Visit Castle Island. The weather isn’t very good, and most people aren’t going out, so why not take advantage and get you and your kids some exercise and outdoor time! If it isn’t busy it’s very easy to stay really far from other people.
Castle Island is accessible by MBTA Busses # 7, 9 and 11 and has free parking. Take a walk around Pleasure Bay, look for sea glass on the many beaches, collect sea shells and stones. Fly a kite. Play on the playground but bring hand sanitizer. Ride bikes.
Other area beaches accessible by transit: Orient Heights, Revere Beach.
Virtual Field Trips
Monterey Bay Aquarium‘s live animal cams: aviary, coral reef, jelly, kelp forest, Monterey Bay, open ocean, moon jelly, penguin, sea otter and shark.
All our weekly activities are officially cancelled. I’m betting yours are too. Are you now totally filled with dread at the prospect of having to stay cooped up at home separated from your social circle? I am. I need my external structure and regular access to people in order to stay well.
So to calm my nerves, I’m going to dust off a DIY summer camp guide I wrote in 2013 when I ran a totally different blog in Cambridge. We were broke back then too and since summer camp was off the table I wrote up a plan of themed activities, crafts, books and snacks for 10 weeks.
I’m going to share them with you here to help you survive at home while we all get through this period of social distancing. Maybe some structure to your days at home with your kids will help you too. In general this guide was originally written for younger elementary aged kids, but I’ll try to add things for people of all ages.
For each theme, I’ll write a single post and link them here as I write them. Here are the topics:
My original guide included several field trips for every week. I will only include out-of-the-home activities if they take you places where you won’t be in close contact with other people.
The replica of the Mayflower is coming to Boston in May and you can get FREE tickets to take an on board tour! In our coop we just did a section on the Voyage of the Mayflower. If you too are studying our early colonial past, this is a perfect way to bring home the reality of the voyage, and just how difficult the conditions were on board for the passengers.
Source: BBHS
What: Tours of the replica of the Mayflower Where: Charlestown Navy Yard When: May 15-19, 2020 Why: To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Voyage of the Mayflower Cost: FREE (but timed entry tickets required)
While you’re there, you can visit the USS Constitution ship for free, just be sure to bring valid ID. The USS Constitution Museum is admission by voluntary donation, which means free if you need it to be!
Let’s be frank, it’s a rough time to be a Broke Boston Homeschooler. The New York Times ran two opinion pieces a few days ago, one right next to the other. “How Working-Class Life is Killing Americans, in Charts” and David Brooks’ “Biden’s Rise Gives the Establishment One Last Chance.”
Source: KC Green, http://gunshowcomic.com/648 If you’ve never seen the full version of this strip, I recommend it though it is a little gruesome.
I frequently despair at the awful things that happen to people in the name of Capitalism that I read about in the Times. But, this was the combo that finally broke me and I cancelled my digital subscription. (Before you go pointing out the full cost of a digital subscription, I want you to know I fell into a surprising long-term $4 for 4 weeks deal over a year ago.)
Here’s what’s so upsetting: the establishment is causing the immiseration of the working class (and the rest of us) which is causing these increased deaths of despair. My interpretation is that the New York Times seems to want to continue with the establishment. If Establishment = Higher Death Rate, then Approving of Establishment = Approving of Higher Death Rate.
I feel like Capitalism is killing me faster than it used to be. The loneliness of being in the shrinking middle class, the family diaspora that Capitalism encourages, unstable housing, and how the upper classes buy their way to what family and friends used to provide in support has led us to a place of strange isolation. Homeschooling on a tiny budget here is a journey of loneliness.
Having no clear connection to a stable future for me or my kids is burning me out. My health is starting to show the signs of long term stress. I have no supportive community to lean on in hard times, only a collection of friendly acquaintances who can help in mild times. Government and unions no longer offer protections to the middle class. Only people with money, or those in subsidized housing, are allowed stable housing and therefore the benefits of living in one place long term. One more dislocation from a rent increase and I think I’m a goner.
