Supposedly, school lunches are going to be getting a healthy makeover. At least, that’s the rumor circulating around first lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Also rumored is that the first lady is running into some problems because last year congress blocked the Agriculture Department from making healthy changes such as limiting french fries and pizzas. Also, the new rules will costs states some cash, when really states have little to spare. In fact, the new standards are expected to cost $3.2 billion over the next five years.

This is the very first time in 15 years that the USDA is making and major changes to school meals.In any case, a little change is better than no change at all, although I won’t believe it’s happening until I hear more and see better school lunches in action.

The new final rule standards were just released today. Key points include…

• Offering both fruits and vegetables every day of the week
• Increasing offerings of whole grain-rich foods.
• Offering only fat-free or low-fat milk varieties.
• Limiting calories based on the age of children being served to ensure proper portion size.
• Increasing the focus on reducing the amounts of saturated fat, trans fats and sodium.

Check out a sample lunch menu (pdf) with a before and after comparison. In honor of the changes, let’s take a look back at some past Growing a Green Family school lunch posts:

What’s wrong with school lunches

• The Massive Disgusting School Lunch Issue
• I think the USA CAN afford healthy school lunches
• What’s the big deal about school lunch waste
• How to audit your school cafeteria

Pack your own:

• 10 easy steps to a packed waste-free school lunch
• Healthy and green school lunch ideas
• More than 90 percent of packed lunches susceptible to foodborne illness
• PlanetBox Complete Reusable Lunch Kit Review
• DIY Green Project: Make a reusable waste-free lunch kit!

Image via USDAgov

It’s been a long, long week folks.

Free School Issues:

So, I’ve been absent once again, although for good reason this time. My son’s school, The Village Free School is facing a possible closure. It’s been a little frantic, to say the least. If Cedar’s school shuts down, Cedar’s going to be extremely upset, plus his dad and I will be back to unschooling full time which will cut into our schedules considerably. It’s a little bit of a mess.

No more school!:

Lately I’ve written a lot of posts in the anti-school series. I know some readers have liked these posts, but it may be somewhat annoying to those of you who come up here for eco-minded tips. That in mind, I’m going to keep my school rants elsewhere. I’ve moved most of the unschooling posts to a new home base – Learning Without Labels. If you did like the unschooling and Free School tips, then feel free to head over there. If not, no worries, I’ll keep the green tips rolling in right here.

The Dark Side of Chocolate:

I haven’t said much about Valentine’s Day here, mainly because we’re not THAT into it. It’s okay, but not a major holiday for us. Still, if you’d like to make smart ethical choices this Valentine’s Day, then Green American can help you out. Right now they’ve got their Dark Side of Chocolate Home Screening Kit available for purchase. At $6 this is a bargain and includes…

• 1 Dark Side of Chocolate DVD
• 1 Guide to Fair Trade
• Materials for background information
• Questions for discussion
• Valentine template to send to Hershey CEO

They’ve also got the goods on how you can send a sweet Valentine to Hershey CEO David West. The Valentine explains why you won’t be purchasing Hershey’s candies this year, or at any time, unless they make the switch to Fair Trade. Download a PDF Valentine Postcard, or design your own and send it to…

The Hershey Company
Attn: David West, CEO
100 Crystal A Drive
Hershey, PA 17003

Acorns!

Acorns are always fun, but you know what’s even more fun? ACORN OWLS! If you’re looking for the most adorable craft ever, well, you can’t beat Acorn Owls.

Yeah, I figured after the less happy news above some cute owls were in order.

Hope everyone is having an awesome week.

I haven’t done anything with the anti-conventional school series this month, mainly because, as I pointed out in my last post, it’s just been one of those months.

However, lately I’ve been trying to figure out how come some parents allow their kids to languish in conventional school, or really, any bad-fit educational system/program. In my mind, if your child’s educational experience isn’t beneficial and worse, if it’s making your child miserable, you’d try something new.

Basically, if your kid’s teachers would fire said kid, if given the chance, it may be something to consider.

I recently read a piece – Ten Signs that You Need to Find a Different Kind of Education for Your Child. It’s an excellent article, but sadly I’ve seen much worse. Seriously, after talking to conventionally schooled kids I could name fifty things to watch out for.

For example, one family I know has experienced the following negatives with school over the last few years (maybe longer)…

One of the kids in the family has told the family (and me):

• I hate school.
• Teachers are mean and out to get me in trouble.
• I hate almost all my classes.
• Teachers ignore me.
• I hate my friends.
• I don’t do my homework.
• I lose my homework.
• I don’t understand my homework.
• I hate reading.
• School is boring.
• I’m stupid.
• Teachers don’t explain anything right.
• I can’t learn on my own.
• School is not for learning – school is for making teachers grade books look good.
• I’m not good at school/reading and it’s my “parents”/”teachers” fault.
• I feel out of control of my life at school.
• All teachers are evil.
• I worry about getting into trouble.
• Everyone thinks you’re dumb.
• Most schools are mean.
• If I wasn’t forced I wouldn’t learn anything.
• All kids with bad grades are ADHD.
• There’s too much drama at school.
• Teachers tell me off. They like to do that.
• I’m worried teachers will tell my parents I’m bad.

