So, you know how I said I was kind of busy working on a couple of projects? Well, the main thing I'm doing right now is starting an unschooling support group in the Montreal area! You may remember when my mom and I attempted to do so in February. Well, that time, someone else was doing the same thing, so we were involved with that briefly, but then it fell through and was temporarily forgotten. Also different about this time is that back in February, my mom and I were starting the group, which really meant I badgered her to do this or that important detail, and she went about things in a way I considered incredibly slow and meandering! This time, however, I simply decided that I really thought that this group was important, that it meant a lot to me that other families have that support, and that therefor *I* should be the one to make it happen. And so I am! I already have a few families interested, I'm looking at were we can meet, and genuinely doing this thing! It feels good to be actually doing what I want to for once, instead of just hoping it'll magically happen, then being disappointed when it doesn't! :-) This is the message I posted to a ton of online groups:
Hello!
Unschooling, Worldschooling, Child Led Learning, Delight Driven Learning, Life Learning… Many names, yet one desire to live in freedom, loving, learning, and living each day to the fullest! That is the joy of Unschooling.
I'm an 18 year old longtime Unschooler, and it was always hard for my family when my sister (16) and I were younger, since pretty much everyone we knew was very school-at-home, and thought we were crazy to be Unschooling! So I want to create something that wasn't there for my family when I was young, but would have made things so much easier for us! What I want to do is bring together a supportive, caring group of Unschooling families, families who are seriously considering Unschooling, and those passionate about Unschooling, who can validate each others choices, share experiences, and just enjoy each others company!
If this sounds as great to you as it does to me (or even if it just interests you) please check out this Yahoo! Group for a bit more information on the support group, and if you're interested in being part of this, please join!
I greatly appreciate support from people all over the place, and would love to hear your ideas, suggestions, etc. for the group, but I'd like to keep the Yahoo group as simply an extension of a physical group that actually meets in real life, so please only join the Yahoo group if you're in the Montreal area!
I'm so excited about this!! *Dances around excitedly*
I feel like I suddenly have a lot to do, since I've taken on several new projects (I'll talk more about that in later posts), so I'm sorry if it takes me a while to respond to comments! The real reason that I'm writing this post, however, is to introduce a new space of mine on the web, where I'll be posting book reviews. And, for once, it won't be difficult for me to update it, since all of the material I'm adding is already written! For two years now, I've been writing book reviews for the magazine Homeschooling Horizons (the magazine went on a hiatus this year, but it's coming back this Fall, and I'll most likely be gathering unschooling articles for it as well as writing book reviews!), but they've never been posted online. So now they will be! I introduce to you:
Whatever Happened to Mother? Is an absolutely WONDERFUL story of the vanished mothers of old. Not wonderful as good, since it's incredibly sad, but wonderfully written. I love how it's literally written as a story. There are actually multiple 'Chapters', but since they seem to repeat a lot of the same material, I'll only link to the first one I read.
Look on the Bright Side is an article on the good things, environmentally speaking, that are happening right now, as well as a call to action.
Atrocious Advice From "Supernanny" The title says it all. It's horrifying to me that people actually watch this crap, and even think that's it's the "right" way to parent! That bothers me on such a deep level, and makes me incredibly sad.
I keep waiting for an epiphany to fall in my lap, bright, shiny, and easy to understand.
But I know that's not the way to find epiphanies.
Instead, my epiphany might smell like woodsmoke, or sweat, or Autumn. Maybe it'll sound like rain on a tin roof, or crickets chirping, or laughter. Perhaps it'll look like fresh turned earth, rich and brown, or spray paint on a wall, or the flash of a raccoon's eyes at night, bright, inquisitive, and utterly wild.
I don't know when I'll find it.
I guess I'll have to wait and see. But I know I can't wait passively. As much as I try and avoid knowing so, evade the question, delude myself, I *know* that if I want to figure life out, I need to stretch myself, to grow, to reach out. To walk new paths and meet new people.
