Writing answers to the question, “Why aren’t you in school” in a previous essay got me thinking about the second most common question unschoolers get asked: "But what do you do all day if you don't do school?" I've touched on that in other essays, but I guess maybe I should jot down some "scenes from a typical unschooling day" to pass out at the supermarket and restaurants we frequent. I could start with what we did today, so far.
We ate breakfast together while chewing the fat (ham and eggs, actually) with Geekdaddy before he went off to tweak something at work. Back in the Dark Ages when the kids went off to school, they'd have to rush through breakfast so that they'd be down at the bus stop for 7. Now, we often watch the birds while we eat or the cats (sometimes both, when the cats are chasing birds or vice versa), or we get into discussions and end up with more reference books than plates on the table and breakfast runs right into lunch.
This morning, dirty clothes were oozing from every hamper, so Son hauled them downstairs to the basement and I did the laundry. The laundry room is right around the corner from my basement lair, so that works just fine. Daughter took out the dog and threw tennis balls until they were both knackered and then settled down with her Pokémon figures, which she's arranging into scenarios and then photographing with the old digital camera Geekdaddy gave her recently.
Son is working on a colored pencil drawing. He went upstairs to wrestle with reproducing blonde hair now that he knows that it's actually not blonde, but many shades including brown, black, greenish brown and a caramel shade that eludes him and will probably mean a trip to pick up another handful of Prismacolor pencils soon. His cat went up to assist him. (Somebody has to keep the catnip mice under control and he doesn't seem to have the knack in spite of her long hours of trying to teach him. The kid wastes way too much time on frivolous pursuits like Art and learning, in her opinion.)
By 9, we were all jonesing for a snack, so we hauled out the homemade goat cheese that my friend, Grace, who also creates beautiful jewelry, gave us yesterday and slathered it onto pita chips and chowed down. There's something about eating cheese from goats whose noses you petted the day before that you just can't get from a store. Not to mention that I sat there in Grace's kitchen while she shaped the cheese into rounds and then rolled it in her own blend of herbs.
I wouldn't have been surprised to see an HGTV Network camera rolling in the background; a little segment on Artisan Cheesemakers of Maine Who Also Create Jewelry, Raise Goats, Chickens, and a Huge Garden While Homeschooling Children and Making the Rest of Us Feel Like Slouches. Martha could take her correspondence course, let me tell you.
So, what are we going to do with the rest of the day? Well, that depends. We've emailed Uncle Wil to see if he wants to do some more work on the art kit he brought over last week. It's a nifty set of posters of famous artwork for coloring, a mobile to put together, a deck of art cards to color and a bunch of other stuff. Daughter opted for the Mona Lisa and did a really nice job using some colors that Da Vinci might not have had in his palette, but it's all good. I'm doing what look like acorns around the outside of the frame because that's as much art as my kids trust me with. Even then, Daughter did the first one and only gave me one colored pencil so that I won't get confused and use the wrong color.
I'll probably drive down to get the mail, because the black flies are voracious right now, and Daughter will probably go with me. We always see something interesting when we go. Last week, we saw an osprey with a fish in its talons, the ever-present turkeys, frog's eggs in the ditch and in a vernal pool beside the road, coyote poop, a dead log where something had been scratching for bugs - we figure it was a skunk - and a newt that scurried under another rock when we turned over the rock it was under.
There's usually a chipmunk that crosses the road in front of us at the same place, a pileated woodpecker that we hear but never see and sometimes a raven that flies in front of us almost all the way down to the mailbox. My daughter likes to think that the raven is there to remind us of her late brother because his Native American birth sign was the raven. I'm not a spiritual person, but I don't tell my kids what they can believe. However, if she expects to see my Native American birth sign animal hanging around after I stick my spoon in the wall, she'll have to boogie on over to the nearest beaver pond, because I'm a beaver. (Well, at least, I have the teeth for it.)
Daughter will no doubt post to her blog while I take my daily nap. Sometimes I actually doze, but mostly I let my mind wander and then reel it back in to see what it gathered out there. I've gotten some of my best inspirations during naps. We may watch a Standard Deviants Biology video or we may not, depending on how we feel. We might play Mario Brothers Tennis on the game cube or not. Reading is always an option, as is cooking something new.
Tomorrow, we'll probably venture forth to the library, the art supply store, maybe the university museum if they have anything new on display. There's an art gallery downtown that we've wanted to check out and someday soon we're going to go to Portland to spend the day. Maybe hit the art museums and wander around the waterfront gawking like "people from away." Another day, we'll go to the Mid-Coast area, walk on the beaches, eat some seafood, maybe take the ferry to Isleboro and walk around there.
Our days probably sound pretty humdrum to people with kids in AP classes, sports, dance, and gymnastics. When you come right down to it, we don't do an awful lot. To me, though, it's more what we don't do. We don't have rigid schedules. We don't march to someone else's drummer. We don't learn things because they'll look good on a resume or because some authority thinks everyone should know it.
My kids follow their interests and I follow mine. Sometimes, they're the same. Sometimes, mostly with art, they're not the same, but I'm an appreciative audience. In spite of the fact that they almost never crack a textbook or workbook, my kids are also picking up the practical things they need to know such as math skills, science, spelling and grammar. Sometimes, it seems almost like osmosis, the way they soak up something in minutes that takes weeks to learn in school. And that's what we do all day.