Another magazine article (he's such great material):
It all started with the jello.
Ray had been living with us for a month or so and staunchly insisting that he couldn’t cook - “I ruin everything! I can’t even boil water!” He’d had some less than successful experiences being “taught” to cook by his mom. So we reassured him that he didn’t have to cook anything, and there things sat until it got cold and Morgan decided it was time to learn about the microwave. Suddenly the kitchen was full of steaming cups of water, milk, juice, some with coco powder, some not. Mo’s usual process. It got Ray’s attention.
“Hey, you could make jello with the microwave!” Um, yeah, you certainly could, should we buy some jello? “Wow, Really? Yeah. Wow. Really? Cool.” Jello had been a banned food in his previous life. We bought lots of jello. And Ray began, tentatively, to cook.
It seems like such a little thing – just powder and hot water. At the time I did a bit of justifying to myself and friends. I blathered about autonomy and confidence and deschooling and self esteem. Not that those things aren’t important, but my reaction had more to do with my own deschooling process than anything else. Somewhere in my head was a voice crying “Its only Jello! Its not even really a food!” and I worked hard not to let Ray hear that voice. He had his own voices and occasionally expressed the same sentiment – “its not really cooking”. And at first that was what he needed to think: I can’t cook, but This isn’t Cooking, so its okay.
In due course, jello became Ramen noodles became boxes of macaroni and cheese. That was a big step along the way – turns out its much easier to make mac-n-cheese on the stove than in the microwave. Suddenly Ray was cooking with gas! Although he still denied the “cooking” part. Boxes of mac-n-cheese led to cans of soup and ravioli – things he actually had to attend to so they would cook without burning. But he could still claim they weren’t *really* cooking. Just heating things up.
And then, one night, it happened. Almost a year after the inaugural jello-making Ray walked into the living room and asked:
“So… do you cook the spaghetti first or make the sauce first?” My jaw hit the floor. He’s making Dinner?
It was happening! The magic of unschooling was happening! All the pieces came together. All the months of seemingly not-cooking gelled into a new reality. George was sick, I was worn out from my new job and Ray was hungry. And instead of fixing himself a can of soup decided to cook dinner for the whole family.
Like everything else, it seems, unschooling cooking is all about letting go of attachments to particular outcomes. In his own time and way, Ray had been learning to cook all along. Now he was ready for another step.
His first family meal, social being that he is, arrived with a string of questions while I sat on my hands and chanted “autonomy looks like This today” in my head.
Which size pot do I use?
How much water do I put in it (about 2/3 full – no problem! take That school!)
How much of an onion do I chop up? (vegetables? He’s including vegetables?)
Is this small enough?
What other vegs can I put in?
What size can of tomatoes?
Diced or sauce?
Am I supposed to add spices?
Where’s the measuring spoons?
How long do these noodles cook?
How do you tell if they’re done?
Do you like it?
All of a sudden (this is what autonomy looks like today) the boy who always needed lots and lots of help only needed information. He needed a Lot of information, but he Didn’t need to be shown or reassured or helped. Just some questions answered.
His first spaghetti was somewhat more al dente than our usual, but otherwise a complete success. We talked about strategies for knowing if the noodles were “done” and he was (thankfully) grossed out by George’s suggestion of throwing them against the wall. We talked about cooking the onions first and the option of adding tofu or tvp to the sauce. More information sharing.
Within a week he was making our other vegetarian family staple – beans. This hearty, unglamorous dish is paired with a starch (corn chips or rice or flour tortillas) and a vegetable, which is often mixed in. Simple stuff, but it gave him two family meals, and our most regular meals at that. Add the occasional homemade pizza and Ray had become a contender for the position of family cook.
The “downside” to this new adventure is that George also likes to cook. He especially likes to cook the simple, nutritious foods we all enjoy eating – the same foods Ray is now cooking. They’ve had to do a bit of negotiating about who “gets” to cook dinner, and I’ve had to put in a request for a little more variety. But even the downside has its advantages - if nothing else, I get the satisfaction of having my menfolk competing to feed me.
