The healing journey of a widowed, unschooling badass in Delaware.
This April we hiked Roberts Farm in Odessa; Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Smyrna; Alapocas and Bellevue State Parks, Russell Peterson Wildlife Refuge, and Banning Park in Wilmington, with countless little walks around this and that neighborhood.
We hiked with old friends and new. We discovered new things in old places. We found out that we’re not the only ones who think the world has gone belly-up mad.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
This is going to be big. I haven’t indulged in a big Lego project in over a year and I finally got too jealous of my son’s award-winning builds to hold out any longer. They are amazing inspirations and helpers as fountains of ideas and solutions. So really, my big builds are family style.
This idea started with watching Lego Masters. One team used train track elements for a rounded build and I was intrigued. Rounded building is challenging in many aspects as so many of the elements operate at right angles. The curved train tracks proved to make a circle that was much bigger than I wished to work with. Curved race track elements created a more manageable circle with lots of strong connection points. I decided this would be a great frame for a classic UFO.
I tried to let the space dictate the build and since some green hexagons fit nicely in the center, I built a garden. My sons are helping with exotic plants and I had fun with a fountain in the middle. My late wife loved gardening and I saw that this build was going in a personal direction.
Next, we put in an art gallery and jiu-jitsu studio. Taking lots of liberties, we remained dedicated to the spirit of our favorite places: Brandywine River Museum of Art, Delaware Art Museum, and Elevated Studios. These went in as primarily white and blue rooms, respectively. The next two rooms will be grey and an as-yet-to-be-determined color. My elder son is cooking up all kinds of fun gadgets and displays for the navigation/engine room and my younger is challenging me with a grand vision for the last quadrant of the circle.
The dome over everything is a first draft of sorts and completely new for all of us. We really enjoy pushing the limits of our abilities and we are fueled by all the creativity we witnessed on Lego Masters. We’re plotting out a bottom dome as well to potentially create a full globe of a ship. We may build a hulk of a spaceship.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
Westen wasn’t six months old when he went on his first camping trip. On his second birthday he got his very own sleeping bag.
Nine years later and that bag has kept him cozy in campgrounds from Michigan to Georgia, music festivals from Maryland to New York, sleepovers with homeless families at Aldersgate United Methodist Church, sleepless nights with friends, and a wedding in Pennsylvania.
As we prepare to celebrate his eleventh birthday, cancelled camping trips and music festivals dot the calendar. I don’t know when or where the next overnight adventure will be, but I know we’ll be ready.
I don’t know how you humans do it. We hardly left our property for three days and it tore at our minds and emotions. Easter holiday, rain storms, lots of Lego, and a Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone audiobook conspired to keep us inside, but they weren’t enough to keep us sane.
A small errand got us out after solving a dead battery (even our transportation had gone mad with inaction). We bought some junk food (unheard of in our recent immuno-boosting frenzy) and aimed to play in the sun. We trolled neighborhood schools and public parks for a secluded playground to enjoy out of sight of snitches. We ended up with a beautiful patch of green, bags of chips and pretzels, and all the sunshine we could absorb. My sons rolled down hills, climbed trees, and abused dandelions. All in pajamas and sandals. We wrestled and I wondered just how many days I had left before these two will be overpowering me at will.
We found some new spots to explore in adjacent neighborhoods and picked up a pizza to watch the Lego Masters finale at my girlfriend’s place. After a week without TV (post coming on that), it was a fine way to return to the boob tube.
Adventure is a call that we ignore at our peril. Even if just a bike ride down a new avenue, our spirits crave the unknown. I learned today that I must be intentional in feeding that craving in isolating times.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
We listened to the entire first Harry Potter book today?! More than 9 and 1/2 hours while we did little more than build Lego and eat meals.
Highlights included a team effort in recreating one of our favorite Jamie Wyeth paintings.
We also had a great surprise when more Lego appeared at our door in the form of a prize my elder son had won in a remote building contest.
Many thanks to Kids’ Ketch for the contest and for judging my son’s build the winner in his age group (the dreaded 10-14 range of Master Builders).
My sons built all kinds of things and helped me with a massive family creation that will feature some of the favorite activities we are currently missing. We’re experimenting with new techniques and pushing our engineering and creative minds.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
I missed my shower completely yesterday, marking the first slip up in my challenge regimen. I’ve been consistently doing three rounds of Wim Hof’s breathing technique and at least 2 minutes under a cold shower every day since April 2nd. I’ve tried morning and night, with my sons and solo, with varying breaks and workouts, and indoors and out. I stopped timing my breathing retention as that was a distraction that hampered my performance.
It seems to always bring me what I need, a charge to start my day or a blasting away of the day’s detritus.
One notable exception was when I first tried to do the breathing outside with my boys. They were fidgety and wild with their breathing and I let it get to me. I quickly adjusted and have learned to enjoy their enthusiasm while, at once, they become more disciplined.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
One of my favorite places to be after a long day of ups and downs is with my boys as we write, build, draw, and collaborate on all manner of creations long into the night.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
Eat ice cream
Doze in the sun
Dance with caution tape
I’m a better home educator when I know what I don’t know. That’s the space where I can get curious with my sons and discover alongside them, modeling the paths toward knowledge.
I’m living in that space now. Information about the biggest event in my lifetime is changing and contradictory at every turn. I’m teaching myself to embrace the uncertainty and remember that it is the place where we discover the most truth.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
I’m borrowing the title from the latest episode of The Harmonious Homeschooler.
We haven’t “homeschooled” in years. Before my wife died, we were trying to figure out how to explain our educational philosophy briefly. “Unschool” fits by definition, but denotes a negative. Although we intentionally discarded many of the assumptions of twentieth century schooling, our focus was not merely against the status quo. We were focusing on a love of learning fueled by our love for each other as a family. We discovered that our philosophy was greater than educational, it was holistic. Or it aspired to be, at least. We came up with “learning lifestyle.” It’s not very good as a conversational shortcut; but then again, nothing in the realm of home education lends itself to shortcuts.
Two years after losing my wife, I was embracing child-led learning and ambition more each day. My sons continued to train in jiu-jitsu and desired to compete in tournaments, where they learned how tough winning and losing can be. They took theater classes and learned discipline, history, narrative, and the nuts and bolts of production. This led to a taste of bigger stages and an urge to pursue professional acting, so I took them to an open audition where they earned a spot on a talent agency roster. Road trips, nature hikes, museum meanderings, gymnastic classes, quidditch…the adventures were countless.
Then the restrictions of governments in response to fears surrounding a novel coronavirus shut down all of our pursuits.
Our Learning Lifestyle changed over a course of days. The grounding consistency of training sessions at Elevated Studios, the new challenge of classes at Olympiad Gymnastics, hosting a growing Lego Club in our home, church services and Sunday School, and the excitement of getting ready for their first professional acting auditions…all gone.
For four weeks I have sought some reordering of our lives. Most of that time has been in search of meaning. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” I was searching for the wrong why. I wanted to know why the world had gone mad with irrationality, forgetting that the world had never been rational. To expect that now was my own madness.
The why I need is, “Why the Learning Lifestyle?”
The answer is within me, in need of revisiting, refreshing, and retooling. It’s exciting and scary to work on the fundamentals, especially when you’ve already built so much on the existing paradigm.
This isn’t homeschooling, this is something new.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason