The 5 levels of strewing (and beyond)
Also some news about membership, how we're unschooling rn, and thoughts on the individualism of home education.
I’m working on creating a more supportive, resource- and conversation-rich space for paid members who are working out how to centre consent in their homes, live in partnership with their children, and/or live without school.
If you think that a mix of deep dive essays and practical posts, as well as threads where we discuss the nuts and bolts of daily life, and monthly zoom convos sounds like what you need right now, sign up!
And if you feel you could benefit from these things but would like to barter instead, also reach out - I offer all sorts of options including comp subscriptions.
Our April zoom call is going to be at 8pm EST/ 6pm MNT/ 5pm PST on Wednesday April 24th (And 7am Indochina time/ 11am ACT on Thursday 25th for those on my side of the world!).
It will be recorded. By popular demand, we’ll be talking about boundaries - what even are they, do we want/need them, how do we set them? I have A TON of thoughts about this topic and I can’t wait to hear yours.
I’ll be emailing you with a reminder and the zoom link next week!
(An audio version of this post is below, if you prefer to listen.)
Let’s talk about strewing.
I have a turbulent relationship with strewing, and I think the main reason is that I find it can sometimes feel manipulative - especially for children who are especially sensitive to pressure, demands or imbalances of power.
That said, I wanna talk about it because throughout the years of doing this work, I’ve heard so many different opinions and experiences of strewing and I find it super fascinating.
If you’re new to this term, strewing is in a very basic sense indirectly introducing or leaving things out for our kids to discover and engage in, with no strings attached.
As people who are raising self-directed learners, and who care about creating consent-based spaces, strewing works well because it can feel less confrontational to our children, as well as making it easier for our child to ignore or say no to.
Some examples might be leaving new books out in places our children are likely to find them, setting up an open ended activity on a desk or table or an outdoor space, unearthing a long-forgotten toy and placing it in a prominent place for our child to re-discover it, or even simply putting a roll of scotch tape out on your main workspace.
Strewing can go from being relatively labour-intensive, like setting up a potential science experiment, to just clearing a space and leaving an object of interest out for our child to find.
There are layers and levels of strewing! And I wanted to look at 5 ways that I have strewn/continue to strew. I’m also going to talk about my reservations around strewing and the ways it is not always, by definition, agenda-free! (Not all strewing is equal, it turns out.)