Home-educating parents, especially parents raising disabled children, are continually being watched, judged, and criticized. Everyone has an opinion. Hardly anyone keeps it to themselves. Nobody questions public school parents about their choices. When their kids...
I learned that there is only one way to be in the world as a child. It was reinforced in my schooling and solidified in my career in the education system. There are a set of rules for behaving that are socially accepted. Anything outside of that is judged,...
When my son was first diagnosed, I was handed a stack of white, legal-sized envelopes with the headings of clinics he would need to consult within the first weeks of life. Most of the departments I didn't even know existed, let alone know how to pronounce. In his...
Whether we homeschool or not, we are all teachers. In raising and educating my disabled son, I have struggled to find that fine line between doing school at home and doing life in the world. It's a never-ending conversation I have with myself: Teaching versus...
Our world is divided even among sub-communities. From the outside, it looks like there are only two schools of thought when it comes to education: those who choose conventional schooling and those who homeschool. If we lean in, we see that there are many subgroups...
I cried myself to sleep each Sunday night of the third grade. I was a newcomer to the school where the only other people I knew were my brother and a childhood friend—both not in my class.⠀ In a split 3/4 class where I was among the youngest students, I felt...
We don't need to be teachers to make a valuable contribution to education. Learning also happens outside the classroom and it requires community effort. Parents/guardians, step-parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, caregivers, neighbors, and friends come together to...
Diversity, inclusion, and equity are often used interchangeably, but they aren't one and the same. The definitions are complex and ever-evolving.⠀ ⠀ I like to look at diversity, inclusion, and equity in these terms:⠀ Diversity is the presence of differences in any...
Our world is divided even among sub-communities. From the outside, it looks like there are only two schools of thought when it comes to education: those who choose conventional schooling and those who homeschool. If we lean in, we see that there are many subgroups...
I cried myself to sleep each Sunday night of the third grade. I was a newcomer to the school where the only other people I knew were my brother and a childhood friend—both not in my class.⠀ In a split 3/4 class where I was among the youngest students, I felt...
We don't need to be teachers to make a valuable contribution to education. Learning also happens outside the classroom and it requires community effort. Parents/guardians, step-parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, caregivers, neighbors, and friends come together to...
Diversity, inclusion, and equity are often used interchangeably, but they aren't one and the same. The definitions are complex and ever-evolving.⠀ ⠀ I like to look at diversity, inclusion, and equity in these terms:⠀ Diversity is the presence of differences in any...