Mairi Sasaki, Neil, Cameron and Isobel

Here is a bit about us and how we came to unschooling:

Neil (38 in January) and I (Mairi - 37) have two children, Cameron (5 in January) and Isobel (2). We live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

A combination of attachment parenting and who our son is eventually brought us to unschooling. Cameron constantly challenges us and requires us to stretch and improve as parents. If not for attachment parenting, we probably wouldn't see the situation, or our son this way. We would be busy now trying to fix him to fit in instead of realizing that Cameron is whole and unbroken, and we had better instead get busy trying to figure out how to meet his particular needs.

When he was 3, it hit me that school was not going to work for Cameron. I brought him to playgroups and he was agitated by too many other kids around him, consistently refused to participate in any structured activities like circle or snack time, and raged at any other adult who tried to correct him.

So if not school, then what? I joined our local homeschooling group and spent a year looking into the options. Unschooling seemed like the most likely fit for us, since I felt awkward and phoney trying to act like a teacher, and Cameron would clam up when anyone tried to create a teaching moment, like asking him "what's that letter?" while reading him a book.

When I dug deeper into unschooling information, I was thrilled. It felt like coming home, like I'd found something I'd been searching for for a long time. Here was a whole treasure trove of parenting wisdom and experience underpinned by a foundational belief in the validity of children's perspectives and feelings. Neil soon shared my excitement that in unschooling we'd found an amazing direction for our family.

We are still quite new to unschooling and have a lot to learn and to "get." We are grateful to have guidance from the resources that Sandra, Joyce and other experienced unschoolers generously offer as we try to grow into better parents for our individual children. We look forward to continuing our journey towards unschooling at the symposium and beyond.

Rebecca Allen

We're Rebecca (39 by ALL), Matthew (39) and Quinn (6) Allen. We live in Englewood, Colorado in the South Denver Metro area. Matthew is a Citrix systems engineer who refurbishes, builds, and rides old and new BMX bikes too. I dabble in growing food for my family and bees. Lately, I'm having fun fermenting all sorts of edibles. Quinn keeps us all very busy designing and creating ways to decorate herself, her plushies, and our space.

When Quinn was around 12 months old, we took a baby sign language class. I was astounded by the comparisons between infants' abilities, the expectation to practice often—even to have babies sign "milk" before breast feeding(!), and the senselessness of the topics. (Wasn't it enough for the babies to know "ball" without knowing 12 different kinds of balls?!) I might have had a different impression if Quinn was a star baby sign student, but it was clear that she had no interest in sitting in circle time or staying on topic and switching stations on cue. I had no desire to try to make her do those things, but it was great fun to see what did catch her interest and how she expressed herself. She was very clear at communicating without "signs"! When I mentioned my dismay at the class and what school pressures might be like if this was already the case for infants, Matthew suggested that we home school. I hadn't considered it and was a bit leery. As I investigated, I quickly found unschooling amongst the home schooling options and AlwaysLearning amongst the unschooling information and fell in love with the possibilities. Matthew was a bit leery of unschooling at first, but we all have embraced the lifestyle at this point and have grown so connected as a result.

I was at Sandra's SUSS, so I look forward to seeing some familiar faces and to meeting new folks too! I'm going to ALL alone this time. This will be my first time away from Quinn overnight, so if I look a little teary at some point that might be why. We will miss each other, but she is super excited about having a "three night slumber party" with Matthew. She has already started planning and decorating. They will have a great time at home as they love their "daddy-daughter time" and neither likes to travel much. I'm excited about having a fun time too. I'm counting down the days to ALL!

Rebecca

The Cabatics

The how, why and how long of our unschooling:

Xander and XuMei (pronounced Zoo May) have never gone to school. Chris wanted his children homeschooled. XuMei knew school at home wasn’t for her. It was at the first Life Is Good Conference we found unschooling. It was there that I found Sandra Dodd’s writings and the Always Learning Yahoo group. I’ve been reading it since Nov 2007. I also like to cook and hula hoop.

