A few thoughts on Freddie deBoer’s updated article on why education doesn’t lead to educational mobility (children moving from one level of educational attainment to another, over the course of their formal education). First, people failing to appreciate how percentiles work always causes me to languish. I have a son who is over the 99th…
I appreciate this post from Nancy Kelly, which is a transcription of Charlotte Mason’s notes on her trainee teachers’ teaching. There is no one around to observe a homeschool mom when she teachers her children (unless your husband is working from home upstairs), but I imagine I’m not the only one who finishes a lesson,…
I think that school’s terrible. It’s not a great fit for human nature. Some people like to sit in a chair, and be talked at for a long time, and then go off and read a lot, and so forth. But, we, generally, are not creating a very curious, fun, even intellectually-engaging place for young…
I mentioned that I barely read anything over my family vacation last week. It’s too easy to fall away from a good habit – reading before bed, reading in spare time, etc – and the reading rut followed me home. I can only justify reading so many detective novels, as good as they are at…
Food for thought in this article by Eric Hoel in March. While school choice makes little difference to a child’s outcomes, individual tutoring does. The traditional line for why essentially all intellectuals used to be aristocrats is that they were the only people with the leisure time to pursue the life of the mind. But…
Last week my husband and I took a six day/five night trip to Kentucky – without the kids. One could be forgiven for thinking we took it easy, rested, and relaxed. Instead, we hiked about 23 miles over three days, in hot and humid weather. We drank lots of water. Despite all the sweat and…
A few more thoughts on yesterday’s post: It was pointed out to me that the idea of ‘fossil sunshine’ is quite broad and well-known, and Goudge could have found the idea many places. To add some context to the quote, Hugh Anthony, the reader, is an eight year old reading a geography book under the…
These ancient forests grew by means of the light and heat of the sun, so that a piece of coal is really so much fossil sunshine! And when you warm yourselves by the fire, you are really enjoying the heat of the sun, which was poured down on some forest of those old, old days,…
How is narration going in your homeschool? Personally, I have a 4.5 year old who likes his chance to tell back, a nearly-seven-year-old who is pretty enthusiastic (although will miss out major plot points from time to time), and an eight year old who is completely capable but who is a bit slow to start…
When we first start homeschooling, we rarely have the benefit of watching other people educate their children on a daily basis (unless, of course, we were home educated ourselves!). We pour over schedules, book lists, and examples of the homeschool days of other families. This can be helpful, but sometimes all the variety can be…