Kids in poverty are behind before they get to school, which means the problems we need to fix are not problems with school. Read more
This ad for McDonald’s stuck with me because I realized my kids are speaking a language I don’t really speak. My younger son texts his friends and their hours-long conversations sometimes have no words. Only emojis. Read more
School is full of situations where we are expecting much more of kids than we expect of ourselves, as adults. Successful adults are successful at least partially because they have learned to avoid what is difficult or unpleasant for them. Yet, so many adults tell kids they need to learn to do things they hate. Read more
I have a lot of ideas for saving money. A lot of them don’t work. I had this idea for wallpapering my dining with the pages of Moby Dick. I got the idea from an Anthropologie store. Read more
It used to be that the key to being a smart kid in school was to memorize everything. But now that we have the Internet, memorizing is not such a useful skill. On the other hand, the ability to search is an incredibly useful skill. But what does that skill look like for homeschoolers? Read more
This is an email I received recently:
I love reading your posts. You have some frank, insightful ideas. My daughters have enjoyed all of their education in Montessori schools which we have all loved. They have had a lot of control over what they learn and how they learn it with no homework or tests which is important to me. Read more
A post titled Our Kids Don’t Need F@*#ing Pedal Desks, They Need Recess got 40,000 likes on Facebook, meaning 40,000 people thought their friends needed to hear that. But those 40,000 people are not taking their kids out of school and they are not participating at a legislative level to change recess policies. Read more
The SAT is important for kids who don’t go to school. Your SAT score tells admissions officers whether you can handle the workload of a college environment. Read more
Sometimes I worry that I’m not teaching my kids enough. Like when they can’t identify Brazil’s flag or when they seem to have bad animal skills, or people skills, or math skills. Read more
Obama wants all kids to learn to write code. As if this is the new sure-fire path to the middle class. Or higher! But this sounds suspiciously like the iconic, terrible career advice Dustin Hoffman received in the movie The Graduate: Plastics. Read more