We homeschool. Homeschooling doesn't exist in the Netherlands. Officially we have permission not to register our children at a school. So now we live.
I'm often asked if I teach my children at home and how. I don't. I don't play school at home. For the outside world I call it unschooling although I would prefer a positive word instead of saying what we don't do. Life long learning maybe. You could also call it living.
Because the school system is imprinted in our lives, we seem to have forgotten that life is more than going to school or to work to earn money. We seem to think that if we don't do one of those, we are wasting our time. But life can be different. You can just live it. And that's not a waste of time. Living is a beautiful thing, discovering the world as it comes every day. Not always easy but beautiful if you take time to see. Young children seem to master the art. But loose it when they are forced into the system. The system of schooling. Learning what others think you should learn because of what you have to become. Instead of doing what you do because you are.
We sometimes seem to have forgotten how it is to just live. And worse, to value living. Now every day we are trying to find out how to live. How we want to live. And if it is possible at the place we are living right now and if not, how we can make it possible. And yes we know, you have to earn some money to live in this society, one way or the other.
My younger children who have hardly gone to school are pretty good at living. They eat, play, read comic books, make drawings, play on their computers, walk the dogs. Go to their sports. They sleep. They fight. They complain. They make jokes, they do the grocery shopping with me. One of them wants to become an illusionist. The other one, no idea, he just is. What I learn from them is that living is not a waste of time. You can live in the moment, while also knowing some things have to get done. When it's time to do those things, you just do them.
Then we have our horseback archer. Every thing he does seems to be related to that or other martial arts. He discovers the world through it. He thinks about it, he talks endlessly about it, he searches the internet for all the information he can find about it. And then he trains others, he takes care of horses, cleans stables and paddocks, walks the dogs and plays games at his cell phone. He has been in the school system but since it seemed so far apart from his life, it didn't become part of him. He is thinking about his future and how the things he does during the day will influence his future. Not under pressure, just thinking and preparing because he likes to do the things he does.
The oldest is different. A deep thinker who was beaten by the system. I never expected it because he was so strong willed and powerful before he went to school. He never did anything he did not want. But the school system was too much to fight against, he seems to have thought. I still feel bad that I did not listen more carefully to him, back then. It took me some time to grow strong enough to really listen to him. Because the system in the Netherlands is very difficult to escape from and even worse once you've got in. Before you know it you end up in court and have child protection services invading your family life.
We took him out in steps, first to a democratic school. Pretty quickly he found out that the school was not so democratic after all and that democracy is not such a fair system because the powerful can use democracy to remain powerful. Also, or even more, when the democracy is called a sociocracy.
Now he is out of it all. But he is also at an age that he wants to achieve something. And I think he does not value enough what he already achieved, what he learned, how he developed. I am not sure if the system is too far imprinted in him that he keeps thinking in measurable results or that it's his age and character that make him really critical about how he spends his days.
The other day we had a conversation about achieving goals and being afraid to waste time because you want to become someone. While in fact, you are already someone. And even if you sit on your bed for an unlimited amount of time, it's not a waste. You live. And apparently you need time to just sit down.
What I also loved about our conversation is that the oldest two found out that both their passions have a technical part and a creative part. We are talking about producing music and shooting arrows from a horseback. In both it's your creativity that makes the difference but you need to master the techniques to be able to let your creativity shine. And in both there are days that your creativity is nowhere to be found. Those days you can focus on improving your techniques, they agreed. But, also agreement, it is hard sometimes because it's not always fun.
While the horseback archer is relaxed about it, the music producer is his own worst critique. He looks at the ultimate achievement he wants to reach and is afraid that if the steps to come there are too hard to take, he will fail. I don't think he can fail, because everything he does is part of living, even if it seems like walking a dead end road or sitting on your bed for days in a row or watch youtube videos endlessly as he sometimes does.
I am always astonished by the amount of knowledge he has from all those videos and the way he processes everything he learns this way. He is able to level everything up to a higher abstraction. He makes connections that are mind blowing, while he thinks it's completely normal to make those connections.
The art of living is not easy to learn once you have been fractured by the system. A system that makes you believe that all that's important is getting your diploma and get a job and earn money. Which in fact has so little to do with life itself. Life is so much more and a human being is so much more than a diploma and a job. And honestly, the art of living is sometimes difficult too when the system did not get you. Because where there is light, there is darkness. Darkness is part of the life you are living as well. And darkness is not always easy to accept.
So there are moments you can only cry because making a special cobra bracelet from a piece of paracord does not work the way you want it to work. And your little brother seems to make them without any effort. You are bored to death because you just are bored and everything and everybody seems stupid. But by doing what you want to do and sometimes what you don't want but what seems to be part of life, like walking the dogs or going to sleep at night, you live. And I think that living is what really matters. That's why we home"school". We live.
