Living the Unschooling Life

Living, Loving, Laughing & Learning: the Radical Unschooling Journey of Christine Yablonski & Phil, Kimi & Shaun Biegler!

Q&A with Blake Boles ~ Writer & Entrepreneur

Written By: Christine Yablonski - Mar• 10•12

1. You’ve built several businesses and have written books to help teens and young adults explore the world, including the working world, around them. What sparked your interest in this?

When I was 11, my dad asked me if I wanted to go to a summer camp in the California High Sierras. Despite the fact my parents were divorced, and my dad highly valued the small amount of time that we spent together in the summers, he thought I’d love this camp. And he was right: I went back to Deer Crossing Camp for four years, and each year I got a little better at windsurfing, backpacking, and kissing girls.

Summer camp was where real life happened; school was where people waited until summer camp. While I performed well in public school, it never fully engaged me. I found my “flow” experiences instead in games such as Magic: The Gathering (a card game), Final Fantasy III (a video game), Quake II (computer)and various others. These occupied most of my free time and provided a healthy community. So gaming helped me survive the school year, and camp filled my summers. One summer I skipped camp to spend a month living with a host family in Chile, even though I had very little Spanish under my belt. That was a challenging and fantastic experience that gave me a taste for international travel.

In college I designed my own major to study the ideas behind “self-directed learning” full-time, which led me to discover unschooling and subsequently start working at Not Back to School Camp. After college I bounced around the field of outdoor education (i.e. summer camp all-year-round) and returned to Deer Crossing Camp as an instructor, assistant director, and acting director, which gave me the experience and confidence necessary to later start Unschool Adventures.

And as for writing—it always just seemed more effective to communicate my ideas on paper instead of verbally. Perhaps it’s an introvert thing.

 

2. What are some of your favorite memories from Unschool Adventures?

This is an exceedingly difficult question.

Our first trip—a 6-week voyage across Argentina in 2008—was such an incredible success. We had nine students, ages 15-19 (including my brother Cooper, an enrolled high school student), and all of them were incredibly sweet, intelligent, positive, and a joy to be around. That’s when I sold myself on leading trips for unschoolers—that very first week.

But that’s not a very good answer. Let me describe some more specific scenes, with photos to boot.

Bariloche, Argentina, October 2008:

Our group was biking around the “Circuito Chico,” an gorgeous 25km loop in Andean foothills. At the end of the ride, Charlotte (one of the students) hit a patch of mud a took a gentle fall, smearing mud all over her torso and face. Laughing, she got up and immediately hopped back on the bike, but within a few seconds she realized, as she was riding, that her front handlebars were turned around 180 degrees! She laughed even more and managed to use her thumbs to brake the bike.

Gearhart, Oregon, November 2009:

When our Novel-Writing Retreat’s Thanksgiving dinner erupted into a whipped cream fight.

Woolgoolga, NSW, Australia, February 2010:

Driving a rented minivan through fields of wild kangaroos and wallabies to go surfing.

Arequipa, Peru, February 2011:

Eating cuy (guinea pig) and alpaca with Benji and Lani, two of my students with adventurous appetites.

 

3. What do you think your books address that other “teens in transition” type books don’t?

I don’t know of many other “teens in transition” type books that are actually written for teens. Grace Llewellyn’s Teenage Liberation Handbook, of course, was written for teens and contains many excellent resources. My hope is to follow in her footprints and write books directly for the young adults who are responsible for making their own big educational decisions (supported by their families).

 

4. Do you have any new projects coming up?

Yes—always! I’m currently finishing a new book entitled “Better Than College: How to Build a Successful Life Without a Four-year Degree.” I’m experimenting with a new model of independent publishing for this book (http://www.blakeboles.com/2012/03/why-im-independently-publishing-my-next-book-and-how-you-can-help/) which is very exciting. Look forward to that in June 2012. (And if you’re reading this before March 18th, check out my pre-sale fundraiser: http://www.indiegogo.com/btc)

Outside of the book, I’m launching a big redesign of www.ZTCollege.com and planning more Unschool Adventures (http://www.unschooladventures.com). My life is a never-ending stream of projects.

 

5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

I’d love to acquire (or rent) a large piece of property that lets me run a sort of “boarding school” for unschoolers. Kind of like Hogwarts. From there I could run all sorts of interesting programs, retreats, and long-term residence programs. If anyone out there is interested in helping me accomplish this within five years, I’d love to meet them!

