About
Republication policy
The information on this website is protected by a Creative Commons copyright. You are welcome to republish in part or full in a digital format, but you must leave all links intact and provide full credit to the author, with a link back to this website.
Please contact Linnea at starthomeschoolnow@gmail.com
About Linnea:
You might wonder what motivated me to create and curate this website.
I started my career at a silicon valley high tech company, eventually got married, and became pregnant with our first child. Because my husband had his own business and we’d hoped to work together, I took a voluntary lay-off from that company and we began our journey of parenthood and entrepreneurship. I worked with my husband for 30 years and we raised two children together. In addition to doing accounting, investments, and various other tasks for our business, I had a number of part-time jobs, including substitute teaching, teaching English as a 2nd language, and designing and teaching pre-school music (my favorite job ever, bar none!). We also homeschooled our children and mentored them in gaining skills and in running little businesses. Since I get bored easily, I took a lot of coursework during this time in the sciences and in teaching, eventually leading to a Masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction and a teacher certification. For a short time, I taught high school business classes, including a course on personal finance, which I designed and taught online.
2008
After the financial crisis of 2008, it became apparent we needed more than the income our business could provide, so I struck out to find another career and landed first at the public schools doing program management and teaching software to administrators, then made a move to a national lab, where I designed training and worked in academic partnerships with major universities across the nation.
Why this blog?
Over the years, it became apparent to me that large classrooms have numerous drawbacks and that no one can make up for a parent that is not involved in their child’s life. We shouldn’t expect others to teach our children values and character. In my opinion, all learning is rooted in character and solid values, which influence all aspects of our lives. My personal experience showed how our children could grow in skill, confidence, kindness, and determination with mentoring and encouragement by my husband, me, and numerous friends and experts in their fields. We didn’t go it alone – we had friends who homeschooled, a church that was supportive, and took advantage of various co-ops, play groups, libraries and used bookstores, homeschool conventions, and free or low-cost resources. Our kids participated on sports teams and swam competitively through their school experience. My husband was a ScoutMaster and our children and others in the troop learned myriad self-sufficiency skills and personal disciplines through the Boy Scouts. Our kids graduated from college and are now successfully running a business together. They have a wide range of interests, lots of friends, and never shy away from a new or challenging experience. We consider them good friends now that they are adults and we enjoy each other’s company.
COVID Panic
When I began reading about what schools will look like Fall 2020 in response to the COVID panic, it was enough to jolt me into writing and sharing homeschooling and teaching experiences. I knew most parents would like alternatives to what is being constructed as a modified prison atmosphere in the schools. Others are concerned for their children’s safety and sanity with the new restrictions. Teachers are becoming increasingly worried about returning to the classroom, too. My hope is to create an online community where parents who homeschool can share information, support one another, gain insight into better practices, and get and give encouragement to one another. In addition, I’ll publish relevant articles about homeschooling and related topics, as well as resources that can help you on your homeschool journey. Let’s do this together!
Credit
I believe in giving credit where it’s due and I owe a debt of gratitude to Daisy Luther of the Organic Prepper blog, who published some of my articles and encouraged me to go on this venture. Thank you Daisy!
Yours in educational freedom, Linnea
Mission
To inform and connect the homeschool community