Missing Home

These last few months that the kids have all been in school have been eye-opening for me.
Sometimes when I was homeschooling, I second guessed. I wondered whether the kids were really getting out of it what I thought they were. My gut said yes, but there was no real proof, no way to be sure. [...]

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The Reality of The Classroom

Teachers have impossible jobs.
My daughter is in a multi-age grades 1-2-3 classroom, with 20 or so other children. One of them has Down’s syndrome, another has a severe learning disability, and the entire clump of kids in grade one are very not-school-ready little boys who clearly would be much happier running around than sitting quietly [...]

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Schools Are a Recent Invention

Why do we send our kids to school?
Because we went to school. And we were sent to school because our parents themselves had been to school. It’s what we’re familiar with, it’s what’s expected, it’s what kids do. Children have to go to school because if they don’t, they won’t learn what they need to [...]

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Letting Kids Learn

I’ve learned a lot while homeschooling my children, particularly this last year, when youngest son’s distaste for workbooks and learning assignments became very clear. He’s a lot like his mother in that he hates being told what to do, and hates anyone trying to teach him anything. He hated his one year in public school [...]

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Freedom to Learn

Here’s a link to a new blog written for Psychology Today by a professor of evolutionary and developmental psychology which intends to “explore the roles of play and exploration as the foundation of learning”. He presents evidence for the importance of child-directed activities in the development of self, and explains how traditional schooling may [...]

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One Field Trip Too Many

We went to yet another pioneer house (I have to admit to having a special fondness for that time in history, most likely spawned by my love affair with the Little House on the Prairie series of books). This one was right in the middle of the city, so the heavy road construction and [...]

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He’s a Big Boy Now

R got a letter in the mail yesterday.
It was an official acceptence to university.
For some reason, the letter made me feel strange. He’s been “taking courses” at highschool since he was nine, and now, the way he sees it, he’s simply going to be doing the same at a different building. Finding courses he’s interested [...]

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