Learning All the Time

This was in my e-mail inbox this morning. It describes my view of life and learning pretty accurately. It's a wonderful thing to know that you can learn whenever, whatever, and however you want. The prospect fills me with a joy and excitement that I want to share with everyone. This life of learning is better than any single school could ever be, and the only enrollment requirement is to be alive!

A Life of Learning - Earth School

Life is the province of learning, and the wisdom we acquire throughout our lives is the reward of existence. As we traverse the winding roads that lead from birth to death, experience is our patient teacher. We exist, bound to human bodies as we are, to evolve, enrolled by the universe in earth school, an informal and individualized academy of living, being, and changing. Life’s lessons can take many forms and present us with many challenges. There are scores of mundane lessons that help us learn to navigate with grace, poise, and tolerance in this world. And there are those once-in-a-lifetime lessons that touch us so deeply that they change the course of our lives. The latter can be heartrending, and we may wander through life as unwilling students for a time. But the quality of our lives is based almost entirely on what we derive from our experiences.

Earth school provides us with an education of the heart and the soul, as well as the intellect. The scope of our instruction is dependent on our ability and readiness to accept the lesson laid out before us in the circumstances we face. When we find ourselves blindsided by life, we are free to choose to close our minds or to view the inbuilt lesson in a narrow-minded way. The notion that existence is a never-ending lesson can be dismaying at times. The courses we undertake in earth school can be painful as well as pleasurable, and as taxing as they are eventually rewarding. However, in every situation, relationship, or encounter, a range of lessons can be unearthed. When we choose to consciously take advantage of each of the lessons we are confronted with, we gradually discover that our previous ideas about love, compassion, resilience, grief, fear, trust, and generosity could have been half-formed.

Ultimately, when we acknowledge that growth is an integral part of life and that attending earth school is the responsibility of every individual, the concept of "life as lesson" no longer chafes. We can openly and joyfully look for the blessing buried in the difficulties we face without feeling that we are trapped in a roller-coaster ride of forced learning. Though we cannot always know when we are experiencing a life lesson, the wisdom we accrue will bless us with the keenest hindsight.

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The Wonders of the Internet and Critical Thinking

Our unschooling lifestyle is so intimately tied to use of the Internet, I can hardly imagine life without it. I initially learned about unschooling, and continue to learn about it from the rich resources found on-line. The potential for almost immediate feedback to questions is unparalleled. Numerous times every day, we "look it up" on-line. We seek answers to questions about such varied topics as the current weather forecast, if a certain game is in stock at GameStop, how to build a half-pipe ramp, and why our cat is behaving aggressively. There is rarely a topic for which we cannot find information on-line.

This ease of obtaining information always amazes and impresses me. I love knowing that I can find out what I want to know quickly and easily. However, it is just as easy to add to the enormous amount of information on-line too. That requires us to be critical in analyzing the source(s) from which we gather this information. We need the skills that a journalist typically uses in gathering information. We need to check our sources and utilize multiple sources for verification. I just read about the best real life example that clearly illustrates the need for this diligence. Apparently, a sociology student added a quote to Wikipedia entry which was then redistributed by newspapers as accurate, before it was found in error and removed by Wikipedia. The full story is here. This is just one more example of the wealth of opportunities to learn and develop critical thinking skills from our media rich world.

What I Learned in 2008

Just a partial list of some of the random things I learned in the past year. I learned:

* That I have a compulsion to have a picture included in every blogpost and that without my laptop, my photo sharing skills are severely limited.

* That I have a very strong attachment to my laptop, and how I have it set up, and I miss it terribly now that it's STILL being fixed.

* That it really is as great as I imagined it would be to visit and stay at other unschoolers' homes.

* That I am shy on-line, like in real life. I am very good with one-on-one conversations, but typically am pretty quiet in a group setting. I realized that I rarely post on all the lists I've subscribed to, because I feel it's just like speaking up in a group converstion. I have no problem, however, in stopping by people's blogs and leaving comments, which seems so much more like talking to just one person. So, I learned that my on-line personna is pretty true to my real life personality.

