Tag: unschool

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Living Dream

It’s hard to communicate how significant Shakespeare has been in my life since before I met Mary and through to our life without her.

Mary and I saw Patrick Stewart as Macbeth in London during our honeymoon nearly 12 years ago. It was Mary’s first exposure to the Bard on stage and it was pure luck when we stumbled upon the chance to see one of my favorite actors in an amazing role.

A couple years later we would take our new baby to see Twelfth Night under the stars as performed by Delaware Shakespeare at Rockwood Park in Wilmington, Delaware.

Passing on my passion for reading and writing has been one of the few things I’ve really desired for my children. I read 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea to my first born in his first months and never stopped introducing some of our oldest stories at ridiculously early stages.

Neither of us came from theater backgrounds and would not have predicted how our boys would take to the stage.

They’re in two productions of Shakespeare’s plays this summer. Their partnering up to play the comedy team of Dogberry and Verges in a homeschool production of Much Ado About Nothing is very special and the result of a lot of dedicated work.

However, their involvement in Delaware Shakespeare’s production of The Merry Wives of Windsor touches me in a way that stretches back to the chance to reintroduce Mary to the Bard and share my love. To imagine them on the same stage where Mary and I had one of our last date nights…it helps the world make a little more sense.

They won’t have any lines, but today they had their first rehearsal and my heart swelled as they took on the choreography like pros. I see them building their own lives and it is an immense blessing to watch their journeys.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Patience and Voluntarism

I’m proud of my son for getting back on the mats at Elevated Studios this week. He’s been mentally wrestling with attending class. I’ve tried to have patience and remember that if I force him to do a thing, that he’ll eventually hate the thing, me, or himself. I’ve asked him questions and attempted to find a way to help him train again. I can’t say anything I did or said got him there. He’s always some mystery to me.

For all that I don’t know, I am confident that letting him make these decisions is the right path in allowing him to develop as an independent individual.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Solo Dadding at Mountain Jam

This one was intimidating. Assumptions had crept in as I planned and envisioned our spring and summer adventures. I expected to have more support, a co-parent, to teamwork on grand excursions. I thought things might be getting easier. After 16 months of having my parental assumptions repeatedly blown up one would think that I should be used to this; or better yet, that I would give up on assumptions and the future. But I can be a slow learner.

Cap the dissolving of expectations with waves of grief and a busy unschool schedule, and I wasn’t feeling up to the task of four nights of festival camping. Especially since this music festival, Mountain Jam in Bethel, New York, would feature bands that had significant ties to memories of my late wife, Mary.

Screw all that. I have slept in tents since I was an infant, attended day-long festivals since I was a preteen, survived the riots of Woodstock ’99, logged thousands of hours alone on the road with my sons, and honed my situational intuitions over those many hours. I set my back straight and climbed into our Dodge Caravan with confidence.

The road smoothed and eased before us. The trip was shorter than expected. Somewhat miraculously, an online friend spotted us as we drove by her camp site and hollered. The rain came down and the van got stuck in the mud, but, with help, we got the tent up and had ourselves set for the first night of music before sundown. We continued to find the right people at the right times. Friendly staff and volunteers, helpful young people, generous vendors, fun and engaging performers, and very special families made for easy going days and nights.

Above all, I was reminded of how good my sons are at this. They made friends, charmed adults, and carved their own unique experience out of the weekend’s offerings. For my own part, I simplified personal obligations and expectations, enjoyed as much music as I could consume, and let myself have a whole lot of fun. We stayed up late, danced and played recklessly, and took care of business when circumstances called for it.

I came away from the weekend with my shoulders back and my head high. Our story seems impossible, I saw that in many faces as I told it to new friends, but there is an immense power in mastering an impossible task. Or just in taking it on and failing, as I have many times.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Curate Your Community

We are surrounded by impressive people who bring brilliance, strength, fun, compassion, beauty, bravery, passion, challenge, faith, joy, and love into our world. We gravitate towards excellence and engage it whenever possible. It’s no accident. After 12 hours of adventure in Philadelphia with home-educating families, Brazilian jiu-jitsu bad-asses, an FBI agent, and a couple librarians, I remembered why we frequently pause our adventures to connect with so many people.

I didn’t know it would lead to a holistic learning lifestyle when I first watched my sons asking museum security about a painting. I didn’t know chatting with a martial arts school at a crowded event about their summer camps would blossom into the most consistent component of our learning environment. I didn’t know small talking with homeschooling and unschooling moms would build a support structure that has buoyed us in hard times and created opportunities we would have otherwise missed.

