MY BLOG HAS MOVED

Please visit me at http://freelearners.wordpress.com

 

My Radical Idea : Let’s Get Rid of High School (Part 1 of 2)

Various ideas that have been floating around in my head over the past years came together recently in a rather dramatic “Ah-HA!” moment. It was like a mental vortex that was initially moving rather slowly, as a sluggish whirlpool, but then built up momentum until, in one moment of brilliant inspiration, it coalesced like a Big Bang into an idea that got me really excited.

This plan is based on several key ideas that I’ve been pondering for some time. First idea: mentorship. How much better it is to learn by doing then to be told how to do it. Second idea: adolescence. An artificial age construct that arose from the systematic infantalization of our youth; we keep them out of the adult world at a time when biology drives them to take on adult responsibilities and we wonder why they end up creating cultures of their own whose values sometimes clash with the adult world. Third idea: entrepreneurship. Peter Thiel offers a scholarship to college students that pays them to drop out and start a business. His premise is that you get a far better education by starting up, and even failing, a few businesses over the course of a typical college education than you do going into debt for a degree. Fourth idea: the propaganda fed to parents and students that college is the only route to success. This combines with the Fifth idea, which is that university degrees are rapidly losing their value and we should stop using them as a tickets to a job.

All these ideas came together one morning while I was lying in bed, thinking about my daughter who, at age 11, is getting close to that time when she will need to start thinking about what direction to follow in terms of her working life. Given that she doesn’t go to school, she has plenty of time to start her own business, do an internship or two, attend some non-credit college courses, or mentor under somebody she admires in a field of interest to her. I thought about all the poor schmucks in high school who have to wait until graduation to fully enjoy such experiences (and then figure out how to support themselves while doing so), and I suddenly wondered what would happen if we just got rid of high school altogether and, instead, replaced it with real experiences at real jobs. Here is what I came up with:

For the first 12 – 13 years a child would be educated in a child-led learning environment whose main goal is to allow children the intellectual freedom to discover their passions and interests, what Sir Ken Robinson referred to as The Element.

Around the age of 12-13, kids would leave this learning environment and be assigned an unpaid internship at a real business in their community. At first, they might work 3 hours a day, four or five days a week, leaving them plenty of time for extracurricular activities and, later, part-time paid employment. As the kids got older they would work longer hours until, by the time they reached 18 or so, they would be working full time.

Employers would receive significant government incentives to hire such interns (from all the money we’ve saved by not having high schools anymore), and because interns are unpaid, their costs to the employer are virtually nil. When I think of my own smallish community of about 5,000 in town and 30,000 in the surrounding area, I can list dozens of  business and industries right off the top of my head: libraries, fish farms, logging and forestry, pulp mills, lawyers, doctors, dentists, city council, civic and mechanical engineering, hair salon and spa, bakery, restaurant, farmers, dog trainers, horse trainers, couriers, bookstores, health and fitness, grocery stores, software development, tech support, pharmacists, car mechanics, butcher, well and irrigation specialists, landscapers, house cleaning businesses, livestock hauling, construction and trades (plumbers, electricians, carpenters, roofers, painters)….the list goes on. And lest you think the idea of an internship in a hair salon or gas station, for example, means just training a kid to cut hair or pump gas, think bigger: learning to run a small business (keeping the books, ordering supplies, calculating costs and profits, managing employees, etc.).

As part of the requirements for employers to get their government incentives, the interns would have to be in training, not gophers who are taken advantage of to do the tasks that nobody else wants to do. This is where the Career Consultant comes in.

Each child (intern) would be assigned a Career Consultant (CC), paid for by government using money formerly allotted to high school education. Each career consultant would handle only a few interns so that they could retain a personal relationship with each one. Their job is to be the intern’s advocate. They check in with the student weekly or bi-monthly, serve as a liaison between intern and employer, ensure that these unpaid interns are not being taken advantage of by employers, guide the intern toward the areas of work that interest him/her, and generally follow along with the student through the next five or six years until they complete the program. Ideally, the CC stays with one student throughout the course of the program to really personalize each child’s experience. This can all be done through electronic communication with some site visits. With the guidance of their CC, kids can figure out what jobs appeal to them and then focus on internships in that industry to gain job-specific skills and experience. And, of course, to network and build relationships, which are oh-so-important for getting a paid job.

An intern can request placement in a particular job if they already have an idea of what they want to do, but kids who don’t know what they’d like to do would be assigned an  internship somewhere in the community by the CC, based on the CC’s knowledge of the intern (through a thorough interview process and get-to-know-you period that, ideally, starts in the last months before entering the internship program). There would be a minimum time commitment of, say, 3 months before an intern can request a transfer, and internships would end after 6 months. If the intern liked the position they could stay as long as they wanted or maybe be moved to a different employer in the same field (my concern would be ensuring equal opportunity for all students to try out all fields). If the employer wasn’t happy with the intern’s performance, and if the CC could not help resolve this issue, the employer would have the right to terminate the internship and the intern would be placed elsewhere. If certain internships are really popular and can’t take on all the kids who want to work there, shorter terms and rotations could be arranged, but consider that employers can take on as many interns as they have employees to mentor them, so hopefully this wouldn’t be a huge issue. 

