someone's blind-date for a family reunion. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. They were all part of the same homeschooling group or had been participating in this camp for years. It's hard to keep that kind of intimacy from too-closely resembling exclusivity, but there was very little of that. In fact, I can't say when I've been around a more welcoming group of people.

There was the added bonus of being the only black girl at the party, which is not a new experience for me, but each time a surprise. (I am relearning my balancing techniques as I familiarize myself with the homeschooling communities around here. We belong to one support group for black families and one unschooling group that does not specify, but seems to attract mostly white families.) There is a homeschool family camp in August sponsored by African American Unschooling. I'm still exhausted from the last camp but am seriously considering it.

One of the great bonuses of "learning all the time" is that we are free to wander as far and as frequently as we choose. Sol said, "We homeschool, but we are hardly ever at home." This is true. Another recently uncovered truth: there is little sleep at sleep-away camp.

lead me, child

An interesting article on unschooling in the New York Times. I don't get why so many people have such a hard time with the concept of unschooling. I try to explain what we are doing in the simplest of terms and I still get things like, "But you are doing some sort of formal lessons, right?" or "But you're going to do real work when he's in first-grade, right?" I asked my sister why she felt it necessary to follow the school-model in her home school plan, and she said, "Because my kids will eventually go to school, and they need to be able to keep up with the other kids." This response helped to settle my own internal argument over unschooling. I didn't want to waste our time running in circles, trying to keep up. I wanted to spend our time, his time, learning that life is an education, rather than an endless race with no meaningful prize. Child-led has been our philosophy for most everything in their lives: nutrition, toilet training, sleep (although, for the sanity of the adults involved, a little extra guidance on this one,) the books we read, how we play... It just makes sense that this would carry over into their education.