I’ve learned that opportunity is everywhere and it is almost always locked away in a human who can’t wait to reveal it to you. I’ve learned that human connection is the key. Not just to experiences and knowledge, but to deeper understanding of God and the world around us. “Oneness” doesn’t mean we’re all the same, it means there are threads that join each of us together, one at a time. When we are open enough to see these threads and wrap our hands around them, we find something new in ourselves.

Each individual you meaningfully relate with becomes part of your community. Get into the habit of just chatting with people and soon you will find that you have an amazing world opening up around you.

Have a God blessed day,
Jason

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At the Park: Unschool Style


Even when we’re at the park for fun with friends these little learners won’t stop problem solving.

Beyond resolving conflicts, dealing with playground bullies, and inventing games, some of the boys decided this log needed to return to the river. With teamwork and simple machines they accomplished their goal with no adult guidance.

Surely a minor benchmark, but a fine example of how we look for problems to solve everywhere we go.

Have a God blessed day,

Jason

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Kwansaba Surprise

Last night my son wrote these words and enthusiastically read them in front of strangers and library friends. Instant tears, but I held back the flood. The prompt had been to write three things on a blindly-chosen color sample: A wish, a secret, and what you are most grateful for. After so many mistakes, lost tempers, and raised voices, it amazes me that I’m raising strong and compassionate creatures who lift me up as often as I do it for them. For my own part, the secret was a real challenge. I’ve shared so much of myself publicly and with friends that I knew I wanted to take this moment to dig a little deeper. Sharing with strangers can be easy, but I was self-conscious as some of the participants knew me from library visits.
“I’m lonelier than I let on.” It was how I felt. It’s not always how I feel. In my efforts to be more present I’ve given myself more space to feel. Sitting here typing I’m entirely at peace, the sun is above the horizon and lighting my kitchen beautifully, the old fridge hums its cranky song, birds sing gently, and I’m happy with no one around at all. Soon, my boys will be up and everything will change. I will change with it and let go of this perfect moment. Last night was another perfect moment. Saliym Malik of Brevity Bookspace led a poetry workshop introducing Brandywine Hundred Library patrons to Kwansaba, an African-American form of praise poetry. Seven lines, seven words per line, and 1-7 letters per word on a subject you wish to raise up in love. Unschooling all the way, we had only planned to check out a couple books, but my elder son was drawn by Saliym’s Pied Piper routine into the program. I awkwardly caught up as the group was meditating their way into a creative mind space. My younger confidently trailed unawares with an open graphic novel as his only concern. Saliym’s energy quietly and quickly drew all of us into his guidance. What followed was beautiful. I found a warm ember under long cold assumptions that my poetry writing days were far gone. I was inspired by exposure to this simple form and scratched out a couple poems. Most exciting was doing this alongside my boys as they asked for help with spelling, letter counting, and line breaks. I never needed quiet to write. I ignored countless teachers droning as I scribbled during class, ran back and forth to an open journal at the server’s station while waiting on tables, and sat alone at noisy bars with that same journal when inspiration struck or conversation lacked. Writer’s block had gripped me before I met my late wife. I don’t know why, but I have hardly tried to write poetry in 15 years. I promised Mary a poem. I hand wrote her love letters, apologies, and thank you notes, but never followed through on that poem. I regret that and maybe it’ll be enough to write it now and let go of that regret. I thought of that when Saliym asked us to write about a person, place, idea, or moment that we cherished. Again, I found myself more in the present than the past, and the thought of condensing a lifetime with Mary into seven lines was too heavy to lift. I’m sharing my creations below. I’m pleased with how I began to flow as the exercise progressed. I’m pleased to find some of the old music still playing. I’m pleased with how it felt to stand up and read out loud. However, I do wish “treasure” had one less letter.
I love my sons’ poems. The younger is a wild little editor just going for it and the elder runs as deep as a subterranean river.
It feels so good to have poems strewn about the kitchen floor as my sons come looking for breakfast. April has been good to us. Have a God blessed day, Jason
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My Favorite Home Education Question

“How can my husband help?”

