on having children

My old friend started a blog this past spring, mostly about mommy-hood and stuff. I subscribed in my Google Reader, and proceeded to enjoy for a few months. However, sometime at the beginning of July, I stopped getting updates. I figured, "well, she's got a toddler and 3 stepsons aged 10 to 5, she must be busy!" However, as my New Years resolution is (always) to simplify and unclutter my life so I have more time to focus on being happy, today I was going through my blog reader, and deleting those that don't update, or that I don't enjoy. I decided to check out the actual blogger address for her blog. Lo and behold, she hadn't stopped posting! I re-subscribed and all her posts from the summer showed up in my blog reader. (So much for uncluttering, now I've got reading to catch up on!!)

I read a couple, laughed a little, then came upon this post, titled "to breed or not to breed." Mostly, she discussed how she'd like another child but would not like to deal with the inconveniences of pregnancy and infancy. Of course, this was a "eureka!" moment for me, because  I feel the exact same way! A friend left a comment referring to this McLean's article, titled "the case against having kids" which mentions the strangely radical notion (strange that it's radical, and not more common) that children should be something people have because they really want them.

Of course, that got me thinking, society NEEDS children (which is clearly why that strangely radical notion is actually radical after all) to be the workers of the future. Thus, would people who were willing to go through all the trouble and work of raising children be honoured and supported by society as an incentive?

The entire next paragraph is taken from the McLean's article:

Speaking up on the subject can elicit a smackdown. Last February, the 37-year-old British journalist Polly Vernon wrote a defiant column in the Guardian enumerating the reasons she didn’t want children: “I’m appalled by the idea,” she wrote. “Both instinctually (‘Euuuw! You think I should do what to my body?’) and intellectually (‘And also to my career, my finances, my lifestyle and my independence?’).” The response was terrifying, she reports: “Emails and letters arrived, condemning me, expressing disgust. I was denounced as bitter, selfish, un-sisterly, unnatural, evil. I’m now routinely referred to as ‘baby-hating journalist Polly Vernon.’ ”

To me, it sounds like she's making the right choice for herself, because no one should have to be raised by parents who resent him or her. Yet she is vilified. Bad woman. This is frightening, of course, to my little feminist heart. And equally concerning to my child protection worker mind, although not frightening, because parents resenting their children is old hat for most cultures, especially all the various European, Christian ones from which I am descended.

The following is also from the article:

Why this is happening is the subject of much theorizing: educated women delay childbearing until it’s no longer an option; they refuse to pay what economists call the “motherhood premium” in which the salaries of university-educated women plateau after childbirth and then drop, while fathers’ incomes are unaffected; they recognize that raising children is a sacrifice of time, money and freedom they’re not willing to make; or they simply don’t want to have children and are able to say no.

(The matter is complicated, Foot observes, because income level is also linked to procreation. What is known is that paying women to have children doesn’t work: the only variable proven to increase the chances of women having children is to offer a supportive social network, as evident by the rising fertility rates attributed to government initiatives in Scandinavian countries and France, where generous tax breaks, incentives, and maternity- and parental-leave provisions have resulted in the birth rate rising to 2.7 per woman, the highest level in Europe.)

Once again, I wonder, would people who were willing to go through all the trouble and work of raising children be honoured and supported by society?

My more cynical self suggests this will only be so when corporations see it as economically necessary.

And so this is Christmas...

...I hope you have fun... The near and the dear ones... The old and the young!

 What a busy season, despite my attempts to avoid commercialism. I've still needed to do my regular grocery shopping and of course I waited until the last minute to purchase the few gifts my family is giving this year. The upside to that is I was able to take advantage of some wicked sales, the downside was the near panic attacks I had while trying to park my car in mall lots and trying to navigate around other shoppers in the stores.

But I am done with everything related to shopping, except for a quick visit to the local produce stand located 4 blocks from my house. I have enough butter and sugar and flour and eggs to drown us in cookies. My presents are all wrapped and under the tree. I am not making a holiday dinner this year, so I will only need to travel to my father's tomorrow evening and then to my mother's the following evening. I will spend the next few days as a glutton, drinking Irish cream and wine, eating mandarin oranges and chocolate and cookies and pie and tarts and turkey.

But I will be thinking about that song I quoted in the title, I will be thinking that "war is over... if [we] want it." I will be thinking about our industrial, capitalist, commercial system, how it has affected every area of our lives for generations, and how we can subvert that system a little, just to give ourselves some room... but we will have to subvert it a lot to make room for everyone on this planet.

However, I will also be thinking about "tidings of comfort and joy."

God bless you and your families :)

Blog of indescribable awesomeness

I have fallen in love with hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com
seriously. go right over there and read her. That's what I'm doing :)

climate refugees

I was just reading this article over at the Angry Indian,  about the Climate Talks in Copenhagen. Written by REDOIL*, the short press release states the following:

"The American government wants to drill for oil off Alaska's northwest coast as early as next summer... [The US] Department of the Interior has endorsed drilling for fossil fuels in the climate-effected ecosystems of the Arctic, where global warming already impacts Alaska Natives and entire villages are in danger of losing their lands and way of life."

"Shell says 'the Chukchi Sea could be home to some of the most prolific, undiscovered hydrocarbon basins in North America,' but we're here to remind Salazar and Shell that it is our home and our lives that will be devastated by the drilling," said Faith Gemmill, Executive Director of REDOIL, who is attending the Copenhagen Climate Talks."More fossil fuel drilling will only bring more pollution to the Chukchi Sea, and ultimately, more devastating climate change to the world. Salazar should know: We must leave those fossil fuels in the ground and invest in real renewable solutions that uphold Indigenous Peoples rights."


* REDOIL is a network and movement of Alaska Natives who are challenging the fossil fuel and mining industry and demanding our rights to a safe and healthy environment conducive to subsistence. The REDOIL network consists of grassroots Alaska Natives of the Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Tlingit, Gwich'in, Eyak and Denaiana Athabascan tribes. We aim to address the human and ecological health impacts brought on by the unsustainable development practices of the fossil fuel and mining industry. REDOIL strongly supports self-determination rights of tribes in Alaska, as well as a just transition from fossil fuel and mineral development to sustainable economies, and promotes the implementation of sustainable development on Alaska Native lands. Visit: http://www.ienearth.org/redoil

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Other articles/press releases about the Copenhagen talks posted on the  site are here , here, and here.

I find myself getting very upset when I read news like this, especially when I also understand "official" policy on climate change issues, and the position of pundits who claim climate change is a myth. (See this article for an example of what I mean.)

I'm quite passionate about Indigenous People's rights. And it's not just because I believe we've done some nasty things to aboriginal peoples around the globe in the name of colonialism, industrialization, "progress" and "efficiency." (By the way, I'm using the "royal We" to indicate "White" people's complicity with colonialism. I am a 6th generation Anglo-Canadian, and so I find it ontologically necessary to my anti-colonial stand to recognise my own historic participation in the colonial process. It's about ownership, and infinite responsibility,a concept taken from Levinas on the Holocaust.)

But also, I'm passionate about Indigenous rights because their rights are inextricably tied to the lands, and the right to healthy ecosystems. In one scholarly discussion I read recently, this was tied to a concept the author called "ecocide." He was relating the genocide of Aboriginal peoples to the pollution of their land base. The discussion centered around the 1990 court case Delgamuukw. He argued that the case asked the question, 'what if we had always operated from a nation to nation perspective?' If European colonizers had always treated Indigenous peoples as sovereign, colonial governments and resource extraction corporations may not have had such a free hand to desecrate entire river systems, etc. with toxic waste products. Maybe things might have been more transparent, and governments might have been more accountable, not just to the sovereign Indigenous Nations on whose land they are extracting resources, but to the rest of the citizens of Canada, who are, technically, the owners of Crown land. So Indigenous rights are ecological rights. Ecological rights protect the land and resource base for future generations, of people and animals and plants, of Natives and English and French and of all other immigrant groups. We all want a healthy planet for our children and our children's children.

The REDOIL article uses the term "climate refugees" to describe people who have lost their homes to the shrinking of the Arctic coastline. I suggest the term applies to all human beings and we all need to take action against governments and corporations who trample our rights as citizens. When I think of humans as "citizens" I'm mostly thinking about the social contract as Rousseau talked about it (or, about my philosophy instructor's modern interpretation). As I understand it, our constitutions are our social contract with our elected representatives. If the government breaks the social contract, the people (the "body politic") have the right to overthrow the government, as did our American neighbours with their  Declaration of Independence. If governments and transnational corporations continue to disregard sustainability concerns, there will be no climate left anywhere. We will all be climate refugees.

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So now I'm starting to imagine what my own declaration of independence from a dysfunctional and destructive state might possibly look like - especially considering my socioeconomic status and my dependence on the state's economy to feed and house my family. I cannot, in one decisive move, reject the government and the social contract. I do not have the resources to 'create my own state' or to move to a more agreeable social contract. I can look at how to become more independent in providing my family's food, and other purchased goods. I can save up to buy land and animals. Yet I will continue to pay taxes, I will continue to receive Canada's redistributive payments, like pensions and EI, the Child Tax Benefit and the provincial Childcare Subsidy. My husband and I will continue to have jobs. We can't extricate ourselves entirely from the social contract.

