One of the very best things about keeping a blog is how my friends will reach out to me after I post. Usually via text, but sometimes I’ll even get a Facetime call, which is super fun. Both happened after my last post and it was so great to chat and catch up and in each instance I was reminded of a couple of other antics that I want to share here. One for posterity, and the other as a way keep on processing. This is honestly another excellent thing about keeping a blog. This is often the case for me when I haven’t written here in a long time it can often feel like I have a backlog of shit I wanna get out and then when I finally do, well, the proverbial dam does indeed break. All I wanna do is write. It is basically like a one-sided coffee clatch between me and all of my dearest dear-hearts. Except that it isn’t often one way at all cuz y’all send me those messages and sometimes even (yippie) ring me up. I love it.
I recently began working with a longtime friend and student of mine for some nutrition and fitness and wellness coaching- love love love this turning of the tables - and one of the tools that she has me engaging is a tracker. Yeah yeah yeah I have used a tracker before and it is not my favorite, even if it is extra effective in noticing patterns and staying accountable and collecting data. One of the things that we have determined is an important part of my self-care, and worthy of its own tracker column, is “personal writing time”. This is a priority for me to be sure, but like a lot of things that are just for me or that do not have any sort of tangible pay-out, I tend to push them to the very end of the list or lord the time over myself like some sort of reward for getting all of the other crap on my list checked off. Which is why it so seldom seems to be happening. Or at least much more seldom than is my perfect world preference. So! It has a box of its own now with the intention of checking that box at least once every week. Or, once a week. Which feels like a massive accomplishment and win given the current motion of things. And should help with my word back-log and keep it flowing which I gotta say is one of the truest feel-goods in the “tapestry of shit I do to feel good for myself” protocols.
Ok. So. 2 little tales to tell. One is so that I do not forget and the other is so that I can keep up with my processing out loud strategies and hopefully continue to disseminate and integrate my understanding. The first is about poop. The second is about education. Here we go.
If a story about a poop incident is not for you (maybe you are not a caregiver dealing with poop, or puke, or some other such human substance on the regular), no shade and no hard feelings if you just skip this one and get down to the other tale. I get it. If you are here, I will keep it brief, but detailed enough that it holds up to posterity and I won’t have to worry about remembering any of the ridiculous details.
I have already shared a little bit about the poop owies happening over at our place. It is no joke. And continues, at least for Wilfred. However, last month when we were in Wisconsin visiting I started to think that we were through it when toward the end of our trip he began pooping more regularly. But of course, it wasn’t a resolution unfolding it was the tummy troubles that slowly built up until we were all the way at our departure gate at O’hare about to board for Burlington. One minute he is playing, and the next he is waddling over to me telling me he has a “poop mess”. Which is usually what he says when he goes poo, mess or no. But this was a mess. Before I could whisk him to the bathrooms he does this funny head dive to the floor to position himself for me to change his pants and as he does so liquid shit splashes up the entire back of his shirt and into a puddle on the floor. Oh. My. God. Oh yeah and we have no wipes because why would we? I am basically brand new to parenting. Maple is on it- what a star!- and dashes off to the bathroom to grab as many paper towels as she can and once she hands those to me she is on a sprint through the airport to track down any wipes she might find. Meanwhile I am doing my very best to clean this shit up and simultaneously be invisible to everyone around me. I am not sure if that worked or not other than I can say with 100% certainty that Eider, who was sitting 6 feet away, didn’t notice a single thing so maybe… Who knows?
After throwing his shirt away- no saving it thank you very much- and doing my best to wipe down the area with airport bathroom paper towels, I grab some clean clothes and we re-group. Maple returns with all of the wipes she can find which is to say makeup remover wipes and anti-bacterial wipes. She smiles and says we can clean Freddy up with the makeup wipes and then get ourselves with the others. Good grief. The whole thing was brilliant and terrible and hilarious. And hands down the single most epic Poop Incident of my near 17-year parenting career, and I have seen some stuff my dudes. But nothing like that shit splash at the departure gate in O’hare. Nothing. When we got back home I tried my best to relay the tale to Chris in all of its severity which I think was only made clear when he came upon the strange assortment of wipes in the bag. What an ordeal I tell you. And now aren’t you happy that it lives in perpetuity here? I sure am.
Ok. Second story. And I am sorry if this is too long or if it should be two posts, but, once a week personal writing time ya know? This is what I got. Maybe go grab yourself a cuppa and come back.
