Growing Without Schooling 135

From the Editor

Contents News & Reports p. 3-5 Homeschooling in Switzerland, Homeschooling in the Media: Positive and egative Choosing Freedom p. 6-11 Facing Fears, Sharing Mistakes, and other stories about the transition from school to homeschooling Meeting a Mother's Needs p. 12-13 More on how homeschooling moms can balance their kids' needs with their own.

Growing Without Education: The Discussion Continues! p. 14-17 FOCUS: When Kids Lose Interest p. 18-22 Sometimes kids lose interest in a pursuit or activity.

How do they know whether it's time to move on, or whether it's time for a new approach or perspective?

Encouraging Exploration: A Conversation with the Founder of the Arts Explorium p. 23-27 How this arts center makes tools and mentors "visible, available, and accessible" to homescholers and others Unschooling Math p. 29 ISSUE #135 JULy/AUG '00

FOUNDED IN 1977 BYJOH HOLT

GWS is based on the idea that young people are good at learning and that learning happens everywhere. Our stories explore how people of all ages learn and grow and how others can best help them. GWS is an ongoing conversation among its readers, and it allows homeschoolers (and other interested people) to share experiences, thoughts, questions, and concerns.

EDITOR - SUSANNAH SHEFFER • PUBLISHER - PATRICK FARE GA· BOOKKEEPER & PROOFREADER - MARy MAHER • OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR GINGER FITZSIMMONS • AssOCIATE EDITOR - MEREDITH COLLINS • OFFICE AssiSTANTS - SUZANNE MAcDo ALD, LAUREN FARENGA HOLT AsSOCIATES BOARD OF DIRECTORS: MAUREEN CAREY, PATRJCKFARENGA (CORPORATE PRESIDENT), MARy MAHER, SUSANNAH SHEFFER ADVISOR TO THE BOARD: RON RUBBICO COVER PHOTO IS OFJENNIFER RISLER AT THE ARTS EXPLORIUM. SEE CONVERSATIO ,P. 23. COVER PHOTO Al DPHOTO ON PAGE 25 ARE BY JAMES LEMKIN. COVER DESIGN BY KiM STUFFELBEAM. ADVERTISEMENTS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT GWS's ENDORSEMENT AND WE CANNOT VOUCH FOR ANY CLAlMS MADE BY ADVERTISERS. Growing Without Schooling (ISSN #074!>-5305) #135, Vol. 23, No.2. Published by Holl Associales, 2380 Mass. A\·e., Suite 104, Cambridge MA 0214D. 26/yr. Frequency: bimonthly. Date of issue: July/Aug 2000. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, J\1A and at additional mailing offices.

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If letting young people follow their own interests requires a leap of faith, letting them stop following those interests may require an even bigger leap. A parent who is having trouble trusting the idea of student-directed learning can at least be reassured when a child takes up a musical instrument, begins publishing a newsletter, or starts studying fossils. What if that same child quits the music lessons, stops publishing the newsletter, loses all interest in fossils?

Such an event definitely appears more worrisome. In some instances, suddenly losing interest in one's favorite activities can be a sign of a deeper problem. But there are other ways to see this matter of losing interest, too, and if we can get through the worry and manage to discover those other ways, we can end up with even deeper appreciation for young people and for the learning process.

Real choice does include the right to choose not to do something, so it's important, first of all, to realize that "following one's own interests" will sometimes mean allowing those interests to go on holiday for a while, or to fade away as other interests take precedence. I've often observed that kids find it difficult to start something if they think they will be expected to stay interested in it forever.

"Are you still playing the violin?" well-meaning adults might ask, and those adults tend to smile with approval if the answer is "yes" and look askance if the answer is "no."

But suppose that "no" means, "I've realized that the saxophone is really my instrument" or ''I'm so busy with theatre these days that I don't have enough time for the violin," or simply, "I discovered that my heart wasn't in it."

The point is that losing interest can actually require the learner to draw upon a great deal of self-knowledge.

When we asked young people to write for this issue of GWS about losing interest in an activity and how they figured out whether it was time to stop that activity entirely or instead to find another way to approach it, the responses were thoughtful reflections on how one can know what is right in such instances. Is it right to quit an instrument after investing time into it? Would finding another teacher be the solution, or is the loss of interest a signal about one's true priorities? When is loss of interest a sign of stuckness that can be worked through, and when is it a sign that it's time to stop? These are questions that adults themselves often find difficult, so perhaps we can listen to young people's own questioning with respect and sympathy, rather than only with worry.

And perhaps we can also watch the process with interest. A 12-year-old boy once told me about how he had loved dictating stories when he was little. Then he had stopped for several years and spent that time pretending, acting out his stories, instead. Now at 12 he had taken up writing again. Who's to say that the writing had ever really stopped, or that the boy had truly lost interest in it? Our minds, our ways of taking in experience and making sense of it, are so much more complicated and nuanced than that. Losing interests, it turns out, may be just as fascinating a process as following them. - Susannah Sheffer GROWlNG WITHOUT SCHOOL! G

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News

& Reports Swiss Homeschooling Hilary Jacobson writes from Switzerland:

I have had a difficult time trying to obtain permission to homeschool my son here in Switzerland. Benjamin, my third son, has been slow to develop in certain ways. He began to speak in three-word sentences when he was 5. When we were together at home, I began coming up with games that helped with his speech. His kindergarten teacher noticed that he had made u"emendous progress during vacation, and was much better socially. I thought about the fact that his real moments of progress always seemed to occur during vacation, through intensive and creative interaction. I wished I could take him out of kindergarten altogether.

I was told, first by his teacher and then by the school psychologist, that homeschooling was impossible and bad for Benjamin, who needed the socialization of school.

Then the school psychologist made a big mistake. He said Benjamin had to go to a special school for severely speech-delayed children. We found out how wrong he was when the therapist at that school, a half year later, told us Benjamin was actually strong enough in language and overall development to go to normal public school. We knew, however, that this wasn't true either. Benjamin might be good on a one-to-one basis, as he'd been with this therapist, but he had problems in a large group. He wouldn't do well in a large class.

Our only alternative was a special class that takes two years to go through GROWl G WITHOUT SCHOOLING

first-grade material. It has only seven children with a specially trained teacher. The hitch was that after those two years, Benjamin would go to the same second grade as his little sister. We felt that she shouldn't have sibling tensions and familial responsibilities in the classroom. Again I mentioned my willingness to homeschool to the school psychologist, and again I was told that this would be bad for Benjamin.

I have pushed for this solution, however. His teacher, saying both that she didn't want to stand in my way and that she couldn't take responsibility for this decision, urged me to take him to an even higher-up psychologist for in-depth testing. So after some tests and discussions with this state-employed psychologist, I got the surprise of my life when she turned to me and said, "Restrospectively, I see that homeschooling may have been the better solution for many of my kids."

She was willing to support me!

But neither of us knew the exact legal requirements for homeschooling here.

The written law specifies that the parent must have permission from the regional board of education. I assumed that with a psychologist's approval, this would not be difficult to receive. But then we learned that the unwritten law only allows homeschooling when a parent has a teaching degree or hires a private teacher.

By this time, through GWS, I had been put into contact with other homeschoolers in Switzerland. Very few families have homeschooled during the last decade, but now the idea is taking off in the cantons of Zurich and Argau [Switzerland is divided into regions, called cantons],

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with 24 families joining up just in the last two years. From these experienced homeschoolers, I learned that it is perfectly legal for parents to homeschool in Zurich, Bern, or Argau without a teaching certificate. Local education boards send a representative to the home once or twice a year, to make sure that the children are being taught everything required by the canton for their age group.

Sometimes, however, these representatives make new homeschoolers feel insecure and guilty, by implying or even stating openly that their children are being deprived of educational opportunities. Also, apparently it isn't always easy to get factual information as to parents' rights. Friends told me they asked about homeschooling in Zurich fifteen years ago and were falsely told by the authorities that they had to be teachers. I was advised by the Swiss Homeschoolers group to be very careful about how I asked for legal information, because many authorities will withhold the facts. It's better to have a teacher inquire about the law than to ask oneself.

Where does this leave my family?

Not in a good place. It is theoretically possible to defy the authorities and keep one's child at home. In Germany, where homeschooling has been illegal since Hitler's regime, many parents do just that. They have to pay fines, but if they pursue homeschooling, the authorities leave them alone in the end. However, in our canton, Basel-Land, with its very severe laws, a family actually had to leave the country altogether last year, apparently to avoid legal action against them.

Ten miles away from us, it is legal to homeschool. That's life in Switzerland, where each canton makes its own laws pertaining to education. However, the Zurich homeschoolers are hoping that, rather than the antihomeschooling sentiment getting the upper hand, they can work to legalize homeschooling throughout Switzerland.

It looks like it will be a long struggle. And in the meantime, if! want to homeschool Benjamin, we will have to move to a homeschool-friendly canton.

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In the Media - Positive and Negative [SS:] As many of you know, homeschooling was the subject of an Oprah Winfrey Show in April. It's always hard to determine the effect of such media coverage, but in any case it's interesting to see homeschooling treated fairly routinely as another educational alternative. I've also gotten calls recently from writers doing stories that focus on very specific aspects of homeschooling. A writer for Mothering magazine called us for a story about parents who are delaying their children's school entry because of the increasingly academic orientation of kindergarten nowadays.

Another writer, working on a story for a local newspaper about graduation ceremonies in the area, called to ask about different kinds of rituals or ceremonies that homeschoolers create. It's a pleasant change to get these specific questions instead of the all-too-familiar general ones.

And then there are the times thankfully quite rare, but always troubling - when homeschooling appears in the news in conjunction with a story of child neglect and abuse. In late April, a story in the Boston Globe told about a 9-year-old Rhode Island boy who had been removed from his grandmother's home after it was discovered that he was suffering from terrible neglect. I won't list the details here, but it's enough to say that they are details anyone would consider terrible. A day or two later, another story appeared, with the headline, "Rhode Island Boy Was OK'd for Home Schooling." Oh dear, I

thought. The article says that the family had been authorized by the local school district as recently as this past March to homeschool under the Rhode Island statute. It isn't clear from this article whether the family had been receiving homeschooling approval every year or just this one.

The article doesn't place all the blame on homeschooling, by any means. It's a fairly low-key piece, and it raises questions about how all sorts of people could have missed this situation, especially the neighbors (the family lived in an apartment complex). But the article does quote the chairman of the school committee saying that the situation bothers him and that "if a parent wants to homeschool, I think that's a good thing, but there certainly have to be guidelines."

Even one story like this would bother a school committee chairman, or a neighbor, or any of us - and I think the challenge for homeschoolers and homeschooling advocates is to balance all the ways that it bothers us.

Here's what I mean. Understandably, we worry about this negative publicity for homeschooling, and we worry that fears about these worst-case scenarios will lead to tighter regulations. Many of us have heard legislators express concern that under the cover of homeschooling laws, a family will be able to keep an abused child hidden. We know that, as the saying goes, "hard cases make bad law," so that a law designed to protect against the worst case usually ends up making things unreasonably difficult for everyone else. And we know that schools and other agencies can fail to notice abuse

and neglect, too. (Indeed, it's the class issue that seems to loom largest in this story: the boy lived in a "nice neighborhood" and the family seemed financially well-off, so fewer suspicions were ever raised about his living conditions.)

We know these things, and we know that misconceptions about homeschooling still linger - misconceptions which, when turned into generalizations, end up clouding the issue. The article says, "The boy might have escaped notice because, as a homeschooler, he didn't have regular contact with adults outside his immediate family."

