Unschooling Voices (main page)

Unschooling Voices is a monthly collection of writings (mainly from blogs) on the topic of unschooling.

Details:
You can submit up as many posts as you'd like.
They can be old or new posts.
You can even submit a post that you read on someone’s else’s blog (don't forget to ask their permission).
While most of the submissions are from blogs, Unschooling Voices welcomes all kind of information of interest to the unschooling community such as web pages, press releases, news stories, interviews, etc.
We'd also love to hear from the unschoolers themselves. Share your children's stories, pictures, art work or web sites.
Submissions from new and seasoned unschoolers are equally welcomed!

FYI:
Your blog doesn't have to be an "unschooling blog" to participate...just the post you sent in. Not every blogger who unschools has unschooling as the main focus of their blog.

I’ll suggest a topic question each month (if someone else is hosting, they can use their own question) for those who may like a specific topic to write about but you don’t have to use it. Or you can, and also send in something else. We're real flexible...when in doubt, send it in. :-) You can also answer questions from past months at any time. Just jump right in.

Just in case it comes up, anti-unschooling (is that even a word?) posts will not get through. Someone who is trying to understand unschooling and wanting advice on their doubts is fine. This is also not the place for posts about curriculim, unit studies, lesson plans or "making" children learn.

If you can link to this post somewhere on your blog or website or it would help to get the word out and be very appreciated by all of us who participate.

If you've participated before and would like to host an edition of Unschooling Voices on your blog or website, please leave a comment here.

Send It In:
Unschooling Voices comes out the first of each month. Please have your submission in in at least a couple of days before the 1st, so I have time to get it together. Posts submitted up to that day may still be added but if it doesn't make it in, it'll be included in the following month.

E-mail your submission to unschoolingvoicesATyahoo.com.
Be sure to write "unschooling voices", "submission" or something like that, in the heading so I know it's not spam or it will be deleted.

Information to send: (this is what I’ll use when I put it together)

1) Your name (or name you want to go by).
2) Your submission, in the form of a link.
3) A short (2-3 sentences is fine) description of your submission. I prefer to use your own description, rather than mine.

If your familiar with technorati tags, you can get some extra exposure by using the technorati unschooling voices tag in your post. Here's the link to a tag generator that I use. If your submission includes photos, add them to our Unschooling Voices Flickr Group.

Editions:

Issue #1 July '06
How did you and your family come to unschooling?
On podcast

Issue #2 August '06
Do you extend the principles of unschooling (trust, freedom, etc) into any other areas of your child's life?

Issue #3 September '06
(submitted by Laurie) "I would love to hear other unschoolers thoughts regarding allowance or payment for odd jobs or whatever you want to call it. I see a major benefit from the kids managing their own money but I’m not sure that I want to pay an “allowance” to the kids every week. But if I pay per job, do I pay to have them clean their room or do I only pay for odd jobs? Anyway, I’d love to hear the other thoughts/ideas/methods other unschoolers incorporate".

Issue #4 October '06
Unschooling Math: If you’re like me and went to public school, you grew up being taught math from a text book. Now, as an unschooling parent, how do you live math when you’ve been conditioned to think of math in school terms. How do you go from one to the other?

Issue #5 November '06
On the topic of support in unschooling...how much do you have from family & friends? Are there other unschoolers near you or do you belong to an offline unschooling group? How important is having that support?

Issue #6 December '06
What interesting activites, projects or experiments have your kids done this past year? We've gotten some really cool ideas from other unschoolers so tell us what you've done in 2006! (Please remember this is an unschooling carnival.....don't submit something that smells like school. LOL)

Issue #7 February '07
The topic is deschooling…either yours, your child’s or both. Tell us about it. What is/was it like? Personally, I found that I needed to deschool more than my kids. Do you find that to be true?

Issue #8 April '07:
There are two topics this month. Answer both, one...or neither and blog about something else (#1) Use the letters U-N-S-C-H-O-O-L to write about unschooling. Use what ever method you want, for example you can use each letter like "U is for..., N is for..". Or you can have each letter start a new sentence or paragraph or try writing an acronym. (#2) A topic that comes up on the unschooling e-mail groups a lot is TV/computer/video games and how hard it is for parents to let go of control in those areas. What has been your experience?

