We homeschool.

Pictured: Writing a story on a cat. ;-)


In a sense, I have already designed my own school. Daughter Lauren, age 14, has a very significant learning “difference.” After five years of being very stressed-out, fighting to get her fully included in regular day classes, and making sure she got all the services she required; I took her out of public school to do homeschool. I feel very fortunate that we have the resources making it possible for us to do this, and really, I am having so much fun. The level of stress in our family has decreased considerably.

When you have a special learner, if you try and do the same thing they do in public school at home, you are setting yourself up for failure.

This is how we run our school.

We use curriculum for math and writing. (Lauren is well above her grade level in reading but math is very difficult.) Our foundation activity is a walk. We do this every day. We get a chance to exercise and notice what is happening. Often, we see something that we are curious about, and we come home and do some research.

Everything else floats on what is interesting and present in our lives. I pay attention to the flow of energy and support that interest. For example, Lauren has decided that she wants the learn American Sign Language. I am quite thrilled with this because sometimes speech is difficult for her, yet her hands seem to go into activity easily. Back at public school, her behaviorist was always telling her to have quiet hands, now we are saying, “Hey, if it works better for you to talk with your hands, go for it.” The catch, I have to learn ASL also, so she has someone with which she can practice.

I have books available for her if she chooses to read them. That’s not required. She reads volumes. We have no TV in our house and Lauren is not allowed to watch movies or do video games except on weekends. I was happy to see that last weekend she chose to watch a Shakespeare video. She thinks Macbeth is too cool.

In public school, the emphasis was on handwriting, which was difficult for her. Cursive writing is not required in our school. As soon as we started homeschooling, we taught her to keyboard and gave her a laptop. She writes volumes on her computer and with paper and pencil.

We also do lots of crafts, drawing, yoga, hiking, kayaking, bird-watching, cloud-watching, star-gazing. We did the baby thing, where you pretend to have a baby needing care. All activities are at our pace.

Once shortly after starting to homeschool, a man in the post office asked me why my daughter was not in school. My reply, “Most kids are in school for about 6 hours a day; my daughter is in school all day.”

Proceeding is this way has been a significant act of courage for me. Everyone in my family is involved in formal education and many hold lofty positions at colleges and universities. I had to let go of the idea that education for her would be like it was for me.

I hope we are doing the right thing. In a conversation with a group of other homeschool moms, we voiced our hopes and aspirations for our children. After contemplating this for a bit, I decided that what I really want for my daughter and what I think is most important, is that she be a nice person. Sounds simple, huh?