The Brave Learner

Julie Bogart, the creator of Brave Writer products and podcast, was one of the first homeschool influencers recommended to me when I first started to research homeschooling. I gleaned much from her veteran view of homeschooling, as her relaxed approach gave me confidence that an abundance of learning could be accomplished through following a child’s interest and embracing life experiences. 

In her book The Brave Learner, she shares some of her memories of homeschooling her own kids, some of her ideas behind how she homeschooled, and some of the things she learned along the way. To me, she seems to have used a relaxed approach, using support from more formal schooling lessons, but also a vision for creating a joyful learning experience. When something was dull, she would turn it into a game. When her kids had an idea, she would ditch the plans to make it happen. I love her idea of “party school” and “poetry tea time” to make learning fun and magical. She talks about her kids learning through writing the invitations and researching for the parties that they hosted for their friends. Looking at these moments and the impact they had on her children’s learning began to open my eyes to learning outside the workbook. 

Curiosity was fostered in her family as they interacted with life. She talks about creating spaces for open-ended creating, how to add sparkle to learning, and contributing to our children’s desire to explore subjects that interest them. 

One of her thoughts that has remained with me is that just because a child says they want to learn about a subject, doesn’t mean they want to learn it the way we imagine one would learn about it. They aren’t asking us to immediately start researching classes or curriculum for them. Instead, Julie invites us to hear our children asking to explore a subject when they ask to learn about it. We can ask them more questions to discover what they are curious about and how we can aid them in discovering more. 

Julie poses some good questions to her readers as to what ‘counts’ as learning. She reminds us to count those moments in life where our kids are learning, even when they don’t look like school. She encourages experiential learning, and going out into the world we live in to find learning experiences near-by such as visiting museums, historical sites, and researching current events. 

This book was packed with ideas for bringing learning to life and making it fun. As we are now unschooling, my inspiration for fun learning ideas may not come from what we are learning through the curriculum, but I still am inspired to look at what we are doing or reading, and see what else I can do to add to the topic. For example while we were reading the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, we decided to try out some of the things they did in the books, such as popcorn and milk together or making button strings. Then we incorporated visiting her homestead site into a family vacation. Right now we are on our way to spend time by the ocean with family, so I surprised the girls with ocean and coral reef themed scratcher books. My eyes are much more opened to looking around for places we can go and experiences try out with the girls as we plan our time (both locally and as we travel). This book also encouraged me to assist my children to develop and deepen their interest, and value their interest as an important part of my child’s learning and person. I have come to value discussion and good questions as one of the most important learning tools for our family. While my family and our unschooling journey looks very different from Julies’ life, I think her ideas in this book began to plant ideas in my mind that helped shape a new way to think about learning.

While I enjoyed reading this book, and several episode of her podcast as well, there are some points in which I strongly disagree with her ideas. I don't want to make assumptions about what I don't know, but I do want to add in the caveat that she is not coming from an evangelical-christian world-view, and therefore listen to some of her wisdom, especially regarding children writing, and gratefully learn while other things I disregarde as not something for our family.

Bogart, J. (2019). The Brave Learner: Finding Everyday Magic in homeschool, learning, and life. Perigee Books.