Loving, Living, Learning

Learning in all kinds of ways

2010-02-10T20:32:00.001-05:00

Today was a work day for me but there were things on the calendar. We are blessed to live within a short drive of many cultural experiences.

The Brooks Center at Clemson University has a wonderful school performance program and today was on of the best.

I missed it but Chris and the kids went to see The African Children's Choir. Everyone agrees that it was a wonderful performance.

AFRICAN CHILDREN'S CHOIR ON AMERICAN IDOL

When I got home, I found out that Chris had expanded our cable to include Halogen, Biography, Science, Discovery Health, and more. Yay!

I think I am going to let the kids check out the tv schedule and make a list of all of the great shows coming up. Right now we are watching Artland USA. What a great way to see all the creativity in our country!

Changes

2010-02-09T21:28:00.003-05:00

Hello my dear abandoned blog. Of all the blogs that I have (and it is far more than one person should have) this is one that I don't want to neglect. It is not only a record of what we are doing but hopefully an encouragement to others. Even an encouragement to me when I think that we aren't doing enough.

If I have to be honest, I am not sure that we have been doing enough. I had become so lethargic about homeschooling and frustrated with trying to move forward and generally mentally disorganized. However, no other choice has risen above this one to educate our children at home.

And now life as we have known it is changing. After almost twenty-five years of being a stay-at-home mom, after almost as many years being primarily responsible for homeschooling our children, I am now working outside the home. It is just a part-time job at a local bookstore (Buy Indie!) but being out of the home over twenty-five hours a week cannot help but have an impact.

The changes only seem to be positive so far. For the first time, my husband has moved from just a supportive partner to an active contributer. We are working together to continue living as fully as we have been, to ignite that love of learning again and as always and most importantly, loving well.

It's not enrichment, this IS the education

2009-10-20T01:28:00.002-04:00

I keep forgetting to take my camera. We have been doing some really fun things lately and I keep forgetting to take my camera! It would be so much better to be able to share photos but a simple list will have to suffice for now:

We are blessed with two performing arts centers within reasonable driving distance, The Peace Center in Greenville and The Brooks Center at Clemson University. So far this year we have attended a performance by the Clemson University Orchestra, A Juggling Play, Tales of Poe, The Mad Scientist, Peter and the Wolf and many more are scheduled through April of next year.
Logan attends a class each month at The Greenville Zoo and the rest of us tag along for Tell me About it Tuesdays.
Roper Mountain Science Center hosted Harry Potter Science last week. The most favorite activity was making snotty slime in the potions class. Noah and Logan got to play Muggle Quidditch though I think they have decided that their version is better.
The Upcountry History Museum offers homeschooling Fridays and so far Noah and Logan have attended twice and all of them are scheduled to attend after the first of the year. The boys have enjoyed learning what people did for entertainment during the depression era, learning to make baseballs with twine and tape and learning how to swing dance. This last class was teaching them about World War 2 war propaganda, focusing on the cartoons produced by Disney during that time.
In August we had the joy of seeing original Monet paintings as the High Museum in Atlanta and I just received notice that the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit just opened. Our own local art museum has just opened ther annual children's book illustration exhibit featuring the work of William Steig, creator of Shrek.

These are the things, at least some of the things, that we do. I don't consider them enrichment activities or extras. To think of them like that would consider them as something that could be skipped. These are the things that will not, cannot be missed. They are the education.

Lifelong Learning

2009-10-18T00:16:00.003-04:00

I got an ipod for my birthday this year. Though I had scoffed at the idea a bit and had insisted it was just too small and I felt afraid that I would lose it, my ipod has become my constant companion. (Especially since we can't circumvent the anti-theft device on the radio in our van ... that's another story though) I have loved listening to my favorite music as well as discovering new music via my children. Much of my favorite music now was recommended by my children.

But the best thing about my ipod is listening to podcasts. I've spent weeks listening to Mars Hill teaching from last year (an entire year in the book of Philippians!). This American Life is alway interesting and recently, I discovered a wonderful unschooling podcast, Humans Being. Host Sara Parent has given me just the booster shot of encouragement that I needed recently as my doubts grew large. I highly recommend her podcast and now I see that she is also working on a magazine. Wonderful!