There is no competition for placement. You cannot get it based on grades, or marks assigned by employers, or by collecting any form of “currency” that gives you an advantage over other students. The intern’s performance is shared only with the CC and not with any other employers. This serves many functions. First, the current climate of high school students following gruelling schedules of work, school, and volunteer time simply to qualify for college entry is ruining their lives. In my day, I had a B+ average and plenty of time for a life outside high school, and I got into university with no problem. Today’s kids are  overscheduled and stressed-out because their entire life is geared towards beating out the thousands of other kids all competing for the same few spots in college. That is no way to live, and the minimum standards for college entry bear no correlation with the ability to be successful in college (and life beyond) anyway. Second, it keeps the playing field even, especially for kids in lower socioeconomic groups. Third, it allows kids to make mistakes and not be penalized by them for life. It may take some kids a while to learn good work ethics, or to figure out why they are not performing to the employer’s standards. The CC’s job is to help them with this and get them into another internship so they can try again with a fresh clean slate. In short, in my scenario, there is no reason for kids to get all competitive and try to gain advantages over their peers. It’s an equal opportunity playing field.

But what about the “fun” things that school provides, like sports teams, academic and hobby clubs, art education, and all those other things that, frankly, many schools have already dispensed with due to lack of funding? And, let’s be honest, schools also serve a major function as government-sponsored daycare centres. What do kids do outside of their internship hours? My idea includes using some of the aforementioned government savings on education to fund community centres. Each community would have a proper recreation/community centre/library complex that would offer such programs at minimal-to-no cost to students. Sports, art classes, club meetings, and other “extracurricular” pursuits could take place there, and it would provide a hangout for those kids who, for whatever reason, can’t go home after working at their internship (remember it isn’t full-time until the last year or so of the program).

There are numerous benefits to implementing such a plan, not just for students but for communities as a whole.

(1) This program gets rid of arbitrarily-designed curricula, useless busywork in the form of essays and homework assignments, and irrelevant, out-of-context, factoids that schools spend so much time and money trying to get kids to memorize long enough to regurgitate onto a test paper. As interns, kids would learn valuable interpersonal skills such as time management, conflict resolution, and other things that are so important when working in a business or industry with people from varying ages, backgrounds, levels of authority, etc. I don’t think school, with its age-segregation and overly-bureaucratized rule structure, fully prepares kids for this reality.

(2) More importantly, by the time kids have completed the program they have a portfolio, rather than a “report card,” which reflects nothing useful for the working world, unless you happen to land a job in an industry that consists of taking multiple-choice quizzes and writing essays on random topics. By the end of their internship, kids will have worked at a series of jobs over the last 5 or 6 years and that, my friends, is Real Life experience. Along the way they have picked up many skills, both technical and manual. They have likely figured out what job or industry appeals to them and, having focused on that industry during the last few terms or years of their internship, have now made connections in the business, have references, have accumulated the necessary skill sets, and have a solid understanding of how that business or industry runs. When they go to get a full time paid job in the industry in which they have already been participating, they don’t need to present their grade point average or report card or score on a provincial standardized test because they would have real, documented evidence of their skills. This could be projects on which they worked, products they helped design and take to market, and any other documentable task. Not to mention, at this point they would be allowed to gather references from any and all former employers who worked with them as interns. If you were hiring someone for a job in your industry, which would you rather take, the kid who has been holed-up in a high school for the last five years, has an excellent grade-point average, but little-to-no real experience with holding down a job, working for and with people, and doing pretty much anything in your industry? Or, the kid who has spent the last 3 years interning with your colleagues and peers in industry, who has real outcomes to show from real people in real businesses doing real work, and who can be judged on actual performance in the field. I know who I would choose.

(3) Youth would be integrated into the community, rather than warehoused and isolated from it. What better way to get youth involved in their community than by allowing them to be active participants in it? This giving of responsibility to kids who are old enough to handle it and who are biologically driven to seek it could possibly end the increasingly toxic social consequences of age-segregation and ridiculously low adult:child ratios, such as bullying and cliques. Not to mention the also-toxic consequences of boredom and exclusion from adult society and responsibilities, such as substance abuse, vandalism, and excessive risk-taking.

(4) It’s not just the students who benefit, but the entire community. The aforementioned community centre/library/recreation centre complexes that take the place of high school buildings would serve Everybody in the community, not just high school kids, and many more programs could be run than just those for the kids. Most communities already have such facilities in place, but for many they are badly in need of upgrading and enhancement. Smaller towns that currently lack such facilities would hugely benefit by having the funds to build one. So immediately this program would benefit communities for everybody in them, and no more battles around how best to use taxpayer money for schools.

(5) Workers would benefit by having a second set of hands to help them with their jobs and by getting mentorship training (perhaps provided as part of those government incentives I spoke of earlier). If every working person in a community had a student intern, it would ease the work load on everyone and free up more time for other pursuits. Think of the community building that could take place if people had some extra leisure time.

