Thirtieth Street Station, Philadelphia.
Description of the action: "David looks down and gently turns the palms of his hands out as they at his side. His finger tops graze the jackets and clothes of the passengers walking by."
August 2010, at the HSC Conference in California
This interview was conducted by Jeremy Stuart and another of the filmmakers. The website of the finished documentary is Class Dismissed Movie
My transcript is a correction of the auto-generated English subtitles (which I've saved at the bottom, for finding things by numbers, or for future translation/subtitling use by others). I've added the text of the questions, and some links and notes. Sometimes I made a paragraph for ease of reading, even though I didn't pause in the speaking.
I had been a teacher and I thought school was fine. I assumed that when my child was five he would go to school, but he was a little bit of a weird kid. He took two classes when he was four—one was an art class and one was a dance class and he didn't "do right" in either one of them, and in different ways. In one he hung back and was very unhappy and cried, and in the other one he would jump up and grab the materials and talk to the teacher and do things that she hadn't said "go" about yet. And in neither case could we persuade him why it might help for him to act in a different way. He was happy, you know, at the happy point and really unhappy at the unhappy point.Kirby:And I looked at that and I thought if he were to go to school today it would be a disaster for him, and he would be really distracting the rest of the class. And in New Mexico because of his late birthday we could wait a year. It was a free year for us, because we could just say "he's not ready; we'll send him next year," so it was a big luxury.
I knew four homeschooling families in a playgroup and a babysitting co-op we were in through La Leche League. Two of the families did school-at-home and two did unschooling. I've never met anyone who had such a great lab and such a great intro. We weren't even going to plan to homeschool, but these kids were all in our house to play and to, you know, for us to babysit them, and our kids had been to their homes. The kids were at our house with and without the parents, my kids were at their house with and without us, so we really knew these families. The school-at-home families were not very happy. They didn't get along. And when we would go to the park sometimes a mother would say, "Well she can't play because she didn't finish her math so she has to sit in the car," and in the unschooling families, the kids would just spontaneously come and sit in the parents' laps. It was so cool! I hadn't seen that.
And so as Kirby got older, growing up with those kids, there were just lots of advantages to those families. Their houses were peaceful and it was fun to play there. It wasn't scary, they weren't likely to get in trouble.
So when we did think, "Okay we we're gonna do this one year of homeschooling," I didn't even consider getting a curriculum. I didn't want that relationship with him. And I thought it was Kindergarten. He can play and we can find interesting things to do, and that was easy to do.
And so the year was not high pressure. It wasn't like taking a kid out in seventh grade or something where everybody's panicky. It was like, "Well at the end of this year we either register him for first grade, or kindergarten at school, or we don't, you know, or we keep him home."
NOTE to NON-U.S. READERS:
Seventh graders are 12, turning 13. With kindergarten and preschool, they've already been in school for seven years or more.But within just a couple of months we knew. It was fun, it was great, and in that time we had read more and talked more to people more explicitly about homeschooling. And I knew that it was gonna be good for him and his personality.
But still I thought Marty his brother who's three years younger, I thought, "Well Marty will want to go to school because he's more physical, social, wants to play sports. He'll go to school." And Marty used to say he was gonna go to school, too. And then one day when Marty was four we were at the grocery store and some woman came up to Kirby, as people do in grocery stores, and go "Why aren't you at school?" or, you know, "What grade are you in?" So she came up and said something to Kirby about this "Is this is not a school day?" or something and Marty, who was sitting in the cart, went "We homeschool!"
Very excited about it.Sandra:
I thought "Marty?! Marty's homeschooled." So I said, "So Marty," (you know when the woman wasn't there,) "so you think you're gonna stay home?" and he said, "Yeah I mean I'm not gonna go to school next year."But we always for the first several years kept it like—every year it was like "Do you want to go to school, do you want to try school, or do you want to stay home?" So it was always the kids' choice, and I thought that was really important because one of the worst things about school is that the children don't have a choice. And the parents will further compound that lack of choice by saying, "We have no choice—you have to go. If you don't go to school we'll be in trouble with the government." My parents told me that. "They'll put us in jail if you don't go to school," so not only I didn't have a choice but my parents assured me they didn't have a choice, so you're two layers down in helplessness.
And so I didn't want that to happen with my kids there are many things about school that should be a do-not-try this-at-home situation for homeschoolers. So I thought they needed to have a choice.
And my daughter, I thought, "Well she might want to go to school. She'll want to show off her clothes. She's that kind of kid—
Kirby:
FlashySandra:
—still." And when the time came she said, "No I want to stay home too."So for me that was a position of mmm —self-righteous strength. No, that's not a good I'm sure there's a better term for 'self-righteous strength.' Confidence! Yes, that's it— that the kids had chosen it.
And it wasn't it wasn't in a tricky punitive way. It wasn't like "you made your bed..." you know it wasn't like "It was your idea." It was like "I'm willing to do this if you want to do it," and that made a huge difference. Because we were around some families the kids would have liked to have gone to school and the parents said "No—school is terrible and evil and you must stay home," so...
5:08
But I came to realize that I was already meeting these really cool people and learning all these really neat things—that really it would just be a different route.
5:36
No, I don't feel like I missed out on anything at all.
6:06
Sandra:
I used to do a regular workshop called "That's not Educational" and it was a challenge and I had prizes. And I would have people in the audience name something that they thought was not educational, and then I would tell them what was educational about it.But years have passed and I don't like the term "educational" anymore. I don't like "education." I avoid that in favor of "learning." Because just as schooling has a curriculum and a course and "We want you to learn this and this," they create an object and everything else is field, or trivia, or "not on the test." So I think the same thing happens with "education." "This is part of your education. This is educational." And then there are things that are not "educational," so still you get the object and the field and that can be a problem for natural learning.
So sometimes I will say, "Well of course it's educational. Everything is educational," but even as I'm saying it, I don't like that I'm playing that game, that I'm talking about what is "educational".
Also, people talk about having an education as though there is one special one and now you have all of it.
Kirby:
Previously you had nothing.Sandra:
Now you have an education. "You want to see mine? I'll show you mine," so I don't like the question.8:06But the difference between "school-and-education" and "learning" is that learning can become all the things that anyone expected of education. But learning doesn't separate educational from non-educational, and I think no matter what a person learns—no matter how trivial (not on the test) it seems at the beginning—it eventually can tie into something, or become useful, or make that person interesting, give them their own unique perspective and I think any ideas of "that's not scholarly, that's not schoolish, that's not educational" separate a person from the world.
I navigate terminology all the time and I help other people do that, because when people write—I mostly deal with people in writing—message boards and live text chats, and that sort of thing—when people write something and then they want to take it back that's hugely illuminating. So sometimes the words that people use is not confusing, it's clarifying. And so someone will say, "Well I would do that, but my child's lazy."
And the response might be something like, "Well maybe the relationship between you and your son isn't as good as it could be. Maybe it'd be better if you didn't think he was lazy."
And she's "Well I don't think he's lazy."
And thanks to the marvels of cut-and-paste, we can say "Look. You just chose this word, typed it, decided to send it to a thousand strangers—somewhere it seems inside you, you think your child is lazy."
And then she goes, "Whoa I didn't even know. I didn't even know I wrote that."
And that's even in writing. What people say verbally when they're tired or hungry or, you know, not really thinking carefully, can be hugely revealing of the problems they have—the disconnect they have—between the kind of person they want to be and the kind they are, or what will or will not help their child to develop in a peaceful way.
My husband says that his goal was to have our children grow up undamaged. I thought that was pretty decent because it covers all sorts of fields.
School and traditional parenting can do just casual, casual and unrelenting damage that people don't even think about. They don't want to think about it because they like the comfort of thinking they "have to" do this. "I have no choice; we had to do this," and it buries sins in many layers of damage. So the idea that we'd make choices that cause them not to be damaged was easy. It's just, you know, you walk along, you have a choice—which one's more damaging?
That was his measure. Mine was "Which helps them learn more?" From which experience will they learn? Which is not to say we always chose the unfamiliar one, because sometimes familiar is nice. But sometimes if you've done the same thing five times, it's nice to do the other thing. And I didn't force them to do things, I chose to be persuasive. I did a lot of singing-and-dancing about "This will be really fun let's do this!" and I was pretty good at luring them toward other things.
[At the same time:]
Kirby:Generally, sure.Interviewer to Kirby:
Sandra:Not always.
You'd agree with that?Kirby:
Yeah. Yeah.I always thought it was important because she would always encourage our interests and our likes, but then she would always make a point to also introduce new ideas or new opportunities, which I think is really key to a lot of it because people can tend ... it's human nature to continue down this familiar path and people can get into a rut where maybe they're not expanding their horizons necessarily, and so it's beneficial to have someone introduce these new ideas to spark new interests.
Sandra:
So the first question, I left something out. You had asked about resources and I talked about the families we knew which was an awesome resource, but I did want to say something about that. Can I do that?Interviewer:
Sure. Absolutely.Sandra:
In the [I started to say 90's, but said...] mid 1980s there was a lot of homeschooling talk, and a lot of it was school at home and Christian-curriculum based homeschooling but the unschoolers, the less structured schooling...Kirby:I should leave those up [my glasses] there, huh
there's that bug.
sorry ignore all of that. I can't be having my glasses on and off, on and off that would be distracting.
Bad for editing.Sandra:
Yeah, okay so mmm there was a lot written and a lot done for Christian home schoolers. The secular, informal people who were doing basically the open-classroom kind of homeschooling, the only resource was Growing Without Schooling Magazine.
| John Holt died in 1985. Growing Without Schooling had back issues easily available, and most unschoolers depended on that in those days, and on his book Teach Your Own. |
It came out every two months and it had letters from home schoolers as a large part of what they had, and a few articles, and when we were first homeschooling there were still writings by John Holt in there but he died before too many years. But still it was the only thing we had, so I would wait two months, read it cover-to-cover including the little want-ads about who wanted other families to visit them, and including the publication notes and then I would wait two months for another one.And time passed. A few years later there were message boards—bulletin boards, not even message boards—like the original leave-a-note-for-other-people-on-the-internet deals. And the discussion that I first got into on *Prodigy had 80 families or so, and most of them were Christian school-at-homers.
User groups on usenet. *Prodigy was an e-mail provider, available to people from dial-up connections at home. Same as the about-to-arrive AOL, people would order a disk sent through the mail, to install the software on their computer to use their service. Before those, e-mail was mostly associated with universities and businesses, or small local providers.
I was the only unschooling person who wrote regularly. There were a few other people who were fairly unstructured, but I would get jumped on because I was willing to stand up. So I would... they would say, "Well you have to do this, or the kids will never learn." And I would quote John Holt or quote something from the school reform research of the 60s, "Well but they did this study and proved this," and they're like, "Shut up, you," you know. "We don't like your kind."
So that was a little inspiring for me actually. I was like, Oh, this is not going to be easy to make this point. I have to actually really think about it, and be really clear about it, and quick, because they're about to get me.
And so I also got to know their arguments and their justifications, from being in those discussions.
