Tuesday, May 24, 2011

I'm a home-schooler newly in love....

with Carolyn Pratt!

Oh my goodness. After FIVE years of struggling to adore Marie Montessori and Charlotte Mason--feeling more, and more like a lonely, nerdy, educational theory freak--Miss Carolyn Pratt walks into my world.

Here's a sample of her "yumminess"


"At the forefront of the kindergarten and early childhood movement
was Teachers College. Pratt reflected on class one day when
the instructor commanded everyone to “dance like butterflies.”

You taught children to dance like butterflies,

when you knew they would much rather
roar like lions,

because lions are hard to
discipline and butterflies aren’t.

All activity in the Kindergarten
must be quiet, unexciting.

All of it was designed to prepare children
for the long years of discipline ahead.

Kindergarten got them ready
to be bamboozled by the first grade (pg 15).


Have you ever read anything MORE inspiring?

Can NOT believe that my poverty has forced me to open my own "Sacred Heart Academy" in my own home. Three years into my grand experiment I find that I most closely resemble this Manhattan gem "City and Country School". Yeah, it costs a mere $29,000 a year and has an incredibly impossible admission standard. But my kids get the same education (+ better b/c they get to also celebrate their Catholic faith) merely by sharing my same last name.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

These are the unexpected gifts poverty can hand you!