My first Christmas as a mother, my son was only two months old. I remember three things distinctly. First, I had a small existential crisis after buying my son gifts, wrapping them, then unwrapping them for him (which was, in hindsight, absurd). Second, I cared about nothing other than taking a nap. Third, I noticed […]
Every October my life is marked by the paradox of vitality and fatigue. The school year begins in interminable summer heat which a friend recently described as “Satan’s armpit.” The busyness of the school year careens at a questionable pace. When October begins, the heat relents, and I am reminded that the world is a
A Just Heart: A Reflection on the CiRCE Regional Conference Read More »
I would like to begin by telling you about the nature journals that I have kept over the years—growing in artistry from year to year, filled with memories of the outdoors when my children were small. These journals, however, do not exist. Over the last five years, my attempts amount to a dozen pages interspersed
Why and How to Nature Journal Read More »
I vividly remember the end-of-year conference with my son’s teacher before we began homeschooling. She expressed a need for improvement in his writing, but, of course, that was my area of teaching strength. She knew it would be no problem once I worked with him one-on-one. After all, I had designed the writing curriculum for
A Few Thoughts on Homeschooling with Knowledge Gaps Read More »
Several years ago, I read a book called The House That Cleans Itself. There were some helpful tips to make your house appear cleaner. Perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that my house did not, in fact, ever clean itself. I could write thousands of words on all the elaborate, failed methods that
Don’t Put Your School Year on Autopilot Read More »
Ordinarily his body lacked a soul – or, if he did possess a soul, he seemed to keep it elsewhere than where it ought to have been; so that, buried beneath mountains (as it were) or enclosed within a massive shell, its movements produced no sort of agitation on the surface. Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls
There is a silent alarm that goes off when I have had an unusually challenging day, and all children come running to help—now dropping eggs onto the floor, now licking the hand that touched the raw chicken. My daughter transcends the laws of physics to somehow touch everything in the room at once like an
How Then Shall We Cook? Read More »
“What are you going to do with your degree?” After many years I have at last finished my coursework for a master’s in Great Books, but I have not yet come up with an answer to this question that is both gracious and honest. What they are really asking is: why does a homeschool mom
The Transformative Wisdom of Great Books Read More »
There are three things that I swore that I would never do: return to my current hometown, attend my alma mater, Florida State University, or homeschool my children. I was not against homeschooling in the abstract, but I had a long list of valid reasons why I never would. (Mostly because I didn’t want to.)
Five Practical Tips for the Homeschooling Parent Read More »
As a new Grammar School Teacher, I was requested to make any handouts that I gave seem “fun.” A so-called happy font and a Microsoft Word-generated border would trick any child into thinking work was fun. After all, what shining-faced schoolboy was not moved to rapturous delight over practicing grammatical concepts once he caught a
Should Learning Be Fun? Read More »
Snack mats. We were gathered at a beautiful, rural wedding in the rustic style that was popular some years ago: mason jars and baby’s breath, hanging lights and candles. Jazz standards crooned through the speakers. The men were inclined into animated conversation. And, with a pale smile, I was stuck with the other mothers of
Motherhood and the Mind Read More »
Thomas Howard, the author of Dove Descending: A Journey Into T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, was a notable writer, English professor, and early C.S. Lewis scholar. Brother to the well-known missionary Elizabeth Eliot, he became a Catholic convert, chronicling his spiritual journey in his book, Evangelical Is Not Enough. Lewis’s influence in Howard’s writing is
Words Are the Thing: The Sacramentality of Language Read More »