Greater Boston is still quite segregated, thanks in large part to redlining policies of the recent past. For anyone who didn’t already know this, and if you want to see for yourself, take a round trip ride on the Red Line from Alewife to Ashmont and then on the Mattapan High Speed Line to it’s end. The average racial makeup of the passengers drastically changes at Downtown Crossing and Park Street. You might also recognize that the Mattapan High Speed Line trolleys are the same as an “historic” trolley on display at Boylston Station on the Green Line.
Boston is still far more diverse on average than the small town in New Hampshire where we lived when our kids were born. Most of the time in NH, wherever we went my family was the least “white” which made us the object of intrusive questions: Is your husband Asian? No. Are your children adopted? No. Are you the nanny? No. I started dyeing my hair darker just make it easier for strangers to see that my kids do have some of my features and would leave me alone.
Arriving to the diversity of Greater Boston was a breath of fresh air. Our family has a number of non-typical identifiers and we felt so much more comfortable here. I was disheartened to discover that the local homeschooling community (that I could find at that time**) did not have the diversity of the larger community. Arriving at our first homeschooling event, after coming out of public school, I felt so much like I did the day I took my young kids on a day of exploring the T and saw the segregation for the first time, I had no idea.
I have no suggestions or solutions for this social and economic dynamic. It’s important to know about, however. Maybe this post will help someone new to homeschooling understand a tiny bit more about Greater Boston’s homeschooling community. Maybe I’m trying to explore how homeschooling has been an unexpected journey of self-discovery in trying to figure out who my family is and what our relationships are with people in the wider world.
** This year I discovered a group on Facebook dedicated to Boston Homeschool Families of Color. I’m so glad to know there is diversity in the homeschool community and I hope one day everyone can more easily come together.
Remember how in BBHSing is Hard, Part 2 I discussed the ongoing demographic shift that keeps making it harder to be a BBHSer? Today, I happened to see an article about that very dynamic, here’s an excerpt:
“The sharpest declinein the(sic) Boston’s population of children, the study found, has been among middle-income families with children.
“‘These are families that tend to be above the income cutoff for subsidized housing programs and yet earn below what it takes to afford the fast-rising housing costs in many of these high-income cities,’ researchers wrote. ‘In today’s Boston, there are almost 6,000 fewer middle-income households with kids compared with 1980, even though our city has grown in total population.’”
Occasionally, I’ve spoken about our housing challenges with area homeschoolers. It’s unbelievable how casually insensitive people can be. I think some just cannot even imagine what life is like for the rest of us. It really brings to mind the parable of the brass pot and the earthenware pot. Three of these things are not good responses to the other:
Our landlord is raising our rent $250 which a 13% increase and we can’t afford it. We can’t find any affordable housing within an hour of Boston, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I know just what you mean, we had to pay $600,000 over asking price for our home.
I know just what you mean, we own our home but want more space and we can’t find a home we want to buy.
Oh, North Central Massachusetts? I was thinking of buying a 40-acre farm up there. There’s a 200-acre farm in Vermont for the same price that I would love to move to.
I started this blog with the hopes of finding and bringing together other BBHSers for mutual support. We’re a vanishing tiny minority in a group that’s already a minority. Yo, clay pots! Hit me up in the comments!
As of today, this is 2020’s schedule of community days:
January 20
February 1
February 5
March 18
May 25
June 17
For us BBHSers, this is a great deal. If you ever go to Artful Adventures, the ticket price is already low but now you can get a 15% discount in the cafe! Worth visiting on a free day, I’d say!
First a note about myself: I have a BA in art history. I completed one year in a graduate program in museum studies. I am a supporter and defender of the arts and museums. I appreciate art. I make room for all kinds of art to exist in the world. I accept there are works that I will not personally enjoy, but fully embrace those works as important to the culture. Some art isn’t safe, some art is challenging. Some art, just like some parts of life, is not for children.
