Hi All,  Medieval
There are numerous references in medieval and even earlier medicine to “pains in the breast” and tumors and some reference to treatment of them with herbs such as cleavers (Kress, 2017). The degree of male ownership of breasts during this period seemed to determine the degree to which they could be written about. Breast health in general was rarely if ever mentioned. When it entered the world of male doctors, it gained a few references. Yet while medieval men felt it uncouth to write about breast health, they were fine with shredding breasts to bits for sport with a popular medieval torture device (Loufbrouw, 2011). And this was written about extensively. On the other hand, women were not allowed “ownership” of their breasts. They existed solely for male pleasure with all but the poorest of women sending their newborns away from home to country wet-nurses for the first year or two of life. This equates to women being separated from the nourishing power of their own bodies and seeing their own power as something shameful to be shunned. And when women developed “breast bags” - early bras - to give them a bit of comfort or lift, men deemed them “indecent” (Loofbourow, 2011). Clearly this is different from today where *not* wearing a bra is considered indecent by some! In Medieval times any breast illness or cancer was attributed to an excess of "black bile" from an imbalance of the bodily humors. Elizabethan Era During this time, women wore busks that flattened out their figure including the breasts. Some reference to this offering a means of birth control by stimulating miscarriage is mentioned. These busks were also seen as a means of masculinization under the misguided notion that a woman’s power lay in being more male. (Loofbourow, 2011). The corset as a protective device embodies masculine associations; morally in danger of man, it is as if woman puts on the man over her vulnerable womanhood, which is, however, preserved — indeed exaggerated — beneath. The very act of hardening and stiffening herself, which is on one level defensive, becomes a militant form of transference to herself of masculine eroticism (in Loofbourow, 2011).
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 I watched the earth being poisoned today.
It was shocking, Stunning, One of those things I fully understood but still couldn’t wrap my head around. The lie that weeds are bad swallowed like a worm on a hook; the hook deeply penetrating and the idea of perfect green being reeled in. And yet even a fish is smart enough to know when it’s been caught and to fight! No, this was more like the proverbial frog in a kettle, Slowly Dying Unaware all along. The longterm result of people who blindly follow their blind leaders, “sheeple" incapable of questioning… Who am I kidding? No comparison to the animal kingdom is nearly sufficient, Because animals are smarter than this The truck pulled up to our neighbors across the road just as we were leaving. “I want to see this.” I said. “I want to see how bad it is.” I parked my car half a block away. I’m not sure what I thought I’d see. I'd dreamed about it the night before… something about a big war tank type vehicle, with giant fireman type hoses…. But this war was fought with something far less obvious, small, obscure, a backyard watering hose, appearing to spray out water - and yet i knew… not one, not two, not three, not four, not five… …. but EIGHT different chemicals were mixed into that poisonous cocktail! The man spraying was unprotected save the gloves on his hands, The chemical fumes his daily air, The liquid itself bathing his boots and jeans, no doubt soaking into his skin. Like a frog in a kettle… “I feel so. so sorry for him, mom” my 11 year old said in a hushed voice. “Me too baby, so, so sorry. He has no idea he’s poisoning himself.” And so we sat. We watched the earth being poisoned. We watched ourselves being poisoned knowing that we are a part of the earth. We felt oddly glad the pesticides weren’t blowing across the road onto our lawn - knowing full well they were ending up in our water table… knowing full well the same sort of chemicals could be coming out our tap since municipal water tests for so very few contaminants. We talked about the world we live in… ….one where up is down, an alternate reality where poisons are good and frankenfood is healthy and organic is for stupid hippies like me …. a world where anyone who deviates from White, patriarchal, systemic norms is ostracized, ridiculed, or even killed …a world where the best thing for children is NOT to follow their biological urge to do what humanity has done for millenia and to move and explore - but to sit still - and it's a diagnosable illness if they cannot; …a world where nobody knows what’s best for themselves and experts tell us what to do; experts whose desire to use standardized dosages results in simple antibiotics easily outsmarted by bacteria; And all this in a world where plants - some with over 100 active constituents each - plants that evolved *with* bacteria and consequently have eons of experience outwitting them, and can easily break through a double cell wall, and are easily able to conquer the most antibiotic resistant bacteria … Well… they’re just plants… Just weeds… Let’s poison and kill them! It won’t hurt us. Nature is healing to children!!!Here's a great video to enjoy and share showing how time in nature is scientifically proven to benefit children.   Today I'm grateful for the sunshine pouring in before the storm; for hot, sweet, creamy coffee warming me from the inside out and waking my brain and body; for so very many little everyday things.