This leaves me thinking of how I can then participate in altering the social contract, modernizing it so that I can agree with it, accept it. I don't know if that looks like changing the Constitution. That's not something we've been very successful with here in Canada, despite several attempts. But what about expanding representative democracy so that more people have access to the political process? I had a sociology prof once who talked about direct democracy being more possible in our contemporary times because of the availability of the internet. It's an intriguing notion, but I would just be happy if I felt my vote actually counted towards the governance of my country and province. Right now, with the first past the post system of elections we use, I have never voted for an elected representative in my home riding. My voice has thus never been heard in any legislative body, and that defeats the purpose of a social contract, in my opinion.

That leaves me in an interesting place of knowing I have rights, but of not being able to exercise those rights to protect what I feel is most important. It's a place of questioning, of wondering how to go forward, of wondering how to make a difference. It's uncomfortable, but it's a good place, because it's filled with possibilities.

I love you, Grandma

My Dad just called. His mom, in Ontario, passed away about 2 hours ago. He's flying back east tomorrow.

He was crying. Even at 34 years old, with all my counseling training, it still seems scary when either of my parents cry.

Now both of my grandmothers have left this world. Now neither of them are in pain anymore. Death is only hard for those who are left behind.

Economies of giving

I'm trying to work out some ideas related to a paper I'm currently writing for my Politics of Multiculturalism class. I'm writing about Indigenous issues and Multiculturalism policy. My thesis is that Multiculturalism policy erases Indigenous difference and colonial responsibility for our history of genocidal policies, and is therefore a pretense of inclusion for all Canadians.

I've got numerous sources, all which have some really great points, but I've got to relate it all back to Multiculturalism as a policy, and I'm having a hard time doing that. I have some sources related to legal cases and to the Constitution, specifically the Charter, however, I'm at that point in writing out my ideas where it expands waaay beyond the limits of the paper and the thesis. I want to argue about Indigenous sovereignty. I want to bring in a whole bunch of quotes from George Manuel's 1974 classic, "the Fourth World". I want to talk about parallels to other indigenous cultures, such as the Maori and Aboriginal peoples in Australia, such as Palestinians in Israel. There are, of course, many excellent parallels, but I'm having difficulty in tying it all back into Canadian Multicultural policy.

I've got stuff to say about official and academic discourse, and about arguing from a standpoint, i.e., rejecting the traditional Western view that knowledge is objective and the knower is irrelevant.

I've got stuff to say about grassroots organizations and solidarity movements.

But what I really want to say, is the way we are doing it is WRONG. I really want to say that Western culture, "white" people, European colonizers, (whatever term you want to use for us) are destroying this planet because somewhere along the way we decided there wasn't enough. Not enough land, not enough food, not enough resources. We decided it was a competition, with winners and losers. And we were WRONG.

According to one Indigenous writer, Aboriginal communities had economies organized around GIVING instead of taking. And it worked. There was enough. No one was rich, but no one starved, either. THIS is the fundamental distinction between Western and Indigenous values/worldviews. It's the difference between TRUST and FEAR.

Incidentally, this is also the distinction between radical unschooling and the public school is best mindset, a mindset I really struggle to resist. Because it feels like, if I just give and give and give, no one will give back to me, and I will get used up. Maybe that's the fear of international colonizers, that if we try to shift our way of being in the world, we'll be consumed.

I want to get these big ideas into my paper, and still link it all back to Multiculturalism policy. Right now that is occurring as impossible. And it's due today, at some unspecified time, via email. Time to "eat the frog".

happy birthday baby brother

Today was my brother's 10th birthday, and we drove out to Mission to my dad and stepmom's house to celebrate. I am 24 1/2 years older than my brother. When my dad called me to tell me my stepmom was pregnant, he asked if I was pregnant, too. Just because he thought it's be cool if his son had a niece or nephew who was older than him. That's my dad for you :)

Lately (since this past summer, so 6 months or so), my brother has been... annoyed? that he has 2 older sisters (Me and my sister who is 16 months younger than me. So, really, we're more like aunts). He wants to be the oldest. He's been pretty rude about it, too. My brother lacks social graces.

One of the cards my brother received mentioned that he'd be a teenager in just 3 years. My stepmother blanched. She is not quite ready for her kids to be teenagers! She said she misses having 2 year olds.

I, on the other hand, do not miss having babies or 2 year olds. I have been loving having 4 to 7 year olds, and I particularly love the stage my little sister is at right now, at age 8 1/2. I have been thinking a lot about having another child, a daughter, something that I've wanted since I had my son. Now, I'm not so sure. By the time I graduate and have worked long enough to be eligible for an EI maternity leave, my boys will be about 10. Do I really want to have an infant and two 10 year olds? Somehow, I think I won't want to go through the baby stage again, complete with an inability to communicate except through crying and tonnes of dirty diapers. However, we certainly won't know until we are there.

Lately I've also been thinking that I'll either have none, or I'll have two. I think children are better off with sibs who are close in age, who are peers. I mentioned this to my husband, and he said, "let's have none." I don't know how I feel about this, part of the reason we got engaged was because he was open to having more children. However, I have been joking about how I'd really like to have a 5 year old daughter right now, to go along with my two 7 year old sons.

on Christmas, and giving

Christmas is fast approaching. The season of mad purchasing and greed is upon us, and my children are being swept away along with all their classmates. My son wants an iPod from Santa. Silly me, a couple of years ago, when I was feeling a little more flush than this year, post-wedding, I gave him a Nintendo DS and told him Santa's elves made it. Now he thinks Santa's elves can make him an iPod, and that price is, therefore, no object. Oh, the crazy lies I make up to create a little childhood magic.

We need to keep it low-key this year. I am at an all-time financial low, having spent the majority of my student loan on my mid-September wedding. Normally, I have enough cash set aside to make healthy VISA payments, as well as manage the first month of the next semester's rent. (Canada student loans don't pay out until the first day of the semester. This year, that is not until January 11th.)

So we've opted out of the adult portion of my hubby's family Christmas draw this year, leaving only the kids to exchange gifts. And we are only buying for our kids and my dad's kids, who are 8 1/2 and 10. We also normally buy gifts for my 2 sisters, my mom, my dad and stepmom, my hubby's mom and my (no longer) stepdad. Also, we are not buying gifts for each other, beyond the usual stocking stuffers.

Hubby works at crappy tire, and a couple of months ago, the display models of the Dyson vacuums were sold at an incredible discount. Hubby could not resist. We got a Dyson slim for $150. I believe the regular retail price for that item is over $400. So that is our Christmas present to one another. (Worth every penny. We vacuumed with our old canister vacuum one day, and the Dyson the very next day. The canister FILLED UP with hair and dust!)

So we've pared down our list and we're making do with the decorations we already have. We'll likely skip hosting a holiday meal, complete with a turkey, thus saving at least $100. The adults in our family are very content to lower our expectations. However, the children do not quite get it.

This is because I have always loved the magical quality of my childhood memories, and I want to recreate that as much as I can for my kids. If that means convincing them Santa is real, then so be it. However, this year we have also begun to talk a little about the baby Jesus, and the true meaning of Christmas.

Now, I am not a religious person. I am culturally Christian, in that I celebrate Christmas and Easter, but I could never call myself a Christian. For starters, I don't know if I believe that Jesus actually existed. Is there archaeological evidence to prove it? I'm not certain there is. Secondly, as a teenager, I was quite interested in Paganism and the celebration of the seasons according to my Celtic heritage. There are a lot of remarkable similarities between the Pagan solstice and Christmas, most importantly the birth of a god. Finally, I was taught to meditate by my father when I was very young, and he introduced me to Swamis and gurus. He even once suggested that the three wise men who visited the baby Jesus were East Indian gurus. The idea that Christ is the only pathway to God strikes me as arrogant. To me, Christ is a very important spiritual figure, a prophet amongst prophets, but no more. To me, he is not a god. Certainly, he is the son of God, but only in the same sense that you and I are all children of God.

Yet, still, Christ is an important spiritual figure. He preached compassion and infinite responsibility. He counseled non-violence and pacifism - as I understand it, when he is quoted in the Bible, saying "turn the other cheek," it wasn't just to turn away from violence, it was to offer up the other cheek for a second slap. Because what you resist will persist. However, if you let it be, it will run it's course, and then disappear.

I've been reading "The Fourth World" by George Manuel, of the Shuswap Nation. Aboriginal peoples have traditionally honoured giving as an important way of being. Manuel wrote that, if an Indian went hunting for a deer, he would have already earmarked each part of the deer for people in his community. The hunter himself would only keep the neck, the worst part. Everything else he would give away, knowing that someone else would have earmarked a choice piece for him at some point in the future. This was how people gained status and power in Indian communities (he used the term "Indian" - the book was published in 1974). This was why the potlatch was so important to Aboriginal communities of the West coast. To Aboriginal peoples, acquisition of goods and resources was just not done. You shared. With everyone. Always.

