by Robin Grille Excerpted from Heart to Heart Parenting A child’s right to receive attention One of the most commonly heard parental laments is about how children try to get attention. So many behaviors that adults don’t like are brushed off as “merely” attention-seeking devices. “Don’t worry about him,” we say, […]
A common, or Harbor, porpoise. / Credit: Jan Zoetekouw / Shutterstock.com Porpoises and dolphins, as well as whales, are members of the scientific order Cetacea. Dolphins and porpoises are often confused. Both have sleek bodies and large flippers. However, porpoises don’t have beaks like dolphins. Also, porpoises have triangular dorsal fins, […]
By Idzie Desmarais / I’m Unschooled. Yes I Can Write! Most of what I share is advice and theory, deeply rooted in my personal experiences, but not often about my own learning journey. So as the new year starts–and thanks to a bit of inspiration from Sue Patterson’s unschooling manifesto–I wanted […]
The prescriptivist stranglehold on grammar isn’t just restrictive, it’s often just plain wrong. from www.shutterstock Do you remember being taught you should never start your sentences with “And” or “But”? What if I told you that your teachers were wrong and there are lots of other so-called grammar rules that […]
GETTY IMAGES THIS SHOULD BE an officially labeled time of the year. I suggest we call it Maker Time—it’s that time after kids get out of school, but before all of the holiday festivities begin. This is the perfect time for kids (and adults) to make something. This is what […]
By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Source: Laura Kriegel, Alliance for Self-Directed Education I’ve been called a crazy optimist, a Pollyanna, a romantic idealist. How can I believe that our system of compulsory (forced) schooling is about to collapse? People point out that in many ways the schooling system is […]
EARLY IN THE morning on Monday, May 23, the uptown 5 train lurches skyward from its subterranean shaft, rising into the light of the Bronx. The cars groan as they lumber over elevated tracks high above the avenues, bodegas and detached homes, alongside treetops and the Escher-esque maze of rusty […]
Peter Gray Ph.D.Freedom to Learn Increased automation has not reduced our workload. Why not? What if it did? In 1930, the British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by the end of the century, the average workweek would be about 15 hours. Automation had already begun to replace many jobs […]
5 Outrageous Things I’ve Learned as a Practitioner of Unschooling By Idzie Desmarais Negative mainstream media articles about unschooling–like the tides, the changing seasons, and election years–are a perennial phenomena, as familiar in the autumn as falling leaves for those of us who keep an eye out for such things. Sometimes, […]
Credit: Olesia Bilkei / Shutterstock.com For babies In the first year of a baby’s life, the brain doubles in size, according to a 2007 study. The hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain that is used in memory processing, reaches its adult size by 10 months of age. These […]