Friday, April 25, 2008
social guy
This is reprinted from a magazine article.
My kids have better social skills than I do. That’s humbling, but not really unexpected. Its one of the reasons I wanted to keep them out of school in the first place – neither I or their dad learned any useful social skills from school. I’m often smug about my 5yo daughter’s social skillfulness for this reason and can easily believe that unschooling has given her opportunities to develop and hone skills that she wouldn’t have otherwise. My stepson, however, challenges me to see the whole issue of social skillfulness from a different perspective. Unlike my daughter, he has endured school-at-home and public school and has only recently become an unschooler and full-time resident in our unschooling home.
Before we started unschooling and before he came to live with us I had a hard time seeing Ray’s social skills for what they were. In a blog entry, shortly after he moved in, I even commented that “interpersonal intelligence” must surely be different from “extroversion”. Ray has always been an extrovert, but in a world of schoolish expectations, his extroversion was problematical outside of very constrained boundaries. Ray always seemed to be outside those boundaries. He questioned and challenged and had his own opinions. Not satisfied with the small amount of attention granted him by his parents and step-parents, he clamored for more. Not content to be disregarded by a room full of adults, he demanded center stage at every party or social gathering, even if he had to explode to get it.
Looking back on those days from an unschooling perspective, I can see a boy with high social needs valiantly striving to get those needs met, and frequently succeeding. Unfortunately his success came at the price of his self-esteem. In order to be noticed, he had to be “the bad kid”.
It is interesting that the person who first got to see Ray’s very real social skillfulness was his grandmother, Janet, who sent me an email in response to my first blogged concern. He had spent a week with her for the first time with none of his parents along. Here’s what she had to say:
“The week Ray spent with me this summer was without any of the usual behavioral issues. He was charming and friendly and thoughtful the whole week. There was one dinner party we went to where I was a little worried since it was mostly older folks. But Rayan was mellow and polite. He had a joke he wanted to tell that was pretty political, so he ran it by me first to make sure it would be okay for that group. Then he waited for an appropriate moment in the flow of conversation to tell it and got a good laugh. I was pretty impressed. “
Its worth noting that the incident she describes occurred almost six months before Ray began unschooling. Its tempting to think that unschooling could have “produced” his skillfulness. But Ray had always had the raw ability and had been learning the skills despite the many obstacles we laid in his path. At his grandmother’s, away from parents and school and on vacation, Ray was able to step outside his “bad-kid” reputation for once and just be Ray. And shine.
I think this is why new unschoolers are often presented with the suggestion to “act like its summer vacation”. I had dull summers as a kid, so the statement was baffling to me for a long time, but living with Ray it makes a lot more sense to me. Even many non-unschoolers can see Ray as Ray in a “vacation” context. It’s a matter of expectations.
From my back porch, I can see two trees, the colors of whose leaves, if they were a blouse and slacks, would clash horribly. Yet I look at these two trees and don’t see a painful example of un-coordination, but a tranquil and lovely view of nature. Expectations.
For years we expected Ray to be a blouse and slacks, as it were. He wouldn’t, couldn’t capitulate – why should he? Why should someone who is vivid and alive behave like an inanimate object? Now that we can see Ray as a whole, living, colorful person, we don’t need those expectations. Unschooling gives us the context to see Ray.
In an unschooling context, since Ray isn’t expected to place others’ interests before his own, he has the freedom to look beyond his own interests. No longer expected to listen, for example, Ray is free to converse. That in itself has made a big difference in his ability to explore and learn on his own terms. When Ray is able to exchange information in an easygoing, conversational manner, he learns almost effortlessly. More than that, knowing that I and his dad don’t expect him to listen deferentially to adults (us or others) Ray has a far easier time shrugging off the kind of normal adult rudeness to kids that used to set him off. Free from the expectation of deference, Ray is gracious.