And the thought of doing so scares me shitless. So I make excuses that are half true, procrastinate, and wait for bright shiny epiphanies to fall in my lap.
If I believed in God, as such, I'd pray for strength. As it is, I know that I have the strength, I just need to do it. To let go. Of so much piled up fear, and uncertainty, and self doubt, and a million other emotions.
I can do it. I know I can. Actually doing anything, on the other hand, is considerably harder.
God, the Divine, the Universe, the Great Mother, and anyone else who's listening, give me strength.
For those of you who don't know, and most likely quite a few of you don't know since I don't think I've mentioned it before, several Not Back To School Campers started a weekly vlogging project on YouTube a while back. Each person has a day of the week, and vlogs once a week on that day. Also, each vlog the person doing it asks a question, and then everyone else who does a vlog that week answers the question, as well as asking their own... Does that make sense? Hopefully that wasn't too convoluted! Anyway, getting to the point, I'm filling in for someone who couldn't do their vlog for a couple of weeks, and my first video is up.
If you want to check out the whole YouTube channel, here it is!
On July 6th, exactly one year ago, I wrote the very first post on this blog. So, to tie in with Blogger's challenge to tell them how blogging has changed your life in one way or another, that's just what I'm going to do!
When I first started this blog, it was going to be a chronicle of my unschooling life, showing, daily, how I was learning as an unschooler. This was as much to prove to myself that I was actually learning as it was to show anyone else what unschooling looked like! No one, except for my mom, even read it. And it was started at a time in my life when I was really uncertain. That Winter and Spring before the beginning of this blog was really tough for me. I was frequently depressed, and in the Spring I lost a very close friendship that had meant a lot to me. Added onto that was the fact my father felt I wasn't learning anything at all (my mother was pretty sure I was learning, but was plagued nonetheless by doubts and worries, as is everyone at times), and I really wasn't so sure I was learning, either. I mean, unschooling is pretty "out there". Learning in freedom, learning what you want and need, when you want and need it, learning through life. For some reason, most people find the idea unthinkable. So I was very unsure, very insecure, but determined to prove to myself, and the world, that unschooling can, and does, work in practice, and that I really wasn't going to fail at life if I didn't go to school.
Of course, seeing as unschooling really is learning, and as I read the Teenage Liberation Handbook, mentioning that frequently in my early blog posts, I started to relax about unschooling a bit, and start realizing that by scrutinizing each day for whatever learning was gleaned from it, I was kind of missing the point. So the posts stopped coming every single day, and started focusing less on the details of each day, and more on my thoughts and feelings.
Also, in my earlier writings, I was just starting to research and learn about anarcho-primitivism. It was a fascinating journey for me, learning, thinking, discovering. I had always been semi-interested in, but disgusted by, politics, and no political party ever really felt right to me. But as I learned about anarcho-rimitivism, as I read a ton online, and a bit later read a ton by Derrick Jensen, it all just felt right to me. Scary, as it was the most radical philosophy I'd ever discovered, but right on a fundamental level. Like deep down, I'd already known and believed all of it, I'd just needed someone to point it out to me, to point me in the right direction. And the rest is history. As I thought, discussed, and wrote on this blog, my opinions moved from strong interest and curiosity, to tentative agreement, to absolute agreement. I had found my own worldview, the educational philosophy I knew was right, and even the vague direction I wanted to take in my life. Through it all, I blogged. I worked things out in writing, expressed my thoughts, my insecurities, my opinions, my beliefs. And gradually, I also developed a readership.
