picture by shlomif2 on flickr

GARDENING

Notice how I’m not going to say I have a green thumb, because I don’t. At all. However, lately I’ve taken it upon myself to try to grow a couple of plants from seeds, and in the near future help my mom out with her garden. This is one of the best exercises in firmly planting the human mind in the real world that I can possibly imagine.

There’s just something about digging your hands down in the dirt and bringing life where none was that is beautiful. It separates us from the world of technology, where nothing is alive save the people on the other side of their computers, sitting in their computers, sitting blankly on a computer chair (?).

So, today I beckon all ye un/homeschoolers to try this wonderful hobby out. Even if you don’t like it, so be it — at least you can say you’ve tried.

‘Til next time,
The Free-form Scholar

Therefore, I have a solution: [insert dramatic pause] Extra-currical activities!

You could argue that an activity is not extra-curricular for me because I am an unschooler, and school continues outside of designated time. You could also argue that there are several hundred alien planets inside our sun just because a bajillion Earths could fit inside it. However, for activities not unlike the one am about to describe, I consider them “extra-curricular” because they’re the type of things that even normal school students might do as an extension of their own education development.

Well, lookie there, if it isn't Friar Tuck, the old do-gooder, out doin' good again.

I have recently taken it upon myself to take part in a play. Yes, the home-brewed kind, with bright-eyed voluntary actors most usually under the age of 18. The play is Robin Hood, and I ended up choosing to be Robin Hood. Now, that’s not normally like me – I don’t oft take up a part in a play, much less the main role. However, I really wanted to play this part for some reason. The play is shaping up to be a great thing, what with the enthusiasm on the part of most everyone!

Activities outside of “school time” are almost necessary for impressionable young’ns. If a child’s physical social and active life is limited to sitting in a classroom, P.E. and possibly recess, that child won’t have much to look back on one day.

So to all you kiddos sitting on your computers or watching your TV, get out and have some fun! Do a bit of volunteering, perhaps, or run cross-country! The more you do in life, the more memories you make. And one day, childhood and teenagedom (sp?) will end, and memories will be all you or any other once-child will have of it.

‘Til next time,
The Free-form Scholar

No, the title of the post wasn’t specifically for the challenge. This post goes out to all the little chores – you know who you are, with your little multicolored dust rags and pine cleaning solutions.

Ever since I was younger, I’ve done chores. It’s only natural to want to help out the family with all the work they do– WAIT! WAIT! Before my mom starts calling BS and enforcing extra chores next week, I’ll say that I am being partially honest, even though that’s not the main reason I do them.

Chores may seem mundane, but as I’ve grown older I’ve becoming more attune to the slow realization that they’re not so bad. Not only do they help out and get things done, but for most situations it works both ways. If you work under word of mouth, you’re likely to have reward, too.

These things may seem extremely mundane, but when you don’t see them as… well, refer to the title… you begin to realize how much doing them can help, and start to see them as opportunities rather than meaningless tasks on a(n) (invisible?) checklist. And when you’re feeling like that, you might as well go over the top while you’re add it: turn on some music and wipe the top of the walls, too.

When we see things in life as opportunities above all else, our outcome will likely change right alone with our outlook. Here’s hoping life will be a little easier in the future for some people based on their outlook.

‘Til nex time,
The Free-form Scholar

Either way, yes, despite previous resolutions I’m still slacking off when it come to publishing new posts to my blog… I suppose you could call it writer’s block. I love this blog,  I really do, but when I’m caught up in the Java and the coffee shops and the counter culture and music and blah blah blah… I get carried away and don’t post. Life’s crazy like that. You heard me right: I managed to turn me slacking off in posting into me blaming said matter on life itself. That kind of thing is why you read this blog though, right? …Right?

— END UNNECESSARY APOLOGETIC TRANSMISSION —

Sometimes, we get spoiled. We get caught up in being able to do stuff we love to do so much that when we come upon something we must do that isn’t exactly our favorite thing in the world, we pitch a proverbial fit. When that happens, it alerts those around us, and, depending on the person, may cause them to see us in a different (and probably less desirable) light. And in today’s world of making our way through life with what image we try to give of ourselves to people, that’s pretty bad.

Which would YOU choose? (Original images copyright Todd Baker & Per Ola Wilberg, creative commons)

There isn’t an immediate all-encompassing solution. You could try to do less of the things you love and more of the things you might not on a regular basis, but really, how long is that going to help? Once you see how badly your garden needs care and tending, you’ll likely forget all about cleaning the haunting stains from your refrigerator.

I have found a solution that works for me. Blend in the stuff I don’t like to do so much with the stuff I do love to do a lot until I see it all as a bunch of life experiences and learning opportunities. Now I’m not saying that’ll work every day all the time; you’re still going to love what you enjoy doing and dislike what you don’t, but seeing everything in a new light could definitely help.

Everybody’s different and has different interests, but as an unschooler and a thoughtful person, I have to sometimes see those interests in a new light. Hopefully this will be of help to somebody else, too.

‘Til next time,
The Free-form Scholar

There’s only a few people working there, but they’re great people; I’ve been going out every morning or so to spend time at the place and have some of the best treats ever (with coffee, of course!). I suppose communities and bonds can be formed in the oddest places and situations.

A couple days ago, I offered to the owner of this little coffee shop my web design and creation skills, howsoever limited, for free. They plan to take me up on it, even moreso after I showed them an example of what I can do.

Being in an unschooling situation allows me to devote time and effort to this kind of thing; if I want to create an example website, I can, and if I want to help somebody out, I can.

I suppose this is also an advantage of anyone with free time,. So to all those people sitting around in your house, get out in the world! Find some people to hang with, and help them out a bit! Be productive.

‘Til next time,
~The Free-form Scholar

Being homeschooled/unschooled may give anyone a ton of wonderful opportunities, but it also leaves the possibility for another, rather unfortunate one: we get to stay inside  all day, if given the chance.

Lately I’ve found myself, more and more, becoming that little programmer that thinks in code and processes it in their mind instead of processing how many cookies he should be eating, or… something like that. Being too skinny for some of my own pants, perhaps a food-related example isn’t exactly appropriate.

Anyway. With a ton of free time, after noticing such a pattern, I’ve been trying to prevent this from happening. If I can be a geek and have a great social life too, then I do get to have my cake and eat it. One little problem, though: I don’t have that good of a social life to start with.

So! Lately I have taken non-school and even in-school opportunities to make better friends with some people. Just as being homeschooled gives you the opportunity to have less friends, it also gives you opportunities to have more.

‘Til next time,
The Free-form Scholar

Either way, I’m back to writing on this blog again. I tried blogging about my techie hobbies and endeavors for a short bit, but then I realized that’s not something anyone I know but me would especially want to read. Plus, I have plenty to say about unschooling and education.
Like, for one, I always have such a strong bias against public school. And yet, I never really went to an actual public school, but I got a good long taste of what it would be like with the fact that I went to a private school for a bit plus hearing what a lot of people say about it. The stereotypes associated with public school and the things said seem to be in general unanimous. Thus, my bias.

Either way… I hope that now I’ll get back into writing this blog. I don’t really like WordPress for the closed, uncustomizable nature of it when I’m not hosting it myself, but when life gives you a blog, make a devoted hobby out of it. Or was that lemons and lemonade?

I think writing this blog is good for me, anyway. When I have people to share my day-to-day accomplishments and adventures in education with, I’m more motivated to take full reign over my own education, seizing every opportunity for learning.

Keep that in mind, all ye who unschool and even homeschool: share with the world your own learning and the gift of knowledge will keep on giving!

‘Til next time,
The free-form scholar

P.S. This blog needs a new theme, if I’m going to get back to using it again. I think I’ll do just that.

For the other geeks: this blog wasn’t dead, it was just low on HP.

Well, this will be my first post in quite a while. Ever since I finished my blog writing course, I haven’t seemed to have the same motivation that I did during when I was doing it. However, I believe a blog with the underlining concept of Unschooling is a great idea. I wouldn’t mind also having a blog about my techie endeavors, too, but I’m keeping this one’s main focus to be my education.

Christmas month has been crazy. Lots of stuff to do, lots of places to go, plus the fact that we had about 9 inches of snow. I hope to get back into blog writing on a close-to-regular schedule soon after Christmas.

For now, I suppose this’ll be a biding-my-time post until Christmas is over. As a side ntoe, my piano ambitions are starting to pay off as I’m going to visit my great-grandmother on Christmas Eve morning, and will play my two recital pieces that I’ve practiced the most for her.
In addition, my Linux learning (once a subject I studied for unschooling) is starting to pay off too, because I’ll be getting a new netbook that doesn’t come with Windows. It only comes with an Ubuntu-based Linux distro. Woohoo!

My computer (dubbed Ol’ Faithful by yours truly) recently broke down. And I don’t mean just fixable do-a-reformat partition broke down. I mean BIOS-destroyed, CPU-malfunctioning destroyed. I have done a lot to my computer but I have never in my life seen something like that happen to it. A few days ago, I pronounced it dead. The memory of its 512MB of RAM will live on forever in me.

I presumed that my computer’s end was hastened by the fact that I had used it so much and done so much to it: I made several fatal mistake with assembly language, I installed Neverwinter Nights 2 and all 2 expansions, I pushed it to its limit with Linux, and I even tried to use it as a web server once or twice (Or maybe thrice… shh!).

Lesson learned: If your computer is really, really old, don’t pretend that it’s a new computer.

However, all turned out well. I was getting a new 11.6” Acer Aspire One netbook for Christmas anyway, and I was allowed to have it a little bit early. Yay!

This isn’t just a computer problem though. This is a life problem. Or, rather, it is only a problem if you look at it as such. People who learn the hard way remember their lessons better. This is also (you guessed it!) a key point in unschooling. In public school, if a kid wants to learn about the density of cheese, they’ll just have to wait until they can read it out of a textbook. In unschooling, they can go and measure the density of cheese themselves.

In a perfect world, no computers would break down and cheese would always have the same density and everyone would know what it is. But such is not life. Lessons must be learned. The only thing we may choose is how to learn them.

‘Til next time,
The Free-form Scholar