Issue #9 June '07:
How has unschooling changed YOU? Yes, it’s about the kids, but is it ONLY about the kids? I sometimes think unschooling has changed me more than them. What are your thoughts? Also, here another short, just-for-fun question this month; share two photos that show what unschooling currently looks like in your house at this time.

Issue #10 November '07
Two questions again - please remember they're always optional. First, what advice would you have given to yourself early in your unschooling journey? Second, ask your kids to take pictures of their favorite ________ (favorite whatever; person, place, thing, etc). Don't forget to share them on our flickr group.

Issue #11 January '08
Unschooling through the ages: How, if at all, does unschooling look different as your child ages and grows. Is it different now than it was a few years back? What role does age play in unschooling?

Issue #12 Feb. '08
This months two questions were submitted by Kim at Relaxed Homeskool, where issue #12 will be hosted. Answer both, one or neither.
1)Write the unschooling manual for a newbie in 400 words or less- have fun!
2)Take the Unschooling Images challenge and describe your unschooling experience using pictures. Here's the questions but you can add more or change them at will:
*Your favorite resource
*One field trip they loved and learned on
*The game they love so much they don’t realize it is educational
*What you’ve “strewn” lately
*Everyday task where they pick up lots of info
* A resource you have always wanted to purchase for the children but keep putting off
*What your kids think school is really like
* Best place to unschool

Issue #13: March '08
Silvia at Po Moyemu hosted this edition and has submitted this question: What do you do, as an unschooling parent, when your child expresses an interest in a particular topic and you don't know how to help them in a way that doesn't involve lesson plans and curriculum?

Issue #14: Submissions being accepted now
Summer at Wired For Noise is hosting this issue and her question for the month is " What unexpected benefits did you gain from unschooling?"

Related Tags: unschooling voices, unschooling carnival, unschooling blogs, unschooling, unschool, unschooled, unschoolers

E-mail submissions to Unschooling Voices -# 7

These five contributions were submitted through e-mail and will be included in Unschooling Voices # 7.

Karen:
When we pulled our children out of school almost 3 years ago, I was aware of'deschooling, so we decided to give it 6 months and see how it went. Well, it ended up taking about a year before both girls got into the groove of homeschooling and then a little longer for unschooling. As a parent I think I still find myself needing to deschool on certain issues. I read a lot about unschooling, mindfulness and parenting and am going through a huge learning/growth spurt. Sometimes it can feel very overwhelming and uncomfortable, other days invigorating. I am still astounded at how conditioned I had been by the educational system. My girls had been in school for 2 years and the eldest 4 years, and the eldest did take the longest to 'deschool' but I also think that is a personality issue.

Sherry:
I just pulled my teens out last year at ages 14 & 15 in some ways we are still deschooling, I recognized that we needed a time of healing.The kids panicked when I told them we wouldn't be doing assignments, tests, grades, etc. but within a few weeks they grasped and accepted what I was telling them. 15 y/o granddaughter stayed up all night on myspace, 14 y/o DS stayed up all night with video games. Both would sleep most of the day. I never said a word, just fixed them breakfast whenever they crawled out of bed. It has been only 7 mos. since they came home to school and I'm beginning to see them emerge from their "caves". DS now gets on the computer to reserve library books online almost daily and we make 2-3 trips a week to pick them up. Granddaughter studies what interests her, writes reports and turns them in to me. I DLed homeschool tracker so that whatever they are doing I can create subjects, courses, and assignments that will give them a transcript. By doing this with the kids, I've begun to heal as well and give myself credit for all the things I've learned in the 30 something years I've been out of school.

Kim:
I find that overall, most of my life I have lead with much that philosophy....why did I need teachers setting a book in front of me and telling me to read chapter 3 and answer questions on the back of sheet. I felt like school was a way to keep us out of trouble for a couple hours each day, most of my learning came from passion, experience and simply put "life"!!
Deschooling came more when I went to college and learned how to study and gain knowledge from materials infront of me...not just following protecal but leraning on my own from my experiences with ppl and life.
I found such an enlightening bunch of "teachers" who knew how to approach life questions and such found science to be my outlet, my passion.
Thus looking into teaching as a profession, still believe that experience is the best teacher !! After having children, I swore never to teach mine the way I was taught, so to speak!!