(6) The interns would need a transportation system to get them to and from their internships, home, and the community centre as most can’t drive and/or don’t have cars. Communities could put some of the money they save by not having high schools and school buses into boosting transportation infrastructure so that the interns can get to and from their jobs and their after-job activities. Governments could subsidize or pay for student bus/transit passes which would provide a monetary boost to cash-strapped municipal transit systems. Whether it’s a shuttle bus system in a small town or subway passes in a larger town, the adding of the entire population of high school students to the transportation ridership would definitely provide a much needed boost to their bottom line. For smaller towns and rural communities, which often lack decent transit systems due to low ridership, it would be enough to make it worth their while to invest in  transportation which, again, would serve EVERYBODY in the community, not just high school kids.

So that is the basic outline of my idea. In Part 2, I’m going to present an example of what this would look like using two hypothetical kids.

The Future of Education, Today

This post was inspired by a recent post over at The No-School Kids. It’s a wonderful, meaty read, questioning why homeschooling is rapidly increasing in popularity, and relating it to the modern, technological age. This quote gives a taste of the article:

I think these issues of technology changing our relationship to information, changing our jobs and economy, and therefore changing how we want educate our kids — these are real reasons for the growth of the homeschooling movement in my lifetime.

Reading this, I was prompted to put down some thoughts that have been percolating in my own mind lately.

The idea that the internet and the new economy are game-changers when it comes to “what your kid needs to know” is not new. In one of the most popular TED talks to date, Sir Ken Robinson highlighted the importance of creativity and the lack of emphasis on creativity in schools (the title of his talk was “How Schools Kill Creativity”).

In another popular TED talk, Sugata Mitra demonstrated that, using technology, kids can teach themselves what they need to know without the help of any adults. Here is a quote from Sugata Mitra that is particularly relevant to the subject of today’s post:

Schools today are the product of an expired age; standardized curricula, outdated pedagogy, and cookie cutter assessments are relics of an earlier time. Schools still operate as if all knowledge is contained in books, and as if the salient points in books must be stored in each human brain — to be used when needed. The political and financial powers controlling schools decide what these salient points are. Schools ensure their storage and retrieval. Students are rewarded for memorization, not imagination or resourcefulness.  – Sugata Mitra

I’m drawn to this subject because of my experiences watching my children use the Internet to learn. They approach learning in a very different way than I approached it (or, more accurately, how it was presented to me) in school. There is the ability to seek out information, yes, but then there is the ability to process it in myriad ways that were not readily available to us back in my day. Rather than a smattering of subject matter broken down into neat blocks of time that rotate throughout the week, my kids immerse themselves in a subject, exploring it in ways that are different for each child but far broader than the usual concept of read-book-memorize-facts. Their learning is more discussion-based, more exploratory, and facts are just stuff that gets stuck in their head along the way by virtue of being used and encountered frequently. Fan sites, discussion forums, YouTube channels, websites, wikis, and blog rings provide different ways to explore a topic, to turn it around in your mind and share others’ perspectives. This is idea-generating learning, the kind that is needed in order to take advantage of today’s opportunities, and those in the near future.

Learning online is not just limited to global conversations, however. Who doesn’t wish to immerse themselves in technical details when it comes to their passions? Enter the online video course. My first encounter with such a learning platform was through my own use of the Craftsy website. Craftsy offers courses in sewing, quilting, knitting, and other crafts presented in video lesson format. Lessons are broken down into separate videos that students watch on their own time, at their own pace. It’s easy to skip back a few seconds and listen again to something the student may have missed, or to see a particular technique being demonstrated over and over (using the 30-second loop function). In addition, it allows for the student to insert notes at any point in the video, which can later be used to quickly access the exact point in the video relating to that subject. Not only can questions be posted to the instructor, who usually replies within a couple of days, but students can also reply or comment on the questions. There are forums in which students and the instructor can engage in detailed discussions about any aspect of the course, and places where students can post photo examples of their class projects. With today’s technology, it is easy to snap a photo of your work, post it, and ask “what did I do wrong here?” or “any feedback?”. In my particular field of interest, quilting instructors have been around for decades, but until the availability of such courses many people had to travel to learn. The online learning platform takes accessability to a whole new level.

Recently, Miss Em enrolled in an online programming course offered by Youth Digital where students learn to program their own Minecraft Mod. This course follows the same idea as the Craftsy courses: video lessons, interaction with the teacher and other students, and includes weekly video podcasts by the host highlighting various students’ projects, etc. It is a truly interactive learning experience that the student can access 24 hours a day, whenever it suits them. The student can progress as quickly or slowly as they need. The lessons are geared toward youth, taught by a young instructor who is familiar with the current culture and language around Minecraft and programming in general. Miss Em found him funny and engaging and far more interesting than I found my Grade 11 computer science teacher to be.

My final example of online learning is the math program I’m using with Mr. Boo. Dreambox Learning presents mathematics in an interactive, video-based format that is heavy on visual representation (something I’ve always felt really enhances the presentation of mathematical relationships). Not only can students progress at their own pace through the lessons, but the program tracks the student’s progress and adjusts the experience to suit their particular needs. When proficiency is demonstrated in one area, the program moves the student through that module faster, and allows them to progress as far ahead as they are able. At the same time, if the student is struggling with other concepts, those are presented in a manner that is gradually broken down into more basic concepts until the program “meets” the student where they’re at, and then slowly brings the student through the material. This ability to completely personalize the experience for each student is one of the most impressive features of such programs and really trumps the experience in school. Ask any teacher how much they could accomplish if they had only one student assigned to them, and you don’t need to think too hard to appreciate what a difference a personalized education can make.

