So...I watched Surfwise: The Conclusion (by Mary Alice)
Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 10:13PM MRS. G Now, to the question of being the product of home education:
I was allowed time. I can say that has both good and bad points. In being allowed time to learn and explore subjects as deeply (or as shallowly) for as long as I wanted, I was able to learn many things at a depth most people never get to. I was able to follow my own interests and I learned for the love it, because I was truly interested. I know how to learn on my own without someone lecturing and laying it all out for me. I can research and follow leads, I am self directed.
Conversely, I was never forced to learn what I did not have a natural interest in. You can not just work out the right side of your body. You have to balance your weight lifting...you know what I mean? A parent that doesn’t make sure their children gets a balanced education or a balanced diet is doing their children a disservice. Of course a kid would rather eat a cookie than their vegetables. And they would probably rather read something they are interested in, than to sit down and do their long division.....unless of course they are weird like my Little Red and llllloooovvve long division! (She does it in her head, to pass the time while running)
The bad in allowing unscheduled time...all the time... is that in “real life” you don’t have the luxury of unscheduled time. In college (and in work life) you have deadlines and time constrains imposed upon you. I get stressed more easily than others, because I never developed the ability to learn something quickly, summarize and move on. Too many deadlines, too many time constraints and I feel overwhelmed and don’t feel like I am turning out a good product. I have perfect grades in my college classes, so I must be turning out a good product, but I always feel a little dissatisfied...like if I had more time, I could have done better...my products, under time constraints, are not up to my own self imposed standards.
In being homeschooled I didn’t experience the social aspects of school. That also has good and bad aspects. Peer pressure can be so difficult. Kids can be downright nasty to one another. But on the flipside, in going through those things you learn to deal with a multitude of personalities and issues that just never crop up for a homeschooler. Having an elementary school teacher you didn’t particularly like, helped you prepare to deal with the boss you didn’t particularly like as an adult. Learning to deal with another snarky eighth grader, prepares you to deal with a snarky coworker.
It would be great if we could live in some utopian world where everyone is a perfect personality match and a lovely caring kind person... ...but that isn’t reality. We will always encounter difficult people and we have to learn coping skills to work effectively together. I think public schools can still do a tremendous amount to facilitate this type of thing...they are not doing a bang up job of teaching respect and coping to all students, but being a part of it gives you practical life skills, even if not taught specifically, but simply experienced.
One thing that I would never change – is my close relationship with my family. Part of that closeness comes from our unique upbringing. We spent a lot of time together. Mucho grande time. So much so, that we did not really appreciate it all that much, way back when. I love being part of a large family. Love getting back together with them, the laughter, the shared jokes, the common memories....common problems. I love it all. Even when we disagree on things we do it with respect and love. That is greatest gift our parents gave us was one another and a deep abiding love and respect for family.
I think...we have managed to create that with our own children in spite of the fact that my children and I do not spend as much time together as I did with my own parents and siblings. We have allowed our children the space to follow their own interests...while still creating time to nurture those close familial relationships. It is all about doing things mindfully, with specific intention. Surfwise Episode 10: Superior State (fast forward to 15 sec to miss intro) (I am telling you...this is my family...only we drove a VW and lived in a house - albiet, certainly not a house like most people think of a house!)
Mary Alice had an unconventional up-bringing in anextraordinarily large bohemian California family that drove a VW micro-bus. As a kidshe dreamed of being a TV reporter with big hair and high heels, but instead findsherself a stay at home mom of three dramatic kids, married to a military man, moving to a new part of the country or world every three years, and driving, horror of horrors, a mini van. After a hard day, as a domestic engineershe likes to kick back, eat a small wheel of brie and contemplate God’s sense of humor. Read more of her work at From the Frontlines
Reader Comments (11)
Thanks for bringing Surfwise to my attention. It was quite an experience.
Ah yes, the old socialization debate. Although I sympathize with the problems caused by your parents affording you too much freedom while growing up, I have to take exception to your comments about homeschooling in general.
"Peer pressure can be so difficult. Kids can be downright nasty to one another. But on the flipside, in going through those things you learn to deal with a multitude of personalities and issues that just never crop up for a homeschooler. Having an elementary school teacher you didn’t particularly like, helped you prepare to deal with the boss you didn’t particularly like as an adult. Learning to deal with another snarky eighth grader, prepares you to deal with a snarky coworker."
