A River Between

Here’s another example of how the United States’ public education system can be highly politicized and taken over by interests other than real education and learning.

After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

Read the entire article at The Guardian.

I remember growing up hearing all about the ills of Soviet Russia in the media (and in school). Propaganda, Pravda (a newspaper meaning “truth”), Mother Russia, etc. As children we all ate up the notion that “The United States is better” because we were free, we had the right to truthful education, etc. This was yet another lie my school told me. Now in Texas, students only get a one-sided truth now too.

I’ve not posted in a while. My bad.

But, I thought I’d share some success that happened this past October! After moving to Duluth, MN, I realized that I needed to apply for a city license to practice massage therapy. The City of Duluth has a requirement of 500 hours of massage and bodywork related education, as well as a criminal background check, in order to obtain this license.

The background check was easy, but the 500 hour requirement was a bit of a challenge. Since the State of Minnesota does not license massage therapists, I have been practicing for the last nine years without having to worry about these things. I practice under the Minnesota Unlicensed Complimentary and Alternative Medicine Law, which gives provides freedom of access to choose one’s own practitioner, as well as gives the right of any traditional healer to practice his or her trade within as state regulation. However, cities and other local government agencies are free to license massage therapists as they choose.

I have never “graduated” from a massage therapy program of 500 hours or more. However, I have taken many courses in massage therapy and related business, communication, ethics, and holistic healing methods from massage schools, workshops, and other independent study.

So, I gathered all of my transcripts from the two massage therapy schools I attended, as well as other training certificates, continuing education courses, transcripts from self-designed classes while in graduate school, and information about the conversion of semester hours to in-class “clock” hours from a national certifying group for massage, and made the case for myself that I had obtained the equivalent of 545 hours of massage, bodywork, and related education and training.

And within 3-4 weeks my license came in the mail!!

I believe that this is a huge success, and an example of the legitimacy of Portfolios of Learning as EQUAL to degrees and certifications. You can read my portfolio request for massage therapy licensure here (PDF), or click the PDF document image above.

I finally can now see my “Pass” grades online for my final five credits of graduate school. While I’ve decided to not complete the final steps to getting the “degree” - I’m happy to have accomplished the learning and deep inquiry. Parts of my “portfolio” and transcripts will be sent to Duluth to fulfill requirements for a Massage Therapist license with the city (along with other past transcripts).

I’m happy with my learning, but maybe not the “schooling” portions. The following writing completely sums up my own feelings about “The Culture of Schooling” as it is now.

Source: McEducation for All? - Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development

The Culture of Schooling…

1) Labels, ranks and sorts human beings. It creates a rigid social hierarchy consisting of a very small elite class of ‘highly educated’ and a large lower class of ‘failures’ and ‘illiterates’, based on levels of school achievement.

2) Imposes uniformity and standardization. It propagates the viewpoint that diversity is an obstacle, which must be removed if society is to progress.

3) Spreads fear, insecurity, violence and silence through its externally-imposed, military-like discipline.

4) Forces human beings to violently compete against each other over scarce resources in rigid win-lose situations.

5) Confines the motivation for learning to examinations, certificates and jobs. It suppresses all non-school motivations to learn and kills all desire to engage in critical self-evaluation. It centralizes control over the human learning process into the State-Market nexus, taking power away from individuals and communities.

6) Commodifies all human beings, Nature, knowledge and social relationships. They are to be extracted, exploited, bought and sold.

7) Fragments and compartmentalizes knowledge, human beings and the natural world. It de-links knowledge from wisdom, practical experiences and specific contexts.

Artificially separates human rationality from human emotions and the human spirit. It imposes a single view of rationality and logic on all people, while simultaneously devaluing many other knowledge systems.

9) Privileges literacy (in a few elite languages) over all other forms of human expression and creation. It drives people to distrust their local languages while prioritizing newspapers, textbooks, television as the only reliable sources of information.

10) Reduces the spaces and opportunities for ‘valid’ human learning by demanding that they all be funneled through a centrally-controlled institution. It creates artificial divisions between learning and home, work, play, spirituality.

11) Destroys the dignity of labor; devalues the learning that takes place through manual work.

12) Breaks intergenerational bonds of family and community and increases people’s dependency on the Nation-State and Government, on Science and Technology, and on the Global Market, for their livelihoods and identities.

Kombucha is now my biggest guilty pleasure! I love making this healthy,fizzy, fermented tea at home. Kombucha is said to have come from China thousands of years ago. It has been historically a popular health tonic in Russia for centuries. Many people have claimed that Kombucha helped in their illnesses, cancer, the regrowing of hair, the un-graying of hair, and of course, just general all-around well-being.

Kombucha starts with basic black or green tea, sugar, and the addition of a Kombucha “mushroom” or culture. By placing the culture in a glass jar of prepared tea with sugar, over about 5-7 days it literally eats up the caffeine and sugar - then converts it to healthy acids and B-vitamins. The tea begins to taste like fizzy apple cider.

It’s oh so yummy! I’m brewing about 2 gallons a week!