We visited the ICA yesterday to take part in a program on the exhibition “When Home Won’t Let You Stay.”
First of all, this is a heart-rending exhibition. Not only is it about the experiences of people who must leave their countries, it is also about how other countries treat refugees. Most of the art displayed was excellent, introduced ideas, and evoked strong emotions and thoughts.
“When Home Won’t Let You Stay” at the ICA, Boston, MA Source: BBHS
Toward the end there is a dark room with three monitors at a child’s eye level. There are headphones hanging from hooks below them and benches to sit on while watching. At first it appears to be relatively innocuous, certainly there’s no indication of imminent danger – one person on each screen in front of a neutral backdrop speaking. There are easy to read subtitles on each screen that can be read comfortably 15 feet away.
We passed through that room without stopping, to view “American Library.” Our guide mentioned mildly and in passing that there might be some difficult topics on the videos in the prior room and parents should use discretion. I understood that as a PG-13 kind of warning. I shepherded my 10-year-old son away from the doorway in “American Library” so he wouldn’t see the videos. However, while looking around the library together, I didn’t notice that he went back to the doorway to watch them.
Kids! AmIRight? They LOVE videos of almost any kind, if there’s a screen in a room playing anything, it grabs their attention immediately, like a Siren singing to Odysseus…who you will remember had to be tied to the mast of his ship to prevent him from throwing himself to the deadly Sirens.
The next thing I knew, my son was next to me visibly upset, beginning to cry, asking to leave. Downstairs as we waited for our group, he wanted to distract himself on my phone and by walking through the gift shop to look at cute things. When I was finally able to get him to tell me what he read on the screen, he told me a detailed, horrifying story of torture with a sexual element to it.
He could not participate in his group’s art making session, he was too upset. When I sat with him to encourage him, we made something together to help him process what he was feeling. Instead of a quilt square about our family’s migration stories, he made tear drops falling into a puddle, and told me and another parent that he’s scared because he’s small and not strong and doesn’t want to get hurt or die.
Processing distress at the ICA Source: BBHS
This is the third time we’ve gone to the ICA and my kids were exposed to excessively disturbing material in a way that was impossible to avoid, particularly because no appropriate warning was given. These were materials no functioning parent willingly exposes their kids to: NC-17 level imagery and descriptions of rape and torture. Both my sons still occasionally bring up a video installation that we saw over a year ago. I really hope this latest experience doesn’t have lasting effects on my younger son.
I don’t understand the curatorial decisions of a museum that welcomes families, but subjects the public to such extreme imagery and words, without warning and sometimes without a way to avoid those works and still visit the rest of the exhibits. It feels like intentional infliction of distress.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is just around the corner from the MFA. Both museums are offering free admission and activities to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The Gardner limits the number of people in the museum at any given time, so it may be a better option for people who don’t want to deal with the crowds at the MFA on free days. Though you may have to wait in line before getting inside.
The museum opens at 11 AM, and MLK Jr. Day activities run 1-4 PM.
Join social justice project Wee The People for an interactive, family-friendly workshop that guides young and old in unlearning and reclaiming the legacy of MLK. Together we will explore MLK’s practice as a radical disruptor and honor his most important act of love: resistance. Activities include sign-making tributes to protest movements, a #ReclaimMLK photo booth, and timed acts of resistance inside the Museum.”
Free general admission to the Gardner is a rare occurrence. If your name is Isabella or your family is Active Duty in the military, you can get in free anytime. Children 17 and under are always free as well. EBT cardholders can get $2 admission for up to 4 adults. The BPL has a $5/person museum pass available that admits 4 people on weekdays, 2 people on weekends.
The ICA is accessible by Silver Line Waterfront out of South Station. You can walk from either the World Trade Center stop or Courthouse. I do not recommend parking for BBHSers because of the expense. The ICA does not have its own parking lot, but you can find their recommendations for parking here.
Broke Boston Homeschooling 