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The Value of Trade School in a Bad Economy

Posted on by Arthur Posey

Arthur Posey is a retired high school guidance counselor and freelance blogger specializing in issues that relate to education (including education reform, TEFL and the importance of vocational schools). When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him rafting his favorite rivers or fixing up his motorcycle.

A few short decades ago, all it took to land a decent job was a high school diploma or a GED.

Flash forward a few decades to 2013:

In the last ten years, the price of higher education at a four year university has risen drastically. According to an article on CNN.com, tuition at private nonprofit four-year colleges has risen by 60% in the last decade. That’s nothing compared to public four-year colleges, whose tuition rates have increased by 104% in the same amount of time. It’s hardly a surprise that student debt has surpassed credit card debt for the first time in history, with over $1 trillion owed by students. Meanwhile, the job market continues to shrink. College graduates are having a harder time finding jobs that have anything to do with what they studied in college.

So what’s one solution to this problem for people who find themselves unemployed? Trade school.

For years now, higher education has been framed as a necessity, as opposed to an option – and now the American economy is suffering a shortage of skilled workers. The shortage stems from the cultural emphasis on the importance of attaining an undergraduate degree, combined with the social stigma associated with trade schools; culturally speaking, highly trained blue-collar workers (plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc.) are often looked down on by their white-collar counterparts, despite the fact that they often make more money than the average college graduate.

According to an article posted on Forbes.com back in May, there’s a growing deficiency of skilled workers in the United States. Our economy needs skilled electrical technicians, boilermakers, crane operators, masons, plumbers, power line technicians and pipefitters. The article on Forbes.com goes on to explain that the gap will only increase in the near future, since many of the people who currently hold these positions are approaching retirement age. If we don’t do something soon, we’re going to see a labor scarcity that could significantly damage the American economy. What people don’t seem to realize is that we’re not going to fix that labor shortage by sending more kids to university.

In a bad economy, having a trade or vocational education is better than having a traditional 4-year degree, for a number of reasons:

1. Trade school takes less time to complete. It takes most people four years to earn their undergraduate degree – it only takes an average of two years to finish trade school. This means you’ll spend less time in the classroom and more time getting valuable hands-on experience.

2. Learning a trade is cheaper than an average education at a four year college. A recent statistic cited on CNN Money said the class of 2013 will graduate with an average $35,200 in student loan debt. That is an absolutely astronomical amount, considering the high unemployment rates amongst recent graduates. Unless you’re one of the lucky few who went to school on a full-ride scholarship, paying for college can be a lifelong endeavor.

3. America needs skilled workers. The current shortage of skilled labor is adversely affecting the economy. Trade school can fix this—students who complete trade school are ready to immediately enter the workforce. They have the skills and know-how to fill the rising demand for skilled workers, which is a huge advantage in an economy where undergraduate degrees are barely worth the paper they’re printed on.

Americans are tired of the higher education system. People are looking for ways to better themselves that don’t require massive investments of time and money. Vocational education could be the answer they’re looking for. If we want to help get the American economy back on track (that is, if we want to fix the labor shortage and stop outsourcing blue collar jobs overseas) without sacrificing ourselves, our time and our money on the altar of higher education, we need to start promoting other, often marginalized options like trade school.

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Check out more of Arthur Posey’s writing on alternative education:

Inspiration Avenue: The Myth of Higher Education

Uncollege: Vocational Schools: A Great Alternative

How to NOT Get Hired

Posted on by Jessica

help wantedThis past week I have been on a mission to hire a couple of people for the shoe shop I currently work for.   You would think that in this economy, with this many unemployed people, and college students having trouble finding jobs, and basically there being a huge amount of people looking for work, that it would be really easy to find a couple of folks willing to put in a good 40 hours for decent pay.  But apparently, hardly anybody really wants a good job, because if they did then they would put in the effort to follow basic instructions and to appear professional.  Right??

You would think.   But, as I’m wont to say, you would think a lot of things.

In the spirit of… well, a lot of things, I have put together a little instructional for all you College Rebels with all the secrets, straight from the hiring manager’s mouth: How NOT to Get Hired.

1. Don’t read the actual hiring advertisement.  Don’t even skim it.  Really, the only reason you even need to click the link at all is to get the e-mail address to send your inquiry to.

To enhance this effect, don’t actually send a resume or cover letter, just e-mail the hiring manager with a message inquiring for more information, or just a straightforward “Help me, I need this job!!” will also suffice if you do not wish to be contacted for an interview.

2. Copy and paste the same resume to every half-decent looking job advertisement on Craigslist.  It really impresses the hiring manager that you put so little effort into a little resume-tailoring towards the type of job at hand.  You could even impress this person more if you include a similarly copied-and-pasted cover letter; see below.

3. Write your cover letter and resume using as much disingenuous superfluousness as possible.  Don’t include any actual examples from your life or previous jobs/experiences that would actually make your cover letter stand out from all the other cover letters a person receives.  When the hiring manager has to look over dozens of cover letter submissions, she really likes to see the same one from “Resumes and Cover Letters for Dummies” over and over again.  It makes the process of elimination go faster, after all.

If you get the chance, by the way, never hesitate to add in your cover letter, good key sentences like, “The position requirements and my skills are a perfect match” and “I know that I would be a great fit and would be able to contribute immediately.  I am very interested in becoming a part of your team. Your facility would gain an individual who is dependable, motivated, and personable.  I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss my skills and experience at a beneficiary meeting.”

— Let’s pause a second here to examine how writing a cover letter like this is not going to land you an interview, at least with me:

  • It has no concrete examples to back up any of the claims this person is making.  If you wanted to be considered for that ‘beneficiary meeting’, how about: “I would be a great fit because I am a bit of a shoe aficionado and I could easily converse with customers to find out what type of shoe they are really looking for.”
  • “I am very interested in becoming a part of your team…. [I am] motivated, and personable.”   If you are interested, SHOW me!  Write me a cover letter that is detailed towards MY shop!   That would also display motivation!  
  • And if you’re so personable, why don’t you write me a real, genuine cover LETTER from your own heart?  Your words and your actions are not lining up and we haven’t even gotten past the first step in the application process.   

I would much rather in a million years get a two-line, misspelled, run-on sentence that came from the heart of a person who cared about each job they were applying to than three paragraphs of pretentiously well-written bull.

4. In the spirit of How to Not Get Hired tip #1, skim over the text of the advertisement just enough to get the gist, and then send your resume.  Never mind that the hiring manager asked for a resume, cover letter, and three references.  Just send the resume, and maybe a reference or two, if they were already on the resume.  Hiring managers don’t care about details, and they probably won’t even notice that you neglected half of what you were instructed to do.  That doesn’t reflect on your ability to be on time or to perform simple job tasks at all, no sir!

5. Don’t bother with simple grammar and formatting of your cover letter and resume.  It doesn’t reflect on your ability to be reliable and professional that you can’t seem to remember that you are applying for a JOB and not texting your BFF.

Seriously: as indicated on your resume, you did in fact go to high school.  Don’t they teach you how to write correctly in high school?  I never went, so I wouldn’t know, but I’m pretty sure there are still English classes that teach you how to do simple things like:

– Capitalize: “hi, my name is jessica and i saw your ad on craigslist”  OR “Hi, my name is Jessica and I saw your ad on Craigslist”?
– Punctuate: “Hi my name is Jessica I saw your ad on Craigslist I am really interested in working for you I am very dependable a good listener organized…” OR “Hi, my name is Jessica.  I saw your ad on Craigslist and I am really interested in working for you.  I am very dependable, a good listener, and organized.”
– Basic spelling: “ur ad on cl was amazin how on erth do you git a job at ur place??” OR “Your advertisement on Craigslist intrigued me and I couldn’t stop thinking about what I could do to get a job at your shoe store – so I started with using correctly spelled words in my cover letter!  What do you think?”
– Eye-friendly formatting: Think sentences.  Paragraphs.  Make sure your computer didn’t space things strangely if you copied and pasted something from a word processor to the body of the email.  Be clear, concise, easy on the eyes, and when in doubt, use bullet points.
– SPACES: spaces go between words so that you can tell when a new word is starting.  Spaces also go after punctuation marks:  You,don’t,write,a,sentence,with,no,spaces,after,the,commas.  It is an indication of lackadaisical tendencies, which I’m not looking for in a future employee.  Sorry.

So guys, I hope that helps you know what to do when you don’t actually want to get hired by someone.  We College Rebels can be Employment Rebels too, after all.  Who needs The Man??

But seriously.  Go be awesome and genuine and stand out from the crowd.  How else do you expect to land your dream job, with or without a degree??

3 Steps to Getting Stuff Done

Posted on by Jessica

As an autodidact, you have to structure the majority of your life and education yourself.  And this freedom, as beneficial as it is, can get get overwhelming and quickly cause you to lose focus.  Not only do you have to come up with your own to-do lists, structures, schedules, deadlines, etc. – you have to do them, and then you have to check behind yourself and track your progress in a way that you can tell you are moving closer to your goals.  I don’t know about you, but I find myself getting distracted from doing all of that;  essentially, you are assuming the roles of student, all your professors, and sundry record-keeping faculty at a University.

Life is a lot easier if all you need to do is get up and do what you’re told – but that’s not what we signed up for as College Rebels, is it?  Not really.

Figuring out how to organize your life in a way that will help you get motivated and stay focused is essential to being a successful autodidact.  Figuring out how to do that without taking up all the time you could be doing other things, and without contracting a constant headache, is your goal.  Fortunately, I have figured out a fairly simple three-step formula that only takes a couple hours a month for the deep planning, and then a few minutes a week tops to organize smaller to-do lists for optimum productivity.

The key is prioritization:

1. Write it all out.  Just write down everything that comes to you that you need and want to do in the immediate future.  These are things that have probably been floating around in your head as needing to get done in the next day, week, and month at least.  Think of it as a big brainstorming session: just get it all out there and don’t hold back: if it helps you get the juices flowing, feel free to put down “join the circus” and “teach in Senegal”, but just be aware that the next step will ask you to narrow down from five-year goals to ones you know you reasonably will accomplish in the next month or two.

2. Narrow down what is really important. Depending on time frames, others’ dependence on you, your own immediacy, and other such factors, pick between 3 and 5 top priorities for the next month or so.  Oftentimes, even 5 could still be spreading yourself too thin; just be honest with yourself and try to keep it minimal.  An example:

– Wedding planning with Emily
– 35 hours/wk at Best Buy
– Training for the 10k in 3 weeks
– Cooking through all Mollie Katzen’s cookbooks
– Keeping a blog about the cooking project

This is not a step, but: set realistic daily, weekly, and monthly goals.  The operative word here is REALISTIC!! Remember when you are narrowing down these 3-5 projects for the month that you have other things during the day and week that you do, such as taking a shower, reading a book with a cup of coffee in the morning, having a movie night with your friends on the second Thursday of every month, playing guitar “as-needed,” etc.   If you’re like me, you might forget these things while making your list – and then become emotionally bogged down later when you realize you should have allowed for much more flexibility in the name of sanity.