So we are talking about compassion, and what that means. We are talking about how it is better to give than to receive, and what that means. These are big, difficult concepts for my 6 and 7 year old boys, growing up in a Westernized, consumer culture, being working class in a middle class community. Heck, they are big concepts for me!

beyond adoption v. abortion?

So lately I've been thinking about adoption and abortion, mostly in reaction to a few posts from Kim, the inadvertent farmer. It started with this post on the stillbirth of her twin daughters, continued with this post celebrating adoption, and culminated in this post advocating for adoption over abortion. I felt inclined to comment on the last post. It was a very lengthy comment, practically a blog post in itself. I think the main thing that bothered me was the implication that women who choose abortion over adoption are somehow being selfish.

I can, of course, understand Kim's point of view in advocating for adoption, however, I can also understand many women's need to avoid the shame and social stigma of an unplanned pregnancy. I have a problem with the idea that it is a woman's mistake, her poor judgment, that has put her in this position. As an unapologetic feminist, I need to say that men must be equally implicated. Further, I need to say that it is unlikely that women will choose adoption over abortion while our society continues to shame them.

I think that what's important to me in all this, is that there are children available for adoption, but they're not all babies. Sometimes they have special needs. Lots of them have been through the child protection system. However, the focus on advocating for adoption was to compare it to abortion, thus, on newborn babies. And the focus in the comments was on unplanned pregnancies and shame.

But what about adopting a 7 year old who has been permanently removed from her parent's care? What about 5 kids, aged 10 through 3? What about the 2 kids with FAS? Who wants to adopt them? Some people do, but not as many as those who want babies.

I just think advocating for adoption is more than advocating against abortion.

done and done... one more to go!

Papers, that is.

Yesterday I wrote a Statutory Interpretation paper for my Legal Knowledge for Social Workers class. Sounds so high-falutin' doesn't it? Yup, I was given a written scenario about a marriage, it's breakup and some weird happenings in each partner's new relationships. Then I was given a series of questions pertaining to the legal issues of said scenario, and I had to answer them, giving direct reference to statutes. Statutes means government Acts. Like the Family Relations Act and the Mental Health Act. They're online. It was windy yesterday. My internet connection was flickering in and out like a guttering candle. It was very annoying, being so dependent on technology.

Today, for my Social Work Practice with individuals class, I met a classmate on campus and we went to IMS (Information Media Services, I think?) to record ourselves role-playing two different scenarios where one of us is a student social worker offering counseling services. It was supposed to be 20 minutes. Mine was 11. Hope I don't loose too many marks :S The I came home, watched the DVD I made, and then chose 5 minutes of the role-play to transcribe and "process record." Not that I'm sure of the meaning of that, but it was the name of the assignment and all. It took 2 hours to transcribe 5 minutes. I have to learn to type with more than two fingers on each hand.

Then we took the kids to floor hockey. Then we came home, hubby made dinner (pancakes and bacon, he needed my help. Sigh. Why aren't men taught to be more self-sufficient? But I digress), and I began writing out my reactions and reflections to every comment made. As well, I was to describe the skill used to support my intervention. I was intervening. Doesn't that sound intrusive? "Hey, your life's a mess, let me tell you how to fix it, lady!" Okay, it's only terminology, that's not how I'm taught to act or treat clients :) But the whole process was unnerving and uncomfortable.

But, yay, I'm done! I just have to proofread/edit any rough patches in the morning! And then it's off to my Political Science class for an exam review, and later to Legal Knowledge for more exam review and to hand in that paper. Then, first thing the next morning, I'm back to hand in the process recording and DVD of the interview. Gulp. I hope I do alright :)

Then the Political Science paper's due next Tuesday, and both of my exams are the following Tuesday. That brings me to Dec 15th, and the beginning of my Christmas vacation! It is extra long this year! I don't go back to school until Jan 11th! That's a week after the kids start back! I'm gonna be able to be a stay-at-home mommy for a few weeks! I really need this break.

Now that those two papers aren't looming on the horizon, I can see the end, and I'm starting to feel less exhausted, just writing about it :)

crisis line

wow...
I just got home from my first volunteer shift since July at my local crisis line. I am feeling emotionally drained. I think I'd forgotten how overwhelming other people's emotions can be at times. I took 5 calls in total. The first two and the last one were from callers contemplating suicide. The first two were from the same man, he is a regular caller, and is not seem as being high risk. The other caller was a new caller, and, beyond the suicide and the crisis that preceded her feelings, also had a lot going on in her life, in her past.

Sometimes I feel like I do as much as I can for these people, offering to listen and to be empathetic, but sometimes it just doesn't feel like enough. My task is to help them restore their own ability to cope, in the moment, and to offer referrals to community resources as appropriate. Sometimes, though, I want to be able to do more. I guess that's why I'm studying social work - so that I'll be qualified to help people over the long term, to offer interventions that, over time, actually make a difference, and maybe improve the quality of life the client is experiencing.

However, it is important to recognise that there is only so much I can do, and that what I am doing DOES make a difference, even if only slightly. I felt like I was able to help the last caller, even just by giving her a phone number to help her find a GP. However, I don't feel like I helped the first fellow. He just wanted to know how to die and said that no one would tell him how. He's depressed, it's not like Sue Rodriguez or anything, where he's fighting for the right to die with dignity. He just feels like a burden to his family. We talked about how to get through a given period of time, but he didn't seem to want to try anything, other than lying on his bed and crying. That kind of hopelessness/helplessness is so hard for me to be with, to empathize with in a meaningful way, without wanting to make some glib comment, like pull yourself together for your family. (Not helpful!)

So, despite feeling unsettled, unfocused and out of sorts, I am choosing to congratulate myself for being there as much as I can for these callers, and I am going to breathe, and do the dishes. Maybe then I will be able to focus on writing my research papers. (Next week is my last week of classes for the semesterand  I have 3 papers due!)

more on teaching and learning

Yesterday I wrote about what teaching is to me. It was mostly in response to this radical unschooling notion that teach is somehow a bad word. The following was a comment on that blog post:

"But you aren't teaching if a kid is thirsting for the knowledge you impart...that is responding to that child's drive to learn....you can't "teach" a child whose brain is not there yet...it's developmental...one can't want to learn to read unless one is ready to read...and every child is different...."

So, firstly, I'd like to say that I'm not talking exclusively about children learning. I'm also including my own present experiences of being a 34 year old undergraduate student. I love learning, I love education. I plan to work in my chosen field for maybe 5 years, and then return to the ivory tower to earn a masters degree. I will graduate in a year and a half, which will make me about 40 when I plan to earn my MSW. I can also see myself pursuing a PhD. I can also see myself teaching at a college or university one day.

It's not just children who are learners. We learn all of our life, from formal academic teachers, from our bosses at our jobs, from workshops or conferences we attend, from our fellow employees, from our friends, from our relationships, from our children, from life. Education never ends.


Secondly, I'd like to respond to the statement, "but you aren't teaching if a kid is thirsting for the knowledge you impart."

This is, I think where I differ from the radical unschooling perspective, and I think it's a philosophical difference, that is, a matter of opinion, rather than truth. Or, that there are multiple truths out there, and no one has a monopoly on truth.

I say you can't teach anyone unless they are thirsting for knowledge, child or adult. It's like the axiom, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." But why can we not consider the leading to be teaching? I think this is a distinction, a truth, shall we say, that I will never understand.

Perhaps the distinction really is between being and doing. Perhaps these radical unschoolers are rejecting aspects of the doing of teaching, the rote, mechanical parts that sometimes occur when the teacher is not inspired, when the teacher is not being teacher.

Often, when I find myself struggling to understand something (and, like Werner Erhard said, understanding is the booby prize!), I often find myself turning to the dictionary, thinking, "just what, exactly, does that word really mean?

So I'd like to share something from my dictionary about the word teach:

1. To impart knowledge by lessons; give instruction to: to teach a class.
2. To give instruction in; communicate the knowledge of: to teach French.
3. To train by practice or exercise.
   
4. To follow the profession of teaching.
5. To impart knowledge or skill.

synonyms: Teach, instruct, drill, educate, school, discipline, train and tutor mean to guide in acquiring knowledge or skill. Teach is the most comprehensive word; it embraces all methods of imparting knowledge, information, guidance, counsel.

And then from my dictionary about the word learn:

1. To acquire knowledge of or skill in by study, instruction, practice, etc.
2. To find out; become aware of: to learn the facts.
3. To commit to memory; memorize.
4. To acquire by experience or example: to learn bad habits.
5. To gain knowledge or acquire skill.
6. To become informed; know: with of or about.

