This blog has come to consist mostly of a ton of pictures and a few rambling complaints of mine here and there. Today I guess I feel like writing (hopefully someone will read this). After the past two weeks of trying to plan Kindergarten, we are quitting. It's not for us.
I guess it's time for me to admit! ...we are an unschooling family. I've been trying to stay away
from labels because I almost always have no clue what they mean. So many
people use them in so many different ways. I'm using unschooling to
describe us because, FOR ME, it almost means a label for people who have
no label. I have tried planning Kindergarten activities, which is all
fine and dandy, but executing them is a whole other matter. Kids don't
want to do things when we have the time. They want to do whatever they
want to do in any given moment. Although they may want to do our
activities at some point, it's usually when we do not want to do them. So
to hell with the plans (again). Learning, for us, happens best when we
just go with the flow. And another thing (not that I was going to teach this). Why do kids learn the Presidents or the capitals of all of the states? Are the schools preparing them for Jeopardy, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? What in the world is the point?
Topic change.
Eaarth is a book that I put on my to read list a while back when I was working as a librarian. I think it was on the Booklist top 10 environmental books of the year or something of that nature. I never picked the book up though until I was reminded of it by Mama Gone Green on her blog. I'm not far into it and already wanting to be a martyr again. You know, the person who makes every perfect "green" decision. Well, I know that's damn near impossible, but I also know that I can try a lot harder (especially in the cloth diaper area). We are already quite green in many areas of our lives. Being poor helps a lot. Also being a homeschooling family, and one that lives very close to my husband's work, helps. The biggest problem I seem to encounter is food. We live in the suburbs, ironically very close to most of the farms that supply the farmers markets in Houston. However, all of the markets are IN Houston! The middle of it. And I don't live particularly close to any of them. So frustrating! There is no way in hell I'm taking all of my kids and driving through traffic (releasing my damn carbon emissions!) to get there. So I do my best with HEB. HEB might be a Texas thing, I'm not sure, but basically it's like a regular grocery store (Kroger, Randalls, etc), and a Whole Foods put together. There is all of the crappy food and all of the organic food. Buying local still becomes a problem. Then there is the dairy farm we go to sometimes for milk and meat (they are always out of eggs), but I can't always afford it. Any suggestions?
Another thing I want to say. I understand the need to support handmade and whatnot, but in the end,
if you can't get it locally, your decision to have it shipped across
the country (or even the world) is probably not the best. Yes we should
support handmade because this is the way people are escaping the
corporate world (or modern job world), but we still have to make responsible decisions. If you live in oil country and not in the Pacific Northwest, Maine, Vermont, etc., go to the thrift store and find
something!
The other two things that I've been wanting to do FOREVER is get a rain barrel and compost bin. I just need to talk my husband into giving me the money.... As far as our electricity use it is fairly low, but we have to use a/c quite a lot here. Our provider use to be Green Mountain Energy but when we had to cut back all of our bills to the bare minimum I switched to the cheaper Amigo. Maybe we can switch back now.
I have not made it to the part of the book (Eaarth) where the author turns more positive and tells us what we can do, but I'm wondering if it will involve the government. I tend to like to ignore the government. By speaking to them, lobbying them, participating in their elections, I feel as if I am giving them power. Making them feel all important. And they are IDIOTS and I HATE doing that. So what do we do? Change our lives, make our best decisions? I'm not sure. Maybe I will have another post on this topic when I finish the book...
I do know that this book makes one think about life in general, what it should and should not be. For me, it's about spending time with the ones you love, laughing, telling stories, jokes. Not sending them to school, not forcing them to memorize dates of wars, and battles, presidents, or capitals. It's become more about me learning useful skills (gardening, cooking, sewing, preserving,...) so that I can teach those skills to my children (who will likely need them more than ever on our new Eaarth). I'm not a doomsday prepper, but I am a thinking person. And I think we better prepare our children in a way that makes sense. Unschooling makes the most sense to me right now. Live our lives consciously and learn from our experiences. If you made it this far, thanks!
