Responding to Suffering Far Away.

I've been thinking about the drought in the Horn of Africa: the drought is devastating and many people are dying of starvation. In the context of this kind of suffering, it feels petty to think about simplicity. Frugality, maybe, if it means rerouting our money towards alleviating poverty (whether that is effective is another conversation). But simplicity feels a bit of an obnoxious "life focus" when people are dying of starvation.

As you can guess, I'm going to argue that simplicity is not peripheral or obnoxious, even when there are acute global needs. I think it can be a response.

I count friends and colleagues who have stories that involve months of walking, lack of food, illness, giving birth under trees, and worse. Yet even as one friend reflects on the tragedies in her past, she describes the isolation and alienation she feels now, in the U.S. She's desperately trying to make ends meet in U.S. terms (college for kids, health care coverage for kids, supporting family still in refugee camps), and she's constantly feeling out-of-place in U.S. society. I don't think this sentiment reflects ingratitude. She's not complaining. I think it speaks to two things:

Firstly, our immediate circumstances are relative: even if we've been through incredibly bad times, relatively better times can still feel genuinely hard. Secondly, I think it shows that isolation in U.S. society is really, really painful. Being on a treadmill of work and money is something that's somehow happened to us, and it is powerful to think about building a different society right here, even in the midst of monumental suffering elsewhere.

This observation is not meant as an attempt to normalize or draw comparisons across totally different scales of suffering. It is also not a prodding for us to feel bad about feeling bad. Or to minimize the very real structures of work and school and insurance and debt that make it hard to do things differently. Simplicity is also not the answer to all the problems in the world.

Rather, I suggest that one response to suffering is to be radical-- sometimes simplistically so-- about choices we make in the day-to-day. Not out of guilt or to make our lives artificially perfect. But in recognition that some core things are true, and that in our own bumbling way, it is an act of love and grace to figure out how not to be caught up in creating or retaining wealth. I dream that maybe that will segway into tangible hands-on doing something I like for my community or one a little removed (see biltong factory), but in the space between those dreams and The Now, there's a time in which just doing life "well" matters.

It's hard when it feels like a choice between health insurance and full-time work or no insurance and a sense of insecurity. And there's pressure for full-time work to be self-actualizing and so on. All the more, those who say (in a genuine, non-creepy way) "we're so lucky, or we're so blessed" may be pioneers.

Homeschooling for Skeptics

I've long been skeptical of homeschooling, partly out of prejudice, partly out of laziness, and partly because of my politics. I'm not sure how many readers here occupy a similar political space, but I wanted to share some of my evolving thoughts-- very specific to our case and to the fact that I've never actually homeschooled.

Prejudice
Until recently, I'd  most encountered the Christian fundamentalist side of homeschooling, which seemed driven by fear of "the world".  Like the U.S. approach to terrorism earlier this century, I really dislike fear-mongering. One of my goals is to deal with my fears well, so that they're not what drives my actions.

Politics
I also have a strong belief in government's role as a potential equalizer; people in poverty can't simply lift themselves out by force of will-- more than that, I think there are things that make it virtually impossible to get out of poverty (poverty of various kinds, not just financial). With that belief comes some hope in public schools as an equalizing force. So, in the framework of public-private-homeschool, private school would probably be my least favorite (it's also really expensive, and you guys know I'm cheap).

But as the internet changes the world in fundamental ways and makes learning more accessible, I wonder if traditional schools are really serving the best learning interests of the poor or the rich. If schools only benefit the poor of societies to the extent that high school certificates or university diplomas are currency in our world, then is that a real or artificial benefit? Will young people have meaningful, learning-filled childhoods, adolescence, and young adulthoods in schools? For some kids, I think the answer is yes. But for many more, schools are babysitting zones to keep kids out of the way for chunks of the day so parents can work. I think this because sometimes Eug and I joke about how soon we can send Noah somewhere school-ey so we don't feel so astoundingly busy.

As Eug and I break out of the 9-5 two-parents-working-treadmill of work, stuff and life, it starts to feels wrong to train Noah to conform to that same system. If school is preparation for the "real world" and we think that world kindof sucks, then maybe instead of preparing Noah for the "real world" we can prepare Noah for the world we dream of. If school is often the only place children meet people who are different from them, perhaps that just means our home must become that space. It's risky, and Noah will always have a say-- I'm not doing a social experiment. Homeschooling is mainstream enough that kids can still pursue whatever career they like: medical school, law school, whatever.

I'm using heady language, and I don't mean to be so abstract. Basically, school might waste a lot of Noah's time, and a lot of our time. School in South Africa, Korea, and the U.S. all seem to be unnecessarily stressful. I'm not certain that stress over tests and exams is really valuable or character-building. I look over the exams I have been most concerned about over the years, and I find I can't actually remember anything I studied so hard. From what I can see, schools have only gotten more test-driven and stressful.

I think there is unavoidable life pain- death of friends and family, AIDS, cancer, malnutrition, poverty, conflict, divorce- and learning to deal with that kind of pain will be important. But grades, ranking, etc? These are artificial ways of measuring people's worth-- it presents pain that can be postponed indefinitely because the later one feels it, the less deeply it penetrates. It's important that my doctor knows their anatomy and physiology, but that trajectory doesn't extrapolate all the way back to the womb (here there are preschools that have wait-lists because they're considered Harvard's incubators). I would prefer my doctor learned to be a caring, interested, interesting human being the first 18 years of their life. 

Laziness and Other Practical Considerations

I also wasn't sure we'd have time for homeschooling.  I'm still not sure, but I think we just might. It seems like a good thing to make time for. We're not thinking of a little schoolhouse at home, with classes and such. We're thinking of learning that is more organic. My dad taking Noah up a mountain. My mom introducing him to crafts. Eug's mom teaching him to paint. Teaching him violin, woodworking, cooking, reading great books, basic graphic design.  The basics, you know.

If we factor in the hour or so in the morning, and hour or so in the afternoon that might be spent driving/walking a child to and from school or getting their special lunch meal ready, you've already got two hours to spend teaching. Then, add in the time spent stressing over homework, shopping for school uniforms, time spent earning the money to pay for school fees and associated costs (in the South African case), and you're getting pretty close to the few hours of hands-on teaching that's necessary to help a child learn. It's telling that six hours per week is the number of class hours recommended for students who take time off school due to illness. That's all.

I'm not saying we'll definitely home school Noah, or that I have any judgement whatsoever on parents who send their kids to school-- I've been a parent for a grand 14 months. I'm suggesting that perhaps homeschooling offers a new dimension of simplicity that is surprising and unexpected to someone with my traditional educational background. 

Inspiring, Exciting Urban Gardens in Boston (Part 4)

Perspectives on Boston gardens wouldn't be complete without a look at a community garden. This is my old community garden:

One thing I love about the community garden is the transfer of skills that takes place between new and experienced gardeners. What amazes me is that the beginners are (after two or three years) growing gardens anyone would be proud of (I speak as a beginner beginner):

I love that this master gardener (above and below) makes his garden into a total mess of edible plants. I have no idea how he does it, but his plot looks like a forest. When you look more closely, you see that almost everything is intentional.

squash and onions side by side...