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
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
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.
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.
More fun tirades from me about Digital Natives!
http://lifewithoutschool.typepad.com/lifewithoutschool/2008/04/digital-natives.html
Enjoy!
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.
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.
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.
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!
I had a ton of fun with this post. Entitled “Farmers’ Market“, about our weekly shopping trips, and how quite a lot of education about a really huge array of topics happens inbetween the apples and the lettuce. Check it out.