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The cost of unschooling

Those of us that unschool our children do so because we love them. It is not to cloister them or keep them from the real world, but to have them LIVE in the world. We for the most part, do not have a lot of money and seek out those opportunities for our children that are free or at a low cost. Some folks are lucky enough to have a support system where you can barter and trade for services with other like-minded folk.

My husband and I live in an urban apartment setting with our sons (even though we dream of a house w/yard) contrary to the idea most people have of homeschooling families. As if only rural settings are conducive to allowing one the freedom to school your children yourself. I work during the day while my husband and the boys seek adventure and then in the evening, my husband ventures out to play his music. It is difficult for him sometimes as the artist in him wants to roam about freely and our sons are still at ages that require attention.

We have suffered some personal setbacks this year, but as a family we try to be honest about each situation and work together without pointing fingers at one another. Our boys are amazing people and have adjusted through all these situations. They have learned a great deal about money during these financially difficult times and have come up with hilarious and surprisingly well thought out ways to make money themselves.

One thing that we have all learned from these experiences is that it is not the amount of money that you have or that you spend, but the amount of love and effort that you put forth that shapes our children into the people they need to become. They are each unique and intelligent. It is our responsibility to give them the keys to the world, teach them respect for themselves and for their fellow beings, and let them know they are loved!

They will find their path...

We joined the Carnival!!!

I am very excited to announce that our humble family blog was selected for the current Carnival of Unschooled Life - October blog!!! Yeah!!!! There were some amazing posts from other families making personal educational strides, so make sure to check them all out. I was especially moved by the Tenament Museum in NYC...incredible way to see how history lives.

Have a blessed day!

http://sgaissert.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/carnival-of-unschooled-life-october-2010-edition/

Hard Lessons to Learn

Recently, I introduced my sons to Houstonopoly, the Houston version of the classic board game. My children are 4, 6, 7 and 8 which has them at different stages of viewing world situations. They are great at asking questions and think very sincerely as they consider life around them. BUT it has been amazing to watch the different characteristics of each child as they learned and played the game.

I did modify the rules a bit to simplify things by taking out the house/hotel factor, but I left everything else in order to give them a realistic experience. W8 was very precise with how he put his money and properties out in front of him and D7 sorted his money, but stacked his properties. E6 decided he wanted to watch and J4 stacked his money, sorted his properties and enjoyed holding the stack of money in his hand when it was his turn. W8 and D7 quickly picked up the idea of buying properties to receive rent payments when people land on them. J4 was not interested in giving his money away and was very unhappy to find out that he was expected to pay his brothers anything when landing on their properties. He was very intent on buying a property called “The Strawberry Patch” which was a Houston landmark restaurant for many years and I thought it was cute because he wanted it because it had a strawberry on the picture. J4 is a highly determined boy and he did end up with that property. In the end D7 became frustrated with “landing in jail” and left the game and his opportunistic brother E6 jumped into his place.

D7 insisted that if E6 won that it was a shared victory since “he played for most of the game”. There was a time limit placed on this first game, because as the banker, I had no intention of an 8 hour game the first time round. So at the end of our time limit, we added up all their properties and money and the winners turned out to be D7/E6, J4 and W8. W8 was perplexed as to how after spending a great deal of his money on properties, how he could possibly have lost. We talked about how you never know where the dice may have you land and that buying a lot of properties doesn’t necessarily mean that people will land on them.

They came up with a collective idea of creating a board game that was more peaceful. We’ll see what that looks like and I look forward to watching them work together to create it!

Peace & Blessings!

Unschooling is the new REAL SCHOOLING...

The more that my family gives in to the love of life learning, the more we learn about ourselves.

The "economic downturn" is just another excuse for those who have, to discriminate against those who are trying to emulate their lifestyle. As a one income family, we have found that "affordable housing" is not really affordable and those places that are in our range are usually purposefully crap.

It is times like this when we start to hear suggestions of putting the boys into public school so hubby and I can spend our days working in the grind while our sons are ground up in the system. Sounds great? Not!

As artists and activists, we are painfully aware that fighting the good fight doesn't come with luxury housing and 6 figure incomes, but it builds the kind of people that change their communities and potentially, the world.

That's what I want for my boys. Real world schooling. Socializing with elders and youth to make a difference!

Peace!

Not back to school

So today was back to school for a lot of youth here in Houston. Glad that we are part of the growing movement of families choosing to take education power back from the institution and empower the individual!

We bought a cake and had it for breakfast on Saturday morning to celebrate our new unschool year. W8 and D7 want to focus on science, math and reading while E6 also wants to include history. J4 just reminds us all that he does NOT want to go to school.

Tonight, all 4 boys began working on building a boat out of cardboard/chipboard boxes using staples. Pretty creative buch of pirates! The oldest 2 and I also played Yatzee in between building and they are getting really fast at adding, multiplying and counting in multiples.

I am looking forward to all the learning ahead for them and myself. Hopefully husband and the boys can check out the Not Back to School party on Friday. Enjoy the journey...

Guerilla art show