Raquel:
When I first took my daughter out of school, I kept being told "Oh, she needs some time to deschool..usually one month per year at school" "eek" I thought,
"thats 7 months! I'm sure the local authority will love to hear that we are deschooling for at least 7 months." As it was the local authority didn't get in touch for a year..so by then we were pretty much deschooled..well we had a semblance of being deschooled at least. I think deschooling is what you do to get over the shell shock. The day my daughter left school we both were visibly shaking. We couldn't quite believe we had done it. As "mum", I put on a very chirpy face (after all this was originally my idea!) and I said " Don't worry..it's perfectly legal..what can they do to us?" But deschooling in the UK isn't just about getting school out of the system...it's also abut getting the system out of our system.
People don't just leave school..just like that..surely? Every policeman we saw walking up the high street made us quake. Every nosy shopkeeper made us want to curl up into a ball. Once we got used to staring police and shopkeepers in the eye, our worries turned to the work aspect. I ran out buying workbooks galore. I added 2 billion website links to my favourites..ALL educational!...I left the tv on the documentary channels...I put on BBC radio 4, even when nobody was in the room, in case osmosis was present in the house.
Whilst I was doing all this in between great bouts of worrying, my daughter was beginning to deschool without my knowledge. One day she would be picking up the workbooks, trying to fill them in, "IN CASE THEY COME AND BANG ON THE DOOR!"..and the next moment she would be playing on line with her website, learning html to get it looking good, without a care in the world. This would be interspersed with chatting to friends, making loads of pictures in "Paint", and writing poetry.
I wasn't too aware of the poetry until one day she declares, "mum, I won a poetry competition" "oh that's great!" I thought thinking that it would look good in the report to the local authority. " So what competition was it? When did you enter it? What is the poem?" I asked "oh just some national poetry competition..they are printing it in next months magazine..I wrote it one morning when you were sleeping" Winning a national poetry competition, and she won out of all ages even though she was only 10 at the time, is no mean feat, and I'm so busy trying to get her doing "stufff" for the local authority that I have missed the fact that my daughter is deschooling without me. She didn't write that poem for any Education Welfare Officer to see, she wrote it because she wanted to.
It was at that point I realised that I should stand back and let the deschooling happen and trust that when it does it won't be a disaster. The workbooks disappeared and we embraced deschooling and soon after that autonomous education. I don't think we have fully deschooled.. who knows if we ever will? I still get moments of panic that she doesn't know "enough" or she is getting "left behind". But this happens less frequently, especially as she is growing into a beautiful, intelligent young lady. If not being in school is detrimental to a person, then 2 years out would have been detrimental to my daughter. There are no signs of this at all. It is the complete opposite.Deschooling was just a natural part of our home educating experience. I was the time where we experimented with concepts that terrified us, the time when we had to be our bravest, and the time when we really got to know ourselves. It was the hardest time to date, but also the most enlightening and worthwhile.

Laura:
When our son left school at age 8 he was broke little boy. Not spelling up to the schools standards caused him great grief and heart ache. The schools view of help was to remove him from class to the resource room for "help". This help brought on a chain reaction of teasing, depression and tears on a daily basis. Mornings were so stressful I would feel like I was back in school.
Following a February missing lunch and a call from the school we left for greener pastures.
Deschooling came so natural it almost felt criminal we were so free. Of coarse finding the unschool discussion list gave me the strength to plunge forward into this new world of hope.
Dustin played video games, listened to audio tapes, watched movies,read surfing magazines and went shopping among other activities. Proudly claiming to be homeschoolers every place we visited we were on a mission. Homeschooling was well known in the winter of 99 however in Maine unschooling was still unheard of by many and rarely spoken about beyond a few lists. The following year we did begin to feel the doubts that creep in here ad there. Our son needed reassurance and we needed it too. We headed for the only place at the time that seemed to be advertising, Sylvan.
We learned a lot. We learned that our son wasn't broken. (this still brings tears to my eyes knowing I could have been one of those parents who left him to lump it) We learned what we already knew.. he was just a child, our child. Armed with the knowledge that our past year of unschooling had helped more than two years(or more) of school could ever have we raced forward and to this day are now unschooling our other 3 children.. and ourselves.
Dustin is now 15 and helping to run the family business (his idea back in 1999 and also the creator of the business name) along with following his own interests of cooking, gaming and planning a cross country trip with friends.

