words & moves

What I'm trying to get across is that these are not your typical dance & music classes.  Hermione brings some fun games to the mix and the kids enjoy every minute with her.

Just to share a few more snippets of class:

Here they are playing a version of improv freeze dance (no, they are not too old for it, as you can see) where when the music stops they have to jump on a letter.  Then she asks each of them for an adjective that begins with that sound, which she writes down on a list on the wall.  They get really excited and help each other when needed. 

 

Then they have a list of words to play with, and they take turns putting them together in sentences to create a whimsical collaborative story which they each then perform for one another.

      

 

 They also worked to come up with a short rhyming poem about themselves - realistic or fictitious - and performed it on video, dramatizing it with their bodies.  Then they got to watch each of the videos afterwards.  They loved this and were really cracking up and giving each other performance feedback.

 

They finished up with more improv, playing something kinda like musical chairs, except with scattered letters where each round, there was one less letter than the number of people, and they were eliminated one by one.  They were supposed to play fair and not 'hover'...

Words & Moves, Numbers & Grooves

   Our homeschool performing arts intensive at Joe's Movement Emporium in Mt. Rainier began this past Monday, which I am really psyched about. Hermione & I both incorporate a lot of improv into these classes so that's a big part of what you see here. I love the contact improv pics.
   Working with the fabulous Hermione Rhones, we are weaving poetry, dance/movement/gesture, ballet technique, choreography collaboration, hand percussion, foot percussion, aka hoofin', aka tap dance, and experiential math - and having fun to boot.
   Did not get any pics of Moves & Numbers / Contemporary Ballet this time... Next week.  These are phone pics (not my professional photo work! ;)
   I really enjoy having all ages in my classes, breaking down generational barriers and seeing mommas learning alongside their kids.
   If you are reading this & know anyone who might be interested, please help spread the word! We are not yet at our minimum to cover costs for a full session, but hoping to build enough momentum to see this program flourish!
   For full details, see the class page at boundlessworkshops.com .
   Oh, and my sweet big girl was feeling under the weather and wound up needing a nap part way through the day so she laid down with her little brother .  ;)

Mixed Media Stories

   Gesture drawings! We began the first of our 12-week session with gesture drawings, to loosen up and help train the hand and eye to work together.  You try to capture the energy in a person's gesture - drawing them while they are frozen mid-movement, looking for mass, tension, weight placement - using a scribbling style of drawing rather than a sketching style, moving quickly, completing each gesture in a minute our two.
   Then we will make up a story or poem to go with the series of gestures and finish these pieces off next week.
   I love inspiring others via the arts!

Art of the Self Portrait

   Fun fun!
   Today was the first of a 12-week session I'm teaching for a cool, large, well-organized homeschool co-op.  This is the teens class, joined by Cathy who has graciously offered to assist me for my two Friday classes.

   We began with blind contours, partial blind contours, and then a more illustrative style which we are then painting (to be finished next week).

healing foods

I wanted to share this article on healing foods. These are just a few of course. A healthy diet should be comprised of 75% alkalizing foods and only 25% acidic (which means things like meat or fish, and most grains are also acidifying). Eat as many fresh, organic fruits and vegetables as you can every day. To your health!

www.finerminds.com/health-fitness/self-healing-foods/

exploding sidewalk art?!

This looks awesome! Came across it on Facebook and thought I'd share. Corn starch and baking soda are good for all kinds of projects huh?

Exploding sidewalk art on Growing a Jeweled Rose.

speak from your heart

A tender moment, nursing Diin.

When babies are having their milk, they usually want to work their hands with something, whether it's twiddling (which drives me nuts, and I redirect), pulling at a necklace, grabbing clothes, or, in my case, play with mommy's moles. I have a lot of raised moles, and all the kids, especially the boys, have been pretty interested in them.  'Mole' was Phoenix's first real intentional word.  Pushing on them like a button, running them over and over, trying to pull them off... drives me a little nuts too sometimes.

Sometimes though Diin starts pinching me, grabbing me, and sometimes kinda grabbing my throat, which can make me feel a little uncomfortable.  Tonight though, as soon as he did it, something in me relaxed, and the idea came that he was trying to tell me something. I relaxed and felt an energy exchange between us, felt my throat relax, my throat chakra open, and then he put his hand on my heart chakra. Then he did it again, grabbed my throat then touched the heart.

And the message came to me, use your voice to speak truth, speak from your heart.

another absolutely fabulous TED talk with Sir Ken Robinson

Ah yes. Another piece of brilliance from the amazing Sir Ken Robinson: How to Escape Education's Death Valley. In this TED talk, he "outlines 3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish." Another nomination from me for Ken Robinson for president! Yes, President of the U.S.! I would love that.

