Posts by Joan Concilio

22Jul
39

What our introverted family needs you to know

I like when things work together.

In four separate conversations, all with people who don’t know each other, I’ve been able to talk a lot about introversion in the past couple of weeks.

We are definitely a family of introverts and I’ve come to realize that it can be HARD to be friendly with us if you’re not a fellow introvert!

This week on the Unschool RULES Facebook page, I shared some links to cool stuff I’ve read that helps explain why we are how we are; I’m going to round those up here today, but also share a little of our story and why this is such an important topic to us.

What our family of homeschooling introverts needs you to know

We’re just different – and it might be hard to understand that none of us likes to be interrupted, that we don’t really like people in our personal space unless WE initiate the contact, that we like quiet, that we don’t always want to “hang out,” and so on.

What is introversion?

I had to laugh, because after I posted some links and thoughts on Facebook, someone who knows me well said, “Joan, I have to argue with you. You’re not an introvert. You can look people in the eye when you talk. You put all your finances on the internet!”

She was actually talking about a broader description – and one that is a common misconception, in which people misunderstand introversion as shyness or privacy.

Certainly there are shy introverts. I’m not one of them. I’m a gregarious introvert. I am outgoing, and comfortable speaking in front of large groups of people, and, well, kind of loud.

But being an introvert, in its simplest form, doesn’t mean you hate being in crowds. At the most basic level, being an introvert means you recharge alone.

Here’s a good read from Wikipedia on extraversion, ambiversion and introversion.

If you’re an extrovert, public speaking or a good party rev you up. You seek out other people, and if you’re left alone, you feel restless. It’s more draining for you to be alone than in a group.

As in introvert, I’m the opposite. In my case, I can speak in public – and in fact, I even enjoy it – but it’s draining. When I’m done, I need to get away from the crowd. It’s like my battery has died. When I’m in a crowd for too long, I get physically tired and almost claustrophobic. I need to be alone for a while.

 Yet I’m a not a loner. I just prefer being in small groups of people I’m close to, and I prefer to make any interactions ones of my own choosing.

That brings us to a really cool read:

Mindfulness Muse: Myers-Briggs, 8 Introverted Personality Types

In the Myers-Briggs inventory, I am most often an INTJ (introverted – intuitive – thinking – judging) or an INTP (introverted – intuitive – thinking – perceiving). At some times in my life, especially recently, I’ve veered more toward ISTP (introverted – sensing – thinking – perceiving). There are a total of sixteen personality types: eight introverted, and eight extroverted.

Here’s a pretty good test for finding out what your “type” might be. 

… And here’s a great site that will tell you more about your strengths and weaknesses based on that type!

When you realize that there are eight distinct types of personalities that have the introversion trait, you start to realize that introverts “in the wild,” as it were, can look really different!

How introverts process

Ah, herein the difficulties start. BEING introverted sometimes looks different.

  • We often don’t like interruptions.
  • We don’t like physical contact unless WE initiate it.
  • We sometimes like to observe what’s going on from a safe distance (sometimes for quite a while) before getting involved.
  • We get attached to things that may seem unusual – games, fictional characters, inanimate objects.
  • We go to parties, but arrive late and leave early.
  • When more than one of us is in a room, we can sit quietly and be incredibly happy.
  • We get pulled in to things we’re interested in and have trouble switching gears.

We actually have it easy in our family, in a way: Chris, Ashar and I are all introverts. We’re very different, but we go along well together because, without even trying, we’re used to giving each other space.

Funny introvert story: One time, the three of us took a two-and-a-half-hour car trip. We probably said about 5 sentences between us the whole time. When we arrived, Ashar got out of the car and said, “That was a really nice ride!” We are just comfortable in our own heads together.

Some time shortly after that, the three of us went somewhere with someone who was clearly not comfortable with the silence. Then, and only then, we became uncomfortable too, because we felt like we had to change; that we were somehow “doing it wrong!”

Regarding introverts and how we behave, here’s a fun read that helps explain why Ashar is so attached to her stuffed animals (bursting in to tears recently when one was “hurt” – torn) and why I can get so attached to characters in a book:

Live Science: Brains of Introverts Reveal Why They Prefer Being Alone

As I said, I think we have it easy. I told a friend last night that I think the hardest thing to do would be to meet the needs of a child who was very different from me – to parent an extrovert as an introvert, or, if I WERE an extrovert, to parent an introvert. I can’t imagine how hard that must be, and my heart goes out to those of you walking that out!

If you’re maybe a bit less of an introvert, and you have introverted kids in your life and you’re thinking, “But what do I DO with them?” … then I encourage you to check this out:

Parenting From Scratch: 5 Things to Know About Raising Introverted Children

An update: About a day after I originally posted this, I found an amazing hand-drawn guide called How to Live With Introverts. I can’t even say enough good things about it. It’s even printable – so you can make copies for all your friends!

Finally, for a neat read about the good parts of introversion, my friend Aadel has a great review of a book on the subject:

These Temporary Tents review: Quiet – The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

Introversion and unschooling

I’ve been sharing a lot about what introversion is and looks like, but I haven’t talked much yet about how it relates to our unschooling lifestyle.

There’s an amazing post on Living Joyfully (Pam Laricchia’s amazing unschooling blog) about video games and TV, yet another topic I’m passionate to defend in our family.

Living Joyfully: Unschooling Days – Inside the Nest

Its mention of introversion is brief, but throughout, you’ll see why this plays out as such an important way for our family to be – a way that we can be social while being antisocial, as some people might see it, but in which we can all recharge, process and, yes, learn!

Introversion and the autism spectrum

Here’s a great read from someone who, like Ashar, is introverted AND on the autism spectrum:

Inner Aspie: How to Help an Introverted Autistic Person

Let me be very clear that these things overlap, but they’re not requirements of each other. Lots of introverted people are “neurotypical,” and lots of people with autism and Asperger’s are NOT introverted. But when they do intersect, things are more pronounced. My introversion, or Chris’s, is “socially modulated.” We might hate small talk and certain social settings, but we have ways of getting through it that maybe mask our discomfort a bit. Ashar’s ways of getting through such events sometimes draw attention to her discomfort, rather than hiding it.

That’s NOT a bad thing – but it means that sometimes, I wish I had a better way of explaining to people that they can help, simply by not making assumptions that’s she being “difficult” by not participating in the way they think she should, or by watching instead of joining.

From the article:

“I think the main point is, just because I am quiet, and never speak during group activity that does not mean I had a bad time, or am uncomfortable. Sometimes, I feel just fine being a quiet observer of a group/social activity, and enjoy myself just fine doing so. Don’t assume to know what makes me happy. I’m not you, and never, ever, ever ask me out loud in front of a group why I am so quiet.”

And, I hope you knew this was coming – ALL the tips in this article are great for dealing with introverts NOT on the autism spectrum as well!

A view from the extrovert camp

We have good friends living with us for a little while – a family of three extroverts. One of the conversations that started this series came because, well, surprise: We’re a little hard to live with.

 Oh, maybe not if you’re introverted. (Or, you know, heavily sedated.)

But we have a rather frightening propensity to be quiet. Trust me, the funniest part about this is that when I do talk, I’m really loud. Annoyingly so. But the three of us do our own thing, and we don’t talk much. So it’s rather like living in a library, I guess, and feeling like you always have to whisper. And that’s uncomfortable for extroverts! (It’d be uncomfortable for me, too, honestly – while we tend toward quiet, we also can get awful loud at times.)

