More Education News....

Wonderful news! The British Telegraph reports:
Teachers mull ending homework for pupils.

I don't agree with assigned homework, personally, although I realize there is an endless spectrum of children, including many who may benefit from and even enjoy homework as part of their education. But I think generally that if kids are participating in a classroom education, they should be inspired as opposed to required to bring the work home. If my son doesn't want to do math questions, I don't make him. And I just about blew a fuse when he was sent home with a worksheet he found too uninspiring to finish at school. But it has happened more than once that he's been so inspired by what he did at school that he came home eager to teach me and continue the learning in his own way, here (finger-knitting and robot-building would be this week's examples).

So Yay! for these enlightened teachers, and Yay! for the millions of British students who will benefit from the change they are suggesting. Now just to hope that the movement picks up a little here. It's worth noting that our friend Chris began the Great Canadian Homework Ban. Hopefully that spreads around a little, too! I suppose it all begins with parents like us, not requiring our kids to complete homework. :--)

Kids talking politics.

In February 2008 the Canadian conservative party began a junkmail campaign of mail-in "ballots". We've been receiving a few such flyer-ballots every week. This most recent flyer-ballot was sent by Lee Richardson, of Calgary. Why he's sending things to coastal BC I don't know, but I find it disturbing.

This video is a record of my conversation with the kids (3 and 6) about it -- interesting to observe their perceptions and thoughts (some rather innocently poignant, I thought), and also how easily I can change those, with pointed questions. (Apparently 3-year olds are very easy to influence!)



I obviously think this campaign is not only deceptive, but also stupid, patronizing, and a massive waste of money, time and paper. But I'm not a Liberal, either. I just want to make that clear.

What's in your mailbox, these days?

Ryerson University considers group-studying "cheating".

CBC reports:
Student faces expulsion for running chemistry study-group on Facebook.

Excerpt from the article:

He said the group was a place on the internet where students could ask questions about homework assignments and that it was no different from any library study group or peer tutoring.

But the university, while not commenting on the case, said it has to ensure that students are doing their own homework.

When Direction Doesn't Matter

Apparently I also printed this way, and Markus' old Brio trainset is proof that at least one of he or his sister printed backwards, as remeoR seems to be printed on some of the pieces... I wonder when our brains settle in on one way of perceiving the world. And if I just never correct her, will she continue this way? She also reads picture-books upside down, by preference. And sometimes she prints letters all on their sides, with the words heading vertically or horizontally.



Note that she appears to be printing upside down and backwards, but she's actually printing left to right, from her perspective, just upside down. So from her perspective it's just inverted letters going the right direction; from ours it's a perfect mirror-image.

Wild Food: Sheep Sorrel Sushi

I've been eating sheep sorrel ("sour grass") with my family since I was a child, and it's one of the first edible salad greens my kids learned to recognize, in the wild. It's good for vitamin C, and delicious in salads, etc. Not safe to eat too much, as it can cause diarrhea, but really who would want to eat too much of something so sour, anyway? Still... as a condiment or mixed-salad ingredient, it's wonderful! I looked it up to see if it had any medicinal qualities, other than being a laxative and high in vitamin C, and found that it's used as both a diuretic and anti-inflammatory. Great! There's a great entry for it at Flora Health.

We have a surplus of sushi ingredients from Taliesin's birthday dinner (yesterday), so we thought we'd experiment with sourgrass sushi! It was delicious! The sourgrass punctuated the delicate rice and fish flavours very nicely!

Stuffed cheeks are a sure sign of enjoyment. :--)

For those interested in child-friendly chopsticks, this photo illustrates how we do it, with a little bit of rolled up foil or paper and an elastic band.


Now we think it would be a good idea to try a sushi meal made of wild seaweeds (can we even make Nori?!), wild plants, home-caught seafoods, and... something starchy that we can't think of just yet. Maybe cattail roots or shoots.


Maybe wild mushroom soup instead of miso?
(And what's with YouTube not understanding a portrait-oriented video? Hmph. So it's stretched.)
Mmmmm...


This is Tal's "seaweed taco":

... endless variety is available if only we allow ourselves to endlessly rejoice in and play with our food!

Happy Birthday, Tal!!

Taliesin turned 6, today! He is now swamped with lego Technic. Quite by accident, and while none of us knew ahead of time he'd be so interested in articulated lego creations at this time, (he's been inventing robots, launching rockets, climbing-machines, etc with regular lego for a few weeks, now), everyone in the family bought him lego Technic. 3 different types of loaders (oops, but he doesn't mind) and one robotic flying-machine complete with 2-faced pilot!