As a long-term homeschooler, my perspective on the current schooling system is already skewed. It strikes me as a giant, slow-moving machine, whose cogs spin with such momentum that enacting any degree of change takes inordinate amounts of time. In our home, when an educational approach isn’t working, we can try something else right away. However, when I ponder the implications of this with respect to the design of schools and what they are intended to achieve (preparing kids for adult employment and engagement with the world), it seems no mystery that the system used to educate our children is now woefully outdated.

I believe in children’s inherent drive and ability to learn, without being instructed in a “top-down” fashion (where student=passive listener and teacher=dispenser of information). However, with the availability of the Internet, and programs such as those I’ve described above, anybody who is comfortable seeking information for themselves can become “educated”. My children have only ever experienced the freedom of self-direction in their learning. They are not familiar with the concept of someone else dictating what they need to know, when they need to know it, and in what order it is all to be presented. But for children in school, this idea that learning is something that happens TO you, rather than something you MAKE happen, is still central to the pedagogy. And this is where I think they are being really shortchanged. Because in the present and future world, in the new economy, the status quo changes so rapidly that without creativity, thinking outside the box, and adaptability, one risks being left behind. Under such circumstances, waiting to be told what to learn, and how to learn it, is a significant disadvantage.

I think these online courses and programs are truly the future of education. I imagine a world where children can choose their subjects, the order in which they are presented, the degree to which they immerse themselves in each, and follow a path that, like the strands of the world wide web, can be traversed by billions of people with never the same path being followed twice. My children’s learning is already intimately connected to the language of the new economy: technology, interconnectedness, and niche environments. They are immersed in that world, that culture, those tools – as are most children –  but unlike most children, my children’s learning is also intimately embedded in that world. In many schools (particularly the lower grades) children are still discouraged from using laptops, iPads, calculators, and other devices for “real learning” (those things are considered appropriate for extra-curricular activities). Parents struggle with “screen time” and popular culture treats it as something to be feared and fought against. We have assigned Value status to that which is taught in schools, and anything else is just a temptation leading us away from Success to a life of failure and sloth. I shake my head at this attitude, given what we know about the jobs of today and where they appear to be leading us in the future.

The bottom line is this: the structure of schools is based on a system that has long since gone extinct. We are short-changing our children by presenting them with only one path to learning and success: 12 years of mandatory schooling, another several years of expensive college education, and competing for jobs with the millions of others following the same path with the same results. Massive, bureaucratic, industrial machines such as the education system cannot keep up with the rapidly changing pace of today’s economy and job possibilities. It is my hope that, by allowing my kids the freedom to follow their own learning paths, they will not have to wait to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by the new economy. By the time their schooled peers are allowed to leave the early-19th-century world of en masse, one-size-fits-all, rote-memorization education to join the Real World, my kids will already be long-term residents.

Crazy for Sewing

I’m so thoroughly enjoying my latest sewing projects. It has been a very busy week-and-a-half and I was ready to catch up on some sewing this weekend. Today also happens to be my birthday and my dear husband gave me the day off, which I spent sewing up a new project I’ve been dying to try.

Before I get to my recent batch of projects, a little while ago I made another Essential Wristlet from Dog Under My Desk (the first one I made was for my daughter). I loved this Chinese lantern fabric, and I paired it up with a yellow and red small print fabric.

I’ve been using it for my chequebook and some small knitting supplies (stitch markers, cable needles; the knitting itself I carry in my drawstring bag but the little items get lost in there).

While I was busy with back-to-back work assignments, I took mental breaks by browsing around the Dog Under My Desk site thinking about which projects I wanted to try next (I’m a bit obsessed with her stuff right now). Aside from the amazing full patterns she sells, she has a number of tutorials on her site. This one, for the Neat and Tidy zippered pouches, caught my eye because she had mentioned that she uses them for small items in her purse, which not only makes them easier to find but allows her to switch purses much more easily. I thought this was an excellent idea.

See, I  carry around a large, sturdy woven basket as a purse. It looks kind of like this one:

I love it, especially because it stands up when I put it down and it holds a lot. I can fit in my knitting, a book, snacks for the kids, wet wipes, and water bottles. But smaller things tend to get lost in there. Plus, sometimes I don’t need to bring all that stuff with me, and it would be handy if I could easily switch to a smaller bag when needed. Speaking of which, it would be nice to have a smaller bag!

So when I finally got some sewing time, I made this zippered pouch, which I am now using to carry my lip balms (I have some Burts Bees lip shimmers in different shades and my go-to vanilla mint lip balm). It measures 4″ x 6″. I’m dying to make more of these – one for my headphones, another for cards I don’t use often, etc.

 

Then I decided to try making a messenger bag. I intended to make one for Miss Em but I thought I’d try one for myself first using some fabric I already had. The pattern was a freebie from No Time to Sew (rumour has it that Dog Under My Desk is working on a messenger bag pattern – stay tuned!). It worked out fine – and I was especially proud of all the pockets – but when I tried to use the bag I found that it didn’t work very well for me. It’s too floppy (my local fabric store doesn’t carry any name brand interfacing so I’m left to guess what will work best) and the flap just seemed to get in my way.

