Micro House Living with No Home Wifi

[Hunter]

Is anyone living and learning in a very small space with no home wifi?

I am starting this thread for topics that overlap but are offtopic in the 80's and 90's inspired challenge.

80's and 90's homeschoolers used methods that are more likely instead of less likely to work in frugal and challenging modern times. But those ideas and methods do not ALWAYS work best, now.

If you still have no home wifi, just like the old days, but are fully here in the present, what are you doing the same and what are you doing differently?

Edited June 9, 2021 by Hunter

[Ellie]

56 minutes ago, Hunter said:

80's and 90's homeschoolers used methods that are more likely instead of less likely to work in frugal and challenging modern times. But those ideas and methods do not ALWAYS work best, now.

Why wouldn't they work best now?

[8filltheheart]

I have wifi, but until late middle school/high school, my kids don't have access to a computer for school (or much of anything, actually).  

[Hunter]

14 minutes ago, Ellie said:

Why wouldn't they work best now?

Because the world was designed to function without things that we are expected to have now.

And because the pandemic expects us to do things online and that are impossible without a modern home office, or some kind of alternative fancy tech and creativity.

Today, a government agency send me a pdf copy of a paper document that they had mailed to me and that I had signed and mailed back to them. They said they didn't think the signature looked similar enough to signatures on other pages. I kid you not. They wanted it resigned and returned by e-mail ASAP.

God just always has my back right now. I don't have wifi, or printer and scanner. But, I do have an e-ink tablet, that God graciously aligned the circumstances where I could have lost my stim funds or spent them very very quickly. It is a longer story that this, but I paid my rent ahead until my lease is up, and I bought the tablet, feeling really guilty and confused, but relieved that I had emptied my bank account in time and in a way that was approved. I have been declared "print disabled" and the tablet was approved as "medically necessary".

So with hands shaking, and a prayer, I download the file over cellular data, saved it to a thingy (I don't know what to call it), transferred it to the e-ink device, signed it with my the fancy included pen, saved it again, transferred it back to the device with cellular data, and e-mailed it. She sent me a smiley face. I'm okay.

No one asked us to do stuff like that back then! 

This whole year, and long before, God's got my back. He puts things in place long before I need them. He knows what is coming.

This is not the 1980's. At least not for all of us.

[Ellie]

51 minutes ago, Hunter said:

Because the world was designed to function without things that we are expected to have now.

And because the pandemic expects us to do things online and that are impossible without a modern home office, or some kind of alternative fancy tech and creativity.

Today, a government agency send me a pdf copy of a paper document that they had mailed to me and that I had signed and mailed back to them. They said they didn't think the signature looked similar enough to signatures on other pages. I kid you not. They wanted it resigned and returned by e-mail ASAP.

God just always has my back right now. I don't have wifi, or printer and scanner. But, I do have an e-ink tablet, that God graciously aligned the circumstances where I could have lost my stim funds or spent them very very quickly. It is a longer story that this, but I paid my rent ahead until my lease is up, and I bought the tablet, feeling really guilty and confused, but relieved that I had emptied my bank account in time and in a way that was approved. I have been declared "print disabled" and the tablet was approved as "medically necessary".

So with hands shaking, and a prayer, I download the file over cellular data, saved it to a thingy (I don't know what to call it), transferred it to the e-ink device, signed it with my the fancy included pen, saved it again, transferred it back to the device with cellular data, and e-mailed it. She sent me a smiley face. I'm okay.

No one asked us to do stuff like that back then! 

This whole year, and long before, God's got my back. He puts things in place long before I need them. He knows what is coming.

This is not the 1980's. At least not for all of us.

All that's true, but we can still homeschool without wifi, or a scanner, or a printer, even if we have to have those things for other parts of life.

[Hunter]

"Can" is an interesting word. There are a LOT of things that we CAN do the old way, but sometimes it costs us something.

Among the Amish and Mennonites, most fathers work a trade now. Many fathers work overtime to afford the taxes and payments on a small piece of land, so that children and mom can play farm. The farm COSTS the family to maintain it, instead of providing for them. It cost the family their father's presence at the supper table. Yes, most of the Amish and Mennonites CAN still find a way to farm. Is it worth it? Is keeping the farm serving the original primary purpose of the farm? Decades ago, fathers were admonished to keep the farm so that they could stay HOME.

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Hunter

[8filltheheart]

I'm with Ellie.  Wifi/no wifi, making the decision to teach directly using books or other types of hands on resources vs. virtual/online is simply a decision.  I live very comfortably.  There are 5 laptops in our house (mine, 2 college kids, 1 high student, and dh's).  I have every opportunity to educate my children via tech.  It is simply a decision I have made not to bc I find teaching my kids directly promotes a higher quality education in our home.  It isn't about cost or limitations.  It is really the opposite.  I find tech is limiting while directly interacting with my kids leads to deeper conversation and exploration of ideas/topics.  (Now I may use tech to answer questions that come up that I don't necessarily know the answer to.)

