I love unschooling. I know that probably goes without saying, but it’s good for me to be reminded sometimes.

Yesterday was our fourth unschooling anniversary. Four years ago we made one choice that changed our world. And today I’m reminded just how phenomenal and empowering a choice it was. See, I don’t love unschooling because of its “results.”

I love unschooling because of what it gives us: freedom, space to heal and the courage to live passionately.

Four years ago, I stood before a child that was angry and sad. I stood before him with questions about how to help him and how to ignite the interests he once had. I was worried that he no longer loved to read or wanted to play with numbers or patterns.

Our life was anxious and nervous and uncertain.

In school he felt a lot of pressure to perform, took to heart anything that sounded like criticism, and became paralyzed by fear of failure. Even things he enjoyed and excelled in were avoided.

Reading was one of those things.

Although we had been reading since he was an infant, although he was excited to learn to do it on his own, and although he picked up on it quickly and easily, he was before me declaring his hatred for books. With pressure, judgment and limitations placed on him his loved for books suffered.

But unschooling changes those things.

Living outside school gave us the freedom to be ourselves, the space to heal our wounds and the courage to live passionately.

As I type this today, four years later, I’m sitting beside my 11 year old as he writes his first novel. And it’s not just any novel; he’s writing an epic fantasy novel.

My heart is so big and happy right now. I wish there was a smiley with it’s eyes closed and it’s face basking in the sun. Because that’s how I feel, as though I’m basking in the glow of a beautiful life.

My son is writing a novel. And I’m not concerned with any of the details, the grammar or spelling or “doing it right”. I’m not even concerned if he doesn’t make it past the second chapter (because he’s already finished the first…and it was Oh.So.Good).

I’m concerned with feeding his passion and his desire to want to do something So Big, so outside his usual comfort zone.

I’m concerned with supporting his sense of empowerment, as he chooses to do something that conventional wisdom wouldn’t expect from him.

I’m concerned with helping him feel the potential within him, to know he CAN, even if he chooses not to.

I’m concerned with his sense of freedom, giving him the space to grow and feeding his courage to live passionately.

Because those are the things that nurture a personal definition of success.

Those are the things that change things.

Just as unschooling doesn’t mean uneducated (nor is it against school or always done outside of school), unjobbing does not mean unemployed. Nor is it really against jobs or always done outside the presence of a job.

Instead, unjobbing is more about how you do what you do than what you actually do.

Unjobbing is about making a life instead of just a living.

Instead of living for work, we work to live (and to learn and grow and experience). We love what we do; it brings us fulfillment and it enables us to do some pretty wonderful things. But it’s not all we do. It’s not the only focus of our life.

Unjobbing is often used synonymously with entrepreneurship, working for oneself. But I think the greatest downfall of entrepreneurship is the insipid ideas and lessons we learned as children that still linger in our ideas around our work.

Just like deschooling, dejobbing has its place.

Unschooling and Unjobbing (Deschooling and Dejobbing)

If you look at unjobbing like we look at unschooling the definition becomes clearer. It’s obvious to see that the same paradigms linger over us long after the school years are past.

You could say that having a job (or which job you have) is a choice and school isn’t. Except that school is a choice, just one we fail to see.

And like school, we often fail to see our jobs as a choice, too.

Most working adults, just like concerned parents, don’t realize there is another choice: when you’ve been taught a lesson for 13+ years, you come to see it as the only way of doing things.

Adults are just grown kids, continuing to believe the same lessons we learned in our youth:

Obligation

A sense of obligation to people that don’t even matter to us is taught at a very young age. Extrinsic motivation and meaningless accolades (grades, rewards, punishment, guilt, praise, admonishment) feed our desire for approval and attention and our fear of ostracization. Those lessons linger long after we’re grown and we continue to feel obligated to have “a real job”, to work hard and to be grateful for it.

Hard work and gratitude aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Unless we’re doing something that is meaningless to us.