Seriously. Twenty minutes here, do yourself a favor and watch it through to the end. He presents a really amazing and beautiful metaphor at the end that touched me. I would love to hear your thoughts.

things to remember about learning

Education reform is still a hot topic.   More and more people are waking up to the idea that something is just not quite right.  Unfortunately, I feel that alot of folks are missing the mark.  As stated by Sir Ken Robinson in his TED talk that I shared in a past post, at this point, what we really need is not simply reform, but a revolution in education.  Like so many facets of our culture, the current model for the education system is based on institutionalization that began roughly one hundred years ago, and it is outdated.  I think if more people were aware of how institutionalized education came about, and what its true main purposes were - largely, to serve the purposes of the Industrial Revolution - then they'd think twice about the system that has come to be accepted as the norm.  John Taylor Gatto paints the picture quite clearly in his book (which you can also read online, chapter by chapter if you wish) The Underground History of American Education.

There is this "Waiting for 'Superman'" movie that came out last year - see trailer and Q&As here: http://film.waitingforsuperman.com/videos

I'll reserve full conclusions until having seen the film, but having watched the promotional videos, I'm not sure if they're really asking the right questions. 

What is 'success' for our children?!



What we really need to ask is,
What makes for a successful learning experience?  Isn't that supposed to be the point of sending our children to school?

Another amazing independent film came out that addresses some really valuable issues with the current system and the question of redefining success, and I will reiterate my recommendation to view it, one way or another, and that is Race to Nowhere - found at racetonowhere.com. I wrote about this film, which I covered as a member of the press, in a previous post.


Ten Fundamental Truths About Learning
by

William A. Reinsmith
Professor of English
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science

Many of these points are at the heart of the unschooling philosophy.  I'll lay out the 10 points he makes; unfortunately the link I had originally where he expands upon these points is currently not working, but you get the gist:


"1. Learning first takes place through osmosis....
2. Authentic learning comes through trial and error....
3. Students will learn only what they have some proclivity for or interest in....
4. No one will formally learn something unless she believes she can learn it....
5. Learning cannot take place outside an appropriate context....
6. Real learning connotes use....
7. No one knows how a learner moves from imitation to intrinsic ownership, from external modeling to internalization and competence....
8. The more learning is like play, the more absorbing it will be-- unless the student has been so corrupted by institutional education that only dull serious work is equated with learning....
9. For authentic learning to happen time should occasionally be wasted, tangents pursued, side-shoots followed up....
10. Tests are a very poor indicator of whether an individual has really learned something...."


As a member of the media, I had the honor of photographing President Obama during his first year of presidency, when he gave an address on education at Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA, one of my home towns. Below, I share some of what he had to say. And I hear him, stand up, be responsible for yourself, don't be a victim of circumstance. But he is putting all of the honus on the youth, when it is the standardized institution of education being pushed from top down that is a big part of the problem. And now, over four years later, are we any closer to re-defining education in a way that inspires more kids to succeed rather than give up? What would happen if the system as a whole could really be organized in such a way to incorporate these ideas of 10 Fundamental Truths About Learning, and to recognize multiple intelligences - different learning types? What if we put power and creativity and inspiration back in the hands of the teachers and allow them to explore with their students, to discover what they are interested in and passionate about, moving away from standardized education to a more customized approach that gives kids more autonomy over what and how they are learning, and relies more on portfolio assessment than standardized testing?


"And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it....

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork....

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying. 

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. 

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America."

aura tickles

Beautiful little Boo Diin. I did a spontaneous series of aura sweeps and he loved it - started giggling and saying 'maw...' (which of course means more), again and again.

Did you know you can tickle your child without even touching them?

born artists

after nature center class

(This post has been stuck in draft for TWO years!  SO much has changed since then, including the addition of the third artist child, Takoda Diin!  Publishing this as-is, with a to-be-continued... ;)

My children are born artists. It's really amazing to witness. I'm not just saying that or pushing it on them because I'm an artist, it's just totally natural to each of them in their own ways, part of the fabric of their being. I'm sharing this story as an example of what happens when you follow your kids' lead, from as early as possible, observe, see what they're into, let go of convention, and really give them time and space to go with it and explore themselves and their world. I think some of my biggest lessons as a parent have been letting go of control - you have to pick your battles, and so many are just not worth it; learning to say 'no' (I was never very good at that - sometimes it's necessary); and learning when not to say no, to say yes as much as possible.


