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Stranger in a Strange Land Newsletter: September 2007

Dear Readers,
It's been awhile! The big news for most of you is that I finally got a website up last month. A fellow grown Bostonian unschooler did a great job on designing it for me. I'd love to hear what "yall" think. And over Labor Day Weekend I was at the Rethinking Education Conference where I rapped, introduced a famous unschooling advocate named John Talor Gatto, shared travel artifacts marveled at by children and adults alike, and told harrowing tales from my travels like the time that Korean guy pulled my goatee!

This unschooling conference was in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of the Lone Star State, the state that was once its own COUNTRY, the place with which one should not mess: Texas! Many Americans, certainly many people of Boston, TAXachusetts, imagine Texas as a place of picturesque plains frequented by tumbleweeds, cactus, cattle, and cowboys. But unfortunately they also imagine it populated by ignorant, bigoted human beings. During my brief twelve day stay, I actually found it to be the opposite: the people were really friendly to everyone and the landscape was ruthless! Again, for those who live around Boston, you know what Burlington looks like? That's what Texas is like: highways and strip malls. It really was sad and apparently that's what a lot of the U.S. looks like. But in the case of Houston they have no zoning laws so it's actually highways, strip malls, and strip CLUBS. After all that consumerism you might need a little entertainment, right?

The highlight of the whole trip was of course this national unschooling conference and the people I met there. But when I mention how friendly people were I don't just mean alternative minded unschooling families, I mean your Average Joe too: I was on the elevator with a repairman who was very friendly and polite to me and when he got off he passed by a Mexican maid to whom he said, "Good afternoon, ma'am" and walked on. You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat the least prestigious. I'm sure there are in fact beautiful landscapes in Texas, as well as bigoted people: I heard stories of each. But there's a lot more diversity in Texas than people may imagine. That's a big part of travel: seeing with your own eyes what a place is like and reconciling it with what you've heard back home. Sometimes the stories ARE completely true and it may take time to learn that for yourself! But even then, that's a completely different experience than reading or being told about it: it's more fun and gives you better stories to tell!

I was only in Austin for a very brief time but I enjoyed walking a short distance and finding great Mexican restaurants and even little trailers on the street serving up tacos for $1.50. That's about twice what it costs in Mexico City but it was very authentic, satisfying, and often served by people who spoke little or no English, which would bother some people but they were good natured about it and I loved working on my Spanish.

At the conference I spoke about initiation and how being self-educated prepares you for being self-employed but it was just my sharing travel stories, photos, and artifacts that people responded to the most. I had little kids crowded around me looking at colorful Guatemalan paintings and calculating how much each foreign currency was worth, teens coming up to me afterwards to tell me how inspired they were to travel themselves, adults offering me large amounts of money for the art I showed, and one mother who gave me her daughter's phone number! What more can you ask for? And I just really enjoyed being at the conference and connecting with some wonderful unschooling families and other unschooling advocates. I hope it leads to being working at more conferences and sharing more things from my travels. I was overwhelmed by how confident the little kids were, how cool the young people were, and how heartfelt the adults were. The conference reminded and reassured people that unschooling does work, at least for the couple hundred families there (700 attendees total!). In fact it works so well that there's a certain amount of responsibility that can go along with it. That was a big lesson I noticed. And explaining exactly what I mean by that would take some time (many unschoolers might not like the sound of that quite yet!). I'm writing an article about the Rethinking Education Conference for www.organiclearning.org. Should be fun. In fact, one of the big parts of the conference for me was just experiencing the joy of the company of a bunch of like minded people! And when you're a stranger like me, that can be kind of rare! Who knew it would happen in Texas! I'm really thankful for the whole experience.


All the Best to You Dear Readers,
Eli Stranger in a Strange Land