We take our homeschool summers off. We’re not like those homeschoolers who go at it all summer with a two-week break to sleep it off. We get off at the beginning of June. This year, we legged it for a peaceful lakeside cottage in New Hampshire, where we hung out with family, goofed off all day, went to bed late… Read more →
Are you stuck in homeschooling? Do you feel as if you’re running in place? Gasping for breath, feeling the burn but going no where? Time seems to loop like the movie Ground Hog Day; every day is like the one before. The only sign of growth is the mold on your shower curtain. Everyone is sick of book work. Every… Read more →
To be good at homeschooling, or at least to not let it lick you, you have to be good at the failures that are part of the everyday – the drawer full of broken pencils, the quarrel over the last working pen, the notebook that fell in with the odd socks and was swallowed whole. Read more →
What did Melville write again, “The damp, drizzly November in my soul whenever I find myself pausing involuntarily before coffin warehouses?” That is exactly how winter homeschool burnout feels – only forget November. November is National Decorating Season in America. Having died before reaching the age of one hundred seventy-two, Melville never knew. I feel certain that if faced with… Read more →
Welcome to Homeschool Impossible. The column that wishes it were a reality TV show. It’s not your average reality show. The goal is not to create chaos and then film it: Mixed singles in their twenties… a summer camp situation… heh heh heh… It’s the kind where there already is chaos and the goal is to bring order. Think Hotel Impossible or Restaurant Impossible. The people on those… Read more →
It was one of those homeschooling days. The kids were brutes and I was a beast. Later, when I forgot the soup and it turned to swill, I thought, “How appropriate.” The family assured me that it tasted fine but I didn’t like it – not the swill, not the beastly behavior, not the whole wretched day. The whole day… Read more →