the network for radical unschooling families

Introduction

Hi everyone, I'm Laura, wife to Stephane and mama to dd Caitlyn who is about to turn three. We are a bilingual French/English family with two dogs and two cats.

joined this group because I'd like to find out more about what's happening on the unschooling front in Portland

I'd also love to hear where in Portland people live because we are considering eventually moving there and I'm dying to know which areas of Portland have the most unschoolers!

Well I'm off to take care of my sick child.

bye for now :)

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lyla on October 22, 2009 at 11:41pm: laura - did you just post to pdx-unschoolers? if you consider yourself a radical unschooler there's a portland yahoo group for that too!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Carolyn on October 23, 2009 at 12:47pm: Hi Laura,

I saw you rec'd some replies on one of the Yahoo Groups, but thought I'd add my $.02. We moved to Portland from Jackson, WY in Sept 2008 and are LOVING it. We have attended all 3 of the Life is Good conferences (highly recommended!), and through that had already met several people in the area, which made us feel quickly at home.

We are currently living in inner SE, but are getting ready to move to the Concordia neighborhood in NE. (Our house in Wyoming is finally selling (buyers backed out last October) and the area we're currently in is now outside our price range...) You'll find that the close in (that is, close to downtown) SE neighborhoods are pretty pricey (upwards of $500K for around 1800 SF -- often older houses -- which is very cool -- but also requiring maintenance). Some of the areas in close in NE are still a bit more affordable, as they are in "emerging" neighborhoods (not sure the PC way to put it...they used to be the really "bad" part of town, but that's changing...just not all at once).

I would say pretty much anywhere on the east side you'll find kindred spirits...it's a crunchy, green, "hip" kind of atmosphere...Multnomah Village in the SW is also a bit like that, but probably not as liberal...I know there are pockets of unschoolers on the west side (Hillsboro/Beaverton) - but it's a little more suburban. A lot of people live where the main worker in their house can get to work easily (Intel (I think?) and some other big companies are based on the west side...). We're a one car family and my hubby bikes downtown every day to work for the City.

It's funny, there are lots of unschoolers and radical unschoolers here...but also many "groovy" parents who are WAY into the public school system...not that there's anything wrong with that, but it took some getting used to... :) And there are LOTS of good public/charter options here, which is good to know -- or at least something to appease in-laws who aren't into homeschooling with ("...we have lots of options here if we decide upon school...")

Anyhow, hope this makes sense, if you have any specific questions, feel free to contact me at cgwinkler@gmail.com
Oh, and we have a blog at wahoowinklers.blogspot.com (might be on the LiG ring -- but the ring wasn't working a while back...) and 2 daughters 7.5 and 4. And an old doggie and 2 cats. And hopefully when we buy a house, chickens. :)

On a totally unrelated note, my brother and his wife (who is Romanian) live in Miami! Hope to go visit them sometime...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Carolyn on October 23, 2009 at 12:47pm: oh, and check out urbanmamas.typepad.com if you haven't yet...not a homeschooling or unschooling site, but good info on portland for families

Carolyn said:
Hi Laura,

I saw you rec'd some replies on one of the Yahoo Groups, but thought I'd add my $.02. We moved to Portland from Jackson, WY in Sept 2008 and are LOVING it. We have attended all 3 of the Life is Good conferences (highly recommended!), and through that had already met several people in the area, which made us feel quickly at home.

We are currently living in inner SE, but are getting ready to move to the Concordia neighborhood in NE. (Our house in Wyoming is finally selling (buyers backed out last October) and the area we're currently in is now outside our price range...) You'll find that the close in (that is, close to downtown) SE neighborhoods are pretty pricey (upwards of $500K for around 1800 SF -- often older houses -- which is very cool -- but also requiring maintenance). Some of the areas in close in NE are still a bit more affordable, as they are in "emerging" neighborhoods (not sure the PC way to put it...they used to be the really "bad" part of town, but that's changing...just not all at once).

I would say pretty much anywhere on the east side you'll find kindred spirits...it's a crunchy, green, "hip" kind of atmosphere...Multnomah Village in the SW is also a bit like that, but probably not as liberal...I know there are pockets of unschoolers on the west side (Hillsboro/Beaverton) - but it's a little more suburban. A lot of people live where the main worker in their house can get to work easily (Intel (I think?) and some other big companies are based on the west side...). We're a one car family and my hubby bikes downtown every day to work for the City.

It's funny, there are lots of unschoolers and radical unschoolers here...but also many "groovy" parents who are WAY into the public school system...not that there's anything wrong with that, but it took some getting used to... :) And there are LOTS of good public/charter options here, which is good to know -- or at least something to appease in-laws who aren't into homeschooling with ("...we have lots of options here if we decide upon school...")

Anyhow, hope this makes sense, if you have any specific questions, feel free to contact me at cgwinkler@gmail.com
Oh, and we have a blog at wahoowinklers.blogspot.com (might be on the LiG ring -- but the ring wasn't working a while back...) and 2 daughters 7.5 and 4. And an old doggie and 2 cats. And hopefully when we buy a house, chickens. :)

On a totally unrelated note, my brother and his wife (who is Romanian) live in Miami! Hope to go visit them sometime...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Laura Z on October 23, 2009 at 1:42pm: Hi Carolyn (that was my mom's name by the way with the same spelling :)) thanks for all the GREAT info and links. I've been getting some awesome info from some of the pdx unschooler mamas too.
Do you happen to have the link to the ru group? I would love it or if anyone else has it.

I'm definitely going to check out the links you mentioned and will check out your blog as well!

Oh we have two older doggies and two cats as well, actually making me a bit worried about renting since so few places seem pet friendly, especially big dog friendly :( But LOA always works so we'll be using that when we're ready.

I'll hang onto your email as well. Oh and are you in Facebook? I just LOVE adding unschooler friends to my Facebook - I'll go and see if I see you there.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Lyla on October 23, 2009 at 1:50pm: PortlandRadicalUnschooling@yahoogroups.com is the RU group

i know you were talking to carolyn? but i am on facebook too! lyla wolfenstein :)

lyla

Laura Z said:
Hi Carolyn (that was my mom's name by the way with the same spelling :)) thanks for all the GREAT info and links. I've been getting some awesome info from some of the pdx unschooler mamas too.
Do you happen to have the link to the ru group? I would love it or if anyone else has it.

I'm definitely going to check out the links you mentioned and will check out your blog as well!

Oh we have two older doggies and two cats as well, actually making me a bit worried about renting since so few places seem pet friendly, especially big dog friendly :( But LOA always works so we'll be using that when we're ready.

I'll hang onto your email as well. Oh and are you in Facebook? I just LOVE adding unschooler friends to my Facebook - I'll go and see if I see you there.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by JennyStar on October 23, 2009 at 2:41pm: Portland is pretty pet friendly, you just have to pay huge deposits!

I live in Beaverton right now, but I've lived in NW Ptld and loved it and inner SE near where Carolyn lives and had issues with car break ins, then lived near Gateway/East Tabor, nice neighborhood weird walk through traffic, and then in Concordia, the best neighborhood that our family lived in thus far! There are great parks in NE, which is where Concordia is and The Kennedy School, which is great to live near because it has a soaking pool. Like Carolyn said, it's an up and coming neighbor hood and has been in transition for about 8 yrs... ever since Alberta arts district happened... even longer really as I lived there when I was a tiny kid and it was a very difficult neighborhood to live in back then... so say my parents who moved to the burbs after dealing with drive bys in the 70's...

I agree about the Life Is Good Conference!!! Great way to meet locals!
~Jenny; ▶ Reply to This