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1AlKING ABOUT ENYIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS HELP WITH CRITICAL GRANDPARENTS KIDS INSPIRE PARENTS' LEARNING HOMESCHOOLERS ON •
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Using Our Time
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Clonlara School
Thousands of homeschooling families have benefited from our private K-12 school. •
Homeschooling parents don't have to /I go it alone./I
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Compliments all styles and approaches to homeschooling
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Compliance with all home education regulations in each state and over twenty foreign countries
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Many of the young adults and teens featured in Homeschoolers' Success Stories, by Linda Dobson, were Clonlara students!
Help your child create their own "success story," enroll in Clonlara today! www.clonlara.org
E-mail: clonlara@wash.k12.mi.us
Phone: 734-769-4511
Cionlara School
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Join us . . .
for our 16th Annual Conference IIFree to be a Home Educatorll June 1, 2, & 3, 2001 Dana Center, Toledo, Ohio
From the Editor ISSUE 1 3 9
MARlA P R 2001
Contents 2-3 News & Reports 4-6 Challenges & Concerns
Responses to "A Critical Grandparent"
8-9 On My Mind by Susannah Sheffer
10-17 FOCUS: How We Use Our Time Readers write about what determines how they plan and use their time, in the absence of school calendars.
18-19 A Conversation with David Sobel, author of
Beyond Ecopbobia: Reclaiming the Heart ofNature Education '20-z2 Kids Inspire Parents' Learning Parent.<; write about how watching kids learn encourages their own new projects and endeavors.
23 Unschooling Math 24-25 Watching Children Learn Finding Internal Structure, Learning About the Romans, Writing Her First Story
26-31 2001 Complete Lists of Helpful Teachers,
Lawyers, Grown Homeschoolers, and others
GWS is based on the idea that young people are good at learning and that leaming happens everywhere. Our stories explore how people of all ages leam 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 concems. Editor - Meredith Collins
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Publisher - Patrick Farenga
Editorial Advisor - Susannah Sheffer Mary Maher
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Bookkeeper & Proofreader
Office Administrator - Ginger Fitzsimmons.
Office Assistant - Lauren Farenga
Holt Associates Board of Directors
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Designer - Kim Stuffelbeam
Maureen Carey, Patrick Farenga (Corporate President), Mary Maher, Susannah Sheffer Advisor to the Board - Ron Rubbico Cover Photo is of Sayer and Dana DWinell-Yardley and is by Stephanie Emery (see
Focus, p.lO). Photo on p. 12 is by Stephanie Emery, photo on p. 14 by Angie
Hodgson, and photo on p. 16 by Brian Nadworny.
Advertisements do no/necessarily ref/ecl cmn endorsement and we cannot voucb fo1' any claims made by advertisers. Growing Without Schooling (iSSN #0745-5305) #139, 1'0123, No 6. Published by Holt Associates, 2380
Mass. Ave., Suite 104, Cambridge MA 02140. $29.97/)'ear. Frequency: bimonthly. Date of issue: Mar/Apr
2001. Periodicals postage paid at Boston MA and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: send 104, Cambridge MA 02140. Phone 617-864-3100. lbll
address changes to GWS, 2380 Mass. Ave., Suite
free 888-925-9298. Fax 617-864-9235. WWIV.holtgws.com. E-mail: HoltGWS@erols.com SUBSCRIPTIONS: Send to GWS, 2380 Mass. Ave., Suite 104, C;unbridge MA 02140 ADVERTISERS: Space reservation deadlines are the lSI of odd-numbered months.
Write for rales: Barb Lundgren, Advertising Manager, 3013 Hickory Hill, ColleY"ille TX 76034; 817-540-6423: blundgren@home.com
For my younger brother, whose favorite thing in the world is alpine skiing, the long summer vacation between school years couldn't have been more poorly timed. Throughout the winter he'd be stuck in school all day, with only a precious few hours of daylight at the mountain in the afternoons and on week ends. I can't be sure, but I have a hunch that he would have liked school more if it hadn't kept him from skiing all those winters, though I'm also sure he'd have been willing to forego it entirely in order to read, think, and study on his own, as he does now in his twenties. Last week he headed west to spend the winter working and skiing in Colorado. He told me that he'll probably be back in the spring, because he likes it here and can usually find out door work during the warmer months. He's thinking he might start splitting his years that way - working in Maine in the summer and then spending the winter skiing out west.
