The Year of Learning Dangerously

I found The Year of Learning Dangerously by Quinn Cummings when I was skimming the homeschool books at our local library and got it because it looked interesting. It was. It was very entertaining and almost comical, the way Cummings did "undercover investigations" of some of the most extreme factions of homeschooling. She wore maximum-coverage clothes, a cross on a necklace, and a wig to fit in with an uber-evangelical Christian conference (that promoted the idea that even Christian colleges are of the devil). She did yoga with a group of extreme unschoolers - the "my children have no boundaries placed on them at all ever" radicals - that included a 2-year-old that liked to strip naked and run around the facility. She flew halfway across the country to help chaperone a homeschool prom, just to see how one was put together. And on it went. It made me laugh.

I did wonder, however, why she felt compelled to visit and look into the most extreme forms and reasons for homeschooling that are out there. These were very obviously not going to be groups that she and her daughter joined, but she wanted to check them out anyway. It seemed rather voyeuristic. Even though I was entertained by her descriptions, that idea of homeschool "research" by a parent didn't make much sense to me. There were other groups that she visited, but the extreme ones definitely stand out in my mind when I think about the book since finishing it.

Mixed in with all of this was what she did for her daughter - a math tutor, a French tutor who just served tea and spoke in French for the hour, team sports through the community center, long hikes together in which they discussed history and literature, lots (and lots and lots) of reading at home, classic movies on Friday night, and random science experiments in the kitchen.

The last chapter was her conclusion of what she got out of the year of chasing down the homeschooling weirdos, and that's where she hit the homerun. She called homeschooling "the I-tunes version of education." On I-tunes, you pick and choose your songs. You don't have to buy an entire album of junk to get one favorite, you just buy the one song. With homeschooling, you take it one subject at a time. If you want a tutor for math and a group for history and a library card for literature and a box of weird stuff for science and go to the community center for art projects ... you can do that. Piece it together in a way that works for the child being educated, and for your family. I-tunes. One song at a time.

Bingo.

I've been thinking a lot in the past few months about how we do things in our family's homeschooling, and feeling like we need to make some adjustments. But I wasn't coming to any solid conclusions until I read that. Well, to be honest, I still haven't come to any solid conclusions about how to move forward. But that was definitely a step in the right direction. I-tunes. Pick and choose what works for us. Take it one thing at a time. Thank you, a thousand times over, Quinn.

Step 1 has been to STOP READING ABOUT HOMESCHOOLING. I have read so. much. stuff. in the past few years that I'm on information overload about homeschooling. Everything sounds good. Nothing sounds good. The paralysis of too many options has set in, big time. I have not read any more books about homeschooling since I finished this one. My blog reading is down to random skimming only occasionally. I can't read anymore about homeschooling because it just clutters my brain. It's long past time to clear out my head and do what we want to do about learning. What is OUR method of homeschooling? Not someone else's!

I don't have steps 2 through 10 yet. I'll have to get back to you on that.