So for a couple of years that's all there was. And then AOL came up with a forum. It used to cost three dollars an hour to be online, measured in seconds. So people would get their email—there was a program for you to grab all your email and download it—and at three dollars an hour there would be discussions online—live-time discussions. I used to run one. So that was the way AOL was making their money, partly, was to get people in there and stay online.
|
I ran some discussion for "Homefront Hall," AOL directly, and some for Home Education Magazine, which had its own little area. Sometimes I edited the discussion to make it more readable, and those could be downloaded in just a few seconds. There was a set I called "The Unschooling Barrage," of six to nine (increasing over time) files people could request and we'd e-mail files to them.
I still have some, edited for this site now. |
Kirby:But there were message boards and those were nice. Those were really nice, because we could divide it into topics. And at first all of the homeschoolers were in there together, and the unschoolers were oddly pushed away. And then it was like they would push us out of 'the society of homeschoolers' and then they would come in secret and ask us questions. And that pattern continues to this week, because on the list I'm on someone said, "Well you guys have really good ideas, so..." so she's basically built up a bad situation with her teenager. Years of not taking our advice. Now it's this problem and she wants us to help her untangle it.
So there was always that idea that the unschoolers knew stuff, and were creative thinkers and could help other people with resources. So the people who said, "We don't want to hear what you're saying because we're telling our kids what to do and when to do it, and you're disturbing the peace"—as soon as they had a problem or needed something that they couldn't find, they'd go where the unschoolers were and say, "Could you guys help me?"
So that's one thing the unschoolers always kind of took pride in.
It's flattering.Sandra:
It is. It is. It's like "Well, you guys are the smart ones so help me untangle this."
15:35
I don't think that what unschoolers do will affect schools very quickly. For one thing, what we do came out of schools—came out of school research and school reformers in the late 60s and early 70s. And at the time there were a lot of lab schools connected with universities, where they were testing these ideas about natural learning, about optimized learning, about individualized learning. And they set up all these really cool experiments, which worked really well in the lab schools. And then they went out and wrote books about the open classroom.
Albuquerque was kind of a hotbed of that. The professors who wrote the book that was called The Open Classroom were at the University of New Mexico. And the Albuquerque Public Schools built buildings—they got floor plans and built entire facilities based on the ideas of the open classroom. Other places did too.
The idea was to have a place where kids can read in the way they want to—recessed lighting, soft places to sit, privacy—where they can sit how they want to, let them take the books outside and read, don't make them sit at a hard desk and hold it like this.
Have a science center with real animals, and plants growing, and rocks to touch. And that kind of became hands-on museums later on. But at the time, instead of everything in a glass box, you know, have things that kids can pick up. But they wanted a room like that in every school, in every elementary school.
In the history room, have pictures, photos, objects—not just books. And deal with the history of the local group, the history of the town, the history of the kids in the room. And fix it so that the kids can go from activity to activity on their own time, somewhat.
And the teachers—the way it worked is the teachers had a checklist of what the children needed know in nine months, and then if a kid hadn't done any math, and it's March, the teachers would find some way to engage him in math board games or something so that they could checklist their deal. But that's how that was set up to work and they proved that it worked really well. I mean, all of their stats were good.
Then they took that into public schools and it failed horribly. Just disaster. The teachers didn't like it, the parents didn't know what was going on, the kids went crazy and tore up the materials and it was abandoned. Wherever it was tried it was abandoned within a couple of years.
| There were a few private schools that continued, or formed up later, using that methodology. It worked when all involved knew in advance and were interested and enthusiastic about "open classroom." |
Interviewer:
Why do you think that is?Sandra:
Because the children didn't have any choice.Kirby:The kids in the lab schools were either self-selected, or their parents were education professors or professors at the university, or people who wanted their kids in that school, or grad students' kids—the children of grad students. And so they knew they were in a cool school. They were in a special school, they were in a fun school. And all of the people who were teaching there wanted to do that. They self-selected themselves to be doing alternative education. No one was drafted. No one was there against their will. No one was there just for the paycheck, looking at the clock.
And the whole situation was so enriched and so elevated because of the excitement of the people who designed it, and because they wanted to see what the results were. So they were totally, totally paying attention to every child. It was a special situation, a self-selected situation, where the parents liked the fact that their children were in this program and and the kids thought it was cool. And they were getting to go to work with their parents, you know, they were at the same facility where their parents pretty much worked.
So they take that to the public school. Some of the parents never liked school themselves. They thought school was stupid. They're only doing this because they have to. The kids don't really want to be there.
So the teachers who went to work for a paycheck and would like to do as little as possible to get this paycheck are now told, "We're changing everything. From now on. that easy thing you used to do—read the chapter and answer the questions—that's gone. From now on you have to be creative and interesting. You have to keep track of each child separately. It'll be fun!
And they said, "I don't think it'll be fun. I don't even get it. I don't even know what you're talking about. They didn't hire me to run a science lab with real animals."
And the parents at home went, "What? He doesn't have homework? What? I don't know what you're talking about. Just teach him. Just give him homework and stop making me come down there and make cookies and feed the frog."
So there was just wild resentment and confusion. Then they put it on kids who hated school. They didn't want to go to school. They wanted to do as little as possible. Now they said, "Look! Live frogs!" and you know, uh... and things got torn up. And they said, "You can read wherever you want to!" so the kids crawled into the cubby holes and fell asleep. Or you know it just was pandemonium.
And so that was abandoned, because it wasn't working. And it didn't work because people didn't have choices.
Which is a good point for unschooling because if you try to force someone to learn on his own and have fun—"Do it now because I said so"— it doesn't work.
Maybe they want that structure.Sandra:
You have to draw them into the little happy-land enjoyment of it, which is fairly easy to do if you want to do it. So if the government said, "All right, we're running an experiment. Half of people who are homeschooling must use a curriculum, and the other half must be unschoolers and we're gonna track you for 12 years and then we're gonna tell you which one works best," none of it would work anymore.
21:05
Sandra:
No, no. Partly because I could design a better one than I could buy. They're expensive now! There usedto be some you could buy for $300 a year, you know—meaning one child, one year, school-in-a-box. School-in-a-box came from Calvert curriculum, which I think was designed for missionary kids. Like if your family lived in some other country totally, you could buy third grade, and they sent you even the pencils. The pencils and papers are there, assuming you're in the Congo or somewhere, you know, the Amazon, and you're gonna get this box that's all you're gonna get.
Oops!
I think the original question was UNschooling.Sure, it has a crucial, central place in school-at-home homeschooling.
So they used to advertise in the back of National Geographic, and I used to read those ads (when I was a kid, and read every word of every book). I was reading in the back of National Geographic and it would say "Calvert Homeschool" and it had a little shield and it was all like very dignified.
And I used to think this must be for kids who are are so misshapen or, you know, something so horribly wrong with them that their parents can't take them out in the sunshine, and they live in the room of some big house and they teach them at home because they can't go outside. And I just imagined some poor kid, you know, some Elephant Man kid, who had to
learn at school andat home. But I thought that was interesting.But then Christians came along—Christian home schoolers. here was a huge fad in the 80s [and 90s, too, I should have said]and they started making competing sets of materials. And it started getting expensive and some of those, I think you paid $1200 for one year of an elementary school deal. And when the parents have spent that much money, they want to finish it. They want to do it. They've just paid money on the assumption that someone knows more about it than they do, and so they try to force their child to do that. It ruins the relationship between the parents and child. It ruins a child's ability to believe that he could learn anything on his own. Not that that was the parent's goal. It keeps the parent from knowing or caring what the kid is doing, really. As long as the kid finishes the assignment, the parent doesn't often doesn't necessarily need to sit and do that with them, although some parents do. But a lot of parents won't really help the child because they're not seeing it as a learning opportunity, they're seeing it as a requirement. "Finish this so I can stamp it so we never have to look at it again as long as we live."
So the parent relives their own schooling in another negative way. They don't like it. They're resentful. They're complaining. I think it's twice through school for the parents and never through school for the kids I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.
23:43
Kirby:
um, No. Most the time when the kids in the neighborhood would have a bunch of homework they would just talk about how much, how much they hated it, for the most part, and they would they would be envious of my lack of homework. And sometimes they would ask for my help with their homework just to see if I knew what I was talking about which, granted, a lot of time I didn't. I was like, "No that language of math is frightening and foreign. What what are you talking about?"Interviewer:Granted, when when I needed to pick up that language it wasn't that hard. I just got to the point where I needed to know it, then I learned it.
No, It didn't come up all that much, outside of like, "Once I get this finished, then we can go play baseball."
It was more a time factor, time was taken up by it.Kirby:
It was an obstacle, yeah.Sandra:
But I can remember I think all of my kids—Holly, definitely, and you once—where kids would come over go, "I have to do this homework first before we can play."Kirby:So, "Well I'll help you." They would figure it out. It was like, "What's this mean, what's this mean?" They would talk them through it and then get it done and then go play.
Yeah, if they could explain how it was supposed to be done, we'd be like, "Oh, okay. Well that makes sense. Then you just do this. Cool."
25:04
Sandra:
Oh, there was a school bus to the zoo or something. There was like a company picnic. Park-and-ride, with real yellow school buses, I meant to say.But with Holly, we used to drive down, park at the middle school when school was gonna start. So we'd sit in the car, watch the kids arrive and go into the classrooms, and the bell would ring, tardy bell would ring, and then we'd go home. It wasn't riding the bus there, but I would take her there and then we would go in the afternoon, be sitting there so we can see the door, hear the bell ring, see the kids come out. And one day she sat on the bench right by the door and it reminded me of the movie "Unbreakable" when he stands in Grand Central Station with his hands out.
|
CORRECTION: Thirtieth Street Station, Philadelphia. Description of the action: "David looks down and gently turns the palms of his hands out as they at his side. His finger tops graze the jackets and clothes of the passengers walking by."
|
And she just sat on that bench where the kids flowed around her, and so she would hear the conversations, to see them up close, and that was really fun for her—just to be that close to them in their natural state. But it was the getting-out-of-school state which was the best state.And she knew some kids there so they go, "Hey, Holly," you know there were four or five kids there she knew. And we went several times, and once Cameron Lovejoy, another older unschooled kid, was visiting us and we drove her down there, and then we needed to pick something up, or I needed the bathroom or something, so we said, "Holly can you stay here? We'll go and come back."
She said, "Sure!" So that was exciting for her to be there by herself. But she talked about maybe going to school, but she talked to friends and she would be like, "Ah, I want to, I don't want to," and she ended up not going. But that was part of her decision-making process was what do I want, you know, what do you want to do about this?
She had gone to school in England two and a half days in uniform and everything visiting a friend, and that was fun for her, but it's so, you know, when you're a visitor you get more attention and you don't really have to do anything. She had a lot of stories about that, and she took nickels to give them for souvenirs, you know, big American money. And she she just had so many stories. But she was learning about school in the way an anthropologist learns about a different culture. She wasn't really *in* the school. But it was fun for her, and she went to school one day in Albuquerque, too, for an all-day, you know, all day go-to-lunch. So she was always an observer of school, and very interested in school.
| St. Andrew's School in Kirk Ella, in East Yorkshire, on this trip in 2000: The Adventures of Holly Dodd in East Yorkshire |
27:12
Sandra:
Sometimes people ask me if I think the schools should be destroyed, if I think everyone should have to homeschool. I'm like, No, I don't think everyone should have to. I don't think everyone wants to, and if you don't want to you will botch it. I don't... I think schools are fine. I had a great time at school because it was better than my home, and I think schools should be there. I think schools should probably loosen up and not think they're God's gift to everyone's intellect, because they're not.I think people who want to homeschool—really want to—can probably figure out a way to do it. There are obstacles. Divorce is a big obstacle. Poverty is probably the biggest obstacle. Negativity can kill it.
