I have COVID, so I’ll write about COVID first.
(I also didn’t proof read this post because it took a lot of energy to write and I have COVID, so there. Sorry for typos or nonsensical sentences.)
… I have COVID. It sucks. I’m on the mend but it’s in my chest and I can’t sleep and I miss my son who is staying at his dad’s until we’re all clear.
This wave of firm isolation while we wait to make sure we’re not passing anything on to other people has been harder than expected. I mean, we’ve been in relative isolation for, what is it? 3 years now? But I’m struggling with it. Likely because I’m so eager for it to be over and now we’re back at square one.
I’m consoling myself by trying to come up with homeschool activities for once we’re through this, but in doing so I actually hit another snag with my youngest son. We were dreaming up ideas about activities he’d like to do in September and the idea of baseball came up. He said he’d love to learn and I said I would try and find him a team. He looked at me a bit horrified and said “Can’t I just learn here?”
We talked for a bit about why he didn’t want to find a team to play on and he finally admitted that he didn’t want to leave the house. I let the conversation go at that, but then started thinking about Bria’s casual statement on a recent podcast episode - what if it’s all a collective trauma response to the pandemic.
And it is. It totally is. I forget that my youngest has been living in some kind of isolation for his entire memorable life. And my oldest doesn’t remember much before this all started. This is how they’re used to things now: staying home is safe, large crowds should be avoided, there’s risk out there. It’s not as though we’ve been shoving fear down their throats or even using aggressive language when talking about staying safe, but even the casual conversations around the pandemic are enough to create a subconsious feeling of fear.
And I’m sure that fear is there for all of us, but especially for young people.
So this is a reminder for you and especially for me to be gentle with each other and with our kiddos as we deal with the emotional and cultural fall out of living in some sort of isolation for the last 3 years. And this is also your reminder that the pandemic isn’t over. BA.5 is out there (and in here) and it’s no fun at all. Stay safe, loves.
I know I write a lot about screens. It’s mostly because I am conflicted over the heavy screen usage in our home. I’m assuming you all know what I mean when I use the word “screens” and the connotation of that usage: YouTube, Netflix, and video games mostly. We spend a good amount of our days with these activities. Sometimes I’m totally okay with it and see the obvious value in screens coupled with independent, self-directed learning. Other days, I get seriously stressed out when my kids struggle to disconnect or find non-screen activities that they enjoy.
It seems like there are two side to this dilemna: screens provide an invaluable educational resource, especially when you have kids like mine that only want to learn independently. Alternatively, screen-based activities are incredibly addictive and can limit access to other activities. Let’s break these two sides down a bit:
My kids are wicked smart. This isn’t a mom-bragging moment. I really mean it. They love learning, they love sharing what they’re learning about with others. My 5 year old is more culturally aware than I am. My 12 year old is better as logical puzzles and troubleshooting than I am. Unschooling has truly allowed them to explore their own passions and interests and they are THRIVING in this environment. I often say that video games are our curriculum. Along with Youtube (which is mostly youtubers playing video games), this statement is totally true. We wouldn’t be able to unschool the way we do with screen restrictions, and my kids wouldn’t have grown in to the amazing, funny, smart, aware people that they are without unlimited access to screens WITH our (my partner’s and my) acceptance of this as a valid way to learn and interact with the world.
In other words, based on our last four years of experience of unschooling, the system works.
But in some ways it hasn't.
My kids often struggle to find off screen activities that they enjoy without me pushing them to do them. Video games and Youtube are addictive insofar as they are an easy fallback that will always be an easy way to be self-entertained. It can be very challenging to find balance between on and off screen time. Which, tbh, I think it important because I think it’s important to live at least part of one’s life in the physical world.
I’ve been wrestling back and forth with the two sides of this argument up until today when I realized that they aren’t two sides of the same argument at all. They are two different truths that have to do with the same topic.
Both statements are true.
And that’s okay.
Video games and Youtube are awesome, but also addictive. As a “radical unschooling” parent, it’s a hard admission to make because the awesome resource that I’m giving my kids access to might also be causing harm. And as a “radical unschooling” parent, I thought that I had to be 2000% firm in my alternative approach to education because everyone else in the world is already telling me that it’s wrong.
But honestly, it’s okay. I’m not worried. Because we can still work together as a family to balance things out. There may be some conflict and there may be some co-regulation where we team up to try and find creative ways to solve problems, just like we always do. We’ll ride the ebbs and flows together with patience and compassion (which is legit the real secret to both unschooling AND living in non-oppressive relationships!) and focus on relationships first, even before principles and fears and what other people think.
And finally, MULTIPLICITY. That whole piece I just wrote about screens? It’s also about multiplicity: two statements that appear at odds that can actually both be true. And there’s no limit at the binary! Multiplicity looks at all the subjective truths, all the cultural relativism, all the societal implications of what forms our unique and individual knowledge base and then rejects that idea that there are binary truths, one right and one wrong.
Holy shit do we ever live in a time of binaries right now: left and right, men and women, gay and straight, rich and poor, black and white.
In this wild ride over the last few years of getting into social justice movements, anarchism, decolonization, unschooling, and the rest of it, I’ve been drawn into social media echo chambers and fought my way back out to try and find some semblence of perspective outside of what others are telling me that I’m supposed to think. I’ve rejected the right, and then the left, and then the whole political spectrum altogether.
What I’ve found lately is that there is multiplicity in this complex world and that the human desire to find firm, concrete, apply-to-all-people-in-all-situations solutions isn’t only unreasonable, it’s impossible. Beyond that, expecting academics, influencers, or authors to provide these solutions is shockingly ludicrous. These people’s truths are shaped by their lived experience and reality, from the cultural background, during the time in which they live or lived.
Obviously some of the ideas being presented by people really help frame and make sense of the world. But that doesn’t mean that you need to agree with everything that they’re saying. And if they help you form an understanding about the world and time and space in which you’re living, that’s awesome! But don’t assume that those understandings will necessarily help other people who live in a different time and space from you. And just because other people form different understandings based on their own location in time and space, that doesn’t mean that you’re wrong, or their wrong. Maybe you’re both wrong and you can learn and grow together! Or maybe you’re both right based on your own experiences. For me, this is a key concept in the idea of multiplicity, and it’s taken me a frightening long time to get here.
I still have no love in my heart for people who uphold oppressive systems, especially those that do so knowingly, doubly so for those who do so for self gain. I believe that their actions are wrong. I would hope that in a different time and space, they would also see their actions as wrong and make the choice to change their behaviour or beliefs. What I don’t believe in is limiting conversation around our different beliefs so that we can learn from each other and that’s what seems to be happening so much these days.
So with that statement, if there are “truths” that I share here that you disagree with, or even statement that make you raise an eyebrow, let me know about it. I’m always willing to listen, to explain, to debate, and to learn from you.