Over Christmas, my Dad discovered Alex Archer. Following our family tradition of combing each other’s bookshelves for treasures to steal (in my case) or borrow (in his), he came across the first two books of the Alex Quartet. He chomped through them in a day or two and had to search out the next couple […]
If you had a six-year-old child, and institutional schooling had never existed, how would you go about preparing them for adult life? In the next few posts on unschooling, I want to tease out a few different issues and discuss them separately. Today it’s the different social experiences schooled and unschooled (or homeschooled) kids have. […]
‘All I ever needed to know I learned in the mental hospital,’ says Glennon Doyle Melton, from the Momastery blog, in her recent TEDx Talk. It’s sort of Glennon 101, an introduction to the big themes of her mission to live in the open, be a shameless truth-teller, and help everyone else to feel ok […]
‘The short answer to how to raise a child in the faith is to live it out openly in front of them.’ By popular demand, today Rod Robson opens a new series of insights from parents on how to present God to our kids. Rod is a Baptist minister (and was my youth pastor!) in Christchurch, […]
It is a legal right in New Zealand for all children to have free education that meets their needs. This includes the right to ‘special education’ for people under 21 years old who need extra support, or something different from the usual classroom teaching. The vision statement of the Ministry of Education, in relation to […]
In New Zealand, 82 per cent of architects are men. Over 50 per cent of architecture graduates are women these days, but they don’t continue in the profession at the rate of their male colleagues. The story is the same in the United States, Britain and Australia, it seems. One solution, a little like the […]
I once read a report describing the quality of education in a variety of countries which concluded that the best curriculum in the world is the one used in New Zealand. I spat my tea. Poppycock. The one used in New Zealand is simply the best in New Zealand. It cannot be compared with the […]
You may have spotted Michael/SKATERAK’s comment on Tim’s first Not Only A Father post. It reads: This will definitely be an interesting series. Thanks for whetting my appetite already. Is there any chance you could throw in some advice on how to present God to children, as well? Just a little question, eh, Michael? I […]
Which of these comparisons are you most interested in discussing further?
I’ve been reminded this week why the ‘un’ in unschooling is not the same as ‘anti.’ First this challenge from Buffalo Mama, who is unschooling/homeschooling her son after traumatic school experiences: “Unschooling,” maybe, can be seen as an attempt to open up the pressure valve and let some of that build up out of everything […]