radical unschooling

attachment parenting

Pagan

Unitarian Universalist

crunchy

alternative

non-mainstream

 

But none of those labels really tells you all that much about who we are or what we do, do they?

 

We are a Pagan family, which means that we follow a nature based religion. My beliefs fall in the Wiccan and Unitarian Universalist category. I believe the Creative Spirit is both female and male, that our actions here on this earthly plane matter more than what we believe will happen in the afterlife, and that magick indeed does happen. My husbands beliefs are more generic Pagan in nature. He believes there is "something" out there - some creative force - but refuses to give it a name or personification. He simply does not need to do that. He was also greatly influenced by a Cherokee Cheif he knew when he was younger and his beliefs were altered by that. My 9 year old son is trying to find his own path. He loves the Unitarian Universalist church we sometimes attend and identifies himself as a Wiccan, but is exploring other religions as well.

 

We are also a radical unschooling family. We go beyond the usual idea of school at home in that we believe that our children should be in charge of their education not us. We do not use workbooks or other "schoolish" things unless our children request them. We don't believe that learning happens only between the hours of 8 and 2 or that schools or home-based replicas of schools are the best place for true learning to take place. That makes us unschoolers. We also believe that children have the right to be in charge of ALL aspects of their lives, not just their education. Our children are respected as people and are not talked down to just because they are younger and have less life experience. Their thoughts, ideas, needs, wants, and feelings as just as important as those of an adult. We don't have arbitrary limits such as bedtimes, mealtimes, tv limits, etc. We believe that children are more than capable of deciding for themselves whether they are hungry, whether they are tired, or whether they want to watch a certain tv show or not. We believe that children are capable of so much more than most people give them credit for and try to allow them every opportunity to prove us right.  Those beliefs make us radical unschoolers. 

 

Check out our individual pages to learn a little more about each one of us.