In the nine months he’s lived with us full-time, I’ve had a number of opportunities to see Ray’s innate graciousness shine out. This spring, in particular, we had a group of guests who seemed to believe that they should teach Ray something every time they saw him, albeit gently.
These sorts of situations are challenging to me. I can see the power differential, the imposed expectations and the outright injustice, but don’t always have the skills, myself, to diffuse things. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover that Ray does – provided he feels supported by an adult he cares about. He doesn’t even need all that much in the way of support, if anything, just the realization that I’m not jumping in on the side of the other grown-up or indicating that Ray should listen up and pay attention is enough to give him the confidence to deflect or ignore the “lesson”.
Maybe its because he’s seen me fly to his rescue only to metaphorically trip over all my left feet in the process. He knows he’s better at this stuff than I am. As I said before, its humbling.
Seeing Ray outside of (my own) schoolish expectations has also allowed me to see his “boisterousness” in a new light. Now that attention is being offered him, and he isn’t having to literally jump up and down and yell to get his connection needs met and there’s no expectation of deference to adults, I can see Ray using his own physical skillfulness as an adjunct to his social skillfulness.
I saw this more than once with our guests. Ray would do or say something casual, and the guest would take that as an invitation to tell Ray about “the ways of the world”, maybe shame him a little, all for the purpose of teaching him a lesson. Rather than returning words for words and getting in an argument, Ray would jump up and do something dramatic and physical, some trick or stunt that would stop the conversation for a little bit, shift the energy of the group, and change the subject all at once.
The most impressive thing about this particular strategy, is that adults don’t see it as anything but a kid doing a trick. It took me a couple times to realize the “trick” went beyond the physical.
Another area we get to see this interplay of expectations and social skillfulness has to do with younger children. Ray’s mom considers him a disaster with younger kids, one of the reasons she finally acquiesced to his moving to our house permanently. She and I don’t communicate with each other very well, but we do have some mutual friends who have often painted a picture for us of Ray’s “problems” with his younger brother and a few other local children. The stories are pretty consistent and follow these lines:
“Ray refuses to set a good example for the younger children. He won’t ever accommodate them, he hates to play with them, and he still thinks he should be the center of attention!”
Quite a load of expectations there. Funny to see that he’s really dealing with these children the way he was treated at the same age. When a kid does it, everyone can see just how ugly that sort of behavior can be, but its normal adult behavior towards children.
Contrast this with a phone call I received just recently from a non-unschooling family with a younger child who sometimes take Ray waterskiing:
“Ray is so much fun! And he’s just great with our little girl. He’s kind and thoughtful and really helps out a lot. He’s an absolute darling. Is he as helpful with your daughter (Yes, as a matter of fact, he is.) Well, you’re very lucky to have such a fabulous kid.”
Aren’t we, though? Luckier to be able to see, at long last, just what a fabulous guy he is, and be able to work with him to find more ways to help him shine.
My kids have better social skills than I do. That’s humbling, but not really unexpected. Its one of the reasons I wanted to keep them out of school in the first place – neither I or their dad learned any useful social skills from school. I’m often smug about my 5yo daughter’s social skillfulness for this reason and can easily believe that unschooling has given her opportunities to develop and hone skills that she wouldn’t have otherwise. My stepson, however, challenges me to see the whole issue of social skillfulness from a different perspective. Unlike my daughter, he has endured school-at-home and public school and has only recently become an unschooler and full-time resident in our unschooling home.
Before we started unschooling and before he came to live with us I had a hard time seeing Ray’s social skills for what they were. In a blog entry, shortly after he moved in, I even commented that “interpersonal intelligence” must surely be different from “extroversion”. Ray has always been an extrovert, but in a world of schoolish expectations, his extroversion was problematical outside of very constrained boundaries. Ray always seemed to be outside those boundaries. He questioned and challenged and had his own opinions. Not satisfied with the small amount of attention granted him by his parents and step-parents, he clamored for more. Not content to be disregarded by a room full of adults, he demanded center stage at every party or social gathering, even if he had to explode to get it.