Tal refused to have a party, this year (yes Mama tried to encourage him, to no avail). So we've just had family day, with activities and meals chosen by Tal. Here's the rundown:

• breakfast: fried eggs, raisin-toast and bacon
• lunch: sprouts and pepperoni! No bread allowed but we served a bit, anyway, and he seemed to eat it, regardless.
• cake: cheesecake with blackberries from last summer, and chai
• dinner: (yet to happen) edamame, sushi, and miso soup
  

activities: lego building, punctuated by brief outdoor excursions. :--)
It's been a great day, so far, and the kids are thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Prenatal Unschooling Visit

Beautiful days we've been having. A dear friend (and fellow unschooler, and mother of 2 of my kids' friends!) is getting very close to having her twins, and has been put on bedrest, to keep them in a little longer. With a and 3- and 5-year-old, bedrest is not so easy, so Tal, Annie and I spent today distracting her kids and generally entertaining the lot of ourselves, at their house. So nice to just drop everything and feel like I'm doing it for a good reason! We'll be there again, tomorrow. :--)



Our boys especially adore each other, and spent a lot of time in the trees, today. We both actually kept the boys home from school, today, she because her son is anxious about his mother being on bedrest, and has a cough and asthma problems; I because we thought it would be nice to go hang out with a good friend, instead of whiling away the morning at school without him. It's at times like these that I am very glad to have made the decision to unschool. It means that without any fear of criticism or failing we (both mothers) felt totally empowered by our choice to keep the boys home, and watched happily as they bonded 20 feet in the air, shared lessons of compassion, communication, and friendship, and also gave generously of their time to their doting and free-spirited 3-year-old sisters.



Tal will be back to school on Monday, probably with his friend (unless the twins have made their appearance). But I can't help but feel that the learning we all shared today was pivotal in our family's unschooling journey.



I'm crossposting this to my family blog.

Time for some photos...

I've been neglecting to take my camera with me quite a lot, lately, but I do have a few photos from the past sunny days to share. We've been mostly pruning & weeding the herb gardens. But we've also been exploring the forests and swamp and meadow, seeing how the spring is beginning...
This first photo is Rhiannon with her "grass blanket and pillow" which she carefully made herself, before laying down for a wee sun-nap. Both kids have been nesting a lot, lately: making little nests of any appropriate material and creating eggs of little stones, rosehips, leafbuds, Alder cones, etc. Then they either gift them to me or to each other, and/or leave them around the yard in little nooks and crannies to surprise the birds.

Reading List

I thought it would be a good idea to gather together a list of books we love. So here it is (at least the beginning of it; I hope I remember to add to it, occasionally!) I'll put a link to it in the resources, on the left, too.

http://phantomrickshaw.com/booklist.html

MATV: Mothers Against Television

When I was a child, we had no TV, until I was a teenager. So of course, as older kids we watched TV at our friends' houses. When I was a teen, and we finally got a TV, we were allowed to watch about 1 show per day (1/2 to 1 hour), and cartoons, evangelism, and the Disney Hour on Sundays, with the rest of the family. This was in the 80's. We thought we were deprived. But really, the shows I remember watching weren't so bad: Video Hits, Degrassi, The Wonder Years, the Cosby Show, etc. Really they were responsible, reasonable, entertaining shows. We got two channels, sometimes 3 in good weather, and the most offensive options we had before 9pm were GI Joe and the A-Team (to my recollection).

Things seem to have changed. When we first lived here, (before having kids) we were given a TV and VCR, which we happily installed, in our special "TV cupboard", so that at any moment a painting could open and our living room become filled with sound and drama. While pregnant, I got hooked on North of 60, and ended up watching that and sometimes Oprah, almost 5 days/week. Luckily I bored of Oprah, but watching North of 60 continued for a few months into Tal's earliest life. Then North of 60 vanished for some reason (ended? changed times? don't know), and I stopped watching TV, thank goodness. Still, we got a couple of highly recommended kids movies for Tal when he was 2: Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. They're really great movies -- for much older children, and for adults!! The first event in Nemo is a violent fish-attack, and death of Nemo's mother... on it goes... Monsters Inc. is a little less terrifying, but still we're subjected to watching a little girl in a torture-machine. One day, when we sat Tal down to watch one of these movies, the TV's picture tube imploded in a near-silent poof of darkness. We never bought another TV.

We do have a computer, and every couple of months we show the kids a carefully chosen and pre-screened DVD. We also use YouTube as an educational tool, and have often found great answers to our questions, there. Other than that, our kids have no experience of TV. They don't know what a "commercial break" is, they don't know the familiar sound of "after these messages", they don't know who Spongebob, Dora and Pokemon are, though their friends are gradually teaching them the lingo.

So what this means is that they are innocent. They're fragile, they're easily amazed, and also easily frightened. My children are afraid of pirates (wouldn't you be, if you understood that what a pirate really was, was a thief?) What it means to have no TV is that my children are almost never bored. There is such a colossal amount of activity to be found inside or outside the house, that they are easily engaged and carry their interests from one activity to another, and to higher levels. I'm not gloating; that's just the way it is. It also means that I have no instant babysitter for those times they're building blanket-forts and carrying quilt-cases full of "Santa's presents" (read: every seen object, unceremoniously dumped into the quilt-case) around and dumping them in every corner of the house, and I can't keep up with the mess, let alone convince them to stop while I -- please -- make -- dinner ------ please?! They're not afraid of darkness (usually), or bumps in the night, because they have no nightmare-context from TV. They are afraid of weapons (though with Tal's school-experience, that's changing, now). They are routinely upset by the news, when I make the mistake of listening to it in their presence.