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It seems like a pretty simple idea, to build your schedule around the work you do and the things you care about, but many young people don't have the chance to do that, to find the rhythms that are determined not by an arbitrary calendar but by the real needs and values in their lives. School doesn't allow kids to plan on sleeping late the morning after a play performance and get their other work done later. It's not pos sible to spend a gorgeous day cleaning up a city park and sav ing reading for when it's raining. School imposes one particu lar structure, and many people end up belieVing that without it, we'd have no structure to our time at all - we'd only be living moment to moment, and would never learn that sometimes you do have to go to work no matter how tired you are or how beautiful it is outside. But outside of school there is no scarcity of demands and no scarcity of factors that give structure to people's lives. Parents and children writing for this issue's Focus, about how homeschoolers use their time, tell us that when they are mak ing choices about how to spend their time, they do respond to demands and requirements. The difference is that those de mands and requirements come from the reality of their lives. A teenager might sometimes have to get up earlier than she likes because it's spring and the sap is running, or because she agreed to babysit for a neighbor, but in both cases she's re sponding to something real, not arbitrary. Many of the families who write for this issue's Focus write about how their lives are grounded in the rhythms and whims of nature, affected profoundly by the weather or the time of year. But we also hear that families and individuals organize and prioritize around other factors including holidays and par ticular needs and interests of family members. They're not at the mercy of just one available option; they can choose which demands will guide them. It's another valuable freedom that homeschooling offers, day in and day out, from season to sea son and year to year. - Meredith Collins G ROWING WliHOU T SCHOOLIN G # 1 3 9
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News & Reports The general attitude toward home
Homeschooling in Italy
schooling here is that it means a burden
Elisabeth Lee Vazza writes:
some business for the parents, who more over should be somehow qualified as teachers. Homeschooling seems to be understood as a sacrifice of freedom. . Some open-minded people seem to be curious about homeschooling, and that can be a relief after finding skepticism or clear opposition to our choice.
Homeschooling is completely uncom mon in Italy - only some well-informed people, usually working in schools, have
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heard about it as an "American fashion." Apart from the families listed in the GWS DirectOlY, I guess we are probably the only family of more or less native Ital ians. (I am Spanish by passport and our
One thing that has helped us is status.
children have both Spanish and Italian nationality.) There is an old and very useful law about home education for families who could afford governesses and tutors, which was not uncommon until about 40 years ago. The law re quires a couple of tests by a public school before a child is 16.
I can remind people that my husband's relatives from a family of the old gentry didn't go to school because there was a tutor at home. I am also indebted to a mother I met in Spain (through the GWS Directory ) who suggested several years ago that I tell people that one reason to homeschool is to preserve my children's Spanish. How would they read a Spanish
I learned about this law from the leader of a movement against compul sory vaccination. His punishment for refusing to have his child vaccinated was that he was forbidden to send him to school. (The punishment was meant to protect the other children.) The child got lessons at home from unemployed teach ers. After a year or so he went back to school, and when tested he was found to be more proficient than average.
newspaper or vote in Spanish elections one day if they went to full-time Italian speaking school? It sounds very convinc ing as motivation for my "big sacrifice" of sharing my children's lives. An American homeschooling father once told me how static Europe felt in comparison to America where families can easily move thousands of kilometers to and fro without leaving their country.
The Meeting School 56 Thomas Road
Rindge, NH 03461
What if there were a high school where
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hands-on learning,
small classes, 1:4 facUlty/student ratio
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organic farming,
Well, I am a really odd foreigner here, being German- born Eurasian and still officially a resident in Spain. The natives expect to make allowances for my natu ral and foreseeable eccentricities. Home schooling is just one more thing in a row with homebirth, non-vaccination, and alternative food and medicine. One good side of Italian idiosyncrasy is a deeply rooted indiVidualism, a love for original ity. Homeschooling is sort of food for thought, a novelty to drop in conversa tion among acquaintances. We heard many comments and questions by the time our first son was 6, when all his peers started school, but two years later, with our second son, we only heard a couple of questions - the thing had lost its newness. In Italy children are a source of pride for their parents, and it can give offense if you don't notice a family'S children. We are very proud of our children, and their joy and health are evident. They get a lot of notice, partly because their conversa tion is what I guess is typical of homeschooled children. Having been what I would call wildly unschooled (they do take some lessons - as long as the subject is interesting and the teacher open-minded and loving, they do love lessons), they have pursued conversable interests like history, anthropology, and literature. People generally admire the interest our children show for learning and I can easily state that if I sent them to school they would be prevented from learning all that "grown-up" stuff.
heirloom breeds, strong student involvement
and a caring community
Office News
day/boarding; celebrating creativity & diversity
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all came together?
