our homeschool—our treasure trove

Our "school year" is almost finished… and what a year it has been. I haven't written a lot about it here, mostly because it's been SO SO busy. Finding time to write it all down has been like trying to catch shooting stars…imagine me, running about the grass, arms up in the air, trying to catch all that light in my hands. 

Many days and nights, I don't even try to capture it all. I just watch, my mouth open, dazzled and inspired. 

This year, my son was able to immerse himself completely in his juggling. He has worked so hard and improved so much! He has performed many times in his beloved circus space, plus at school fetes, music camps, our local city festival, at a big national festival and, just recently, he did his first solo show as part of a community review. What an amazing year he's had.

And what a thing, to be able to give (with the help of his trainers and mentors) the gift of time and training space to a boy who loves something this much. What an amazing thing, to watch how that gift has helped a boy completely blossom, to completely own the thing he loves, improving so much that big international jugglers are noticing him on YouTube and Facebook. His most recent video has over 300 views. What a thing. What a thing! 

I couldn't be more pleased for him. 

As for my girl? Well, this year, she discovered and fell in love with Scratch, a online computer programming application. She has created and posted countless animations, games, role plays, stories, and pictures. She has found a beautiful community of (cat-loving!) animators who "Get" her. And she has over 100 followers in the Scratch community. She LOVES it. 

Now, she's exploring Flash animation and Photoshop, developing her love even further. How awesome to watch her in her element, improving every day, exploring and creating her heart out. 

PLUS, she's now over 300 pages into her novel. Yes, she's writing a novel too! The best days for my girl are filled with writing, reading, dreaming, art-ing, animating, laughing, swimming, and singing (not that we are supposed to listen!). I am so glad I can give her time to do all that.

I am so glad I get to give this incredible thing—the gift of time—to my kids. I am so glad I get to say, 'Yes!' And, 'Oh, that sounds interesting!' And, 'Sure, go and do that!" I get to watch as they dive deeply into the things they love.

I get to hear all the things they want to explore, what they want to immerse themselves in; I get to learn all the things that make them tick and move and smile, the things that make them want to get out of bed. I get to hear about their discoveries. I get to sit and watch the movie they've made, hear all about the informational video they've just watched, see the art they've drawn, the animation they've created, hear the song they've just found. I get to sit in the audience or right by their side as they show me who they are. 

And it's like I'm standing with them in this incredible room—a treasure trove of secret drawers and boxes, with tunnels and wondrous things waiting behind curtains. Everywhere we turn there's something new to put in our pocket, something incredible to see and absorb. It's like the room is actually vibrating, like it's filled with notes waiting in the throats of birds. 

And we're so filled with the desire to Learn! and Discover! and Explore! and Make! that our room is sometimes packed to overflowing. Some days, we have to just stop and read a book for a day, or go swimming, and try our very hardest not to learn anything new, just so we can take a break. 

But we can't seem to help ourselves. The learning keeps finding us. The new keeps surprising us. Adventures keep beckoning. Life keeps on bringing us joy.

P.S.

bird by my girl…

from this week's exhibition with their art class
at a lovely gallery down town!

portrait by my boy…

art by the whole class…

(my girl's squirrel is on the top left
my son's watercolour landscape is the top right)

:)

a slave to passion: the unschooling way

We started the school year this February…with a timetable.

Yes, you're reading that right! We free and unfettered "life learners," we long-term unschooly types, tried a timetable on for size this term.

Oh, it was so pretty.

I dolled things up by changing the font, using different colours and text sizes, fitting things into coloured boxes, all in the attempt to make the Scheduled Learning Opportunities look enticing and fun.

I printed it out and put it in a plastic sleeve where we oohed and aahed over it. It looked so fancy, so polished, so Sensible and Straight.


And I had high hopes for it, in the beginning. This timetable thing was how I was finally going to fit all the government expectations and requirements into the week, squeeze them in like step-sisters' toes into our glass slipper.

You see, at the beginning of the school year, I suddenly got hit by a fit of the Have To's. The Shoulds, the It's Got to Look Like This'es. My son was going into year 8 this year, and two days before term began, I suddenly thought, "Woah! This is serious! Better start "Doing" high school, then!" I forgot we'd been perfectly happily "Doing" high school all last year, without the sense of squishiness, without feeling the subjects crowding into the week like mad concert goers rushing the stage.

