Summer Plans and Projects

June is here, and early summer has finally come to our rambling Hobbit-Hole in the Sandias.

The scrub oak turned from brown to green while I was in Chicago, and the flowers are blooming in the meadow.Our plans for this summer's homeschooling are project based, just as last year's were.

N. is taking the first weeks of June as a break--which means doing archery and Kamana, and reading on the porch during the long, summer evenings. Taekwondo and Boy Scouts continue.

In late June, N. will be attending BSA camp with his troop, where he will be working on Riflery, Scuba, Advanced Horsemanship, and First Aid merit badges to add to his collection. Merit Badges have specific, rigorous requirements and when a boy has earned one, he has learned both content and skills related to the particular badge.

At the beginning of July, N. will hop on a plane for a two-week visit with his cousins in Bloomington. This is a pleasure trip, but my sister has several day trips planned that will be educational as well as recreational. One is to visit the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, as well as Lincoln's New Salem. The other is to visit the Illinois-Michigan Canal National Trail, where the boys will learn all about how canals were built, operated for commerce, and how locks work.

During the last two weeks of July, N. will get on another plane and fly from Illinois to New Jersey. In Jersey, he will spend Shabbat with our former cantor, and then go to two Children of the Earth Foundation Camp sessions: The Way of the Woods and the Way of the Gatherer. There he will be learning content and skills related to tracking and being at home in the wilderness.

N's summer learning plans are quite uncoventional. The education is not at all academic. However, I am continually amazed at how much he learns from travel and from camp. These experiences seem to cause quantum leaps in his maturity. He is taking greater and greater responsibility for who he is becoming, intellectually, physically and spiritually, from these less conventional learning opportunities.

I am glad we can continue to widen his horizons through these travel adventures.

And at the same time, I will miss him. Every summer when I send him off, I know I am saying good-bye to another piece of the little boy I knew forever. Every August, when he returns, he has incorporated another part of the man he is becoming.

The pictures above are all from the meadow behind our home. I am amazed at how summer snuck in while I was gone!

Road Construction: A Real Life Learning Experience

Contractors have been working most of the past month to complete a new road that will access the new phase of our development in the high meadow. The road is an extension of our road, Los Pecos Trail. It runs south of our house, where it will join a new road, Los Pecos Loop, that will access the hillside east of the end of Los Pecos, and the meadow west and south of it. N. and I have decided to make the best of the noise, dust and inconvenience in order to learn about how developments are planned and roads are built.



Neither N. nor I have seen a road completely built, and since our developer is a civil engineer of great skill, we are seeing a road built RIGHT.

Last fall, before the snow, the worker cleared the right-away of vegetation, and rocks, and created the road bed.

To do so in our area, they had to stabilize the clay soil by mixing it with lime.





In our mountains, the soil is a clay-loam neosol that sits on top of the Pennsylvanian Madera Formation limestone, which is faulted, cracked and pitted with solution basins. The soil on top of the Madera is full of expandible clay minerals that hold cations on the surface of each crystal. The anionic lime attracts and bonds with these cations and makes the clay less likely to expand in the presence of water. This is important to keep the road bed on top of it from cracking and slipping and slumping.



Another important part of building a road from scratch, is the job of bringing utilities along it and up to the property lines of the new lots.

According to the East Mountain Plan, all utilities must be brought in underground for added safety and to preserve views. So in the past two weeks or so, five-foot trenches have been dug along one side of the right-away, along the entire new road.
In this trench, you can see the conduits through which run electrical lines, and fiberoptic cable for telephone and internet service. Cable television is not available in this area, so if folks want luxury TV, they get satellite networks installed.

The water lines were installed separately last fall. We actually had a trench across our driveway for a little while for that job.

In most of the East Mountain communities, there are no sewer systems nor is there a municipal treatment system, because most of us do not live in municipalities. So each homeowner installs a septic system and leech field. Some communities do gray-water processing, and those residents put in a partial, black-water septic system. One community here has an organic waste processing system that recycles both gray and black-water. They use it to support a golf course.



Here in the high meadow, the utilities can be seen at the property lines. In the center, are conduits that contain electrical wires and fiberoptic cables. On either side, the white cylinders are protective casing for water line check-valves, that will eventually be hooked up to water meters. Here, our water is provided by a water co-operative, and each lot owner must buy a membership.

