TEAM SIERZEGA

Logan LaPlante is taking a different path in his education. He combines the “hacker mindset” with a network of do-it-yourself friends, family, and community organizations to optimize for health, happiness, and creativity. He calls it “hackschooling”.  

If you haven't seen the video, you can watch it here.

Oskar and I had watched this video together once before.  It was about 8 months ago, when the concept of homeschooling was exotic – something only "other" people dared to do. 

At that time, Oskar was mid-year through the 3rd grade at South Loop Elementary School, situated in the affluent neighborhood of Dearborn Park in Chicago's South Loop.  Some of the parents in this neighborhood drive Tesla's and Ferrari's; a stark contrast to our 10 year old Toyota Corolla.

All of the best Chicago public schools are notoriously competitive and tough to get into, unless it's a "neighborhood" school and you happen to live in the boundaries of that school's neighborhood. We didn't. Luckily, some of these great "neighborhood" schools have special programs that allow kids from outside of the hood, to get in. But in order to get in, the kids have to take a test.  And then, they have to score really well, because only the top scorer's can be considered. And even if you score really well, you aren't guaranteed a seat at that school because there might not be enough seats, in which case, a lottery is held.  

We were lucky. Because of Oskar's ability, and because there was enough seats, he got into the South Loop School's Regional Gifted Center, also known as the accelerated or "gifted" program. Thus began his public school education. He was exactly where he wanted to be and where we felt he belonged.  He began to blossom. Oskar quickly became a leader in his classroom of 30 kids, someone the others kids admired and could count on to help them when they needed it. In a few short years he forged strong friendships with some of his classmates (and I, with their parents). We became invested, as much as we could be, in it's community of smart, caring & resourceful teachers and families.

But now, Oskar was 9.  It had been almost 4 years since that bright-eyed, intensely curious, happy boy had walked into *Ms. Larkin's kindergarten class.  A tide had turned, and something wasn't quite right. Something was changing. He was no longer happy.

Oskar was coming home from school tired and unmotivated to do his homework. His mood was often somber or sometimes brutish. He dreaded homework and it became more and more difficult for him to get out of bed in the morning. He started complaining about how hard it was to get anything done at school, how there were too many distractions. And it wasn't because he was struggling with the rigors (yes, rigors) of what was expected of him and the others in the class room. Oskar continued to make excellent grades despite this negative change. He had been getting straight A's on his report cards since kindergarten, and third grade would be no different. These were third graders doing 5th grade math and reading at high school level and beyond.  They were expected to do more – a lot more – than their peers in the "neighborhood" or normal classrooms. 

I began to worry about this change.  At first, I questioned the choices I was making as a parent: Am I letting him stay up too late?  Do we let him sit in front of his iPad too long?  Does he eat too many hotdogs?  I was confused about why he was coming home so unhappy.

As a parent, it's hard not to take it personally when your kid is having a hard time of it. It was easy to start blaming myself for his foul moods, which is never productive. But then, I started asking him questions about what was going on at school, if there were any changes in how things were being done, or how he was being treated by others.  And in the process of what would sometimes be painful communication, I began to decipher what was bringing him down. 

It wasn't that things were changing at school.  The kids, the teachers, the curriculum...for the most part, these things were all the same. He had attended class every year with pretty much the same exact kids, so they were all friends. The school work was basically the same every year as well: heavy doses of math and language arts, mixed in with lighter doses of math and language arts. If there was time, or the teacher had the inclination, maybe science or history. A Spanish language class was thrown in for good measure.  Art or music were afterthoughts at best. By spring, the teachers made sure they were ready for mandatory standardized testing in math and reading.  Boy, were these kids ready.  It was not uncommon for Oskar's class to score "off the charts" in these tests and others. No, life at school pretty much stayed the same, with no deviations. It was a well planned, and well oiled machine in many respects.  I discovered, it was Oskar who was changing.  

When he was very young, he fell in love with puzzles and the challenge of solving them. Even thrived on it.  By the time he was 4, he was building complicated roller coasters and other machines with his myriad of K'nex & LEGO sets. These types of activities and puzzles fascinated, enthralled, and kept him engaged for hours.  But most of all, it was fun for him!  He simply couldn't get enough of it.  But now as a 9 year old,  his life was busy and filled with school and homework. We'd squeeze in the occasional art course on the weekends or a basketball class at the park district, but nothing was engaging him anymore.  He had come to really love mathematics, it's concepts and it's processes. But the tediousness of the homework and deadlines, and the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) urgency of his teachers to push & rush to get ahead, and to get high scores had taken a toll on THE one thing that he had so eagerly and naturally called upon as a younger one: creativity.  He was no longer being encouraged to think and be creative.  He was merely instructed to learn. And being the people-pleaser that he is, he became really good at learning, nearly forgetting what it meant to be creative. This deprivation began to manifest in the dark moods & negative attitudes that were now creeping into his beautiful mind and spirit. It was taking it’s toll. An urgency came over me, and I began to search for a better way.

Eight months ago Logan LaPlante's TEDx talk was the little crack that let the light into the darkened room of what we had only ever known education to be.  And after realizing that my son’s down turn was a product of the compulsory system he was a part of,  it was just enough to get me to start thinking creatively and unapologetically about what education really means and what it could look like for us.  I poured through the internet, books & articles about homeschooling, un-schooling, alternative education and found some really great resources and inspiration, which I promise to share with you in this blog.  I reached out to others who had homeschooled, successfully and not so successfully, and heard what they had to say.  And it became clear, homeschooling would become a real-life choice for us. 

We began 4th grade as homeschoolers this September with a bit of a detour. I had decided we should "ease" into it by applying to the Chicago Virtual Charter School, which uses the nationally available K12 curriculum. It's basically a public school ensconced as a homeschool.  I won't go into much detail about the school itself because it's just not pertinent. I will tell you that it did not work for us at all.  We found there to be just as much drudgery, if not more, than the brick & mortar version.  More tears have been shed by mother and son these last three weeks than our entire time at South Loop. But, what the school did provide was the contrast we needed to make the unflinching leap into what our homeschool experience really needed to be about.  It became a siren, a deafening call.  A warning, even, letting us know that there was still a better way to go about this.

So, we found ourselves the other day, quite unsure as to what we should do now.  As we sat in silence, a little voice in my head said, "why don't you YouTube that ‘hackschooling’ video." I did, and called Oskar over. I asked him if he remembered it and if he'd like to watch it with me again. He nodded, and side by side, we watched.  But this time it was resonating in a whole new way for the both of us. Logan was now speaking a language that was familiar, profoundly empowering, and comforting considering our experience of the last three weeks. He talked about Dr. Roger Walsh and his 8 factors that promote living a healthier and happier life. He has adopted them as his own and they have become an integral part of his education:

EXERCISE

DIET & NUTRITION

TIME IN NATURE

CONTRIBUTION & SERVICE

RELATIONSHIPS

RECREATION

RELAXATION & STRESS MANAGEMENT

RELIGIOUS & SPIRITUAL

For Oskar and I, this short, simple list became a call to arms.  It became our jumping off point for a new, and more importantly, a happier way to homeschool. It was now time to rise up and allow ourselves to BE ourselves.  It was time to realize that we had the right answers all along.  It was now time to trust ourselves, each other, and to know that we would be happy again.  We hugged.  We shed more tears.  But these were tears from relief, and from being able to see more clearly. It was a revelation. 

And so, we begin for real, this time. This is happyschooling.