So, I tried to fit all the Stuff—the language, technology, science, maths, literacy, history, geography, all the boxes you're supposed to tick every single week—in around the kids' passions. But these things were bullies…or at least, by attempting to change who we are and how we learn, I turned these Required Subjects into bullies…because they shoved my son's juggling practice to the far reaches of the day. Half an hour in the mornings, maybe. Perhaps an hour or two on a Wednesday, if he was lucky. He had evenings, which I thought were enough, working on his passion before bedtime.

But the problem with (and the beauty of) passion is, it's all consuming. It is your greatest love, your escape; your saviour and your finest hour.

Go without the thing you love for long, and it's torment. You aren't yourself. Everything feels wrong, feels wobbly, like you're not in the right skin, the right life.

I know this, because without my own passion, I get lost. When I'm not writing, everything feels a bit (or a lot) off kilter. There are times I can mask the feeling with more exercise. Magnesium supplements. Extra sleep. And with mindfulness exercises…where I take note, gladly, that I am well and get to hang out with my kids all day.

But if I forget to write, or get so busy tweaking a schedule that doesn't fit—"facilitating learning experiences exactly between the hours of 9 and 12 on a Monday, and 10 to 1 on a Tuesday, etc, etc"—that my writing time shrinks to nearly nothing, then after a time, it feels like a limb is missing.

The last few weeks, I've begun to truly prioritise my writing. Brought my computer everywhere I've gone. Grabbed every spare minute to write, write, write. I've written in the mornings while the kids eat their breakfast, written while they've pottered away at their projects, begun to put my writer self first. I've written 20,000 words over the past month, and it feels beautiful.

And as I've raised my passion up, valued it, prioritised it…well, our timetable has, sort of, um, fallen away.

What has this done to my newly-organised homeschool family? Well, the kids have gone back to learning, exploring, creating, discovering, just as they have been, quite organically (with us as a team, following ideas, suggestions, and desires), for four homeschooling years.

And as for my son's juggling, it is setting up home in centre stage.


The other day, you see, my son showed me yet another Youtube juggling video—one of the hundreds, literally, he has watched over the past year.

He said to me, "Mum, this guy [pointing to the teenager doing mad tricks…] practices juggling for three hours a day, seven days a week."

I said, "Really???" and he said, "Yes."

"Huh. Would you want to do that???"

"YES."

He was so quiet, sitting there at the computer, looking at me with these eyes—the only word to describe what I saw there, was 'Hunger.'

He didn't just want to throw objects into the air for every waking minute of every day. He needed to. He was unmoored without it.

Something clicked. So this is what passion looks like when it's outside your own body.

We talked for ages about how to make this love an actual, honest to goodness priority. He had his circus classes, yes, but needed practice time too—hours and hours. And practice space—he needed tall ceilings. He needed time to watch videos, to make videos, to think about juggling, to breathe in circus arts like oxygen.

So we're doing it. Going for it, jumping into the deep.

We've set up open training at his circus space. Two hours here, three hours there, almost every day of the week. I've talked with his teachers and they've told me what he needs, to get into university to study circus arts. They're setting higher goals, harder tasks, because they take this thing seriously. They will take it seriously for as long as it's my son's dream. I've even booked my boy into ballet class—he can't wait to start.

I've rewritten a timetable he might never see. Great swathes of the day are filled with the words, "Circus Training." Our classes—art, tennis, writers workshop, music and more music—are marked down too. But the "Official Stuff?" The boxes filled with labels like "maths"? Gone. I've rewritten the timetable…for me. Now that it's been written, with all the right bits in, I'm not sure, honestly, if I'll look at it again.

Passion is valid, vital, alive. It's okay…it really is…if it is everything and all the other Stuff fits and flows around it. I've read articles about unschooling and kids having consuming passions and how this all can work…and I am finding my way again.

Which brings us to today.

My son made juggling videos, all day. He filmed his training yesterday, edited and formatted the movie, added text and music. Together we created a Youtube account for him. He worked his way around the site for hours, adding a profile pic, creating a cover image for his Youtube channel, subscribing to his favourite jugglers. He uploaded his first ever Youtube video. Hurrah! And then…he went and made another.

kind of awesome

My boy started juggling in April.

He practises it for hours because he can 

(no bus to catch in the morning, 

no hours and hours of designated work in the day, 

no homework at night),

because this skill is honoured and treated as equal to

any other learning he might do,

and because it brings him joy.

So he has become 

kind of awesome at it.

:)

month of beauty: back to (home)school

All around our state, kids went back to school today. Holidays over, crisp in uniforms, shiny shoes and hats, off they went—on buses and bikes, walking with mums and dads, all waving goodbye at the school gate.

And I'm sure they had a great day!

They probably saw their friends and did some fun group activities

And probably got to do some sport.

