I can’t believe how the weather has finally turned so beautiful. It was bound to happen, but when it did it was still amazing, sweet success. Summer has begun, and likewise mine feels like it must be getting closer. My living situation has driven me to the brink of insanity; to bi polar psychosis. The gears are churning at such a painfully slow pace...it’s like in a dream, when you are trying to do something, run, get the attention of your lover as he/she is walking away, and it feels like you are trapped in sand or mud, your movements, even on step or gesture, so slow and labored.
As a person so familiar and infused with flow, movement, constant change, being stuck in limbo, stagnation, is so, so painful. For me it is usually the decision-making time that I slow down. I have made a decision, so what the hell is the problem, let’s get on with it!
I have to admit, I am a bit of an occultist and I consult Iching (How could Mom, Carl Jung and Pink Floyd all be wrong?), and it has helped me with my faith that a great place in which to create the home I need will show up, that I need not make any rash decisions and settle for something that won’t make a comfortable hearth. But the waiting is hard. Two thirds of my life is packed away in the garage, my daughter and I squished into a single room. We are artists, how can we create if we can hardly move? Where just putting something away is a chore because it goes in the box behind the other box in the closet.
As I have finally, for the first time found a great community in which I have chosen to lay down so roots, I now have this burning intense desire to create the home/hearth from which to thrive and conceive (no, I am not talking about children). But all has rolled to a stop. As I search for our home we exist in another’s home. I have for most of my life lived with roommates and in communal situations, but here is different, my roommates are very nuclear and the house is very normal. We work, create, learn, experiment, shake things up and live from our home. MY home is full of art, science, music, political commentary, books, dinner guests…not banal clutter, and all the regular furniture. This is not my home.
This town isn’t big enough to have 20 rentals to choose from. They trickle in and 2 property managers monopolize the market. It is hard to discuss section 8 vouchers with a corporation. They aren’t people and the middleman always makes all the rules.
So to escape all the pain of stagnation on the home front, I push my life forward in other areas. Picking up again my Zapatista, Latin America solidarity work. Picking up again my battles in the world of gender. And filling my life with others who say NO to school.
Spent the whole afternoon and early evening with unschoolers yesterday, on the Russian River. Already have three camping trips slated for the summer. Two with groups of unschoolers and another with some amazing, radical, super smart friends….one of which I realized I have a crush on. Though I would never tell her.
PS as I cut and posted this from Word to post up here, my roommate came home and told me she is moving...sooo I said go ahead and give 30 days...so now I have 30 days. Exciting and nerve wracking. Let the count down begin.
I was starting to get on board and just accept that I would be sending my daughter to school. All her friends that are older than two are planning to go to school. I hadn’t connected much with any parents in the Homeschooling Association here. And what single parent in their right mind, who has no help with this child raising fiasco, would forgo all that free childcare provided by the public school system? Me?
Though I had planned from the beginning not to send my daughter to school, over the last months of chaos and pain, I had determined that Ramona would do just fine there. I would have more time/freedom to research and create in solitary peace. Ramona’s education and socialization needs will be handed to us on a silver platter. And, well, what makes us so special, that school isn’t good enough…but…every time I would meet someone who was ditching school permanently, my throat would tighten and my heart sink. Jealousy. Compromising my ideals, yuck! I want the freedom they have and the guts to go through with it…I have that, don’t I?
In the beginning I liked school sort of, but not particularly. I complained about school starting so early from the first day. I hated how people were so uptight and mean because I wasn’t like they were (actually was really painful). I felt like I was wasting my time at school. By the time I was a teen and I realized that the person the designed the school I went to also designed the local prison I REALLY despised school. I hated that when I didn’t go to school, they would send the police over to escort me and threaten to send my mom to jail. Whoa, fascists! Compulsory public schooling to me looks like a lot of compulsory conditioning…first invented in Prussia in order to create good soldiers and citizens. While some parents want their children conditioned to support and carry on the current social structure that happens to be coming unraveled at the seams, I see friends of mine spending a lot of time undoing the damage that the experiences of school creates for their children.
I dropped out before the age of legality, to live my rebellious life. Five years later, I took my GED and went to college . That’s when I got even angrier at school. I realized how much of what I learned was superficial as well as completely wrong. In college I reconnected with my innate drive to learn, the one that nearly everyone is born with, the one that school had wrung out of me. In college I was treated with respect rather than a subject to be “taught” (conditioned) to some weird standard that was created by some shmucks who think they know what my child needs to live her future adult life.