Life is not meant to be lived for others.

It’s meant to be fulfilling by our own definition. Obligation doesn’t do that. Loving what we do, knowing our reasons for it and loving those reasons does.

Competition

Likewise the environment of competition sets us up to compare ourselves to our peers. Who is “passing” or “failing”? Who has the more expensive designer shoes? Who has the hotter girlfriend? Who’s a nerd, a jock, a punk, a slut? Who has the most friends or the highest or lowest GPA?

Just putting that many similarly-aged and -interested people in one room creates an environment of judging, competing and comparing.

In order to stand out amongst the crowd you have to either do better than the others or act out against it. Both are a form of competing for attention.

That competition plays out in our adult life as we try to keep up with the Joneses’. Most of us get stuck always trying to get ahead, get a raise, get a bigger house. (The rest tend to resort to drugs or alcohol abuse, complete disregard for others or a total withdrawal from society.)

We compare and base our value off our neighbor’s value – or what we perceive it to be.

Sadly, while we compare what another family may have we rarely compare what they don’t have. We may see the bigger house and nicer car, but we rarely take into account the extra work, the disconnection, the dissatisfaction.

So as we run to keep up we find ourselves overworked, disconnected and dissatisfied and can’t understand why.

Worthiness

Perhaps the biggest elephant in the room, our sense of worthiness is so strongly tied to our salary it’s a wonder Big Pharma hasn’t created a disorder for it and patented a drug already.

Our sense of self-worth strongly relates to the words used to describe us (or other children around us).

A lack of compassion or attention, an unfulfilled need for validation, even things like “good boy” or “bad boy,” “that’s not nice of you”  or “she should be ashamed of herself” and so on, all plant seeds in our young minds that germinates into self-doubt and fear.

Only if a Superior deems our actions as okay are we to be considered worthy.

And thus we become performers, doing something that doesn’t resonate with us, all for the external validation we crave.

And it’s not just those that have a job that are affected. In fact I’d bet just as many entrepreneurs suffer from these hurtful lessons than anyone else.

Unjobbing vs Entrepreneuring

I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 19 years old. For seven years I owned my own mobile massage therapy company, contracting upwards of 20 or more massage therapists, yoga instructors, estheticians and nail techs for bodywork and treatments in homes, hotels and at conventions. I made good money, enjoyed what I did and had big goals for the future.

And I was miserable – we were all miserable.

It took several years to realize that no amount of money, power or job satisfaction alone can fulfill me. I worked for myself, but that didn’t keep me from being overworked, disconnected and dissatisfied.

Many entrepreneurs mistakenly think the key to happiness is the freedom to work for oneself.

But no amount of independence can make you free when your mind is still shackled to the same ideas passed around Corporate America or Corporate Education.

And that’s what happens to a lot of entrepreneurs: we’re driven by the same sense of obligation, the same competitiveness and sometimes a whole lot more of need to prove ourselves. We carry forward those same lessons of our youth, except now funneling it into making a lot of money.

Don’t get me wrong – making good money is not a bad thing.

But I’ve met too many entrepreneurs (*raising my hand*) who become consumed with their businesses and forget why they work for themselves to begin with.

Will The Real Unjobbing Please Stand Up?

Which leads me to unjobbing, what it is and what it isn’t:

Unjobbing is not about loving your work, although that should probably be a piece of the puzzle.

Unjobbing is not about working for yourself, although most unjobbers do.

I’d argue that unjobbing isn’t even about making a life instead of a living, although it’s certainly an important part.

Unjobbing is about changing the way we think of and view our world.

Unjobbing is about letting go of the obligation, losing the competitive drive and determining our own self-worth.

It about questioning what we take for granted, finding truth among the bullshit and deciding for ourselves what has value in our lives.

It’s about deschooling our adult minds and living outside the status quo, giving ourselves the same freedom we give our unschooling children.

It’s not job satisfaction, it’s life satisfaction.

It’s purpose and passion and following our interests.