Alrighty here goes. One of the biggest challenges I faced when we transitioned from school family to home education family was becoming aware of all of the inherent assumptions alive inside of me regarding education and schooling. I have been reflecting a lot lately, as many of you know, on the thoughts I think that aren’t my own or did not originate with me and this is a huge topic area for that for sure. The first way I noticed the presence of this perspective was actually in Maple who at the time was 8 years old and already very much plugged into the belief that there is a right and a wrong way to do things and that there is very much what you do to stay “on-track” or “get ahead” so as to avoid “falling behind”. These narratives are what dominate the world of compulsory education. We have a very strong internal metric to which we are holding up our children to such a degree that we actually have to weed through the layers of this in order to even see the learner that lives inside of them. And it is a fear-based metric to be sure. From what I can tell it is the bar to which we hold up all success or failure in education and it determines the pressure we apply to the child. At no point does it measure the capacity for true and engaged learning in any individual or does it acknowledge the ability to think freely, make connections, cultivate discernment, and draw conclusions.
All of that took a long time for me to understand on my own. I had a whole lifetime of compulsory education to detox. It was uncomfortable to move through because we had no model of what it might look like to be growing ourselves as learners and free and critical thinkers outside of a standardization of benchmarks. We were on our own. Especially because I knew right away that my own anxiety about how my kid “measured up” against an irrelevant (maybe even false) average was going to be one of the most harmful ingredients to allow into our homeschool. We had to give time to the task, acknowledge when we came up against input that challenged it, and also be really clear on working toward what was best for our individual learners and not cultural and social assumptions.
So why am I thinking about this now? Well probably for a couple of reasons. I have a few friends who are just starting out on their home education journeys and are pressing up against the discomfort of these realizations for the first time. I am also around more school parents more regularly than I have been in years and I am aware of all of the ways in which we are not necessarily on the same page when it comes to education. Their assumptions are no longer my own. And I will not pick them up again.
This week at yurt school the kids were doing assessments. (I gotta say this is kind of a gross term but I am just gonna breeze over it for now and let it sink in as it will) Because they are a mixed age group, fifth through eighth, they are all in different places academically and this is the moment where their educators begin to map a path for the year. And I gotta just say, I would never have known that this was happening this week if I hadn’t overheard it from some other parents. Eider would not have told me on his own. For two reasons: the first is that that is his personality; he doesn’t really sweat stuff like that- why should he- he’s never gone to school! And secondly, he thought of the entire thing as just a way to figure out what they are going to be working on this year and not any type of judgment call on his or anyone else’s intelligence. Which of course, is exactly what it is if you can weed through the rhetoric from some of the parents (and kids) regarding being at “grade level” or “on track” or "ahead”. Many of the parents were reviewing at home with their kids in hopes of advancing their outcomes and making sure nothing had slipped over the long summer. When I asked Eider if he wanted to review anything at all, he said no. When I asked why he said that if he doesn’t know it on his own at this point he rather not fumble through as though he does when he could instead give an accurate assessment of his knowledge at this point and be better, according to him and maybe me too, set up to learn well this year. Because that is what matters to him as a learner. Not if he can test well, or memorize something well enough to be able to regurgitate it on demand and then dump it later. He wants to know. He wants information that he thinks is necessary or relevant or compelling to come to life inside of him in a way that allows him to interact with it and develop and grow his own understanding. Otherwise, what’s the point? He is not convinced and frankly, neither am I.
This metric is so arbitrary. It lives during the school years and then it is gone. After high school, the significance of test scores and placement virtually evaporates and we are left wondering why they ever mattered to begin with. Because here is the real measure: the kid standing right in front of you. Do they know what they need in order to learn well? Do you? Because it is not the same for all and it is certainly not something that is learned from the outside looking ever more outward. It comes from looking inside. And trusting yourself. And knowing that you are good and capable beyond any external criteria or criticism. It takes a long time to get there, to that level of self-worth as a learner. And from what I can tell, most compulsory school systems, public or independent, aren’t very well positioned for this because of how established our assumptions are around how we measure achievement and success.
Eid has it now, but he hasn’t really had to test his resolve yet. Not really. So how we proceed right now in relationship to all of this new input matters. Maple has it, it has been tested, and it looks like it is sticking. She knows her brilliance and also knows what she needs to support herself as a learner. That is why it is so cool that she is now gearing up for the testing process required to get a 504 plan in her file. She is ready for the data that this is going to make available to her. It is not information that threatens her knowing of her intelligence and capability, it is rather the details around what makes her mind unique and clues as to how best to meet and support all of that in perpetuity.
Alright. That is what I have for now. It is a little clunky as I begin to engage these ideas more, so thanks for bearing with me. If these thoughts land with you in any way or another I’d love to hear. Or some sharing of your own journey with how we educate vs how we learn. I’m here for it!
Lots of love, m