Looking back on those days from an unschooling perspective, I can see a boy with high social needs valiantly striving to get those needs met, and frequently succeeding. Unfortunately his success came at the price of his self-esteem. In order to be noticed, he had to be “the bad kid”.
It is interesting that the person who first got to see Ray’s very real social skillfulness was his grandmother, Janet, who sent me an email in response to my first blogged concern. He had spent a week with her for the first time with none of his parents along. Here’s what she had to say:
“The week Ray spent with me this summer was without any of the usual behavioral issues. He was charming and friendly and thoughtful the whole week. There was one dinner party we went to where I was a little worried since it was mostly older folks. But Rayan was mellow and polite. He had a joke he wanted to tell that was pretty political, so he ran it by me first to make sure it would be okay for that group. Then he waited for an appropriate moment in the flow of conversation to tell it and got a good laugh. I was pretty impressed. “
Its worth noting that the incident she describes occurred almost six months before Ray began unschooling. Its tempting to think that unschooling could have “produced” his skillfulness. But Ray had always had the raw ability and had been learning the skills despite the many obstacles we laid in his path. At his grandmother’s, away from parents and school and on vacation, Ray was able to step outside his “bad-kid” reputation for once and just be Ray. And shine.
I think this is why new unschoolers are often presented with the suggestion to “act like its summer vacation”. I had dull summers as a kid, so the statement was baffling to me for a long time, but living with Ray it makes a lot more sense to me. Even many non-unschoolers can see Ray as Ray in a “vacation” context. It’s a matter of expectations.
From my back porch, I can see two trees, the colors of whose leaves, if they were a blouse and slacks, would clash horribly. Yet I look at these two trees and don’t see a painful example of un-coordination, but a tranquil and lovely view of nature. Expectations.
For years we expected Ray to be a blouse and slacks, as it were. He wouldn’t, couldn’t capitulate – why should he? Why should someone who is vivid and alive behave like an inanimate object? Now that we can see Ray as a whole, living, colorful person, we don’t need those expectations. Unschooling gives us the context to see Ray.
In an unschooling context, since Ray isn’t expected to place others’ interests before his own, he has the freedom to look beyond his own interests. No longer expected to listen, for example, Ray is free to converse. That in itself has made a big difference in his ability to explore and learn on his own terms. When Ray is able to exchange information in an easygoing, conversational manner, he learns almost effortlessly. More than that, knowing that I and his dad don’t expect him to listen deferentially to adults (us or others) Ray has a far easier time shrugging off the kind of normal adult rudeness to kids that used to set him off. Free from the expectation of deference, Ray is gracious.
In the nine months he’s lived with us full-time, I’ve had a number of opportunities to see Ray’s innate graciousness shine out. This spring, in particular, we had a group of guests who seemed to believe that they should teach Ray something every time they saw him, albeit gently.
These sorts of situations are challenging to me. I can see the power differential, the imposed expectations and the outright injustice, but don’t always have the skills, myself, to diffuse things. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover that Ray does – provided he feels supported by an adult he cares about. He doesn’t even need all that much in the way of support, if anything, just the realization that I’m not jumping in on the side of the other grown-up or indicating that Ray should listen up and pay attention is enough to give him the confidence to deflect or ignore the “lesson”.
Maybe its because he’s seen me fly to his rescue only to metaphorically trip over all my left feet in the process. He knows he’s better at this stuff than I am. As I said before, its humbling.
Seeing Ray outside of (my own) schoolish expectations has also allowed me to see his “boisterousness” in a new light. Now that attention is being offered him, and he isn’t having to literally jump up and down and yell to get his connection needs met and there’s no expectation of deference to adults, I can see Ray using his own physical skillfulness as an adjunct to his social skillfulness.
