Category: family life
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Homeschooling in the media – again
This morning, as we often do, my husband and I were discussing stuff. “I read an article yesterday in the Washington Post about homeschooling,” I said. “Same old, same old.” I proceeded to describe one of the details. “The daughter, whose parents were homeschooled by their Christian parents, is in second grade in public school,…
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Back to Homeschool
I wrote this about a dozen years ago, when my youngest kids were just becoming teenagers. While “edupreneurs” and the like looking to tap into homeschoolers as a market have created huge changes in the homeschooling landscape, the slow homeschooling our family and so many others enjoyed is still an available option. Slow homeschooling prioritizes…
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Evolving into slow homeschooling
It was inevitable. Now that families have been holed up for weeks at home, some parents are finding that doing school at home is a slog. As a result, we’re beginning to see stories about parents deciding to ditch the curriculum, and the stress that goes with it, in favor of a more relaxed approach.…
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The rise of hybrid homeschooling
It’s a new year, time for new intentions, resolutions, and oh yes, predictions. Last week I came upon an article that predicted four major education trends in 2020. One of them is “hybrid homeschooling.” It could just as easily be called “part-time school.” “For many families, the costs and obligations related to homeschooling are simply…
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Homeschooling: choice or sacrifice?
Recently I read an article that addressed sacrifices homeschooling parents must make. I appreciated the author’s thoughts and the honestly conveyed experiences she described, but I found that many of the sacrifices she wrote about are things I would not have thought to describe that way. That, in turn, got me thinking about the whole…
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Making kids welcome in the world
The other night I went to a fantastic concert by a jazz orchestra and an Ethiopian vocalist. I, along with hundreds of audience members, enjoyed every moment of it. As I looked around the mass of concertgoers I noticed, as I often do, the dearth of children in attendance. I counted at least three under…
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Homeschooling, feminism, & the third way
Recently I had the opportunity to see a bunch of moms from my old homeschooling days. We talked about our adult children, how and what they’re doing, and we engaged in some reminiscing. One mom and I discussed how we feel now that our kids are grown and we have more time on our hands.…
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How to spend your summer vacation
Three years ago, I wrote a blog post about summer. As a spate of articles and advertisements for “self-directed” summer programs has recently found its way into my orbit, I got to thinking about it again. More and more institutions, centers, and structured environments that promote “self-directed learning” are seeing the light of day. The…
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The semantic bleaching of ‘unschooling’
Even though semantic bleaching, the evolution of a word’s meaning over time, is a natural process in language, it can sometimes create confusion, annoyance, and even protest (think of the ongoing media lament over the word “literally”). In homeschooling circles, the current buzz is all about the word “unschooling.” Weeks ago I wrote about it…
A Potluck Life 