It's not at all clear that regular school attendance would have saved this boy, and it's not at all clear that the state's homeschooling law is what made the neglect possible. We do need to keep letting people know that most homeschoolers have regular contact with the world outside. And somehow we do need to keep that boy in our minds and remember that whatever the cause, his situation was terrible. The challenge, in other words, is to think about how to protect homeschooling rights and protect children from neglect - both.

Office News We are sorry to announce that we have had to cancel plans for a conference at Eisner Camp in September 2000. The camp is in the middle of renovations which we had hoped would be ready in time for our conference, but it looks now as though that won't be true after all. These and other logistical factors convinced us that an Eisner Camp event was not feasible this year.

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We are, however, planning an exciting fall lecture and workshop series. On Sept. 16, in conjunction with Paths ofLearning magazine and the NJ Unschoolers Network, we will present a one-day event called "Homeschooling for All," with David Albert, Nancy Plent, Pat Farenga, and Susannah Sheffer. The NY- or NJ-area location will be announced.

In early October, again in conjunction with Paths ofLearning, we will present an evening event with John Gatto at the Mass. College of Art in Boston. John will speak about his new book, The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modem Schooling, and filmmaker Roland Legiardi-Laura will preview portions of his latest documentary, The Fourth Purpose, based on John Gatto's new book.

Tickets for both these events will go on sale in late June. For further details, watch GWS's pages and our website, www.holtgws.com. or call our office at 617-864-3100.

Calendar August 5-6: Third Islamic Education and Muslim Homeschool Convention at the Islamic Center of New England in Sharon, MA. Pat Farenga, Cafi Cohen and others will be speaking.

For info: 508-226-1638; www.home.ici.net/-taadah/convention/2000.htm Aug. 18-20: California Home Education Conference at the Radission Hotel in Sacramento, CA. David Albert will be speaking. For info: Barbara David, CHEC95@aol.com; www.homeedconference.com Aug. 25-26: Homeschooling for Everyone 2000 Conference in Aurora, CO. Mary Griffith and others speaking. For info: www.pcisys.netl -dstanley/ conference/htm ~ : Virginia Home Education Asssoc Conference near Richmond, VA. For info: Shay Seaborne, 540 832-3578; s-seaborne@juno.com Sept. 9: Salt Lake Home Educators' Fall Seminar at SLCC Redwood Campus, Salt Lake City, UT. Cafi Cohen speaking. For info: 801-501-0344; jmdeboer@worldnet.att.net •

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Parents Face Fears

Choosing FreedoID

Brenda White ofMassachusetts writes:

Three teens and a parent write honestly about how choosing the freedom of homeschooling also means taking responsibility, facing uncertainty, and admitting mistakes.

Community Life, Not School Alex Miller of Washington writes:

When I was in 7th grade, my writing skills were quite rusty and I needed somebody to show me how to process ideas and thoughts into words.

My parents asked one of my English teachers to help me with my writing.

Seventh and 8th grades came and went and not one teacher helped me.

I think that was the straw that broke my trust in schools. When I graduated from 8th grade, I thought to myself that I could and wanted to do more with my life. I told my mom and she said, "Well, let's try homeschooling and if you don't like it, we can send you back to school." The rest of my family (my sister, brother, and father) didn't think it was a good idea. My brother and sister are out of the house and starting their own lives, so I didn't think they'd mind what I did with mine. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I do not get the support I had hoped for. They check up on me, or try to make sure I am studying as much as I can. It's interesting how they were never involved in my school activities before, but now they are involved in my homeschooling. It's insulting.

Fortunately, it has not stopped me from doing what I love: learning.

Only because I am now homeschooling do I have the opportunity to involve myself in the community. One day last spring, while searching for a way to become involved, I came upon an ad discussing Kosovo. An agency said they needed volunteers to help. I called them and told them that I wanted to learn more about what was happening in the world, and would like to help. They said they would love to have me. I worked at Mercy Corps' 6

international headquarters in Portland, OR, for about four months. I met lots of people from around the world and learned, from behind the scenes, about a major relief agency. In addition, I became friends with the people who worked there. Mter working there, I wanted to explore world trade so I volunteered for the summer at Ten Thousand Villages, a non-profit world trade store, where I learned that not all stores that sell exotic goods actually help the people who make them.

Two of my greatest interests are the lost arts of blacksmithing and hand carpentry, especially in the . colonial times. Around September I got to the point where I wanted someone to teach me more about these subjects. My mom knew of a reproduction of an 1840's fort just a few miles from where we live - Fort Vancouver. We checked it out and discovered that they have an apprentice blacksmith program. I decided to spend three days a week there, dressed in period clothing and learning the art of blacksmithing. All the tools used are hand tools and we make everything from nails to axes. I am still very involved and hope to be for some time. In addition to learning a lot about history, foreign trade, and public relations, I meet people from all walks of life who are great to talk to.

I somewhat regret not leaving school earlier but I am very happy that I did when I had the chance. I did acquire some invaluable knowledge in school, and I had good friends, but if! could do it all over again, I probably would have started to unschool sooner. I think school can take away your individuality and voice in your own education.

Two years ago, my daughter (now 9) was a first grader in the local public elementary school. She had been reading before she entered kindergarten, and was excited for first grade where she thought she would learn new and wonderful things. To her dismay, the class was learning to read.

We tried to work with the school, but they could not provide her with the challenge she craved. The school was sure that if she just continued along that she would eventually level off and the others would catch up with her. I have heard that referred to as dumbing down. I was afraid they were right, and that she would lose her love of learning as I had as a child.

My husband and I were raised very traditionally, with conformity being a way oflife. The idea of going against societal norms was daunting, at best.

When the assistant principal, in one of our several meetings, suggested that "possibly public school isn't an option for your daughter," it gave me pause.

Wasn't public school supposed to address the needs of all the students?

Weren't our taxes working for our own child? How could public school not be an option?

When discussing what to do about this unfortunate situation, we tried to weigh all of our options, which were few: private, public, charter, or homeschool. I had read How Children Fail, byJohn Holt, and an issue of GWS. Both began to help me see how the school could fail even if they assured me they were capable of success. We looked into several private schools, but the high cost was prohibitive and there were no available slots in the local charter school. We have a close friend who homeschools, so we kept in close contact with her about how it was working for her family. She kept telling me how wonderful it was and how it fit into her family's life. She did everything in her power to convince me that it would work for us, as well.

We didn't like what we had heard about dealing with the local school district as homeschoolers. Fortunately, we found a parent-cooperative private

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school that serves homeschoolers and has a very reasonable tuition.

The largest motivating factor for teaching Rhiannon at home was Rhiannon herself. She had been so bored at school that while we were having those meetings and discussions with the school, she already began teaching herself the things that were of interest to her. We had seen a change in her attitude while she was in school that we were not fond of, but it began to change back when she had time at home again. Her determination alone, not to return to school, was enough for us to keep her at home.

Rhiannon has many friends and has more activities than we can keep up with. To think we were afraid she would be socially isolated! She also probably gets to play more than most kids her age, and she definitely has more freedom to learn what interests her most. Today she is that happy, amiable child I remember, who thrived on learning new information.

This morning as I watched her playing with a new microscope, I laughed at my fear of homeschooling. Her exploration of a new minute world reminded me of the days before school was a part of her life. Days when she learned because she wanted to and loved it. Days when her world was full of exciting things to explore and new ways to look at life.

Nearly three years later, homeschooling has become the norm in our home. We find there is learning in almost everything we do. The girls' education does not begin or end when a bell rings, or for summer vacations, or when they are playing or sitting down to dinner with the family.

Finances are also not the problem we had imagined. We figured out how to tighten up in wasteful places, and I supplement our income with part-time night work.

More Resources Transition from School to Homeschool (GWS back issue booklet). More stories about the transition process. Available through our catalog, 888-925-9298 or www.holtgws.com Panel: From School to Homeschooling (cassette tape). From our 1999 conference - four teenagers and an

I like that I can spend so much time with my mom and my sister. My sister and I playa lot. We can go outside whenever we want. I feel badly for schooled kids on beautiful days. I can sit at the picnic table and do my fractions and decimals, which I love, while they are stuck inside a yucky building. My mom and I play games, so I can learn without it being like a chore. We play Scrabble, Brain Quest, Phase 10 and Name That State. I love learning about the states. I wrote a letter and sent it to each of the states asking for information. About 30 replied.

To keep myself occupied, I play with my sister and read. I read a lot. I also take gymnastics once a week, horseback riding on Saturdays in nice weather, and swimming twice a week.

I like to compete.

With the local homeschool group, my sister, my mom and I took French.

It was great and I can't wait for it to start again. With my school group we do an activity every Tuesday. I don't like when we do dissections, but I love it when we go to a location to learn something new.

Most of the kids in homelearning are nice. I think they act their best because their moms are there. My friends are girls and boys, all ages, even some teenagers.

Rhiannon White adds:

I love homelearning. I can learn what I want and don't have to wait for the teacher to choose it. I am interested in dolphins and other marine mammals. I signed up to volunteer at a new rehabilitation center, and when it opens, I can work with them.

GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING

The Mistakes She Made Kate Gould of Oregon writes:

I have been out of school for the last year and a half. It has been my

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adult moderator. Available through our catalog, 888-925-9298 (mention item #2493) Liberated Learners. Newsletter from the Pathfinder Center regularly features stories from teens who have left school. Call 413-253-9412 for free issue.

goal, in deciding to unschool and in many other choices in life, to do what is most important to me. I have learned that achieving this goal is a lifelong process, partly because what's right for me is always changing, and partly because we live in a world of vast possibilities.

When I was in eighth grade, I was hospitalized because my appendix burst. I had time to read a lot of books, including A Sense of Self. I was blown away, and in love with the idea of homeschooling. I also read a magazine article about homeschooling in Teen Voices and finally The Teenage Liberation Handbook, a book I have read more times and marked up more and own more copies of than any other book. It still excites me every time I pick it up.

Often I think of different mistakes I have made that I want to share so that other people don't have to make them. I see a lot of super happy stories in GWS, and I could share some too, but I've also had my share of problems with homeschooling. The problems that people run into and how they approach them are always different, but these are my experiences and how I have dealt with them.

The first mistake came at the very beginning, and had to do witl1 my communication with my parents.

When I began unschooling I was so adamant about it that I didn't listen to a word my parents said. They suggested I consider trying high school first, or, if I was determined to homeschool, to maintain some sort of structure in my homeschooling. We 7

didn't talk over what kind of freedom I wanted and how much I wanted. This resulted in many family arguments and misunderstandings.

My dad expected to teach me math, science, and history on a regular basis, while I wanted the leisure to learn what I wanted when I wanted, and to volunteer at lots of places and apprentice with people. We got involved in many arguments about how much time I should be spending on academics. I thought that after I had a little time out of school I would fall in love with a subject or create and complete a project and impress everyone so I could prove that I made the right decision.

I strongly encourage teenagers who want to unschool to talk to their parents about exactly why they want to rise out of school, and what they'll be doing instead. I think it's a good idea to be honest, to talk about your fears and your parents' fears.

My next problem came when I didn't take a vacation - a period of time after leaving school during which you don't try to do anything produc-

tive - even though The Teenage Liberation Handhook has a whole chapter on how important this is. I continually felt like I wasn't accomplishing enough, or keeping busy enough, while everyone else was at school.

After I finally took a vacation in my second January of unschooling, I felt much better and calmer.