I know that school has changed some in some places since I was a child. I guess I just haven’t seen good results with reform, so I’m not a reformist. Some people like school…and it isn’t so much that there aren’t alternatives to the lame status quo mainstream classroom, especially here in Liberal Northern California. My objections to school run much deeper than that. They spring from the center of my being, which is where my activism, creative energy and way of life also spring. Where once my activism emerged from resentment and rebellion…now it emerges from rebellion, hope and dedication to a better future. Some magical experiences I have had involving Mexico, research and alternative schools; a collage of Zapatismo, Oaxacan rebellions and Gustavo Esteva’s writing and work brought me to this place. “Imagine the future you are dreaming of and fighting for in vivid detail. Now, build that future, in everyway that you can, miniscule and humongous, in the here and now. Let every action be an action towards realizing your utopia. Live the future now.” The ideas snuggled in these words have salvaged me. They have given direction to my creative and political energy and a voice and contentment to my innate self.
If you crush it, smash it, tear this “white racist, homophobic, patriarchal bullshit paradigm” down, what have you but a power vacuum followed by more power grabbing and the “join me, join me” propaganda war? How can we change if we aren’t creating something to change into. How can we fight “power over” without cultivating personal power? After spending years fighting and dying and screaming and crying I realized I had been ignoring the other side or more likely I didn’t feel the power to think outside the paradigm…but the Zapatistas have been trying it (they were a bit farther from our western controled paradigm already). Gustvo Esteva has been working on it as well. Two years ago I had the opportunity to study for a month at the so-called university that Esteva co-founded called Universidad de la Tierra. It’s about building. Building connections, building alternatives, building whole lives…defragmenting and decentralizing EVERYTHING.
So as my life fell apart this winter and my inspiration stagnated, so did my desire and ability to build the new paradigm that is being built in a million tiny pieces and places all over the world and growing and growing (seriously, but much of what is going on ISN’T in the USA). I want to struggle against fragmentation and centralization and for self-empowered people and communities. Power from above centralizes as people power and self-sufficiency dwindles. The power that we give to the government is the power that we give to the government. Our relationship with our work, our food, our educations, our children, our health, out water, our environment, our lives are fragmented and we become helpless and dependent on centralized power to give us everything. We know that this isn’t sustainable. The struggle for sustainability should be the struggle for self-sufficiency.
Schooling is synonymous with conditioning. I want my daughter to learn in freedom. I want her to learn from the real world, not about it. I want her to know that (outside of math) there is always more than one answer, that are always more than two sides of a story and the truth isn’t always somewhere in the middle. To know that what is impossible to solve in one paradigm may be simple in another. I want her ability to follow her bliss to stay intact.
Funny thing is that while I often hear parents worried that their children aren’t being stimulated enough, I see children being over-stimulated. So-called “stimulation” actually looks a lot like distraction to me. Distraction from listening to the self and learning to deal withit. When my daughter is in preschool, she expects adults to always give her something to do; to keep her busy. When summer comes, she goes crazy for a couple weeks (driving me crazy), and then when she realizes I am not going to give her everything to do, she will start being creative. Finding her own things to do. She becomes amazingly focused and creates her best work. Following her own passion, or at least discovering it. If this is already obvious to me in preschool, I am afraid what happens in the higher grades.
It isn’t that I don’t believe in the public good, or public education, it has more to do with schooling and conditioning of children. Ordering 25 seven-year-olds to a room for most of the day, day after day, accompanied by one adult and pressuring the teacher to teach to some Government standards based on making our country competitive in the global factory is not a good way to learn; it isn’t even safe (this is why so much of Teacher Training programs are focused on “classroom management.”) The structure of school requires hierarchical power structures and carrot/stick punishment and reward tactics to keep the peace and encourage students to fulfill government mandates. What our children learn as children will profoundly affect the way they exist as adults. I know there are better, less costly ways to learn. Ivan Illich had some good ideas about this. His book “Deschooling Society,” touches on a lot of the problems with schooling, that I haven’t even began to go into in this blog, as well as a few ideas and solutions. I also know that present day school is the better option for many children whose parents don’t have the capacity to put them anywhere better or even make educational decisions for them. But I hope for everyone to one day have better options. The more people say “no” and take a step out, the easier it is for others to do the same. And as people find popular-based and local-based solutions, the humongo, centralized, misguided federal government solution becomes less desirable. Maybe I am a pioneer. I hope I am a pioneer. I can’t do this alone. I see more parent cooperative, community schools and free skools on the horizon. At least for my daughter’s and my sake.