One of my favorite episodes of Humans Being is from a year ago, Unschooling Yourself, when Sara talked about the concept of lifelong learning and modeling this for our chlidren. This is a guiding princple in our lives and we constantly refer to the things we have really only learned as adults, out of school. Each day brings new opportunities. Today was a great example.

Chris has been hanging drywall and doors in our masterbedroom, has plans to knock out another wall, shrink our too-big bathroom and create an artist studio for me. Prior to a couple of months ago, Chris had never done any of this. But thanks to books, google, youtube videos and hiring someone for one day, he has learned to do it himself. And speaking of that art studio. That's for me, for my mixed media art that I have started creating in the last five years, utilizing online classes and lots of play and experimenting.

Chris is an avid birder and genealogist as well. My interest in cooking has been reignited recently after watching Julie and Julia and I started a book club to inspire me to read fiction again because most of the time, I am reading books about feminism and theology. We believe that one of the best things we can do is to model an active, interesting life for our children. They don't think in terms of one being too old to learn anything because we don't.

What about you? What are you learning lately?

It's not about the labels ... it's about loving, living and learning!

2009-10-13T08:51:00.001-04:00

Just discovered Eli Gerzon's blog yesterday via his post that begins "Columbus helped inspire me to leave school and start unschooling." (on that note Milva posted some great resources for learning the whole story of Christopher Columbus. I read from The Younger Person's Guide to United States History by Howard Zinn to the children yesterday.)

This morning I spent some time reading through a few of Eli's posts and discovered this comment. It was so good that I want to pull the first paragraph out to repost here.

Eli is correct on all accounts and has a well rounded flexible take on the Unschooling concept. I have but this to add. Unschooling is only a label. It is neither this or that. The words definition is your experience with it. it is guided by your child for your child. Do not get caught up in whether your a homeschooler, unschooler, world schooler, not back to schooler, the point is that your child is happy, enriched, informed, empowered and excited. Frankly if school is the antithesis of what we are doing, the word should not even be part of the terminology that we use to define ourselves. Glean all of the insights that you can from others, couple it with what you feel comfortable with and start there. It will evolve as both your child and yourself will.

This is beautiful advice and bears repeating over and over. Let go of the labels; they don't matter that much.

Recently my daughter, Katie, wrote a post, I love my Family and said,

We don't follow any of the rules (but in a good kind of way) Mommi and Daddy always taught us to ask questions, why do we do things the way we do? is it just because everyone says we should? Follow your heart, do what you love... it isn't about money or "the American Dream" it is about loving people and living a full life. We have as many friends my parents age as we do our own... we are definitely NOT socially ackward. maybe a little slow... but that is just because we soak everything in.

I love that she targeted our first two values so clearly ...loving and living. We rarely talk about learning because it is such an intrinsic part of our lives, so integrated that we don't separate at something we do. We are just learners.

Technorati Tags: unschooling, Columbus day, labels

If not an unschooler, then what?

2009-10-11T16:28:00.000-04:00

Ok, a whole week later, but I am finally back to write more about being an unschooler or not.

If you haven't read Tammy's post that I referred to last week, please do so now. It is a must-read for anyone who is homeschooling, anyone who wants to travel their own unique educational journey.

Freedom. Tammy begins with a cry of FREEDOM. It's such a startling realization that there are few places that we can truly say who we are or who we are not. My own life has been marked by time spent in a very structured and legalistic mindset and as i began to make my way out of that, as I began to relax and enjoy the room to breathe, to become, I found there were other people waiting to put their expectations, their definitions, their rules on my experience. The bands started tightening again and I felt myself resisting, almost to the point of rejecting some things that are very important to me.

Too many years, I gave in to people dictating what my spiritual life should be and I walked out of the place that offered me freedom when they began putting their rules on what life should look like without the institution. Beginning homeschooling was the first really radical thing that I ever did and I felt so vulnerable that I heavily leaned on "experts" to guide me in my journey. I read tons of how-to books, attended conferences and just like with my spiritual life, with any part of my life that i was measuring myself according to a human standard, I felt like I fell short all of the time.

Ten years ago, I began to make my way out of that suffocating place and began to experience a life full of love and learning with my children. The cries of freedom rose strong within me. Until I met those whose sole purpose seemed to be to remind me that I was not good enough, that I was not what I said I was, that I didn't measure up. It was reminiscent of the legalistic mindset that I had encountered in the church and in my early homeschooling years; the same mindest that those very people would mock but theirs was the same, just a different flavor.

Recently, I stumbled across an interview with Barbara Brown Taylor as she talked about her spiritual journey out of the church and at the end she said

For a long time I listened to other people to decide whether I was still Christian or not. And about, I don’t know, two years ago, the great relief was I decided I got to say whether I was Christian or not. And so I’ve relaxed enormously since then. I say I am. I’m a follower of the Christ path. I’m a follower, and Ö I’m a follower.

I embraced that thought and determined that I will not let others place labels on me. I may use them to describe myself in a way that will help another person understand me a bit better but it is not the privilege of another to decide who I am or who I am not.

That is my freedom cry. It's not important whether or not I am an unschooler and one day I may say I am and another I may say I am not. That's my perogative.

Not a Unschooler

2009-10-04T12:06:00.002-04:00

Just a few minutes this morning but I have put off posting far too long. Each night, I go to bed composing the post in my mind and just never sit down here to write it.

Last week, I think, I stumbled across this link on several unschooling blogs:

50 Eye Opening Unschooling Blogs

Number 43, under the subtitle of untraditional families, is a blog ... Loving, Living, Learning and my first thought was that somewhere else out there had my blog title! Then I clicked on the link and realized that it is my blog!

Ok, that's interesting. We are listed on an unschooling blog list as an untraditional family. All I can think is labels, labels, labels and none of them really fit or capture who we really are. Maybe untraditional is the best label for us but I sort of like unconventional better, I think.

I have been carrying this thought around in my head for weeks ever since I read Tammy's post: I am Radical but definitely not a Radical Unschooler; I'm not even an Unschooler. Yes and Amen, Tammy!

Now I am realizing that I am running out of time this morning and there is still so much more that I want to say? Do I just save the draft and come back to it, knowing that I might not? Writing this little bit may have released the pressure enough. If I publish it though, I may be more motivated to get back here tonight and really finish this post. I don't want to leave it hanging.

Don't you just love listening in on the conversations that are happening in my head while I am writing?

I'll be back tonight ....

Off and Running

2009-08-26T06:50:00.002-04:00

Off and running? Not quite. But we are up and walking.

This week is a week to get started.

I knew better than to set myself up for failure by dumping a full load on all of us the first week. Plus I am still tweaking some things and deciding exactly what we need to do in different subjects.

For now we are starting with math and science. I've added a list on my sidebar of the resources we are using right now. Teaching Textbooks is our choice for math. We are playing some catch up after not doing formal math for awhile. Unschooling math has been successful and there are elements of that thought process that I still cling to but as it is essentially about following their lead, it was time to become a little more focused.

I signed our youngest son up for an electronics course online with Quick Study Lab and we are all following along. Though this particular course is described for being for ages 8 and up, without my input, I think most of this would by beyond his comprehension. I find the explanations bounce between being very clear and somewhat jumbled so I am working to bring some clarity to it. Today I will visit my first choice of resources ... the juvenile section at the library. I always say, if you want to learn something, start with a children's book. Simple explanations and colorful illustrations go a long way in creating a foundation of understanding. All in all, building with the snap kit is fun for all of us and I enjoy being involved with them and learning as well.

We are also implementing a couple of new organizational ideas which I hesitate to talk about yet. Rule of thumb: If you haven't used it and had good results for at least two months, don't write about it.

Next week, we will add in all our language arts and co-op starts!

Keeping it Real

2009-08-22T08:07:00.004-04:00

I have been busy cleaning off bookshelves, organizing supplies and taking inventory of what resources we have at our disposal to move forward with our school year.

Having just written that, I cringe. I really hate to use the word school. I am an unschooler at heart and thankfully so, as the last couple of years, I have been less engaged with the children's education than I am comfortable admitting. I've watched them continue to learn, to grow, to think and in some ways, I wonder why I should mess with any success I have seen. On the other hand, this moving forward, changing directions is the very thing that they are asking for so in the spirit of unschooling and following their lead, a bit more structure is in our future.