I saw this more than once with our guests. Ray would do or say something casual, and the guest would take that as an invitation to tell Ray about “the ways of the world”, maybe shame him a little, all for the purpose of teaching him a lesson. Rather than returning words for words and getting in an argument, Ray would jump up and do something dramatic and physical, some trick or stunt that would stop the conversation for a little bit, shift the energy of the group, and change the subject all at once.
The most impressive thing about this particular strategy, is that adults don’t see it as anything but a kid doing a trick. It took me a couple times to realize the “trick” went beyond the physical.
Another area we get to see this interplay of expectations and social skillfulness has to do with younger children. Ray’s mom considers him a disaster with younger kids, one of the reasons she finally acquiesced to his moving to our house permanently. She and I don’t communicate with each other very well, but we do have some mutual friends who have often painted a picture for us of Ray’s “problems” with his younger brother and a few other local children. The stories are pretty consistent and follow these lines:
“Ray refuses to set a good example for the younger children. He won’t ever accommodate them, he hates to play with them, and he still thinks he should be the center of attention!”
Quite a load of expectations there. Funny to see that he’s really dealing with these children the way he was treated at the same age. When a kid does it, everyone can see just how ugly that sort of behavior can be, but its normal adult behavior towards children.
Contrast this with a phone call I received just recently from a non-unschooling family with a younger child who sometimes take Ray waterskiing:
“Ray is so much fun! And he’s just great with our little girl. He’s kind and thoughtful and really helps out a lot. He’s an absolute darling. Is he as helpful with your daughter (Yes, as a matter of fact, he is.) Well, you’re very lucky to have such a fabulous kid.”
Aren’t we, though? Luckier to be able to see, at long last, just what a fabulous guy he is, and be able to work with him to find more ways to help him shine.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
finally fall
and back on days. As in, Ray's no longer a vampire. The temperature has cooled significantly and its starting to feel like fall - in a good way. A few weeks back Ray commented that he was, for the first time in years, looking forward to the change of the season, now that its not all about "back to school" for him. That was nice to hear.
Unfortunately, he ended up not going with me to the Live and Learn Conference in NC. That was kind of a bummer, but my grandfather died and we (Mo and I) ended up going to his funeral Labor Day weekend - which was in MA - and going to the conference from there. Kind of a long drive and dull several days of waiting from Ray's perspective, so he opted out. The conference was fun, but the room and food situation would have been pretty stressful for Ray, it turned out, so I'm glad he missed that part, even though I'm bummed he didn't get to meet the really cool teens there.
Anyway, we're back to plotting trips to the skatepark and some other outings. While we were on the road, Mo discovered "claw" machines - you know, put a quarter in and cuss at the thing when if fails to grab a toy - and I suggested that we collect quarters at home for a trip to Walmart or some such just to play the claw. As soon as we got home Ray happened to comment that he hadn't ever eaten at IHOP, so now I'm scheming - there's an IHOP next to Walmart in Murfreesboro, maybe we can make a day of it.
Yup, that's what "field trips" look like in my world LOL! Hey kids! lets go out to eat and play some arcade games! Woo Hooo! And naturally, I'll find a way to tag this for the "learning plan" thingy... hmmm, lets see, we're still broke, so we'll need to set aside some cash to eat out, plus the Quest for Quarters (although that's more a Mo thing) - hey this isn't even hard. Real life actually does provide real learning opportunities. I just have to drive!
Okay, I'm in a whimsical mood, today, but this is the sort of thing I run into over and over in our family's journey deeper into the wilds of autodidacticism - once there's no need to play the school game there are countless learning opportunities everywhere! I actually found myself worrying about that a few weeks ago, especially with the vampire thing going on, but even then Ray was spending hours reading (!) on the computer, playing God of War (Greek mythology, problem solving, blood and guts), going to live musical events and waterskiing regularly. I could have wished for "summer school" that fabulous as a kid.
