Hello again from @SenorCoconut,

A little late on the delivery today... but here we go, we're back for another week with a few questions to reflect on the ethics and ideologies of one vendor at HSCO: Porters Place. (@Porters on steemit)!

Building a community is about clear communication and the willingness to support one another. As Homesteaders Co-op (HSCO) grows, we must keep in mind that the complexity and diversity of its moving parts may also expand, so here we are helping this free market stay running smooth together.

We found it essential for the good of everyone to highlight the vendors of the HSCO market place. Wouldn't be nice to know the individuals and families offering their goods and services a little more?

Every week vendors are featured on the web site. As a community, we thought that every week, we should feature these vendors here on the Steem blockchain (@HomesteadersCoop) to give everyone that much more exposure.

It takes a village to raise a child, because when people help eachother life is easier for everyone involved.

Without further ado, here are a few question I've conjured up... let's meet who is behind Porters Place:

SenorCoconut: I see that in your shop on the Homesteaders Co-op, you have a series of e-books called Bringing Out the Potential of Children. We ourselves are facing a decision for our 5 year old between a self directed education and the state's forced curriculum… I always have had the suspicion that a forced education system is what makes children lose their full potential. I haven't read your books, but I am very interested in how you propose "bringing out" children's potential. Could you give us a brief layout of what you wrote?

Porters: Concerning my book series series “Bringing Out the Potential of Children” - They came about from my involvement in the “Play and Exploration” program and also the fact that I’m a mother and grandmother. Over 100 young children have passed through our doors and I saw tremendous potential in these children and knowing I was working with them during their developmental years I wanted to do my best to get them on their way to reaching their greatest potential. This program is a child oriented program and we have tremendous flexibility with what we do in it.

Basically, how it works is, we set out invitations for kids to explore, based on their interests (if they have shown them) or from a vast area of different subjects. The children lead the play as they are exploring and we scaffold them to different levels, opening up different avenues of exploration and widening their horizons.

Unfortunately, where I am in Saskatchewan, Canada, they only have this program for Pre-K and Kindergarten but they are working on pilot projects to bring it to grand one too. I would love to see a form of it in all early grades!

Another great pilot project they are doing, that my granddaughter is involved in, is having the Montessori program brought into the public schools without the big fees.

My son was fortunate enough to be in the open school where they would complete the curriculum stuff in the morning and in the afternoon they would have the children decide what they wanted to learn and they would bring in people to cover those interests or take them on outings to explore the chosen topic. I tell you it made a world of difference to be in a classroom like that with mixed grades and you are free to move around the class instead of just sitting at your desk.

I don’t feel the regular public school systems are doing our kids any justice and I will not work in that system without programs like “Play and Exploration”. Reggio is another great program that I studied somewhat.

Back to my books.

Volume one on Writers/Authors came about after developing an online writing course with Dr. Jeffrey Lant, a master in the art of writing. I had learned a tremendous amount working with Dr. Lant and I wanted to pass it on to the kids.

Volume two on Gardeners. Gardening has always been a passion of mine and having the ability to grow my own food gives me a real sense of security. Children are so full of wonderment and what better place to feed that sense of wonder than with the miracles of nature that happen when gardening and growing your own food. I like to make it fun and have shown ways to do that in the book plus I give tips and ways to ensure those early successes to make for lifelong gardeners!

Volume three on Cooks/Chefs. I teamed up with Executive chef, Lisa Holder on this one. It kind of ties into the gardening one with growing your own food and preparing it. I show some different skills children may be capable of at different ages. Again I try to make it fun and interesting, allowing them to appreciate the sense of satisfaction in being able to prepare “real foods” for themselves and others. There is also a section for those that want to take it to another level and become a chef.

SenorCoconut: You often speak of food safety and natural medicine, what is your reason behind aiming to be self-reliant that way?

Porters: Seeing the degradation of society around me and finding it harder and harder to find unadulterated foods plus knowing that grocery stores typically have stock that would only last for a few days if not replenished, I found that it is essential to develop some sort of garden and to educate yourself on wild edibles and medicines, plus to get to know the local producers. This allows me to not be so reliant on the system. Also I like knowing what goes into my food and medicines. Knowing this gives me peace of mind.