The nice thing, I told our friends, is that while we might be quiet ourselves, if we’re busy doing something, we’re all the type not to NOTICE if they’re happily being louder than we are!

Then there’s our propensity toward hyperfocus. Ask us a question when we’re busy, and it might seem like we’re ignoring you. We’re not – at least not consciously. I’ve been known to tell my mom “Yes” to things like “Do you want an egg?” and then be surprised when an egg appears in front of me, all because I was writing when she asked and I had no idea what I was even responding to. Ashar has been known to look around at midnight and say, “Where’s Mommom?” when she said goodnight to her at 9 p.m., while she was gaming.

This translates in another way, too. I told my friend Dana, “If I’m writing and you bleed to death on the floor behind me, I may not notice, or I may be a little annoyed if you can’t do it quietly.” You can imagine I’m a party to live with, can’t you?! (And, yes, I WOULD help her if she was bleeding to death on the floor behind me. Honest. I promise, Dana.) It’s not that I don’t care or am unobservant.

In fact, with some people, I’m hyperobservant – they sigh, and I’m all “Ahh, what’s wrong, is it XYZ?” That comes over a LONG time, though, and it’s almost like I build up a mental database that helps me tell when someone is feeling a particular way. If I haven’t built that up, either I might not notice if something’s wrong, or, just as often, I might think something is wrong, but figure, “Well, if they wanted to talk about it, they’d say something,” mostly because I would be uncomfortable if someone who didn’t know me particularly well asked me, “So what’s wrong?”

Oh, and hugging. I don’t hate hugs. But I admit, I am a hug control-freak. No surprises, please. I need to know it’s coming. Hugs from Ashar and Chris? Yes, because they’re almost an ask-permission event, one that we’re all comfortable with. Giving hugs? Not a problem – it’s on my terms. Surprise hug from behind?

In my head? THIS:


So, yeah… I can imagine we’re a real party to share a house with!

The good news is, we’re also awfully hard to offend. Come in tired and cranky, and don’t say hi to us? If we notice at all, we certainly don’t mind! And if we say, “It’s no problem,” it really isn’t. (Why do people do that? I can’t grasp why someone would say it’s not a problem when it is!)

Some final thoughts on introversion

So we can be kind of strange, if you’re not familiar with our species. In good news, though, I happen to think we make GREAT friends. We’re no-pressure… you can come over, sit on our couch and play on your phone for two hours, and we’ll welcome you (and sit in the same room with you on our laptops, and call it a great evening at the end and mean it.)

If we know you’re not of the mind to do that, we’ll psych ourselves up for something awesome – bowling, a board-game night, a luau – and have a good time with you on “extrovert terms!” We might not be the first to arrive and the last to leave, we might kind of stand on the sidelines a bit, and we might not introduce ourselves to a ton of people. But just because our fun looks different doesn’t mean we’re not having fun!

We kind of like it – it’s fun to get out of our heads for a little. Just love us enough to let us back in to recharge!

We don’t look at extroversion OR introversion as “right” or “wrong.” The good part about people is that they’re all different… and it’s cool to think that we’re living proof that even when it’s not easy, you can house two VERY different families under one roof and still be friends!

So are you an introvert or an extrovert? What about your family members? Any questions, challenges or tips to share from your perspective?

09Jul
12

10 unexpected benefits to learning together from life

One of the most fun things I did last year was to sum up some cool parts of our family’s life as part of the iHomeschool Network’s 10 * in * 10 series, where we shared some top-10 lists each week in the spring.

I’m thrilled to be taking part again this year with some new topics and some changes in my own mindset and experiences to share!

This week, a bunch of us are talking about 10 unexpected benefits to homeschooling.

In our case, that really means I need to talk about what’s happened in our family as we’ve learned how to learn from life – and how learning together makes it better. It’s been amazing in some pretty surprising ways!

10 awesome things about living and learning together as radical unschoolers

1. We’re all exposed to new things.

OK, I always kind of hated history. Ashar loves it. I’ve learned – and just become aware of – so much more about the past since I’ve started seeing it through her eyes. Alpacas? They’re cool and all, but I had no idea how cool until Ashar developed a passion for them!

2. We’re more intentional about questions – and answers.

Sometimes, learning from life is hard. There’s always the thought in the back of my head that if I just could make a standard curriculum work for us, that it would be so much easier. It wouldn’t be, in most ways, but in one way, it might: Learning the way we do, when Ashar has a question, we work together to find the answer. And that’s hard. And often time-consuming. And it requires me to be present in an intentional way that doesn’t always come naturally.

But I love it. I no longer default to lazy answers, like “Oh, we’ll look that up sometime,” with no intention of doing so, or “I don’t know” with no follow-up. And while that can be hard, it’s been amazing, too.

3. We can see the good in anything.

This is probably the most unexpected learning-from-life benefit. Because we’re making an effort to be peaceful, and happy, and engaged with each other, I think we’ve all gotten better at looking for the good in a lot of situations.

Wrong turn? Oh, cool, we saw that neat turkey buzzard that we wouldn’t have otherwise! Hot, icky day? Great chance to catch up on our favorite episodes of Star Trek on Netflix. I really feel like that’s a direct result of how we look for the opportunity and not the negativity.

4. We have so much more to talk about!

Honestly, there were a lot of things I disliked about Ashar’s public school experience, but one of the biggest was that we didn’t have any common frames of conversation. She went one place, Chris and I went another, and our lives just didn’t overlap in a way that made for much good conversation.

Now, there’s almost never a time when we don’t have something that we’re all into to talk about!

5. It’s easy to see how we’re all growing and changing.

One of the biggest questions/criticisms we receive about our no-tests, no-required-projects approach is, “But how do you know if Ashar is learning?” (I talked in detail about this in “How we deal with critics of our radical unschooling lifestyle.“)

We’re all learning. And it’s, honestly, easy to see. When you spend your days together the way we do, talking, learning, just exploring the world, it’s all right there before your eyes. The ways Ashar is changing and becoming, and the ways we are as parents. I won’t say we’re experts at gentle parenting by any means, but we’re having a blast watching ourselves learn and grow in that way.

6. I’m rediscovering my own passion for learning.

That’s part of my quest to be interested and be interesting. Chris is finding the same to be true for himself: We like learning, and we like showing Ashar how much we like learning. Not in a weird, manipulative way, but in a “This is who we are, and we love it!” kind of way!

So far, thanks to wanting to recapture that facet of myself as part of our journey, I’ve taken online courses in astrobiology, gamification and now archaeology, and on my own, I’ve studied microbiology and a new style of painting. Next up is mathematical philosophy. I love being this person who enjoys the newness of an unfamiliar idea. I forgot that I loved that.

7. We’re not bound by age or grade levels.

Ashar is auditing the aforementioned archaeology course with me. We spent the day in Philadelphia talking to PhDs in chemical history at the Chemical Heritage Foundation for Ashar’s birthday. And by the same token, we play with Legos, with blocks, with Matchbox cars.

And all of that is OK, and good, and wonderful. All of us can be who we are, at 13 and 30 and 42, without trying to fit into the tiny box that is “our age.”