 

After that I made another drawstring bag. I’m loving the one I already have, and have wished a few times that I had more. The first one was about 7″ W x 10″ T. This one was 9″ W x 12″ T. I have more of these planned – they’re proving to be very handy.

 

Finally, for my birthday sewing project today I made the Zip And Go bag from Dog Under My Desk. When I run into a store, like the bagel shop or the grocery store, I really just need my wallet and phone. This is the perfect bag for that. I can carry it around in my basket, then pop my wallet and phone in it, put it over my shoulder, and enjoy some hands-free shopping. (The need for such a thing became particularly apparent to me over Christmas when I unknowingly dropped my wallet, which I was carrying under my arm as I juggled some bagels, and left it in the parking lot. Thankfully, a good samaritan found it and brought it to the police station where I later picked it up with great relief and gratitude).

I’m really happy with how it turned out. Once again, Erin outdid herself with an excellent pattern that was easy to follow and very fun to make. I feel very accomplished being able to churn out such pretty and practical things with my sewing machine! It holds my wallet and phone perfectly, and I actually can’t wait to go grocery shopping tomorrow!

 

Now that I’ve discovered I don’t really like the flap-style messenger bag for a purse (I think Miss Em will, though), I’m more convinced than ever to make the Daytripper bag. I think the gusseted zipper is just what I need in a bag.

First, however, I have purchased the Bigger on the Inside drawstring backpack pattern to make a bag for each of the kids. When we go out the kids often have a bunch of things they want to bring into the car – iPads, 3DS games, chargers, etc. – and I end up giving them my cloth grocery bags. They aren’t built to be carried around easily and they end up elsewhere when I get to the grocery store. I thought it would be nice to give them each a bag. The local fabric store had a huge sale last weekend and I picked up some great fabric. Stay tuned for pictures!

Modelling Healthy Choices for the Kids

It has been several months now since Husband and I began our new health and fitness plan. Hubby has lost almost 100 lbs and I have lost over 15 lbs. I run three times per week and cycle twice a week. Hubby runs or cycles six days a week and has started doing a video fitness program at home as well. It has become just a normal, natural part of our life to count calories and weigh food as we prepare our meals throughout the day. It takes such little extra time, and the results are so very worth it.

Having been so successful in changing our own eating habits, we felt empowered to help our kids. Mr. Boo was an average-weight child until around the age of 6, when he began to gain weight. He’s now 9 years old and, while very tall for his age (just shy of 5 feet), is quite overweight, clocking in at just over 100 lbs. He likes his food, especially treats, and he doesn’t like sports. Carrying around extra weight doesn’t make moving your body much fun, either.

And so we decided to put him on our health and fitness plan. He’s watched us on our journey and we asked him about following our plan. We discussed it with him, presented the risks associated with childhood obesity, and stuck to an emphasis on health rather than looks or body image. He seemed quite keen on the idea. We started a food journal in which we log what he eats, and set a goal for him based on a calculation of his daily caloric needs (his goal is < 1650 calories per day). If he meets his goal, his reward is a miniature chocolate bar for dessert (60 calories).

We’ve been doing this for about a month now and couldn’t be happier with the results. Not only has he lost 2 lbs, a very healthy rate of loss (~ 0.5 lbs per week) but we can see that we are establishing healthy habits that will serve him well for the rest of his life. He now reads nutritional labels and makes choices based on calorie content. He helps prepare his food, weighing out the ingredients and calculating portion size. We help by presenting choices when he’s hungry, and laying out the consequences of those choices in terms of what he can eat later. He’s learning that he likes to have a big meal at the start of his day, a small snack midway, and a good size dinner. He also likes to save room for an extra dessert, and will often forgo a second sandwich, for example, for a banana and some yogurt instead so that he can have that extra treat later on. One day he announced that he wanted to eat a whole pizza for dinner and asked for help in choosing some healthy, low calorie options for breakfast and lunch.

He’s also beginning to see exercise as something positive because it buys you more calories (up until now, the word “exercise” was met with groans and protests). This evening we attended the first night of a new drop-in gymnastics program at our local community centre, where the kids get two hours of free, supervised time on the equipment (trampolines, etc). It’s one of the few activities he has always enjoyed and he was particularly pleased that all that fun meant he could have a treat on the way home from the gym (he carefully read the labels in making his decision).

To make this as easy on ourselves and him as possible, and given his extremely limited diet due to his sensory issues around food, we decided that “any kind of food goes” so long as it fits within his goals. It’s not what a lot of people would think of as “healthy” eating – it includes hot dogs and McDonalds cheeseburgers, and yet we still see that he is learning about making good food choices for his body. We’ve had a couple of interesting conversations about what a body needs to be healthy and grow, and why some foods are so high in calories while others are low. What we’ve all learned is that when you are looking to get the most food satisfaction “bang” for your caloric “buck” it pays to stay away from the really junky stuff. One bag of of potato chips, for example, is more than an entire cheese and liverwurst sandwich (despite his picky eating habits, the kid loves liver sausage). The sandwich will keep him full for some time and provide his body with protein, healthy animal fats, iron, and other nutrients he needs. But with the chips, he’ll be hungry soon after eating them, and they really only provide carbohydrates (which turn to fat if not needed for energy) and some not-so-healthy hydrogenated vegetable-based fats.

