Rss Feed
Tweeter button
Facebook button
Technorati button
Reddit button
Myspace button
Linkedin button
Webonews button
Delicious button
Digg button
Flickr button
Stumbleupon button
Newsvine button
Youtube button

Archive for the 'Unschooling' Category

Apr 01 2009

Is School Necessary?

Published by ElementalMom under Unschooling

With the demise of the Life Without School blog, my homeschool rants are now going to all be right here on ElementalMom. So don’t say you weren’t warned. Also, without the lovely Robin’s moderating influence, I’m free to revert to my normal bombastic self in these issues. Thus, this link to a lovely article in SF Gate,

Is School Necessary?

The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

Fabulous stuff.

HT: Bryan

4 responses so far

Mar 01 2009

New post on LWOS

Published by ElementalMom under LWOS, Parenting, Unschooling

The Knowing of Practical Things

I wrote this post one day when the demons of doubt were out and large, and one too many people had asked me what the boys were learning. You know, actual school learning. And I snapped.

No responses yet

Oct 06 2008

Deschooling Gently – Launch Party Oct. 12th

Published by ElementalMom under Unschooling, Writing

I am pleased as punch to announce the Launch Party for my friend Tammy Takahashi’s new book, “Deschooling Gently”. From the Hunt Press site,

On Sunday, October 12th, from 2pm-5pm, homeschoolers in the greater Los Angeles region are invited to come celebrate their recognized freedom and the beginning of their school year, at the launch party for the newly published book Deschooling Gently: A Step by Step Guide to Fearless Homeschooling, by Tammy Takahashi.

Diverse homeschoolers with children as young as preschool age, all the way up to high school age, from a varied religious (or not) and cultural backgrounds will join Tammy Takahashi and Hunt Press in a festival of games, food, and camaraderie.

At 3:00-3:30, Tammy Takahashi will speak on the topic of “The Real Cons of Homeschooling: Socialization and Socializing.” This provocative and inspiring talk will change the way you think about how homeschoolers make friends and understand culture.

This event is free. Everyone is welcome.

October 12th
2pm-5pm
Center for Spiritual Living, 4845 Dunsmore Avenue, La Crescenta, CA 91214

More about Deschooling Gently: Deshooling Gently is a much-needed and refreshingly drama-free view on how to make the transition from School with a capital S, to homeschool, including directions and information on how to get educated on the laws governing homeschooling in your state. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Praise for Deschooling Gently by Diane Flynn Keith, Author of Carschooling, Editor of Homefires.com, Founder of UnviersalPreschool.com, and Publisher of ClickSchooling:

If you are new to homeschooling, thinking about homeschooling, and especially if you are unhappily homeschooling—read this book. It will save you hours of time, tons of frustration, and a backpack full of money. Deschooling Gently is an intelligent, practical, frank, and fearless guide on how to take the “school” out of homeschooling in order to raise children who are happily educated, life-long learners. Tammy Takahashi gently shows you how to redefine curriculum and other schoolish concerns as a set of goals and tools with limitless possibilities that will help your children be the best they can be. Buy several copies and sprinkle them around the house as constant touchstones to maintain balance, flexibility, fun, heart, and meaningful purpose in your family’s homeschool life. Deschooling Gently is one of the best homeschool books I’ve read and destined to become a classic for homeschoolers in the 21st century!

Deschooling Gently is available through Amazon and other online booksellers, for $19.94. It is also available through special order at any bookstore.

Tammy Takahashi lives and learns with her three children and her supportive husband in sunny Southern California. She is the editor of the California HomeSchooler magazine (http://www.hsc.org), and writes an alternative education blog (http://justenough.wordpress.com). An acknowledged and leading expert on homeschooling and unschooling, she’s also been interviewed on CNN, Fox News and NPR.

She has written many articles for Home Education Magazine, Natural Learning (formerly Life Learning) Magazine, and CHNews. She has presented at the Homeschool Association of California conference for the past four years. She was a workshop presenter at the California Homeschool Network Expo for the last three years, and was the featured speaker in 2007. Tammy Takahashi is available for workshops and speaking engagements.

For more information, please contact Angela Hunt at ahunt@huntpress.com or 310-890-8617.

One response so far

Sep 29 2008

New Post at LWOS

Published by ElementalMom under LWOS, Unschooling

I really, really loved writing this post on LWOS. There are many friends and much coolness mentioned. Because what’s school, if it doesn’t come with dinner and dancing?

Geography in the School of the World

No responses yet

Aug 27 2008

New Post at LWOS

Published by ElementalMom under LWOS, Unschooling, Writing

Aaaaaaaaaaaand here we go again!

