Brave Learning: A Lively Voice, Disarming Your Teens, and more!

Brave Learning

Recently on Brave Learning…

Fill the “house” with a lively voice! [Public]

Here’s the third part of our series on writing voice. [More]

Hello! 👋 [Public]

A recording of Julie’s live video. [More]

Disarming Your Teens

What a cup of coffee will do… [More]

Subscribe to Brave Learning on Substack where we chat, discuss, problem-solve, and create together. Here’s what you can expect: weekly themed content, freewriting prompts, and a podcast for kiddos called Monday Morning Meeting (first 6 are free)! 

Brave Learning with Julie Bogart on Substack

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[Podcast #281] Deep Meaning = Depth Learning

Brave Writer Podcast

Do you ever wonder why some lessons stick and others fade away?

In this Brave Writer podcast episode, we explore the concept of deep meaning—the essential ingredient behind lasting, joyful learning. When kids connect personally with what they’re learning, they move beyond memorization into true expertise. We:

  • unpack the difference between mastery and meaning,
  • share real-life examples from homeschooling life (yes, video games and comic books count!), and
  • offer practical questions you can ask to build more meaningful learning moments at home.

Listen now to discover how to help your kids not just think, but care about what they’re learning.

Show Notes

In every learning experience, there’s a pivotal question waiting to be answered: “Why do I need to know this?” It’s a question we’ve all heard from our kids—and maybe even asked ourselves. When children ask this, they’re not simply being resistant. They’re pointing to something deeper. They want to understand the meaning behind what they’re learning.

What if, instead of focusing on mastery through memorization, we shifted our educational focus to meaning? That’s where true learning—the kind that sticks—really begins.

Mastery vs. Expertise

We often conflate “mastery” with success: a child memorizes a grammar rule or completes a worksheet correctly. But real expertise goes beyond that. It involves a felt sense of how knowledge fits into a broader framework. It’s the difference between identifying a hyperbole on a test and joyfully recognizing it in a read-aloud story. One is performance. The other is evidence of integration—of natural knowledge built on passion and relevance.

Meaning Drives Passion

When learning taps into a child’s deep meanings—their interests, relationships, curiosities—it unlocks a sense of purpose. This is true whether they’re exploring the economics of crops in a farming game, testing physics in Angry Birds, or reading about their favorite superheroes. We tend to elevate subjects like violin, poetry, or chess as “prestigious,” while dismissing games or pop culture as frivolous. But children don’t see that hierarchy—they’re driven by what sparks their engagement, not what looks good on a transcript.

Experience Builds Understanding

Real learning requires more than facts—it needs context and experience. Just like a child learns the power of scissors by cutting the fur off a beloved stuffed animal, learning needs to be hands-on. Tracing tanks from a history book, graphing fallen leaves in the front yard, or building a model of Helm’s Deep while listening to Tolkien—all of these create neural interconnections that form lasting knowledge. It’s not about rushing to mastery but slowing down to build meaning.

Learning That Feels Like Play

The best learning often doesn’t look like school. It looks like play. It looks like kids constructing domino patterns, arguing over where to place index cards in a homemade history timeline, or sitting quietly with a nature journal. These are not distractions from learning—they are learning. When kids care about what they’re doing, they:

  • challenge themselves naturally,
  • cope with mistakes, and
  • absorb information more deeply.

Our Role as Parents

As educators and caregivers, our job is not to manufacture meaning, but to create the conditions for it to emerge. That means offering rich, varied experiences, and sometimes stepping back to let our kids make the connections themselves. Especially as they get older, they begin to link content to their lives in new and unexpected ways—and our job is to listen and support.

Deep learning comes from deep meaning. When we prioritize our children’s curiosity and let their passions shape their educational journeys, we invite them into a lifetime of caring, thinking, and discovering. That’s not just good education—it’s good living.

Resources

Connect with Julie

Connect with Melissa

Produced by NOVA

Brave Writer Podcast

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Take Pain Seriously

Brave Writer

If you suffered while learning to read, write, or do math, you might associate pain with effective learning. It doesn’t have to be that way however. Research shows that when a child is relaxed and alert, they are learning the most.