And more. If you ask this kid to tell you something good about school, all you get is a blank stare about 95% of the time. Once I asked said kid to tell me which year was the best year of school so far, and the child said, “There hasn’t been a good year yet.”

This same kid’s parents have been told by teachers that…

• Kid is not up to full potential.
• Kid hangs out with wrong crowd.
• Kid is disabled.
• Kid has attention problems.

This kid further…

• Only gets so-so grades and some are very bad.
• Zones out in class
• Won’t do homework without being forced and always at the last minute.
• Cries over homework.
• Needs parents to explain homework over and over.
• Needs parents to do a lot of the homework.
• Always wishes for snow or holidays so school is closed down.
• Doesn’t want to be involved in any extra curricular activities.

The only positives I’ve heard this kid say about school (or the kid’s idea of positives anyhow) include…

• Kid claims that school is necessary in order to avoid being a hobo.
• Kid likes science.
• Kid sometimes likes math.
• Kid states that without school, “College and a job are out of the question.“
• Kid says, “I should be forced to learn or I can’t learn anything.“

The parents have another kid who claims, “I only do the bare minimum at school because I’m lazy and it doesn’t matter.” Plus this kid has been put in extra tutoring and the parents have been told, by teachers, that kid has multiple anxiety issues about school.

END RESULT = After hearing all of the above here’s what the parents decide. The current schools are where these kids should be. Um?

Personally, it’s frustrating, because all of the above are major red flags to me. How parents see all the signs above and interpret it to mean “School is just fine” is beyond me. This isn’t to single out these parents either. This is something I’ve seen with many other families in the past. It’s seriously not atypical, not that it makes it okay, but it’s not unique. The kids are miserable and complaining all the time or getting into trouble or doing extremely poor work, but all the parents focus on are the very few pros (if you want to consider them pros). It’s not a good weighing system.

I’ve been thinking about it, and partially I think that parents keep kids in situations like this because they’re kids, not adults, and people tend to assume certain things are okay for kids that are in no way okay for adults. For example, you could turn it around and say, I know an adult at work who…

• Says they hate their job.
• Disrupts the workplace.
• Is scared of their boss.
• Cries when they have to do work.
• Does shoddy work or no work at all.
• Wishes for snow days.
• Says work is always boring.
• Hate their co-workers.
• Forgets how to do work.
• Says they’re too stupid to do their work.
• Has anxiety over work.
• Says that without force they won’t do their job.

Then the situation looks really bad. An adult who acts like this would one, be fired or two, should probably quit and find a job they actually enjoy. That’s something to think about. If your kid should be fired from school, well, maybe there’s something to that.

On the flip side you’ve got a kid and parents who believes all the above turmoil is necessary or they’ll never accomplish anything. That’s a very dangerous mindset though, because now you’ve got a person who will grow up thinking, “Hey, it’s totally normal to be unhappy most of the time.” Wow, this person’s going to have a fun life.

In any case, this has been bothering me a lot lately. Since I’ve seen many families have experiences like this, I guess I’d just like to understand where they’re coming from. Especially since often, I like the kids in the family and don’t think it’s cool to see them living like this.

Later, I’ll post some ideas I have about why parents feel the few pros above outweigh all the cons when it comes to keeping their kids in their current educational situation.

You tell me - how many cons would it take to make you believe that your child needs a different educational experience?

I don’t so much get unschooling questions as I get unschooling comments of concern tossed at me. People often don’t ask, “Hey what about socialization?” But instead proclaim to me, as if it’s a fact, something akin to, “OMG kids who don’t go to school miss out on socializing!”

The other day, I did get a great comment/question on the post alternatives to conventional schooling on that post, Alexis asks the following (in part):

“I am open to the idea of homeschooling and unschooling, but wonder what are the effects on the child as they become an adult and go into the world? Do you know anybody who was purely brought up on a unschooling basis and what do they do now? What about colleges, do they see that as a valid “diploma” if a child wants to go to college? Can the ability to makes choices, be respected and learn responsibility only be taught in school or should these be things that children learn at home and implement in a school environment? I am not trying to debate what is right versus what is wrong, but rather wonder if those that choose to homeschool or unschool can honor and respect those who choose conventional schooling and vice versa?“

This may be the most open-minded comment I’ve ever received about unschooling (from a non-unschooler). Below, I’ll try to answer some of Alexis’ questions along with the major concerns I’ve heard from other people over the last ten years.

The #1 question – what about socialization?

I get sooooooo tired of the socialization question. It’s been better for the last two years, because now Cedar also attends Free School. Friends and family LOVE that he started the Free School, which allows them to quit worrying about my poor child’s lack of socialization (sigh).

