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Perpetual Recess

Yesterday Serenity and I went to Perpetual Recess up in El Cerrito, about 34 miles from home. This is a monthly gathering of "unschooling" families and I wanted to go to see what sort of people they were, how they acted and so forth.

The gathering was in a big hall rented from the Boy Scouts for the occasion. There were probably 20 families there, and maybe 30 kids from toddlers up to late teens. I was the only adult male to be seen, which is no surprise actually, though it is disappointing. In any case the kids were generally very happy looking which is important I think. The atmosphere was uncontrolled chaos with parental intervention almost non-existent.

The result in the kids was varied. There was one teen boy, a huge kid over 6 feet tall with long hair down nearly to his waist, who never wears shoes, striding around inside and out unshod at all times. I would have been that way had I been allowed when I was his age I'm sure. One small boy who must have been 7 or 8 looked like a comb had never touched his hair, nor had clippers, it was down past his waist and matted, though it did look clean, not dirty. In fact although some of the kids looked a bit odd they were all clean, I mean the place didn't reek like a homeless encampment. :-) Some of the kids were not noticeably different from the kids in your local elementary school, but they were the distinct minority in this particular group.

After interacting with them for an afternoon I'm no longer quite so enamored with the "unschooling" idea, it may be just a tad more radical than I'm comfortable with. Next week Serenity and I will go to a Tri-Valley Explorers event or two and see if that is different. The Explorers are families who homeschool in many different methods while the Perpetual Recess people were all unschoolers.

All of that being said, Serenity had a great time! :-) She couldn't care less what anyone looks like and found several friends and had no problem fitting right in. It was grandpa who was just a bit weirded out by the chaos and odd looks of some of the people :-)

At the moment I'm still undecided on the unschooling concept, but certainly have more doubts now than before, perhaps a modified version of homeschooling would be in order, some discipline added for seasoning maybe, freedom is good, license is not ;-) I think Serenity may need some guidance and a firm hand from time to time. No matter what though homeschooling is going to be the way we go!

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