At the start of my blog, no one really read it. But as I continued writing, a few people started following this blog, and as soon as I knew there were actually people reading it, I had a real incentive to keep writing! So I did, and as my opinions solidified and my writing grew stronger, more people started following, until now, there are nearly 50 people officially following this blog, with more, although I have no clue how many more, reading regularly, or following through a program that doesn't show up in my little followers box! And really, the value of all you people who visit my little corner of the internet can not be overrated. If, as I tentatively started to write about ever more radical and unknown opinions people had reacted negatively, I'm not sure I would have continued. But having the support of people online who actually agreed with what I had to say was wonderful! Knowing that, even if everyone I talked to in person, aside from my mom and sister, thought I was insane, at least there were people in other places who felt the same way I did, saw things from the same angle, or at the very least supported my right to hold those opinions. That made, and makes, such a difference to me. This past year has been one of great growth and change for me, and this blog has been there every step of the way, reflecting what's been going on in my head and in my life. It still seems slightly strange to me that people actually want to read what I write, and that many unschooling parents are more likely to say to my mom "Oh, you're Idzie's mom!" than for things to be the other way around! :-P
I'm still growing and changing, as humans constantly do, and still feeling insecurities and worries. Everyone lately seems to be either very impressed with me, or very unimpressed (seeing as I'm neither in school nor working, and to many people those both assign value to a person). I'm not sure which I struggle with more! I feel my life isn't very impressive. I want to be able to tell people that I'm a member of a permaculture co-op that teaches people how to grow their own food, or that I'm working with a center that helps teenagers liberate themselves from school, or something similarly impressive. My life is a continuous process, and I want things to change in certain ways, but am not quite sure how to do so, and even more then that, I'm afraid to do so! But as I continue to change, this blog will continue to reflect those changes. It's therapy for me, and support at times, simply writing things down and then letting my words loose in the World Wide Web for all to read...
So to sum up this very long post, I simply want to say Happy Birthday, I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write.! And thank you so much to everyone who has read, does read, or will soon start reading my blog. I'm sorry if I sound soppy in this post, but I really do mean everything I say! I love you guys, and you make all the difference to me! :-)
Okay, for those of you who are curious how things turned out, debate wise, I'm posting this. For those who aren't, don't worry, this is the last post on the debate!
Earlier posts pertaining to this discussion, from newest to oldest, can be found: Here Here And here
I'll now link to the other response videos that I did not post before, and simply told you to check out Hunter's channel if you were interested. I'm linking to them now, instead of just posting the video's here, since I commented on them directly. I didn't address every point, since I found things were taking too much time, but I responded to the points I felt strongest about.
He then both sent me a message, and made a final response video:
The message he sent me (he reads in in the video, but I'll post it anyway):
I finally got around to reading this whole thing and I've reached a conclusion.
I will NEVER agree with you and I will NEVER sympathize with you. You believe in the structure of a society which I know in my very nature as being integral to the survival of the human race. Which I believe has elevated our level of conscious. Structure of one sort or another is in my opinion integral, I need to know more I need to do more and with society as a catalyst I do not believe that can occur.
Don't bother arguing with that, I was just stating my opinion as you stated yours.
So in our views of life and society I believe we are polar opposites, however I will say I believe we can find common ground under several fronts.
We both respect the nature of the individual and believe that there are many forms of learning and teaching as well as many differing ways of living life.
We both believe the world is one without absolutes the is no RIGHT and there is no WRONG, there is only grey.
We are both humans and we are both sharing in an experience we like to call life, while we may disagree to no end we are still human and as fellow members of a race I respect you.
Thank you so much for sharing your opinion with me and allowing me to, not understand (I don't think I ever will) your side of the argument, but to gain a level of respect toward the dedication and level of belief you harbor for it.
Sincerely, Your Fellow Human Being
Hunter.
The considerably less eloquent message that I sent in response:
Yeah, I hesitated before deciding to comment on your videos at all, but I have a hard time reading/seeing things I disagree with and NOT stating my opinion on the matter! I finally only picked the points that I felt strongest about, and addressed those.
I agree entirely that we will never agree. Just as you *know* in your being that this structure is "right", I *know* in my very being that this structure is the worst thing that could happen to our species and all life on earth, and is fundamentally "wrong" in every way. I don't really see room for agreement there on either side! Although, of course, we have found a bit of common ground on a few points, which I think is a good thing. :-)
I agree that there are many ways of learning.
Certainly. The world thinks too much in black and white... I've certainly been guilty of doing so, as I'm sure you have been as well, on occasion, but I try to remember that there are many shades of grey, and that even if something seems completely ethically wrong to me, by another person's ethics it probably isn't.