XuMei rides horses. She is on the Flower Power Drill Team. She hopes to get up close with elephants and giraffes someday.

Chris is an engineer, marimba musician, massage therapist and do-it-yourself guy.

Xander will blow your mind with his redstone creations in Minecraft. He wants to learn code.

We love to game! We recently learned Euchre. We play Little Big Planet, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Halo and more. Minecraft is our current favorite. We attended Minecon in Las Vegas in November. We got Notch’s autograph and met Simon and Lewis of Yogscast. If you’re interested, ask us, we’ll tell you all about it.

We also love to swim, do parkour, dance, hula hoop, boffer fight and walk our dog, Lola, who is coming with us to Albuquerque!

Food for New Year's Eve

I have made the posole, packed it up in flat freezer bags easy to thaw and re-heat in a crock pot, and I have made two kinds of cookies and some rum balls. That's my formal contribution to the New Year's Eve Party.

The known vegans will be gone by then.

Perhaps, as people leave the hotel, if there is leftover food you don't want to take home with you, that could be donated to the New Year's Eve food too. We can have a randomly donated feast, with posole as a main course.

Posole (poe SOH lay) doesn't sound as good as it is. It's a thick soup of hominy ("posole" in Spanish—oddly preserved corn), pork cooked to pieces, and red chile. It's winter party food in New Mexico, though, and particularly it is New Year's Day food. I didn't make it very spicy, but will have honey and sour cream for people to put in theirs if they want to taste it but are afraid of chile.

We'll bring a bottle of champagne, and if there are lots of people there maybe we can send out for another one.

If you're staying over, bring drinks or food if that's simple to do; if not, go to dinner, come to the party, and we'll just play games and goof around.

Another registration came this evening

Deborah and Tim Mensch (parents), Petra Mensch (age 7), and Theo Mensch (age 3)
Boulder, Colorado

Deborah said it was fine for me to list their names here and that she'll send info about the family and photos in a few days.

Still 16 17 states, but 29 moms, 14 dads.

Michelle Godfrey, Ben, Izzy and Clara

Hi! We are the Godfreys from Omaha, Nebraska, where we have lived for the past three years. There’s Ben – 43, Michelle (myself) – 42, Izzy – 4 and Clara – 3. The Symposium is part of our first road trip as a family. We are pretty excited about the whole deal. We have been reading about and experimenting with unschooling concepts in our lives for the past year. I would certainly say I am in the midst of the process called deschooling. It is a rewarding and challenging journey thus far. The unschooling concepts ring true within my heart. The challenge comes with changing the habits/thoughts that were taught to me by my “mother, father, church and state.”

Ben is a nuclear power plant operator and I stay at home with the girls. Ben practices the martial art of aikido and I practice Bikram yoga. We spend a lot of time with our girls. They are at that age where having us near and involved with what they are doing is most pleasing to them. Izzy is a self proclaimed artist and currently loves to work with pastels and water colors. Clara loves to pretend she is a cat and cracks a mean egg for scrambled egg prep. Both of the girls’ spontaneity and creativity are inspiring. We are all on the cusp of embarking on a new life journey as we move to a nearby small town in the country to a home on 11 acres of land. We intend to raise goats, chickens and own a horse. Maybe even have a cow join us and who knows what other animals. We will eat most of our foods from the gardens we grow and just plain old get more connected to nature and learn from it too! These are all things we have very little or no experience with.

Can’t wait to hang out with everyone!

Here are two family pictures. The first is obviously the four Godfreys. The other also includes our adopted Grandma Sissy and her boyfriend, Miguel. We were painting rocks for our Thanksgiving centerpieces and someone decided to paint someone else and the rest is history, captured in this photo.

It's a good neighborhood

I'm going to add that note (it's a good neighborhood) to the post about the doors, and then I'll delete this post, after I think people have had time to see it. :-)

Didn't mean to spook anybody.
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If the idea of a sliding door on the ground floor to your room makes you nervous, then request upstairs. :-) But it's a good neighborhood.