I think that as a matter of pride I did a lot of things because I wanted to prove that my decision to unschool was the right one, and I wanted to sound like a neat and accomplished person. I volunteered at a nursery, went to a lot of community lectures and events,joined a book club, read lots of books called "classics," volunteered at an environmental science class at an elementary school and at the historical society, not because it all made me feel happy and good but because of how it made me seem to others. I always admired and wanted to be like the extraordinary unschoolers in The Teenage Liberation Handbook, Real Lives, and GWS, so I did things that I thought would fit in those publications. I built a solar oven

and really hated building it but I would never admit that to myself. I followed somebody else's dreams.

I also never let myself acknowledge any fears or doubts because my family, my friends, and almost all around me were against unschooling and doubting it. I didn't want to appear that I was doubting my thoughts as well, though I was. I thought all my fears were silly and would pass, but they didn't.

Especially after I read Dumbing Us Down, I stayed far away from schooling not because I loved my life as an unschooler (I really hated it at that point, and wanted to know what high school was like), but because I believed it was the right thing to do. I believed it was morally wrong to go to a school where the government controls you, and when I found out about the horrors of what school was created for, and what other unschoolers had to say, I told my parents and friends that I had hated school and regretted ever going. It is true, a lot of school was horrid and stressful and pointless, but when I said that I

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GROWl G WITHOUT SCHOOLING

#135 • JULy/AUG '00

regretted going, I was just trying to copy other unschoolers whom I really admired. I actually loved school, for the most part. I loved getting A's, I loved feeling accomplished, I loved many of the people I met. Saying that I regretted going was like saying that I regretted nine years of my life. There is nowhere in the choice of homeschooling where it says you have to regret your life in school. How can I say I regret nine years of my life? If I am going to accept myself, then I have to accept every part of my life as making me who I am.

Jeremiah Gingold, in Real Lives mentioned "When I relate problems that I have as a homeschooler, [others'] invariable response is 'Then why don't you just go to school?' as though that would take care of everything." It can work the other way too. When my schooled friends complained to me about school, I would often say "Then why don't you just not go to school?" I used to count their reasons as ignorant or irrelevant, but now I think I'm going to try to just listen. Getting out of school does not solve all your problems, as I expected it to. Of course, if people do want to get out of school, I'm happy to help. But the point is that it doesn't make someone a better person to get out of school and volunteer and intern and make scrapbooks. I think it does make someone happier when they follow a life they love.

I'd like to report that lately, my life is completely changing. I am taking four classes at the high school so I can meet and be around teenagers and so that I don't have to fantasize about being at high school. I started an internship at a pottery studio (which I actually do want to do) and I am going to take modern dance.

I want to remind myself and share with everybody else what homeschooling is all about for me now: molding your life into something that makes you excited and happy to be alive. We all can do anything we want to or dream of, and getting out of school just gives you a lot more time to remember that.

GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLll G

Popular Girl Questions Social Hierarchy

Challenging Assumptions in Education From Institutionalized Education to a Learning Society

Moriah HoeJgen-Harvey of Massachusetts writes:

After homeschooling for the last four years of elementary school, I decided that I wanted to go to high school. I didn't want to miss out on what I thought would be like starring in my very own Beverly Hills 90210 episode. I had never really been part of the homeschooling scene - I didn't attend many local homeschooling activities, and most of my friends had always gone to school. So I enrolled in the local high school, and even got into its innovative alternative program, the Pilot School. I liked school a lot my freshman year. I made tons of new friends and took some great classes.

Pilot was absolutely wonderful and I felt right at home in its little community which stressed close-knit relationships between teachers and students and where teachers actually had something valuable to teach.

Sophomore year had its ups, but I must say that I had more than my share of downs. Through no fault of its own, Pilot was beginning to crumble. There wasn't much room for its fun-loving spirit and life-changing courses amidst all the state-mandated educational reform emphasizing standardized curricula. So the aspects of school that I had liked most, academically, were changing. And my feelings about the social scene were changing too.

I had become one of the more popular girls at school and part of an exclusive group offriends (all great people whom I continue to hang out with). After a failed relationship with a guy I really liked, however, I became very confused about my image. I was supposed to be the popular, bubbly one who was friendly with everyone in the school, yet Ijust didn't feel good enough. I began to feel bothered by the fact that when other girls looked at me, they saw a social butterfly who had a smile and a hug for everyone, while inside I was drowning in feelings of incompetence. I had embarked on my high school journey with a smile on my face because it had always been a

#135 • JULy/AuG '00

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part of my belief system that everyone deserves to feel liked. It was because of this value that I had become so popular in the first place. Once I had reached a certain rung on the school social ladder, however, there were a couple of times when I would hear about some girl or another referring to me as "the most popular girl in school" or saying that she wanted to be like me. I hadn't wanted to become part of something that made other girls feel inferior. I began to see myself as undeserving of my popularity, and was enveloped by a desire to live up to the Moriah that everyone seemed to think I was. This drive to be perfect proved to be a downward spiral. There was even a short period of time during which I didn't eat enough because I thought for sure that being thinner (and I wasn't overweight at all) would enhance my "ideal girl" image.

I began my junior year too skinny, depressed, and enrolled in Honors Physics, Honors Pre-calculus, AP American History, and AP American Literature. If you were ajunior and didn't take these classes, you were

perceived as undetermined and going nowhere. I was immediately engulfed in an ocean of exams, essays, and textbooks, struggling to maintain my active social life while spending 5 hours every weeknight doing homework. I was a wreck. I didn't sleep enough, and became an overall unhappy person. I found that, even on the weekends and during school vacations, I never really enjoyed myself because I always had some big test or paper hanging over my head. The more I thought about it, the less I liked school. I loved my friends, but the stress factor was more than I could deal with. As the days wore on, I felt increasingly overwhelmed by my surroundings, and the more hectic things got, the emptier and more unfulfilled I became. Pilot, in its last year, kept its name and long-standing traditions, but it was really over and we felt it.

I also began to realize something that disturbed me a great deal: people at my school knew nothing about the outside world. Our heads were always swimming in dates, equations, literary terms, and the latest school gossip.

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because we had no freedom to know any other, no room in our cluttered heads to absorb the things we saw and heard about that didn't relate directly to the school. As I looked around at lunch time (all 25 minutes of it), I became more and more disillusioned by the social hierarchy I observed. My group offriends had our designated place, and no one outside our circle would ever dare sit there. The thing was, I was friends with people from every social grouping at the school and was never really comfortable with my group's reputation as being exclusive and, in some cases, judgmental.

I made my decision to homeschool on the last day of Thanksgiving break. The relief was almost immediate. For the first time in a couple of years I truly relaxed. I designated the next couple of months as recuperation time. I baked up a storm (making just about every cookie in Rosie's Bakery Book), read to my heart's desire (books I wanted to read), caught up on two and a half years of sleep, saw what friends I wanted to, began working at the Gap, and got in touch with my family again. I began reporting to the Clonlara School in January, and now spend most of my time reading, working, hanging out with my friends, and being happy.

I think I should finish by saying that I don't regret having gone to high school, at all. I'm also not 100% opposed to institutionalized learning.

The fact that a program like Pilot existed for 31 years and there are teachers like those in Pilot with so much light to shed on life for so many kids is reason enough to continue to have hope for schools. I met some of the most interesting, caring, and lovable people in the world at my school, and I have no doubt that some of them will be my friends for the rest of my life.

In spite of all the stress, I had some good times that I wouldn't trade for all the world. I learned a whole lot about my elf, about people, and about my personal limitations. Looking back, I recognize that the school played a big role in shaping who I am now, who I now aspire to be, and what I plan to work for in the future so that publicly funded education can be what I believe it has the potential to be. • GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING

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Meeting a Mother's Needs In GWS #133, Loretta Heuer reported on her GWS conference workshop that explored how homeschooling mothers can meet their own needs. Now Cindy Gaddis (PA) responds:

What I heard Loretta saying is that some women feel that as mothers and homeschoolers, they have to give up their own interests, hopes, and dreams to facilitate the orderliness of their homes and/or their children's education. And then that there are other women who feel that being a homeschooling mother is a wonderful choice and experience. I believe that the unschooling approach can make it possible for the former group to feel more like the latter.

I believe that women live with enormous amounts of guilt and stereotypes. We believe that a woman must martyr herself to the cause of motherhood and housekeeping or we believe that she must martyr herself to the feminist movement by pursuing a career while trying to keep her hand in the motherhood department. I believe there is another kind of balance, one in which a woman can be a nurturing and loving mother, an interested and curious learner, and a knowledgeable and intelligent person.

I think that the first thing that we must recognize is that we may not be able to be all of these things in the course of one day. We each, in coming to understand the rhythms of our own lives, can recognize when each part of our selves gets priority. It may be that there is room for everything in a day, or in a week, a month, or a year.

I aligned myself with the unschooling movement because it reflected my thinking: that we would

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live, love, and learn together. To me, this applies to each member of our family. I consider myself an intelligent, creative, and curious person who loves to hear different perspectives, contemplate and/or adopt new ideas, and add to and expand my abilities.

Naturally, I want the same for my children. How can this be accomplished? By pursuing my interests and curiosities as my children are pursuing theirs.

I'm interested in my children as people and as my children, so I watch or join them in their pursuits as my interest dictates. They are excited about their pursuits, so they often want to share with someone. They ask me to observe or join them, knowing that I will if I am interested. Sometimes I am involved passively, watching or reading something they have created. Other times I am actively involved, because they have inspired me. Sometimes I say 'Tm not that interested," and they find someone else who may be or they just continue the activity without sharing it, because it is already intrinsically valuable to them.

It works in the other direction, too. What I am doing will sometimes inspire one of my children to watch, or join in, but other times they are not interested, and they will say so. This is how we live, love, and learn together.

Now, let's be realistic. As a parent and facilitator, there are times when responding to my children must be my

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top priority. I had children because I wanted them; I enjoy their company.

They are interesting people, I like them, and I love that I will spend all of my days connected to them. So, I will often set aside my own pursuits to discuss things connected with their interests; I might suggest opportunities for further exploration, or help with a concept that is giving one of them trouble. At other times we will read or play together, or if one of them has fallen down and hurt themselves I will of course give assistance and comfort.

However, I am not always able to be available to my children. I have regular duties which require my attention as well as my personal goals and interests. With the former, I stay pretty flexible. (Housework is not a top priority on my list!) With the latter, I will often let my children know my plans. If a child approaches me during time I have set aside for my own pursuits, I may say, "Save that question for when I'm through here in half an hour." They respect this kind of postponement because they have learned the value of having their own personal pursuits honored. It is also true that I have honed my "mommy antennae" so that I know when it's really essential to drop my focus from my own work. aturally, when a child is injured, that is one of those times.

So there is a day-to-day flow of personal and family balance. There are further ebbs and flows that may span a week, a month, or a year. For example, if a family member is diagnosed with a serious illness or disability, the focus of family life may turn drastically toward the family member who is most in need. This would of course decrease time spent on personal goals.

I find that I can count on a balance over the course of a year. For the past four years, our family has been living with and learning from the diagnosis of a serious disability for three of our four children. I find that there are at least two times per year when I need to focus heavily on decisions for these children which will provide a balanced educational approach for them and our family.

This usually takes a few months, and

GROWl G WITHOUT SCHOOLI G

#135 â&#x20AC;˘ JULy/AUG '00

then we need another month to readjust everyone's focus so that we all feel balanced. Then, in the remaining months, I can carve out consistent time for my interests.

