Every Monday I post Real Life Minimalists, a profile of one of my readers in their own words. If you’d like to participate, click here for details.
Today, Kevin shares his take on minimalism, from his perspective as a philosopher and father. Visit his blog to read more of his thoughts.
Kevin writes:
I think I’ve always been a minimalist at heart but have recently become much more mindful about it. When I lived alone in my own condominium it was quite easy to be a minimalist. Although I am a bookworm, I had only a few bookshelves so that limited my collection of books. I enjoyed the open space of my living room without a coffee table and the clean surfaces of my kitchen table and counter tops. As a musician and composer I am a big fan of the minimalist music of Philip Glass and Steve Reich.
Now I am married, have a daughter, and live in a house. My life is full in so many positive ways but also fuller in some non-minimalist ways! As an unschooling dad I realize the importance of “strewing” but needless to say this conflicts with a minimalist approach to living. My definition of “just right” has had to change but that’s quite natural.
To solve the practical problem of clutter we have devised a system in our family that seems to work pretty well. We have a designated “playroom” where chaos is allowed to run a little freer than in other parts of the house. We also have “zones” in the living room/dining room area where we can accommodate projects. So, for us these active or ongoing projects (crafts, etc.) don’t get defined as clutter. They don’t entail clutter that never gets put away but rather an active process of creation. Of course, when a new project comes along or it’s time for a meal we do clear off the relevant spaces.
In addition to these accommodations, there are certain rooms in the house where clutter is not allowed at all. These rooms are used (as opposed to formal living rooms which never get used) but we just don’t let clutter hang around at all.
Fatherhood provides me an excellent opportunity to teach some important minimalist lessons. Among these is a lesson I also teach as a philosophy professor: the difference between wants and needs.
I think the confusion between these two categories drives a lot of the consumerism that prevents people from seeing the benefits of minimalism. Given a strong natural impulse towards acquisitiveness, it’s important to begin teaching the benefits of living with less at an early age. As parents, freeing our children from the grip of constantly chasing their wants is one of the greatest gifts we can give them.
As a philosopher I think of my work as “clearing the clutter” from our thinking. Much of what I do i my classes is to help students clarify their thinking on such important issues as ethics, morality, knowledge, and reality. Making distinctions like the one between wants and needs is an important part of this clutter clearing.
Making the connection between our values and our stuff is important and provides a good philosophical foundation for striving to live in a minimalist way.
I write about the philosophical work of clarifying as well other topics of education and unschooling on my blog titled “Think” which is located at http://kevinjbrowne.weebly.com/blog1.html.
{If you’d like to learn more about minimalist living, please consider reading my book, The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide, or subscribing to my RSS feed.}
Kevin, great plan for managing the clutter that kids generate! I also like that you help “clear the clutter” from your students’ thinking. So important! Will be checking out your blog. All the best.
Hello Kevin. What is unschooling?
Unschooling is an approach to homeschooling where the focus is less on formal curriculum and more on following the interests of the child. Some common concerns with this approach include worries about how kids will learn to read and learn math in a less structured environment. In my (limited so far) experience many of these worries evaporate with experience. My daughter is learning to read though we do very little drilling and lesson books for it. We read books together, talk about them, and she is writing letters and words and beginning to sound out words. She does all of this not because we have structured “reading time” but because she has an interest in learning things and I think she realizes that learning to read will allow her to learn other things she’s interested in. The same will hold with math as well.
Sounds like you’re finding the right balance! We live in a small home with no dedicated playroom for our two toddlers, so we just have to be vigilant about cleaning up their toys. (They have more than we would like, almost all of them gifts, but we put many of them away and rotate.)
Nice post Kevin! As a fellow unschooler and minimalist, my advice is to strew less and play more. :)
I do only limited strewing at this point and I agree with the advice to play more. We spend our days doing things we enjoy and I can already see that a lot of learning occurs as the unintended by-product of our other living activities.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m not sure precisely what “unschooling” is but it sounds like you could be said to be unschooling your daughter of the otherwise inevitable consumerist mindset! Love that you do that so intentionally. I live with my husband and my two sons ages 17 and 20. We have clutter/no clutter zones too but they have developed in an organic, unplanned and unspoken way. I don’t interfere with creative projects either. I tolerate my sons cluttering up their rooms and my husband cluttering up his office (okay sometimes I make remarks to my husband), and they in turn don’t complain that I aspire to minimalism in most of the rest of the house. Sometimes someone besides me will purge a bit and I will do a secret happy dance. It works.
