The woes of online publishing when you can’t fix what’s behind the scenes

I have been writing for Examiner.com for nearly a year as the Phoenix Homeschooling Examiner.  Up to this point, it has been a reasonably positive experience, and I was able to learn a ton of new things from other Examiners. Early last Friday morning, Examiner.com moved its entire site to a new platform.  As with [...]

A tribute to the gracious life and death of a homeschool mom

Why is it that many people with the most authentic and influential lives seem to die at a young age? Colleen Conner’s memorial service was yesterday, and I found myself asking a lot of questions like this.  I met her about nine years ago at Covenant Home School Resource Center when she brought her daughter [...]

What does Jack-Jack Parr have in common with homeschoolers and Olympians?

Aside from the fact that many Olympic athletes spend some time being homeschooled during their teen years, I believe that Jack-Jack Parr from “The Incredibles”, homeschoolers and Olympic hopefuls have many parallels.  In each case, those working with the youngsters may not really know the potential of their students, but they see something big and [...]

Bo’s Cafe kickoff party hosts The Shack author Paul Young as featured speaker

What do you get when you combine the man who created the first wildly successful self-published book in the world [1] [2] [3] with a story of a highly successful man, now about to lose everything, who finds his way to restoration through a group of ordinary friends who gently push him to humbly face the [...]

Homeschool leader and pioneer, Chris Klicka, has passed away

Chris Klicka spent the last 24 years as a homeschool dad and as a staunch defender of home education on many fronts. HIs training as an attorney proved invaluable for the fledgling home education movement that began to grow at a phenomenal rate in the 1980′s.  In many states at the time, homeschooling was illegal [...]

Addressing the homeschool socialization myth: students will have anti-American ideas

In recent articles [1] [2] [3], I have explored the inevitable question that homeschoolers are bound to be asked by the curious, the skeptical and the antagonistic. If your children are homeschooled, how will they get socialization skills? Often there is an assumption behind the question which I am bringing to light, along with information to [...]

Three problems I see with the new show “FlashForward”

Alright, I confess.  I watched “FlashForward” yesterday on Hulu.com. Problem 1:  I am not a TV person, and rarely take the time to watch a show.  I wasn’t even planning to watch it, although I was intrigued with the minimalistic billboards advertising the program and date only.  I had no idea what it was about, [...]

Homeschooling socialization myth #2: Kids won’t have friends

In previous articles [1] [2], I have begun taking apart some of the beneath-the-surface ideas that are the heart of the question: “If you homeschool, how will your children become socialized?”In this scenario, the fear is that the students won’t have any friends nor know how to make friends.   The foundations for knowing how [...]

Should homeschoolers get the Swine Flu vaccine?

Fall is the start of the flu season. Often parents realize that their children stay much healthier when they are homeschooled, and not exposed to mass numbers of children every day.  This is a huge factor in being able to optimize learning. With so much talk about the Swine Flu, and the expected pandemic that [...]

Are homeschoolers susceptible to the dangers of the Internet?

One might think that homeschooled children are less likely to get into trouble while using the INTERNET since their parents are more involved with schooling and day to day activities. It is my experience that students taught at home still share in many of the troubles that afflict the larger population, although perhaps to a lesser [...]