Secular Homeschooling magazine review
In our twelve years of homeschooling, I have rarely found a homeschool magazine that I felt was useful or pertinent to our homeschooling life. Growing Without Schooling was the only one that I did like and, unfortunately, it was no longer being published when my family began homeschooling. I purchased as many used copies online as I could find and read every page with interest. But no other magazine seemed to captivate me the way that Growing Without Schooling did. When I published my own homeschool magazine (HELM (Home Education Learning Magazine), 2000-2002), I always felt that it was just a tad bit ironic that I should publish a homeschool magazine when I did not read or subscribe to any other such magazines. You would have at least thought I would want to see what the competition was doing!
Last month, though, I learned of a new homeschool magazine, Secular Homeschooling. It was quite by accident, really. The editor of Secular Homeschooling, Deborah Markus, had one of her articles plagiarized, which caused quite a stir in the homeschooling community. I blogged about it at “Plagiarism Exists.”
In that post, I mentioned that I felt one way to turn her experience into a positive one was for homeschoolers to subscribe to her magazine and I did just that. I received the first issue of Secular Homeschooling a few of weeks ago and then the second issue last week. Unfortunately, the first issue got a quick glance through and then set aside, quickly forgotten. But yesterday I took the second issue with me to read while my son was at karate and, boy, am I glad I did! What a great magazine!
Secular Homeschoolingis a non-religious magazine that does not advocate any particular method of homeschooling. Their website states, “Its readers and writers are committed to the idea that religious belief is a personal matter rather than a prerequisite of homeschooling.”
Issue Two includes articles about a family of four (mom, dad, two eight-year-old boys) biking around the country for a year; rescuing a hummingbird (and showing your children you are smart enough to know you are stupid); how homeschooling shaped the life of a teen who was homeschooled all her life and is now in college; and a large section of articles concerning Charlotte Mason homeschooling. My hands down favorite article was an Op Ed piece by Madison J. titled “It’s a Southern Thing.” As a transplanted Yankee who has lived in the south for close to thirteen years, I found this piece to be hilarious and oh, so true!
As a past homeschool magazine writer / editor / publisher, I know the efforts that have gone into the creation of Secular Homeschooling. I applaud Ms. Markus on her achievements in this second issue and am now scrambling to find where I “hid” the first issue. I have another karate class to sit through and I am sure that I will find issue one to be just as engrossing and entertaining as issue two!
Secular Homeschooling is published four times a year; $28/ one-year subscription. Visit the Secular Homeschooling website for more information and read “Smart Enough To Know I’m Stupid” from Issue Two. You can still purchase a year’s subscription and ask that it begin with Issue One!
March 13th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Hey, thanks! What a terrific review. My heart stopped for a minute there when you said that the first issue was “quickly forgotten” — I thought you meant that’s how you felt after reading it! But then I saw that you just meant it’s been playing household hide-and-seek, and I started breathing again. *And* feeling better about the state of my own living room and its piles and piles of papers and mags…
March 14th, 2008 at 8:09 am
I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack! Yeah, I glanced at the front, then laid it down somewhere and “poof!” out of sight, out of mind. I did find Issue One yesterday and have it in my travel bag, ready for the next hour spent at karate practice! Thanks for stopping by to read the review!
May 15th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I agree that Secular Homeschooling is a great magazine - and not just because we are in it. There’s a lot of good info and I lament the fact that I won’t be able to subscribe - we’re taking off with our boys to ride our bikes from Alaska to Argentina and won’t have a mailbox on the road! You can read about our adventured cycling with 10-year-old twins at http://www.familyonbikes.org
June 30th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
People would be inspired by reading about a 20 year-old college Math Professor, an 18 year old Architect, a 17 year old Pre-med graduate, and a 12 year old college sophomore. Our “interest led” homeschooling family would love to share how 4 of our 9 kids have gotten into college by the age of 12.(Our son was actually 11) We know that there have been others going to college at an early age, but we are getting amazing results with our method. We feel that we are just an average family who can help others do the same by sharing our story.
Please view the attached Photo!
Thanks for your time.-Mona Lisa Harding # 334-239-8175
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