Yes, even here in the boonies, we have fire hydrants. They are required as part of the East Mountain Fire-Wise Plan. Each development must not only install hydrants, but also puts together a fire plan that includes rules about vegetation, and also an evacuation plan in case of wild fire.

In our neck of the woods, natural gas lines are also uncommon. Most of us have a propane tank leased from a proprane company, and many of us have alternative heating, such as passive solar and/or wood and pellet stoves.



We also learned a lot about drainage issues that come with the development of roads. Dirt roads drain more naturally, but become rutted and impassible during mudtime in the spring. And even the grade of dirt roads can block arroyos and small drainages.


Asfalt roads are more convenient but creat greater drainage problems because runoff is rapid. The head of the Sedillo Canyon drainage runs right through our development, and the new road crosses it. The drainage itself will be open space, so as not to impede the movement of water downstream. But the road needs a culvert, about 100 yards above the canyon proper. The upstream side is pictured.

This is the most serious culvert I have seen in our development. The pipes are about four feet in diameter. The rocks are placed on a liner in a sag-pond arrangement, that will slow down the flow across the culvert in times of heavy rain, rationing the water that runs into the canyon in order to preserve a more natural flow rate.



At other points along the road, small rock walls, small dams, and artificial rills have been created on the upstream side, in order to slow the flow of water onto the road. This will prevent pooling and flooding, and also will prevent mudslides onto the road. (Yes that is snow above the rock dam. It is taking a long time to melt even with the recent warm weather).

Mother nature destests unnatural flat zones on hillsides, and will use weathering to even out the slope again. So roads on hillsides require constant maintenance to keep them clear.

What is really cool about this project, is that no rocks have been brought in. All of the rock used for preparing the roadbed and for drainage was dug out of the hillsides to make way for the roadbed.

Unschooling means that we can take the opportunity to learn from what is happening right here and now. In fact, not only is N. studying numerous subjects in unconventional ways, but I am learning something new every day. Through our talks with the work crew and our study of the new road, we are learning about Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Civil Engineering, Physics, and more. Think of the social skills N. is practicing by asking intelligent questions of the work crews, and seeking to know about their lives and work. And he is learning about difference cultures and languages, too. Many of the workers speak excellent Spanish. I never thought I'd learn how to say 'front-end loader' in Spanish.

This is all, as N. puts it, "Way too cool!"

Unschooling Anxiety and Adjusting Our Routine

One of the more frustrating aspects of educating a child with Asperger's Syndrome (AS),
is his antipathy towards change.
N. wakes up with a plan in his mind.
It seems to be based on the day of week, his routine, and his mood for the day.
And like most people with AS, N. is very resistant to any change in his plans.

Normally, I handle this problem by adhering to routine and discussing any changes ahead of time. But sometimes changes in routines, illness and weather considerations make this very challenging. This week we have had a confluence of all three, and N. and I had a rocky week with respect to our learning schedule as we both had to make adjustments: N. to his schedule and me to my expectations.

This week, we had originally planned to have our usual beginning of the week routine on Monday, and work on some math, even though it was MLK day. But our plans were changed on Sunday afternoon, when A.'s mom called and told us that they had a household emergency due to frozen pipes. "Would it be alright if A. stayed overnight on Sunday night, and spend the day on Monday, when he would not have school. Of course I said that would be fine. It is really important for N. to develop a few close friendships, and this is the first one of his adolescence. I know that such friendships are likely to continue over a lifetime, too. It is also important for N. to learn to make adjustments to his routine in order to help out friends and neighbors. He needs to know that stuff happens and inevitably will change that rigid schedule he has in his mind. So, of course, we did not do math on Monday, which has been our routine. I told N. that we would do it on Tuesday (when he does Kamana and reading) instead.

On Tuesday morning, though, N. woke up with a sore throat, cough and general malaise. He had that virus that has been going around. So he slept all morning, then lounged around, reading, while I pushed lots of fluids all afternoon. He did not even feel like going to Taekwondo that evening, a sure sign that he was sick. He was feeling a little better by Wednesday afternoon, so he did go to Taekwondo and Machon that evening. And here is where we ran into our next schedule challenge.

