Before I complain about Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, I want to say that I love him. I love that right before Hurricane Sandy, when the people in Atlantic City wouldn’t evacuate, he screamed on television: “Get the hell off the beach!” That screamed authenticity to me. Read more
I don’t need to convince people to homeschool because people in my socioeconomic demographic mostly feel scared that they are not doing it. Most people are not big risk takers, but now, as homeschool grows in popularity, it’s hard to tell whether it’s more risky to leave kids in school or take kids out. Read more
When it comes to celebrating Independence Day, all I think of is how the rich colonists funded the war to stop paying taxes to England and then founded a national government so they could tax the poor people to pay back the money the rich people paid to fund the revolution. Read more
My son asked me if I could make cookies with him.
I told him I was on a coaching call and to wait fifteen minutes.
He threw a fit and said I always tell him to wait fifteen minutes.
After the call I went downstairs and he was making his own cupcakes.
I thought, Oh my god he used the mixer without me. I told him that I’m blown away that he did it all by himself.
This is unschooling. If I laid out curricula for him then neither of us would be surprised by the choices he made. He would be doing my choices instead.
As a society, how can we justify using our kids as educational guinea pigs for the next generation when there is no evidence that this experiment is even worthwhile? We just forced a whole generation of kids to squander their schools days to No Child Left Behind requirements. The experiment has been derided as largely a failure, yet we are still game to put another generation of kids through another educational experiment.. When will the cult of educational experimentation end, when will parents take their kids back home to learn on their own? Read more
I’m convinced that the risks of homeschooling are not about the kids: Of course they will learn because kids do that naturally, if you just leave them alone; and of course whatever you do at home will be better than school. The risk is that parents go nuts. Read more
When you start a blog you have no idea what it will become. I thought this would be a place where I try to figure out what to teach my kids. But really, you are not learning that here. You are probably learning about farm life. And video games. And a range of other stuff that is not curriculum.
My friend sent this photo to me. He was walking by the school and was struck by how much it looks like a prison. There are so many things that are so common in school that they are part of our social vernacular, but they are unique to the school system and prison system and nowhere else: Read more
This is a guest post from Satya Khan. I met her when she hired me for a coaching session, and I’ve remained friends with her since then. She has a daily newsletter about her experience raising young children. Her writing in the newsletter is breathtakingly beautiful and wicked smart and you can check it out here.
My husband, who teaches at a private school, is against homeschooling our kids. “That’s the path to crazy,” he said, when I suggested it for our sons. But he wasn’t talking about them. He was referring to me. Read more
There is a movement, among people who love the idea of locking kids up in school all day, to add deep reading to the national curriculum. Supposedly, kids don’t read well enough anymore. The Internet is making kids stupid. Or bad readers. Or lazy. Or all of the above. Read more