Secular homeschooling · Former teacher · Mom of four
You’re not imagining it. And you’re not the only one.
I taught public school English for eleven years, more than 2,000 students, and I watched what the system does to kids who are doing everything right. So my four never went. Now I help parents who can see it too, whether your kids are still in school or you’re already building a secular homeschool of your own (and figuring out how to actually make the day work).
Where are you right now?
Free, 2 minutes. Get a name for what you’re seeing.
Free, 2 minutes. Find where your day gives out.
Not sure yet? Just send me what I write each week.
As featured in
What I watched for eleven years
Things we’ve all been told are just normal.
I saw every one of these from the front of a classroom, and parents kept getting told it was fine. It isn’t fine, and you’re allowed to say so.
After school
She holds it together for seven hours and falls apart the second she’s in the car.
That isn’t a behavior problem. It’s what happens when a kid spends the whole day being careful, and home is the first place it’s finally safe to stop.
School mornings
The stomach ache that only shows up on school days.
Her body figured something out before anyone thought to ask her how she feels about going (and it’s never there on a Saturday, is it).
Sunday night
Sunday-night dread, treated like a personality trait.
An eight-year-old isn’t supposed to dread the week. We just got so used to it that it stopped looking like something worth worrying about.
Reading
The kid who loved books right up until reading got graded.
Reading logs and levels turned the thing she loved into a thing she performs, and so she did what any reasonable person would do…she stopped.
Evenings
Homework that has quietly taken over your evenings.
School is supposed to end at three o’clock, except it doesn’t, because now it lives at your kitchen table until bedtime.
If you nodded at three of those, listen, you’re not overreacting, and you’re definitely not the only one.
Start here
Two kinds of parents find me. Which one are you?
If your kids are in school
Something’s off, and you can’t quite name it.
- A name for what you’ve been watching at home
- What’s actually going on inside the classroom, from someone who was there
- One small thing you can try this week
When you’re ready to think about what you’d choose instead, there’s Breaking Default.
If you already homeschool
You made the call. Now the day has to work.
- Find the exact point where your day falls apart
- A rhythm that holds even on the messy days
- Kids who own more of their own work, so you’re not the reminder system
Then give the week a shape with the Secular Homeschooling Family Rhythm Planner.
Hi, I’m Alanna
I was the teacher. Then I decided not to send my own kids.
I taught middle and high school English in public schools for eleven years, more than 2,000 students, and I left because of what I was watching happen to the kids in front of me. Kids who could get the grade and had ZERO interest in actually learning anything (which, honestly, is exactly what the system had trained them to do).
So by the time my son was old enough for kindergarten, I already knew I wasn’t sending him. My four went to Montessori preschool and never to public school. We worldschool, we’ve lived in nine countries over the past four years, and academics take about two hours a day. Now I help parents who can see what I saw build something better for their own kids.
The C.O.R.E. Lens
Does this move us closer to the childhood we’re trying to create?
Four conditions that help a childhood go well. Everything I write comes back to one of them.
A secular homeschooling community
Secular. Inclusive. Evidence-based. And you’re not the only one here.
Most of the homeschool groups within driving distance assume you share beliefs you might not hold, and so a lot of parents end up doing this completely alone. The Common Room is a secular homeschooling community I’m building now, for families who want the company without having that conversation.
A real week
What it actually looks like, and why we do it this way.
Start with one thing
Pick the one that fits where you are.
For parents with kids in school
Breaking Default
For the parent who knows something’s off and is ready to think about what she’d actually choose instead.
$37
For homeschooling families
Secular Homeschooling Family Rhythm Planner
Block scheduling for the homeschool week, so your day has a shape even when it doesn’t go to plan.
$27
The book
Raising kids who are hard to sell to.
Kids who read, play and think for themselves are so much harder to manipulate, and this is the book about how to raise them in a world that is spending billions trying to do the opposite.
Writing
The latest essays.
One essay a week.
On what’s actually happening to childhood, and what you can do about it in your own house.
Before you go
Where are you right now?
Get a name for what you’re seeing.
Find where your day gives out.