I'm talking about unschooling. I think negativity is inherent, I believe, in school at home. I don't think you can march-step your child through thirteen years of lessons and not have a lot of negativity flowing between you, and against school, and against people who aren't making their kids do that work. Because we get that. We get people who... People whose kids are in school sometimes are critical of homeschoolers, but all the rest of the homeschoolers are critical of the unschoolers, because we're not... we're making them look bad. So like my parents said "You have to go to school or I'll be in trouble"? I believed that. I didn't know they could have ordered Calvert curriculum for me. So I accepted that as a sad fact of life.
When homeschoolers take their kids out, the neighbors (kids) are like "well they don't have to go to school." Now the parents' "I don't have any choice" falls. But they say, "Well, but they're doing schoolwork too, and they're taking tests too," and they're "Don't you like school? Because you don't have to sit at home with your mom all the time, and you get to meet kids" so there's still that kind of balance.
But then the people who are doing school at home are telling their kids, "Well, you have to do these lessons; there's no choice. You have to take this test; there's no choice." And the neighbors down in the next house are playing video games, and so they say, "You people are lazy. Your kids aren't learning anything. We can't believe you're doing that. You're making us look bad."
So their claim and their belief—the basis of their reasoning—is belied by the fact that someone else is not doing that.
And then we're another step further. I am unwilling to sacrifice my children's happiness to appease some stranger other-parents. But the going practice... it's common for people to do that—to be carried along on the stream of parental habit, and to do what the neighbors are doing, and do what other friends of theirs say they should be doing. And it's a shame, because the same parents will say, "Well if your friend jumped off a cliff would you?" to kids, their friends are jumping off cliffs and they're jumping off the same cliff, because they care more about what these neighbors and friends and co-workers and relatives think than with their child thinks.
30:27
Sandra:
I don't think everyone who wants to unschool will be successful at it. Some people can't relax. Some people are not creative. Some people are not imaginative. Some people are so controlling that if something happens that they didn't plan and execute, they're not having fun anymore.Interviewer:When kids do that, they're considered to be bad sports and, you know, spoiled kids who need to be nice and consider other people's feelings. When adults do that, they justify it and say, "I was just being a good parent." But unless they can share the stage, unless they can share the decision-making and the planning, with a child who might just want to stay home all day, they won't get it. It won't happen.
And I deal with unschoolers every day, every day, who say, "Well I tried it for a while, but it didn't work," meaning 'I didn't really try it and I'm not going to.' Because they just can't stop. They're looking at their children, they're looking at the world and their children, through school-colored glasses. And they're willing to do other things as long as the result looks like school.
And they need to turn their back on that and look at the world a whole new way but that's so much work. It's such a change in the parents, that some people are unwilling to do it. They don't want to change. They don't want to be inconvenienced. They don't want it to take any longer than it would have taken to drive their kid to school and wait to come back and pick them up. No more than that. And they don't want the hours outside of that to change a bit. It's like, "Okay, well then you can't." So if that's the question, whether everyone can unschool, hardly anyone can unschool because they have to be willing to change their beliefs, and their lifestyle.
It's a whole lifestyle.Sandra:
It is. It is. They have to change the way they see children, and some people don't want to do that.Kirby:One time I think—I'm pretty sure it was in a text chat—but Pam Sorooshian and I were in the same place and someone asked—there must have been a chat—because we both answered at the same time. Someone said, "How many hours a week does this take?" and one of us wrote "all of them" and one of us wrote "none of them" or it was like zero or 24 or something.
It was a perfect answer.Sandra:
It was awesome, because it takes all of your life."How many hours do you have to do school?" Yeah, what? You don't have to do school. And so of course we get called lazy.
I have a thing that I made up as a goof a couple of years ago Holly had made a really nice piece of art for it. Just Learn Nothing Day. And I put it on my birthday, just because I figured I have partial ownership of that day. And I knew there wasn't much else going on, except in Utah they have Pioneer Day. They have parades to celebrate the people who walked over from Illinois or wherever they came from. And so I know in Utah everybody's learning, because they all dress up and go talk about Pioneer Day. But everybody else was doing nothing on my birthday and so I figured that would be a good day to say "Take this day off."
Pioneer Day notes at Time and date, and at Wikipedia. I was right about Illinois.
 |
Kirby:And it was a goof but some other people have written some really good things about their attempts to do that, or their discussions about doing that. Up to that point, people used to say, "Well, we can't learn all the time every day," and I would say, "We only have to do it 180 days. The other 185 days are days off, so don't worry if there's a day you didn't do anything special. Don't worry about it."
But I think it's more effective to say, "Okay. Just on Learn Nothing Day, don't learn anything, and on the other days, learn something." Because the cool thing is when they try to learn nothing, they see that that's not possible.
Yeah, they start pointing out all the things like, "Oh I'd learned this, this and this today. Oh man, I screwed up."Sandra:
And without that joke, without that cover for it, they wouldn't have seen the day so clearly.But every year somebody or five, without any sense of humor and with very little knowledge of natural learning, will write me insulting notes, sometimes in public sometimes in private. And they'll say, "Well why would you do this?" or "Unschoolers never learn anything anyway," or "Well why do you need a special day to do what you do every day?" It's like "Thank you very much!" And so that's amusing, too, to see to see the perception of unschoolers, that they're doing nothing, just goofing around.
| Criticism of Learn Nothing Day |
34:49
Kirby:
Not specifically. No. I feel like I'm pretty well prepared for anything that comes along my way. Sometimes—I mean there will be times where like I maybe don't understand one subject particularly well, but I know I have the resources. I know that everybody has the resources to get it, particularly with the Internet these days. Like you can, you can get anything you need. And I have a good pool of people that I can go to to get their opinions and their ideas on anything that I don't know that much about.No, I wouldn't change anything, which sounds kind of hokey but I feel well prepared I'm not concerned at all. I'm confident in my ability I mean in particular with unschooling it's more like you've been submerged into the real world from the get-go. I mean granted I started I started my first job when I was 14 years old so I guess I was kind of thrown into the real world...
|
We lived a mile from a gaming shop where Kirby hung around lots. When he was 13, he started helping them run Pokémon tournaments. They wanted to put him in charge of the Saturday morning Pokémon League, but discovered that the company required that only store employees could handle reporting participation and wins, and the distribution of the badges. He was about to turn 14, which was the minimum legal age to hire, and there it was.
He worked there with increasing hours and responsibilities until he was 18. |
Sandra:
You were invited politely and offered money!Kirby:
and I was invited politely.Yeah, it was great. They're like, "We want you to do this job."
"Oh, sweet!"
"Oh, now we have to pay for this job."
"Oh, it's even better! Yes!"
So you know, I mean, I guess I kind of started a little earlier than than some kids do, but so long as they go out, they can... They're already in the real world. They just have to realize it.
36:23
Kirby:
I would tell them to read about it. Anytime if anyone has come and asked me about it I refer them to a number of web sites of course I refer them to my mother's website, Joyce Fetteroll's website, and I just tell them to to research it so they can determine, they can make an educated decision on it.Sandra:Most of the time, the reason why they're hesitant about is because they just don't know, or they fear the unknown, and so they they fear this big change that they're considering. And the more that they understand it the easier it'll be for them.
I understand their fear. Sometimes when someone is afraid—I mean I have some little tricks to shake them into not being as stuck as they are. Sometimes when someone is thinking about taking their child out of school and they're like "Yeah but, yeah but, yeah but, yeah but," this is not like moving to Mars. You'll still be in the same house. You'll still be talking on the same phone you called me on. It's just they won't be in school.Kirby:When I had friends who were teachers—I had a lot of teacher friends 'cause I'd been a teacher—and sometimes they would ask me, "Well what are you gonna do if blah, what are you gonna do if this?" and I would say, "Well as long as it's working we're gonna keep doing this," but I said, "But if it quits working, I'll put him in school and the special ed teachers will get him right caught up," you know caught up right away.
And I want say that again because I messed it up.
"If this stops working we can put him in school and the special ed teachers will get him caught right up."
And every single time I said that, there were three different friends of mine went [big eyes, intake of breath] they just blanched, you know. It's like oh my god.
special ed, Ah...Sandra:
... like they think for a second I'm serious. And one of them was an award-winning special ed teacher. And they know that that's not what special ed does, and so the point is made that there are kids in school who get sidetracked into a place where they are not gonna recover. And that my kids will be fine. And it's like, "Oh yeah, okay. You're right."Kirby:So they just sort of asked the question. There are dialogues that people have, and phrases that people have, that they just say. It's like somebody wound them up and pushed their button and they say things like, "Well what are you gonna do about high school?" and the questions that the homeschoolers have heard a thousand times. It's not like they have 500 different questions. Same-same few questions.
People will just ask those questions the same way that people will see a little kid and they'll say
hi what's your name?And then they're out. They don't know anything else to ask them.
blah
where do you go to school?
blah
do you like your teacher?
blah
what's your favorite subject?
blahBut it happens with kids, too. We moved to a new neighborhood when Kirby was 11 and Holly was 5... mmm that doesn't make sense. How old were you?
Ten and she was six.Sandra:
She turned six right after we moved. And there was a neighbor family just right across across the cul-de-sac. They had boys about our boys' ages, and that was very hopeful. I thought that could be fun. But the kids didn't hit it off. And partly from the very beginning it wasInterviewer:Where do you go to school?And so the kids kind of froze up because they didn't know how to treat these other kids. They didn't know how to act.
We don't.
What grade are you in?
I don't know. I uh, I think I would be in...Once when I was teaching seventh grade there was a Halloween sock-hop dance in the gym and I requested dance duty, because I was young and could stand rock and roll better than basketball. So I would always say "I'll do dances," and the older teachers would say, "Good!"
And so for this one, I hung back and I put on a costume, and I was dressed in such a way that none of me showed. And I was dressed as an alien and so it didn't show gender, and I was thin and young then and not too bumpy. And so I based it with, you know, something tight, and then put this loose stuff over it and I went down to the gym and I thought this would be fun.
It turned out not to be fun, for anyone. And it was... that day I learned a lot that has helped me since. The principal didn't know how to act to me. The teachers didn't know how to act. And the kids didn't know how to act. And I was trying to pull people out to dance. No one would dance with me. And it was interesting, because I knew these people very well. And so for me to look through—I had a big helmet with heavy plastic eyes they couldn't see me and I could see them, and every one of them, I could see it going through their eyes, "Do I outrank this person? Or does this person outrank me? Is this a male or a female?" And they didn't know how to act.
Then one kid recognized my wristwatch, so then they were fine, and they all relaxed, like, "Okay, I know her. She's goofy. She dresses like an alien. We're fine now."
And so I saw that with those kids, with our neighbor kids that day. It's "If they would just state, you know, their rank, I would know how to act."
