Unschooling NYC

I’m going to get the negatives out of the way first and end on a positive.

My overall impression of the theme parks in Orlando is that they are not worth the money they charge.   The parks sell outrageously priced ticket packages based on the idea that they are good for 14 days.  Wow, what a deal, right?   Except that most people come here for only a few days at a time.  In our case, we used our Universal tickets for one day, and the Disney tickets for 2.   Wet n’ Wild, the Universal water park we went to today, … Read more

Well, on the upside, I woke up this morning with no virtual reality induced nausea or dizziness.     We headed out to Disney’s Animal Kingdom with high hopes.  I opted out of the Everest roller coaster, not wishing to tempt fate, but did go on the Kali River Rapids ride, which was fun.   We saw two tigers, some playful gibbons, a bunch of fruit bats and two or three loud macaws.

And then?

Have you ever been in a situation where you feel that you should be having way more fun than you actually are?   Because everyone you know has raved … Read more

The fact that I woke up this morning with something like vertigo did not do much toward being the in a Disney kind of mood.    I guess I really threw my inner ear for a loop yesterday, and it hadn’t quite recovered.

This meant that for the first few hours I walked carefully and tried not to look like I’d been on an early morning bender.    And hoped I didn’t bum out the kids too much by being that parent who can’t participate in the fun  (I hate being that parent).    Luckily the condition improved as the day went on, … Read more

We’ll start with the worst.   Virtual reality rides makes me sick to my stomach.   So guess what the first thing we did today was?   Yep.   Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, the signature ride in the Wizarding World area, is a virtual reality ride.   Very cool, very realistic, but it took me half the day to recover.

And the best?   I have somehow managed to be lucky enough to wind up with kids who echo my likes and dislikes when it comes to travel and attractions, almost exactly.   I would say this is because I made a point to travel … Read more

When I was a kid and would ask my Mom & Dad if we could go to Disney World, the standard answer was “Maybe when you’re older.”    It only took 34 years, but we’re finally here!

The main attraction these days is not Disney (at least for my kids) but Harry Potter World at Universal Studios.   We’re staying in one of the hotels at Universal in order to have the most access to all things Harry Potter, but will be spending two days at the Disney parks as well.  For Disney we chose the park hopper ticket option, since our … Read more

I love reading about other unschooling/life learning families, especially those whose children are grown and living successfully in the world.    Such reading is a great balm on days when questions of “but how will they ever….?”  come at me fast and furious – sometimes from the outside and sometime from inside my own head.  (Remember those vampires?)  Books like And the Children Played, or Possum Living or The Unprocessed Child are among those I’ve read or am reading, along with John Holt’s Letters, which is different but no less uplifting.   In addition, I just read a blog entry … Read more

9/11 is winding down, again.   And although is was good to finally have the memorial at Ground Zero completed (and it is lovely),  I’m glad all the ceremonies and services are over.      Not because I don’t respect the magnitude of what happened on this day 10 years ago.   I stood on 7th Avenue South with my then 15 month old daughter and watched both Towers crash to the ground.    We smelled the bitter fumes of ash and burning steel for weeks.     We were that close, and yet fortunate that no one we knew and loved died that day.

The reason … Read more

In 1968 John Holt wrote, in a letter to A.S. Neill, the founder of the Summerhill school in England:

Young people in this country ask me about going to college or staying in college…. I say to [them], “What do you want to do?”  If they know something that they want to do, and I do not accept the statement that they want to be a this or a that, I then say, “Well, go where somebody is doing that thing, and make yourself as useful as you can.  Go as far as you can doing this thing that you

… Read more

[The School Inspector] came marching into the kitchen, saying in an exasperated tone, “Now what’s this all about?   Why aren’t your children in school?”

“Well,” I said, and put some coffee on to heat, stalling for time.  “The reason they’re not in school,”  I said–and decided, win or lose, this was the moment of truth, I’d better give it to him straight — “is that we want them to be educated.”

We looked at each other, squaring off.

“You do, eh?”  He sat down carefully.

“Yes, we do.  And we want their education to go on till the day they

… Read more

Remember the first day of school when the teacher would ask you to write about what you did over the summer?    One year, it may have been when I started first or second grade, I wrote about finding a nest of baby rattlesnakes in our yard and raising them….

My teacher commented that I had a very ‘active imagination’.

Today was the first day of school for kids attending public schools here in the city.  The unofficial end of summer.   Some of them were probably asked to write or talk about what they did over the break.  I’m sure the … Read more