Today is the first day of the Homeschool Association of California (HSC) Conference in Sacramento. I’ll be writing something like a trip report for the next few days, with my thoughts about the conference, homeschooling, and perhaps getting away from the kids.
Lots of people bring their kids to this conference. It’s such a nice change to be in a featureless conference center and see kids running around everywhere. Certainly, the folks attracted to this conference are not the usual types you see at convention hotels. Women working while a baby sleeps in the sling, women nursing, children playing while their parents chat nearby, relaxed-looking men who give the image, at least, of being strangers to the business world, lots of fanciful, handmade clothing and jewelry, a happy teenage couple walking arm-in-arm, smiles from pretty much everyone whose eyes meet yours. Our badges are pretty much the only thing that connect us to the larger world of conference-goers.
The first talk I went to was Storytelling by Jon Young. I actually didn’t realize he was from Santa Cruz till he started talking. I’d link to his organization’s website, but since the major failing of this hotel, besides no fridges in the rooms, is that they don’t have free WiFi! What kind of hotel do they think they are? Anyway, I can’t do my usual thing of linking while I think, which means I may forget to go link things later. They’re putting a cramp in my blogging style! (Haha! I foiled their attempts to bring me back to the 20th century and remembered to link! Ed.)
He talked about traditional storytelling and its role in traditional cultures. He also talked about mentoring in the style that he was mentored, which is sort of the opposite of story-telling. In traditional story-telling, he said, villages create a story as a group exercise. It contains the perceptions and observations from all the senses and all the participants. I liked how he pointed out that when he goes to a school, there are always lots of kids with hands up, eager to talk. But if he calls on one, it opens the floodgates, and every kid wants to tell his snake story, or his cat story, or something even less related to what is being discussed. This reminded me of my son’s first grade classroom, which was run by a teacher who had been a homeschool teacher and was back in the classroom. Their circles would last, sometimes, nearly an hour. When all the other classrooms had settled down with each kid at a desk, focusing on their individual work, our class was still singing and laughing and telling their accumulated stories.
It was lovely, but it did have the drawback that we were not homeschooling. Our kids were only at the school from 8:30 to 2:45, with lots of time eaten up with taking role, lunch orders, lining up to go places, giving instructions that at least a few of the kids didn’t listen to so you had to repeat them, etc. As the year progressed, some of the parents started to get agitated at the length of the circle time, and why their kids weren’t coming home with math homework or showing progress in the traditional manner.
So I did enjoy hearing Jon Young talk about traditional storytelling, but I didn’t quite see him draw the connection that I think needs to be drawn to the modern world: how can we possibly take what was good about traditional culture and work it into today’s culture? Today’s world necessarily depends on a lot of people doing too much drudge work, with no time for a relaxing morning circle or forming stories with their kids. I know how privileged my life is, that I am able stay home with my kids and guide them in the way I see fit. But my life is unusual. We have built a world that is attempting to sustain life in (what is it these days?) 7 billion people! If we all chose the slow life of the storytelling traditional culture, a lot of us would start starving to death. And there would be no one to answer the phone when my computer goes on the blink.
I know: Get in touch with your inner utopian, Suki. Stop being so practical! But how can I? I did like his talk, but I felt like the connection with real life wasn’t quite there. I love the idea of leading my kids through the woods and listening for the coyotes (which we actually do more often than most families, I would guess), but the fact is that my son wants to be a computer programmer and my daughter wants to be a doctor, and they’re going to have to spend a huge amount of time hitting the books and rushing from one activity to another…
I have discovered a new homeschooling guru (it occurred to me to tell a fellow Santa Cruzan at lunch that Heddi Craft of the Educational Resource Center is my “homeschooling enabler”). David Albert, (hopefully, see above, I’ll remember to link to his website), a noted homeschool author who says he doesn’t even like the word “homeschool” because it’s got school in it. His first talk was about dismantling our “inner school,” which is made of bricks of beliefs that we were fed by our culture about what learning is, what school is, what an educated person is.
I felt a bit uncomfortable because I’m rather fond of some of my “bricks” — I believe that there is in fact a lot of stuff in “traditional” education that’s worth learning, and that there is some body of knowledge that the modern person needs to draw on in order to be “educated.” A bit too much use of quotes there, but that’s because I believe that the old rigid boundaries were too restrictive, but don’t need to be completely thrown out. The ancient Greeks were and still are worth studying, even though we’re now adding the Koran and African pre-colonial history to the list of things worth knowing. My other problem with the old way of looking at things was what Albert called the “Swiss cheese” view of his brain: all he saw were holes that he needed to fill. I don’t see holes — I see constant opportunities for inspiring myself and making connections between what I already know and what I am now learning.
I talked to Albert about that later, before his second talk, and he congratulated me on not viewing my brain as swiss cheese (I didn’t tell him about how much self-abuse I have engaged in recently owing to my increasingly scattered memory — I had to leave the house no less than THREE times when I was leaving for the conference because I kept remembering what I had forgotten!). He agreed that we don’t have to throw out all the old learning, but instead expand our idea of what learning is for and what people need to learn in order to have a fulfilling life.
In his second workshop, he talked about his cousin who seemed to be unteachable, till he finally figured out how to tie learning to his fascination with tunnels. He became a successful designer of subway systems. This was in the context of talking about perfectionism. The thing about his talks, I have learned from going to two of them, is that he works things in that I can’t explain later. How was this related? I don’t know, but it made sense at the time.
Some notable things that he said: I appreciated that he started his talk with two bald facts that so many homeschoolers choose to ignore: he said, “I am aware that not all parents are equipped to homeschool” and “Society has a legitimate goal to educate children.” As someone with one foot on each side of the fence, I agree that homeschooling is great. But I don’t agree that it’s going to negate the need for public education, reliable, appropriate childcare, and equal treatment in the workplace.
More amusingly, he quipped, “School is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation.” I liked that, because I have prevented that from happening by choose my children’s school programs carefully. Again, I know that I’m privileged to be able to choose homeschool and private school, but it wasn’t without lots of poking around, including public schools, that we got to a place where we were happy with our kids’ education.
Last quotable quote of the day from Albert: “Education is too important to be left to the professionals.”
The last talk of the day that I went to is one I walked out of, so I won’t say more than that. I spoke my mind anonymously on a review form which I stuck in the appropriate box! I will just say that just because someone can DO something does not mean that they can teach it. Or even talk about it intelligently!
…
I know that my experience at the conference is just one experience of many, but so far it’s be intellectually stimulating, fun to see old friends and meet a few new people, and get away from town…
Even when you live in a town everyone else wants to go to, it’s nice to get away.