Miss Em is not officially on the plan – she is only mildly overweight and is independent enough that it would be difficult to monitor her food intake as closely. She has definitely been paying attention to what we are all doing, however, and she has expressed some interest in considering calorie content, although she is not prepared to take on calorie tracking just yet. She has made an effort to work more exercise into her week, going on bike rides or long walks to the local corner store. Kids watch what adults do and I know even if she doesn’t follow us right now, we are modelling the route to attaining a healthy weight and being fit so that when and if she decides in the future to do something about it, she’ll know how.

It’s a good feeling to take charge of your health, to be at a healthy body weight, to enjoy being active, and to feel good in your body. Hubby and I are pleased enough that we’ve been able to do so for ourselves, but seeing our son embracing this lifestyle and learning to make healthy choices for himself, is truly rewarding.

 

Holiday Crafting

We’ve taken about two weeks off for the holidays, and other than a whirlwind 3-day tour of the various grandparents’ homes, we are staying put and enjoying long, slow days with nothing planned. I have been using the time to indulge myself in various projects.

Before I get to the photos, I have to point out that my “camera” is actually a crappy old cell phone (RIP Nexus 4, which suffered an untimely death 3 weeks after I got it). The colours don’t do any justice to the pieces, so you’ll just have to imagine them brighter and bolder!

I managed to whip up a couple of gifts before Xmas. The first was a quilted wine bottle tote for my mother. Mum loves her wine, and she enjoys bringing bottles when she visits with her friends. This handy tote will allow her to carry her bottles in style, and the handle ensures they won’t be dropped. I used this tutorial from Needle and Spatula.

 

I also made a set of Xmas-themed potholders for my Mother-in-Law. These mini tumblers were too cute to resist. If I’m going to make any more of these, however, I think I’ll treat myself to a tumbler ruler to make the cutting job go faster. I used this pattern from Fons and Porter. Honestly, I regret paying over $7 (it was in US funds) for such a simple pattern: I just needed to know the dimensions of the tumbler and from that point on I could have done it myself. But it was so close to Christmas and I panicked. I felt a bit better when I realized the pattern was made by Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Company, who is also a Craftsy instructor, and one of my early inspirations for quilting (they have great instructional YouTube videos for quilting from pre-cuts).

That was all I managed to get done before we left for Xmas visiting and gift-giving. Our “big” gifts for the grandparents (we have three sets of them) were framed family photos. We did a professional family photo shoot and had them printed up. It has been years since anybody has had shots of the whole family, or good shots of the kids (both smiling, no goofy faces, everyone in focus). They were much appreciated.

Coming home it was wonderful to know I had 10 days of NOTHING ahead of me. No plans, nowhere to go, nobody to drive around. Just pure, stay-home, indulgence. We’re a family of homebodies so to us, this is a great way to spend the holidays. Me, I’m using it to indulge in lots of sewing projects and finally cross some of them off my “wish” list.

I’m super proud of this one: it’s a zippered pouch with an inside pocket and detachable strap for Miss Em. She loves to ride her bike to the store 2 km away, buy some treats, and check our mailbox (we have a rural mailbox; it does not get delivered to our home). I give her my cell phone in case she needs to call. She used to put it all in a plastic ziploc bag, but now she has this lovely pouch that she can attach to her bike basket so it doesn’t fall out.

 

I got the pattern from Dog Under My Desk. At first I had planned to just make something using a freebie pattern, but when I saw her Essential Wristlet I knew this was what I wanted to make. I have to say it was excellent and worth every penny. Wonderful illustrations and very clear instructions made the whole process smooth and frustration-free. I am so happy with how it turned out – it looks great and Miss Em was so happy with it. Needless to say I’m spending some of my own Xmas money on fabric to make a few more of these.

Another project I’ve been wanting to try is this Drawstring Bag tutorial from In Color Order. I often need a bag for bringing my knitting along with me, tossing in some fabric scraps and bobbins to match thread at the fabric store, or any other little bunch of things that need a bag. It’s so much nicer than using plastic and these can easily be made in any size.

 

The instructions were clear and easy to follow (and free!) but it’s a very simple project so even a total beginner should have little trouble with it. This would make a lovely (and useful) gift wrap as part of a present for someone. It’s a great way to use up orphaned fabric, too. I’m going to make some bigger ones for putting laundry in when travelling (not that I do much of that), storing excess fabric, and anywhere else I currently have plastic bags in use.

The next project I want to try is making fabric baskets. I have found a number of tutorials online and am looking forward to having some lovely storage options around. I’ve just purchase a very inexpensive shelving unit for the bedroom to deal with the overflow of sewing and quilting supplies, and having some pretty fabric baskets to store things in would look so much nicer than a jumble of plastic bags.

I can’t find a pattern or tutorial for these, but after I’ve done a few simpler ones I think I could pull off something like this.

Tutorial from Threading My Way: http://www.threadingmyway.com/2012/08/fabric-basket.html

I’m really enjoying sewing functional items that I can whip up in a day, that use relatively little fabric (unlike quilts), and don’t need to be stored in a trunk or hung on a wall. But rest assured, I’m not done with quilting. I ordered a bunch of wonderful patterns and when they arrive I will get started on them. One thing about small sewing projects: I find them hard to put down so I need a fair amount of free time to make them. Quilting is easier when time is short because it’s done in small steps anyway.