My wife and I hadn’t discussed homeschooling and hadn’t even heard of unschooling nor deschooling when our elder son became eligible for kindergarten. A series of hiccups, annoyances, and coincidences inspired us to look at all the options we could imagine. My mind was set as I thought, “If I can’t teach him a kindergarten material, I’m a worthless dad.” We committed to a (school) year of homeschooling with the goal of honestly reevaluating at the end of it. We didn’t have a clear philosophy nor curriculum and were questioning ourselves within a month. The reevaluations came on a regular basis, never scheduled, but imposed by our failures. We talked through all the mistakes and started to see that we could work through minor adversities to discover major rewards. We didn’t stop at the end of that school year, we had established rhythms of learning and saw no reason to disrupt them. The evaluations continued, as did the failures, but our eyes lifted from the day-to-day struggles and gazed out to see what our goals were. It would be two more summers before my boys knew what “summer vacation” meant.

Our sons had shown an inherently strong capacity for learning, that part was relatively easy. What we wanted to model was thoughtfulness, confidence, kindness, and a capacity to love and help others. Although a useful shortcut for the uninitiated, we dropped the term “homeschool” in our personal discussions as we were not creating our version of school, we were practicing a learning lifestyle. Our faith community became a huge part of our mission. Not only could we bring cans of soup on Sunday, but we could hop on the trucks on Monday morning and go visit the people and places that benefited from the donations. We could spend a quiet Friday cleaning up a local park or setting up tables for the church rummage sale. Opportunity was to be had any day of the week.

We continue to find chances to help and broaden our ability to do so. We’ve learned immeasurable lessons along the way and achieved some good along the path.

God bless,
Jason

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I Come to Unschool Caesar, Not to Praise Him

Okay, not entirely. My sons have actually begun a class with the goal of putting on a production of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Pages Alive Theater brings classic literature to students and guides them to bring the stories to life on stage for local audiences.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. 

I bring the unschool factor, sometimes inappropriately, and recently discovered Wisecrack‘s Thug Notes. NSFW, nor children, but it is hilarious and quickly hits the main points of the plot. Please review this before sharing it, as it represents the most base of my educational techniques.

My sons are excited about stop motion Lego films, we dug into those next.

Graphic novels are always a good starting point for us and the director recommended Julius Caesar (No Fear Shakespeare) for exploring more difficult language.

If I can’t find the play currently on stage (this type of prep work is usually done in anticipation of a live production), I’ll look around for a solid film production. Marlon Brando’s Caesar has been recommended to me and I think we’ll give it a shot.

If you are looking for a way to engage your children in classic literature, try one or more of these methods. They can also be a great way for adults to catch up on the beautiful material that their own schooling had no idea how to present. My sons maximize their recall when they compare different versions of a story, and the different choices made by authors, illustrators, directors, actors, and costume designers will lead to fascinating discussions.

The deepest way to investigate a text is to act it out. This is most true for children who are dying (quite literally in Shakespeare) to play in the adult world. With no stage experience myself, I am eternally grateful for organizations like Pages Alive Theater for providing this type of enrichment.

God bless,
Jason

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Road Trip Exhaustion

As we wrap up another adventure I’m feeling worn right down, but oh so blessed. We’ve found traveling companions who go as hard as we do and can smile as they roll with the punches. We giggle and play, hike and seek, and somehow survive the new dynamic of six in a vehicle instead of the road-tested Zerbey Three.

We even squeezed in a two-hour ecology tour before an eight-hour excursion today. The learning lifestyle takes us many places and follows us where we least expect.

God bless,
Jason

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They’re All Disruptions

We were blessed to choose homeschooling and to gradually evolve our philosophy toward unschooling, home education, and a holistic learning lifestyle. We had to deschool ourselves and break away from many of the poor learning habits we had internalized. It was, and still is, scary to turn away from our past paths and the present paths of almost everyone we knew. My wife and I discussed these decisions for hours and were dedicated to providing a better way for our sons. We were also dedicated to taking on the journey together. I was the bullhorn of home education and she was the quiet, steadfast warrior. We were a helluva team.

When Mary died, it was an unexpected disruption that would ripple out, echo back, and continue to vibrate through our lives. She left me with all her warrior strength and a little of her quiet steadfastness. It took me a few months, but I finally took up those gifts and embraced the disruption. Looking as deep into myself as I can stand I have chosen to take on my own demons and become a better father, man, and human.

Life is a series of disruptions, whether you steer into them or not. But life is a force of nature and fighting against change is not advisable. You will lose and it may tear you in half. Instead, put your hands out, close your eyes, and feel the air around you shift in place and temperature. Follow it. Set your sails to the coming wind and hold on. If you are careful enough and lucky enough you could be carried to a grand new land.

Do not fool yourself. That wind is coming.

God bless,
Jason