Yours was a very unusual childhood apparently, but just because you were left to your own devices and believe that your current difficulties stem from that experience, doesn't allow you to paint all homeschoolers with the same brush!
Take my son for example: he is one of 6 children but the only one homeschooled. If one were to believe your statements, he is never exposed to the snarkiness of his 10 year-old sister, the condescending way of his 13 year-old brother, the indifference of his 15, 16 and 17 year-old brothers and sisters. I can assure you that those behaviors are not all learned in public school.... nature takes its course. Following your logic, I am the most lenient and agreeable teacher ever, he is never bullied nor pressured. My kids will have a good laugh when they read that.
Well, I'm here to tell you that my homeschooled child is well-versed in peer pressure and socialized (yes! even outside of our family... there are team sports, camps, co-ops, seminars, group field trips with kids of all hues and creeds, backgrounds and ages!). As a matter of fact, he even had a bad experience with a peer this week when his friend did not choose him to be part of the team in PE class because he wasn't "good enough" in softball. If that's not the real world, then I don't know what is. His friend? A homeschooler as well. PE class you say? A homeschool PE class at that.
He is well ahead of his grade level and when I decide that I can no longer be the best teacher for him, I may look at sending him to public school... or not. There are a myriad of different options and choices. Freedom of choice is important, is it not? Fear not, my chldren will be well-prepared to face a demanding, snarky and bitchy boss: they have me as a mother. The homeschooled child has me as a teacher on top of that. He gets a double whammy.
Of course, I'm talking about MY experience as a homeschooling parent, but I would submit to you that most of the homeschoolers that I know have similar experiences as my son. Not every parent is as disengaged as yours were. Not every child learns the same way. And homeschooled children are not unsocialized freaks who are ignorant because they are taught by so-called "unqualified" parents (not your words but common verbiage used by homeschooling foes). You want to see freaks, go hang out at your closest public middle-school, you're bound to run into one or two.
Wow - this series of posts has been fascinating. Thank you for sharing them!
Dear Frugal Mom,
I am sorry if you ended up feeling defensive about home schooling after reading my thoughts on having been raised in the manner that I was. My intention was not to paint anyone with a broad brush but to bring to light both the positives and negatives I personally have found in such an upbringing…. from the perspective of a now grown woman, mother of teenagers, who has both homeschooled her own children, had her children in public schools and worked in public education. This is not a perspective that many have.
I would not characterize my parents as “disengaged” They were very engaged, very loving, they worked diligently to bring to fruition the life philosophy that they had created. They lived what they believed and they believed they were doing what was best for their family.
And therein is the rub.
That is all any of us can do. From our life experiences we create a personal philosophy about how to live our lives and how best to raise our children. It is not until our children are grown and they have perspective on their upbringing, that they can report whether they feel it was helpful and good for them….and they in turn will decide from those experiences what they will keep from their upbringing, what they feel didn’t work well and they will create their own new philosophy for raising THEIR children. And so it goes. What we choose as adults for our child is what we feel is best. Who knows how it will end up?
I don’t know a single parent who, if you approached them and asked them how they were doing as parents would say, “Oh I am effing them up royally.” No. We all think we are doing the very best we can for our children. The majority of us have the very best intentions and we are doing the best we know how. All we can do is learn from our own experiences and be open to listening to the experiences of others.
I agree with you, the majority of homeschooled children are NOT unsocialized freaks. One thing that I will say, while pounding my fist loudly on the table, is that no one has the corner market on “freaks”. Not homeschoolers, not public schoolers, not private schoolers. From my perspective (having been homeschooled...having been homeschool teacher….having children now in public school…having worked in public education) is, many tend to be extremely self righteous in defense of either homeschooling or public schooling, whichever their personal philosophy is inline with. Many will characterize the other as having the “freaks” when in fact, no demographic has a higher percentage than another. Many of the unflattering ideas that one camp believes about the other are simply myths….devised to make their camp feel righeous about whatever it is they have chosen to do....and sets a poor example of tollerence for next generation.
Cheers -Mary Alice
All of this makes me think of something that has happened in my own family.
When tragedy occurred at Columbine High School, my 2 oldest children were 6 and 7 years old. We did not watch the news on TV, so they were not exposed to that particular nightmare. The details were not explained to them by their teachers when their school held blackout drills and "safety drills." A couple of years ago, there was a lock-down at boy #2's middle school. A letter went home to parents, explaining why (possible man with a gun in neighborhood following domestic dispute) so the 2 oldest boys & I discussed it. I mentioned that the security measures were because of what had happened at Columbine HS. The oldest said, "What is that, anyway? I've heard the name but no one ever explained it." So, I explained. The boys acted as though I had hid information from them, that I should have told their younger selves all about it. So, I explained what had also just happened (at that time) recently, when a gunman held Amish girls hostage in a school. Then I asked them if they were glad I had told them. "Not really," they answered sadly.
Parenting is a difficult road to travel. Sometimes we make decisions to protect our children that backfire on us at a later date. Whether that is to shield our little ones from horrific news brought to us daily on the television or choosing to live a simpler life, whether we choose to school them at home or send them to a classroom (I've done both), whether we let them play on their own or enroll them into activities -- all of these are choices that can have positive AND negative consequences.
We do the best we can. And we love them.
Wow. This has been such a learning experience, and I'd love to sit over a coffee with you one day and hear some of your life's stories.
Love your post Mary Alice! I love learning about your experiences and how you grew up. BTW, those of us who grew up with a normal sedan never were looking at you guys in the VW bus. We were also lusting after the stationwagon! (Just something I remember reading from one of your previous posts!)!
I may raise my eyebrows at "off the grid" living or unschooling and wonder really how that works, I can definitely be comfortable with the idea that it *does* work for a lot of people--just because it's something I wouldn't want to do and wouldn't be any good at, doesn't mean that it doesn't work.
My concern is when people choose lives that do go against the mainstream without considering whether their children will want to pursue life in that same manner. I think many of these people made radical choices against their own upbringing--shouldn't their children have the same opportunity for choice? As a teacher and a parent, I work every day to prepare my children and students for a world that is changing so rapidly that no one can possibly know what to expect. I think your parents erred when they didn't prepare to give you options...when they didn't take into account the idea that someday their children would want something different.
I think it's possible to adhere to your values and still do things that will keep options open for children.
I've enjoyed this glimpse into your childhood... and, as a radical unschooler, cringed at some of it! Here's what I think makes the biggest difference, no matter if you school, unschool, homeschool, preschool, whatever: How connected are you with your kids, and how willing are you to look honestly at your relationship with them, and if they are happy and thriving? And if things are not good, drop your ego long enough to change it. It's not about what philosophy you follow, it's about your child - are they happy? are they thriving? Do I need to change? I, personally, think it's a mistake to think the child needs to change, but that's what I believe, others would see that differently.
So in that Surfwise situation, if I was that parent, my kids could go to school if they chose, they could go to Wendy's and eat what they chose to, even if I didn't choose to. I can adhere to my values, because they're MY values, the kids have their own values that guide their choices and actions. I support their choices, they get equally valued input on our life.
They know that at some point they'll be expected to be able to divide and multiply, that's not information that I've kept from them. They can choose when it's important for them to learn it - or IF it's important - but they know that this is something most folks know. They don't live in a bubble of my making; they're in the world with all kinds of people and all kinds of experiences - nothing is taboo, in other words. And when the need to do that kind of math comes up, they'll have no doubts that they can learn it, because they haven't had the idea that you have to learn X by a certain age, or you're dumb or will never learn it, drilled into their minds.
I'm guessing you didn't feel able to tell your parents: I want to be normal. I want to ride in a station wagon. Or you didn't trust if you did tell them that they'd take you seriously. That's something EVERY parent could benefit from: listening to their kids, honoring their desires.
I appreciate the clarity that you sharing your upbringing (and the Surfwise family, too) has brought to what we do. We do not live a conventional life, but if my kids wanted to (they haven't been hidden from conventional lives in any way), we'd find a way to make it happen.