Before Free School everyone was extremely concerned about Cedar. I was accused of crushing his ability to ever learn how to socialize due to keeping him out of school. It didn’t help that Cedar is shy (or as we like to say, slow-to-warm), so he’s naturally less apt to be social. Cedar’s natural shy qualities mixed with zero school had everyone scared to death that he’d grow up 100% uncivilized.

Here’s the thing; if you assume school is the only place to meet and socialize, then you’re sort of screwed once school is over right? What about on weekends? Holidays? Summer vacation? At a concert?

In his life, Cedar has met and developed relationships with people via – play groups, trips to other states, the park, unschooling meetings and play dates, gymnastic classes, neighborhood families and he’s also met people through established friends and family.  He meets people all the time. He gains socialization skills at home and everywhere else he goes.

Kids in schools, in my opinion, have a smaller range of social opportunities because they have less time to socialize and because in school you mainly hang out with kids exactly your age who are doing exactly what you’re doing vs. meeting a wide array of people doing unique things. Adult life isn’t like that. you don’t go to a party and see everyone grouped off into ages. I’ve never worked anywhere that splits up employees based on age. School is a made-up social experience without real life application.

In school you basically adapt to kids your exact age and then you adapt to whichever group you’d like to be in (if you can) – nerds, popular, punks, preps, jocks, etc. Out of school you never know who you’ll meet. Once you meet someone new, you simply learn how to adapt to each new person and situation. Unschooling kids do exactly this same thing.

Unschooling leads to anarchy

A few years back People magazine printed a story about unschoolers – which may have been the only time in my life I bought this magazine. But I digress. I was very disappointed with the article. It discussed two unschooling families, which was nice because unschooling is rarely featured in mainstream media, then when it is, it’s horrible.

The piece was slanted in favor of unschooling being a bad choice; starting with the title “Is This Any Way to Learn?” Great, if that doesn’t settle people’s nerves about unschooling right from the get-go then nothing will. The magazine gave a general description of unschooling theory that was generic and incorrect.

Worse they played up stuff that didn’t matter. The article discusses one unschooled 21 year old female who was attending Harvard. They paint her in a great light – but not because she’s a successful person who has developed her own way to learn, but because she was attending Harvard. It highlighted the fact that she got into Harvard and read like anything less would be an unsuccessful stab at unschooling. The article states that educators are worried about unschoolers who may be less talented or motivated than this particular girl. Of course, not taking into account that all humans are variables with different skill levels no matter whether schooled or unschooled.

A quote was given by some director of education at the American Enterprise Institute which said:

“It’s true that schools are immensely boring for some kids. But for disadvantaged kids or those who don’t have a stable family or community support to help them master basic skills, [unschooling] can be a recipe for anarchy.”

ANARCHY! Strong wording don’t you think? In my dictionary anarchy relates to wildness and refers to people who rebel. I don’t think wildness or rebelling is bad – by all means be wild; rebel if you like. However, the term anarchy also refers to people who resort to violence to get what they need or to overthrow the order, violence to make a point or get other humans out of the way, a state of lawlessness, and disorder or absence of authority.

The problem with calling unschoolers anarchists is that any kid without stable family members or community supports can be a possible recipe for problems (and at times anarchy). However, the article makes it sound as if only unschooling kids are in danger of getting into trouble. All the unschoolers I’ve met have been great. The people on unschooling forum are helpful and kind and talk about their children with respect. Thus far I have not been to an anarchy crazed unschooler’s park day.

I’d bet money that there are unsupportive or dysfunctional unschooling families out there but I’d bet a lot more money that it has more to do with family dynamics than it does an educational decision.

In fact, to prove my point, here’s some stuff I’ve seen individuals with a high school diploma or college degree do:

• Take drugs
• Cheat, steal, or lie
• Go to jail
• Start a war to prove a point
• Not get into the college of their choice
• Have a messy and mean divorce
• Be mean to their dog
• Hurt another human
• Kill another person
• Get fired from a job
• Be unemployed
• Wreak cars, including setting cars on fire
• Act racist or homophobic
• Hit their kids
• Be unhappy

If someone thinks that conventional school or a degree is a recipe for zero trouble they’re very much misleading themselves. Have I ever seen an unschooler get into trouble – sure – but this isn’t an issue that ONLY affects unschoolers. It’s an issue that affects humans in general. Anyone has the potential to create or not create anarchy. School vs. no school won’t change that. Caring, respectful parenting and other adults in a child’s life is what can change this.

Can unschoolers go to college?

This one is easy – yes. Unschoolers, homeschoolers and free schoolers have been accepted by tons of major universities and rarely have trouble getting into college, if in fact they decide to go to college. Unschoolers and free schoolers have lots of options for college, such as…

• Starting at a community college then transferring to a university. Actually, I’ve met many unschoolers who decide to start community college when they’re very young – 14, 15, 16, instead of waiting around like kids in school.
• Taking tests for placement in a university.
• Creating a portfolio of experiences for the college admission boards.
• Getting their GED first.