So Kirby, how was that for you, though, to experience that as a ten-year-old?Kirby:
It didn't really faze me. I just knew those kids were not particularly social in my eyes. Because they weren't interested in talking to me.Sandra:
And they weren't interested in videogame. So the boys invited them over, "Come over to look at our stuff! We're gonna play video games!" and not really. And so then they're like, Come over, look at our stuff! Swimming pool! Basketball!" And they're like, "Okay that was fun for a minute."And so they just weren't compatible with hobbies and interests, really.Kirby:Oh, and another question that they asked was "Who's your team?"
They were big football fans.Sandra:
And they didn't know the answer. Didn't even know what sport they were talking about.Kirby:So these kids thought my kids were a little retarded because they didn't couldn't answer 'who's your team,' and it just didn't work out. So I was always sad, then, because there those boys were, right there, but they didn't like my boys, and my boys didn't want to invite them back over much. There were a few forays and attempts, but within months, it was, "Hi!" as far as we got.
Some families wouldn't be willing to live with that sort of sacrifice or limitation—that their kids couldn't play with the neighbor kids. They would sacrifice the kids in a different way and say, "We'll subject you to all this schooling because then you will be part of the great expansive herd, and then you'll have friends." You know, what they call having friends. But I was more concerned with them being undamaged and learning, than that they followed the crowd. The crowd wasn't going to a very good place.
Not always.43:00
Sandra:
I think children are only there in the moment. You can't guarantee or even aim toward a future result.There was a famous story among unschoolers—among homeschoolers—years ago about a family that had a chart in the child's room—the child was young, 6 or 8, and it led toward getting into Harvard—like in detail—what you have to do this year, this year, this year. And without regard to whether the kid wanted to. But when the result is so specific, if the child had gotten into Yale it would be a failure.
If the parents are aiming for the child to get a gold medal in the Olympics and it's like, "I'm sorry, you can't go out and play because the Olympic chart says you need to practice three hours today," what if they get a silver medal? What if they just change sports or what if they get a Nobel prize instead? Failure!
So to set up the world in such a way that there's one pinpoint success and infinite failures is damning your child to a life of unhappiness. Even if they get the gold medal, even if they go to Harvard and do exactly what you wanted them to do, they lost because you won. And I think that's a terrible thing to do to a child—to say, "I've lived my life and didn't like the way it went, so now I've reproduced and you will live the life I wanted."
44:26
Sandra:
When I first started I didn't have any adults to see. There were no examples of grown unschoolers or homeschoolers, really, that I had seen. And the Growing Without Schooling families mostly involved either young families that had that had...—their children were still young, or families that took the child out [of school]. So my three children are one of the only sets I know of who didn't go to school and are now grown. So I'm glad to share them with people who would like to see that, you know, will they be okay? Well they grow up healthy and communicative, and what about socialization? and that...Kirby:So it is it is nice now that people have the opportunity, not just my kids—this whole conference is filled with kids who have been unschooled always, or homeschooled always—it helps to have examples around. But parents can't live by those examples always. When they first start you may have some families that you actually know and trust, as I did. I knew these families and I knew these kids weren't faking that affection for their parents, those unschooling families.
But once your own child starts to grow and change, then the confidence isn't external. It's not "I believe this will happen because I've seen it happen elsewhere," it's "I believe it's happening because it's happening. You can't deny that I know my child learned this without school." And so the confidence that those families then have oozes out to other families. And this is an advantage of those many years passing, is there's a lot of experience, a lot of examples, to see.
It's kind of scary being one of those examples, actually. In the the TV-and-video-game panel yesterday, after we were finished I had to rush out afterwards, but I was thinking about all of the negative sides. I was like "oh, I should have said this" or "I shouldn't have said that" and "oh I bet they took this this way, and it's all terrible," and "oh man I sure hope I didn't screw that up." And then just today, people were telling me, they're like "Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. That was good."Sandra:So it's it's relieving to hear that, because they're like I'm the example and oh my god I could really turn this around poorly for everybody.
Oh, and see I'm feeling like that, too. I have three pieces of paper here. What if I don't say everything? [laughter]
46:46
Sandra:
I don't like arbitrary structure. I don't think structure for the sake of structure is worth having, or doing. People say things like people say. People say, "If you don't make your kids get up, they'll never be able to have a job. How would they have a job?"Kirby:Marty, my middle kid, from the time he was 16 all through his 17th year worked at a grocery store. Many long stories, but as far as time goes his hours were 6:30 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon. He was late once by about one minute. We were walking distance from the place he would get up an hour early. He had his little routine. When I woke, up I could tell what time it was if Marty already has his food or if he's watching the news and the weather. He's that kind of guy.
He's very structured [gesturing...] ...in place.Sandra:
On his own, he had a serious structure. I had nothing to do with it.Kirby: [indicating humorously that it wouldn't happen]We bought our kids alarm clocks. and if they needed to get up they'd set their alarms, and that's how it was. But Kirby—if Marty hmm Marty was able to do a 6:30 in the morning job. If Kirby had prepared himself for 6:30 in the morning job he's never had one.
| Five years later, Kirby had a 5:00 a.m. start-time shift for a while. |
Well gaming stores and pizza joints don't open that early. So what's your schedule now?Kirby:
5:00 p.m. to 2:00 in the morningSandra:
So yes—he has prepared himself for that schedule his whole life.Kirby:
That might actually change pretty soon. I might be doing 7:00 a.m. and I'm dreading every second of it.Sandra:
The first job he had was 8:00 in the morning till noon running the Pokémon League at the gaming store on Saturdays.Kirby:
And how often was I late?Sandra:
I drove you so you were never late.Kirby:
Yeah, but how often were you kicking my butt out the door?Sandra:
That didn't count. [Laughter]Kirby:
Just different personality types.Sandra:
Another thing Kirby did for a while was he woke up at 6 or 6:30 to record Ninja Turtles. We were at the new house, so you must have been 12 or 13. So he set his alarm, got up, set the tape, sometimes he stayed up to take the commercials out, and sometimes he went back to bed. But then he would mark the tape. I still have those tapes. They're all marked, in there, you know, in his little-kid writing of all the Ninja Turtle cartoons.Kirby:
I wouldn't stay up for it. I would get up, do the job, go back to bed. I actually remember I had to set my alarm clock on the other side of the room so I wouldn't just hit snooze. I had to get up, get across the room, look back, be like, "Oh the bed's so far. I hate this."Sandra:
So it was structure, but it wasn't parentally imposed structure.Interviewer:So I think it goes back to all of the unschooling. They don't need to practice to learn. They figure out how to wake up by putting the alarm clock across the room, to wake up to do something they want to do. And when it's their idea...
It's self-regulation.Sandra:
You know what's wrong with self-regulation? It's regulation.Interviewer:
It's another terminology thingSandra:
It's terminology that exposes what you think... what you didn't think you were thinking. People talk about "self control" and "self-regulation?" It's like I don't think anyone needs to control or regulate them—not even themselves.Kirby:It's choices. So if he chose—if any... any day he could have chosen not to set that alarm and not to record that show. So every day was a new choice. Every day he could have chosen to hit the alarm and get back in the bed and not record it. So it was a series of choices, not "the regulation." He didn't make rules for himself, and he didn't control himself, he just made choices.
It was cause and effect every time. I needed this to happen, so I...Sandra:
Well yes, you preferred to choose to record it.Kirby:
Yeah.Sandra:
I'm willing to quit. I'm willing to keep on going.Interviewer:
Thank you. No, I think we're good. I know you could probably keep going, right?[Laughter]
More interviews in various formats
More about Kirby Dodd
More about Sandra and Unchooling
NOTE FROM SANDRA:I printed out what's below, listened and marked, and marked, and then worked in a Word file (putting HTML code in) and then pasted it in sections to this page. I'm tired. (Maybe by the time you read this, I will have recovered.)
Keep this auto-generated thing for looking up numbers of quotes:
Auto-generated with numbers from YouTube: I had been a teacher and I I thought 00:15 school was fine I assumed that when my 00:17 child was five year would go to school 00:19 but he was a little bit of a weird kid 00:22 he took two classes when he was four 00:24 when was an art classroom was a dance 00:26 class and he didn't do right and neither 00:30 one of them and in different ways and 00:31 one he hung back and was very unhappy 00:34 and cried and then the other one he 00:35 would jump up and grab the materials and 00:37 talk to the teacher and do things that 00:38 she hadn't said go about yet and in 00:41 neither case could we persuade him why 00:44 it might help for him to act in a 00:46 different way and he was happy you know 00:47 at the happy point and really unhappy at 00:49 the end every point and I looked at that 00:51 and I thought if he were to go to school 00:52 today it would be a disaster for him and 00:55 he would be really distracting the rest 00:57 of the class and in New Mexico because 01:00 it is late birthday we could wait a year 01:02 it was a free year for us because we 01:04 could just say he's not ready we'll send 01:05 him next year so it was a big luxury I 01:08 knew for homeschooling families in a 01:12 playgroup and a babysitting co-op we 01:14 were in through La Leche League two of 01:16 the families did school at home and two 01:17 did unschooling 01:19 and so I don't I've never met anyone who 01:21 had such a great lab and such a great 01:23 intro so we weren't even going to plan 01:25 to home-school but these kids were all 01:27 in our house to play and to you know for 01:31 us to babysit them and our kids had been 01:33 to their homes the kids were at our 01:35 house with and without the parents my 01:37 kids were at their house with them 01:38 without us so we really knew these 01:41 families the school at home families 01:45 were not very happy and they didn't get 01:47 along and when we would go to the park 01:50 sometimes a mother would say well she 01:51 can't play because she didn't finish her 01:53 math so she has to sit in the car and 01:55 the and unschooling families the kids 01:58 would just spontaneously come and sit in 02:01 the parents laps it was so cool I'd 02:02 never I hadn't seen that 02:03 and so as Kirby got older 02:06 growing up with those kids there were 02:09 just lots of advantages to those 02:10 families their houses were peaceful and 02:12 and it was fun to play there it wasn't 02:14 scary they weren't likely to get in 02:15 trouble so when we did think okay we 02:18 have that we're gonna do this one year 02:20 of homeschooling I don't even consider 02:21 getting a curriculum it I didn't want 02:25 that relationship with him 02:26 and I thought was Kindergarten he can 02:27 play and we can find interesting things 02:29 to do and that was easy to do and and so 02:31 the year was not high pressure 02:33 it wasn't like taking a kid out in 02:35 seventh grade or something where 02:36 everybody's panicky it was out well at 02:38 the end of this year we either register 02:40 him for first grade or kindergarten at 02:43 school or we don't you know where we 02:46 keep him home but within just a couple 02:48 of months we knew it was fun it was 02:50 great and and in that time we had read 02:52 more and talked more to people more 02:55 explicitly about homeschooling and I 02:57 knew that it was gonna be good for him 02:58 his personality