The appropriate level of challenge is similar to what a child feels when they’re trying to solve a puzzle, beat a level in a video game, or build a block tower that doesn’t fall over.

Make the challenge smaller and look for the hook—what makes it interesting and relevant to a child.

Wonder how to do that?

As you grind to the end of the year, be extra careful of creating pain related to learning. It’s easy to push push push thinking about the summer break ahead. Instead, use this time to indulge fresh experiences:

  • stomping in rain puddles,
  • looking for birds’ nests,
  • visiting zoo babies,
  • making lemonade from scratch,
  • FaceTiming with grandma and reading a picture book to her,
  • drawing a picture of a child’s favorite activity from the past year.

Your most sacred trust is protecting a child’s curiosity about each and every subject. That’s such a big job and it’s not easy to do!

Certainly some kids just need a break (they’ve done the deed, they’ve mostly completed the workbook, they’ve read the hard-to-read novel, they’ve handwritten umpteen pages). This is the time for that break. You can ease into the rest of the year paying special attention to cries of boredom or discomfort.

I wish we all cared more about preserving a child’s curiosity in each subject area than getting through and getting done. If you achieve that even in one subject, Gold Stars for you!

Keep going! But slow down. I’m rooting for you.

This post was originally shared on Instagram.
Watch the accompanying reel for more.

Brave Writer

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Brave Learning: Your Interests, Policing AI, BHAGS, and more!

Brave Learning

Recently on Brave Learning…

“I don’t have time for interests”

How can you homeschool your kids and still have interests of your own? [More]

They speak in prose and paragraphs [Public]

Let’s continue our exploration of your child’s writing voice. [More]

Policing AI doesn’t work [Public]

I propose valuing learning rather than grades [More]

Big Hairy Audacious Goals [Public]

A powerful idea to energize your homeschool! [More]

Subscribe to Brave Learning on Substack where we chat, discuss, problem-solve, and create together. Here’s what you can expect: weekly themed content, freewriting prompts, and a podcast for kiddos called Monday Morning Meeting (first 6 are free)! 

Brave Learning with Julie Bogart on Substack

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Brave Writer 101: Guided Writing Process

Brave Writer Online Classes

Let’s get real. The market is flooded with well-intentioned writing programs that don’t meet the complex needs of young writers. Perhaps you’ve tried—even tossed— a few? 

The truth is that writing is too big, too vulnerable, and too personal to thrive with a program that doesn’t address the whole child.

That’s where we come in! 

No one approaches writing like we do, and when you take Brave Writer 101, we’ll let you in on the secret.  

Here’s a quick peek at how class unfolds, with our writing coach, YOU, and your child working together to de-mystify writing. 

Brave Writer 101

Week One: Communication

Share your challenges and get individualized help from your coach. Then, play a game to learn about how writers communicate. 

“[My son] loved this. He said it really helped him see how important details are.” —Parent Laura

Week Two: Observation

Wish your kids would generate deeper insights? More vivid descriptions? We’ve got you! 

“I am seeing happiness around observing and selecting words, which is great!” —Parent Fabienne

Week Three: Freewriting

We introduce a magical process that liberates so many kids. 

“We’d agreed that he’d write for five minutes — but I didn’t see him again for over twenty.” —Parent Sonja

Week Four: Feedback for Revision

Watch our writing coach approach your child’s writing with constructive advice and gentle encouragement.

“By the end of Week Four… it became the first thing she wanted to do every day…” —Parent Jennifer

Week Five: Revision

Learn how to revise by doing it—with our help. 

“Our instructor was a terrific model of how to lavish my writer with feedback and how to ask questions to draw my writer out.” —Parent Allison

Week Six: Editing

Finish by making that priceless jewel shine!  

“I didn’t get resistance on this exercise at all… [He] seemed to enjoy this type of editing.” —Parent Amanda

Experience this unique writing approach with your kids!

Sign up for Brave Writer 101!

Brave Writer Online Classes

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