Not that you have to go to college. I think it’s far too expected that people will simply go to college nowadays. Really, it’s not for everyone, and not until you’re ready. When I went to college I was 25 or so and 100% ready. By the way, I started community college without a GED, without SATs and without a high school diploma.

Because I was ready and willing, I did very well in college. My son was a baby, and I’d take him to classes with me, but I still maintained 18 credits typically, a 4.0 and was in all honors classes, for what it’s worth. Later I was approached by multiple universities who wanted me to attend their school, won all kinds of scholarships to the university of my choice and then got into a highly competitive RN program. The people I knew in college who were just there to be there, because it was expected, had little focus, got bad grades, and were, in my opinion, wasting a ton of time and money.

No matter if you’re an unschooler or conventional schooler, you should want to go to college, if you go. It’ll be a better experience. It’s way too time consuming and costly to attend a college just because you think it’s the expected thing to do.

To learn more about the college process for unschoolers read chapter 25 of The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education or check out Will Unschooling Get Them Into College.

BUT school prepares you for life!…

I’ve heard the arguments – “But all that sitting at your desk, little movement, harsh schedules, etc., preps you for a job as an adult. We can’t always do what we want in life!”

That’s a sucky life to get used to. Many of my adult friends don’t choose sitting jobs for just this reason. Many of my friends hate to sit and have busy jobs that get them up and out. Other friends choose jobs specifically where they won’t be micromanaged, because they got enough of that in school. If you do want a sitting job, fine. If you want an adult life void of autonomy, fine. However, that’s your choice as an adult.

You’ll never make me believe that all those kids in traditional schools would choose sitting all day, harsh schedules and being told what to do and learn day in and day out if asked. Plus, school doesn’t prep you for life – school preps you for, not surprisingly, knowing how to do what you’re told, as a recent creativity study points out.

School, in my experience was nothing like my real life has turned out to be. In fact, I’d wager that all those years in school made me less prepared, because being in school made me doubt myself in some major ways. I had to overcome those doubts in order to be more productive in my actual life. Which leads me to the last major concern I hear about unschooling – “If you don’t go to school you just won’t learn…” However, I’ll cover this in the next post, since right now, we’re running a bit long.

Do you unschool? What are some concerns and questions you hear?

Right before my son Cedar was born, I found this story called The Brown Flower among my own childhood items, printed it, framed it and hung it in Cedar’s room where I’d see it daily. I already knew I’d be unschooling my son and this story helped to serve as a reminder of why. Also this story made me focus on how my own expectations might eventually shape Cedar – sort of a way to keep me in check. Following is that story…

The Brown Flower
Based on a story by Helen E. Buckley

Once upon a time a small boy had been going to school for a few weeks; his teacher said, “Today we are going to make a picture.” The boy thought about how he could draw lions and tigers, trains and boats, houses and suns and all kinds of pretty things. He took out his crayons and began to draw.

But the teacher said, “We are going to make flowers.” The boy stopped drawing, turned his paper over, and thought how he could draw all kinds of different flowers: some with big leaves, some with pink leaves, some with pink and orange petals, some big purple ones and some little yellow ones and he started to draw happily.

But the teacher said, “I will show you how.” She drew a flower on the blackboard. It was brown with a green stem.

The little boy liked the flowers he had drawn better then the teacher’s flower, but he took out a new piece of paper and made a flower just like hers. It was brown with a green stem.

On another day the teacher said, “We are going to make something with clay,” The boy thought about how he could make snakes and snowmen, elephants and mice, donuts and lots of other exciting things. He began to pull and pinch his ball of clay.

But the teacher said “We are going to make a dish.” The boy liked that idea too, so he started to make dishes of all shapes and sizes.

But the teacher said, “I will show you how.” She showed the class how to make one deep dish. “Now you may began,” she said.

The little boy looked at the teacher’s dish, then he looked at his own. He liked his dishes better than her dish, but he crushed them back into a big ball again. Then he made a deep dish, just like the teacher’s. And so it went on for many weeks.

Then it happened that the boy’s family moved to another city. On the very first day at his new school, the teacher said, “Today we are going to make a picture.” The boy thought about how much fun it would be to draw a picture, and he waited.

But his teacher didn’t say anything. She just walked around the room. When she came to the little boy, she asked him whether he wanted to draw a picture. He said that he did, he asked her what he should draw. “Anything you want to,” said the teacher.

The little boy looked at his blank paper and thought hard for several moments. Then he picked up his crayons and started to draw. He drew a brown flower with a green stem.

