Quinn Cummings is a very funny writer.
I first encountered Cummings' witty observations on Twitter. I immediately recognized the name – in 1977, at the age of 10, she was nominated for an Oscar for her role in the Neil Simon comedy The Goodbye Girl. Which happens to be one of my favorite performances in one of my favorite movies. Cummings now lives in Los Angeles with her "consort" (called "Daniel" in the book) and her daughter. She no longer acts, and after the birth of her daughter (called "Alice" in the book) she started a company selling stylish baby slings. She later sold the company and now writes a popular blog (The QC Report) and is author of a humorous memoir, Notes from the Underwire: Adventures from My Awkward and Lovely Life. So when I learned that, like me, Cummings was a homeschooling parent, and that she was writing a book about the subject, I was instantly intrigued.
See, here's the thing about most homeschooling books: Although homeschooling has reached the point where it is no longer considered unusual (almost everyone I mention it to responds that they have a friend or relative who homeschools), it is still uncommon enough that we insiders are wary of saying anything remotely unflattering to "normal people." Homeschooling humor? It's practically unheard of – at least, outside the safety of our own kind.
And that's what I like most about Cummings' book, The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling. As she talks about the path she and her family took towards homeschooling, she never hesitates to poke fun at herself or report her honest reaction to the more unexpected things she encounters.
Unsure of her ability to teach her precocious daughter, who she calls "Alice" in the book, she tries any and every method of homeschooling available. For a while she signs Alice up for an online state charter school. She investigates unschooling. She hires tutors to help Alice with math (Cummings' own weak point) and French. She enlists Alice's father (called "Daniel" in the book) to cover science. And she develops her own system of regular hikes during which she and Alice have discussions that also serve as lessons.
At the same time, Cummings sets out on a journey of discovery, with the goal of finding a support group of homeschooling families with which to share the homeschooling adventure. This, she admits, is for herself; her daughter is just fine hanging out the kids she knows from the neighborhood when they get home from school.
So Cummings sets out, mostly on her own, to visit various homeschool gatherings around the country, flying to conventions, conferences, and even a homeschool prom. This is not as straightforward as it seems: Cummings has phobias about flying, being away from her family, and staying in hotel rooms. Even using the key card to open the hotel room door is a challenge. She also adds to the entertainment value of her "tribal fieldwork," by trying to fit in with the group she is investigating. So at various times she pretends to be single, widowed, and fundamentalist Christian.
And her take on the cultures she explores is interesting. Take the unschoolers' conference she attends. "Unschooling" is a style of homeschooling and parenting that lets kids direct their own learning. Unschoolers prefer to draw on real-life situations for teaching moments, rather than rely on textbooks, worksheets, and other classroom techniques. "Radical Unschoolers" take that philosophy to the limit, often giving children the freedom to do anything they wish (including interrupting their parents midsentence). Stepping out into the parking lot for a break, she notices that:
While Cummings can be irreverent, she is never disrespectful. In the end, she finds something positive to take away from every encounter, no matter how different from her own style.
But I do have a bone to pick with her about the impression she gives readers about homeschooling. Despite the bumper stickers, behind the seeming smugness, homeschooling parents end up questioning their choices as much as any other parents. (In fact, in my experience, it's the most smug families that are most likely to give up on homeschooling after only a couple of years.) The picture Cummings paints of a society of know-it-all parents doesn't fit my experience of nearly 20 years in the homeschooling community.
I was also disappointed that Cummings devotes so much of her story to conservative religious homeschoolers – the kind of Fundamentalists who require females to cover themselves from head to toe and strictly limit their children's interaction with the outside world. Considering that she has no intention of joining this faction, her search for connections here serves only to play up stereotypes of homeschooling that make the community seem much less mainstream than it has become in the past two decades.
In fact, if there's one community of homeschooling that Cummings doesn't really connect with, it's those who choose to oversee their own children's education because they believe that, particularly with the wealth of resources available today, they can do a better job of helping their kids to learn than a teacher who has to deal with 30 other kids at the same time, as well as all the tests and regulations imposed on them from the outside.
The Year of Learning Dangerously is quick paced and funny. Cummings' writing is honest and refreshing, and any parent can identify with her self-doubts that she might "break the child." While it is not the homeschooling overview I'd want to hand to outsiders to give them a picture of what it's "really like," it is entertaining and yes, educational.
A copy of this book was provided for review purposes.
