Recently I had the pleasure of chatting with Pam Laricchia on her Living Joyfully With Unschooling podcast. Pam is a longtime unschooler who’s written a few excellent books on the topic herself. As you can guess from the title of the podcast episode, we talked about time as a major benefit of unschooling, along with… Read More Talking about ‘The Gift of Time’ with Pam Laricchia
I recently read an essay by someone who temporarily homeschooled her kids. It didn’t work for her. While the author and I differ on our experiences with homeschooling, I do relate to her list of things that she wants for her kids. In her mind, homeschooling was an obstacle to those ends. In my experience,… Read More Perceived homeschooling pitfalls, and how to avoid them
The other day I heard about a bill to mandate recess in my state. The proposed law would require elementary school students to have at least 20 minutes a day of “supervised, safe and unstructured free-play recess.” 20 minutes? That floored me. Elementary school kids are approximately 6-11 years old. When my kids were that age, their… Read More I homeschooled my kids and recess was our curriculum
Not to beat a dead horse, but last week I went to see the movie “Captain Fantastic” again. Readers of this blog know how I felt about it the first time. So why would I see it again? The movie was being shown in my community as part of a film and discussion series on issues… Read More Captain Fantastic’s kids don’t need school, and neither do yours
Yesterday I read a nice essay about a homeschooling mom’s experience testing her kid. In her state, annual testing is required for homeschoolers. Since they’d taken an unschooling approach with their son, where he’d land was anyone’s guess. My guess would have been that he’d do just fine, and that’s exactly what happened. Even while… Read More Testing, testing, testing
Recently a friend told me about a conversation she had with a great musician, a person she hoped to study with. The musician, my friend told me, advised her to spend time listening to artists she admires. My son did that when, as a teenager, he spent hours absorbing videos and recordings by his mandolin… Read More What is an autodidact?
I recently heard from a mom whose husband is on the fence about unschooling because of math. He’s a math whiz whose introduction to the subject came from school, not home. He worries that unschooling won’t offer his kids what they need to develop strong interest and proficiency in mathematics, and they’ll lose the opportunity… Read More Unschooling for life
I first heard of homeschooling in a creative writing class. I was in my twenties and struck up a friendship with the other young mother in the group. When she said she didn’t send her kid to school, my reaction was full of the incredulity I regularly encountered later, once I jumped on the homeschooling… Read More I couldn’t wait to send my kids to school, but when I did…
Here in Boston, it’s Pride Day, a day to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. Pride events are fun and joyful, but they’re also serious. They happen in June to commemorate Stonewall, a significant event in LGBTQ+ history and a reminder of the work that still needs to be done to ensure acceptance and equality for all.… Read More Happy Pride Day
We’ve been getting some great feedback since Unschoolers came out on March 30. First, Patrick Farenga mentioned us in a nice review of fiction inspired by unschooling and John Holt specifically. Then we chatted with Kristen Tea for a piece in Mothering. Michelle Ristuccia wrote a great review for the summer issue of Learning Tangent. Sophia… Read More ‘Unschoolers’ in the news
A Potluck Life 