Here’s an article about how the lack of recess, art and music in school is making schools mind-numbing for kids. I love this article. I read it twice. I need positive reinforcement that school is so bad that there’s no way that homeschooling the kids could be worse. Then I let the kids rip off […]
The recent New York Times magazine features an article about what New York City private schools are teaching kids. They are teaching optimism, resilience and grit – three traits found to be most important to adult success. I left New York City in 2006, just as I had paid $10,000 to a consultant to get […]
There will be days when I will forget how bad things were. It’s like how people think their psychiatric meds are doing nothing, so they go off them. And then it’s bad. I can already tell there’s gonna be a time like that for homeschooling. The manic-depressives have to have a scrapbook of what went […]
Since we don’t have school anymore, and I can earn a living from anywhere, we went to Mall of America. I gave a speech at the University of Minnesota’s Business School, and I ended up bringing the kids and spending three days enjoying the fact that the amusement parks are empty during the school day. […]
My six-year-old made it through three days of school. Before school started, when I could see that he wanted to go, I asked the school to test him, so the school would be very aware of how far ahead he is. For example, he tested at the end of second grade for math. On his […]
I promised myself that I would stop going to the Lego store as a form of entertainment. There is no difference between using video games to take care of the kids and shopping to take care of the kids, except that while both are evil, video games don’t cost money every time we turn to […]
After less than a week of homeschooling I am so excited to have a day to myself that I could cry. I’m spending my days teaching my kids to be independent thinkers while I do not have enough headspace to have thoughts of my own. I miss the wide, expansive thoughts I had in cubicles. I […]
I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. It’s a great way to teach history to the kids. Or politics. Or science. To tell the kids I was there, and tell them what it was like. And after that lesson, I could teach them about resilience. Which I think is probably the most […]
I don’t think single parents can homeschool. I think it’s too scary. (There’s a good discussion about that in the comments on this post.) According to Shane Krukowski, CEO of Project Foundry, homeschooling is increasing at the rate of 30% per year. And only 38% of homeschoolers today do it for religious reasons. The bulk […]
My son came home with a list of words. The goal is for all first graders to read that list by the end of the year. He read the list out loud while he ate his after-school snack. I was so upset that I offered him another bowl of ice cream so we didn’t have […]