Unschooling NYC

I think I had other things on my mind to write about this morning when I woke up, but they were all eclipsed by the fact that it SNOWED for most of the day.   (What am I saying? It is still snowing as I write this.  It snowed all day.)  Not light little flakes but massive, wet, blanketing snow.    This was the view from my window at about 2:30 this afternoon:

Of course, my friend Anna got 16 inches of snow at her place on Wednesday, but she lives just outside of Boulder, CO.   This is New York City.   We … Read more

Had an interesting conversation last night with a friends of ours who is visiting from Israel.   I was explaining unschooling to him, particularly the point that learning is something that happens all the time, every day.    He said, “Yes, but most people wouldn’t consider that type of learning the same thing as ‘education’.”    And of course, he’s right.   Most people consider education something you obtain at a certified institution of learning from people who are ‘experts’ in whatever subject or course you undertake.    Somehow, learning fractions by screwing up a cookie recipe is not as ‘valid’ as sitting in a … Read more

On October 14th, the Today Show did a piece on an unschooling family in California.   How I missed this, I have no idea.  Apparently no one in my immediate circle watches the Today Show…

Anyway, the piece itself (which I’ll link to at the bottom so you can watch if you want to) was ok overall.   The Bentley family were all wonderful, well spoken, obviously intelligent people, and I thoroughly enjoyed their part of the segment.  Then, of course, Today had to go back to their studio where Matt Lauer spoke with Robyn Silverman (a child and teen development expert … Read more

A few weeks ago Maya and her friend Maya decided to make some cookies.   I turned the kitchen over to them after making sure we had the necessary ingredients on hand.   All seemed to be going well until they pulled the first tray out of the oven, at which point I was loudly summoned.    The first cookies out of the oven had flattened to something slightly thicker than a piece of paper, but not much.   A quick review of the recipe revealed that 1/2 the flour was to be added at the beginning of the mixing process, and 1/2 at … Read more

I’ve written in this blog about my belief that anyone can make the decision to homeschool or unschool their kids.   It doesn’t matter how much money you make, how much schooling you had yourself, what race you are or religion you believe in, if any.   To allow your children to learn outside of school is a decision anyone can make.

That said, it takes a lot of courage to chuck decades of cultural programming about what constitutes education and to choose a different path.   In the case of life learners it is a much, much less traveled path.   So even … Read more

“I typed these words on a computer designed by Apple, co-founded by the college dropout Steve Jobs.  The program I used to write it was created by Microsoft, started by the college dropouts Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

And as soon as it is published, I will share it with my friends via Twitter, co-founded by the college dropouts Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and Biz Stone, and Facebook — invented, among others, by the college dropouts Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, and nurtured by the degreeless Sean Parker.

American academia is good at producing writers, literary critics and historians. 

… Read more

I was asked recently if I would mind giving some advice/suggestions to someone regarding homeschooling their toddler.    Are they planning on homeschooling?  I asked.   No, the mother just wants to ‘get a head start’ with her 3 year old son.

My first thought was that the mother in question will not like what I have to say.   Then my brain engaged itself in a debate.   Should I recommend that she read a couple of John Holt’s books?  (How Children Fail and Teach Your Own would be my first picks)    I know that what she is looking for is probably … Read more

Today we spent part of the afternoon at Books of Wonder, a great independent children’s bookstore on 18th St. in Chelsea.    We were there for a ‘Fantastic Fiction’ book event in order to meet one of Maya’s favorite authors, Gabrielle Zevin.   Maya has read two of Ms. Zevin’s books – Elsewhere and All These Things I’ve Done – and we bought a third, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, yesterday on our evening book run.

Including Ms. Zevin there were seven authors on the panel, one of them being Scott Westerfeld, who has two very successful book series – the … Read more

First let me say that I am being sooo disciplined right now.  Why, you ask?  Because my kids and I just returned from an evening Barnes & Noble run, instigated by me (although they were happy enough to be ‘forced’ to go book shopping)  because I had to get Book 5 of the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning.   I had to get it because I just finished Book 4, at the end of which one of the characters dies but we aren’t told who it was and I simply MUST KNOW!   But am I forsaking the writing of my … Read more

Got my new issue of “Entertainment Weekly” in the mail today.   It is the one magazine that I read cover to cover every week, and I say that with pride.   It keeps me up to speed on movies, TV and books, with occasional columns from Stephen King that are worth the price of subscription all by themselves.

However.

This week I happily opened the latest issue and then almost immediately had to fight the urge to fling the thing across the room.   Why?   Because of the full page ad (on Page 3) for a new show called “Disappeared:  True Stories … Read more