Judie C. Rall

Oh, and last night, after all this discussion all day about my kids
not helping, my 18 year old was standing over by the vacuum, and I
asked him if he would plug it in because I needed to vacuum the area
rugs, and he said, "I'll do it." (shock, bewilderment)...... I tried
to hide my shock and just said "Thank you, that's very nice of you."

Then my 13 year old came out and asked if I'd take him to the store
to get a slurpee, and I said I didn't have any money, and he said, "I
do, I'll buy you one if you want." How sweet. He is the one who
always volunteers to put gas in the car when we are broke.

But he doesn't volunteer for chores. So, one is generous with his
time, the other generous with his money. Each to his gifts.

Judie

thinkspringblooms

My local group is publishing its first hard copy newsletter. I was
asked to "review" the SC conference, and below is my essay.
Would some of you review my review? I can take it--an editorial
critique is what I'm after. <g>
BTW, our local group shares the SOS acronym-for us it means Secular
(in the) Ocean State.



Resource Review: the 2003 Live and Learn Unschooling Conference,
presented by School's Out Support (SOS!) homeschooling group in South
Carolina.

Fish swim, birds fly, people learn. (paraphrased from john holt)

Hello. My name is cris and I'm a radical unschooler. There. The
second public utterance of my addiction to freedom. (the first was
my introduction at our SOS planning meeting) You are all witnesses to
my coming-out. I know some of you have suspected for a while, but
have been cautious about broaching the subject, knowing the possible
flood of evangelism you might unleash! Well, now you've asked for
it, so here it comes...

I have admitted to being an unschooler, and a radical one. If you
don't know what unschooling is, Google it!! (Google is the
homeschooler's best friend!!) I'll tell you here what being
unschoolers means to us, then, when you Google it, you can revel in
all sorts of interpretations, and hopefully figure out what's going
to work for you, cuz I KNOW you all will want to become unschoolers,
too! (In case you haven't noticed, I am an evangelist of
unschooling). So...
Remember how you learned how to walk? Nobody sat you down at your
first birthday and said "Now you will learn to walk" and gave you a
worksheet on the anatomy of your legs and back and the physics of
putting one foot in front of the other. They held your hands and
murmured encouraging words. You WANTED to get somewhere and when
your body was ready, you walked.
Remember how you learned how to talk? Nobody sat you down at your
second birthday and said "Now you will learn to talk" with taped
conversations to listen to, or worksheets on the alphabet and
phonetics. You heard other people talking, you watched them talk to
each other, you paid attention when mama talked to you, you WANTED to
relate and communicate, you imitated what you saw and heard, you made
noises
that caught people's attention, and when your brain was bursting with
desire, you talked.
Remember how you learned to ride a bike? Nobody sat you down at
your sixth birthday and said "Now you will learn to ride a bike"
with a textbook with questions at the end of each chapter that you
had to answer in order to prove that you had "learned" how your body
and the bike work together and the physics of gears, and the biology
of eye-hand-middle ear-legs-feet coordination. You watched other
people do it, you WANTED to do it so much you could taste it, you got
on it while someone held it, murmuring encouraging noises, and you
took off. And when you fell, there were comforting arms and more
encouraging noises so you got back on and tried again. And again.
And again. And you rode away into freedom.
You, and your children, learned all this by your DESIRE and your
loved ones' support.
Unschoolers keep on learning this way. Every minute of every day is
a "learning experience". As children we are like sponges, joyfully
absorbing everything our senses come into contact with, our brains
and bodies bursting with desire to know and feel and connect and see
and relate and hear and do and experience. Our unschooling children
make their own judgements about how to use their time and energy,
learn to know
themselves deeply without other people's values and opinions coloring
their perceptions. As unschooling adults we model that life is
learning by continually exploring our inner and outer environments,
that everything in the world has something to teach us, that we all
have different styles of learning. As unschooling parents we offer
our children hands to hold and murmuring voices of encouragement when
they feel unsure, arms to comfort them when they fall, answers to
questions, and access to sources for the answers we don't know, we
say no as little as possible, and try always to say yes.

Unschooling is living life in the great wide world. It's trusting
our children, respecting their selfhood, knowing that they can and
will find and learn what they need to be their authentic selves right
now, and to grow into the authentic adult humans they are meant to be.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be saying something about the conference,
aren't I?! Hmmm...
I went to the conference to meet some people whose thoughts on
homeschooling and unschooling I have admired and used to strengthen
my convictions. What I learned there is: that I AM NOT ALONE in my
convictions, in my "radical"-ness (radicality?), in my questioning of
societal norms, in my trust in my children, in my trust in myself, in
my addiction to freedom, in my hopes of changing the world, and that
it's good and it's right and it works.
So y'all need to plan and budget for the Live and Learn Unschooling
Conference in 2004, cuz it's going to be held in Peabody MA, so
the "it's too far" excuse won't work. Go and be baptized into
freedom.

Life is good.
Live long and prosper.
May the force be with you.
Namaste.
cris

Dawn Blum

That was wonderful!  I have been looking for a good way to explain to my
in-laws (my MIL was a substitute teacher for many years) Would it be ok If I
sent this along to them?
Dawn

-----Original Message-----
From: thinkspringblooms [mailto:muddpies@...]
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 11:34 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [UnschoolingDiscussion] review of conference for local group
newsletter


My local group is publishing its first hard copy newsletter.  I was
asked to "review" the  SC conference, and below is my essay.
Would some of you review my review?  I can take it--an editorial
critique is what I'm after. <g>
BTW, our local group shares the SOS acronym-for us it means Secular
(in the) Ocean State.