They might have chatted with their teacher, who they really like,

and learned all about art and maths and history, among many other things.

ancient village
by my boy

the rock shop
by my girl

slide and rock house
by my girl

Doesn't it look like a head?
asked my boy

created by C
(as her sister played guitar on the grass nearby)

created by B

created by J

And I am certain that, on this glorious, sunshiny day, they got to play outside

where I am sure

they had a wonderful time!


Bring on Term 3…!

I think it's going to be a whole lot of beautiful.

:)

Linking with the lovely Owlet's Unschool Mondays

so much to share

Boy, my last post was long (and sort of a little bit sad) wasn't it? I hope that you read it all the way through and saw things finished better than they began. Which is so often the case, don't you think?
(And if you haven't read it to the end, then…oops. Spoiler alert?)

You might like to know, and I think it's important to say,

that any sad I feel these days, is much smaller than it ever used to be (because I am learning…that sad is a part of happy is a part of breathing is a part of waking up and a part of me).
It passes more quickly (because I fight it less).
And smiles come much, much sooner than they used to (because I know they're on their way).

I am so unbelievably grateful for that.

I actually have even more to write about this journey, about my complicated companion Fear…and all the steps I've taken over the past 6 months to get better. And I am getting better, I am letting fear go. It's been an amazing and beautiful ride, in so many ways.

But I can't write any of that right now, because I have to make some

Very! Important! Announcements! 

instead.

Because that's how life is— isn't it? You sometimes feel all serious and want to address serious issues. Sometimes you get sad and think serious thoughts. Sometimes you have to make important (and serious) decisions. Sometimes you get slapped in the face by sorrow/fear/worry/grief and feel like you want to give up and then you have to get serious about saving your own life.

But in all this seriousness, all this staying focussed, and in all this getting better,

life keeps on happening.

Doesn't it?

Glorious, improbable, extraordinary life.

Filled with crazy goodness. And beauty and wonder and laughter and
surprises (large and little) that make you smile so big you are amazed your face has room.


So that's what's been happening here.

A whole lot of crazy, good life.

For example!

Announcement #1

My daughter has been accepted to be a Young Editor at Youngzine (our all-time favourite online magazine for kids) for the summer (our winter)!

She wrote an essay on being vegan recently and submitted it—Youngzine published her essay, and it generated a huge response from the readers. So then she applied to be one of their summer writers, and they said yes! She's working on her first story right now, and is so pleased (as well as a little nervous, truth be told). I'm so thrilled for her. Wow.

Announcement #2

My son has quietly become a jazz pianist.

He played a gig at a cafe the other day with his jazz combo (getting paid in soy hot chocolate, as all musicians should be, really). When he played his solos, my husband and I were blown away. How'd he learn to play like that?? I've heard him practicing in the playroom, and driven him to rehearsal. I've never really thought about what he was doing; it was his special thing and just a regular part of our lives. Now, possibly for the first time I saw him as a separate person, a musician in his own right. I had never seen him play like that before. Wow.

Announcement #3

Both kids submitted stories into the Just Imagine writing competition* at the city art gallery this year and…

(* wait! More info required! In this competition, you pick an art work to use as a prompt and write a story… it's sort of that simple. The rules state you are supposed to pick an art work in your category—there are four artworks for Grades 5-6, four for 7-8, and so on through high school. Well. Um. We didn't exactly stick to that. My son liked the 9-10 category, and my daughter, who's in Year 4, submitted in the 5-6 category. We did it 'cause we're rebels that way. All of us ninja writers, somersaulting through rules like they're laser lights in a musty museum. Did you see that back flip?!)

…yesterday they had the awards ceremony and

both kids won. Both their stories won "Best Story" for the artwork they picked! Wow. Both kids get their stories published in the paper, get a book voucher as a prize, and will have their stories displayed beside the artwork in the gallery for the next month. Wow. WOW.

Could I be prouder? I don't think so!

All these wonderful happenings (plus reading this great post by Christina) have led me to
another lovely epiphany.

And that is:

My kids are free, this minute, to realise any dream they might have.

They have the time, the support, the space, the resources, the energy

every single day

to be the people they want to be.

They can be journalists. They can be writers. They can be musicians. Right now. This second. Not later. Not when they're grown and done with their school years. Not even after school is finished for the day. Now.

They can be artists and web designers, explorers and Minecraft engineers. They can be vegan advocates and chefs. They can be mathematicians and jugglers and cat cuddlers. They can be beachcombers and cyclists. They can be dreamers and readers and sleeper-inners. They can be in their pyjamas all day, writing novels and playing piano and eating warm pasta at lunch and asking each other, "What would you wish for, if you only had one wish?" every single day, if they like.

