A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

The idea of testing is so embedded in our imaginations as the best measure of learning, it’s difficult to “give it up.” Yet homeschooling invites us to do just that! Rather than examining your child like a patient in a doctor’s office looking for what’s wrong, try giving attention to the healthy growth your child has achieved in the last little while.

Kids LOVE to show what they know, to “show off” to impress their favorite adults (aka YOU!). Give them the chance to steal the show—invite them to:

• give you detailed analysis of how to go up levels in Mario Kart,
• explain to you the intricacies of their doll’s wardrobe, or
• retell the details of that one battle in the Civil War that they have studied for months.

If you want to know what they know about language arts, ask them to explain a passage to you from a book they’re reading (let them pick the passage and ask them to tell you everything they notice about it).

If you want them to demonstrate skill in math, ask them to create the most challenging problem they have ever attempted to solve and then to solve it and show you how they did it.

Let’s move away from the style of education that says the teacher knows what you should know and it’s up to the student to guess what that is, in this amount of time, using this method.

Your best “testing” method isn’t testing it all. It’s a big juicy conversation that rambles and integrates what your child knows, has learned, and is still discovering.

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

If you’re new to homeschool, this is my reminder to you. Learning oozes out of the defined “school hours” and occurs:

• in the bathtub,
• on dog walks,
• while peeling potatoes,
• between two ears invisible and silent to you,
• while watching TV,
• when sleeping (true story! the time of consolidation happens without conscious awareness),
• and during family dinners.

Your whole life is the stage for learning. If working on spelling at 9:00 am fails, save it for the afternoon when you head outside and practice spelling words while jumping on the trampoline or throwing a football. If math feels abstract and dull, play a board game. If your kids find reading-to-self a hurdle, set aside 30 minutes to ALL read silently together—with the fireplace lit.

Use your whole house, your whole personality, your whole day. This is what it means to learn at home.

So let learning showing up naturally in your family this week.

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

I read an interesting bit of research.

It’s possible to fool yourself and be perfectly rational at the same time.

It turns out, the more strongly your community holds an opinion, and the more in touch you are with the way they construct their arguments (with data, research and logic), the less likely it is you will be fair to whatever else you learn about your topic. In other words, the more you align with a perspective, the more you will find research and data to reinforce your point of view.

In fact, when our identity is wrapped up in our viewpoint, we will find sophisticated ways to discredit the contradictory evidence, and we’ll be able to give detailed analysis of why our point of view is rational and preferred, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. We take pride in these sophisticated take downs, in fact.

The “lower” information members of society are more likely to give a fair assessment of new data since it doesn’t threaten their strongly held belief, community loyalty, or identity.

Which means this: when we are educating kids, it matters to do research when we doubt and when we have confidence—both.

We must challenge ourselves and them to sit with the discomfort of data and information that does not fit comfortably in our carefully chosen beliefs. We need to teach them to resist the temptation to immediately sort information into “good for my side” and “bad for my side.” Otherwise, we are merely teaching rationalization and not critical thinking. We train them to be apologists rather than thinkers.

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

Nothing reassures you the way your children’s own growth does. Recognize the spark of learning, the personality of your kids popping through their writing, the happy confidence of accomplishment in any task. Then you’ll know you’re on the right track.

A wise friend once said that when she doubted her child’s progress or felt worried about an interest, she would get some time alone with that child—lunch or a shake. She’d ask her child about that interest, she’d open space for a conversation that interested the child. She said she’s never had a one-hour time alone with a child that didn’t remind her that her child was learning and growing just as she had hoped.

Do it.

• Take time to listen,
• to be with,
• to observe

Be amazed all over again (the same way you were amazed when your bigger kid was a baby).

Let your child reassure you.

Your kids are learning!

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