Nowhere in any of these meanings can I see the suggestion that teaching cannot happen, that it is only learning that is possible. Thus, I will continue to reject the rejection of the verb teach. However, in no way am I suggesting that you can force a child to learn something s/he is not yet ready to learn. What I am suggesting is that, if there is learning going on, there is also teaching going on. If the child is not learning, then the teacher is only trying to teach, and s/he is clearly not succeeding.

Finally, to look at the argument of development, it is abundantly clear that development happens in distinct stages. For example, the normal range for a a child to learn to walk is 9 to 18 months. That is a huge range. Consider, too, that not all children fall into this "normal" range. My son, for example, never really bothered with crawling. He went from rocking on his hands and knees to couch surfing to walking at 8 months of age. He learned how to crawl, he just wasn't that interested in it, preferring to be upright as soon as possible.

So, yes, I can clearly see that some children aren't developmentally ready to read until they are 8 or 9 years old. But what I don't see is that those children cannot be taught to read. I really think there is a distinction between reading and walking. As a species, we have been walking for far longer than we have been reading. Also, there is only one way to walk - standing up, on your feet, placing one foot in front of the other - but there are many languages to learn to speak and read. I really don't think reading is something that can be learned spontaneously, I think someone has to tell the learner what these symbols we call letters mean. Even if that only consists of reading aloud to your child while they look at the written words, you are still modeling reading in a way that the child is learning to associate a specific sound with a specific symbol.

I'd like to end by paraphrasing something from the Bible: "give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime." Can the man learn to fish by himself, can he teach himself to fish? Surely he can. However, if someone else teaches him to fish, might the process not be expedited? Might he not struggle frustratedly with just how to cast the rod, if someone explains the process, guides his arms, watches him practice and corrects mistakes in positioning, etc? I certainly would prefer to not reinvent the wheel, which is why I seek out teachers.

what teaching is to me

I've been thinking a lot about what a teacher is to me, and why I value the role a person assumes when they take on the mantle of "teacher." I have always admired teachers.

These are the thoughts that come to me when I think of a public education in BC: My sister is a teacher, my stepmother when I was a child is a teacher. When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be a teacher. I have admired several of my teachers. In first grade one day, they were testing the fire alarms, and I was terrified and crying. My teacher held her hands over my ears. I particularly liked Mr. O'Malley in grade 6. We had Russian penpals. My 10th grade English teacher made Shakespeare come alive for me. Not all of my teachers were great. Some were just okay, and some I didn't like at all. Like my 9th and 10th grade French teacher, who didn't seem to enjoy teaching.

This is also something I've noticed over my long and convoluted college career. My father pointed out to me that some profs are good teachers, and I should keep trying to take their classes if I could. My Social Work School has as many sessional instructors as full time instructors, and I really notice this distinction amongst the sessionals, who are professionals in the field with a masters level degree who teach one or two courses a calendar year. Some are excellent teachers, some mean well. The teachers that are excellent you try to work with as often as possible. Like my favorite political science dept prof, Rita Dhamoon. She has a PhD, she writes articles and speaks at conferences. I've taken a class in Gender/Feminist POSC, and I am currently taking her Politics of Multiculturalism class. She invites us to be radical, to deconstruct ideas and theories, to look at what's going on underneath. She is so inspiring!


But this is just the pathway to what I'm trying to distinguish. Teach is an important word, in my opinion. But I have noticed this thing in radical unschooling where people don't like to use that word. Like it's a bad word. Like learn is so much better a word. For example, I was reading a thread in a forum on radical unschooling, and people were discussing late readers, kids who were 8 or 9 who couldn't yet read, or at least not at the level that they were interested in reading. Kids who would get frustrated and stop trying. Some people commented that their kids didn't get reading until about 9 or 10, and one person said that by 15, the kid was reading at a college level or writing a story or something, and not to worry. However, there was this other element in the thread about how one girl was so frustrated, and her mom kept telling her it was like riding a bike or learning how to walk, that you couldn't be taught to read, your brain had to be ready and then you'd just get it. And another person commented that maybe the mom thought she could teach her to read and so she was subtly getting some message, but the mom said that wasn't the case, she truly believed she could not teach her daughter to read.

I don't get it. What do you mean, you can't teach someone how to read? Maybe I just truly have no experience with people who are not natural readers? I was chomping at the bit at the beginning of 1st grade. I couldn't wait to learn to read. I could probably have learned to read at 3 or 4, if I had been taught. My kids are like that too, both my son and my stepson. Natural early readers. But teaching was a big part of that - learning the sounds of the letters, learning some basic phonetic rules so you know when to use a hard vowel or a soft vowel, the teacher reading to the learner, moving your finger along under the words as you read, etc. Isn't that teaching someone how to read?

I guess I should explain what a teacher is to me. A teacher instructs you and drills you sometimes, yes indeed. But a teacher is also a mentor. A teacher requires compassion, an ability to see the world from another's perspective. A teacher is someone who creates a space for the learner to step into. A teacher holds that space, a space of the wonder and joy of education. So a teacher may not do anything, because it is about who the teacher is being. A teacher is passionate, inspired, a person who can communicate the joy of learning, of knowledge, and who can pass the flame to the next generation.

So this is why I feel that teach is too important a verb to dispense with altogether, despite any possible negative connotations it may carry. Because it is so much more than those.

some more thoughts on unschooling as elitism

I've been reading a few blog articles (and their comments) that discuss the distinction between teaching and learning. As I went to find all the links, I found a new post which contains all the links, and a chronology of the discussion. I wrote a comment on on of the blogs, mainly discussing my distaste at some radical unschooler's choice to not use the word "teach". I wonder, why is "teach" a bad word? It's not that the writers had poor arguments, rather, they were coherent and well expressed. But I can't escape the feeling that it is somehow an elitist perspective.

Like I expressed in my last post, which has been sitting in my drafts folder for almost 3 weeks, I wonder if the unschooling phenomenon is something that is only available to a small proportion of our global population. I wonder if it is a distinctly Western, middle class phenomena. It may not be exclusively Western, but my only exposure to unschooling has been through Western technology, and so that is all I see. However, when I think of my social work education on Aboriginal issues and history in Canada, it's pretty obvious that indigenous peoples were "unschooling" their kids before the Indian agent came along and forced their kids into residential schools. Thus, if North American Aboriginal peoples were unschoolers, it seems quite likely that other tribal peoples were, too. As well, when I consider public education's history, I realize it hasn't been around all that long, and we must have been unschoolers before this time, unless we were aristocrats who could afford private tutors (still not "school").

But I also wonder, what makes the public school system so untrustworthy? While waiting in a doctor's office yesterday, I read an article in a Canadian parenting magazine discussing the route public education is taking in Canada (I felt this to be false terms of reference; the federal government is not involved in education, it is a provincial matter, and it thus varies across the country). One thing the article discussed was a classroom in Ontario where the kids were able to choose their own method of learning on the teacher's topic. I think it mostly referred to social studies and language arts, because the example referred to either writing a letter to the editor or creating a poster, among other options. Still, in the 6 page article, I did not find one reference to my own province, BC. Regardless, the article did say that the days of teaching to the middle of the class are gone...

But what does it really take to be a homeschooling/unschooling parent? For one thing, money. Money to have one parent home with school aged kids, all day, every day. Sure, lots of unschooling moms talk about the sacrifices they have made to live on one income, but are they the same sacrifices a low income family can make? Or is that low income family already making those sacrifices, just to pay the rent and the bills? Many Canadians have to choose between paying their rent and buying food. Suggest to those parents the option of taking their kids out of the public school system which would require a stay-at-home parent and see if it's a viable option for them.

So, while unschoolers quibble over the connotations of the word "teach," I wonder, does it really matter, as long as there's respect, as long as there's choice? Although I'm certain unschooling is the way to go, and I really wish I had the financial resources to make it a reality NOW, I can't help but wonder about the inherent elitism in a system that is only available to those who can afford it. That truly goes against my values of freedom, equality, liberty and justice. On that list of my personal core values is education. So many revolutionaries have written about the importance of education in achieving freedom. How does one educate the masses in order to assure they can reach for freedom, if not in the public system? I'm still reading Paolo Freire's "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed," maybe I'll have some answers when I'm done.

Socialism, anti-colonialism and unschooling: a revolution for the elite?

