At the very end of my first post on this blog, Growing Without School, I promised to write about growing without faith. I’m finally ready to make good on that promise! I wrote then that I considered faith “the worst agent of intellectual poison, a cancer that most people willingly inflict upon their children’s developing [...]
I have observed during my years as a homeschooler that in general, teens who have been homeschooled stand out as qualitatively different from their schooled peers. They usually seem older than their years and remarkably independent, responsible, and competent. They often hold jobs (sometimes full-time ones), apprentice with craftsmen or professionals, and engage in sophisticated, [...]
(More slapdash posting. As I may have mentioned, I’m starting a new business, and I’m in the middle of a three month crunch time.) As a homeschooler, I’m in contact with — hell, I’d even say friends with — some pretty fringe folks. Among these many sub-populations are vaccine avoiders, those who feel that the [...]
There has been a lot of talk about “bad words” in my life recently. A couple weeks ago, my 14-year-old nephew got in trouble at school for calling his friend (within earshot of school personnel) “nigger”. He was not convicted of a hate crime because his friend confirmed that the use of this word did [...]
(Pardon the dashed-off style of this post; it’s been a busy day.) Rebecca and I are unschoolers because we think school impedes learning and social development. Some, but not all, of the arguments against schooling apply to college as well. Certainly the fragmented instructional timetable and testing of college can be just as artificial as [...]
This past Wednesday marked our first substantial snowfall of the season. There’s really no such thing as a homeschool “snow day”, but we homeschoolers never need an excuse to spend the day enjoying a storm and playing in the snow! The kids had a blast sledding and throwing snowballs in the freezing cold. I, of [...]
Watch out, scum. (Did I mention that this isn’t a family-safe blog? No? Well if I didn’t, I apologize. I’m about to express my anger with cursing.) Under what FUCKING legislative theory is it permissible to bring to bear the power of the state against a parent who doesn’t attend a parent-teacher conference? Shouldn’t the [...]
Johnathan and I decided to homeschool our children well before our first was even conceived. Our decision originally stemmed from our dissatisfaction with so-called traditional schooling, and our resolve was reinforced by my study of school psychology and my many hours as a “fly on the wall†in a variety of school classrooms (both public [...]