Q: A new friend asked me one day how he could be sure that his little kids would grow up to be scholars. His question got me thinking, and I crafted this response... A: We have four youth between the ages of 12 and [...]
First and foremost, even among "dyed in the wool" homeschoolers, there is widespread neglect of the Core Phase. I believe this is because of our tendency to identify so strongly with our label of "homeschoolers" that our family culture becomes defined by academic achievement. I [...]
I am an acorn full of potential, in need of nourishing with sun and soil and rain I sprout, upward and down I am a seedling surrounded by siblings sending shoots and roots I explore, grow and expand I am a sapling reaching for the [...]
I love poetry! It is so amazing to me the way that art so seemingly effortlessly communicates on so many levels, with precision, economy and beauty! When my family and I learn poetry together, several things take place...
I am a sort of “seat-of-the-pants” educator, who relies very heavily on subtle, sometimes unconsciously detected, cues to inform my approach in the classroom I just feel when they’re “getting it”, who’s not, and why not. I sometimes learn more from evaluating what I did—and why I must have felt it should be that way—then I ever do from trying to anticipate the need and plan for it. So, over time, I have collected a mass of data of “what I did”, and am starting to see some truly amazing patterns.
Language is not only the vehicle of our thought, but the substance of it. I believe that language is so intrinsic a process in our development of self, ideas, purposes, perceptions, etc., that whenever we undertake to truly embrace a new language (as opposed to just learning it in a rote fashion) we must do so by passing through the Phases in that language.