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There is.
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G ROWI N G WITHOUT SCHOOLI N G # 1 3 9
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www.meetingschool.org
issue look very different. We worked with our designer, Kim Stuffelbeam, to put to gether a design that allows us to print just as many words (often more) witl11ess crowd
News & ReRorts
ing on the pages. We hope you like this new look. If you haven't yet sent us your ently for the 2002 Directory, please do so. Again, we need to receive a new entry from you if you would like to be included - we are starting the database from scratch. I apologize for any confusion created by the ty pographical errors in GWS #138 in and around the Directory. The Directory in # 138 is of course tile 2001 Directory: We are now receiving entries for the 2002 Directory, coming up in GWS # 144. We're sorry to report that there will not be a conference at Eisner Camp again tius year, due to insufficient staffing. This issue includes our annual lists of resource people. Uke our Directory of Fami lies, tilese lists continue to grow and there fore take up more space in the magazine each year. We'd like to hear from readers about how (or if) you use these lists. In
particular, we're wondering about U1e lists of certified teachers, lawyers, professors, and psychologists. If these lists are not of use to readers, we nught consider just keeping them on file in our office raU1er U1an print ing them each year. You've probably noticed U1at each issue now comes with two bound-in subSCription renewal cards, which we hope will make it easier to subscribe or renew. The burning question on many minds is, "What ti1e heck am I supposed to do with U1e second card?" Well, if you tl1ink of it as just a necessary annoyance, bound (so to speak) to flutter to the floor just when you least expect it, we figure the best thing to do is eifuer use it for kindling or invite some fellow subscribers to join you in building a house of cards. If you were hoping for sometl1ing wifu maybe a little more lasting influence, we have a couple of less scintillating but perhaps more helpful suggestions. As we've mentioned before, we count on current subscribers to
bring in new subsclibers. You, our readers, are in contact with new homeschoolers in ways fuat we are not, meeting them at sup port group meetings and outings, etc. So pass along your subSCription card to new homeschoolers, or to any homeschoolers who might be interested in subscribing but just haven't found ti1e time to call us.
Calendar April 27-28, 2001: "TraiIung Our Children While Guarding Their Hearts," ti1e 12th annual Heart of Illinois Convention of Home Educators in Peoria, IL. For infonnation, call 309-565-7186. May4-5,2001: Wisconsin Parents Association 18th Annual Home Education Conference at ti1e University Center in Stevens Point, WI. For free 8-page announcement, call WPA's voice mail 608 283- 3131 or write WPA, PO Box 2502, Madison, WI 53701-2502 or see www.homeschooling-wpa.org .•
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GROWI NG WITHOUT SCHOOLIN G # 1 3 9 · MAR/APR 2001
Focus
How We
Spend Our Time
M any people follow school calendars for most of their lives, first as students and then later as parents. Homeschoolers, on the other hand, have the freedom to set their own schedules and structure their own time over the course of a year. We asked several readers to write about the factors that determine how they use, plan, and value their time. 10
"Christmas-Birthday Season"
From Sue Klassen (NY): Our family values spending time with extended family. Grandparents are less than a half day's drive away in Canada, so we are able to spend major holidays together. At Christmas, we spend a full week in Canada. In our nuclear and extended families, most birthdays fall in December and ]anuary. Be tween preparations for birthday parties and the five family Christmas celebrations we typically attend, much of our time in December, and some of our time in]anuary, is spent mak ing gifts, decorating, planning celebrations, and visiting. We
years, he has saved seeds, sipped nectar from snapdragons, split wood, and gardened. Starting at age 8, he initiated tap ping the maple trees in our woods. Nathan and I work to gether to schedule his many seasonal passions around our other commitments and routines.
Maple Sugaring
From Nathan Klassen: Usually, we find time to do some, if not all, of our normal activities (a few hours of reading, math, and writing), but
have come to call this time "Christmas-Birthday Season."
sometimes seasonal work takes precedence.
Since many regular commitments continue through this season, it is our routines for reading and studying that we re duce to free time. We keep our regular schedule on some days in December, but set aside large blocks of time for seasonal traditions new and old.
I can't plan anything rigidly for the seasons, but I can make general preparations. Before sugaring season, for ex ample, I clean the equipment, measure and select some trees, and get everything ready. Last year, I also contacted the Stuarts, who run a sugar bush near us, and arranged to help out.
