Free Range Learning: Laura Weldon's Interview

Laura tells us that her family is a bit odd but I don't think so. Just look at these quite normal photos she sent me:







See what I mean? A perfectly normal fun-loving homeschooling family. Laura and her perfectly normal homeschooling family live in Ohio, on a small family farm they call Bit Of Earth.

After you read her interview below, you might want to have more fun by visiting her website/blog where you can learn more about Laura and her new book coming out this spring, Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything.

But first, let's hear Laura expound on the finer points of growing toe bacteria...

1. How long have you been homeschooling (or if finished, how long did you homeschool)?

We’re going on our thirteenth year.

2. One of the main benefits of homeschooling is the freedom and flexibility it allows. Can you give us a few examples of how this freedom and flexibility benefited you (your family)?

More and more I see that following our interests (mine too!) is an extraordinarily powerful way to learn.

For example, my daughter got interested in forensic science when she was around 12 or 13, probably due to mysteries she’d been reading. Because she was interested she did the following, all generated by her own passion to learn:

• She read anatomy and pathology books, even contacting some of the authors with follow-up questions.
• She did dissections on her own and with other homeschoolers.
• She performed necropsies on animals that died here on our farm (it’s actually quite helpful to know that a chicken died of a blocked oviduct and not a respiratory disease).
• She conducted a systematic study of decomposition by watching a muskrat over a period of weeks as it went from road kill to dust and bones.

The phase of intense interest passed but this powerful introduction to science served her well when she entered college. She’d never taken a “real” science class or lab before becoming a college student, yet graduated summa cum laude with a degree in biology last year.

Our interests lead us all over. Because the rest of us are less disciplined than my daughter we pursue one thing or many things for a while, then drift off in other directions. I tell my kids nothing we learn is wasted. Skills and knowledge gained while pursuing interests stick with us.

The creative intensity and precision my son brought to making his own rocket designs from balsa when he was eight years old now benefits him as he delves ever farther into electronics, geology, music, photography and his other current passions.

3. Another benefit of homeschooling is the fun factor. Can you give us a few examples of some especially fun times you had as a result of homeschooling?

All of us are odd and sarcastic and completely ourselves, not caring much what others think of us. We’ve come up with homeschool projects that appalled our friends, such as the time we grew cultures from bacteria we swabbed between our toes. Yes, it became a competition as we checked on those petri dishes and no, we haven’t really looked at the winner’s feet quite the same way since.

We also suffer from the ridiculous idea that what we find fascinating could be fascinating to everyone else if we just explain it sufficiently, so our dinner table conversations are a zigzag of topics that tonight included caddis fly mating habits, plasma welding techniques, the best socks for backpackers and a Supreme Court ruling.

4. We all have funny experiences while homeschooling. Can you share one of yours with us?

I’ll admit to dragging my kids around to a few art galleries one day, sure they’d find something thrilling. They weren’t entranced by the armadillo made of repurposed catcher’s mitts or the screens playing cartoons backwards.

They were, however thrilled to see me run full speed ahead toward the meter maid approaching our van with ticket book in hand. Justice had been served in their eyes. Now when I mention art galleries they remind me cheerfully the meter has expired on experiencing culture.

Learning Happens Spontaneously: Beatrice's Interview

Beatrice and her family live in Hamilton Ontario and she's been involved in Radio Free School, "an all volunteer weekly radio show by, for, and about, Unschoolers/Home-based Learners."

1. How long have you been homeschooling (or if finished, how long did you homeschool)?

I have three daughters ages 14, 12 and 11. My two older girls started public school a little over a year ago. Prior to that they had never been to school. My youngest is still at home with me.

2. One of the main benefits of homeschooling is the freedom and flexibility it allows. Can you give us a few examples of how this
freedom and flexibility benefited you (your family)?

Even though my oldest two go to school now, we still practice 'freedom in learning' at home. I let them sleep in and skip school if they so wish to and they can tag along if there's a particularly fun outing we are planning. This happened just the other day when daughter no 2 skipped school to go cross country skiing for her first time with daughter #3 teaching her how it's done.

They had a great time together making snow angels, throwing snow balls at each other, climbing trees really bonding as sisters-something we miss when she goes to school.

With my youngest we are able to plan our day (given some restrictions such as my work and her scheduled classes) as we see fit. If we decide to go to the art gallery, or ice skating there is no one to stop us! It's great because learning happens spontaneously in this way.

We are talking for example, and then the question comes up in the conversation "how long do turtles live?" We go straight to the computer and find out. We don't need to wait for a teacher to answer the question.

This leads to other questions, related or not, so we have a picture of what authentic learning is like-it is meaningful to the learner herself. We can delve into information as deeply or as little as we like. Keeps learning and being in this world fresh and engaging.

