Viral Learning: Reflections on the Homeschooling Life

by Mary Griffith

Now that active homeschooling was coming to an end for our family, I found myself pondering its long-term How different am I from the person I would have been if I'd not been a homeschooling parent? How have my interests and values changed because of our kids learning at home? How are my kids different from their peers? Suddenly, after all these years, I realized there was another homeschooling book in my head. But this book isn't another guide to how to homeschool, nor is it meant to help homeschooling parents survive the empty-nest syndrome. This book is personal. It's a reflection on how I (along with a few of my friends) came to homeschooling, how it affected us and our view of the world, and how those changes in us may spark changes around us.

166 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2007

About the author

Mary Griffith is a longtime nonfiction writer who is stepping less and less gingerly into fiction. After pondering and discarding mystery plots and characters for the past two decades, she finally swallowed hard and tackled her first novel for the 2009 National Novel Writing Month. During her seemingly endless revision process since then, she's seen major improvements in her story, to the point where she expects to finally let other people read Absence of Blade later this spring. To her surprise, she's discovered she likes writing mysteries almost more than she likes reading them, so she's looking forward to moving on to the next two or three books in the series.
Not surprisingly, Mary's interest in writing about fencing grew out of her years as a parent of two competitive saber fencers and her (so far) 15 years of national tournament staff work with USA Fencing. Even though she herself has never fenced (and never plans to), she's become addicted to fencing tournaments. She is currently (though August 2015) a member of USA Fencing's Board of Directors.

Before her fascination with fencing and fencing people took over her life, Mary wrote extensively about homeschooling and alternative education. The Homeschooling Handbook: From Preschool to High School, a Parent’s Guide, Mary's first book for new and prospective homeschoolers, was published by Prima Publishing in January 1997, and went to four printings within its first year of publication. The revised 2nd edition was published in the spring of 1999 and went to a second printing within 8 days of its release.

The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World As Your Child's Classroom was released in May 1998. Focusing on the idea that children learn best when they pursue their own natural curiosity and interests, it offers plenty of useful ideas and resources for an informal, unstructured approach to education.

Since the Random House conglomerate purchased Prima a few years ago, both books have been published by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of Crown Books. In addition to their print editions, both The Homeschooling Handbook and The Unschooling Handbook are available as ebooks.

Mary published her last homeschooling book, Viral Learning: Reflections on Homeschooling Life, in August 2007. It looks at homeschooling—and learning and life in general—from the perspective of long-term homeschoolers, including many who contributed to her earlier books. Viral Learning is available from Lulu.com in both print and epub editions, and can be ordered from your favorite bookseller.

Mary is a proud member of Sisters in Crime, both the national organization and the Sacramento chapter, Capitol Crimes.

She was also long-time activist with the HomeSchool Association of California (HSC), the state's oldest secular homeschooling organization. She served several terms on HSC's board of directors, and was editor of its bimonthly California HomeSchooler for four years. She has been a frequent speaker at homeschooling conferences and other events, on such topics as unschooling, learning to live with homeschooling, parental panic attacks, and homeschool advocacy.

Reviews

[Anja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by a homeschool mother whose children are now grown. Many homeschooling books are about different techniques, styles and methods. They focus on the child and how they learn. It was refreshing to read this woman's journey from her own perspective. People don't often think about the parent who homeschools. What they give up, how different their lives are from most others, and the effect on the parent/child relationship. Mrs. Griffith (and her contributors, whose stories are included in a fascinating comments section at the end of the book) blows the "evangelical and homeschooling for religious reasons" stereotype right out of the water, which is great, since those homeschoolers seem to get the most press. Homeschoolers are a diverse bunch, and there are a variety of reasons for choosing this path for our children, religious freedom being only one of those, although very important.

[Eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's personal account of what it meant to homeschool her daughters, who are now in college. I especially liked her way of talking to the reader, personal and casual. She talks about how she is different for having gone through the homeschool experience, as well as what it was like to suddenly go from average homeschooling mother to a "famous homeschool book author" over night.

[Angela Boord · Rating 3 out of 5]

I checked this book out of the library thinking it would be about unschooling, and it is, sort of.... but not exactly what I expected. A collection of nice little essays about some of Mary Griffith's (author of The Unschooling Handbook)experiences homeschooling her daughters, her own education, and becoming a "big name homeschool author" (which she treats very tongue-in-cheek).