The shared space between writer and audience (even if, such as in this case, you may never meet that other) is beautiful. It is human and tender. It is tortured and animalistic. Raw and true.
Home-school does not mean No school. Because I settled on this principle as one of my core philosophies with my daughter, I felt our homeschooling environment should be reflective of this motto, and yet still uphold my overarching belief that learning should be a balanced dance between student...
A guiding philosophy and specific intentions can help you choose your curriculum content and material.
Incentives and rewards can have opposite effects than their intentions. Whether used in public, private, or home-school settings, they need to be carefully chosen.
Unlike the many questions I had to answer about why I was deciding to home-school, my husband’s questions concerned the how. How are you going to do it? How are you going to know what to teach her? How are you going to be sure she’s on track for...
“You have to be really disciplined. If I did it, we’d all sleep in and wouldn’t get started until around 10 a.m. There’s no way I could do it—we’d both end up crying. I hope you’re not using one of those online things . . . .” ...
“Mom! Come look!” Excitement. That is key. It is one of my principal intentions for education. All learners retain access, but sadly, we wean our children away from it little by little. Teachers remorse to the chorus of, “Why do we have to do...
In the waiting room of our family vet, my daughter and I sat next to a mother with her two children. The oldest boy was reading a book, and the youngest was asking, “Do I have to do the whole next page?” He was working on a summer bridge...
Most parents feel it—that push to over-enrich during the two short months wherein our child’s daily scheduling falls entirely upon our shoulders. My husband and I attended a silent auction last week, and I all but had to physically restrain my...
The sun is beating down on you. Your shirt is a wet mop, but you dig your heels deeper into the asphalt. The barriers are just ahead and timing is everything. Breathe, dig, dig, breathe—. You are a gazelle and the hurdles only stones of a small...
Behind choosing your child’s educational path, helping your child deal with emotional pain has to be second. Married at eighteen and parents at nineteen, my husband and I are a decade ahead of our close friends, Caleb and Lisa. Caleb came to the...
Many scholars and politicians have identified the inherent flaws in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law enacted by the former Bush administration. Since coming into office, President Obama has followed through with his intended goal of revision to...
“ . . . as the world economy demands more nonroutine, creative, conceptual abilities—too many schools are moving in the wrong direction. They’re redoubling their emphasis on routines, right answers, and standardization. And they’re hauling...
“I am so totally going to Walmart after class and buy me some watercolors.” The unit is on the argument of whether or not art has a place within society. Plato argued it disrupted our sense of reality with our copies of copies. He believed...
I’m five minutes late—damn. That means the kids are spread out about the room, facing the wall, pretending to read. Mrs. Pugel is, no doubt, trying to work with her small reading group, but her attention is naturally being diverted by the verbal...
“You teach like . . . you’re teaching an art class—it’s meant as a compliment.” Today, a young man in my Composition 122 class said this to me. I take it as a sign. For me, teaching is a form of art. I’ve taught at two community...
It’s late. I stayed up grading and topped the evening off with a re-run of Star-Trek. My husband and I crawl into bed, and just as I set the alarm, he says, “So, what are we going to do about Isa next year?” “What do you...
The most difficult choices you will face as a parent are your children’s educational ones. While volunteering at the school science fair setup, I met two moms who shared the sentiment. Two of us were new families to the school and the...
Danielle is a girl in my daughter’s class. Tiny, strawberry-blond-haired beauty with a story to text. Yesterday was her birthday, and Danielle’s grandmother brought in cupcakes to celebrate. Later that same day, Danielle’s mother showed up...
Should trigger fireworksin the night sky— one color for the way she jumped and squealed in the contraband sprinkler at that place we rented down in Bessemer. The way she booty-danced rhythm in front of speakers still taller than she—an...
My seven-year-old sees the start to a new school year approaching—my seventeen-year-old sees the end of summer vacation approaching. In homes across America, similar perspectives are being aired. Parents are either waking to a little one’s...
Each of us carries the infinite burden of impossibilities, a list of all we cannot one day choose to do. Determinism is a haze, a firm truth that defies clear definitions. I cannot be an architect— and you...
There’s a Native American proverb that goes: Don’t walk behind me—I may not lead; Don’t walk in front of me—I may not follow; Walk beside me that we may be as one. The proverb hangs artistically upon my kitchen wall, a gift from my...
Go for that walk Maybe you will get to see your child run like time across an open field Go for that walk There may be a baby deer waiting along the edge of the gravel path Go and hold hands with your husband,...
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.” –An English Proverb attributed to John Heywood, 1546, with origins potentially rooted in Jeremiah 5:21. As a teenager, my favorite movie was Dream a Little Dream. I knew every line. My...
The music blares from suspended speakers. Some mornings, it is too cool to swim, but not today—today the glare of heat circulates the waiting mamas and papas like halos of model parenthood. When the instructors call time, you see the...
It’s a line from the 20th Century Fox animated Thumbelina spoken by the overly ethnicized character of Mother Toad as she tells Thumbelina her destiny is to settle down and “do those things domésticas.” It’s one of those lines that, like...
Death clings to our home these days. Involuntary bug-animal slaughters by innocent hands. She yearns to learn them. Crushes them to her understanding. Our two black Labs her faithful minions. First there was the garter, slithering its need ...
And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. ---from...
A light glow from the desk, the presence of my husband, facing an illuminated screen-- Seated at the white,ceramic-tiled breakfast nook, my girls and I vie for his attention. There is a lit candle nestled into the corner, alongside the wine...
More dreams will be deferred and denied. And our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse. —Obama’s speech on “American Recovery and Reinvestment” Jan. 2009 I sit in the living room...
"Just click your heels and repeat--." If only it were so simple. This first post is my introduction to the hub of potential readers, so I should give you a short synopsis of my current life. I am a thirty six year old wife, mother, educator--and...