but still I thought 03:01 Marty his brother who's three years 03:03 younger I thought well Marty will want 03:04 to go to school because he's more 03:06 physical social wants to play sports 03:08 he'll he'll go to school and Marty used 03:11 to say he was gonna go to school too and 03:12 then one day when marty was four we were 03:14 at the grocery store and some woman came 03:16 up to kirby as people do in grocery 03:18 stores go why aren't you at school or 03:19 you know what grade are you in 03:21 so she came up and said something you 03:23 Kirby about this is this is not a school 03:26 day or something and Marty who was 03:28 sitting in the cart went where we 03:30 homeschool very excited I thought Marty 03:33 Marty homeschooled so I said so Marty 03:36 you know when she's the woman was 03:37 Narcisa you think you're gonna stay home 03:39 and he said yeah I mean I'm not gonna go 03:40 to school next year but we always for 03:42 the first several years kept it like 03:44 every year is like do you want to go to 03:46 school you and try school too and stay 03:47 home so as always the kids choice and I 03:49 thought that was really important 03:50 because one of the worst things about 03:52 school is that the children don't have a 03:54 choice and the parents will further 03:57 compound that lack of choice by saying 04:00 we have no choice you have to go if you 04:03 don't go to school we'll be in trouble 04:04 with the government my parents told me 04:05 that they'll put us in jail if you don't 04:07 go to school so not only I didn't have a 04:09 choice but my parents are sure to me 04:10 they didn't have a choice so you're two 04:12 layers down and helplessness and so I 04:15 didn't want that to happen with my kids 04:17 there are many things about school that 04:18 you know it should be a do not try this 04:19 at home situation for homeschoolers so I 04:22 thought they need to have a choice and 04:24 my daughter I thought well she might 04:27 want to go to school 04:27 showing to show off her clothes she's 04:29 that kind of Kid Flash still and and she 04:33 when the time came she said no and stay 04:34 home too so for me that was a position 04:37 of mmm self-righteous strength that's 04:39 not a good 04:40 I'm sure there's a better term for 04:41 self-righteous strength confidence yes 04:43 that's it that the kids had chosen it 04:46 and it wasn't it wasn't in a tricky 04:48 punitive way it wasn't like you made 04:50 your bed you know it wasn't you it was 04:51 your idea I was like I'm willing to do 04:53 this if you want to do it and that made 04:55 a huge difference because we were around 04:57 some families the kids would have liked 04:58 to have gone to school in the parents 04:59 said no school is terrible and evil and 05:01 you must stay young so 05:08 periodically I'd have neighbor kids who 05:11 try and convince me until they'd be like 05:12 you know I meet all these cool kids and 05:14 we learn all these neat things and I 05:16 mean honestly when I was seven I was 05:18 like I don't want to get up at 6:00 in 05:19 the morning that sounds awful why why 05:21 would you do that to yourself but I came 05:25 to realize that I was already meeting 05:27 these really cool people and learning 05:29 all these really neat things that really 05:30 it would just be a different route 05:40 no not particularly 05:42 in my current day and age people are 05:46 generally shocked when they find out 05:47 that I was home-schooled or or on school 05:49 even they they they tell me and I could 05:52 I could have easily fooled them I I 05:53 blend in very very well with normal 05:56 normal people normal Society 05:59 no I don't I don't feel like I missed 06:01 out on anything at all 06:08 I used to do a workshop regular workshop 06:12 called that's not educational and it was 06:14 a challenge and I had prizes and I would 06:16 have people in the audience name 06:17 something that they thought was not 06:18 educational then I would tell them what 06:20 was educational about it but years have 06:22 passed I don't like the term educational 06:24 anymore I don't like education I avoid 06:26 that in favor of learning because just 06:30 as schooling has a curriculum and of 06:31 course and we want you to learn this and 06:33 this they they create a an object and 06:37 everything else is field or trivia or 06:39 not on the test so I think the same 06:43 thing happens with education this is 06:44 part of your education this is 06:46 educational and then there are things 06:48 that are not educational so is still you 06:50 get the object in the field and that can 06:52 be a problem for natural learning so 06:54 sometimes I will say well of course it's 06:56 educational everything is educational 06:57 but even as I'm saying and I don't like 06:59 that I'm playing that game that I'm 07:03 talking about what is educational also 07:07 people talk about having an education as 07:10 though there is one special one and now 07:12 you have all of it previously you had 07:14 nothing now you have an education you 07:17 want to see my I'll show you mine so I 07:21 don't like the question but the 07:24 difference between school and education 07:26 and learning is that learning can become 07:32 all the things that anyone expected of 07:33 Education but learning doesn't separate 07:37 educational from non educational and I 07:39 think no matter what a person learns no 07:41 matter how trivial not on the test it 07:43 seems at the beginning it eventually can 07:46 tie into something or become useful or 07:48 make that person interesting give them 07:50 their own unique perspective and I think 07:54 any ideas of that's not scholarly that's 07:57 not schoolish that's not educational 08:00 separate a person from the world 08:07 i navigate terminology all the time and 08:11 i help other people do that because when 08:13 people when people write I mostly deal 08:16 with people in writing message boards 08:18 and live text chats and that sort of 08:21 thing when people write something and 08:24 then they want to take it back that's 08:26 hugely illuminating so sometimes the 08:29 words that people use is not confusing 08:31 it's clarifying and so someone will say 08:34 well I would do that but my Styles lazy 08:36 and the response might be something like 08:39 well maybe the relationship between your 08:40 and your son isn't as good as it could 08:42 be maybe it'd be better if you didn't 08:43 think he was lazy and she well I didn't 08:45 think he's lazy and thanks to the 08:47 marbles have cut and paste we can say 08:49 look you just chose this word typed it 08:52 decided to send it to a thousand 08:53 strangers somewhere in see inside you 08:56 you think your child is lazy and then 08:58 she goes whoa I didn't even know I 08:59 didn't even know I wrote that and that's 09:02 even in writing what people say verbally 09:05 when they're tired or hungry or you know 09:09 not not really thinking carefully can be 09:12 hugely revealing of the problems they 09:15 have the disconnect they have between 09:17 the kind of person they want to be and 09:20 the kind they are or or what will or 09:23 will not help their child to develop in 09:25 a peaceful way my husband says that his 09:28 goal was to have our children grow up 09:31 undamaged but that was pretty decent 09:34 because it covers all sorts of fields 09:37 school and traditional parenting can do 09:39 all just casual casual and unrelenting 09:43 damage that people don't even think 09:45 about they don't want to think about it 09:46 because they like the comfort of 09:49 thinking they have to do this I have no 09:50 choice we had to do this and it's it 09:55 buries sins and many layers of damage so 10:00 the idea that that we'd make choices 10:03 that cause them not to be damaged was 10:05 easy it's it's just you know you walk 10:08 along you have a choice which one's more 10:10 damaging for me that was his measure 10:13 mine was which helps them learn more 10:16 from which experience will they learn 10:20 which is not to say we always chose the 10:22 unfamiliar one because the most familiar 10:23 is nice but sometimes if you've done the 10:26 same thing five times it's nice to do 10:28 the other thing and I didn't force them 10:30 to do things I chose to be persuasive I 10:33 did a lot of singing and dancing about 10:35 this will be really fun let's do this 10:36 and I was pretty good at luring them 10:40 toward other things I always thought it 10:51 was important because she would always 10:52 encourage our interests in our likes but 10:57 then she would always make a point to 10:58 also introduce new ideas or new 11:00 opportunities which i think is really 11:03 key to a lot of it because people can't 11:06 end it's it's human nature to continue 11:09 down this familiar path and people can 11:10 get into a rut where maybe they're not 11:13 expanding their horizons necessarily and 11:16 so you it's it's beneficial to have 11:19 someone introduce these new ideas to 11:21 spark new interests so I the first 11:25 question I left something out um you had 11:27 asked about resources and I talked about 11:29 the families I knew which is awesome 11:31 resource but I did want to say something 11:32 about that can I do that and in the 11:35 night mid 1980s there was a lot of 11:37 homeschooling talk and a lot of it was 11:38 school at home and Christian curriculum 11:40 based homeschooling but the young 11:44 schoolers they're less structured 11:46 schooling I should leave those up there 11:49 huh there's that book sorry ignore all 11:53 of that I can't be having my glasses on 11:54 and off on and off that would be 11:56 distracting bad for editing yeah okay so 12:02 mmm there was a lot written and a lot 12:04 done for Christian home schoolers the 12:06 secular informal people who were doing 12:10 basically the open classroom kind of 12:13 homeschooling the only resource was 12:16 growing without schooling magazine and 12:17 came out every two months and it had 12:20 letters from home schoolers as a large 12:23 part of what they had in a few articles 12:25 and when we were first homeschooling 12:27 there were still writings by John Holt 12:29 in there but he died before too many 12:32 years but 12:33 still it was the only thing we had so I 12:35 would wait two months read it 12:36 cover-to-cover including the little one 12:37 ads about who wanted other families to 12:39 visit them and including the publication 12:42 notes and then I would wait two months 12:45 for another one and time passed few 12:50 years later there were message board 12:52 bulletin boards not even message boards 12:53 like the original leave a note for other 12:57 people on the Internet 12:58 deals and the discussion that I first 13:01 got into on prodigy had 80 families or 13:08 so and most of them were Christian 13:10 school at homers I was only only 13:13 unschooling person who wrote regularly 13:16 there are a few other people who were 13:17 fairly unstructured but I would get 13:20 jumped on because I was willing to stand 13:21 up so I would they would say well you 13:23 have to do this or the kids will never 13:24 learn and I would quote John Holt or 13:27 quote something from the school reform 13:29 research of the 60s well up but but they 13:31 did this study and proved this and 13:33 they're like shut up you you know wait 13:35 we don't like we don't like your kind so 13:37 that was a little inspiring for me 13:39 actually it's like oh this is not gonna 13:41 be easy to make this point I have to 13:42 actually really think about it and be 13:43 really clear about it and quick because 13:46 they're about to get me and so I also 13:49 got to know their arguments and their 13:51 justifications from being in those 13:53 discussions so for a couple of years 13:55 that's all there was 13:56 and then AOL came up with the forum 13:59 discussed three dollars an hour to be 14:01 online measured in seconds so people 14:04 would get their email there was a 14:05 program for you to grab all your email 14:07 and download it and at three dollars an 14:11 hour there would be discussions online 14:12 lifetime discussions I used to run one 14:14 so that was the way Al was making their 14:16 money partly is to get people in there 14:17 and stay online but there are message 14:19 boards and those were those were nice 14:22 those were really nice because we could 14:24 divide it into topics and at first all 14:27 of the home schoolers were in there 14:29 together and the unschoolers were oddly 14:31 pushed away and then it was like they 14:34 would they would push us out of the 14:37 society of home schoolers and then they 14:39 would come in secret and ask us 14:40 questions 14:42 and that and that pattern continues to 14:44 this week because on the list I'm on 14:47 someone said well you guys have really 14:48 good ideas so so she's baked has 14:51 basically built up a bad situation with 14:54 her teenager years of not taking our 14:56 advice now it's this problem and she 14:59 wants us to help her untangle it so 15:01 there was always that idea that the 15:02 unschoolers knew stuff and we're 15:06 creative