Ignoring 101

I haven't been avoiding my 101 things in 1001 days list. I'm ignoring it. Two very different things.

And I'm ignoring it because, well, to be frank, I think this list may be counter productive for me. After all.

For example, my literature-related goals. I would have read all the ones I wanted to read anyway. I don't need to list them. And, there are many books that I've been reading (such as the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Book of Negroes) that aren't on my list and thus, don't count.

Regarding my writing goals, well, I want to have writing goals and I do like the ones I set up. But I'd rather have a bit of play with them and not have them so public. I think writing goals should be private. My journal is a great place to put those types of goals.

I would like to dive into my family history stuff and I will. Now that it's March. I still have to clean my office, though, and nothing productive will happen until I get that done. Oy vey.

The family trips and events are great goals. I really like them and I want to print them off and put them in my schedule book (where I write down things like Cirque du Soleil so that we don't end up forgetting that we have tickets... like last time). We are already doing a great job at whittling down our list and, once again, we have some things planned for this year that didn't make it on the list. I'd like to feel I had a bit more flexibility and a lot less black and white.

Home and Garden. Yes. Home and Garden. Great goals. Certainly need to be done. I'm actually managing to make bread once a week. And I'm sorting out how I want to keep up on housework and laundry. So, I'll put this list in our household "to do" list (as Grimus has lots to add) and then we can chip away at it. I do want to make as many Christmas gifts as possible for next Christmas but my current knitting works-in-progress are going a little more slowly than I thought (I was pretty much out of commission for 3 weeks before, during, and after the Olympics). It's a lovely thought but nothing I want to stress out about... especially in March.

I'm running. Well, I haven't been for a couple of weeks (Olympics, again). But I am running and progressing. I'll be joining the 5K group when the running clinics start up again in April.

The rest of my goals are all worthy and I really like having them written down.

But, truth be told, I don't need them. As much as they inspire me, they also confine me.

I didn't know that's how I would feel about it when I first made my list, but it is how I feel about it. I want to move away from being so specific and "planny-faced" to being kind to myself about my fabulous life. It's a trend.



Meet 12 Fun and Fabulous Principles for Living My Life:

1. Spend more time doing and less time planning.

2. Enjoy living playfully with and loving my child.

3. Say yes more often.

4. Create beautiful things with my hands whenever possible.

5. Sleep as much as I want to.

6. When I want to write, write.

7. Run and stretch and enjoy being in a body.

8. Make music - sing and play!

9. Feather my nest with things that bring me pleasure.

10. Go on as many adventures as possible.

11. Spend lots of time outside.

12. Delight in food and lovely beverages.

I think that sounds very light, fun, and delicious. It sounds like a life I want. Yummy.

More Little Big Planet

I raved about Little Big Planet in a post written in January, 2009.

Grimus and The Grig have been exploring making their own levels for several months now. The Grig loves dragons and was so thrilled with his own creation that he finished today.



I'm pretty thrilled, too. Personally, I think it's the cutest dragon ever.

Unschooling Math - Part II

Peter Gray is my new hero. He writes a blog for Psychology Today titled Freedom to Learn. I love it! It's been extremely inspirational to me as I've been doing all the deep thinking I've needed to do about where we are headed in our learn-at-home lives.

At the beginning of January, Peter sent out a call for stories about self-directed learning. He posted his first article about reading on February 24. In the comments, a few people mentioned that they would love to read a similar article about math. Peter mentioned that he hadn't had a big response about math and since it was on my mind, I thought I would put some of my thoughts down and share them with him.

The topic of "unschooling math" is really up for me right now. It's the one thing that we haven't been "unschooling" at home (until very recently) for a variety of reasons that I’ll share with you here.

I've been involved in alternate ed (self-directed learning, home-based learning) on and off since the early 90's and I've watched math learning with keen interest. My shelves are filled with tons of excellent math resources (most of which I’ve heard about through Julie Brennan’s fabulous Living Math website) as I’ve tried to figure out the best way to support my 9-year-old son’s math learning without coercion.

Everything was going swimmingly until we got past the “explore the cool hands-on stuff around the house” phase. I’m very good at “strewing” (a Sandra Dodd term) so there was a lot to explore and learn from. My son is brilliant at spatial relationships, so I know he has an innate mathematical approach to life. When it came to conventional numerical fluency, though, I could see that a methodical approach might be helpful.

With my son’s apparent agreement, we succumbed to using a packaged program (with a video component) for the past year and a half but have very recently released ourselves from it. My son liked the program for the longest time because he could watch the video and then go do the math himself. It freed us both from the dynamic of teaching/correcting (which he takes quite personally). And he felt successful as understanding came quickly and easily to him (and made other areas of his life, such as game play, quite effortless).

And then it happened. Both my son and I lost our enthusiasm. He was bored. I didn’t like the way things were going in the material… repetition, repetition, and more repetition. So after much internal writhing, I prised my white knuckled hands from the crutch of packaged, predictable, lock/step curriculum and told my son that I was done with my part in making that happen. He can continue if he wants to, but so far, without parental pestering, he’s not shown a lot of drive or initiative to do that. And even if he wants to learn certain concepts, I’ll be willing to show him on a “by request” basis rather than subject both of us to pages and pages of practice and review.