Bad Experiences...
And now this: A couple of weeks ago we went to some (yet childless) friends' house for a visit. The friends thoughtfully put on the Discovery Channel for the kids, prior to our arrival, and when we entered the room the kids were transfixed by somebody's hand reaching into the anus of a bull-buffalo, dripping blood onto the white snow. I whisked the kids out of the room, assuming we'd just caught the bloodiest moment of a veterinary show, and explained to them that the buffalo was not hurt, but the vet was helping him, and sometimes at the doctor a little bit of blood comes, and it's OK. Bison are big, so a "little bit" of blood is more than for a person. When we came back up, the people were heaving great arm-loads of bloody buffalo-intestines about on the snow. As the kids mouths dropped open and I tried to pull them away again, the TV-voice declared: "Well! A bit of a surprise autopsy!" And thankfully he was silenced by our friend. Tal was a bit upset. Rhiannon was quite traumatized, had nightmares for 2 nights, and still, 2 weeks later, says once in a while that she doesn't want to go to that scary house again. (Sorry, to our dear hosts... we assume she'll change her mind eventually!)

Then off to the best friends' house, a few days ago. They were playing some sort of video game, which was an entirely new concept for the kids. It took Tal quite a while to even understand why it was different from a movie. The game wasn't bloody, but had plenty of threats to the main character, and was generally destructive and violent. Tal's friends were trying to teach him which weapons to use, but in the end understood that he needed to learn: "push the lever up to make him go forward". He was suitably amazed, and now wants his own video game system, of course (not that we'll be getting one). He did say he wasn't upset by the shooting, because it was only robots, and robots don't hurt if they get shot, but then he very pointedly asked me if there are games where you don't have to get chased by scary dinosaurs.

And finally, today: London Drugs. They have a wall of TV's at the back of the store, and as we approached I heard enough sound to warn me that the children should probably not walk back there, just then. Markus led them around through other aisles to the toy section for distraction, and I walked back past the TV's, only to discover the following 4 scenes, displayed across a bank of about 20 TV's: A talk-show of some sort on the left (no sound), the great crashing sounds I'd heard coming from the Ice Age movie in the middle, and on either side of Ice Age, lower-volume bloody scenes of mass-murder and war (to the left guns and bleeding dead people; to the right swords and bleeding dead people). I was so angry I walked in to the electronics department and asked them who's in charge of the TV's. They were defensive, but generally said they were in charge, but had chosen safe channels (the sword-killing was on the Discovery channel), and they didn't have time to monitor what was on, all day. Fair enough, but why couldn't they play movies or something? WHY?!

I have the number of their manager, but I know my single angry-parent's voice to one single London Drugs manager will make no difference at all in the larger picture. In the larger picture it appears that we as a culture have deafened our ears and hearts not only to the sheer horror we're broadcasting into our living rooms for entertainment, but to our own children's needs. It's disgusting. I'm horrified.

I'm not squeamish; I'm not even vegetarian. I believe in taking responsibility for the way we live, even if that includes killing to eat meat. But kill ethically, and don't broadcast it all over the world for entertainment (sick gratification). We're not teaching our children about life; we're teaching them about death. We're not teaching them about peace and joy and growth; we're teaching them about murder, anger, and revenge (even in non-violent shows, these days, the behaviour is often vengeful). I'm horrified that the images and thoughts we're pumping into our lives every day are so obscene. What does this do to us as humans? What does it do to our compassion, to our happiness, to our ability to share, support each other, and survive as social animals? What does it do to our children, and to our future as a species?

Not much good, I think.

So I thought: "I wonder if there's a Mothers Against TV organization?" And I Googled it. I found only this article:
http://www.parentkidsright.com/pt-tv-brain.html
She says she hopes somebody starts it. So here I am. I'm starting it:

Mothers Against TV.
Join me.
Tell your friends about it.
Comment here to share ANY resources, research, organizations, etc. that you know of, to support this cause. I don't want to debate the issue, so if you don't agree, please don't post here; that debate, in blog-comment-form would at least overload my brain, if not this blog's capabilities. Comment only if you support the idea.

If I can get enough interest, I'll start a separate (multi-user) blog for it, where we can all share thoughts and resources.

But first: Get rid of your TV.

Forgive me, I know I'll regret being this forward, but right now I am too impassioned to speak mildly. Maybe this passion is enough to start a movement. I hope so.

