What are your Favorite Math Resources?
Parents often ask me: “What are your favorite math resources? And, I usually say it depends on the kiddo. Usually I ask myself questions like these: What are my learner’s strengths? How does she like to learn? Does she like to: – Follow sequences – Watch someone do something and then imitate – Listen to […]
AERO Reflection
Meeting new people and reconnecting with old friends and colleagues is one of my favorite things about AERO. This year I was able to reconnect with one of my favorite role models, Dr. Fluerette Sweeney. Fleurette began her career as an educator in 1950, and she is still going strong. She started as a music teacher and […]
Strengths or Weaknesses: What Do You Focus On?
Many of us know how important it is to work with our strengths; however, putting this idea into practice flies in the face of how our brains are wired. Unfortunately, our negativity bias often overrides this and we revert to thinking if we could only improve a weaker area for ourselves and our learners. then […]
Student Agency
It was so much fun to co-facilitate the AERO workshop: “Student Agency: Empowering Kids to Follow Their Own Learning Journey” with Jill Keltner and Teresa Draguicevich. I appreciated the opportunity to work with these two talented educators on this topic, which is near and dear to my heart. Jill introduced me to this concept last […]
A Favorite Keynote Speaker
One of my favorite keynotes this year at AERO was Blake Boles’ on “Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going.” I appreciated his review of the history of alternative education, which includes homeschool and unschooling. He discussed the challenges which small programs and organizations face, including differentiating themselves and then also working with each other […]
AERO Conference Reflection
As usual, the 2019 AERO conference was a wonderful mixture of reconnecting with old friends, meeting new people, honoring the pioneers in the alternative education movement along with a flurry of conversations about the many possibilities of what learner-centered learning can look like in our rapidly changing world. The Theme this year was: Where We’ve […]
Knowing and Understanding Our Strengths
Monica is co-facilitating a workshop with Kathy on the value of knowing and understanding our strengths and those of our children . Here are some of Kathy’s thoughts about how her lens shifted after she did a strengths assessment with her children and worked with others with their strengths…
So What are Strengths?
So what are strengths? How are they different from talents? Don Clifton, founder and chief designer of the StrengthsFinder profile, often referred to talents as: “Any recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied.” For example, if you naturally relish competing, you have a talent in competitiveness. If you can easily […]
How Does Curiosity Foster Learning?
People ask how curiosity fosters learning? It sounds so easy to say “Watch for interest and curiosity as an entry place for learning,” and yet sometimes this can be more challenging than we expect. Along with wanting to nurture our children’s love of learning, we might have the nagging concern that they might not be […]