8. We’ve found amazing mentors and friends.

I’ve made some great new friends at the alpaca farm where Ashar practices (and so has Sarah!)

My mom and I have started immersing ourselves into a new style of art and have found an amazing art mentor in an amazing woman, my age yet so much more “together” than me, named Aletheia – which, she tells me, is the Greek word for truth. (And how cool that Ashar is fascinated with Greek history now… right?)

Ashar learned that you can get a doctoral degree in the history of chemistry – and developed a quick bond with someone who has one.

They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears. All of us are fortunate to be ready and to have amazing teachers, mentors and friends to walk our journey with us.

9. We’re seeing the big picture.

Much like seeing the good in everything, our “style” has forced us, especially me, to stop being so lists-and-checkboxes focused. At the end of the school year in Pennsylvania, we need to turn in a portfolio, but it isn’t such a bad thing. It allows us – and forces me – to look back at the scope of the year as a whole.

I won’t lie – there are individual days, maybe weeks, sometimes months, in there that feel, in the moment, “wasted.” Are we doing anything? Are we learning? Are we engaged?

And then I look at the glorious whole and I laugh at myself. How did I miss it?

10. Coincidences are our everyday miracles.

This is something that always amazes me. We could choose to look at the ways our interests fit together as “coincidences,” but we choose to believe that the universe is a good place that sends us great things.

01Jul
4

A birthday celebration: From the toybox to outer space with Tom Hanks

This man might have more famous lines than anyone in movie history.

“I’m Forrest. Forrest Gump. People call me Forrest Gump.”

“Houston, we have a problem.”

“YOU are a child’s plaything!”

Of course, it’s Tom Hanks, who will celebrate his 57th birthday July 9. And as part of an iHomeschool Network celebration of some noted July birthdays, I thought I’d share more about Tom and his work.

Specifically, I’d like to talk about one of the topics he’s drawn attention to in several films: the space program.

Tom Hanks unit study guide for homeschoolers and unschoolers

All about Tom Hanks

Disclosure: This post has some affiliate links. I only link to things we legitimately use and recommend, so if you see such a link, it's because we really do believe in the book or item!

Tom Hanks was born in California on July 9, 1956.

He’s been acting in TV series and movies basically my entire life – after first hitting it big in “Splash,” one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, in 1984.

Since then, he’s acted in and produced and written and directed dozens of big-name films, TV shows and miniseries, among them Sleepless in Seattle, Forrest Gump, Toy Story, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, From the Earth to the Moon and Catch Me If You Can. He’s ranked as the star with the highest money-making films of all time, grossing more than $3.6 billion at the box office for all his films.

Tom Hanks and space exploration

Certainly there are a ton of famous and heavy-hitting Tom Hanks projects. And he’s not afraid to tackle huge issues and varying historical periods. Philadelphia, in which Hanks plays a gay lawyer, won him an Oscar; Forrest Gump tackles everything from the Vietnam War to mental disability to race issues; and Saving Private Ryan looks at the issues surrounding World War II.

In our family’s case, though, the big issue and time period that we’ve explored through Tom Hanks’ films is that of the U.S. space exploration program.

I mentioned when I shared our unit study on the solar system that we’ve enjoyed the miniseries From the Earth to the Moon that Hanks produced. This is a PHENOMENAL series!

Probably more famous in this arena is Tom Hanks’ starring role in Apollo 13. It was especially interesting for us to see how Hanks approached the Apollo 13 piece of the From the Earth to the Moon miniseries, which documents the entire U.S. space program, focusing heavily on the lunar missions. He purposely made them very different, and it’s neat to see.

Hanks is a longtime supporter of NASA’s manned space program. He had said in interviews that he had wanted to be an astronaut, but “didn’t have the math.” He’s also a member of the National Space Society, and co-wrote and co-produced an IMAX film called Magnificent Desolation about walking on the moon. (That, by the way, you might remember is the title of Buzz Aldrin’s autobiography, too.)

In fact, there’s even an asteroid named after him – 12818 Tomhanks, which was discovered in 1996.

Other Tom Hanks movies in our collection

These are all movies that we’ve seen, but use your judgment – obviously, some are better for various ages than others.

Ashar has seen and particularly enjoyed Forrest Gump, despite some tough thematic parts, as well as Catch Me If You Can, which she LOVES but which has some pretty serious language issues.

And The Green Mile is still one of Chris’ favorites!

Read more about Tom Hanks

Ideas for discussion

We love watching movies and talking about them. Even “silly” movies like Toy Story raise neat questions, and of course some of the biggies like Forrest Gump raise a lot of questions. Some things that Tom Hanks’ work makes us think of include:

  • Causes: Tom Hanks is passionate about space exploration and the environment. If you were famous, what issue or issues would you want to use your celebrity to raise awareness on?
  • Heavy issues: Would you rather watch a movie that is “just for fun,” or one that’s about a serious issue? What do you think about movies that try to tackle both sides of that, like Forrest Gump?
  • Periods of history: If you were making a movie, what time period would you want to showcase? The past or present – or the future?
  • Dialects and voices: Tom Hanks has an amazing ability to both always sound like “himself” and to adopt a variety of accents or voices – from cowboy Woody in Toy Story to Alabaman Forrest Gump to kind of a harsh northeastern/New Englandy voice as Agent Carl Hanratty in Catch Me If You Can. How does he do that? And isn’t that hard?

Join the birthday party

If you’re interested, there are many more cool “July birthday” lessons from my fellow iHomeschool Network bloggers. Click the image below to check them out!

And thanks for stopping by to help me wish Tom Hanks a happy birthday!

You can check out more posts in our Learning Party series here!

30Jun
4

A birthday celebration: Harrison Ford from fedora to lightsaber

Two of the biggest film series of all time, and six decades of movie-making experience – so much so that all the ladies in our house (ranging in age from 13 to 78) find his various “iterations” pretty handsome?

Yes, that’s Harrison Ford, who will celebrate his 71st birthday on July 13. In honor, and as part of an iHomeschool Network celebration of some noted July birthdays, I thought it might be fun to talk about how our family has enjoyed Indiana Jones, Star Wars and more.

Harrison Ford unit study guide for homeschoolers and unschoolers

All about Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford was born July 13, 1942, in Chicago.

Disclosure: This post has some affiliate links. I only link to things we legitimately use and recommend, so if you see such a link, it's because we really do believe in the book or item!
Although he was the son of a former actor and radio actress, it wasn’t until Harrison’s final year of college, when he took a drama class to help deal with his shyness, that he became interested in the art of acting.

Start in the mid-1960s, Harrison Ford had several small roles in various movies. He was often credited as Harrison J. Ford in his early work to avoid confusion with a famous silent film star named Harrison Ford – much in the same way that Michael J. Fox adopted the J. in his own name!

The roles he got early on were so poor, though, that Ford learned to work as a carpenter so that he could support his wife and young sons. During that time, he was a stagehand for rock band The Doors as well… but his big break came when George Lucas hired Ford to build some cabinets!

Harrison Ford as Han Solo in Star Wars

Harrison Ford’s work with George Lucas did lead directly to his casting as Han Solo – but not in the way you might think.

Lucas actually originally paid him to read lines TO the people really auditioning! But he did so well that he landed the role of Han Solo himself, and performed the part in Star Wars in 1977, The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and Return of the Jedi in 1983.