This process can be done as many times as you need to. It may need to be done only once a month, or once every two months; or every other week, every week… it really does not matter, as long as you stay productive and sane.

3. Write down the ultimate goal next to each priority on your 3-5 item list.  This is the key to keeping your motivation up: the reasons are the focus.  Here are examples from the previous list and from one of my own lists from a while back:

– Wedding planning with Emily = BECAUSE I want her wedding to go down like she wants it to
– 30 hours/wk at Best Buy = BECAUSE I need money so I can travel to Thailand and work with elephants
– Training for the 10k = BECAUSE I want to be in shape, run and finish a race, and be better at running in general; BECAUSE I want to work up to running marathons by the time I am 26
– Cooking through Mollie Katzen’s cookbooks = BECAUSE I want to know how to cook many different things and therefore have the capacity to go to culinary school if I decide I want to
– Housecleaner work-trade = BECAUSE I can help out the owner of the hostel in the summer season and so I can have somewhere to stay till I leave for NY
– Sudoku Professor = BECAUSE I need to support myself, and to help out the family business
– Life Without College = BECAUSE I am passionate about this subject, want to get the word out, and now I have a following to stay loyal to!
– Novel in 30 days = BECAUSE I love writing, would like to get better, and I am very inspired in Ashland, Oregon

Going through this 3-step process works for me because I have goals that need to be concrete, and in front of my face; if goals are just floating around aimlessly in my brain, I cannot possibly focus on them. I am also an extremely flexible person – if I don’t watch myself, I will simply float off in whatever direction the wind is blowing (i.e., playing guitar all the time).

Also, going through this process and making these lists every month or so keeps me grounded, while at the same time still allowing for spontaneity and plans to change on the daily and weekly levels.

That being said, I often like to make daily and sometimes weekly to-do or to-accomplish lists that are based off the monthly “Master” list.  This way I can remind myself to do all the little things:

– Do laundry
– Write for 1/2 an hour in the morning
– Write for 1/2 an hour at night
– Go to work 10-5
– Wash dishes
– Call Emily while cooking dinner
– Spend 1/2 hour answering emails
– Write long email to Patrick the Kindle Expert
– Finish reading “Out of Africa”!!

That kind of thing.

What processes to motivate and focus yourself have worked for you?  What have almost worked, but needed tweaking, or definitely not worked?  Do you need to organize, motivate, and focus yourself in a more structured way, or are you more productive when things aren’t so set-in-stone and you can run with your spontaneity?

Organic Gen Ed

Posted on by Jessica

General education – may I ask what the point is?

In my short lifetime, I have taken gen ed classes. I enjoyed them, for the most part. But, if I were to go to college, would I particularly like to spend two of my four years studying requirements that 85% of the time have absolutely no relevancy to my chosen major? Not really.

However, colleges, and many people who attend them, seem to consider gen eds worthwhile, correct? Why is this, I wonder?

Some of the justifications I hear most often:

1. Gen eds prepare you for the upper-level courses in your chosen major
2. Gen eds help you figure out what you might like to major in
3. Gen eds give you a well-rounded education by exposing you to subjects you might not have had an opportunity to learn about otherwise

I would like to take this blog entry to question these beliefs which are strongly held by a great number of people. And if, at the end of this entry, you have any more thoughts on Gen eds, please let me know what they are; and I would love to do a second post addressing these things.

Gen eds prepare you for the upper-level courses in your chosen major.

I can see one big flaw in this argument – shouldn’t the skills for your chosen major be known already at the beginning of college? Why must essential things like writing a paper or doing math be re-learned or learned at this great and elite “college level”, when the average person already spent 12 years and the majority of every day in an institution where such “special skills” could and should have already been taught?

(And, if a person was homeschooled: I do believe , if college was in the agenda, that person is equally capable of learning the skills necessary for writing a college paper and/or doing college math on their own, or with the guidance of outside classes.)

Gen eds help you figure out what you might like to major in.

Surely there is nothing wrong with this, right? Well…

This goes back to something I’ve said a number of times: why would a person go to college if he or she does not know what you want to major in? What is the point? They are doing nobody a favor by spending tons of their money (well, except those who receive the money, of course) while aimlessly meandering about the schoolwork, head down, not having enough time to even think about what they want out of life.

Need anything else be said on that?

Gen eds give you a well-rounded education by exposing you to subjects you might not have had an opportunity to learn about otherwise.

And why not?

For one, the most obvious cause – being stuck in college for four years. I apologize if I offend anyone with my frankness.

I would just like to ask: how does anybody know that a person would not be exposed or be self-motivated to study new and different subjects in-depth? I simply feel like this is a weak argument for gen ed. Life is full of inspiration for new interests, and tools and opportunities to pursue those interests. That is what is the primary function of an autodidact, and (I hope) of adults as they go through their normal lives… “real life.”

Being inspired and pursuing inspiration made up my “schooling” as a homeschooler. I really needed no such general education in order to broaden my horizons; in fact, now I get a little frustrated occasionally, as I feel my horizons are a little too broad at this point in my life!

