Our Story

How it all began…

I graduated with a Master’s Degree in French Lit in 1998, having just decided that academia was not for me, but with no clue where to go from there! I deferred my PhD program at Vanderbuilt and temped for a non-profit school reform program out of Hopkins in Baltimore. I ended up working more than full time there, writing curricula, soaking up all I could about child development, learning research- and evidence-based best practices, and visiting public schools across the country seeing the reality of what it meant to be an “at-risk” youth caught up in the modern educational system.

Then came No Child Left Behind, a federal policy which mysteriously did not get schools funding for implementing evidence-based programs.

Soon after, my husband and I welcomed our first baby, Olive. By the time she was 2 years old, our baby Natalie was here, and I was ready to homeschool! I read every book in the (at the time small!) section of the library about homeschooling, as well as turning back to my love of philosophy, anthropology and 19th Century writers to inform my big questions: How do children learn? How have children learned throughout history and across continents?

These are open questions, with endless answers, that keep me questioning, reading, and learning! Fast forward 15 years and Olive is applying to colleges, Natalie is about to start her first year of high school at a magnet school and their brother, Beckett, at 9, has decided to homeschool through college.