Category: Uncategorized
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The fallacy of the best and the brightest
Last week my daughter graduated from Harvard. It’s hard to believe it’s been four years since we dropped her off in the yard, right after her picture was plastered on the cover of Boston Magazine, something we certainly didn’t expect to happen after I was one of several parents interviewed for the article. The graduation…
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Busting homeschooling stereotypes
This week I read yet another really dumb article about homeschooling. Sherene Buffa, on a website called Momtastic, declares “I cannot imagine not sending my children to school.” The double negative in that sentence is indicative of the negativity in the larger piece, in which Buffa pretends to “top my hat off” to all us…
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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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To trust children, learn to trust yourself
One of the most disheartening things I came across during my years of homeschooling was the notion that children are helpless, incompetent, and will not learn unless they are instructed in a school-like manner. A recent post by Idzie Desmarais pointed out the folly of this viewpoint, and got me thinking. I was not unschooled…
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Homeschooling and the pursuit of success
An excellent article by Wendy Priesnitz has gotten me thinking about success. Most homeschooling parents, like Wendy, have experienced questions about whether their chosen path was “successful.” Many new homeschooling parents I meet look for “success stories” in order to reassure themselves that their choice isn’t doomed or foolish or crazy. Larger societal forces seek…
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Boredom — it’s not all it’s cracked up to be
boredom the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest For as long as I’ve been a parent the issue of how to deal with kids uttering the dreaded “I’m bored” has been a topic of discussion, articles, commentaries, and books. The conventional wisdom goes through phases. Bored kids are a sign of…
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The freedom to make mistakes
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” — Mahatma Ghandi They say mistakes are hard. You know what’s harder? Trying to think of a single thing you’ve ever learned without making one. Which, of course, makes thinking mistakes are bad patently ludicrous. If humans can’t learn,…
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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…
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Homeschooling: what if people stopped asking what if?
Recently I heard a national radio show host trying to wrap her head around homeschooling during an hour-long program on the topic. Many of her questions were of the “what if” variety. You know the type of questions I’m talking about. What if the kid doesn’t learn to read, what if the kid plays video…
A Potluck Life 