Wednesday evening, I had my first university class, Special Education 615: Trends and Issues in Special Education, a doctoral seminar that goes from 4 - 6:30 PM. This changed how we deal with the Machon carpool. Last fall, I would take N. into Taekwondo, and then whoever was driving would pick him up and take him to Machon. If I was driving, I would pick up the other boys early, and they would wait and do homework during Taekwondo. Now we had an added complication. I explained it ahead of time to N. I would drop him off at a branch library in town. He could get his books for the week and read, and then Bruce would pick him up an hour later and take him to Taekwondo. Then the carpool parent would pick him up and take him to Machon. Since this was worked out pretty well ahead of time, after his initial anxiety about the change, N. handled it fine. But his usual routine at Machon was broken because they had decided to hold an all-school Tu B'Shevat Seder. This put N. out and he came home rather grumpy and silent because I had not prepared him for that. I wasn't informed myself, so I couldn't tell him ahead of time. I have tried to get the powers-that-be at the synagogue to inform me of such changes, but despite my best efforts, they really don't 'grok' the importance of it.

On Thursday, we had the confluence of two things that changed our whole routine. One was the first meeting of my Child Psychopathology class, from 7 - 9:30 PM. This conflicts with N.'s Thursday evening Taekwondo class, which runs from 6:45 - 7:45 PM. I did make plans to deal with this, but then we had warnings of incoming weather, so I decided that this would be a good day to take N. to the noon Taekwondo class. So after breakfast, I explained the change to N. He was quiet on the ride into town, and while we were waiting for the class to begin, I had to deal with silence punctuated by sighs, and general attitude. Even the Taekwondo Master noticed. However, after he got into class, and had stretched out, he seemed to adjust. In our conversation on the way home, N. told me that he needed more time to adjust to fact that he would not be working out with his usual group, and that my prodding him to talk was interfering with that adjustment. In other words, he was telling me to leave him alone while he adjusts instead of trying to pull him out of the attitude.

Of course, he's right. So often, as a parent, I feel that I must try to make him behave as if he is happy about something, rather than just letting him have his mood.
The more I meddle, the more morose he gets, and the longer it takes for him to adjust.
Sometimes, the least said, the soonest mended.

Today (Friday), though, I became anxious about the math.
It seems that if we don't adhere to our Monday routine, the rest of the week gets out of whack as well. We normally do math together on Mondays and Wednesdays, and on the Fridays that Bruce works. So I decided that since we had not done it on Monday or Wednesday, that we would do it today. To make matters worse, I now have the cold, so I decided to just have N. work independently. I determined that he should learn to use his new Math Explorer calculator--especially the fractions function.

I became anxious.
I decided.
I decided.
I determined.
Notice who was doing all the action here.
What was really happening was that I was unilaterally moving from being N.'s unschooling guide on the side, to the sage on the stage. It was all because I sometimes get nervous about whether we are making any educational progress. This happens when my routine is changing.
N. is not the only person who has to adjust.

Naturally, when I informed N. of my decision, there was a problem. It was manifested by silent resistance to my plans, and then the adolescent signs of moodiness: slammed objects, big sighs, and rolling eyes. It was clear that even though N. had the calculator in hand, and the instruction manual open before him, he was not going to learn to do the operations.

We had the following conversation:
Me: "So, I see that you are not going to learn this today."
N: Silence.
Me: "I am worried that we might be getting behind in Math. If you want to take classes in a few years, you'll have to learn this now."
N: Silence.
Me: "I see that I am messing with the schedule in your mind."
N: "Yep."
Me: "Could we plan to do this later today?"
N: "Actually, I had a plan for today. Today is Friday and Bruce is home. So I was going to go out and swing for a while (he still needs this to calm his sensory sensitivities) and then I was going to do some tracking and work on Kamana. Then I was going to practice archery. I was planning to learn the calculator on Monday and then do the next lesson, too."
Me: "I see."

I really did. I had not only unilaterally made plans without him, but I had completely disregarded his expectations of following our usual routine, which had been messed with for the entire week. We had unexpected changes at the same time that we were making planned adjustments. He had dealt with it pretty well, but now he had reached his limit.
It was my turn to adjust.