“a lesson I also teach as a philosophy professor: the difference between wants and needs. I think the confusion between these two categories drives a lot of the consumerism”
Amen to that. Too bad you can’t convince the other professors to join you and collectively teach those unbridled kids to save themselves from a world of financial trouble in the future.
Such an interesting post. I looked up strewing, and unschooling. (unschooling made me think of Montessori). I wonder though how one teaches one’s children to read and write, the strewingly unschooled way? Leave big letters about the place? Cook them a meal with alphabet pasta (my nephews loved laying out their name on the side of the plate)?
Also looked at your blog. You seem to have a Brain the Size of a Planet.
Probably just the size of a small moon! My daughter is learning to read and write mostly by playing with both. We read books together, she sees me reading and imitates, she asks me about what words say and she is also beginning to write letters and put them together into words. Unschooling tries to preserve the natural curiosity all kids have and nurture it in positive ways without stifling it with too much structure. I think the result will be a well-educated, passionate young adult. It saddens me to see these traits lacking in many of my college educated students who have been subjected to 12 years of formal schooling and teaching to the tests.
Kevin, I really like your idea of having designated spots in your house for creative projects! It seems like that would be great to have with kids as their natural curiosity and creativity leads to more messy spaces. As a philosophy teacher, I’d be interested in hearing your answer to this question: do you think popular culture tends to program us to desire unnecessary “needs” in order to live a more fulfilling life? If so, to what degree?
Am not a philosophy teacher myself but I do have an opinion – yes, I think popular culture does programme us to desire stuff we don’t need at all. I am currently decluttering my vinyl (LP) and goodness me, so much stuff I thought was important all those years ago and I really, really wanted it. And now I think – sell asap. Interesting how your perspective changes as you get older.
I have learned to designate zones for creative projects as well… I have a good amount of hands-on hobbies, and I have a little tiny ‘studio’ in my house to accommodate my supplies and ongoing projects. It helps to keep one part of my work table dedicated to sewing, one part for paperwork, and one part for painting. ‘Zones’ are a great way to keep clutter from spreading.
Your daughter is so very lucky to be learning through unschooling… That was always my wish when I was young. I was naturally curious and liked to learn… But my natural means of learning was stifled by the traditional public school I attended.
Living with less is definitely a learning process and the younger we can learn it the better off the world will be. Incorporating a daily dose of nature in our lives and embracing self-reliance has allowed us the freedom to choose our own definition of education, interest-led learning.
Making connections is the key to the future. Keep up the good work!
I’m a philosophy teacher at Jagiellonian University in Cracow (Poland), I teach children too (at my won workshops) and the difference is huge. When I “teach” 5-6 years old children, I think it’s me who is really learning, not them. Maybe they learn something too, I hope. Adult students rarely surprise me (even if I don’t teach with standard methods), but children very often say something so clear and fresh that I don’t know what to say. Right now I’m working on my own teaching philosophy methods, connected with drawing. I’m glad I could read about the other philopher here.
Fellow unschooling parent here. I feel as though I could have written this post, all the way through I found myself knodding in agreement. Following what felt right for us my husband and I found that we are minimalists, unschoolers, and parent very much as Alfie Kohn describes as Unconditional Parenting.
Whatever method we choose, some of what we do is rejecting the surrounding culture. It is better in the long run to teach children to question what they hear and see. My grandchildren came over once and wondered where my television was, before that they never even looked, they were too busy.
Minimalism is a wonderful way to manage when you have little money and an uncertain future as many of the young people now have. It gives you freedom to take advantage of opportunities as they come up. Definitely, at my age, 65, it requires me to make choices and limit what comes in the house. I realize my children won’t want many of the things I enjoy so I pare down and borrow more instead of buying.
I am interested in art using old newspapers, junk mail, string and other objects I find or get for free. I do workshops using tiny bits of fabric and yarn and last weekend we made cornhusk dolls using cornhusks, bits of yarn and fabric. Another thing we use is tissue paper. It is packed around so much and takes cheap water colors so well.
I make many collages with junk mail and found objects. My grandsons came over and we went swimming and played word games. I keep a box of books and magazines here for them. I also keep basic art supplies and cardboard in case they need to build something. When I was a child we seldom watched TV and my grandsons read the newspaper or anything else they find around here.