And I'm grateful for technology. Tech often gets a bad rap in natural living circles, and it can certainly be problematic when it forces us to feel available round the clock or sucks us in late at night. But what about the blessings of tech? If it weren't for tech I wouldn't be able to do grad school and work from home - and home/unschool my daughter. If it weren't for tech, my entire life would be different! Tech facilitates our ability to live an earth-centered life and to be together. It provides a third choice between the extremes of back-to-the-land, off-grid independence and corporate fealty. I aspire to create enough location-independent work that someday I can spend winters in a warmer place!! Imagine working in an internet cafe a block or so off the beach... sipping from a fresh coconut... But in the meantime, I'm grateful for the privilege to have, to build, and to aspire... And as I write, I hear sounds of Spanish language wafting in from Helena's bedroom where she's engaged in a live, online Spanish class with other homeschoolers around the nation. Tech is such a huge boon to her learning! Tech can certainly be an amazing addition to our lives when we use it to serve our needs rather than being enslaved to it. It's something I'm ever grateful for!  I'm grateful first, always, for my daughter Helena. Her name means light and she offers her radiance to the world through a heart of love and kindness, a creatively brilliant mind, and a soul that cares deeply for each furry critter.
I'm grateful for the furry friends we share our lives with, their unique personalities that add spice to our days: two dogs and a rat. I'm grateful for rambunctious Brittany Sam who can run 9 miles through the woods at 11.5 years old and come home itching for more adventure, Sam who lives to smell-all-the-smells and for whom polar plunges in icy waters are a way of life, Sam who uses his paw to direct your hand to give him belly rubs. I'm grateful for Lilly's calm cuddley nature and her happy wagging tail that's won her the nickname "Lil' Miss Lilly-whipper" or "Lilla-whip". I'm grateful that we found her - or maybe she found us - bringing more love and joy into our home so unexpectedly. I'm grateful that she loves to drink healing herbs and eat veggie scraps and is becoming healthier by the day. I'm grateful for the rodent. While I don't hold the same fondness for her as for our canine companions, she is admittedly quite adorable, passionate about almonds, and adds great joy to Helena's life. I'm grateful for our new sunlight-filled home, closer to everything, filled with beauty, books, music, laughter, and most of all LOVE! I'm grateful that spring will soon be here! What are you grateful for today? Alternatives to High School Dear Reader, Think high school is a waste of time? Hate doing your homework? You're NOT alone. Welcome to an entire niche subculture of successful young people who have left high school and are hacking their education and making life work on THEIR terms! Contrary to popular opinion, you do NOT need good grades or even high school to be successful in life - unless your idea of success is an ivy league college or prestigious private college. But those are only 2 of many options you have. So read on... Schools and grades are a cultural construct. In other words, they have no meaning outside of school and grades. Think about that a moment... They are not accurate measurements of what you know or of your ability to learn, and it's highly unlikely that any employer is going to ever ask you what your grades were. In fact, grades only matter in school. If you leave school, grades are no longer relevant That's what a cultural construct is - a reality existing only in a certain cultural vacuum. So if you're sick of playing the school game and sick of people teling you you'll never be successful without good grades, check out these resources that prove otherwise! Boyinaband's "Don't stay in school" will show you just how arbitrary and often pointless the things learned in school are - and how many other important things one could be learning. Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and get a Real LIfe and Education by Grace Llewellyn - this is an old classic; some of the resources in it are outdated. BUT the first few chapters are so full of information that will make your brain turn flips of joy. No seriously! Grace is a former private school teacher turned renegade leader of the idea of directing your own education. She explains the history of schools, how they are modeled after prisons, how they were to "babysit" kids while parents worked in factories while training new factory workers who can't think outside the box - and how absolutely irrelevent they are to being successful. She also helps teens know how to talk to their parents about quitting school in favor of a REAL education. Buy it. Read it. You'll be glad you did! This is the first thing I recommend to anyone looking for alternatives. College Without High School: A Teenager's Guide to Skipping High School and Going to College by Blake Boles. This is a good one if you think college, of some sort, might be in your future. Blake shows you how to exceed all of the things colleges are looking for on applications WITHOUT going the traditional high school route. Way more fun and meaningful! Homeschooling - homeschooling is legal in all 50 states. So NO, you don't have to go to school!! Methods of homeschooling vary from doing school at home, to alternative curriculums, to learning through real life. Find the homeschool laws for your state. In some its simply a matter of saying "I'm going to homeschool" and that's it. NYS is much tougher with guidelines, but it's really just a mater of knowing how to write up real life in academic subject language for reports. NYS homeschoolers also have to take tests, but not school ones. Many people do the CAT which is a basic test of English Language Arts (ELA) and math. It's easy and no need to study for it. Finally, realize that if homeschool laws say you need "science" or "English" you can meet these things by volunteer work, reading science fiction and exploring cutting edge ideas of quantum physics, volunteering as a junior docent at an environmental center or museum, writing a blog, and so many more ways! TASC - formerly known as the GED, anyone over age 16 can take this test and be DONE with high school forever (ages may differ per state). College - YES, you can attend college without finishing high school and get dual college/high school credit for your work! Many homeschoolers start taking math, English, and so on at community college in 9th, 10'th or 11'th grade. Why take all of those classes in high school only to repeat them in college? What's the point?! Usually community colleges are no harder than high school Regents classes, often easier. Unschooling - This is a form of homeschooling where the student fully directs their own education. My daughter is unschooled and you can check out the homeschool/unschool category on the side for a zillion posts on what this might look like. It's basically life=learning=life. It looks different for every single unschooler. You learn by immersive, real-life experiences doing what you love. Seldom does it look anything like school. The foundational premise of unschooling is that learning is never coerced or forced by anyone. It's totally up to the kid what they want to learn, how they want to learn it, and how deep they want to go in a particular area. Does unschooling or hacking your own education work? Dr Peter Gray, a Harvard graduate, has studied and written extensively on unschooling. In a study on the outcomes of unschooling he reports that most unschoolers get into their top 3 college choices; more unschoolers than public schoolers work in art and tech fields; more than average are self-employed; and more than average report greater job satisfaction. What About College?You have so many options for higher ed. College is only one of them! Alternate careers: First, if you really hate school settings, you could always self-learn in a tech field; get an electrician's or cosmetology license; go to nursing school; become a dog trainer and/or dog walker; get your realtor's license and/or broker's license; or find another trade doing something you enjoy. Looking for life experience: Take a year and travel as a WWOOFer, a "willing worker on organic farms". You'll get modest/rough living conditions, usually meals, and usuall a small stipend. In your free time you can explore whatever exotic location you've chosen to live and work in. Or google Couchsurfing and travel with minimal money sleeping on stranger's sofas. Or volunteer for Green Peace for a year.... Or take a trip with Unschool Adventures. Or volunteer locally, or set up an internship or apprenticeship... Alternative college programs: Don't rule out college entirely. Colleges such as Marlboro or Goddard in Vermont along with a number of others don't require SAT's or ACT's and allow students to create much or all of their own degree program. Even SUNY ESC has degrees where students create their own classes learning from real life mentorships or projects. Check out this post by Amy Landisman: 7 Colleges for Homeschooled, Unschooled, and Self-Directed Learners. Uncollege: NO way to college? Check out the uncollege movement and download their guide to success without college. Be an Entrepreneur: Finally, explore paths of enrepreneurship and self-employment. Yes, it can take time to build a successful business, but if it took 4 years AND you didn't have student loan debt at the end of it? If you could live at home while doing it? If you could begin while your friends are still in high school? There are advantages and disadvantages of self-employment. On the one hand, you'll pay more for health insurance, and you won't always have regular paydays with predetermined amounts of income. Most people call those things "job security" but I'm not convinced. For example, I know of a collge dean who was laid off, can't find another job locally, and might lose his home and/or have to uproot his family to move across country for a new college dean position. On the other hand, if a client "fires" you when you're self employed, you still have 50 other clients. Multiple streams of income means more security in many ways! And the idea is that by the time you reach the "someday" of having family and bills like a house and car, then you'll have built the business up to be successful. Books like Rich Dad Poor Dad can inspire you to think outside the box - not just being self-employed but creating a business with passive income, income your workers