learning

My Love Affair with Libraries

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My love affair with libraries started when I was very young.   I grew up in a town with a library housed in a section of a big fancy estate that had been donated to the town. It had giant leaded glass windows, window seats, balconies, nooks and crannies and a beautiful children’s room  which … Read more

From Fear to Celebration: 5 Strategies to Transform Your Approach to Rejection

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Fear of rejection and putting yourself into the world limits your ability to learn and grow. Celebrating rejection, instead of fearing it, transforms the person experiencing rejection from a victim of others choices, to the courageous chooser of opportunity. You can learn to change your mindset about fearing rejection to celebrating rejection.

As with most celebrations, celebrating rejection will make you happier. And if it still sounds impossible, there are at least five practical steps that you can take to get better at being rejected. You can choose to transform your relationship with rejection to allow yourself to bravely pursue your goals as you ask hard questions, try new things, and do what matters. 

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Book Review: Slow Homeschooling by Milva MacDonald

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Slow Homeschooling:Essays About Mindful Homeschooling

This is a small but mighty book.  Just 64 pages, it contains a powerful collection of 23 essays that touch upon a range of issues that parents grapple with as they explore the decision about homeschooling, and more issues that arise once they start on their homeschooling journey.

Take a look at the table of contents:   

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Solstice End of Year Reflection: What’s Really Important?

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This has been a hard year.

My mom was diagnosed with ALS in February, followed by two feeding tube surgeries, a move back east and rapidly progressing symptoms. One sibling had a bad fall with complications. Another sibling needed a brain surgery and still needs a different surgery.

And yesterday, the longest night of the year, I’d started my year-in-review that often morphs into  me beating myself up about all the things I didn’t accomplish that I intended to, like:

  • only 16 blog posts/28 newsletters instead of 52
  • no speaking gigs
  • just a few books sold and no marketing plan
  • still piles and piles of mama’s files to be gone through
  • my messy, messy house

The list of what didn’t get done, or done well, could go on and on.  

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Travel and Learning: 12 Topics to Take Beyond Textbooks

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Travel and Learning:12 Topics to Take Beyond Textbooks, photo of marble section from the Roamn Forum, www.lisanalbone.com

Breathing in the air and aromas, walking in the footsteps or examining firsthand what I have studied or read about is thrilling. I get goosebumps just remembering the first time I: stood under the towering, majestic Redwoods I’d studied in Botany had a slow meaningful conversation in Spanish about education with a woman in the … Read more

10 Attitudes to Spread the Love of Learning

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Even when you choose to unschool, as a parent you will have moments when you are the teacher. Don’t worry if you don’t have a teaching credential. The critical elements that make a great teacher are often not taught in college, nor are they required to earn a teaching credential.

So, you may be asking yourself these questions:

How can I be the best teacher for my kids? 

 As a self-directed learner, how do I become my own best teacher? 

How does a great teacher spread the love of learning?

Close your eyes for a moment and remember the best teacher you ever had. Maybe it was in a Sunday school or summer camp. Think of someone who was a great teacher in your life- not necessarily a classroom teacher. It could be a coach, music teacher, scout leader,  professor, parent, neighbor, or mentor. Perhaps it was a friend.

Can you recapture the good feeling of that learning experience?   What did you learn? How? What was it about the teacher and how they interacted with you that made it  great?  How did they make you feel? Jot those down.  

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