Our work either becomes our soulful purpose and contribution to the world, something we feel passionately about and something we feel drawn to do.

Or our work is something that provides what we need to do the thing(s) we feel is our soulful purpose and contribution to the world, enabling us to continue something we feel passionately about or drawn to do.

Either way it’s not a “job”. It should never be something we loathe or put up with for a paycheck. It’s one aspect – perhaps the biggest or the smallest – of one entire life.

Our Unjobbing Journey

Even though I’ve worked for myself for the past decade, I still had a lot of dejobbing to do. Most of it was done around the time that we took Zeb out of school and I began unschooling my life right along side him.

I reevaluated my business and quickly found the meaning and the meaninglessness. It didn’t take much time to decide to sell the company. I worked for another year in my own private practice, seeing clients 5-10 hours a week. (The paradox became that I was working less, making more money and finding fulfillment in new areas of my life.)

Justin’s dejobbing/unjobbing journey has been drastically different. So much of a man’s value is tied up in his ability to provide for his family that even when Justin is providing for our needs (not just monetarily, but our need for time with him as well) he still worries that it’s not enough if his work doesn’t consume 40-80 hours of his week.

He’s written privately about his process over the past year of losing his job and transitioning into working for himself. It’s been a challenge, albeit a fascinating one. Perhaps someday soon he’ll revive his blog and share it with you.

The past year has brought us to a very different perspective.

We don’t want to work hard through our best years only to retire, exhausted and physically incapable, decades from now.

Nor do we see retirement as something we’re likely to ever do. We love what we do and we plan to continue doing the things we enjoy our entire lives, expanding it or changing it organically.

We don’t view work as a necessary evil either. Nor do we think we need to stick to one thing.

We’ve found doing several things – like writing this blog, running the new website, and offering our mobile services – to be much more enjoyable. We can follow our own inspiration, our own passions and we can allow them to evolve as we do. No more stagnancy. No more boredom.

Our work reflects the evolution of our minds and our lives.

We’re entrepreneurs. We’re unjobbing. We’re unschooling our whole lives.

Want some more reading on unjobbing?

This is obviously just one person’s perspective on what works for us. There is plenty more out there to draw inspiration from. A few favorites:

• Unjobbing: The Adult Liberation Handbook
• Unjobbing: The Untraditional Choice of Working for Oneself
• Unschooling Extended to Adults
• Making a Life vs Making a Living
• The Big Five For Life
• And some more books.

So…what do you think about unjobbing?

This is obviously a big subject and one I’ve barely even skimmed the surface of, so stay tuned for more posts on the topic in the coming months. And feel free to ask questions in the comments below or send me a question directly: theorganicsister at gmail dot com.

In fact, until last week, there were three truths he held firm to:

1. That only women made good artists
2. That he was not artistic, nor interested in anything art related
3. That at some point in the next few years he would have to outgrow his beloved LEGO collection

He no longer believes any of that.

In fact, several nights ago he declared that he is going to be a sculptor, and that he wanted to go to bed early so he could get started on a new project the next day. The last words he spoke before falling to sleep that night were, “Tomorrow begins my sculpting career.”

Why the change? Zeb met one person who inspired him to view things differently.

His name is Chris. He’s a sculptor and he, his painter wife and their 4 year old daughter are currently living next to us in their RV.

They’ve had fun building light sabers out of PVC and duct tape, and the kids all love the dragons he made out of melted plastic trash.

But I think what first intrigued Zeb was that Chris loves LEGO so much he travels with his collection! For awhile now Zeb had assumed that growing older meant giving up the fun of childhood; Chris and his creative nature prove you can be a fun-loving kid at any age.

Over the weekend, Chris held a “funshop” for the kids, showing them how to make their own dragons from wire and modeling clay. Zeb, the once self-critical perfectionist, is IN LOVE with his creations. He excitedly points out how he executed his ideas, what didn’t work and what he wants to try next time. My heart swells just thinking about it all.

