The Myth of Making Things Happen

Over the summer I took a break from my regular way of being in the world. I told myself that for just this time, it was not my job to make anyone learn anything. It was not my job to make sure that broken people were getting better. It was not my job to make sure that all the things got done.

My job number one for the summer was to look at people and pay attention. My job number two was to slow down and pay attention to what was happening in me. If things got done, that was extra bonus, but not number one priority.

Now it is fall, and I don't feel as sure about what I thought I knew, and I have a lot of questions that I wasn't expecting to have.

Before I thought, or I acted like I thought, that it was my job to teach the children "things", and that if I didn't "teach" them they would not learn. That was a really difficult task for me because every time I tried to "teach" them anything, resistance would rise up in them and it seemed like no learning could happen.

Over the summer, in the space of no teaching where I expected to also see no learning, instead I saw boredom, curiosity, creativity and sometimes frustration. When I really stood back I also saw excited girls who wanted to share what they were interested in with me.

It has been hard to watch my broken people suffer, and harder to sit back and not try to fix things and offer suggestions. My only strategy has been to offer unlimited listening, kindness and invitations to be together with them. I will admit that I'm sometimes do stumble back into trying to fix.. But my intention is still to just be.

What I think I'm noticing is a bit harder to quantify. (And I wonder if that is because I'm not as consistent). I feel like I see more peace and a lot more happiness. I know that healing can take a long time, but maybe if I stop carrying around this expectation that a person will "get better", or that they need to be any different than they are right now, we can all share a much better quality of life every day.

All of this makes me wonder...

Is there really something about they way we are trying to "teach" our children that actually makes it harder for them to learn? 

Would they be better off if we just got out of the way and allowed them to pursue what interests them?

Are we missing something in our mental health care system (or even our regular health care system) when we are trying so hard to fix people?

What else are we missing?

But first.. The Summer!

So, school is done for these guys and we have registered with our "homeschool" school for the fall. In the fall is when we technically start the process of de-schooling I guess, but now it is summer..

I keep wanting to jump in and do something; make some sort of routine, or encourage goal setting or reading or something. I have so many hopes and dreams and worries and fears about what may and might or could and should be for our family in the coming months. It seems that there is only one thing to do... Chill out!

You would think that a person who has seen as much growth and change in people as I have would have this figured out by now, but sadly, I keep having to remember this lesson. I will never be of any use to anybody (including myself) if I come at life from a place of fear and control. I have to let that stuff go.

I also need to remember that I cannot save or change anybody here.. That is their own work to do. My job here is to support, cheer on, and as much as possible set the best conditions for success. I can be most helpful to everybody if I do my own work on myself. 

For me this means, of course, continuing my beautiful practices of yoga and meditation. But also, it means finding the places where I am rigid in my thoughts and actions and building flexibility. So, this summer looks like it's going to be a practice of letting go of control, sitting more and giving people my full attention, asking for help instead of trying to do everything myself, and watching and trusting instead of jumping in and trying to make things happen. 

Sometimes these things are easier for me to stick to if I approach them like a scientist, taking on these attitudes on purpose for an extended period of time so that I can watch really carefully and learn about it. 

So far, I have watched what happens when I put down the fear and worry that my kids will just choose to stay attached to screens all summer if I don't do anything to change it. I noticed that after the first week, without me saying or doing anything, they started to choose other activities all on their own. They have some really great ideas! I am really curious if this is something that will continue. I will keep watching and see what happens.

Happy Summering everyone!

To School or not to School

I have never home schooled before, and I dont know very much about how to do it. I have had to ask a lot of questions and do a lot of investigating. I have noticed that there seem to be a lot of different ways to think about schooling, and they sort of seem to fall into two different camps. I think of them as Pro-school and Un-school.

When I was asking questions of a lot (but not all) of teachers and school administrators I run into the Pro-school ideas. There is this assumption that school is a very important part of growing up in a society. I get the feeling that curriculum is king, and that it is imperriative that kids meet all the learning outcomes. 

As my children have gone through all the testing, I see that they evaluate weather or not a child needs assistance based on the percentile system. In other words, if they are not at the same place in their learning as most of the kids their age, then they probably have a learning disability and are probably going to be taken out of class and put into a group of other learning disabled students so that they can be given extra help.

If school is really too hard for them, either academically or because of health or mental health issues the children may have access to an Individualized Education Plan, which the support staff will help them draw up. This plan is used to make every effort to help the child meet their learning outcomes, being it access to a calculator during tests, to the freedom to take as much time as needed, to alternate work spaces when the classroom is just too over stimulating.

The Pro-schoolers overall believe in the system, and seem to understand that it isn't perfect. Many people seem excited about the new curriculum where each student will have more of a choice and a voice in their own learning. Just like all kinds of thinking this comes in a spectrum from people who are upset that there aren't more school days in a year and more challenging course work, to people who see a broken system and want to be a part of a change.

