Sad Missing Books

Over the past ten months I have read many books, some of them very good. Life happened and I didn't get to write about them. I want to document my standouts briefly here:

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls



I happened on this movie first on Amazon Prime and it blew me away so I had to read the book. I still don't know why this story moves me so much, but I love the characters and Jeannette's ability to integrate the challenges and joys of her unique upbringing.


Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop

I have been a fan of Cather since I read My Antonia as a child. I adored reading this book. Probably because New Mexico is calling to me. Again the intersection of Native American, Catholic Europe, and manifest destiny here - fascinating and something I've been pondering since my Ramona project.

Recent Nonfiction wrap up

Last Child in the Woods - Richard Louv
Free to Learn - Peter Gray

I just wrapped up Free to Learn. I had read Last Child in the Woods in the fall.  Before I crack open another nonfiction, I thought I would jot down some thoughts for the sake of my own synthesis.

The first thing that comes to mind is that it's difficult to simulate a hunter/gatherer model in modern society. At best we play pretend to replicate that kind of tribal life, play, and learning. Replicating this type of learning however, even if it misses my idealistic mark, is still preferable perhaps to the coerced factory model that the majority of our students and most of us have participated in for years. I pondered to my husband that in retrospect, adult life was a really difficult transition for me from the top down factory model school life that I had succeeded in for 16 years. It's almost as if I was always waiting for someone to pop out and tell me what to do, so I could do it and get the A. In the adult world, you may enter a company that is a top down model similar to factory school, but the rules may not be exactly the same.

If anything, a model that teaches kids to discover who they are, what they're interested in, how they lead, how they follow, and allows them to take risks and begin to live life as a real participant rather than incessantly train only to falter when they do enter the hallways of life, is a welcome concept.

Having awareness of the historical models of parenting that Peter Gray outlines was probably my favorite part of his book: trustful parenting (hunter/gatherer model), directive domineering (model instituted by the rise of agriculture and feudalism), directive/protective - current model views children as incapable and vulnerable.

As someone who has experimented with child led concepts since I read Continuum Concept when my kids were little, I think we have a lot to learn about different cultural concepts of child raising. I also realized that my small children would run out in front of cars if I did not sometimes hold their hands. I don't know if it was because I lacked "trustful parentingness" or if the dangers presented in our world are higher stakes experiments that don't allow children a proper progression of trustfulness.I also missed the presence of tribal support that I did not often find in my nuclear family oriented world. There were not a plethora of eight year olds or old grandmas around to hold my babies while I did....  I did allow them to free play without adult direction as much as possible.

The days of neighborhood roaming must have been great indeed. I didn't have a neighborhood, but I did do range roaming with siblings, friends, and cousins. Simulate away, until we figure out a better experiment, like a society where children are allowed to integrate, work, play, learn, and fully participate.