I recently started a homeschool/unschool Park Day in my town. I think it was a hit. I find more and more families are turning towards, “No More School” by the week. And they mostly aren’t rich or religious. Look at me. The Crazy Anarchist.
If you have actually made it through that long post, and your still interested, well, I would like to share a couple links. Here is a link to Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society online with notes and commentary…it is posted as a reading group on Wikiversity. http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich:_Deschooling_Society
And here is the text of a speech Gustavo Esteva gave to some college students around commencement, that talks about some of his amazing life, thinking, meeting of Ivan and most importantly the thinking and actions that gave birth to the bad ass learning space in Oaxaca, Universidad de la Tierra. http://www.gustavoesteva.com/english_site/back_from_the_future.htm
Well i can't seem to complete a complete idea in my writing which lead to lack of posting, but frog updates are easy!
I do think I need to share my tadpoles though. 12 hatched. I gave 3 away. Then Ramona's fish died when she was in the hospital, so it conveniently freed up an aquarium so now they all have space. The biggest one is really growing up! I actually saw it's tongue pop out of it's mouth today! So cute and unexpected.
double trouble
I spent hours researching tadpoles online. In all the posts I read about how to take care of tadpoles (which were many many many), it wasn't until I read about tadpoles from a university site from the biology department that I actually got an understanding of the little things. Lots of sites told me to feed them frozen or boiled lettuce or spinach and to clean their water often. Lots of sharing of info with no real sharing of knowledge. Ahh, the Information Age..
my biggie tadpole
The university site told me about how tadpoles actually get most of their nutrition not from the plant, but the bacteria that decomposes the stuff...basically it is better if it is rotting. They also said that tadpoles eat their poop. It also told me that tadpoles release a chemical that stunts the growth of other tadpoles, so it is good to partially change the water a lot so the little tadpoles can keep up growing, but not to remove the poop or clean the bottom, or flora or fauna. Those other information sites had said to only feed as much as they could eat in a short time...not good advice since they love the rot. Some sites told me to completely clean out the cage every couple weeks (more bad advice). Unfortunately, anyone can make a site, or get paid for writing a "how to" page. The internet is getting so full of empty and mediocre information, it's getting harder and harder to learn anything. But I guess as the internet gets more mediocre, we can learn new ways to locate, process and understand info.
Anyhow, looks like we got some Sierran Tree tadpoles.
Well, we ended up getting a Barbie just hours after I wrote my post “Barbie!” and what a long strange trip its been. I was tickled to see my daughter so excited and delighted with her new toy. For $2.59 of Ramona’s money and a Kohl’s Cash Coupon, we brought home a brand new perfectly beautiful, plastic, made in China, blonde haired, blued-eyed beach Barbie and a set of three outfits for her and Sandra (Ramona’s former Casual Black, bought at a roadside thrift store, Beach Barbie) to share, though they spend most of their time in the buff. Having bought such a loaded toy HAS been a learning experience for us (I was told by a little bird that Barbie has some lessons to teach). So yeah, I want to help my child make thoughtful choices, not ban her from making her own choices, even if I think they a bad. It is hard work to parent in this way…but more on that in my next post.
While many folks would think, “No big deal, its just a Barbie.” I'm just not that person no matter how hard I try. The first thing that happened is that Ramona, at not quite four years of age, has trouble getting on many of the Barbie clothes. So I had to do the dressing much of the time. One afternoon, as I was resting in the bed after a long day, Ramona dropped off Barbie, her clothes and a brush for me to help her get ready for “the party” and then went off to “set up the party.” I carefully dressed the doll and brushed her luxurious hair. As I was lying there tenderly smoothing Barbie’s clothes, admiring her, I came to my senses. Oh my, am I not even immune to the seduction of Barbie?!? I was dazzled by perfect little Barbie! And I was enjoying it! The nostalgia had gotten to me; perfect plastic smile beautiful Barbie. I still have a place for Barbie in my heart, it seems.
