If your child is enrolled in school, it is illegal to take your child out of school to do family events, educational trips, etc. I know this because I when I had my son in first grade I ended up having to go to the truancy officer in my little Wisconsin town. Read more
It’s never really been clear to me how I ended up in special education classes my freshman year of high school. But there I was: Algebra for the slow learners (confession: I could barely keep up with them). Read more
Time magazine has a great article about why schools can’t teach sex ed. The bottom line is that public schools can’t go near the type of information kids are looking for. And any school that depends on parents writing tuition checks is going to stay as far away from useful sex ed as they can. Read more
My in box is full of links people send me when they have nowhere else to turn in frustration. Some days I think the failings of school are so predictable that I can’t believe people even bother to write about it anymore. Read more
If you start with the premise that self-directed learning is best, then we have to assume you have a kid who is interested in looking at new things.
So you get excited, and want to show your kid Starry Night, probably, because every school across America is having grade schoolers reproduce Starry Night (with something that does not resemble the heavy oil paints that make the masterpiece what it is.) Read more
We are at the top of the John Hancock building and I think to myself that maybe my son’s wedding will be here…
My younger son is not a farm kid. I mean, you’d think he’s a farm kid because he collects eggs every day and he can herd cattle in a pinch, but there is no question in my mind that he will grow up and go to a city. He’ll marry a girl who does not shop at Farm and Fleet. Read more
As a career coach I’m constantly stunned by how unprepared kids are for the workforce. Teachers and parents spend tons of time telling kids to get good grades and get into a good school, but no one mentions that good grades actually have little correlation to workplace success. Read more
I have let my kids run wild all over our farm, doing whatever they want, even in the almost-dark of early autumn evenings.
We have a lot of land. They have a lot of choices. Read more
Donalyn Miller is a reading expert who also writes a blog. I took a look at her site today and the first post I read was about how the reading curriculum does not encourage reading. You already know the arguments, but one interesting one Miller added is that she read three picture books with her granddaughter but the books did not count as reading because there are no words.
The assumption behind the idea of instilling a love of learning is that your kids are not born with a love of learning.
It’s a terrible assumption. And probably wrong. Humans are born curious—as a species, we’re constantly learning something new. Babies learn to read faces because we are visually curious. Not because their parents purposefully instilled in their kids an interest in faces. And we acquire language without going to school because we are curious and we are self-motivated to learn. Right off the bat. Read more