Leaping From The Box

will the Edwards children continue to homeschool … and should they have called it homeschooling in the first place?

The big news this afternoon is that John Edwards is suspending his presidential campaign. Now, I know I should be wondering just what suspending means, but instead, what I am wondering is how soon his children will be back in public school instead of being homeschooled.

Of course, I use the term homeschooling very loosely in this case. It was big news last fall when The Huffington Post interviewed Elizabeth Edwards about their homeschooling experience. My friend Tammy over at Just Enough, and Nothing More wrote about it in her Elizabeth Edwards Is Kinda Sorta Homeschooling, But It’s Working. Tammy did not want to start a debate about whether the Edwards family was really homeschooling, but it would have been an interesting debate.

As I read over the Huffington post interview, I kept thinking, “This doesn’t sound like any homeschool situation I’ve ever heard described before!” No public school I know of would allow a homeschooled child to slide in and out of the public school activities (lunch, field trips) of their “assigned” classrooms, as Elizabeth Edwards states in the interview. And very few homeschooling families have the means to employ a certified teacher to tutor their children. Do you consider that to be homeschooling or home tutoring?

In any case, I will be curious to see whether the Edwards children continue homeschooling for the remainder of this year, now that their parents are no longer on the campaign trial. What do you think they will do?

Visit the 109th Blog Carnival of Homeschooling over at Life on the Road. This topic of this particular carnival is “Leaving a Legacy.” I have a post there, as do many other very talented homeschooling and unschooling writers. Spend some time absorbing some great homeschooling thoughts!

As unschoolers, learning things on our own is not a novel idea, but it does seem to be making the rounds on a few blogs. Last week PickTheBrain had a guest blogger, Scott Young, who wrote about How To Set Up Your Personal University. Scott wrote, “While regular university is expensive and stops when you get a degree, your personal university continues indefinitely and can be run for free.” Unschoolers have known this all along!

I have been reading Scott’s blog for a few months now and enjoying his perspective. Scott is a college student, writing about his thoughts and experiences as he navigates college, life and setting goals.  Many of the issues Scott mentions in his blog I see my own college student grappling with also.

Check out Scott’s Keeping To-Learn Lists post. I have often had lists in my head of things I would like to learn in the future, but never really wrote any of them down on paper. I do have a list of books that I want to read, but not things I want to learn to do. Maybe it is time to commit my list to paper. Here’s a start:

• Play the banjo
• Read and speak Italian
• Sail a boat

Do you have a “To Learn” list of your own?