Category: School
-
School Next Year
This is where Sophie will be next year. We toured, we emailed, we examined the (scant) alternatives, we perused course offerings, and we applied. We did it above-board, having her apply as an out-of-catchment, out-of-district student, rather than “moving to Nelson” and registering her as in-catchment. Out Plan B would have been to move her […]
-
In the cherry tree
The same cherry tree that Fiona’s picking the fruit from: Sophie is climbing amongst its tangled branches. I love our local school. The teachers and staff are fabulous: interesting, passionate people with wonderful talents and the best interests of their students at heart. The school is tiny — about forty high schoolers, and a similar number […]
-
Cherry-picking
We’ve enjoyed unprecedented flexibility and co-operation from our local school for many years. At first we were merely registered homeschoolers with no official school affiliation, yet we were welcome to attend special events, use the library and participate in assemblies and field trips. When Erin enrolled in high school they enthusiastically supported her unschooled learning, […]
-
Homeschooling just one, v2.0
What a difference this year! A new violin teacher has arrived in the area and I have relinquished all my private lesson teaching to her. This means that Fiona is not dragged to a furniture- and electronics-barren teaching studio for hours each week to sit and wait for me to finish working. It’s the second […]
-
Planning homeschooling
As has been our after-SVI routine for the past few years, Fiona and I are thinking about and planning the upcoming year of homeschooling. While she had some ambivalence about homeschooling during the tail end of winter last year, she’s now firmly back on board and looking forward to another year of self-directed learning. While […]
-
Another year of school
Rose and the Doctor at school on Fictional Character Day Classes have ended at the local high school. Sophie and Noah are in the midst of exams. This represents the completion of Sophie’s second and Noah’s first year of full-time school. They’ve also just completed course selection for next year. It feels like a suitable […]
-
Math cat
Though still essentially an out-and-out unschooler, Fiona has been taking Introductory Spanish at the local school this semester. Nominally she’s in Grade 4 and the requirement for second-language learning doesn’t kick in until Grade 5 within the DL program we’re part of. But she was interested in doing something like this. When we first raised […]
-
Fear and locked doors
Dear Ms. School District Superintendant I’m writing to express my distaste for the recent board-level changes in school security policy. I chose to raise my children in this area in large part because I wanted them to grow up in an environment free of pervasive media-drive fear. Not free of risk, of course: none of […]
-
End of the school year
Sophie and Noah both entered high school this year out of a lifetime of unschooling, Sophie full-time in a combination of Grade 8 & 9 (Grade 8 being considered high school here) and Noah part-time in Grade 10. I realize I’ve written almost nothing about their experiences there. All in all I think it’s been […]
-
Grad Photos
-
Graduating
We have Erin home for almost four days. She made the trip back from Montreal for her high school graduation weekend. While she’s been living there this year studying violin and playing in an orchestra, she’s officially still been a student within our local school district, earning credit towards her graduation diploma through independent study […]
-
Fiona reads
The Arts & Writers School and Community Coffee House was last night. It’s the culmination of a week of electives and workshops held at the school with a variety of local and guest artists. In the gallery space was the artwork the kids had produced throughout the week in classrooms, on the lakeshore, in canoes. […]
-
My working parent day
Today I felt like a working parent. I packed all three kids off to school, went to work, picked them up in time to start juggling the after-school activities and homework. Yes, all three are at school this week. Fiona is busy finishing up the series art workshops that have been offered to homeschooled students […]
-
Using school to fit our needs
Compared to what the kids’ educations looked like several years ago, things are much more varied and piecemeal these days. I used to have four kids hanging out and playing at home and in the community, pursuing learning entirely outside of the sphere of influence of school. Now very much fall within the sphere of […]
-
Finding his place
The high school has just completed a week-long documentary project. The student films were shown, as well as an informal “documenting the documentary-making” film pulled together by Mo, one of the professional film-maker facilitators. In this last film, there was a clip of Noah sitting in front of computer with a group of other students […]