This is what I was hoping to find on the road: awesome people who help us open up and expose more of the world and all its options to our son. Two months into this trip and we’re already hearing things from him we no longer thought we would hear, we’re seeing him do things passionately he once swore he couldn’t do and we’re watching him take pride in his work.

A big, huge thank you to Chris and Becky for your inspiration, patience and kindness.

Between his new-found passion for sculpting, the dozen unschooling kids he’s spent every day with, the endless games they play and the beautiful surroundings, he’s already dreading our upcoming departure date. And with all the fun we’ve had with the NuRVers this past week, so are we.

To see more of what we’ve been up to, check out the Happy Janssen’s daily blog posts.

We had gone on a vacation to the beach with several other family members. We were the only ones there with a child and the trip was close to being a disaster for him – being dragged around with a bunch of adults to places of no interest to him with no other children to play with. We finally had to cut ties and do our own thing to save sanity.

There was one dinner I remember well. We had not been unschooling for very long and were still on shaky ground with all the new ideas. Zeb was still in the first throes of deschooling and I was still learning how to be a different, more peaceful parent. I still had little idea what any of it looked like in real life and we were an unstable pair, for sure! We sat down to eat and Zeb was too stimulated. The typical response came from the adults at the table – the kind that diminishes a child’s needs and insists they comply in ways they are not yet mature enough to handle.

Looking back I can see how I would handle things now. I would have anticipated Zeb’s needs. We would have picked a more child-friendly setting to eat or played outside until the food was ready. I would have done everything within my power to create an environment for success.
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But I didn’t do those things and was now faced with seriously contrasting demands on a seriously fragile little boy. I didn’t handle it well but I did the best I could in a very hard situation. I stood up for my son…to the extreme. I stated his needs were more important to me than anyone else’s at the table. Not exactly conducive to a peaceful meal.

But it wasn’t until last night that I realized how important it was that I had that exact experience. As a young mother, I had been faced with criticism and judgement from Day One and had learned to parent with an eye towards the on-lookers. I had grown to fear looking like a “bad” or “permissive”  or stereotypical young mother and instead learned to neglect my child’s need for support and compassion. I believed in order to be accepted and not judged I had to offer only “tough love” to ensure I produced a child others would view as “well raised”.

Out of fear, I cared more for the thoughts of others than I dared care for my own son.

And in that moment at the restaurant I needed – in all my inexperience and shaky beliefs and probably unfounded emotions at that time – to make a stand. To assert for myself and for Zeb that I was not the same. To insist to the world they no longer mattered to me as much as my child, that he now came first and that respect for that was paramount.

Truthfully, to look at it now, it is a rather embarrassing moment. I didn’t handle it well and it certainly wasn’t an shining example of what unschooling, consensual living or peaceful parenting is. I don’t know that I’ve ever related the story to other unschoolers. I’ve never been told what I did wrong or what I could have done differently or what I should do next time. No one was there to point out the “lesson”. It took me two years to really understand my actions like I do now; to see that I had to swing from one end of the pendulum (allowing others to dictate my parenting) to the other (all potential dictators be damned!) in order to find and move from my center. Had someone lectured me in the infantile state I was in, my own embarrassment probably would have shut me down to any perceived criticism or attempts at help. Who wants to be reminded of their shortcomings?
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As I lay in bed last night, remembering the words and emotions of the evening, I began to wonder how often those same situations have arose in Zeb’s life. How many times has he made a choice that internally didn’t feel quite right to him? Did I give him the space to ruminate and find a deeper, more meaningful understanding or did I rub salt in the wound by trying to bring the lesson home?

It’s a fine line to walk – to know when to talk it over and when to allow it to brew quietly beneath the surface of their minds. It’s difficult to allow life to teach the real lessons and trust our kids will get it. But I want to remember that tiny voice that whispered to me before I drifted off last night. Healthy kids in healthy environments will get it. We all will. Like me, we just need time and support to adjust or heal or accept what Life is saying.

