My schedule has been thrown off recently. It's 3:30 AM, and I've just finished making oatmeal honey bread. I'm wide awake, listening to terribly sad songs, editing articles, folding clothes, playing with the dogs. Who knows when I'll get to sleep.... It's not all bad, though. I mean, how often do you get to have warm, fresh bread in the middle of the night?
Yesterday (or the day before - depending on how you look at it), we attended a homeschooling game day in Austin for the first time. Kenzie had a blast, and now he's ready to learn the "real rules" for Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Magic, etc. We've always made up our own rules as we went along, playing just for the fun of it.
The magazine was featured in a television news segment on a station out of Virginia. I stumbled upon it yesterday and was astonished when the magazine was mentioned. Just click on "Leaving Normal School Behind" to watch. The article on the website probably does a better job explaining unschooling than the video does, but I'm not complaining. The video is definitely a positive one.
Well, that's the good TV news. The bad news is I've been contacted, yet again, by the Wife Swap team. This makes five times, now. They really want me to send them names of unschoolers, post their casting calls, etc. Gag. The show is scornful and patronizing, and I hope they never find their coveted unschooling family. But, no matter how many times I tell them this, they keep contacting me, again and again. In fact, they're now offering $1000 if I find them a usable family. Ick.
My sister-in-law is a television editor and she's worked on some of the wife swap programs. It is nothing about the families and everything about the drama. Without the tension being overplayed it would just be informative and that surely isn't the point. Sigh...
That was clearly not unschooling on that video. Not that I'm the unschooling police or anything, but really": "as long as you get done what has to be done..." "mom is a personal tutor" "sitting at the kitchen table doing their work"...again sigh...
Schuyler
Posted by: Schuyler | May 18, 2006 at 04:12 AM
What's interesting, is I know the mother from a list that I'm on. Her family is actually much more "unschooly" than what was portrayed. The older son is working out of math books because he wants to, they don't generally sit at the kitchen table to do "work" and leave the sick child on the couch alone, etc. I guess this is what happens when a reporter and camera person show up and start talking about good shots and then edit out what doesn't "work for them." One of the many reasons I have never let them into my own home....
Posted by: LFLF-Editor | May 18, 2006 at 11:56 AM
The funny thing is that the sitting at the table was totally the reporters idea. Barb (the mom who was featured) said that they had gotten lots of good footage of the kids doing lots of fun, unschooly things, but the reporter really wanted a "kitchen table" shot and of course that is what they used. What is it about reporters doing a homeschooling story (even an unschooling story!) that they have to have that kitchen table shot?
If you are curious, here is Barb's blog where she talks about the interview:
http://barbnowinva.blogspot.com/2006/05/tv-stars-follow-up.html
(Scroll down a bit as it looks like she is having problems with her blog)
Posted by: Stephanie | May 26, 2006 at 09:09 PM