But I couldn’t let go of the math program until I decided to let go of my expectations about what math learning looked like for my son… not just now but in the future as well. And that means I’ve had to adjust some of my expectations about what his life will look like.

I suspect that the reason you haven't heard many stories about self-directed math learning is because much of the math that children learn via school-based curricula is simply not needed in order to live a rewarding life. It's much harder to get along without reading in our society - and, unlike math, reading is a process that once you understand how to do it (even if that understanding is unconscious), then it's natural for complexity to increase without a lot of effort on the learner’s part. It's not a parallel process for learning math – algorithms, that is. Or algebra, trig, calculus, stats, etc. Basic numeracy can be approached in a similar way to reading (natural discovery and sense-making) but there is no way to increase the complexity of conventional math understanding through a natural progression alone - we simply aren’t exposed to it every day (unlike print or language).

In addition, reading is based on a skill we have already mastered – spoken language. The reading process involves finding meaning in printed text by associating symbols with the meaning-filled sounds we already know. Math is a language unto itself and is very conceptual in nature. We use only the very basic concepts in our daily lives with children and this is where things can unfold naturally as we automatically insert numerical convention into our conversations and interactions with kids. For anything beyond “common sense” math, I strongly suspect that a child will need to have some true desire and intention to learn it (and that context is everything).

And although I know it is entirely possible for autodidactic children to decide to learn the conventional language of math and to do so with success, I don’t know that we ought to expect that they will want to. Not because they are turned off “math” but because it’s not necessarily useful to them in anyway nor do they see the applications of math clearly in the world around them (although it is present, it’s not always obvious).

I do think that there are societal prejudices against learning math but I believe that those negative attitudes are grounded in how we all feel about learning math via dry, repetitive, confusing, and boring math textbooks.

When home-learning kids decide to “learn math”, a well-intentioned adult (like me) will often buy a math program for that child because they don’t know what else to do to support their child's interests. Even folks who consider themselves “unschoolers” fall into this pattern, as it’s simply the most direct way for kids to cover the concepts.

I’ve reviewed so many math programs over the past few years and they all have one thing in common: they fail to show the beauty of math. They rely on repetition to teach concepts and drill to reinforce them. And many home-learning kids switch math programs almost as often as they change their clothes… because when they start to drag their feet about a program, the parent, in desperation, decides to try something new.

I could see this happening for our family. Around Christmas, I started to feel a mad panic that I needed to find a different, more motivating, more interesting math program for my son. Fortunately, I began to question why it was that I needed a math program at all. And that led me to question why we felt it was so important for my son to approach math conventionally when we were so relaxed about everything else.

It came down to university and keeping options open.

I have known unschooled kids who have tried to pick up high school math (using distance ed courses when they’ve never approached it formally before) and panicked and floundered. And I have known unschooled kids who picked up math quickly and efficiently when they needed it, whether it was “everything” for university entrance or math specific to their own passions and interests. And I have known unschooled kids who simply never needed it (beyond what they could put together on their own). They are not numerically illiterate – at all. They simply never needed to explore complex, conventional mathematics in order to do what they need to do in their lives. I’m not sure I was fully accepting of that until recently.

So, for me, my decision to 100% unschool (including math) centered on the university question. Do I really think that my child can only be “all he can be” by going to university? Or can he achieve his life goals in a different way? With all the information now at our fingertips, will “higher” education change drastically in the coming years, making degrees less important as one becomes an expert in one’s field?

I’m still thinking all this through (as I personally loved attending University), but I feel relaxed enough now to trust that my son will learn what he needs to in order to meet his own, personal goals – and he’ll do it in the way that will work best for him. And that will include math - but only if he chooses it.

Letting go of math curriculum (and expectations) has been a huge weight off of my mind. For so many years, I had a split home-learning personality: “we unschool… except for math”. I was all about following and supporting my son’s interests and unique learning pathway. And I was all tied up in knots about math and felt I had to strongly encourage (coerce?) my son to adopt a traditional approach to learning it.

I’m happy to be past that. I’m committed to keeping my struggles about in internal and to do the work I need to do so that he can be free to learn in the way he needs and wants to.

Peter was kind enough to both read my ramblings and to respond:

Thank you for this very, very thoughtful email. It will certainly help me in putting together an essay on math for Freedom to Learn. I think you have put your finger on the real issue with math, which is that beyond the kind of survival math that we all learn in everyday life most of us don't really need math. My experience is that people who need math in their careers learn it in relation to their careers, not abstractly. At Sudbury Valley, at least, kids who decide they want to go to a competitive college and therefore need to do well on the SATs seem to have relatively little difficulty learning math just for that purpose--with a little help from a staff member. But I think you are right that, as far as parents are concerned, a decision to "unschool" or enroll a kid in a Sudbury School is tantamount to saying--"It is OK if he/she doesn't go to college; I can live with that; it's his/her decision, not mine." Kids who decide that they really want to go to a competitive college, so they need to do well on the SAT, will take the trouble to learn the requisite math. If they don't, then that means they really don't care that much about going to such a college, and we have to be OK with that. This is going to be a fun essay to do, and I greatly appreciate your contribution to it.

