A Treatise Against Pretending Messiness is an Ingredient of the Creativity Equation A Treatise Against Pretending Messiness is an Ingredient of the Creativity Equation My son took the PSAT this year. He read a passage arguing that messy spaces are good for creativity. He thought it was interesting but wondered if it was true. I…
Through the Eyes of a Highly Creative Teen Through the Eyes of a Highly Creative Teen This morning I was sharing some tidbits of a news article, mostly because the article was ridiculous. It reported nothing new and could not seem to develop a single idea, instead, jumping about randomly. This was published online at…
Mindset is Everything, How to Keep Yours in the Right Place Mindset is Everything, How to Keep Yours in the Right Place It is easy to get carried away with the externals of life. We think they somehow matter more, or have a greater impact on us because we can touch them, see them, hear…
Making Goals Mean More Making Goals Mean More Going to the why behind your goals can keep you going when the daily grind needed to meet the goal gets tough. The castle of our goals seems pretty and sparkly and fun when we set the goal. We think we also understand that it will be…
As homeschoolers, the favorite go-to question of critics is often "What about socialization?" Right. Because public schooled kids are the epitome of empathetic, well-adjusted, can-talk-to-anyone socialites of polite society. Ahem. As a wise man once told me "The only thing I learned from other third graders was how to make farting sounds with my armpit."…
Three words – Know Your Vision I know, I know, you don't have time to create a vision statement for high school, you have too many practical decisions to make and hours of research before you can make them wisely. But please, just stop for a moment. Without a clear vision of what you want…
As summer begins kids get obnoxious pretty quickly. I know, it sucks. But it is a necessary phase of decompression from our over-paced lives. Yes, even us homeschoolers are hyperpaced, cramming in all the goodness we can in fear that if we just sit and rest our kids will miss out on some amazing experience…
I do not think it necessary to expound on why we want to avoid overwhelm in our homeschools. Overwhelm equals stress, chaos, and uncertainty, none of which complement a healthy lifestyle. Overwhelm can be a rather quiet beast, creeping in gradually until one day you just CAN'T. I find keeping overwhelm at bay starts with…
The teaching brain has a lot in common with the learning brain. They both need space in working memory and to support that space they need background knowledge so they can take advantage of long-term memory and automaticity. Teaching is a cognitive skill. One of the main differences between a teacher's brain and a student's…
"Children do differ in intelligence, but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work." – Willingham I believe very strongly in the malleability of intelligence. The old idea that intelligence was fixed mostly by genetics has been largely disproven. This doesn't mean genes have no role to play, it just means their role is much…