Ben Hewitt Quotes

What if the point were not to know as much as possible but to feel as much as possible?

We are all interconnected and interdependent, and because of this, we are all only as rich as we enrich those around us. I

When we carry a safety net made of cash, we allow the one made of community to slip through our fingers.

We've created a system that demands almost no engagement with our food; we've wrung all the responsibility and sweat equity from the process. It's not that we're getting something for nothing - after all, we do pay for our food, and we suffer the consequences of dining from the industrial trough. But charging a package of center-cut pork chops to your Visa is a hell of a lot different than facing down the source of those chops with a .22 in one hand and a well-honed knife in the other.

My success or failure in school was dependent on my ability to follow a curriculum that felt as if it had very little to do with me as a human being.

Many parents aren’t all that accustomed to being patient and present for their kids anymore, if only because they’re simply not given the opportunity to be patient and present. Jobs get in the way. School gets in the way. After-school activities get in the way. As I have learned—as I am still learning—patience and presence are muscles that must be developed and exercised regularly.

the more thoroughly I liberate myself from prevailing cultural assumptions—around education, wealth, ambition, and success, to name but a few—the more choice I actually have. The more freedom I have.

I wonder if we have it all backward. And I wonder how the world might be if we viewed the very reason for our existence as being not about control and security but about surrender. Not to our fears and insecurities but to our sense of what is possible, to the belief that we all have the ability to shape the world as we imagine it, and that our actions reflect this imagined world until it becomes not imagined, but real.

(On producer/consumer relationship in subsistence farming) This is the sort of interconnectedness that once defined every outpost across our emerging nation. But outposts grew into towns, towns grew into cities, and cities grew into metropolises, necessitating a push into resource bases far beyond these population centers. Even as this occurred, the conveniences of modern life--electricity, indoor plumbing, the automobile--took hold, further eroding any sense of shared responsibility for the community's survival. From the standpoint of our most basic needs, we became islands unto ourselves, despite the ever-increasing population density.

Of all the things I want for them, connection to this place and a sense of knowing how they fit into this world usurps all others. I want this for them more than happiness, because I think mere happiness is a shallow elucidation of the human experience, and by itself is not a particularly sturdy emotional foundation upon which to build a fulfilling life. I want this for them more than success, at least insofar as our culture has come to define success as being a product of money and power and recognition. I want this for them more than physical vitality, because I believe that good health--and not just health of body, but also of emotion and spirit--is only possibly when one feels connected to and secure in their place.

sustainable," like "green" and "organic," is an easily corruptible concept that, not surprisingly, has been willfully corrupted by people who would very much like to sell you a hybrid SUV or an Energy Star-rated flat-screen TV with no money down and zero percent interest for 60 months. There is very little about agriculture that is truly sustainable. At its core, agriculture is a human manipulation of a natural process. Is there a version of agriculture that is truly sustainable? Probably so. Is there a version of agriculture that is truly sustainable and able to feed 7 billion people? Almost certainly not.

The cheap-food boom has been seductively comfortable for us all. Let's face it: Farming is damn hard work, typically done for damnable pay. By relinquishing this burden, by handing the reins to the corporations, we relieved ourselves of a lot of backaches, sunburns, and financial strains. We struck a deal: The agribusinesses got a guaranteed chunk of our income and our full faith in their ability to keep us sustained. In return, we got to pursue lifestyles that don't revolve around soil and toil and that allow us a measure of leisure time unprecedented in human history.

Omdat ik nu eenmaal was wie ik ben, had ik al vroeg de heimelijke tactieken van het conformisme begrepen: hoe je een slis verhult, een al te uitgesproken tred corrigeert, je stem een paar tonen lager zet, zaken waarin ik me tijdens mijn puberteit wekenlang oefende op mijn kamer. Maar het was pas op mijn zeventiende dat ik, vrij frontaal, op een non-conformiteit stuitte waar ik me niet zomaar uit kon wurmen. Ik besefte toen, duidelijker dan ooit te voren, hoezeer de wereld me - nog voor ikzelf het begreep - in aangeboren tegenstelling had geplaatst. (P.15)

Omdat ik nu eenmaal was wie ik ben, had ik al vroeg de heimelijke tactieken van het conformisme begrepen: hoe je een slis verhult, een al te uitgesproken tred corrigeert, je stem een paar tonen lager zet, zaken waarin ik me tijdens mijn puberteit wekenlang oefende op mijn kamer. Maar het was pas op mijn zeventiende dat ik, vrij frontaal, op een non-conformiteit stuitte waar ik me niet zomaar uit kon wurmen. Ik besefte toen, duidelijker dan ooit te voren, hoezeer de wereld me - nog voor ikzelf het begreep - in aangeboren tegenstelling had geplaatst. (P15)

Like all of us, children just want to be needed. It’s our job to make sure they actually are.

If there is value in the standardized, performance-based curriculums utilized by the vast majority of schools, that value is realized primarily by the institutions themselves and by the economic and social structures that are fed by standardized learning.

the business of being a child in this country is rapidly disappearing into an abyss that consists not only of programs and tests but also of extracurricular activities.

Of all the things I have learned since becoming a parent(and sometimes, it feels as if this might be everything I've learned), perhaps the hardest to accept is that it is selfish and possibly even dangerous to desire particular outcomes for our children.

I dropped out of high school to pursue a self-designed study program in excessively loud heavy metal music and extreme partying. - From his blog

Further Reading For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay The Brave Learner: Finding Everyday Magic in Homeschool, Learning, and Life by Julie Bogart The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids by Sarah Mackenzie Rethinking School: How to Take Charge of Your Child’s Education by Susan Wise Bauer A Gracious Space: Daily Reflections to Sustain Your Homeschooling Commitment by Julie Bogart Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life by Peter Gray Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature by Scott D. Sampson Home Grown: Adventures in Parenting off the Beaten Path, Unschooling, and Reconnecting with the Natural World by Ben Hewitt Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners by Lori Pickert Let’s Play Math: How Families Can Learn Math Together—and Enjoy It by Denise Gaskins The Art of Self-Directed Learning: 23 Tips for Giving Yourself an Unconventional Education by Blake Boles Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type by Isabel Briggs Meyers and Peter B. Myers

How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature by Scott D. Sampson Home Grown: Adventures in Parenting off the Beaten Path, Unschooling, and Reconnecting with the Natural World by Ben Hewitt Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners by Lori Pickert Let’s Play Math: How Families Can Learn Math Together—and Enjoy It by Denise Gaskins The Art of Self-Directed Learning: 23 Tips for Giving Yourself an Unconventional Education by Blake Boles Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type by Isabel Briggs Meyers and Peter B. Myers

colloquialism for the affliction that strikes a certain