I do respect you. We managed to have a civil debate on something that we both feel very passionately about, which I think is quite an accomplishment! And even though, yes, I will never agree with your opinions, I think I understand them, at least to a certain extant. Thank you, as well, for sharing in this discussion!
Peace, Idzie
I hope you found this whole exchange worth following!
My first video, that started the whole thing, is here.
The post about the first part of our discussion, along with the four videos we made going back and forth between our opinions is here.
Annnd, he made several more response videos, the first of which I responded to in written format. We've both agreed to end the back and forth videos things, because it was taking A LOT OF TIME (I believe the current amount of video time, including my original video, is around 60 minutes... Yikes!). I'm not sure whether the discussion will continue in written form, so for now I'll simply post his one video that I responded to, and just give you a link to his channel if you with to see his other videos.
"Yup, I know about percentage of brain use (I think you might be a bit low (I thought it was around 10%) but other than that, yeah). I agree, your brain can be tricked. But, and this s important WE AS HUMANS HAVE NOTHING BUT OUR BRAINS TO RELY ON FOR INFORMATION. Yup, I have a strong interest in education, and I'm aware of the main learning styles as well. Here's what you're missing: people, if let too, will learn what style suits them best. Not because they've done research, but because they are living and learning. You don't need to know the names for different learning styles to know what you enjoy doing most, and what things you retain the most information from.
Yup, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on that point, because nothing will convince me that people are not born with an innate desire to learn. And, if you do your research, youll see that that is true. We, as a species, would die out if we did not learn. Learning is innate, absolutely and completely.
Okay, what you're saying is "way back in history". What I'm saying, is pre-history, as in pre-civilization, as in tribal peoples. And you've just hit one of my biggest pet peeves. "Didn't have the desire to be anything more than they were"?? What does that mean? They were human. Were they supposed to desire to be more than human? Different than human? What our culture does is say that we are the pinnacle of existence. We, in this culture, in this day and age, are what everything was moving towards. From the first bit of slime that crawled out of the ocean, everything, all of creation, was simply to produce Us, modern civilized humans. You could call it Manifest Destiny, I suppose, as so many high ranking murderers have in the past. And look at us! The single species that regards our lives, human lives, to be above all else, that have destroyed vast parts of the world, made whole places uninhabitable. Look at us. What a great job we've done, as we sit waiting for it all to come tumbling down around our ears. And that's not even to mention how god damned HAPPY we all are. Monumental rates of depression, high suicide rates, drug addiction, messed up families wherever you turn. And that's not to mention how it's only a tiny percentage of the overall human population that is NOT living in poverty, dying young from disease and famine and drought and war. Yet you have the guts to say that the people who came before, and still survive unharmed in a couple of tiny pockets, the rest having been annihilated, shut away on reserves, or assimilated, and you say that they never tried to be more than what they were. They stopped when they "reached a certain plateau of happiness". What the fuck is wrong with being happy, and deciding to stay like that, happy, instead of destroying the environment surrounding you, the environment that sustains you, for some imaginary future world, future gain, future I have no fucking clue what? Really, none of us in this culture have ANY right to look down upon the people in our species who knew, and know, how to live in equilibrium with the world.
You have a strange view of happiness, although I get what you're saying, but you're mistaken about tribal peoples, once again. As you may have noticed, that's one of my main passions. From anthropological research, tribal peoples had the most egalitarian societies of any culture in our species' history. They had the most leisure time of any culture, EVER, spending only about 5 hours of "work" a day (the exact time for different tribes and different parts of the world vary, and anthropologists argue over what constitutes "work", but everyone seems to agree that it was somewhere between 3 and 7 hours a day). The rest was complete leisure time, spent socializing, playing games, and similar things. They lived (and live) in small bands/tribes, so it's a real community, and a real support network. Also, anthropologists studying the San !Kung people of the Sahara desert found that they're happier on a whole than civilized folk, regularly laughing with abandon, joking around, smiling. Their children are not expected to do any work until they're in their late teens or early twenties. People over fifty are not expected to work, either, and in one of the harshest climates in the world, excluding infant mortality, they can be expected to live, on average, to nearly 70 years of age. Wow, that was a major rant. Sorry about that! Like I said, its a subject close to my heart lol.