Me: "Okay, I think your plan is reasonable. I see that you have thought about the math, and that you have a plan for it. I'm sorry that I did not consult you before making plans. You see, sometimes I get anxious when a lot of my routines are upset, too."
N: "I know, Mom! Believe me, I know!"

Another episode in the annals of unschooling myself!

N.'s Archery and Challah-day Birthday

Yesterday, MLC and I went into town to "get a few things." N, who was preoccupied with entertaining his friend A., whose dad came home from the hospital yesterday, did not act as if he had the slightest suspicion about the nature of these errands.

Fourteen years ago today, at this time, I was checking into the hospital. We had planned a homebirth, but I had been confined to bed with pre-eclampsia and I was having early labor pains. At 4 PM, the doctor broke the waters, and real labor quickly ensued. N. was born at 9:07 PM, after a very short, very intense labor.

For this Shabbat birthday, N. has requested an Oreo Cake, my home-make Challah, and his favorite meal, lasagna. Oh, and chicken soup with matzah balls. I told him that three out of four on the home-made list was a pretty good deal. MLC and I purchased a cake and a few presents in town, yesterday.

This morning, I started on the Challah.
It is quite a production because I use a high-altitude recipe (even the usual modifications for 3500 feet and above do not work at 7000 feet) and I use the food processor to knead the dough. This means that I am constantly working between two books.
And I have to divide the ingredients amounts into two, because the food processor cannot handle nearly seven cups of flour at once.

Today, after forgetting the sugar in the first half--I hadn't had my cup of coffee yet--I swore that I am going to type up the altered recipe in a more organized fashion, on one sheet of paper as I do it! And I will, right after I post this blog entry...




The Challah came out well, despite the chaos of baking and serving breakfast to the whole family in two shifts.

Actually, I made the boys some breakfast drink and gave them bowls and spoons. They got out the cereal and milk. I am not a Better Homes and Gardens poster child!

While the dough balls were on the first rising, I ate some breakfast and drank some coffee with Bruce and MLC.
During the second rising, I cleaned up the mess and washed the dishes. During the third rising of the braided loaves, I pre-heated the oven, mixed matzah-ball dough, and started some chicken soup.


While I was monitoring the bakings, N. was working his arm on his new compound bow.
MLC's boyfriend had gotten N. this bow for late Hannukah. It has a 50 pound draw, and N. is drawing it 10 times, three times a day, to strengthen his arm.

It was kind of cool when N. received the bow. He looked it over, in an excited way, and then inspected the arrows. He talked about the workings of the compound bow, the fringe that makes the draw and snap silent for hunting, and the type of arrow points.
MLC's boyfriend was impressed.
"Where did you learn that?" he asked.
"Unschooling," N. replied. "I have two books and a magazine about it."


Every now and then, I am brought up short by the stuff this kid has learned without my expert guidance.

A. has entered a different world.
When he came over, I explained that we limit TV here.
He announced rather dramatically, "I can't live without TV!"
MLC said to him, "Wow, you don't have much of a life, then."
N. said, "You don't need TV to tell you what to think."

As it stands, the boys have been so busy that they have only watched one movie this entire week. Right now, they are working on how to calculate distances using the sights on the compound bow.
A. doesn't know that he has entered the world of unschooling, as he does math uncousciously, for his own ends!

Soon, I must get the lasagna set up and ready for baking. I have to form the matzah balls and get the soup warming. We will have Shabbat dinner with birthday dinner tonight. Oh, and just in case I did not get enough present-wrapping in a few weeks ago, I need to wrap a few today.

Fourteen years ago, I was explaining to the labor nurse that, no, we would not have a circumcision in the hospital. It would take place in eight days at home, with a mohel. Now I am smelling the wonderul aroma of fresh baked bread, and getting ready to do a little cooking.

Fourteen years ago, I cradled my nine pound baby boy, and he fit into the crook of one arm. Today, he is almost as tall as I am, and he recently hit 100 pounds. He knows things that I don't--like the parts of a compound bow and how to use the sights by distance--and he has interests that I never imagined. He is all boy, and I like who he is becoming!

Unschooling Marches On

Some of you have probably been wondering if this is a homeschool blog or not. In the past few weeks, I have been wondering, too. We have taken a break from the organized lessons that N. requested in math for the past four weeks, from Thanksgiving week through Hannukah, and to the end of last week.