Corners of my Home

Corners of my Home
Originally uploaded by Joanne G..

Here is another submission to the "Corners of my home" Flickr group.
This is in my kitchen. The walls are a sand color but they showed up more white in the picture. The top two shelves have waterfalls and the bottom has a snowman basket that holds our mismatched cloth napkins.

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Rue tagged me

But first, a little plug for Rue's book, Parenting a Free Child: An Unschooled Life.,

Okay, back to the matter at hand. :-) I'm supposed to list 6 weird things about myself.

That's an easy one. LOL!!

1. I've had tourists take pictures of me. I was working in Greenich Village in NYC and some tourists from Texas asked if they could take a picture with me. They said they had never seen a punk rocker with a blue mohawk and safety pins earrings and wanted to show their friends. LOL

2. I dyed my hair blue to match a dress I wore to a friend's wedding. :-)

3. My husband & I were intimate in the bathroom during an extremely boring wedding (not the one in #2).

4. I can't be in the same room as someone brushing their teeth. It makes me feel like I'm going to gag and vomit.

5. I had a nightmare about H.R. Pufinstuf when I was a kid (after only watching their show once) and I still remember it vividly. To this day, I get creeped out when I see their picture.

6. For as long as I can remember, I've always had the feeling that I drowned in a previous life.

I asked my husband for 6 weird things about himself and here's his list:

1. I have dressed up, more than once, as Dr. Frank-N-Furter for the midnight show of Rocky Horror at The 8th Street Playhouse in NYC.

2. I can do this. It's called gurning.

3. When Joanne & I went to "Ripleys Believe or Not" Museum in Atlantic City NJ, we were surprised to see a gurning exhibit. They had a mirror where you could practice and tbecause I am such a ham, I did it. Everyone near us got a good laugh and probably thought I was part of the exhibit. The laugh was on me though. As we were leaving, I noticed it was a two way mirror. LOL

4. When I was younger I had the amazing ability to jump up so that my butt was near my friends faces and I would let one rip.

5. I didn't smash cake in my wife's face at our wedding even though I was encouraged from the sidelines, by her male cousins.
Hey what can I say-I did it all for the nooky. ;-)

6. I answered this.

I have to tag other bloggers but I'll do that later. Feel free to answer it on your blog!

Happy Birthday to me

Today is my 44th birthday. Thanks mom. :-)

My daughters each made me a card and gave it to me with breakfast. My husband left me a note on my computer saying "You still look 29. I love you". :-) We'll celebrate this weekend when everybody has more time. I asked for a memory card for my digital camera so we'll see if I get it.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Keep a lid on the way you feel and you will avoid problems with neighbors, friends and relatives. The more time spent on projects, the more you will impress the people around you. Don't jump from one thing to another.

Today's birthday: Happy Birthday! Don't let the small, inconsequential matters rule your world this year. Someone from your past may offer help but you must look at what this person wants in return. Not much has changed regarding the dynamics of this connection, so proceed with caution. Your numbers are 5, 17, 26, 32, 39, 44

Last call for Unschooling Voices (February edition)

The February edition will be out on February 1st so if you were planning on submitting something, please try to have it in before then. Here is the link for all the details.

If you have a blog or website and can post a reminder, it would help get the word out.

Thanks so much!!

Does this count as P.E.?

I've wanted to share a picture of our playset for a while now. My kids love playing, reading, talking and listening to music while on it.

As I was uploading the pictures, I remembered something though. One of the weirdest homeschooling questions I've ever been asked was how my kids do P.E. because they're not in school. Who in their right mind would depend on the public school system for physical activity? It's as if physical activity is only a subject, to be taken just at times that the school dictates. Ridiculous!

