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.

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.

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.

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!

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."

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.

dabbling

"Everyone for what he likes - we like to be
Heads down, tails up, dabbling free!" ---K. Grahmm (sp?)

When I was filling out the fs@h "learning plan" I was strongly tempted to skip over the box marked "foreign language". At that time, just out of school, Ray seemed to have no interest in languages other than English. It was a remnant of my own public schooling that prompted me (write anything! just don't leave it blank!) combined with a somewhat more noble belief that everything is connected, and learning is all about connections. So I wrote: Emphasis on global awareness and left it at that.

Six months after moving in, I'm starting to see a transition in Rayan. He's starting to expand his interests and awareness. He's choosing - completely independently - to learn new things. He is currently doing this by the time-honored method of dabbling.

Kids are regularly encouraged to "stick with" new interests, even after the interest wanes. Kids and adults who pick up and put down interest after interest and project after project, leaving older loves and skills behind, are seen as lazy or undisciplined or lacking some other, essential quality. And yet inventors, artists, and autodidacts across history have very often been dabblers. Archimedes and DaVinci are probably the most famous for this, poking their noses into everything imaginable, and going on to imagine new things besides. Franklin and Edison are popular dabblers from US history and much admired. Schools go so far as to attempt to teach dabbling - its called getting a well-rounded liberal arts education. But for all that, dabbling has fallen into disfavor.

Rayan is dabbling in foreign languages and, in the process, is expanding his awareness of other lands and cultures.

Runescape started it (humbling, to realize how much learning takes place as a result of this game) . Its played internationally, and in the pursuit of virtual commerce and less lag time, Ray discovered some servers set up for German users. Its possible to get translations for posts between members, but all the on-screen information is in German. Ray quickly began picking up useful vocabulary, and is probably the only teen in the county who can now shop for weapons and armor in German.

A few months ago, that would have been enough for him but, as I said, he's changing. The deschooling interlude is fading into true autodidacticism. Ray wanted more. George showed him Bable Fish and they looked a few things up together. The boy who still claims to hate reading then proceeded to spend hours researching his topic of choice. Take that, public education.

German's a pretty intimidating language in print, though, so Ray got his fill of it quickly. The desire for more lingered, though, sending him to research Italian, briefly, and spend an entire evening simply looking up different languages and asking to which countries/nationalities they belonged. Mandarin and Urdu, Sanskrit and Yiddish, Arabic - that one threw me. With all the hoo-haa in the Middle East, is it really possible he didn't know one country where Arabic was spoken? He kept searching and pondering. I reassured him there was no need to pick one language or to "stick with it" even if he did. He remained restless and dissatisfied, still wanting more.

Maria Montessori wrote about young children arriving at a state she called "normalization", focused concentration on their work. I've seen this state in Ray playing computer games. Now I've seen it with an "academic" pursuit (take that, again, public schools).

Eventually Ray settled on Gaelic and Ireland as a specific realm of interest. I'm used to those being more favored by hippies and folk musicians than bad-boy metalheads and skaters, so I was a little surprised. Ray's been fascinated by Ireland for some time, but has had little opportunity to learn about it. So he's dabbling in the subject. He'll do some reading and leave it for a day...learn a handful of words and drop it for a week. He's serious and intent, but its not one of those overwhelming passions, like the one that led to Morgan drawing nonstop for weeks and the house looking like an explosion in a comic-book factory.

Dabbling can be a transitional stage of learning. Some people (adults and kids) dabble around in a subject until they reach a comfort or skill level, and then dive in. Dabbling can be a means to finding the right niche. I think it is in this kind of dabbling that Ray is engaged, currently. Others are life-long dabblers, immersing themselves in a subject for a time, and then moving on. Our friend, Mirror, is this kind of dabbler, as are some of those famous dabblers of history.

In the long term, it doesn't really matter if Ray is the kind of guy who dabbles to get his feet wet or occupationally. What's important is that he understands his own natural process and is comfortable with that.

In the shorter term, all y'all family and friends reading and lurking, keep your eyes open for any resources you can throw his way. Given Ray's other interests, anything related to Irish punk music, the IRA, religious warfare or other aspects of Ireland's bloody history might interest him. Just keep in mind what I'm saying about dabbling. In a few months, Ireland may be passe.

Or he may be reading Finnegan's Wake for fun.
You just never know.

artist at work

None of us knew that teenagers aren't allowed to buy spray paint anymore. What's the world coming to? George had some errands to run, and Ray went along for the express purpose of buying spray-paint. Its not like its a secret or something - he'll probably ask for help making more stencils in the next day or so. They wouldn't sell any to him. Apparently there's a big fuss over kids using it as an inhalant and someone has decided that if they're going to be doing something that dangerous they can just buy meth and get it over with.


George rolled his eyes and paid for the paint. He said it took a lot of self-control not to ask for a couple extra plastic bags.


Anyway, here's a look at Ray "doing art". Yes, he is spray painting a pair of jeans, and that's Mo in the background, who has just painted her face, although with tempera. It was a big paint-day here. In the learning plan, I have "Emphasis on visual arts as a means of personal expression with regard to real world political, social and legal issues". Ray accomplishes this mainly via spray paint. The shopping trip was a great example of how real world issues intersect with real world artists - I couldn't design a curriculum that effective! We've also had some great discussions of copyright law and intellectual property rights as a result of looking up possible stencil designs.


He's learned to make stencils and use them effectively, and coming to understand background and foreground, positive and negative space. He is experimenting with layering and fade effects and so learning to manipulate the variables of his medium. He's learning about cost-effectiveness wrt different materials and in time he's going to realize that he's learning about ratios. And he's enjoying himself. That's often not one of the priorities of "education" but its a fairly significant one in autodidacticism.