What with Thanksgiving, end of term for two adults in the household, and Hannukah with final exams, it has been a crazy few weeks.

But now the Hannukah decorations are down--although I still have to perform the latest miracle of the oil and get the menorot cleaned--and the natural decor of icicles and snow graces our eaves. And although much of the rest of the world is embarking on a seriously celebratory time of the year, we are ready to take up math lessons again.

These lessons require active teaching from me, as well as study on N.'s part.








It is not that learning has not been occuring during the break.

Unschooling happens in our household every day. And for every one. That is the beauty of unschooling!

Just yesterday, MLC got a lesson in the proper methods of picture hanging, when she worked with Bruce to hang up the picture she had gotten me for Hannukah.

N. was listening in on Bruce's instructions as he placed that X that marked the spot just to the left of MLC in the picture.










And even though we are mostly done with our holiday season--we will celebrate the new year with a modest open house on New Year's Day--others have just begun!

Yesterday N. learned to make my pineapple loshen kugel (noodle pudding) for the Sandia "Geo-whatever" Group's annual holiday party.

I firmly believe that cooking real food is a life-skill that every human being ought to acquire. So Home Economics (or whatever the politically correct designation is these days) is part of our unschooling curriculum. Why should a person stop at the store on the way to a party for stale chips and canned salsa, when he can, with instruction from Mom, learn to make a really good kugel, warm and fluffy, hinting gently of vanilla and cinnamon, in about the same amount of time? I don't count baking time--after all, you get to do something else while the oven does the work.

And other more formal education has been going on during his little math break. N. has been busy reading for his life-time book list, and he has some new Zits comics--Hannukah presents--to read for fun, too. Note the formality of his classroom demeanor the right. I have never seen anyone use the one-leg-in-the-air language arts technique, but it works for N. The new moccasins came from my midwest trip--the Minnetonka Outlet--and were also acquired during Hannukah.

But tomorrow, we will get much more formal, and park ourselves in front of the TV for half-an-hour each weekday to begin The Great Courses Basic Math part II. I think our first lesson is about exponents. I will resume watching the lectures with him, and supervising practice afterwards by providing help whenever needed. No grading required, though. I have taught N. to check his own answers at the back of the book.

Another mini-unit N. has requested my help for is a study of the US Constitution. The political discussions that have been occuring with regularity around the table has piqued his curiousity and he wants to know "what it actually says." Good enough. I have a free book from a civics education organization and we will charge ahead with that, too.

And N. will continue working on Kamana II. He also recieved two Peterson's Guides during Hannukah, and he has been doing his Kamana journaling and book work in the evenings lately.

Oh, yeah, and he did complete his yellow-belt testing for Taekwando last week.

And he had an experiential lesson in the Jewish way in death and mourning. He was part of the minyan for Shiva last week, and we talked about the customs and etiquette for it.

Come to think of it, the real beauty of unschooling is that N. took a break only from formal math study for the past four weeks. But over his "break" he was still learning all the time.

The 300 Million Year Stonescape Garden: The Beginning

Today we began an important project. It is actually my project in that I will be doing most of the work for it. But this morning I needed some help getting started.

This is the hillside on the southwest side of our house--beyond the side garden.

It is pretty barren and has a steep slope. After watching arroyo downcutting happen on it last summer during the record monsoon rains, I decided that there ought to be no more delay in taking care of this problem. So last week I checked out five different books from the library about stonescaping. the idea is to build steps across the hillside and make a terraced garden on the slope in order to stop erosion. I am using rocks taken from our land. The Sandia Mountains are topped by Pennsylvanian limestone and there is plenty of this float on our hillsides. When I explained to N. that the stone we are going to use for our project is about 300 million years old, he thought that was pretty cool.

So we are now calling this the 300 Million Year Stonescape Garden. Pretty catchy, eh?

N. was eager to get right out there and begin moving big rocks around, proving his strength and manliness.

But before we could do that, we had some measuring to do. In order to determine the rise on the steps, we needed to know the slope of the hillside. To do that, we used a laser level laid on the ground on the top of the slope. I leveled it and pointed the laser at a plank that Bruce and N. were holding at the bottom of the slope.

