Author Archive

“You had ONE job.”

Rubiks_cube

It feels like you have dozens of jobs and that you might not be doing any of them well enough. But the truth is: you have one job. If you’re doing this one job well, everything else will fall into place.

Pinkie promise swear.

Engage the brain.

That’s it. Your task, as a home educator, isn’t to cram a bunch of information into your kids’ heads. It isn’t to get them to master detailed facts, formulae, or figures. You don’t have to have read the entire western canon by the time they turn 18.

The Internet has changed everything—schools are not doing their jobs if all they offer our kids is a plethora of facts and methods that are easily located online.

At home, we have an opportunity to solve the education crisis, one family (one child!) at a time. You know what is causing educators to wring their hands? How to update education to the current technologically drenched world we’re in now!

Learning needs to be about fostering thinkers.

A thinker is marked by these characteristics:

  • curious
  • able to pose meaningful questions
  • correlates information from one discipline with another
  • involves personal experience in academic contexts
  • willing to take risks
  • collaborative
  • postulates “what if…?”
  • generates multiple possible solutions (not one right answer)
  • observes and narrates own process during investigation
  • knows how to approach research
  • can identify credible versus not credible sources
  • open to creative solutions
  • expands the utility of the information into other arenas
  • interdisciplinary approach to any subject
  • skillful in current technologies

You can use any old content to work on these from rocks and geologic formations to Mr. Bingley and vintage dance! The content is no longer the primary goal of education.

THINKING—risky, exploratory, curious, probing thought—is!

Rubiks cubeImage by Doug Aghassi (cc)

What does this look like?

What if instead of opening the math book and teaching your child how to divide fractions based on the three sentence instructions on the colorful page, you put out a variety of objects with knives and scissors and asked your kids to do some dividing?

Perhaps you hand them a pie and tell them you need one-sixth of it on a plate.

Ask them how to go about it. Use the language: one-sixth. Examine the term. Ask them what they think one-sixth means or might be. Ask them for clues in the words themselves. We have the word “one” and we have a version of the word “six.” What might that mean? What is our experience of pie? How many ways are there to cut pieces? Should we always make skinny triangles? Are there other ways to cut it up? Are there other situations that called for dividing things into smaller pieces? Can we apply what we know about pizza?

Keep going. Let them make mistakes. Let them solve the problem incorrectly. Have several pies ready to go.

Before you swoop in with the right answers for how to create fractional parts, let them get the feel of the problem. Let them articulate the problem. Let them explore solutions.

You can even solve problems that are quite mundane: “Toothbrushes are all over the bathroom sink and on the floor. I need problem solvers! Let’s figure out the solution.”

Get out the white board and go to work. Or put the kids in the bathroom (one or two) and let them discuss how they will handle it.

Same thing can be done with any subject. Let’s look at a historical event: the Civil Rights era. It seems incomprehensible that there was ever a time when black Americans were not equal to white Americans.

So let’s explore that—are there groups of people in our world today that make us nervous? (It takes some real courage to have this kind of conversation, but there are possible answers—for women, it could be encountering men at night alone, for kids it could be bullies who leave you out of games in the neighborhood, it could be the people one perceives as “stealing” the right to homeschool…)

Ask questions about history—have there been other times in the past where groups have discriminated against other groups? Why might they?

What in any of us wants to be exclusive? How did skin color make civil rights an especially thorny problem?

And so on.

The goal here is not to run through information and then to master it, but to create space for exploration of the mind’s capacities!

If you’re engaging the brain regularly, you’re on the right track. Information can be found anywhere and offers you plenty of chances to engage the brain. Information alone is no longer enough.
The goal
Image at the top of the post by Gundars (cc cropped and text added)

Posted in Homeschool Advice | Comments Off on “You had ONE job.”

Slow Down: You Can Only Do What You Can Do

Brave Writer Slow Down

I’ve had a flurry of phone calls lately. One common thread is that January seduces parents into believing they can fly. There’s something about the start of a new year—the blank slate, the brand new, the no-mistakes-made-yet, the intoxicating elixir of “this year will be different.”

Whatever failed in fall is now up for re-evaluation and redoubling of effort. The urgency to “get something done” for year end evaluations, or to satisfy a skeptical spouse, or to appease your own fantasy of what “should” be happening in your homeschool is surging.

The temptation is great to completely change gears or programs, or to load up on one particular subject area, or to revamp your schedule so that the one neglected child who was happily playing Minecraft all day is now required to sit at the kitchen table for two hours straight every morning (to prove to you that he IS being homeschooled).

