Earth-Body Education

Hello! Amber here. My friend Heidi, one of the coolest, smartest, most interesting people I know (the woman built her own small straw bale house while mothering her two year old son *and* pregnant with her daughter!), will be posting here from now on alongside Anna and myself. Here is her fabulous first post!:

I don't know the reasons for this, since it equates in a dramatic dampening of my spirit, but i often get sucked into the vortex of the inside of my house.  My children along with me.  just the other day i took a blanket and pillow out under the big black oak outside the front of my home and lay on my back to read while my children swung on the ancient creaking board swing that hangs from said black oak.  i lay looking up into the patterning of leaves and remembered.  i couldn't believe i had forgotten, I remembered that this is the type of activity that nourishes my spirit.  a deepening of relaxation and slowing of breath.  grounding deep into the earth.  suddenly my previously anxious needy children from just minutes before found intriguing activities of discovery.  my year old daughter rediscovered the feeling and taste of an in-mature acorn in her mouth.  my three year old son flew high in the sky his belly on the swing, smiling his sweet smile into the warm summer air rushing against his face.

i am impressed upon by the need for my children to learn socially appropriate behavior by being exposed to groups of children and one-on-one play.  the norm for socialization in the united states is school.  I like the idea of children learning together and growing along side one another as playmates, but i am not as interested in the state curriculum, or the desk oriented learning.  i was introduced to the idea of "Unschooling" by my friend jessica and read the book "teenage liberation handbook" by grace Llewellyn and there after bought a book about elementary age unschooling. But both books draw a large blank for preschool and kindergarten age children ( the ages that my offspring are now). Unschooling is a form of education which allows the child to learn at their own speed and in areas of their interest.  The unschooling theory is that children left to their own curiosity will have a strong drive to learn and be able to go more deeply into the subjects in which they are interested,  with out the assignments and due dates altering their natural flow of learning.  Often unschoolers will take classes and find mentors in their area of interest like music or building.  still there is not much literature concerning unschooling for young children and i am feeling around in the dark.  this writing is an exploration of my learning process as i feel into the unknown.

this summer i decided to try and give my son some socialization and i put him in an arts and farm camp.  It turned out that he was not ready for such a structured environment and most of the activities in the camp, were doing things that he is already exposed to at home.  the result was that he buddied up with one of the children and they ran off to play outside of the group only returning to the activities with great convincing.  i ended up deciding to take my son out of the camp since i didn't want to pay for him to play with a friend who he could play with for free any other day.  So back to the natural rhythm of summer life with less driving to town for camp and more time playing at the river. maybe some day he will be ready for that type of structure but in the unschooling fashion i am not going to force a learning on him at a time when he will not be able to integrate it.

On our way home from our last day of camp i was feeling frustrated.  irrationally wishing i could force my son into being able to work with structured learning environments (this was probably coming from a sense of personal inadequacy feeling that it was the fault of my parenting that he was not ready.  I was also hoping that i would be able to gain a little one-on -one time with my daughter since my son and i had been bumping heads lately around the house. ) I decided to take us home via the back way past the river.  the water was still a bit high for safe swimming but the beaches were freshly  cleaned and amended from the spring flooding.  We parked on the side of the dusty narrow road and found a trail leading down to the river near the bridge.  The trail we chose was a tricky one.  steep, requiring good balance, foot traction, poison oak dodging and a bit of rock climbing.  Anarion who was over amped in the car from his day of play at camp now calmed and concentrated as he expertly met the challenge of our desention to the water.  once down at the river there was about a hundred yards of boulders to navigate in order to reach the nearest substantial beach (and sand toys in tow be needed sand).  My daughter strapped to my back i speedily made my way to the beach trusting in the ability of my son to make his way in his own time. 

 I reached the beach and released my daughter to play.  this particular day was overcast and i sat with my back against a large boulder and relaxed in the defused warmth of the sun, one eye on my daughter and one eye watching for my son's head to peak  over the largest bolder obscuring my view of him.  the river had left a peninsula of sand between the shore and a water sculpted rock a little ways out in the current leaving shallow wading pool on either side of the peninsula.  the water was frigid but my daughter fearlessly waded in.  I got up and removed her clothing so i wouldn't have to cary a soggy baby back to the car.  as i was able to relax i began to enjoy the magnificence of her contentment and her scientific exploration of the sand with her hands and shovel.  learning weight and density and speed of the sand slipping through her fingers.  And there he came, my son, over the large boulder, jovially singing a nonsense song as he confidently climbed his way to me.  his energy was grounded and focused and engaged in learning about the workings  and wielding of his body.  he jumped off of a tall rock to land in the sand and immediately found a wavy stick of driftwood to be a tool for play.  We enjoyed our play until dinner time and my angst about the camp dissolved. This few hours at the river was a so much richer learning experience for my son than his whole day of inappropriate camp. 

since then ( in our usual summer flow) we have been at the river often.  i am always watching and wondering at the speed of both of my children's learning when the learning is through play and exploration.  My son has taught himself to swim around with his floatation vest and his enjoyment of learning about the water and strenghteniing his body through swimming, nourishes my soul.  there are often other children at the river which allows him to practice socialization.  his play times at the river are his most peaceable.  the usual argumentation between he and another child is around a toy and when no toys are present there is most often just enjoyment and rumpus fun. 