A few weeks ago I read this post
Then I wrote the following comment:

This is a fantastic piece of writing, filled with amazing, subversive thoughts, especially when your sister is responding to the person who believes that if everyone was unschooled, it would unbalance our current society. Now, wouldn't that be a marvelous thing?!
I am a 34 year old social work student and mom to my 2nd grade son and my 1st grade step-son. I am teetering on the brink of taking them out of the public school system for exactly the reasons your sister discusses. While I agree wholeheartedly with education as a value, and as a necessary component of freedom, I am coming to see public education systems as an element of oppression and government/elite control of "the masses."
However, I balk at seeing sinister intentions in individual educators, just as I balk at seeing myself as an agent of social control as a future child protection worker for the provincial Ministry. Rather, I see myself as someone who will have the power to advocate for social change on behalf of vulnerable persons/groups. I see myself as an agent of social transformation. Because of this, I do somewhat hesitate to outright reject the public education system. If I am not a part of it, how can I participate in its transformation? However, this is a philosophical standpoint that must give way to the practical needs of my kids.
The kinds of thoughts you (and, in this post, your sister) articulate are thoughts that I didn't have words for until I began studying social justice in my 30s. To think that my children could also be as articulate and radical as teenagers, rather than simply rebelling against claustrophobic parenting and learning environments, is inspiring.
For me, the only reason my kids are still in public school is related to my socioeconomic status as a student. My husband and I do not have the income to pay for the necessary childcare while I am in classes and on practicum. Then, once I complete my degree, in 2011, there will be a significant debt repayment, and I will likely be working up to 40 hrs/week.
Unfortunately, I need to rely on the free childcare the public education system provides for the time being, unless I can work out something else to provide for their care. Regardless, if I cannot find some way to manage in the near future, as soon as they are mature enough to be home alone for stretches of time, they will be able to leave the public education system. No way will they have to go to high school :)

I've been thinking more and more about the points I made regarding who I see myself as being as a social worker: as a space of transformation, as someone standing for a new possibility. Especially when I consider that my clients will be involuntary. Then I've been thinking about those future clients, and their socioeconomic status. Most of them will live in chronic poverty. Many of them will be single parents or aboriginal peoples or immigrants. Most of them will not be middle class. Most of them will not have the choices I have, despite my own state of (temporary) poverty.

When I think about this, I realize that unschooling is likely an option only available to a small percentage of parents, especially when considering a global context. I realize that the majority of children who have the opportunity to attend public school, to be educated, are privileged, by global standards. This makes me think deeply about my longing to unschool my children. As someone who considers herself a feminist, an anti-colonialist, a socialist, I wonder, am I being hypocritical?

That is, am I espousing something for my family that is elitist, and out of reach for most people? This goes against my personal and professional values like social justice, liberty, equality, democracy.

on the joys of sending my children to public school

Oh, the joy...
The learning support teacher at my son's school just called to ask for my help in trying to motivate him to do his work... he just doesn't want to do it. I am at a loss, I "motivate" him through our attachment bond, I'm not supervising between 10 to 20 other kids at the same time.

Meanwhile, my stepson's teacher, who corresponds via email with all the parents of her students, shared some information she learned at a talk during a professional development day in October. The speaker was a "brain based learning facilitator" She shared some of her notes, including the following gem:

Children have to be constantly learning.  If they are not learning their brain is not growing. Give them chores. Penitentiaries are full of people who never had chores. 

Perhaps it's time to review my text and notes from that 2nd year Psych class I took on Cognition, but aren't we ALL always learning? Isn't that just the way our brains work?
Another lovely gem was the following:

Never allow children more than one hour of t.v. or video games a day, it "rots the brain" with electronic sedation.  The flashing pictures take away your "captain", your thinking brain and cause mental passivity and lack of creativity.

So, I'm imagining the "captain" she is referring to is our frontal cortex, home of "executive functioning" (to use medical and psychological lingo). From what I've learned through my university studies, executive functioning is a part of "meta cognition" i.e. thinking about one's thinking, or even just a mental awareness of one's own thoughts. She offered to share the resources he provided, and I'm all over that. I'd like to see the studies/experiments that came to these conclusions - because I don't buy the hypothesis.

From my own experience, the "flashing pictures" on the tv screen don't really prevent ME from thinking. Why, just the other day I was watching the 'boob tube' (as my mother called it while I was growing up), and I saw a commercial protesting an upcoming 'tax' on local tv by the big American networks. My immediate thought was, "why is this important news to us mainstream North Americans? Why don't we care about 4th world (a term taken from George Manuel's 1974 book on the realities of being a stateless nation within a colonial country bound on assimilation and cultural extinction) issues, Indigenous issues? Why are we protesting the rising cost of tv, rather than America's Imperial wars, or the political hypocrisies in many African nations? I could go on, but my point is, I kept thinking, despite those flashing lights. Maybe that's because I have a mature brain, and kids are incapable of this because their brains are still developing, but I certainly watched a lot of tv growing up, and my brain works...

And I really fail to see how the "flashing pictures" of video games prevents my children from thinking. Don't they need to utilize problem solving skills to get past each obstacle? They can't continue to do the same thing over and over and expect different results... and, of course, they don't. They try something else, or they ask my husband for help.

In reply to my email requesting the references she had offered, the teacher wrote the following:

He said that they use very fast moving stimulus to cause the thinking brain to shut down. He said any child watching/using more than an hour a day was also susceptible to depression.  I also saw the good things many children miss when they spend great amounts of time at the t.v. or computer, developing oral language, problem skills, socializing.

I recently posted some unschooling resources on video games being GOOD for your brain on my Facebook page, starting with Sandra Dodd's website. (The first link no longer seems to take you to the article, unfortunately). A good friend commented, saying that her son, who attends a French school, learned to read English in kindergarten by playing video games. As well, most kids I know use video games to socialize. They play the games together, they talk about the games together, they help each other out when they get stuck.

And the point about being susceptible to depression... yeah, I think depression is a BIT more complex than that.

Regardless, she writes that I am doing a good job with my stepson, and she is really enjoying having him in her class this year. However, I let that kid play his Nintendo DS for hours all weekend long, simply because they want to.

on "random"

My son has lately been having a love affair with the word "random." He's not really sure of what it means, but he mostly uses it in context, and I haven't been able to clarify it any better, as "random number generation" is a little beyond his conceptual abilities. But, he has been "randomly" choosing chocolate bars from his Hallowe'en stash, and I'd say that's a pretty accurate usage :)
I must say that word more than I realize.
I love precocity.

on resentment

I am reading an amazing thread on the Radical Unschoolers Network that started out as a discussion called "children 'need you to make choices for them'" and quickly morphed into some fantastic insights by some extremely articulate individuals on moms resenting doing chores. Also discussed are conventional parenting and subsequent 'withdrawals' by the parent, used later to 'bargain' for a behavioural change in the child. Below are the excerpts that speak to me the most:

"Conventional parenting wisdom -- which is the parenting most of us are familiar with -- leans toward getting the child to see the error of his ways. To the child that feels like the parent saying "I don't care what you want [the reason for hitting]. I only care what I want [to make you stop being bad].

Unschooling wisdom would, of course, stop the hitting, but focus on finding a better approach to help the child get what they wanted that caused them to hit. (Even better is being present to reroute situations before they get to the hitting point.)

Most people reading don't know that. Most people are reading to find ways to control an action. (Because, without realizing it, that's the foundation of the parenting they've always known.) It's not easy to turn thinking around. It's hard to let go of the need to punish a child for wrong behavior. It just feels wrong.

We can work at understanding how our kids see the world so that we avoid acting in ways that feel different than what we intend. We can't be perfect, but we can be better and better with awareness. So a lot of discussion has a foundation of helping parents see that kids are reacting rationally to the situation the child perceives, even if the parent thinks the child is being totally unreasonable."


"How do people perceive love? That's an important question to think about. Specifically, how do the other members of your family perceive love? That's more important, in terms of you showing them love, than how you perceive love. One way to communicate love is by doing things for others. When my partner brings me a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, or cleans the kitchen right before I come home from work, he's expressing love to me. For awhile he was all wrapped up in a recording project and stopped bringing me coffee in the morning - I had to consciously remind myself that it wasn't a deliberate act of love-withdrawal on his part, but it hurt my feelings a little, anyway.

I don't expect my kids to have that kind of understanding, yet, though. Heck, some adults don't have that kind of understanding (one of my coworkers suggested I withhold sex in retribution, for instance). So I try to be very careful of things that could seem, from another's perspective, to be acts of love withdrawal. Today, for instance, is the day of my dd's birthday party. She's 8, her actual birthday was yesterday. But she wanted everyone in the family to say: "Happy second day of your birthday" today. We all did (some with prompting) because that's important to her. It helps her feel loved. If one of us refused to say it, for whatever reason, she'd feel less loved today, regardless of any of our actual feelings."

I've found myself feeling very resentful of late. Much of it is tied up with money, specifically our lack of it, due to our recent (mid-September) wedding which included approximately 100 guests and cost a 'pretty penny.' However, much of it is also cultural, and I have been feeling this resentment for 7 years, now. I am an individualistic white North American. I often feel constrained by the role of a parent, the need to continually give and give and give to my kids. The words, above, often help with this. These writers points of view soothe me, make me feel like it is all manageable.

But then I compare my husband to the second writer's partner, and I feel jealous and angry and resentful again. My husband works 40 hours a week in retail. He is constantly on his feet, he does a lot of heavy lifting, and he is constantly having to cater to the demands of a public who believes that "the customer is always right," despite the fact that corporate law suggests corporations have far more power than people in our society. He commutes by bus, which often takes an hour and a half to travel what is normally a 30 minute drive.