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Better Than College – Book Preview

Written By: Christine Yablonski - Feb• 27•12

Introducing Guest Blogger – Blake Boles

The following is an excerpt from Blake’s upcoming and eagerly anticipated book Better Than College: How to Build a Successful Life Without a Four-Year Degree. See below for links to pre-order and help fund Blake’s book through IndieGoGo.

The Price of Self-Knowledge

Here’s another thought experiment:

Imagine you just got accepted to college. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Stanford or State U—either way, you’ve passed one of life’s great hurdles, and you’re on your way to your future.

Now imagine that it’s four years later, and you’ve just graduated. Let’s assume that you gained a ton of knowledge, connected with intelligent people, and earned a degree, all of which you use to land a   well-paid job.

Now it’s the first day of work. You’re the new kid from MIT/Stanford/Reed/State U/etc. You’re on top of the world—and you’ve got your college education to thank for it.

But then, one day, the honeymoon ends. All of a sudden, no one cares about your degree or connections. Instead, you’re being judged on a new set of criteria: Do you take pride in your work? Do you work well with others? Can you show up on time and motivate yourself? Can you teach yourself new skills? Are you actually a good fit for this position, or did you take it based on misguided assumptions?

Just like everyone else in this world, your long-term success hinges upon a set of knowledge and competencies that have little to do with your GPA, personal connections, or a framed piece of paper. More crucially, your success depends on your self-knowledge.

Self-knowledge is the deep understanding of one’s personality, values, strengths, flaws, and work habits that arises from:

• immersing yourself in new lands, workplaces, and cultures,

• exploring new philosophies, spiritual beliefs, and political views,

• striving to understand the questions that fascinate you,

• pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone (and perhaps recruiting someone else to push you too),

• meeting, conversing with, and attempting to understand hundreds of new people,

• reflecting on your experiences.

Self-knowledge is the skeleton key that unlocks the answers to a number of questions: What are my deepest needs, and how do I fulfill them? In what environment do I work best? Should I work for myself or someone else? How can I improve myself? How can I personally change the world for the better?

People who lack self-knowledge may have a hard time finding satisfying work, gaining genuine respect, or forming deep relationships. People with self-knowledge, on the other hand, can find work, respect, and relationships even in difficult circumstances.

Of course, you can gain self-knowledge in college as well. That’s one of the big reasons—stated or unstated—that many people want to attend college, and professors, guidance counselors, and other college staff can help shape students’ lives in many positive ways. But it’s also possible for students to go through college without ever seriously challenging their beliefs, pushing their comfort zones, or seeing how other people live. When you combine this possibility with an incredibly high price tag, college becomes a big gamble.

If you’re awarded some massive scholarship, then perhaps you can afford to gamble. If you or your parents can foot the tuition and living bills without sacrificing sanity and security, then maybe it’s okay to experiment with college.

But for everyone else—for those students and families who must make large sacrifices or take out very large loans to pay for college—the cost of this gamble is high. You don’t need to pay upward of $20,000 per year to find out who you are and what you do best.

When you gamble on college you also gamble with a second resource, one that is more precious than money: your time. Even if you can afford college, it may not be right for you. If you go to college and take little away from the experience, you will lose some of the most precious and opportunity-laden years of your life, wasting time that you could have spent traveling, starting businesses, getting exposed to new fields, pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone, and meeting new people. College is not the only place these things can happen, so if you’re going there to answer the all-important question—“Who am I?”—your time may be better spent elsewhere.

Link to my fundraising campaign: http://www.indiegogo.com/btc?a=140053

Link to my book mailing list (to receive early excerpts and stay in the loop): http://book.ztcollege.com/welcome/

   Blake Boles is a 29-year-old author, entrepreneur, and international adventurer who helps young adults build meaningful, productive, and exciting lives. He’s the director of Unschool Adventures, founder of Zero Tuition College, staffer at Not Back to School Camp, and author of College Without High School. Learn more at BlakeBoles.com.

 

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Trivial Pursuit

Written By: Christine Yablonski - Feb• 08•12

There’s a YouTube video going around online right now – maybe you’ve seen it – the one where a bunch of high school students are asked various questions. Here are the questions:

  • What’s the capital of Washington (their home state)?
  • Name one Democratic candidate for President in the 2012 elections.
  • Who is the Vice President?
  • What war was the one in which our country won its independence?
  • What countries border our country?
  • Name a country that starts with the letter “U”.
  • How many stars are our country’s flag? Why?

