Unschooling NYC

Was clicking around Sandra Dodd’s website this evening.   Her website can be frustrating because it doesn’t seem very organized, so if you are looking for something specific, you might not be able to find it.   However, if you are just ‘browsing’, you’ll always stumble upon something great.   Here are a few of those great ‘somethings’, and the links to the specific pages on which I found them:

CAN IT WORK IN THE REAL WORLD?

If unschooling can’t work in the real world, nothing at all can. People will say “How will they learn algebra in the real world?” Is there … Read more

There is a very funny scene in the movie “Date Night” where Steve Carrell’s character accuses his wife, played by Tina Fey, of fantasizing about a former client of hers (played by the hilarious and shirtless Mark Wahlberg).    They’ve been forced to ask Mark’s character for help and upon leaving his apartment, the conversation goes something like this:

“You fantasize about him, don’t you?”

“Oh God, no.  Mostly I just fantasize about being alone.”

Truer words were never spoken.   See, in the world of homeschooling, it’s not PC to say you are sick of your kids and would love a … Read more

When I tell people we unschool, they often say things like, “You must be very patient” or “Well, you can do it because you’re very…” and then they’ll say any number of things like “dedicated”, “smart”, “creative”.    To which I always respond, “Yes, you are absolutely correct!”

Ha!  As if.

Most of the time when my kids do or say amazing things, I can’t for the life of me figure out how they know to do or say those things.   The world is a great teacher, but who knew it would teach them to be civic minded and committed to … Read more

…if we could all just get along?   You know, by recognizing that we are all human beings and all that other stuff is just details?    But boy do we like to dwell on those details.   In fact, most people judge other people based solely on details, and take no notice of the fact that we are all the same species with two arms, two legs, one head, brains that all look pretty similar,  opposable thumbs and the capacity to love and laugh, thus separating us from animals. (and plants…)

Kids get taught from a very young age to focus and … Read more

So I’ve started this post three times.   Once I was going to write a sort of stream of consciousness rundown of our day – you know, like “woke up to snow (aaargh!) made breakfast, went to get coffee, made some phone calls…”    The purpose of this was to show how varied our days are, but it came off reeeaally boring, and my goal is not to put readers into a comatose state but to hopefully entertain and sometimes inform, so that idea was 86’d.  (That’s restaurant jargon for “cross it off the menu we’re out” for those of you who … Read more

A weeks worth of the New York Times gives me so much to talk about, I scarcely know where to begin.   But I will begin and end with events in the Arab world.   A dictator toppled by his people, and revolution spreading.   Young people who surf the net and communicate through Twitter and Facebook can no longer be told that a dictator is acting in their best interests.      George Bush said we needed to ‘spread democracy’, but in truth, democracy isn’t democracy if it’s forced on a people.   If it’s only offered to those we think we can control.   The … Read more

We are back from Costa Rica, or as I now think of it, ‘The San Jose Parking Lot and Fast Food Tour’.   An exaggeration, you say?   Possibly, but we ate at McDonald’s 5 times, Pizza Hut twice, Burger King once, Subway once, and a ‘local’ but still fast food place once.   This means out of 14 meals (not including breakfast, which we always ate at the hotel) 10 of them were fast food.   And not because we eschewed the local cuisine in favor of American grease, but because that is what was available where we were.   Yum!  I can almost … Read more

Our last day in Costa Rica, and probably the best.   We went to dinner yesterday with another couple Joshua knows here – Michal and Irving.  They invited us to their house and we had pizza and salad, which is just about the perfect meal for us.   After dinner, Michal was showing me some of the cross-stitch that she does, and the pattern book she uses.    I’ve never done much cross-stitch, but Maya and I both loved the cool things she made.   She knows that I like knitting and handwork, so we were talking and she mentioned a really inexpensive bead … Read more

Despite how it may sound based on some of my recent posts, we are pretty easy to please.   The kids and I have traveled to Spain, Ireland, England, Arkansas, the Bahamas,  (Do you like how I threw Arkansas in the middle?  And it still doesn’t sound exotic) Indiana and various other places in the States, and we have always enjoyed ourselves.   So it has come as a surprise that we have all struggled to find a pleasant groove here in Costa Rica.

The trip was full of expectations that didn’t pan out, and unexpected pressure to do things we didn’t … Read more

Would it be horribly…American of me to say that today was our best day here, and we spent half of it at a mall?   I’m almost appalled at it myself, because usually I eschew all things American when in another country, the better to soak up the local culture.   That has proven to be more difficult than I expected here, given the location of our hotel and setup of our immediate surroundings, so today I stopped fighting it and  it was a sweet surrender.    We walked over to the Multiplex Mall this morning, arriving just before the stores opened … Read more