As a child most of my memories of play involve me out in nature, up a tree or on a rope swing.  When my family moved to town i was amazed that it was harder to know what part of the season we were in since i had based my sense of the passing year on the plant life around me and their cycles. Nature was indeed my greatest teacher of physics and math and botany, and quiet observation.  I learned harmony through the bird songs and rushing of wind in the leaves of trees, the gurgle of a gentle creek.  I hope that as my children look back on  their life memories and they are filed with nature and the sensuous learning through their strong smart bodies.

I am still feeling around discovering what is best for my children.  I know my son would love more play time with his peers as well at time away from the family to discover himself.  I am looking at play groups and programs for learning in nature based ways.  I like field schools where the learning is based on location of study, like learn about plants in a garden or nature setting, or go to the ocean to learn about tide pools.  There are also "Forest Schools"  for the very young (unfortunately not near my home) that bring children out into the forests to learn through what is present in a forest. Waldorf appeals to me but their under emphasis on reading doesn't work for my son who is super interested in books and reading and can already sound out small words. Montasori is neet how it encourages the child to initiate and guide their own learning process, but lacks the nature element. At the moment play groups are the best thing i have come up with for his need to spend time away from the family and the home environment offers many opportunities for learning.  he creates architecture with his blocks and plays around on his papa's drum set, he cuts shapes out of paper and mocks up items for his imaginary games from the clean recycling can, i involve him in my cooking and cleaning, we go on outings and to gatherings.  he is a sponge sucking it all in.  I know he does not need a school to learn and succeed in life, but i am a seed in the wind of this society of schooled children. I am looking for a place to land and be watered by support and root into my resources.   

 

- Heidi Woods

Comments

[Emily Phillips]

Hi Heidi,

i feel like your story is my own, when i was looking for schools for my 3 yr old there were elements of waldorf and montessori that appealed to me but they just weren't a perfect fit, then i read john holts book "how children learn", and about unstructured choice based schools in the uk, and about reggio emilia schools in italy and i fell in love with the idea of where i wanted our son to go.

i knew that it wasn't natural for him to be home with me all day, in a tribe children were reared by a community of elders to mentor them and model things there parents cannot. i wanted my son to have lots of experience away from me with a sort of "fairy godmother" who he could pick and choose the best parts of to take from and integrate into himself. someone who could genuinely help him navigate the tricky shores of first friendships and be a safe lap to crawl into when the world felt too big away from home.

unfortunately, there wasn't anything like that here in NC so i literally built my own school. it was (and is) beautiful and fit our needs perfectly for a few years. a school where small groups of children play outside all day, garden, hike, and do all the small things that kids do. structure around meals but otherwise the teachers are wise enough to go with the group. we could have "projects" planned for weeks and never touch a single paint brush because the days were too full of watching clouds, feeding geese, and running through sprinklers to possibly interrupt with some mandated activity. and a place where the ONLY "curriculum" is positive compassionate communication and social skills.

then our son turned school age and had to leave our haven of the children's farm. that's when things got complicated and dissatisfying and none of the charter schools were ideal. they all had elements of greatness but lacked true compassion and understanding of who the children truly were. i really did not want to homeschool/unschool. i was looking forward to some downtime, but in the end though the gardner in me knew that my son's spirit needed to grow and all the other things were just details. so we made the leap, put him in a homeschool cooperative a few days a week to play with friends and let him thrive at home on the land the rest of the week. it has been sooo beautiful to watch, and the icing is he is way above grade level academically but it almost doesn't even matter. he just does what he does and he does it the best way he knows how.

the biggest lesson i took from all of this was to never settle, create what doesn't exist, and to never be tied to dogma. also, that what works for some families/children doesn't have to work for us.

thank you for your beautiful story. i love hearing from other moms on the fringe, i suspect there are more of us than i know. it's just all so huge and simple at the same time. you are a beautiful mother it really comes through in your writing.

good luck on your journey!

[Antonella]

This is wonderful. As I'm contemplating becomng a mother this is what I like to read! Would you imagine that here in Italy the Reggio Emilia Approach is virtually unknown? And Reggio Emilia is a city in Italy!

please keep up on the infos!
Antonella

[Jen]

I absolutely adore this blog. I have read through a good deal of it, and the thoughts and ideas are so warm, wonderful, and peaceful towards your children and parenting. You have much to teach! As I ponder this decision (above) for my own children, it was nice to read your post. And as I grow in my journey as a mother, it is so nice to read the whole blog!

**On another note. Am I reading correctly that you built a cob house? My husband and I are seriously considering doing this. We have 2 small (almost 2 and 3 1/2 yrs) and I am pregnant w/ #3...and we are wondering how possible it will be. Any advice?

Thank you for your wonderful blog....I look forward to reading more from you and from Anna.

[Tehya Shea]

Heidi,

Thanks for your story. I am a mama of a two year old girl who I have been unschooling from the start. We are fortunate here in New Mexico to have a local unschooling group, but there are many online resources to help guide you through the 'deschooling' process so that your children may be free to just learn. one of my favorites is through the yahoo groups, called 'always unschooled'. it is run by a woman with older children but focuses on younger kids and issues that come up. Often I do not read it anymore but I find that it is when I am tired or out of ways to respond that I fall back to it and learn vast amounts.

Hurrah for mamas listening to their children's needs and truly trusting their process. Good luck to you on this journey.

Tehya