3. Another benefit of homeschooling is the fun factor. Can you give us a few examples of some especially fun times you had as a result of homeschooling?

Fun is always good and I personally am guilty of not having enough of it!

Still when I see my daughters laughing together with their father over a youtube video of crazy trampoline mishaps or when we get together with other families for skating and hot chocolate while other families are off at work and school, it makes me feel lucky we have this kind of a lifestyle.

4. We all have funny experiences while homeschooling. Can you share one of yours with us?

When we still had the weekly radio show we put on for over 7 years, we had the opportunity to visit an archaeologist at the local university and held a 2 million year old piece of poo from a cave in China! Not funny exactly but we had a lot of fun joking about it!

I Heard Aboout It First On School Sucks Podcast

I just finished listening to an episode on the School Suck Podcast series titled, The Decentralization of Information and Communication. I really liked this episode. It was filled with such optimism about the future of education now that we have so much opportunity because of technological advancements.

In this episode the host Brett Veinotte interviews the creators of a new website called Alekese. This is just one project of many out there of people experimenting with online learning and making connections with others for learning.

This post is titled as it is because Brett likes the potential of this particular project so much that he predicts it's really going to take off and change education and information access for the future.

The site is pretty new but it still includes quite a bit of interesting information. It's useful for those in the homeschooling community not only for the obvious reason of a method of freely accessing information on learning a topic in an organized fashion, but also for those who have developed expertise in a certain topic because anyone can start a "tree" of information.

Who knows, Brett may be right and it may indeed explode so go check it out and see what you think.

Living the Homeschool Adventure in an RV: Tonya's Interview

Tonya and her family are from Ohio but for the past 4 years she and her family have been traveling around together in an RV. She writes about their travels on her Live The Adventure blog.

Here is a photo she sent in that shows, from Left to right Joshua, 14, Nickolaus, 16 and Chelsea 13, taking a break from an important creek exploration endeavor:


Let's see what other activities they've done during their explorations traveling in their RV...

1. How long have you been homeschooling (or if finished, how long did you homeschool)?

My husband and I have homeschooled our three children for the past 11 years. With the exception of preschool for the older two, they’ve never been in a typical school setting and only attended preschool that one brief year because I had a panic attack and decided that NO Way could I ever homeschool my children.

At the time I simply did not realize that homeschooling would have been just more of the same things I was already doing with my children, reading tons of picture books, counting Cheerios, creating beautiful tiny masterpieces using finger paints, riding bikes and exploring nature at the park. So away to “school” they went, one of the biggest mistakes I’d yet to make.

They spent the year sick, with every imaginable ailment they could catch from the snotty nosed 4 and 5 year olds. I spent the year immersed in homeschooling how to books, websites and catalogs and just bided my time looking forward to the adventure ahead.

Since my children are so close in age, they all started school at the same time. So though only one was of compulsory age, the other two begged me to homeschool them as well. So I did and it’s been all fun and games since then….well…not exactly….

2. One of the main benefits of homeschooling is the freedom and flexibility it allows. Can you give us a few examples of how this freedom and flexibility benefited you (your family)?

I’m grateful that homeschooling has allowed me flexibility, especially in the curriculum and methods I’ve used over the years. Like many who have been raised with a public school background, what I detested became a blueprint for our homeschool. I bought textbooks, workbooks and a school desk and thought the more structured we were the better. Well, it wasn’t long before we were all in tears and my boys wanted to go back to preschool where school was fun.

I realized that I needed to put some fun in our school. I remembered what I had read in my research and decided we’d try a unit study, then we’d follow the philosophy of Charlotte Mason. Eventually we decided to unschool. If you ask me now, I’d say we take an eclectic Charlotte Mason/Unschooling approach to school.

I’m a huge fan of reading and believe that if my kids can read, they can learn anything they need or want to know. But reading did not come easy to my boys. I struggled in vain to teach them for years before we finally found a reading specialist that suggested they see a special eye doctor. It turned out that they both needed extensive vision therapy, though one has 20/20 vision. Their eyes just don’t focus the same way mine do. I don’t know how many times the specialists I saw told me to be thankful that my boys were schooled at home. They would have easily slipped through the cracks in a public school setting- plus, we’d have to deal with other issues that could go along with that, such acting out and other behavioral problems.

Finally, homeschooling has allowed my family the benefit of traveling full-time with my husband’s job for the past four years. Had we chosen not to homeschool, this never would have been an option for our family. My family would have been split apart as my husband traveled and the kids and I were left at home. Now we don’t have to wait to see him on weekends for a short visit, we are with him wherever he goes. This lifestyle has really enhanced our homeschooling experience because not only are we able to travel with my husband, we are able to see things that before we’d only read about in books.

