- Just out of the fire!
Ben has been participating in a fire service technology class for the past couple years at the Fire District 1 headquarters and training center in Snohomish County. There are about 20+ other students from various high schools in the area who also participate. Together, they learn as much of the hands-on skills and academic content needed for fire service work. This trip to the state training academy was a full day of live fire training–essentially a hands-on culmination of what they’ve been learning throughout the year. It was a day filled with excitement, determination, hard work, and many smiles like the one in the photo above.
- Company A -- Alex, Ben, and Verghel
- Chief McGaughy with Ben and Company A
- Everyone loves watching the burn tower.
- Burn Tower
- Each floor of the burn tower holds various live fire experiences for practical fire training opportunities
- The companies are getting ready for various training assignments.
- Taking care of the gear.
- Suiting up -- Each hands-on practical lasted about 20-30 minutes, and between sessions, they came out to cool off and then get their gear ready again.
- Ready to go.
- Company A discusses plans for their next live fire practical.
- Many experienced firefighters assisted in all the training.
- Lots of conversations both before and after practicals.
- Great mentoring throughout the day.
- Ladder talk
- Hydration
- Cooling off and debriefing
- So much excitement and exhilaration after coming out of the fire.
- Pertinent road signs
- A lunchtime break and good words to remember.
- Loading gear
- A good, long day of hard work.
- Company officers
- Fire District 1 Student Firefighters
Tags: adventures, creating our own path, growing up, what do you do all day?
Category Adventures, Creating Our Own Path, Growing Up, What Do You Do All Day? |
“And when the kids are old enough, we’re gonna teach them to fly…”
Thank you, Dave Matthews.
This song was playing as I watched Ben and his friend, a couple years ago, standing tall and carrying their backpacks as they walked slowly away toward the Amtrak train, getting ready to board for a long journey to Not Back To School Camp together. Granted, at that point in their lives, it was only a train, not a plane, but they were definitely learning to fly in the independent, leaving-the-nest sense of things. And my friend, Laura, and I were learning to let them go.
On the train from Klamath Falls to Eugene, Oregon, 2009
That was the beginning of some amazing travel experiences for each of them, and it’s been great to watch the accompanying growth, confidence, and maturation. Since then, Ben has taken several trips by train or bus to and from that same Oregon camp. He has flown by himself or with friends by plane from Seattle to Phoenix, Reno, and Kansas City, and has enjoyed road trips through Washington, Oregon, and California. Given these travels, he has had the chance to see the Grand Canyon, experience a wilderness camp in California, backpack in Desolation Wilderness in the Sierra Nevada, explore new cities, and enjoy many interesting landscapes. He’s been able to try new things, find mentors, and nurture many friendships, both old and new.
A view of the Grand Canyon, 2010
During the week of Thanksgiving this past year, Ben had the chance to visit friends in Kansas City, Missouri for a NBTSC camper reunion. There were several friends coming in from many different states and descending upon the homes of two welcoming families for a big Thanksgiving feast and week-long gathering. He really wanted to go, and thought carefully about if it would be possible, related to both costs of travel as well as taking time off work.
Whenever he has had the opportunity for an adventure like this, we’ve tried to figure out ways to help him make it happen. In this instance, at first I thought it would be nice to have him home during Thanksgiving, but I also knew that as he grows older, and as his life gets busier with more commitments like work and studies, he’ll want to venture out on his own during times like this when his friends are also available. So I realized this was one of those opportunities, and started brainstorming with him about how to make it work.
One of his first hurdles was needing to take a little time off work…during a holiday…as a courtesy clerk at a grocery store. No small task. He has been working at PCC Natural Markets since last summer, and really loves it. He gets along quite well with the staff, is flexible with his schedule, and frequently offers to cover other people’s shifts. He started early with his request for time off, knowing it might take a while for his manager to make this kind of scheduling decision. Ben reassured him that he would have a good deal of time in December to work extra shifts and cover for other people’s needs for time off then. Ben had to be quite patient while waiting for an answer, but his manager likes him and was able to make it work. Lucky kid.
Since he’s been working for a while now, he had the money he needed to buy a plane ticket, however I knew he was also thinking about various building projects he was saving money for as well. We told him we’d be willing to contribute a bit, and this was helpful when he realized that tickets would cost more depending on the holiday dates he traveled. I like helping him with these kinds of adventures when we can afford it, because I know how exciting and valuable they can be for him. It’s also fun when he comes back home, telling us about people he’s met, places he’s explored, or new observations he’s made. This time, one cool thing he noticed was how the architecture of the various homes there was quite different. It’s a small thing, but it makes his world, and ours, bigger.
This is how it happens. One trip, one new adventure, one opportunity at a time, and soon he’ll be grown, off on his own, living his own independent life. I’m glad it doesn’t happen all at once, but gradually, so I have time to get used to it. I’m excited for him, and happy I get to watch the process.
