the flood

We are currently closed due to the recent flooding. It was about 15 minutes from thinking that the rain was heavy – I was happily cleaning the windows!! to inundation. At first this was just waves of water under the door every time a car went past, so I raced out side to try and stop the cars driving through the flood water and flooding the 7 places along Selwyn Place. It turns out that it is really important to some people that they keep driving along a flooded street regardless of the reasons someone is asking them to turn around, those extra few minutes in their nice warm car as they turn around is just too much to ask! Or was it that I lacked the official jacket of authority? Three men in big fancy cars tried to run me over – was I a drenched middle aged woman with an umbrella a threat to their masculinity? Some people are so entitled. By the time the police came to shut the street with their cars and bright jackets (I had rung them, and the council but obviously flooding makes these people very busy) the shop was full of water.

But what awesome neighbors we have. All those things on the couch and chairs were rescued by BUWT (Beneficiary and Unemployed Workers Trust), people who don’t have fancy cars but understand community and they were also the ones who gave me lollies, biscuits, offered me dry clothes and helped me feel better about what was happening and getting bullied by men in cars. The taxi guy (who is someone who actively respects the people who visit BUWT) brought me a coffee. Friends, and my wee family, came with help, wise words, food and an essential dehumidifier.

It has all made me do some thinking about the world, community and kindness. We all know that all adults were once children, and as children we are shaped by the world around us and all the ideas we met – ideas that sometimes we may not mean to be giving to children. I have always wondered what people who are in power were like as children, if Hitler had a loving childhood would he have existed. I find it confusing that someone like Paula Bennet was able to remove from solo mothers the support that she used to get ahead and be able to become a Minister in Parliament, John Key who was brought up in a state house reducing that kind of support that gave him a clean safe house to grow up in. I have been called simplistic, and naive (amongst other things) about how the world works but I genuinely believe that I should live the world I want to exist and should do so actively and loudly. It is no good for me to just believe that children are fully functional people who have their own ideas and should be consulted over their ‘schooling’ in the comfort of my self reflecting community. I know I am lucky. I get a lot of stick from people in my life about homeschooling my child, more so now as she gets older but I genuinly believe that her life is hers and she gets to decide so it doesn’t bother me. I don’t need to read Stark Raving Dad for a pat on the back, a conformation of my beliefs. But I do feel I have to be part of the change.

I did think that I should be allowing others to see how easy it is – that was my idea behind my blog Homeschoolery and for a while that was enough. But now I want more people to see that the tennets of being free to choose what you do is education. That there is no conflict in the beliefs of children being truely free to choose and all those nasty things like computers, social media, gaming etc. I want my child to be free to choose stuff that is in my opinion “stupid” (Shakespere, shiver) as I can see the world is not the same as the one I grew up in. I will still bang on about what is “good” literature but so have all people through time. If my reasons are not able to stand up to her critical thinking and understanding of the world so be it.

The reason I wanted to set up the Co-op and felt it was important to both commit both my time and money was to make an easily repeated, simple way of getting people of a wide range of ideas just working alongside each other. To give, I feel, is to eshew our neoliberal model of competition and anti-people ideas. I have thought of trying to change the way schools are run from the inside but I can not speak the right language, edu speak confuses me, and there are a lot of people who do not question our dominant paradigms yet (is it that if they do then they are also questioning their complicit role) and need a softly, softly, read some research approach. I am a nerd and I certainly know I need others ideas to challenge my thinking, hense the Masters and being fine with people challenging me over my daughter’s decision about homeschooling.

I am currently writing an assignment for my masters on students’ belonging in schools as a way for improving outcomes. Maybe this is where it starts. Would John Key or Paula Bennet have behaved as they did if they weren’t trying to reject belonging to some group of people they didn’t esteem, they needed to show were beneath them. Were the men in cars not wanting to listen to me as I was obviously not of their ilk, they perhaps felt their group should be advantaged/allowed exemptions???

I have been excluded from a couple of groups now because of my “energy” – confusing to me as energy is something measured in joules. I think they meant attitude or beliefs and that they would like their community to only represent their beliefs, their ideas and any challenge is personal rather than my interest in the idea. This seems to be happening more and more in society – so much we are changing the meaning of words, like cancelled to mean something you can do to people. I can look out of the co-op window and see some people that others would like to cancel, to exclude, to not claim to be a part of (to other), some people who our society has failed as they live in a state where they carry all their belongings with them. When we were all talking about our various problems about the state of the building/flooding there were lots of comments on the landlords’ responsibility, council etc. I found there was a difference in how we felt. I felt empowered enough to be able to go out and buy sandbags (I also have the money) so I wasn’t about to wait for permission from a teacher character, I was active rather than passive in the face of adversity.

So back to the Co-op. I do not want to exclude anyone, I do not want that to be an idea that my child picks up by only having people like her in the room. She happily donated just about all her stuff to the co-op to share as she felt that it was better used and what was the point of her just having it, this wasn’t her being charitable (othering)  – I couldn’t be prouder. A guy who visited once made the comment wasn’t I worried that I might attract all ‘those’ children, ones with behaviour “problems” and the neurodiverse. Imagine not being exposed to such people and not knowing how to relate to them, how crippling… and what are we implying to not have ‘difficult’ people around. I want my child to be exposed to other people’s ideas – I have been working hard to show her that not all mine are accurate. I want the co-op to be a place where there is some conflict and that conflict resolution happens all the time as this is how we learn to do this. A woman was on RNZ the other day, she’d written some book about statements to use to make your life better and one was “agree to disagree” which aparently isn’t a saying in Germany. This putting of different kinds of people in one place without exclusions is the benefit of school (it is one of the ideas we don’t even say) and all the ideas/culture children bring to the table is different, how awesome.

It is rare to meet people who see people and just talk to people (don’t see age, class etc) and I want those people around me. I really want to provide a job for Shelby (who we met at the Refinery as an artist in residence). I want a job for her because she wants to do art for a living and my autistic teenager (a very hard crowd) laughs with her and an 8 (?) year old boy asked what days she comes because he wants to come on those days. I feel that this is a start to a world I want to be in. Helping boost good young people, having BUWT next door and so many opportunities presented in the resources we have. We just need more kids to find us. I don’t mind what projects they to, be it coding, or something to to with Manga (so don’t get it), I don’t mind if you are a follower of the Great Spagetti Monster I will support you with your project and ask some expert for help if you feel shy. I will let you air your weird beliefs and learn how to back them up and argue your way to a deeper understanding, and feeling active in your life (aparently called ‘subjectification’ by another nerd)  – my skills in this must be pretty good as my darling can out negotiate me…

It must be the end of my rant as I just heard “people deserve to understand how other people feel” said by someone who was at some recent NZ music awards quoting Jodie Mitchell and how well said is that.