And to top it all off, summer vacation isn't ending for Ray, its just the shift from "waterskiing season" to "skateboarding season". He's been hunting for his boards and checking out his equipment all week.
Unfortunately, he ended up not going with me to the Live and Learn Conference in NC. That was kind of a bummer, but my grandfather died and we (Mo and I) ended up going to his funeral Labor Day weekend - which was in MA - and going to the conference from there. Kind of a long drive and dull several days of waiting from Ray's perspective, so he opted out. The conference was fun, but the room and food situation would have been pretty stressful for Ray, it turned out, so I'm glad he missed that part, even though I'm bummed he didn't get to meet the really cool teens there.
Anyway, we're back to plotting trips to the skatepark and some other outings. While we were on the road, Mo discovered "claw" machines - you know, put a quarter in and cuss at the thing when if fails to grab a toy - and I suggested that we collect quarters at home for a trip to Walmart or some such just to play the claw. As soon as we got home Ray happened to comment that he hadn't ever eaten at IHOP, so now I'm scheming - there's an IHOP next to Walmart in Murfreesboro, maybe we can make a day of it.
Yup, that's what "field trips" look like in my world LOL! Hey kids! lets go out to eat and play some arcade games! Woo Hooo! And naturally, I'll find a way to tag this for the "learning plan" thingy... hmmm, lets see, we're still broke, so we'll need to set aside some cash to eat out, plus the Quest for Quarters (although that's more a Mo thing) - hey this isn't even hard. Real life actually does provide real learning opportunities. I just have to drive!
Okay, I'm in a whimsical mood, today, but this is the sort of thing I run into over and over in our family's journey deeper into the wilds of autodidacticism - once there's no need to play the school game there are countless learning opportunities everywhere! I actually found myself worrying about that a few weeks ago, especially with the vampire thing going on, but even then Ray was spending hours reading (!) on the computer, playing God of War (Greek mythology, problem solving, blood and guts), going to live musical events and waterskiing regularly. I could have wished for "summer school" that fabulous as a kid.
And to top it all off, summer vacation isn't ending for Ray, its just the shift from "waterskiing season" to "skateboarding season". He's been hunting for his boards and checking out his equipment all week.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
general newsiness
Ray's back to vampire hours, for the most part. Between the opressive heat and his allergies, it just makes more sense. He's still able to go waterskiing and do other sorts of daytime activities if they're planned ahead of time - the resilience of youth an' all! He can miss a day of sleep and make it up later. Currently he's going to bed around 7am, which is kind of nice. We get to see him for breakfast.
Our lovely neighbors, Mirror and Shiloh, have returned from their summer travels bringing, among other things, wick-tape for Ray's fire staff. I think I listed Mirror as one of my resources in the "learning plan" - although not by name. He's our friendly neighborhood "Professional Juggler" who has been an invaluble help to Ray in learning to spin the staff, balance assorted objects, and work with fire. He's a long time busker, so in addition to technical assistance, he has lots of handy advice about such topics as schtik and patter. Ray's mostly not interested in busking at this point, but he's been pretty polite about not shutting Mirror down when he has something to say. I'm hoping Ray will feel confident enough in his fire twirling to bring his staff to the Live and Learn Conference in a few weeks. We shall see.
Saturday evenings, Ray has been going to the local coffee-house with George and our neighbors. Shiloh is a singer-songwriter and she and Mir and George often play a set there. Its not really the sort of music Ray is drawn to, but he seems to enjoy going none-the-less. I think seeing his dad perform is kind of novel to him. Its novel to me! I've seen him jam with other musicians plenty of times, but lately he's been getting on stage more and more, and not just as "the bass player". He's been singing and playing guitar and mandolin. Not really new for George, but something he hasn't done in years so I'm glad Ray's getting to see another side of his dad.