This year, among other activities, we made handmade-pa per Christmas cards, decorated gingerbread cookies to the hilt, baked traditional Russian Mennonite Weinochten Piroshki, crafted dried fruit candies as gifts, and prepared special Christmas music. We continued to learn and grow and stretch in December, but I didn't write as much down, in the records I keep for New York's mandatory quarterly reports, as I do in most months. When the new year began, it felt good to dive back into graphing parabolas and reading together by the hour. Be cause the snow conditions are good, it's cross-country skiing season too, a high-priority activity in our household. Seasonal work strongly affects how Nathan, age 13, sched ules his time. Nathan is highly attuned to nature, and, as he says, feels "antsy" if he doesn't get outside frequently throughout the day. He rakes leaves, shovels snow, and prunes bushes at home without being asked. From his early G ROWI NG WITHOUT SCHOOLI NG # 1 3 9
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As sugaring season draws near, I watch the daytime tem peratures to know when it's time to sugar (when the days are above freeZing, and the nights are below freeZing, the sap traverses the height of the tree). I also know it's time when the squirrels are nibbling the twigs - they think it's time for maple sugaring too. Last year, our regular routine was shredded to little bits dur ing sugaring because I ran my own sugar bush and helped out at the Stuarts' while school groups visited. During one week of this time, my parents were in England, and Kathy, who lives with our family, cared for us. I chose to spend most of my time that week sugaring. After my parents returned, we visited the Maple Tree Inn to learn about their use of reverse osmosis equipment, which removes much of the water from the sap before boiling. In late May, I do my best to fit in planting around our
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Focus
studying, but in June r leave routine behind for a week or two to help my grandparents in Canada with gardening and other outdoor projects. In summer, I do gardening at home and at the Children's Pizza Garden at Webster Arboretum, help out at Peacework Organic Farm, and pick, freeze, and can lots of local produce.
choir all fall, and it will be ending quite soon. I study math once a week with my mother, and take piano classes. r babYSit, teach science to a young girl I know, visit friends in New York City, and that's about it. After the tension of putting the play together, and needing to be at the high school almost
One time, I had planned to make bean pickles and cucum ber pickles. The day before, some friends asked if we could host four Ethiopian guests for the weekend. We ended up with six guests. A few of them ended up helping me with the bean pickles, snapping off bean ends. Sometimes, unexpected things happen. I am so thankful to be homeschooling, be cause I can schedule my time around my interests.
I find out about something I'm interested in doing - for in stance, a wilderness survival course - I can arrange what I do
When It Suits Her Needs
From April Matilsky (NJ): I remember when I was little, I would think about how lucky I was to be able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. As I've grown older (I'm 14 now) , r think that I have begun to forget just how lucky I am. Writing this article has reminded me how much more I can do with my self-designed schedule. I decide what I want to do, check out my calendar, figure out when is best, and then I can do it. I call up people and arrange whatever it is I'm doing with them - science class, babysitting, etc. - and we work out something which works for both of us. I'm not forced into stopping and start ing with the ringing of a bell. To plan what I'll do, I just take into consideration how much time I'll need, and then if something else comes along, I have to make sure that it fits my time frame. I don't really think much about my day-to day schedule. People often ask me to tell them what a "typi cal day" is for me. There is none. I plan my activities, and from there I know when I ought to go to sleep, wake up, etc. For instance, today at 9:15 I had a piano class, so I needed to wake up around 8 :00. That meant that last night I needed to be in bed around 11:00. On nights when I can stay up late, I often take advantage of that by talking online to friends and reading books. Homeschooling also allows me to spend more time on some things than on others. This past fall, r adapted a play from a book I'd read, and contacted 11 other unschoolers to perform it with me. For three months, this was pretty much what I thought about. I did other things, but they were all scheduled around Thesdays, when our group met for rehears als. I was able to look into where to perform the play, to call people for reminders and updates, and to do publicity, all on my own time without worrying about school. Looking back, this is just another one of those things I have taken for granted. At the moment, I'm not really planning anything nearly as spectacular as the play we did. I've been in the high school
every morning, I'll be glad for the break. Still, though, when
"I'm notforced into stop ping and starting with the ringing ofa bell. " and when I do it to suit my needs. When I have something that I'd like to do more than the thing I have planned, I can choose which one I'll do.
