Glad we're t.v free!

We have chosen in our house to have no t.v. It wasn't always like that. I grew up with t.v, as did The Divine Miss A. When Pony Gal was born, we read the research and decided no t.v till she was at least 2....but it crept in about 4 mths before that. Just the odd kiddies show here and there, then we emigrated to Australia (we were living in the Highlands of Scotland, hence the t.v watching, what else was there to do?!) and she found The Wiggles..... we cruised along with her watching 3omins a day, which once she turned 3 became 3omins twice a day. We thought it was cute when she'd pretend to be Chairman Kaga from iron chef, or pretend he was in the shower with her, we loved when she ate lots of yellow capsicums like him....then the merchandising crept in...Dorothy was bloody everywhere! Then there was Thomas. Even in Op shops. We were starting to see the not so subtle influences of t.v on her world.... Then there was the fact that she wouldn't just watch t.v. She is the sort of personality who gets totally sensorily absorbed in t.v. Unschoolers said, no kid would watch too much t.v, and those who are addicted, do so because they are restricted..... so I allowed her t.v choice (within age appropriate boundaries)...she wouldn't leave the screen. Normally she'd follow me about, but once the t.v was on, she wouldn't seem to care where I was.... So experiment over, we went back to set times a day.
Then water Boy was born, Pony Gal had telly on only when he was sleeping. We only watched in the evening while he was sleeping, which was less and less times for all of us, as he wasn't a big sleeper. We were also concerned about Pony Gals visual development, and the HUGE addiction to the screen (computer and t.v it seemed), so we stopped all screen time. Once we moved house, we put the t.v in the garage, and there it has sat ever since.
Pony gal spends all her time playing with things solely from her imagination, no one elses made up characters are in her stories any more, they are all her own. Down time is spent narrating stories to herself, being read to, listening to audio books, colouring, drawing, playing!
Water boy basically has very little concept of what a t.v is. We recently stayed in a motel (with the obligatory t.v in the room!). At one point he asked where his potty was, and we said 'in front of the t.v', and he had no idea where to look lol! But later we did put it on (what else do you do to keep the noise down in a motel room with 2 kids after they have sat 5hrs in the car, played with all their toys, and just want to piss about?!). Water Boy watched a bit then continued on with his mission of turning light switches on and off, but Pony Gal went back to being totally absorbed and sucked in. We were only there 3 days, but by day 2 she was already asking if she could have some more tv when we got back to the room. Wow. I saw so clearly how my life could be. I know that there are times when I want some down time, some time where they are just quiet and still, some time so I can cook the dinner and not have to adjudicate, and I think..mmmm t.v, but I don't want to swap my kids, their attention spans, their ability to entertain themselves and create for that down time. I don't want to have anyone planning what they will watch 'tomorrow' because of an add that comes on today, and I don't want to have the marketing creep back in. I love that Water Boy doesn't know who the FU*K Dora is, or Rory, and only knows Thomas as a blue train that used to belong to his sister. I like that the strains of Bob (the builder) don't fill our house every day, on cue, defining another time period decided on by the programmers.
I recently read a post by a friend, Currawong on her blog regarding her youngest sons exposure to a 'scary' dvd, and I must say, that I am glad that my kids don't have to be exposed to concepts beyond their years, even if they carry a G rating. There is plenty of time to watch t.v, and movies and news and what ever else comes on the t.v, but right now, I am so so so happy that we are free of the t.v

Loosing teeth, fighting for rights, felting....living!