Phoenix (my 3-yo son) has always had such an interesting spatial relationship with his world. When he was a baby, if he got in a fussy mood (which was not often, except for one period of about a month when he was cutting teeth and was inconsolable in the middle of the night), accidentally we discovered that he love to be upside down. He was fussing, crying, carrying on, and his Baba held him upside down like a bat, and he was happy. He stopped and was quiet. He loved it.

Then, he didn't crawl much; he would scoot around on his butt, backwards especially, usually with one leg out rather than on hands and knees. Once he could stand well he would climb to the highest point in the room, as often as he could. He walked a good 15 steps one day around 11 mos. when we were at the TaeKwonDo school and then wouldn't do it again for a month. He learned to walk just after his 1st birth day when my mom was visiting and she said, "C'mon Phoenix, walk! You just do this, waddle like a penguin." And he just took off after her, waddling like the little grandson penguin.

my painted boy balancing blocks at the American History Museum

He went through a phase where he was constantly a painted boy. Marker on his face, kinda like a warrior, and he always had to do his nipples and his belly button and his arms too. Or he would draw all over his chest. He had to have the Aang arrow (Avatar The Last Airbender) on his forehead for a few months straight. And when his hair was short, he had to have the arrow extend up over his head and down his back, and had to have the arrows on his hands and feet too. Attention to detail. Convention would say "No, don't let him do that. He can't go out in public like that!" Why not? Who really cares? He's a little boy that wants to decorate himself. It's not hurting anyone, including him! What would hurt him is if I made him feel bad, guilty, or like he did something wrong.

doesn't want to come down!

Then, as he's gotten older, he still loves to climb, and is quite good at it - I'm very confident in his climbing skills. He can scale a fence up 9 feet at least, and would go higher if the fence is tall enough and someone would follow him up there (because of the adults' fear, not his). Definitely no fear of heights. He does things when we're out and about that make people cringe sometimes, like "He's 3! Aren't you afraid he's going to hurt himself?!" But I just watch him calmly, knowing that he has the situation under control. He's not reckless, but brave and assured.

nakey boy wrestlin' with papa in the backyard

He love love loves to wrestle and 'fight' with his dad, and anyone else that will humor him. His dad is his favorite because he can really test his strength and go at it as hard as he wants, knowing that Daddy's Tough and he can't hurt him. He knows when to be gentle and make it a lot of show with little impact. He goes at it in total fun and is so conscious most of the time of who's on the receiving end. He's smiling, laughing, and squealing in delight. He is my peaceful warrior, usually. He most certainly has a temper which flares from time to time though. Then, look out. I'd say his 9-yo sister, unfortunately, is the most frequent recipient of that type of outburst.

He's developed an interesting relationship with objects. He shows a very natural knack for sculpture without any prodding or suggestions from me whatsoever. He just does it instinctively.

When we are at the river (any river - we're river people) he will collect and arrange sticks in a fashion somewhat reminscent of an Andy Goldsworthy installation. He might stick them in the ground in two parallel lines, making what appears to be an old abandoned ribcage of an animal beached in the mud. (If you're unfamiliar with Andy Goldsworthy, he's an amazing 'earth artist' who creates mostly ephemeral land art. If you have Netflix, his movie "Rivers and Tides" is available for instant play, here. Check him out!)

'drawing' with blocks

He will use objects including various shaped building blocks to make lines on the ground, and he likes to build very tall lego block towers just so that he can knock them down. Convention might say, "But wait, you just built it! Why would you knock it down?!"

When I started getting Play-Doh for him, his first instinctive use for it was to wrap his "guys" (the super heroes and other characters) in it. He completely covers them with the Play-Doh, bit by bit, often using his body to smush it onto them well by standing in his chair and leaning on the guy with all his weight, pressing his belly against it to make sure that it's really well stuck. And then, after a while, he'll take it off, and it can go back into the container. He also pretty quickly manages to mix most of the colors together. Convention would have him trying to make a cat or a dog or something, and of course, you mustn't mix the colors all together! God forbid!

a Batman Masterpiece who's missing at the moment :(

When I offer him paint to use, he's not really interested in painting on paper. About a year ago when he was 2 and a half was probably the first time paint was offered to him and he wanted to paint one of his brand-new Batmans. Convention would say "No! You can't paint on that! It's brand new! If you paint on him, it's not going to come off. You're going to 'ruin' him." But hey, what the heck? Who cares? He wants to enhance Batman's appearance. And does so quite well. Now the "guys" have become real works of art. Some of them look soooo cool, they have so much character, with this kind of weathered look. What he likes to do is paint them, and then wash the paint off, sometimes almost immediately after. Now, sometimes he leaves the paint on. And guess what, he uses my (gasp) expensive paints - my acrylics and nice gouache (high-quality watercolors), or the window art paint, which dries like colored translucent plastic. At first, I struggled with "Oh Phoenix, but you're wasting it!" Especially since he would slather it on and then sometimes just wash or peel it off right away. There it goes. Down the drain. But then I thought, Well, small price to pay for his fun, joy, happiness, learning, exploration, and freedom. Big deal. I'll buy more.

