Looking Back

From the Archives: photo taken January, 2014

It's surprising what you discover when you step back from the daily grind and look back at the past. This week I've been building a presentation for the SOAR class I'm facilitating on April 1st — and to avoid relying solely on recent photos, I started digging through the archives dating back to 2013. That is over 12 years of weekly essays! 

Many of those posts — even the ones written before we had many members — could have been written yesterday. My writing has improved over the years, but the core content holds up remarkably well. That realization was deeply gratifying. It means our philosophy and methodology have remained consistent from the very beginning, unchanged despite outside pressures: the misunderstanding of self-directed learning, funding challenges, and pushback that could have led us to abandon our core beliefs. None of it moved us. 

Reading through them, I realized I'm sitting on a treasure trove of ideas, stories, and insights — about self-directed learning, but also about how it quietly shows up in everyday life at the Center. Over the years, many people have suggested I write a book using these posts as a foundation. I think I might finally be ready to dive in.

(I tried once before, during the pandemic, attempting to sort everything into categories — only to abandon it when the sheer volume became overwhelming. That was six years ago. There's considerably more material now!)

Honestly, I've felt a bit unmoored this past year and need a big project to reignite my passion and creativity. This may be it. 

With that in mind, I plan to begin revisiting and revising older pieces. Some may be combined, others will need little more than a light polish, and several will likely be unrecognizable from the original. I will always reference the original post and its publication date. From the Deep Root Center Blog page, you can look at any of the archives from the past twelve years. They are listed on the side by month and year. 

The first is this piece, written in January 2014, the month that we opened.



Trust
January 18, 2014

This is a post I'd been trying to write for a long time. The bones of it existed for months, but it never felt quite ready. Looking back, maybe there was a reason for that.

Around that time, I read a memoir by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, an author well into her eighties, known for her observations of animals and indigenous peoples in Africa — including her early work among the Ju/'hoansi (also known as the !Kung) of Namibia. She is a remarkable writer, and in one of the final chapters, she offers six rules for writing she always tries to follow. The sixth is about revision. Her suggestion: remove the sentence you are most proud of. Brutal — and effective. Ego has no place in good writing. I'll admit, some of my posts were written at the last minute with very little editing. This one deserved better.

At its core, this piece is about trust. I have to believe that what I put into the world is the best I have to offer in that moment — and that the people reading it will receive the message for what it is.

I have been passionate about trusting kids for a long time. Trust that they know what they need to become the best versions of themselves. Trust in their abilities, their insights, the goodness of their hearts. Trust that they will make mistakes, mess up, and make bad decisions — and that, as with all missteps, they will learn from the experience and carry that knowledge forward. Trust that they are not wasting time when it looks like they're "doing nothing." They are learning, growing beings absorbing information every moment of every day, because it is genuinely impossible to do nothing. As parents and teachers, we cannot judge what learning looks like — or, more importantly, what experiences are valuable for a particular person at a particular moment.

We grow frustrated when kids can't seem to motivate themselves to do what we consider important. But we rarely stop to ask whether we've allowed them to be self-directed. Many children are told what to do constantly — at home, at school, and socially. They are bombarded with instructions: do this, don't do that, hurry up, sit still. Is it any wonder they haven't developed the skills for independent decision-making? Society makes the decisions for them. And it is our fear for their futures — not their incapacity — that drives us to micromanage their lives.

I wear both hats: parent and mentor/facilitator. I have two teenagers, one of whom is homeschooled and the other is in college. There are moments I have to physically bite my tongue to keep unsolicited, judgmental comments from escaping. I am not always successful — some of those comments have pressure behind them. But I try most of the time to trust them to make the best choice available to them at that moment. When they ask for advice, I learn to pause before answering: Does he actually need me to solve this? Can she figure this out on her own? The goal has always been to raise happy, empowered young people who can make important decisions confidently. It's just that solving things for them is faster. Easier. And that temptation never fully goes away.

So how do we find the balance between controlling our kids and supporting them to become emotionally mature human beings? I believe it comes down to mutual respect and trust. When you genuinely listen to your children — when you have real conversations that include your own dreams and imperfections, not just instructions for theirs — they respond. Kids want authenticity. They need to know we aren't perfect, because none of us are; we are all learning, growing beings. They need space to think out loud without fear of ridicule. And they need, most of all, the security of unconditional love, consistent support, and the occasional moment of pure, unadulterated silliness.

Because when everything else fails, a sense of humor will carry you through.

DRC News

Weekly Wrap-up
On Monday, the DRC crew discovered that the Grasse River is high from all the quick snow melt this past weekend, and the sledding hill is a sheet of ice. B has enjoyed cooking lately. They made pancakes for lunch.

On Tuesday, we did a quick Kitchen Sink Science experiment looking at the properties of Hydrogen Peroxide. We sprayed some on our countertops and cutting boards to see how much it bubbled. Then put raw potatoes in one beaker of peroxide and cooked potatoes in another. The raw ones bubbled and fizzed, and the cooked ones did not. It is because of an enzyme called catalase that gets cooked out. We also tested carrots because most plants contain that enzyme. The raw ones bubbled, and the cooked did not. The DRC Crew took another walk to SUNY Canton. Digby wanted to be sure he was the center of attention at the end of the day.

This Thursday ended up being a very relaxed day after we had to postpone our field trip to next Thursday. The crew had the chance to dig some ditches to divert the water from our garage and the annually flooded cellar. We thought we had avoided it from the melting snow, but the heavy rain last night created a river running through it again. The two sisters created and played a game on their own that involved using plenty of math and ELA skills in the Seedlings Room with Chris. And everyone else stayed occupied with projects and conversations.
Some of the crew braved the chilly spring breeze for a walk to the Grasse River and the SUNY Canton trail.

​We had Friday off. 

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Fundraiser

One day left to purchase your chances to win $100 worth of NYS Lotto Scratch-off tickets!

Raffle

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SOAR Class 
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I will be facilitating a SOAR class on April 1, 2026, at the Canton Free Library. 

If you are a senior and have wondered what Deep Root Center is all about, or want to learn more about the self-directed learning philosophy, I hope to see you there.