In many ways, my career ill-equipped me for homeschooling. Surgery is all about protocol. In an emergency, when the blood pools on the floor, the blood pressure on the monitor drops, and panic swells in the room, surgical training teaches you to lean into procedure. You cut out the noise, ablate the chaos from your…
Tag: Homeschooling
Not Mine, but His
I’m struggling. I hesitate to even use the word, as blessings surround me. A friend visited recently who calls Kenya his home, and discussions about the challenges of his neighbors shamed me. In this corner of the world, we bathe in resplendence. Who am I to speak of struggle? Yet I’m grappling spiritually. For the…
Antimony in the Sandbox, Stars on the Ceiling
“I’m making antimony in the sandbox.” “What?” “I’m making antimony. It’s is a nitrogen element. A metalloid.”‘ Despite Pip’s infectious enthusiasm, the three-year old sharing the sandpit with him gathered his excavator and pail, and at his mother’s prompting, retreated to another corner of the playground. Later, Pip pointed to the light over our bathroom…
Homeschooling: First Year in Review
When I began this journey last summer, I stumbled forward with excitement, energy, and absolute terror. I had no homeschooling peer network upon which to lean, no role model, and no rationale for my approach aside from the needs of my kids and the leanings of my own heart. Some thought I was crazy. As…
Chasing Sparks
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” — William Butler Yeats On our worst homeschool days, hairstyling attempts with glue, fights over blocks, and a busted toilet sabotage all semblance of curriculum. Evening finds me slumped forward at the kitchen table, holding my head in my hands and…
A Master Teacher
When a ragged edge of the Atlantic careened over the prow and swallowed my knees, my first thought was, Is it ok that the side of the boat is parallel to the water? “Jibe! JIBE!” Ferg shouted. He shoved Scottie from the helm and seized the tiller. There was a curse word, the sea retreated…
Kathryn Butler 