The "rise" on the slope was 5 feet and three inches.
N. told us this was the same as 63". He divided 12 into sixty and then just added the three. All that mental math in Saxon is paying off!

Then it was time to measure the "run." N., being quite literal was ready to run up the hill. Bruce explained the run is actually the distance from the bottom of the slope to the top of the slope in a straight line. So N. did run up the slope, with the end of the tape measure in his hand. He held it straight above the laser while Bruce held it at the height of the laser mark on the plank at the bottom.

Here is N. just before lowering the tape measure so that it was even with the laser level.

The run turned out to measure in at 18 feet. N. told us that it was the same as 216". He said: "I even checked it on the calculator, Mom!" He was right.

So then I said: "Hey, N., we need to calculate the slope or percent grade of the hill. You do that by taking the rise over the run. He punched that out on the calculator:
"Let's see. 5.25 feet divided by 18 feet. That would be 0.291666 feet over...feet?"
So we showed how the problem looks by writing it out on the board.

"If you divide something by itself, what does it equal?" I asked him.
"One." N. answered.
"So if you divide feet by feet, then that equals one, too." Bruce said. "They cancel out. We can round off the 0.29 and change to O.3."
"Change?" N. asked in true Aspergian fashion. "Are we talking about money?"
"Figure of speech!" I said. "Bruce means all the numbers after the nine in your answer."
So N. rounded and we showed him how to multiply the slope of 0.3 in order to get a 30% grade for our slope. Pretty steep.

N. decided he was done with math for a while. He took the wheelbarrow off to get big flat rocks.

In the meantime, I calculated the number of steps we'd need if the riser is about 5" and there are about 18" between steps. The number is about 12 steps.


But N. was game for measuring for the cut and fill of the first step.

Since the steps are going to be far apart--more like a rising stepping stone path, and because they will be wide enough for one person, we used a garden trowel to begin the cut and fill.

We found that the soil on the hill was very loose and sandy and yet full of very friable (crumbly) shale that is native to the location, as well as small stones from the gravel in the side garden above, that were brought in by the previous owners of the house.

Of course, as I began the work of cut and full and placing the limestone "fieldstone" steps in earnest, N. got distracted by the sound of tree frogs peeping in the nearby woods. After helping lay the first stones, he was soon disappeared to investigate the frogs. And that was fine by me. The laying of the stones on a narrow path (about 18" wide) is really a one-woman job. And he did give about an hour and a half to the project on a sunny day.

Anyway, he learned a lot! he learned:

• that the Pennsylvanian limestone that caps the Sandia fault block is more than 300 million years old.
• that the notation for that is 3.0 exp 8 years b.p. (3.0 times ten to the eigth years before present)
• to tell the difference between country rock and rock brought in
• to tell the difference between limestone and shale
• that the definition of friable rock is "crumbly" rock
• that the definition of slope is rise over run
• how to cancel out units in setting up a scientific calculation
• that math can be really useful for accomplishing a worthwhile goal

And he was just helping for a "little while."

This is unschooling at its best!

Kamana and My Evolution from "Sage on a Stage" to "Guide on the Side"

Although it is Spring Break--at least for me due to UNM schedule--N. has been working on his Kamana. The weather has been so wonderful that he does the reading outside. He does a reading in the morning and practices an awareness exercise all day and then he journals about it in the evening. That's the Wilderness Awareness Trail. Then, every other day, he also does the Resources Trail--which involves researching in his North American Wildlife book, map study, listening to the Native Voices cd's, and more journaling. Both sets of journaling also involve detailed sketching of various organisms and field observation.

It is so wonderful to see N.'s absorption in his Kamana studies. He is no longer paying attention to whether he is "on break" or not. He has started managing his learning for himself, so that it is just another part of daily life. It is my challenge to let him alone and not intervene unless he requests help. That help usually involves me driving him to library or helping him find resources on the internet. It may involve solving technical issues with the computer. It is very rare that I am actually "teaching" him or even arranging his studies.

One of my professors in gifted education said that was important to use the Autonomous Learner Model so that students would become learners--guiding their own studies. And teachers would evolve, becoming "a guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage."

