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Vidyut

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You seem to think that I have something against Sandra. I don’t. I find her words helpful very often too. However, this doesn’t mean that I have to like everything. Also your growing into accepting her words and mine are unique journeys. I find that when I accept any one voice (including my own) unquestioningly, even if there are discomforts that emerge, I am not doing anyone favors. I don’t even see respect for Sandra in such a choice, which would be there in honoring her words by letting them impact me and being authentic about that impact.

I appreciate you taking the time to offer clarity. I assure you that I don’t feel disrespect.

Vidyut

And I joined some other lists. And read some other websites. And I saw that I could pull from each of them for specific things. UnschoolingBasics, for example, has a different tone, just a tad less blunt. Some questions about unschooling seem to gravitate me to one place for answers, and other questions seem to go to other places for answers. There are many versions of unschooling out there. I think many people find Naomi Aldort’s resources a bit softer around the edges. There is no one saying that you have to listen to what she says. But she started the list, she owns it, and she shares her thoughts. Sandra doesn’t stop anyone else from sharing their thoughts just as equally as she shares hers! How is that wrong?

As to the comment of putting a child into school, or up for adoption, if a parent is not up to the unschooling task: Its not meant so literally. Or I don’t read it that way. What she is trying to say, or at least what I remember reading in other topics, is that unschooling is a CHOICE. Keeping your kids home is a Choice. And keeping your kids at all is a CHOICE. We don’t HAVE to keep our kids… that is why there is a welfare system. So when we say we’re miserable, taking care of our kids… that they are driving us CRAZY, then we need to think. Are we really feeling that way? Because if we are… literally… then it might be better to put them into school or give them away.

Or are we exaggerating our feelings, in order to justify more control over them? Are we speaking in extremes? Are we not really being driven crazy… but just feeling sort of lost from ourselves? In that case, keep your kids, keep reading the lists, learn about shifting your centre to include your children in what makes you whole and yourself!

Sandra tends to answer extremist questions with extreme sounding answers… in order to jerk your head around, catch you in your own fallacy, make you think. That is the type of person she is, and those types of people are invaluable. And there are many other places where people pussyfoot around and commiserate and support you where you are. And those places are very useful as well. We aren’t always ready to be surprised with clarity. Sometimes we just need to get through this one horrible day (or moment, as I’ve learned) and sometimes commiseration is what gets us through that moment. But sometimes we also want to change the whole future of moments away from that bad moment, and in that case, women like Sandra are invaluable.

Thank you for providing the context. I didn’t know that I could link to a group that requires joining to read.

I shared the way I perceived it. I may have missed the point, but the real point was that I understand that you have the best wishes of children in mind. Which only goes to show how it could indeed be missed when illustrated with examples like this. I am not attempting to help anyone or be helpful to an unschooling parent specifically. This blog is about my experiences with Nisarga, and as such I am not making any claims here to show anyone how to unschool, and if I were, no matter what I said would be unhelpful, since I lack experience. However, I don’t see any method or way of life or anything at all being useful, if it cannot enable people to feel that they can follow it.

This is not a comment on unschooling, or you, but the manner in which wisdom is shared, which applies to all wisdom, in my experience. Rough language invites resistance. And regardless of circumstances, I really don’t believe that comments of the kind you made are within the realm of either schooling or unschooling. You knew that not everyone can “take” this kind of “unschooling”, so where is the surprise that I didn’t?

I may be wrong, but I am not making claims to being right either. I am sharing what emerges in me. The impact on me. I think I am the best judge of that one.

That is not what I mean.

Having been quoted out of context, I would like to provide people the means to read the entire discussion, including Vidyut’s comments which WERE on the list, and the explanations of other long-experienced unschoolers, none of whom were claiming to be nor acting as Gods.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlwaysLearning/message/50107

People might need to join the list to read that, but it’s an open list and has been since it was begun in November 2001.

I don’t understand how this is helpful if a person doesn’t want to do any better than she is doing: “Trust that you are doing the best you can, and that is always good enough.”