Talking About Life Learning Interview Coordinated by Sandra Rakovac Fatim Walji is a stay-at-home mother who lives with her husband Fayyaz and their three children, six-year-old son Zaveer, four-year-old daughter Mishaal, and two-year-old son Junayd in Ontario, Canada. Born in Zaire, Fatim says that at times she thinks she tends to forget that maybe she is just demanding too much, and that it’s better if her children safely experience things on their own. Read more. Leaf Jumpers: A Journey from Home to School and Back Again by Nikki Schaefer “No. I don’t want to jump in the leaves.” My son responded flatly, barely looking up at us or the giant leaf pile. His sisters and I played while he just looked at his feet. My heart broke to see a boy of such enthusiasm and spirit become a boy filled with disinterest. What happened? Is the age jump from six to seven so drastic that a boy who once got so excited about jumping in the leaves with his sisters no longer cares? I doubt it. In my opinion, what happened was school. Read more. What Really Matters: A Conversation Between David Albert and Joyce Reed A homeschooling mom reported that her 11-year old son, who is “a hands-on kind of guy interested in cars and motors”, couldn’t be goaded to do the required pages in the math workbook. “He’s just not motivated to learn,” she wrote, and then asked, “How do you make boring math worksheets fun?” There was the familiar inward groan in my nether regions, the gorge rose in my throat and I, “Mr. Homeschooling Know-It-All” that I sometime masquerade as, was about to go for the jugular. “Why would you want to deceive him?” almost poured forth from my fingertips (this was an e-mail conversation), “Math worksheets ARE boring. Why confuse him into thinking otherwise?” Read more.

From the Archives What Really Matters: Parts is Parts a conversation between David Albert & Joyce Reed The Einstein Syndrome & Other Labels by Naomi Aldort The Educator's Dilemma by Dan Grego Challenging Assumptions in Education by Wendy Priesnitz Seeing Through Rose Colored Glasses by Junyee Wang

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