Here are a few examples:

1. I was inspired to write because of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She wrote the Little House books, incase anybody was a little clueless about that. :-) I wanted to be her – I wanted to write, and tell stories, and also have a record of my life that someone would find after I died and turn into a book series and a television show starring Melissa Gilbert. I’ve been writing ever since I was able to form words on the paper, and in my teenage years I have conducted numerous studies of writing and still continue to write (hence, largely, this blog).

2. I was inspired by coming across the television show “The Dog Whisperer” at one point, seeing how Cesar Millan formed a pack of dogs using his knowledge of the origins of canine behavior. At first I was just interested in dogs, but that branched off into a very large obsession with wolves. I have now read extensively about them, and have two internships planned for the near future at a couple of fantastic wolf refuges.

3. Probably the biggest jump I made from the point of being inspired till the peak of intense study is exercise science. It all started while watching the Winter Olympics in February 2006. Developing a slight crush on figure skater Johnny Weir, I watched all his events; and, after the Olympics, started to watch figure skating more. There were little blips on the skaters during these events, in which they often talked about the training and cross training they put into their sports. I had just started swimming a few months before, and I had a brainstorm that I could cross train myself to become a better swimmer. This grew into watching Fit TV very frequently, along with getting many exercise science, workout, nutrition, etc., books from the library. While I don’t study it as intensely as I did at that certain point of my life, the knowledge continues to carry over into whatever I am doing, and I have not completely ruled out becoming a personal trainer one of these days.

And those are just a few examples from my own short life so far.

Perhaps now I have you asking, “what IS the point of Gen eds?” along with me.

But, if I don’t, please tell me: why are Gen eds important? What purpose, in the long run, do they hold? Wouldn’t you rather have the extra time to “study” other interests on your own than be forced to take two years full of certain types of classes, taught in a certain kind of way? Why can’t I just go to a university, concentrate on my major, and come out with a piece of paper for that?

 

That Green Grass is Talking: Being Realistic

Posted on by Jessica

green grass is talkingI very often feel like there is some unspoken unschooler competition to one-up each other in what amazing, epic adventures we all can have in as short amount of time as possible.  I am quite certain I am not the only one who feels this, but I could be wrong.

The thing that every human being has to come to terms with eventually, no matter their background, is that the grass is always greener.  That rings so true, and it hurts.  Imagine being some epic-looking person like a Cirque du Soleil acrobat.  That must be the most amazing job in the world, right?  Well, actually… I can’t exactly speak for them, but I know just from spending over half of my life doing dance and theatre that it gets boring doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.  And Cirque du Soleil performances are 5 times a week at least, for a year or more (most shows running  now have been running for years, though I am sure that not all the performers stay in the shows their entire run considering things like getting old and whatnot).  They all probably wished they had an exciting office job.

The problem with the “Must do Epic Things at All Times” mentality is that, while it is good to realize you can do epic things with your life, it is impossible to be doing epic things all the time.  Dishes must be washed.  Laundry must be done.  Sanity must be kept up by taking time to relax and read a book, or go out for coffee with friends.  And, possibly most importantly, money must be made – even if the only way to do that is to spend 30-40 hours a week having your soul sucked out by the dementors of the corporate world.

Who is telling you that you must only do epic things all the time anyway??  That grass that looks greener is who.  Yes, it’s talking.  Kind of like Audrey II.  And, yes, it will eat you alive.

This is a tough, tough lesson to learn; at least, it has been for me.  It comes down to CMAWOT Syndrome: Caring Too Much About What Others Think.  (Pronounced “SEE-ma-what”.  Trust me on this. )  It lives in all of us, to an extent (there is a spectrum, you see.)  It starts about the “middle school” age, regardless whether you are homeschooled or not, and slowly eats up the part of our brains that allow us to think for ourselves.  It’s normally cured only by a painful slap in the face, unless counteracted early by rare personalities.  There has not yet been a test invented to find out who does and doesn’t have this Rare Personality at a young age.

Anyway, enough of that.

It’s true, though.  You’d better believe it.

Jessica’s Not Entirely Fool-Proof Method for Attempting to Get Over CMAWOT Syndrome to Some Extent or Another:

(Remember, I’m not a life coach.  I’m just attempting to put into steps some stuff I’ve had to do to myself recently.  Please berate me with incessant questions on what the heck I mean.)

You need to take some serious time alone, or time talking to one or two really, really good friends whom you know will be honest with you.  (I would have just suggested time alone, but then I remembered that I’m an introvert and I’d better attempt to come up with options for my extraverted readers.)  And really take the time.  Set aside a whole day, or even several days to a week.  Go somewhere you feel completely calm and comfortable, and where you feel you are able to think clearly.  This varies for each person, so I won’t tell you it’s definitely your house, or definitely the public gardens, or definitely across the country in a giant bookstore.  Just pick a place with the comfort of your soul in mind.  It’s pretty much very important.

When you are in this place, with yourself or with your friend (read extraverts: NOT YOUR ENTIRE POSSE), and you have calmed down your mind, begin to slowly think.  That’s right.  Slowly.  Think.  At the same time.  It’s hard.

Think back to when you were younger.  Say, between the ages of 8 and 11.  What did you do with yourself then?  How did you act?  Who were you, back in the day when you didn’t care what others thought?  What would you be doing now if suddenly God gave you magical powers to never ever care what people thought, or how what you’re doing looks?

That’s just the first step, and I do implore you now to ask yourself some questions of your own.  I can’t think of all the questions myself, unfortunately.