Now, there's Adobe. My first born. My thesis project. And my only girl.  Also a true artist.  And considering that two years has passed since I started this post, and this is where I had left off, there's so much more to tell now, so I'll have to dedicate a whole 'nother post to her, soon. To be continued...

spirals...

Lost City found in Kalahari Desert ?

i love art works

There is a really great art studio / school / gallery in our neighborhood called art works. $5 classes! It's in walking distance of or house! Great teachers, great folks, great vibe. Love the place.

Today we went to the fiber arts class. We often take our neighbor friends, Rebecca and her sister Stephanie. The kids learned basic weaving, on three straws. They each made something resembling a belt or headband. They are so cute. Phoenix didn't go with us today, but he loves to make pipe cleaner and yarn guys there (or direct me in making them ;) kinda regardless of what the set project is .

Ummm, did I say how much I love the place?

you never know until you're doing it

'Homeschooling' - it's just like parenting in a way.  Well, of course, it is a special subdivision of parenting, if you wind up finding yourself going this route, taking this very special road....

What I mean to say is that before you have kids, you have this idea of what parenting will be like, what your kids may be like, what you think you will do if certain situations arise, what your life will be like living with children, what 'type' of parent you will be, how you will handle issues like discipline, how you will do things differently from your own parents, and so on.... But the fact is, you just really don't know until it happens.  You have all these great ideas, maybe you have read some books, blogs, articles, talked to other friends who do or don't have children, but you really just don't know until you are right there, in the thick of it, in the gloriously messy mixing bowl of family life, figuring it out as you go along.

Without digressing too far into this tangent which could be a whole 'nother post, (and in fact, I think has been...) I will just say that I was raised in a very unconventional way, by a single father whose attitude about childrearing was expressed thus: 'Everyone thinks your whole life has to change when you have a kid, but that's not true.  There's nothing to it!  You just clothe it , feed it, give it love, and go on with your life!'  This was my attitude going into parenthood also, at age 28.  Well, I was in for a big surprise.  I did manage to sustain that perspective to a certain degree for the first couple of years, but of course, things did change.  Undeniably so.  Sooo much has changed in my life over the past 11 years of parenting.  

To return to the original point of my post, before I ever had children, I had an idea that I wanted to homeschool them, for a variety of reasons.  But in my mind, it looked very neat and compartmentalized compared to what it is now.  For one, I visualized a possible scenario in which we would be involved in some type of co-op with 4 other families, and that the kids would rotate houses, which would give each responsible parent one day on and 4 days off to work, freelance, or whatever their needs dictated.  This is part of how I envisioned I would be able to 'afford' doing this as a working artist of one sort or another.  The group of kids would all be together, each day of the week, but under the supervision and tutelage of a different parent each day.  Sounds nice.  Having lessons in various subjects, with each responsible parent getting to focus on their area of strength with the kids, complimentary studies happening....

Well, the fact is that it's difficult enough to even get a co-op scenario to gel for even one day a week, for a number of reasons.  For one, part of the reason most people homeschool is because we actually want to be with our kids all day, or most of the day, pretty much every day.  We formed and sustained a co-op with a few other families that lasted for a couple years (see previous posts) that was really fabulous, and it started off with the intention of being a swap-off situation so that each of us would have a chunk of time most weeks to do some work or whatever we needed to do, but that rarely happened, because we just enjoyed being with our children, each others' children, and each other so much that we just all stayed together most of the time, swapping off responsibility and who would host and give the kids a lesson that week.

And there are so many activities and classes offered for homeschoolers that the kids would miss out on if they were committed to being at someone's house 5 days a week.  Which leads me to why I place 'homeschooling' in quotation marks to begin with.  Homeschooling is actually a bit of a misnomer for most of us.  I tend to refer to what we do instead as 'lifeschooling' because working or 'schooling' at home is only a portion of what we do, and in fact most of our at-home 'lessons' do not really resemble school at home (again, another post).  There is also 'carschooling' (all homeschoolers know this ;), when we are going from place to place, and doing our Spanish lessons - Pimsleur approach to conversational Spanish, or singing, or listening to classical music, jazz, blues, quizzing from 5th grade Brainquest cards while at stop lights, making up stories, and so on.   That's in between our Museum class that I'm teaching, our art classes, Earth Champs meetings, writing class, Shakespeare rehearsal, and so on....  Then there are other real-world experiences like going to the bank, the grocery store, thrift store, comparing prices, budgeting, going to more museums, nature walks, historical tours, bike rides, other field trips... it's boundless really.  That's a big part of where the inspiration of the name for my businesses came from, this overall attitude that
We Can Do Anything We Want.