I, on the other hand, do not have a regular job. I am a student. I commute twice a week, in my car, to a campus about 45 minutes away. There, I participate in stimulating courses of my own choosing, and I work minimally as a research assistant, less than 10 hours a week. The rest of the time I spend at home, reading, writing papers, and researching interesting ideas. Still this is draining work. As well, it is expected by my professors and the institution that I will spend 2 to 3 hours studying per hour of class time. That puts me to about 30 hours a week, all of which is extremely draining. Intellectual work is still work.

Plus, I am primarily responsible for the children, for all driving (my husband doesn't know how to drive), errands, grocery shopping, cooking, bill paying. I am responsible for most of the cleaning. My husband is responsible for doing the laundry, yet every week I have to ask him to do this, and then I have to remind him to take the clothes out of the washing machine and put them in the dryer. If I don't remind him to take them out of the dryer, they will sit there for days.

I feel like a domestic slave, and thus I feel angry and resentful. I feel that my academic pursuits are not considered as valuable as a "real" job. I feel that my real value is tied up in the domestic, unpaid labour I provide for my family.

I want to be able to approach this without anger and resentment. I want to come from nothing, so as to create a solution that isn't transactional, that isn't based on bargaining and withdrawals. So far, the only thing that works is to express my frustration and resentment and leave it with the kids or my husband. I usually see a difference for a very short period of time (a week with my husband, maybe an hour or so with my kids). They get it in the moment, however, they seem unable to maintain this.

This is an uncomfortable place for me. I want to be valued, and I want compassion. I want my family to demonstrate their love for me. Instead, I have to operate from the knowledge that, despite their actions, they do love me.

Still, I wish I could go on strike.

The "third shift" of parenting

I've been thinking a lot about my experiences of public school as a parent. In that process, I remembered a piece of writing I did for my "Sociology of Families" class last fall and decided I wanted to post it here. It is academic writing, and so it refers to a few textbooks we used during the course, and to several academic sociological theories, however, I think it's still quite understandable to the average reader:

October-28-08 The "third shift" of parenting

My first grader is having problems at school. He disrupts the class. He doesn't complete his assignments. He lies down regularly on the floor. He has a great difficulty when required to attend to lessons. His teacher communicates with me through penciled notes in his planner. She asked me to speak with him before today's field trip. After the field trip, she wrote he "wandered from the group many times." As well, he's "still having difficulty with writing" and she will "be keeping him in at recess to see if this helps to motivate him." She then wrote that he was under his desk, which, when we discussed her note, he adamantly denied and then began to cry.

The teacher is quite experienced and, during a conference we had three weeks ago, stressed positive interactions and multiple modes of learning. However, my son is young for his grade; his birthday is in mid-November. I am concerned that this teacher has expectations for his behaviour that are developmentally beyond his mastery. I also think that recess, and running around, will improve his executive functioning, and therefore his control over his own behaviour. I want to be able to teach him some self-managing techniques, such as twiddling his thumbs while sitting in a group on the rug (which he reports she vetoed), but I have been unable to observe the situation, and thus to suggest appropriate interventions.

As a result, I've been spending time researching children's behavioural issues at the expense of my university studies. As well, I've added a half-hour on to our morning routine to wake up earlier to chat in bed and to be less rushed when getting out the door. This is after altering his bedtime last month, at the teacher's request. Now, I will be spending an hour and a half at my son's school tomorrow, in the middle of the morning. As well, I suspect I will be instituting a half-hour of study time in the evenings. Finally, I am looking into piano lessons for my son, as my research suggests this may contribute to the development of attention span.

These are excellent examples of Hothschild's "third shift" of emotional work to compensate for the time crunch of the first and second shifts of work and household and family labour (1989, 1997, cited in Ranson, 2007:77). Hothschild argues parents must manage their home lives as efficiently as their work lives, but by doing so, something is lost, and must be compensated for. This is the “third shift” of nurturing modern parents take on to compensate children for the time crunch.

My experience as a working mother reflects this, but it also reflects Lareu's middle class pattern of "concerted cultivation," which involves promotion of children's talents and abilities, but usually through “financially expensive” and “labour-intensive” means (2002, cited in Ranson, 2007:76). This middle class pattern, however, is not, for me, matched by a middle class income, as I am a student and a single mother. Thus, my financial resources are strained, and I take on the burden of providing such cultivation less through participation in paid activities like lessons and sports teams, more through my own, individual efforts. This requires efficient time management, as in the “second shift” of family labour, which then leads to the compensatory “third shift” in order to maintain the experience of myself as a “good mother” in an ideological sense.

It is a year later, and I am no longer the single parent of an only child, but rather the married mother of two. However, not much has changed in my experience of the public school system, and the need to experience myself as a "good mother." Despite this, I have discovered the concepts of radical unschooling and non-coercive parenting, so I waffle back and forth between "concerted cultivation" and "deschooling," where I let my kids spend their weekends doing whatever they like, without trying to direct their activities or limit their choices. If they want to play DS all day, I let them. After all, my husband spends his days off from work parked in front of the tv, why should there be a double standard? My husband, not quite understanding the philosophical underpinnings of my new parenting attitude, attempts to set limits on their video game playing time, to which I suggest he's being somewhat hypocritical. He's getting there. As am I. This is not an easy transition! We are working against generations of conditioning, where children are to "be seen and not heard." Bizarre. Developmentally inappropriate.

radical unschooling and a public school education?

Is that an oxymoron? A contradiction in terms?

Well, I'm trying it out ;)

I've found the blog of the most amazing young woman, Idzie, from near Montreal, who is unschooled. I want my boy to turn out as cool as she is! She calls herself, among other things, an anti-civilizationist. I'm not super-clear on what this means, but it seems to be based on the premises that civilization is unsustainable, i.e. too many people living in the same places to provide enough food, and that civilization thus requires violence to secure enough food for it's citizens.

From my studies of oppression and marginalized social groups, especially the Indigenous peoples of North America, I'm inclined to agree, at least as a hypothesis. I want to read more, of course, but it reminds me of the readings I was assigned when I took an upper level philosophy course in applied ethics. We studied Liberalism, Libertarianism, and what my prof called Democratic Cultural Pluralism, for which we read selections from Iris Marion Young's The Politics of Difference. Young advocated for recognition over redistribution, arguing that one cannot redistribute such goods as respect and opportunity, exactly what is missing for marginalized people. She also talked a lot about regionalism as a form of political control, which reminded me a lot of the way First nations groups in BC have been negotiating self government.

But I digress. I want to raise curious, thoughtful children, critical thinkers who can deconstruct any opinion, value, attitude, political philosophy or policy. I want to raise radical thinkers, committed to getting to the root of social issues who are not content with a shallow life of media consumption. I am committed to authentic social justice, to the transformation of our political relationships, both locally and globally. I am not yet suspicious of the public education system, as are some of the radical unschoolers I have read on the internet, but I am very aware of the history of institutionalized oppression.

As I ponder what it's going to take for me to be able to walk away from public school, I think more and more of my own schooling. I've come to realize that I never liked school. However, I have always been extremely intelligent, and a voracious reader. I love education, learning, knowledge, wisdom, and I always have, but I felt both squashed and exposed in school. I think I am finally, after 15 years out of the public school system, 4 years of aimless, part-time college studies, a year of fine arts, childbirth and motherhood followed by 3 years of focused, full-time university studies, starting to really, truly enjoy my studies. I want to pursue graduate studies, maybe even law! However, I still struggle with anxiety, perfectionism and procrastination around my assignments, so I have a ways to go, yet.

But my boy, oh, I don't want him to have to deprogram himself the way I have to deprogram myself. I've been saving for his post-secondary education with an RESP since he was a couple months old. I want him to want to use that money. I don't want him to stress, to feel panic about exams, to write papers the night before they're due. I want him to be a true scholar, naturally reading and writing and exploring. And I'm starting to be convinced that the only way to achieve this is unschooling.

(I read on the internet about an unschooled 12 year old who was attending classes at Malaspina, a college on Vancouver Island. He got an A+ in Philosophy 100. He felt that high school students were treated like prisoners, whereas college students were treated like customers, free to leave if the class wasn't interesting. Good point.)

But I read on a radical unschooling message board that this is more than theory for education, it's a theory for parenting in general. Treat your kids with the same respect you'd treat an adult. What a radical concept, considering there is still a legal defense to assault of one's children in Canada. (You just can't hit them on the head, or with an object.) The post said that a child could be unschooled and go to public school if said child chose public school of his/her own volition - the key, according to the poster, was coersion.

However, my children do not choose school. It is childcare for me. Ugh.

university news

I've recently been hired in a work-study position with my department, the School of Social Work and Human Services. I am a research assistant on campus, I work from 5 to 10 hours a week, from the beginning of October to the end of April. The job itself isn't particularly thrilling, I'm updating the department's policy manual (I was a little slow with applying, due to getting married and all). However, it's a great job for me; I can really use the extra cash, but I don't have the time to commit to even a part-time job - who wants an employee who only wants to work 8 hours a week?