Now, I admit, I’m not a big Star Wars fan – at least not the original trilogy. My husband, Chris, is, and Ashar likes it pretty well. For my part, I think Princess Leia is… well… whiny! I’m certainly thrilled to see a female lead in movies from that time, but I am much more the new trilogy/Amidala type.

That said, here’s something Ashar LOVES: Lego Star Wars. Especially Lego Han Solo, who she has as an actual minifigure. But even more, she likes to play as his character in Lego Star Wars for Wii, which is one of her all-time favorite games!

So we owe Harrison Ford for the work he did even before I was born, because it turned into something that we all enjoy now! (And in the recently announced NEW Star Wars Episode VII coming out in 2015, Ford has already agreed to reprise Han Solo, so that, I’m excited for!)

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones

When Raiders of the Lost Ark came out in 1981, Harrison Ford marked his start in the second major series of his career (which would later also include Blade Runner, Air Force One, Patriot Games and many other action films).

But once again, Harrison Ford didn’t get the title role in the Indiana Jones series because he was the top pick, or even because of his working relationship with George Lucas. In fact, Lucas DIDN’T want to hire him! But Tom Selleck, the first choice of Lucas and Steven Spielberg to play Indiana Jones, couldn’t take the role because of his contract on Magnum, P.I., and Ford was cast only about three weeks before filming began.

This series remains a family favorite – including the newest movie, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which some people kind of panned but which we loved.

(Funnily, for all that Indiana Jones hates snakes, Harrison Ford actually has a lot of experience working with reptiles and other generally creepy things; he even has a species of spider and a species of ant named after him, a rather dubious honor!)

Anyway, like with Han Solo, Lego Indiana Jones is also a favorite of Ashar’s especially. We don’t have his minifigure, but we do have his Wii game!

Meanwhile, I’ve been watching the Indiana Jones series with a new eye now that I’m taking the Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets class through Coursera. Seeing that portrayal of archaeology is pretty different than the real job, but it still makes for good watching!

Read more about Harrison Ford

Ideas for discussion

We’ve been talking a lot about archaeology as it relates to my online course, which Ashar has been auditing with me. Thinking about the Indiana Jones series really brought up a lot of questions that we’ve worked through.

  • Who owns the past? Can a person or an organization or a country “own” something like a historic site? 
  • What does good archaeology look like? Is it authorized looting (we sure hope not), is it treasure-hunting, or is it preservation of the past, which was NOT something our title Indiana Jones character was particularly known for?
  • What really constitutes “treasure”? A crystal skull? An ark? A warehouse full of amazing goodies? Or something else?
  • What’s in a name? This is kind of a funny one, but we crack up over “We named the dog Indiana!” It’s funny that the Indiana Jones character picked his own name to best represent his personality. Does your name reflect yours? I can’t imagine being anyone but Joan, though I think I must have felt differently about that in the past!
  • Do the clothes make the man (or woman)? C’mon. Fedora, whip, khakis. Light saber. Harrison Ford has been the recipient of some of the most well-known movie wardrobe props in history. What would you pick for your prop? What’s kind of your “signature item?” (I’ll give you a hint – mine’s not a bullwhip! It’s probably my spiky hair and my bright glasses.)

Join the birthday party

If you’re interested, there are many more cool “July birthday” lessons from my fellow iHomeschool Network bloggers. Click the image below to check them out!

And thanks for stopping by to help me wish Harrison Ford a happy birthday!

You can check out more posts in our Learning Party series here!

25Jun
6

10 things you should probably know about me, Joan Concilio

One of the most fun things I did last year was to sum up some cool parts of our family’s life as part of the iHomeschool Network’s 10 * in * 10 series, where we shared some top-10 lists each week in the spring.

I’m thrilled to be taking part again this year with some new topics and some changes in my own mindset and experiences to share!

This week, a bunch of us are talking about 10 things you should know about us! I shared a version of this last year with 10 facts about EACH of us; I hope you’ll check that out here! Today I’m focusing on 10 things about me, Joan Concilio, that are a little different or interesting or… something!

1. I graduated from high school when I was 16 and college when I was 19.

You can read a WHOLE BUNCH about my educational journey here. But the short version is, I started school early, did two grades in one year once, and transferred a year’s worth of college credits into my undergrad education thanks to a bunch of Advanced Placement courses in high school.

I don’t regret any of that, but sometimes I look back and think, “How on earth did that HAPPEN?” I also sometimes think, “What on earth have I DONE in the 11 remaining years?” Then I remember I raised a pretty awesome kid.

2. I will officially be a “full-time freelancer” as of July 1.

I already worked from home almost full-time, but one of my positions was as an employee. That one will be converting to a contractor status as of July 1, meaning I will officially be 100% self-employed.

Kinda cool. Kinda scary. I talked more about this in a post last week on Man Vs. Debt, one of the sites I write for.

3. My black-belt test is in less than a month.

I guess I should be getting nervous. I am, sort of, but not really. Mostly I’m just trying to make sure I get in the amount of practice that I want to do between now and July 20!

4. I really hate clowns.

Really. I’m petrified of them. When my friend Dodie dropped on me the fact that she almost went to clown college, I almost told her we couldn’t stay friends. And I was only about 20% kidding.

5. I applied to work at a major government agency and then turned down the job.

I mentioned before that my degree is in math. I applied to do analysis for a major security agency, was accepted, and then decided that maybe I didn’t quite want to do that with my life after all.

But not after a really funny experience with scary guys in black suits background-checking me at my office at the local newspaper. That was kinda cool.

6. I am ALWAYS cold.

I keep telling people I am looking forward to menopause because I hear I might get hot. They swear I don’t really want that, but I swear I do. Right now it is about 88 degrees outside my house and I walked outside and thought, “I might want a sweater.”

7. I am the youngest of five.

I’m the youngest by a LOT. My mom had three children in her first marriage (two daughters and a son); my dad had a daughter in his first marriage; later in life, they got together and decided they wanted another. So, my oldest sister is almost 30 years older than I am; my “next youngest” is 24 years older than I am. Their kids are almost all older than I am.

8. I’m adopted.

Lest you think my poor mother gave birth to me at the age of 47. Nope, I was adopted at birth. I’ve never known anyone but the mom and dad I consider my mom and dad, nor do I need to. They were and are awesome.

9. I still sleep with my childhood blankie and teddy bear.

Actually, gratuitous Blankie picture is available here. In fact, since I am always cold, as mentioned above, I often work with it wrapped around me like a shawl. The teddy bear does stay in bed (I don’t carry it around!) but it is well-loved.

10. My not-so-secret goal in life is to be a professional organizer.

I REALLY like organizing things. Really, really, really. And I like helping people learn how to organize in a way that works for them. I do have a friend who is a certified professional organizer and I have seriously considered pursuing that as a future career!

We’re also linking up today to Top Ten Tuesday at Many Little Blessings. Whether you’re sharing your Top 10 questions people ask you, or a Top Ten list on any other topic, I’d love for you to link up and to check out the other blogs that have, too! 

And don’t forget to check out my previous Top Ten Tuesday posts, if you’ve missed them.

21Jun
4

The agile alpaca: Results from our first alpaca show

Ashar and Gia at 4-H alpaca show

Last weekend marked something really cool for us. Remember how I said before that Ashar is all alpaca, all the time?

