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In a message dated 9/9/02 9:00:41 PM, kellitraas@... writes:

<< Sandra, I commend you for your honesty and people delving into your
personal life. I don't quite understand some accusations of not being
involved in our children's lives just because we are trusting them.
Do we always have to expect the worse from our children? hmmmmm... >>

Thanks.

There was a conference here in Albuquerque last weekend. One of the
questions I was asked was about the effects on my children and on my
expectations of them because of them being "known" unschoolers.

The kids have been good sports all along about being "poster children," and
occasionally still I'll ask them all to go with me to meet another family, or
to be available at the house to be seen and maybe interrogated some by
someone really interested and skeptical. (People rarely ask them anything,
they just kind of eyeball them sidelong. They'll still ask Holly, but for
some reason, it seems, the older the kids get the less likely people are to
just "interview" them.)

My concern, I told her, was that one would shoot the president or something
and get us four pages in People magazine, where they would interview me and
say "SO... you 'unschooled' him?" And that maybe since everybody's looking
I might be tempted to compromise my beliefs and offer Kirby $1000 to enroll
in college, PLEASE!

But those are flitting worries or concerns brought out for the sake of
stating concerns. I'm not actually worried.

Holly was visiting another family whose mom explained to Holly that she
wanted the kids to get into college, and so she was teaching them now the
things they would need to know, because when they're teenagers they won't
want to sit down and do the work. (Holly said she had asked why she didn't
just wait until they were older and needed to know.)

Holly came home and told me the story, and said "Mom, if I go to college and
there's something I don't know, I'll just figure it out then!" Even though
we don't talk about unschooling much as we're just living our lives, she
hears the explanations elsewhere (me talking to people who call and ask, or
stories that get told of online discussions or conference presentation
moments). And her confidence in her ability to learn something is calm and
deep.

Sunday morning Holly asked about centimeters to inches, and Keith, her dad
gave her figures and ratios and explanations, and I just overheard. But I
went to find a ruler with both, and instead the first thing I found were two
ratty old proportion rulers, the kind that my dad always had (he was a welder
and building contractor who did specialty things of steel). They have three
sides, so there are six edges for markings,and it's like a footlong pyramid
(I don't know the name of that shape, triangle ends, three long sides...)

[the good part of this is at the bottom, so if you get bored, scan]

They looked at and talked about what those were good for, and I wandered off
to keep packing up boxes of stuff to clear out of my office so Holly can have
it as her bedroom.

Holly went to visit a friend and ended up spending the night.

Monday came, Keith went to work, Holly and I took the van to the shop and
walked home with the dog through alleys, talking about construction and art
and neighhborhoods.

Holly and I tried to learn a three-note harmony for a medieval song because
she wants to play with our little music group which meets Mondays. I don't
play violin, but I know enough music to find where she needed to play it.
Not the open A string, because the notes are F, G, A, so she needed to do it
on the D string. But the positions she knows on that string are E, Fsharp
and G. And she doesn't read music, she reads a kind of notation of string
and finger, so she wasn't able to just slide up the string and use her three
fingers in new places. I called her teacher to ask if that was indeed the
way to go and she said yes, but that was a position Holly wouldn't be
learning for a long time, and couldn't we transpose. No, because the
vocalist needs to be where she is, and the harder part is in an easy key for
the rest of them/us. Holly got frustrated and quit, and they'll work on it
Wednesday at the lesson.

We went to music practice, almost two hours, Holly played with the baby of
the family where we practice, carrying him around and crawling around with
him.

We went to Appleby's afterward, Holly, me and Keith. [Marty was home playing
Warcraft III, doing Neopets games, and chatting with friendsonline. Several
hours of uninterrupted computer time in an empty house, he loves. Kirby was
at work, and going to play D&D or something straight after. ] At the
restaurant there were musical instruments up on the wall as decorations, with
band uniforms and photos of musicians, and record albums and 45s. There was
a violin, but no bridge or strings, just the body. That was a little
distracting for her because it looked so wrong. <g> There was a baritone
(which our regular-attendee friend Eric plays in band at the high school),
two guitars (we have three, but one of theirs was an electric) some drums,
and she was liking that.

Holly's only time constraint was she wanted to be home to watch the Simpsons
at 10:00. My husband usually goes to bed at 10:00 sharp, because he goes to
work at 6:00.

We got home at 9:30, I went back to packing boxes, and she and Keith started
making a scale model of the room, using those proportion rulers. I came
across a good, clear plastic, inches/centimeters ruler and took it to her in
the library. She said "*OOOOOH!*" like I had just brought her the coolest
thing she had seen for a week. Probably I had. And not for lack of having
seen other things, but because their conversation about centimeters had been
a good one, and her interest was real. (And they were wanting a smoother
straight edge than those 40-year-old wooden rulers were offering <g>.)

A while later it was 10:00, and I said "Holly, the Simpsons." She said
"Thanks. That's okay." And for the next half an hour the one who really
wanted to watch one show in a whole day, and the one who usually goes to bed
at 10:00 no matter what, were making carefully measured rectangles to
represent her bed, her dressers, her My Little Pony box, and figuring out how
she could best fit the furniture in that room so she could get around both
sides of her queensized bed.

The reason Holly has a queensized bed was when she was little she told us if
we ever got a new bed she wanted our old one. We hadn't thought she was
fully serious, but she loves this old bed which is older than any of our
kids, and although a twin or full would give her way more room, she insists
that THAT is her bed. She would throw out the other furniture before losing
that.

She was spending time with her dad (who no longer goes into overwhelming
math-talk about such things as he once did), and she was doing something
brand new and useful for life. He was talking to her about how easily it's
done on computers nowadays, and how architects and designers even put in
plants and chairs, and that there are ways to mark the outlets and... I
missed most of it, but Holly missed NONE. There was not the slightest big of
frustration on either one's part. Keith happily went to bed an hour late.
Holly happily missed The Simpsons.

Sandra

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***Keith happily went to bed an hour late.
Holly happily missed The Simpsons.***


This was wonderful Sandra, thank you.

Deb L