What an odd post title, but so much has been going on in the last month, I have barely had time to scratch myself! To start with today Pony Gal lost her second tooth! I actually helped remove it for her, it was hanging out of her head and bugging her, so I tugged on it gently and out it popped! I only dreamt last night that she lost a tooth too! It was a pretty big day for her as she had an hour long horse riding lesson today at the stables she goes to (it was a long over due birthday present!). It was a very different lesson and a lesson for all of us. Usually she goes out with a teenage girl. They treat her with respect, chat to her, show her stuff, give her pointers. She loves it and they come back raving about her. Today however the girls were all busy, so she had an older woman take her lesson. From the outset this woman was keen to teach her, it was less of an equals relationship, and more of a teacher student relationship. She even chastised Pony Gal for saying 'uh huh'. She was apparently telling her lots of stuff and Pony Gal was saying 'uh huh' after each thing (like one does when they are being talked at!) when the woman said 'do you know what 'uh huh means?' and Pony Gal of course said no, so the woman told her she shouldn't use words she didn't know the meaning of!!!!!!!!!!! Grrrrr lucky I wasn't there!
Then this arvo we went and hung at some lovely friends house and Pony Gal played and full on wrestled with Mr G, their 5yo son. Both kids were full on wrestling on the trampoline for a good half hour, and they both loved it! Neither got hurt and both respected each others boundaries. It was great to watch!

Fighting for rights? Along with about 2000 other concerned individuals we descended on our nations capital, and the place of Parliament to protest the governments plans to outlaw home births. The powers that be have decided in their usual idiotic wisdom that women should only birth in hospitals. Of course they cant just say this, so they have sneakily introduced policy to state that all homebith midwives must have insurance to be registered....thing is, no one will insure home birth midwives, so they will have to practice unregistered....but there is also a law that says no one but a registered midwife can practice midwifery, or they face HUGE fines. One solution would be for everyone to free birth, but even though that is how I birthed my son, I don't see that everyone should do it cause they have no other option! So off to Canberra we went and lent our presence, our voices and our support to all those who also said they supported home birth with a midwife.
The feelings on the day were of passion and were high, even though it was raining. We stood in the rain with our home made tee shirts listening to speeches and songs, talking to friends and meeting up with people we'd only ever chatted to online. I met Sazz, Valleysprite, Magic Faerie and TABSP amongst others who i have chatted to online for years!
Sadly our governmentally controlled media didn't even report on it. It made the local news on the radio as the 8th or so story, otherwise, you wouldn't have even known we were there. I did have the thought though that for the first time in its history, Canberra had the highest amount of Homebirthers than it ever would have.... Who knows where to now?????

Finally felting. We have been very busy with life in general, but this was a highlight for me! Our local Natural Learners group decided that as adults we'd like to do felting. It was an intensely painful process to get to the point of actually doing the felting (organisationally it was a colossal mess!), but on the day it was awesome! Pony Gal of course did a felted picture of a horse (Black Beauty!) eating an apple, of course! And I did an abstract of a womb with an egg inside. Amusingly, when I was rubbing and rolling it out to make it felt, the one egg became 2, which has planted a seed in The Divine Miss A's head that we'll be blessed with twins next.....hahaha. I have explained the remoteness of this happening, but still she says, when the twins are here, and when you're pregnant with the twins.... It was a felting accident that's all lol. When I am more organised, I will update this post with photos of all those events...except for the tooth, a gummy bloody mouth ain't all that cute!

We got 2 years......

As homeschoolers, the Aussie law states that once a child turns 6 they should be enrolled in a school or registered with the Board of Studies as a homeschooler..... It appears in reality some do, some don't. We have decided to register!

In NSW this involves presenting your intended curriculum, resources, time table, method of assessment and record keeping and having a visit from someone employed by the BOS to see you in your home, to see the environment the child will learn in and all of the above.

As a family following a natural learning or unschooling pathway it is very hard to come up with 'all of the above'. We don't use a curriculum, we don't use a time table,we don't make her take tests or assessments, and unless she asks for it, we don't even use work books.....so what do we use? We use LIFE! We follow Pony Gals passions and interests and facilitate learning opportunities for her. There is no 'typical day for us' no timetable of artificial learning times. Sure, we have a rhythm flowing through our weeks where things are repeated, but written out, our weeks do not resemble the kind of time table that the Board would like to see.... So there is then creativity employed.... Most weeks Pony Gal does jigsaw puzzles, sometimes she does them days on end, other times it is one or two that get half done then put away, most weeks she helps with baking/cooking, she also helps with shopping (weighing and measuring in the co- op), she is read to daily, often for several hours, she also listens to audio books, plays with Lego, plays with her figure horses, plays with the toy instruments we have about the house..... We go to several social groups, she has horse riding lessons, we often go to the Ethnic centers of Sydney looking for food, culture and shopping, she plays play dough, she paints, glues and sticks, she helps in the garden, we go on local walks... the list goes on, and with some nouse and creativity all of the above can be easily written up to slot into a working time table, and be tied back into the Key Learning Areas outlined by the board.