make for you! An example of passive income is owning rental properties and collecting rents while you sit on the beach or do other work that is meaningful to you. If you have any "fix it" skills real estate investing is a perfect path. No fix it skills? Some property owners pay a monthly fee to a mainenance company instead of doing the work themselves. Either way, there's a ton of money to be made in rentals because people will always need a place to live! Books like What Color is Your Parachute can help you think through the full gamut of your strengths and employment/entrepreneurial options. Worldschooling - this is a homeschool FB page and worth checking out, especially the file where folks tell how they support themselves. These are all people travelling the world part time or full time with "location independent" work. Imagine whipping out your laptop in a cafe a few blocks off the beach, working a few hours, before you go dip in the ocean! The plus? Rent and food in many parts of the world are far less costly than here in the US but by working online (or having rental incomes back home) you'll still be pulling in a US level salary. Bottom Line?Find out what you love and do it!! For inspiration, check out what other unschooled teens/adults are doing here! Homeschooled Teens in Capital RegionHere is just a sampling of the opportunities for homeschooled teens in this region.
HVCC - they have a homeschool liason in their admissions office and often accept teens for dual high school/college credit. Yacon Village is a learning community with formal classes, clubs, and social gatherings - some of the things teens enjoy there include D&D club, book club, teen nights with pizza and movies or games, writing class with an award winning author, science with a U Albany professor... and more. Flying Deer Nature Center offers wilderness programs for all ages. Learn primitive skills, survival, and science in the great outdoors! For younger teens, their 3 year "coming of age" wilderness programs culminating in solo time on the land are amazing - Moon Tribe for girls, Sacred Fire for boys. HATCH has a tagline that says "Learning is essential; school is optional!" They are located in Hudson, NY but open to Albany area homeschoolers willing to drive. They meet weekly for a full day or two for classes that the teens decide on: coding, history of math, whatever you want... Kite's Nest, also in Hudson, NY, has programs for kids through teens - totally outside the box stuff like building a boat, tinkering, gardening, media arts, and more. Youth FX is a free youth film program with programs for all ages of young people. Their summer teen program (open to ages 14 and up) has created documentary films that have won awards at film festivals. Helena has loved animals since infancy and been working with me with herbs for several years now. She wanted to combine these two loves.
www.PawsforHerbs.com is her new website! I'm so proud of her! And here she PUBLISHED an article on how she used herbs to help our recently rescued canine sweetie Lilly. Finally, she's started a YouTube channel to teach herbal skills and knowledge for animal herbalism. Interested in an herbal consultation for your furry friend? Contact us at [email protected] :) What is unschooling? Unschooling is a method of homeschooling, legal anywhere one can homeschool, that is based on two basic premises: 1. Trust in the child's innate curiosity and ability to learn what they need when they need it and 2. Totally non-coercive or non-forced learning. Unschooling is attachment parenting for older kids. Your baby, toddler, or preschooler learns to sit, crawl, walk, talk, feed herself, use the toilet, count, recognize colors, and many other skills without any formal instruction, just by living life and being in relationship with you. And no two kids before school, the same age, will know exactly the same things. They learn when they need the knowledge. In the same way, an unschooled child learns everything they need to know, when they need to know it, by living life and being in relaionship with you and others. Why do we unschool?We've always been curious, whole-life learners. When Helena was an infant and toddler I was always talking to her about life, about things around us, about what I was doing. That's never stopped. In the early days of homeschooling we did some Waldorf curriculum together, and we both enjoyed it. But I never followed any curriculum fully - or even close to fully - because, even then, I could see it would get in the way of living and learning from real life. We tried worksheets on a few occasionas, but neither of us cared for them. We tried a phonics program for Helena's dyslexia, but that ended up being a nighmare (see dyslexia posts for our journey and what's worked for us). From day one, most of what I reported on the required NYS quarerly homeschool reports was real life learning! We visited farms, went to sheep shearings, made maple syrup, learned primitive skills at wilderness school, read and watched Little House, explored Native American stories and history - and put it all down as social studies/history. We read about diverse ways of celebrating holidays worldwide - more history. We planted gardens, observed seasons and the circle of life, read books about animals, tracked animals, and observed them