In the United States, our education system stinks. But parents in “good school districts” tell themselves they are different. The problem with this logic is that it’s precisely those economically advantaged kids who don’t need school. Read more
This is a guest post by Anya Kamenetz, pictured above with her daughter. Kamenetz leads education coverage at NPR, and her new book is The Test: Why Our Schools are Obsessed with Standardized Testing – But You Don’t Have to Be.
Between kindergarten and 12th grade, students in the US on average take 113 standardized tests. There is a huge movement among parents to protect their kids from this onslaught of tests. And the teachers generally can’t stand teaching to the tests, or administering the tests. Which makes you wonder, why is the testing culture so entrenched in our schools—even among school reform leaders? Read more
This is a guest post from Erin Wetzel. She is a artist who lives in Tacoma WA (that’s her drawing). She homeschools her daughter. You can connect with her on instagram @ekwetzel.
I’m going to go ahead and confess: we use food stamps.
It’s not fun living right above the poverty line. I’m ashamed that we can’t afford our basic needs. I’m tired of not having a phone and cutting my own hair and making all our meals at home. I’m tired of carefully asking the grandparents at Christmas if, instead of buying new toys, they’d help us pay for Phoebe’s ballet lessons. Read more
My son and I are on one of our pretty-much weekly shopping trips to buy clothes that he doesn’t need. I love watching him get giddy at a shirt rack. He tries on clothes for hours, and I wonder: is it okay for him to buy women’s clothes? Is it okay to let him buy outfits as a hobby? Are hats okay inside? Read more
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.
Everything is so hard right now. I am tired—I can barely keep my eyes open to feed the kids, and all I can think is how the orthodontist told me the preteens are not brushing their teeth often enough. I am so stinking tired I can’t even manage to tell them to keep their teeth clean. Read more
This is a guest post from Angel Mulhearn who is mother to two kids ages 5 and 3. Prior to that she was a kindergarten teacher. Angel is also my sister-in-law who lives on the farm next door to ours. She took her son out of school a few months ago. This is the list of reasons she wrote to explain to people who asked why she was doing it.
1. Sitting still for 7 hours a day is not developmentally appropriate for children who are 5 or 6 years old.
The first week of school, our son was beyond exhausted at the end of the day. Our normally energetic, spirited boy who loves to ride his bike, climb trees in the yard, and run away from “bad guys” was too tired to play outside. Even on the most beautiful warm days of September and October, he would say he wanted to “go inside to rest.” Read more
When my son started showing interest in reading about science, we subscribed to Science News. I remember as a kid I would read pretty much anything that was sitting in front of me, so I read unlikely-but-interesting things like Johnny Got His Gun, I’m Ok You’re Ok and The Sensuous Woman. So I thought it’d be great to just sort of have Science News around the house. Read more
Jennifer Senior has a great article in New York magazine about our cultural delusions about entrepreneurship. For example, most people say they want to work for themselves, but most people will never do it. They like a regular paycheck, and they like going to work in an office that is not in arrears. They like co-workers who are mentally stable and not willing to risk their family’s finances on pie-in-the sky ideas like vertical knowledge networks. Read more
This course will teach you how to write about your life. It includes five days of of video sessions and email-based course materials. You can purchase this workshop for anytime, on-demand access. The cost is $195.
When I started writing this homeschool blog I had no idea where it would lead. I just kept writing. It turns out that writing about my life on this blog has helped me feel much more connected to the rest of the world while I navigate my own life that sometimes feels like an isolated bubble. Also writing about my life has given me a way to keep a meaningful scrapbook of events (like up top, my son pulling out his own tooth) and ideas (like why it’s okay that we don’t have curricula, or do have curricula, or anything else I’m reading about). Read more
This is a guest post from Satya Khan. She is one of my favorite writers. She writes memoir in the form of a newsletter. You can subscribe to her emails at Unfolded Note.
I still sleep at the foot of the bed. Each night as their bodies grow quiet, my children reach their limbs over mine, pinning me down in their quest for comfort. When I am here, they can never have enough. Inch by inch as they grow heavier, I slither down toward open space like a weed.
When we are home together — and we’re home together a lot — I don’t get down on the floor like a good parent would. I mostly try to hide in an empty room until they find me, which doesn’t take long. I exist best in silence and stillness, but my son operates on a steady diet of chatter. And his will is stronger than mine.
So I enroll him in kindergarden for the fall, at a school that is barely a school at all. It’s their first year as a charter, and they don’t have a playground, a library, or a nurse. What they have is a giant forest, with a creek running through. And there’s a wooden platform, which is too tall for my son to climb. At the open house, he spends the whole time trying to figure it out. He directs his will toward the challenge, which for once, does not involve me. He decides he likes this school. And I do, too.