When my kids want to know something, they search for it on YouTube. It would kill me to watch a video to find out where Tajikistan is. But the kids go to YouTube for everything. Read more
When we moved from New York City to Madison, WI, I did tons of research on how to pick a place to live. But I didn’t realize that once you pick a city you have to do a lot of research about where to live within that city.
We had never even visited Madison before. We looked on a map. There was a nice park, and if you live in NYC, the idea of living in a rented house on a park is a dream come true. So we moved there. Read more
Since the 1930s Finland has sent each pregnant mom a cardboard box full of supplies they will need for the baby. In the 1930s the box had fabric, because most moms made their children’s clothes. Now there are onesies. In the 1950s disposable diapers were in, but by the 1990s they were replaced by cloth diapers in a nod to the environment. In the last decade the government removed the baby bottles to encourage breastfeeding. Read more
It’s clear that school is negatively impacting families. Parents protest loudly about the inadequacies of school. The picture up top makes me laugh, and so does this crazy homework assignment a Texas teacher handed out to fourth graders. Read more
The Aspen Institute is well-known as a place where the richest of the rich intelligentsia gather to hear each other talk about ground-breaking ideas. You can’t go, but you can read about it in newspapers. Read more
The New York Times mentioned this blog yesterday and said: “Proof that homeschooling often works.” (Hooray!)
I am convinced that homeschooling is about to go mainstream. The biggest evidence to me is that I’m doing it, and the New York Times is noticing. Because I don’t want to do it. I want my kids in school so I can work all day, in peace, and make a lot of money so I can buy the stuff I want and then be a great mom after school. I was geared up for that and then looked at all the evidence and thought it was completely dishonest to ignore all the evidence and put my kid in school.
Also, mainstream media is starting to paint the picture of a school system so broken that it will not be fixed in our lifetime. But in addition to that, mainstream media is starting to ask the question when else, besides in school, can we learn?
And finally, I have argued in other posts that Generation X is the iconoclast generation, and we do not have trouble bucking the educational system and pulling their kids out of school. And, just like in the workplace, what Gen X sets in place, Gen Y puts in motion. Gen X are the risk takers and the ground-layers, and Gen Y are the ones who have the demographic force to instigate massive change.
So, as the homeschool movement goes mainstream, it will change in at least a few ways: Read more