- On a backpacking trip with friends, Desolation Wilderness, CA, 2010
- Deer Crossing Camp, traveling back by boat from Loon Lake in California's Eldorado National Forest, 2010
- Friend and mentor, Blake Boles, talks to campers during a 2009 NBTSC workshop session: "And then to save money on travel, you learn to fly."
Tags: adventures, autumn, creating our own path, growing up, travel, unschooling, what do you do all day?
Category Adventures, Creating Our Own Path, Growing Up, Travel, What Do You Do All Day? |
- Ben at Not Back To School Camp, 2011 - Photo credit, Vanessa Filkins
My sweet son, Ben, turned 18 a little over a month ago. I’ve been thinking about what a pleasure it has been to be with him and watch him grow all these years.
When Ben was six years old, I remember thinking very clearly about how much he had grown as a boy during the first six years of his life. He went from an infant, to toddler, to young boy in such a short period of time. Then it occurred to me how much more he would grow and change in the next six years of his life. So when he was twelve, he would be much different than when he was six.
At age six, Ben loved playing with Legos, climbing trees, doing any kind of hands-on work, and playing outdoors with friends at parks and lakes. He enjoyed all kinds of board games and card games, and loved listening to stories even though he didn’t yet read independently.
By the time he was twelve, Ben still loved Legos, although instead of bricks, he played with Lego Technics and robotics. He had become an avid independent reader and still enjoyed listening to stories. He played computer games more than board games, participated in wilderness programs, and continued to climb trees. His love for hands-on work took the form of learning glass flameworking, electronics, robotics, and simple woodworking.
Now, at 18, he’s studying in a fire service technology program and pursues a variety of hands-on projects both at home and in the community. These have included glassblowing, metalworking, and building custom longboards and electric bass guitars. In the past, he was a homebody, but in recent years he has traveled by air, rail, and car to several states around the country. He’s worked a variety of jobs, including a high ropes course assistant, art festival vendor assistant, summer day camp assistant, and most recently as a courtesy clerk at PCC Natural Markets. He likes to hike, run, read, cook, bake, watch movies, hang out with friends, and he still loves climbing trees.
It’s been amazing to me how much Ben has grown as a young man during these past several years. I couldn’t have imagined when he was twelve what he would be like at age eighteen. And I must say I am so happy to see who he has become.
- Tree climbing at Not Back to School Camp, 2010
Category Adventures, Creating Our Own Path, Growing Up, Unschooling |
- A camp circle in the big field at Camp Myrtlewood
At the end of August, when most teens are getting ready for school, Ben and a few of his lucky friends are happily anticipating Not Back to School Camp at Camp Myrtlewood in Bridge, Oregon. It’s a terrific camp for unschooling teens, created by Grace Llewellyn, author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook and one of our first inspirations for considering life without school.
Every year now for the past five years, Ben has enjoyed wonderful camp adventures. He has met new friends from all over the country, learned new things, found mentors to challenge and inspire him, and gained a greater sense of self as he makes his way toward young adulthood. Each year, we look forward to hearing his stories, seeing camp photos, and noticing how he has grown and changed in just a short period of time. Enjoy!
- Ben and friends wait expectantly for the train at the Amtrak station. This train trip travel time together is the beginning of the adventure.
- Ben brought a big beach ball to share for outdoor fun and games.
- More beach ball fun...
- There is always plenty of time to relax and talk with friends.
- A walk in the woods
- Ben's advisee group
- I love that these teens still know how to play.
- After campers picked all these blackberries, Ben worked in the camp kitchen to make several blackberry cobblers.
- Favorite longtime camp advisor Abbi shows campers how to use these silks for some acrobatics.
- Ben and Josh take a little time to do some longboarding on the longboard they built together last year after camp.
- Camp happiness
- Asleep next to a good friend on the bus ride home from camp...
Photo credits: Celina Dill, Kate Geurrero, Sophie Biddle, Sophie Thompson, Benji B’Shalom, Blake Boles, and Qacei Gold
Tags: adventures, autumn, creating our own path, growing up, what do you do all day?
Category Adventures, Creating Our Own Path, Growing Up, Unschooling, What Do You Do All Day? |
It’s the best not-back-to-school gift an unschooler could ask for: the newly revised www.holtgws.com site!
All the back issues of Growing Without Schooling are now available online for free, as well as many articles, videos, and recordings by and about John Holt. Thank you, Pat Farenga, for bringing this all together for us!