Why should people have anything other than happiness? Honestly, life is short. I don't see any point to life BUT happiness! Why go further than you want to go? I honestly don't understand that at all. If you're happy, and love life, that's all anyone could ask for. If you're not happy, then you make changes in your life until you are. People should be pushed to "do better"? Depends on your definition of better. It sounds to me like you feel that you need to prove something to the world, and not simply that you want to be happy in life. So every time you're happy, you have to leave that happy place? And what's contributing to society, in your books? Most people, and I do mean most, want to do good. Doing good things (I'm defining good as things that preserve or enhance quality of life for either human or other animals, or increases the happiness/health/wellbeing of others) makes people happy. Helping fellow humans or fellow creatures makes people happy. Just being generally good makes most people happy! I mean, I look at what I want to do in life. I want to learn a ton about herbal healing, natural health and wellness, and be able to help people learn how to take care of themselves. I want to be a strong advocate of unschooling, and help and support families and students who decide to leave the school system. I also want to be a part of a green community, to held build truly sustainable communities. All of these things are deep passions of mine, things that I see as being helpful to others, while also being things I truly care about and enjoy doing.
Welfare works differently here. As does the whole health care system (public health care). And, do you think its right that, where you live, the government controls people to such an extent? I certainly don't."
I originally sent this to Hunter unproofread, so I fixed it up a bit here for clarity and reading pleasure.
Someone responded with multiple comments, and two response videos, to my last YouTube video. If you're interested in seeing the whole, long, discussion, see below!
Hunter part 1
Hnter part 2
My response part 1
My response part 2
The extra points I wanted to add, but forgot to in the video, and then couldn't add to the description box because it was too long!
"1. "The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life" Well, as human beings, as ever growing and changing creatures, EVERYTHING we do affects us, changes us. That's the process of living. However, you're entirely wrong if you think you can't get into university just as easily later in life, or learn things you need to in the future, when you actually need to know them. I, personally, never plan on going full time to university. I don't like the institutionalized classroom setting, and the thought of spending four+ years of my life in such a setting makes me shudder. Also, the life's work I wish to do does not require a university education. And honestly, for many, many, jobs people may wish to work at, they don't need that piece of paper. For some, yes, it's necessary. You wish to become a doctor, so you need university. I understand that. However, there's a huge amount of people now who are graduating college ad university with honors, and yet are struggling to find a job in their chosen profession, struggling to make ends meet. A university degree does not IN ANY WAY guarantee a job, let alone a job you like. With all that money I would have spent on university, I could instead learn far more about life, get far more education that actually helps me in the real world, by traveling the world. Or, without even spending all that money at all, I could apprentice instead, or take specific classes that interest me, or start my own business, or one of a myriad of other options. ALSO, you seem to think the SAT's are the only way to get into university, which isn't true either. Most (and I do mean most) colleges and universities (and not just your often looked down upon "community colleges", really most colleges and universities), will accept portfolio assessments, or offer to conduct their own tests for a small fee. I know of this happening both in the US and Canada, and I even know from personal experience having contacted a university I once considered attending.
2. Just to add to your whole "No one is capable of decision making until 25" thing, tell me, if that's so impossible, how people under 25 travel the world on their own, live on their own, raise children, starts businesses, work, make great art, start their own communities, and the million other things that young people do! Pretty impressive for people incapable of making decisions, eh?
3. In terms of parents liability, I think we can assume that most parents would request that their children or teens pay for whatever they did. By saying this, I'm working on the assumption that in virtually all cases the offense would be relatively minor (i.e. marijuana possession). Yes, the parents are ultimately responsible. However, I've heard of a hell of a lot of cases of traditionally schooled, traditionally parented kids getting into serious shit, and all I've ever heard of unschoolers getting in trouble for is very minor.
