The Rhythm of Our Days

Ah yes…she’s not always that quick on her feet but eventually she gets it! ;-).

That’d be me, of course.

Over on The Lilting House,  Melissa blogged again about Tidal Homeschooling and how it allows her to embrace the best of two schools of thought on education for the benefit of her children: Charlotte Mason and Unschooling. I myself have had a recent disillusion regarding Unschooling, or more appropriately…Sandra Dodd’s particular interpretation and representation of  the idea, mindset, and practice (the truth of which will not be found on her website but must be discovered through interaction with her).  To be more precise, I  now question and doubt her representation of  it  in the face of  her inability to afford other adults the same courtesy, respect, and  space that she  claims we should  all give to children.

ANYWAY. We exchanged comments for in brief under Melissa’s post. Why? Because I feel compelled to “blow the whistle” on someone who has chewed up women before and gets away with it. And, because she tried to represent my experience on her list Always Learning (yahoogroups), which she did incorrectly, and I straightened the record. She also, in my opinion, grotesquely insulted the host of that blog, Melissa, by inferring she is less than “fully committed” by not being a whole-hog unschooler.

So that is where I was today. Sweeping the floor, rearranging my day to flex with sudden events, getting some soup in the crock pot, and trying to be open to whatever else surprises come my way today, when BAM! That’s when I had my epiphany.

I am not “fully committed” to unschooling (duh; never claimed to be).  Melissa is not either, by her own testimony. What I AM is fully committed to my CHILDREN; not one person’s interpretation of a philosophy.  And THAT is why I still have an open issue with Ms. Dodd. Her insistence in a puritanical view towards one philosophy reeks of a sort of twisted and rigid fundamentalism, quite ironically, that can do nothing but crumble apart when met with real life strains, stresses, situations, differences, and individuals. Children with special needs? Mom with a need or two? Well, according to Ms. Dodd, that flies in the face of true unschooling and must be questioned, challenged, and changed.

Well, so there it is. I’m too busy today to continue on to verbalize my “ah-ha”. My children, some who are needier than others today, are calling. THEY are my priority and I’ll not cram them into anyone’s box.