Ebb and Flow

I get about the online unschooling traps a bit, and one of the things I notice is a certain level of guilt about not facilitating consistently at all times. I know that I've felt it too! So lately I've been dissecting it a bit and I have a few thoughts I'd like to share.

First off let's compare unschooling with school for just a moment. When children attend school there are holidays and weekends, and schooling parents don't feel guilty that their children aren't learning during those times (well some might, but we can't cover all bases). Also, schooled children take mental breaks throughout the day, every day they attend school! After all who can sit in a room being talked to non stop and not zone out, at least occasionally? So it's probably safe to compare the ebb periods with week ends or holidays or just plain daydreaming. There's nothing wrong with daydreaming! I bet some of the greatest inventions, novels, scientific theories etc were dreamed up when their creator was tuning out. 

Unschooling parents are most commonly schooled parents. I can make that assumption because the overwhelming majority of people in our society attend the institution for their education. To that end, we tend to have ingrained ideas of what education and learning should look like, and deschooling ourselves is a complicated and ongoing process that I suspect takes longer than we know, and may not ever be truly completed, although we may come close. (actually I think deschooling ebbs and flows too, but that's another post). Sometimes our kids are hell bent on extracting every bit of knowledge they can possibly attain through all manner of sources, and in those times we feel involved, virtuous, we feel as though our choice to unschool is paying off because we can measure their progress. But when they hit that brick wall and the ebb stage take over, us parents often feel a bit wobbly about it all. But you know what? It's impossible to live in a state of "nil learning". IMPOSSIBLE! Even though what they're learning may not outwardly appear educational, or it might not appear at all, they are still learning stuff. They really are!

School analogy: A kid may go to school all day and learn "nothing" (many of us have asked a schooled child what they learnt only to be told "nothing") But on the bus on the way home they learn about bus route, bus fare, reading timetables, it's just that the schooling parent might not notice that and assign it any value, but the unschooling parent does. Using public transport to navigate your way around the world is a really useful and worthy skill.

Right now we're on an ebb period. Sometimes I feel like I should go and razz the kids up, get them off their computer games and make them do something that my previously institutionalised, schooled self deems appropriate. And sometimes in the past I have done just that. But this time I'm not doing anything. I'm not standing in their way, I'm not banning them from Mario Brothers, I'm not telling them to go outside and play, and I'm certainly not handing them text books and expecting them to complete set exercises. Why? Well strike the text books off first, simply by saying that they voluntarily complete work in text books when they feel like it, if I go and force them to do it they won't enjoy the books anymore and they won't learn from them if they're just using them to get me off their case. As for going outside and playing, well they do that every day anyway. They walk the dog, they play chasings, they sometimes play a ball game and most days they engage is some loud wrestling match that disturbs the overall peace of the household significantly. 

I have a feeling we'll soon get flowing again.

the ebb, sleeping near Mario Brothers

l like unschooling!

I really like unschooling the kids! I've been a schooling mama and it just didn't gel with me.

I never liked washing and ironing uniforms, packing lunches that I knew only ever got thrown out or went mouldy before I could find them, homework fights, waking the baby to get to school for collection on time, having to hand my daughter over to someone else and needing THEIR permission to parent her between 9 and 3 and many many more!

What I like about unschooling, or natural learning, is that we can really plot our own lives. We can go for a day trip or a holiday when it suits us. We can get up as early or as late as we like, and the same goes for sleep. The children can learn about what interests them, and by following their instincts they learn about so many other things that I won't even attempt to list. I am the one who knows where my children are at, and I don't need to wait for a report card. I know that my kids socialise with lots of different children, that are all different ages.

In fact, come to think of it, I think I love everything about natural learning! And here's an update on all the things that have been happening lately.

Angus is now crawling and sitting up and babbling lots, and he is threatening to get a tooth. He loves playing with everyone, and is interested in the pets and all his toys. He loves having a bath with me and Spikee and his favourite bath toy is his bath book.

Spikee is learning lots about how computers work, and he likes doing lots of typing, changing colour and font, navigating his own way around youtube, and some dinosaur games we found on the www. He is still interested in geography and when last seen was wandering around with an atlas telling us where South America and Tasmania are, and that South America is much bigger.

Stylish has taken herself off to her first girl guides meeting this afternoon, with another little girl who unschools about two kilometres from us. She's also bee regularly attending rag rugging classes and making significant progress on her rag rug, which she seems rather pleased with. She's been doing lots of art, drawing horses and frogs, and last week she decided to write an essay about dart frogs. She wrote them most amazing essay, using an extensive show of vocabulary and scientific understanding. I asked her what she would like to do with frogs when she grows up and she told me that she would like to go to South America (possibly explaining Spikee's interest in that particular continent) and discover a new species of frog, and help to classify some other species. She then informed me that there are about 22 new species discovered each year. I am so thrilled with her plan!

