A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

A Brave Writer parent asked what to do when her daughter refuses to write. Here was my response:

What would happen if she simply were asked to write each day by herself whatever came to mind in a notebook starting with one minute per day (that no one would read)? Could she get used to putting her thoughts on paper away from anyone’s eyes.

• Start with 60 seconds a day. Increase when she starts to feel more comfortable.
• Don’t read any of it.
• Give her her favorite drink or shake to go with the writing time.
• Let her use a good pen and a notebook of her choice.
• Her only responsibility is to move her pen without anyone peering over her shoulder.

Do this for a semester, gradually increasing the time length according to her stamina. Your only task is to simply check in to see how it feels to do it. Perhaps once a week.

If she finds THIS difficult to do and won’t do it or can’t do it, let it go for now. You can simply say to her: “You are bright, intelligent, and insightful. I know when you’re ready to write you will.” You can then let her know that you will be available to support her when that time comes.

Damage is not overcome with pressure. So whatever damage is there, she will need to face it when she’s ready.

Another option is to sign up for our Brave Writer 101 class together. If she’s the kind of kid who would value having some support and insight into writing to help her (there are no grades), she may find that class particularly surprising and helpful. It’s not punitive in any way.

Learning doesn’t have an endpoint—you know that because you are still learning almost as much as your kids are while you homeschool them!

We start homeschooling because we want our kids to love learning.

We often keep homeschooling because WE fall in love with learning.

It’s a paradox, right? Maybe you thought you hated history in school and now you can’t get enough of it. A couple decades or four under your belt, and suddenly ancient Egyptian embalming methods are riveting!

• I never read Jane Austen in high school or college. It was a thrill to discover her charming wit in my thirties.
• I discovered that multiplication (the word) comes from “multiple” which is precisely the reason I didn’t learn how to multiply as a kid. I somehow missed the point—that each times table described multiples of the same number, added together in a shortcut! Thank you Cuisinaire rods.
• I became an expert at naming our backyard birds, and we had so much fun making homemade suet.
• I can’t believe that I actually saw Saturn, the real planet with the real ring around it, through my own son’s telescope!
• Never have I been more interested in what comes out of an animal than when we dissected owl pellets.

And since these experiences have been as meaningful to me as they were to my kids (maybe moreso, if I’m honest), then I don’t have to worry about my kids and what they are learning now. Sure, there’s the school-subject dating introduction service I provide them (making matches, hoping they swipe right). But there will be so much more left for them to learn after they leave home, on their own time table, perhaps even at the hands of my grandchildren.

Lifelong learning means your whole life, not just until eighteen. We, who homeschool, know this in our bones. We are the lucky ones.

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!

You get to have the homeschool you choose. In fact, you already DO have the homeschool you choose.

A little zen thinking for you on this Monday morning. You’re welcome.

Make a list of what you wish your homeschool would be like. What might it include? Get as clear and detailed as you can.

The Homeschool of My Dreams Is…

Ask yourself:

• how close is the homeschool you have to that vision?
• how much of that vision is dependent on my children?

To have a wonderful homeschool requires one key ingredient: YOUR passion for learning. That’s it! If you have that, and you go after it, you will have a homeschool that is both satisfying and effective for everyone.

For instance, if you want to teach your child to read, you can either implement a program regardless of how your child feels about it, OR you can get really interested in learning how to read. You can invest the heart and energy to learn about reading, to learn about how kids learn to read, you can test theories and explore practices with your kids looking for their feedback. Reading can be an adventure of learning for *all* of you.

When parents complain about their children’s lack of motivation or willingness to cooperate, I know the parent has lost interest in learning. They are putting attention on getting kids to perform. Then they lament that their homeschool is not magical or natural.

But if you turn your fascination to whatever the topic (motivating kids, learning to spell, mastering math facts, becoming a goal setter), you will have a home that is all about learning all the time.

Give yourself to the things you care about, identify the issues you face, and LEARN about them. Before you know it, your homeschool may look a lot more like the vision you described to yourself.

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!

It’s easy to identify bias in everyone else: that news show anchor, the brash radio host, your annoying neighbor, the uncle who won’t shut up at the holiday dinner…

Bias lives in all of us, however—even those of us who pride ourselves on being “objective.” What’s harder to detect is the invisible, silent influence bias has on how we think. The method for detecting bias isn’t more studying (you can always find books and articles to confirm your biases). Rather, bias is merely how your mind sorts information to affirm what you *hope will be true.*

A good example. When you read about homeschooling, don’t you begin hoping that whatever you read will validate that homeschooling is a trustworthy method of education? That “hope” is where your mind starts when it goes to read the article. If you read an article that’s against homeschooling, don’t you find yourself wanting to discredit what you read? You want homeschooling to be seen as effective so you hope that this negative article isn’t accurate or true.

Try this.

• Go to any news site. Pick an article to read. Read the headline.
• Now before you start reading, ask yourself, “What do I hope will be true?”

You aren’t asking what IS true. You aren’t asking if the writers are biased. You aren’t even trying to see if you agree or disagree with the writer.

Your task is to detect the little internal voice that is already telling you whether or not to trust this article, and what you hope to find (you may even hope to find that the writer is a loudmouth or that the information is wrong or that the research is flawed). If it’s a headline you like, you may hope to find more data to confirm what you want to be true!

Bias is the unconscious posture you take toward any information. It’s not possible to eliminate it. The best we can do is notice it—bring it to the surface so it can ride sidecar while you read an article, tweet, or Instagram caption. It’s also helpful to notice your bias when in conversation.

Ask: what do I hope she’ll say? What do I wish he wouldn’t say? 

The crux of bias is: What do I hope will be true?

In all your planning, plan space without plans; plan time without agenda.

Sometimes the temptation to wash away last year’s regrets is strong. We overcome the feeling of not living up to our own ideals by planning a slew of new ideals for the next year. Somehow the act of imagining a better future eases any feeling of lack from the past one.

Yet what if this past year was fine?

• What if you accomplished exactly what you could and it was exactly enough?
• What if you looked back and took it in: we survived a pandemic AND we learned and grew?

Maybe last year is a blueprint for the future, not a memory of what not to do again.

What if you looked at last year and decided to do even less in the coming year?

What if you gave yourself permission to go at the pace of human beings, not schools?

In ALL your planning, plan time to do nothing.

Plan time for wondering and wandering.

Include space to be.

We’re driven by performance metrics. We measure ourselves against a spreadsheet of productivity and completed tasks. We forget that the deeper work of caring to learn can’t be quantified. Caring gets you all the way there.

Instead of planning tasks on calendars, ask this question:

What kind of plan promotes caring to learn?

This year, even as you plan, take human beings at a human pace into account. Get to know each of your kids as people, not students. Uncover lessons learned, rather than teaching objectives.

In all your planning, promote caring.

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!