tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335712702024-03-06T23:03:05.862-05:00IndianaJane's Homeschool NotebookThoughts on homeschooling from a decidely relaxed perspective colored by confessional Lutheranism and burnished by years spent with my wonderful children.Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-11183733432795138272014-05-28T20:03:00.000-04:002014-05-28T21:20:59.053-04:00Famous final sceneThis is it.
Saturday we formalize the end of our homeschool journey. My youngest is graduating.
If you had told me eighteen years ago that: a.) I would still be homeschooling in 2014; and b.) the thought of being finished brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat; I would have been certain that you were mistaken or insane, or both.
But we're done. And I really still can't quite Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-59988173742438652742013-02-19T23:09:00.001-05:002013-02-19T23:09:47.665-05:00The best thingI've been asked twice recently what the best thing about homeschooling my kids has been. In both cases, these women were looking for outcomes. They wanted to hear about a positive result while they are in the thick of multiple little kids, picking curriculum, managing household routines, trying to overcome family objections, and all the rest that can go along with homeschooling your children.
I Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-58794100971451242752013-01-31T23:22:00.001-05:002013-01-31T23:22:32.937-05:00Making sure that they learn everything, or notSo back to the topic of my last post, kind of.
I needed to address the email that asked me "how, as an unschooler, I made
sure that my kids learned everything they were supposed to learn."
The answer, while multi-faceted, is simple.
I didn't.
Oh, I worried about it. I had folders of scope and sequences, lists of must-read books, and pages of state standards. Every once in a while I would Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-44038621484008242312013-01-29T23:28:00.001-05:002013-01-29T23:28:36.462-05:00The choices we makeI was sure that I had written this post, or something like it, before. An email conversation and a Facebook discussion came together in my mind to create this topic, but I was certain that elements of it had been written before. I spent a long time looking through two of my blogs. Then I realized. I didn't write about it; I spoke about it. (Back to that in a minute.)
I got an email last night Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-82193860002081437432013-01-28T20:39:00.000-05:002013-01-28T20:39:25.107-05:00About that whole socialization thing
This post is several years old. I posted it on my regular blog. But I felt the need to revisit it here. Additions will be made in color.
The company you keep
This post has been rattling around in my brain for months. It was
finally shaken loose by some things Gatto said about school and family,
and some conversations with friends.
First: My kids are far from
perfect. Those of us who areJanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-59443590328478720132013-01-27T14:53:00.001-05:002013-01-27T14:53:24.641-05:00It really was like that
Over the last several years I have found myself becoming a bit of an unschooling advocate. There have been lots of, "What did a day look like at your house?" emails and conversations on email lists. There are been young moms on the verge of how-can-I-do-all-this despair. There have been evenings with glasses of wine and questions, evenings when I found myself being quizzed by a circle ofJanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-69020348476533110672013-01-26T22:13:00.000-05:002013-01-26T22:13:34.712-05:00SAT RantMy 17 year old took the SAT today. He's planning to take Latin at the local university this summer and during his senior year next year, so it was time for the test.
He prepped a little. He practiced some essays and reviewed a bit of math. The multiple choice English wasn't a worry. But the essay. Oh, the essay.
Bethany, our oldest was lucky. She took the SAT before the addition of the very Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-66150401613590961842011-04-07T08:38:00.001-04:002011-04-07T08:38:08.941-04:00One more unschooling post"Is it really possible for kids to grow up to be doctors or lawyers or brain surgeons if they do not learn in scheduled/controlled ways?"
This is a question lifted from a Facebook conversation. I decided that the answer needed to be a blog post, because it was getting too long. Besides, Facebook conversations are fleeting things, and this question is not unusual.
The short answer is yes. Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-1231178259572402172011-04-07T08:35:00.002-04:002011-04-07T08:35:37.301-04:00StyleOne of the ideas that Gatto mentioned that has really tickled my brain is that of "style." It was in the context of communication ability and how connections and associations provide opportunities.
He talked about how freedom and play lead to the development of individual style, and that a distinctive style is priceless. My immediate reaction was to think about my oldest son, not to the Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-79109956229886161682011-04-07T08:33:00.002-04:002011-04-07T08:33:49.974-04:00Why unschooling?I had a new experience on Friday. After 14 years of homeschooling, and 12 as a committed unschooler--the first two were spent trying to figure out what we were doing--I was in a situation where being an unschooler was applauded. Wow. John Taylor Gatto, former New York Teacher of the Year, was applauding unschooling parents.
That felt good.
I've spent years feeling like I needed to defend what IJanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-36185742566014413392011-04-07T08:31:00.000-04:002011-04-07T08:31:28.057-04:00GattoThese are a few posts that I put on my main blog last year, but I decided that I want them here, too.