Next, start making logistical plans for ALL of the things you want to do, and balance that against realistic means for doing them.  Notice that it is really stupid do do all of those things.  Repent.

Okay, don’t repent.  Just cry a little and have a moment or two of utter humbleness.  It’s alright, you’ll feel better about things soon.

Okay, math time!  The next step is to divide step one (childhood loves and actions) into step two (logistical failure).  Or maybe it’s the other way around…. well, anyway, divide one into the other as you see fit.  The answer will be something like 2, remaining pi.

That is to say, you will have a couple of options to seriously look at, with the comfort of knowing that they are really what you want to do.

Make sense?

The Beauty of Mentorship

Posted on by Jessica

From May 9th through May 23rd of 2010 I worked on Unschool Adventures‘ inaugural Leadership Program, led by Zero Tuition College founder and author of Better Than College, Blake Boles. It went splendidly. We had 7 students total – 4 girls and 3 boys ages 14-18. They spent the two weeks getting to know Ashland, Oregon; they created internships, audited college classes, conducted interviews, attained certifications, and many other wonderful things, all on their own. We also took them to a ropes course, on PCT hikes, to plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a surprise tango lesson, etc. In the evenings, Blake taught workshops on many aspects of self-directed learning and creating opportunities for oneself in the world.

In the end, I was able to see the campers (and, looking back, myself) walk away with copious amounts of confidence, direction, and tools to go out and achieve their dreams. It was a great experience, both for campers and staff. I will certainly never forget it. Here’s a photo album of some of the highlights of the retreat: HLR Spring Retreat Photos.

During the retreat, a friend contacted me and asked if I could write up something on Unschool Adventures and my thoughts on the goodness and importance of mentorship (especially in the context of the program) for a speech she was planning to give at the LIFE is Good unschooling conference that year.  Here is what I wrote for her:

Oftentimes when I think of the word “mentorship,” I see some old zen master walking through a huge garden of Eden with his little grasshopper, philosophizing about the universe and speaking in proverbs. However, these past few months I have come to realize that the word, in this day and age, has a completely different meaning, that is simply all too wonderful.

Mentors lead and challenge; but they also listen and understand. A mentorship can consist of two people of any age difference. It can be intentional or accidental, or anything in between.

When I was first asked to be on staff for Unschool Adventures, I was excited solely that I would get to “learn to work with ‘kids’ more, and people in general,” as that, besides “working on camps,” was one of my many vague, ill-defined goals. As the spring retreat approached, this intention got rather lost in the hubbub of getting ready to leave and the traveling I did beforehand, but that was good to sort of clear my mind and give me a fresh, realistic outlook once the retreat started.

It was the first night the campers got there that I more fully realized why I was there. These kids – really not much younger than I was – needed and wanted direction and confidence. And I was in the position to both show and give those things to them in the course of the retreat. Suddenly – click! – there was my purpose, there was my reason for being in Ashland, Oregon on May 9th, 2010. To give of myself in these areas in the same way others have given of themselves to guide me before (and who continue to do so).

For good measure I will throw in a dictionary definition:  Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online defines a mentor as “a trusted counselor or guide” (italics mine). I see mentorship as something which centers on trust; it can’t function without it. I can say “oh, I want to be this great leader-person who sets good examples all the time and gives a crap ton of good advice”; or, as someone being mentored, I can say, “I want to be shown the ways of the world through this wise persons’ eyes and have a strong leader with good guidance.” Well, those are great and all, but they really mean nothing if a trusting relationship between the two people in the mentorship has not been established.

However, trust isn’t something that really consciously happens; and forcing it is not really a good idea.

Trust is a two-way street. Not only does the person I am mentoring need to trust me, but I need to trust them as well. For me, trust is built from being personable; being real, being true, etc. A mentor can admit to making mistakes. I used to think that was a bad thing to do – after all, I am supposed to set a good example, right? Therefore, admitting I screwed up somehow or another is simply out of the question, correct? No; I’ve found it to be the opposite. I can trust the person with the good and the bad. When I first discovered this, I was telling a younger friend about a huge mistake I had made – afraid I would lose her respect forever. But a big grin grew on her face when I was done telling what had happened, and she said “Wow… I just want you to know, Jessica, that I look up to you so, so much!” I was shocked – how in the world did I merit such praise in the midst of my mistakes?  But she helped me feel respect for myself again, and we grew closer with this new dimension of trust.

Mentorship starts with friendship. Basically, mentorship is more of something that grows rather than something that just jumps right in, just like any healthy relationship. Not to say that jumping-in doesn’t happen; and if it does, friendship then grows out of mentorship. It’s really more of a cycle. It can begin with a single conversation, or an activity done together. Those sorts of things are inextricably conducive to building that essential trust – because trust is built from sharing.  Sharing on both ends, not just the mentor extracting a bunch of information from the mentee so he can give advice, and not just the mentor pouring out copious wise words and quoting adages while the mentee sits soaking it up like a sponge. Like I said, mentorship is essentially friendship, and friendships are developed with exchange of stories, thoughts, advice, musings, and shared activity.

Mentorship is such a wonderful gift for both the mentor and the one being mentored. They trust each other; they help each other along; there is a mutual respect; encouragement is exchanged. It is special, it is important, it is a lovely and beautiful thing. And being on Blake’s leadership retreat as a mentor/participant/dishwasher has really taught me so much about it that I do not think I would be able to understand before now.