The Lesson of Failure

This one was about an event that happened over 20 years ago. How weird, the little things that stick in your head…

One response so far

Aug 09 2008

Happily Homeschooling in CA

Published by ElementalMom under Politics, Unschooling

The decision came out yesterday from the Cailfornia Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Three with regard to the In re Rachel L. case.

Yes, Virginia, you can homeschool in this state.

All the relevant info can be found on CHN’s website.

Now everyone can quit freaking out and we can file our paperwork this October, right on schedule. Oh gosh, now this means I have to come up with a good name for our school. Suggestions welcome!

6 responses so far

Jul 31 2008

New Post on LWOS

Published by ElementalMom under LWOS, Rowan, Unschooling

It’s clear I haven’t been blogging much by how my LWOS announcements stack up. And lest anyone harangue me for working on those posts instead of Aurora’s birthstory, I wrote the LWOS posts up while I was still pregnant. So there. Anyway, this post is a fun one, about something astonishingly cool that Rowan did.

http://lifewithoutschool.typepad.com/lifewithoutschool/2008/07/upside-down-and.html

One response so far

Jun 29 2008

New Post On LWOS

Published by Laureen under LWOS, TeamHudson, Travel, Unschooling

Because it really does work this way. An unschooling post not about the boys, but about Jason and Marc.

http://lifewithoutschool.typepad.com/lifewithoutschool/2008/06/history-sucks.html

4 responses so far

Jun 01 2008

New post on LWOS

Published by Laureen under LWOS

The Amazing California Health and Happiness (Homeschooling) Roadshow

This was a fun one to write, having to do with the insanity of trying to make homeschooling illegal in CA.

One response so far

Apr 25 2008

Guest Post — Vampires and Unschooling

This is a guest post. I’ve been stockpiling ideas for a while, and in a fit of inbox-cleaning, have been unearthing gems lost in the clutter. I was going to riff on this idea myself, and then decided that Dawn’s words were so perfect, I’d just be messing with it. So here we go… Dawn Radcliffe-Snell, on Vampires and Unschooling.

Ah, I always want to post about something I’m reading on this list, and so rarely can manage the time and focus (even as I type my 3 yr old is trying to climb on my lap and put his had down my shirt! LOL!). It’s interesting, to really be present with my children, even as I try to squeak in writing. I do my best, and sometimes things slide into gear…

But this one I gotta respond to – I know pedophiles! Not a great claim to fame, but it is very true. Yes, I was molested as a child (like so so many), had three different pedophiles in my life, and at 19 put myself in therapy and then eventually went to the DA and prosecuted my dad. He was/is one of those sneaky pedophiles – not the kind that drags you off into the bushes, but the kind that gets into your head first. These are the dangerous ones. I’m not saying the drag-you-off-into-the-bushes guys aren’t to be avoided (wry grin), just that they are not the norm (most molesters know their victims) and they are more easily avoided.

The answer is not to make children afraid of strangers – in effect you are teaching them to be afraid of people, which ironically is at the root of a pedophile’s sickness. Pedophiles are afraid, feel completely alone (even if they’re not), and they are in pain you and I cannot imagine. They have become disconnected from their souls (it would take me a book to explain that probably), and yet are so hungry to feel better that they turn into, basically, vampires (I’m speaking metaphorically of course).

This is very much why I have chosen this path of unschooling, of radical parenting. Not because I am afraid for my children to be around other adults, around other “potential molesters”, but because I want my children strong, connected to their spirits. Children that maintain that connection to their inner knowing, to their instincts (I could use a lot of different nouns here, but basically I’m saying when they are happy and vibrant and soul-full) they KNOW themselves, they KNOW their world, they’re tuned in! Happy children with their voices and spirits intact do not make pedophile prey! My abusers did not molest me and then I was de-spirited, I was already mentally molested, I had already been emotionally severed, they just came in for the kill like any predator would.

Yeah, we could talk about my dad and how much of that de-spiriting came from him, but he was not the only one. It is all around, our society in many very well-meaning ways tells us as children to not hear our own voices, to ignore our selves. That is the root of it. (I cannot tell you how many well-meaning people have tried to tell my children to listen to them simply by virtue of the fact they are “adults”! Luckily my kids just look at them like they’re crazy! LOL!). Children are set up by our “control-based” society. You can try to avoid all the molesters you want to, but if a child is crippled and crushed, it’s a losing battle. Lift the child up, allow them to be who they came to be, happy and strong and loved. And as they are these things, they will naturally be protected (there’s another book to write of explaining…), they will be strong, loving, open, giving, which is why I say “Yes, honey, talk to those happy, nice people!” ‘Cause I know without a doubt that they won’t want to talk to the “unhappy nice ones”. Children get it better than we do IF WE LET THEM.