And I'm certainly looking forward to reading Peter's thoughts once he puts together his article.

Unschooling Math - Part I

I've never been big on "labels" for what we do with respect to living and learning. I have preferred to think of ourselves as "self-propelled" learners rather than unschoolers or even "self-directed" learners. I see labels as potentially divisive in the home learning community and I'm not big on drawing lines in the sand as I respect that all parents do what they feel is best for their children and their families.

I have to confess, though, that much of the reason for my non-committal ways is that I've always wanted to leave loop-holes for myself so that when I had any sort of parental gut-clench about letting my child have this much freedom in his learning (that is, maybe he'd "miss" something important), I could simply introduce some sort of semi-coercive measure to soothe my thoughts/feelings rather than really think through them. To be fair to myself, I really didn't have any time or energy to think.

I do now.

My son, although he is "only" 9 and still quite dependent, has an intense need for autonomy in his daily actions. He reasons about the "fairness" of life like a much older person... like a teenager, really. And, if I'm to be realistic, adolescence is looming on the horizon of our life together and I'd rather have things sorted out sooner than later in the trust and autonomy department.

Because, for me, it does come down to trust. I'm very realistic about what kids learn (or usually, don't learn) in school. I went to school. I taught in schools. I've seen that children learn best when given the opportunity to explore and interact freely and to make their own meaning from what they choose to be engaged with. "Teaching" is a myth. We can offer information to people but until they take hold of it and make it their own, nothing comes of it. And there are so many ways to present information... and I find that the methods used in most classes and packaged curriculum are generally uninspired. And uninspiring.

So, after much thought and many conversations, we have decided to let go of all the external requirements completely.

I'm not expecting it to be easy. In our culture of "hot house" children, I will need to be content to let my child grow and blossom naturally in his corner of the garden.

But it's a very big garden. I see my role, as his parent, is to make it the biggest garden possible so that he can live the biggest life possible.

It's about opening up the world. As John Holt wrote:

Birds fly, fish swim, man thinks and learns. Therefore, we do not need to “motivate” children into learning, by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do, and all we need to do is bring as much of the world as we can into [their lives]; give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for; listen respectfully when they feel like talking; and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest.

It's all very exciting.

Olympic Episode #9: I Was Here... No, Really

Or "My husband's camera actually works."

Olympic Episode #8: With Glowing Hearts

As all good things must come to an end...






My second cousin-in-law (once or twice removed), Catriona Le May Doan:





Athletes and flags:



Russia:



Maple Leaf Forever (oh, yeah, Michael Bublé):





And we got to take these home...



But the best part of the evening was pre-show when they showed the last few minutes of the Men's Gold Hockey Game and then the medal presentation. Everyone in BC Place stood and sang the national anthem. It was an incredible moment (I even got a bit weepy).

O, Canada. What a grand time we all had.

Olympic Episode #7: Not Men's Hockey

We tried to get Men's Gold Medal Hockey tickets a couple of times (in the official way). But once people started selling them for ridiculous amounts of money, we stepped out of the fray.

Instead we:

Went to the Planetarium.



Watched the heart-breaking last 2 minutes of the third period inside the Hudson's Bay Company store downtown (lots of big screen TVs in the Olympic Store section).

Headed out on the streets to take pictures (to try to make ourselves feel better).






Walked quickly by Robson Square (insanity!).

Walked along Robson Street toward BC Place.

Heard "Looooouuuuuu" twice loudly from all the open windows.

Heard the collective screams of joy and jubilation when Crosby scored the winning goal in overtime. It was like being in the stadium, even though we were walking down a street.

Saw everyone on the streets jumping up and down and hugging each other... even the cops!

Whooped, hollered, and screamed, too.

Olympic Episode #6: Braving the Crowds

We decided that we needed to grab our courage, gird our, er, loins, and brave the miasma of humanity festering outside of the Olympic Cauldron.



There were so many people, it was insane. We didn't even bother to try to get up close and personal to the chain-link fence that surrounds the cauldron.

But we did snag this lovely picture of the foyer of the very lovely International Broadcast Centre.



And we also were able to indulge in a little Starbucks to fortify us for the return journey through the masses.



Unfortunately, although Grimus's camera works, he hasn't read the manual yet.

Olympic Episode #5: Speedskating

We were fortunate to have tickets to see the Canadian men win the gold medal for Team Pursuit.



Canadian women's team (not competing for a medal):







"Our" men:









They were pure awesomeness.

Olympic Episode #4: Aquarium & Stanley Park

We have an aquarium membership so I'm glad we were able to use it (so it could pay for itself). I love the Vancouver Aquarium.





Rescued dolphins...





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