My school is a very small one; there are so few BSW students that several of their upper level courses are only offered once a year, even once every two years. This gives it a cozy, close-knit feel, which I am really enjoying. However, sometimes things seem a bit too casual, like with my job. I don't really have any supervision, and I'm kind of making things up as I go. This isn't all that bad, I'm good with ambiguity in general, and I'm really great at creating structure (I am not very good, however, at maintaining structure!)

Case in point: the professional association for social workers for my province (BCASW) is having their annual conference in November. There are some really fascinating sounding lectures and workshops - one about sex workers, and their current Constitutional challenge before the courts, another about migrant workers and their quasi-legal status and lack of rights. I registered for one of the two days at the beginning of October, at the early-bird registration deadline. At this same time, the social work student association (SWSA) put out an email offering to sponsor students at the conference. I sent in a letter of intent, expecting to hear something back, but didn't.
Until today, that is, when I got an email from the BCASW. It was my official receipt for the moneys covered by the university!

So now I guess I see if I can get my money refunded?


UPDATE, Oct 28: So today I finally called the Association office to ask about a duplicate registration. The person who answered the phone looked me up, and found only one registration in the system - the one from the student association. I then clarified that I'd registered by phone, and she double-checked - yes, indeedy, they had charged my credit card $75, which will be refunded to me. Yay for being proactive!!

Farmer Boy

I passionately loved all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books as a child. I remember 3rd grade recess and lunch periods spent sitting in a bathroom stall, reading away. Recently, my boy, who just started 2nd grade, has been studying pioneers. They went on a field trip to Fort Langley, and they're reading Little House in the Big Woods. So I borrowed Farmer Boy from the local public library to read to the boys at bedtime.

That was Saturday. I read the first two chapters to my boy on Saturday night. Step-son wasn't interested in giving it a try, so he read himself a Pokemon story.

(I'm sick of Pokemon. I thought it was high time we read a new chapter book. My boy and I read Stuart Little, Charlotte's Webb and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane last year, and he enjoyed them all, and I enjoyed reading a true story, written by a true writer with a voice and a style.)

Yesterday was Sunday, our lazy, do-nothing-for-the-whole-morning day. The boys played video games, and I read Farmer Boy. The WHOLE thing! I devoured it. I want to live on Almanzo's father's farm!!! What an amazing place, what a wondrous lifestyle! Everything was hand made. And the containers and dishes they used! Bushel baskets! Six quart pans for milk! I want them! Cellars for storing potatoes and apples and carrots and corn and salt-pork and flour you grind yourself! I'm totally enraptured.

I can't wait to re-read ALL of these wonderful stories.

thinking more and more about unschooling...

Can I be a radical unschooler if my kids go to public school? I know I'm certainly giving it a try.

I do my best to allow them unlimited access to video games, although I have been known to make them go outside after 6 hours of uninterrupted DS time (and a few tears because SOMEONE was too busy playing to notice he'd been up for 6 hours without eating! Bad mom, I MADE him eat - he devoured his pb&j sammy)

I've been trying out the "strewing" concept - I took out a bunch of cool-looking books from the public library, books they could've cared less about while we were there, but which they've been loving at home. They took out Pokemon books, I took out an atlas and some joke books and a book about the history of hockey (to read with dad) and Farmer Boy. They love the joke books. One out of 4 ain't bad, eh?

I'm practicing saying yes. I'm practicing letting them do things I REALLY want to say no to. It's hard. The other night, my step-son wanted to sleep without his shirt on, and I made him wear it. Our house is old and poorly insulated, therefore cold at night. Step-son tosses about quite a bit in his sleep, usually kicking the blankets to the floor. He had a cold - sore throat and sneezes, so I explained that I worried he would be very cold in the middle of the night, which might make his cold harder to get over. This is a great example of the dictatorial, coercive style I'm trying to learn to let go of. It's hard.

I so want to keep my boy out of school with me. I could do it, this semester. But, come January, I will be doing a social work practicum - 3 days a week, plus one day on campus, maybe two, depending on the scheduling of the other courses I need to take. Out of pocket child care expenses for that are prohibitive - we are broke, heavily in debt, and we can't subsist on my husband's income now, let alone paying 5 times as much for daycare.

Add to this, I don't really want to keep step-son at home. He exhausts me, and I just don't love him as much as I love my boy. And I'm coming to terms with that. He's lived with us for 2 months. My boy has lived with me for 7 years. I'm realizing that it's normal, and it's okay for me to love my boy more, just as it's normal and ok that my husband loves his son more than mine.

But still, I'm frustrated, and I wish it was a perfect world, where I had the financial support I need to eschew this whole public school thing.

if I was one of those religious freaks...

...I would be saying that G-d is calling me to homeschool my kids. But I'm not a capital C Christian, I'm a bit too prosaic to really believe in a Deity who takes an active interest in His creation, nudging them this way and that. Don't get me wrong, religion is cool, and all, but I like my gods abstract. I don't want my god to tell me what to do, already :)

But really, most of the blogs I've been reading lately are those of homeschooling women. Hint, hint.

And a lot of my university readings discuss oppression - the bread 'n' butter of a profession committed to social justice. Today's assigned reading for my class, the Politics of Multiculturalism (government policy since the 70's here in Canada, the first country in the world to make it official) is the opening chapter of Paulo Freire's classic, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970).

Pedagogy, of course, is the science or art of teaching, the theory of how to teach, but it also has connotations of conceit; a pedagogue is a pedantic, narrow-minded teacher. (You've gotta love the circularity of dictionary definitions. Pedantry is an ostentatious display of knowledge, an insistence on the importance of trifling points of scholarship, from the Latin paedagogus. All definitions from Funk & Wagnall's Canadian College Dictionary, 1989.)

But The Pedagogy of the Oppressed is about the struggle for justice and equity within the educational system. The first chapter explores the relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor, the colonized and the colonizer. Friere, like Fanon, cites Hegel, and ventures into ontological discussions of freedom and humanity and authenticity. However, so far I've been finding his analysis to be somewhat analytical. There is a dialectic between the oppressed and the oppressor, just as between Hegel's master and slave. But this duality, this opposition between the two keeps them separated. Who is the oppressor, in my reality? Am I the oppressor, a white descendant of European immigrants living on the stolen land of the original inhabitants of this continent? Or am I, a working class woman, a former single mother, a student with a significant debt, the oppressed?

Tied up in all of this is my role as a parent. Am I the radical parent with no rules, no rewards and punishment schemes, who follows, rather than leads her child? Or am I the oppressor, disciplining my child by yelling, forcing him to attend an institution he hates, telling him he has to fit the mold?

Add to all of this the fact that my son's teacher called today after school. He missed recess, lunch and art, if I remember the conversation correctly. This was because he passively resisted doing his work. He just sat there. His teacher doesn't understand his motivation. She is institutionalized, obviously, as she can't see that my son is resisting being institutionalized himself. Does this make her the oppressor? Am I the oppressor for continually requiring that he go to school?

If I had the resources, I tell myself, and others, I would homeschool my son. But we live on just my husband's meager salary from his retail job. I receive student loans each semester that I attend school. I'm creeping up towards $45000, with two more years to go. I don't have the time to spend being his teacher, I need to focus on my expensive education. If I take him out of school, do I lose my government funding for after school care? Besides, now there is my stepson. How can I take one child out of school and leave the other? How can I carve out the time to teach two rambunctious boys, to teach myself to teach them, and to study for my own classes - up to 30 hours a week.

If I was really one of those religious freaks, I'd be praying to win the lottery, or for my husband to miraculously double his salary...

But I don't really pray.

Aaak!! And now September is over!

(as an aside, the Aaak!! in my title totally reminds me of Bill the Cat from Bloom County (? - the one w/Opus the penguin). My dad loved it when I was a teen)

Once more, a month has escaped me without a blog post. I'm supposed to be loving this. It is supposed to be my writing lite. As in not heavy-duty theoretical, as in not centered on social justice, or politics of identity/difference, as in, no heavy reading before-hand.

But then, silly me, I had a wedding. With a hundred guests. A HUNDRED!! I didn't really realize I knew a hundred people, as I'm a bit of a hermit, mostly just hangin' with the fam' - the ones who live in my household, and my folks, mostly. But, honestly, almost all of those 100 people were family. My husband is the youngest of 10 kids (neither Catholic nor careless, as the saying goes... mama had two families, the Laroses, 4 kids, then the Reeves, 5 kids, plus a foster brother. Gosh, brave mama, I certainly couldn't see pushing that many babies out of my body, yikes!)

It was a lovely wedding. We managed it all on a 'shoestring' budget - over 5 grand. Kinda makes my frugal heart sick to think of all that money spent on ONE day (it wasn't all our money, my parents paid a lot, and Ryder's dad bought a bunch of the booze). But this one day wasn't really about Ryder and I, or even us and the kids. It was about family. It was about community. It was about being together as one very large, brand new family grouping.