Well, on Saturday, she participated in her first 4-H alpaca show/competition, an “agility invitational” in Montgomery County, PA, at their 4-H Center. Kids from I think about 7 or 8 county clubs participated, and Ashar was in a group with kids who were almost all older than her – and she placed third in the first competition, and first in the second one!

Ashar and Gia jumping hurdles at 4-H alpaca show

Here’s a video that shows Ashar and Gia doing the general agility course, the one in which she placed third. If Gia hadn’t skirted that first hurdle, Ashar would have had the points for first place!

Post by Joan Concilio Otto.

Here are the four kids from our club who attended this competition. They all won a first, second or third-place certificate in at least one event!

York County 4-H alpaca club at a 2013 show

Here is Ashar “backing up” Gia. That’s harder than it looks; alpacas are not natural backer-uppers, but Ashar got it right away!

Backing up an alpaca at a 4-H agility show

Here, Ashar is leading Gia off the teeter-totter. See how Ashar keeps her foot on it? She does that until the alpaca gets all the way off, so that the teeter-totter doesn’t spring up on it.

Taking an alpaca over a teeter-totter at a 4-H agility show

For some reason, Gia hopped right over the high hurdle, after passing around the low one. Who knows!

Jumping a high hurdle at a 4-H alpaca agility show

Tarps are funny. They sound weird and feel weird underfoot, and are unusual colors. That makes them a thing some alpacas don’t like, but Gia didn’t have a problem being coaxed across.

Walking an alpaca across a tarp at a 4-H agility show

Walking an alpaca across a tarp at a 4-H agility show

The course concluded with a walk through the caution tape – a LOT of the animals balked at this, but Gia didn’t mind, because Ashar had specifically practiced with her on a similar setup at the farm!

Walking an alpaca through a gate of caution tape at a 4-H agility show

Here they are with their first-place certificate for the second event!

Ashar and Gia with their certificate at a 4-H alpaca agility show

This event was a ton of fun – and a HUGE confidence-booster for Ashar as a first show.

I owe a huge thanks to club leaders and farm owners Beth and Sheri (especially Sheri, who let us alpaca-nap Gia while she was on vacation, and Beth, who trailered Gia with her animals so I wouldn’t have a Car Alpaca), Teresa (who works with Sheri at Alpacas of York and who helped coach Ashar specifically on agility as we geared up), and Mickie (whose photos are the GOOD ones you see of the ones in this post; since I was videoing, I didn’t get many still shots!)

These ladies are awesome. And so are the two younger ladies in the picture above. We are very proud. 

11Jun
6

10 things you’ll find in the Conciliotto fridge

One of the most fun things I did last year was to sum up some cool parts of our family’s life as part of the iHomeschool Network’s 10 * in * 10 series, where we shared some top-10 lists each week in the spring.

I’m thrilled to be taking part again this year with some new topics and some changes in my own mindset and experiences to share!

This week, a bunch of us are talking about 10 things you’ll always find in our fridge.

Hopefully, mold won’t make an appearance on too many of the lists? 😉

10 things you'll always find in our family's fridge

1. Top item in our fridge: Diet Pepsi

My drink of choice. No coffee here – my caffeine comes cold and full of artificial everything. I keep saying I “should” drink less of it, but that’s not an immediate project.

2. Herlocher’s dipping mustard

Chris’s condiment of choice. It goes on everything from zucchini pancakes to hard pretzels to cheese. He’s kind of Herlocher’s biggest fan.

3. Cabot Seriously Sharp cheddar cheese

We do like our cheeses. Lots of cheeses. Lots and lots of cheeses. This is our snack cheese of choice; Ashar is known to make a meal of slices of this cheese. And, of course, we cook with it. We used to buy other flavors of chunk cheese, but we’ve defaulted to always having 3 bars of this on the shopping list and the fridge cannot be without it.

4. String cheese

If I need a quick snack, this is my first pick. I don’t “string” my string cheese, but I love grabbing one to eat in the car or before bed.

5. Almond Breeze 30-calorie vanilla milk

This is my mom’s must-have item. None of us drink “regular” milk, because we’re all lactose-intolerant; while we use Lactaid for cooking and baking (and Chris drinks it), Mom prefers Almond Breeze on her cereal. Since I’ve also got a nut allergy, it doesn’t exactly do for me, but we always have it!

6. Simply Heinz ketchup

I am a ketchup snob. No brand but Heinz, and now that we’ve been using the Simply Heinz version (no high-fructose corn syrup) for a couple years, I don’t even like “packet Heinz” any more!

7. Water bottles

This tends to weird out visitors to our house. We always have a selection of plastic water bottles, full, on our fridge door, and we keep refilling them and using them. They DO get washed, but we never have “new” bottled water, and they’re not washed every time, so I’m quite likely to get something Chris, or Mom, or Ashar recently drank from. (We’re more careful when we’re sick, though.)

8. Parmesan cheese

Did I mention we like cheese? We buy our parmesan in chunks and fresh-grate it ourselves as we need it. Not cheap, but YUM.

9. Jarred minced garlic in water

This goes in, I don’t know, everything we cook. We use fresh garlic when we can, but some things just work better with some already-chopped, easy-to-spread-and-mix yumminess.

10. Leftovers

Yep, we’ve always got those! We really try to use them up, but we just don’t always get there. That said, we make an effort, and we are continually getting better than we used to be!

We’re also linking up today to Top Ten Tuesday at Many Little Blessings. Whether you’re sharing your Top 10 fridge items, or a Top Ten list on any other topic, I’d love for you to link up and to check out the other blogs that have, too! 

And don’t forget to check out my previous Top Ten Tuesday posts, if you’ve missed them.

06Jun
34

How we deal with critics of our radical unschooling lifestyle

We have been amazed by our support system of family and friends on our homeschooling journey.

I mean, really amazed. We get tons of suggestions, lots of understanding, a fair number of questions, but few truly critical remarks, even though our lifestyle is different than, oh, everyone else we know in person.

I know that so many homeschoolers, even ones WAY more traditional than we are, aren’t so lucky. So that’s why I decided to participate in the iHomeschool Network’s Answering the Homeschool Critics linkup today – not because I get a ton of criticism, but because I want to show that homeschooling, unschooling, and radical unschooling can stand up even against the harshest critics.

Dealing with critics of radical unschooling

I definitely also want to share some of the ways we respond when hurtful or critical remarks come our way. Much of the time, the people making these remarks aren’t even trying to criticize – they’re just well outside their comfort zone.

So my hope today is twofold.

First, I want to reassure those of you who’ve faced criticism that you can handle it – and that your family’s approach, even if it’s radically different, can withstand it.

Second, I want to share some answers I give to kind of the “frequently-asked questions” or challenges that do come our way, so that those who are reading who maybe really don’t understand where we’re coming from can hear a little more about what we do and why we do it.

Radical unschooling: Our no-tests, no-assignments approach

If you haven’t already seen it (or if it’s been a while), I encourage you to read our unschooled version of a seventh-grade-ish curriculum plan for 2012-13 and our unschooled version of an eighth-grade-ish plan; you’ll get the idea pretty quickly.

We don’t do assignments. We don’t do tests. We don’t do subjects. We certainly don’t do grades.

And we have loose ideas and interests, but when they change, we’re willing – and in fact geared toward – following them and leaving other interests behind.