But after a couple days, and more conversations about Barbie, I began getting paranoid. When my sister asked me what Ramona might want for Christmas and I mentioned that she likes Barbies, my sister said, “I am not going to be that person that buys her barbies. I am not going to be that influence.” Then another friend really clobbered my with a statement that I had been trying to deny in my own inner Barbie babble. She said (or rather facebooked), “No intelligent, self respecting women would like Barbie.” Could it be true? Didn’t I secretly like Barbie? Was it a reflection on my own character? Soon, I found myself shuddering whenever Ramona would ask me if she could take her Barbies with her to public places, like the park. What would other mother’s think? That I was a bad mom? Shallow mom? A non self-respecting mom giving my daughter’s bad role models? And what if they knew that I like Barbie too!?! And what if only kids who played with Barbies started making friends with her…or what if Ramona was a bad influence on kids who couldn’t have Barbies? And what would their mothers think of me?…
Eventually, Barbie herself began to wear on me. Ramona continued talking about the Barbie world that she would have one day. Everything about Barbie is about being pretty and buying stuff. Glam Mansion, Pink Cars, poodles, TVs, YUCK! She also kept talking about playing with her old friend Jade. Jade who collects Barbies. Who has the Barbie Mansion. Whose dad sells real estate and drives a beamer; whose mom plays tennis and buys her daughter’s their hearts desire. Ramona also wanted to show her Barbies to her other friends. I realized that Barbie was becoming Ramona's early experience in either a) social status based on “having” or b) a way to connect via mutual playthings (perhaps a bit of both). One of the most important things I learned in grad school is that the important question is not “What is it?” but “What does it do?” (Thank you Targol) Buying a Barbie IS more than just buying a Barbie, and it was about to be even more if I didn’t figure something out quickly. The doll is loaded, I tell you. At least for us.
Now that Ramona and I were able to spend time with the dolls, determine what the doll was about in our lives, we began having constructive conversations about Barbies and things related to Barbie. We talked a bunch about plastic and consumerism again. And when Ramona told me that she wanted to collect Barbies like Jade, I realized that for her, it might not be about specifically Barbie as much as I thought and also that I must not be the only mother in this position. Ramona likes dolls that look like people, not baby people, but people. There must be an alternative. We ended up finding the Only Heart Club Girls. They look like preteen girls and since young girls like to do things in imaginative play that young girls do in real life, why would we give them adults? The Only Hearts Girls aren’t hyper-consumers, they care about friendship (though there aren't any boys...yet) and are “wholesome (so far).” They have way less plastic on their bodies, their rooms are made from cardboard and wood, their pets are plush with wire, there are books available with soft and squishy morals of friendship, sharing, sacrifice and compromise…but they are still made in China. However, It was such a relief to find a better doll for Ramona to collect and invite her friends over to play with.
Due to the Barbie ordeal, Ramona has learned a ton. I have been happy to watch her develop a real, grounded understanding of plastic and consumerism. The lessons of real life, life in context, are the perfect learning tools. She is now quite versed (for such a young girl) on the problems with consumerism and especially plastic. Lucky for us, as all of this was coming to a head, this music video about plastic bags was released:
… which really got our conversations flowing on that topic and actually got me reinvested in cutting our plastic again (I feel I have become a bit more lax than I used to be in the last year). Ramona watched the video six times. This later led us to some Youtube clips about the massive garbage (mostly plastic) island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and discussions about reducing, reusing, recycling (in that order) PCBs, PBAs and other toxins in our food and water supplies, etc.
The intense desire of the young child matched against the ideological allegiance of the mother could have led to a simple denial of Barbies, perhaps ending in feelings of powerlessness and disappointment and statements such as “you will understand when you get older,” but instead we were able to negotiate and work things through to an outcome we are both happy about. I was able to uncover my own love and hate for Barbies, which will still take some processing on my part and Ramona was able to understand something by her own learning process in the spontaneous environment a slightly unstructured life can provide. She was able to exercise control over her decision.
Ramona has two Barbie’s and will soon have a Barbie disguised as a princess that will arrive this Christmas…no problem. Ramona is no longer obsessed with the things and she is looking forward to her Only Hearts World.
After all that writing about gender in yesterday's blog, I just received a copy of Ramona's first play she will be part of, Babes in the Wood (the nice version)
Jack the brother has multiple lines equaling 56 words. Jane has 2 lines equaling 8 words. Tom climbs trees, Jane does not. Tom leads the way through the forest, Jane follows Tom. Jane is frightened, Tom speaks "bravely" taking his sisters hand. Tom decides when they stop for the night. Jane is more tired than Tom. The Fairy Queen takes Tom by the hand, but carries Jane. The reformed robber teaches Tom about "animals and birds." Jane is taught nothing.