PS: Yes, I do know about Mothers Against Violence. It is an organization of mothers whose lives have been touched by gun-violence. So of course, it's very related to this. But my beef with TV is not only the proliferation of gun-violence, there, but the desensitization, documented lack of inspiration, creativity and attention span it causes in children, and the proliferation of violent behaviour of ANY kind that I believe it precipitates. Not to mention consumerism.

...see further comments added May 23, 2008, as a new post...

no-sugar, no milk, no wheat, no eggs: Fruit-Nut Cookies

We just invented these to share with Taliesin's class, which includes a few other kids with allergies/food restrictions. We're quite happy with them! The delightful part is that all the fruits and nuts and spices (or not) are interchangeable, so really the variety is endless.

Taliesin's Fruit-Nut Cookies

• Finely chop about 2-3 cups mixed dried fruits -- it's important to chop them, even if they're small, like currants or raisins, so that they soak up the liquid faster and become stickier.
• Pour about 1-2 cups very warm fruit-juice over the fruit mixture and soak for 15 minutes.
• Chop finely and mix in 1-2 cups sweet raw nuts. If you use 1/2 - 1 cup ground nuts you will need less rice flour, later.
• Stir in about 1/2 tsp salt.
• Optional: Add spices.
• Add enough sweet white rice flour (glutinous rice flour) to make the mixture very heavy and sticky. It should form balls. This is usually about 1/2 - 1 cup, depending on the fruits.
• Using a spoon, pack the mixture into balls on a baking tray lined with baking paper. They don't expand at all, so you can pack them pretty tightly onto the tray.
• Bake at about 350 for 15-20 minutes, until the cookies bounce back when pressed (elastic as opposed to mushy).

Flavour combinations we've enjoyed:

dates, figs and fresh apples
prune juice for soaking
1 cup chopped pecans and 1 cup ground almonds (use less rice flour)
fresh grated ginger or (but it's cheating on the no sugar rule) chopped candied ginger

raisins, currants and dried apples
powdered cinnamon stirred into fruits
apple juice for soaking
pecans and hazelnuts

dried apricots, dates and fresh oranges, chopped
bit of nutmeg, stirred into fruits
press the juice out of the oranges for soaking
thinly sliced almonds, and ground almonds

apricots, figs, and dates
apple juice for soaking
fresh grated ginger and freshly-ground cardamon, soaked with the fruits
pecans

Commercialism and Young Families

Hang this poster up in your community. Print it at: http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/factsheets/notvposter.pdf

Enola Aird, at Mothering, writes on Commercialism and young families: http://www.mothering.com/sections/experts/aird-archive.html#delay

And the following link, referred to in Aird's article:
http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/factsheets/facts.htm

bluff hike

Interesting Site from my American Friend, Steph:

Saturday Walks with Pappa

Markus just documented his hike with the kids, today, and I'm glad at least one of us is posting something. You can read his lovely entry on our family journal, Tales from the Phantom Rickshaw.

Wild Food: Needle Teas

I am sometimes (thankfully less often as time goes by) asked how I expect my kids to learn anything when I'm not teaching them. Or how I can expect them ever to succeed in life with "no skills", and how can I stomach the guilt that must come with unschooling... etc. I used to defend myself because, quite frankly, I was scared. Recently I've stopped answering those questions, partly because people who ask such ridiculous questions rarely seem willing to open their minds enough to hear the answer, anyway, but also because I'm not scared, anymore. I have started to notice all the ways my kids are learning in everything we do, and with what joy and inspiration they compel themselves to learn "school skills" without my even encouraging them.

So today's Wild Food post is a celebration of all that happy, free learning. As I looked through the photos I kept noticing various "skills" appearing naturally. My only intentions, this day, were to get some fresh air, taste some yummy teas, and spend a bit of time with the kids and Opa. See what comes of having a good time ...

Gross Motor, Strength, & Agility: In other words, we hiked around a bunch, and the boys especially took great delight in teetering, leaping and cascading on the steep hill and stumps.

Biology, Observation & Classification: We went out and found Red Cedar, Douglas Fir, Grand Fir, and Ponderosa Pine. The kids practised recognising various types of conifers, and spent quite a bit of concentrated time picking off all the needles, and depositing them into the buckets. Opa helped find a Grand Fir whose branches we could actually reach. Rhiannon was particularly excited about the long pine needles, and went to great lengths to reach and pick a whole heap of them, herself.

Magic: We found this caterpillar happily munching away at some frozen, frost-coated blackberry leaves! We have no idea what it is, but we were all a little enchanted to find it living so happily in the cold winter!


Fine Motor Skills, Herbalism, Health, Cooking, and more Identification: Once inside (and after a bit of a play time) we sorted out the various needles into piles and talked about how healthy each type is, all while cutting up the leaves and putting a couple of tablespoonfuls of each into four little teapots. Then of course each of the four little teapots had water added, and we sat around waiting for them to steep for a few minutes, sniffing and comparing the smells.

