Wow Academy - Always Learning

While obtaining my degree in Elementary Education, I met a family who taught their children at home. As an education major I was puzzled as to why parents would choose to do this themselves. "Why not leave education to the certified professionals? This is how it has always been done." (Has it?) I chose home education as the topic of my research every chance I got in college. The research showed that children educated at home excelled socially and academically above their public school peers. This seems obvious since one of the common characteristics of academically successful children, whether they are educated at home or in a public or private school, is parental involvement.

I always had a strong desire to live an educational lifestyle and to surround my son with books and educational games and toys. Homeschooling was an obvious and natural extension of that parental instinct. The older he got, and the closer to "school age" he became, the more I started to see how my home was the best atmosphere for learning, not an institution. The world would be our classroom, not the four walls surrounding his desk. Not sending my son to school was the best choice I ever made.

What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge,

not knowledge in pursuit of the child. -George Bernard Shaw

Home Education Publications:

Life Learning Magazine The International Magazine of Self-Directed Learning

Home Education Magazine

Homeschooling in the news
provided by HomeSchoolBuzz.com

My Rants:

Play is synonomous with learning. This was an e-mail I wrote years ago about how my daughter was learning so much as she played.

Alphabet Soup - An example of how learning happens all the time and doesn't have to look like school. (This was an example that I sent to the A2Z Yahoo! Group about how learning happened at lunch.) This article was published in Life Learning Magazine's May/June 2005 issue.

A Good Day - Excerpt from my journal. A day where following my son's curiosities led us naturally through various topics.

A Bad Day - Not all days are good. This day is what I describe as my "paragraph panic attack" and it helped me remember what is important.

This page was last updated September 2006. It was created by Rebecca using Mozilla Composer.