OPERATION I SMELL A RAT!

I've been considering getting myself a really big treat for my birthday, a daschund. Whilst scouring the internet looking for breeders, I came across an ad that JUST FELT WRONG. It said "Hi, if you need to re-home your pet rats, please email me. You can drop them off at my house. I have room for 7 rats all up, and offer the best care possible whilst I re-home your loved one" or words to that effect. It also described the rat this mystery person already owns, and gave some details about the happy existence it has. Soooo, feeling a little bit suspicious about this, I checked the contact email address and to my non-surprise I discovered that IT WAS STYLISH'S!

As tempted as I was to charge down the hallway, guns blazing, calling for blood, I decided that that particular method would not involve any lessons learnt, and may in fact just cause further tensions. So I thought carefully about what to do, and then contacted a few friends and asked for their assistance with this matter. One friend volunteered to email her and OPERATION I SMELL A RAT began!

My friends sent her some emails offering her rats! One had a litter of 12 that were of an undisclosed sex, and were only 2 weeks old. One had three male rats. One of the emails said ...

I have 6 rats, one has a resected bowel and needs regular care because it basically leaks diarrhoea constantly, but she's a real sweetie, very cute and cuddly. One of the other ones was born a siamese twin, it's twin was removed by the vet, but it still has one extra leg that couldn't be removed, and the scar is prone to infection so you need to be on to that - I'll bring you the rest of the antibiotic cream to put on it as well.

Thanks so much, I think it's great what you're doing.

and another said ...

Hello,

I saw your ad on xxxxxxxx and would like to offer you 3 pedigree Poodle Woollen Rats (One is fluoro pink, accident with highlighter I'm afraid), 1 Blueberry Rainforest rat, 1 White tailed Chocolate Rat and 1 Skipping Tree Rat. When could you take them off our hands? We are moving out of Cairns to Kuranda and need to get rid of them ASAP. I can throw in the cage and the dry food too.

L.

P.s The Skipping Tree rat bites. Suspect its not pedigree but a mutt given how close to the common garden rat it looks like. And it doesn't skip anymore.

She sent responses like

Hi

Oh I am so sorry but someone just abandoned two rats with litters and now I have 22 rats! I am having a hard time hand rearing 6 that the mother won't feed so I can give you a contact number for someone who can help as I can't?

and

Hello, OMG I would be so happy to help! but they would need their mother at that stage up until 6weeks so can can you deal with giving her up to? I am quite capable of helping I just raised a litter of rats with my mum that were found abandoned at my door step they were rehomed to a lovely woman

Then she sheepishly came into our bedroom (where A and I were muffling our laughter because we knew she'd just checked her email) and told me about a terribly sick rat that needed to come and be cared for by us. And then added something vague about how she'd put an ad on a website and then "forgotten about it" - not before we got two revolting, stinking male rats the size of your average Great Dane! And it was at this point that I said to her "You should be careful what you advertise on the internet, because YOUR MOTHER MIGHT FIND THE AD". She didn't cotton on, and repeated the case for the poor sick rat with 5 legs and a seeping wound ... so I repeated my sage advice, and suddenly she froze. She'd worked it out! She wanted to get angry at me, but she was laughing too hard, thank heavens!

Soooo, I think that a valuable lesson was learnt here tonight! There are lots of freaks on the internet, be glad it was your mother (and some freak with a pink rat!) who discovered this ad and not a real, dangerous, predator.

She has removed the ad now I'm pleased to say.

isn't it amazing!

Every day Spikee requests paper and writing equipment to do some writing! He basically scribbles, but he calls it writing, and it's most definitely the beginnings of literacy. His computer skills improve every day, and the hand / eye coordination required to operate the notebook mouse are starting to surprise me. Stylish was his age (3.5) when she started using a mouse and playing edumacational games.

Stylish got two new pet rats today. Pip ran away two days ago, and for such a tame rat I'm quite surprised that she hasn't come home! Never the less, if she does there's plenty room in the house for them all. She called them Matilda, Grape,  and the first new rat we got last week end is called Electra. They're happily getting to know each other in their newly designed home, and eating the turkey stuffing that A brought home from work (we all ate the turkey). These rats are the best fed rats in this hemisphere. The more or less live off our kitchen scraps. Their home is decked out with things Stylish has collected from second hand shops (recently some plastic tissue box covers) and bedding hammocks that she has sewed by hand.