3. Another benefit of homeschooling is the fun factor. Can you give us a few examples of some especially fun times you had as a result of homeschooling?

I just love to be with my kids- I think they’re fun! My daughter jokes that she brings ‘fun-tertainment’ to the family; and she’s right, she certainly does. Living in the close quarters of our motor home, we certainly all need to have a sense of humor.

When I asked my children for their opinions on what's been fun, they reminded me of many of the trips we’ve taken. When we were learning about early America and the Revolutionary War we were able to visit Jamestown, Yorktown, Colonial Williamsburg and many other historic sites in Virginia.

We found a lost kitty at the lost colony of Roanoke, camped at the site of a Civil War battle and read the journal of a soldier who fought there while studying bullets and other artifacts that had been found on the grounds, and spent a terrifying night amidst the Wild Ponies at Assateague Island National Seashore after reading Misty of Chincoteague.

When my children think back to their homeschooling experience, they’ll remember many of the trips that we’ve taken that have become a way of life for our family.

4. We all have funny experiences while homeschooling. Can you share one of yours with us?

I’ll never forget how fun our unit study of Ancient Egypt was about five years ago before we began traveling. While we were home, I was the Queen of Projects so we completed just about everything I could think of during the course of our unit.

One of our favorite activities was to mummify an orange and apple. After carefully, ceremoniously wrapping the mummies in muslin dipped in a water/glue solution, we placed the mummies on the front porch to dry and headed out to run some errands. Imagine our surprise to find an entire flock of black crows pecking at our mummies upon our return home! The kids were horrified and then made jokes about their mummies not making it to the afterlife.

School Sucks Podcast: The End of Public Education

I've been listening to this podcast lately. The host, Brett Veinotte, speaks the truth about education and I want to do what I can to spread the word about his podcast. I highly recommend it.

However, we all have limited time on our hands and there is so much information out there, so how can you really know whether this podcast is something you might be interested in spending your time on?

Well if you have 30 minutes, I suggest you listen to Episode 9.1. Although it is the third in a series on the "destructive, hidden curriculum in public education," I think it easily stands alone.

If you are curious and intrigued by what he says in this episode, then use that as an indication that you may find value in listening to more of what he has to say about education and learning.

I for one am looking forward to more.

Homeschooling Video

This video is very informative and shares a variety of ideas and opinions on homeschooling. I found it on JJ Ross' blog (see her interview here).

One person in the video is Pam Sooroshian, who kindly did an interview for this blog too.

We Laugh A Lot: Cynthia's Interview

Cynthia and her family crack themselves up as they live and learn together in Washington State...

1. How long have you been homeschooling (or if finished, how long did you homeschool)?

We have homeschooled for four years. But, in a way, we did so even before that, because it was a part of our lifestyle and our personal habits to spend a lot of time in "enrichment" activities with our daughter. We read to her for long hours, had season tickets to the opera, and spent a lot of time exploring the world with her through hikes, science experiments, and community events. When we decided to take her out of school, we reasoned that it would not involve a great deal more time than we were already spending.

2. One of the main benefits of homeschooling is the freedom and flexibility it allows. Can you give us a few examples of how this freedom and flexibility benefited you (your family)?

We love the freedom of homeschooling. Obviously, there is the ability to take vacations when it suits *our* schedule rather than the school district's. We have been able to involve our child in adult activities that took place during "school hours," which were of interest to her in spite of her age: a knitting retreat, a day at the courthouse, a lunchtime concert in the park, etc.

Furthermore, when learning isn't forced into the hours of the school day, it tends to happen more often. We don't call it "school," but we are frequently involved in some kind of project into the evening and weekend hours. If our daughter is still engrossed in the project on Monday morning, we can let her continue and return to the scheduled curriculum another day.

3. Another benefit of homeschooling is the fun factor. Can you give us a few examples of some especially fun times you had as a result of homeschooling?

We laugh a lot. We have a special way of jumping onto the couch together when we sit down to read that never fails to crack us up.

My daughter likes to pretend the cats are in the lessons too sometimes and we can't get them to cooperate. (Typical cat.)

One day on a weekend, I came home to find that my daughter and husband had decorated the entire downstairs with altars for the Greek gods (we were reading the Percy Jackson books at the time). I had to "take a tour," including a visit to the Oracle at Delphi, played by one of her old dolls wrapped up like a mummy in toilet paper. It was hilarious.

4. We all have funny experiences while homeschooling. Can you share one of yours with us?

I guess the funniest event was a talent show - conceived, organized and executed by the kids in our homeschool co-op. No parents had a hand in it.

I love those kinds of events, the kid-driven ones. Some of the children could barely speak they were laughing so hard.

But there were also the serious moments, when respect for a child's recital of her poem kept everyone absolutely silent - something I don't think you'd find in any school program.