Unschooling

Couchsurfed with an unschooling family of two tween-aged boys. They were sooooooooo polite, gracious, good with the kids, helpful around the house without being asked, set the table, made pancakes in the morning, cleaned up the kids' mess, helped carry our luggage - then spent their free time reading or working on their robotics stuff. Told us about living on a sailboat for three years, doing roadtrips around the country, going to museums, taking art classes and music lessons and culture lectures, can't wait to travel to Europe again, volunteer in the community maintaining the trails, etc. Was so awesome to meet a "real live unschooling family" and see how well its working for them.

I don't think I'll be able to do 100% willy-nilly unschooling - I need some kind of structure in my life. Even if its just a weekly checklist - did something related to math, science, history, arts/culture, language, etc. Will definitely do lots of museums and roadtrips, "projects" or "reports", reading, "internships", etc.

So exciting!

Unschooling Homestead Commune Locale - NW

Summary of the NW roadtrip...

WASHINGTON
Nixed Twisp/Omak/Okanogan - too small, dumpy, white-trashy.
Winthrop would be fun with the cute Western theme, located right at the eastern mouth of the North Cascades, but it seems expensive and there's not a decent sized ski resort or hospital nearby.

Lake Chelan - decent size hospital, nice enough town in terms of appearance, huge 50-mile lake for recreating, only a 2-tow-rope ski hill, expensive lake-side properties but reasonably priced in the hills.

Wenatchee - didn't get to see the town, but heard there's a big hospital and a decent sized ski resort with relatively inexpensive season passes, and presumably decent mountainbiking, on a wide river good for recreating, don't know about property prices, kind of in the middle of nowhere (long drive to Seattle or Portland).

Bellingham - also didn't get to see this place but it was recommended by two people after they heard our plan - college town, close to the border (aka skiing at Whistler) and the coast (aka beach and SJIslands) and the North Cascades (aka hiking, camping, etc)

OREGON - no income tax and the most lenient homeschooling regulations in the country!

Hood River Valley- (my top pick!) - 1/2way between Hood River and Mt Hood - 20 miles from the Columbia River Gorge, 20 miles from all the camping/backpacking/hiking/skiing/mountainbiking around Mt Hood, access to all the awesome waterfall hikes along the Gorge, and 1 hour from Portland; awesome outdoorsy atmosphere, huge properties with endless orchards, nice newly renovated hospital, very few chain stores, etc. Mt Hood ski pass $499.

Bend - Not that impressed - too much sprawl, not enough character, and in the middle of nowhere (3hrs from Portland!) - plenty of recreation options, however, on Mt Bachelor and the lakes

Sisters - strict housing laws (only one per property), but a cute western-style downtown, access to two ski resorts, less commercialized than Bend

The New Global Student

Good book though it spent too much time trying to convince me why its a good strategy - just preaching to the choir. General recommendation, assuming we don't care if our kids don't go to an Ivy League school - take community college classes ASAP, graduate early, study/travel abroad for a year or two, then apply to colleges without having to submit a high school GPA, SAT or ACT score, with a more unique "personal statement", fluency in another language, and a more mature world perspective.

Unschooling Handbook: Book Club Discussion

I really love this idea of unschooling. Of course, it makes the whole homeschool co-op thing less feasible. I still think we should work something out where we share the responsibility of teaching sometimes, just so that we moms can get an occasional break! Maybe weekly field trips where only half the moms go, and the other half get to stay home and take a long bubble bath:)
Also, I think it would be good to create a database of skills, so if someone's kid is really into learning about microfinance, or building a table, or ancient civilizations, or creating a stock portfolio or WHATEVER then we know who to go to. And we could definitely swap things like that, like just have it be an open agreement where we'll teach each other's kids things that are in our areas of expertise.
And what I keep thinking about with this unschooling this is that basically you're just preparing them for life. Regular school prepares them for tests, prepares them for more school, but it doesn't necessarily prepare them for life. So, we have the chance to really show our kids how all that "school stuff" actually relates to the real world and they can learn it in context. Which makes me think that I'd like to make visiting places of employment, shadowing professionals, doing mini-internships, interviewing people, lots of volunteering etc. a big part of my kids education. What better way to help them see the relevancy of statistics and economics that have them spend a week shadowing or doing a mini-internship at a non-profit?
As for record-keeping, I'm kind of an organizational geek, so I definitely want to keep records for my own kids. And what better way than.... a BLOG! My favorite:) When the kids get older I think they should just blog what they're doing and that will serve as a great record and reminder later when they want to put together a more formal portfolio. I'd also like to have each kid do an end-of-year (or season or 6 months or whatever time period they decide on) portfolio project and presentation. It could take any form really, but would show what they had learned and accomplished and would be something concrete.
I'm only about halfway through the book, but I'm sure I'll have more thoughts before I finish it. What are you thinking so far?

Commune Idea

So, I'm trying to think of how all of us commune mamas could make a little $$ on the commune...
How about I become a midwife and the rest could be doulas, and we could have a little midwife/doula practice? Or.... we could become yoga instructors with a studio on the commune property, or do guided hikes (I need/want to learn what all the flora/fauna/fowl of the area are!). Or we could have a raw/organic store where we sell the excess of what we grow, and also have big barrels full of raw wheat and seeds and dried fruits and pastas and nuts and everyone has to bring their own container/bag and pay by weight. We could sell little blankets or crocheted stuff you make, too. And we could let people come visit/experience the commune for a small fee.......

The Unschooling Handbook

Christi's already reading this, so I'm joining her. I also picked up John Holt's Teach Your Own; I heard he's good. If anyone else wants to join in and read these so we can all swap ideas and impressions, jump right in!

Welcome Chris and Carlie!

I added Chris and Carlie as authors to the blog so they can add their brilliant ideas to the mix.


PS And they're getting married in less than a month; hooray!