outdoors - and recorded it all as science. We crossed over into total unschooling around 4th grade. The Waldorf things we were doing were beginning to bore Helena and feel artificial without a group to do them with. And, frankly, it was getting in the way of learning from real life. What do I love most about unschooling?We both love unschooling because it could be summed up as one grand life adventure of living in relationship, exploring our world together, and making our dreams come true!! How do you know your kid is really learning without tests?How did you know your kid could walk or talk? You knew because you are with them, because you're in relationship with them! Similarly, you'll know what your school age child knows because you are in relationship with them. Have conversations. Make it a practice from infancy on to talk to your child as you'd talk to an adult. Do your critical thinking out loud. Comment on things... they'll quickly learn to question, comment, and discourse with you! Most importantly, they'll learn critical thinking skills that curriculums can't really teach. What about states that require homeschoolers to test?I'm in NYS, which is one of the strictest in the nation regarding homeschool requirements. We turn in an annual plan and 4 quarterly reports, and we have to test biannually in grades 5-8 and annually in high school. The annual plan and quarterlies are no big deal. You just learn to translate real life into academic and subject-based terminology. Testing? Helena did her 5th grade test last year. We did the CAT test, California Achievement Test. It's a test of basic ELA -English Lang. Arts - and math skills. She scored 7th-11th grade on all sections. (Updated to add, she's completed 9th grade now and continues to perform well on the CAT test.) I will say that while I do not force any learning activity, I am much more intentional than many unschoolers in making sure she comes across info I know she'll need on the tests. For example, we've done MadLibs to learn parts of speech, or we've read funny library books like Greedy Apostrophe. But many unschoolers just don't worry about the scores since you only have to get 33rd percentile to pass - meaning that you can pass by scoring lower than 67% of the kids the test was normed on. All that to say that you can unschool no matter how strict your state's requirements are. Just get in touch with other unschoolers in your state and they'll help you out. Won't people think I'm crazy for unschooling?Maybe. Maybe not. It's all in how you present it. Personally, I think using language people can understand is a helpful means of communication and kindness. So I don't tell the state/school district we unschool. We use the word "homeschool" with the general public. And it's helpful if your kids can tell Grandma or others "Hey, I have been studying Colonial hisory and primitive skills. We've been reading Little House and we visited a farm and watched them do sheep shearing." Kids love to learn a few new terms that make them feel smart and sound smart to others. Others like to know your kid is still learning and appreciate language they can relate to. It's also helpful if your kid knows what subjects are learned in school, knows that building in Minecraft or measuring things are forms of math, knows what PE and recess are, and so on. And please make sure your child knows what grade they are in! I know... some unschoolers don't like that term because it's a "school" term. But it really goes a long way to helping your child relate to the general public. Just assign whatever grade generally goes with that age even if you don't do any of the learning typical for that grade. If you want to be so countercultural that you don't relate to broader culture, then don't be surprised if people think you're crazy. Ok with using some academic language? Then people will find you very relatable :) What role do parents play in unschooling?Some people say unschooling is MORE work not less for parents than using a curriculum. In any case, it's relationship based. You are on your child's team helping them to explore their world, find and pursue their interests, and meet their goals! What does this really look like? "Strewing" is a word many unschoolers use. The parent(s) strew the child's path with a zillion different learning opportunitis. It's up to the child to choose which to explore and how deeply and how long to explore them. Examples: When Helena was little I had an alphabet puzzle around. I'm always talking to her about things in real life, not expecting that "this knowledge is for 7th grade" or "this is adult stuff". I showed her the difference between crinkly onion skins and bumpy oranges when she grocery shopped with me at 6 months, and we've never stopped exploring the world around us and talking about it. Now, I suggest ideas to her, brainstorm with her, pass along videos I think she'd like, find books she'd enjoy, read with her, help her with her website, find interesting political posts/videos/events and on and on.... I spend a LOT of time both exploring the world and looking for fun resources. I really nerd out on finding fun resources to learn from! :) How do unschooled kids learn to read? Don't they need phonics worksheets or something?Unschooled kids learn to read in a variety of ways and at a variety of times, some