Well…our little boxes have grown exponentially in the decades since then.  A little house is now an oddity.  Living in one is definitely thinking out of the box.  I am reading a book now called “You can buy happiness (and it’s cheap)“. Very interesting ideas on how to simplify your life and save money so you can spend it on experiences and relationships and volunteer opportunities rather than stuff.

Anyway, the author and her husband bought a “tiny house” on wheels. They pay rent to friends so they can park the house in their back yard and have access to utilities and garbage service.  You can see numerous photos on this link:

I toured a tiny house at the Wayne County Fair last year.  It must have been a little bigger than this one…but it was still tiny.  There was room for a small sofa and two chairs in the living space, a kitchen the size of a largish RV and a bedroom downstairs AND a loft upstairs. Lots of fun to look at. But it never occurred to me that anyone would live in one full time. I thought it was more of a vacation home.

But now I know this is a whole new lifestyle. I can see how it would be very freeing to unload most of your stuff. Also, the idea of being able to move relatively easily is intriguing. Owning two small pieces of land in two different parts of the country and moving the house from one to the other seasonally is quite appealing. Or parking it in our children’s back yards….. They would probably have nightmares just thinking about it! I’d never get Bob to go for this, but it is interesting to think about.

We are all so bound up in what is the “American Dream”.  We don’t necessarily question the path that society has laid out for us.

My privilege as a librarian was to get to know those kids who were “different”.  The industrial revolution’s model of school was designed to set people on the path to those “little (or big) boxes on the hilltop”.  We wanted our students to go through the system smoothly, listen dutifully, take notes, fill in the bubbles on the standardized tests.  Those “different” kids were the loose wingnuts in the system.  The ones who just did not do what they were supposed to do.  But listening to them was a privilege. God bless them. I hope they find their place in the world, and the world can appreciate their creativity!

Our school once conducted a grand experiment.  We asked for volunteers for an Acadmic Challenge Event. Next we set up 2 teams of mixed grade levels and mixed academic abilities.  Oddly enough…the challenge we set for them was to design an environmentally friendly house, and “sell” that house to a group of judges that were recruited from local realtors and other business people.  The houses they designed were amazing.  But the best thing about it was how creative both teams were, and how OBSESSED they were on working overtime to produce the best design possible.  All in two days.  It was a perfect model of what integrated learning and the Common Core was SUPPOSED to do.

It was great to see the kids discover their strengths and recognize the out of the box thinking that the “different” kids brought to the task.  One of the best experiences of my career.  It was EXCITING!!!

Could we get the majority of teachers on staff to be interested in teaching that way?  No.  But it was a shining example of how to get students engaged in real life applications for learning, working cooperatively and creatively.   Hmmm… the spirit of Common Core perhaps?

Intersting.  The next year we did it again.  This time the challenge was to design a new kind of school, a whole new way of learning.  Unfortunately, it was not nearly as successful.  I think the kids were hampered by being in school for too many years.  They could not seem to think of a different way to learn, other than the one they had known for so long.  The big box of SCHOOL had limited their vision.  The project planning committee had wanted the teams to come up with a new way of structuring the school experience….and instead they concentrated more on how the school looked.  In fairness to the students – many of the creative ways of restructuring the school were met with opposition by the teacher mentors.  They kept saying “That would not work.  What about the Regents Exams? And on and on.”  If we were to do it again, I would drop one of the components.  To make it more real – we made it a two year project where they would bring their ideas to the school board for approval and funding.  I think that eventuality made the teacher team mentors close down on a lot of creative ideas, fearing that the school board would never approve it.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

Anyway, this book and the concept of simple living, if not a tiny house, are very interesting to me right now.

It is nice to have the time to think.  Now….if I could just walk and breathe at the same time.  Here’s hoping.  I start ANOTHER new treatment tomorrow.  Glad I have doctors who think out of the box!!