I don't think using tech is lesser or wrong.  It simply makes me a lazy teacher.  I am more engaged when I have to teach and I think kids learn more when interacting with real teacher.  

But, I do use tech for some upper level courses that I don't want to teach (I really hate chemistry) or that are beyond my abilities to engage in a positive meaningful way (math precal and beyond).  There are things my kids want to learn that I can't help with where tech is definitely the superior choice (which makes me realize I was wrong when I said my younger kids used no tech.....my 11 yod is learning Russian and she does use Skype and online cartoons for Russian).  Yrs ago when I was homeschooling without a computer, it would simply have meant she couldn't study Russian. 

[goldenecho]

This is not me now, but when I was a kid, we lived on a boat which is pretty much the same.   It was a 50 foot boat, so not as micro as it comes, but my mom was a master of making things fit.   She did woodwork and there were nooks and crannies in every corner for storing stuff.  Pots and pans hung on walls.  Plants were hanging.  Things were purged regularly.  I often wonder if my love of miniatures came from being able to fit in it a small space. 

[regentrude]

I used the internet to learn about homeschooling (for example on these boards)  but it played a very limited role in the schooling itself. Sometimes the kids researched a topic online or streamed a documentary - because we could. The main tools of our schooling, however, were books and paper and discussions. We didn't use any online curriculum.

My kids used computers to type their essays and creative writing and to create presentations. But that's because the tool was available - if we hadn't had one, we'd have done that by hand.

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by regentrude

[happypamama]

Especially with younger children, we really don't use electronics for schooling.  They do typing, because it's expected that kids know typing these days, but that's really all.  Everything else is books and papers and me as the teacher, with the occasional looking up of something or watching something as an extra.  The extras for which we use electronics are just that, extras -- bonuses that we have because of tech, but not replacements for anything.  Could I school without electronics?  Of course.  

[Not_a_Number]

We mostly don't use technology for academics, either. However... I will say that technology has played a huge part of our social life last year and I'd be very reluctant to give it up even post-pandemic. Homeschooling is naturally isolating, and my family isn't naturally social enough to be able to risk that and hope we come out unscathed. 

[Wheres Toto]

I would need a device to hold all my books if I lived in a micro-house.   I live in what some would consider a microhouse now (750 square feet) and we have bookshelves stuck everywhere but I also have a lot of books on devices, borrow ebooks from the library (especially the past year), kindle unlimited, etc.   I would need internet to do research on all the topics I didn't have the room to have books we could all use.  

I guess being able to go to the library or someplace with public wifi to download books onto a device that could store them would work so we wouldn't need wifi at home, but it would definitely delay the ability to research topics when they come up and would require a ton of very detailed planning ahead and few opportunities to chase rabbit trails.  

[Not_a_Number]

9 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:

I would need a device to hold all my books if I lived in a micro-house.   I live in what some would consider a microhouse now (750 square feet) and we have bookshelves stuck everywhere but I also have a lot of books on devices, borrow ebooks from the library (especially the past year), kindle unlimited, etc.   I would need internet to do research on all the topics I didn't have the room to have books we could all use.  

I guess being able to go to the library or someplace with public wifi to download books onto a device that could store them would work so we wouldn't need wifi at home, but it would definitely delay the ability to research topics when they come up and would require a ton of very detailed planning ahead and few opportunities to chase rabbit trails.  

Ooh, wow, that IS small. We have 1150 square feet here and it has felt pretty constraining as of late... I wouldn’t want to lose 400 more!

[regentrude]

2 hours ago, Wheres Toto said:

 I live in what some would consider a microhouse now (750 square feet) and we have bookshelves stuck everywhere

That's about the size of our first apartment for our family of four, which was considered quite roomy by German standards, lol. There was plenty of room for a few thousand physical books. When I think micro, I think of something more like 400 sq ft 🙂

 

Edited June 11, 2021 by regentrude

[Wheres Toto]

22 minutes ago, regentrude said:

That's about the size of our first apartment for our family of four, which was considered quite roomy by German standards, lol. There was plenty of room for a few thousand physical books. When I think micro, I think of something more like 400 sq ft 🙂

 

Me too!  I don't consider our house micro but around here when people talk about small houses they seem to always mention ones that are 1500 square feet to 2000 square feet, and talk about unbearably small apartments for one person that are 700 square feet.    

My oldest and I rented a house that was 450 square feet at one point. 

[Not_a_Number]

24 minutes ago, regentrude said:

That's about the size of our first apartment for our family of four, which was considered quite roomy by German standards, lol. There was plenty of room for a few thousand physical books. When I think micro, I think of something more like 400 sq ft 🙂

Hah, I'm pretty sure I'm spoiled. I mean, I have relatives in Ukraine that had to have their whole family share one room in a communal apartment... 

That being said, there are definitely practical advantages to more space...