Barbara Frank

Our four-year-old nephew is a very bright little boy.

I’m not bragging on our shared genetics, because he’s adopted. He’s been in preschool the past couple of years where he quickly absorbed everything they taught him and then some. And then he got bored. » Read the rest of this entry «

Twenty years ago, British journalist Valerie Grove decided to interview women who “had it all” for at least 25 years. She defined having it all as:

“…they had to have been married for more than 25 years and have had three or more children, as well as a brilliant career.”

She turned her findings into a book, The Compleat Woman: Marriage, Motherhood, Career – Can She Have It All? Her conclusion was that it was very rare for a woman to be able to successfully juggle a husband, children and successful career.

Now, a British newspaper has marked the twentieth anniversary of the book’s publication by going back and interviewing some of the women whose lives were chronicled in it to see if they think it’s gotten any easier to “have it all.” The very interesting (and lengthy) article is worth reading, but if you’re pressed for time, I’d like to share a couple of key points these women now make, as they look back on their lives from the vantage point of old age. » Read the rest of this entry «

There’s an increasing amount of debate going on these days about college and whether it’s worth it anymore, especially in an economy where people with degrees are among those hit hardest by unemployment.

This article’s author suggests that our government is responsible for pushing kids to college, including many who are not college material to begin with. It’s sad to think of so many young people graduating with a diploma that doesn’t help them find a job, but does saddle them with debt that they must repay.

The author offers a solution to that problem, though…..a certain type of job that will help new grads develop a very important skill: how to sell products and themselves. Makes a lot of sense! In the meantime, we should be encouraging this skill in our kids before they leave home.

• features the final entry in our series of Back to Basics 2010 articles on preparing your children for self-sufficiency,
• offers info on free Bible curriculum for kids,
• shares the ridiculous-but-true story of boys asked to wear women’s clothing in public school,
• and includes a few family photos 

Check it out HERE. Get your very own free subscription by clicking the word “Newsletter” on the left side of this page.

Josh is in our basement workshop, working on a project with my husband. They’re making an outdoor bean bag game to play outside this weekend when our older kids come home for the holiday weekend.  I can hear his happy banter with his dad as they work. Every so often he says, “Ha-ha! I did it!”

They’ve been sawing and painting for the past day, and Josh is very excited to see the project coming together. Most 17-year-olds wouldn’t get so excited about doing this. But Josh isn’t like most 17-year-olds because he has developmental delays.

When he was a baby, I sometimes wondered what homeschooling him would be like. I’d become accustomed to the pace set by his three older siblings. I wondered how much longer it would take him to learn the things they learned by certain ages. » Read the rest of this entry «

While our son’s disabilities make it unlikely that he’ll be able to live on his own when he becomes an adult, he’s fortunate that he’s quite functional, unlike other young people who have more severe disabilities than he has.

I really feel for the families of those with severe disabilities, and I understand why many cannot homeschool their children. But sometimes I wonder what’s going through the heads of those who plan public school curriculum for these kids. Some of these educrats have many years of teacher training classes behind them, yet they seem to think something like this is a revelation:

Without knowing it, Mr. Adams’s efforts had touched on recent research in educating severely disabled children that focuses on using emotion and human connection to reach them. As higher functioning areas of their brains are underdeveloped, emotion moves them at a deeper level, lighting up the same part of their brain, the limbic system, as meaningful music, and possibly creating a bridge to greater intellectual cognition.

“We are so focused on teaching them skills, we don’t focus on the emotional part of the child,” said Rosanne K. Silberman, who coordinates graduate teacher preparation programs in severe disabilities and blindness at Hunter College.

Wow. You get results when you reach these young people on an emotional level. Who’d have thought? (sarcasm off)

PS Mr. Adams was the longtime teacher of the disabled young man in the article; after many years of working with the young man and developing a close friendship with him, he was reassigned to other students and now the young man has regressed. How sad. Way to go, educrats.

I first learned about homeschooling from reading Home-Grown Kids by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore. That was when I was a new parent, so I had time to do some research before making the decision to homeschool. I did a lot of reading; one of my prime influences was John Holt.

Holt was a teacher whose school experiences taught him that when given freedom to make choices and explore their world, children learn on their own. Reading his books was an eye-opening experience for me. It helped me assess my own childhood school years and why I’d been so dissatisfied with them.

For many years, John Holt published a wonderful newsletter called “Growing Without Schooling” that was a great encouragement to homeschooling parents. I inhaled each issue, and decided that encouraging my children’s desire for independent learning would be part of their home education.

This was fine in theory. » Read the rest of this entry «