Cedar: anti-viral, and high in vitamin C.
Douglas Fir: antiseptic, antioxidant, vermifuge and antifungal.
Grand Fir: diuretic, expectorant.
Ponderosa Pine: anti-bacterial, and contains vitamin C.

Shamefully, I've lost my notes on these at the moment, and cannot describe more... suffice it to say that the medicinal qualities of these various needles (and others that we didn't harvest) are interesting and varied. It is usually better to pick the young needles, so we'll probably revisit this project in the spring, as more of a harvest-and-store, instead of just a taste-test. Also many tree barks, roots and cambiums are useful... also this will be explored, eventually! ... and let us not forget pine-needle baskets! :--)

Printing, Spelling, Division & Grouping: Eventually, we had to organize in such a way that we would each get to taste each type of tea, and remember what type it was, at the same time! Not so easy, splitting 4 types of tea between 5 people! We decided it would be easier if some of us shared cups, so we split into 3 groups, according to who had been sick recently and was most likely to pass germs on, and who might already have had the same illness...

We got 3 each of 4 types of cups, so that each type of tea could go into a particular cup. One of each type of cup was then labeled with the type of tea it would contain, and by that label we would know that all such cups contained the same type of tea. Phewf. Complicated? We nearly confused ourselves into forgetting which tea was which, but it all worked out in the end. Because of all the confusion I didn't even ask if any of the kids wanted to label the cups; I just did it quickly while we still knew what was what. But guess who was still busy copying out words onto extra labels, long after teatime was over... Rhiannon!

Tastebud Excercise: Time to taste! The teas were all interesting, but the biggest surprise was Douglas Fir: it smells like bland dust, or perhaps clay, but tastes wonderful! And the Ponderosa Pine was good too; even a bit citrus-y. What an adventure. We all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, and plan to harvest large quantities of new Pine and Douglas Fir needles, in the spring.

gluten-free gingerbread circus!

As most people know, Tal is allergic to wheat and wheat-related grains (basically, he can eat rice, sorghum, corn, quinoa, and other starches such as tapioca and potato). So Christmas time is a time of marathon baking, now. We not only need to bake all the usual fare (but gluten-free), to be shared at the (yes, DAILY) festive dinners we'll be attending or hosting for the next couple of weeks, but we also need to have enough on hand so that at every gathering where cookies/cakes may be presented, we have a suitable (and exciting!) alternative or two. That's all on top of the breads, buiscuits, pies, cakes, etc. that we bake, regardless. It should be renamed: Standing in the Kitchen Month.

So for those interested, here is the latest: a Gingerbread Circus! It was Tali's idea, and thank goodness Rhiannon was also excited about it! It took us about 8 hours, spread out over two days... phewf. This thing better be delicious when we devour it! We also have about 50 individual cookies, iced and ready to be packaged up for various events.

The recipe is adapted to be gluten-free from my friend Miki's (and her Mum's) family recipe

Gingerbread Boys
1 ½ cups white rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
½ cup corn flour
½ cup potato starch
2 tsp guar gum
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup butter
1 cup natural cane sugar
½ cup molasses
1 egg

Combine flours, guar gum, salt, baking powder, and spices in a bowl.


In a separate (large) bowl, cream the butter with the sugar and molasses until fluffy. Add egg and dry ingredients, and continue mixing until thoroughly combined. Shape into a 1-inch thick, flat puck, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate approximately 3 hours, until firm.

Preheat oven to 350° F. Lightly grease cookie sheets.

Roll 1/4–inch thick, and cut to desired shapes. For curved walls, engine cylinders, etc., drape a rectangle of dough over a clean (label- and glue-removed) tin can. If the dough does not reach the bottom to stabilize the can, place small bits of dough around the bottom to stabilize. Some small shapes (cones, etc.) will hold their form during baking.

In this photo you see Tali's original design specifications (the drawing with the orange roof and circus performers dressed in blue), as well as our scrap-paper model (on the right, by Tal's hands), and all the pieces, carefully cut out on the tray and on the table.

Bake until lightly browned on the edges. The darker you let it get, the sturdier will be your gingerbread construction!

Frosting Paint:
for gluing and decorating gingerbread constructions

2.5 cups confectioner’s sugar
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
2 egg-whites
1 or 2 drops of 100% essential oil of your choice: vanilla, orange, and peppermint are our favourites!

Beat all ingredients until just mixed, then continue beating until stiff (on high with a mixer). A knife drawn through should leave a clean path. This time we added a little butter to the icing, to make it softer... mmmm...


Separate into bowls and tint with natural food colourings. We typically use:
turmeric (yellow)
spirulina (green)
beet powder or juice (red/pink)
cocoa (brown, or black when mixed with spirulina)

This time we actually just blended carrots into one part, and beets into another, and found the textured colours we got quite beautiful! And they were tasty, too! Here's Tal's explanation of the colouring:



Add water ½ tsp at a time to thin frosting paint, as necessary. Keep covered and refrigerated when not in use.

