Observe, Act, Observe, Reevaluate

I was talking to a friend the other day about changes that have been in the works in our local school system. I didn't know this, but apparently for a few years now the elementary schools have been working under a new grading system, where they don't rank the children by numbers or letters. Instead,... Continue Reading →

I Was Unschooled and I Didn’t Know It

The weird thing about unschooling is that the name is kind of terribly misrepresentative--unschooling isn't about school at all. It's about believing that learning happens naturally, all the time, and that if natural learning is fostered, then it continues unrepressed forever. So "unschooling" isn't just a thing that children do in lieu of school. It's... Continue Reading →

Unschooling with Public School

I have been wrestling the past few days with a philosophical paradox. It started when E complained to me about a couple schooled cohorts of hers who like to quiz her on some of the dubiously useful trivia they picked up in school. She didn't have the answer, and she doesn't have trivia of her... Continue Reading →

Two Typical Days

You probably didn't know this about me, but I live a half hour from a Unesco World Heritage Site. Yeah. Alberta's that cool. It is, of course, about dinosaurs. Yeah. Alberta's that much of a desert wasteland. Joking! Sort of. Our climate zone is definitely on the "arid" side of temperate, but Dinosaur Provincial Park... Continue Reading →

Enjoy Summer THEN GET BACK TO WORK

One of the local elementary schools is in my neighbourhood, so I pass by their sign board relatively often. Over the summer, this is the message they had up: And I thought it was cool how, in principle anyway, we seem to have shared values. The difference, I suppose, is in application. Their admonition to... Continue Reading →

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