[Haiku photo idea totally snagged from Molly.]

He did calm down. But something had shifted. He was weepy, and clung to me. His head was pounding and we were watching for signs of a concussion, which was worrying him. He curled up against me and whimpered. He said he needed to cry but couldn’t. That’s about when I realized my knee-jerk reaction probably wasn’t the best.

I remembered this post by Mon over at Holistic Mama about allowing babies to cry instead of stopping them from venting pent-up emotions. Not cry-it-out, mind you, but being present and aware of the emotions that require release.

Granted Zeb’s not an infant, but the post had been so thought-provoking. He’s definitely gone through many moments of venting frustrations over the past (as have I). And I’ve been feeling very strongly about the fact that Zeb still hangs onto a lot more anger or hurt over some of his experiences than is really healthy for a nine year old to carry. But I never thought I’ve been guilty of trying to stop those feelings from bubbling up, by denying them through trying to soothe them away.

It’s not often such strong emotions find their way out of him like they were trying to that night and there I was immediately jamming up the flow again! I tried to reverse it – I held him and we talked about the event and all the emotions he felt and what he thought had happened and why. And once or twice he would start to get a bit weepier but it wasn’t helping. He wanted to cry and couldn’t let it out. Add to that mix, his drowsiness, his blurred vision, his headache and nausea…

Thankfully, the CT scan was negative. No physical signs of the fall. But his mood had shifted. For several days after the fall he was louder, short-tempered, snarky, sarcastic. None of these totally abnormal qualities for a nine year old, of course and something he’d been working through to some extent before the fall. But I could sense a change. He seemed bitter. It was as if the fall had switched something on.

I remember the first time I had a spinal adjustment. We see an atlas-orthogonal chiropractor and the affects of the adjustment were intense. Initially, I was dizzy and light-headed but within minutes of walking out of the office, I was angry. Livid. Enraged. I had no idea why and I was scaring myself. All this anger just poured out of me, like a cork had been popped and I found myself driving down the road, screaming in outrage into the steering wheel.

Zeb’s had an adjustment and cranial-sacral work in the past with no major emotional release afterwards. But we went back last Tuesday to have him checked after the head impact. Our doctor was pretty shocked at how out of alignment he was and worked on him for awhile. I could see him start to shift within minutes and by the time we were driving back home, the emotions started coming out. I was so determined not to impede their release this time, so I simply offered him my hand and let him vent. It all came out as anger.

Since that day it’s been flowing and stopping, rushing and trickling from depression to despondency to anger to irritation. We went back to our chiro yesterday for more work and a homeopathic remedy of Helleborus, Arnica and Staphisagria – given for head injuries, as well as pent-up feelings. He’s still a rollercoaster of emotions. And I’m still doing my best to keep up with him, to not inadvertently bottle him up and to simply be there when he’s raging or feeling down. It is so hard to not soothe it away when I know he needs to get it out. It’s so hard to know what is normal and what he needs help with and how to help him. Many times the solution is to simply love him and hold him, but sometimes he’s not in a place where he can accept even my compassion.

It’s very difficult as an unschooling parent to be living such an authentic and inspiring life and still handle all these feelings of anger or sadness in your child. We work so hard to bring joy and health into our lives through everything we do and it can be exasperating to have it all crumble due to an emotional meltdown. It’s certainly not the common unschooling experience but then he didn’t have a common school experience, either. However, through all the ups and downs of his healing, I’m so thankful to be living a lifestyle that allows him to heal at his own pace; that allows us the resources and time to focus on what the moment needs instead of “what needs to be done this moment”. I’m glad I’ve become a much more aware mother than I ever was and can focus on my role and how best to support him. And as hard as it is to say, I’m glad he trusts me enough to throw all these feelings at me when they need to be thrown.