So with the help of a good friend, I set to it and came up with a great time table,a great statement of learning, easy to use record keeping methods and ways to assess progress. Last week we had our meeting with the representative and we got 2 years rego....which is the maximum you can get!!!!!!!!!!!! Yippee!

So why did I bother registering? Not because it is the law (since when do i let a little law stand in my way?????!!!), not because I fear being fined.....but more because I want to be counted, I want natural learning as a method of learning to be noted and added as a statistic. I want to be a voice for homeschool the way we do it and be out and proud about it. I want it clearly noted that this style of learning is not some weird underground unwashed hippie way of doing education, but something that is real and just as valid as teaching your kid at home using a 'proper curriculum'. And it seems that it is, the board says so.... so ner to any people or relos out there who say what we are doing isn't a 'proper education'!

Birthday Season over for another year.....

June signals for us.... Birthday Season. It is probably similar to hunting season, half the population loves it and the other half hates it, there is pressure to 'bag the big one' (whether it be giving or receiving!) but also to play by the rules.....

So we begin with The Divine Miss A in late June. I always get her surprises ans stuff she asks for, and we have a budget we both try and stick to..... 2w later at the start of July is me! I don't love birthdays, well my birthday. The having to come up with what I want, what I want to eat and do.... I just want to be surprised! I also have a thing about having new candles on all our cakes....embarrassingly wasteful I know..... Then a few weeks later at the end of July is Pony Gal. This year was #6 and bought with it a sense of growing up. She chose not to have a party because all her mates don't get on in the same place at the same time and besides half of them have 'dropped' her as a friend since we came back from our trip :( So she had her bestie around and had a fun day. We still owe her a trip to the ice rink and a 1hr horse riding lesson.....
Finally Mid August Water Boy celebrates his birth year, and this year was #2! We had 2 families around to celebrate with him/us and again it was a beautiful, stress free way to do a birthday :)

But now that is all over, the recycling bin looks like normal and isn't chock full of cardboard, the fridge is almost empty of cake, the last balloons are slowly distorting and deflating, and I'm itching to take down the Happy Birthday sign and streamers that have been up since June!

Just as I sigh with relief Pony Gal reminds me that tomorrow is 4 mths till X mas!!!!!!! Arrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Across the road and down the cut through....

Is a park, it actually a pretty cool park as far as parks go. It isn't just a neglected swing set covered in graffiti, all wind swept and full of off leash dogs. It is actually a multi use park, built and designed when they knew how to make a park!

But enough of the park, it is what we have found in it that has injected joy into my life! It is only early days, but I have found a small community! I have found my local homeschooling group :) They are a group of mums and their kids who, funnily enough, actually all follow curriculum's of some sort for their kids, and Friday is their kids 'day off'. So each Friday they bring rugs, picnics and their kids to the park. The kids go off, running wild together and the mums sit and chat. The ages range from belly babes to about 11 and there are boys and girls there. Today we sat and laughed while Pony Gal made a little friend (who she assures me could never replace or even come close to her bestie) and Water Boy explored in bigger and bigger circles away from the rugs and sized up a boy his own age who also sized him up and then they gave each other a wide berth LOL!

I haven't put my finger on what it is about this group that feels like a breath of fresh air. Maybe it is just nice to meet new folk, maybe it is just nice to be somewhere and not be aware of politics, maybe a change is as good as a holiday? Maybe it is the fact that we can walk there and walk home, just across the road and down through the cut through.......

So where is Singapore?????

You may have noticed that I haven't posted about the final leg of our trip, the Singapore leg. I have a draft I keep working a way at behind the scenes, but I cant finish it! And today I know why.... because then I will be acknowledging the trip is over! I cant type the final wonderful days of the trip cause then it really will be a thing of the past :(
Once we got home, I thought, 'wow am I tired, wont be doing that for a while'....but I feel my wonder lust returning, my evening star wishing starting to be about travel and the funds to be a nomad....sigh. So for now, there wont be a closing chapter on Singapore. One day maybe, but for now it stays as a draft!