I stumbled upon your post the other day, Mary Alice, and it sparked some interesting discussions in our (Radical Unschooling) family. My daughter, unschooled since age 12, is a 22yo K-through-8 art teacher, and therefor, has seen school from the perspectives of a student, an unschooler, and a teacher. She smiled when I read her parts of your posts here. She said that you seemed to feel that school and a traditional path made life easier, and if that was so, then why did most people who struggle in life go to school? It reminded us of the quote "It's no measure of good health to well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Krishnamurti
What Dharmamama says is true for us, and for the unschoolering families we know: It's about connecting with your children, and partnering with them to get what they want. To our family, unschooling is like stoking and tending a fire. Not walking off and letting the fire burn or not, whatever. :)
This is from Joyce Fetterol's (Radical Unschooling mom) site:
"Standard thought is that school prepares kids for life. But how many kids is that true for? We want to believe it's true. We focus on the kids who appear to be models of success. We find ways of explaining the failures of school -- and point to causes other than school like unmotivated kids and uncaring parents and bad environment that school can't compensate for.
But in general -- not in every case, but in general -- people find success to be an elusive goal and the happiness that was promised with it never quite there.
If pursuing the American Dream led to happiness, then everyone who set out on the path to pursue it would be happy. But they aren't. And some people who reject the American Dream are happy.
Since pursuing the American Dream isn't a guarantee and some people find happiness without pursuing the American Dream, there's some other factor involved.
That other factor is what unschooling is about. It dispenses with the false hopes dangled by the American Dream and focuses on joy being the goal."
http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/unschooling/willtheygetintocollege.html
Anyway, the focus on joy works for us! Come visit at CenterDownHome and see how unschooling works for our family, if you want to. :)
Oh, and hey -- I don't get the social security number problem. You're younger than I am -- I'm FIFTY -- but it's only in the last 25 or 30 years that kids are routinely issued social security numbers. I had to apply for mine when I was 18. It was no big deal! Other than that, I was handed all of those traditional parenting and schooling "keys" you write about, and at the end of the school assembly line, found myself lost in a life I hadn't consciously chosen as a working mom, graphic artist, unhappy with my job, unhappy with my life, wondering how I'd gotten to this place. After all, I'd done everything "right". Followed the rules, been handed all those keys and all. :/
Anyway, thanks for a topic that led to lively discussion here at our house!
As a radical unschooling mama, I so appreciate Dharmamama's and Laura's comments. What they've posted about their lives is pretty in line with how we live our R.U. lives, and how my R.U. friends and their families live their lives. There are lots of us out there :).
I, like frugralmom, took offense at the blanket statement about homeschooled kiddos not having to deal with the social situations you mentioned, Mary Alice. That is such a cliched, disrespectful view of homeschoolers.
Referring back to part two of your series, that's too bad Paskowitz was told what he was by that guidance counselor (it would take 10 years for him to catch up on what he needed to know -- that's such baloney), and that he chose to believe it and let that one person's opinion crush his dream. As parents, regardless of how mainstream or not our lifestyle may be, it's up to us to model for our children that if one person says we can't achieve something, then we go about finding another way to reach our goal. That's not something I learned in school, that's something I learned in watching my parents struggle to achieve their goals -- and I see in them today that, regardless of your age, you still need to have goals and, yeah, even if you're 60-something, you probably will still struggle at times to reach your goals. Goals don't magically get easy to reach just because you reach a certain age!!
When I reached the end of your Part Two post, I was maxed out by the "poor me, the difficulties I've endured / am enduring because of my parents' selfish choices when we were kids" comments and tone in that post. Who's to say that if you had been raised in a traditional manner that you wouldn't still be "plodding along" towards a degree? It's easy to assume you would've had all the right keys to the important doors and would've been out of college in four years, but that's simply an assumption, a "what if".
Rather than focusing on the negative, the "what if's", the things that happened YEARS ago, why not focus on the joy -- of back then *and* of right now??? You do say at the end of your Conclusion that you value the close relationship with your family, but it feels, to me, like such an afterthought to all the negativity you focused on in this series of posts. You say your parents gave you a deep respect for family, but the tone of this series seems so disrespectful towards your parents and their choices. As you said in your reply to frugalmom's comment, we all do the best we can as parents. I hope when your kids are nearly 40, they choose to look back on their childhoods and focus on the joy, rather than writing a series about how they feel you did what was easy for you and they're still suffering the consequences of it. Blech.