Issue 4: The Unschool Files ZINE

Issue 4 December 2022

this zine is a labor of love that is ︎ very much in need of funding to keep this project sustainable. ︎ ︎ If you have acquired this publication outside of purchase, please send a donation of your choice to ︎ PayPal/ theunschoolfiles@gmail.com or Venmo/ @iamsilenth︎ ︎

︎ the contents have been︎

collected + curated by meghan, the host of The Unschool Files Podcast︎ ︎

Tom’s Famous Apple Crisp This infamous family favourite is Tom's favourite dessert to make for any gathering or shared meal up in Ontario, Canada.

Ingredients 3-4 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup oats 1/3 cup butter, melted 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg 3/4 cup brown sugar

To Prepare1. Preheat oven to 375C 2. Layer apples in a non stick pan.

3. Mix all over ingredients in a bowl and sprinkle over the apples.

4. Bake for 40 minutes.

5. Serve warm with ice cream, table cream, or both

"Hi my name is Bella. I’m 9 and unschooled, I'm from the UK Cornwall and this is my first time drawing realistically! This is my first time drawing eyes."

Elleni, 13 unschooling for 2 years Interests include art, crafting, mushrooms, plants, sewing, animals, dying my hair, squishmallows, my friends + lgbtqia graphic novels.

I like that unschooling gives me the freedom to learn what I want and not have to do anything I don’t like.

I like to describe junk playgrounds as "little lands of youth liberation." They are safe spaces where young people's play is protected and prioritized. Since junk, by definition, is worthless to adults, young people innately feel the ability to use it in any way they want without needing to ask permission. These kinds of playgrounds began during World War II and have a long history of practice in what is called "playwork." Playworkers (a playful and intentional oxymoron) are the adults who work on these playgrounds. They are trained to help watch out for hazards but step out of the way of risky play.

This summer at the Summerhill Festival of Childhood Philipp Klaus, Sonia Khost and I volunteered to run a junk playground for the young people attending the centennial celebration of the Summerhill School in Suffolk England. Eager young festival attendees awaited us at the gate of the playground each morning and spent joyful days with their own imaginations in a field of junk. We also ran a playworker training in support of Ukrainian refugees and the surrounding area that continues online this winter.

-Alexander Khost

Youth Rights AdvocateEditor-in-chief of Tipping Points Magazine, co-founder of play:groundNYC

Screens Screens Screens

By Dr. Naomi Fisher, Clinical Psychologist and Author of Changing Our Minds When parents talk to me about gaming and screens, it’s always about fear. ‘Will they get addicted?’ they ask me. ‘I can’t control my own use, how can a child do it?’. They want me to tell them how to control their children’s screen time without conflict, how to tell them to switch it off without it turning into an argument.

There’s so much fear that we have no time to talk about the benefits.

So here are some of the things I see.

I see children who don’t feel competent anywhere else in their lives, feeling good about themselves when they play video games. I ask them about their gaming and they come alive. I download the games myself and we chat about strategy.

They often can’t believe an adult is interested. I see young people who are really isolated, starting to make connections through online gaming.

They can start by in-game typing and then move into voice chat. The shared game takes the pressure off, and they can relate.

I meet young people who can regulate their emotions with their tablet, taking some time out in their day to put on headphones and sink into their safe zone, meaning that they can carry on afterwards. It’s such a useful and portable way to take some time out. All that’s necessary is for the adults to understand why it’s important, and to help them find a space to do so.

I do also see young people whose lives are difficult, and they use gaming to avoid their thoughts and feelings. Their parents worry & start to put in bans. The thing is, the gaming is the solution they’ve found, not the cause. Bans won’t solve that, and they can drive wedges between parents and children. It’s the difficult life we need to change, and one way to start is to nurture the relationships with their parents, and to build on the things which are good.

I meet many parents who say they have no idea what their children do on their devices, that ‘screen time’ is time for them to get on with other tasks. They treat screens in quite a different way to their children’s other passions. They don’t see it as worthy of their time.

Some of them will say they refuse to pay for games, meaning their children are only able to play ‘free’ games which are advert-heavy and whose game play is usually skewed towards having to buy gems or crystals. This means young people are stuck playing games which are designed to make them spend money, whilst not being able to spend money. A situation designed for frustration. A small amount of money on a high quality game can be well worth the cost.

When I suggest to parents that they spend time with their children on screens, they return surprised. ‘We had no idea that they were doing so many things’Or ‘they are building games or learning how to code’.

It’s not longer the ‘screen time’ bogeyman, it’s real life.

For there’s more to this than games and screens.

How we talk about our children’s passions affects our relationship with them. When we demonise screens, we risk demonising the things our children love. We denigrate their choices. We give them the message that the things they value aren’t worth the time, that they can’t be trusted to make decisions.

When we instead join them, we give them the message that we are interested in the things they enjoy.

Even if we aren’t interesting in gaming, we can be interested in our young people and what makes them come alive. We can value the joy.

We can learn to play Roblox, or Brawl Stars, or Minecraft, and appreciate the connection that that gives us with our young people. We can ask about their progress and about their new game. We show that we are interested in them.