- Ben at Camp, age 17
* Photo by Kate Guerrero *
Tags: creating our own path, good books, unschooling
Category Books and Resources, Creating Our Own Path, Unschooling |
- Attaching a hose nozzle during a fire hose drill
Ben just finished a full year program, 1 ½ hours a day, of a fire service technology class. It was offered as a part-time elective program through the local school district, and classes were held at a nearby fire station, facilitated by active and retired firefighters. One of Ben’s friends had really enjoyed it the previous year, so he thought he’d try it out.
During the course of the program, Ben learned about basic hands-on fire service skills and a tremendous amount of fire science knowledge. He got up at 6:15a.m. every day, made his own breakfasts, never missed a class, and worked hard all year long. He dealt with the newness of regular assignments, a thick professional text with weekly readings, chapter tests, and working as part of a 5-person team within a class of 35 other students. He learned to use a variety of fire hoses, ladders, search and rescue techniques, as well as first aid, CPR, team building and communication skills. On top of all this, he got to drive a fire truck a few times. How cool is that!
- This is F Company, the team Ben worked with throughout the year. The photo is from their day-long adventure at the North Bend firefighter training center.
At the beginning of the year, his peers voted to honor him with an achievement award, known in the fire service community as the Bulldog Award, to recognize positive individual behavior within the fire service program. Throughout the year, he worked alongside a variety of other students, developed a great relationship with the Chief and other mentors within the program, and enjoyed a sense of pride and accomplishment regarding all his hard work. By the end of the year, he had earned a comprehensive grade of 98%, was second in the class, and runner up for their student firefighter of the year award. He also earned ten college credits that can be applied to a fire science degree if he chooses to pursue that path.
It was an excellent experience, and he’s looking forward to participating again for a second year next fall. The program is available for juniors and seniors, and next year he’ll get the chance to be a company officer, leading a team in their hands-on drills and daily classwork.
- Ben holds a ladder in place so someone else can climb it.
I wanted to share about this adventure here because (along with finally getting a few good photos to post!) it shows one way that a young adult might venture out into the big wide world. It’s a program Ben wanted to try because it sounded fun and interesting, and now he’s carefully considering whether or not he’d like to pursue a fire service career. If he does, that’s terrific. If not, then it will still be a great experience from which to learn and grow.
Also, parents wonder about how their homeschooled or unschooled kids will fare as they grow and mature. In this case, by many other people’s standards and measurements (and ours too), Ben is doing just fine. More importantly, by his own standards, he is doing just fine. This was a kid who played with Legos, climbed trees, built things, listened to stories, read books, and played all day long for years and years. He didn’t have years of schooling, or years of formalized curriculum, before this experience. He had real life experiences. And this is a wonderful continuation of that.
Tags: adventures, creating our own path, growing up, what do you do all day?
Category Adventures, Creating Our Own Path, Growing Up, What Do You Do All Day? |
In early June, our family enjoyed a camping trip with a few families from our homeschool group. It’s the fifth year we’ve done some type of camping together, and it’s been fun to enjoy this annual tradition. This year we stayed in cabins at Bay View State Park on Padilla Bay. Among other various camping activities, the teens enjoyed a woodsy tea party together, including some fancy tea, desserts, and somewhat dressy attire. Each of them contributed enthusiastically in their own way.
- They found a lovely spot in the woods to enjoy some fancy teas, home-baked cookies, and scones.
- The ladies enjoyed a rest on the porch swing in their tea party finery.
- Bonus beach photo - relaxed and happy teens hanging out together
I’m grateful we’ve had the chance to get to know these families over the years, and I’m glad these teens can enjoy such simple pleasures together.
** Photos by Taylor Miller **
Category Adventures, Creating Our Own Path, Growing Up |
My recent post about seasonal changes, along with Mother’s Day, reminded me of my mom, and how much I’ve missed her lately. Seven years ago, during the last month of her life, we were able to take care of her in our home when she needed us the most. It was winter, everything else seemed to stop, and caring for her took precedence. I was so glad that Ben, age 10 at the time, was able to be there with us, spending time with her and caring for her. We took her to appointments, fixed her food, helped with her meds, and assisted her getting into and out of her wheelchair. Ben was able to be with her, see her pain, offer her comfort, and learn good caregiving. He also comforted me when I would cry because I knew my mom was dying. She was able to enjoy those last weeks with her sweet grandson talking with her, sharing his life with her, and helping her. The fact that he was home with us, and not away in school for long hours every day, gave us an extra bit of family attachment during this very difficult season. I will always be grateful for that time we had together.
One gift my mom gave me at that time was related to Ben learning to read. He was just on the cusp of figuring it out, but still hesitant and not quite ready to read independently. She, herself, was dealing with some language struggles of her own, partially due to meds she was taking as well as other brain changes during her eight years with cancer. I had talked with her over the years about my philosophy of children learning to read when they’re ready, in their own good time, and she really seemed to understand. During one conversation that winter, she shared her own feelings about how language development was often tricky business, and really needed patience and acceptance for each individual’s process. She was feeling this way because of her own experiences, but made the connection related to Ben’s language growth and readiness for reading. She encouraged me to be patient and supportive of his independent time-table for learning to read. I will always be grateful to her for that nurturing support.