Almost exactly a year ago, I posted some thoughts that I had upon reading John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction. Gatto has long helped bolster the "why" of our homeschool adventure. Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend a homeschool conference where he was speaking. The session Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-18088340959874475332009-10-12T18:07:00.000-04:002009-10-12T18:08:28.075-04:00Why not post this here while I'm at itI have received several requests over the years for a list of must-read books on homeschooling. Last week a friend suggested that this would make a great blog post. So here it is. There may be some newer books that are missing. Since we've been at this for fourteen years, some of these may not be the most current books. I'm sure there are other worthwhile books that I haven't seen, but each of Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-80843832255209470632008-03-11T19:18:00.005-04:002008-03-11T19:24:17.254-04:00Why I'm not blogging here anymoreI have decided that I am not going to keep writing a separate homeschool blog.It has always been a bit of a struggle. And it probably never really made sense for me to try to separate homeschooling from the rest of my life in the blogosphere, since I don't in my every day life.I'm still going to write about homeschooling. It's just going to be on my regular blog:IndianaJane's Journal.Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-9037089678970619502008-02-14T18:02:00.002-05:002008-02-14T18:24:58.278-05:00How did I miss this one?Today as I was checking out some of the blogs in the Homeschooling Blogroll in my sidebar, I came across one that referred to strewing and linked to this site.I am not surprised that there is a name for this, or that Sandra coined it. (Sometime I'll have to write a post about Sandra and the HUGE impact that this person I've never met had on my kids.)I am surprised that in the last twelve years I Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-70151187555477809422008-02-13T13:38:00.004-05:002008-02-13T13:55:26.477-05:00School and ADD/ADHDNed Vare has a post at School is Hell about a subject near and dear to my heart, ADD/ADHD.I especially like this quote from his friend, Jerry Mintz, who has the website The Education Revolution.You got a person who has a psychiatric illness in a public school that requires medication from a multibillion-dollar industry, but when you put him into an alternative school environment, not only does heJanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-56263451953080693402008-02-11T21:09:00.000-05:002008-02-11T23:56:32.756-05:00Christian unschooling?I was out tooling around in the blogosphere, looking at some of the homeschool blogs outside of my usual rambles. I found a post that Dana at Principled Discovery had made a couple of days ago about Christian Education and Unschooling. Both her post and the comments were very interesting.As you know, I think that unschooling is perfectly compatible with Christian parenting. Christian education Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-650008044476203902008-02-07T15:40:00.000-05:002008-02-07T16:14:14.551-05:00Still unschoolingI don't give unschooling much thought. It's just what we do. But lately I've had several new homeschoolers asking me about it. I've had a couple of longer term homeschoolers who are to one extent or another relaxed ask me how we do a transcript. So it's been on my mind.I keep feeling like we aren't really unschooling anymore, but it's really just that our unschooling has changed over the years. Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-75619725132863078152008-02-01T20:44:00.001-05:002008-02-01T21:06:46.883-05:00It causes me painIt truly does. Each Wednesday when I teach my class and I assign questions for them to answer, every unschooly fiber of my being rebels.If I had my choice I would just let them knit, play with Bionicles, and do mock Mythbusters experiments the whole time. Each week the ""class time gets shorter. Each week the kids come armed with more of what they're interested in to share with each other.I don'tJanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-874648162816759002008-02-01T18:11:00.000-05:002008-02-01T18:31:55.301-05:00Hangin' with homeschoolersIf you know me you know I'm a pretty social person. So it's probably kind of strange that we have spent little time with homeschool groups in the past twelve years. That's not to say that we don't have friends who are homeschoolers, lots of them are, but we see them individually, not as part of a group.We haven't felt like we needed the group experience. The kids never really seemed to enjoy Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-21651548168721337672008-02-01T18:06:00.000-05:002008-02-01T18:10:08.380-05:00I thought of killing itI seriously considered killing this blog.I don't write here that much. I do most of my writing at my regular blog. But, at the same time, I like having this blog where I can focus on homeschooling.So I have decided that I am going to keep it and actually write here on a regular basis.Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-68151946430354121072007-12-20T15:07:00.000-05:002007-12-20T15:48:18.740-05:00Why does IndianaHomeschoolers work?There is a discussion about inclusive homeschool support groups at the Unity-N-Diversity blog. One of the commenters had a few things to say about IndianaHomeschoolers that I take think need clarification. You can check out the whole comment on the posting above. I am just going to excerpt and paraphrase.First, IHEN and the IndianaHomeschoolers list are two different things. They are affiliated,Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-49978386586166922232007-12-19T13:01:00.000-05:002007-12-19T13:22:03.692-05:00Why many homeschoolers worry about virtual chartersSupporters of virtual charter schools often question the validity of concerns expressed by homeschoolers about the possibility that the existence of virtual charters could have negative effects on the homeschool community.The current goings-on in Wisconsin help to illustrate some of those concerns.Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-84581496601408672572007-12-12T08:37:00.000-05:002007-12-12T08:40:39.856-05:00Winter makeoverI thought about doing a Christmas color theme for my blog, but I just like these wintry colors better.Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-35498637128959453852007-12-12T08:28:00.000-05:002007-12-12T08:33:01.493-05:00Why I love homeschooling, # 1,374Really, it would be fun to enumerate the reasons sometime. I may have to do that.This month I love homeschooling because of the fact that when something happens that turns life upside down, we can go with the flow. My sons can take their books to the hospital. We can be flexible. And nobody misses school.By the way, if you follow the link and want to read more about what has happened with Abby Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33571270.post-36695364333771448702007-11-28T09:33:00.000-05:002007-11-28T09:37:44.002-05:00I am back!This blog suffers when my homeschool email list goes crazy.And it has been crazy for the past two months.It is amazing how one determined crank--it is tempting to say troll--can totally wreck the dynamics of a list. I am hoping that things stay peaceful so that I have time to write here.Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14984938560695736640noreply@blogger.com0