Thoughts on rules
As a parent, I put a lot of thought into rules, maybe more than most. This may surprise many of my friends and family, since what they saw from the Continue Reading →
Tag Archives: unschooling
Unschool Parenting 101
It’s August. School is either about to start or has already started where you are. If you’re unschooling, life doesn’t change much except for the reappearance of school buses and Continue Reading →
Librarians
Librarians have always been among the most thoughtful and helpful people. They are teachers without a classroom. –Willard Scott Libraries have always held a special place for Continue Reading →
One Smart Apple
Yesterday afternoon, I felt hungry and wandered into the kitchen for a snack. I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl. It not only looked appealing, but that sweet, crunchy, Continue Reading →
Do unschoolers ever do things they don’t want to do?
I frequently describe unschooling or self-directed learning as kids doing what they want to do all the time. Because I chose not to put my kids in school, nor did I make any Continue Reading →
Year-round freedom
Lots of people would ask me if I gave my kids the summer “off”, which always amused me. This question gets right to the heart of the difference between schooling and child-directed learning. Continue Reading →
Strategies
Recently I was playing a board game with four elementary-school-aged kids each teamed with their volunteer Big Brother or Big Sister. I noticed at each turn that three of the Continue Reading →
Love of learning
A child who is learning naturally, following his curiosity where it leads him, adding to his mental model of reality whatever he needs and can find a place for, and Continue Reading →
Choice words
“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose Continue Reading →
100 years from now
A child’s education should begin at least one hundred years before he was born. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. This quote comes up for me each time I’m thinking about my Continue Reading →