The End

Of all the problems I have with traditional schooling, squashed creativity is a top concern. Squashed creativity is not some made up issue, it’s an actual growing problem. Newsweek recently posted a piece called The Creativity Crisis. It’s long, but worth the read. To sum up:

Back in 1958, a group of nearly 400 Minneapolis children completed a series of creativity tasks newly designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. The children who first took these tests have been tracked for 50 years now, and amazingly, Torrance’s creativity index was able to predict which kids would eventually go on to experience many creative accomplishments as adults. “Those who came up with more creative ideas on Torrance’s tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers.” And not surprisingly, correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ. Meaning high IQ scores in childhood did not equal creative accomplishment in adulthood, but creative thinking among children did.

Fast forward to this year and a study by Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary analyzed almost 300,000 Torrance creativity scores of children and adults, and found that creativity scores have been significantly declining since 1990, with the scores of the youngest children in America (kindergarten through sixth grade) on the largest decline.

Lastly, to make things worse, Newsweek found that American teachers say there’s no room in the day, at school, for creativity. There’s simply too much else going on that’s deemed important, such as tests and homework to prepare for tests.

In the film Race to Nowhere, top ivy league university professors pointed out again and again that the real movers and shakers in our world today are largely undereducated by traditional schooling standards, but creative to a fault. People who get way ahead in the world are often the creative thinkers, while their worker bees are often the less creative, but proficient adults who were top students as kids.

Why? I’m not a scientist but I’m guessing it’s because life can’t be as fully managed by someone who has been taught, and believes that life is like a series of standardized tests with one sufficient answer. Real life requires much more creativity than that.

Missing school doesn’t mean missing creative thinking and behavior:

An excellent example of creative thinking at play, with little to no formal schooling, is list of Famous, Rich, and Successful People Who Were High School or College Dropouts. Some examples of people who dropped out, got terrible grades out or who unschooled include:

• Noel Coward
• Charles Dickens
• Florence Nightingale
• Abraham Lincoln – note: 8 individuals, in total, who have served as a U.S. president never went to college.
• Thomas Edison
• Reggie Jackson
• Claude Monet
• Bill Gates
• Walt Whitman
• Sidney Poitier – reportedly, he could only read at the fourth-grade level until a friend taught him how to read better when he was a struggling actor in New York City.
• Ansel Adams
• William Shakespeare
• Ted Turner
• John F. Kennedy – note: was a drop out, but eventually did go back to school, but the fact that someone could drop out then realign what they want is significant.
• Steve Jobs
• Mark Zuckerberg – founded Facebook.
• Woody Allen
• Jimi Hendrix
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• Ray Bradbury
• David Geffen
• Steven Spielberg – actually wasn’t “smart enough” to get into film school.
• Wolfgang Puck
• Benjamin Franklin
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Walt Disney
• Mark Twain
• Harriet Tubman
• Hans Christian Andersen
• Louis Armstrong
• David Bowie
• George Washington

The list goes on and on and on. This is not to say that all dropouts or unschooled individuals will be famous millionaires and that all schooled individuals will not, but it’s something to seriously think about when calculating the worth of formal education vs. life experience. Too many people believe that formal or traditional education is the only way to get a real life, to get a job, to become someone special and worthwhile and it’s simply not true.

We need to learn that wild and colorful gardens are important and beautiful; not treat our kids as if brown flowers are all that matter.

Later we’ll look at some more research surrounding squashed creativity and the formal school system.

If you want more info now: beyond The Brown Flower, another story I have saved from my childhood is the Animal School, which has been told in one form or another over the years, but it makes sense, from a “Let’s not group all kids together as if they were one child” POV. Read a version of the Animal School.

Now – tell me what you think about creativity in the schools.

Before I get too into the public school series, I figured it’d be useful to share my school background, so you know where I’m coming from.

EARLY SCHOOL:

I started preschool at age three. Everyone thought I was smart because I talked a lot and was outgoing. Plus, I could read well by age three and almost perfectly by four. My reading ability wasn’t due to school, but likely due to a mixture of natural ability and the fact that my mom surrounded me with books and read to me compulsively.

By age four my preschool decided I had behavioral issues. I hated sitting still. I’d get up at nap-time and run around like a crazy person, once actually slamming into a wall (ended up in the hospital with a concussion). I’d sing songs by Billy Joel and the Dead instead of little kid songs. This resulted in my mom being called in for a conference about me and my inappropriate singing.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL:

During first grade I was placed in an advanced reading class, which actually translated into the teachers having me help tutor other kids my own age. My mom found out that I was tutoring, not actually being taught new things, and pulled me out of that school.

During second grade at my new school, the teacher put me in an average math class. Average? Up to then I’d been in all-advanced classes. When my mom asked me about school that year I told the first calculated school lie I can remember. I told her, “I’m in advanced math!” I was 7. Of course at teacher conferences my mom found out I had lied. The fact that a 7 year old would lie, due to wanting to be seen as “smarter” really bothers me, and is a main reason I’ve never sent my son to public school. I remember how it felt to feel stupid in a class and how I felt like I had to hide it. Considering that I was only 7 years old and placed in an average, not even below average class, that’s insane.

