UnschoolingDiscussion · UnschoolingDiscussion@yahoogroups.com

From: "Vesna" <duonexus@tds.net>
Date: Wed Sep 7, 2005  11:25 am
Subject: Re: Not First Day of School   

Robyn,

--- In UnschoolingDiscussion@yahoogroups.com, "Robyn Coburn"
<dezigna@c...> wrote:
> Today would have been Jayn's first day in mandatory school (in CA)
if we had
> not been so fortunate as to have been led to Unschooling.


That's great!

My son is not "school age" yet. Yesterday I was visiting a friend
whose son just started kindergarten last week. We walked to the bus
stop together to meet him coming home. She said, by way of calculating
when he would show up, "They release him at 2:32, and the bus takes 20
minutes to get here..." and then went on to complete the thought.

That phrase reverberated in my ear: "release him."

It sounds just awful!

When we first met about two months ago, I tried to turn her on to the
idea of unschooling instead of sending her kid off to school, but I
didn't get anywhere. She was too enthusiastic about "first day of
school" as a big exciting thing. Shopping for supplies, all that.

Later that afternoon, when her son was showing her the crafts project
he had made that day, she turned to me and said, warmly, "Oh, just
wait until that first day you see your son coming off that big yellow
school bus. It just touches my heart."

I smiled and nodded politely. I was thinking:

A: "Hello! Remember, we are planning to homeschool/unschool!"

and

B: "Yeah ... coming off that bus after he's BEEN RELEASED. From a
place where he can't just decide to go home if he feels like it, or do
a different activity from whatever some adult being given by some
bureaucracy decrees, where the crafts are carefully guided, where I
couldn't just decide, hey, let's go to the zoo instead and take him
with me ... I DON'T THINK SO!"


------------------------
From: "Robyn Coburn" <dezigna@...>
Date: Tue Sep 6, 2005  11:00 am
Subject: Not First Day of School   

Today would have been Jayn’s first day in mandatory school (in CA) if we had
not been so fortunate as to have been led to Unschooling.

It is wonderful to me to feel that we are just going to continue living and
learning as we have been, with no stranger being handed the right to record
their judgment on my daughter’s abilities or development or temperament.
Just feeling very grateful this morning.


Robyn L. Coburn