thinkers and could help other 15:07 people with resources so the people who 15:11 said we don't want to hear what you're 15:12 saying because we're telling our kids 15:13 what to do and when to do it and you're 15:15 disturbing the peace as soon as they had 15:17 a problem where needed something that 15:19 they couldn't find that go where the 15:20 unschoolers were and say could you guys 15:22 help me so that's one thing the 15:24 unschoolers always kind of took pride in 15:25 flattering it it's like well you guys 15:28 are the smart ones so help me untangle 15:30 this 15:35 I don't think that what unschoolers do 15:38 will affect schools very quickly for one 15:42 thing what we do came out of schools 15:43 came out of school research in school 15:45 reformers in the late 60s and early 70s 15:47 and at the time there were a lot of lab 15:50 schools connected with universities 15:51 where they were testing these ideas 15:53 about natural learning about optimized 15:56 learning about individualized learning 15:58 and they set up all these really cool 16:00 experiments which worked really well in 16:03 the lab schools and then they went out 16:06 and wrote books about the open classroom 16:08 Albuquerque was kind of a hotbed of that 16:10 the professors who wrote the book that 16:12 was called the open classroom where at 16:13 the University of New Mexico and the 16:16 Albuquerque Public Schools built 16:18 buildings they got floor plans and built 16:22 entire facilities based on the ideas of 16:25 the open classroom other places did too 16:27 and the idea was have have a place where 16:32 kids can read in the way they want to 16:34 recessed lighting soft places to sit 16:36 privacy where they can sit how they want 16:39 to let them take the books outside and 16:40 read don't make them city to hard desk 16:41 and hold it like this have a science 16:43 center with real animals and plants 16:45 growing and rocks to touch and that that 16:49 kind of became hands-on museums later on 16:51 but at the toe instead of everything in 16:53 a glass box you know I have things that 16:54 kids can pick up but they wanted a room 16:57 like that in every school in every 16:58 elementary school in the history room 17:00 have pictures photos objects not just 17:05 not just books and and deal with the 17:08 history of the local group the history 17:09 of the town history of the kids in the 17:11 room and fix it so that the kids can go 17:14 from activity to activity on their own 17:15 time somewhat and the teachers what the 17:18 way it worked is the teachers had a 17:20 checklist of what the children needed 17:22 know in nine months and then if if a kid 17:25 hadn't done any math and it's March the 17:28 teachers would find some way to engage 17:30 him in math board games or something so 17:33 that they could checklist their deal but 17:35 that's how that was set up to work and 17:37 they proved that it worked really well I 17:39 mean all of their stats were good then 17:41 they took that into public schools and 17:43 it failed horribly just possess 17:47 the teachers didn't like it the parents 17:49 didn't know what was going on 17:51 the kids went crazy and tore up the 17:52 materials and it was abandoned wherever 17:56 it was tried it was abandoned within a 17:57 couple of years because the children 18:02 didn't have any choice the kids in the 18:05 lab schools were either self-selected or 18:08 their parents were education professors 18:11 or professors at the University or 18:13 people who wanted their kids in that 18:15 school or grad students kids the 18:17 children of grad students and so they 18:18 knew they were in a cool school they 18:20 were in a special school they were in a 18:21 fun school and all of the people who 18:23 were teaching there wanted to do that 18:25 they self-selected themselves to be 18:28 doing alternative education no one was 18:29 drafted no one was there against their 18:32 will no one was there just for the 18:33 paycheck looking at the clock and the 18:38 whole situation was so enriched and so 18:40 elevated because of the excitement of 18:42 the people who designed it and because 18:45 they wanted to see what the results were 18:46 so they were totally totally paying 18:49 attention to every child that it it was 18:52 it was a special situation a 18:54 self-selected situation where the 18:55 parents liked the fact that their 18:57 children were in this program and and 19:00 the kids thought it was cool and they 19:02 were getting to go to work with their 19:03 parents you know they were at the same 19:04 facility where their parents pretty much 19:06 worked so they take that to the public 19:09 school some of the parents never like to 19:10 school themselves they thought school 19:11 was stupid they're only doing this 19:13 because they have to the kids don't 19:15 really want to be there so the teachers 19:18 who went to work for a paycheck and 19:20 would like to do as little as possible 19:21 to get this paycheck are now told we're 19:23 changing everything from now on that 19:26 easy thing you used to do read the 19:28 chapter and answer the questions that's 19:30 gone from now on you have to be creative 19:32 and interesting you have to keep track 19:34 of each child separately it'll be fun 19:36 and they said I don't think it'll be fun 19:38 I don't even get it I don't even know 19:40 what you're talking about 19:40 they didn't hire me to run a science lab 19:43 with real animals and and the parents at 19:47 home went what he doesn't have homework 19:49 what I don't know what you're talking 19:52 about just teach him just give him 19:53 homework and stop making me come down 19:55 there and make cookies and feed the frog 19:58 so there was just wild resent 20:01 and confusion then they put it on kids 20:03 who hated school they didn't want to go 20:06 to school they wanted to do as little as 20:08 possible now they said look live frogs 20:10 and you know uh and things got torn up 20:13 and they said you can read wherever you 20:14 want to so the kids crawled into the 20:15 cubby holes and fell asleep or you know 20:18 it just was pandemonium and so that was 20:22 abandoned because it wasn't working and 20:23 it didn't work because people didn't 20:25 have choices which is a good point for 20:30 unschooling because if you try to force 20:31 someone to learn on his own and have fun 20:34 do it now because I said so it doesn't 20:36 work maybe they want that structure you 20:38 have to draw them into the little happy 20:41 land enjoyment of it which is fairly 20:43 easy to do if you want to do it so if 20:46 the government said all right we're 20:48 running experiment half of people who 20:50 were homeschooling must use a curriculum 20:51 and the other half must be unschoolers 20:53 and we're gonna track you for 12 years 20:55 and then we're gonna tell you which one 20:56 works best 20:57 none of it would work any more 21:05 no no partly because i could design a 21:11 better one that i could buy their 21:12 expensive now there used to be some you 21:14 could buy for $300 a year you know 21:16 meaning one child one year school in a 21:19 box school in a box came from Calvert 21:21 curriculum which I think was designed 21:23 for missionary kids like if your family 21:27 lived in some other country totally you 21:29 could buy third grade and they sent you 21:31 even the pencils the pencils and papers 21:33 are there assuming you're in the Congo 21:35 or somewhere and you know the Amazon and 21:38 you're gonna get this box that's all 21:39 you're gonna get so they stiver ties in 21:42 the back of National Geographic and I 21:45 used to read those ads when I was a kid 21:47 and read every word of every book I was 21:49 reading in the back National Geographic 21:50 you never say Calvert homeschool and it 21:53 had a little shield and it was all like 21:54 very dignified and I used to think this 21:57 must be for kids who are are so 22:01 misshapen or you know something so 22:04 horribly wrong with them their parents 22:05 can't take them out in the sunshine and 22:07 they live in the room of some big house 22:10 and they they teach them at home because 22:13 they can't go outside and I just 22:17 imagined some poor kid you know some 22:19 Elephant Man kid you had to learn at 22:22 school and at home but I thought that 22:24 was interesting but then Christians came 22:26 along Christian home schoolers there was 22:28 a huge fad in the 80s and they started 22:30 making competing sets of materials and 22:33 it started getting expensive 22:34 and some of those I think he paid twelve 22:37 hundred dollars for one year of an 22:40 elementary school deal and when the 22:43 parents have spent that much money they 22:44 want to finish it they want to do it 22:46 they they've just paid money on the 22:48 assumption that someone knows more about 22:49 it than they do and so they try to force 22:51 their child to do that ruin is the 22:53 relationship between the parents and 22:54 child it ruins a child's ability to 22:57 believe that he could learn anything on 22:58 his own not that that was the parent 23:00 school it keeps the parent from knowing 23:03 or caring what the kid is doing really 23:05 as long as the kid finishes the 23:06 assignment the parent doesn't often 23:08 doesn't doesn't necessarily need to sit 23:11 and do that with them and although some 23:12 parents do but a lot of parents won't 23:14 really help the child because they're 23:15 not seeing it as a learning opportunity 23:17 they're seeing it as or 23:18 acquirement finished this so I can stamp 23:21 it so we never have to look at it again 23:22 as long as we live so the parent relives 23:24 their own schooling in another negative 23:27 way they don't like it they're resentful 23:28 they're complaining 23:29 I think it's twice through school for 23:32 the parents and never through school for 23:34 the kids I wouldn't touch it with a 23:36 ten-foot ball 23:43 um now most the time when the kids in 23:47 the neighborhood would have a bunch of 23:48 homework they would just talk about how 23:51 much how much they hated it for the most 23:52 part and they would they would be 23:54 envious of my my lack of homework and 23:57 sometimes they would they would ask for 23:58 my help with their homework just to see 24:00 if I knew what I was talking about which 24:02 granted a lot of time I didn't I was 24:04 like no that was that language of math 24:07 is frightening in for and what what are 24:09 you talking about granted when when I 24:12 needed to pick up that language it 24:14 wasn't that it wasn't that hard I just 24:16 got to the point where I needed to know 24:17 it then I learned it no we didn't come 24:24 up all that much outside of like once I 24:27 get this finished then we can go play 24:29 baseball okay 24:32 it was it was an obstacle yeah but I can 24:39 remember I think all of my kids like 24:41 Holly definitely and you once you know 24:43 where kids would come over go ID you 24:44 have to do this homework first before we 24:46 can play so we'll I'll help you they 24:49 would figure it out it was like what's 24:50 this mean what's this mean they would 24:51 talk them through it and then get it 24:52 done and then go play yeah if they could 24:54 explain what how it was supposed to be 24:56 done to be like oh okay well that makes 24:57 sense then you just do this 25:04 uh we there was a school bus to the zoo 25:07 or something there was like a company 25:09 picnic but we used to with Holly we used 25:12 to drive down Park it to middle school 25:14 when when school is gonna start so was 25:17 it in the car watch the kids arrive and 25:19 go into the classrooms in the bell would 25:20 ring tardo would ring to me go home and 25:22 so I wasn't riding the bus there but I 25:24 would take it there and then we would go 25:25 in the afternoon be sitting there so we 25:29 can see the door here the bell rings see 25:31 the kids come out and one day she sat on 25:34 the bench right by the door and it 25:36 reminded me of the movie unbreakable 25:38 when he stands in Grand Central Station 25:40 with his hands out and she just sat on 25:42 that bench where the kids float around 25:44 her and so she would hear the 25:46 conversations to see them up close and 25:48 that was really fun for her just to be 25:50 that close to them in their natural 25:52 state but it was the getting out of 25:55 school state which is the best state and 25:58 she knew some kids there so they go hey 26:00 Holly you know there were four or five 26:01 kids there she knew and we went several 26:04 times and once Cameron lovejoy another 26:06 an older unschooled kid was visiting us 26:08 and we drove her down there and then I 26:11 we need to pick something up or I need 26:13 the bathroom something so he said Holly 26:14 can you stay here we'll go and come back 26:15 she said sure so that was exciting for 26:17 her to be there by herself but she she 26:20 talked about maybe going to school but 26:22 she talked to friends and she was she 26:23 would be like I want to I don't want to 26:24 and she ended up not going but that was 26:27 