unschooling conference

John Taylor Gatto was in town this weekend for HOME's unschooling coference.  Karl went to his public lecture on Friday night, and I attended the conference all day yesterday.  The theme of the coference was 'Playing In The Circle of Life.'  Mr. Gatto was a wonderfully engaging and interesting speaker, and you can safely call me a Gaatto Groupie now.  Listening to what he had to say really hardens my resolve that not much good comes out of institutional schooling (you do know that he is a New York State Teacher of the Year, don't you?).  But read his books if you want to know more about that...

I also went to a talk by Alison Mckee titled 'What's Play Got To Do Wtih It?'  Her children are grown unschoolers, and she described how unstructured free play led them to their current places in life.  I'm going to be conservative and say that barring illness and accident, my children can expect to live to 80+ years old.  If they played and explored on their own until 20, they still have half of their life for meaningful work, and 1/4 to "retire" (but if they like their work/play, they'd hopefully do it until they die).  Why waste this opportunity to grow and learn, which is a smaller part of their life as a whole, with standardized tests, memorization, obediance and peer group pressure?   Play is the thing, people--we should all be so lucky!

While we were at the waterpark this past week, I was scheming for more travel, and asked Karl what he liked to do on vacation.  "What's vacation?" he asked.  I said it was the free time for days in a row when he didn't have to go to the office or do his regular work at his company (he often works at home).  He said, "I'd probably program."  For anyone who doesn't know Karl, this is what he does for a living.  He found his play and made it his work.  This is my goal for the kids' education.