They get to live outside boundaries, outside expectation, outside shoulds.

That's their "normal."

Even on the crinkliest, most serious days, this is their life,

our life,

in all its crazy goodness,

wrapped up in surprise and delight.

I'm linking this post to Owlet's beautiful Unschool Mondays

and to Christina's inspiring Interest-Led Learning blog (because her words inspired a comment which is now the central message of this post)  :)

What sort of school IS this?

I wouldn't be surprised if someone walked in one day and asked that very question. Sometimes I laugh and think the same question myself! Because this homeschool of ours sure doesn't look like any school I've ever been to (and I went to 7).

What do you think of when you hear the word

"School"?

A few years ago, I would have pictured… a desk for a child to sit behind. A blackboard for the teacher to write on. A space between the teacher and the child. The teacher standing before the class, or sitting on a chair with the children in an obedient semi-circle at his or her feet. I would have imagined learners listening and a teacher speaking. I would have imagined it as I lived it, because that was all I knew.

When we began homeschooling, I got a white board. A big, beautiful one where I wrote the day's plan. I also bought a lot of workbooks. Books for spelling, comprehension, maths, history. I pored over curriculum, lesson plans, education outcomes. I searched to find something to hold onto, some recognisable and sturdy structure to build in a land that was completely new to me. This new land had a horizon too far away to see, signposts I didn't know the language to read, roads that twisted and rearranged themselves as I walked. I remember a day when I bamboozled myself—by reading so many ideas on what to do and how to do it that I had to take myself to bed.

I tried a daily structure, and dismantled it. I tried rebuilding different structures, but they fell at my feet, or the children stepped out of them. I tried schedules and textbooks and plans and packaged curriculum. I relaxed and had no structure. Then panicked. I lost my way, found it, lost it. The new world sometimes seemed just too large. There were days I doubted myself. I worried that the children would be behind, or not learning what they needed. I worried that somehow, in some way, I was making terrible, unfixable, mistakes. I wept. Sometimes, I would rant. Sometimes I did all of this in a single day.

But a lot of days, in fact almost all of our days, were actually magic.

Those days, when I let go of the worry and the doubt and the expectation and…just watched my kids and listened to them and said yes to their ideas and we walked and talked and read and explored and created and… we went to the library and to the beach and the art gallery and…sat in our pyjamas all day reading or writing our novels or playing games and music and…we went to hang out with friends,

those days were (and are) unbelievably amazing.

They are why we've homeschooled this long.

Three years! It feels long, and it feels…
like a blink.


And just recently,

I had myself a little epiphany.

It suddenly hit me, finally—big and wild and hard in the gut—that

our homeschool never has to look like school.

Not in any way. Not even remotely. I really, truly, can let it go. The teacher teaching, directing, deciding everything. The child listening, passively. "School"—this enormous, impossible entity—didn't need to be here. Not the structure, the look, the feel, those books, the invisible wires that were my idea of "School" holding me still … none of it needed to be in our home.

Then I looked around, and saw

we'd actually already been living my epiphany. For years, we have been loosening the wires, stepping away and forward.

But I don't think I'd realised.


After my epiphany

I could see clearly

 that our homeschool is already our special, particular, walk of invention.

Instead of accepting a land already made, we have made our own. We found roads that turned corners we liked then built new roads that branched away; we entered buildings that were interesting (but we didn't always stay inside). We have written our own street signs, made our own rising towers and glorious bridges, and we have strung the streets bright with lanterns. We found fields to run in and silken beaches and we painted the world in technicolour. We have sung and written and drawn and dreamed our own school into being and as we have, the word "school" has grown fainter and fainter…until with the slightest, quietest, 'pop!' it has disappeared. We have made our land a land of learning, made it so it fits us, built it so we grow finer and greater, every single day.

It's so beautiful here. Not always perfect. But it's ours.

A daughter on the couch, looking at Science For Kids on the iPad. A boy lying on another couch, writing page after page of his story. A girl lying in her bed with the computer, designing her website. A boy discussing the existence of oak trees ("if you have a 700-year-old tree that has a new, week-old branch, can the tree really be said to be 700 years old?"). A girl writing about bald eagles at the dining table for her blog. A boy juggling and juggling, inspired by numerous TED talks and his circus class. A girl lying in the big bed with her mum, discussing long division and playing book stores and making up change. A boy playing Words With Friends with his mum (and beating her! She will have to lift her game.) A girl drawing cartoon cats and reading books on animation. A boy poring over Greek history. A girl reading every Warriors book under the sun. A boy and a girl and a mum, walking on the beach almost every day the sun is out.