I just looked through my most recent (and not so recent) posts and realized that for a supposed unschooling blog, I’m certainly lacking in inspirational posts about my child. Heck, I’ve barely mentioned him! Bad mama! I do have a reason though. And it’s not that he’s been up to “nothing”.

It’s actually that he’s been up to something pretty cool. Something he’s been working on from the moment he wakes up until the moment he goes to bed for at least two weeks. Something that he has already saved over $100 to be able to expand (after he tapped out his mom and dad) by pulling weeds, cleaning and organizing for grandparents. Something he says will cost him an additional $500 and possibly a year to complete! (Thank goodness he has plenty of grandparents!) Something I’m not suppose to publicly spill the beans on just yet. But maybe I can hint!

What I’m really hoping is that with enough elbowing he can give us (me) a smaller version of his bigger plans. Help me out will ya? Help me convince him to share the coolness he has planned!

Before he got into this current plan he was adamant about building a go-kart. We found a how-to manual online but by the time it got to us, he was onto these bigger fish. He also started taking a “How To Do a Handstand” class but that has been put on hold because of his insistence to work on this project. I have a hard time pulling him away from it long enough to eat, go to the park or visit the library. He’s so excitedly absorbed in it!

I mentioned not long ago (okay maybe it was a while ago!) how I was seeing changes in his approach to learning and this is just another step in those deschooling changes. Zeb went through a long phase of *fear*. Mostly it was fear of trying new things, something I’ve seen diminishing for several months now. But even once he started something he would also hold a fear of messing it up or being disappointed by it or not having it be well received by others. But with this new project, though his perfectionism is still intact, the fear is not the same it once was. Where before I would hear almost constant self-criticism or picking apart of his work, I’m only seeing him working to make it better (by his standards). He has been gung-ho; studying, researching, practicing, building and rebuilding, writing and talking and mostly undaunted by the enormity of the project he’s created. (He has had moments where he’s felt discouraged but nothing a break and some cuddling wouldn’t comfort before he’d head right back in.)

Wait! I’m told I may be able to share Phase 1 soon! Here is my only allowable hint:

Another reason I wasn’t worried is that Zeb speaks in black or white. All or nothing. Very seldom an “in between”; at least not right away. He usually eases himself into the middle ground with some time and patience. Which is exactly what he did about five days after his initial decision. He told me that instead of quitting, he thinks he just needs a break. A couple weeks off. So today instead of meeting with our unschooling group, we made alternate plans.

And it was a beautiful day! We woke up slowly, instead of the usual rush to get ready for the park. Zeb came outside to help me in the yard – perlite mixed into the raised beds, the last pots filled, the seedlings outside to begin hardening off. He brought his fuzzy posters out while I finished up the one man jobs. We ate a late breakfast, colored some more fuzzy posters and got ready for a long hike.

Red Rock was wonderful today, despite some noisy crowds. We took the Calico Tanks trail all the way to the overlook with views of the whole city. We looked at the patterns the recent rainfall had made in the sand, and the patterns the wind made across the water-filled tanks. We observed the ripples the rocks made and noted the bird and dog/wild man-eating panther tracks. We wondered over the circular indentations in the rock, we climbed and laughed and sat and drew and colored and actually heard the flapping of a bird’s wings. We scrambled up the rocks and raced down them. We raced after the setting sun and outran the spooky – and cold! – Shadow Monster (Zeb ran in front because he said he was young and still had more life ahead of him!).

I don’t think this hiatus from our group is permanent by any means. For some time, he only wanted to do things with unschoolers; then with unschoolers and homeschoolers. But now he is interested in joining his Gramma’s hiking group and going on a Free Hugs expedition. He’s also shown interest in a local community garden project, among other things.

It’s so much fun to watch him grow. It’s as if things seem to crawl and drag and just when I begin to wonder, he makes a leap and a bound and suddenly he’s a different kid. His sense of humor, his thoughtfulness, his outgoing interactions with strangers, his understanding. I think I say this every couple of months but I think 9 and a half is my favorite age!

