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Train-ahead Transit Adventure

 Part of our unschooling plan has always been for the gang, 10 year-old Daize, 9 year-old Mota, and 6 year-old Tawnse to get themselves from place to place. The fact that we live in San Franicsco where a major metropolitan transit system exists that doubles as a school bus system has made this easier.

Still, practie makes perfect, so we entered into a new phase of our tranist-readiness program today: preparing to ride BART trains solo. The kids have gone a few cars ahead of me before with no issues, so it seemed like a good idea today for the gang to try heading out one whole train ahead of me. On top of that we found ourselves in the perfect scenario with two trains leaving to the same destination, one just a minute behind the other. And so we tried, but I gotta warn you, our results were interesting but mixed in my opinion, and yes, it was my fault.



Finding ourselves with the perfect temporal spacing, I decided we could just 'go for it' even though we were headed to a station none of us had in depth knowledge of, Civic Center. Since there are a lot of exits to that station, and the gang and I wing it with respect to exiting every time we're there, I asked them to hop on the train ahead of me, and then wait on the platform when they arrived at Civic Center. They did. I arrived literally one mintue later, on the next train, and...

They were being observed by the transit police. The police were about twenty yards from the gang, but they were there.

I got off my train, waited till I was about ten feet behind the police, and then hollered hey guys to the kids and waved. One of the officers turned around, smiled at me, and then both officers headed out to do other things.

Everything went kinda great? I mean, well, gosh, even though the gang didn't need it, good to know the police are watching apparently, everything? Also, good to know the police are apparently good with kids being on the platform.

Where'd I screw up? I think if the gang had moved purposefully under their own power to head out, they wouldn't have even turned up on anyone's screen as an event to be observed. I should have planned better.

On our way back, we went back to car behind rather than train behind in a station we knew better, and everything went remarkably well. The gang hopped out, didn't acknowledge me, and headed out of the station. No one batted an eye.

One final note. When we surfaced at Civic Center, we found ourselves in the middle of the Wednesday farmers' market there. I noticed the truck of the lettuce and tomato farmer we buy from on Saturdays. We went to say hi, but found the farmer's husband instead. But! He knew who we were since she always talks about us! I was quick to point out to the gang that they were only a short distance from someone they knew. They haven't put together all the pieces yet, but they were super-psyched about the whole thing with respect to having someone else to get to say hi to and smile at :)





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