From College to KidsLearn

It's been a long and winding road

When I was teaching college composition and creative writing courses and not making enough money, people would invariably say, “Why don’t get you a teaching credential?”

And I’d answer, “Oh, I couldn’t teach kids. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s life.”

I’m happy to say that here I am, and as far as I know, no one’s life has been ruined.

Walking backwards into various professions

It is still the case that I don’t have a credential. I quit teaching college classes when I took a long detour into graphic and web design, newsletter writing, online curriculum design, and small press publishing. Then I had kids, and our preschool director said, “I wish someone could write an article about our cool pre-K program.” I thought, I could do that.

So I became a parenting and education journalist. I queried our local parenting magazine and the editor told me that she’d consider a piece if it mentioned at least two other preschools with quotes from teachers. I’m sure she thought I’d never get back to her, but then she got professionally written, clean copy with quotes from three preschools and photos. When she sold the business years later, the new owner called me and said, “Kim told me, just pay Suki whatever she asks for.”

Unfortunately, making money is not my strong suit, which turned out to be good, because then I ended up becoming The World’s Most Reluctant Homeschooler. (Title self-awarded, but I think I deserved it.) I’d been blogging for another parenting magazine and that blog morphed into Avant Parenting, a years-long foray into figuring out how to raise a child with undiagnosed developmental disabilities while trying to live my own adult life.

While homeschooling, I broke through my resistance to teaching children, figuring that they all had parents so their lives had probably already been ruined. (Parenting gallows humor alert: if you don’t like it, you might not enjoy this Substack!) And I realized something important: I love teaching kids. I did it for no pay when I was homeschooling—that’s how much I love it.

Somewhere along the way my child had his first successful experience in a classroom—an online classroom. Here was a kid who couldn’t control his body in a classroom space, but in his online classroom he was politely raising his little digital hand and discussing the minutiae of Greek mythology. Having studied and implemented a variety of special education techniques in our homeschool, I was hit with the realization that giving the child a controlled online environment was one approach I had not yet heard of.

A few years later, I was putting together a book club for my older child, a teen, and realized that given the dispersed locations of the participants, online would be ideal. I approached the teacher of the mythology class, Kirsten Stein, who owned a small business, Athena’s Advanced Academy, about hosting the class. She enthusiastically took me on as an educator.

At Athena’s I have worked with children with a great variety of abilities and needs. The Athena’s population is gifted, but a large portion of students also have disabilities (they are twice-exceptional, or 2e in gifted jargon). So during this time I cultivated yet another career, online teaching, still without certification. More recently, I started working as a radio host and became passionate about podcasting. My show, The Babblery, is another career I backed into. And that has led to doing audio production work for hire.

But I’ve never left the profession I’m trained for

I haven’t begun to talk about the career I was actually trained for in my master’s program. As a writer, I have written two books on alternative education for respected small presses, including the well-reviewed handbook, From School to Homeschool. When I was younger, I was focused on writing fiction and poetry for adults and my work was widely published in literary journals and anthologies. But raising children and homeschooling inspired me, so I self-published a chapter book called Hanna, Homeschooler after a student pointed out to me that “homeschoolers need a Ramona.” Later, inspired by my work with my children to teach them goal-setting, I developed a course at Athena’s and wrote the textbook, Homeschooling with Confidence.

What you might find on KidsLearn

The topics I’m interested in are not limited to:

• Pregnancy and childbirth

• Stimulating babies and toddlers with your words, actions, and environments

• Childhood health

• Public education (I am a strong supporter of public education and both of my children attended public school homeschool programs)

• Private and parochial education

• Free-range and authoritative parenting

• Stimulating creativity and intellectual exploration

• Gifted learners and applying the lessons of teaching gifted learners to all learners

• Intelligence and learning research and applications

• Children’s literature—reading, writing, and discussing

• Being a mom and especially being a mom who maintains a creative and intellectual life while raising kids

• Cooperative learning

• Online education

• Alternative approaches for raising children with developmental differences

• Writing about children

• Technology in education and in our children’s lives

• Healthy learning environments for teens

• Helping teens prepare for independence, whether that is college, career, or the limited independence of children who can’t fully launch

• Healthy family relationships

• Maintaining healthy spousal relationships during difficult parenting challenges

• …and more

And for the kids…

I borrowed the name of this Substack from my blog and podcast of the same name for kids. If your student likes to listen to podcasts, please check it out:

Click here to visit the KidsLearn Blog & Podcast or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

Please join me on KidsLearn!

I’m looking forward to writing more about education and parenting, and interacting with enthusiastic, thoughtful, and curious parents and professionals.

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Check out Prof. Suki’s currently enrolling courses—click here!