I also try to keep a balance among my own interests. There are those talents I want to develop as an expression of my intellectual side, such as writing or speaking. I try to keep these consistently plugged into my life.

Then there are things I like to do as an expression of my creative side, such as needlework or calligraphy. There are also those things which I like to develop and grow from, things that just happen to emerge from life experiences I have already been blessed with, such as attending homeschooling or autism conferences or reading about and incorporating new methods of intervention for the benefit of my children with autism.

These are larger focuses of my everyday life. Finally, I try to incorporate service to others, by such things as sharing my experiences and knowledge with others regarding autism and homeschooling. It is important to me to include these things in such a way that I can share my journey with others while not overwhelming my own life.

How do I find peace with so much to balance? Over the years I have found that I needed to develop patience and a slowing down so that I might enjoy more consciously the part of myself that I exhibit at any given moment. Let me enjoy that family reading or personal snuggle time with a child at that very moment and relish the mother in me. Let me appreciate the pain of being stretched until it hurts as I am being shaped by my personal life's lessons that very moment and relish the spirit in me.

Let me feel refreshed as I crochet an afghan at that very moment and relish the creativity in me. Let me feel validated as I share the story of my late reader with a new homeschooler or help a mother teach her autistic son to clap his hands that very moment and relish the wisdom in me. In other words, let me treasure the season of which I am a part at each moment in my life and celebrate the woman in me. • GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING

#135 • JULy/AUG '00

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Growing Without Education The Discussion Continues!

Aaron Falbel began this discussion with an essay in GWS #130; there were responses in issues #131, 132, and 133.

Focusing on the Home Cheryl Lachowski of Ohio writes:

These days, learning by living happens for our family when we try not to participate in much of the culture around us, the dominant American way of creating good consumers instead of good citizens, of corporate and media-driven determination of what we know, what we should value, and even what our experience of living is. It is a constant struggle to live the way we do, and in practice we end up making many compromises of our ideals while still trying to maintain our integrity. It is especially disturbing to us that we don't feel like part of a community, and we feel a great need

to create community, and indeed to figure out just what "community" is.

What does our everyday life look like more specifically? For me, the alternative to focusing on the culture of consumption is focusing on our home.

This is a huge, marvelous, challenging arena, not without its frustrations. We tend our big organic garden and put up food for the off-season, barter some, read, go exploring, search out alternative ways of meeting our health needs (as well as energy needs and household needs), cook together, clean together, do yard work, read as a family, break things, fix things, go on walks, bike, cross-country ski, talk a lot, ask a lot of questions, get cranky, get uncranky, draw, paint, go to yard sales,

shop and volunteer at the co-op, do banking, travel, write letters, read, run into problems, try to solve them, make books, pick up litter and recycle cans and bottles we find, volunteer at and use the library, play at the park, tell stories, meet new people, read some more, go to concerts, sit around and think, play indoor and outdoor games, get sick, get better, visit places and friends, listen to and play music, try to find ways to follow our right livelihoods, to live simply, to make income without sacrificing our values, to figure out what really matters, to seek and restore our connections with the earth. You'll notice I did not mention television or computers.

What we do looks nothing like school, nothing like education, but involves constant real and lasting learning in many forms for our whole family. The trick is to do this even though compulsory education is the norm.

We have moved out of states in which we would have spent more time jumping through the hoops of homeschooling laws than living/learning (unless we chose not to comply with the law).

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#135 • JULy/AuG '00

What Steps Can We Take?

Pat Farenga writes:

I have enjoyed the discussion of Growing Without Education in the past few issues, and Aaron Falbel's recent letter (GWS #134) has inspired me to write. Falbel notes that he wishes to explore "the possibility of reembedding learning into society." I see this issue as divided into at least two spheres: first, as Falbel refers to it, as a "thought experiment," and second, as real-life action. I find the thought experiement useful, and I hope more readers will write about it.

The second sphere concerns me the most, because even as we discuss this issue in the pages of GWS, the "real world" is shrinking the possibilities for our actions.

For example, a couple of years ago the state of New Hampshire, in a landmark court case, ruled that education is a "need." As a result, the entire funding formula for New Hampshire public schools has had to be reformulated to address the many inequities suffered by educationally "needy" communities. Throughout the 20th century, educators have propagandized their services as needs, but this ruling and other recent court rulings are the first instances I'm aware of in which there is a statutory mandate to meet "educational needs."

How can we grow without education when education is being enshrined by our courts as a basic human need?

The fact that education was not considered a need when our country was founded (nowhere in our founding documents is there mention of government being created to meet educational needs; the federal department of education didn't exist until the late 1970s) indicates that we, as a people, have undergone a subtle but important shift in our relationships with each other and with nature. To not educate in modern society can be considered child abuse, as though it were like refusing a child water, food, or air! Therefore, one of the areas I would like to see explored is that of public policy.

I'm convinced that our public funds would be better spent on safe neighborhoods, plenty of community-

based play and work opportunities, good food, water, and shelter, rather than poured into the trough of educational standards. Politicians and other policy makers think we can easily account for funds spent on education by pointing to raised or lowered test scores, and most of the public apparently feels the same way. Certainly the courts use test scores and college admission rates to determine if a community is "educationally needy," but I know that doesn't tell whether or not someone has actually learned or can use what they were tested on.

Nonetheless, most people do believe or want to believe - that there is a strong correlation between test scores in school and achievement later in life.

In thinking about how to shift the public policy debate from education needs to human needs in the coming years, I've revisited John Holt's ideas for political action in Instead ofEducation. Since the book is out of print, let me summarize some of those ideas: 1) Because it is too radical, politically, to speak of doing away with credentials, Holt suggests simply breaking up the monopoly. "We might pass laws saying that whenever a credential is needed to do a given kind of work, there would have to be ways to get this credential without going to or through a [school]. In short, there should be other ways to show one's competence."

2) To achieve this end, Holt suggests working from the legal precedent ofthe U.S. Supreme Court decision Griggs vs. Duke Power Co. "The Supreme Court, by unanimous decision, [ruled] that Duke Power had to show that any test they gave to an applicant (at least, a black applicant) for a job was clearly connected with the skills of the job itself.. .. To ensure that no worker, white or nonwhite, will be denied an available job solely on the basis of school credentials, or other tests not clearly connected to the needs of the job, Congress or the legislatures must pass laws to that effect."

3) Holt proposes extending the idea of high school equivalency exams and allowing people of any age to take them. Further, he suggests that these equivalency exams be used for all grades: elementary and middle school years as well as college. "Why not let

kids in school learn as fast as they can? ... Why should we hold kids back who want to improve themselves, be productive citizens, set other kids a good example, etc'?" Holt asks. He also writes "With such laws in effect, other arrangements for teaching and learning could get clients and some support. Thus we might have small neighborhood tutoring centers, or... storefront minischools... or other inventions."

4) Finally, Holt notes that we need to take away the ranking and labeling function of schools. "If [school] wants to give tests and grades to find out more about what the children are learning or not learning, or even to use as some sort of carrotand-stick to make the children do the work, they should have the right to do that. There will always be some parents who want their children in that sort of school. But the law should say that any and all records, even if only grades, which the [school] may make and keep about students, shall be the property of the students, and must be wholly turned over to them when they leave the school. If later they want to show these grades to someone else, they may. Otherwise, no one should have the right to see them .... This is a large part (but not all) of the political process which has been called 'deschooling.' It would put schools at the service of the do-ers and learners rather than educators." I can think of many opportunities for us to build upon these ideas in today's highstakes, tougher standards, test-ridden school climate. I wonder if other readers feel the same way and have other ideas or actions we can build upon.

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#135 â&#x20AC;˘ JULy/AUG '00

Living Her Life Without Education Lily Morris (MA) writes:

I am interested in the discussion on growing without education because I see my life that way, as growing without not just schooling but actually without education. I'm trying to keep my life relatively free of this packaged thing called "education" that everyone seems sure people can't thrive or succeed in life without. I'm not saying that I don't believe in taking classes, or learning from other people; Ijust believe in learning things because I want to, because they hold my interest or excite me. For example, I'm taking music theory lessons not because I feel that I need to be an "educated" musician, but because I think I will be able to play the piano better if I know what I'm working with and why things sound the way they do. I also just find it really intriguing the way music has developed through the ages.

I get up in the morning because there are things I love to do, and I

believe in myself and my family and my friends, and I trust the world to help me grow. Ever since I was young I have had an urge to know about things in the world; I loved to sit and listen to my parents and their friends talk about things. I am now 17, and I left school two years ago so I could live my life.

I've decided to write a little bit about what my life looks like not chopped up into school subjects.

There are lots of tl1ings I love to do: knit hats of different colors and shapes; listen to all different kinds of music, from classical to country, from rock andjazz to folk and world music; play the piano; water the plants in our new greenhouse, yelling at the aphids, coaxing the little peppers to pop their green heads out of the damp earth, and marveling over how much a little seedling can grow in the course of one sunny day (though for all I know they could shoot up in one second, as I never see them do it).

Rubber stamping is another love of mine. It's both a hobby and a job for me. About four years ago I began

an apprenticeship at a local rubber stamp art shop. I now work there part time and have thoroughly enjoyed developing my sense of design while learning about how a small business is run. I sell my own line of rubber stamps and any other creations you might find in a stamp store.

I am an avid correspondent and am always writing letters to friends all over the country. Writing has only recently become a really big part of my life. I used to really dislike writing, probably because of the pressure and expectations that school attaches to writing. But a few years ago, I started writing a whole lot of letters, and from that I found my written voice, and now I write all the time. I am part of a weekly writing group where I can read things I've written, receive constructive criticism, and also practice giving it.

For the past three years, sailing has been my biggest passion. I've grown up on an island, so the ocean has always been a part of my life. A few years ago I spent two weeks on a schooner with my class, and I totally

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GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING

#135 • JULy/AuG '00

.:. GROWlNG WITHO T EDUCATION .:.

fell in love with sailing. This summer I'm going to be sailing aboard the schooner Harvey Gamage for two months, and I'm hoping that will give me enough experience to get a job on a boat in the fall or next spring.

Some of my friends are also aspiring "boatheads" and this winter we got together a few times with an island sailor who started to teach us celestial navigation. The mathematics that is needed in celestial navigation is not too advanced, but thinking about the actual concepts behind the figures is quite a challenge for my brain. It's like trying to wrap something around a squirming animal, and any time I think I'm almost there, a leg will escape and I'll be afraid I'm going to lose the whole thing. When our sailormentor left the island for a couple of months, my friends and I started getting together and driving to the beach on our own to practice. Sometimes our calculations put us within a mile of our actual location, other times they put us in Boston Harbor, or out in the Atlantic Ocean. I'm told it takes year of practice before you can expect your sights to be reliable.

I read a lot and all kinds of things: novels, non-fiction, newspapers, poetry, books related to growing without education. I love gathering information. And gathering information is so much more meaningful for me than trying to digest facts and opinions that are thrown at me by teachers in a school setting. People are always gathering information, from the time we're born until the time we die. We're naturals.

A few other things I do or have done recently are help teach a dollmaking class, take music theory lessons, apprentice aboard the sloop Clearwater, took up the guitar, learned how to bake bread (I'm still working on that), took a ten-day trip to Atlanta to volunteer at a women's health center, helped design and paint two murals on the walls at the hospital, took a three-week trip across the country by bus with a friend, and worked on fund raising to pay the tuition of my sailing adventure this summer. •

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GROWlNG WITHOUT SCHOOLING

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FOCUS When Kids Lose Interest Sometimes kids lose interest in a pursuit or activity. How do they know whether it's time to move on, or whether it's just time for a new approach or perspective? Here, kids write about making this decision.