I think mentorship is hugely important for those of us in our late teens and early 20s – both having a mentor, as well as being a mentor. It’s like teaching; when you teach something to someone else, you learn it better yourself. I’ve found it is the same with mentorship. Leading and guiding another person, whether you are doing so consciously and intentionally or not, helps you guide yourself and understand yourself better, which, in turn, helps you be a better mentor.

What are your thoughts on mentorship? Have you ever mentored someone, or been mentored? What sorts of experiences have you had?

ADHD: A Gift?

Posted on by Jessica

They don’t call it a “learning disability” exactly; they call it an “other health impairment” (Understanding ADHD). But it’s just a bunch of labeling-words, so it doesn’t matter. They put you on mind-altering drugs and/or stick you in a “special” classroom with other “disabled” children. Nobody even considers that, perhaps, not everyone’s brain is supposed to work the same way.

I was incredibly blessed to have been born to parents who did not put me in an institution where this would have been the case. But imagine if I had. What if I had grown up being told I was wrongly different and that I must shape up or take a pill to shape me up? I don’t even want to think how drastic of a contrast that would be to my life.

But I would have been categorized and medicated. I was that (all so very typical) kind of kid: hyper, silly, flippant, not very attentive, etc. I know I drove a lot of people crazy because my youngest brother is the same way and sometimes I want to sit on him until he calms down. (I don’t.)

I was talking with one of my gardening clients one morning and she was telling me about her ADHD (adult) son and how he was incredibly active all the time, always doing something… rafting, building stuff, biking, swing dancing, etc.  Her other son is very not-ADHD, and is quite the workaholic, working 12-hour days, never really seeing anybody or doing anything he cares about.  Who do you think enjoys life more?

That conversation with my client sparked somewhat of a hypothesis in my mind: what if ADHD wasn’t a curse, but actually an advantageous personality trait?

Thusly prompted, I set out the next morning to do research. I didn’t have to look far. Almost immediately I found two articles by the same name: “ADHD as a Gift.” The first one was more anecdotal, someone writing about their own child: http://www.aish.com/f/p/48931672.html. The second one was more scientific, and thus hugely informative, realistic, and even encouraging: http://www.ivillage.com/gift-adhd/6-a-128377?p=3.

So what’s the matter with being ADHD? I think, if you feel like you have some “ADHD symptoms”, then take it as a sign – you’d do better, or are doing better, finding your own way in the world of higher education. The way things are typically taught are just not the best for your highly-concentrated learning style. But also, don’t let the illusion of it being a disorder keep you from pursuing an education via college. It may mean you have to bend your ways a little to meet what needs to be done, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it.

On that note, a few days ago, I wrote a small article on how to test out whether college classes work for you for The Unschooler Experiment. Here it is: Crashing College Classes.

It’s so important to be aware of how we learn and work best. I work best alone, switching between activities often, usually moving around a lot if possible. I also like to write and read, but I usually mix these things in with bike-riding or gardening, that kind of thing. However, if the activity itself requires movement, I can concentrate on it for hours.

How do you learn best?

Learning How to Ask Questions Again

Posted on by Jessica

asking questions

It was a bright and sunny day at the Youth Jamboree. Boyscouts and Girlscouts flocked the place: riding horses, walking over small challenge courses, learning broadsword sparring, eating, and more. There we were, four ladies manning the booth for the wildlife center, letting kids pet snakes and lizards, showing them a screech owl up close, and making sure nobody walked out without some brochures and hand sanitizer.

Out of the three other volunteers, I had only met one before. So I struck up a conversation with another one of the girls when the crowd had gotten smaller on the account of lunch. Abby (whose name has been changed) was a student at a local college, finishing up her Freshman year. Of course, she asked me where I went to college. Something in the air that day was making me extra confident and sure of myself, so it simply rolled off my tongue that “I am doing my own college – participating in a lot of internships and volunteerships like this one…”, which was excellent, considering I had not done so well in that area with the dental hygienist a few days prior.

I then asked Abby what she was majoring in. “I haven’t declared a major, yet,” she shrugged. That led me to ask what she was thinking about. “I don’t know, maybe English or something,” she shrugged again, seeming rather like she didn’t want to talk about it. I told her that English was a great idea right before we were mobbed with more people.

When I work events, I like to hold the animal in such a way that it catches the public eye and leads them into our booth. Kids and sometimes adults immediately start asking questions… how I love it when the kids question everything! They are so fascinated by animals they don’t normally get to see and pet, and they want to know all they can about them. I eventually find that a good way to segue into, “We have our own festival coming up soon!” and “if you want to come hang out with us and the animals more, we actually have a whole bunch of animal camps!”

Abby, on the other hand, had a surprisingly different approach.

“These are our non-releasable program animals,” she would tell people as soon as they came into the booth. She went on to educate them on what “non-releasable” meant, why our animals were non-releasable, and shoved some brochures in their hands.

When there was another lull in the crowd, she said to me: “I hate it when there are kids that come in and start asking questions! They never give me time to talk!”

The comment caught me completely off-guard. All I ended up saying was: “Um, yeah.”

What could I have said??

The point of this is not to make myself look good or Abby look bad. She was a very sweet girl with many good qualities. It was simply these couple of interactions which stood out to me and led me to start thinking – are both the urge to ask questions and the willingness to answer them eventually squashed by compulsory schooling?

Regardless of whether this is caused by mainstream education, I have realized that I’ve almost completely ceased asking questions. Or, if I do ask them, I do not actually knowledge that I ask them: I dream up a solution so I don’t have to deal with the uncomfortable state of uncertainty.