And from that seed, other things will grow.

You can find more essays by Naomi at Naominaomicfisher.substack.com

this space is youth led and organized, with a couple of adult moderators that can be called on for support if/when needed.

The Dragon Portal

By Q

Q is a repeat artist that has shared her art with us before, and is now a commissioned partner who designed a sticker available for purchase on theunschoolfiles.com/shop/

Unschooling in the Bay Makeba (she/her), Soliheen (he/him), Kalel (he/him, age 9) and Xyla (she/her, age 7)

We live in Fremont, CA on Ohlone land, with our two puppies: Cocoa (10 month old Cavapoo) and Bubble (4 month old Cavachon). We moved to the Bay Area from the UK in 2019 with Soliheen’s job, and were fortunate to find a local unschooling community before COVID hit. That community has helped to nourish and sustain us throughout the pandemicboth virtually and in real life.

We transitioned into unschooling early on, after a year or so of project based homeschooling when Kalel was 4-5. It works well for our family to have a daily/ weekly rhythm rather than a schedule, which allows space for structure that suits our needs to emerge organically.

At the moment, every day will typically include dog walks and lots of screen time, and every week will include park day and swimming with friends.

Outside of these regular commitments, there is room for impromptu play dates, field trips, and downtime at home.

Many of our day to day conversations at home center around interpersonal relationships and socio-emotional issues, which segue naturally into conversations about wider social justice issues.

We (Makeba and Soliheen) are the British-born children of Caribbean immigrants, who ourselves have now become immigrants to the US, so decolonization work is central to our ongoing deschooling process. For us, over the years, this work has shown up in all areas of our lives e.g. leaving religion, following a plant based diet, career changes, and redefining for ourselves what a “successful” life looks like.

We are unsure whether we will settle here in the US long term. However, while we are here we find ourselves frequently having difficult conversations with the kids about the harsh realities of living while Black in the USA.

All 4 of us are neurodivergent in some way, and we celebrate that! We adults have learned so much from following our childrens’ lead, for example: unmasking, doing what feels good for our bodies, indulging our special interests, paying more attention to the sensory environment at home and outside, and substituting JOMO for FOMO.

Makeba

Current Board member and Inclusion Director of the Homeschool Association of California Former medical doctor and university mental health advisor

Current interests/hobbies: Crafting, singing in a community choir, ancestry research, houseplants, vegetable gardening, tap dance, writing haiku.

Socials: @makeba_celeste on Instagram, and @cocoa_and_bubble for the puppies!

Soliheen

University professor, drummer, and producer/composer

Current interests/hobbies: 90s/00s Hip Hop culture and history, Japanese tea ceremonies, mindfulness, martial arts.

Socials: @soliheen on Instagram. Soliheen’s latest album “Equinox” can be bought or streamed wherever you listen to music

Kalel

Interests: Gaming online with friends (Minecraft, Roblox, and Splatoon 3), Ancient Egypt, playing tag, “Rickrolling” people in real life - usually mid-conversation!

Xyla

Interests: Gaming online with friends (also Minecraft, Roblox, Splatoon 3), designing/ styling outfits using ProCreate and Pastel Girl app, rollerskating, reading, coloring, lego kit building.

What’s the best thing about Unschooling?

Xyla: “Going to meet our friends at Park Day and swimming every week” Kalel: “Being able to plan my own day” Makeba: “Coming face to face with areas of unhealed personal and generational trauma, and actively working to minimize the amount that gets passed on to my kids.”

Soliheen: The kids get to be fully themselves, all the time.

Family highlights of our year so far have included: Camping in the Redwoods Getting two puppies 6 months apart: caring for them and receiving care from them!

Climbing and playing in limestone caves of Rock City, Mount Diablo Attending the 4 day HSC (Homeschool Association of California) Conference Weekly swimming at a friend’s pool over the summer Visiting the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum

Hi I am griffin. I like to build. my favorite things to build are lego transformers. These are lego transformers I made myself. I got the inspiration for these builds from the pictures on the right.

Megatron

Griffin Lego Builds Starscream

Mixmaster

Skipjack

Revillaging with Adele Jarrett- Kerr Episode 8: Trust Yourself – Essie Richards on Unschooling A lovely interview with a parent on their shift to unschooling and why...and what it meant to prioritize relationship and trust themselves and their child

The Exploring Unschooling Podcast with Pam Laricchia Episode 125: Challenges on the Unschooling Journey

A compilation of many interviews with parents discussing the most challenging aspects of unschooling/ shifting to unschooling

Supportive Podcast Episodes ! with !

Unschooling Parents !

The Life Without School Podcast Episode 18: The Big Home Education Questions Everyone Asks

Issy, a Dad of self-directed learners speaks directly to family and friends to help them understand your thinking and the questions they will want to ask you about your home learning choices.

Hello, From the Other Side By: Chabeli Miralles Sueiro It started as a search for a fitting education for our oldest. After almost 2 years of school it became clear that the traditional school system was harming him. The decision to homeschool was made. As I learned more about education, unschooling felt more and more as the direction to take.

