Ren Allen

I'm wrong....Anne wasn't here.

Really, unschooling.com was the big list now that I think about it. At
least we have unschooling.info now, but there were definitely less
email lists at the time. I see alot of the same people at the various
lists, so I do wonder if we couldn't all just get along on less lists.

Ren

Sandra Dodd

But at one time there were NO lists.



On Jan 5, 2006, at 10:08 AM, Ren Allen wrote:

> Really, unschooling.com was the big list now that I think about it. At
> least we have unschooling.info now, but there were definitely less
> email lists at the time.


When I first came online I had a local park-day group which had
evolved out of a La Leche League-based playgroup. (La Leche League
doesn't run such things, but that's where the group of us had met.)
Then I signed up for *Prodigy, which got you e-mail and access to
bulletin boards (BBs), which were not nearly as spiffy as message
boards, but vaguely like that. It was like all one big list, and
people could respond, but you had to go to that site to read it. The
homeschooling list we could get to was a mixture of all kinds of
homeschoolers, but most of them were big into structure, and some of
them had no idea WHY (or that) anyone would homeschool who hadn't
been directed to do so at church or by her husband.

Then I moved to AOL, where there were several ways to communicate.
There were message boards, and chatrooms. I used to do a two hour
scheduled topic chat every week, and then edit the text of them down
into a readable (long) thing people could download and read later.
And I put out a newsletter--two of them, but not at the same time
(one led to the other), with a mailing list I kept on the computer,
and updated from e-mails people sent me (and "unsubscribed" people by
search and delete on a word file with over 2000 names at one point).
I could only send 200 at a time, so I learned some good file
management and e-mail tricks. It was a lot of work, but I was happy
doing it.

Growing Without Schooling came out every other month or so. It was
lagging and petering out. Waiting two months for a magazine
wasn't any good as a primary source of support and daily
encouragement.

There was not a better source for quick, thorough homeschooling
information in those days than the AOL forum.

Then AOL got very squirrelly and replaced all the homeschool-mom
volunteers (who were getting free AOL in exchange for working in
there, maybe 12 or 15 people at a time) with people who weren't even
homeschoolers. It wasn't fun anymore.

Home Education Magazine set up unschooling.com as a place for the
unschoolers to go, and the HEM forum (larger, magazine-focussed) for
all the rest, and from that came the unschooling.com list, which went
through a couple of name changes and was passed on to me, Pam
Sorooshian and Joyce Fetteroll a couple (or three?) years ago.

By then, though, people could have webpages, and there were lots more
homeschoolers, lots more unschoolers,

It has been ten years since anyone had to rely on books or magazines
as their information on homeschooling. Those who have chosen to have
internet in their homes have more than they could possibly read, and
they have to pick and choose.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both small pools of people/
info and of large. We can't change it either way. Life keeps
flowing along. I miss having Kelly Lovejoy and Ren Allen on
discussions <g> but they're doing a great thing by having a
beginners' list where they'll answer the same questions really
patiently. I myself prefer the in-depth examination of why people
have a hard time shaking some of their beliefs, and about how culture
with its questionable "truths" and its platitudes cripples people's
thinking sometimes. Some people hate those kinds of discussions,
about the nature of reality and what "learn" means. Some people have
said they'd scream if another person asked them "How will they learn
to read if you don't teach them?" (Some have screamed. <g>)

Nobody has to stay on any list forever, either. There can be ebb and
flow of lists and participants, of topics and moods. They're all
part of one fine face. <g>

Sandra

[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: Sandra Dodd Sandra@...

I miss having Kelly Lovejoy and Ren Allen on
discussions <g> but they're doing a great thing by having a
beginners' list where they'll answer the same questions really
patiently.
-=-=-=-=-

And we're here and at UD every day! But there are new voices every month that *get* it and that can answer more quickly than I can! <g>

They've even missed me at UB (Unschooling Basics, the beginner list) lately! <g>

I'm here! I'm here! And I'll be a part of discussions again!

~Kelly


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