In my questioning of other homeschool families I have noticed some profoundly different ideas about learning. First of all, a lot of people have recommended to me that before we even try to start learning anything we should have a period of de-schooling. Months of just allowing my children to be and play and pursue whatever interests them. A lot of people tell me that this is an essential step to take us (yes, me too) out of the schooling mindset so that we can begin to understand how each of us learn and what actually interests us (I think). The idea of de-schooling and how it works is so similar to some other things I'm learning on my parenting journey.. I'm very interested to see what happens.

There is a a really cool article on de-schooling right here

Un-school thinkers believe that learning is a natural process that will happen for each child in the method and time frame that is right for them. So, no comparing them to other kids! Curriculum is whatever the children are passionate about or interested in, and creative ways are found to meet learning outcomes. Children learn that they can learn, that they are capable and that there are no limits.

The Un-school thinking spectrum is vast, starting with distance education people who literally just take school and do the work at home, to people who believe in complete unschooling, as in, no formal learning takes place unless initiated by the child (or something like that). I have met quite a few of the last kind, both in adult and in child form, and they strike me as extremely intelligent, curious, outgoing, self aware people.

We are choosing homeschooling because, despite everyone's best efforts, the quality of school life and learning for the girls continues to suffer, and it spills out into everyday life. This alternative way of doing things feels like a necessity for us, not just a option. If we are going to do this, we are going all in. I am ready to listen to the people who have done this before, and not miss any steps.

We have picked our school and registered, and even they recommend a period of de-schooling. Tomorrow is the last day of public school. The day after that is a mystery to me.

Exciting!

A School that Heals

So this is how it begins.

After years and years of our girls struggling every day with their mental health and falling behind in school more and more, we have finally decided to change things up drastically. We are starting our own school at home. This is both terrifying and exciting.

We are not coming into this from an anti school perspective. I know the people in the education system are doing their best, and that for a lot of kids it is a great place to connect and be a part of something, as well as to learn and grow. For our girls though, it seems like this is not the case. 

Everyday they wake up exhausted and drag themselves through a stressful mess of a day at school and come home completely drained and feeling like they are not capable and not smart. They have no energy to do the fun activities that will build them up. They are so exhausted that they struggle to get a good night's sleep. Then we repeat it the next day.

Things are getting worse and not better. We need a different plan.

I look at Hayley, who has been struggling the most with her mental health issues (depression/anorexia/psychosis/bi-polar/ptsd). She can't even function in school anymore. Her life has gotten so small. When I listen to her I hear that she wants to build a safe place for herself where she can work on her own thoughts because she knows that her thoughts are her biggest barrier. She believes that this should come before the hard work of going out and having to deal with other people's thoughts.

She reminds me of my man, who has mastered himself, but not without many years of struggle. I have noticed how, when he is not doing well, his life shrinks to just the house, or maybe just our room, to his safe space. This used to scare me, and I would scramble thing to find a way to "help" him feel better. Now, after many years, I know that this is what it looks like when he is taking very good care of himself, and his life will expand again when he is feeling better.

Felicity is having struggles with a severe anxiety disorder. She has worked harder than anyone this year on herself in hopes of feeling better. She has been doing vision therapy every day to improve her reading, in hopes of being able to keep up in school. Her vision and reading have improved dramatically, but she is still not able to do much in school. Flis has been working with our wonderful psychiatrist for months doing cognative behavioural therapy trying to reduce her crippling anxiety. Early on our doctor suggested that her anxiety was just too high for her to receive much benefit from the therapy, so now she is also on some meds. They have reduced her anxiety a lot, but the trade off is that her already compromised sleep is now even worse. A lot of days she is just too tired to go to school. 

Our youngest, Kyya, thankfully has no diagnosis, but she still has also always struggled in school. She feels like she is stupid because of all the help that she needs. It breaks my heart to force her to go to school when we are starting this little project for her sisters, so she is going to have to come along too. If we could afford Montessori school I would love to send her there. I bet she would do really well. 

What I hope for this year is that we can bring our life back to our safest space. We are going to spend the summer (or as long as it takes) learning some really important things like how to find beautiful sleep, what kind of activities build us up (and fill our days with lots and lots of that), what kind of things are we already capable of, and what kinds of skills would we like to grow, and who are we, what are we interested in, and how do we learn best??? Then, I hope, we can begin to learn.

The terrifying part is that I don't really feel like I know what I'm doing. I am telling myself the story that this is maybe a good thing because I don't bring a lot of expectations of how things "should" be, so I'm going to have to do a lot more listening and paying attention and so much more learning. I am very fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of people who do know what they're doing, so I know where to go with my questions. We also have the beautiful and wonderful Doctor Santa (our psychiatrist, name changed because psychiatrists are all about privacy), keeping watch over us.

The man and the girls all agree that it's a good idea to blog this adventure, so hopefully you can learn from our successes and our mistakes.

Here's to new beginnings!

@schoolthatheals