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Musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings about unschooling, natural  parenting, green living, social justice and more by writer, author and Natural Life magazine editor Wendy Priesnitz.  Whose Needs? – January 30, 2009 Home educating parents have been called crunchy granolas, religious freaks, irresponsible, courageous and much more. But how about “obsessive?” That’s the term used in an article on this “guide to the most notable and influential New Yorkers.” It describes how control-freak but rich and possibly famous parents can have ultimate control over their children’s education by hiring an education consulting company started by a couple of moms that will, for just $30,000 a year, organize “professional educators to homeschool their children.” The company’s website talks about the trust that will be built up between the parents and the company. No mention about trusting the kids to learn on their own, of course; actually, it seems mostly about the needs of the parents. Not my idea of homeschooling but, then, that’s why I don’t like using the term. Posted: 2009/01/30 6:05 PM Why Does the Left Fear Home Education? – January 29, 2009 Interesting news out of the UK: Under the guise of protecting children from abuse, the government is studying its approach to home-based education. I find that illogical and insulting on behalf of all homeschoolers, given the long-term legality of homeschooling in the UK and the government’s recognition that all sorts of home-based education styles are legitimate. Although I’m not a follower of Peter Hitchen’s apparently right wing blog in the Daily Mail online and he does seem misinformed about the dominance of religious homeschoolers in the movement, there is one point about which I’m sympathetic: He suggests that the impetus for this review comes from the very growth of the movement, which makes it a threat to the educational establishment and its left wing agenda. That the educational establishment has a left wing agenda may be debatable...as is the cliché that the media has a left wing bias. But it is accurate to say that most public educators think of themselves as progressive defenders of both children and their right to an education. As a proponent of radical unschooling/life learning, I’ve always found it pretty lonely here at the left end of the political spectrum. And that baffles me. I marvel at the lack of understanding of and support for what is, in fact, a hugely progressive and radical philosophy of education…and one that could (and, dare I say, probably eventually will) be the future of public education. I wonder why progressives target problems of environment, economics, social justice and other important issues  on the public agenda, but just as fiercely defend the status quo in education. Logically, they should be working in favor of children’s and young people’s freedom of thought and movement, their right to a non-coercive and respectful education, and their right to manage their own lives and learning. I don’t get why they’re afraid to demolish the factory model of education and prefer tinkering with it and occasionally flailing at those who reject it. Maybe they don’t understand what the movement is all about, maybe – as Hitchens suggests – they haven’t bothered to look beyond the stereotypes, or maybe they are afraid of something such as the loss of employment or their identity as experts. At any rate, I will continue to try and open these minds. (And I think our new book  Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier will be hugely helpful in that quest...we just have to get it into the right  hands.) Posted: 2009/01/29 12:05 PM It’s Bad Enough That They’re Forced to Be There... – January 21, 2009 “We’re well into January, meaning kids who had been on winter break are back at school, and for marketers it’s an ideal time and ideal venue as well for reaching them.” So starts an article on Media Life magazine’s (nothing whatsoever to do with my company Life Media!) website. If you need any more reasons to keep kids out of public schools than I’ve provided over the past 35 years, this article provides one. Your Client’s Ad in Public Schools provides advice to marketers about how to subversively place ads in school buildings and successfully avoid “the many consumer groups that would just as soon see all advertising disappear from schools.” “While school advertising is closely monitored, lest it be too intrusive or deliver the wrong message, when done right it can be very effective, reaching a captive audience with little competition for students’ attention from other advertisers.” Those parents who wish to minimize the teaching of their children to become consumers should be alarmed and educated by this article. It describes techniques such as ads on free school supplies like book covers, bookmarks and locker calendars, in-school product sampling and advertiser-sponsored special events, such as assemblies or gym classes. There are even broadcast options such as ads on school bus radio and in-class TV. According to the article, popular products for this sort of advertising include DVDs, videogames, TV networks, fast food, toys and children’s books. School advertisers mentioned include McDonald’s, Disney, Wal-mart, Microsoft, Cartoon Network, Lego and the military. Because in-school campaigns have to be approved by local administrators, the author claims that is an endorsement of the advertiser, intended or not. Oh, if you want to do something other than fume, in Canada, the Media Awareness Network has a tip sheet about keeping schools commercial-free. And the U.S. organizations Commercial Alert and Campaign or a Commercial-free Childhood are just two of those nasty consumer groups that would like to see all advertising disappear from schools. Posted: 2009/01/21 1:55 PM Protecting Toys from the Regulation Monster – January 19, 2009 Here’s an irony for you. Many people have been buying children’s toys from local artisans and small companies that make toys by hand in order to avoid the lead contamination that is so prevalent in cheap, mass-produced toys outsourced to China by large toy manufacturers. However, an American law designed to protect children against lead content and other dangers in toys threatens to put those local artisans and small companies out of business. After the problematic toys began to come to light in 2007, the United States Congress rightly recognized that the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) lacked the authority and staffing to prevent dangerous toys from being imported. So, they passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August, 2008. It goes into effect next month. Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and requires toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number. On first glance, those seem like very good things, indeed. The problem is that the mandatory testing – which can cost between $300 and $4000 per toy – could drive small toymakers out of business. And now, those small toymakers (who were never part of the problem that the legislation is trying to solve) have organized to try to preserve their businesses. The Handmade Toy Alliance is a group of toy stores, toymakers and children’s product manufacturers who want to preserve unique handmade toys, clothes, and all manner of children’s goods in the USA. They say that the CPSIA simply forgot to exclude the class of children’s goods that have earned and kept the public’s trust: toys, clothes and accessories made by small businesses where the owners are personally involved in the creation of their goods. Says the group, “If this law had been applied to the food industry, every farmers’ market in the country would be forced to close while Kraft and Dole prospered.” Posted: 2009/01/19 7:05 PM Meditations on Dementia – January 16, 2009 For the last five or six years of her life, my mother suffered from dementia. The escalating – and understandable – paranoia that accompanied her increasing confusion was difficult to deal with. Polite to the end, she tried to hide it – with some success – from her caregivers, but whenever I visited, she unleashed all of her anger and frustrations on me, accusing me of stealing her money (which was safely in her bank account), complaining that her roommate was taking her possessions (which weren’t missing), sure that I was the cause of the alleged bad food in the dining room, the varying state of her bowels, the inclement weather she imagined outside her window, the noise at night and the (non) fact that the laundry had stolen all her clothing and replaced it with someone else’s. I eventually got used to it and learned not to take it personally. More importantly, I was thankful that her relatively polite treatment of the nursing home staff resulted in them developing a level of fondness for her that I am sure was reflected in their care. Although I empathized with her frustration and anger, I never ceased trying to understand the dementia that was its cause. I read many books and articles on the mechanisms of dementia, but nothing satisfied me much. Now that she has escaped this world, I am still hungry for information. My current interest has more to do with preventing, or at least stalling, dementia’s claim on my own brain in 30 or 40 years. I know about all the regular suggestions: Take antioxidants, keep the brain active, stay healthy and fit, have a social network. But I have found some additional inspiration in an article in the Buddhist magazine Tricycle, called Awake and Demented by Noelle Oxenhandler. She describes how meditation seems to delay the onset of dementia and how the practice of mindfulness might help one deal with dementia if it does arrive. Says Oxenhandler, it can allow one to “open the door to the unknown with a trusting and welcoming heart.” I do not know if it will be possible for me to experience whatever my mind is destined to undergo with kindness, grace and acceptance. But I want to try, at least for the sake of those who will care for me if dementia does end up stealing my mind. Posted: 2009/01/16 3:49 PM Pink Princess Plague – January 12, 2009 I hate pink. I’ve always hated pink. Thirty-five years ago, I dressed my baby daughters in red, navy blue, patchwork, bright green, yellow…anything except traditional girly pink. My mother and mother-in-law didn’t much like my anti-pinkness, but they coped. I must have been ferocious about it. I think my hatred came from more than just a color preference; it was about the meaning of the color. There are many traits associated with pink, but it is generally seen to be a calm, quiet, accepting, relaxing, beautiful color. Some prisons apparently use deep pink to diffuse aggressive behavior. In the early 70s, I was into rabble rousing and rebellion, not contentment and acceptance! Sure, some women are trying to reclaim the color – the CODEPINK women’s peace organization, for instance, and the Swedish radical feminist party Feminist Initiative, which uses pink as its color. But I think the stereotype is holding.  I was in a couple of department stores while my youngest daughter was visiting at Christmas and was overwhelmed by the pinkness of the toy sections and the girls’ clothing sections. An article in the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper wonders why toy manufacturers use so much princess pink in products designed for girls. Some researchers fear that young girls, brainwashed to respond to pink, are being encouraged to grow up too quickly and to become obsessed with body image and the stereotypes of what it means to be female. Sue Palmer, a literacy consultant and author of the book Toxic Childhood says that the marketing drive to force pink on girls has been so successful that speech therapists in the UK report that children can easily identify blue as just a color, but say “Barbie” when shown something pink.  The solution now is the same as it was for me 35 years ago: Go unisex in clothes and toys (cardboard boxes are great toys and they’re brown!) Ensure your daughters retain their self-esteem and encourage them to think for themselves. And if they –  like one of my daughters –  end up liking pink, at least it will be because of its color, not its stereotypes. Posted: 2009/01/12 5:54 PM January 10, 2009 The night kissed the fading day With a whisper. “I am death, your mother, From me you will get new birth.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore Posted: 2009/01/10 10:08 PM January 4, 2009 Still sorting out the daughter/mother and mother/daughter emotions and learning resulting from the death of my mother....“The cathexis between mother and daughter – essential, distorted, misused – is the great unwritten story. Probably there is nothing in human nature more resonant with charges than the flow of energy between two biologically alike bodies, one of which has lain in amniotic bliss inside the other.” ~ Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born Posted: 2009/01/04 7:35 PM The Mother Letter Project – January 1, 2009 Sorry to be sharing more Christmas-oriented stuff at New Year’s! I’m still wading through the backlog that I ignored during a few weeks of family mourning. So, as I crawl out from under my mushroom, here is a Christmas story that offers food for thought year ‘round. A guy in Arkansas created The Mother Letter Project in order to collect some letters to compile as a Christmas gift for his wife. A Mother Letter is a letter from one mother to another mother, sharing stories, concerns, worries, wisdom and joy. You can read all about it on The Mother Letter Project website. And maybe there’s a mother you can write a letter to – doesn’t have to be yours, but that would be a nice idea too, while she’s still alive. Posted: 2009/01/01 1:30 PM Return to current blog Comments? Suggestions? Email me copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2009

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