Third grade pretty much killed school for me.

4th-6th grade consisted of me not doing my work and all sorts of trouble. My mom was always mad at me about how bad my grades were. During standardized testing I’d test above grade average, but was pulling Cs and Ds, so the teachers were like, “You’re so smart, what’s your deal?” Most of the time during those 3 years I’d read a real book behind my school book or draw. I was always being bribed by the teachers with extra art classes – i.e. if I’d do my math homework I could take the special advanced art classes.

MIDDLE SCHOOL:

I turned in almost zero work, got really bad grades and finally they placed me in a class for kids with behavioral and learning issues. I was bored all the time and just waiting for school to end at some point.

HIGH SCHOOL:

High school was weird for me, because again standardized testing came up. I placed not just above average but into the TAG program. However, I was still bored, still not doing any homework and still getting bad grades. I also started acting up specifically so I could get kicked out of class. I’d mouth off, make noise and do anything I could to get out of a class. I refused to go to TAG meetings. I held onto a low grade-point average on purpose, doing just enough work so that I could stay in drama and the speech club.

Then I started skipping school all the time. By junior year I was skipping more than going. I dropped out at 17, before graduation.

My experience with school was, in my opinion, typical. I know tons of kids who either left school or did just enough to get by and graduate. School, for me, was a total letdown. I was seriously disenchanted with how school ran things. I hated having to ask to do everything and didn’t like that I wasn’t learning about stuff that I considered useful.

Plus, I was skeptical of their scales. For example, I did great on multiple choice exams. I tested into the “Talented and gifted” classes. BUT I got mainly D’s and F’s with some good grades sprinkled in.

My sister either did not do quite as well on multiple choice exams or was simply never tested for tag thus she was not labeled “Talented and gifted” but got almost all A’s. She knew how to rock the system. She didn’t act up in class and did her homework. One of my best friends in high school couldn’t read well at all, but was awesome at math and art.

Of the three of us, I’d guess that the school system liked my sister the most. However, in the grand scheme of things, who is smarter? My sister? My friend? Me? Should it matter? How the school came up with these weird ways of placing kids into categories based on tests vs. the system vs. ability blew me over.

LIFE:

After dropping out, I forgot about school for about ten years and got on with life. Growing up, teachers and my mom told me, “Without school and college you won’t be anything… you’ll be a nobody… you won’t get a job… you won’t make any money.” They totally lied to me. Without school I was doing way better.

I held social work jobs that paid very well. One even wanted a college degree, but my life experience, not a degree, got me the job. Plus these jobs kept moving me up the ladder, thus telling me there was zero correlation between school and high responsibility positions or money making.

I had time to learn all the stuff I didn’t get to learn in school. I could read whatever I liked. I could write or draw when I wanted. I volunteered with numerous mentoring programs and other organizations. Life was way better than school.

COLLEGE:

After my son was born, I decided to go to college to become a midwife. I was a little worried because growing up, teachers and my mom said, “You’re not smart enough for college” or “Without a good grade average and high school diploma, you’ll never get into college.” More lies.

I attended a community college in California. I got a 4.o and was invited to join the honors club. I got a rare invitation to be a tutor in the school’s English lab. I had universities offering me money and scholarships to attend their RN program. Finally, I made it into a highly competitive RN program. This was the best I’d ever done in school, which I chalk up to two things.

• Learning stuff that was actually useful and related to what I wanted to do with my life.
• Me making the choice to go to school and learn vs. being forced into it.

SCHOOLS LIED TO ME:

Public schools and MANY people will tell you that you’ll be nothing without a “good” primary education. I was told this, and believed it my entire life, until I dropped out of high school and learned otherwise. Life, experience and self-education is what got me jobs and what got me into a good university. Not early schooling. For 15 years I sat at a desk, all day long during elementary and high school and it was a complete waste of my time. It actually makes me a little sick to my stomach. What could you do with an extra 15 years of life? Seriously?

MY SON’S EDUCATION:

Of course the last thing I wanted was for my son to go through what I had experienced, and what I had seen so many other people go through. His dad agreed, having also had a miserable time in school.  So we decided, even before Cedar was born that we’d homeschool. After much research we realized that homeschool was a little too much like public school for our taste and we flipped our priorities to unschooling.

For Cedar’s early life he was totally unschooled. Then when he was five we went through a, “Maybe he should go to school phase” and found a school we thought was better, a charter school based on ethics and eco-issues. For school, I considered it okay, but it was still school. There were still tests, grades, age segregation and labeling kids into groups. He was there under a year. We pulled him out and went back to FT unschooling.