My caution: Slow down, Bessie.

You can’t change who you are with the snap of your fingers or all the alarms and whistles of your smart phone. No one new curriculum piece will transform your personal style of being or your natural family rhythm. Worse: if you do the “big overhaul” right now, you may upend all that lovely “settling in” that would naturally happen.

Huge shifts in philosophy or practice midyear feel like whiplash to kids. They sense that the changes mean whatever came before was “not good enough.” (And what if they were reasonably happy doing whatever before? What if they were just getting the hang of the math book or copywork or the system you use to study history?)

It’s hard to commit to an experiment, too. Your children aren’t reading homeschooling discussions and they aren’t necessarily worried about their educations. You worry (that’s your job).

So what should you do if you are dissatisfied with the program or the feel of your homeschool midyear?

Pause. Take notes.

Let yourself consider the good of what IS going on in your homeschool before you assume it is all wrong or messed up.

I remember one year when I thought we weren’t doing enough dictation (I had some fantasy that we’d do it a couple times per week per child). Midyear, I pulled out our notebooks where I collected their work. Page after page of dictation. It wound up being that each child had practiced dictation 2-3 times per month. By January, that meant they had done dictation practice 8-10 times. These dictations, in the shiny clear page protectors, showed remarkable effort and growth. Did they need more dictation than that?

No. The answer turned out to be no.

But the temptation to revamp the schedule was so strong, I almost did it without that backwards glance. It was a fluke that led me to examine the notebooks and to recognize that with my personality and our busy lives, getting to some form of dictation 2-3 times a month was not only pretty good, it was getting the job done!

This is what I want you to consider. It may actually be true that the practices in place are enough and are a true reflection of who you are, already. It’s good to pause, to look through workbooks, to flip through photos, to remind yourself of all the ways you explored learning and the world.

To make an adjustment, follow this plan to help you and your kids make authentic reasonable changes.

Make logistical changes first.

Rather than throw in the towel on dictation, try new tools or a new environment to see if those recast the practice.

  • You might move dictation to a new time of day.
  • Add candles (or brownies!).
  • Use a digital recorder.
  • Maybe let the child do dictation alone in their bedroom.
  • Try typing dictation rather than handwriting.
  • Let the child select her own passage.
  • Have children pair up to do dictation of jokes with each other.
  • Use gel pens and black lined paper.

The point is that sometimes the practice is fine, but the context is tedious or unhelpful.

Change one egregious subject only.

Don’t get swept up into the “change it all” plan. Save that for summer, when you have time to really think through how the new philosophy will work. If the subject getting you down is your awful co-op composition class for 5th grade, drop it. If your daughter despises a workbook, shred it. If the math text is confusing even to you, a full grown adult, replace it. Overhaul the one truly awful component in your homeschool.,

Re-evaluate pace.

Does the child need to work every single math problem if she already understands the concept? Can you skip the odds or a full chapter? Perhaps you’ve been over-doing it on freewriting. Time to take a break and only have experiences, read books, and play with poetry before freewriting again. If you are trapped in Ancient Greece in history (kids are into it and you are sick of it), consider ways to re-hook your interest to accommodate theirs. You don’t HAVE to follow the four year history cycle just because a book tells you to.

Add or take away one regular out of the house trip.

For some families, if you just stayed home one more afternoon or day, you’d find that everything works beautifully. You’d have enough time and space for everything without rushing or hurrying or interrupting the flow. But there are some families who are home so much, the kids are utterly bored of the four walls and need an exit! Add one exciting outing a week (even going to the mall, the park, a coffee shop, the zoo, a friend’s house, the library) to change the vibe of family life, to have something to look forward to!

You can’t fly. You can only do what you do a little better than you are doing it now, until it stops feeling better…and you tweak it again. Be patient, trust the process, and go do something AMAZING that enlivens YOU (take on a big goal like traveling for a weekend away with girlfriends to see the Chicago Art Institute, or running a half marathon, or going to cooking class, or signing up to get your Master’s degree online).

You’re already doing a better job than you realize. I know because I know.

Brave Learner Home

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Homeschool Advice | 1 Comment »

Vehicle or destination?

The kids and the jeep

Don’t confuse the educational vehicle with the academic destination. In other words, it is less important whether you unschool or classically educate—neither of these is inherently superior to the other. They are vehicles that get you to the end goal on the map—an educated, self-reliant adult.