For more information on how to brew your own Kombucha, here are some links:

How to Make Kombucha
Health Claims of Kombucha

After meeting with key faculty at the college I was attending, I turned in my final portfolio of 5 credits, and sent a revised final statement paper to my advisor in the mail. After completing 32 credits of coursework, I have decided to leave the boxes of academia. It was an easy decision after I was shown sample “position papers” adhering to APA standards, and learning that I could only present my colloquium (final presentation) in one lecture hall at the college. A lot of prescription. A lot of “business as usual” that I have taken myself so far away from in the past three years of inquiry and learning. Lots of other reasons also contributed to this decision.

If you are interested in reading my “final integration paper” for my last contract, it details my reasoning and rationale for walking out. I have intentionally taken out any mention of the college’s name. Click on this link or the image above to read my WalkOut statement!

I thought I’d share this very inspiring video from India. 14 friends set off on a learning journey on bicycles. The film is part of a film festival and project of Shikshantar: The People’s Institute for Rethinking Education and Development. I hope it inspires you to get on your bike and start an adventure - whatever it may be.

Back in January, I met Manish Jain of Shikshantar while at the Unschooling Conference in Madison, WI. I think it’s great that he’s posting these films publicly!

“So what is Unschooling?” you may ask.

I’m glad you asked! This gives me an opportunity to formulate my own working definition!

Unschooling is basically “the freedom to learn in one’s own way.” Unschoolers learn what they want, when they want, and how they want. More recently, unschooling has become a movement for those who homeschool their children. It is learning without a set curriculum, without “teaching”, and without “school” as we define it in our culture. Unschoolers are still “learners” - yet they are free to learn in their own way, deriving meaning and synthesis from life experience.

You will often hear phrases like:

“Learning happens constantly. School is optional”
“I dropped out of school so I could get a REAL education.”

Jenina Mella, the coordinator of The Unschooling Conference I attended in Madison, WI , sums up unschooling this way:

It’s about convergence, pulling together all the threads of life into a seamless fabric, living authentically and in community with others. It’s something that we have largely lost in our society which relies so heavily on competition and accumulation rather than interdependence and sharing…

In my own life, I am finding that those learning experiences that I self-direct, are the most meaningful, lasting, and memorable experiences. They come from within me, and manifest in ways unexpected. To me, unschooling is a kind of “walking out” of societal pressures - consumerism, credentialism, competitiveness, hierarchy, and institutional structures that no longer serve me, or serve humanity. It is an “un-learning” and a welcoming of newness, wholeness, and creativity.

When I make shampoo from scratch, I am unschooling myself from consumer structures. I am also learning a skill I can keep with me for life. When I experiment with vegan cooking, I am “unschooling” my relationship with food. And ultimately, when I rely wholeheartedly on my passions, creativity, and curiosity to guide my educational journey, whatever the subject, I am “unschooling.”

I am finding more and more that “unschooling my life” is an important step for me. It has opened doors and has shown me that I can gather all of the answers I need in life from MYSELF.

So… Stay tuned for more unschooling posts, and unschooling resources in the future.

Shake it up!

Originally uploaded by holisticgeek

Yet another creation! A few nights ago I decided to try making my own shampoo. I modified a recipe found in the book, Earthly Bodies and Heavenly Hair, by Dina Falconi. It was a simple recipe that called for an herbal infusion, castile soap, olive oil, and essential oils.

I had many of the supplies needed, so I bought a large 32 oz bottle of Dr Bronner’s Hemp Castile Soap (the baby/unscented kind) for $13. This will probably make about 8 batches of shampoo, making each 20 oz batch cost about $1.63! Shampoo for a year for only $13.00! I love it.

I have a flickr photoset with instructions and pictures of how I made the shampoo. Enjoy!

Out of the oven

Originally uploaded by holisticgeek.

Michael and I have been trying our hand at making more things at home rather than buying pre-packaged food and personal products all of the time. Last week, Michael found this great recipe on VegWeb for making granola, and he tried it out.

I was the photographer, and Michael the crafter, and the granola…OH SO GOOD!!!

Michael also determined that buying all the ingredients in bulk and making his own granola was approximately ONE THIRD the price if he would have purchased pre-made granola, even when sold in bulk!

More photos and the entire process are in a set of photos on my flickr.

Try the recipe if you like, and enjoy! I think ours is almost gone.

Time to make more!

This weekend I am in Madison, WI, where I attended the 2nd annual Unschooling Conference, sponsored by H.O.M.E. All I can say is “What a conference!” Coming to meet so many wonderful people has been a great re-charge of my spirit. Unschooling has many forms, but can generally be characterized as the development of complete autodidactic, or self-directed learning. Unschoolers reject “schools” and imposed curriculum and structures, to allow students and people to learn from their own interests, goals, and passions.

The Village School of Northfield was an “unschool” where children were free to study what they wanted, when they wanted, and how they wanted. Here’s a link to a previous posting about The Village School.

At the Unschooling Conference I was able to meet some very wonderfully creative and passionate people - many of whom were parents who unschool their own children.

Here is a general summary of my experience:
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