What should we do when a child doesn’t want to go to school…ever? The standard approach is to assume something is wrong with the child and to use a combination of incentives and disincentives to get them to go. It feels like there is no other choice–go even if it’s distressing and even at great cost to mental health, well-being, … Read More
Let’s Not Force Our Kids Into Early Retirement
Several years ago, when I was a high school teacher, one of my students was seriously injured in a field hockey game. She was a star player and would probably have earned a scholarship to play field hockey. Her season, and possibly her entire field hockey career, was over. Right around the same time, I read an article, I think … Read More
Getting Back to the Garden
Natural curiosity, love, and a fertile environment are enough to allow the growth of an intelligent and happy young being who walks and talks and, by playing, continues to learn.
Good Stress, Bad Stress
Our members often describe PLC as a low-stress environment compared to their previous schools. Many of the common stressors in school are simply not present at PLC: competition for grades, mounds of homework, inflexible rules and regulations. We consciously try to reduce that kind of stress as much as possible. But one of the common concerns people have about self-directed … Read More
The Tension between Creativity and Productivity
A quick Google search for “to-do list” pulls 6,430,000,000 results in .45 seconds. I didn’t realize there was so much to say about a concept so simple that it’s literally defined by its title. But I guess gettin‘er done is the name of the game. In contrast, the word “idea” pulls 2,100,000,000 search results in .94 seconds, less than 3 … Read More