How did we get here?

Since beginning my career in the early 2000's, I felt sure that the importance of play and the research was going to "catch up". Afterall, it takes 50 years or so for research to makes its way into the general public and then into practice. By the time I was in college, studying child development and special education, the research had already been there for many years. With passionate professors, newly training teachers, and the blossoming of incredible evidence based scientific research on the horizon, I felt hopeful.

I graduated from my university with honors, and immediately began my career at the college. I was surrounded by brilliant colleagues "in the field". First, in a fully inclusive Reggio-inspired teacher in a laboratory setting.

Then, on to work in early intervention, outreach, inclusion and service coordination. I began to see the grave disparities from one setting to another, in the schools and homes of the children I served. During that time, I also became a registered yoga teacher- a decision that would later serve me in ways I did not yet understand.

Yet, by the time I became a parent, and my child was old enough to enter school, the picture was very grim. The kindergarten curriculum was not based on knowledge of child development. A giant screen was front and center in the room. The emphasis was on a new electronic behavioral management system, and the children had no centers- only desks where they were expected to sit, beginning on the very first day of school. Not to mention, this was the first year that children were allowed to be back in schools after the pandemic.

At home, we had enjoyed a Reggio-inspired way of learning since her birth. She and her sibling had a strong foundation for a lifelong love of learning, social-emotional well-being, thoughtful guidance and intentional teaching. After living the last two years in isolation, the children in her kindergarten classroom had undoubtedly experienced unimaginable early childhoods. As a trauma-informed yoga instructor, I was aware that they, like all children, had been through intense trauma and would require a sensitive and thoughtful approach to learning to recover. Social-emotional wellness, I expected, would be their top priority post-pandemic.

I was wrong.

Perhaps by some divine intervention, we did not last in that environment. I'd hoped that the supposed benefits for new friendships and the promise of new learning experiences would outweigh my perceived cons. But by the third day of school, my child was not able to enter the classroom.

Our world changed rapidly in the weeks that followed, and it quickly became clear that we would need to make other arrangements. We were thrown into the world of homeschooling.

It didn't take long for me to delve into homeschool rights, and the history of homeschooling in America. Always fiercely independent, curious, and inclined to question everything, I went from thinking, "I am doing this because I have to", to feeling passionately that this was an important choice for our family. Over the next two years, more would be revealed to not only further my resolve to homeschool, but also to impact children's health and wellness as a whole.