Homeschooling can be a wildly varied experience from family to family. That's one of the wonderful things about homeschooling...the flexibility, the adaptability and the individualization that's possible for your unique child and for your family.
What I'm here to do is to lay a foundation underneath all of that deliciousness...a foundation that takes what we know from science, psychology, and other fields of study, along with my thousands of hours of working with all ages of learners, and craft this knowledge framework into a solid place for you to stand and build your one-of-a-kind homeschooling experience.
Here's a little bit about my story...First, let me introduce myself. My name is Laura Wilde and I came into education in a time that lacked a lot of oversight and guidance. For some, that probably felt like a lack of support, but for me, it felt like freedom. I started teaching in one of the roughest areas of Los Angeles and I ended up staying there for ten years. I was just a kid at the time…with a PhD under my belt, but no teacher training whatsoever. There was no one helping, there was no one watching, there weren’t even any books and scant materials. So, what did I do? I called my mother to come help me.
My mother sat at the back of the room and taught me how to teach and let me be me, while I applied everything I had just spent all those years in school learning about in terms of intrinsic motivation and how we learn. There was no one to stop me when I turned my classroom into a time machine for months…when kids dressed, ate, spoke and learned as if they were someone else, somewhere else living in a different time period. There was no one to stop me when I set out through the inner city with a wagon train of heavy shopping carts as the kids simulated the Westward Movement. There was no one to stop me when the kids became archeologists or scientists or the many other simulations that we ran, day after day, month after month, year after year. Until, it all changed…as things inevitably do…and there was someone to stop me.
As you can probably tell by now. I never really fit into the teacher mold, the education box. I understand why schools and classrooms are set up the way that they are, but in most cases, I think kid learning is short-changed in terms of what’s possible. You, on the other hand, are in a perfectly positioned place to bring the best of what we know about learning to your child, to create a learning environment where your child comes alive and is deeply engaged.
So, if you’re already homeschooling or if you’re thinking about homeschooling…congratulations and welcome to an incredible experience…and also…the greatest mirror into yourself…as a mother, a father, a learner…our kids are our greatest teachers.
It’s okay if you have no idea what to do or you’ve just been faking it ’til you make it…you have support around you everywhere. You just have to reach out and grab it.
Each of you is already brilliant and each of you, as I’ve said, is in the best-positioned place to make the biggest difference in your child’s life, but maybe, just maybe I can offer a perspective from the outside looking in, from someone who has been there and been on both sides of the learning, someone that has worked with many types of families in many types of situations and had my own kids travel through the ages you’re educating right now, at times at home and at times at school.
Now, imagine that we’re sitting down together to have a cup of tea or coffee. We’re talking honestly about your experience of homeschooling or your thoughts and concerns around beginning to homeschool. We’re talking about your vision for your child, your family.
I want you to be open to the possibilities that this conversation holds and the amazing things that happen as we have this conversation. Whether your child’s education is working successfully or whether the worry keeps you up at 3am, we can all upgrade our experience. I’m putting out the intention that positive, forward movement comes from our conversation. It’s your time to receive it.
Maybe you’ll get to see your child passionate about learning something, or maybe you’ll begin to exchange more kind words with one another or perhaps your child will focus intently on something that matters or advocate for what feels good and right more frequently.
Whether it’s opportunities such as these or others that arise, they will come forward because you will begin to raise your awareness to your needs, your child’s and the needs of the learning space. Each of us only knows what we know and can only see what we know to see, yet through our conversation, it’s my intention to show you a new perspective, an idea that you haven’t yet considered, a technique or strategy that may be fresh and perfectly timed.
Stay open, be curious and ready to learn. That’s what we ask for our children, so we can ask no less of ourselves.
Everything I teach revolves around open skills and what I mean by that are skills that can apply to anyone, at any age, at any time. It won’t matter what curriculum you’re using, or not using, what educational approach you embrace or your philosophy about learning. It’s my goal that not only your child learn to learn optimally, but you do, as well.
One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is the understanding of how to learn because then they are truly unstoppable. That’s the secret no one ever tells us. We now have the science to understand many things about how the brain learns and pairing that with what we know about motivation and engagement makes for great homeschooling.
Someone just needs to tell you how those things work and you happen to be in the right place…I’m ready if you are.
If you and your child would like to learn to learn, head over to join us in Boldschoolers Blueprint, where homeschoolers are doing education differently.
https://www.boldschoolers.com/blueprint
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