Raising Children

[Katherine]

I would love to start a chat about starting Homeschool Communities / Co-Ops / Home-crafted curriculum / information communicating with like minded folk from this group.

Here is what I am doing so far… would love to hear what others are doing or participating in to get ideas and support one another!

I am in the process of building something in a brand new community to me. So far its going well and feels encouraging! I moved to Michigan six months ago where homeschooling has been relatively normalized for a while now and there are lots of local resources. My vision is to build a community of homeschoolers in my county that are nature-based and supportive of each other on our journey. So far we meet weekly for two hours to go on a forest hike. There are currently 24 families in the group with an average of 3 kids each 😉 It’s an invite only group, but flexible for those that are on the email list to attend or not as their schedule allows.

Come fall I plan to “formalize” this group- only allowing for 20 children or so to participate- or “sign up”, so as to create a consistent community and emphasize that the hike experience is very much part of their weekly educational schedule. On the hikes we will occasionally have special guests with expertise in fungi, birds, our native ecosystem (dry forest lake dune system), and native plants (of which I am a specialist), as well as medicinal plants.

I also plan to have bi-weekly workshops at either my property or another member’s property where the children can have a four hour specific learning experience such as building something (working with wood, architecture, engineering), outdoor survival skills, farming, making medicinal plant remedies, etc.

I am so new to the community so while I know most of the parents in this group are very much wanting all of these things, its hard to say where everyone is at in terms of “how” they want to homeschool, or even some of their reasons why.

My son is only four, so we are at the beginning of this journey- but I am passionate about doing it in community. We plan to essentially unschool and follow his interest as a way to build a learning plan each year.

One question I have for those of you here homeschooling is how/when to introduce topics that I am still trying to understand myself- and don’t have answers for yet- like space, earth model, history, etc…. so far I am just keeping things simple for my son- and if he asks questions I just keep it open and allow him to sometimes come to a conclusion on his own.

As someone who was not raised with any religion or much spirituality (other than two parents who admired the natural world and crafted that admiration and wonder in myself). I haven’t even felt comfortable getting into that topic yet. But we have had an experience around it:

One day my son hiked up a tall dune and when I finally got up to the top the view was unbelievably breathtaking. We sat there for a minute taking it in and then he asked me “who made this”- it was a really beautiful moment and I shared that some say God, some the Creator, some the Divine Spirit. He decided it was the Divine Spirit, which touched my heart- that was our first talk about spirituality- it came naturally, and I want to foster more moments like this.

Would love to hear from you all around your experiences with homeschooling and raising these incredible children!

Discussion

[Dynese]

Love this! ❤️❤️

[Kelly]

Hello Katherine!

Your question is so pertinent! I am working through the challenges of introducing information that I am just now starting to grasp, to my just turned five year old son, as well as navigating the always exciting area of other mothers and their current level of awareness to such information/ truths.

As a general rule, I tell my son that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and the current mainstream culture has certain beliefs that are promoted via propaganda, for the control of slaves. You can imagine the blushing that I do when he spouts that off to his friends mothers! My favorite was when one of his friends was talking about school and Kai pipes right up and says that school is propaganda 🤣 his mother took that one in stride and said ‘well yea, I guess it really is!’ It’s really too much fun! I do have a great group of mothers who are just starting to see through some of the illusions and Kai is a great communicator of new things for them to chew on. He also refuses to play dinosaur – I don’t really know how to handle that one since I’m not even sure of it myself, but I do know that it is awfully interesting how important the normie culture makes learning about dinosaurs for little kids, so I refuse to engage it and tell Kai that even though I may not know the right answer about them, it’s always best to question things and wonder what importance they could have to mind control and also what application such information would have on daily life – like why does anyone really care about dinosaurs? How do dinosaurs impact our daily life on the farm etc…?