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Daily and Seasonal Cycles
From Jane Dwinell (VI'): While much of the rest of the industrialized world wakes up to an alarm clock and eats and sleeps at a prescribed time, our family has the pleasure of eating when we are hungry, sleeping when we are tired, and waking up when we're ready. In the meantime, my partner Sky and r have busy profes sional lives, and our children, Dana and Sayer, engage in a wide variety of activities. The only day of the week when we have to be anywhere at a certain time is Sunday morning. r am a Unitarian Universal ist minister and an1 responsible for our 10 am worship service. Everyone else comes too, because, well, they like church. And every Sunday afternoon a pickup soccer or basketball game takes place at the local elementary school for homeschoolers and friends.. It's our most scheduled day of the week - ritual ized, I like to think. Other mornings require a look at the calendar, an eye to the weather, and a question posed to everyone: "What are you go ing to do today?" Depending on obligations - perhaps I have a meeting or Sky has to meet with clients (he is a family me diator) - one or both parents delve into their "work in the world" as Dana and Sayer delve into theirs. They may read, play games, go on an adventure, use the computer, put to gether a puzzle, build with Legos, watch a movie, or some thing completely different. It's up to them. If there's nothing pressing on the calendar in terms of out side obligations, and if the weather is cooperative, you'll find us playing or working. It may be time to plant the garden or split and stack firewood. Perhaps the sap is running, and we
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Focus
need to boil. Maybe the sun is out, and in the life of an all solar household, that means it's time to vacuum or do laun dry. And then again, if no household tasks call us, you'll find us at the mountain or on the lake. Our life moves with a daily cycle as well as a seasonal one. In the depths of winter, we know we will have more time to read, play games, and do inside things when the days are short and the nights are long. We know we will want to go skiing often, so Sky and I are careful to make wintertime ap pointments for late afternoon or evening so as to be able to hit the slopes when the snow is morning-fresh.
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But in the winter, we also know that it's time to prepare for spring. In our household that means making maple syrup, so trees must be tapped and the sugarhouse and supplies pre pared for when the sap begins to flow. We make sure there is nothing pressing in our March and early April schedule - no out-of-town trips, no big projects - because when the sap is
side household chores , we want to be swimming, sailing or kayaking. I always think I'll catch up on my reading in sum mer when there is little church bUSiness, but it never happens. There's too much to do in the great outdoors. Soon the days shorten and cooler weather sets in. Early fall is also not a good time to plan big projects or go away. There's food to be preserved, and firewood to be stacked. The "church year" be gins anew in September, and, for some reason, more people want to renegotiate their child custody arrangements with Sky as the school year begins. It's a never-ending cycle, one that sometimes feels like a roller coaster, and sometimes more like a merry-go-round. Do we like this life? You bet. Are we challenged by it? Fre quently. Every so often, one of us will suggest that we institute a schedule. This request can come from any one of us. The adults realize we're falling behind in our work, or things are getting chaotic, and we decide to hold "office hours," that is, we try to do our phone calls, paperwork, and meeting at a cer tain time of day, every day. It helps us to be more organized, and it allows Dana and Sayer to know when we're available to do something with them. Other times, Dana and Sayer will request a schedule that includes regular mealtimes and a couple of hours of schoolwork. These attempts at structuring our lives usually disappear with the first sunny day after a snowfall, or a warm summer day with the right kind of breeze. That is how our lives are truly structured - by the weather. The weather influences play time as well as time for household tasks that come up in the cycle of the year.
Dana and Sayer Dwinell-Yardley reading together running, making maple syrup is all there is. One year we went away for a weekend in early April - my brother's wed ding - and the thousand gallon sap tank was rapidly over flowing on our return. We have not made that mistake again. Spring is also garden time - once the soil dries up. We or der seeds and start plants in the waning days of winter, and so we wait, patiently, for the soil to be ready. In the meantime, we use the early, fresh spring days for canoeing on rivers only passable in the spring, or for long walks in the woods prior to black fly season. Summer brings those heady, long days and short nights. Very little inside activity takes place. If we're not doing out-
G ROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING # 1 3 9 · MAR/APR 2001
Our lives continue to evolve as our interests and priorities change. When the kids were little, our life centered on the homestead work of food raising and preserving, animal care, sugaring, and housebuilding. As Dana and Sayer got older, and needed less moment-to-moment attention, Sky and I found ourselves looking at our professional lives and trying to find the balance between parenting, homestead work, and off farm work. Now that our children are turning into young adults, and Sky and I have established our careers, we are chOOSing to spend more time at play together. We are selling our homestead and moving to the lake where we keep our sailboat. Life will change again as we remodel a house, plant new gardens, and learn to live in a new place . I am grateful that our life is structured this way. I believe it gives us the flexibility to make changes as they come along. I know it gives us the flexibility to spend time together. For the adults, the challenges lie in being responsible for earning money without the benefit of a 9-5 job with a regular paycheck and benefits. One thing that has been helpful to give Sky and me the information needed for making our ca reer and family decisions has been follOWing the nine-step program as outlined in the book Your Money or Your Life.
