Introducing the Spirit that Moved Me to Press Publish
Welcome to Blue Squirrel, a behind-the-scenes look at unschooling and other revolutionary acts we do before breakfast
If you haven’t yet, read this first: About
If only I asked for a small donation every time someone's suggested I write about our unschooling slash worldschooling slash totally imperfect but nevertheless happily lived life... well, I obviously wouldn't have been able to quit my day job, cos how big a fee are we talking? But it might have enticed me into doing what even I wish I'd started doing long ago: Show, in real-time, what it means to raise a child outside of the system.
As it happens, I smiled and waved as I ignored everyone suggestions to "Just write it down, dammit!", instead choosing to continue tormenting friends with my 5,000-word Facebook post updates.
Why this is a very bad idea
I'll confess, it wasn't for a lack of trying. A handful of times, over the past nine or so years, did I hunt for a suitable URL (aka how you flirt with new ideas on the internet), jazz up a new blog template, at times even going as far as writing an actual post. But it never stuck. Mostly cos I never actually published anything. After all, I'm just a mom figuring this shit out as she goes along, arriving at working solutions only after she's fallen face-first into quicksand about 347 times. For every one thing I win at, there are at least 1,000 things that leave me with egg on my face. (For the record, I hate eggs. Even in an expression.)
So the thought of going public (notwithstanding the fact that hardly anyone’s going to read it even if it's out there - fear is a narcissistic tormentor, ok?!) with what's basically a living experiment called "raising my child" ... it was downright laughable. Why on earth would anyone want to read about our life? We're not unschoolers with amazingly interesting lives that'll make grownups jealous (I happen to be one of said jealous grownups). We're not travel bloggers flashing jaw-drop gorgeous pics from exotic locales (it's possible that we're the only worldschoolers who never take photos of ourselves in front of anything).
Instead, we're actually really boring people. Since we actively design our lives that way, we're very happy with it. But it ain't exactly edge of your seat type reading material. And an audience, so Hollywood and weird YouTube trends reminds us, wants larger-than-life spectacle. Not a single mom and her teenage son who thinks having a meme war is the height of fun. (To be fair, I doubt he thinks it's the height of fun, either. My standards are just low.)
Why I’m doing it anyway
But if only I'd have asked myself for a donation every time I thought, "I wish I could gift someone this conversation as an example of what self-directed learning is", I'd have had a lot more savings.
2020 has been a crazy year, but one of the top two things I didn’t foresee happening in my lifetime was homeschooling going mainstream. Suddenly we’re no longer those weird people who go to theme parks (mostly it’s just supermarkets, though) in the middle of the day, or stall answering when asked what grade he’s in so we can do a quick calculation in our heads about where he’s “supposed” to be. Suddenly, people are asking us for advice. Suddenly, we’re no longer lying about which curriculum we’re using (none). Ok, we stopped doing that last one years ago, but it’s too dramatic not to include.
Suddenly, the whole world has experienced homeschooling their kids. Largely forcibly so, but the Peter-Wendy-Jane in me would like to believe this is an opportunity for parents to do a double-take about how their kids’ education journey is playing out.
They say nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. We’re living in omgsaywhat-type unprecedented times, and we cannot go back to the way things used to be, however much some of us want to. That way is dead. Road’s all caved in. There’s only one way we’re getting out of this, and that’s with rules rewritten. There’s a lot of fear and anxiety around what some of that might look like, but I believe it’s within our power - and empowerment - to rewrite at least some of the rules for ourselves.
My contribution to the global dialogue is as simple as writing a newsletter that shows you what self-directed learning looks like on the daily. Partly because I’m way behind (as in, I’ve declared inbox bankruptcy) in answering messages and emails asking for advice. Partly because I can kick myself (gently, I hurt easily) for not meticulously documenting this over the years so I’d get to reminisce when Alexander’s left the nest and we find ourselves on different continents (or planets, the way this year’s breaking news is acting).
And partly because small acts, undertaken daily, can be revolutionary. In our case, it’s the lifestyle choices we have and continue to make.
Doing, doing, DONE
Hence, Blue Squirrel was born! The name is meaningful AF and has quite a story attached to it, but we’ll get to that some other time. The newsletter gets sent out every week or so, with some combination of daily life snapshots, topical facts and links, and/or other stuff I haven’t thought of yet. The first “real” issue will drop in a couple of days. Stay tuned and, meanwhile, tell your friends so they can sign up if you reckon they’d find it helpful.
Live long and prosper, and if that’s not enough juju, may the Force be with you!
Nadja
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