I have a lot to say on this, but won't as it will only serve to piss you off... good luck.
ReplyDeletethat's very kind of you bro, thanks :-)
DeleteWoooo! Loved this. The last paragraph especially just rings true - nice work, mama. :)
ReplyDeleteGlad you decided to read it! I felt the same way when I was reading it-- like I should be doing more.But, the end is inspiring, so keep reading.
ReplyDeleteOh- And we made a compost bin system for free by building bins out of discarded pallets and just nailing them into squares. They work perfect and they were free!
And I think unschooling is a lovely way to go-- especially when your kids are so young. I think play time is learning time for them. And all of your blogs posts show that they are getting a very diversified education.
I'm seconding Taryn's idea for the compost bin! Asking around, it's usually easy to find someone willing to give you pallets for free (our next-door-neighbor's son just gave us enough that we were able to recycle the wood to make a raised walkway over the swampy part of our side yard). And the great thing is that pieces are fairly uniform, so if you ever have issues with a board rotting, it's easy (and free) to fix.
ReplyDeleteI totally feel you on trying to be greener while sticking to an extremely tight budget. We're trying to do the same thing. Good luck!
I think I need to find this book and give it a read. See being green is VERY hard where we live. I mean think about it. Anything we buy has to be shipped very very far. The climate is not conducive to growing almost any types of food, and there is no availability of locally raised meat, eggs, or milk. Those are the things I miss living where I live. However, we eat a lot of fish that we catch ourselves, salmon, halibut, cod....and I pick berries of all kind and store them for fresh fruit year around, so I do my best. Also, with only 7 miles of paved roads on the island I drive very little, so I guess that helps LOL.
ReplyDeleteOn the homeschooling, you have to do what works for you and your family best. We have to have a schedule here, but it is very loose. Basically just a 'what I want to accomplish' list but we are really flexible. Kids so young need the time to just be. That's one of the things I love about homeschooling.
-Amanda
Yay for unschooling and making greener choices one step at a time. When we moved to our rural solar-heated home with gardens, etc, we found ourselves driving more than ever before. It's a trade-off sometimes. As much as I'm a believer in unschooling, I, of course, have a child who has chosen to go to school, and now that she's losing interest in that, she WANTS a curriculum for homeschooling. Ack. I think educational activities have a huge place in a successful unschooling environment, but waiting until the child is interested can be hard...I'll stop rambling, but I'm for 'going with the flow'.
ReplyDeletexx
I really relate to your urge to be a perfect green warrior. It's so hard to make the less-than-perfect choice when you know you "should" be doing better. But, we all live in the real world, complete with limitations -- like time, budget, and ability. In the end, we all just do the best that we can and that really is good enough.
ReplyDeleteWe also made compost bins with free pallets. It was an easy afternoon project that didn't cost us anything.:)
I am all for Unschooling, or just general unstructured and spontaneous learning. It works best for us, because like you, I have found my children are no good at being ready to do what I plan, when I plan it. And quite often, other stuff happens that throws the schedule straight out of the window! I too see no use at all in learning dates and other boring facts just for the sake of it. We like to just learn about something that happened in History. Having to memorise dates etc just makes the topic less interesting in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteAs for the green thing. In an ideal world, we would all be looking after our planet in every way possible. In a real world though, doing the right thing environmentally is jolly expensive. Prohibitively so in some cases. We have always striven to eat Organic, not just for the health benefits to us, but also for the environmental benefits in how they are grown. Just lately though, the financial burden of feeding five children has become a pretty heavy one, and some of my choices have had to become less planet friendly. We grow our own, so in the summer we are ok, it does reduce costs a lot, as does having hens, who eat the scraps and give us yummy eggs!
I also have a pallet compost bin, they are great, and free too!
Doesn't it feel good to say it out loud? You have a ton of support online, and hope locally too. We've been on this journey since 2009 and it's amazing. I have my schoolish thinking moments, but they don't last too long. I'm always trying to be more green, but it's easier said than done sometimes. I do what I can when I can.
ReplyDelete