We mostly just spend our time working on the farm, I intend to do that for at least another couple of years without any formal lessons, following his lead. He picked math up naturally in daily life and enjoys writing simple things like names and letters. I was full on type A, writing cursive perfectly by kindergarten and I know that it stunted my right brain development so I am avoiding it as long as I possibly can by engaging in the real world instead of abstraction. None of my friends (his friends moms) seem to comprehend this, so when they’re asking me about my homeschool curriculum, I tell them that we are unschooling and just following Kai’s lead. I would rather have a child who wants to learn than one who either does it for hero cookies or resents it and avoids it later in life because they don’t see applications for what they were forced to learn. Our farm is the best school for us and Kai knows how to plant, care for and harvest perennials, annuals, trees, shrubs; he milks cows, rides horses, he also has picked up mechanics and building from his dad and can adjust his own bike seat, put his chain back on and measure and mark with a tape; this is not intended as bragging, I just want to share my experience of watching Kai develop organically as an example. It amazes me everyday.

I do wonder about how he will fit in, when so few other kids are learning this way and these things, but I know how resilient kids are and he always finds a common thread and is able to engage with other kids, albeit questioning their beliefs a bit 😅 Kai also seems to have a confidence that does not incline him to want to fit in or be like anyone else and that I believe is a saving grace which starts at home by being fully accepted for who he is and not being ‘schooled’ to learn and be anything but his perfect child self.

Hope some of this will be of use in sculpting your homeschooling experience. I’ve been taking notes during pertinent podcasts to formulate lesson plans and iron out the messages I want Kai to receive when he is older and ready for such information. I just lay foundations and stoke curiosity now. The education of children is so critical in shaping the world, I’m hopeful that this generation will have better access to the truths of this realm if only because they have much less to unlearn and stronger connection to their inner knowing and guidance.

[Katherine]

Sounds like you’re doing an amazing job Kelly! And Kai sounds like such a cool kid- I feel like my son Acer would really get along with him 🙂

We are definitely learning on the homestead as well and he has been coming to work with me since he was 6 weeks old (I have a landscape design business) so he has been learning about plants and construction for a long time now which has been a really great environment for him to just soak in life and practical things.

I agree that I wonder what its going to be like as he gets older and his friends are talking about a bunch of things that he has never heard of before! But I suppose that will be a good time to bring up alternative viewpoints and teach real compassion and tolerance for people who do not share our own.

I would love to share resources with you as the boys grow that we come across and feels helpful for their education! Let’s stay in touch.

[Mike]

Amazing work Katherine!! Sounds like you are doing it right Katherine! Provide the open scaffold for them to figure it out and intuit what the nature of reality is…they often know more than us due to lack of programming! I am going to invite Oxana to this platform. She runs the Luminary Village unschooling community program in Oakland, CA and heads up all of our programming at Music & Sky and will be a great resource for you as well! If she can’t join here I will get you her contact details.

[Katherine]

Thanks for the kind words Mike! And I would love to be in touch with Oxana- we actually just relocated from the Bay Area 😉 Funny how you leave a place and keep finding that you are still so connected.

[Michelle]

First, what an absolutely beautiful story about your work for these children. It’s truly inspiring!

As to your question, I always default to honesty. I say “hmm… I wonder!” quite a lot! I will not introduce models that I know to be false, even if/when the prevailing culture is dead set on that paradigm. Such as, virus’, the nature of the universe and our realm, etc. These are important, and tend to shape the foundational images-which later become the concept- of the little child’s view of the world and themselves. Likewise I will never take from their experience something which *I* don’t understand- and this is probably the most difficult challenge because, at least I, tend to jump to a conclusion intellectually without bothering to consider what all the bodies and perceptions of the child are seeing and feeling. Children are still more spiritually perfect than we are, since they’ve been here for far less time and haven’t deadened those senses entirely, if at all.

All in all, though, it really is up to each of us as a mother or father to pursue that path which most aligns with our own ideals. Since I do believe becoming a mother or father is a spiritual path of development 🙂

[Ari]

L

[Author]

Replies