I can't decide what to do tomorrow, I was thinking we might go swimming if  I can be bothered dragging myself all the way out to the pool. Or maybe we'll stay home while it's hot and meet A after work for laksa and a look at the huge xmas tree in Martin Place. Spikee seems to be catching the xmas bug at long last, so that might be right up his alley!

happenings

Today isn't too hot so we spent a good deal of time in the garden weeding, and planting mustard which I'm hoping will be ready to eat by xmas. Spikee very enthusiastically waters his peas and corn each day, and was delighted when I showed him some of the pea plants we started ages ago now have flowers on them, so does our watermelon. Plus we have about ten or more pumpkin flowers, and twenty odd strawberry flowers too.  The kids (and the grown ups) have all been interested in the seeds we plant because they  .... look just like the seeds in the fruit or veggies that you eat. (pick the city slickers)

Stylish is really getting into the whole water saving thing now, and when the washing machine starts pumping out the water is often standing right there with the hose going into the watering can, ready to run it out to the garden and come back for more! It's rather therapeutic for me, so I suppose she finds it enjoyable too. We have such an elaborate system of bottles, buckets, and watering cans happening that we rarely waste a drop these days, which - owing to the size of our growing veggie patch - is great! 

The kids decided that they're not going to buy xmas presents this year, they're going to make them instead! Which I think is lovely, and will be pulling out all the stoppers to assist them over the coming weeks. Recently for Grandpa's birthday Stylish gave him a red pot of soil with seeds in it for him to water and discover what she had given him as it grew, I thought that was creative. They both made him cards which he loves.

I had a bag of organic black beans sitting in the cupboard unopened for a while now and I decided to do something with them so I googled black bean sauce. It was the easiest thing I ever made, and everyone (except the resident breatharian) loves it! We've made it four times since then. We did some food science with the bean soaking process, because you're meant to  use fermented black beans, so we soaked them over night and watched the yeast forming. Then observed how much it grew over the course of the second warm day until the mixture smelt disgusting - at which time we were hesitant to admit that the beans were ready to cook. 

Stylish has started her new blog and is enjoying the creative side as well as the writing side. As soon as it's got more on it I am permitted to post a link here. She is really showing some internet competency these days, enjoying a couple of reptile and amphibian forums, and her game (which seems to be under control thus far). 

Spikee keeps wanting to write, so today we sat down with a pencil and I wrote 'a' and he wrote it too! then I wrote mum, dad, Stylish, and Spikee, and he read them, and recognised them when written again! After that I took him to starfall where he enjoyed looking at the letters and saying what words he could hear the sounds in. Then after that he requested some 'nummas' so we went to poissonrouge and did their numbers a few times. He managed to more or less drive the mouse himself which is a huge development!

general happenings ....

Stylish has decided to start a new blog with animal information. I'll help her to do that tomorrow, stay tuned! She also has a new pen-friend which she seems to be enjoying. And she has recently gone back to her old on line game with horses, I'm hoping that now she's more de-schooled than she was when she first got involved with that, it won't take over her life like it did last time. Limits will be placed on it if it looks like it's getting out of control. I much prefer self set limits though .....

Apparently her male frog is calling early in the morning and waking her up, she's not impressed with his efforts  (I personally admire him, waking her up takes some effort!). We gave our old rat a few days to grieve, and then yesterday purchased a tiny little timid baby rat from some ghastly pet shop - it cost $20!!! Over the course of yesterday and today the poor wee thing is much less skittish, she's obviously not used to being handled. 

Spikee is asking more often about writing. He asks me to write a certain word, then scribbles over it, I figure he's heading for some more controlled efforts ... in the next five or ten years. He's also learning to read numbers, and gaining some competency bit by bit at number recognition. His counting is really taking off too! 

Yesterday he asked me if he could plant some seeds so I showed him what seeds we had and he chose some corn and peas, filled a pot with soil from the compost heap, dug little holes with his fingers, and the pushed the seeds in. He very enthusiastically watered them several times yesterday, and then again today. 

Tomorrow we're gonna be making a clock out of a lemon - don't ask me how - so we'll no doubt have pics to show off! And Spikee will be watering the garden again ... and again.

computer battles

Lately there have been a few battles over computer time and how things are getting done - or not. Today after a discussion we have agreed that she will be permitted two hours on the computer each day. 1hr in the morning and 1hr at night. She will self police it using the microwave timer. We will see how it goes. Owing to the fact that it was negotiated by her and not just imposed upon her I'm hoping she will stick to it, but being her age does make these things complex to say the least!

Stylish hasn't seen her father since early last December and she is starting to get very angry at him. last at the wind down stage of our big argument she screamed at me "my grandma is dead and my father has abandoned me". Then the argument was over, she just wanted to talk about that stuff instead of how awful I am and how I apparently hate her - very normal topics for someone her age me thinks! Yesterday when I was out she tried to phone him but his phone was switched off, when I got home she was in a RAGE, and it wasn't until she said that I realised what the underlying problem was, and no it wasn't a computer game on the internet. I now have her on a substantial dose of "Sturts Desert Pea" Bush Flower Remedy which is for deep seated grief. After the argument she shared some poems with me - on the condition that I didn't laugh. She's written some lovely poetry and I'll ask her if I can publish one of them here later.