Video Games, Teaching, and Mean Moms

A student of mine decided to publish his essay about video gaming in an unschooling home online. Another online "mommy blogger" picked it up and started discussing the writing, then another, and now it is being discussed all over online:

Here is the link to the student's essay:

His mother's response to the controversy

Sandra Dodd's link to the issue at hand.....

The last two generated a lot of other discussions and links, but I'm not going to list all 100+! I'm also going to let you get to the offended's blog through the other links. I'd rather not generate more traffic to hers if I can help it!

I don't typically discuss details about my teaching or students but this one I'd thought I'd share. The thing that really peaked my interest was the way that the offended blogger approached discussion in the comments. I also teach Argument 106 and she kept dropping vocab terms to dismantle the arguments of others, but not quite getting them right. Also, if this was in the confines of my classroom, the offended mom would be explaining such an unprofessional reaction to the Provost. She called his writing horseshit and emotional blackmail. I usually explain the rules of engagement in the classroom (online) as how we would be expected to treat each other in the "real world".....so much for that, eh?

That said, I really enjoyed this student's essay. I am glad he published it. I am glad that it is generating discussion. Discussion leads to learning about others and ourselves, even if one doesn't agree with the original premise.

In fact, I might have been on her side of the fence at one time in my parenting life. It took a while for me to understand my child and myself enough to finally allow video games in my home. It took me even more time to overcome resentment and guilt and such that I was unknowingly (or un-admittedly) passing on to my family. It takes a community of learning and kindness to help us through times like those. A wonderful mentor said to me, when I was fed up with a mom bully and her kids at park day and wanted to start a new park day, that the greater change will come when we open ourselves up to such encounters, "you never know who might stumble across a group of unschoolers and have their own minds changed for more peaceful and respectful family relationships," she wisely said.

Love Story

A bit back Evie posted her love story at a Road Less Traveled. I meant to post ours here too, but it got away from me.

Ours is pretty simple. We were teenagers. :)

The first time I met Dearest it was a bit unusual. I had just moved to Iowa from Illinois and felt really out of place. I drove around sometimes just getting the feel of the new place. There was a high school DJ'd radio station and one night I heard the strangest combination of songs......
Violent Femmes, Benny Goodman, and TMBG mixed with some Christian punk. ??? I had to meet the DJ.

So I drove to the station and walked in. That's the first time I met Dearest. He was polite and sweet, but very busy.

The next time, I was eating beef jerky at the high school voc-tech campus and he thought that was pretty cool. Girls don't usually eat beef jerky?

The next time, (sense a pattern?) it was at a punk show. Still, I thought he was sweet and really cute but my life had gotten quite crazy by then.

Finally, I ended up in the program that ran the radio station and he spent a lot of time there too. He was reading a J. D. Salinger book that was not Catcher in the Rye (at the time I thought I was the only person on earth who knew Salinger wrote other books......) and we struck up a conversation.

So then we were friends. That was about it. Friends. Then good friends. Then good friends who spent a lot of time together.

One night he called me at 11 PM and invited me to go fishing. It was the end of my sister day with Aunt Bee so I asked if she could come along, explaining a bit about sister day. Aunt Bee was bitter and 11 years old, but said yes too. She wanted to ride in his very cool VW Bug.

We headed off for fishing in the moonlight. No fish were caught. In fact Aunt Bee threw rocks at Dearest and pouted the whole time. She tried to fish and ended up losing some of his best lures. The funny thing is, after the excursion she said, "You'll never date him." Why? "He's cute and nice and you only date losers." Thanks Aunt Bee. (BTW, I never dated another loser again in my life. Also, ha ha. I married the cute and nice guy AB threw rocks at!)

Back to the story at hand-
Still, we were not ready. Suddenly we were good friends who were not dating anyone else. Then good friends who secretly had crushes on the other but didn't want to mess with the friendship and then......

Then one night he showed up at the bookstore where I worked. At closing, he asked if I had ever seen the badminton sculpture at the KC Art Museum. No? Ok, let's go. Tonight?

It was a blizzard in December, we left Iowa at 1 AM for KC. Nuts, I know. We had a blast. Two days of art museum bliss, meeting his friends and family, eating at some neat places.

When it was all said and done and he dropped me off at home, he said, "You are beautiful." Then he left. He left me speechless. I was in shock. He was messing with our friendship! Part of me was scared and the other absolutely gleeful. This is a photo of me the next day.

I showed up at his work and invited him over to watch movies. That December was a whirlwind.

Christmas Eve, 1996 we kissed for the first time. That was it. We began our life together.

Delight in the Sunshine

After such a long and harsh winter we have relished these Spring days. Some mornings it is all Lil'Bug can do to snarf down her cheerios and bolt for the back door. Out she goes! Last fall we got a free swing set from another homeschool family. Thank goodness! She lives on her "pirate ship" and now with the addition of the Pooh Bear themed superhero cape she is "Larry Boy, the hero pirate!".....????.....Veggie Tales does have a pirate movie, but she has never seen it. Behind her is her pet pig who sails the open sea with her and only eats "wishing" flowers mixed with sand.

We had a great child labor thing going for a while. It was her job to pick and gather all the dandelions and bury them in a hole by the back fence. Then....someone showed her that, un-picked, those pesky weeds turn into wishing flowers. Sigh. She has made thousands of wishes that her sister would hurry up and be born. Thousands.

The innocence of childhood. Cape, t-shirt, denim shorts, and....black patten leather princess shoes? My sweet days.

Garden Update, Spring Progress

Broccoli! These are doing awesome. The strange absence of bugs this year also includes cabbage moths and such so maybe we won't have a huge problem with them this year. I plan on harvesting and freezing these in June and another rotation in the fall. Yum. Also, Lil'Bug says we will find June Bug in the broccoli bed and that will be her birth day- just like we found her in the pumpkin patch 4 years ago, in Narnia, in Heaven. Ah, the creation story of a wee babe.

Yum. Spinach. I will have my first garden fresh spinach salad tomorrow and then use some for lasagnas to freeze for the first week June Bug babe is home.

The other part of my salad mix: lettuce and various greens. So tender are they when fresh and young. Drool....

Strawberriest blossoms. Two different kinds. Lovely with morning dew......or wait...no Lil'Bug do not spray Mama with the hose while I have the camera out here! AGH!

And last....we planted blueberries. Again. We are the gardeners of ever innocent hopefulness. Every blueberry plant we have ever planted has died. This one has blossoms! Ok, to be fair, it came with the the blossom buds, but still!