Grad School Won’t Turn Clueless Kids Into Self-Directed Adults

September 3, 2009

This week, I was in touch with a reporter from a major national newspaper for a story on parents who help their kids through the process of getting into graduate school. The initial query mentioned how going through the grad school application process together might “deepen the parent-child relationship.”
Well, that set me [...]

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Homeschooling, Unschooling and Bold Schooling: By Any Name, It’s Education Without Limits

August 27, 2009

I’ve been having a discussion with a homeschooling advocate about the terminology we use to describe those who are putting together a creative blend of their best education options. Most people understand what homeschooling is and have their own impression about what it looks like. Many picture a young child reading aloud or [...]

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Higher Ed and Healthcare Woes: What We’re Doing Wrong (and Other Countries Are Doing Right)

August 23, 2009

It’s been a summer full of bad news in education in the United States.
Drastic state budget cuts, shrinking endowments, unprecedented need for financial aid to struggling families—these obstacles to earning a degree have been well-documented in the news and blogs these past three months. There’s a lot of hand-wringing all the way around and [...]

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On Raising Recession-Proof Kids

August 14, 2009

I feel frustrated that so many recent college grads are having a hard time finding a job. In all the articles and discussions about the economic slump, I have never seen a reference to what I believe is the biggest problem facing the young unemployed:
Nobody told them that they might have to look outside their [...]

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Down on the Farm and Out in the World: An Ode to Learning Both Locally and Globally

July 31, 2009

Some of my earliest memories are of playing in the vegetable garden. I remember eating handfuls of parsley, drinking the first sun-warmed spurt of water from the garden hose, watching for the radishes (always the radishes) to be the first seeds to sprout. There were beans to pick (and bean tents to hide inside), [...]

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The Battle Against Learned Helplessness

July 24, 2009

I’ve read several articles and blog posts recently about education consultants who charge as much as $40,000 to get a student into college. Now, I recognize that there are many education consultants who offer valuable assistance to families struggling with the college admissions process and that most don’t charge anywhere near that amount. [...]

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Reflections on Suburban Parenting

July 17, 2009

I’ve gotten into a little trouble this past week in Portland.
You see, I spent most of my life in this part of Oregon. I’ve lived in a new 1960s subdivision, a rural area (three miles on a gravel road outside a town with a population of 325), a small town (population 13,000), and [...]

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My Favorite Audience: Exchange Students and Their Parents

July 10, 2009

After flying all night from Buenos Aires, Argentina (where I live) to Atlanta and on up to Grand Rapids, Michigan by noon,
I was tired but excited to be a guest at the Rotary Youth Exchange Central States conference. Tonight, I will be speaking
to 1500 of my favorite people: parents who are sending their [...]

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Maya Meets Alaina Zulli, Former Exchange Student Featured in NGS

June 13, 2009

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Alaina Zulli here in New York. Alaina is one of the students featured in the book and shares her story of going on a year-long high school exchange to Ukraine.
Alaina’s story is a little unusual, but I really wanted to include it to show that [...]

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NPR’s Tom Ashbrook Interviews Maya Frost on “On Point”

June 12, 2009

Tom and I had a great time at WBUR’s studio in Boston yesterday doing NPR’s fastest-growing talk show, “On Point”
with Tom Ashbrook. It was live and is presented by more than 150 NPR affiliates across the country! You can listen to the recorded show here .
It was a great experience all around–the [...]

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