I like to become less reliant on the medical system and big pharma for I find too much of what is offered there is more oriented as a business and into making profit. Also where I live, in a rural area where we have very little health care, we have a large indigious population which holds the wisdom of the plant medicines. This is what many folks have turned too and which makes more sense to me to use, these natural medicines.

SenorCoconut: As we now know, "climate change" is real and affecting all kinds of people. Without getting political, what are your thoughts on pollution and carbon footprint?

Porters: After living in a natural setting, the boreal forest, for over 25 years, I feel a great affinity to nature and it grieves me so to see the wanton destruction and rampant greed!

I have lost faith in government as I’ve been an active environmentalist doing my part to steer clear of polluting our environment, but it seems when we are making headway to make real changes, greed or other forces seem to prevail. Thus I have chosen to put my energies elsewhere. I’ve learned to reduce my wastes, cut down my carbon footprint and live a more sustainable lifestyle.
One thing I’m really big on is gardening for food security and I’m willing to help anyone along these lines. In fact, I’ve been writing a series of posts documenting my indoor gardening project. That is something I think may be more important in the future, to have the ability to grow your own food in a controlled environment with all this extreme weather that is going on. Here’s the link to the last post which will have links to all the other 12 parts in the series : https://steemit.com/gardening/@porters/april-fools-day-and-spring-is-playing-tricks-on-us-plus-indoor-garden-update

SenorCoconut: The world of mindfulness is pretty large, I am curious to know what is an important practice to you. What keeps you motivated, at peace and what helps you be you?

Porters: One thing that made a big change in my life was connecting with my husband and taking a vipassana meditation course, which he was already well developed in and is a meditation practise we can do together.
As I age, I’m now 63, this becomes a bigger part of my life and has brought greater awareness into my life, enabling me to get to know myself better and to be at peace more and live more harmoniously.
I asked myself the question the other day - “What would be your perfect day?” It would be to be in a meditative state, communing with nature, from dawn to dusk!
For anyone who is interested we have started the “Mindful Life” discord community through @NaturalMedicine. Where we run group meditations and support each other as we grow through conscious awareness. I’d like to invite you to come join us in the @naturalmedicine server here.

SenorCoconut: You say "It is the children who are our future", I feel this is often forgotten. I sometimes say that besides a couple elders, there should be no one above the age of 45 in government. Children have an enormous amount of creativity through their un-broken imagination, what was the driving force behind writing your book series "Bringing Out the Potential of Children"?

Porters: When you think of it, the future will be the children’s world. We are shaping it right now but it is them who will inherit it. The potential of that future (which is also a part of our future) lies in the seeds of the children. If you can help them develop to their greatest potential it will make for a brighter future!
I set out to write this book series “Bringing Out the Potential of children” for I truly believe in the potential of children and I wanted to bring that out or see it develop. I chose the medium of books which I felt was a good way for me to share my knowledge and expertise and the expertise of others in the different volumes I could write. Hopefully I can get it into the hands of parents, caregivers or anyone who shared that desire to see the children become all they could be.

I am so greatfull for the time you have devoted to answer my questions! Your work, to bring out the potential of the generations to come is incredible and very important for the happiness and well being of our future. I will defenitely want to read all three volumes. Also, I would like to say how much the three different subject matters make sense to me, especially in the self-reliance sphere.

One, learning how to tell a story is important for the self and for passing on knowledge. Miscommunication must be one of the greater culprits in fighting.

Two, knowing how ro grow your own food can really re-create the well needed connection we once had with our natural habitat. Of course knowing what you eat and not having to depend on grocery stores is genius as well.

Third, too many people don't know how to cook these days. What good is it growing your own food if you don't know how to eat it?

Thank you for the work you do @Porters, and thank you for letting us have a deeper look into your life, your heart is full of love for our fellow humans and the environment we live in. I feel honoured to have you featured on this post!

For those of you who would like to look at @Porters' shop on HSCO here's a quick link: Porters Place!

Thank you so much for the time you have taken to read this whole interview and please, stay tuned for next week's featured vendor... Same time, same place!

@SenorCoconut

PS: Special thanks to @Riverflows for the graphics on that first image at the top of the post 💚 and of course @Homesteaderscoop for being an awesome community!

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