The difference between extroverts and introverts is how they think. An introvert thinks silently, and when he has come up with an answer, he talks. An extrovert thinks out loud. The process of talking helps an extrovert think. Read more
Thank you so much for a great year. Before you get to the list of the best posts, I want to say thank you.
This photo summarizes homeschooling for me so far: the feeling of being smothered by my kids, and at the same time being surprised by how happy I am with it. The community on this blog has been invaluable in helping me to handle both feelings at the same time. Read more
Amazingly, a lot of people who read this blog are sending their kids to public school. At first I thought those parents were crazy, since I’m constantly telling them their school sucks. But then I realized that these parents are incredibly open-minded and genuinely trying to get information to help make good decisions. This post is especially for those parents.
Here are some things I’ve uncovered about how to hack the school system: Read more
Here’s a photo of my family on a trip to Florida. Something that is totally unremarkable for a family photo is that everyone is different ages. Of course people who are different ages play together. The kids who want to swim go in the ocean. The kids who want to build sand castles go find shovels. No one says, “Ten and eleven year olds all go together!” Because who cares how old the kids are? Read more
A few months back Katherine Williams asked me to send a photo of myself holding a sign that gives advice to parents about homeschooling. What advice would I have wanted to hear as a new homeschooler? She said she was going to make a video, and look, here it is. Read more
I am an obsessive reader of tabloids. I know all the story lines, I know everyone’s kid’s name, and I google William and Kate when there’s a week with no news of them in print. Read more
Families that are cohesive and intradependent generate high academic achievers. Families that are child-focused create high academic achievers.
Families that are broken, non-child focused, and full of conflict generate creative thinkers. Read more
This is a picture of a teacher in Providence public schools reading his resignation letter. He teaches second grade, and he’s fed up with the changes schools have made in order to ensure that kids are good test takers. At the end of his letter, what’s clear is that a huge result of test-focused schooling is that the socialization aspects of school are lost; you can’t test socialization, so in a test-based system there is no point in having it. Read more
My mom and dad were pretty terrible parents. My brothers and I each went through our own hell, and everyone in the family has been in therapy—together and separately—to deal with the result of their parenting.
It’s hard to wake up every day and let my kids play video games as much as they want. I feel scared, like they will look back on their childhood and think it was full of missed opportunity or dull repetition. I have to spent hours reading about the benefits of video games and the importance of child-directed learning. Read more