Unschooling NYC

Today we spent the afternoon at a water park in upstate New York.  At one point, while the kids were on the slides and I was relaxing in the sun, I overheard  a woman telling her friend that her daughter, who is starting 10th Grade next week, still hadn’t done her summer project.   She’d read the book, but didn’t know what type of project she wanted to do.   Then the Mom said, “And she’s only got a week left, so she’d better hurry up.”  Pause.  “What is that, anyway?  It’s SUMMER!  Why make them do schoolwork?   And THEN the school … Read more

This week’s video focuses on jobs – specifically whether unschoolers can get them, or have careers, or be successful.

As I continue to make these videos, which are largely unscripted, I find that after I’ve completed and edited them, I always think of something else I’d like to have said, or a better way to say something that I did say.

At first I tried to re-shoot, but found that often (unless there was a technical problem) the second version was not better than the first.

So part of this new project is the ability to let go of it, … Read more

Penelope Trunk has a great blog post this week titled “There are no lazy people”.     My favorite part is where she writes:

When I tell people we don’t do forced curriculum at my house, invariably people ask me how my kids will learn to do stuff they don’t like. Here’s what I think: “How will your kids learn to stop doing things they don’t like?”

 

I love that, because people are always saying the same thing to me.  Kids learn to deal with people they don’t like at school, and if they don’t learn it there, when will … Read more

“Boy, I am so ready for school to start!”   You hear that a lot once August rolls in, and you know what?  I agree.

I am so ready for long weekday afternoons with my kids at almost empty beaches.

I’m ready for family road trips and stays in hotels at off season rates.

I’m ready for mid-day movies and our pick of the horses on the Central Park Carousel.

I’m ready to keep on staying up late and sleeping late and not having to yell at my kids to get up  and get moving so they won’t be late.

I’m … Read more

This has been a rough week.  I’ve been called an elitist, and told that if I want to improve education I should put my kids in public school.  (Can I just say, I don’t get that argument at all.  It’s like saying that if you want to improve conditions in prison you should GO to prison.)  My attempts at engaging teachers and those involved in public schools have been disappointing, to put it mildly.

Because of this, my motivation to film another video was not high.  It sucks to be told over and over that your ideas are all “rainbows … Read more

Ever heard of a Lexile score?

Me either.

Until today, when it popped up on a Facebook page to which I belong.  Kids at a school were apparently asking if they were allowed to read books outside of their “Lexile Range”.   Thankfully the teacher to whom this question was asked said that yes, of course they can.   (Because we do not yet, apparently, have Lexile police who will show up and rip any non-Lexile range book out of your hands!)

The Lexile range can be found on a website called www.Lexile.com .   Don’t know your child’s range?  Not to worry!  … Read more

Finally, after 3 tries, I finished the Deconstructing Unschooling video I started on Sunday.  The first set of videos I tossed because I hated the somber, preachy demeanor I had somehow affected in them.   The second set was great, and then I accidentally deleted the main clip from my camera before importing it into the computer!   Today I re-shot the segment and imported it – using my own computer instead of my daughter’s, and basically tearing out my hair while trying to edit and upload on a slightly different system than she uses and to which I’d gotten accustomed over … Read more

Today I had fully planned to post my 4th “Deconstructing Unschooling” video, wherein I discussed the question oft asked of unschooling parents, “How do you know they’re learning?”

Unfortunately, when I went to edit said video, I discovered that I had inadvertently deleted the main clip – I usually film one longer clip and then several supplemental pieces – from my camera before importing it into the computer.  Ugh!   (First world problems, as my daughter would say.)

In any case, this means that I need to re-shoot the segment tomorrow, leaving me with nothing to post this evening.

Luckily I … Read more

One week ago today we were in California attending the 4th VidCon convention in Anaheim.   In 4 short years, VidCon has gone from a few die-hard YouTube video makers/watchers gathering in a hotel ballroom to over 11,000 attendees in the Convention Center in Anaheim.

We bought our tickets last December at the insistence of both my kids, and I didn’t really know what to expect.   The only YouTubers with whom I was remotely familiar were Jenna Marbles (who could not attend the conference due to her brother’s wedding) and Destin of Smarter Every Day.   Jenna is funny, but the content … Read more

Today I got word that someone with whom I was great friends while in high school committed suicide.  11 years ago.  It guts me that I am just finding this out now, though how it would have made things any different had I known right away is uncertain.  He would still be dead.  I wish I’d been in contact with him after we graduated, but again, it might not have made any difference. But maybe it would have.  Maybe knowing that there were people, or even one person out there who accepted him as he was – in his case, … Read more