* That my kids and I can take really long road trips, and have fun in the car!

* More about the nature of God, and my faith.

* That I need to keep on learning how to be more patient, more forgiving, more tolerant and accepting, more bold, and more myself. It will never be a done job.

* That my oldest son would like to go to college.

* That my youngest son seems to have a natural talent for pottery.

* That my daughter was seeing the world in much less focus than most of us, and that she needed glasses. I shared her joy and excitement at seeing the leaves on the trees so clearly.

* How to live more frugally.

* How to knit, again.

* How to foster pets.

* That the current legal "system" can be used to enforce a parent's will (no matter how harmful) on a child.

* A bit about Facebook.

* That I'm not that crazy about Myspace.

* All kinds of new crochet patterns.

* That I'm not as opposed to plastic surgery as I thought I was. (My eyelids always feel so heavy!)

* How to live without prescription antidepressants (at least for now).

* That every year, without fail, I will hide some Christmas present, and not be able to find it for Christmas.

* That I very likely will always need my kids to help me with technology.

* That my son and his girlfriend celebrated their one year "anniversary".

* Embroidery, again.

* That I love looking at the clouds and taking pictures of them.

* That although I don't like apple pie, I love a cut-up apple steamed and topped with cinnamon.

* A little bit about Facebook.

* That I really can't drink coffee without getting headaches

* That I still love living in Florida, despite the appeal of many other places.

* That my true nature is optimistic and hopeful.

* How to make and can kumquat marmalade.

* How to needle and wet felt from wool roving.

* How to play and win at several versions of Solitaire.

* That I could hardly make a comprehensive list of all that I learned in one year, so it would be impossible to record all that my children learn in a year! And that's okay! :)

Happy New Year! Hope it's full of love, laughter, and of course learning(I know it will be. ).

For Me & My Freaky Friends

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Bertrand Russell

Six Words

Stephanie tagged me almost a week ago for this.

1. Write the title to your own memoir using 6 words.
2. Post it on your blog.
3. Link to the person that tagged you.
4. Tag five more blogs.

This was hard. I may be "quiet" in a lot of conversations, but get me started and it's hard to stop! Only six words is quite a challenge, but I guess this would be me:

Always learning and trying to improve.

Now I tag:

Sandra
Madeline
Pam
Heather
Kelli

(If you guys have done this already, sorry!)

Virtual Reality IRL

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Krishnamurti

A Really Good Reminder ;)

Dew knot trussed yore spell chequer two fined awl yore mistakes.— Brendan Hills

How Many of Us Need Boot Camp?!

Korea now offers multiple forms of rehabilitation for "internet addiction", including the Boot Camp described in this article. The definitions of addiction seem to be encompassing almost any activity that others deem as too excessive. Is the issue really the internet, or is it a lack of meaningful connections in the "real" world? I sure hope this "rehabilitation" trend doesn't continue to expand without examining the underlying issues that lead to extremes of behaviour. If it does, we could see almost any "passion" that people pursue labelled as an addiction.

It's Called "Blifaloo"

It's a site meant to provide "temporary boredome relief" through various stimulating activities, including lots of games. I don't usually get bored, but I am good at using fun and games to procrastinate. This is the one that has me hooked lately. I also like their solitaire game. I can actually complete it.

When I was younger I was always intimidated by puzzles and brain teasers. I gave up so quickly that I think I may have deprived myself of essential challenges. So now, I'm making up for it by playing every day. ;)

Check it out. I'm sure you'll find something to amuse you!

From Pong to Portal

When I was younger, my father would take me to an arcade at a small local amusement park. There I played some of the first video games around. They weren't even available for home use yet. Games like Pong and Asteroids were so new and amazing.