Resource Review:   the 2003 Live and Learn Unschooling Conference,
presented by School's Out Support (SOS!) homeschooling group in South
Carolina.   

Fish swim, birds fly, people learn.     (paraphrased from john holt)

Hello.  My name is cris and I'm a radical unschooler.  There.   The
second public utterance of my addiction to freedom.  (the first was
my introduction at our SOS planning meeting) You are all witnesses to
my coming-out.  I know some of you have suspected for a while, but
have been cautious about broaching the subject, knowing the possible
flood of evangelism you might unleash!  Well, now you've asked for
it, so here it comes...

I have admitted to being an unschooler, and a radical one.  If you
don't know what unschooling is, Google it!!  (Google is the
homeschooler's best friend!!)  I'll tell you here what being
unschoolers means to us, then, when you Google it, you can revel in
all sorts of interpretations, and hopefully figure out what's going
to work for you, cuz I KNOW you all will want to become unschoolers,
too!   (In case you haven't noticed, I am an evangelist of
unschooling).  So...
Remember how you learned how to walk? Nobody sat you down at your
first birthday and said "Now you will learn to walk"  and gave you a
worksheet on the anatomy of your legs and back and the  physics of
putting one foot in front of the other.  They held your hands and
murmured encouraging words.  You WANTED to get somewhere and when
your body was ready, you walked.
Remember how you learned how to talk?  Nobody sat you down  at your
second birthday and said "Now you will learn to talk" with taped
conversations to listen to, or worksheets on the alphabet and
phonetics.  You heard other people talking, you watched them talk to
each other, you paid attention when mama talked to you, you WANTED to
relate and communicate, you imitated what you saw and heard, you made
noises
that caught people's attention, and when your brain was bursting with
desire,  you talked.
Remember how you learned to ride a bike?   Nobody sat you down at
your sixth birthday and said "Now you will learn to ride a bike" 
with a  textbook with questions at the end of each chapter that you
had to answer in order to prove that you had "learned" how your body
and the bike work together and the physics of gears, and the biology
of eye-hand-middle ear-legs-feet coordination.  You watched other
people do it, you WANTED to do it so much you could taste it, you got
on it while someone held it, murmuring encouraging noises, and you
took off.  And when you fell, there were comforting arms and more
encouraging noises so you got back on and tried again.  And again. 
And again.   And you rode away into freedom.
You, and your children, learned all this by your DESIRE and your
loved ones' support.
Unschoolers keep on learning this way.  Every minute of every day is
a "learning experience".   As children we are like sponges, joyfully
absorbing everything our senses come into contact with, our brains
and bodies bursting with desire to know and feel and connect and see
and relate and hear and do and experience.  Our unschooling children
make their own judgements about how to use their time and energy,
learn to know
themselves deeply without other people's values and opinions coloring
their perceptions.   As unschooling adults we model that life is
learning by continually exploring our inner and outer environments, 
that everything in the world has something to teach us, that we all
have different styles of learning.  As unschooling parents we offer
our children hands to hold and murmuring voices of encouragement when
they feel unsure,  arms to comfort them when they fall,  answers to
questions, and access to sources for the answers we don't know,  we
say no as little as possible, and try always to say yes. 

Unschooling is living life in the great wide world.   It's trusting
our children, respecting their selfhood, knowing that they can and
will find and learn what they need to be their authentic selves right
now, and to grow into the authentic adult humans they are meant to be.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be saying something about the conference,
aren't I?!   Hmmm...
I went to the conference to meet some people whose thoughts on
homeschooling and unschooling I have admired and used to strengthen
my convictions.  What I learned there is:  that I AM NOT ALONE in my
convictions, in my "radical"-ness (radicality?), in my questioning of
societal norms, in my trust in my children, in my trust in myself, in
my addiction to freedom, in my hopes of changing the world, and that
it's good and it's right and it works.
So y'all need to plan and budget for the Live and Learn Unschooling
Conference in 2004, cuz it's going to be held in Peabody MA, so
the "it's too far" excuse won't work.  Go and be baptized into
freedom. 

Life is good.
Live long and prosper.
May the force be with you.
Namaste.
cris





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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 9/1/03 10:39:58 AM, muddpies@... writes:

<< What I learned there is: that I AM NOT ALONE in my

convictions, in my "radical"-ness (radicality?) >>

You're Radicalicious!

Pamela Sorooshiantafti

>In a message dated 9/1/03 10:39:58 AM, muddpies@... writes:
>
><< What I learned there is: that I AM NOT ALONE in my
>
>convictions, in my "radical"-ness (radicality?) >>
>
>You're Radicalicious!


At least nobody thought you were "radiculous" <G>.

[email protected]

In a message dated 9/1/03 05:54:31 PM Central Daylight Time,
pamsoroosh@... writes:
>In a message dated 9/1/03 10:39:58 AM, muddpies@... writes:
>
><< What I learned there is: that I AM NOT ALONE in my
>
>convictions, in my "radical"-ness (radicality?) >>
>
>You're Radicalicious!


At least nobody thought you were "radiculous" <G>.


Or radiculed you. ;o)


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sara

And to think I asked you if you learned anything NEW!!!!! PHHHTTT,
Sara