Homeschooling

If you are on Facebook, you've probably seen the article from TIME about how valedictorians generally aren't overwhelmingly successful in life. In Wondering What Happened to Your Class Valedictorian? Not Much, Research Shows, Eric Barker writes that valedictorians rarely "go on to change the world, run the world, or impress the world." He does allow that they "are reliable, consistent, and well-adjusted, and by all measures the majority have good lives." One could write an entire post that quibbles with his definitions of success, but that's not the point of this post so I'll let it go. I was co-valedictorian of my high school class of 150. I had a 4.0 GPA back when they were rare before … [Read more...] about When the Valedictorian with an Education Degree Embraces Unschooling

One of the most popular homeschooling programs currently available is Classical Conversations (CC). There are many people who enthusiastically participate and current members can be very persuasive when inviting people to join. When CC came to our area a few years ago, I checked it out since I had taught for a year in a Classical Christian school and I was very familiar with the concept of classical education. CC offered a number of things that interested me including the advertised community aspect. In fact, I checked it out two years in a row because I really wanted to like it and I wanted it to be a good fit for our family. Classical Conversations Negatives In the end, we opted not to … [Read more...] about Classical Conversations Negatives and Why We Didn’t Join

Minecraft is a powerful learning tool. Although I was highly skeptical of it when my daughter first expressed an interest, our family's experience with Minecraft completely changed my mind. So can Minecraft be educational? Absolutely. But not in our home. I have, in fact, purposely resisted the temptation to turn Minecraft into an educational activity. But wait. I just said it was a powerful learning tool and now I'm saying it's not an educational activity in our home. What do I mean by that? Educational Tool versus Learning Tool If you look up "educational" on Dictionary.com, it says: "tending or intended to educate, instruct, or inform." If you look up "learning" on Dictionary.com, … [Read more...] about Can Minecraft Be Educational? Yes, But Not in Our Home