Unschooling NYC

I walked outside without a jacket on today for the first time in a very long time.  In front of our building, flowers are suddenly blooming.   Even here in the city you could smell the earth waking up.    And the light was different – softer somehow.  The streets were crowded in the early evening with people tired of winter and relishing the warm air that washed over us today.

It’s not going to last.  Not yet.  Tomorrow the high will hover around 50 and the rain will return, and next week it might not make it out of the 40’s, … Read more

I wish I could walk around in my kids’ heads for a day.   Since I went to public schools, I can’t imagine what it must be like for them to wake up each morning knowing that the day is theirs to do with as they like.    I remember that when I was in school and the weather got warmer and May rolled around, the anticipation of 3 school-free months was almost too much to bear.   I also remember the dread in my stomach upon hearing the cicada’s (who used to never sing before August but now are often in full … Read more

In the spring of the year I turned 25 (a whopping 19 years ago!),  I was working for a German/American tour wholesaler here in the city, and hatched a plan to take a leave of absence from my job.   The reason?   To spend several months on my own, driving across the country and seeing what there was to see.  I decided to leave New York on my 25th birthday in June, and in the months leading up to my departure I worked as much overtime as possible, got permission to take the leave of absence (if they said no I … Read more

Last night we went to see a production of “Treasure Island” at the Irondale Theater out in Brooklyn.   This was partly due to our friend and former sitter Andrea being in town ( she is a stage manager by profession and it is always more fun to see plays with her), and partly due to the fact that we’d heard good things about it from our friends.

Let me just say up front that although I love the story of Treasure Island, I am not a great fan of Robert Louis Stevenson’s writing style.   Which made me even more excited … Read more

In a recent post I talked about the fact that Maya and I were starting a daily creative project, following the suggestions given in Noah Scalin’s book.   Scalin is the artist who created a skull a day for 365 days and wound up on Martha Stewart’s show as a result.   His book is great, because the suggestion for each day can take two minutes or two hours, depending on how much time and effort you feel like putting in to it.

Day 10’s suggestion was to use water as either our medium or inspiration.   Maya and I work independently on … Read more

7 years ago this evening there was a sweet new baby boy in the world.   He’s no baby anymore, but he’s still pretty sweet.   He had a party today with his best friend Jonah and his friends Andrew and Jahsaia  (and Maya and Greta were there too).    But I think he enjoyed the evening after the party even more, sitting around playing with his new toys (which included everything from a DS game to Nano Bugs, Bionicles and an American Girl doll.    Life is good when you are Ben, who,  as one of my friends told me, “simply oozes happiness.”… Read more

Looking on line today, I was researching other unschooling/life learning blogs.   On the list of the Top 50 Unschooling blogs were the following:

Majikfaerie:  Adventures in being a majik faerie;  unschooling, midwifing, natural living, rainbow life.    This blog is written by a woman in Queensland Australia and has 253 followers.

Freeplaylife:  From a Mom raising three children and dealing with dyslexia and giftedness.    Can’t tell where they live from the posts I read, but there is a lake and some mountains behind them in one of the photos.  329 followers.

AlmostUnschoolers:  Homeschooling Mom of 6 in Montana who incorporates unschooling … Read more

This post is  a bit off topic, but because of my strong feelings about the way this situation was portrayed in the paper, I am addressing it.

Yesterday’s NY Times ran a horrifying story about an 11 year old girl who was gang raped in a small Texas town.   This is unspeakably awful – it seems that 18 young men took part over two locations and a period of several hours.   The perpetrators ranged in age from “middle school” (so what, 12 or 13?) to a 27 year old.   5 of the suspects are members of the Cleveland TX high … Read more

It’s been around 8 months since Spain was crowned FIFA World Cup 2010 champions, but I’m going to talk about it anyway.  Not Spain winning, but the U.S. Mens Soccer team, which made it to the quarter finals before losing to Ghana.  Even if you are not a sports or soccer fan, bear with me.

The World Cup in soccer is truly a unique event.  205 countries participate in qualifying matches in the four years between the Cup Finals.   That’s two hundred and five countries!   Can you even name 205 countries?  I highly doubt I can.    Out of those, the … Read more

You know how kids sometimes mimic expressions they hear other people use but don’t get them quite right?    For years Ben has said, “split black” when he means it is so dark you can’t see anything.   Of course he means “pitch black”.   I never corrected him, because I love those kinds of things.   Maya used to always misspeak the Eeny Meeny Miney Moe rhyme, and would say “Eeny Meeny Miney Moe, catch a tiger by the toe, if you hollers let him go…”

Of course, eventually they figure it out, and it has happened with ‘split black’.  Ben and I … Read more