If you become overly enamored with the sleek lines of the Jaguar when you really need an off-road Suzuki Samurai to get to where you’re going, you’ll be enormously frustrated as it gets all banged up and scratched.

Figure out where you want to go first (perhaps even just a trailhead with lots of options spinning from it). Then pick a vehicle (or vehicles!) that get you there. There are no moral absolutes about how, only that you make progress toward the destination in a way that doesn’t damage your child, damage your relationship to the child, or that doesn’t prevent your child from getting where he or she wants to go.

Sometimes we are so attached to “the ride,” we disqualify perfectly good educational vehicles because of pride, a quest for ideological purity, or a vague sense that “this is how I wished I had learned” rather than focusing on what our specific child needs in this specific situation with these goals!

Image by Ron Kroetz (cc cropped)

Posted in Homeschool Advice | Comments Off on Vehicle or destination?

Happy Anniversary to Brave Writer!!

Happy 15th Anniversary to Brave Writer!

SHOP NOW!

(Discount does not apply to online classes)

Plus here’s a little history of Brave Writer! This was posted New Year’s Eve on Facebook:

I’m feeling sentimental this afternoon.

It’s the last day of 2014. 15 years ago today, I completed the working draft of The Writer’s Jungle and was set to launch a little company I called “The Writing Compass” in January 2000. I never liked the name of the company but I was determined to start and couldn’t keep sitting around waiting for the “right name” to reveal itself. I have notebook pages filled with possibilities. None right. I gave in. The Writing Compass it would be.

My first “Kidswrite Basic” class began the first Monday of January with full enrollment (25 moms), the last one registering at midnight before class began (that enrollment happened to be the extraordinary Rachel Boyer, who went on to become a Brave Writer instructor for 5 years!). How fortuitous that she found me! We bonded and she learned to teach the way I taught (not much of a stretch for her).

That first class in January 2000 lasted 8 weeks (phew!) and was run exclusively through an email list. (You think forums can be confusing!) Tuition? $25.00 per family! Ha ha. I think my hourly might have been about $2.00 an hour by the time it was over. I was a happy, exhausted dishrag at the end of that first class, burning the candle at both ends, learning as much as my families. I still have most of the emails.

A few notable students came through the first session:

  • Anne Somanas (whose essays are the models in Help for High School)
  • Gabrielle Linnell (whose “Adventuring Maid” story in The Writer’s Jungle is the first time she was published–age 8; she’s gone on to be quite the writer, starting her own online magazine for teens, featured in Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Extraordinary Teens, and interviewed by Writer’s Digest as a promising up and coming young writer!)
  • Logan, famous for his hilarious and honest freewrites that I share at every convention and included in The Writer’s Jungle.
  • Bennett Horton, my 16 year old student who *would not write* and started from scratch (Jot It Down!) and went on to get As in freshman composition in college just two years later (I have his thank you note still!). Today he is married, a father of two girls, and is making his way up the corporate ladder quite successfully. So reassuring to see!

I had a blast with these families, and loved my work! Suddenly speaking engagements popped up! The attached photo is of me at the CHEO convention in Columbus Ohio, June 2000—my first big speaking gig, where we rolled out The Writer’s Jungle, my only product. Cindy Clark, who works for Brave Writer today, helped me assemble the first volumes in my living room along with Bennett’s mother, Paula Horton (who also works intermittently for Brave Writer now). Sold every one I brought with me! Blew me away. Apparently it was something I said.

Mid-workshop while speaking, I heard myself saying these words, “We want free writers! We want brave writers!” and as the words escaped my lips, my brain thought, “Crap! That’s it! That’s the name of my company: Brave Writer!”

Naturally “writingcompass.com” was emblazoned across the vinyl cover of The Writer’s Jungle. Such a dilemma! My first exposure to the world of homeschoolers and I was already going to make a huge change in identity. I went straight home and bought the URL: bravewriter.com. Jon set up a redirect on the original site and I never looked back.

15 years in Internet time is an eternity. When I go to my entrepreneurial social media gatherings, I am always the oldest business by several years, built on social media long before it was called by that name. Brave Writer has grown by word of mouth. I didn’t want it to grow too quickly. I wanted to homeschool my kids and not miss soccer matches and lacrosse games.

In those years of slow growth, I learned a lot about writing, home education, parenting, and business. I went to graduate school. I got a divorce. I went on college visits. I became an adjunct professor. I value it all, even the life-shattering, life-rearranging moments.