part of her decision-making process was 26:28 what do I want you know what do you want 26:31 to do about this she had gone to school 26:32 in England two and a half days in 26:35 uniform and everything visiting a friend 26:36 and that was fun for her but it's so you 26:38 know when you're a visitor you get more 26:39 attention and you don't really have to 26:41 do anything she had a lot of stories 26:43 about that and she took nickels to give 26:44 them for souvenirs you know big American 26:47 money and she she just had so many 26:50 stories but she was learning about 26:51 school in a way an anthropologist learns 26:53 about a different culture she wasn't 26:54 really in the school but it was fun for 26:57 her and she went to school one day in 26:59 Albuquerque too for an all-day you know 27:02 all day go to lunch so she was she was 27:04 always an observer of school and very 27:06 interested in school 27:12 sometimes people ask me if I think the 27:14 school should be destroyed if I think 27:16 everyone should have two home schools 27:17 like no I don't think everyone should 27:18 have two I don't think everyone wants to 27:21 and if you don't want to you will botch 27:23 it I don't I think schools are fine I 27:28 had a great time at school because it 27:29 was better than my home and I think 27:31 schools should be there I think schools 27:33 should probably loosen up and not think 27:34 they're God's gift to everyone's 27:35 intellect because they're not I think 27:38 people who want to home-school really 27:41 want to can probably figure out a way to 27:43 do it there are obstacles divorce is a 27:46 big obstacle poverty it's probably the 27:50 biggest obstacle negativity can kill it 27:56 I'm talking about unschooling I think 27:58 there's and negativity is inherent 28:01 I believe in school at home I don't 28:05 think you can March step your child 28:07 through thirteen years of lessons and 28:09 not have a lot of negativity flowing 28:14 between you and against school and 28:16 against people who aren't making their 28:17 kids do that work because we we get that 28:20 we get people who people whose kids are 28:23 in schools and times are critical of 28:25 home schoolers but all the rest the home 28:26 schoolers are critical of the 28:27 unschoolers because we're not we're 28:30 making them look bad so like my parents 28:32 said you have to go to school or I'll be 28:34 in trouble I believed that didn't know 28:38 they could have ordered Calvert 28:39 curriculum for me so I accepted that as 28:44 a sad fact of life when home schoolers 28:47 take their kids out the neighbors are 28:49 like well they don't have to go to 28:51 school now the parents I don't have any 28:53 choice Falls but they say well what 28:56 they're doing schoolwork too and they're 28:57 taking tests too and they're don't you 29:00 like school because you don't have to 29:01 sit at home with your mom all the time 29:02 and get to meet kids so there's still 29:04 that kind of balance but then the people 29:07 who are doing school at home are telling 29:09 their kids well you have to do these 29:10 lessons there's no choice you have to 29:11 take this test there's no choice and the 29:14 neighbors down in the next house are 29:16 playing video games and so they say you 29:20 people are lazy your kids aren't 29:21 learning anything you can't believe 29:22 you're doing that you're making us look 29:24 bad so 29:26 their claim and their belief the basis 29:28 of their reasoning is belied by the fact 29:31 that someone else is not doing that and 29:32 then we're another step further I am 29:36 unwilling to sacrifice my children's 29:38 happiness to appease some stranger other 29:41 parents but the going practice it's 29:50 common for people to do that to be 29:53 carried long on the stream of parental 29:56 habit and to do what the neighbors are 29:59 doing and do what other friends of 30:02 theirs say they should be doing and it's 30:04 a shame because the same parents will 30:06 say well if your friend jumped off a 30:07 cliff would you - kids their friends are 30:10 jumping off cliffs and they're jumping 30:11 off the same cliff because they care 30:13 more about what these neighbors and 30:15 friends and co-workers and relatives 30:17 think than with their child thinks 30:27 I don't think everyone who wants to 30:29 'unschool will be successful at it some 30:31 people can't relax some people are not 30:32 creative some people are not imaginative 30:34 some people are so controlling that if 30:38 something happens that they didn't plan 30:40 and execute they're not having fun 30:42 anymore when kids do that they're 30:44 considered to be bad sports and you know 30:47 spoiled kids who need to be nice and 30:49 consider other people's feelings when 30:51 adults do that they justify it and say I 30:53 was just being good parent but unless 30:56 they can share the stage unless they can 30:58 share the decision-making and the 31:00 planning with a child who might just 31:02 want to stay home all day they won't get 31:04 it 31:05 they won't happen and I deal with 31:07 unschoolers every day every day who say 31:10 well I tried it for a while but it 31:12 didn't work meaning I didn't really try 31:15 it and I'm not going to because they 31:17 just can't stop they they're looking at 31:21 their children they're looking at the 31:23 world and their children through school 31:24 colored glasses and they're willing to 31:27 do other things as long as the result 31:29 looks like school and they need to turn 31:32 their back on that and look at the world 31:33 a whole new way but that's so much work 31:36 it's such a change in the parents that 31:39 some people are unwilling to do it they 31:40 don't want to change they don't to be 31:42 inconvenienced they don't want it to 31:44 take any longer than it would have taken 31:45 to drive their kid to school away from 31:46 to come back and pick them up no more 31:48 than that and they don't want the hours 31:49 outside of that to change a bit it's 31:52 like okay well then you can't so if 31:54 that's the question whether everyone can 31:55 unschool hardly anyone can unschool 31:58 because they have to be willing to 31:59 change their beliefs and their lifestyle 32:03 it is it is they have to change the way 32:07 they see children and some people don't 32:10 want to do that one time I think I'm 32:13 pretty sure it was in a text chat but 32:15 Pam sure she and I were in the same 32:16 place and someone asked there must have 32:19 been chat because we both asked at the 32:20 same time someone said how many hours a 32:23 week does this take and one of us wrote 32:26 all of them and one of us wrote none of 32:29 them or is like zero or 24 or something 32:32 and it was an awesome perfect man it was 32:36 awesome because it takes all of your 32:39 life how many 32:40 hours you have to do school yeah what 32:42 you don't have to do school and so of 32:45 course we get called lazy I have a thing 32:47 that I made up as a goof a couple of 32:49 years ago Holly had made a really nice 32:51 piece of art for it just learned nothing 32:53 day and I put it on my birthday just 32:55 because I figured I have partial 32:57 ownership of that day and I knew there 32:58 wasn't much else going on except in Utah 33:01 they have Pioneer Day that parades to 33:03 celebrate the the people who walked over 33:05 from Illinois or wherever they came from 33:07 and so I know and in Utah everybody's 33:11 learning because they all dress up and 33:12 go talk about pioneer day but everybody 33:14 else was doing nothing on my birthday 33:16 and so I figured that would be a good 33:18 day to say take this day off and it was 33:24 a goof but some other people have 33:26 written some really good things about 33:27 their attempts to do that or their 33:29 discussions about doing that up to that 33:31 point people used to say well we can't 33:33 learn all the time every day and I would 33:36 say we only have to do it 180 days the 33:39 other 185 days or days off just so don't 33:42 worry if there's a day you didn't do 33:43 anything special don't worry about it 33:45 but I think it's more effective to say 33:49 okay just unlearn nothing day don't 33:52 learn anything and on the you're on the 33:53 other days learn something because the 33:55 cool thing is when they try to learn 33:57 nothing they see that that's not 33:58 possible 33:59 they start pointing out all the things 34:01 like oh I'd learned this this and this 34:03 today oh man that without that joke 34:07 without that cover for it they wouldn't 34:09 have seen the day so clearly but every 34:13 year some or somebody or five without 34:17 any sense of humor and with very little 34:19 knowledge of natural learning will write 34:21 me insulting notes sometimes in public 34:24 sometimes in private and they'll say 34:26 well why would you do this or in 34:28 schoolers never learn anything anyway 34:30 well why do you need a special day to do 34:31 what you do every day it's like thank 34:33 you very much 34:34 and so that's amusing too to see to see 34:38 the perception of unschoolers that 34:40 they're that they're doing nothing just 34:42 goofing around 34:49 not specifically no I feel like I've 34:53 like I'm pretty well prepared for 34:55 anything that comes along my way 34:57 sometimes I mean there will be times 35:01 where like I maybe don't understand one 35:03 subject particularly well but I know I 35:06 have the resources I know that everybody 35:08 has the resources to get it particularly 35:09 with the Internet these days like you 35:11 can you can get anything you need and I 35:15 have a good pool of people that I can go 35:18 to to get their opinions and their ideas 35:21 on anything that I don't know that much 35:24 about it's no I I wouldn't change 35:26 anything which sounds kind of hokey but 35:29 I feel well prepared I'm not concerned 35:34 at all confident in my ability I mean in 35:38 particular with unschooling it's more 35:39 like you've been submerged into the real 35:41 world from the get-go I mean granted I 35:43 started I started my first job when I 35:46 was 14 years old so I guess I was kind 35:48 of thrown into the real world invited 35:51 politely and I was invited funny 35:54 yeah it was great they're like we want 35:56 you to do this job oh sweet oh now we 35:58 have to pay for this job I mean I I 36:04 guess I kind of started a little earlier 36:06 than than some kids do but so long as 36:09 something I say they go out they can 36:12 they're already in the real world they 36:13 just have to realize it 36:23 I would tell them I would I would tell 36:25 them to read about it anytime if anyone 36:26 has come and asked me about it I refer 36:28 them to the number of web sites of 36:30 course her Ferno mothers website joyce 36:32 Federalist website and it's I just tell 36:35 them to to research it so they can 36:38 determine they can make an educated 36:40 decision on it most of the time the 36:43 reason why they're hesitant about is 36:44 because they just don't they don't know 36:45 or they fear the unknown and so they 36:47 they fear this big change that they're 36:49 considering and the more that they 36:51 understand it the easier it'll be for 36:52 them I understand their fear sometimes 36:59 when someone is afraid I mean I have 37:00 some little tricks to shake them into 37:03 not being as stuck as they are sometimes 37:05 when someone is thinking about taking 37:07 their child out of school and they're 37:08 like yeah but yeah but yeah but yeah but 37:09 this is not like moving to Mars you'll 37:11 still be in the same house you still be 37:13 talking on the same phone you called me 37:15 on it's just if it's just they won't be 37:19 in school when I had friends who were 37:21 teachers I had a lot of teacher friends 37:23 cuz I've been a teacher and sometimes 37:25 they would ask me well what are you 37:27 gonna do if blah what are you gonna do 37:28 but if this and I would say well as long 37:31 as it's working we're gonna keep doing 37:32 this but I said but if it quits working 37:35 I'll put him in school and a special ed 37:37 teachers will get him right caught up 37:38 you know caught up right away and I 37:41 don't say that again cuz I mess it up if 37:44 this stops working we can put him in 37:45 school and the special ed teachers will 37:47 get him caught right up and every single 37:49 time I said they're like three different 37:51 friends of mine went they just blanched 37:53 you know it's like oh my god special 37:56 like like they think for a second I'm 37:58 serious and one of them was an 37:59 award-winning special ed teacher and 38:01 then because though they know that 38:03 that's not what special ed does and so 38:06 the point is made that there are kids in 38:08 school who get sidetracked into a place 38:11 where they are not gonna recover and 38:13 that my kids will be fine and it's like 38:17 oh yeah okay you're right 38:18 so they just sort of asked the question 38:20 there are there are dialogues that 38:22 people have and phrases that people have 38:23 that they just say it's like somebody 