The teens struggled, guessed, and sheepishly realized they didn’t know. Many of their answers were mind-boggling wrong (for the record, Bin Laden is not the Vice President of the US). If you read the comments, many people posted snarky condemnations and predicted dire futures for these teens (ironically, the same dire consequences that were hurled at our kids online for not going to school – go figure!). As the video is shared and “liked” all over Facebook, etc., I’m sure most parents wonder how their own kids would do with these same questions and then quizzed them.

We did.

Not because we were worried that our kids would look just as clueless as these poor kids did (who, I’m certain, were included in the video specifically because of their inability to answer), but because we were curious to see if our kids, simply by living their lives free to spend their time as they wish, picked up these facts.

The answer is yes.

My kids, ages 15 and 17, knew all the answers except for the capital of Washington; however they did know the capital of their own home state (until 3 months ago): Boston. Remember – this was the ONLY time they have ever been quizzed about these facts and they have never been made to study about any of these things at any time.

So, happy dance time, right? At least my kids did better than those kids, huh?

Well….maybe.

I’m glad my kids are informed about the world around them, that they know some basic political, geographical and historical information and yet…how much of this really matters. I mean REALLY matters. How do we know which bits and pieces of information – trivia – matter in the long run? When does something pass from “it’s good to know this” to “it’s important to know this” to “you MUST know this”? I think we presume too many facts to be in the MUST category.

I do believe that some of it is important from the standpoint of being an informed member of society. I do think it’s good when people know the names of the President and Vice President, but where do we stop? Should they know the names of the members of the Cabinet? The Supreme Court? Should they know all the names of their state reps and senators? And I mean KNOW – right off the top of your head, no hesitation. When does knowing how to find the information, within a reasonable amount of time, matter more than being able to instantly retrieve the information from memory?

Someone once told me that everyone should know all of the state capitals. Why? What possible reason would most people need to know that? The answer, obviously, is they don’t. Any given person’s expertise is someone else’s possibly interesting trivia, easily forgotten after the conversation ends or something else comes along.What’s important for me to know about, as I live my life and pursue my projects, is not going to be completely the same as what’s important for you.

Here’s the thing – we live in an information deluge. Finding out the state capital of Wyoming, or the name of your state representative, or the name of the author of that book you read last year and really liked, or what’s the fastest route to get from western North Carolina to central Florida – all of this – is easily found through reliable sources. Meanwhile, most of us have no clue how to change our own oil, or safely preserve food, or handle minor home maintenance and repairs. Self-sufficiency is low demand because it isn’t on the standardized tests. So schools trivialize  kids’ educations with trivia. They make the kids spend ridiculous amounts of time studying things they are not currently interested in, all in the name of giving them a well-rounded education, rather than let them explore the world around them at their own pace, in their own way. Who looks foolish now?

 

© Universal Press Syndicate, by Bill Watterson

© Universal Press Syndicate, by Bill Watterson

 

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Our private journeys, our public journals

Written By: Christine Yablonski - Feb• 02•12

Facebook posts

angry, frustrated

so many things gone wrong, out of control, out of our control.

We share, we like, we counterpoint.

Demanding to be heard as we yell into a void of ether(net)

hello?

does anybody hear me?

validate me?

please?

Facebook posts

happy, joyful

so many things going well.

We share, we like, we validate.

These are the stories we write about ourselves

in our own public journals.

hello?

does anybody hear me?

validate me…please

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Looking Past Limits

Written By: Christine Yablonski - Jan• 27•12

At last night’s TedX-Asheville salon we watched a talk given by Caroline Casey, a woman who grew up not realizing she was actually legally blind, and then set out to make a difference in the world through her work and advocacy. Her talk was about looking past limits, something near and dear to my heart!

One of my unschooling mantras is “Try to Find the Yes” – in other words, try to see what the situation really is and find a way to meet the needs that are being expressed, either overtly or subtly. How many times do we hear “no”, in all it’s various forms, when we want to do something new or challenging? As kids we are given hundreds of no’s, supposedly to protect us from our selves, from others, from possible harm – emotional or physical. The problem is that many of those well-intended protections prevent us from exploring our world, our interests, and our capabilities to the fullest. As adults we know all to well how harmless fun can turn on a dime and become something tragic. That knowledge of the worst-case scenarios end up becoming bigger in our minds – things that are statistically unlikely inflate into something that Really Can Happen Now – and the fear of that happening influences our ability to say “yes” to experiences and creates unnecessary limits for ourselves and our children.

Kids start off thinking they can be anything and everything is possible. My son, for a long while, dreamed of being the person who invented real living, breathing Pokemon monsters! Their imaginations take them to wondrous places and fantastical adventures, whether they are careening through the “jungle” in the backyard with friends or (mostly) silently playing with their own hands and fingers, acting out a battle royale right before their eyes. They don’t see limits, they see possibilities.