Enjoy the holidays!

 

Adventures in Hand Quilting

In a recent post I mentioned that I wanted to learn how to do hand quilting. I had pieced together a little dresden plate block, bought a small hoop, hand quilting thread, and quilting needles (called “betweens”), and set out to learn the craft.

To be honest, I really struggled. I simply could not get the hang of it. I started to get a bit frustrated, but felt that maybe I just needed to plug ahead and practice more. But it wasn’t very much fun and I put it aside for a while to focus on needle-turn applique instead. One day I stopped in to a quilt store and was chatting with one of the ladies who owned the shop and I mentioned my attempts at hand quilting. When she found out I was using heat-resistant batting (the dresden plate project was supposed to be a quilted potholder) she said “No wonder you are having so much trouble! I’ve been quilting for over 20 years and I wouldn’t hand quilt that kind of batting!”. So I felt a bit better after that.

I recently finished piecing a small applique project (more on that in a later post) and decided to try some hand quilting to embellish some of the applique pieces. It definitely went better than before, but still I wasn’t “wowed” by the process, and kept thinking it would be much easier, and look just as good if not better, if I just machine quilted the whole thing.

And then I had my epiphany.

I  previously mentioned a video by Sarah Fielke that I’d watched to learn the technique for hand quilting. She quilts with perle cotton, a thick and somewhat glossy thread with a corded look to it. It sounded interesting but I’d only seen limited examples of this technique and hadn’t appreciated it’s potential.

 

One day I was browsing quilting stuff on Pinterest (my latest obsession) when I came across a Pin (shown above) showing a quilt by Polly Minick from Minick and Simpson (they are Moda fabric designers who I’ve watched many times on the Fat Quarter Shop’s YouTube videos of the twice annual Quilt Market show, in particular the Moda Schoolhouse sessions where all the Moda designers get together to show off their new lines; each one is about 40 minutes long and makes a great “show” for anyone interested in soaking in quilts and fabrics; plus I got to put faces and names to all the “stars” who designed the fabrics I see in the quilt shops). Anyways, the photo shows hand quilting done with perle cotton. I loved the look and so off I went to browse Pinterest and other places looking for more information on “big stitch quilting” or quilting with perle cotton. I discovered that not only can you do some amazing things with this method, but that you can also use embroidery floss in much the same way to achieve very similar effects.

I really wanted to try this technique, so finally the other day I went out and found a few precious spools of perle cotton from the only store in town that carries them (in only a few colours) and also picked up some embroidery thread in colours that matched my applique project. I got some big-eyed needles and couldn’t wait to try this technique. My hope was that, with bigger thread and bigger stitches, this technique would be an easier start than traditional hand quilting.

Well, I’m happy to report that after only one evening of hand quilting I am in love with this technique! I will also confess my “dirty little secret” in the quilting world, which is that I have ditched the hoop. I simply could not seem to get used to it, and my stitches were really far apart and uneven. By removing the hoop I can really “fold” the fabric and get the stitches much closer together. I’m not the only one who quilts without a hoop, but we seem to be in the minority. I also took a tip from Anna Maria Horner’s tutorial and “allowed” myself to quilt one stitch at a time, rather than trying to place two or three on the needle like the “pros” do (her other great tip was don’t feel like you have to pull the thread all the way through with each stitich – why didn’t I think of that?).

Not only is this technique easy and relaxing but I simply LOVE the look of the perle cotton. The embroidery thread was also easy to work with and the look was similar but with a smoother look. The perle cotton has a more “ropey” look to it, which adds a nice touch, especially if you want a more folksy look, but since I have yet to find a local source of the stuff I will probably end up doing more with embroidery thread (the neat thing about that is you can vary your thread size simply by choosing how many strands to use, AND you can mix strand colours in one “thread” to make a neat variegated effect).

I’m so happy that I’ve found my hand-quilting groove and I can’t wait to start incorporating this technique into other projects I have in the works.

Homeschooling Update

I was going over some old posts when I ran across this one from one year ago, about my shift from self-identifying as an unschooler, to taking a more structured approach to homeschooling. I was struck by how things have unfolded since that post back in September of last year.

I wrote about how my daughter, Miss Em, had seemed to withdraw socially from our homeschooling activities:

She now avoids crowds or groups of any kind which means she refuses to join any clubs, classes, or group activities even when the topic is one she is interested in or even passionate about. Despite having a wonderful homeschooling community around us she is a part of it in name only.

How far she has come! I almost don’t recognize this description anymore. We attend a weekly homeschooling group for tweens and teens, meant for socializing, creating, and learning together. I have seen her blossom in this environment, making efforts to interact, befriend, and participate with others. She has really come out of her shell this past year and I’m so proud of the person she is becoming. She has more friends and is engaged in more group activities than ever before, and I no longer worry about her future in that regard.

In terms of homeschooling style, I did introduce a bit more structure this year, but not to the extent that I had planned. The kids are both doing math twice weekly for about 30 minutes per session. And we are doing Project Based Homeschooling, with one session per week per child, which is very child-led and unschooling friendly while, at the same time, introducing the concepts of planning, goal-setting, checking in, and monitoring progress. It’s a great balance between structure and freedom. That, and all our activities outside the home, are keeping us Perfectly Busy (as in, not too busy that we are stressed, but busy enough that our days feel pleasantly full).