That’s the most common question I’m asked: “How will Ashar learn about things she ISN’T interested in, if she only learns what she wants?”

I’ll ask you the same question: As an adult, if you need to know something, are you able to learn it?

I hope the answer is yes! So can Sarah. But needing to know is the key. Ashar is already learning the things she needs to know to live her life.

  • You might not know how to halter an alpaca and show its teeth for judging. She does.
  • You might not know that alchemists were the first to document changes in states of matter, a key development in modern chemistry. She does.
  • You might not know the entire Mythbusters series almost by heart. She does.

In turn, you probably (and hopefully) know lots of things that other people don’t. That’s awesome. It’s what makes you able to live your life – a collection of specialized knowledge that has relevance in your world.

Ashar knows that there will be times when she needs to know something she doesn’t currently know. But she knows how to learn it.

The other question we often get in this area is, “How do you know if she’s making progress without tests and grades?”

Do you get tests? Grades? Maybe a performance review at work, or grades if you’re a college student, but come on. Is that how you look at your life on your birthday or on New Year’s Day and think, “Wow, did I get anywhere this year?” I don’t look for a number on a page to tell me that. Neither does Sarah.

What I will tell you is that we talk to our daughter and we spend time with her. When I’m talking to people, usually those who are consulting with me about the idea of unschooling but who are legitimately concerned that they won’t know how their kids are “doing” without grades, I lay out this scenario:

Before your child was school-aged, how did you know if he or she was making progress? Well, you can’t miss it, right? I mean, one day, that baby was laying on her back, the next she was rolling over, then she was toddling, then running, and now she can play tug-of-war with your dog, right?! Do you miss that stuff? Did you wake up one day when your daughter was 4 and say, “Man, how can I tell if she knows how to walk well enough?”

That example sounds silly, but we’ve got to stop second-guessing ourselves and our kids. Talk to them. Spend time with them. If you don’t see the ways they’ve grown and changed and, yes, learned over the days and months and years, spend more time. Talk more. Listen more.

Radical unschooling: Our nontraditional schedule

How to homeschool at nightRemember the guy pictured at right?

He’s from a post I wrote earlier this year about homeschooling as a night owl.

In it, I mentioned that we often get questions and, yes, criticism about Ashar’s ability to be awake at 3 a.m. and asleep at 11 a.m.

I’d love for you to read that whole post, because it addresses many of the most common criticisms about our schedule, but here’s the biggest one:

“You’re hurting your daughter’s chances at getting a ‘real job’ someday.” I mentioned before that this was probably the most hurtful comment I’ve received. If Ashar wants to, she can and does get up to an alarm or a parental wake-up call. If she prefers, which she probably will, she’ll get a job that has her starting at 5 or 10 p.m. Hey, it worked for me and her dad!

We trust our daughter to know her body and the times she’s most productive, and we make the same choices as adults for ourselves. It’s OK to be a night owl – or an early bird. We are so thankful that homeschooling allows us to work within our strengths, not schedule our lives at others’ convenience.

Radical unschooling: Our no-arbitrary-limits, say-yes parenting style

I’ve written before about some of our “yeses.” Blue hair. A cell phone for a not-quite-teenager. Watching a movie I didn’t particularly think I was going to like.

It’s a gross oversimplification, but that sums up our parenting style – and really, our family dynamic, because it’s not just about parenting.

We say yes whenever we can. Is there a good reason to say no? Then, sure, we do, or we say “not now.” (We’re, uh, not going to Tahiti anytime soon. Or Australia. That sort of thing.)

In general, people quickly realize that in our family, we don’t really do “rules.” We don’t limit computer/video-game time and, in fact, encourage it.

“Aren’t you worried that ‘all’ Ashar wants to do is play video games?” Well, no. Mostly because it’s not all that she wants to do. She loves it, and she’s passionate about it, and she’s made the best friends of her life doing it. Oh, and she’s learned a ton of stuff too, not the least of which is to type (with accurate spelling) at about 90 words per minute, an employable skill if there ever was one.

But the fact is, it’s not her only passion. We’d be OK if it was, but really, like most human beings, Ashar has a few key interests and divides her time between them. She’s allowed that freedom – and so am I, and so is Chris. Some days, I’m on the computer 10 to 12 hours straight working. Some weeks, I’m at tae kwon do class for almost 2 hours each evening. In our family, we don’t set up an artificial limit between what we can do and what Ashar can do.

“Doesn’t that make you permissive or unconcerned parents?” That’s another criticism we hear. I say the opposite is true – we’re so concerned, so interested, so willing to be present that we take the time to be situational in our decision-making – not to rely on a “rule” for convenience.

“And what about punishment? How can kids learn without consequences?” Well, punishment and consequences aren’t the same thing. We’ve essentially stopped any kind of “punishment” for Ashar because of natural consequences. Sometimes, she doesn’t make good decisions. Sometimes, I don’t make good decisions, and I face the consequences. So does my daughter.

When we do have conversations about these topics – with people who are really interested, and not just being critical – I refer them to Sandra Dodd’s page on rules vs. principles. It’s a great read that I think helps explain our lifestyle, and why spankings or groundings or taking away privileges (all of which I admit we HAD tried in earlier iterations of our lives together) aren’t what we choose to do as a connected family.

Update: About a week after I originally wrote this post, my friend Jen of The Path Less Taken wrote an amazing look at this topic called Does Unschooling Mean Anything Goes? I would highly encourage everyone to read it!

How are other families dealing with their own critics?

I’ve shared some of our response to the particular types of criticism our nontraditional approach to homeschooling – and life – sometimes gets.

My friends in the iHomeschool Network are sharing today their responses to challenges that come up in their own situations – many very different, and many very similar to ours.

I hope you’ll check them out here!

04Jun
0

10 great books about learning from life

One of the most fun things I did last year was to sum up some cool parts of our family’s life as part of the iHomeschool Network’s 2012 10 * in * 10 series, where we shared some top-10 lists each week in the spring.

I was thrilled to take part again in 2013 with some new topics and some changes in my own mindset and experiences to share!

This week, a bunch of us are talking about 10 favorite homeschooling books.

Disclosure: This post has some affiliate links. I only link to things we legitimately use and recommend, so if you see such a link, it's because we really do believe in the book or item!
In our case, as pretty radical unschoolers, our list veers more toward books about the philosophy of education – how learning happens, new (and not-as-new) ideas in educational theory, and more.

But these books about learning from life, many of them not even really “about” education, are interesting reads even if you prefer a more formal system of learning.

I hope they’ll encourage you to think about life and education in new and different ways.

Unschool Rules: 10 Great Books about Learning From Life

1. and 2. Learning All the Time by John Holt and Better Than School by Nancy Wallace

I’m totally cheating with these first two, because I blogged in depth about them before.

John Holt’s Learning All the Time and Nancy Wallace’s Better Than School are the two books that I’ve used to inform, justify and improve our family’s approach to learning.

In my previous post, I shared some notable quotes from these books that showcase how intertwined “life” and “learning” truly are. I recommend them for unschoolers and unschooling hopefuls, but I also recommend them for those applying a more formal educational approach.

I say this not, believe it or not, to change your mind, but to encourage you. One of the challenges I hear all the time from my friends who are applying more rigorous and formal standards to their homeschool is, “But what if I’m doing it wrong?”