There are two other women in the story. They are the wives of the repentant robber and Sir James the knight. Even though Sir James' wife does more in the story (longs for children, goes and finds them in the garden, very "feminine things to do) she is still just Sir James "pretty wife." No identity outside of that.
There are also ungendered fairies and birds, except one...one of the "a merry fairy fellows" contemplates tickling the children.
If it weren't from the Fairy Queen, I would definitely go and have a talk with the teacher about the utter lack of capable women in our play. I probably will shoot her an email anyway. But really, the fairy queen is magic. She is not a human woman. Only magic females are strong. (Perhaps this could have an interesting and potentially positive affect in encouraging girls to practice magic?). At least I might suggest that they make Jane a little sister. I wouldn't feel so bad about her being soooo passive and needy were she a tot.
Am I the only one bothered by the incredible passivity girls are taught? Lately I have been changing male characters in books with female ones, because book after book after book has male protagonists. I have been reading Shel Silverstien to Ramona switching the gender in every single poem. Yes there are books with strong female protagonists, but they are not the norm. Little girls read all about interesting boys but little boys read little about interesting girls.
As for Fairy Tales, traditionally every generation across different cultures have changed and adapted these stories for centuries. It is time this generation, in this culture updated the Fairy Tale traditions to ones more valuable to our society.
I would have written earlier if I weren’t trying to respond to a recent challenge at “Unschoolers Emporium” (www.theunschoolersemporium.com/) to write a blog entry and post it on their site about Unschooling. There are several topics to choose from, but I thought I would start at the beginning and chose, “What brought you to unschooling.” I have been wasting hours and days filing pages. All I have done is irritate myself by forcing something I have so much to say about without knowing where or when or if or how I should say it.
What I can do is post links. What I can say is that unschooling is definitely up for interpretation. One thing I notice is that some people seem to interpret child led learning, to mean that the child directs the adults lives. “ I personally don’t like guns, but I buy my kid toy guns because I am taking my child’s lead.” I guess if I were an unschooler in that train of thought, I should spend $150 a month so my kid can watch cable TV. Give me a break, let’s put ourselves through the perils of the rat race so we can spend our money on things we are morally against? Well, I guess we are all used to it, since we fund wars with our tax dollars all the time…So after day of writing why I came to unschooling, all I have to say is an insult?!
Unschooling to me is about change. Social Change doesn’t happen if people don’t change. The education system has been a site of struggle for years and it has only gotten worse; more standardized and more under the control of non-educators. Schooling is a form of coercion. The culture of school is about jumping through hoops, sorting children into haves and have-nots, manipulating people, working the system, and learning to conform and please others (non-conformists are skewered in high school). Otherwise we would only need knowledge and expertise to get jobs, not degrees. School says you learn in school, not the world.
Unschooling is a term that fit my philosophy on life. I hope that after this disjointed post I can go on with my blogging and leave this difficult time behind (sarcasm).
Or maybe I resent writing about unschooling because I am jealous of those who have the time and resources and connections that let them live their lives exactly how their ideals dictate...or maybe I'm just afraid I won't be able to pull it off.
'When we all request education and institutions where our children and young people can stay and learn, we close our eyes to the tragic social desert in which we live. They have no access to real opportunities to learn in freedom. In many cases, they can no longer learn with parents, uncles, grandparents—just talking to them, listening to their stories or observing them in their daily trade. Everybody is busy, going from one place to another. No one seems to have the patience any more to share with the new generation the wisdom accumulated in a culture. Instead of education, what we really need is conditions for decent living, a community.
“True learning,” Ivan Illich once said, “can only be the leisurely practice of free people.” '
I don’t want to ever send my daughter to school. But it’s not that simple. For one, I lean towards the unschooling philosophy, where the child is in control of his or her own learning. If the child decides to go to school, my stopping her would not be letting her have control of her own learning. Ramona likes the idea of school, mostly because she likes people, lots and lots of people.
Preschool is different from regular school anyway. My mother convinced me to give preschool a try last year, and Ramona was always begging for more time with more kids. I gave it a try, but there were issues that bugged both Ramona and I, which I won’t go into in this blog other than much of it stemmed from age segregation and gender segregation issues. She does however want to go to preschool again. She has a daycare, which she loves to death, but there are only a handful of kids there half of which are infants or new walkers. She wants a larger group of kids closer to her age.