at age 4, some not until age 10 or so. Most learn around "average" ages of 6 or 7. Many learn by playing video games. Others ask mom or dad for help and are shown what letters say and helped to sound out simple words. Some learn by asking how to spell words to make lists. Some parents buy and read simple phonics readers with their child because the child has asked to learn and wants to be shown. Can unschoolers do worksheets or use curriculum or take classes?If the child wants to, sure! Most people prefer learning from real life though. If you, as an adult, want to learn something what do you do? You might buy a textbook or take a class, but you'll probably first Google it, read books, have a friend share a skill with you, or use other means of learning through real life. Most adults don't read a textbook and take a quiz to learn something. Helena used a textbook for some biology and has chosen a sort of textbook for astronomy for her 10th grade science. Crash Course videos are much more popular with her than books though. Won't my child just slack off without the discipline of curriculum and routine?If your child has been in school and learned that learning is an onerous chore, then probably they will need a lengthy period of "deschooling" where they can just chill out and do seemingly "nothing". "Deschooling" is a really important process for parents too, by the way. Most parents need to read, listen, learn, and change their paradigms about learning and schooling. One of the premises of unschooling is that it's pretty impossible to NOT learn. Personally, I think learning happens best when parents and kids approach life together as an adventure, try out lots of new things, visit places, read together, watch things together - spend lots of together time. But some unschoolers would argue that a child playing video games and watching YouTube all day everyday is still learning. And while I'm not personally fond of anything that keeps any human being sedentary all day (even reading all day everyday) I do know there are many unschoolers for whom this has worked. They're now happy and successfully employed adults. Kids who have never gone to school seem to not lose the natural curiosity and delight in exploring the world that toddlers and preschoolers have. Just today Helena, age 11, asked me "Mom, how is olive oil made?" so we'll be googling that on a little later and probably watching a YouTube video or two. Can I unschool just some subjects and not others?You can do whatever you like of course, BUT if any learning is forced than you're really NOT unschooling. That would be more eclectic homeschooling. And that's ok too if it works for all of you. How do unschoolers learn math?Math is everywhere, or so I'm told. As someone who is far more adept with words than numbers this one is a bit more challenging for me to explain. We tend to see math as problems on paper, but math is ever so much more. And kids learn it by price comparing in the store with you, dividing things up fairly amongst friends, playing video games, sorting, counting, building in real life and Minecraft, and many other ways. Helena has really enjoyed watching the humorous math antics . com videos; playing Dragon Box, an app that teaches algebraic equations beginning with images and no numbers; playing Prodigy math a wizard quest game where you do math problems to battle villains; reading funny math library books with me; finding acute, obtuse, and right angles on buildings while driving; playing mental math games together; developing a business; saving and spending money; and more. The thing to remember is that long division is really tricky when you learn it at age 7 in public school BUT very easy when you learn it at age 10 or 11. Many unschooled kids report learning all of high school math in a few short months in their late teens - because they want to learn it and need it for college then. When one is motivated to learn a skill and developmentally ready to learn, learning comes easily. Edited - as a mid/late high schooler this year (we're doing combined 10th/11th this year), Helena's chosen to work with a tutor once weekly, mostly so she feels confident on our state's testing requirement but also because she wants to know a bit about algebra, geometry (she loves it), and business math. Unschooling sounds great in theory, but does it really work in the real world?Yes, it very much does! Dr. Peter Grey has researched and written extensively on unschooling and the outcomes of unschooling. It's pretty amazing! As adults, unschoolers get into their top choices of colleges. More than the average population go into arts or tech careers, and more than average are self-employed entrepeneurs. But the beautiful thing about unschooling is that kids don't have to wait to grow up to begin living their passions. Many unschooled kids find what they are passionate about and pursue it long before adulthood. It's not uncommon for them to learn other "subjects" such as writing, math, research skills, history, and science by delving deeply into one "subject" that they are passionate about - be that Medieval armor or baking or art or animals. My 11 year old Helena has been crazy about animals since infancy. Much of our learning over the years has in some way included animals, and at present she's been developing a website