You’re not. Honest. No matter what style of homeschooling you’re using, if you’re willing to be flexible and willing to love your child no matter what, you’re still doing it more right than a system in which love and hope and belief are excluded from the equation.

Perhaps my favorite quote in these two books, and the one that’s kind of our mantra in learning, is this:

“What adults can do for children is to make more and more of that world and the people in it accessible and transparent to them. The key word is access  to people, places, experiences, the places where we work, other places we go… On the whole, kids are more interested in the things that adults really use than in the little things we buy especially for them.”

YES to all of that. Be interested and interesting! It makes such a difference, and you’ll be amazed at what your children will teach you about what they love.

3. Better Than Normal by Dale Archer

I read this book in the past year and thought it was a pretty interesting, if a little controversial, look at some of what is normally called “mental illness.”

In Better Than Normal, Dr. Dale Archer looks at things like bipolar disorder, ADHD, OCD and so on, and maps them to positive personality traits like creativity, flexibility and precision.

The very short and oversimplified version is that something is only a “disorder” by many standards if it’s causing problems. There are many people who have significant trouble focusing who, when they’re in the right positions, have used that not as a detriment but as a benefit.

Dr. Archer looks at the rise in diagnosis of these “conditions,” and the fact that we’re all on a continuum in personality. You can have a high tendency toward, say, “OCD-type behavior,” but it might make you amazingly good at your job if you’re something like a 7 out of 10 on that scale. Being a 1 might make you awful at that particular job. And being a 10 out of 10 might not be a problem, but it’s definitely an ultra-high level that might be troublesome depending on the situation.

Archer explains how to figure out where you rank on each continuum, and he talks about how to find the “square hole for your square peg” depending on your traits.

Talk about something that we should apply to our country’s educational system…

4. What Do You Care What Other People Think? by Richard Feynman

Before my husband and I dated, we were coworkers and, over about a six-month time before we became a couple, we became close friends.

One of his favorite things to do as my friend? Lend me books. Lots of books. And then we’d talk about them. We were like a two-person book club or something.

He really got me interested in the works of physicist Richard Feynman, who is also an amazing essayist who has just a different view of the world. I can’t even describe it.

Of Feynman’s books – and they’re all well worth reading and don’t require a science background to enjoy – What Do You Care What Other People Think? really came with the right message at the right time, and honestly, I think that’s why Chris lent it to me.

Feynman really drills down to that question. If you’re doing something differently and you’re passionate about it, what do you care about others’ opinions? Why do they matter? And if they do, what do you do about it? It’s a great thought exercise – and it’s FUNNY!

5. The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

I owe my husband for introducing me to this book as well, just like the Feynman one above.

I admit – it’s not something I’d have read on my own. It’s, well, kinda deep for me. I’m all about fluff, believe it or not.

In The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker talks about how your brain processes and learns language – and how it works no matter what the language is around the world.

This book deals with human life from an evolutionary worldview, but that doesn’t change my love for the fascinating stories and message about how 3-year-olds are essentially grammatical geniuses – knowing everything they’ll ever need to know about certain constructions without being taught.

It’s a great read and one I’d recommend to anyone who fears that their kids will never learn to read, write and speak correctly without formal curriculum!

6. Catch Me If You Can by Frank William Abagnale Jr.

This book really has very little to do with “education,” but at the same time, it popped into my mind almost immediately when I started thinking about unschooling.

Frank William Abagnale Jr. never finished his traditional high school education. Instead, he took the road, counterfeiting his way financially and professionally into positions as an airline pilot, a doctor, a lawyer and more before being caught, imprisoned, and eventually going on to work with the FBI and in private consulting to help stop counterfeiters like himself!

You probably know the movie version of Catch Me If You Can, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, much better than the book, but if you don’t mind some even more colorful language than the film, I’d highly recommend reading the story in Frank Abagnale’s own words.

Learning is dangerous. Being incredibly smart can be used to do great things – or to do pretty crazily illegal and dangerous ones. But knowing how to learn, how to adapt, and how to find out what you need to know – that’s what Abagnale showed himself to be amazing at, and it’s entirely the type of learning mindset I love (minus, you know, the stint in French prison).

7. My Posse Don’t Do Homework by LouAnne Johnson

You might know this book more from the movie that came of it: Dangerous Minds.

Honestly?

The book is way better. My Posse Don’t Do Homework is written by LouAnne Johnson, a fairly young teacher who dealt with some of the hardest-to-handle kids at an inner-city school in California.

I wanted to include either this or Ron Clark’s The Essential 55 in my list, because I remember watching both Dangerous Minds and The Ron Clark Story when I was younger and thinking, “Teaching is a HARD job!”

It is. And these stories show that teaching is, in many cases, not at all about what’s going on in the classroom and very much about the environment surrounding the child. If the soil is toxic, the plant won’t grow, no matter how much you feed it, you know?

This isn’t just true for inner-city students struggling with gang violence and more. It’s exactly why homeschooling was right for us – because removing the toxic environment has changed the attitude all of us have toward learning.

8. Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison

Oh, talk about life-changer.

A dear friend of mine across the state lent me this book in the couple of months after Ashar was diagnosed with Asperger’s. In Look Me In the Eye, author John Elder Robison shares his autobiographical look at what it was like to grow up with Asperger’s – but undiagnosed until much later in life.

The absolute best part of this book is the detail in which Robison describes the way he thinks.

It came at a time when I just desperately wanted to understand my daughter, and it helped in ways I can barely describe.

I’d say this is required reading in any family dealing with autism-spectrum issues, but I submit it’s an eye-opener about “the system” for anyone who wants to understand better how what makes us different is also what makes us pretty great.

9. Free to Learn: Five Ideas for a Joyful Unschooling Life by Pam Laricchia

This entry and the last on my list are actually “wish list” items of mine – I haven’t gotten to read them yet.

I’m including them here because they’ve been recommended to me by close friends who have read them, and because everything I’ve heard and see from them so far very much seems in line with my philosophy about parenting and life.

Free to Learn: Five Ideas for a Joyful Unschooling Life and its companion book, Free to Live: Create a Thriving Unschooling Home, are by pretty much famous unschooler Pam Laricchia, who’s been “doing it right” for years and years.

Pam was definitely one of the many resources I tapped into and read from in depth when we started thinking, “Hey, this public-school system isn’t right for us. What’s different that we can try?”

But I’ve never gotten Pam in book form yet! I’m holding out for them magically appearing at my door some day as a Christmas or birthday gift, but if not, they’ll be gracing my shelves soon!

10. The Short Bus by Jonathan Mooney

This is the other wish-list item among my book collection.

I’m including it here today because several good friends have told me how much I’d love hearing this autobiographical story.

Jonathan Mooney, the author, was the titular “short-bus rider” – a derogatory term used for kids in special education. Mooney was dyslexic and labeled as profoundly learning disabled, but later in life, he bought his own short bus and toured the country, looking for kids who had come up with amazing ways to overcome their own obstacles.

The book The Short Bus is his record of that trip and those 13 people – and proof that there is a place “beyond normal,” as the book’s subtitle describes. I am very much looking forward to reading this and having my own perspectives about learning and surviving in the world challenged!

We’re also linking up today to Top Ten Tuesday at Many Little Blessings. Whether you’re sharing your Top 10 questions people ask you, or a Top Ten list on any other topic, I’d love for you to link up and to check out the other blogs that have, too!

