Dr. Seuss [1] titled one of his illustrated stories, "Oh the Places You'll Go!"
Today I offer two short stories to illustrate that wherever you go and whatever you see, what matters most is why you go and what you think you're looking for.
My two little stories are word-for-word true;
I wrote them down right after they happened.
I do that often, figuring my purpose in life is faithful witness to the lives I love.
Susan Sarandon in "Shall We Dance?" [2] dismisses her private detective when she realizes mature love isn't about power and control or even knowledge, that she and Richard Gere are "witness" to each other's life and that what she sees depends on why she's looking. So she determines to change her own focus -- and that change in her eye as beholder makes all the difference.
That's the story I see at home. We unschool and always have, which means only that there is no "in loco parentis" in our living arrangements. I see myself as privileged witness for my children, not a teacher, preacher, pumpkin-eater, spy or enforcer of social norms, nor feminist foreperson driving them to market and/or to mark the world. I don't send them off to any of those folks to mold or judge, and I refuse to BECOME any of those folks at home, "in loco publicus."
We um, just invite each other to dance, channel the music into our moves, take turns leading, and for us that is making all the difference in where we go, and what we see when we get there.
So, when Sea asked me what unschooling was like [3] in my family, I pawed through the layers of papers and notes carpeting our second home -- the minivan -- to find my witness scribblings from a couple of recent unschooled spins around the dance floor.
What I see in these stories is a ten-year-old who's never been schooled nor made to read or think or go, and therefore sees things and goes places in his own ways that are great fun to witness.
But here, see what you see:
March 15 - Learning to whistle
After weeks of random fiddling with his lips and tongue and teeth, we're in the car (as usual) and suddenly he gets it!
Big sister and I cheer from the front seat, watch him repeat his contortions and then he explains how he thinks he managed it, a method that sounds decidedly odd --
Okay we say, but that doesn't work for me, I do this and she does that, Dad uses two fingers. He listens with collegial interest and then has a second epiphany in as many minutes, exclaims "OH!" --
"This means everybody in our family has his own special way of whistling!"
(Life lesson! Life lesson!)
March 17 - Sign over bar-and-grill door
"It is unlawful to consume or possess alcoholic beverages within 500 ft. of this establishment and off the licensed premises."
city ord. 4-10
He reads the sign aloud and looks thoughtful.
I ask: Do you understand what that means?
Boy: No.
I say: Which part?
Boy: Then how do they ever get it IN here??
(boom-CHINK!) If seeing the rule of law his way can't startle a laugh from you, schoolthink may be clouding your vision.
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