Our lovely neighbors, Mirror and Shiloh, have returned from their summer travels bringing, among other things, wick-tape for Ray's fire staff. I think I listed Mirror as one of my resources in the "learning plan" - although not by name. He's our friendly neighborhood "Professional Juggler" who has been an invaluble help to Ray in learning to spin the staff, balance assorted objects, and work with fire. He's a long time busker, so in addition to technical assistance, he has lots of handy advice about such topics as schtik and patter. Ray's mostly not interested in busking at this point, but he's been pretty polite about not shutting Mirror down when he has something to say. I'm hoping Ray will feel confident enough in his fire twirling to bring his staff to the Live and Learn Conference in a few weeks. We shall see.
Saturday evenings, Ray has been going to the local coffee-house with George and our neighbors. Shiloh is a singer-songwriter and she and Mir and George often play a set there. Its not really the sort of music Ray is drawn to, but he seems to enjoy going none-the-less. I think seeing his dad perform is kind of novel to him. Its novel to me! I've seen him jam with other musicians plenty of times, but lately he's been getting on stage more and more, and not just as "the bass player". He's been singing and playing guitar and mandolin. Not really new for George, but something he hasn't done in years so I'm glad Ray's getting to see another side of his dad.
Friday, August 3, 2007
New "school year"
Ya win some ya lose some.... although I actually manged to get the paperwork and check in the mail to TheFarm, I neglected to save a copy of the New! Improved! Learning plan thingumagiggy. So I'll have to wing it and try to remember what I wrote. I don't really categorize Ray's life into "subjects" at home - just for reporting purposes.
Anyway, welcome to anyone from The Farm School at Home who may be checking in and feel free to comment. Here is a quick reference to said plan, best as I can remember:
Language Arts: Research/ information science
Mathematics: Logic and programming
Sciences: Applied physical science (objects in motion)
Social Studies: economics
Physical education: seasonal activities
Wellness: independent living
Music: appreciation
Arts: painting and manipulating digital imagery
Foreign languages and cultures: global studies
Community service: negotiation skills
My intent with this blog is to record what Ray's actually doing with reference to the learning plan but more as an attempt to give an idea of what autodidacticism really looks like in Ray's life. Although we didn't have the funds to register last year, I've been doing sort of a "dry run" of this process since...hmmm, December of last year, so there's quite a bit blogged already.
I've already posted somewhat about the programming under "Adventures of Satanbot", and about the economics under "online education" - that's way back in February, so check the archives if you're interested. Research and foreign language has been touched on under "Dabbling". So far I've been updating the blog about twice a month, each time discussing a different "subject".
By and large, I'd have to say that Ray has been doing spectacularly since he moved in with us last November. He's a pleasure to live with and a true autodidact.
Anyway, welcome to anyone from The Farm School at Home who may be checking in and feel free to comment. Here is a quick reference to said plan, best as I can remember:
Language Arts: Research/ information science
Mathematics: Logic and programming
Sciences: Applied physical science (objects in motion)
Social Studies: economics
Physical education: seasonal activities
Wellness: independent living
Music: appreciation
Arts: painting and manipulating digital imagery
Foreign languages and cultures: global studies
Community service: negotiation skills
My intent with this blog is to record what Ray's actually doing with reference to the learning plan but more as an attempt to give an idea of what autodidacticism really looks like in Ray's life. Although we didn't have the funds to register last year, I've been doing sort of a "dry run" of this process since...hmmm, December of last year, so there's quite a bit blogged already.
I've already posted somewhat about the programming under "Adventures of Satanbot", and about the economics under "online education" - that's way back in February, so check the archives if you're interested. Research and foreign language has been touched on under "Dabbling". So far I've been updating the blog about twice a month, each time discussing a different "subject".
By and large, I'd have to say that Ray has been doing spectacularly since he moved in with us last November. He's a pleasure to live with and a true autodidact.
Friday, June 8, 2007
the adventures of Satanbot
Da, da DA!