Sure enough, a couple months later, while we were all still grieving my mother’s death, Ben made the needed language connections on his own, and started reading independently. She would have been so happy for him and this milestone.
My mom offered me many other gifts during my lifetime. From her, I learned simple pleasures like watching sunsets, eating watermelon on a hot day, keeping the kitchen counters clean, and folding warm laundry into neat piles. She shared with me her love of words, alliterations, editing, and precise grammar usage. She helped me learn compassion, the need for social justice, and the importance of thinking about life from other people’s points of view. She showed me the beauty of rhododendrons, and I have finally come to appreciate the benefit of deadheading them after they bloom. She’d be pleased.
I am grateful for all her good mothering, and I am grateful for having the chance to be Ben’s mother now.
Tags: connections, growing up, patience, reading, winter
Category Connections, Reading, What Do You Do All Day? |
One of the best parts of unschooling is that our lives can flow with the seasons. It’s been spring gardening, high intensity bookkeeping, and math workshop season for me lately. For Ben, it’s been a busy season of guitar-building, learning to cook, resume-writing for a job application, fitness routines, and continuing with a fire service training class. For Don, it’s been a season of cigar-box guitar-building, computer work, and performances in his band and as a guitar player in a few musicals.
These things have kept our days filled, along with all the other ordinary parts of life. For these reasons, I haven’t written anything for a while, but I’m still here, and still thinking about things to share and things to write about that might engage you as readers. As life slows down a bit, I’ll have a little more time to express my thoughts about the different things I’ve been thinking about and what we’ve been doing lately.
Thinking about all this made me consider how these types of seasonal ebbs and flows can be similar for our children. It’s good for us to recognize that they have their own seasonal patterns, too. Sometimes they’re really busy, bursting with activity, fully pursuing a project, or learning about something new. They appear consistently productive with things that are fun to talk about or look really cool. We like it when they chat with us about what they’re doing or learning or thinking about.
Then other times they slow down, are more contemplative, quiet, and relaxed in their pursuits. Maybe they aren’t sharing details with us as much or they don’t have as much to say throughout the days. Sometimes, as parents, we interpret this kind of behavior as a bit of laziness or not as social as we’d like. We start to worry. We wonder what they’re thinking about, what they’re doing, if they’re learning anything. We start to meddle and possibly prod them in unhelpful ways.
A lot of learning can happen even when it’s not apparent at a given time, even if we can’t see it. A lot of happiness and rejuvenation can occur during the quieter, relaxed periods of our lives. Each season has its own possibilities for different types of learning and important types of growth. I think we owe it to ourselves and our children to respect and appreciate all these seasons.
Category Adventures, Creating Our Own Path, What Do You Do All Day? |
- Songwriting with friends at camp
As Ben grows older, I keep noticing examples of real writing experiences that are a natural part of our lives. I say “real writing” because they’re ordinary, everyday types of writing, unassigned, and not artificially contrived for someone else’s purposes. They’re simple, meaningful, and for our own purposes.
For instance, during the past month, as Ben has been building a new bass guitar, he started posting descriptions and photos of the building process on a bass-building musician’s forum called Luthier’s Corner at TalkBass.com. This is a forum he has read through quite often in the past in order to get ideas from other builders’ designs and methods. I think it’s great that now he has a chance to share some of his own work with other builders or bass players and get feedback from them as they view his progress. I love this because it’s a truly meaningful way to exchange information in written form.
Another part of this process I’ve enjoyed is that sometimes he asks me to do a quick reading of what he’s written before he posts it to the forum. He asks if the descriptions are clear and make sense, or if I notice any small editing details that might need tending to before it goes public. I’m happy to do this, and it’s fun to see how his writing style has evolved over the years. He used to be a very hesitant writer who didn’t express himself much through writing, but now he seems quite comfortable and competent with it.
One of the best parts of the above experience is that now, any time I’m writing something that I might need help with, I ask Ben to look it over and give his input. Whether I’m writing a blog post, a formal letter, or a quick note to someone, I can ask him to read a section and tell me what he thinks. It really helps to have another person give this kind of feedback, and I’m glad that this can be a mutual experience for us.
There have been many other types of writing in our lives lately: texts, emails, job application forms, a resume, and notes to mentors requesting letters of recommendation. Each of these writing experiences has had its own form and function, its own meaningful reason for needing our attention. I’m glad we’ve been able to share these real writing experiences together.
Tags: creating our own path, growing up, reading, writing
Category Creating Our Own Path, Growing Up, Writing |
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