I have been adjusting nonstop since we moved to Swarthmore in December. There are things that seem small, like getting my son onto a basketball team. But nothing is straightforward. I didn’t know how things work here so we were so late in signing up that they said my son could only be on the team if I’d coach.
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When my friends ask about homeschooling I say, “All the data and research says that kids don’t need to be in school. I realized that it would be totally irresponsible and self-serving of me to not take my kids out of school.”
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This is a guest post from Sarah Faulkner. She is a homeschooling mom in Washington state. She has five kids, ages 13, 11, 9, 5, and 2. 

On the surface, the stories of adopting a foster child seem so alluring. The Today Show did a fantastic feature on other people who said yes, and on kids who needed someone to say it.
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I get a lot of mail from people asking me how they can homeschool if they work full-time. Or if they have a new baby. Or if they hate being a teacher. All of these questions really boil down to the same question: how can we know if our kids are learning enough?
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In the music world a lot more girls excel at a young age than boys do. Because, like all things that require sitting still and paying attention, girls are better than boys. So my son has a lot of friends who are girls.
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Most of the “bad readers” are boys. This makes sense because most of the “bad dodgeball players” are girls. We don’t get up in arms about how girls don’t like dodgeball. Do< we get girls tutors to tell them how to aim for the head while pretending not to be aiming for the head?
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I’ve heard of the King of Prussia Mall throughout my life. It’s like Mall of America. It’s one of those malls that is so big it comes up in casual consumer conversations. But our first trip there was different than all other mall visits because the boys are old enough that I can let them to go look around by themselves.
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Kids put no effort into school because at school the teachers tell kids what to think about, which forces kids to stop being creative and curious and just focus on passing tests. As this opinion becomes more and more mainstream, more and more kids will stop wanting to try hard at school.
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I took the dog to Swarthmore. I didn’t initially. At first I told the boys we were each taking one backpack. And the cello, and the violin, and my laptop.
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I’m always curious about how my kids use technology. Part of it is my endless curiosity for what is coming in the future. And part is my interest in how we define education. But there’s also schadenfreude: I am so sick of Millennials telling me how stupid I am about technology. I’m just really relishing those first moments when Millennials feel old. So I look for them all the time.
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