Music Wasn't Her Main Focus From Elyse Fahey (NM): When I played the French horn about a year ago, I really enjoyed it at first and wanted to play more and more and improve as much as I could. I liked my teacher; she was very informative and supportive. But, after a while, it started to get more challenging, and I had no desire to do it anymore, what with the lessons, the practice, driving to lessons, keeping the horn clean, etc. I had also begun to have difficulties with my teacher, so when she told me that she was moving to a different state, I felt almost relieved. Then when my mom asked me if I would like to continue French horn with another teacher and I said no, she wasn't surprised. I think she noticed my slowing down and my reluctance to practice, and when my teacher moved, that was the end of it.

We sold my horn, but I didn't regret the experience, and I was thankful to my parents for the experience. It just wasn't something I wanted to do anymore.

I don't think that I could know for a fact that stopping was the right thing to do. I just knew that it was what I wanted to do. An important factor is that I am very serious about dance, and I had taken up the horn mainly because I thought that playing an instrument would help me as a dancer.

And I did notice that it was helping my dancing, so in that way, I really wanted to continue with it. But from the beginning I had wanted the horn to be a side thing, a hobby, not my main focus. I explained that to my teacher right away, but, maybe because she played horn for a living and didn't have many students, she wanted me to work hard at it and spend more time on it and become as good as I could. I didn't want to do that, so my 18

teacher and I disagreed.

When I reach a challenging point in dance, I have a different attitude toward it, maybe because I have been dancing for so long and am so serious about it. When I'm having trouble with a certain step, it doesn't occur to me to say, "I don't want to do this anymore." I always tell myself that I should keep going. Dance just has a different place in my life than the horn did.

It's possible that I would have been able to find another horn teacher who would have understood what I wanted. But by the time my teacher was moving away, I was at a point where it just seemed time to stop. I began to think that even if I found another teacher, I would eventually come to the point again where I lost interest and didn't want to go any further, especially since I am spending more and more time on dance as I get older. So it didn't seem worth it to search for another horn teacher.

A Different "Great Work" From Elizabeth Michalak (CO): Until about two years ago, writing was one of my main interests. It was amazing how easily it came to me; my stories were written entirely with inspiration. As the editor of a small magazine, I had a good way to publish them, and the stories in turn created a reliable source of material for the magazine. I was complimented constantly and I have to admit I liked it pretty darn well. It's nice to hear, "Keep up the great work!"

Then I just sort of stopped. ot that my interest flagged, but Ijust wasn't inspired. I was still able to write non-fiction, but no more imaginative stories, which is where my interest lies. I tried to force myself, which really didn't work. Mom gave me a lot of suggestions of things to try, but I wasn't very open to them. I was "doing the same thing and expecting different results," which she labels insanity. I didn't want to try something else; Ijust knew that if I tried the same thing enough times, it would work. I did do writing exercises from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, and my mom and sister helped to keep me from getting hung up on every word. The exercises were helpful in some ways; they were fun, and they got GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING

#135 â&#x20AC;˘ JULY/AuG '00

me a bit more loosened up, but that was all.

"Keep up the great work!" Those words weighed, now that I had stopped writing. I saw that in a way I had set myself up by having the magazine. If my sister doesn't feel like writing, it's not a problem because she is only writing for herself. Of course, she doesn't get the attention I get as an editor either.

For a long time I toyed with the idea of quitting the magazine, because it felt like the root of the pressure. In the meantime, though, I wouldn't admit to myself or to others that I couldn't write.

It was sort of strange, but when I finally found the courage to admit where I was at, I didn't work it all out to perfection before telling Mom. Ijust finally came to a conclusion about my priorities: the magazine and "fame" were less important to me than peace of mind. I couldn't write whatever way I looked at it, for myself or for the magazine, but I could stop worrying about it and beating myself up over it. I guess maybe Iwas the root of the pressure. So I decided to stop writing until I got inspired again.

The magazine shows no signs of folding, however, and everyone is much more understanding than I, in my mental quagmire, had anticipated. I am still editing the magazine and I am really into art now, so that is how I am providing material. As one subscriber pointed out, it's all the same thing anyway - whether it's writing stories or doing art, I'm still doing something creative for the magazine.

My decision wasn't a perfect fix. I still miss writing a lot sometimes. But at least I have more acceptance about it than I used to, and I didn't lose the magazine. I have no doubt that I will write again, although what form it will take I can't say.

Won't Quit Until He's Sure FromJeremy Young (AZ):

Though I wouldn't hesitate to quit something I truly didn't enjoy, if I'm in any way uncertain of my feelings, I generally continue on with what I'm doing.

One of my first experiences with resolving doubts about quitting came when I was 9. I had become involved in an innovative music and drama program that had children performing operas written by the staff. Each opera was learned in a three-month period, at the end of which the children gave multiple performances for the public, with each student playing a different part in each performance. I discovered only after attending several rehearsals that, because each child would need to play every role, I had to learn the entire opera, which included complex GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING

#135 â&#x20AC;˘ JULy/AUG '00

harmonies and multiple parts singing together. I was completely overwhelmed by the pressure this put on me; I can remember spending nights crying, wondering whether to view this experience as a challenge or pure drudgery. Though my mother had already paid the full fee for the quarter, she said that if I really wanted to quit, I could. In the end, unable to make a decision, I chose to continue attending rehearsals until I was sure what I wanted. I'm grateful that I did, because I ended up rising to the challenge before me, practicing long hours on the script, and having the most fun doing it. By the end of the quarter I was holding my own among the cast and was astonished to find myself assigned more lead roles in more performances than many veterans of the program.

The next time I was faced with a dilemma about quitting something was when I participated in the National Spelling Bee. Having entered my local bee after a minor amount of study, I was astonished to find myself the winner of the county contest and ready to compete at a statewide level.

At this point, I felt compelled to put in a lot more practice, so in the month between the county and state competitions, my mother and I studied together every day for increasing amounts of time, eventually reaching between three and four hours' practice each day. The work was exhausting, but it improved my skills to the point where I placed third in the state bee. Mterwards, I made a promise to myself that I would win the bee (or at least try my very hardest to) the next year, and I soon began preparing again. The practice at first was intermittent, but it quickly grew to the same level as before, and I found myself again spending four hours every day on spelling. As I looked at the many months separating me from the next round of bees, I began to have serious doubts about whether my goal was really worth putting that much effort into. I didn't really enjoy the spelling practice that much; my reason for going after the state championship was that the winner received an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC, a place I'd always wanted to go, and a chance to compete at the National Spelling Bee there.

Since this was my personal goal, my mother left the decision up to me, and, as before, I couldn't decide what to do. I eventually chose to continue studying, in lieu of a clear decision. To this day I'm not sure whether I was right to keep doing something I really didn't enjoy in order to go after a prize I really wanted. The story did have a happy ending, though: after trudging through the months of practice, I ended up taking first place in the state bee, and I had one of the most exciting trips of my life in Washington, as well as a wonderful experience in the national bee.

More recently, I've had another experience of 19

doubting one of my interests. I've been studying piano with my mother since I was 7 and had always had fun with it. After I began taking lessons from a private teacher three years ago, however, I found my feeling for music inexplicably waning. Some of the trouble was that my new teacher didn't really encourage emotion in my music, and my mother worked with me tirelessly, trying over and over again to help me find the beauty in my pieces.

Eventually she got through to me, and over a long period I regained most of my lost emotion.

But several months ago, another problem became apparent. I discovered, upon close consideration, that I didn't really know why I was playing the piano. I had no definite reason for making music; in fact, I began to wonder if I really cared about it at all. Should I give up the piano until I knew that I wanted to play and why I wanted to? I asked my mother for advice, and she told me I'd need to find my own reasons for being musical. She suggested, however, that I continue playing piano as long as I was unsure of my feelings; giving up playing would make my skills deteriorate, and that would set me back if I did decide to return to music. I counted this as good advice and have kept on with my piano while I ponder my reasons for doing so. I haven't yet found out why or if music is important to me, but I have the feeling the answer is beginning to gel in my head. I've also noticed lately that I've been enjoying the piano a lot more than I had been.

If there is a moral in all this, it's that I prefer not to quit something unless I'm sure I'm not enjoying it. Following this philosophy sometimes results in scheduling problems - I tend to take on too many things at once and then balk at dropping one or two from my roster - but I'm wary of quitting projects prematurely and losing too many opportunities. In my view, if the commitments are in any way nonbinding, it's better to grab them and then let go again if I decide they're not for me.

For some reason, when I was around 12, I stopped. I think it was because I felt my writing wasn't good, or that I'd lost the ability to really enjoy writing. I thought maybe I would come back to it sometime, but I didn't think of it all that much. In the meantime, I read, played with toys, gardened, and dreamed.

It was my first (and only, so far) celebrity obsession that got me back into writing. I'djust turned 14 and got the Hanson album Middle of Nowhere. The songs were making the thoughts in my head churn away and suddenly I had plenty of ideas for stories, so I started writing fan fiction.

After I got over my crush on Hanson, I kept writing. I started a computer journal, wrote two novels (which were more like real novels than the first one I wrote), poetry, and most everything. I go through phases with my writing, where I'll write more one style than another. I stopped writing fiction late last year - because I feel that I need more life experience before I can write good stories - but I am churning out essays and articles, journal entries and musings as well as working on my website, a personal zine, and writing long letters to friends.

When I first started writing again, it was Mom that I went to for critiques of my work. Now that I've been writing for a while, I've learned how to criticize myself, to see what I need to change, eliminate, or add to my work. I believe that writing non-fiction makes me even better at this, because I'm not as sentimentally attached to my writing, and therefore I'm better at being objective about it. I definitely think I'll go back to fiction at some point. I have some great stories that need to be written down sometime, and realistic characters that need developing, but I feel comfortable waiting. My ideas are not going to run away.

Changing Her Approach to Writing

Have you ever read Oh Pioneers! by Willa Cather? She describes the character Oscar as "always doing the same thing over in the same way. ... If a field had once been in corn, he couldn't bear to put it into wheat. He liked to begin his corn-planting at the same time every year, whether the season were backward or forward." Oscar reminds me of myself, in how he wants to control life by using an unchanging method. This is what threw a monkey wrench into an endeavor I thought I was interested in. I tried to use a static method to teach myself the guitar, and it didn't work for me. Trying to force it on myself was so stressful that I became confused as to whether I genuinely wanted to play the guitar or not.

I do have a deep interest in learning guitar. It

From Eryn Young (CT):

I've always changed interests very quickly. I tend to jump from one thing to another, leave projects unfinished, and focus on one thing for a period of time and then not come back to it for a long time, even years. At least, that's what happened with writing.

Writing was one thing I enjoyed a lot. I started at around 7 or 8 years old, typing away at the blue screen on the old PC we had back then. I wrote songs, poems, stories, and anything else. When I was 10, I started a diary. When I was 11, I wrote my first novel, chapters and all. I loved writing.