and business around animal herbalism. Updated to add... in 9th grade she's pursuing a career in art via digital animation/video game design.... Updated again to add, she's decided digital art/video game design would require her to be too sedentary and is planning to go into real estate sales and investments with plans of creating passive income and an early retirement... She also wants to continue to write poetry and see where that leads. Your kid might change their mind 101 times but the learning that happens in each phase is really amazing! But how do unschooled kids learn discipline?I admit. I wondered this at first as well. But frankly we're brain washed into thinking that we need to be miserable, that it's somehow good for us to suffer and do things we detest in order to build character. Charcter building, should, in my opinion, arise from what we love not what we hate. Unschooled kids learn discipline out of love not misery. If you love having a business you do the paperwork you hate in order to facilitate what you love. Or you hire/barter with someone who loves paperwork to do it for you. One of the outcomes of unschooling discovered by Dr. Grey was that unschoolers report greater happiness and job satisfaction as adults. Unschooling is a lifestyle of following one's heart, knowing HOW to learn, being life long learners, and knowing how to make one's dreams a reality. Persistence and discipline become natural parts of all of that. Personally, I emphasize to Helena that freedom is a powerful thing, that she has the power to create and shape her own life, and that some planning is helpful to ensure that we are not drifting but accomplishing what we want. We set goals together, seek out opportunities together, write things in our calendars together. We talk about how so many people have their lives planned out for them and how amazing it is that we get to make these choics ourselves. Is that a normal unschooling conversation? Probably not, but it is for us. But doesn't everyone need to be prepared for the drudgery of employment?No way! As unschoolers we believe in following our hearts, creating work we love, doing work we love. People work in jobs they hate only because someone else has dictated what they "should" be doing to them for most of their lives and/or because they've never had the time, assistance, opportunity to build a career doing what they love. We question these paradigms. Working for someone else is great only *if* it's work you love and want to do. Helena and I talk about the perceived security of a job - how working for someone else seems to provide a set income, insurance, and paid vacations - but how you can lose all of that in an instant from a lay off or being fired. We talk about how, when you work for yourself, you might not have set paychecks, but you can create multiple streams of income. If you lose one stream of income you don't lose your entire livelihood, lose your house, or have to move across the nation for a new job. We talk about making informed choices in all of this. These conversations are not ones I've seen other unschoolers having, but they are part of the paradigm for us. What is radical unschooling or whole-life unschooling?Radical unschooling is taking the idea that you can trust your child to learn and extending it to full trust in your child's eating choices, sleep choices, media choices, and other choices. More questions about unschooling? Ask away! Also, Unschooling Mom to Mom is a great FB page to learn from! Personally, I've found some other unschooling pages to not be as friendly toward people just exploring and learning, though still very inspirational.  Just a little bit of learning... When learning is not mandated it's unstoppable! Here in NYS we have to put it into subject categories for school district quarterly reports. Here's just a little bit from the last two weeks... English - We got this awesome word-a-day calendar and have been using lots of fun new vocabulary! Helena's joined a bookclub and is finishing up the 2nd Harry Potter via Audible.com with two other exciting sounding books for the next few weeks coming up. She's also been asked to write an article for a super cool kid's magazine iGen21.com so look for that in the Februrary issue. She's taking a writing class weekly with local award-winning children's author Jennifer Roy who we adore. Helena's also been further indulging her love of fantasy fiction watching all of the Hunger Games movies, taking an outschool.com class called Girl Power: Females in Myth and Theism, another called Pirates: Swashbuckling or Swashbuckled and a third about vampires and bloodsuckers in world myth. Math - It's not been a heavy math season, just a few figures here and there for bio labs. Helena always goes in waves with math, binging on it, leaning deeply into learning, then backing off to give her brain time to integrate it all. As of the latest "score" on Prodigy math game she's at an 8th grade level.  Science - Helena started Paws for Herbs, an animal herbalism video series and business; she's rescued a pitbull (2 months ago) that she's been treating; and she rescued a rat three days ago. She's slowly working her way through all of the basic bio concepts in the textbook she requested. Monthly wilderness school and several weekly hikes adds to the natural science.