We were all excited to ‘start’ this journey. But I’m not going to lie: it was HARD!! Although I felt in my inner core that this was good for all of us, I struggled a lot with deschooling myself.

Having quit my job, becoming a stay at home mother with three small kids at home ALL DAY was something I had to learn to enjoy.

I desperately grasped to whatever schedule I could fit in, feeling a strong unease when we were not being productive. Thankfully my kids are all strong-willed and made it very clear to me: we will not accept any outside force trying to stir us in any direction we don’t like to go. I had no other option than to surrender to this beautiful process.

More and more we learned to let go and trust.

To let life flow. No fixed schedules, no random or arbitrary ‘rules’, but cooperation, communication and trust. We have routines that work for us until they don’t. There are boundaries when necessary for any of us, including me.

There is living life in community, there is experimenting with passions and likes and dislikes. There is trial and error. And most of all there is so much love and joy!

As the years pass, I find myself living in a totally different world.

Our lives are nothing like they were when we started this journey. The most important changes took place in our mindsets and our hearts. Unschooling has changed us completely. It has transformed not only ourselves, but it has impacted generations. It is the creation of a new world which I whole heartedly believe in.

I feel extremely blessed to live this life, to get to be so close to my children and see them grow and blossom. I feel like I’ve come home, by following to the echo of another life most of us fail to remember. A life we all once lived, a life of love and free from oppressing systems. A life we were all meant (and deserve) to life.

I hope that one day, we will all be on the other side Chabeli has been unschooling in The Netherlands with her three children, ages 13, 11 & 7 for 7.5yrs

Mission: To facilitate a personalized self-directed education for learners and educators alike.

Vision: A small community of learners who meet regularly with an ODBP educator to progress toward their definition of success. ODBP is a 1-on-1 education service and our objective is to grow a community of self-directed people, events and products.

Our personalized approach is rooted in: Self-directed education Culturally responsive pedagogy Inclusion Anti-racism Trauma-informed practice Social & emotional learning Humor Play-based education Place-based education Community education

Through weekly check-ins with educators, learners will:

Educators facilitate the learning and development processes through:

identify their goals, strengths, and needs, purposeful questioning, utilize opportunities and resources found reminding learners of their track while

by ODBP educator, staying flexible, move toward their goals, implementing activities, demonstrate learning (to self, family, locating and coordinating resources and community, and/or the world opportunities, celebrate accomplishments, reflect on staying in close communication with setbacks, and examine what led to those families, moments of success or failure. intentionally observing demonstrations of learning to take note of learner’s progress and areas of improvement, and providing feedback and assessments in ways best suited for that learner.

Mothra and Godzilla painting

by Westley from Houston TX

fragments of our days as we deschool It isn’t even a sunny day – no rays to illuminate the pebbles and make them glint. The sea and the sky are varying shades of brown and grey. Not picturesque for the shore, yet we have been here for two hours with no sign of tiring.

An artist and writer who lives in my town says that the beach here is the antidote to ambition, and isn’t that the truth, I think happily, as I snaffle another piece of sea glass to add to my evergrowing collection.

The girls are taking the concept of beachcombing literally and they are down on their bellies, raking through the stones with their whole bodies, looking for treasure (and we reserve the right to define treasure whichever way we like). Their attention has zoomed in, down, smaller, smaller, right into the moment they are in, their child’s own google earth gaze fixing them to the shell they see before them and nowhere else.

Another artist and writer from far out with my town, Kurt Vonnegut, said: “We are put on earth to fart around – don’t let anybody tell you different.” The wrinkles that had started to appear either side of my turned-down mouth betray my forgetting of this fact in recent years, but now I have remembered and my feet are bared to the froth of the cold tide on this warm October day.

As for ambition, all I ever wanted to be is right here, right now, and so I am.

Gemma lives by the sea on the south coast of England and started unschooling with her daughters Billie (9) and Sky (5), this year.

Cai is an unschooler and artist in Florida –

this is based off a Swedish rock band album by Ghost, called Opus Eponymous but they added their own characters Top: Water Left to Right: Earth, Binnie, Lume, and Air

Climate change is like a sail boat.

No wind, the ship won’t sail.

Ruff sea’s, means an unbalanced ship.

What once was a calm sea is now a ship, Heading into the eye of the storm.

Some people turn back, deciding not to hear the truth, Heading into the storm, probably sink their ship.

With every thing else to solve, racism, war, Covid-19, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights and so much more, Some of us lose hope.

But hope is not lost.

Because there are some people who aren’t afraid.

People, who will keep pushing the tiller until we’ve turned from the storm.

And after that will take up a needle, and sew the tear’s from the storm on our sail.

People, who will stand together and fight to solve this.

People like you.

But, before you start to stand remember who brought us life.

Who wants to help but keeps getting pushed away.

Who is waiting for our thanks in everything they gave us: Family, friends, food, animals, just to name a few.

Who ever that person or thing or animal is.

Keep, them in your heart.

And remember that anything you do will impact their future or last years.

And always remember that you have control of your own tiller to tack away from the storm.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Mahatma Ghandi.

if you would like to be featured in a future issue, please send your submissions to meghan@theunschoolfiles.com

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