Because of our bad feeling around the issues we had at her school last year Preschool, we decided to look into the Parent Participation school. Ramona really liked it, and after talking about it for a day or so, flip flopping back and forth, we chose the new school. I thought I would be like “Great, I am glad she made her decision.” But instead I got nervous and scared. Her decision actually involves me very much. Parent participation meant I would be working in the school as well! My life isn’t only about Ramona. I have so many things going on. Am I ready to make this commitment for up to two years?
I assume this school would be a great opportunity to really be a part of Ramona’s education, and the children really do lead in this school. It would also be an opportunity for me to get some experience working in cooperative schooling situations with other parents. As a single parent with a super social daughter, the only way I could conceive of homeschooling is within a homeschooling cooperative.
On the other hand, my idea of a cooperative was not under the umbrella of the public school system. The new school is run through the Adult School and we are expected to attend parenting classes twice a month and to be on a committee. This school requires 3 days attendance, and then 4 days next year while the other school only requires 2 days and then three next year. What if I don’t like the school? What if I get a job that conflicts (not that I am looking for a 9-5 M-F job)? I don’t want to switch around schools. And if we decide we liked the old school better and went back, I would have lost my coop position (for reduced tuition) there. I need my own time, as I am taking new strides in my life, working to forge my own path…do I want to learn about child development? Isn’t my parenting style intuitive and empathic, rather then learned from the “experts.” Ahhhhhhhh! What to do.
Then I get a call from the 4Cs, the organization that offers childcare subsidies. They tell me I qualify, but that they couldn’t pay for childcare while I was working in the classroom because I would not be working for money. Well that settles it, back to the old School. But then I get a letter from the Parent Participation school talking about how much the parents add to the class, with songs, and scientific presentations…and I am confused and stressed AGAIN.
In all this I start to feel trivial and fanatical for thinking and stressing so much about preschools. It is just preschool, isn’t it? My amazing, active, successful friends don’t sit and obsess about preschools, they worry about more important things like the concentration camp called Palestine, or racist laws in Arizona, or assassinations and disappearances of Mayan resisters in Chiapas, or their art, or their jobs…
But preschools are important. The lives of our children are important. The experiences of the first years of their lives affect them for a lifetime. They dominate their unconscious minds and dictate how they relate to the world. Social change comes from within people. Schools are more important than the job I am looking into right now. Schools are important…Or the absence of them…they affect us our entire lives…Jeez I wish Ramona didn’t want to go.
Truth is Ramona will be going to good school that she likes. It is walking distance. Kids love it. No worksheets or anything like that. Lots of choice for the kids. And she is in the afternoon class, where there is less age segregation. But, I miss out on the cooperative experience. Maybe some day I will have another chance, a cooperative experience that is organic and evolves from community members that want something new and different for their kids, that isn’t part of this big centralized government with all its rules, regulations, bureaucracy, taxes and “proof.”
Yesterday was the first time Ramona and I had gone protesting since she was an infant. I am actually not much of a protester these days. However, the protest yesterday was the first one I really felt compelled to join in quite a while. It was a march for Human Rights, organized in response to the Arizona law SB 1070 that encourages and advances racial profiling and racism.
I am so proud of my little girl. She was so present at the protest, she danced with the Aztec Dancers. She has never walked so far. She was so inspired by the energy and the people at the protest, she didn’t complain one time during the three hour ordeal. She walked (and ran, as her little legs were no match for the rate of the march) at least a mile, and carried the sign the rest of the over three mile march as I carried her. She was completely absorbed in what was going on and asking all sorts of questions which I answered as best I could in terms I hoped she could understand. It was sort of easy to explain the reasons for people coming and the reasons for the protest, but difficult to explain to her why there are borders in the first place and how the people got so poor.
Later, when we got home, my friend Christina came over to stay the night and I beamed with pride as I heard Ramona explain to our friend what had transpired earlier in the evening. She really personalized her retelling of the story, by talking about the woman (she loves) who runs her daycare, who emigrated from Mexico. “People like Maria come here and make their homes and then others say, you can’t be here go away, and they say, ‘No this is my home!’” She continued to chant today “Aqui Estamos, y no nos vamos.” I think Ramona knows more about immigration than any three year old I know (who isn't an immigrant, of course). It also helps that she has spent some many months in Mexico.
These are the kinds of experiences that shape children, these are the places that children learn. In society, in the street, through rich interactions with life…not locked in an institution 6-7 hours a day, five days a week. Learning about the world by experiencing it, not being told about it from inside four walls. Learning how to act by experimentation, not by authority and the culture of the carrot and the stick.