20

Letting Go of Control From Katherine Rose Michalak (CO):

GROWl G WITHOUT SCHOOLING

#135 â&#x20AC;˘ JULy/AUG '00

is something I love, and the process of it is really right up my alley: I love using my hands, I love the intrigue oflanguages, and I have fun figuring things out. I know it's all-around well-suited for me. But! That knowledge goes down the drain when I insist on sowing the field in the same way every day. You see, I can't follow a set method every day for playing guitar; my learning style doesn't work that way. It's more like I'll fingerpick almost exclusively for a few days, and then meander on to scales for a while. My Oscar-like need for control has made me try again and again to just make myself follow that stagnant method, but when I do that I go crazy. When I let go of my control and just play what I feel like at the time, I progress a thousand times faster. So the problem isn't lack of interest, or lack of energy to discipline myself, but actually the very act of trying to have a fixed method.

So in my confusion, I played guitar in a stressful sort of way but shirked wholehearted commitment. The part of me that just wanted to play would look at the other, Oscar-like side of myself and say, "Be locked into doing something with you as my boss? No thank you!" I seriously considered quitting a million times, and sometimes did quit for stints of a couple of months. I could have gone back and forth my entire life, but I don't think I could ever have quit entirely; my desire to play was too strong. At the time, I still thought my question was, "Is guitar my interest, or isn't it?" Indecision lurked with its beastly head peering from every fret.

Ah! The key of course was to let go of my Oscarism. Thank God my resistance was weak enough that another, more insightful part of myself got her say in and turned my head in the right direction. Turned it so that I have been able to give up Oscar.

Both my mom and dad had a positive influence in this process. They knew they didn't have to worry about my being disciplined enough to practice, and that my control issue was only detrimental to me, so they urged me to do only what I felt like on the guitar and forget about structure. If they had instead been supportive of my famously rigid approach, I don't know if I could have let go of my personality fault. I probably would have remained in that horrible limbo of decision indefinitely.

The Oscar-like part of myself is now disintegrating, and it's amazing how I am thriving with its death, not to mention how my music is thriving. It reminds me of an expression, "The forest eats itself and lives forever." I think that expression is referring to the circular food chain within the forest that's self-sustainable and so never exhausts itself. I feel like the forest, in that one part of myself - Oscar - is dying in order to feed the rest. It's GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING

#135 â&#x20AC;˘ JULy/AUG '00

humbling to have victory at the kill, and the kill is part of myself, but it's fun to be like the forest.

Newsletter is No Longer Fun From Eve Monrad (CA):

I've been publishing a newsletter about animals, Nature World, for five years now. (''Young People's Newsletters," GWS #127.) I have about 60 subscribers and I do all the writing, illustrating, and production. My mom helps me with editing and proofreading, and gives me ideas.

Over the past few issues, it's gotten to be a lot harder and less fun than it used to be. Now it's more like something hanging over me and preventing me from doing things I would otherwise be doing because I think, "Oh, I have to work on Nature World and get it done," so I feel like I can't do much else.

I have been asking my parents for input, because I'm not the kind of person who just says, "OK, I'm not doing this anymore." It's been really hard to decide whether or not to keep doing it, partly because I've never really had to decide anything like this before. It's always seemed obvious if! should or shouldn't continue with something.

For example, deciding whether or not to continue working in a certain math book is a much simpler decision. You know that there are plenty of other math books and your choice doesn't affect other people. Nature World is one of only two hobbies or activities that I devote a lot of time, thought, and dedication to. The other is dancing, and I have never had any question about quitting that (yet).

To work toward deciding how to solve this problem, my mom and I sat down and made a list of what I like and dislike about doing Nature World, obstacles that are keeping me from just quitting, and what would be different if I did stop. Would I need to find another way to learn the things I learn when I do Nature World? Would it affect other people if I stopped? Would it make life different?

The hardest and least fun part of doing Nature World is the writing. I still like the subject (animals), the drawing, and the research and reading, but I really dislike writing for it.

I would need to find other ways to do some of the things I learn by doing Nature World, but for the most part it wouldn't be too hard. I would still read and draw and I would just need to think of a different way to have fun writing, since it seems like a necessary skill.

One of the obstacles is that quitting would affect other people. My 60 readers would be very disappointed and I would need to refund the 21

balance of their subscriptions. Another obstacle is that because I've been doing this for five years already, I feel like I really should just keep doing it. On the other hand, maybe five years is enough and it's time to quit.

That's almost a third of my life! And it's a long time to have done something like that.

And then there is the question of how it would make life different. I think it would be good to have some change and more time to get interested in new things. Right now I don't feel like I can take on anything new because I always have Nature World hanging over me, a big time-consuming chore.

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From Ruth Delaney (CT):

Earlier this year I decided that I was no longer interested in unschooling's laid back approach to learning. I had the feeling that I needed and wanted more structure to my studies. It's not that I didn't do any book learning before, of course, but I wanted to be told to read a particular chapter by a particular time. I wanted assignments with deadlines.

At first, I thought about going to school. I found a school that I would have liked to go to, and I talked about it with my dad, but I realized that it really wouldn't have

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worked in my family, with everyone else being at home. Also, I might not have liked it, and that would have put everyone out. So I had the idea that I would use a curriculum at home. I found one that suited my needs, chose my subjects, and persuaded my family (most of whom were convinced I would never use it and it would be a waste of money) to get it for me.

Some members of my family looked down upon my choice to use "homeschooling from a box," as they call it. But I stuck by my choice and didn't complain about how I had to double my work each week to catch up, because I had started this curriculum in November. I am now coming to the end of my homeschool year, and unconstructive comments about my "box homeschooling" are few and far between.

I think having been unschooled for most of my life helped me make this decision for myself. Maybe because I've always been taught to think for myself, I was able to decide that I should try something different.

My mother always says, "Everyone learns in their own way." I have found mine - at least until I change my mind! In general, I realize that changing your mind can be OK. I was taking Spanish as part of this curriculum, and I was really interested in it when I started out, but it turned out not to be what I expected. I found it really hard to learn a language from CDs, and I've decided to stop. At some point, I might decide to try learning Spanish another way - say, by taking a course at a community college.

Sometimes, taking a break is all that's necessary when you are feeling less enthusiastic about an activity. I do Irish step dancing, and some days I really don't want to practice, but then I find that if I take a week off, I really want to practice again and am very eager to work on the same step I had been frustrated with before.

And sometimes, I do stick with something difficult because I know that it will help me later on. I complain a lot about the math I'm doing now, but I'm sticking with it because I might want to go into accounting, like my dad. •

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Encouraging Exploration: A Conversation with the Founder of The Arts Explorium Sarah Elston's Arts Explorium in Western Massachusetts is an innovative center that makes tools and materials "visible, available, and accessible" to anyone who visits - and these days, her primary visitors are homeschoolers. We interviewed Sarah because her center is a model that others could replicate elsewhere, and also because the ideas that underlie the Explorium are so relevant to GWS readers.

Susannah Sheffer: What made you want to open the center?

Sarah Elston: I think it's a culmination of my entire life! As a child I loved making three-dimensional objects, and as a young adult I designed children's toys and sold them for a living, and then I became a puppeteer and did that full time for twenty years. I loved it because it enabled me to incorporate all the arts - writing the script, dancing in my walking stage, wearing musical instruments and sound effects around my neck, playing the harmonica, building the puppets, the scenery, and the props. And there was science in it too, because I would research topics like solar greenhouses and do shows about that. When, after twenty years, I was ready to stop touring as a puppeteer, I wanted somehow to make accessible the integration of the arts and sciences.

I had also gone back to graduate school and studied art and education.

In my reading, I was struck by the point that people don't have a lot of unstructured time nowadays, and that imagination is really not encouraged when every moment of your time is spent doing what other people tell you to do. I decided that I wanted to create a space where people could decide for themselves how they wanted to direct their energy and time.

GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING

I also felt very strongly that children just need the tools and the space to ask their own questions and find their own answers. When I read John Holt's Learning All the Time, after I had opened the center, I was struck by his comment that children learn from real things, from the objects of our everyday life, and not just from things made specifically to help children learn. That was exactly what I had tried to create. In our center, the objects and tools of our everyday life are available, and people can just naturally explore them.

SS: What does the place look like?

What do people do there?

SE: It's a loft space on the top floor of an old factory building that houses other arts spaces and businesses. It's about 90 feet long, divided into about twenty areas, for sewing, sculpting, woodworking, microscope observing, building with blocks, reading, performing plays and puppet shows, playing the piano. There's a potter's wheel, a large shadow screen, a light table, a costume area, a carpentry area with hand tools and equipment. There are painting easels and math games and 6,000 high-quality books in the arts and sciences for children and adults.

about realizing that people don't have a lot of unstructured time and how that influenced your design of the place. It's not actually that common for someone to open a center based on that premise, as opposed to opening an arts school that would have classes and instructors and so on.

SE: It was reading Joseph Chilton Pearce that first got me thinking really deeply about this. I was so struck by the idea that people are losing opportunities for play and for imagining.

That means we're losing some of the most effective and natural pathways for cognitive and affective learning.

And even when people do have free time, they spend so much of it using technologies that have them being passive and unreflective. So I was very much thinking about how to make a space where imagination could flower, a place that would invite quiet time.

As much as there is to do here at the center, my point is that you don't have to do all these things while you're here. You can sit and dream if that's what you want.

SS: That's great - it makes me think of something John Holt wrote about a lot of free schools and alternative schools that he visited. In many of these places, kids definitely had the right to choose their activities, but only as long as they chose something.

If a child seemed to be sitting around doing nothing, it wouldn't be long before a teacher would intervene and start encouraging some activity, even though, asJohn pointed out, the child might be getting a lot out of watching others, or thinking.

SE: Yes, that has actually been a source of concern for me, because many parents don't seem to be comfortable if their kids aren't engaged in something that they see as meaningful. I've had parents say to me, "Aren't you going to direct my child?" So one of my biggest challenges in this space is to convey why I feel it's so important not to leap in and direct the child's activity, but also to be respectful of the parent's concerns.

SS: I'm interested in what you said

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SS: You mentioned the emphasis you place on real, everyday objects rather than special "learning tools."

One might ask, why create a special space at all, if your focus is on real objects that are found in the world anyway?

SE: That's a great question. I've talked about this with the homeschoolers who come here the most, and they say, first of all, even if they do have some of these materials at home, at The Arts Explorium they have the opportunity to be in a community of people all working together, which is a wonderful advantage. The other thing is that my greatest influence has been Jean Liedloffs book The Continuum Concept, in which she talks about the need for "example-setters," people who "will demonstrate the skills of our society" so that children can follow them. At The Arts Explorium, we invite people who have a specific skill or a passion to simply do their own work in our space and be available to mentor others in our space. Of course I feel that everyone using the space is potentially an example-setter for others in the space.

SS: And yet ironically, or sadly, the point Liedloffwas making was that in the Yequana culture that she was writing about, the examples and tools were so readily available and so manifest everywhere that there wouldn't have been need for a special place set aside for this.

SE: Exactly. I want this space to make visible, available, accessible, all the tools of our culture, because they aren't as visible anymore. Just the other day a chemist at Smith College, who is now in his 70s, said to me, "In the old days, you could see how a person did things, but now everything is in a black box and you can't see the skills." That's what this place is about:" making it so that you can see the skills.

And of course not everything can be made visible right here, so it's important for me to help people find connections outside the center as well.

Jean Liedloffs idea of adults as example-setters made more and more sense to me as I watched people make

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#135 â&#x20AC;˘ JULy/AUG '00

use of the space at the beginning and saw that it wasn't always being used as fully and deeply as I had thought it might be. I saw that even with all the tools and materials available, the kids weren't always seeming to be as inspired as I had imagined they would be, and I felt that what was missing was enough concrete examples of other people working and making use of the materials.

SS: That makes sense to me.