I remember holding onto the false idea that “deschooling” should take one month per year of schooling, doubled if they went to Pre-K. What a load of sh*t. That’s my first advice to any new home/unschoolers. Forget a timeline for deschooling. It’s crap. Take your time. You’ve got plenty of it. I doubt we’re done yet. But I have seen a huge step forward in one area.

For the past two years Zeb has avoided like the plague anything that included the words “class”, “instructor”, “lessons”, as well as anything that seemed too educational in nature. Things from baseball and soccer to art and games had to be filtered carefully, new ideas worded in ways to cushion any potential connotations they may carry for him. It wasn’t easy.

Now it seems I can tread a little less lightly. Zeb is stepping out of his comfort zone, if only a bit at a time. In December he began golf lessons. (If I might digress for a moment, I love when people realize that 4pm is not the only time in which kids are available – we do have track break in our schools after all!) Zeb has enjoyed golf for some time. He’s had his own clubs for a couple years but Justin’s work schedule being what it is, they rarely have time to play together. When I heard about the golf lessons, I wasn’t sure if word “lesson” would turn him off. I was hesitant so I think I danced around the words a bit, saying something like: “Zeb, would you be interested in learning how to beat Dad at golf?”

He’s been playing for over two months now, has leveled up once and really enjoys his class and his instructor. And since then he’s been more open to trying other things: a weekly homeschool co-op and Tae Kwon Do.

It hasn’t been all easy. Tae Kwon Do was at a community center with an instructor who apparently has appointed himself Warden over what seems to be his own version of boot camp. What the heck? When he actually uttered things like ”all kids are bad and we have to force them to be good” and ”kids don’t get choices in this class” then proceeded to physically handle a tiny little girl while she sobbed in fear, I made the choice to walk out (it was either walk out or freak out). Not the right environment for us.

The homeschool co-op was also fun. December was holiday crafting and Zeb really enjoyed himself. Then he decided he wanted to attend January’s Public Speaking class. He had a lot of fun with it, but it ran its course and he chose not to continue despite science experiments being on February’s agenda.

We’ve talked about trying out art classes soon and I’m still hoping to find a positive Tae Kwon Do instructor. And he has big plans with golf. Something about “kicking Dad’s butt”.

Today marks our 2nd anniversary of unschooling. I was reading through last year’s postand was reminded again of how much we’ve grown. We’re not so much about “doing unschooling right” anymore as we are about just living and allowing life to unfold. Last year still contained so much focus on the “un”, as in what we weren’t doing (workbooks, tests, etc). There was still a lot of justifying that had to be done to skeptical family members. There was a lot more to learn and to change within myself and as a parent. It was a wild and exciting first year.

Our second year was much more comfortable. We still had some skepticism thrown our way; some of it pretty hurtful. But it’s become just something that happens and doesn’t deter us. Another person’s doubts doesn’t send me scurrying for advice or wondering if I should purchase a math workbook. The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is mighty rich in flavor these days. Things interest him; things that baffle onlookers. He’s well-spoken with a large vocabulary (words like conundrum are common place). He’s confident and kind. Any small amount of time spent with him will tell you unschooling works for us. Works very well, indeed.

But what has baffled me is what I was told might happen and what I truly wasn’t expecting. At least not yet. Sure we saw his mental growth. It would feel almost sneaky sometimes watching him learn to type while playing a computer game or learn math while playing cards. But what I wasn’t prepared for was a more formal interest in learning. This is not the happenstance, inevitable kind of learning; not like the little things he’d pick up here or there to connect the dots in his head. This is an active searching for knowledge, an interest in the formal. Want some examples from a proud mama? Of course you do!

1. First, there is all the spelling going on. A dozen times a day a new word will be triumphantly spelled for us. If a mistake is made, he’s eager for the correction (an amazing feat for a perfectionist to take such mistakes in stride). When a new word is spelled for him or a misspelled word is corrected, he takes a quiet moment and you can almost see the letters formulating themselves behind his eyes as he commits the information to memory. We discuss the sometimes confusing phonetics of the American language. We test each other. This is great fun for a Word Junkie Woman like me.