I'm often asked if I teach my children at home and how. I don't. I don't play school at home. For the outside world I call it unschooling although I would prefer a positive word instead of saying what we don't do. Life long learning maybe. You could also call it living.
Because the school system is imprinted in our lives, we seem to have forgotten that life is more than going to school or to work to earn money. We seem to think that if we don't do one of those, we are wasting our time. But life can be different. You can just live it. And that's not a waste of time. Living is a beautiful thing, discovering the world as it comes every day. Not always easy but beautiful if you take time to see. Young children seem to master the art. But loose it when they are forced into the system. The system of schooling. Learning what others think you should learn because of what you have to become. Instead of doing what you do because you are.
My younger children who have hardly gone to school are pretty good at living. They eat, play, read comic books, make drawings, play on their computers, walk the dogs. Go to their sports. They sleep. They fight. They complain. They make jokes, they do the grocery shopping with me. One of them wants to become an illusionist. The other one, no idea, he just is. What I learn from them is that living is not a waste of time. You can live in the moment, while also knowing some things have to get done. When it's time to do those things, you just do them.
Then we have our horseback archer. Every thing he does seems to be related to that or other martial arts. He discovers the world through it. He thinks about it, he talks endlessly about it, he searches the internet for all the information he can find about it. And then he trains others, he takes care of horses, cleans stables and paddocks, walks the dogs and plays games at his cell phone. He has been in the school system but since it seemed so far apart from his life, it didn't become part of him. He is thinking about his future and how the things he does during the day will influence his future. Not under pressure, just thinking and preparing because he likes to do the things he does.
The oldest is different. A deep thinker who was beaten by the system. I never expected it because he was so strong willed and powerful before he went to school. He never did anything he did not want. But the school system was too much to fight against, he seems to have thought. I still feel bad that I did not listen more carefully to him, back then. It took me some time to grow strong enough to really listen to him. Because the system in the Netherlands is very difficult to escape from and even worse once you've got in. Before you know it you end up in court and have child protection services invading your family life.
We took him out in steps, first to a democratic school. Pretty quickly he found out that the school was not so democratic after all and that democracy is not such a fair system because the powerful can use democracy to remain powerful. Also, or even more, when the democracy is called a sociocracy.
Now he is out of it all. But he is also at an age that he wants to achieve something. And I think he does not value enough what he already achieved, what he learned, how he developed. I am not sure if the system is too far imprinted in him that he keeps thinking in measurable results or that it's his age and character that make him really critical about how he spends his days.
The other day we had a conversation about achieving goals and being afraid to waste time because you want to become someone. While in fact, you are already someone. And even if you sit on your bed for an unlimited amount of time, it's not a waste. You live. And apparently you need time to just sit down.
What I also loved about our conversation is that the oldest two found out that both their passions have a technical part and a creative part. We are talking about producing music and shooting arrows from a horseback. In both it's your creativity that makes the difference but you need to master the techniques to be able to let your creativity shine. And in both there are days that your creativity is nowhere to be found. Those days you can focus on improving your techniques, they agreed. But, also agreement, it is hard sometimes because it's not always fun.
While the horseback archer is relaxed about it, the music producer is his own worst critique. He looks at the ultimate achievement he wants to reach and is afraid that if the steps to come there are too hard to take, he will fail. I don't think he can fail, because everything he does is part of living, even if it seems like walking a dead end road or sitting on your bed for days in a row or watch youtube videos endlessly as he sometimes does.
I am always astonished by the amount of knowledge he has from all those videos and the way he processes everything he learns this way. He is able to level everything up to a higher abstraction. He makes connections that are mind blowing, while he thinks it's completely normal to make those connections.
The art of living is not easy to learn once you have been fractured by the system. A system that makes you believe that all that's important is getting your diploma and get a job and earn money. Which in fact has so little to do with life itself. Life is so much more and a human being is so much more than a diploma and a job. And honestly, the art of living is sometimes difficult too when the system did not get you. Because where there is light, there is darkness. Darkness is part of the life you are living as well. And darkness is not always easy to accept.
So there are moments you can only cry because making a special cobra bracelet from a piece of paracord does not work the way you want it to work. And your little brother seems to make them without any effort. You are bored to death because you just are bored and everything and everybody seems stupid. But by doing what you want to do and sometimes what you don't want but what seems to be part of life, like walking the dogs or going to sleep at night, you live. And I think that living is what really matters. That's why we home"school". We live.
