The Afterschooler

 One type of teaching that easily gets lost in afterschooling is project-based learning. It's something that takes effort on the part of both teacher and student, and as such, it tends to feel trickier than just doing your daily Duolingo or ixl.  But one of the things I loved about homeschooling full time was being able to follow my kids' interests. While I had a lot I wanted to cover, there were moments where it made a lot of sense to step back and say, "You're clearly interested in _______, so how about we do a project around that?" Full disclosure, projects take time and effort. And because of this, my tendency is to reserve projects for areas of student interest. As a teacher, you can cultivate student interest, by thinking about the sorts of things that inspire your kid, and talking to them about what you want them to learn through a lens of what attracts them.  As an example: a child inspired by art will be likely to enjoy learning about Renaissance science ...

Jump to instructions... I think this is the year that many parents may be focused on the "three Rs," because it feels like any more than that is exhausting. And that, my friends, is fair. But! I don't use exclamation points without cause.  In this year, 2020, the misery, the shame of America, the horror of remote learning, maybe it's exactly the time to re-up your arts education. God knows, with winter approaching of 2020, it feels like there's precious little beauty to be had otherwise. And because this is me, I'm not suggesting attending an art or music class (though that might be a good idea if your kid is into it). I started my campaign of art and music quite late. When we started our history lessons, it felt like enough to just get through a little extra history a week. I was not trying to make more work. And then a few years ago, we spent our "January term" (winter break, when we choose a topic to dig into a little more deeply) on music histor...

 I was a Montessori kid. My children were Montessori kids. If you have the means, Montessori is amazing. It's all the things I hoped my kids would get out of education: inspiration, rigor, independence, and deep understanding. I used a lot of Montessori principals in, e.g., how I taught my kids to read, how I set up my house, etc.  But during the year I homeschooled, I switched to a classically-inspired curriculum. At the time, I was inspired by a) the price (Montessori is expensive!) and b) how much my post-Montessori education jibed with classical education, at least at home.  Though the methodologies and focuses of classical education and Montessori are pretty different, they share a lot: Children move through stages of brain development, and education should match where the child is. While the curriculum is structured, there should be room within curriculum for the child to lead in her own choices of material. The "real" world is endlessly fascinating and is to be tre...

Maybe you've followed Donald Trump's crusade against the 1619 Project from the NY Times and the curriculum based on it. Because the guy's trying very hard to become Kim Jong Un, he naturally followed up with the (creatively named, so you can tell he's being a jerk) 1776 Commission . If you don't feel like being infected by his speech, here's the pull quote: Our mission is to defend the legacy of America's founding, the virtue of America's heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world. To grow up in America is to live in a land where anything is possible, where anyone can rise, and where any dream can come true — all because of the immortal principles our nation's founders inscribed nea...

TLDR: If you seriously don't want to spend a lot of time and effort teaching history or (to a lesser degree) science, or if you want to set your child up to do well in ELA, a solid home library can do incredible heavy lifting, and it can turn your child into a person who understands learning as a pleasurable, life-long activity, and may provide insight into POV, facts, and other mutable ideas. Today's conventional wisdom about reading: READ EVERYTHING! ALL READING IS GOOD ! That's probably true.. if your child is not a reader. If the reluctant reader reads, then mission accomplished. And since they are reluctant readers, they're probably only reading a minimal amount of time (let's say 20 minutes a day, thanks to the ever present Reading Log).  To those who parent kids who struggle with reading and dislike it, I say, Wimpy your kid. (Though I would suggest that even reluctant readers enjoy being read to, and so some ideas below may be pertinent.) But I think the nar...

Here's a review I wrote years ago, when my kid was actually using Montessori Words & Phonics . It remains my strong favorite. This app taught both my kids to read in about 6-8 months, to the point where they could read Level 2-3 books such as Frog and Toad are Friends or Mouse Tales. I did not intervene at all. One of them was in Chinese immersion at the time, so literally no English reading was happening elsewhere. As far as lazy parenting lifehacks, this is aces. Best $4 I ever spent.

We at Chez Mariah are doing OK with remote learning. We live in a well-funded district, my kids attend a great charter, and I'm available to them during the day. And my kids are in late elementary and middle school, so fairly independent at this point. But this isn't the way things are for many people. Medium had a pretty good article about this recently, how privatization of public utilities and lack of plan over the summer led us where we are. Add to this failure to figure out and fund childcare for those who need it, which is most of us.  It has me wondering what I would be doing if I were in a worse situation, and whether principals of afterschooling could be useful to those families who are hurting so badly in the current situation.  Absent fundamental systemic change, there's not much I can contribute to the problem of childcare for families without a parent at home during the day. The same is true of internet access. Those are problems beyond my scope.  But as to ...