By keeping track of our irregular income and more regular household expenses, we are able to work with the ebbs and flows of the year. Like many people in this part of Vermont, Sky and I have many "jobs" - several ways that we earn money as well as do good work in the world. We also have the patience and trust in our relationship that allows us to deal with changes, sudden extra busy times, and unexpected busi ness or family emergencies. For the children, the challenges lie in learning to listen to their inner wants and needs, and to make them happen with out the structure of a classroom or parent-imposed curricula. I see them go through periods of apparent inactivity only to spring forth with some new idea or plan. Sometimes they come to us asking for suggestions, but, uriless they ask, they usually balk at any ideas we might have. I find it's better to let them have their own ebbs and flows. They have learned from observing us and participating in family decisions. They understand the flow of the year as they make their own plans. They also have their own deep relationship and communica tion style that helps them process together what their next projects - together and alone - will be. Eventually, they al ways work it out, and come up with plenty of satisfying, cre ative things to do with their time. Not every one thrives in such an atmosphere. Many people do better with an externally driven structure. It is not always easy to keep up motivation - whether it's for learning French or the times tables, exercising regularly, or building up a cli ent base. It's not always easy for us, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Working Around Long-Term Goals
From Daniel Ducker! of Wis'consin: The single biggest structuring element in my life is sleep (which I do occasionally). After that, there are some outside forces that impose structure, the biggest being Dad's work schedule and the few classes I take. Lessons in music or the martial arts, for example, impose structure because they are at set times every week and because I need to practice them. There are also some things I do in order to make my way in society and so that I will be able to do what I want to do. The studying I do is one of the steps I take toward my goals. I want to work as a robotics engineer and send robots to the moon, so I need a background in engineering. Each day, I try to do what I think needs to get done toward that goal. Some times I have to work backward from my goal. For engineer ing, I will need to know trigonometry, and for that, I need to learn geometry. I started doing web programming when I was 1 1 and now I have a job doing it. I happen to like doing web stuff so learn ing web design languages is no problem. It might have been hard to learn if I didn't enjoy it so much.
Family Focuses on Chess Tournament
From Sherry Boas (FL): Recently our sons Toby and Timmy attended their first chess tournament, held this year near us in Orlando. Because our family considered this an imporant event this year, we adjusted our schedules to accommodate the time it would
"Our children understand the flow ofthe year as they make their own plans. " take to prepare for and participate in the tournament. Either Timmy or I would drive him and Toby to extra practice ses sions. We borrowed study gUides from the library, and we freed up three entire days in our week to be away from home
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for the event. My husband and our daughters even prepared an elegant dinner for us one evening and transported it to the hotel lobby where we and hundreds of other families were gathered. We ate this delicious homemade meal in style that night while others around us munched on junk food. Because of their flexible schedules, our children were able to redistribute their other activities and pursuits in order to allocate the time they felt necessary to participate in the tour nament. Timmy stayed busy with mUltiple other interests and didn't rearrange his schedule very much, but for Toby, it was a more serious event and it had his more pronounced attention. He spent a lot of time getting ready for the competition that he would normally have spent playing learning games on the computer.
Tune For Earning Money
From Timmy Boas (FL): I am involved in a lot of money-making enterprises. My parents pay me to work around our farmstead and in our bamboo groves, and I also have an ongoing job working at a tropical fruit nursery. On weekends, I sometimes set up a stand at a local market and sell plants and produce. In all these cases I can choose when I want to work. If I need money, I can work to make the money I need. But I don't have a certain day or days each week that I have to go to work. I guess I work as much as I want to in order to earn the money I need for my current goals. I wouldn't really want to have a job every day because it would restrict me from doing all the stuff that I really love to do like chill around the house, play the guitar, and be free to do whatever comes up next. In the past I have always come up with jobs that I don't G ROWI NG WITHOUT SCHOOLING # 1 3 9
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