We've had this Rainbow playset for a few years now. It was a gift from my mom, for the kids for Christmas and every year she buys the next attachment for it.

Day 173-Buddie's great escape.

My iguana, Buddie ran away from home last week. It's not the first time and I don't think it will be the last.

You see, this time of year is when she would be preparing an area to lay her eggs. Iguanas can produce eggs even without a male iguana, they just won't be fertilized and Buddie has, when she was younger, laid as many as 50 eggs over a two day period. In the past, she has gone through great lengths to escape during this time of year, despite our efforts to create a nesting box for her. In the wild, they dig burrows underground and fill them with eggs.

When we lived in Brooklyn, she ripped a hole in the screen and climbed down the side of a two story house . More recently, she ripped a hole in our screen room and was missing for a week. Someone found her a mile from our house.

She hasn't produced any eggs in a few years now (she's 10 years old) but she still goes through the same ritual of wanting to get out. So last week, she was missing and I start freaking out. Luckily we found her a few hours later, sleeping on one of my neighbors front lawn. We realised she got out through the doggie door. It was really only a matter of time before she figured it out.

Today we were outside in the hot tub and she tried to do it again.



I let her go for a while so she could get some exercise, but she wasn't happy that I was following her and taking her picture. She kept stopping and looking at me. I guess it's no fun running away when mom is with you. :-)

Learning without school

Jacqueline (8 year old) attended "Thinking Day" with her Brownie troop (she's a 4 year Girl Scout). The theme was "Friendships around the world". Each troop created a display for their chosen country and Jacqueline's troop did America. Her troop leader, Sharon (who we love!!) told Billy that Jacqueline knew more about the American flag than anybody else. Billy jokingly said "Hey-not bad for a first grade drop out." To which she replied, "That's because she's lucky and has Joanne teaching her'. Billy didn't have the heart to tell her that she never had a formal history lesson and she learned it on her own. :-)

I asked her how she learned all that and she said "I listen when you guys talk about stuff and I probably read some of it in a book. Also, from the TV show Libery's Kids". :-)

Weekend Flea Market Finds

There is an indoor/outdoor flea/farmers market about a mile away from our home. On a visit there this weekend, I picked up this wooden "Simplify" sign for $4. It's now hanging over my screen room door. It was more than I wanted to spend on it, but the message is a good reminder for me. :-)



I also picked up this zippered tote bag, which looked brand new, for $1. We've been making an effort to lower our plastic bag usage by using tote bags when we shop, so this will come in handy.

How It's Made

We've been really enjoying "How It's Made" on the Discovery Channel (it's on the Science Channel also). They highlight a few different everyday things and show how they're made. It's really interesting and we've caught a few episodes already. Our favorite have been the ones on animation, false teeth and fibre optics. Here's their website.

Downtown Manhattan skyline

Manhattan skyline .

Here is my first submission to the Flickr group, Corners of my home. This is one section of a 13'X 8' mural of the downtown Manhattan skyline when the twin towers were still part of it. It's on one complete wall in our family room.

Courier Journal Unschooling Article

'Unschooling' popularity grows: Children pursue what interests them
Post-Tribune

ST. JOHN, Ind. — As other children are waking up and heading toward the school bus on a Tuesday morning, Adele Schiessle asks her children if they want to spend the day playing on a 6,000-square-foot indoor inflatable play area.

Collin, 6, and Amber, 7, agree that would be a pleasant way to start the morning. After they play on the bouncy furniture, they head back to their home in St. John, where they spend the rest of the day watching TV, navigating XBox, working on art projects and playing games.
It is just another day in the Schiessle household, where the children learn through a branch of homeschooling called unschooling.

While the definition of unschooling varies, it generally reflects a concept of child-led learning.
For Carol Pozos' oldest child, it meant self-taught reading at age 4.
For 18-year-old Abby Stewart of Chicago, it meant the recent news that she had won early admission to Princeton.

"It's an awareness that learning is always happening because it's part of living," said Jane Van Stelle Haded of Hobart, who unschools her two children. "It's almost trying to capitalize on whatever your children are interested in."