2. Then there is all the questions that fly around. Questions about history, society, how things work. A recent conversation about the holidays started off when he asked why some stores are open for the holidays and why some people will work on those days, which didn’t seem fair to him. We talked about people who have no family to celebrate Thanksgiving with, people who may need the overtime offered with holiday pay, people who come from a different culture and don’t share our traditions. We talked about other religions that may not celebrate the same holidays, which led to a description and history of Hannukah, which led to the history of Christmas and its Pagan origins. He soaked it up and spent the rest of the car ride mulling it over.

3. And how can I forget his interest in political and social issues? He’ll listen to NPR while we drive (seems like much of his learning happens on the road!), asking questions and sharing his view. He listens to both sides of any subject and answers my questions on what he believes. Once he became so frustrated with a news story that he cried, “They’re gonna ruin the world!” He even pops off political jokes, sometimes having to explain the humor that went over my head.

Of course, all the hidden “Where did that come from?” learning is still happening, like his being able to name the assassinated presidents or describe a medical procedure. And the blossoming of critical thought and in-depth problem-solving is also fun to watch. But through all the sharing of knowledge, it’s been so natural and easy. It happens, all day and every day. No hours put on his learning, no test to prove his skill. We know his skill; we see it all the time. More importantly, he’s begin to know and see it himself.

Things aren’t always perfect. Some days are downright shitty. There are still some things that were picked up during his school years (by him and us) that rear their ugly head a little too often. And as much as I’d like to say “We’re there”, I don’t truly believe anyone is ever really “there” – in that perfect space with no conflict and no mistakes. We’re always learning and growing. But now we just do it so differently. And that’s the difference in our lives.

I have been so inspired by Amanda Soule’s The Creative Family lately.

Today we ventured out to Mt Charleston to escape the heat – and the house – and do some Nature Journaling. We each received our very own sketchbook to use on these special occasions and packed them up with bits and pieces of art supplies – colored and regular pencils, pastels, crayons, etc – to take on our hike.

The weather was a beautiful reprieve from the triple digits temps we’ve been suffering through and we managed to find a mostly unbeaten path away from the masses of other city escapees.

We explored, climbed, jumped, (huffed, puffed,) admired and discovered before finally settling down on a fallen trunk, digging out our supplies and relaxing with our journals.

After several years of art classes, self-criticism is still something we’re overcoming in Z (as well as Justin!), but I think he felt better when he saw not all of what I drew turned out how I expected it either. Like my pinecone that we decided looked more like a rib cage, which Z finished off with a skull! It certainly helped him lighten up some and just enjoy the experience – a minor breakthrough for him!

He also had fun with the camera and took some pretty good shots as Justin and I continued to draw. It was great seeing him explore his creativity, as he posed Coco for photos or experimented with different angles.

After hiking, Z suggested we not turn home yet and instead head out to Corn Creek – a desert wildlife refuge a few miles outside the city where his favorite horse “Foody” lives.

He had gone several times with his Gramma A, but never with us. He was great at giving us directions (as usual) and even gave us a guided tour of the land, pointing out where the tadpoles, frogs, crabs and birds can be found. He seemed so grown up and mature, explaining how much further until this sight or that, promising me the shade was coming up (it wasn’t as cool there as in the mountains) and telling us how to call “Foody” and feed him carrots.

We had so much fun. We rarely make the time for these kind of activities, partially because there are few things like this to do in the valley, partially because Justin’s work schedule has been erradic.

But it was obvious today that I need to search out more alternatives like these to our days. Escaping the house, the city, the day-to-day mundane seems to transform us. We need to add more creativity into our everyday lives.

If you haven’t discovered Amanda Soule’s blog or book, I highly recommend them both!

[More photos from our day here!]