This is unfortunate.

My 12-year-old brother Robert has really been an inspiration to me lately. He has absolutely no qualms about asking questions – he is constantly inquiring about many things which have never crossed my mind to question before. Here are just a few examples:

“Why are water towers so high up?”
“In clay animation, how do they make things fly through the air?”
“Why are tires rubber?”
“Why aren’t roads rubber, so we can have metal tires?”
“Do British people not have coffee tables, since they drink tea?”
“Why are ant traps called roach motels? The roaches don’t even fit in there.”
“If we play ‘Uno,’ do Mexicans play ‘One’?”

One very simple question in particular stood out to me: “How do they make cheese?”

I said, being a know-it-all: “Come on, Robert, we know how they make cheese. It’s…. they…. I …. um…. oh. How do they make cheese??”

This led us on a long trail discovering how cheese is curdled (with Rennet), what Rennet is (an enzyme from the 4th stomach of an unweaned calf), and if cheese can be made in a way a little more cow-friendly (it can, with juices from a few plants, often thistles). I relayed all of this to my friend Liam, who then asked yet another question I hadn’t even thought of: “How did people discover that an enzyme from a calf’s 4th stomach curdled milk anyway?”

That still remains to be answered. If you know anyone who might know, please refer me to them.

So, these past couple of days I have been wondering, how does a person learn to ask questions again? Fortunately, asking a question about asking questions is a start.

I think the first place to start is not to take anything for granted. Yes, flamingos are pink, but why are they pink? Why is a corn snake called a corn snake? How come earth worms are so hard to pull out of the ground? What makes the wind blow, and why does it blow in different directions? Why is the sea salty? What causes cats to purr? Who invented all these grammar rules we are supposed to follow? Why is Facebook called Facebook? What is the point of bumble bees?

I know the answer to about half of those questions; the others I had to contemplate before they came to mind. I have to stop and force myself not to take elements of my daily life for granted. Younger people seem to do this naturally; every time I work with kids, I always hear at least one or two questions I had never thought about. Sadly, I have to answer “I don’t know.” To those questions.

However, I found comfort in a small section about saying “I don’t know” in Anna Botsford Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study: “…any teacher can with honor say, ‘I do not know’; for perhaps the question asked is as yet unanswered by the great scientists. But she should not let lack of knowledge be a wet blanket thrown over her pupils’ interest. She should say frankly, ‘I do not know; let us see if we cannot together find out this mysterious thing. Maybe no one knows it as yet, and I wonder if you will discover it before I do.’ She thus conveys the right impression, that only a little about the intricate life of plants and animals is yet known; and at the same time she makes her pupils feel the thrill and zest of investigation.”

Feeling “the thrill and zest of investigation.” Oh, how lovely it sounds!

Unschooling Yourself

Posted on by Jessica

Ever since I was about 15, I’ve made schedules constantly. Monthly, weekly, daily. To some degree it’s essential when you’re a self-directed learner to structure your days in order to do what you need to do. Not everybody needs to, and certainly not everyone needs the kind of hour-by-hour structure I often set for myself; but I know that for the most part I need it to keep track of my day and how I get things done.

For as long I’ve been making these schedules, though, I have always run into one tiny frustration: there are days/times when I just don’t want to stick to the schedule. I’ll start writing a story instead of reading about frog innards as I am supposed to do. Or start playing the guitar instead of doing yoga. Whatever it is, half the time I really feel like doing something else.

As I have grown older and felt more responsible, and also more aware of and sensitive to the consequences of NOT getting something done, forgoing my set schedule has felt more and more sinful. Normal People label this practice of “doing one thing when you should be doing something else” as procrastination. So, naturally, I’ve gotten all down on myself for being such a procrastinator.

That is, until I had some sort of epiphany a few months ago: as much as what I have scheduled to do are what I want to accomplish (as opposed to a teacher or the like), I haven’t been fully allowing myself to fully live in freedom. The philosophy behind “unschooling” (the K-12 version of College Rebellion– more info here: http://whyunschool.info/) is to let the child learn what they want to when they want to, because people learn better when they are actually interested in what they are learning and feel like pursuing that interest. And here I have been attempting to force myself to do things, finding my enthusiasm for learning wane day by day. The result is a Jessica who gets nothing done and feels like pig slop come bedtime.

The first step I took to remedy this spirit-crushing issue was to determine the waverables and non-waverables in my days/weeks/months. Because as much of a good thing it is to let myself be free, it is an even better thing to continue being responsible.

The first non-waverables are things you are committed to do for/with other people – things like work; or if you are taking a class at the community center or a nearby college, it’s probably a good idea to do those things at the original time you allotted for them, as they simply won’t be happening at a different time.

However, who says you need to read Dante at 7:45 am, and then start work on your recording session at 9:00, break for lunch at 12, record for two more hours, go do laps at the pool at 3, make food from 4-6, eat food, and then blog about it before settling in to watch a movie at 8?

“But that was how I planned my day!!!”

But what do you want to do?

I see it as “listening to your heart”, which you can definitely accomplish without being sappy. You know how you listen to your body to tell you what kind of food to eat? Maybe you don’t, but it really is so good for you to get in tune with your body – I know when I need milk, dairy, citrus, eggs, meat, leafy greens, a banana, a protein drink, etc. Even chocolate! (And since I started listening to my body, I definitely don’t eat as much chocolate/junk food as I used to… now isn’t that something?)