When I contacted her, struck by the metaphor of the vampire as pedoscele, she elaborated thusly:

And I have to thank you – I see so many connections ‘twix the two and assumed everyone else did too, that I didn’t think of the comparison as “potent”. But it truly fit for me, my joy (my spirit, energy, effervescence, self-belief…) was certainly sucked dry by some-bodies that couldn’t make it for themselves. It is interesting to think about, there are connections like:

  • If you want to kill a vampire, put a stake through its heart (because that’s what needs to die, a faulty wretched heart).
  • They can’t be seen in mirrors (’cause they’re not really there, they are living in the illusion of soul-lessness).
  • They can’t stand garlic (garlic is a healer & blood cleanser).
  • They can’t stand sunlight, they do their deeds in the darkness, hiding physically and metaphorically (bring them into the light and they fry!).
  • They were bitten by a vampire themselves!
  • They are considered damned.
  • They are usually shown as suave, sophisticated, clever, slick, alluring, charming…

And I thought it was interesting how one of the producers of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” spoke of how the show was a mirror of the “vampires” teens have to kill to truly grow up, be whole w/themselves. It was why the show was popular he said. Now, I don’t plan on my children having to kill vampires to grow up, I plan that they are, by the nature of their very strongly already “being alive”, naturally avoiding it, but I completely get what the producer was saying – most kids today do have to fight many different kinds of “suckers”!

Thanks Dawn. Even though you wrote this post over a year ago, it still resonates. Vampires, indeed.

2 responses so far

Apr 21 2008

New Post on LWOS!

Published by ElementalMom under LWOS

More fun tirades from me about Digital Natives!

http://lifewithoutschool.typepad.com/lifewithoutschool/2008/04/digital-natives.html

Enjoy!

No responses yet

Mar 21 2008

New Post on LWOS

Published by ElementalMom under LWOS

Here we go:

http://lifewithoutschool.typepad.com/lifewithoutschool/2008/03/the-boys-projec.html

Lately, I’ve been looking more at underlying assumptions, and less at the actual mechanics of learning, and what I see out there is pretty scary.

No responses yet

Mar 06 2008

Much Ado About CA Homeschooling

Published by ElementalMom under Activism, Unschooling

The latest “sky is falling” panic to hit the homeschool lists is this case, wherein a judge basically declared homeschooling illegal unless you have a credentialed teacher in front of the child each day.

Naturally, mayhem, speculation, and doomsaying commenced.

My friend Tammy really summed it up nicely on her blog, where she states:

But right now, the best course of action is to know that we are strong here. We aren’t afraid that everything will fall apart, and we don’t need to spread panic in order to feel better about something we don’t know a whole lot about… If we panic now, how is that any different than being sucked in by sensationalist news on TV? Let’s rise above and be calm, wise and ready.

Precisely. It boggles my mind that people can think for themselves enough to become homeschoolers, and yet still do the Chicken Little thing on email lists, when a quick common-sense check tells you that the already overburdened, underfunded, and closing California state schools are NOT pushing for a return of the homeschoolers. While I’m the first to admit that our government is not always out for our best interest (HA!), even they would not set up such a scenario. At least, not in an election year. In 2009, maybe I’ll worry again.

2 responses so far

Feb 18 2008

New Post on LWOS!

Published by ElementalMom under Art, LWOS, Musings, Unschooling

This one was really really hard to write. Mostly my essays about unschooling are pretty organic, and roll from whatever we’re experiencing, but lately I’ve been spending some time thinking of the larger cultural implications of the schooling process, and trying to focus on that. And in the interests of full disclosure, I’m also trying to help out some friends who are still arguing with their spouses about whether or not this is an option for them, and trying to encourage a few artist friends of mine who are struggling to continue to create within a culture that so sorely undervalues them. So this one’s for you, guys.

The Natural Products of Our Training

3 responses so far

Feb 03 2008

New Post on LWOS — More Digital Natives

Published by ElementalMom under Digital Natives, LWOS

I‘m a titch late on this, but a new post went up on LWOS a little while back, part 2 of my Digital Natives discussion.

http://lifewithoutschool.typepad.com/lifewithoutschool/2008/01/digital-natives.html

Go read! Leave comments! Increase my clickrate! LOL!

No responses yet

Next »