Our family has been using many of author Lori Pickert's ideas since our first child was a toddler. This book is an incredible synthesis of her earlier work as well as a huge leap forward into the nuts and bolts of supporting authentic, meaningful work in your unique family culture. She published this book right at a time when I was really burnt out on homeschooling curriculum and structured approaches to "administering" to my kids as a homeschooling parent; this really was an antidote. It builds, in a very tangible and accessible way, a method for mentoring kids and supporting their efforts. The proof is in the pudding: my kids have been hacking away at their own work all year, with me supporting them, and Lori's book and forum supporting me, and the work they have done has been amazing, endearing, and beyond anything a pre-packaged website or curriculum could sell us.
Enacting her ideas requires that you take risks and place some faith in your kids' and your own natural abilities. But: she doesn't leave you hanging. PBH is a very different approach to learning than many of us are accustomed to and it has been, at times, frustrating and terrifying, but more often for me it has been nothing short of empowering and liberating, to see my kids live into the people I know they can be. For those families wanting to nurture agency, initiative and resourcefulness in your kids, this approach is golden. The author maintains a very active website and forum where she and other families interact and brainstorm, support, and clarify. She really is a priceless resource (and she does this all with the tone of a wise and caring friend).
Her approach doesn't cost money unless you need or want it to. It requires your attention and it requires that you cultivate the capacity to mentor your kids. This was a stretch for me initially and I have really enjoyed growing into this role. There are also many ideas for "filling in gaps" for mentoring and learning where we as parents aren't able or inclined.
The book also offers many ideas for building learning communities. We are still in the process of trying this out in our family but the experience we've gained so far has been invaluable. My kids are better prepared, at 7 and 3, to collaborate and work through community efforts because of the actions we've taken based on PBH's ideas. It's just become a natural way of being in the world for us, to look for ways to connect and collaborate with others on projects that matter to us. Once again, I found lots of very specific, helpful advice - for example, how to teach and support effective critique with kids (I found this on the PBH website, not in the book).
To be honest, I often recommend Lori's book to parents who want to be connected and supportive of their children's creativity and individuality, regardless of whether or not they are in school. I don't consider it a homeschooling initiative (nor does it present itself this way) so much as a way of intentionally cultivating a values-rich, unique family culture that prizes mutual support, passion, and worthy work. It is kind of like a map for "I'm stuck here in a vanilla cookie-cutter land and I want to go there - to bright and busy and creative" with a lot of the kinks worked out for you. It's not a lifestyle you have to chase with lots of money, just some habits to cultivate, and she takes a lot of guesswork out of the process.
Another thing I appreciate about the book, and about her work in general, is that it manages to support a wide variety of "types". Very formal homeschooling families, kids in school, toddlers at home: so many different lifestyles can integrate these ideas. She is remarkably welcoming of various approaches and as long as people are kind and supportive of one another, there is a wide range of participants in her forum discussions.
The book also includes great lists of "thing you might do" and step-wise tools for helping to make components of PBH happen easily. She specifically addresses supporting very young children and pre-readers, dealing with stalls and frustration, finishing projects, and creating collaboration.
Where PBH really has saved us as a family is it has removed the element of a power struggle between me and my oldest. There is support and discussion in the PBH forum about "negotiated curriculum" and setting learning goals with your kids. It's a work in progress for us but really, this is a clear way of coming alongside your kids rather than AT them while engaged in meaningful work. Actually, I think what we have learned from this process is that meaningful work only occurs when power struggles are transformed into new relationships of support.
In the past I've been a bit of a parenting book and homeschooling approach junkie. PBH actually assisted me in focusing on my own unique style and listening more closely to my own creative voice (as well as that of my children, and being less seduced by everything new and shiny when things lagged in our learning), not just as a parent but as an individual. The positive impact that this focus has had in my personal and family life is profound.
To succeed in doing PBH in your family I'm willing to bet you WILL have to stretch yourself a bit and roll up your sleeves. You WILL have to set aside time to make it happen and you WILL have to develop new habits. The good news is there's plenty of support, both in the book and online, to do so, and the discomfort of learning new things is tiny compared to the really cool confidence of watching your kids "take off".
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Wonderfully inspiring
Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners by Lori Pickert was a wonderfully inspiring book. She brings the perspective of an early education “wizard” turned homeschooling mother to her project-based homeschooling approach, which she describes through a weaving of learning foundation, concrete examples, and colorful suggestions.In a nutshell, project-based learning is supporting your child in diving deep in an interest through a process of self-directed planning, creation of artistic work, and self-evaluation. In action, it looks a great deal like what I describe in my Sage Homeschooling book, with a heavy emphasis on the environment as a facilitator of valuable work, self-direction, unbusying (holding the freedom and time for quality pursuits), and process-over-product with lots of layering.I loved the book and highly recommend it but I will share a couple criticisms. She emphasizes art as the primary vehicle for project work and while I do value artistic work, I definitely wouldn’t call it our primary learning modality. This is the learning style of many people, though not everyone. She also seems to view being home and working in solitude at your desk as the full-time job, if you will, of childhood. Don’t get me wrong, she absolutely discusses the value of cooperative group learning (yay mixed age shout outs!), pretend play, and “field trips,” but they are presented more as a sometimes food to compliment the consistent diet of fine motor creation. Lastly, she frequently describes the role of the parent as documentarian, journaling each child’s thoughts, plans, progress, ideas, etc. I kept waiting for her to circle back to explicitly state the value of this but never really felt satisfied on that front. I’m going to live a rich and fulfilling life, working on my projects, in connection with my children, not strictly as documentarian.Overall, I highly recommend the book! It’s an easy and enjoyable read that definitely adds to your homeschooling education.“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.”
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Top reviews from other countries
mamacrow
Must read for all parents
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 20, 2013MicT
Great book and excellent ideas
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2017terri
Fantastic book, project time is now my kids favorite ...
Reviewed in Canada on June 23, 2016