So, “listen to your heart.” Before you tell him goodbye… and every time else in between.

Perhaps this is the commentary inside your head during that day instead:

“Today,” your heart tells you, “I want to go swimming first thing. Then I want to come back and make a big bunch of food because I’ll be HUNGRY!! I’ll take pictures of it when I’m done, and then go ahead and record a bit. But I don’t have the kind of attention span for doing all of it, so I’ll go read a book, maybe even go to the coffee shop and chill a bit with my peeps. Maybe while I’m there I’ll go ahead and blog about my tremendous breakfast. Then while I’m at the coffee shop with those peeps, I think I shall invite those peeps over to watch that movie with me. We don’t make dinner exactly, but we do get frozen jalapeño poppers from the grocery store and those are practically just as good. Then some of them end up staying and we have a jam session into the night, in which we don’t record what I had intended exactly, but what we did record was so awesome and inspiring for my future work that it did more good than harm. At last we all crash in various places around the house and I don’t get quite as good of a start to the next morning, but that’s okay.”

As you can see, chances are you will still get things done if you give yourself leeway and don’t adhere 100% to your set schedule. This doesn’t mean don’t make a schedule – I still do, or else I have no guidelines at all and end up wasting away doing not much useful.

Although, come to think of it, what is “useful”??

Perseverance

Posted on by Jessica

fb persThis is part 3 of a 3-part series.  

I got an e-mail a while ago from a college drop-out named Juan who is now focusing his time on becoming a composer. He raised a very good question that has now inspired this entry:

“How much time is enough for your goals? Sometimes I feel like I am not putting enough time into my work. I’m not the type to make a schedule and setup a complicated system, but what is a more general, realistic view? 10 hours a week? 20 hours a week? 1 hour per day? 2? If I don’t work on something one day, I’ll justify to myself because ‘I worked 5 hours yesterday.’ Am I taking a more difficult approach? (I know there is no right way, but some rules can apply. I just want to make sure that I’m not becoming stagnant.) Or maybe any amount of time is enough, since ultimately it leads to my goals.”

Juan hit the nail on the head with the last bit of commentary: what matters is accomplishing your goals, not how much time you put into something.

Music is a good example of something that requires lots of self-discipline to practice and/or create. The hours per day or week in this case would be according to what you personally need in order to stay “in shape” for your skill. However, you could practice for hours upon hours and at the end just have a bunch of hours under your belt but no concrete accomplishments.

In this case, what matters most is setting concrete, attainable goals for yourself.

First, you need a Big Ultimate Goal – there’s a chance you already have that in mind. But you need to check it – is it clearly defined? Do you have a specific deadline for its accomplishment?

Examples of good Big Ultimate Goals are:

– Memorize 10 classical piano pieces on the piano by August 31st
– Navigate all 7 tracks of the bouldering cave at the rock climbing gym without touching the ground by August 31st

The more concrete these Big Ultimate Goals are, the easier it will be to pace yourself towards them.

In pacing yourself, little milestones need to be set between now and the accomplishment of the Big Ultimate Goal. Sometimes this is easily calculable – e.g., if you give yourself a week to read a book, then you just divide the number of pages by 7.

In the instance of any sort of learned skill, it’s best to set goals with higher and higher difficulty levels. Start with something just barely above what you are already super-comfortable doing, and go from there. “Memorize first three movements of ______ by Friday,” or “navigate the entirety of the bouldering wall with the slight extra lean flawlessly by the end of the next climbing session.” These sorts of “little goals” really are a must: if you don’t have them, you do not keep accomplishing things towards your ultimate goal, and might even quit from lack of drive. So set them as often as possible – daily goals are highly recommended, even if they are relatively tiny.

And don’t forget: nobody is looking over your shoulder to see if you are doing so-and-so many hours a week. I know it is very difficult to break from habits of going to a school where a certain amount of time must be spent on something or it doesn’t count. In self-education, though, your time spent is not what justifies what you are learning: the end result does. I have a friend who is an excellent pianist, but has always practiced infrequently and sporadically – he doesn’t need to do hours and hours of scales. At the same time, his brother spends hours, on the court and off, shooting hoops – and it may not even be that he needs to, but he wants to keep practicing. (See my post back on my old blog: “Unschooling Yourself.”)

A good suggestion from my pal Blake is to have “deliverables” – concrete proof that you are getting things done so that some of your more intangible accomplishments aren’t floating around wondering whether they have any purpose. You do often have something actually tangible (like you can now play that particular Chopin piece), but then sometimes you have to record this milestone by writing about it, or taking a video or pictures, etc. Creating such deliverables is not only good for you to keep track of your progress, but they make it easy to stay accountable to others, whether it’s with a specific person or online on a website or blog.

Website or blog?

Take for instance, cooking. When you feel like cooking, sometimes you could just go all day and not stop. And you end up with lots of amazing food. That you can photograph and put in your food-photography portfolio that you then publish on your obsessed-with-cooking blog that you started writing with the help of the “food writing” class you just took at the local community center.

If you don’t like cooking, I’m sure you have another obsession that you could do all day and then blog about.

I hope this series has helped! Remember, you can e-mail me at any time with questions, suggestions, stories, and anything else you can possibly come up with.

You can also e-mail me to let me know that you want to read my new e-book!  It is packed full of more guidance, tips, ideas, and many other things I have just barely touched on in the “Three P’s” series.  (In case you didn’t get the memo… it’s free!)