Project-Based Homeschooling Quotes

“Family culture is the manifestation of your priorities — not what you say, not what you wish were true, but what you actually do on a daily basis. You create your family culture with your choices.”
― Lori McWilliam Pickert, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners

“It’s one thing to think of a generation of kids who might not know What Every Fifth Grader Should Know. It’s another to think fearfully of your own beloved child competing against a generation of kids who might have some key bit of information or crucial skill that your child does not.”
― Lori McWilliam Pickert, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners

“You can’t separate how you approach life as a family and how your child will approach life as a thinker and learner. Your home is your child’s first workplace, first studio, first school — and your family members are your child’s first friends, first coworkers, first audience, first collaborators. You are his first mentor, and his siblings are his first teammates. You can’t separate learning from living. If your daily habits and routines don’t support your learning goals, you need to get them back into alignment. You want to build a family culture that celebrates and supports meaningful work. This is much more than saying the right thing — this is creating a lifestyle, a set of articulated beliefs, and a daily routine that encourage and sustain the life you want for your family. Building a family culture means being purposeful with your choices. What you say you value pales in importance next to the way you live from day to day, the choices you make, big and small.”
― Lori McWilliam Pickert, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners

“Some adults attempting project-based learning make the same mistake, moving forward relentlessly and forgetting the importance of doubling back. Interests are identified, research is completed, and then there is a big, impressive third act that brings everything to a close. Unfortunately, though appealing in its simplicity, this highly controlled approach cheats children out of the opportunity to lay down multiple layers of learning. The adult is satisfied. Is the child?”
― Lori McWilliam Pickert, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners

“Real project work is work that is chosen by children and done by children, with the help of attentive adults who are there to mentor, facilitate, and support.”
― Lori McWilliam Pickert, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners

“Lifelong learning” is a phrase so trite it makes your teeth hurt, but being a good mentor means showing your child that learning doesn’t stop when someone hands you a diploma. Not by treacly speech, but by everyday immersion in a life that celebrates learning interesting things and doing challenging, meaningful work.”
― Lori McWilliam Pickert, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners

“Project-based homeschooling is concerned with the underlying motives, habits, and attitudes of thinking and learning. However you feel about knowledge and skills — whether you’re a Latin-loving classicist or a relaxed unschooler or somewhere in-between — the point of project-based homeschooling is to devote some time to helping your child direct and manage his own learning. This does not have to comprise your entire curriculum. (Though it can.) It does not have to be the primary focus of your learning life. (Though it can be.) But it is essential. It is the part of your child’s education that is focused on that underlying machinery. It is the part of your child’s learning life that is focused on your child’s very specific and unique interests, talents, and passions. It is the part of your child’s learning when he is not only free to explore whatever interests him, but he receives attention, support, and consistent, dependable mentoring to help him succeed.”
― Lori McWilliam Pickert, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners

“The child who is a skilled thinker and adept learner can adjust to whatever the future doles out. She can spackle in those holes in her knowledge, and she knows how to acquire skills she needs to do things she wants to do. On the other hand, the child who shoveled down his prepared education but lost his curiosity, whose interests withered away and were replaced by a general malaise and desire to just be left alone — that child has a bagful of knowledge and skills with varying expiration dates and dubious ability or desire to acquire more.”
― Lori McWilliam Pickert, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners

“There are many things you can do to help your child direct and manage her own learning, but perhaps the most important one is choosing how and where to put your attention. Think hard about what you value most, because that’s what deserves your attention. Your child will respond by doing more of whatever earns your focus. You feed a behavior with your attention, and by feeding it, you create more of it — so be thoughtful about what you invest with that power. Contemplate your goals and intentions.”
― Lori McWilliam Pickert, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners