But what about socialization???

Greetings Y'all~

During my initial explorations in the world of homeschooling, I encountered the question of socialization more often than any other. Interestingly enough, I never had any concerns about it because of my experience with my sister's homeschooled family (all of whom are quite social, have friends and penpals and are just great kids to be around.) But I heard the question so often that I had moments of wondering if my sister's family is some sort of fluke. Would I have a difficult time supporting Sage in the realm of human interaction? So, it was one of the first topics I researched before I'd decided to homeschool (Interestingly enough, I found that many families chose to homeschool because the socialization their kids receive is more well rounded. More on that in a bit.)

It is a question for all homeschoolers, those who use curriculum and those who don't. I believe it is a very fair question, but I have found that seasoned homeschoolers often get annoyed by the frequency of it. It is difficult to run through the explanation over and over again with the same amount of patience and open mindedness as the first few times you were asked. So, it is here that I gleefully address this topic once and for all for my circle of folks. And should I get asked about this again, I can send them here! Works for me!

Oh, one more thing before we get on with it, obviously I have limited personal experience on the subject of social interaction and homeschooling(outside of my sis' and her lovely brood.) Since I will be citing a few homeschoolers who've taken the time to answer this question on their blogs as well, I thank them for their time and effort and dedicate this post to them. So, off we go...

What does it mean to be social? Social: Public, Friendly; Of, characterized by, or inclined to living together in communities; Of or relating to the structure, organization, or functioning of society; Spent, marked by, or enjoyed in the company of others (www.dictionary.com) I am curious to know, where we came up with the impression that it is necessary to be placed in a controlled, unnatural facility which limits diversity in a myriad of ways to facilitate the above? I like Joanne's response to the "S" question,

I have to laugh when someone, after finding out our kids don't go to school, asks about socialization. I'll never understand what one has to do with the other. Are they saying that when their children are not in school (like weekends or summer breaks) they're isolated from other children? That when they're children are not in school, they have no social opportunities. How sad that they have to depend on a government institution for their children to have friends. I mean, why else would they be asking? It certainly can't be because they're concerned for my children. Just talk to any of my unschooled children and they'll tell you about their girl scout troop, gymnastics classes, homeschool classes, neighborhood friends, homeschool play groups and sleepovers, not to mention the time they spend playing with each other. All that socialization...without school. Imagine that! :-) (http://anunschoolinglife.blogspot.com/2005/12/day-nineteen-socialization.html)

Schools, on the whole, are segregated in a multitude of ways, Private schools obviously house the upper middle class to wealthy, often limiting the children to an isolated non-experiential world view. They are given the education of the "elite." The higher the tuition, the more exclusive the school. If you are not rich, you'd have to be something of an Einstein to get in(Actually, Einstein initially failed the entrance exams of a prestigious school in Zürich, Switzerland. He couldn't pass the non science and mathmatics portions of the exam. He studied what he needed to know and passed it for the next year.)

The public school system leaves children no better off socially. Manfred Zysk (homeschooler) describes it this way, In order for children to become assimilated into society properly, it is important to have a variety of experiences and be exposed to differing opinions and views. This enables them to think for themselves and form their own opinions. This is exactly what public education does not want; public education is for the lowest common denominator and influencing all of the students to share the same views ("group-think") and thought-control through various means, including peer-pressure.

Homeschooling allows parents the freedom to associate with other interested parties, visit local businesses, museums, libraries, etc. as part of school, and to interact with people of all ages in the community. For example, my son goes on field trips with other homeschooling families in our community. He recently was able to visit an audiologist, a McDonald's restaurant (to see how they run their operation), and several other similar activities. He gets to meet and talk to people of different ages doing interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) occupations. He spends a lot of his free time with kids older and younger than himself, and adults from twenty to over ninety years old. Meanwhile, in public school, children are segregated by age, and have very little interaction with other adults, except their teacher(s). This environment only promotes alienation from different age groups, especially adults. This is beginning to look like the real socialization problem; ...Go to your local public school, walk down the hallways and see what behaviors you would want your child to emulate (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/zysk1.html)

I hope I was able to clarify, (with the help of other homeschooling families)that socialization, actually, is a valid REASON for choosing to homeschool. With grading, testing, curves etc., the very nature of schools inspire a competitive dynamic that leaves children scrambling to preserve their dignity at all costs. These unnatural experiences, in which our children will spend the bulk of their lives,do not allow for healthy interaction with society or the natural world for that matter. Again the question persists, what kind of humanity are we creating for our children? How do we want them to view the world? The educational system, relative to the evolution of the human species, is still in its experimental phase. It's current incarnation breeds an unconscious and pervasive cynicism that hinders the ability to have a rich, joyous and full life. I think we can do better by our children, better for humanity, better for the world.

Ok, 2 down. I still have a few more to answer. Again, thanks for tuning in. Thanks for the questions and the interest. Sage has an amazing community to learn from. I will leave a link below to a discourse I found humorous and relevant.

g'night all!

http://home-educate.com/unschooling/socialization.htm

My first blog questions!

I am so excited to have gotten some questions from friends and family about my previous posts. I feel the love and support coming from everyone and truly appreciate it. Questions generally revolved around Lifeschooling and how it will look for our family. The later I can answer with an unequivocal, "who knows?" It's like asking what your life will look like in the coming years. You can plan, organize and prepare, but life does not consider your preparations. Troughtschooling will be whatever the dynamics of our family creatively produce. I can imagine what my vision of that will be, but that would be my vision, quite probably not the way all will play out, with the infinite possiblilites that my mind could never fathom.

The other questions being a bit more concrete in nature I can answer as best I can. I will do it in a Q & A format in multiple blogs~

q: What sort of curriculum does life-schooling use, and how do you endeavor to create a well-rounded experience?

a: Lifeschooling uses the most pervasive, creative, ubiquitous curriculum currently in existence...LIFE. It gets no better than real and true experiences. For example, say you wanted to learn Spanish as a second language. Which method would prove more effective, more interesting, more culturally relevant and more fullfilling: Sitting in a class for an hour or 2, 5 days a week, having it taught to you in a catagorized fashion? Perhaps your instructor even makes it a bit more interesting and uses the immersion technique, and you speak only the desired language during the duration of the class. OR Travelling to Argentinia, El Salvador or any other Spanish speaking country, spending time getting to know the locals, conversing with those you meet?

Joyce Fetteroll has a good explanation on her website (http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/academics/alltheyneedtoknow.html,)"...school gives us the impression that there's a huge body of knowledge that's unconnected to its use. Mainly because schools teach it that way: isolated and out of context. It seems the only way to learn math is to do a gazillion math problems. The only way to learn science seems is to memorize all the answers scientists have discovered. The only way to learn history is to start at the beginning and go through all the "important" events to present day.

But when we learn by living life, all those subjects are just tools that we pick up and use when we need them. And we learn how to make the tools work by using them.

There's no reason not to use (and learn as a side effect) math when there are games and things to figure out and stuff to spend allowance on. There's no reason not to use science when the world is full of wondrous things and a child is filled with curiosity. (It won't look like school science. It will look like -- and be -- real science: observing and asking questions and theorizing what could be the cause.) There's no reason not to use history when the past is full of stories of interesting people and places and events."

The idea that it is necessary to learn a set of (bureaucratic) predetermined criterion in order to be a healthy functioning contributor to society is not only false, but lends itself to this idea: If government can dictate to its people what their children should be learning and how, then we've given our most precious asset to an obscure, unreliable, often unethical entity , our children's creative minds.

For the second part of the above question: "how do I endeavor to create a well-rounded experience?" Well-Rounded is defined as "comprehensively developed and well-balanced in a range or variety of aspects. Also, "desirably varied (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/well-rounded.) Looking at the first part of the definition, I found the "comprehensively developed" portion to further drive in the above point of giving away the freedom of our children's minds. My question is, who is doing the comprehending and developing? What makes them more of an expert on life than you or I? How do they define success? What are their values? The obvious truth is that our minds cannot comprehend the universe in it's entirety nor the complex human organisim in it's relationship to itself, the world and beyond. That being said, who determines what constitutes a "well-balanced range or variety of subjects?" And don't such persons then have the power to skew history? Don't they have the power to dumb us down?

The second portion of the definition, "desirably varied," could interestingly enough be used to conceptually define Unschooling. Children are born curious, and remain so(until they are forced to sit and endure hours of boring disconnected information hammered into their minds, thereby chipping away at their natural inquisitiveness as the years go by.) The natural world is filled with an unending well of experiences ripe for the picking. Sage will create his own "desirably varied" curriculum of life. Ghee and I simply have to ensure, to the best of our ability, that (particularly) while he is young, we offer him a variety of experiences. Once he begins to determine what things he'd like to explore more in depth, we help him to gain access to any and all resources to support him in his journey.

Ok, off to bed, I'll address some other questions when I get a chunk of time! We've all been sick so our sleep cycles are thrown off a bit. Once everything finds its rhythm again, it is my intention to be more regular with my writing. Thanks so much for the questions and the interest. I am so blessed by all the support of my family and friends!

Oh,if you have any desire to go deeper on the subject, I'd be happy to provide a compilation of resources that have been helping me along the way. I've been blessed to have been steered towards great authors by seasoned unschoolers. My cousin Joss has been especially AMAZING with her book selections for me. In some uncanny way, she has been able to give me exactly what I need to fill in the blanks! Thanks Joss!

Ok, really, I am going to bed now...

Home schooling, I am happy to say, is not a new concept for me. While my sister lives some distance away, during visits and conversations, I was privy to the rhythms of her household. Interestingly enough, I was a bit overwhelmed by how much my sister could selflessly accomplish in one day, all with a smile on her face. Before Sage was born, I thought she was quite mad. Being independently minded, being a lover of freedom, her choices threw me for a loop. But my sister loved her life. You could feel it in her every action. Yes, she got tired at times, yes, she grumbled at times, but she created her heaven around herself. Her family was and is happy. My sister, her choices and the happiness of her family, while at the time seeming foreign to any experience I'd like to have, left an impression on me that later was a huge component of the ease of making my decision to home school.

Unschooling however, was another matter. One completely foreign to me, and upon my first hearing about it, a crazy cockamaimy concept. So I completely understand, when I *try* to explain to people how I intend to facilitate learning with Sage, why people are uncomfortable with it. I either get that look of bafflement, the look that I had finally gone off my rocker, or a flurry of all the questions that I once had. For me, and even perhaps more seasoned unschoolers (as some have expressed to me) trying to explain unschooling to someone who is unfamiliar, is like trying to teach a Western doctor about the conceptual merits of Eastern Medicine; Challenging, but possible, if they are open to learning. Since I am still in the budding stages of this path, I've learned to tell when a person is really interested in learning more about the concept (with genuine questions and concerns that they are opening to *real disscussion*) or when a person does not have any room for understanding. Often working from a place of fear, and doing their best to instill it in me, so that I may see the light and change my ways. The way they ask, their body language and open or close ended responses, all give away their current ability to comprehend a complete paradigm shift about parenting and learning. I've learned, when not to engage and when engaging produces a beautiful and healthy conversation where learning takes place on both sides.

In my experience of discovery about unschooling or lifeschooling (the term I prefer), the definition can seem a bit muddled and confusing to those just taking interest. For me, it begins with a balanced mixture of personal experience, research and faith. The philosophy consists of the belief that every child has within them the innate ability to discover and follow their own path, learning of their passions along the way and picking up the tools necessary to support them on their journeys. It is the amazing job of the lifeschooling parent to provide an ecclectic, stimulating, open and nurturing environment for the child to explore. Often this means simply getting out of the way of your childs learning. I don't recall where I heard this analogy, but lifeschooling is akin to growing tomatoes. One plants seeds in an environment of nourishing soils, sees to it that said plant is getting the proper nutrients and water and watches in amazement while it grows. Allowing nature to do what it does...naturally.

There will be times when you will have to protect the bud from certain elemental forces. But it is important to remember to first do no harm. Often, in the name of safety, freedoms are lost. Benjamin Franklin once said, (paraphrased),Those who are willing to give up essential liberties to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither. The balance between freedom and safety takes a keen eye. ( This is such an important topic, I will probably post more about this later.) It requires true presence of mind. It requires the promise and willingness to be consistent with introspection. It is necessary to be willing to face all fear honestly. And as time progresses, it will become a much more natural way of being. I am aware that this is a challenging concept to embody (From personal experience.) Fear is a powerful force, look at the last eight years in our country. But as our civilization progresses,it is essential that we ask ourselves what we want the world to look like for our children.

By no means does lifeschooling imply that I can go eat bonbons while Sage does who knows what. On the contrary, One must be very present, knowing when to encourage and when to step back and knowing when your own *stuff* is clouding your ability to do so. One must have faith (and a love of being with your children) in order to lifeschool. For me, the choice to unschool is a political, social and spiritual one. The very act of unschooling is no less than revolutionary. A revolutionary act is by definition radically new or innovative and outside or beyond established procedure and/or principles(dictionary.com.) But conceptually, lifeschooling stems from the conviction that we can do better for and by our children. It rests on the belief that humanity can cultivate a culture of love, honor and respect for itself the world and beyond. It rests on Faith.

I gotta start somewhere...

So I created this blog and have been staring at it empty for over a month. My head is still wrapping around so many aspects of this natural process, that I wasn't sure where to start. So I will just talk about what unschooling/lifeschooling is for me at this point and why I feel this is the best path for my family.

I suppose that begins with my own school experience, which I will say was a step up from horrible. School for me was not not just uninspiring (at least until college, where it got more intersting, because I could, on some level, choose what I wanted to learn), it was emotionally unsupportive and a complete distraction from life's realities and my innate ability to discover and nourish my passions. I found myself consistently dealing with bullies, difficulties connecting with others and the struggle to fit in and feel *normal*. My mom tried soulfully to help me. I was put in this school, taken out of that one; Repeat. Our family Doctor had her pull me mid semester in seventh grade as I was having some health problems he believed stemmed from stress. The problem stopped for me soon after school did. Public, private, montessori (by far the best grade school experince I ever had), my mom searched for what would help her daughter. But I believe school was not the answer for me, but at that time, homeschooling was musch more underground and unschooling? What the hell was that?

I dealt with everything. I thought that simply was how life was. But I remember knowing. Just knowing that life for me at that point was filled with deception. Everything felt superficial, surreal. Like this entire experience was a dream. Like we were all missing out on something; Both myself and the girls that used to follow me home from school finding new stimulating ways to taunt and inflict on me what must have been inflicted on them.

Intuitively, I always knew there was more. So I searched. I tried, I failed, I walked paths that led nowhere and came back. I endangered myself, & I went through bouts of giving up. I grew, but it took time to regain my sense of self. I've made many mistakes which stemmed from my inability to connect with the part of me that was constant, although often elusive. But I remained extremely observant and I was blessed with a constant sense of wonder for what was truth beyond the illusory world that surrounded me. I wondered what was behind the eyes of those who crossed my path. I began to understand and feel the pain of my tormentors, we were all trapped in the same prison. It was as if life had no flavor. Everyone was just going through the motions, often hanging on to what ever ritual, belief or custom that gave them solace or distraction. Where was the ever constant bliss? I knew it existed. I'd tasted it before, but it was confined to only *moments* throughout my childhood. But I knew with every fiber of my being, that what I had experienced within those *moments* was pure, blissful, undiluted truth and I would chase it incessantly for the rest of my life.

Fast forward to the more recent, here in my arms this most beautiful precious gift. I could never have imagined the immersion of emotions that, for me, is motherhood. The overwhelming love I felt for my infant son, at times my body just needed to weep as a release. Some call it hormones, yes, but I believe it is also something deeper, something that can't be measured. Something never ending-constant. I would never be the same. This love would transform me, shift my paradigms of thought, as I looked into his eyes, I knew that the world had stood still for me once again, that this beautiful child, my little guru, would guide my husband and I toward that constant bliss we both so yearn for and that I would protect his spirit, his guiding light, his freedom, with the fierceness of a lioness. For this little wrinkly wonder chose us to be his guides. That honor I will carry as the closest to my heart until I depart this earth. His name a constant reminder to my promise. Sage Isilo-Wise Lion.

So here I am, Sage is a bit over 20 months now and I LOVE motherhood! Yes, there are the challenges. Yes, I've been up since 4:00am because my son woke up saying "urt-urt" translation: "I'd like to watch the Planet Earth series right now mom. No, this will not wait until later." I grabbed my blanket, rubbed my sleepy eyes, popped in the DVD and cuddled with my little angel, watching. Watching my life filled with promise.

I must say, I have much to be thankful for. My mom is one of the most amazing people I know. She has always encouraged me to believe that I could do whatever I want in this life. That I was powerful. Courage-passed on from my mom-a promise to Sage. My father encouraged my curiosity about everything around me. He inspired my wonder about the human condition. A blessing that I will always be thankful for. Then there is my sister, who used to sing songs to me as a child that I realized later, I still remember. One that she made up for me, bubbled right up from my unconscious when Sage was first born I sang that song to him. It was like I was a child again. She is also my first introduction to homeschooling. She homeschools 4 children on her own ( Her husband Steve, Also known as Superman, there to support her and their amazing kids.) Watching my sister used to completely baffle me. Why would you create such an exhausting life for yourself? It was a question I would never understand the answer to until Sage was born. The rewards are beyond a measure I could fathom until motherhood fell upon me. Thanks for all your patience Joss. Thanks for all the music. Thanks for the inspiration. And my brother Jay, who has a subtle wisdom, easily missed by those who don't take the time to delve deeper. He has taught me much over the years- about love, patience and faith. Thanks little brother. Finally, and recently into my life, my cousin Joss (My sister's namesake.) Who lifeschools her children. She has been instrumental in helping me navigate the process of deschooling myself, and allowing me a glimpse at the life of an unschooling family. It was brave for an African American woman to follow path she did. Thanks to both my Joss' for paving the way.

Whew-so I finally got the first post done. (Although I noticed that I never got to why I felt unschooling was the best path for my family-but the boy is waking up-so to be continued...) This will, I hope, be the beginning of many. It has always felt good to me to write; I find morsels of truth throughout the process. So, may this blog be a part of my journey towards keeping the promise made to my son, and my family throughout this wondrous journey of life...