Tiny Grass

Life is about adapting to change and it looks like we’ll be getting a nice lesson in adaptation if the Costa Rican legislature passes some proposals that could make an incredible impact on the resident expat population.  The potential changes center on the income requirements needed for certain types of residency which affect most legal expat residents.

The proposal came up quietly on October 27 (and has not been publicized much at all) and 4 days ago was unanimously approved and sent to the legislature for action, which is obscenely fast for a country where things tend to take their time.  It seems a little fishy and coincided with an official visit from China’s president (the CR goverment started sucking up to the Chinese government last year by breaking relations with Taiwan).  Here’s a quick rundown of the changes:

1. The old requirements

One could become a Pensionado (retiree) by proving $600/mo in pension income.  One could become a Rentista (legal resident) by proving a monthly income of $1000 per adult and $500 per child - for 60 months.  That requires a bank deposit of $60k per adult and $30k per children.  For a family of four like us, the total bank deposit would be $180k. Read more »

Poor pumpkin!

I’ve managed to let go enough to avoid scrutinizing everything for educational value. But since I’ve let go, I keep noticing things when I watch the kids play.

Yesterday J was rolling a car off a table. I’m sure in my previous frame of mind I would immediately be concerned about the car breaking and the apparent waste of money. Now I just let it go - after all, what’s the point of precipitating a disagreement over $5-10? That’s what it is, when you really think about it.

I then noticed her doing it repeatedly. It was fun - and then my scrutinizing brain kicked in. It was nice little exercise in cause and effect. It was learning about some very basic laws of physics.

I’m not keening on throwing stuff in the house, but yesterday M was playing with the base of a pair of tablas. Tablas are the classic Indian drums, seen in the beautiful picture above. The base is a fabric donut, which he was rolling all over the place, spinning & tossing and watching it land and spin off. I know that he was learning something there, but I don’t know exactly what (more physics?). I held back and just let him be. It’s such a different outlook, looking at every moment as possible (or maybe always but not apparent) learning.

A few weeks ago we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of my all-time favorite movies. I remember seeing it in the theatre with my dad when I was 9. M was quite excited by all the action. The next day, he found some sisal rope and had it strung between his bunkbed and a shelving unit. And the door. I only intervened to make sure that the shelving unit wouldn’t fall over and then let him go at it.

He tried rappelling up the bunkbed. He tried walking across like a rope bridge. He set up a rope & pulley-type apparatus with a metal bucket. It was a lot of fun watching him be completed engaged, testing out whether something worked or not and doing all that problem-solving.

It shows that kids need to be free to play, think and create. You never know what an innocuous activity could lead to. Their capacity for learning has no bounds, and neither should they.

The picture has nothing to do with unschooling. I just like it

Early in 2008, Dumbing Us Down convinced me that unschooling was the way to go. But you still have to look inside yourself for compelling reasons to support unschooling. At least I felt that way, that the external and internal reasons needed to be combined to complete the big picture.

I also was concerned about saddling my kids with my baggage. Am I making a decision more for them? Or more for me? The whole process of going against the societal norms is daunting, with lots of Am I doing the right thing? worries. For the most part, I don’t have those worries now. They’ve faded over time, but I remember them cropping up quite frequently early on. Learning to trust my kids and myself has been a journey, and it’s not over by any means.

But I have looked inside myself for the compelling reasons. Like many parents, I’d like my kids to have it better than I did. The it is specifically the ability to be themselves and follow their dreams. Here are my personal reasons to be an unschooler:

1. My interests haven’t changed much in 25-ish years. When I was 10, I liked dinosaurs, mythology, Renaissance art and ancient cultures. At the time, I asked my dad for books on Michelangelo & Da Vinci. He was stunned but never followed up on it (I can understand - arts book are expensive, and we weren’t rich).

I added some more interestes since then, but just about anything on either of those 4 topics will hold my interest. I ended up studying Economics in college and hated every minute, a waste of time & money.

2. In some 16+ years of schooling, 3 specific things stand out as memories of wonderful learning or a point of personal pride. A high school paper on comic books, a college class on Hinduism and learning languages. They’re definitely reflections of personal interest. I don’t think the rest of the stuff was worth it - especially since I could have learned all of that without school.

3. Everything I do to earn money, I taught myself. I’m not talking about writing and math, but the specific skills that I use that result in my income: coding websites, IT stuff and all that. Realizing that my own interest led me to learn everything myself was a revealing moment.

4. (Caveat: this is probably baggage) When I was 11, I spent an afternoon considering the whole concept of college deeply. This was some serious thought. I knew that college was important, thought of what I liked to do and what I was good at, and I came to the conclusion that I wanted to go to art school.

I went down to my dad’s office in the basement and told him of my decision. The man blew up at me, railing about getting a job blah blah blah. I was crushed and gave up the idea of art school after that. The kicker is that it was his baggage being dumped on me - he went to art school and never did a thing with it. He was also foolish enough to not even try. I’m quite sure he could’ve gotten work as a commercial artist in advertising, but the loss is his. I bring out this memory on the rare occasions he pisses me off these days. Needless to say, I would not do this to my kids.

My son’s birthday is usually a day that I savor, but this time it sucked. Not anything to do with his birthday, but mostly to do with my relationships with people at the party. I’m having trouble relating to most everyone, except Arp, that is. It’s a lonely place to be. Maybe I would usually feel less lonely, as Arp and I usually spend lots of time together talking. But with his work schedule lately, I’ve been left with the continual knowledge that I feel like an absolute stranger around other people most times. Read more »

It was flurrying when I awoke this morning, leaving a 1/4″ dusting by the time the sun rose.  I hate the frigid cold, but snow is nice.  If it’s gonna be cold, it should at least snow.  I’m hoping for lots of snow before we move as that will at least make the winter worthwhile.