It is almost unbelievable how much video games have evolved since that time. The newest game my 8 year old son just received as a birthday gift, Portal, is difficult for me to grasp. It goes way beyond the 3-dimensionality that is already too much of a challenge for me to follow in the standard games of today. The space and time dimensions in Portal can be manipulated in ways that allow my son to solve puzzles and complete tasks that I can barely understand as I watch. And he does it all almost instinctually, without reading any instructions or manuals. Here is a clip of him playing. You can find out more about the game here.

Searching for the Truth

With the wonderful abundance of information available at our fingertips today using the Internet, it has become even more critical to think critically than it ever was before. So many things that were taken for granted as "fact" because they were printed in texts of yesteryear, have since been brought to light as wishful thinking by the "powers that be". So how do we know what is really the truth anymore?

Everyday people like me must be more like investigative reporters, checking facts, and seeking multiple sources for reliable information. One of the most interesting new information sources to me is Wikipedia. The ability for anyone to contribute and edit to this resource has led many skeptics to discredit it as unreliable. I think that this demonstrates a reader's resistance to seeking more information. Some people just want to be given "the undeniable truth", without any effort on their part (not unlike being told exactly what will be on an upcoming test at school). It would be nice and easy that way, but quite boring. Life is so much richer than that!


I just read an example of the "richness" of the world we live in this morning, while reading this article about Wikipedia. It was discussing the doubts raised by the fact that there are "anonymous" editors of the entries at Wikipedia, and how that is used as one of the criticisms of this sites reliability. A graduate student at the California Institute of Technology developed the Wikiscanner to track just where edits to different entries were coming from. Here's some of what was found, "Somebody at Halliburton deleted key information from an entry on war crimes; Diebold, an electronic-voting machine manufacturer, deleted sections of its entry about a lawsuit filed against it. Someone at Pepsi deleted information about health problems caused by the soft drink. Somebody at The New York Times deleted huge chunks of information from the entry on the Wall Street Journal. And of course, the CIA has been editing the entry on the Iraq war." The scanning site doesn't tell exactly who is editing the information, just the location where the edit came from. So, "It turns out that the people who are hiding behind anonymity online for nefarious or selfish reasons are not little guys in pajamas but the very bastions of accountability that haters of the Web have deified. "



I just love finding out things like this, things that remind me it's worthwhile to keep questioning, and "seek and ye shall find"! If you know me in person, you'll often hear me saying, "Wow!", " Did you know?", "Guess what!" and other phrases of wonder and discovery. I am glad we live in such an information rich world! I wish that more people would choose the joy of searching for the "truth". Sadly, so many become overwhelmed by it all and just choose a "camp of knowledge" and sit in it. I'm so grateful to be part of an unschooling family, so there are five of us to share the searching and discovering together!

We're Not Broken, We're Human

Being convinced that there is something wrong with us is just too easy sometimes.

Language Arts

I bet you think of high school or college english classes when you hear "language arts", right? Well, I'm talking about something totally different. I'm talking about how this amazing artist explores and expands the boundaries between language and art. Her name is Nina Katchadourian and she's done some wonderfullly inventive things with language arts. In 2001, she had a "Talking Popcorn" exhibit, in which a microphone attached to a morse code machine and special computer program translated all the "pops" of the popcorn into language. The bags of popcorn were displayed with their corresponding "narratives". The first word of the popcorn was bronzed like a pair of baby shoes. It was "we". :)

Another of Katchadourian's language related projects is "Sorted Books", which is an ongoing project that she began in 1993. It consists of many different stacks of books from many collections, public and private, creatively arranged by title in clusters. They say something about the entire library as a whole, and are quite clever, often humorous. I was inspired to try my own.









There are many more thought provoking works at Katchadourian's site, or if you're lucky enough maybe you can see some of them in person. She has works displayed on both coasts of the U.S. as well as abroad! Look, listen, enjoy, be inspired!

The Name/Blame Game

Right now, doctors are deliberating on whether or not to include a create a new diagnosis, Video Game Addiction. Yes, I'm serious. You can read more about it in this article which warns of all the dangers, such as "teens holing up in their rooms, ignoring friends, family, even food and a shower, while grades plummet and belligerence soars." Not surprisingly, much of the focus is on the risk to children and teens.