Regarding uncomfortable admissions, I had this conversation with a friend last night about being honest on our homeschooling blogs, painting the real picture. I have fallen victim to discouragement after spending an afternoon reading homeschool blogs and the descriptions of nature walks, science experiments and living math. Those photos of organized school rooms, planners and file boxes, shiny, happy children do me in every time. Do we have moments like these? Yeah, I guess so but they are just moments of many moments and some of the others are just atrocious ... like the time I threw a Saxon Math book across the room. Not proud of that and it was uncomfortable admitting that at a homeschool support group meeting, but I will say that when I did, there was a collective sigh of relief in the room. I think many other moms were wondering if they were the only ones who had less than perfect days.

I want to be honest here. It pains me to have to admit that I really unplugged from my kids for awhile, in some ways. In others, I have stayed very close to them. But as someone who has taken on the responsibility of facilitating my children's education at home, I need to stay focused on what my priorities are. I lost that vision for awhile.

Thankfully, the spark has been reignited and in part, I owe that to my above mentioned friend. She started the ball rolling for herself and I quickly got caught up in the inspiration. Speaking of her, she has written an excellent post, giving one of the most important pieces of advice for your homeschooling success. Hint: It's not about the curriculum.

In coming days, I will post more specifics about what we are doing, how we are doing, when and where. Maybe I will become better at taking photos and quicker at uploading them so that you can see my shiny, happy children eagerly learning all that they can. Can't promise that but what I can promise is reality. There will be much wonderful to share and some not-so-wonderful as well. I hope you will be inspired by what could be and encouraged that what is is probably normal and common to us all.

Loving, Living, Learning ... and Laughing

2009-08-11T07:55:00.006-04:00

Let's talk about the blog title.

Sometime ago, Tammy at Just Enough and Nothing More issued a challenge to describe your homeschooling philosophy in just 30 seconds. My answer to that was and still is loving, living and learning.

It's quite simple really. Nothing I can teach my children will be more important than raising them to be loving, kind individuals. So our primary focus is love and what that really means toward how we live our lives. It's not something we approach academically or even philosophically. Rather it is OJT ... on the job training. Or more accurately, TDT ... through the day training. It's not about what we do but how we do it.

Living isn't really second as it isn't a linear list. Living is just what we do. Again, focusing on doing that well. Living in balance. Taking care of our bodies, our minds, our spirits. Practical skills will come from the chore lists, the errands we run, the projects we tackle together.

Learning is inevitable. In fact, unschoolers have an official Learn Nothing Day to illustrate and emphasize that very point. Learning is inevitable. At least, I hope that we are living our lives so that is a true statement in our home. Stirring our curiosity, increasing our skill levels so that we can pursue whatever knowledge lures us, challenging ourselves to be aware of all there is to learn.

Notice that I speak of us. This isn't just a philosophy that is applied to our children but to us, as parents, as well. It's a good rule of life, I think. Love. Live. Learn. Hmmm, I think I just thought of another one. Laugh. Yeah, there should definitely be a lot of laughter. Maybe I will add that to my title as well.

Yesterday, I added the subtitle "this is how we live our life" Immediately I thought that doesn't agree. Speaking of we, I should have said "how we live our lives" There are individual lives being led but at the same time, there is this entity that is us, that is family. The individual lives are part of making up that one life. That one life is the subject of this blog.

But you've still yet to meet the individuals. Be patient, be patient, introductions are still to come.

Here I go again

2009-08-08T22:08:00.002-04:00

Here I go again. That's the thought that came to mind as I sat to write tonight, to write this first post. How many times have I started a homeschooling blog? How many times have I altered, changed or deleted said blog? Too many. And yet, here I go again. Starting another, attempting to capture this life that is mine, learning with my children.

For some reason, when I began tonight, the title of this post came immediately to my mind. Here I go again. But then, of course ... well, if you know me at all, you would say "of course" ... a song came to mind, I could hear it in my head as I typed. Not here I go again ... but Here it Goes Again. Though the lyrics may not fit, I tend to think this elaborate choreography on the treadmills more than adequately illustrates the managed chaos that is our life together.

If you don't know me or mine, introductions are to come.

Until then,

Love deeply, Live out Loud, Learn always.