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We Were Already Homeschooling. This Quarantine is Not What Real Homeschooling Looks Like.
We homeschool. However, the word “homeschooling” is a misnomer.We do not spend all of our time at home doing school work. Our choice to skip school was not taken in favor of simply replicating school at home by dividing life and learning into subjects, inflexible time blocks, and bells. We chose to homeschool. It was not forced onto us. More specifically, we chose self-directed education because we wanted to expand the definition of education to include everything a person does and experiences. I wanted my kids to understand learning as something you do every, single day. And I wanted to move learning outside of classrooms, walls, rigid schedules, and state-mandated…
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3 Regrets of an Unschooling Mom
We have been homeschooling for 12 years, unschooling for close to 11. My kids have been unschooling since birth, though. I am the one who needed to catch up to what they instinctively knew to be true, which is: Learning happens ALL THE TIME even without adult involvement, control or meddling. Below are three things I sort of/kind of regret. I say sort of/kind of because I believe all our experiences teach us something. Even the failures–especially the failures. So, do I REALLY regret the following? Not necessarily. I mostly mourn the time I lost worrying and comparing. The upside, however, is by sharing my experiences in those early days…
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You Might Be Ego-schooling If…
Once upon a time, when our family first made the decision to forego the traditional schooling options, I dreamed of being a fabulous teacher to my kids. We would come together every morning, still dressed in our pajamas, sipping cocoa or nibbling on the morning breakfast I lovingly made while their sleepy bodies were still in bed, and we would read stories together, work equations, draw, or do science projects. I would have amazing lessons devised and they’d gleefully thumb through the pages of their ‘work packets’. On our best days they’d ask for more. I considered how our space should be arranged, I made a list of materials we needed,…
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If You Want Children to Love Learning, Let Them Lead
It’s 11 a.m., the first day of the new year, and my 14 year old has just come out of his room. Hair disheveled, loving grin on his face as his tall body bends over to give me a hug. This is how every morning begins if I’m home when he wakes. A warm embrace and a grin almost immediately followed with, “What’s for breakfast?” Today he says, “Mom. Did you know that the largest tsunami created a wall of water 3 miles high?” “I didn’t know that. That’s unbelievable.” I’m obviously interested and he continues with stories about prehistoric weather events, asteroids, the power of atomic bombs, and engineering…
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Why Children Need Pets
I grew up with pets. As a matter of fact, my rather impulsive (he probably thought of himself as forward thinking) Dad brought home a puppy to my two brothers the day my Mom brought me home from the hospital. Because you know, an infant and a puppy go hand in hand. I’m sure the adult conversations in the house that day were not pleasant. Nevertheless, Pierre the poodle and I grew up pals. We had many hours of cuddles and talks in the night when I was small. When I was in the sixth grade, he was put down. I do not remember all the details of his illness, but one…