Unschooled children don't go to school, but unlike other homeschoolers they don't necessarily learn through workbooks, educational guides or study sources. Instead, the children pursue what interests them. The unschooling concept has been around for decades, but it's been slow to catch on, as initially most parents shy away from letting their children have such control over their own education.

"I'm trying to get rid of the idea that learning happens at a certain time in a certain place," Van Stelle Haded said.

There aren't any statistics on unschoolers yet, but the popularity of unschooling is reflected in the number of message boards on the Internet, in the abundance of unschooling clubs, in the frequency of unschooling conferences and in the slow but steady movement of unschooling into the vocabulary of educators.

Marilyn Haring, professor of educational studies at Purdue University, said that while unschooling is valuable because it questions aspects of traditional schooling, it is not without problems.

"With regard to unschooling, I believe this is best described as utopian," Haring said. "A minuscule few youngsters may have the high intelligence and motivation to inquire broadly and also learn how to learn. The vast majority, however, have no idea what might be learned and why it is important."

Part of the increased attention on alternative education may be the rebellion against educational initiatives such as No Child Left Behind. It was one of the reasons Janna Odenthal of Chesterton embraced unschooling for her child. "The testing doesn't do any good," she said.
In a 2003 survey by the U.S. Department of Education, the number of children educated at home nationally was 1.1 million, an increase of 29 percent from the previous study in 1999.

Seth Odenthal, 10, has been unschooled since he was about 5.
"I went ahead and gave it a try, and I fell in love with the things we could do together, the flexibility in our schedule," his mother said. When Seth took an early interest in cooking and baking, Odenthal embraced his curiosity, and the two of them cook together. She even signed him up for a local cooking class. Seth never formally learned math, but Odenthal said he excels at it because it's a natural progression from his cooking interests.

Indiana doesn't require the unschoolers to take standardized tests, and parents are allowed to give their unschooled children high school diplomas when the parents believe the children are ready to graduate.

Since education laws in Indiana are loose, parents of unschoolers can take different approaches to learning. But most tend to have a few common practices. Students don't sit at desks to learn, as parents believe learning happens all the time. And while they aren't taught how to read or write or do science, the children usually ask their parents enough questions that they eventually learn on their own.

"My oldest was reading on her own without being taught before she turned 5," said Carol Pozos, who unschools her three children in her Michigan City home. "I did not do anything except read to her, and she soaked it up and was reading full sentences. I thought to myself, 'Obviously, this works.' " Pozos, who has a degree in elementary education, enrolled one of her children in preschool because the child had been begging her to go to school since she was 3. But when her daughter refused to return to school halfway through the year, Pozos decided to try teaching her children herself. Her children are 8, 7 and 4, and other than a half-year of preschool, all three have been learning at home their entire lives. They also have chores they're required to do every morning.
And once they finish their chores? "We do whatever we want," said 8-year-old Isabel, who spent a recent afternoon on the floor of her living room flipping through a picture book with her 4-year-old brother. On Thursday mornings the children attend an art class filled with unschoolers and their parents. "Books are out, and if they want to draw they can draw," Pozos said of the class. "If they don't want to participate, they can go off in the corner and play."

To prepare for the SAT college admission tests, 18-year-old unschooler Abby Stewart bought some test prep books and took some old subject matter tests. She posted an overall SAT score of 2,350 out of a possible 2,400.

Pozos said she'd be happy if her children went to college, as long as they are happy with their decision. "I'm not one of those people who says, 'I want my son to be a doctor and my daughter to be an attorney.' I just want them to be happy. If Armand wants to be a stay-at-home dad and Isabel wants to be a marine biologist, that's just fine."

Buddhism

"If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking." ~Buddhist Saying

I've been interested in Buddhism for a little while now. I'm not a fan of organized religion and the fact that Buddhism is not a religion in the tradional sense of the word, appeals to me.

I was raised and baptised Roman Catholic, as was my husband. Although I wouldn't ever formally change my religion (because I feel like it's as much a part of me as being female or caucasian), I don't follow it or attend church.

