Another Visit

The last week has been spent with family visiting from Australia.  We have been to Akaroa rocking on boats, Hanmer Springs wallowing in hot rock pools, and the Antarctica Centre watching penguins and riding in military style buggies! It has been a wonderful week and we were sad to see our our brother and sister and law, niece and nephew leave.

I have had gastroenteritis for 5 days so this afternoon am having a rest and cleaning the house while Sergeant is testing two new co-operative games at our friends house with the children.  

I am very fortunate to have made a few close friends in Christchurch who share similar conclusions in parenting and education, one of which was a nanny previously.  Whilst I have yet to find any research which states that mass childcare is beneficial to the development of a child in terms of social or emotional well-being, I have seen much evidence that if a child is bonded with alternative caregivers the experience can be positive so employment is restrained by the hours my friend can offer as a nanny and what flexibility the role offers.

While I love the theory of democratic schooling, if under-resourced both in terms of the input of fellow parents and in terms of support and actual resources, I prefer whole-life learning as a more holistic and nurturing education.  Subsequently I have been asked frequently if I would consider Sonic going to a “normal” school. I do not accept the social norm – children are natural learners and mainstream school does not work for millions of children, (certainly not my son) and learner centred education does; so I would rather support alternative means of education – let’s support a revolution!

 

 

Our House – PICTURES in New Zealand

My sister has asked for pictures of the house – it isn’t quite ready yet:

Our house living room

The box room

Kitchen

Bedroom

Playroom

Actually these are the pictures after the children spent the day making dens and piles, playing with paper and scissors, baking, making playdo and goop. It took me 6 hours of cleaning over the next two days… thought I’d give my parents a view of our abode at its worst before they come to visit us 😉

I am actually a very tidy person so I struggle with the disarray, it’s clean but lived in one could argue. I guess I take pictures because I am trying to value their creations. 80% of the time I can now take it in my stride! Not bad for someone who had OCD for cleanliness. Children are our wisest guides.

A Wet Sunday Afternoon

Rain has fallen heavily all day.  Big fat raindrops, slanted rain, drizzle, damp – our house’s windows are full of condensation even if I open the windows.  We sat in the box room, and the whole family watched Cheaper by the Dozen in our pyjamas. We all liked it but damn it irritated me! How can you have 12 children and have such a nice house, such nice clothes and everything pristine? It did inspire me though, we went out this afternoon and bought some posters for the playroom and Lego, it felt more homely.

Renting after having your own house can be challenging, every mark on the wall or stain on the carpet reminds me I am living in someone else’s house.

Sonic Orange has been making a Chima Lego buggy and has so far done it with little help, he leaned over to the girl’s house and said to them “the flowers are lovely”. I smiled and said “you like their Lego too?”. “No” he whispered, “I was just saying that to be nice because my Lego looks better than theirs…”. I am not sure if I have modelled being disingenuous ;-/ oops.

He is really enjoying being at the democratic school!  If you are interested here is a video about a similar school:

I go with Sonic Orange several times a week, but leave him now for a few hours so I can spend time with the girls  – and there are always other parents sat around.  On Friday, it was the last day of term so they planned a sale and a shared lunch, as well as a communal clean up.  Sonic Orange asked for us to make a Millionaire’s Shortbread after seeing it in a cooking book, so we planned the ingredients, and made it.  In the morning we planned how many pieces to make and calculated the cost per slice to cover costs.   It is really interesting how empowering the democratic process is for them. So far I have seen no bullying or teasing – I guess because the children and adults all have equal respect, there is no resentment.  Sonic Orange has truthfully flourished in the environment.  I see children sitting around learning because they want to; teaching themselves how to play the guitar with chords printed from the Internet, attending the morning classes out of interest, asking for support with their spelling and writing. I wonder if the world would be a more peaceful place if all schools were like this? Interestingly the country with the greatest number of Democratic schools is Israel…

Update: Sonic Orange has now started eating wholesome food! Recently I read somewhere that up until the age of 7 years some children see food as lots of individual parts, not as the whole so it is very hard for them to try new foods. Hmm I thought, not likely – but at 6 1/2 years he proved me wrong!