A boy. A girl. A mum. A dad. Thinking, dreaming, creating. Talking, all the time. Playing in the land we made. The land we made. 


It is so beautiful here.

linking up with the lovely Owlet's 

Unschool Monday

… and Click

There are some moments in life, moments pure and perfect where you stop and take a photograph with your mind.

Notice this, I say to myself. Mind this. Remember this. Feel this.

Those moments are like spotting rainbows, or a child's hand quietly slipping into yours. You hold them close. You remember them always.

I still remember breastfeeding my son under the trees when he was less than a year old.

I remember the very last night I breastfed my daughter, at almost three years old and how she fell asleep tucked against my skin.

I remember, clearly, kissing my husband on the dunes in San Francisco when we were new to each other. The wind rising, the waves turning, crashing, turning…just for us.

I remember 13 years ago, standing under cold stars on an empty street in Lake Tahoe. I remember singing in harmony with a friend, singing over the North Sea in Yorkshire when I was 24. And just the other day, I remember walking towards my children, and suddenly feeling the deep invincible burn of loving them.

You take note in moments like these. You stop. Click.
Stop, click. Stop. Click.


And… some days I also pull out my phone and take a picture,

to make doubly sure a sweet moment sticks.

'Cause it's nice sometimes to have an actual photo to look back on.
(As lovely as the memories are, and as much as they make me glow)

And sometimes because I think, perhaps my memory won't always be enough. Everyone has those days, don't they, when you look back and go, "What was it we did again?" or "What did we do yesterday?" or… "I don't remember that at all."

Plus, well…it's always good to have a record for the homeschool diary :)

We've been so busy the past few weeks. A beautiful man has gone away then returned. (Hooray, hooray, hooray). We have tripped to Sydney, and returned. We have gone to the beach and gone to the beach and…gone to the beach. We have walked the dog. The kids began juggling class. They made an online story forum for people who want to write about cats. We have done our computer science class. We have cooked and eaten scrumptious vegan food. The kids have scootered (and I have watched). We have read. We have written. We have walked. We bought an iPad!! We have been in the newspaper. We have laughed and we have played and we have learned.

Can I show you how our days have been…?

I'd like that, very much.

Our Sydney Adventure

Including: Ladybugs, Chinese Gardens,

Views Down and Around,

and DeepBookDiving

Our Outdoorsy Days

Scootering

Beaching

Walking

Laughing

Our Learning

Forum Creating

Story Writing

Game Playing

Computer Sciencing (with the cat!)

Box Building at Bunnings

Card Workshopping

and
Ball Juggling

Our Music

A Jazz Concert

A Classical Indian Music Concert

and

A Boy's First Jazz Piano Gig!

And oh, it was so cold out!
My boy kept rubbing his hands together to keep them warm between songs.
Then played his heart out. 

Our Vegan Life

Lasagnes and Quesadillas!

(plus we ate Pizza… and Moroccan Sweet Potato Stew…and Vegie Burgers… 

and Almond Pancakes…and Lentil Bolognese! Yummilicious)

Plus some

Vegan Essay Writing (by a girl)

and

Vegan Poster Making (by a boy)

My boy showed me his (done on Paintbrush) drawing with his typical mischievous grin…

then he decided to create a series of posters using quotes from different faiths and philosophies 

(Christianity, Buddhism, Confucious, the Bahaii faith, Hinduism),

all quoting the Golden Rule. Pretty beautiful. 

I am so proud of my kids for reading up about veganism, 

for becoming informed, and expressing their views. 

They inspire me to do more, say more, speak more. 

And publish more pictures of scrumptious vegan food :) )

Our fame

We were in the paper!

I was interviewed via email recently for a Mother's Day article coming out in the local paper.

I was asked about homeschooling and mothering…

and wrote lots and lots of words in response :) 

The photographer came to our house and snapped a thousand photos. It was a lot of fun.

When the article came out yesterday
 (along with lovely interviews with 6 other mums), 

I was so pleased to see that the points I felt strongest about were kept in. 

I was so glad to see homeschooling (specifically unschooling/life learning) 

shown in such a positive light. 

It made me so happy. 

And…
Our Together.

I love these kids.
I love being their mother.
It's a cup-runneth-over kind of love.
The best kind of love there is.

I hope all is as well for you, on this Mother's Day,

as it is (and it beautifully, magically is)

for us.