This was very difficult to do in today's classroom. Even though I taught a gifted resource the last two years, the general educators who were in charge of my students' time were very jittery about the NCLB testing and wanted to know exactly how what I was doing was meeting grade level standards--even though my students were working above grade level by at least two years. If one of my kids goofed off during computerized testing and got a poor score on even one question they were put on a "watch list" for an Academic Improvement Plan (AIP). This led to a lot of micromanaging of classroom performance and activities. The one thing missing was the sense of patience that is required of a good teacher. "Outcomes based learning" is not based on a year's work. It is about making each child produce every single day. And every single day there must be improvement. No one is to have a bad day, a lazy day, a sick day.

Good teachers know that this is not the natural rhythm of learning. People seem to need periods of intense activity followed by periods of rest and consolidation. People seem to need to explore sometimes and to focus sometimes and to just lie and look at the stars sometimes.

The type of education that is being promoted today is a system that does not take into account the organic nature of learning nor is it based on human reality. It is the factory model sine quon non!

And what I am realizing is how much my work in that system has turned me into someone who needs to see unrelenting progress every single day in order to feel that I am being accountable for N.'s home education.

And yet I know--somewhere deep down--that this is not the reality of deep learning.

So, I am biting my tongue and sitting on my hands a lot--just like a good midwife. I tell myself not to interfere in a natural process. That just as there is no textbook labor, so there is no "textbook" autonomous learner.

Sometimes I fail and then I see the consequences of my impatience. It usually sets us back for some time and I have to reconnect with N. and we both have to come back round to a place of trust in the process.

This appears to be more of a struggle for me than for N. He has been de-schooling himself unconsciously for some time now. I am somewhat behind in the process--having many more years of schooling to resolve. There is a lot of grief in the process. I find myself remembering all the myriad ways in which school deformed my learning and all that I lost in the process. And yet, I am also remembering all the wonderful ways my parents did guerilla learning with us--totally without plan. So it is a matter of getting back to that child that is buried deep within my adult self.

It is also a matter of observing N.'s instinctive knowledge of what he needs to learn and allowing that to be my guide.

This is hard when I let myself get in the way. And at the same time, it is easy and joyous and I watch it evolve.

This is the most fun I have had "teaching." Except that "teaching" is the wrong word. Now I am doing what I truly wanted to do in the first place when I decided to become a conventional "teacher." I am learning with a child. My child. And learning to know him--his heart, soul, and mind--is truly the most fulfilling experience I have had as his mother.

I am so full of joy that we started on this journey. It has certainly taken us somewhere other than I had planned. And that joy is constantly with me, running deep beneath the monkey-mind chatter that keeps me sitting on my hands and biting my tongue.

Thinking Outside the Box: Unschooling Jewish Learning

This year, N. has been attending a seventh grade class for religious education in a synagogue program called Machon.

The problem for him is that the class consists of 27 students sitting down to take notes from a power-point outline as the teacher lectures. This goes on for an hour and fifteen minutes. Although the teacher addresses several different topics during this time, these transitions are verbal only, and the students do not do any activities that would reinforce what is being taught. There is a quiz over the last weeks material given verbally at the beginning of every class. In short, if you wished to design a class that would frustrate and overwhelm a child with Asperger Syndrome and Central Auditory Processing Disorder, this one would win a prize.


At the beginning of the year, after N. had attended one class and come home in a melt-down state, I met with the teacher and requested accommodations for him using methodology more compatible with visual learning. The teacher does not get it. He told me that the outline in powerpoint constitutes a visual intervention. (Reading off a screen is still reading and is a primarily auditory activity. Writing alphabetic language is still auditory). He is also overwhelmed, I think, with 27 students and no pre-developed materials to use for them. He then demanded that I attend the class, too, and make sure that N. takes notes. I did at first but two problems quickly developed. One was that N. became isolated from the other students and the other was that he really did not want me to be there. I talked to the Director of Education, who had formed a relationship with N., and she agreed that the situation was not good. However, she did not feel that she could ask the teacher to change his style. So we have been driving into town once a week for N. to go to a class that is overwhelming to him. He comes out agitated and frustrated and it takes several hours to calm him down when we come home before he can sleep. This is turn is disrupting his learning the next day.


