Reschool Yourself

Trampoline Gym from Darren Schwindaman on Vimeo.
Trampolining is one of my favorite ways to reschool, for these reasons:
1. It’s incredible aerobic exercise. I’m a regular jogger but get exhausted in about ten minutes. Your legs and booty will feel sore the next day.
2. It makes you feel like a little kid. No matter how old [...]

The photos taken in and out of the classroom this fall tend to be among people’s favorite things about the project, especially those of me looking like Will Ferrell’s Buddy among the elves. I’ve uploaded some of them to Picasa and Flickr, and I’ll continue to do so over the next couple of months. I’ll [...]

I’ve taken a breather from blogging in the past few days to let my fall reschooling sink in. It feels good to take a few days of real vacation, probably the first that I’ve let myself have since August. When alone, I work myself into the ground, but when I’m with friends, they thankfully wrench [...]

I officially completed my classroom reschooling today, almost four months exactly after I began August 20th. I’m glad that I decided to spend a week tracing my way back through the grades. It felt good today to see all the kids I’ve connected with over the fall and revisit the school spaces. I spent yesterday [...]

This week I’m revisiting my schools in reverse order to record descriptive details that I couldn’t focus on while participating: students’ hair color, teachers’ vocal inflections, and so on. I went back to high school on Tuesday, middle school today, and am finishing up at elementary school tomorrow. The timing just happened to work out [...]

Just a quick note to say thanks to those of you who are using my link to enter the Amazon website. In just a few days, the total is nearing $70, which is incredibly awesome for something that doesn’t cost either of us anything. The number of purchases has increased my referral rate; now 6.5% [...]

I know I’m putting off something when I look desperately for just one more email to answer, and when I serve myself a bowl of chocolate sorbet and then go back to the freezer for two extra servings. Now I’m chewing my fingernails down to nubs. All this restlessness comes from a resistance to writing [...]

This morning an anonymous donor surprised me by fully funding the rest of the fall budget. I am speechless at this generosity. THANK YOU! I am incredibly grateful.
I’m now able to turn my attention to documenting the fall phase and planning the spring phase. Spring plans will involve reschooling at home and through travels and [...]

I was just updating the sponsor page with this week’s donations to Reschool Yourself, and I realized that people have contributed a total of $6,065 since the journey began in August. This includes family, friends, friends of friends, and people who discovered the project and were inspired to contribute. I can’t tell you how much [...]

I’ve just spent the last five and a half hours walking around my alma mater, visiting every place I can remember that holds some significance for me. I visited places like my freshman year dorm, the study lounges, and the music building where I took piano and voice lessons. I took over a hundred pictures, [...]