Over time, though, they absorb our cautions, internalizing them until their own inner voice tells them they are limited. Now, they don’t believe they are an artist when they draw or paint or sculpt some clay because it falls short of what they’ve learned is “art”. Now, they don’t believe they are an athlete when they run or jump or throw a ball or swim or ride their bike because they aren’t the winning medals or trophies and they probably won’t “go pro”. Now they don’t believe they can be anything they want because “how will you get a job doing that?” Now when they write they see their words returned to them with red marked sections – spelling errors, poor sentence structure, inappropriate use of punctuation – and suddenly it doesn’t matter what their thoughts and ideas were. They only see what they did wrong. Now they are not a writer. Or a scientist. Or…Or..Or…

Suddenly, years later, they are walking through life wondering what they want to do. Wondering who they are. They spend hours browsing the shelves at the bookstore Self Help section: Tell me who I am. Tell me what I’m worth. I don’t anymore. I only know what I can’t do. I don’t know what I can.

Nobody can tell you what you can do…but they sure can tell you what you can’t – or at least what they think you can’t. Your life-long challenge is to reframe each dream, each goal, every wish you have so that rather than focus on all the ways things can go wrong you start focusing on all the ways it can go right. Some goals are huge and involve a long-term plan, some much less so, but the practice is the same. When you have a goal in mind create a list of what sort of things need to happen to reach that goal.

Here’s an example from something I’m doing right now:

Goal: Complete Triathlon in May

Steps:

1. Train to Swim 1/3 mile

2. Train to Bike 19 miles

3. Train to Run 3 miles

4. Do #1-3 in succession!

Now, think about each basic step and then break it down by any mini-steps connected to it:

Goal: Complete Triathlon in May

Steps:

1. Train to Swim 1/3 mile

  • Start swimming at Y each week, build up distance/endurance each week

2. Train to Bike 19 miles

  • Start biking on flat trails, build up to hillier terrain & longer distances

3. Train to Run 3 miles

  • Start walk/jogging sessions, build to jog/running sessions


Now, whenever you think of an obstacle to one of those steps write it down, along with creative ways to overcome it.

Goal: Complete Triathlon in May

Steps:

1. Train to Swim 1/3 mile

  • Start swimming at Y each week, build up distance/endurance each week
  • Obstacle: I don’t like the idea of practicing as a “beginner” in front of strangers & I don’t know system for swimming in lanes at a pool
  • Solution: Talk to staff and learn the procedures and find out when it’s quietest in the pool
  • Solution: Recognize that the other swimmers aren’t judging me; I should just focus on my own workout and not compare myself to the others

2. Train to Bike 19 miles

  • Start biking, build up to longer distances
  • Obstacle: It’s crazy hilly here in the mountains & I haven’t been on my bike since 2010!
  • Solution: Use maps to find flatter areas to start and drive over to them with my bike; go back and forth if necessary to get enough mileage until I’m stronger
  • Solution: Talk to cycle store staff and find out about changing my tires from hybrid to street to make pedaling easier.

3. Train to Run 3 miles

  • Start walk/jogging sessions, build to jog/running sessions
  • Obstacle: I’m afraid of hurting my knees and losing toenails (it’s happened three times before!)
  • Solution: Get high-quality, comfortable shoes specifically for running.
  • Solution: Start walking for warm ups, then start slow-jogging, without pushing it too much. Build over time, knowing I can walk 3 miles in 45 minutes if I absolutely had to in the triathlon.


Now, I know this is a small goal compared to many, but the truth is that when my friend first started talking to me about this event I could have said to myself:

  • There isn’t enough time to train for this
  • I might hurt myself
  • I’m going to look stupid out there with all the real athletes
  • I don’t run!
Instead I took a deep breath and really thought about it. There is enough time to train for it – I know where I’m at physically right now and there is no reason I can’t get myself trained for this. If I respect my body and build up my strength and endurance while eating properly, getting enough sleep and giving myself a sensible amount of “rest days” I am unlikely to hurt myself. I’m not going to look stupid – this race has a wide range of abilities and ages represented. We will all look awesome as we strive to compete or complete. I do run – I just don’t do it via “running”. At camp I ran a lot. When I’m goofing around with my kids with our foam swords I am running (and hiding) all over the house and yard. I just need to find the fun in the run!
So don’t let the automatic warnings stop you from living the kind of life you want, from enjoying the kinds of experiences you want. Look past the limits and find your yes!

 

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