I've identified myself as agnostic for all of my adult life, but in looking for something more spiritual over the last years, my path has taken me to learn more about Buddhism.

Copied from an online source:

What is Buddhism?
Buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development leading to insight into the true nature of life. Buddhist practices such as meditation are means of changing oneself in order to develop the qualities of awareness, kindness, and wisdom.
The experience developed within the Buddhist tradition over thousands of years has created an incomparable resource for all those who wish to follow a path — a path which ultimately culminates in Enlightenment or Buddhahood.

Because Buddhism does not include the idea of worshipping a creator god, some people do not see it as a religion in the normal, Western sense. The basic tenets of Buddhist teaching are straightforward and practical: nothing is fixed or permanent; actions have consequences; change is possible.

Thus Buddhism addresses itself to all people irrespective of race, nationality, or gender. It teaches practical methods (such as meditation) which enable people to realise and utilise its teachings in order to transform their experience, to be fully responsible for their lives and to develop the qualities of Wisdom and Compassion.

There are around 350 million Buddhists and a growing number of them are Westerners. They follow many different forms of Buddhism, but all traditions are characterised by non-violence, lack of dogma, tolerance of differences, and, usually, by the practice of meditation .
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Hook Rug

We bought Jacqueline a hook rug kit as one of her Christmas gifts and she asked "Mom Mom" (my mother) to show her how to do it.

My mother lives next door to us and she and Jacqueline spend a lot of time together. She got the title "Mom Mom" because that's what my husband called his maternal grandmother. She was his mom's mom so she became Mom Mom. :-) When we adopted our kids, Billy asked my mother if she would carry on the title. :-)





I'll post a picture when she's done with it. She wants to make it into a pillow for her room. :-)

Bugs

There are strange looking bugs in Florida.

Back home (NYC), we had roaches and flys. One walked, the other flew. In Florida, there are roaches that do both, some that look like a tree branch and others that look like leaves. Really weird.

We like when they rest on our window because we get a close up view of them, one that we wouldn't normally get to see. Jacqueline found this "thing" on her window and yelled to get the magnifying glass.

Unschooling article from Education Week

From Education Week: Published: December 20, 2006
‘Unschooling’ Stresses Curiosity More Than Traditional Academics
By Michelle R. Davis

As yellow school buses rumble through Nicole Puckett’s Spokane, Wash., neighborhood, her eight children are often asleep in bed. When they wake up, instead of heading to school, they go downstairs to begin another day of "unschooling,

" an educational approach that is the subject of much debate among home-schoolers and traditional school advocates. Ms. Puckett keeps her children at home for their education, but she doesn’t have a textbook in the house. Instead, she follows the philosophy of letting the child decide each day what activities to pursue—or avoid.
On a typical day, Ms. Puckett’s children—who range in age from 4 to 17 and have never gone to a traditional school—might watch a few hours of television, read the Bible, amuse themselves with video games, play with their siblings, practice the violin, or learn Russian. On many days, they’re out of the house visiting museums, going to concerts, or attending theatrical plays.

"I believe that each child is gifted, but each has different gifts," said Ms. Puckett, who sees it as her job to help facilitate the learning that her children choose. "When I see them veering toward something, I guide them toward it. If they’re showing no interest, then we don’t do it." This child-led method of home schooling means that what children do during a typical school day is entirely up to them.

In an era of increased standardized testing, top-down curricula, and the mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, unschooling is attractive to some parents, who say learning should be a more organic, curiosity-inspired exercise. Advocates say it allows children to become passionate about, and invested in, their own learning.
Risks Involved But critics, including some of those who opt for more-structured home schooling and proponents of "child centered" classrooms in regular schools, say that there are risks involved, and that learning deficits can result from letting children basically learn whatever they want.

Nel Noddings, an education professor emeritus at Stanford University, describes herself as an advocate of child-centered education when it is done right. But she said unschooling raises many questions of concern. For instance, she said, an unschooling parent who never liked science might de-emphasize the subject because of those feelings or a lack of knowledge about it. And she worries that religious fundamentalist parents, for example, might use unschooling "to keep their kids away from the breadth of ideas they might be exposed to."

