choices

Photo and quote by Heidi of Mt. Hope Chronicles. Heidi is a homeschooling mama of three boys living in the beautiful Oregon countryside -- striving always to instill a love of learning (and reading) in her children.

"When learning happens 'on their own turf', when children have some control over what subjects they study, when there is time to really ask questions and discuss issues, when they are allowed input on where they study/how their daily schedule is arranged/how much time they need for specific subjects, when a love of learning has been developed, when education happens as a constant part of life...I believe children will have a greater feeling of ownership of their education. It is more personal and internalized. They are more likely to spend the rest of their life learning, instead of regarding education as something that happened to them for 12 (or more) years of their childhood."

"As adults we choose our own reading material. Depending on our moods and needs we might read the newspaper, a blockbuster novel, an academic article, a women's magazine, a comic, a children's book, or the latest book that just about everyone is reading. No one chastises us for our choice. No one says, 'That's too short for you to read.' No one says, 'That's too easy for you, put it back.' No one says 'You couldn't read that if you tried -- it's much too difficult.'

Yet if we take a peek into classrooms, libraries, and bookshops we will notice that children's choices are often mocked, censured, and denied as valid by idiotic, interfering teachers, librarians, and parents. Choice is a personal matter that changes with experience, changes with mood, and changes with need. We should let it be."

-Quote by Mem Fox from Radical Reflections -- Passionate Opinions On Teaching, Learning, And Living.

Hi Friends -- September has been busy, busy, busy! I'll be back in this space very soon..

a homeschool recipe

Thank you to Misha of Beauty And Joy for sharing a homeschool recipe this week. Misha is a homeschooling mama of two, who is writing and cherishing every bit of every day with her family in Washington.

Misha's Recipe

My Homeschooling Recipe: Enjoyment: My Three Main Ingredients 

My name is Misha, I am thirty-seven years old and I have a six year old boy and a seven year old girl. Although this Fall will be our first attempt at “formal” homeschooling (is there such a thing?) I have been teaching my kids since I started reading and talking to them in the womb over eight years ago. I have found that what I teach my kids has less to do with what we do together and more to do with who I am as their Mama. That’s been hard to face. It’s easier to teach than be. So although we love books and polka dot umbrella walks and dancing during dinner time, my greatest work is on trying to embrace life and enjoyment and friends in such a way that it will colour their days with joy and allow them to do the same.

~ running ~

I don’t run to change my body (although I don’t mind those side benefits!), I run to say yes.

Yes to enjoyment. Yes to focus. Yes to life. Yes to being engaged. Yes to beauty. Yes to joy. Yes to laying aside stress and worries, frustrations and impatience and all of life’s imperfections.

I run to remember who I am amidst the whirlwind tasks of raising, training, feeding, helping, growing, motivating, loving and teaching children. I breathe in and out and give my body, mind and spirit all a chance to catch up, get in sync and focus on who I really am underneath it all. Who I am is more important than what I do. Who I am is way more influential than what I teach. And it’s my job to nurture that, so they are nurtured, too. 

~ writing ~

If running creates space to remind me of who I am, than writing is taking time to express who I am. To chronicle, create and think gives me a way to name what I am doing, to identify what I am choosing and separate it from myself and enjoy it or release it for what it is.

I blog. I hope to write a novel (or more). I make lists and I journal. I write letters and cards. It’s record keeping and reflecting and relational, yes, but most of all, again, it’s a context for choice. Something I feel I have to be intentional about, or life is full of too many tugs and pulls to knock me down, swallow me up and I loose myself.

~ treasuring my children ~

I run in the mornings (on my good days) and write in the evenings (when our schedule is in full swing) but my days and my hours belong to those I treasure.

I love lists, and I could write endless ones, of all I have learned about intentionally teaching my children and all I have learned from them about being taught – but (at risk of sounding sentimental) I think it all comes down to love.

If we love ourselves, if we know we are loved, if we are doing what we love, than we have an overflow of that to give to those we cherish most.

Letting go, consistency, sensitivity – those will always form the outline of my humanity, I imagine. But if I bookend my days doing what I love to do, what I most want my children to do themselves – pursue life! – then maybe, just maybe, it will be infectious. And that will be what I give them.

When we know we are loved and treasured, there is no limit to how beautiful life is. No limit to the options of what we can choose to enjoy and learn about. This isn’t idealism on my part. It’s hard fought and hard won. But when we give away that love then we are raising not just our own beautiful children, but beautifying our communities, too. 

a garden mind

"A garden teaches a child about the delicate balance between living and surviving, through a hands-on relationship with another living organism. It teaches the child about the consequences of negligence. It provides a living laboratory where life's lessons are experienced and learned. It is a step toward understanding an educational process that most of the agrarian world practices on a daily basis. The forgotten lessons that a garden provides can set the stage for new paradigms in teaching.."

-A.G. Kawamura from The School In Every Garden

(Photo by Una Juniper)

"If you have ever sown a seed or transplanted a plant you have acted as surrogates for the plants. We make ourselves sensitive to their struggles, we amend, we water. We bear witness to the flowering and the birth of brilliant illuminated green geometries of wonder. We also watch it all wither and fade to compost. Time means different things for different people. When it unfolds as a rhythmic, dynamic, and creative transfiguration of energy into living matter, then we can begin to see how powerful raising our own food can be."

- Quote by Gardenmama -- Unschooling mama of three, who tries "to be mindful of honoring my children's independence and their leadings when it comes to life and learning."

own it

(Photo by Helen) 

"It is not up to teachers or school administrators to figure out what you should be or do. It’s not up to the State, it’s not up to your guidance counselors. It’s not up to your parents. What you do with your life ought to be up to you. What you learn ought to be up to you.  How you navigate the world and create your place in it ought to be your decision. Your life belongs to you.  School does its best to disabuse you of this notion. Unschooling celebrates it. Unschooling puts the responsibility for creating a satisfying life squarely where it belongs: in the hands of the one living it."

-PS Pirro of Crooked Mile from 101 Reasons Why I'm An Unschooler. Ms. Pirro is writing, unschooling her 13 year old daughter and living an artful life in Southern Indiana.