We invited one of my mother-in-law's cousins that no one really knew because her side and mama's side of their family had been estranged for years, and they were just now getting back in touch. How lovely to be able to host her and her hubby and grandkids. She asked to invite 2 of her 3 grown sons (who weren't able to make it), and we, of course, said "YES!" Cutting costs was about doing it ourselves, not cutting the guest list.

So, despite all the perfectly valid and reasonable reasons to NOT have a big wedding, I'm really glad we did. I'm really glad we created such a wonderful experience for our families. There were about 25 little kids there, one of the biggest highlights of the day for me. I'm sure I could say this better, and more theoretically. In my speech, I mentioned post-modernism, and I could go on at length here about that, and feminism as well, but I'm just happy to get a little loose, flowy writing out without worrying about my grade - now, on to the heavy reading - 2 hours with 12 pages, yeee-haw!

Oh, yeah, and so when does this feeling married thing kick in? (wrote that on Facebook, and stepson's mother told me I'm broken, which pissed me off, because she's the one who doesn't love her son - who's broken, b!tch?! - sorry, sometimes even social workers need to vent)

August is over already?!!

I can hardly believe this looong month has really come and gone so quickly. We have been quite busy preparing for our upcoming nuptials, less than 3 weeks away. As well, my fiance's son has been settling in with us. The boys have bunk beds, and they switch from top to bottom every night :) It is certainly hard to believe school begins again in a week. Back to the routine of early mornings without TV, DS or computer. Back to no peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.

de garden...

... is coming along nicely. De laundry, not so much :)

I am in the process of a crop rotation. The brassica bed is bolting in this heat, I simply can't keep up with the kale and chard and broccoli it is producing. The spinach and lettuce that were in there have long since gone to seed. Likewise with the peas - we simply planted too many in too small a space, and we can't get to them all, they can't be properly staked, and the few bush beans are being crowded out.

So, the brassicas are being cleared to make way for a few successions of fall carrots and beets (maybe onions and radishes a little later). Some peas have been pulled for now (but not all) to make room for the better-staked varieties and for the beans (pink and edamame), as well as to clear room for fall brassicas (more cabbage and broccoli, as well as cauliflower and maybe Brussels sprouts).

The fall peas may need to wait awhile, as I'd like to put them in the bed that is currently home to cosmos, zinnias, dahlias, asters, nasturtiums and sunflower seedlings, all planted in hopes of mid-September blooms to grace my wedding reception tables. I will start some peas in pots and transplant them into that bed when the flowers have been harvested.

The tomatoes are sort-of doing something. Despite an early start, they weren't doing too well in the bed they were transplanted into. The soil wasn't up to snuff. So we ripped them out, improved the soil, and started again with the other seedlings that hadn't made it into the garden due to space limitations. So we currently have small plants with very few flowers, and even fewer tiny green tomatoes. We are planning to build a 1"x1" frame around them and wrap them in poly for the fall in hopes of getting vine-ripened tomatoes. Usually, we get only green tomatoes, which we ripen on newspaper in the basement.

The squashes, in the new beds, dug out of a shady area of our lawn by an over-zealous house guest, are beginning to take off - they've started to climb in search of sun. First they twined up a dwarf Alberta spruce right beside the bed, and then a ladder left leaning up against the shed beside the spruce. Okay, my sissy actually wound them around the ladder - she likes the way it looks :) We got our first zucchini yesterday - better later than never!


P.S. I think I will add some photos, but a little later, when sissy and her super-cool camera are around - mine takes sucky pictures in comparison.

On taking on loving another child

When I last wrote on this blog, I was concerned about how having my stepson come to live with me might affect my plans for maybe homeschooling my own son. I wrote that his step father ignores him, but his mom was awesome. Because, hey, he's her kid, right?

Turns out, not so right. Mom admits to me she doesn't love her first born the same way she loves her 2 year old with hubby. She hates herself for it, but there it is.

I just don't get it. However, I was not a teenage mom. I never considered adoption at any point, let alone when my baby was a few months old (even though that was his screaming, colicky stage). I WANTED my child. I still do. When I see him sitting on the couch in the living room, staring intently at the TV or his DS, I am overcome with a desire to kiss his cute little chubby cheek over and over again until he pushes me away in annoyance.

My stepson has never had that kind of love from his mama. That breaks my heart.

I am a fierce, warrior-mama, I would walk through fire or throw myself in front of a car to save my child. I completely identified with that woman who leapt between her two year old daughter and a cougar a month or so ago. I think being a mom and raising my kids to be strong adults, full of integrity and compassion is the best, the most important and planet-altering thing I'll ever do, no matter where my career in social justice takes me, no matter how I advocate for children as a social worker and maybe a lawyer, no matter what comes after that.

What it comes down to is that I am experiencing a moral dilemma, a conflict between my personal and my professional values. Personally, I think there must be something wrong with a woman who can look at one child and feel love, and then look at the other and feel nothing. Professionally, the principles of self-determination, autonomy, dignity, respect, and human rights, the worth of ALL persons, are being challenged by her lack of feeling toward my husband's son, toward her own flesh and blood.

But if I am to be a good and loving parent to my stepson, I cannot write her off as somehow broken, insufficient as a mother. My stepson deserves better than that. However, he also deserves his mama's love.

But he has mine, now, and I HAD been worried about when that would come.

On taking on another child and homeschooling

As I wrote previously, my stepson, Nathan, wants to come and live with us. He is having a hard time at home with his mom and step-dad. They have a 2 year old son, and a baby girl on the way. Mom's awesome, but, hey, they're all her kids. Step-dad is not so awesome with Nathan. Mom says he ignores Nathan completely, spending all his family time with the 2 year old. Poor mom, over 30 weeks pregnant, thinks her son is getting depressed. He's 6. So once again, the conversation has moved around to Nathan moving from Kelowna to live with us in Surrey.

My concerns this time around are a bit different. I'm not as worried about my (almost) husband pitching in, as he's been making more than a little effort to pull his parenting weight. Plus, he (finally!!) got his learner's license, a small miracle in itself. Of course he won't be able to drive kids places without me for a year, yet, but it's a step in the right direction.

However, as I've also previously written, I want to homeschool my son next year. I'm very nervous about this - can I handle it? Will I be able to get all my own school work accomplished (about 30 hours of studying a week)? 6 year old boys want a lot of attention, which is, of course, normal and good, just maybe crazy-making for the parent who needs large blocks of time to focus on complex theoretical concepts, like what exactly is social justice, and what's the best solution to this ethical dilemma?

The latest news on the homeschooling front is that the 25 hours a week recommended by Surrey Connect and other Distributed Learning (DL) schools may not be so necessary. At a meeting of the Homelearners South of the Fraser (HLSF) that I attended yesterday, I was able to talk with actual moms who share similar child rearing philosophies to mine. Several of them have taken their boys out of elementary school, and haven't looked back since. One mom told me that at the 1st and 2nd grade level, approximately an hour a day would be sufficient. She had 4 boys that she homeschools.

Only one of the moms in attendance that day had worked while also homeschooling, and she has just recently had a new baby, so she is now on Mat leave. She had previously shared the schooling and childcare tasks with her husband, as well as her father, who was on EI for a year. As I was leaving, however, another mom told me they have a woman in the group who was a working single parent who, unfortunately, wasn't there that day. However, this group has a Yahoo group listserve, so maybe there'll be more information gathering opportunities throughout the summer.

The big challenge now, is do I homeschool only my son, sending my step-son to public school? Or can I manage to teach both boys? Currently, Nathan loves school, but he is in Kindergarten, and, according to the homeschooling moms I met yesterday, they all love Kindergarten. Also, what will his mom think? Do I get to make this decision for my step-son? (Really, the idea is that homeschooling is their decision, not mine, and I am being the good mommy who sacrifices her own time to meet their needs/desires. But isn't that what parenting is all about, anyway?)

As well, what DL do I choose? Apparently, a lot of them, like Surrey Connect, require weekly written reports on each student's progress, which some moms really resented. Another grading style is through portfolios, presented 3 times a year, which one mom said was always a horrible, stressful time in her home. Many moms had been registered through SelfDesign in Vancouver, which most really liked, but one didn't at all - her "learning consultant" (the teacher?) always found fault with her weekly written reports - the point of taking her kid out of school in the first place!

Also, the concept of unschooling cropped up in the meeting. The idea of spontaneous, non-coercive learning. It sounds fabulous, as a theory. But the thought of putting that theory into practice scares my institutionalized heart. Am I bad and wrong for not exposing my kids to the world of, "sit up straight in your seat", "stop wiggling, or you'll get a detention!", and "don't speak until you're spoken to, after raising your hand." Seriously. I'm so stifled, I'm afraid to not stifle my kids.

A lot to think about, indeed.