38:25 wound them up and pushed their button 38:27 and they say things like well what are 38:29 you gonna do about high school and the 38:30 questions that the home schoolers have 38:32 heard a thousand times there it's like 38:34 it's not like they have 500 different 38:36 questions 38:37 different questions same-same a few 38:39 questions so people will just ask those 38:41 questions the same way that people will 38:43 see a little kid and they'll say hi 38:45 what's your name blah 38:47 where do you go to school block do you 38:49 like your teacher blah what's your 38:51 favorite subject but and then they're 38:53 out they don't know anything else to ask 38:55 them but it happens with kids too we had 38:59 we moved to a new neighborhood when 39:01 Kirby was 11 and Holly was 5 mmm that 39:05 doesn't make sense how old are you 10 39:08 makes noises 39:09 she turned 6 right after we moved and 39:11 there was a neighbour family just right 39:13 across across the cold a second they had 39:15 boys about our boys ages and that was 39:16 very hopeful I thought that could be fun 39:19 but the kids didn't hit it off and 39:22 partly from the very beginning it was 39:24 where to go to school we don't what 39:27 grade are you in 39:28 I don't know I don't I think I would be 39:31 in and so the kids kind of froze up 39:35 because they didn't know how to treat 39:37 these other kids I didn't know how to 39:39 act once when I was teaching seventh 39:41 grade there was a Halloween sock hop 39:44 dance in the gym and I requested dance 39:48 duty because I was young and could stand 39:50 rock and roll better than basketball so 39:51 I would always Sal do dances and the 39:53 older teachers would say good and so for 39:56 this one I hung back and I put on a 39:58 costume and I was dressed in such a way 40:01 that nothing none of me showed and I was 40:04 dressed in such shows dress as an alien 40:05 and so I didn't it didn't show gender 40:08 and I was thin and young then and not 40:10 too bumpy and so I had you know I based 40:13 it with you know something tight and 40:15 then put this loose stuff over it and I 40:17 went down to the gym and I thought this 40:19 would be fun it turned out not to be fun 40:21 for anyone and it was that day I learned 40:25 a lot that has helped me since the 40:27 principal didn't know how to act to me 40:29 the teachers did not act and the kids 40:31 did not act and I was trying to pull 40:33 people out to dance no one would dance 40:34 with me and it was interesting is I knew 40:37 these people very well and so for me to 40:39 look through I had a big helmet with 40:40 heavy plastic eyes they couldn't see me 40:44 and I could see them and every one of 40:47 them I could see it going through their 40:48 eyes do i outrank this person is this up 40:50 first not ranked me is this a male or a 40:53 female and they didn't know how to act 40:55 then one could recognize my wristwatch 40:58 so then they were fine now relax like 41:01 okay I know her she's goofy she dresses 41:03 like an alien we're fine now and so I 41:07 saw that with those kids with our 41:09 neighbor kids that day it's it's if they 41:12 would just state you know their their 41:15 rank I would know how to act it didn't 41:22 really faze me I just knew kids didn't 41:23 really yeah those kids were not 41:25 particularly social in my eyes because 41:28 they weren't interested in talking to me 41:30 and they weren't interested interest in 41:31 videogames so the boys invited them over 41:33 come over to look at our stuff we're 41:34 gonna play video games and not really 41:36 and so then there's like come over look 41:38 at our stuff swimming pool the 41:39 basketball and they're like okay that 41:41 was fun for a minute and so they just 41:43 weren't compatible with hobbies and 41:45 interests really oh and another question 41:47 that they asked him is who's your team 41:49 they were big football fans and they 41:52 didn't know the answer didn't even know 41:53 what sport they were talking about so 41:55 these kids thought my kids were a little 41:56 retarded because they didn't couldn't 41:58 answer who's your team and it just 42:01 didn't work out so I was always sad then 42:03 because they're those boys were right 42:05 there but they didn't like my boys and 42:06 my boys didn't want to invite them back 42:08 over munch there were a few forays and 42:11 attempts but within months within months 42:14 it was high as far as we got some 42:19 families wouldn't be willing to live 42:21 with that sort of sacrifice or 42:23 limitation that they that their kids 42:25 couldn't play with the neighbor kids 42:26 they would sacrifice the kids in a 42:28 different way and say we'll subject you 42:31 to all this schooling because then you 42:32 will be part of the great expansive herd 42:36 and then you'll have friends and you 42:38 know what they call having friends but I 42:41 was I was more concerned with them being 42:44 undamaged and learning then that they 42:48 that they followed the crowd the crowd 42:50 wasn't going to a very good place 42:52 not always 43:00 but I think I think children are only 43:02 there in the moment you can't guarantee 43:05 or even aim toward a future result there 43:12 was there's a famous story among 43:13 unschoolers among home schoolers years 43:15 ago about a family that had a chart and 43:17 the child's grandchild was young 6 or 8 43:19 and it led toward getting into Harvard 43:22 like in detail what you have to do this 43:24 year this year this year and without 43:28 regard to whether the kid wanted to but 43:30 when the result is so specific if the 43:32 child had gotten into Yale it would be a 43:34 failure if the parents are aiming for 43:37 the child to get a gold medal in the 43:39 Olympics and it's like you I'm sorry you 43:42 can't go out and play because the 43:44 Olympic chart says you need to practice 43:45 three hours a day what if they get a 43:47 silver medal what if they just change 43:48 sports or does they get a nobel prize 43:51 instead failure so I saw to set up the 43:54 world in such a way that there's one 43:56 pinpoint success and infinite failures 43:59 is damming your child to a life of 44:02 unhappiness even if they get the gold 44:03 medal even if they go to Harvard and do 44:06 exactly what you wanted them to do they 44:08 lost because you won and I think that's 44:12 a terrible thing to do to a child is to 44:14 say I I've lived my life and didn't like 44:17 the way it went so now I've reproduced 44:19 and you will live the life I wanted 44:26 when I first started I didn't have any 44:29 adults to see there was there were no 44:31 examples of grown unschoolers or home 44:34 schoolers really that I had seen and 44:38 they're grown without schooling families 44:40 mostly involved either young families 44:42 that had that had their children were 44:44 still young or families that took the 44:46 child out so my three children are one 44:50 of the only sets I know of who didn't go 44:53 to school and are now grown so I'm glad 44:56 to share them with people who would like 44:59 to see that you know will they will they 45:01 be okay well they grow up healthy and 45:04 communicative and what about 45:07 socialization and and that so it is it 45:11 is nice now that people have the 45:13 opportunity not just my kids this whole 45:15 conference is filled with kids who have 45:17 been unschooled always or homeschool 45:20 always it helps to have examples around 45:23 but parents can't live by those examples 45:25 always when they first start you may 45:27 have some families that you actually 45:29 know and trust as I did and I knew I 45:31 knew these families and I knew the kids 45:33 weren't faking that affection for their 45:35 parents those unschooling families but 45:38 once your own child starts to grow and 45:40 change then the confidence isn't 45:41 external it's not I believe this will 45:44 happen because I've seen it happen 45:44 elsewhere it's I believe it has it's 45:46 happening because it's happening you 45:48 can't deny that I know my child learned 45:51 this without school and so the the 45:54 confidence that those families then have 45:57 uses out to other families and this is 46:00 an advantage of those many years passing 46:02 is there's a lot of experience a lot of 46:05 examples to see it's kind of scary being 46:08 one of those examples actually in the 46:09 the TV and video game panel yesterday 46:11 after we were finished I had to rush out 46:13 afterwards but I was thinking about all 46:15 of the all the negative sides I was like 46:17 oh I should have said this or I 46:18 shouldn't have said that and oh I bet 46:20 they took this this way and it's all 46:21 terrible and oh man I sure hope I didn't 46:23 screw that up and then and then just 46:25 today people were telling me they're 46:26 like yeah that's exactly what I wanted 46:28 to hear that was good so it's it's 46:30 relieving to hear that because they're 46:33 like I'm the example and oh my god I 46:35 could really turn this around poorly for 46:37 everybody Oh 46:39 three pieces of paper here what if I 46:41 don't say everything 46:46 [Music] 46:52 I don't like arbitrary structure I don't 46:54 think structure for the sake of 46:56 structures is worth having or doing 47:00 people say things like people saying 47:02 people say if you don't make your kids 47:04 get up they'll never be able to have a 47:05 job how would they have a job Marty my 47:08 middle kid from the time he was 16 all 47:11 through his 17th year worked at a 47:12 grocery store 47:13 many long stories but but as far as time 47:16 goes his hours were 6:30 in the morning 47:18 to 3:00 in the afternoon he was late 47:21 once by about one minute we were walking 47:23 distance from the place he would get up 47:25 an hour early he had his little routine 47:26 when I woke up I could tell what time it 47:28 was if Marty already has his food or if 47:30 he's watching the news and the weather 47:32 he's that kind of guy so on his own he 47:36 had a serious structure I had nothing to 47:37 do with it we bought our kids alarm 47:39 clocks and if they needed to get up 47:40 they'd set their alarms and that's how 47:41 it was but Kirby if Marty hmm 47:45 Marty was able to do 6:30 in the morning 47:47 job if Kirby had prepared himself for 47:49 6:30 in the morning job he's never had 47:51 one business he's well gaming stores and 47:56 pizza joints don't open that early so 47:59 what's your schedule now - two in the 48:02 air 5:00 p.m. to 2:00 in the morning so 48:05 yes he has prepared himself for that 48:07 schedule his whole life that might 48:10 actually change person I might be doing 48:11 7 a.m. and I'm dreading every every 48:13 first job he had it was 8:00 in the 48:15 morning till noon running the Pokemon 48:16 League at the gaming store on Saturdays 48:18 and how often was I late I drove you so 48:22 you were never late yeah but how often 48:23 were you kicking my butt out the door 48:25 that didn't count 48:26 [Laughter] 48:30 personnel another thing Kirby did was 48:33 for a while was he woke up at 6 or 6:30 48:36 to record Ninja Turtles when you we were 48:39 at the new house seemed us been 12 or 13 48:41 so he was set his alarm got up set the 48:44 tape sometimes he stayed up to take the 48:48 commercials out and sometimes he went 48:49 back to bed but then he would mark the 48:52 tape see I still have those tapes 48:53 they're all marked in there you know and 48:56 his little kid writing of all the Ninja 48:57 Turtle cartoons I wouldn't stand for it 49:02 I should remember I had to set my alarm 49:08 clock on the other side of the room so I 49:09 wouldn't just hit snooze I had to get up 49:12 get across the room look back be like oh 49:13 the bed so far I hate so it was stress 49:15 sure but it wasn't parentally imposed 49:17 structure so I think it goes back to all 49:19 the unschooling they don't need to 49:21 practice to learn they they figured out 49:24 they figure out how to wake up by 49:26 putting the alarm clock across the room 49:27 to I got to do something they want to do 49:29 and when it's their ID and self 49:32 regulation you know what's wrong with 49:33 self-regulation it's regulation and and 49:37 regulate its terminology that it that 49:40 exposes what you think that what you 49:42 didn't think you were thinking people 49:44 talk about self control and self 49:45 regulation it's like I don't think 49:47 anyone needs to control or regulate them 49:49 not even themselves it's choices so if 49:52 he chose if any any day he could have 49:55 chosen not to set that alarm and not to 49:57 record that show so every day was a new 49:59 choice every day he could have chosen to 50:01 hit the alarm and get back in the bed 50:03 and not record it so as a series of 50:04 choices not the regulation need to make 50:07 rules for himself and he didn't control 50:10 himself he just made choices cause and 50:12 effect 50:12 every time I I needed this to happen so 50:15 I well yea you prefer to choose to 50:17 record it yeah I'm willing to quit I'm 50:24 willing to keep on going 50:27 [Laughter] 50:38 you