Indeed, where else in life would there be a situation where there were only tools and materials, but no opporunity to see experienced people working with them? It makes sense that seeing experienced people at work would be a crucial element of how younger people learn.

SE: Before I read Liedloffs book, I had been so horrified by all the imitative work that I saw on the walls at many schools that I felt I was against copying, imitating. But Liedloff opened me up to the idea that it's natural for young people to copy what they see others doing, and when that

happens naturally, you see that they are copying, but they are not usually copying exactly - they are also doing it in their own way. And even if they are copying quite exactly, this copying is a result of being inspired and is usually a stepping-stone to further creativity.

SS: The idea of adults coming to a space like this and doing their own work is, in my experience, often very hard for people to grasp. Even in free schools the role of the adult is often to be available to the children, but not necessarily to act as an artist-inresidence and pursue their own work in that environment.

SE: It's been hard to hold the line about that. It is difficult for some adults to understand, even those adults who see the space and say, "Wow, Ijust want to play," that they are being invited to this space to do their own work, not necessarily to teach anyone else. The other day a wonderful retired artist came in and was just going to do his own work - sculpture but he happened to see a child trying to do something and he immediately

went over and tried to do it for him. I went over and said, "In this space, we try to let people do their own work ... ".

I was trying to say it respectfully, but it becomes difficult. Who am I to say he shouldn't have stepped in?

SS: Well, you are the one who has created the space and set the terms ... but, as a related point, I can also easily imagine a situation in which a child would seek out direct instruction from an experienced adult working there, and that would be very different.

SE: Yes, it frequently happens that a child wants to learn from an adult working here A child might come up and say, "Wow, what are you doing?" and then ask more questions, and in that situation, we would hope the adult would stop and answer. I especially love the idea that elders, as well as teens, can share their wonderful talents here and feel needed, and can pass on what they have to give.

One thing I have realized recently is that it's helpful to have a visible schedule showing which examplesetter will be in when, so that families

A view of The Arts Explorium

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#135 â&#x20AC;˘ JULy/AUG '00

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who are planning to come on a certain day can see that Wednesday is when the potter will be here, and so on. Of course, children using space learn a great deal from each other as well, not just from the designated examplesetters, but naturally people like to know when people with specific expertise will be available.

SS: That raises another question that I think can come up in a place like this. On the one hand, you're talking about valuing play, valuing the open-ended messing around, and I imagine that means that you don't necessarily think a child should be working toward a finished product,

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much less a highly skilled finished product. On the other hand, I've noticed that sometimes, when these values are emphasized, something else gets a little neglected: children's drive for competence. I keep meeting kids who really want to write better, for example. They see a gap between what they're doing and what they aspire to, and they want specific help, not just reassurance that their work is OK. Do you know what I mean?

SE: Yes, I definitely feel that people strive toward competence. One thing that complicates this question, though, is that there are different types of people coming in here. Some

kids who come in after school are decompressing from their school day, and some kids who have just left school entirely are decompressing from that. They are not as likely to focus on in-depth work. Those who have been homeschooling all their lives may have many different needs or priorities. But in general, I feel it's really important to listen to every child's questions, so that if that urge toward competency is there, it can be nurtured. What I sometimes do after talking with a child about her ideas and listening respectfully is type them up for her and then invite her to reflect on them or offer materials that might invite deeper exploration.

Or if a child says, "I really want to know more about this," I might try to bring in someone who is more knowledgeable or skilled than I am in that area to inspire from a deep level of personal passion and experience. Indeed, I'm hoping for this center to be a place where deep work can happen, where habits of reflection can be formed. For some people that happens best when working alone, and for others it can happen when working in

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#135 â&#x20AC;˘ JULy/AUG '00

.:. ARTS EXPLORIUM .:.

groups of three or four, so another thing I'd like to do is make it possible for small groups of the same people to come regularly.

So in general, I'm not at all opposed to helping kids focus and become competent. As a matter of fact, I heard Howard Gardner say during a lecture that the idea of coverage - trying to cover so many topics - is killing schools, and that going really deeply into one area is great for children, because once they go deeply into one thing, they can go deeply into any area.

SS: You've mentioned homeschoolers and children who come in after school. Was it your intention from the start to have both?

SE: I intended the space to be primarily for homeschoolers, because I already knew a lot of homeschoolers and I had helped one 16-year-old become a homeschooler when she was really struggling in school. In fact, it hadn't even occurred to me that afterschool kids would be an audience, but because there is a charter school right below me in the building, it has happened that about seventy-five percent or more of those kids come here on a regular basis.

SS: How does it work financially?

have come on a regular basis. Another interesting thing is that I have had a mentally challenged woman come in regularly with her aide. She loves it here; the aide said the only time she had seen this woman really happy in the past three years was when she was in here. I hope in the future to connect with many more service agencies as well as more schools. My ultimate goal is to inspire local groups and families around the country to create stimulating environments like the Arts Explorium - I picture inter-generational community-run spaces all over, each reflecting the interests, skills, and needs of its own local community.

For more information: The Arts Explorium, Box 362, Williamsburg MA 01096; 413-268-9048; www. artsexplorium.org; info@artsexplorium.org â&#x20AC;˘

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Unschooling Math Amy and David Mantell, GWS readers and experienced homeschooling parents, are working on a book manuscript called Unschooling Math, made up of math stories from back issues of GWS interwoven with the Mantells' insightful commentary. We plan to publish the book; in the meantime we will share some of this great material with you by excerpting it in upcoming issues of GWS. This ftrst excerpt is from a chapter called "Math Along the Way": It's easy to overlook or undervalue the math that is learned along the way because we (and our children) don't stop to announce to ourselves "Now I'm thinking mathematically." Years of schooling have trained most parents to think of textbook math as the only real math. But many families' stories provide compelling evidence that seemingly disjointed experiences with numbers and patterns in the course of everyday pursuits do accumulate to produce real mathematical understanding - as well as ample complex concepts they will encounter later on.

When families stop to take note of the many serendipitous mathematical experiences their children are having, it can give them confidence enough to forego (or at least postpone) scopeand-sequence instruction in favor of letting children first make sense of their world in context and in their own way.

The child playing the violin, calculating baseball statistics, or building intensely with Legos is doing something that could be called work because it involves intent and accomplishes something, but it would also have to be considered play if we accept Mark Twain's definition: "Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and... Play consists of whatever a body is obliged not to do." Much of the work-play that our children do, simply because they want to, will lead them inevitably to discover the world of numbers, quantities, and patterns.

These are the experiences with math GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING

that happen without any particular awareness that something "educational" is going on. ...

At a meeting of our local support group, Laurie Chamberlain described her son's experiences playing with Legos. ... I asked her to write the story down for us: My belief that children learn through play and make sense of the world based on that playtime became cemented on this foundation the day 7-year-old Zachary called me to the doorway to view what he called five sets of three. Walking to the doorway, I saw five groupings of three Lego pieces in each. I was shocked to see this concept in action when we had never discussed it. Trying to appear calm, I asked him what it was, and he proudly proclaimed, "Five sets of three." I asked him how many Legos he had there, and he quickly answered "fifteen." I was astounded to think that Holt was right, and I was confirmed in my thinking at the same time. A 7-year-old was doing multiplication without any formal lessons. This energized me.

Even a parent who already believed in unschooling found her son's independent discovery of multiplication thrilling and a bit astonishing. In this case, the Lego pieces could have been any countable objects, but Zachary also found mathematical content in characteristics unique to Lego-type pieces: Another instance, which occurred when our family was building a Lego Christmas village for display, was when Zachary asked me for a white 8. I asked him what he meant, and he explained that

he needed a white block with 8 dots on top to fill in a space. To further test this, I asked him if a pair of white 4s would work, and he quickly answered: yes, it would work. I asked him how many white 2s he would need if all the 4s and 8s were gone, and he quickly answered: 4 2s.

It has been my experience time and again to witness both Zachary, now 12, and Ashley, 10, discovering and deciphering usable information that becomes theirs through experience. I have found that they can learn in one day what seems to take the public school years to teach.

Zachary went into public school in third grade. He tested at a seventh grade math level. Mind you, he had never had a formal lesson.

Since I had never heard Lego pieces named by the number of dots on top, I asked our son Eli, then 7 years old, whether he paid attention to the number of bumps on each piece when he played. He looked at me with a peculiar mix of amusement and, let's face it, scorn. Yes, he announced, that's the most important part! Mter awhile, he had stopped counting the bumps and began to recognize the pieces automatically by size or dots, much as one does with the spots on dominoes or the designs on playing cards. Still, like Zachary, he and his friends quickly figured out how many 2s can fill an 8 space. Lest this sound like a promotional spot for Legos and their look-alikes, I should point out that children often develop similar arithmetic skills from other building toys or objects that are proportionally sized. Building blocks, tangrams, or measuring cups in the kitchen or bath could easily inspire such mathematical revelations. Whatever happens to interest and occupy a child may well be that child's best entry into the world of mathematics. â&#x20AC;˘

Some other math resources: Unschooling Math (GWS back issue booklet). Stories from our pages about homeschoolers learning math in interesting and surprising ways.

Covers all ages. Available through our catalog, 888-925-9298 or www.holtgws.com Unschooling Math: It's elementary (cassette tape). Amy and David

#135 â&#x20AC;˘ JULy/AuG '00

Mantell's session at our conference.

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Balance.

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programs kindergarten through college. HSI's curriculum features a unique flexibility that allows students to take one course, a few courses, or an entire grade or degree. Our curriculum includes daily lessons for each subject coordinated with a textbook. To learn more, call 1-800-782-4769, write

Within each state, names are arranged in zip code order to make it easy for readers to find others nearby and for travelers to find host families in a particular area. If you're looking for someone by name, skim the last names, which are printed in capital letters. When you're reading a GWS story, how can you tell if that writer is listed in the Directory? If a name in a GWS story is followed by a state abbreviation in parentheses (e.g. "Jane Goldstein (MA) writes...") that person is in the Directory. " the name is followed by the entire state name (e.g. "Jane Goldstein of Massachusetts writes...") then that person is not in the Directory. We are happy to forward mail to those whose addresses are not in the Directory. If you want us to forward the letter without reading it, address the outside of the envelope to the writer's name, c/o GWS. If you want us to read the letter and then forward it, please enclose another stamped envelope.

Our Directory is not a list of all subscribers, but only of those who ask to be listed, so that other GWS readers, or other interested people, may get in touch with them. If you would like to be included, please send the entry form or a 3x5 card (one family per card). Please take care to include all the information.

If a Directory listing is followed by a (H), the family is willing to host GWS travelers who make advance arrangements in writing.

When you send us an address change for a subscription, please remind us if you are in the Directory, so we can change it here, too.

Please remember that we can't control how the Directory is used' if you receive unwanted mail as a result of being listed, just toss it out or recycle it.