4. I love organic food as well! My family, especially my mother and I, are working at finding good places for buying reasonably priced organic foods (there are actually co-op type places that work to sell organic food at prices the non-wealthy can actually afford!). It's hard to do, but most likely possibly in many places if you do enough searching and are careful not to let food go to waste. But yes, it's still a fairly expensive and difficult task. I highly suggest that you dig around in the food related section of this unschooling site: http://sandradodd.com/food, where you'll find lots of first person accounts. Perhaps then you can actually believe me when I say not controlling food is better!
5. I see in my video I misunderstood, and responded as if you'd said that high school kids DO "fuck like bunnies", when instead what you said was that they WOULD fuck like bunnies were they allowed co-ed sleepovers. I have a couple of points to add here. Firstly, what I said in the video still stands. Kids don't need co-ed sleepovers to have sex, and if you look at the statistics, they'll back me up on this one. Secondly, I've certainly heard of same sex sleepovers where there is fucking involved. People still have way too heterosexual a view of the world!
6. I said in my video that one of my main points is that people should be able to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't harm others, and what I ACTUALLY say in my original video is that everyone has a right to do, or not do, whatever they want with their bodies unless doing so infringes on another person's right to do, or not do, whatever they want with their own bodies. I consider driving under the influence to be infringing on other peoples rights to bodily safety. I also consider smoking around other people to be infringing on their right to clean air! Therefor, what I said originally still stands. Do what you want with your own body, don't fuck with other people's bodies. Wow, that sounded dirty. Didn't quite mean it that way. :-P
7. I already responded pretty thoroughly to your "wealthy" comment in my video. However, I forgot to point out that you, as a homeschooler, ALSO need to pay for any tests you take. What's the difference? Should I now believe, as so many ill informed people do, that you must be "wealthy" to homeschool? Interestingly enough, many of the schooled families I know, the public schooled families, pay more in school fees, school supplies, and ridiculously expensive after school activities than my own family, as unschoolers, does or ever has. Secondhand books, reasonably priced and free activities, and similar things are wonderful! I pride myself in my ability to find free and cheap things. It's actually fun, along with being easy on your wallet, and works perfectly with my plan to live a very simple life, living, by choice, on a small amount of money. Oh, and here, tests aren't that expensive. I don't know about other places. I don't plan to take any, unless I find that I genuinely need to to get where I want, in which case I'll study for a few months, take the damn test, and be done with it. I'm not exactly worried. Nope, decisions are not irreversible. At all! I honestly don't understand why you believe them to be... Perhaps because that's what you've always been told?
8. I HAVE HEARD THIS STUPID STATEMENT SO MANY GOD DAMNED TIMES!! Sorry, that's a bit of an over reaction lol. Like I said, I've heard it a lot. "Unschooling is fine, as long as you're motivated". NO. Unschooling works, because those who unschool BECOME motivated, because they are learning about what they want, what interests them and is relevant to them, when they want and need to learn it. In such a learning approach, each individual's journey is different, because each individual is different. Each individual is empowered, excited about life. As an unschooler, you learn. You just do. It's as natural as eating, sleeping, breathing. And I can actually throw "if you'd ever researched..." at you in this case. Schooling methods that look like modern methods are only a couple of hundred years old. The idea of real control at all is only 10,000 years old (and modern humans have been around about 300,000 years... A society that's based on hierarchy and control is a relatively recent development in our species' history). Before the agricultural revolution (10,000 to 12,000 years ago) humans learned from life. There was no lesson plan, no forcing of learning at all. And don't say there wasn't much to learn. Do some research, read about tribal peoples. They had every bit as much as we do to learn, it was simply different things they were learning! Unschooling is THE most natural approach to learning, because humans are hardwired to learn. They don't need forcing or pushing. You'd have to work hard to make someone NOT learn.