We also used some melted dark chocolate to attach the walls, tightrope standard, and standing people to the base.

What did the kids do in this??Obviously, this required a lot of adult help. The kids planned it all, with some architectural-stability advice from me. Taliesin helped make the dough while Rhiannon was at preschool. Then we worked out the pieces together; I cut the papers, they cut the gingerbread. Day 2: We all mixed the icing. Then we tried propping it up, together, but it was just too fickle for the 3 sets of hands together, so then the kids painted individual cookies while I (with plenty of guidance and a few holding-up assists) stuck all the main pieces to the board with melted chocolate. We popped it in the freezer multiple times with various (cups & bowls) supports to hold it while the chocolate hardened. When it was all pretty stable, they finished the circus implements (Tali made a hamster-wheel and trapeze, which are inside the tent), and iced and decorated the whole thing. The white-chocolate path was my addition. :--)

5-year-old rationale:

Taliesin eats his carrots heartily, because, despite our efforts to explain to him that our families are all genetically predisposed to needing glasses, he believes that "carrots are good for eyes", and maybe they will keep him out of glasses. And we can't really argue with the first point, and, after all, we're glad he enjoys them!

At dinner this evening, Tal exclaimed out of the blue: "There's a bunny in the world who doesn't like carrots!"
Mama: "Really?"
Tal, smiling: "But he's in a book."
Mama: "Well I'm sure there must be SOME real bunny who doesn't like carrots..."
Tal: "Where!?"
Mama: "Maybe in a country where rabbits live but carrots don't grow."
Tal: "What country is that?"
Mama: "Um. Maybe someplace in Africa. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure there are rabbits in some of the grasslands, but maybe no carrots. Other root vegetables, maybe. I don't know."
Tal: "Oh, yeah. Right."

...later, while Pappa was brushing his teeth, Mama overheard:

Tal: "Pappa? I think all the people in Africa are blind."
Pappa: "Huh?"
Tal: "They're blind because they don't have any carrots to eat!"
Pappa: "Well, uh... I see. That's interesting, but maybe not really true..."

...etc...

Consumerism Movie

New link added in the Learning Links section (lower left):

The Story of Stuff

Just watched it with the kids. The "what you can do" part at the end is a bit low-key, but it's a start, anyway.

Sinterklaas Komt!

Here, we are busy preparing for Sinterklaas' birthday party. Normally the festivities would happen tonight, but we've asked him to come a couple of days late this year, so that Uncle and Ginger can join in the festivities.

Meanwhile, Rhiannon will have her sharing day at preschool, tomorrow... so today we made taai taai, to serve to her friends!

(You can click the images to enlarge them.)

Taai taai turns out to be an incredibly simple recipe: honey, flour (we substitute a blend of gluten-free flours), baking powder and spices (mostly ground anise). Unfortunately, making it into the lovely, stamped shape shown here (image ripped off of eetsmakelijk.nl) is impossible for us. We searched everywhere to find instructions for using the wooden form we have, and experimented with both butter and flour, but in the end just made cookie-cutter shapes, since all our attempts failed. Of course, the wooden form we have is really meant for a completely different kind of cookie: speculaas. But I thought it would work!! Oh well. The taai taai are delicious, and the Pieten seem to have made some gluten-free pepernoten for us, as well, this year... Add to that the chocolate letter that we just KNOW Sinterklaas will be delivering any time now.... and we're all set to party for de goede Sint. :--)

The children have, of course, been setting their shoes out for many days already, and have even had some correspondence with Sint en Piet. In fact, we were thrilled to discover that after Piet retrieved Rhiannon's drawing from her shoe and took it to the Netherlands, Sinterklaas liked it so much he posted it on his website!!! Now THAT is something we never expected!! But certainly proof that Sinterklaas did, in fact, get the drawing.

Here you can see them singing their songs by the woodstove. Tal's horse, Sneaky, and Rhiannon's baby, Ganja, are of course, singing, too.




Prettige Sinterklaas, iedereen!

Earth Walk: coming part-circle!

Well, the earth walk concept is beginning to achieve its goals. The idea is that we walk 2 or 3 times every week through the same general area, and see how the seasons affect the landscape, the animals, and plants, there. There's always something wonderful to learn, every step of the way, but we've now witnessed some pretty drastic changes in the same spot, and within the children's attainable memories.

Last autumn you may remember we spent a few earth walks in the meadow and associated marshes and alder forests. We looked for ferns to harvest, there, explored the riverbanks, etc. Well this last weekend we unfortunately did not make it down during our massive snowstorm, but stayed home tabogganing, etc. in the approximately 14" of snow we got. (Yes that's right: in 2 days it built up to 14 inches - that's 36cm!!) Then on Monday we walked Tali back from school (at the forest classroom), and saw the flooded meadows. In the area we had hiked through looking for ferns, ferns still grew, waving gracefully under the water. As Tali stood looking at the alder forest, which, temporarily, grows out of the river, he said, "this is a rainforest. Will those rainforest whales come, now?" (Background info: The Vancouver Aquarium has a few arapaima, tropical rainforest fish that breathe air and swim around the trees to eat the fallen fruit when the Amazon river floods every year.)