You may say that there are some who cannot function at all because of their "addictions", but I disagree. There is more to it than that. There is an underlying cause which leads some to choose their addictive activity above all others. It might be depression, frustration, need for control, among many other things. Maybe there are too many frustrated children and teens, seeking some sense of control and joy in their life, and video games are one of the ways they find it. Maybe for some with a homelife so unhappy the video games become "like" an addiction. But true addiction is a physiological state, caused by substances taken into the body, not by things outside of the body.

This is an opportunity for people to look deeper and see why are there so many unhappy children and teens, not what new label can we give them. Wake up people! Give your children the respect they deserve and stop treating them like projects to complete. They are whole already. If you need a project, look at yourself. We all have need of self-improvement, don't we? Or maybe we need a new label. As Dr. Brody, head of a TV and media committee at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, stated, " You could make lots of behavioral things into addictions. Why stop at video gaming? Why not Blackberries, cell phones, or other irritating habits?"

State of the Union or Reaping What You Sow

What you see below is the verbatim copy of an e-mail I received today from a friend. It is the second time I have seen this e-mail, and I just HAD to make a public statement about how I feel about it. (I know I don't have much of a "public" reading this, but it will help me to get it off my chest and more coherent for future proselytyzing. ;)

WOW, WHAT A WAKE UP!

Dear God:

Why didn't you save the school children at ?

Moses Lake , Washington 2/2/96
Bethel , Alaska 2/19/97
Pearl , Mississippi 10/1/97
West Paducah , Kentucky 12/1/97
Stamp, Arkansas 12/15/97
Jonesboro , Arkansas 3/24/98
Edinboro , Pennsylvania 4/24/98
Fayetteville , Tennessee 5/19/98
Springfield , Oregon 5/21/98
Richmond , Virginia 6/15/98
Littleton , Colorado 4/20/99
Taber , Alberta , Canada 5/28/99
Conyers , Georgia 5/20/99
Deming , New Mexico 11/19/99
Fort Gibson , Oklahoma 12/6/99
Santee , California 3/ 5/01
El Cajon , California 3/22/01
and Virginia Tech., 4/16/07?

Sincerely, Concerned Student

Reply:
Dear Concerned Student:
I am not allowed in schools.
Sincerely,
God

How did this get started?...
Let's see,
I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained she didn't want any prayer in our schools. And we said, OK.

Then, someone said you better not read the Bible in school, the Bible that says "thou shalt not kill, hou shalt not steal, and love your neighbors as yourself," And we said, OK...

Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehaved because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem. And we said, an expert should know what he's talking about so we won't spank them anymore.

Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. And the school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued. And we accepted their reasoning...

And the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence and illicit sex... And let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes... And we said, it's just entertainment and it has no adverse effect and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.
Undoubtedly, if we thought about it long and hard enough, we could figure it out. I'm sure it has a great deal to do with... "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW,"

Pass it on if you think it has merit! If not then just discard it...but if you discard this thought process, then don't you dare sit back and complain about what bad shape this country is in In God We Trust

I think that the separation of church and state got carried too far in removing prayer from schools, but I also think it is par for the course when it comes to schools. Freedom of religion is just one more right that children in schools are prevented from exercising, along with too many more to list here. But to say that not spanking our kids, or paddling them in school is what brought about the demise of our country is just plain bogus. Spankings, and much worse, occur all the time in this country. Paddling is still legal in many state schools! Children continue to die at the hands of the very people entrusted to keep them safe and help them flourish. Not to mention all the research which shows violent criminals were usually mistreated as children. Yes... we do reap what we sow!

How much more obvious could it be?!