Reading this, school-going families may think, 'well yeah, of course, we do a lot of those things too.'  Yes, you do.  As homeschool families, we are held accountable (in most places - it depends on where you live, and varies) and called upon to show evidence of learning, thus we may come to value these real-world experiences in a different light as we begin to see the learning opportunities inherent all around us, every single day.

My original point is that homeschooling, or lifeschooling, like parenting, is a beautiful, unfolding, sometimes chaotic, sometimes harmonious, ever-changing process with twists and turns, revelations, successes and failures.... And just when you think you have it all figured out, that you have found 'a way,' life will throw you a curve ball just to keep things interesting, and you have to try again, change it up, find a new way.  Some things change, some things stay the same.  There is so much more to education than schooling.   

Until next time....

'Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.'
-Yates

wise words of Pema

Wise and timely, as always. A reminder to be open.
Moving out and about sometimes in DC, I am struck by how unfriendly and unhappy some people are, but I remind myself not to take it personally, and I keep myself open to them, to just touch someone's heart, a stranger, by acting toward them in a simple way from my heart, something seemingly small like a smile or a kind word, or even a simple hello. Sometimes you see or feel something moving in that person.

from Weekly Heart Advice from Pema Chodron for today:

THE BEGINNING OF GROWING UP

Opening to the world begins to benefit ourselves and others simultaneously. The more we relate with others, the more quickly we discover where we’re blocked. Seeing this is helpful, but it’s also painful. Sometimes we use it as ammunition against ourselves: we aren’t kind, we aren’t honest, we aren’t brave, and we might as well give up right now. But when we apply the instruction to be soft and nonjudgmental to whatever we see at this very moment, the embarrassing reflection in the mirror becomes our friend. We soften further and lighten up more, because we know it’s the only way we can continue to work with others and be of any benefit in the world. This is the beginning of growing up.

giving thanks for T Din & meditation

Wed., 25 Jan.:  I give thanks for Takoda Din.  (That's my 3rd and final child, and if you haven't met him in person and are wondering, Din is pronounced 'Deen'. ;)
     The most amazing baby ever.  Ok, I know I'm not the first parent to boast such a proclamation.  However, I will just say, as I probably have here already, that I am so incredibly grateful to have such an 'easy' baby, especially considering how difficult the pregnancy was.  I think if after all I went through in carrying him, he was one of those babies who fusses and fights all the time, I just might lose it.  My heart really goes out to those parents (& the babies themselves) who are dealing or have dealt with that.  I have heard the stories of the babies who cry, inconsolably, practically all day long, and I just can't imagine. He is a pure joy and delight, and I feel truly blessed.

Tues., 24 Jan.:  I give thanks for meditation.  Perhaps the most grounding influence in my life.  Not always easy, sometimes torturous, sometimes pure bliss.  When I manage to keep a regular practice, days begin to have a different quality.

New Beginnings

To pick up where I left off, oh-so-long-ago, I am thankful that I can begin again. 

Any time, any place, any day, any hour, until the moment of my last breath in this body, I can reset, start anew, look at life or any particular situation with a new perspective.

It's been almost a full year since I wrote last, when I set out with the endeavor to write down each day at least one thing for which I'm thankful.  That was a real challenge to stick to, and I didn't make it past the first month of 2012, although I will say that I do give thanks for many blessings in my life every day.

2012 was full of many challenges for myself and so many people I know.  One thing that has been tremendously helpful for me, when there are things happening in personal life that seem so absolutely overwhelming and at times hopeless or impossible, is to shift perspective out of my own personal little life into my universal self, my higher self, and connect with the suffering, and joy, of my fellow humans, feel compassion, empathy, and releasement, and look for beauty around me. 

There are also two books that were my main 'sustenance' for 2012 and aided greatly in such a difficult time of transition and nuttiness.  I highly recommend them both for any & all of my human family:

Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
and Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. 

I will not attempt to write a book review here or summarize the benefits of either of these books.  I'll just say you should really check them out!  Great reminders, great affirmations, great practical advice especially for when times are feeling really tough.