9. "Or else"... So you advocate threatening your child? Punishing your child? Does that sound like good parenting to you? Because if it does, that honestly makes me feel sad.
10. I can certainly make blatant statements like that, when everything I've read and learned and seen backs them up entirely. "You need guidance. You need control. That's just the way life is." I've most often heard the "that's the way life is" comment when people have nothing to back up their point. At no point in your video did you make a strong argument that people need control. Because there is no argument, that I've seen, that makes a strong, GOOD argument for control. I have, however, seen plenty of wonderful arguments AGAINST control. Sure, I'm biased in my opinions, but so is each individual, including the scientists who argue for and against control. All I can do is take in what I learn, both from third party sources and from my own life, and decide FOR MYSELF what's true.
Anyway, no apologies from you necessary, I wasn't insulted. Thanks for starting an interesting conversation! If you want to continue it, I'd prefer to do so over YouTube or Facebook messages, because I don't want to bore my subscribers with the same argument!"
I hope this whole exchange isn't utterly boring to those not involved!
I feel a little bit intimidated to be writing about this topic, since I feel it's a fairly big one, and something that many people feel very strongly about, and wonder about how unschoolers handle them. It doesn't really help that it's really late, and I'm not sure I can do the topic justice right now. However, I can always add more, edit things, or write whole new posts later on, so I don't really need to worry if I'm not entirely happy with what I write now!
A while back on Facebook, I was tagged in a note from a mother asking for advice on how to have "The Talk" with her 11 year old daughter. I thought about that a lot, but never answered, because my family never did have that much-talked-about Talk. When I was under two my mother became pregnant with my little sister, so of course I wanted to know how! Her answer was that Papa puts the sperm in her then a baby starts growing. After mulling that over for a while, again, I'd ask "how?" and get a more in depth answer. My mom never glossed over things, but neither did she push unwanted information on me. When I asked a question, she'd simply answer honestly. And so I learned about the very basics of sex at a young age! It also helped that when I was young we had an, erm, very sexually explicit dog, so I got a bit more of an idea from that, as funny and slightly embarrassing as it is to say it! :-P
When I was older, in my preteen years, my mom simply took a huge stack of books on sex ed. out from the library, and I'd surreptitiously flip through them whenever I felt like it. I went through a stage where I found talking about such things incredibly embarrassing, and would have completely flipped out had my mom attempted to "teach" me sex ed. As it was I learned from books, peers (and since I was always smart, I double checked peer learned information with much more reliable sources :-P), the internet (as much as the net is filled with pornography and bad information about sex, there is some good info if you look for it), and my mom (as a last resort!). The only kind of information I remember her kind of trying to force on me was about birth control. At that point, I already knew about everything she was telling me, and was quite peeved at her for embarrassing me by bringing up the subject! Suffice it to say, I learned sex ed naturally, through books and conversations and LIFE, just like an unschooler learns everything else!
In terms of menstruation, that was just normal. We never had closed doors in our house when I was young, and I simply learned about that through living with a grown woman! Again, I was embarrassed about such things, but my mom made it clear I just had to ask for supplies if I needed them, and other the that, I didn't need to talk about it unless I wanted to. I really was a very embarrassed child in many ways, looking back on things!
Nowadays in my family, sex isn't nearly as taboo a subject because, well, neither my sister nor I are really embarrassed anymore! My mother, sister, and I have had multiple really good conversations about various aspects of sexuality, both physical and emotional, and I think that's wonderful! There's absolutely no feeling of my mom "teaching" or "instructing" or the conversation in any way not being equal between us, because, well, it is equal! We're all just discussing something that is relevant and interesting to us, and although the three of us have had vastly different experiences in the matter, that doesn't change how we discuss things. It's a free sharing of ideas, opinions, and experiences, like all of our good conversations, and that's a wonderful thing. Also, my parents have never been advocates of "abstinence". The only thing they've been forceful about is safety. BE SAFE! Is the most my mom has ever said to me in terms of whether or not I "should" have sex. My parents trust that both my sister and I own our own bodies, respect ourselves, and know what we do or do not want to do with our bodies. I won't necessarily be happy (and haven't necessarily been happy) with every decision I make, but it's always MY decision and no one elses.