Its not a comic book character, its a computer program. Rayan has been very excited to show me his new "bot" -a program he created for use within (yes, you guessed it) Runescape. Originally, Satanbot, as he calls it, was designed as a sort of mini search-engine. Characters on Runescape have the option of battling against other characters, under certain conditions. What Satanbot does is to look up the stats of other characters so Rayan can decide if he wants to fight them or not. Clever. Next I suspect he'll be looking up others "bank accounts" to see if he wants to trade with them.
He's mostly cutting and pasting code at this point, but still, he's learning which bits of code do what and starting to get a feel for the overall patterns. I'm impressed - I'm still struggling to find what I want in HTML. Of course, I'm not spending hours a day studying it. Yeah, that's right, Mr. "School Sucks" is spending hours at a time Studying something. I'm so tickled.
Satanbot, in addition to its utility as a search engine, is also part of a "channel" Ray's created - sort of a chat-room within Runescape. Since the game itself is "family friendly" its strictly moderated against profanity, which Ray finds irksome. But he doesn't want to get his @ss kicked off either. Finally he has another option. The channel, known as "antichrist", is linked to Runescape in some way I don't understand, but separate from the game. So the chatees can cuss to their hearts content and talk about whatever they want. Satanbot acts as a sort of "host" on the channel - I've seen this but, honestly, I'm not getting all the details - and greets those who log on with a friendly "What the Fuck do You want?" I'm so proud. He's found a way to get what he wants without breaking any rules. Fiendishly clever.
Da, da DA! Satanbot!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
social stuff and exploding into autodidacticism
I'm on a few different unschooling boards - unschooling is one of the words used by homeschoolers to describe interest-led learning. Here's a part of a reply I posted to a mom worried about her son's interests and level of motivation where I happen to have a lot to say about what's going on with Rayan:
Another mom wrote: "Nate doesn't finish anything.. Well unless he is building something with Legos or making paper airplanes."
Another mom wrote: "Nate doesn't finish anything.. Well unless he is building something with Legos or making paper airplanes."
I replied: Wow, what a great example of the difference between chosen work and imposed work! He *has* the ability and attention to finish projects - the trouble is you are not assigning value to his projects.This statement of yours is also a good look at why you can't make assumptions about how unschooling will look in your home based on how a kid responds to schooling and imposed chores. Ray fought and fought and fought against both - he "looked" alot like your descriptions of Nate. Now, after six months of deschooling, he's practically exploding with new projects and ideas. He's drawing and painting and manipulating digital images. He's writing programs and exploring other languages and cultures. He's water skiing and learning to use a fire-staff. The other day he spent two hours in the woodshop making a staff for a guest bc she left hers home. He learned to use a new tool in the process. He's cooking and cleaning without ever being *made* to do so - although he has asked us to remind him to do the dishes. He *wants* to help.
I have read that unschooled children tend to be more successful intrapersonally then conventional schooled children. I for some reason believed (and I am sorry for my assumption) that unschooled kids mainly associated with other unschooled kids.
My kids don't *know* very many unschooled kids. Mo knows a handful, but they all live an hour or more away from us. Ray knows no unschoolers his age irl - although he's met some online. They both spend more time with adults than kids in general. They both have really great social skills for dealing with adults - including the ability to gently deflect adults who are condescending and belittling to them.Mo's better at asking for help with social situations she's not comfortable exploring on her own, but that may be as much a matter of personality. Ray's an extrovert, so he tends to dive in and figure things out in the middle, as it were. That got him into trouble when he was expected to "be respectful" to adults in particular, but also in a lot of kid situations where he was expected to behave in certain ways. Ironically, now that he's not struggling against those expectations he's far more tactful and gracious, even with people he doesn't like or disagrees with. I've seen him "work as a team" with people he barely knows to get a job done more efficiently, whereas half a year ago he would have done his passive-aggressive best to make a mess of things to "get out of" having to help.
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