Social Studies - IndyKids.org is our latest lovely discovery - a magazine by kids, for kids, focused on social justice issues. We've watched more BBC historical fiction series on Netflix than I can count this year... currently watching Mrs Fisher's Murder Mysteries about a 1920's flapper era lady detective. We've learned about Lativian anarchists, Zionism and more from this series. We try to keep on top of current events and today we're reading and talking about MLK and The March on Washington along with watching the civil rights era American Girl movie. Music/Art - non stop drawing, listening to music, upcoming theater events but none too recently... Health/PE - Resumed taekwondo and began Kumdo, Korean sword fighting; Teen mindfulness class this week; monthly wilderness school, several hikes per week; daily walks; talking all the time about health; listening to mom proof read her health writings on phytochemicals and how herbs work; discussions about brain development, mental health and emotional awareness. What's with New Year's? New Year's resolutions! Are they good? Bad? Neutral? Do you love them? Hate them? I've heard it all lately.... People seem to be in a few camps... those who are all for New Year's resolutions and love the "blank-slate" of a new year on which to write a new story, vs those who have tried New Year's resolutions only to find that they fail, vs those who don't believe in change and self-improvement, vs those who argue you can change all year so forget about new year as any special time. I've also seen folks using the excuse of "You're perfect just the way you are" as a reason NOT to set resolutions. To some extent this is true. You are perfectly YOU in this moment, and accepting where you are is important. The question is this: Is this the YOU that you want to remain? Is this a thriving, healthy, effective-in-your-power YOU? I believe people who say you don't need to set intentions to change are in a good place of learning self-love - but have only ever seen change as something motivated by guilt. However, change can be motivated by LOVE too! A New Year's resolution is simply an intent to change, and change often fails. Why? Usually because we don't understand the process of change and bite off more than we can handle. We fail to assess where we are currently at in the process of change so we can make decisions that really work for ourselves. Our goals might be too broad: I'm going to get in shape and lose weight this year! Or our goals might be too narrow: I'm going to workout everyday and never eat cookies or pizza. A goal that is too broad such as "I'm going to lose weight and get in shape" doesn't give you enough specifics, enough steps to get to the end prize of feeling healthy. A goal that is too narrow such as I'm going to workout daily and never eat cookies or pizza" is bound to fail because it doesn't have a built in measure for what happens when you miss a workout or eat a cookie or slice(s) of pizza. In fact, it's a direct path to failure! How to Make Changes that StickI'm fond of saying that change must be sustainable. In other words, it has to be something you can continue with. It has to be driven by desire and love rather than fear or guilt. It has to feel good! It has to be big enough to excite you and small enough to manage. And it needs to have regular re-evaluation periods - where you see what's working and not working, a time to allow yourself to make changes to your process of change without feeling like you've failed.
So maybe if your wider goal was to feel healthier you'd set a goal to join a gym and go with a friend at least 3x per week. You'd adopt the "More is better but some is something" attitude and realize that, even if you don't hit the gym 5 days per week, 3x per week adds up to a whole lot more by the weekend then you're doing now. And if you don't like the gym, well this is part of that "sustainable" thing... find an activity that you do like! This is where being motivated by love rather than fear or guilt is helpful. Maybe you join the gym and discover after 8 weeks that you HATE going, hate getting up earlier than normal, and feel like a hamster on a wheel when you get there. You take a period of re-evaluation and decide to join a martial arts or ballroom dance class after work instead. You find this to be great fun. This is something you can stick with! Your body becomes healthier and trimmer through having fun - through self-love! Subscribe to my blog for further posts on how to make sustainable changes! Sign up for coaching, ecotherapy or herbalism or my annual program Formidable Alchemy, a 10 month journey of transformation. And don't miss out on my newsletter. I'll be giving away a free herbal care-package to one lucky subscriber! Sign up on my home page. |
Rebecca Grace AndrewsWelcome! I'm a college professor, herbalist, writer and photographer. Archives
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