The other night I was in bed wishing I were asleep when my thoughts randomly arrived on the subject of TJEd and how it all works with my kids.  Are you that kind of person?  I can start thinking about the firehydrant across the street...that reminds me of the time we lived in Chicago and someone opened the hydrant for kids to play in (highly illegal)...which reminds me of the house we lived in...our upstairs neighbor was Puerto Rican...some guy at a playground in Juneau was telling me about his vacation house in Puerto Rico...if I could have a vacation house it would be in the alps (I just wouldn't have the money to get there to use it!)...the alps...Heidi.  Firehydrant to Heidi.  Yep, that is my quirky brain.

But that is not the point of this post. 

I realized that TJEd is hard because we want methods and plans and checklists of which there are none.  And yet there are.  It is like a gardener who really gets into gardening.  Not just the stick-some-plants-in-the-ground-and-see-if-they-will-grow kind of gardener.  The TJEd parent(mentor) is like the gardener who studies every detail of the particular plants he is intending to grow. 

He figures out what he has to do and when to do it so that the plant will then do the work of producing fruit.  I must study my children.  I must figure out what it will take for them to get inspired to do the work of learning whatever it is I want them to learn. 

 He figures out what the plant needs and how to keep pests from interrupting the plant's work.   I must study my children some more.  I must figure out what tools I need to give them so that they can carry out their inspiration in the hard work of learning.  I must be discerning about the activities that distract from the goal.

The real gardener may experiment and stick a plant in the ground to see what happens, however, for the most part he has a plan for his garden.  TJEd can seem like unschooling in the worst sense of the word but it isn't.  I must have a plan, do the studying, and carry out all the checklist items I discover are needed to lead my children to the "fruit" of learning.

This is such a different paradigm from the authoritative stance where I say they are to learn thus-and-so and learn it now no matter if they care one bit about it or not.  Instead I am watching for cues, learning to cultivate interest, providing tools and opportunity as well as modeling the learning process. 

This is hard work.  I think I'll go to bed now.  I'm tired.  :-)  Hopefully, I will fall asleep without thinking about hats people wear in Iceland or something just as ridiculous at eleven at night.