How to learn.......

I was schooled conventionally, so was The Divine Miss A. We went through the normal school system, k-6 then 7-12 then onto uni and spat out into life. Both of us 'succeeded' in this system, we learnt what was required of us at the time, crammed it all in then moved on to forget it all, but we came out as graduates. I actually liked school, and the Divine Miss A did as well (apart from some pretty awful bullying she encountered in high school).
But we want more for our kids. We want them to learn at their own pace in their own time. We want them to find joy in learning, to learn and remember and to know how to learn independently. We want their minds to be full of meaningful exciting things, for them to really immerse themselves in a subject they find interesting. Our approach is to do this via learning at home (homeschooling), and to follow a child lead or natural learning approach.
My visions of natural learning is an unstructured, relaxed, untimetabled and unlead by external people flow. Totally directed by Pony Gals whims and interests (and eventually those of Water Boy). I value our time spent together as a family, seeking out knowledge together. I also value time spent socially with other families, allowing my kids to run and play and me to sit and chat and watch my kids playing in a non competitive environment.
I assumed all other natural learning families felt this way too. maybe I am too relaxed about Pony Gals 'education', but for our family it feels right to fully allow her to follow her own educational pathway without classes or taster sessions to perhaps introduce something that I find valuable that she may find interesting. But it seems that for allot who call themselves natural learners, classes and taster sessions are important, if not an integral part of 'teaching their children'. It seems normal to hand over very young minds to external facilitators, to teach kids stuff. I'm not sure where this comes from, whether it is an insecurity on the parents parts, like whether thay are unsure that their kids will grow to be well rounded individuals without external classes. Whether it is too hard for them to see learning in all its guises, and unless it happens in a group setting (that actually closely replicates the school like environment that they themselves know only so well!) it is not 'real learning'. Whether they feel the need to add structure to their kids lives to 'fill up the gaps' left by play or boredom? I don't really know.

All I do know that at the tender age of 6 Pony Gal has no desire to be taught anything by anyone! She is still firmly and very happily in control of her own learning experience, no passivity of having her life and what she should know handed to her by 'an expert'. She is the expert, she is in control of where her passions lie, she is the owner in full of all her educational experiences. Her learning is not in 4 week blocks, nor is it devised by well meaning adults. She is dancing to her own beat when it comes to learning, she is not having to follow the crowd and do a course because the most people decided to do it. She has no concept that to attain knowledge one does a class. I'd love her to carry this knowledge with her through her life, to seek her own path to knowledge, to see that others have insights and knowledge and are of value, but that she is the holder to the key that is knowledge, that she doesn't have to be lectured at or taught to 'know'.

It is a shame that classes are the norm in our society, that we have lost the way of individual or alongside instruction, that one can no longer seek out knowledge on a personal basis, that others feel a need to 'teach'. Not that learning doesn't happen that way, most of us are products of being taught that way, we know we go to a class, to see an 'expert' to be taught to get our knowledge. We feel that we gain a more meaningful experience if we are 'taught' by a 'teacher' to learn. I know I have lost the skills to seek knowledge alternatively, to see life as a FACILITATOR, to see a skilled person as a mentor, to find learning within myself. I have recently taught myself to knit, I sought out books and practiced and read and practiced, and mastered it myself! What joy! Pony Gal saw me do this and sat along side me with her needles and we talked knitting, she watched me stitch, she took up her needles and she tried, and tried and almost gave up, but then got it, and is now calling herself a knitter. We didn't go to a class, we didn't pay an expert to teach us their way, we muddled through and learnt ourselves, and once I learnt, I worked along side her as she learnt.

There are so many ways one can learn. Some it seems are full of joy and life and self discovery, some are guided by others and will always be restricted to the experience the teacher is willing to allow you to have, some are pale and tasteless swallowing chunks and memorising to regurgitate at a later date. All will produce someone at the end who can say 'I learnt'. But I KNOW which one I want for Pony Gal to be part of, and I think I know which one she also wants for her self ;)