On Tuesday we did earth walk, (and thus picked Rhiannon up from school), and I finally brought my camera. You can see that 14" of snow was completely gone in only 2 days of heavy rain and 12-degree breezes. The river had gone down a bit, but was still more of a lake than a river. Here you see the alder forest next to the bridge, as it looked last September 18th, and the bridge as it looked on our earth walk, yesterday.

dig this crazy month!

Collection of photos -- there will be no extensive explanations, because although the main jobs for the month are done, we now have to catch up on a month's worth of stuff we let slip...

Halloween pumpkins! This day Mama and Rhiannon were really sick, and Pappa was on his first day post-layoff... not such a lovely Samhain as we had hoped, but we did manage to create these lovely pumpkins and a delicious pizza, together.

November Weather...
Wild Food: sea lettuce harvested and eaten during a power outage!
Magic class continues, with a couple of boys very intent on om's!
French Class: Tali takes French with our friend Mara, at school. See him singing his song...


And now see Rhiannon's remix of the same song!


Hopefully I'll get back to documenting our learning pursuits a bit better, this month.

PS: Oh yes... and if you want to visit the website that consumed our every moment, this month, go to www.bcplaythings.com . We're very happy with the way it turned out! For those who don't know us, it's my father's website. But yes, we're willing to customize the program for anyone else who wants an e-commerce website. I do the site & graphic design, Markus does the programming. We quite enjoyed working together, despite the long hours. :--)

non-coercive learning

Tali's teacher recently sent these comments out to Learning Centre parents. I like them so much that I asked him if I could post them here. So his words follow, for your enjoyment and inspiration.

A Reflection on Some of the Values of our [Homelearners'] Program
by Alan Saugstad

A while back we had a group of teachers and parents visit from the sunshine coast. When they came into Collins Hall, the kids were all working in their math groups. They noticed how intent all the kid's faces were, how focused. One of them said they'd never seen kids so into Math before. It surprised me a little, as those groups are just part of everyday for me now, but when I paused to reflect, I knew why they worked so well. They were all doing Math because they wanted to. They had made a conscious decision to be there and to do it. No one was making them do it. No one was rewarding them for doing it. They were not being graded. In the everyday experience of doing Math, it was a subtle difference, but it made a profound effect on their attitudes.

It kind of shocked me when I realized this. Never in all my 10 years of teaching before coming to Bowen did I experience this in a school. I remember an experience I had as a vice-principal in Vancouver. I was teaching a group of 11 year olds how to design their own web pages. These kids were very computer literate but had never done this kind of thing before, so they LOVED it. They worked hard, they shared ideas, they experimented. I was enjoying to teach them because of this enthusiasm. I decided to try something. I told them that I wanted to make it even more enjoyable for them by eliminating the grading process. "Let's just enjoy doing this and keep doing it until we are done". Every last one of them told me that they wouldn't continue if they weren't getting graded. "What would be the point?", they said. I couldn't believe it.

This was a pivotal moment in my career. My eyes began to see things differently. Everywhere I looked, it was all about punishment and reward. Every part of their day was controlled. If anyone acted out or rebelled, it was time for punishment, clear and simple. And almost all
"positive motivation" was based on reward; grades, stickers, prizes, etc. Comparing kids to each other also served this purpose well. Intimidation and coercion were everywhere; never called that of course, rather they were called "motivating techniques" or "behavioural management".

Reward and punishment is clearly both addictive and seemingly effective. You want to motivate a kid to clean their room? Tell them you'll give them $5. If you give them a pokemon card every time they complete a math worksheet, they'll be math wizzes in no time! But what is the cosequence of this? The problem is that they end up like those kids I taught in Vancouver. They become hopelessly addicted to it and won't work without it. They lose touch with deeper, truer reasons for engaging in learning. They don't know what they want or like, they're just used to playing the game, without thinking too much. Most kids grow up with absolutely no idea what kind of career they want to go into. They've never been asked or had time to explore what they are passionate about. They've been trained their whole lives to follow, not to lead.

Reward and punishment is also deeply disrespectful to those it is imposed on. Imagine saying to your partner that you will give them a box of chocolates if they massage your back. What this says, of course, is that you don't expect them to want to rub your back, so you'll pay them for it. It's prostitution, really. And imagine how they would feel if you said that to them. They would feel cheap and disrespected. Yet we do this to our kids and their learning. By offering rewards, we tell them that WE don't believe the value of the learning is self-evident, and that they need to be tricked into doing it. Sort of Pavlovian.