Today, Brave Writer is strong and growing by leaps and bounds. My family is well—including Jon, without whom I could never have launched a company in 2000. He designed my first website and laid out The Writer’s Jungle and Help for High School. His freshman composition teaching career in college gave me countless resources that helped form what I teach and write. I’m grateful to him. We have a good relationship today.

Thank you for being a part of the Brave Writer community and journey:

for all your good ideas
for finding typos in my products that I miss
for sharing your amazing children with me and my staff
for your patience when my product roll outs get delayed
for your passion for your children
for learning how to be coaches and allies to your children (not everyone wants that job—but I’m so glad you do!)
for observing copyright (homeschool parents are the most ethical consumers and I don’t take that for granted!)
for helping each other and showing one another kindness and consideration
and for sending me uplifting emails that help me keep going.

I love this community and opportunity to put all of my skills and heart into a venture that I believe in. Without you, Brave Writer quite literally wouldn’t exist.

Much much love to you all and your dear families on this, the last day of 2014. Tomorrow, we start 2015 and January offers you a special deal for Brave Writer as my thank you for your years of loyalty! (Sneak peek on the home page of the site, if you want to see it.)

May you each reflect on the past year(s) and see how far you’ve come, and trust you will get where you need to go.

Happy New Year! /blows horn!/ /tosses confetti/

Peace,
xoxo Julie

Posted in BW products, Julie's Life | 1 Comment »

To resolve or not to resolve, that is the question

Julie Winter 2014_blog

The fad this year seems to be “not to resolve”—to say “no” to the compulsory diets and new exercise regimens, and to be happy with yourself as you are. This competitive, image-oriented culture is exhausted from the relentless demands. Finally. Good for us!

I’ve never been adept at resolutions mostly because I forget what I’ve resolved by January 3rd. Usually I don’t resolve to do anything—except to drink champagne at midnight and hope to be kissed!

Until 2014. Last year I unwittingly made a year long commitment. My best friend and running partner decided in late December 2013 to run every day of 2014.

Every. Day. of the YEAR.

I did not commit to this goal.

However, on January 1, I ran. And on January 2, I laced up my shoes and ran again. By January 5th, I realized that I was not going to let this pixie friend of mine spend a whole year beating me in mileage and bragging rights.

I resolved to run every day of 2014 out of pride and competitiveness.

Because it was such a simple goal (run every day—once every 24 hours—no carrying it over to the next day or make-ups possible!), I knew what I had to do every day—even on the day I got a mild concussion surfing, even when I had to fly on airplanes at 6:00 a.m. and had to run at 3:00 a.m., even when the temperatures were 6 degrees and snow covered the trails, even when I was tired or sick or sick of running!

I ran and ran and ran. I ran in the rain, and in the humidity, and in shorts, and in sweaters and down jackets.

Every day I didn’t wake up and run first thing, I felt an inner pressure all day long to figure out when I would get that run in (sometimes not until after dark!). My family and friends knew they couldn’t talk me out of running or say, “Can’t you just skip it?” when we were on vacations. And I knew I wouldn’t let them (so empowering to have a boundary like that!) It was this one, immovable goal that governed my life for precisely 365 days.

Can you imagine how great it feels to say, “Sorry, I have to do this?” and then get to go do it? It’s amazing!

Truth is: I loved it, even when I hated it.

Which is precisely the reason to have a goal or resolution. There’s something about the commitment that carries you over the edge from “Gosh this bed is comfy and warm and so much nicer than the 10 degree, -15º wind chill factor and dark skies out there” to “Damn, I’m running! This is awesome! I’m amazing! Look at me go!”

The more the days accumulated, the more pressure I felt to keep going. “How can you quit now?” I’d say to myself. And mean it.

So here I sit near the end of this amazing goal (that has hammered my heels, made me gain about ten pounds, and exhausted me) and I’m already sniffing around for another daily commitment.

I remember in 2007 I took a photo a day for Project 365—just one picture a day to post to a blog! Every day. No make-ups. That is one of the most memorable years of my life. Why? Because I was so busy observing it every minute!

So I thought I’d throw it out there. What can we (you and me) commit to do this coming year, the year of 2015, that is a daily goal that can’t be carried over to the next day or crammed into the too small space of the weekend? What is the one thing you can do, every day, this year that will not be quenched or squelched by anyone because, hey—you said you’d do it every. single. day?

I’m toying with a brave goal for me (more intimidating that running). It has to do with writing.

What can you do?

Let’s brain storm and then START on Thursday, January 1!

Here’s to the One Thing Resolution! One Thing, Every Day, for One Year!

Posted in Julie's Life | 1 Comment »