I actually find it rather amusing, if exasperating, that some people seem to think that un/homeschoolers will have inferior sex ed. knowledge, because my sister and I have actually been in the position of giving accurate info to schooled friends, who have very limited knowledge and a shit load of bad information! Our local high school doesn't even teach anatomy properly, because I know several guys who go to that school and have absolutely no grasp of female anatomy!
Alcohol consumption was never made into a big issue in my household, either. From the time I was young, I was always offered alcohol when my parents would have a glass of wine or similar. Neither of my parents are big drinkers, and I've never seen either of them drunk. Drinking alcohol was, and is, something consumed for the enjoyment of the drink, not to get drunk, in my family. I tried multiple different types of alcohol as they became available at different family functions and similar, decided what I liked and didn't like. And to this date, I have never been drunk. I've been slightly tipsy (emphasis on 'slightly') twice in my entire life. And honestly, I never plan on getting drunk. The thought does not appeal to me in the slightest, probably in large part because I really don't like being around people who are drunk. I have a strong sense of personal space, and one of the first thing people seem to lose when drinking is a sense of personal boundaries and other people's space. That, and I just find it gross!
In terms of drugs, I don't remember any "don't do drugs" type talk. I have a cutesy sticker stuck on my bookshelf in my room that says "Say Neigh to Drugs" with a picture of a horse, but I'm not even sure I knew what they were referring to when I got the sticker, and the main motivation in sticking it to my bookshelf was that I liked horses! :-P So really, my opinions on drugs have been formed by myself. And unsurprisingly if you've read my blog for any length of time, I do not believe that drugs should be illegal. I believe that every person has an absolute right to decide what they do or do not do to their bodies, as long as they don't infringe on another person's absolute right to do or not do whatever they want with their own bodies! It hasn't really been much of an issue so far, since neither my sister nor I have ever done drugs. However, I've made it clear to my mom at least (possibly both parents, but I'm not sure I've made it quite as clear to my dad, since he's more anti-drugs than my mother is) that I will try marijuana at some point. I don't feel it's something I need to keep absolutely secret. The reason I haven't yet, although I've certainly had the opportunity, is because there are several factors affecting my decision. I need to trust that what I'm taking into my body comes from a reliable source, and is not contaminated in any way, and I need to trust the people I'm with, because I want to be surrounded by people who will take care of me when my judgment is impaired. I'm not even that worried about what I'll do in terms of safety, because from what I've seen, marijuana doesn't really affect you to an extant that you're likely to do anything particularly dangerous, unless you're driving or similar. I just don't want to even do lesser things, embarrassing things, or anything I'll regret, really. The main thing is that before I'm willing to tamper with my state of consciousness, I want to feel that I'm in a comfortable and safe environment.
I think that's good for now. I may want to elaborate on some points in later posts, or talk about some points I've forgotten, but this will do for now. Also, I'd LOVE to hear from other unschoolers on how you handle the issues of sex and drugs. You can either leave your answer in the comments below, or write a whole post of your own on it! If you do decide to do a post, please leave the link in the comments, and I'll add them to a list at the bottom of this post. I actually decided to write this post after seeing a comment and her subsequent post on Michele's blog, so I'll start by adding that link!
Links to posts on sex and drugs on other unschooler's blogs:
I’m an unschooler, which means I learn from reading and watching and listening and doing and thinking and discussing, not from curriculum or compulsory schooling. I’m also a very spiritual person, lately describing myself as animistic. I love music that speaks to my heart or soul, I love live music, and I really want to learn to play guitar, the tin whistle, and African drums, so I can make my very own music. I’m passionate about green anarchy, environmentalism, human and non-human rights, night time, natural healing, vegetarian cooking, photography, radical unschooling, great books, and my family, among so many other things. I see beauty all around me, and I truly do love life! I also love meeting interesting new people, and love when people comment on my writing!
