A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Can I help you lower the bar to experience success?

In our desire to do a great job of teaching, we sometimes forget that the learning is happening whether the final product is pretty or not. I remember being at a meeting led by a credentialed teacher in a CA Independent Study Program to train homeschool parents how to ignite a love of reading. The teacher showed us how to make these adorable homemade versions of the books we were reading aloud to our kids. Her example books were art level amazing and every mother in the room swooned imagining a basket filled with these wrapping paper, decorated, cleverly designed little books.

I went home eager to follow suit. The project became this steep learning curve for me—I’m not a crafter, I’m not careful, and I had five little kids underfoot. I gave up. We read the books. The books—by the authors—held their own magic.

Instead of making my own books based on those, I let my kids create books that meant something to them. One year, my two youngest got enamored of fairytales so we decided to create a fairytale book over the course of the whole school year (one tale per month-ish).

This is the gorgeous (cough sputter) book that resulted. It IS gorgeous to me. But it’s not at all of the level of design or careful production that I remember from that CA teacher.

The danger in home education is we live for two results. First, we want our kids to learn. But right behind that is our second desire: to appear to be doing high quality work. Don’t let that one distract you.

The real learning happens inside a person and doesn’t have to look like a cute book or poster or handicraft. The retained learning is invisible to you.

My kids enjoyed this project immensely (it’s the first writing project in our program called Jot It Down!) and the results were cherished—even if not Instagram swoon-worthy.

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

Are you exhausted? Looking for a patch of sunshine and a mud bath? I feel ya!

Whether you are two days or two weeks in, it’s absolutely natural to feel totally wiped. Not only are we all still carrying the invisible stress of COVID vigilance, not only are some of us recovering from hurricanes or literally escaping wild fires, not only are we fighting for Black lives to matter, not only are we worried about our kids and digital media, but all of us are trying to love, nourish, educate, and raise the generation that’s going to deal with the aftermath of all these crises! It’s a lot.

So yeah. You might feel a teensy bit ready to collapse. And that’s okay. It’s in fact part of the marathon training of homeschool.

You’ll get more comfortable with being less “productive” as the year goes on. You’ll:

• skip the boring book,
• deep dive into one subject without guilt,
• understand that learning happens even on chaotic days,
• not have to prepare so much.

Your kids will remind you of what they need, and you’ll learn how you learn together.

So put your feet up on three pillows (truly, get your feet above your heart) and let that stress drain from you. Breathe. Be.

Regroup tomorrow.

You’re doing important work. Pace yourself. We need you!

Wise Saying: Be like the bison. Sun, sleep, mud masks.

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

“Live honestly, write bravely.”

Will we? Can we?

I listened to an interview with author Zadie Smith on Literary Friction. She isn’t on social media. Why? Because as the Internet has evolved in the last 30 years, she asserts that what we share and post is held accountable for purity, for clarity, for identification with a perspective. The complexity of our selves is hidden. We’ve all become mini-brands, rather than the complicated, filled-with-contradictions people we are.

It struck a chord with me. If I have to maintain a certain belief and never reveal doubts in public, I become alienated from my own thoughts. I drive my uncertainties and qualms underground to uphold an image.

Peter Elbow, my writing guru, recommends private writing as the antidote—a place to put your truest thoughts, to get to know your own mind again. We can give this gift to our children too. We can take time to write together. We can protect that writing from readers: no one reads it except the writer. Children and parents write at the same time, that writing goes in a private folder only for the child’s eyes (not yours either).

• No curating.
• No pretending.
• No fulfilling someone else’s image of you, including parents.

In a day and time when ALL writing is publicly curated for an audience, to live honestly and write bravely means getting to know your insides again without the demands of an audience.

Try it. You may like it.

I know I do.

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

Can you imagine yourself on June 1—looking back on this school year? How do you want to feel? What would you like to be able to say about your year with your kids?

Take a moment to think of one or two items.

Write them down.

One might be aspirational—we’ll get through Ancient Greece and Rome in history, Sarah will learn to read, and we’ll complete 3 writing projects.

Another might be atmospheric—we’ll incorporate more coziness, we’ll have tea times and make muffins.

Another might be philosophical—I want to implement partnering with my kids’ learning, I want to adopt a natural learning approach.

Now ask yourself:

What can I do to move in that direction now, just for today?

Check in once a week to see what you have done to move toward that end goal, that vision, that feel.

There are no shortcuts, no simple 6 steps you take to have the homeschool of your dreams. Each day, you inch closer to or away from that vision that lives in your imagination.

There will be times of doubt that make you double back to someone else’s good idea (a school’s, your mother’s, your best friend’s). But it’s never too late to pivot again and reassert the vision YOU value.

You get there one day at a time, one child at a time, one interaction at a time. It’s good that it takes time because this is your life! No reason to hurry through it. There’s no “there” to get to! There’s only this, only now, only these wonderful people in your care.

Keep going!

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

The number one way you can have a great homeschool is to shift the responsibility for it being great from your kids’ performance to your preparation.

In other words, put more time into making sure that the lessons are relevant, interesting, and suited to the child’s skills. Put less energy into requirement, frustration, and worry that your child is getting behind.

No one gets behind if they are attended to. If the child is stuck or struggling or bored, that’s not the child’s fault. It’s the child’s reality.

You have two options.

1. You can require the child to perform anyway. You can punish a lack of compliance, you can yell or argue or show disapproval. You can nag and lecture and withhold screen time. You can push the child along to complete work so that you feel better, even if your child feels worse.

2. You can put your energy into understanding how to make this a meaningful lesson for the child. What else can you do to make the subject come to life, meet the current skill set, or show relevance to that child’s life today? You can accept the child as he or she is and work with that person, not the fantasy version of the child you wish you had.

Both 1 and 2 require energy. You get to decide which energy you’d rather expend.

Do you prefer to be the authority who gets compliance or the partner who creates meaning?

The reason we don’t try number 2 more often is because the models we have are reward/punishment based. But you’re at home. You get to toss those models onto the ash heap. Instead, experiment with kindness, collaboration, curiosity, and joy. Imagine that the subject could be appealing and pleasurable. Work to find the angle.

Joy IS the best teacher.

That’s where the bulk of your home education work occurs—finding the way in to a happier experience. That’s your job!

Lucky you: it’s a really gratifying one because when you find that sweet spot, the learning is legendary and you’ll want to Instagram it right away.

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