You may ask: What is the purpose of this exercise in frustration for all of us? Believe it or not, it has taken me until now (February) to ask myself that question. I have been inside this particular box: We want a Jewish education for N. He has committed to continuing his Jewish education post-Bar Mitzvah until a Confirmation ceremony at the end of grade 10. In order to have a confirmation ceremony, he must attend the synagogue program. It took me until last night to really assimilate a confusion in my thinking. Is the goal Confirmation? Actually, the goal is Jewish learning. Just as the Bar Mitzvah ceremony is a symbol of the attainment of a certain status (adult in the community) by demonstrating certain skills (lead a service, give a sermon, publically read Torah), so is Confirmation a symbol. It is not the goal--it is a symbol of attainment of the goal. The goal itself is that N. continue his Jewish learning. (The unschoolers reading this are probably saying: Well-Duh! We we wondering when you were going to get it!).


N. is committed to continuing to learn Judaism--and that is a life-time pursuit. He has many questions and wants to be able to do many things. The problem is not his motivation--it is in the structure of the classes he must attend in order to be allowed to have a Confirmation ceremony. But if Confirmation is not, in itself, the goal, then we can get out of the box that has become a problem for N.'s learning. The purpose of Jewish education is ultimately to live a Jewish life. That means Torah study, observance of Shabbat and Holy Days, and participation in the life of the synagogue. Confirmation is meaningless if it leads away from this goal rather than toward it. If we continue to put N. in a situation that is exceedingly frustrating to him and that does not further the goals listed above, then we are actually inhibiting his ability and desire to practice Judaism.


Once I came to this realization, a little thought and a 15-minute discussion with DH was all we needed to come up with other ways to meet these goals that are more compatible with N.'s learning differences. N. is already one of the few students in his Machon class that regularly observes the in-home rituals for Shabbat and Holy Days. He also prays the morning service each day, laying t'fillin, which is extremely uncommon among Jews who affiliate with Reform institutions. So the goal of Shabbat and Holy Day observance is being met.


Torah study takes place as part of our in-home Shabbat observance, too. However, N. needs the cross-fertilization of ideas to be found in study with others. Therefore, we are going to do two different things. One is to commit to attending Shabbat morning synagogue services on a more regular basis than we have been lately. The other is for him to participate in a small Torah study group for boys 13 - 15 years old that happens bi-monthly on Sunday mornings at another synagogue in town. N. found out about this from the rabbi there because he called this rabbi to ask a question. (One problem with our synagogue is that it is so programmed and professionalized and clergified that it is difficult to just call and ask a question. I guess this is what the president of the congregation meant when she discussed a "systems synagogue approach" last year. We are underwhelmed by it). This will also cause him to participate in the life of the community in meaningful study and discussion. The only other issue we need to resolve is how to have participate in the community through just being there. We think that if we can find a way for him to do something useful at the synagogue this might be a way for him to learn through service to the community. Didn't some actor once say that half of life is just being there? We want to find a way for him to "be there" for informal learning. (My own connection to the synagogue comes because I am a volunteer adult education teacher and because I show up to services that are needed in the community--to be "a body" for a Shiva service, for example, so the mourners can pray at home). This kind of participation is about being a Jew and learning through that process.


I have not quite given up on Confirmation, even though I have changed my perception of it's purpose. I am stepping out on a limb by requesting an alternative religious education program for N. due to his learning disabilities. This will largely be what I outlined above, but can grow and evolve because N. will participate in tweaking it to meet his needs. I am hoping that by having N. document his participation in these various activities and reflecting upon them, he will be allowed to demonstrate his continued Jewish learning and thus be allowed to participate in Confirmation. At the same time, now that I have articulated for myself the purpose of a ceremony like Confirmation, I do not see it as intrinsic to the goals outlined above for being a Jew. It is a nice marker, but it is not the thing itself. (Confirmation is not even a normatively Jewish ceremony--it was developed as a religious graduation ceremony in the Reform movement and was originally intended to replace Bar Mitzvah, which the early reformers wished to remove for a number of reasons). So, if we cannot come to an agreement on the alternative program, then we will have to forgo Confirmation.


It isn't always easy to venture outside the box. But the well-being of N.'s spirit demands that we cross some boundaries. After all, the original word for our people, Ivri means "boundary crosser."