When Cedar was about 7 I needed more time to work. It’s extremely hard to unschool well as a single parent who writes at home for a living. His dad and I looked and looked and luckily found a Free School that, in my opinion was like unschooling, only in a school, with other kids. Cedar’s been attending this Free School for almost 2.5 years now and couldn’t be happier. A common Cedar statement is, “Summer and weekends are the worst because there’s no school.” Ask him the best part of his day, and he’ll tell you, “School!” He’s worlds away from what I was experiencing at age nine.

That’s where I’m coming from when I talk about my issues with public school. School equals too much disappointment for too many kids. I’ve seen both sides – school vs. no school. I’ve talked to kids on both sides recently and the kids in public school express fear, worry and worse about learning while kids not in public school tend to be happier overall and aren’t discouraged about learning. I know that forced learning is nowhere near equal to learning on your own terms.

Resources:

• Learn more about unschooling or read unschooling FAQ.
• Learn more about Democratic education.
• There’s not much great info online about Free Schools. I’d suggest reading Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood – it’s not perfect, but there’s just not much on Free Schools out there. Another good read is Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. I’ll post more resources later.

What was your school experience like? Good, bad, so-so?

Public schools aren’t ever far in the back of my mind, but lately, they’ve taken over my brain, yes, even before green issues. That said, we’re going to be looking at some school issues over the next few weeks or so. I know this is a green blog, so sure, I’ll still be posting about eco-issues too (don’t worry green advocates).

However, as I’ve noted before we’re not just a green family, but an unschooling / free school family as well. Personally, I think the two issues -  green living + schools, easily merge because:

• Schools need to do a better job of offering green education choices.
• Alternative schooling, in my experience, often allows more time for learning about eco-issues.
• Alternative schooling often encourages more family time, which helps your family work together to focus on green issues.
• Part of living an eco-friendly life has to do with being okay with having less stuff and a more peaceful, helpful mindset, neither of which tend to go along with conventional schooling.

My issues with public schooling are many and are as important to me as green issues. But some people are perfectly happy with their school, so what I’m thinking is I’ll gather all the schooling posts here, place a nice little link in the sidebar, and you can read or ignore the school posts coming up.

SCHOOL ISSUES TO CONSIDER:

• Does public schooling encourage poor parenting behavior?
• Why my son doesn’t attend a real school
• Problems with tests and No Child Left Behind
• Declining creativity in schools
• Major questions and concerns folks have about unschooling
• Should your kid be fired from school?

If you’d like to know more about where my information is coming from take a look at the following:

• People I’ve interviewed or talked to about school
• My Personal Public School Experience along with my best teacher ever…

As noted, I’ll still be posting about green issues too. But, if you’re not perfectly happy with your child’s school, you might want to bookmark this page so you don’t miss any of the school links as I post them.

Wondering who these adorable guys are?

Hustle over to Inhabitots to learn more about a cool new website designed for Recycle Glass Week. Bonus, you’ll score tips that will help you teach your little one how to easily recycle glass.

Read the post – HOW TO: Teach Young Children to Recycle Glass.

Many schools are trying to green it up inside, but totally forget that they can also make a difference outside. School grounds offer an excellent chance to green your school.

School grounds are very important – not only do your kids play on the school grounds, but how the grounds are cared for affects the community. Plus the positive health and developmental benefits for kids who have access to healthy, greener school grounds are amazing.

If you’d like to audit your school’s ground and ground care consider the following…

• What sort of products are used on the actual grounds – chemical or organic? Does the school REALLY need to use chemical ground treatments?

• Is there a green space at all? Some schools have zero green space, instead sending kids out to play on pavement and bark. Green is healthy for kids. Kids need grass, flowers, trees and gardens to thrive and learn. In fact, school gardens have been shown to boost children’s well-being and development. The National Wildlife Foundation notes that, “5th grade students who participated in school gardening activities scored significantly higher on science achievement tests than students who had a curriculum without garden experiences.” If your school already has green spaces are they grown organically?

• Do more trees need to be planted for shade, windbreakers or to prevent water erosion?

• Is there litter laying around? Why? Are there enough garbage and recycling bins located on the campus?

• How much water is the school using? Can you build rainwater barrels, or cut out some grass and have a big sandbox instead? Is there natural vegetation that can thrive with less water use at your school? Is watering done at night and is watering eco-friendly; for example, sprinklers watering the sidewalk, not the grounds is a terrible waste of water.

• Does your school encourage natural wildlife specific to the area, such as bees, birds, and butterflies? If you don’t see any of these native creatures around your school yard, odds are, your school has the wrong sort of plants growing.

• Got an urban areas, with less space? Consider discussing a green roof with the school and community.

Need resources?

• An insanely cool 100 page booklet on greening school grounds (pdf)
• How to Choose Plants Kids Will Love to Grow in Their Classroom Project
• Plan an outdoor environment that fosters learning (pdf) – this is a bigger deal than you might think. According to a study by the State Education and Environment Roundtable (SEER), 100% of schools who initiated an eco-based learning curriculum experienced students with improved behavior.
• Plan an eco-friendly water systems on school grounds
• A HUGE list of resources for greening your school grounds – the best green school grounds list I’ve ever seen.