The Center for Effective Discipline

SPANKOUT DAY USA

For those who weren't already aware, yesterday was SPANKOUT DAY, which "was initiated in 1998 to give widespread attention to the need to end corporal punishment of children and to promote non-violent ways of teaching children appropriate behavior. EPOCH-USA (End Physical Punishment of Children) sponsors SpankOut Day USA on April 30th of each year. All parents, guardians, and caregivers are encouraged to refrain from hitting children on this day, and to seek alternative methods of discipline through programs available in community agencies, churches and schools." If you want an idea of how widespread and accepted hitting people (who happen to be under the age of 18) is in our country, check out "2007 Kindness to Children Index". It is encouraging to see that some countries have outlawed all hitting of children, in all settings. Can you imagine that happening here in the USA? Let's do more than imagine. Let's make it a reality!!!


Until then, here's some food for thought about how wonderful it can be, how wonderful it IS, when children are given love and kindness rather than being attacked for being children.


THE DAILY GROOVE ~ by Scott Noelle
www.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove

:: The Trickle-Down Theory of Human Kindness ::

In peaceful "primitive" cultures, kindness is
sustained from generation to generation by a kind of
"trickle-down" effect. At its core is the commonly
held value of serving and delighting younger people,
especially babies.

Adults appreciate and support the delight of adolescents,
who delight in the joy of prepubescents,
who enjoy entertaining younger children,
who love to carry babies and play with toddlers.

The elegance of this top-down, pleasure-oriented value
system is that the youngest people receive the most
(and give the least) at the developmental stage when
they're naturally narcissistic, while those who give more
are more adept at deriving joy from giving.

In contrast...

Adults in our culture often *fear* adolescents,
who call prepubescents "dweebs,"
who disparagingly call younger children "babies,"
who compete with real babies for scarce love and attention.

When your children behave unkindly, remember that you
can't enforce authentic kindness. Instead, let it
trickle down by *modeling* unconditional generosity.
Using your creativity, find a way to serve and delight
both "aggressor" and "victim" ...and yourself, too!

http://dailygroove.net/trickle-down

Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2007 by Scott Noelle

For Those Who Died By Violence

Life is what you make it. I can't even remember the first time I heard that phrase, but in the past it always carried a negative connotation with it. It was handed out like a justification for any unhappiness in life, without any compassion.

If only life was that simple.

I've come to realize the truth in that phrase. I know the choices we make in life, and how we view our choices in life, is what makes our life better or worse. But we are always confronted with the reality of others' choices who, obviously, may choose differently than us. That is where the real challenge comes. How do we maintain a good life when the choices of others directly or indirectly causes us pain?

It seems to me that most people are able to build a "shell", an outer wall, around themselves so that the pain and suffering of the world doesn't overwhelm them. They are able to recognize it, and sometimes do things to help others, but they don't become traumatized by every news report. Other people will dedicate their lives to helping others to cope. Yet others will become recluses, cutting off as much contact with the rest of humanity as possible.

Even at 42 years old, I still haven't found out how to effectively cope with the pain and suffering I see in the world. I work very hard at focusing on the blessings in my life, of which I know there are MANY. I am truly grateful. I do what I feel I can to make the world a better place. But not a day goes by when I am reminded that not everyone is as lucky as me. Not a day goes by without seeing the choices of others to be cold, cruel, unthinking, and worse, to their fellow humans. That is what I have a hard time reconciling.

"I think to myself, what a beautiful world," and then someone beeps their car horn and flips me off. I really do think it is such a beautiful world. There is so much beauty and joy to be had, and I wonder all the time, why can't they see it? Why are they choosing not to see it? Is that what happens when you close your eyes to the pain, you miss the beauty too?

I'm a Thinker, You're a Thinker, He's a Thinker, She's a Thinker, Wouldn't You Like to Be a Thinker TOO?

Diana nominated her whole huge list of blogs for this Thinking Blog meme. I thought I read alot of blogs every day, but apparently, I'm not alone! :) Lucky for me, there were five left on my list that she didn't already have, so I could nominate some fellow thinkers, and expand our lists, and thinking, some more. Here they are:

Cocking a Snook
feebeeglee
Farm Dreams
Heather's Moving Castle
This is How We Shine