I also wrote that we would be using a special tutor. That idea went out the window pretty quickly, and I have not regretted it.

Finally, I wrote this last year:

It has been very hard for me to accept that unschooling is no longer a good fit for our family, let alone the consideration that it may never have been in the first place…In a way it has felt like losing my religion. Like saying good-bye to beliefs that provided me with comfort and security but no longer fit my reality….The term “unschooling” doesn’t apply anymore.

I never did let go of the feeling that I am an unschooler at heart. I still largely self-identify as an unschooler and have not left my online community. I do use the term “eclectic” to describe our homeschooling, but it’s “mostly unschooling with a smattering of structure”. I really have to thank Project Based Homeschooling for the realization that imposing some structure didn’t have to be inconsistent with unschooling. And of course just watching my children closely, “observing for learning” as our homeschool program calls it, makes me realize just how much they are doing and learning and growing.

The truth is, I make the kids do math for many more reasons than concern that they are behind. They are both bright enough that catching up on the material isn’t difficult. For Mr. Boo, these sessions help him learn to focus – his attention span in this regard has doubled in the past year (he used to only be able to handle about 15 minutes, but now he is doing 30). For Miss Em, it’s about tackling something you feel anxious about and learning to love it again. I think of it as more related to autism therapy than academics.

All of this is to say that when I started this blog last September I had concerns and a plan to address them. Those concerns have been largely alleviated as I see the progress we have made this past year. And plans change, as plans do, as one goes along and constantly re-evaluates. That’s the lovely thing about homeschooling: if something isn’t working you can change it immediately. I’m very happy with how things are going and how the kids are doing. So, onward and upward!

Learning to Sew

Miss Em is currently working on two projects as part of our Project-Based Homeschooling approach to learning this year. Her first project is learning to sew using a sewing machine. She picked out a pattern for a pillow, which she has modified somewhat to turn it into her own creation. We had just started cutting out the fabric and sewing the larger seams when October came and she decided to work on her Halloween costume first.

She is going as a wolf this year. But not just an ordinary wolf. This is “Viper”, one of her own character creations. We are using the same pattern we used last year for her “Dragonflight” (another of her characters; a cat) costume. We could have just modified it to turn it into Viper, but she wanted to keep the Dragonflight one, so I told her she would need to make the costume (with my help, of course).

This past week we bought the fabric, lay it out and pinned the pattern pieces, and cut out the bits for the bodysuit. We finished up our session by having her sew the sleeves to the main body pieces.

I love that she is learning to sew, since I am becoming a big fan myself (having been quilting for over a year now). I think with her artistic talents she will find it helpful to be able to express herself through the medium of fabric. She has even offered to help me design a quilt!

Computer Programming with Scratch

Today was the first day of Mr Boo’s new project (for more information about Project Based Homeschooling see this post). He has chosen to create a video game using the program Scratch. He has used it before, but not much, and he wanted my help in creating a proper game. This turned out to be a great project – I didn’t realize what a wide variety of learning would be involved.

He started by importing a generic background image from Minecraft. He chose a crab to be his first character (or “sprite”, as they are called). Eventually he added another sprite, coloured the “ground”, and added an obstacle (the brown block). Here’s a screen shot showing where he left off today:

But first, he started with just the red crab and the background (the pink bar was originally white). He attempted to program the sprite to move right or left with the right or left arrow keys, respectively. However, he ran into trouble when he could not get the sprite to change direction – it just rotated about its axis instead.

I suggested we watch a tutorial and Mr. Boo searched YouTube. He chose this one by MrMattperrault that shows how to make a sprite jump more realistically by incorporating gravity and velocity changes into the motion of jumping and falling.

At the beginning of the video the narrator reviews how to make the character move left and right. By looking at the scripts Mr. Boo learned where he had gone wrong: to change direction left or right you need to set x to positive or negative numbers (the magnitude of the number is how many steps the character takes when the key is pressed). He also saw that to get a character to jump (and thus fall back down rather than just moving up higher) he needed to set y to positive and negative numbers (with a slight delay in between).

The main topic of the video was how to get a character to jump realistically – in other words, incorporating acceleration due to gravity. Mr Boo immediately wanted to try this, and so he copied the scripts from the video. Not only did he get a lesson in physics about why things bounce, but he was introduced to the concept of velocity and how that relates to gravity for the sake of programming movement. And, he was also introduced to the concept of conditional phrases: “if/then”. Finally, he learned that multiplying anything by -1 changes it’s sign (and thus, in this case, the direction of motion). Here is a script that causes the character to drop onto the ground:

Basically this says if the character is touching the colour blue (which was the ground in the video demo) then it needs to stop moving, and if it isn’t touching blue (the ground) it needs to fall. Mr Boo programmed his sprite according to these directions and, at first, the character wouldn’t move. With some assistance from me, we figured out the problem. There was a white rectangle along the bottom of the background, and we’d programmed the sprite to stop falling when it touched white. However, there is also white in the sky so that’s why the character wasn’t moving. When Mr Boo changed the ground to pink it worked.

Before wrapping up for today he added a second character and a block to jump over. He’ll program them next Project Time.