Bonus link o’ the day – cool tips about greening your school, just for kids.

Top image © Photorious; mid-image via sxc.

This month we’re discussing greening your school. Anyone can (and should) audit their school. While technically it’s best to encourage your school to run their own green audits, you and your child can do some green audits of your own and then suggest changes to your school.

One of the biggest problems schools have is material waste. Paper waste, supply waste and related school materials are a huge burden on the environment.

Here are some things to look for…

Paper waste:

• How much paper is used on a daily basis in just one classrooms alone? Count the pieces of paper used by a student along with the paper handed out by the teacher. Times that by the number of students in the class. Now times it by the number of kids in the entire school – is the number staggering? One report notes that a school in New York, in just one year, used 28 pounds of paper per each student and teacher in the school.
• Are both sides of paper utilized? This means that homework assignments, worksheets, art paper, and teacher handouts. One fun experiment for kids is to ask the entire class to simply make a pile of all the paper used in class after one week. Imagine how big that pile will be.
• Is any of the paper used at school recycled or made with recycled content to start with?
• How is paper recycled at your school. Are there bins available in each classroom? The school office, the library and in common areas?
• Are there still paper towels in your bathrooms? A better choice for public spaces are air dryers, but not all schools have them.
• How is school mailing handled? Does your school really need weekly newsletters sent out to all parents or would an email newsletter work?
• How is packaging handled? All school lunch stuff and supplies arrive in packaging. Is that packaging recycled?
• Guess what – we haven’t even mentioned text books yet. How much more paper do you think all those text books create?

The best solution for paper waste is to use less paper, use recycled content paper, use up the paper you have and to recycle all paper products.

Food waste:

Composting school lunch food can reduce landfill use, nourish school gardens and teach useful learning concepts to kids. Most schools toss school food and old snacks but it’s so easy to compost that it’s a shame more schools don’t.

School lunch waste:

Waste from school lunches may include food (as noted above) but can also include things like juice boxes, aluminum cans, plastic food containers and more. Take a look at what your school uses to make lunch then make sure each item has a recycling bin – for example, all cans are recycled.

Water waste:

We don’t often think of water as a waste issue – but it is a huge waste issue in most schools. Ask these questions to see how much water your school wastes…

• Are there leaky sinks or urinals or toilets in the bathroom?
• Does the school run the water sprinklers on the lawn during the day? For how long? Is water gushing down the sidewalk or actually benefiting the grass?
• How many loads of laundry and dishes is the school running per day? How many water efficient appliances are used to wash stuff up?
• Are kids taught about water conservation techniques, such as making sure the water is all the way off after washing their hands?

Water waste can be solved with maintenance first and foremost – for example all those leaky sinks. Water waste can also be reduced by using water efficient appliances in the school cafeteria and by simply making folks more aware of how much water is wasted daily.

Supply and electronic waste:

If your school no longer needs desks or computers what happens to this stuff? Is it recycled, given to other schools? Sold? Hopefully all of the above. Many schools simply toss old furniture and electronics and that’s a huge waste. Every school needs a successful electronic recycling program and a way to sustainably get rid of old furniture and other supplies.

For each problem found in a green school audit there is also a solution. Waste is an easy issue to fix. It’s not only cost effective to reduce waste but fun and can even be incorporated into the school curriculum. In order to fix waste issues at your school parents and kids should…

• Encourage schools to develop a recycling program for all waste.
• Encourage schools to use less stuff overall. For example, kids can share crayons (and other supplies) – each kid doesn’t need their own huge box. In fact, kids can even share textbooks.
• Encourage schools to institute a recycled products purchasing policy.
• Encourage schools to purchase water efficient appliances.
• Encourage schools to compost.

Solutions to school waste:

• Learn how your school can institute a Web 2.0 paperless school governance solution.
• Tips on reducing paper waste in schools.
• Help your school office to collect unwanted junk mail and contact the companies to get off their junk mail lists.
• How to reduce, recycle and reuse in the school cafeteria.
• Make sure waste reduction is on the student curriculum or even consider helping to start a school waste reduction campaign or club with students. Kids who are a part of the waste solution won’t waste as much and a fun eco-club is a great way to get kids involved.
• Composting in schools.
• Water conservation in schools – a massive list of links, books, and journal articles on water efficiency, water recycling, and plumbing issues in school buildings and grounds from the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities.
• Place recycling bins everywhere – and make sure even little kids know which bin is which.
• Hold a recycling competition among classes to encourage student participation.
• Back to School Waste Prevention.
• Learn how your school can gain national recognition by implementing a waste reduction program through initiatives such as EPA’s WasteWise program.
• The EPA’s Tools to Reduce School Waste report (pdf), consists of many useful tips, among them, 10 Steps for Becoming Waste-Free.
• Recycled supplies for schools.