Carriage House Dr, Lakeville 02347 (H) MI- Anita & Lisa LEES (Morgan/89, Dylan/92) 133 Kenberry Dr, E Lansing 48823 NJ - Maurice & Kim PERALTA (ForresV91, Finnian/93) 96 W Haledon Av, Haledon 07508 (H) OR - Rosalind HUTTON & Marc BETZ (Hazel/ 91, Simon/95) 538 NW 12 St, Corvallis 97330 (H) PA - Weston & Cindy GADDIS (Eric/87, Abigale/89, Eli/91, Adam/92, Alexander/94) 1236 Lindy Terr, Boiling Spgs 17007 (change) (H) TX - Erica & Bill LEAKE (Nate/97, Grace/99) 4202 Dayphine Dr, Austin 78727 (H) UT - Lyn RYAN (Kristy/84, Julie/88, Lisa/89, Heather/92) 808 S 600 E Cir, St George 84770 (H) VA - Mark & Cindy MILLER (Jessica/83, Andrea/96, Julie/90) 62 Big Hill Rd, Lexington 24450 (H) WA - Diana ROLL, 611624 Av NE, Seattle 98115 -- Shelley & Woody SHELTON-WILSON (Gaia/ 88, Kai/91) 474A Dexter Ln, Friday Harbor 98250 (H) WV - Bettina Seidman & Rich DENNIS (Alexandra/92, Tristan/95, Liam/98) 197 Upper Cobun Crk Rd, Morgantown 26508 Elsewhere - Lorraine & Steve REDMOND (Jim/90, Abby/93) CMR 475 Box 1008, APO AE 09036 (Germany) (change) Changes to the Directory of Organizations that was published in GWS #132: CA - California Homeschool Network, 800-3275339, mail@cahomeschool.net; www.cahomeschoolnet.org OH - HELP Northwest Ohio, 309 E Dudley St, Maumee 43537; 419-891-1538

to us at 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904, or stop by our web site at www.hsi.edu.

Additions to Directory Here are the additions and changes that have come in since our last issue. Our complete 2000 Directory was published in GWS #132. The next complete Directory will be published in #138.

CA, North (zips 94000 & up) - Heather & Ian CHOWDHURY (Keaton/97) 8200 Kern Av, Apt B103, Gilroy 95020 _. Rick & Suzanne SOULE (Kevin/90, Tracy/92) 2457 Wagon Train Trail, S Lake Tahoe 96150 (change) CT - Eryn YOUNG, 175 Ellsworth Av, New Haven 06511 (H) FL - Michael & Diana HURWITZ (Daniel/84) 2035 Suzanne Dr, Mt Dora 32757 (change) (H) GA - Sarah LANDRUM & Pitt HARDING (lsabel/87, Annie/90) 262 Springdale Dr NE, Atlanta 30305 MA - Deborah Day SMITH (Richard/87, Leila/ 89) 67 High St, Andover 01810 (change) (H) ••• Jim & Mary CONGO (Mariamal76, Ross/82) 97 Bray10n Rd, Brighton 02135 (H) -- Dorann & Lawrence COHEN (Travis/88, Daisha/91, Amber/93, Weston/95) 7

Pen-Pals Children wanting pen-pals should write to those listed. To be listed, send name, age, address, and 1-3 words on interests. Please try to write to some of the pen-pals listed before sending in your own name, and when you write, take care to put your address on your letter.

Jenna BRUNET (6) 1351 Lilac Ln, Carol Stream IL 60188; piano, trampoline, acting -- Mary SHANKLIN (16) 6518 Golden Ring Rd, Rosedale MD 21237; horses, swimming, photography -- Natalie KAWECKI (12) 1456 W Lake Rd, Heuvelton NY 13654-3156; dairy goats, farming, gardening·Hanna FOLEY (10) 4780 E Mtn View Dr, San Diego CA 92116; animals, reading, roller blading

ENTRY FORM FOR DIRECTORY

Use this form to send us a new entry or a substantial address change to be run in the next available issue of GWS. Adults (first and last names): Organization (only if address is same as family): Children (names/birthyears): Full address (Street, City, State, Zip):

Are you willing to host traveling GWS readers who make advance arrangements in writing? Yes _ No Are you in the 2000 Directory (GWS #132)? Yes _ No_ Or in the additions in a subsequent issue? Yes _ No _ GWS, 2380 Mass. Ave., Suite 104, Cambridge MA 02140

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Declassified Ads Rates: 70¢/word, $1/word boldface. Please tell these folks you saw the ad in GWS. For more info on advertising, contact Barb Lundgren, 817-540-6423, blundgren@home.com.

THE NATURAL CHILD PROJECT. Multiple-awardwinning internet site on "parenting and education that respects children" has articles by Alice Miller, Peggy O'Mara, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Naomi Aldort, Jan Hunt, and others, a parenting advice column, personal stories, and the Global Children's Art Gallery. Visit us at www.naturalchild.com Send for your free copy of my free zine for teen unschoolers, Readers Speak Out!: Ronald Richardson, 4003 50th Ave SW, Seattle WA 98116.

In addition to publishing Readers Speak Out!, I offer (by mail) to teen unschoolers these and other free services: Kangaroo College; mentoring; pen pals. And I can criticize your manuscripts; discuss philosophies, college, internships; recommend books. Also, I critique fine art photographs and provide advice to any teen who is considering launching her own zine. Write: Ronald A. Richardson, 4003 50th Ave SW, Seattle WA 98116.

Usborne Books at Home. The books will feed your child's passion, the company will feed your family's income! Orders and income-opportunity requests gladly taken. 1-877-778-3588 (toll free) or (email) SeIiUsborneBooks@aol.com. Mention GWS and receive free Shipping on orders over $25.

Liberated Learners, a monthly newsletter featuring inspirational stories about unschooling teens at Pathfinder Learning Center, a community center supporting unschooling families in Amherst, MA. Call 413-253-9412 for free issue.

Anyone can do this! Earn while THEY learn. $500$5000. http://newchoices.net or call Jacli: 1-888-3509305 x602.

music (listening and writing) and writing literature. Eric Meyer, POB 126327, San Diego, CA 92112-6327 or Ericomega@aol.com

Mentors for Unschoolers. Liberty Grove Learning Community <www.libertygrove.com>

For sale: Rural homesites surrounded by protected land. Small Vermont town, homeschooling community.

Michael Beattie/Leslie Oliver 802-235-2335, evernow@sover.net

PHONE COUNSELING, TAPES, WORKSHOPS. NAOMI ALDORT offers parents/families LOVING SOLUTIONS. Experienced counselor, public speaker, writer, and homeschooling mother. Articles: Mothering, GWS, The Nurturing Parent; www.naturalchild.com; reprints. 360-376-3777.

California Homeschool Network Books for homeschoolers in every state. When Your Grandchi/dren Homeschoo/: persuasion that wins relatives over, great gift idea, $14. Highlights of CHNews: inspiration for new homeschoolers, $12. Teen Guide, $15. Order by mail: CHN.POB55483.Hayward.CA94545.By phone 800-327-5339, www.cahomeschoolnel.org/ publications/htm PLEASE HELP. I am a homeschool mom of grown kids, planning a free program to teach disadvantaged inner city children to read using BALL STICK BIRD. If you have experience using these materials and would be willing to answer a 3 minute survey to help me set this up, please contact me toll free at 1-888817-6928 or email frogpond@gateway.net. Lyn Hamilton.

Educational Software. FREE disk catalog. MOM 'N' POP'S Software, POB 15003-A, Springhill, FL 34609.

1-352-688-9108. momnpop@gate.net, www.momnpopsware.com FREE Chat Board Use and Web Hosting, Free help in web set-up and $1 each color photo scans. Optional full service web set-up and maintenance. NCACS member school. Satisfaction guaranteed. 1-80071 USALL or www.usall.com Former Homeschooler (now 23 years/college) seeks pen pals. Enjoys sharing ideas on learning/electronic technologies and biotechnology, software creation,

"INSTANT GUITAR" - Revolutionary, no fingerings.

"ALL" children/adults - ..www.guitarsimplified.com..

The Homeschool COUPON BOOK! 192 real coupons from suppliers of homeschool curriculum, products, and services. Well over $1 ,000 in coupon savings throughout the book! Come see who is offering you great coupon specials, and get information about ordering your copy. Visit: www.homeschoolcouponbook.com Community forming. Homeschooling families.

Homestead, organic orchards. Alternative energy, land and stream restoration. Our vision is to share country-living here on the farm with homeschooling families having fun working together, growing gardens, enjoying nature. Non-religious. Gil and Robie, 1901 Dutyville Road, Garberville, CA 95542. 707-986-7787.

NEED HELP? Want to talk to a real person about high school Physics, Math, Chemistry, OR middle school science and math? We provide one-on-one telephone contact, e-mail, or we custom make videos to explain difficult problems. Unequaled service - call for free brochure. 713-721-0584.

Earthaven, 5-year-old permaculture-based ecospiritual community in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, NC, has membership opportunities for adventurous, loving, dedicated cultural transformationists; previous community experience and financial stability a plus! Calling hard workers, self-motivators, skilled technicians and educatorsI Infopak and catalog of permaculture and village design courses, plus a year's subscription to quarterly newsletter, send $15 to Earthaven Association, POB 1107, Black Mountain, NC 28711. 828-669-3937. Visit us at www.earthaven.org!

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31

AND THE SKYLARK SINGS WITH ME: Adventures in homeschooling and community-based education,

by David Albert. Foreword by Joseph Chilton Pearce.

A magnificently written tale about how David and his wife took to heart the lesson that to educate a child well is to enable her to find her own destiny. A marvellous example of how children spur adult learning, as well as about how parents can help children learn without always teaching them. A unique homeschooling story, filled with practical wisdom on a wide range of subjects (especially strong on science and nature education) which will reassure families going forth on their own homeschooling adventures. #6015 $16.95 "A clear and often magical account of how David and Ellen helped their kids find ways to take charge of their own education....Albert's intense thoughtfulness about every aspect of waking up to full humanity is a treat you should not miss." - John Taylor Gatto, author of Dumbing Us Down "David Albert gives us, with unpretentious clarity and admirable economy, as profound an insight into the development of intelligence in children as is to be found in many a ponderous professional tome.

Albert's description of the overwhelming failure of conventional schooling is unique and enlightening. Free of polemic, accusation, or casting of blame, his insightful, rather wistful perception of the tragedy schooling has inflicted upon childhood and society stands in stark contrast with the wondrous world his daughters reveal to us....And the Skylark Sings with Me is an intellectual tour de force that is a sheer delight to read, an elegant and graceful work of literary art... This account of the nurturing of child genius strikes me as a superb model of what all parents can do to bring forth the best in their children, and share in the joys and riches of doing so."

- Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Magical Child

GROWiNG WITHOUT

SQ!Q~G

BEFORE HOMESCHOOLING WAS TOTALLY LEGAL, BEFORE CURRICULUM FAI RS, BEFORE EXPERTS, THERE WAS GWS...

GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING: A RECORD OF A GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT, V. 1 ISSUES 1-12, AUG. 1977-DEC. 1979.John Holt promoted the homeschooling movement-which he originally called "unschooling"-when he published the first issue of GWS. Here, under one cover, are the first twelve issues of GWS, fully indexed and organized to help you VullllllcOnc browse its vast archive of ideas about how adults and children can learn Aug-us! 1977-0H"emOCI 1979 C,WS#1-12 together in their homes and communities. These first issues contain much writing by Holt about the how and why of homeschooling, as well as hundreds of first-hand accounts by homeschooling's earliest practitioners that resonate with even more meaning today. John Holt's personal touch is on nearly every page, and hundreds of stories about children, learning, politics, schooling, legal action, etc. make this book vital to anyone seriously studying homeschooling. A wealth of information! Our first printing of this book sold out quickly, so this time we've printed up a lot more and have lowered the price by $10!

264 pages, 8.5" x 11" #6033 $29.95

To order, please include shipping and handling fee from the chart on the right and call (888) 925 - 9298 or mail to: John Holt's Bookstore 2380 Massachusetts Ave. Suite 104 Cambridge, MA 02140-1884

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