You are currently browsing the archives for January, 2009.
This is how bad things are right now. And I am just absolutely astonished at how many people are suffering around the world. I mean, there is some really crazy stuff going on right now, and the economy is just one little part of that. All of it makes me think, the best thing we could be doing right now is keeping united as a family, as community, and being of service where ever we can. I am planting some corn this year, and lots of squash and potatoes.
Last night we read this book.
"Animal Dads" by Sneed B. Collard III inspired Ceiba to learn about Megapodes
And we learned about how Megapode dads make their nests. So Ceiba asked “Tomorrow can we look for the pictures of the Megapodes nests?” And this is what we learned.
The particular species that is depicted on the book , is known as the Australian Brush-Turkey, which are found on Australia’s Gold Coast,
so with the help of Google Earth we were able to tag their location, add a picture that Ceiba found on google images (spelling ‘megapode nests’ on her own from the book),
and as she dictated, we wrote a description of our learning experience on our very own Megapode Learning Tree tag .
We used their toy measuring tape to see how the Megapode’s 60-70 cm size compares to her own body. We were very surprised to know that the nest mound the males build to attract females can be as high as 1 m and as wide as 4 m! Which takes hours and hours of dedicated labor. The work doesn’t end there, they also have to keep the temperature at a whopping 33 degrees, which they determine by placing the soil/leaf matter they use for the mound into their bills, a perfectly created thermometer. Ceiba loved this fact, and so did I, nature never ceases to amaze!
By they way, I found the book at our local Free Store (yeah, everything is free). And its truly a beautiful account of how dad’s behave in the animal world, and the illustrations are maginicent.
There is that hard working Megapode Dad
So it seems that I am not a code kind of person, and thanks to our beloved Tech dad we are up and running. I stayed up way too late last night getting posts and categories set, but here I am in the dark morning getting ready for my volunteer shift at our local Free Store. Which is by far one of the greatest community organized projects! So much stuff gets donated there, from new to super reused, so much that there are times that a lot gets trashed any ways. But without the Free Store, our dump would be filled with all kinds of treasures.
…On my return from my shift, some of the treasures I found today..
Aldo suede boots, puzzles, felt book and a good book
Children's books and a train whistle
Stack of wool swaters
I have been doing my initial research around unschooling as of late. And I have to ask, why is it that as humans we continuously want to define, categorize and name everything? Though its sounds as an open ended and ridiculous question, I am seriously asking.
My recent thoughts spring from reading The Unschooling Handbook by Mary Griffith, which is by the way a nice compilation of the voices and experiences of unschooling families (both parents and children). It is also filled with great resource lists at the end of each chapter. Which is why I am up until almost midnight trying to find the books she lists on our library’s online catalogue. While I am thoroughly enjoying the uplifting and clarifying voices of unschooling families (mostly American), I keep coming back to the previous question, why do we need to name this way of learning? I know there is some specialist of the left brain out there who can answer this question scientifically to me. But the images that answer that question in my mind are those of a people who are ever unhappy with who they are, what they have, and how they are living. Feeling constantly plagued by the need to control the world around them.
In terms of unschooling, well, why categorize something that is truly the most natural way of learning? Not only natural, but has been the primary practice of child rearing, educating and community building in the history of humanity, and i mean here in particular the indigenous communities around the globe.
Having had the privilege of seeing what an alternative way of learning feels like and looks like from the indigenous perspective, I can definitely say, the idea of sitting in a room full of people looking at a board and copying from it, definitely did not come from a happy people. A happy people are those who are at peace with who they are and where they are, and understand their purpose and responsibility to self, community and nature. I know that the Tzeltal people had been unschooling before it became a word, and definitely before they were forced to send their children to school miles away from home. It is thanks to school that our Tzeltal language is being lost. Though in the most recent years there has been a push for bilingual education to counteract this language genocide (my father and uncle being two of the first bilingual teachers to retire in our community). Who is going to tell us in the villages that we should keep our kids at home instead of sending them to school? It is a priviledge to homeschool and unschool for sure, but more so its a privelegde and an often overlooked power to be able to categorize, name and define life and its different aspects, even when those turn out to be radical ones.
Nonetheless, we are unschooling.