The term "unschooling" was coined by the late John Holt, one of the godfathers of the home-schooling movement, who wrote a stack of books about alternative ways of educating children. Mr. Holt first used the word in 1977 and equated it with home schooling. The term resonated with many home-schooling parents who didn’t want to use traditional methods, such as textbooks and organized subjects, to educate their children, said Patrick Farenga, the president of Holt Associates, based in Wakefield, Mass. Mr. Farenga took over leadership of the company, a home schooling publishing and advocacy organization, when Mr. Holt died in 1985. Unschooling should not mean "schooling without a plan," Mr. Farenga said in an interview. "It’s self-directed learning. I define unschooling as allowing children as much freedom to explore the world as you can comfortably bear."

Brian D. Ray, the president of the Salem, Ore.-based Home Schooling Institute, estimates that 10 to 15 percent of the 1.9 to 2.4 million K-12 children being home-schooled in the United States also fall into the unschooling category, also sometimes called "relaxed home schooling." "We’re talking about people who purposely, intentionally, philosophically make learning an integral and organic part of everyday life," he said.

State laws on home schooling also pertain to unschooling and vary considerably around the country, Mr. Ray said. Some states require home-schooled children to take several standardized tests during their K-12 years. Other states have few or no requirements of home-schoolers, he said. For instance, in Washington state, where Ms. Puckett’s family lives, the law requires that home-schooled students take an annual achievement test, though they’re not required to meet a particular educational achievement target, according to a listing of each state’s requirements compiled by Home Education Magazine, a bi-monthly magazine about home schooling that has been around since 1983. Connecticut asks that parents who engage in home schooling file an annual plan for their child’s education and meet once a year with local education officials to review the plan. Pennsylvania requires that home-schooling parents provide at least 180 days of instruction and maps out what subjects must be taught.
Pennsylvania also requires annual testing and detailed documentation from parents to prove instruction is occurring.

Sandra Dodd, a longtime advocate of unschooling who lives in Albuquerque, N.M., and whose two children never attended a traditional school, said when her oldest child was of school age she believed he was already soaking up more on his own than he would in kindergarten. "If you don’t separate the world into educational and noneducational, your child wants to learn everything, so everything around them is what he’s learning from," she said. "They’re learning in natural, real world ways, the way you learn to drive or cook or sew."

‘Less Structured Place’ Unschoolers argue that if a child is intrigued by a book, for example, they don’t have to quit reading it to make way for a science lesson; or if they love dinosaurs, they can study them for weeks at a time, and visit museums to bolster the experience.

Jane Powell, a Bowie, Md., mother of four children who practices unschooling, said she never taught her oldest son, now 9, to read. He learned how to read by playing video games, she said. "As he was playing his games, he was asking me to read, so I was reading what he needed. Then he was asking me less and less frequently, and then it stopped. … He learned to read," she said. "I didn’t teach him. I didn’t prod him. I didn’t give him any helpful shoves in the appropriate direction. He learned to read when he was ready."

Likewise, Ms. Dodd said she never taught her children mathematics by using worksheets or word problems. Her children learned math by figuring out how many weeks of allowance it would take to save up for a certain toy, by calculating percentage discounts on items at stores, and by estimating tips at restaurants, she said. Ms. Dodd said her son, at his own request, took his first formal math class at age 18 at a local community college. When he took the initial placement test, she had to explain to him that multiplication could be represented by an X or by a dot or by a parenthesis. He scored well on the initial test, she said and by the end of the class he had pushed his scores even higher, she said. With unschooling, "how you learn something is because you want to learn it," Ms. Dodd said, adding that her children have been able to follow their own interests—rather than a list of subjects determined by others. "My kids have had a glorious full life of absence of school," she said. Of course, those from more traditional education circles worry that such free-form education could make it difficult for a child to adjust as an adult to the more structured world of college or work.

But Ms. Noddings of Stanford, despite her reservations about unschooling, believes just the opposite. "Perhaps these kids may help the world be a less miserable and less structured place," she said. "Perhaps they’ll have something to say against the overly bureaucratic system we have now."

Different Approaches To those who have chosen unsch