Unschooling NYC

Photography is a hobby of mine.  I love wandering around the city with my camera, challenging myself to find a new perspective and take a great photo.  Or two.  Every now and then I come back with a shot of which I am truly proud, and thanks to social media, I can easily share it with my friends and acquaintances.

It’s lovely to hear that other people enjoy my photos, and every so often someone suggests that I could make money with them.   While I wouldn’t object if an opportunity came along that would show my work on a larger … Read more

You know the biggest problem with the “have it all” myth?   It sells people the false idea that you’ll never have to prioritize; that all things in your life will be equal and will receive equal attention.   “All things” usually means career, children and marriage (or your relationship with one significant other, in whatever form it takes).   You’ll be able to be a great parent, have a wildly successful career and an ever dynamic, satisfying relationship.   Nothing will need be put on the back burner, no one will receive less than your full and rapt attention and interests will never … Read more

When did we start believing that learning must be linear to be valid?   That certain things must be learned at a certain age before the next thing can be learned?

Hand in hand with that is the idea that “important” subjects must be revisited on a daily basis, year after year, in order to be learned with any depth.   It is deemed irrelevant whether we have an interest in these subjects or not – they are required.

I wonder why more people don’t notice that life doesn’t work this way?    Learning is rarely linear in nature when it is genuine, … Read more

Sometimes I get roped into conversations/debates over which method of homeschooling is best.   Most homeschoolers I know personally are much more traditional than we are, either following a set curriculum or an eclectic gathering of materials. I am  used to both defending unschooling and championing self-directed learning over other forms of home education.

When it comes down to it, though, the most important aspect of learning outside of school is that your child is learning outside of school.   No matter what the format.    Compulsory classroom schooling is so detrimental to a child’s emotional and sometimes physical state that it is … Read more

In this hyper-competitive, largely Type A oriented world in which we live, we are always told – usually by “the experts” – that it’s better to learn any subject or skill while very young.  The earlier the better.  Hence the proliferation of companies like Kumon and ABC Mouse, and ever earlier learning programs.  Hence the myth that to become truly accomplished at anything, you must start doing it almost from birth.

When Maya was a baby, people were always telling me to enroll her in classes.  Swimming topped the list, followed by things like piano or violin and as many … Read more

These are the questions  I have answered more times than I can count.

Your kids have really never been to school?

How do they learn math?

How do you know that they’re learning what they need to know?

Will they attend high school?

How do you make sure they aren’t falling behind?

What does your typical day look like?

These questions are then followed up with statements such as:

You must have a lot of patience.

I could never spend that much time with my kids.

———–

If you’ve ever seen the movie “Bull Durham”, there is a great scene … Read more

Ever feel like you’ve been hidden away in your own little world, oblivious of the machinations going on all around?

That’s how it has been in our family for the past few months, especially in relation to the wider world of “education” and “school”.   It’s like we’ve been hibernating.

Never have I felt more distant from the term “unschooling”,  because school?  School is so far from our reality at present that it comes across as something foreign; a country we’ve never visited and about which we have no desire to learn.   Lately I’ve stopped thinking about school, even as it … Read more

Encouragement is not the same as false praise.

One supports and guides, the other flatters and coddles.

One often includes constructive criticism, the other sees any criticism as a blow to self esteem.

Encouragement helps a person see the possibilities open to them and helps them do what it will take to succeed.   False praise makes a person believe – at least temporarily – that they are already the best and need not do anything extra to succeed.  (Disillusionment in one form or another almost inevitably follows.)

It is important to know the difference, because encouragement in the pursuit of … Read more

A couple of weeks ago I stopped being able to write on this blog.   Some glitch in the system made all the pages come up blank when I would log in to my WordPress account to try and post.   A shout out for help on Facebook gave me some good suggestions but nothing worked.

So what did I do?

I ran right out and signed up for a class on WordPress coding, of course!   (Also, I have this bridge in Arizona you might be interested in purchasing…)

No, what I really did was dig around in my gmail archives for … Read more

For several years both my kids took art classes from an amazing teacher here in Manhattan.  She has a studio on the Upper West Side and we were introduced to her by one of Maya’s friends who took her after school art classes.   At one point someone in the homeschool community organized a daytime class for homeschoolers, which we joined.   After the first year, I became the organizer of the class, gathering names and setting up class days and times – being the liaison between the teacher and the NYCHEA community.

The class was not cheap by homeschooling standards (most … Read more