QHA: Learning Our Way

We started the morning by arriving to find our schult ü te and lap desks neatly but attractively displayed which caught our interest. Emily explained to us that these items were gifts for us but before they could be opened we needed to figure out  what they are called, what country they come from, what they are, and why they were in the living room on our first day of school. We used descriptive adjectives and clues from the questions to google around and find the answers. It took a little time, maybe 15 minutes, but eventually we figured it out! Answer: Schultü tes, or, school cones come from Germany. This tradition has also spread to other countries such as Austria and the Czech Republic. Parents give these cones to their children on the first day of first grade as a way of celebrating the way of life. The cone contains school supplies, sweets, healthy snacks, toys, and other treats that may be useful or interesting in the year ahead. Even though today was not the first day of FI...

Our “school” name started out as a bit of a joke. A tongue in cheek name partly meant to poke gentle fun at the structure and rigidity of industrial era schooling; partly to signal that we aren’t actually taking ourselves too seriously; and partly to put on the top of transcripts before we decided to go with a charter. It was inspired by my Alice In Wonderland living room decor. The “school name” also provided a vehicle to wade into some learning together. Jackie made us a logo and we discussed the possibility of creating a website, fliers, and even uniforms! It was fun and we were stepping softly into learning. The logo went up on the wall in April, months before we were due to get started together; and I looked at it every day. As I sat with the image and reflected on the years ahead, the name took on new meaning for me. It stopped being just a little fun and became my aspiration… to become a non-Carrollian sort of queen of hearts. To explain… When I wandered into this adventure of t...

I home educated Daniel many years ago and we struggled to find our way. It led to him asking to return to school, which was okay but I still wish I’d done it better. Wading in this time I’ve sat with our “why” continually, contemplating what features of non-school learning will best meet the needs of our “why.” The “why” for all three of the kiddos I am supporting to learn these next two years comes down to Habits of Mind. As I look at each of these kids’ profiles as learners the need to awaken curiosity stands out as their most essential immediate need to become engaged learners and citizens. There’s much more but this is first and greatest. An approach designed to support this waking up calls for maximum initiative from the kids, a lot of trust building cognitive and emotional safety), and freedom. Having read extensively over the last 6 months I found that Montessori and Charlotte Mason approaches both make a lot of sense to me but for now, the best choice is to use rigorous, intere...