Category: Uncategorized
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On the Creative Wagon
You tell me. Is this conversation between myself and my muse or 2 kids at the school I work at? “Hey, can I pull you on the wagon down the street?” “Why?” “I don’t know!” “Okay sure!” I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity— What it is not: A burden, a sentence to a lonely…
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On who makes the rules
(Image by zrbuck) I’m playing a game and all of a sudden I’m keenly aware that I am not far from losing–maybe I followed a trap, I’m getting tired, I forgot something–and I panic. In this moment when I must either accept defeat or employ all means necessary to be on top again, my competitiveness…
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On Dead Butterflies
No words I’ve read have felt more true to my adult experience of creative writing than those of Ann Patchett in The Getaway Car. She describes her idea for a novel as being a shimmery, unpredictable, indescribable, captivating beauty that flies across her mind, much like a butterfly. And once she is no longer able…
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On conflict resolution and power
(Image by zrbuck) When I say I work in schools where kids set the rules with adults, people often ask me about fighting—what happens when the kids fight? Do they resolve these conflicts, if so how? This is a question that lots of folks in SDE (self-directed education) also grapple with. Why? They may have…
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On “Educated,” homeschooling, and SDE
After receiving many recommendations to do so, on the basis that I am a person in education, I recently read “Educated” by Tara Westover. I was aware of the book’s connection to unschooling and its homesteader, off-grid focus. People had given some insights into the drastically abnormal learning environment in which Westover grew up; they…
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On bell hooks and deschooling
“The personal is political,” was a new idea to me when I picked up Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks, the first in a trilogy of books on teaching that detail her pedagogy in the university classroom. hooks writes that “the ability to see and describe one’s own reality is a significant step in the…
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On Apocalypse & Interdependence
“I’m ready for the next apocalypse.” That’s what a facilitator told me yesterday as we considered covid and sipped tea (next to the ventilation unit) inside a learning center in New York City. What they meant was that the continued focus on the coronaviruses felt like a distraction from the other apocalypses we face today–climate…
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On Impulses
Society begs us to question impulses as they arise. To ask, is it possible or not? Is it helpful/harmful? What’s the purpose? Will it succeed? This can be useful: it can be difficult to embark on explorations of impulses without understanding their limitations and impacts. And yet, it can also create stasis, preventing exploration of…
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On why listening can be hard part 2
When has it been hard for you to listen? Why do you think it was difficult? When I ask people these questions, they usually mention time. “I don’t have enough time to hear the whole story, sometimes we just have to get out the door!” Or “when will there be time for me to talk?”…
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On why listening can be hard (pt 1)
Featured image by Jillian Levenhagen Yesterday in an airport, I watched a kid crying on the ground and the two adults next to them totally ignore them. I don’t pass judgement on anyone’s situation (really, I don’t, I swear…) but I use this example to acknowledge a common phenomenon in society at large: it is…
Madi Learns 