And don’t forget to check out my previous Top Ten Tuesday posts, if you’ve missed them.

01Jun
6

A birthday celebration: Learning from Michael J. Fox with Back to the Future

On June 9, one of Ashar’s recently-discovered “favorite movie stars” will turn 52 years old.

But in Ashar’s eyes, he’ll always be 17 – young Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy, who we know and love as Michael J. Fox.

As part of an iHomeschool Network celebration of some noted June birthdays, I wanted to share today a little more about Michael, and specifically some of what we’ve learned and talked about through his first series of big hits, Back to the Future!

Unit study for homeschoolers about Michael J. Fox, advocate for Parkinson's Disease research and star of the Back to the Future series

All about Michael J. Fox

Many of the adults among us think of Michael J. Fox best as Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties. The funniest thing is, I was never a big Family Ties fan, so, like Ashar, I most often think of him as time-traveler Marty McFly!

Disclosure: This post has some affiliate links. I only link to things we legitimately use and recommend, so if you see such a link, it's because we really do believe in the book or item!
Michael J. Fox was actually born Michael Andrew Fox, which I think is neat because I can’t imagine ever calling him anything but “Michael J.” Even Michael Fox or Mike Fox sounds funny to me! (As if I’ll ever get a chance to address him in person, so who cares, right?) He did this because he needed a unique name to register with the Screen Actors Guild, and his own was taken, so he picked the J. reportedly as a tribute to actor Michael J. Pollard.

Anyway, he was born June 9, 1961, and holds dual Canadian-American citizenship.

Most of his acting work started in the early 1980s and continued until 2000, when he semi-retired after announcing that he has Parkinson’s disease, which he was diagnosed with in 1991; since then, he’s written three books and started a foundation to help fund and promote awareness of Parkinson’s research, and is about to make a comeback on TV with an NBC sitcom this fall.

All about Back to the Future

What if you could travel through time? What if you could see your own past – and accidentally almost erase your own future? Then,what if you went farther into the future and saw something you didn’t want to see?

That’s Back to the Future, the time-travel series of three movies that I loved when I was younger and rediscovered this year while watching them with Sarah.

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!

You’re my density!

Heavy! There’s that word again! Why is everything in the future so heavy? Is there a problem with the earth’s gravitational field?

Yes, these are things we say on a regular basis in our family.

If you’re wondering more about the movies (and the books, and the TV series, and all the other things that I didn’t even know existed until now), you could lose hours in the Futurepedia – the wiki project for Back to the Future that is almost frighteningly thorough.

I had to laugh at one thing I found while reading about the Back to the Future series. Describing his work in the films in a 2012 Parade magazine article, Michael J. Fox said “I truly thought I was terrible.” He was sure the films would never be shown, he thought he did so bad!

I guess we all do a better job than we give ourselves credit for, huh?

The Parkinson’s connection

As someone who lives with chronic illness, I’ve spent most of my adult life appreciating Michael J. Fox’s honesty and openness about his own struggles.

This interview with Ellen DeGeneres is particularly great:

One thing that Michael’s caught some hard times for is that he doesn’t always “look” like someone with severe Parkinson’s during his television appearances.

In a 2002 interview on NPR’s Fresh Air, he said:

Well, actually, I’ve been erring on the side of caution — I think ‘erring’ is actually the right word — in that I’ve been medicating perhaps too much, in the sense [that] … the symptoms … people see in some of these interviews that [I] have been on are actually dyskinesia, which is a reaction to the medication. Because if I were purely symptomatic with Parkinson’s symptoms, a lot of times speaking is difficult. There’s a kind of a cluttering of speech and it’s very difficult to sit still, to sit in one place. You know, the symptoms are different, so I’d rather kind of suffer the symptoms of dyskinesia… this kind of weaving and this kind of continuous thing is much preferable, actually, than pure Parkinson’s symptoms. So that’s what I generally do… I haven’t had any, you know, problems with pure Parkinson’s symptoms in any of these interviews, because I’ll tend to just make sure that I have enough Sinemet in my system and, in some cases, too much. But to me, it’s preferable. It’s not representative of what I’m like in my everyday life. I get a lot of people with Parkinson’s coming up to me saying, “You take too much medication.” I say, Well, you sit across from Larry King and see if you want to tempt it.

I admit that’s a hard issue for me, in large part because it’s one I’ve struggled with personally related to health issues.

I did like hearing that when Michael appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee in 1999 to talk about research funding, he purposely did not take his medication. I think that’s fair and relevant, and I think I support his decision to potentially “overmedicate” under high-pressure situations as well!

Other Michael J. Fox movies in our collection

  • Teen Wolf: We got a big kick out of finding this movie on Netflix and watching it. Ashar thought it was hilarious, and much like Back to the Future, it had a lot of themes about “the little guy” and success or failure by public standards that were neat to talk about.
  • Doc Hollywood: I had forgotten about this movie until I started working on this post, but my mom and I had watched it and loved it! So we’re trying to find a copy to show Sarah.
  • Stuart Little: These were childhood favorites of Ashar’s, and I didn’t pay attention enough to realize until now that Michael J. Fox is the voice of Stuart!

Read more about Michael J. Fox

Ideas for discussion

Now this is what it’s all about, for our family. We love to learn through books and movies, and we don’t really differentiate between “educational” movies and books and “noneducational” ones.

Some movies, though, really spark a lot of discussion even when they don’t purport to be traditionally educational, and the Back to the Future series is a great example of this. Some of the things it led us to talk about include:

  • Stem cell research: This is one of the key treatments proposed for Parkinson’s disease, and Michael J. Fox is an outspoken advocate in favor of it. When we started talking about what Parkinson’s is with Ashar, when she asked what Fox had starred in recently, we talked a little about what this is and what the controversy is surrounding it.
  • Time travel ethics: This was HUGE, in large part because we are also big Star Trek fans. Is it “right” to travel through time, assuming it’s possible? How do you know if you’ve changed the future or the past? This is the key plot of Back to the Future, but it’s neat to talk about even outside of it!
  • Types of people in history: Back to the Future kind of portrays that every time period has its bullies, its “bosses,” its victims and its oddballs. When we stopped to think about it, it’s pretty true, and it was neat to see how those things changed depending on how the characters changed, and to talk about how we shape our own time.
  • Bullying and egos: So much of the Back to the Future series deals with bullying – and with one character hating one particular insult so much that, in one scenario, his response changes his life tragically forever. It’s a good chance to talk about what you’re willing to give up to “win.”
  • How your parents met: On a cute note, Ashar loves hearing the story of how Chris and I met, and that’s a fun thing to share when you watch these movies, since the parental McFlys’ romance is such a big part of the plot.
  • Predictions for the future: In Back to the Future, the “future” is 2015. But what if we were going 30 years into our future? What would that look like? (Ashar is still holding out for the flying skateboard “hoverboards” seen in the movie to become commonplace in the next two years; we’ll have to see!)

Join the birthday party

If you’re interested, there are many more cool “June birthday” lessons from my fellow iHomeschool Network bloggers. Click the image below to check them out!

And thanks for stopping by to help me wish Michael J. Fox a happy birthday in thanks for all the smiles and laughs he’s brought our family!

You can check out more posts in our Learning Party series here!