I think there is still a place for assessment and evaluation in our program. It can be very valuable for a child to know where they stand. Most kids like to know that they have progressed from point A to B in their skills, and I don't see a problem in recognizing and celebrating that. Good teaching is a lot like good coaching; you expect your coach to watch you carefully and correct you if need be. That's how we get better. But the act of giving letter grades, especially publicly, is mainly an exercise in comparing kids to each other and it serves mainly to punish or reward behaviour.

It's probably impossible to attain true internal motivation to learn or do at all times. I know that many of the kids go along with activities at the centre because their parents and teachers want them to, which is most likely a mix of wanting it themselves and having some faith that their parents are right that it is good for them (even if they can't see it themselves). I know that for a lot of them, their motivation is based on being with their friends. Even though these reasons for learning are not completely intrinsic, at least they are much, much better than outright manipulation. I also think that there are a few instances when experiences are so devoid of pleasure or value that a little reward is just fine, like going to the dentist!!

I know most of us agree on this, and we have naturally avoided reward and punishment. I can see it in our kids. In the few situations when I have seen them be exposed to it, they feel crestfallen. They see the unfairness of it, they worry about those who don't get the prize or
are left out. They have not been numbed by living a life of constant R & P. Our kids have a beautiful sensitivity which I want to preserve.

By avoiding reward and punishment as much as possible, it is clear to me that our program maintains an integrity and deep respect for both learner and subject that will make a huge difference in the lives of our children. And like those visitors from the sunshine coast noticed,
you can see it in their faces and their attitudes on a daily basis.

...

We're all fighting a pretty awful combination of viruses and infections, here (nearly 2 weeks of it, now!), as well as being intensely busy with various sudden and urgent projects and looking for work (Markus was unexpectedly laid off on the 30th). Sooo... posting is not a priority. Hopefully in a few days I'll update, further. There's lots going on, just no time to photograph or describe.
Check into our dragonfly site for a couple of brief updates, though.

Self-Cencorship

To Shoot or Not to Shoot?
I've also been criticized for having my camera out all the time. I have been taking it with me to document many of our activities, partly for this blog, and partly for a couple of books I was working on. But this criticism: "your children will only know their mother with a camera in front of her face" is quite frightening to me, so I've stopped taking the camera most places, and when I do, don't use it very much. This is the reason you see less photos, now. One of the book projects is therefore also not happening, anymore. Heh... how to balance work and parenting. Maybe better not to try.

After all, unschooling for me is about participatory schooling, and I've probably limited my participation by having a camera pop out at important moments, instead of just being there.

Other People's Children
Finally, just to quell the concern of some that I post other people's children on the net, these are my criteria:
I ask the people if I can post their own or their children's names and/or images on the website, and only post as much information as they've expressly allowed. For this reason, some kids are referred to as "friend" or other such terms, while others, like Kai and Hunter are fully visible, here. I will never post unauthorized names/photos, here.

I do think I'm being very sensitive, as I've been told that as a photographer I own the images I make and can do what I like with them. Still, I've done a few portraits for people who didn't want me ever to display their images, publicly, and I respect that.

Magic Class Begins!

Well it isn't a new moon, but it is just off the Samhain full moon, arrived bright and icy in the first real frost of the year. Winter is here, and with it the inspiration of the week of Samhain and Halloween celebrations.

My friend, Suki, and I have decided to do a regular (barring work, etc. getting in the way) magic class for our mystically inclined sons, and our daughters who just plain like to dance in circles. This week I did some simple things with the kids. First we went and walked the stone circle in the yard, and sang and danced a couple of circle-songs. We talked about the four directions a bit, and the earth and sun and moon.

Then we had a walk to the outhouse and through the yard. The kids did some serious climbing and playing, and we explored the winter pond, etc. Here you see Taliesin and Kai climbing through some stumps near the outhouse. (Rhiannon peeking in from where she and Hunter were, behind the stump.)

After a good energy-burning play outside, we went in and had an energy-working session. We took deep breaths, grounded ourselves, and I had the kids rub their hands together to feel the heat and auric energy, between them. Kai and Tal had no problem feeling it; the girls were a little perplexed. Then, because Tal and Kai were so inspired by it, they stood apart and practiced walking into each other's auras, feeling and telling when they entered.

Kai had no problem with this. I can see auras, when I pay attention, and I saw him correctly identify two levels of Tal's aura, a couple of times in a row.

Tali did not find it quite so easy. He walked to the edge of Kai's aura, twice, and both times stopped at the edge, and looked at me. Then he closed his eyes and stepped in, and said "I don't feel it". So it seemed obvious to me that he was perceiving something, but that he couldn't either acknowledge it, or recognize it, or perhaps couldn't express it. Once inside Kai's aura, he walked right up to bump into him, still not noticing anything.

It was interesting to see the differences in the way the two boys experienced this. So after this (approx.) 15-minute energy-exercise, we continued with some happy play time. These four kids have known each other all of their lives, and have a sort of easy relationship. It certainly is wonderful to watch them grow, together.