Quinn Cummings - The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling

PRAISE FOR

The Year of Learning Dangerously

A former child stars hilarious, insightful chronicle of her familys headfirst jump into homeschooling.

People

Not your typical education book (for starters, its funny)Cummings remains inquisitive, thoughtful, and a little unsure of herself in a refreshingly humble wayprecisely the qualities a parent should look for in a teacher.

Time

Light and wittyI can vouch for much of what this endearingly self-deprecating writer has to say.

Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal

The Year of Learning Dangerously recounts Quinn Cummingss hilarious crusade to find the best educational path for her daughter. Reading her outrageously entertaining observations not only makes me want to homeschool my (nonexistent) children, but it also makes me want to be Quinns best friend. A must-read.

Jen Lancaster, author of Bitter Is the New Black and Jeneration X

A hilarious, friendly companion to charm and entertain parents and educators, whether they homeschool or not. Honest and direct, Cummings is willing to tell all of her experiences: not just the happy sunshine moments, but the brutal realities of educating and raising children.

Lydia Netzer, author of Shine Shine Shine

If you think homeschooling is crazy, this book might just change your mind. If, after youve read it, you think Quinn Cummings is crazy, you might be correct. Lucky for us, shes the kind of crazy that manages to be insightful and hilarious all at once.

Alice Bradley, coauthor of Lets Panic About Babies!

In, The Year of Learning Dangerously, Quinn Cummings dares to go where few parents have gone before. Her adventures in homeschooling are fascinating, loving, and most of all hilarious. This book is a great gift to parents and the people who wonder what make them tick. I loved it.

Julie Klam, New York Times bestselling author of You Had Me at Woof

PRAISE FOR QUINN CUMMINGSS

Notes from the Underwire

Erma Bombeck with an edge.

USA Today

I hadnt laughed out loud while reading a book for years, but Quinn Cummings struggles nearly did me in. Although she describes herself as a woman who constantly blurts out exactly the wrong thing, she says everything exactly right in the brilliantly overwrought Notes from the Underwire.

Bob Tarte, author of Enslaved by Ducks and Fowl Weather

The Year of
Learning
Dangerously

Adventures in Homeschooling

Quinn Cummings

A PERIGEE BOOK

A PERIGEE BOOK

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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Copyright 2012 by Quinn Cummings

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

PERIGEE is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

The P design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

ISBN: 978-1-101-61071-8

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Perigee hardcover edition as follows:

Cummings, Quinn.

The year of learning dangerously : adventures in homeschooling / Quinn Cummings. First edition.

pages cm. (A Perigee book)

1. Home schoolingUnited States. 2. Cummings, QuinnAnecdotes. I. Title.

LC40.C66 2012

371.0420973dc23 2012014182

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Perigee hardcover edition / August 2012

Perigee trade paperback edition / August 2013

Text design by Tiffany Estreicher

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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This book is dedicated to my daughter

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Dante Alighieri

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Yogi Berra

I was hiding in the laundry room fighting off a full-blown panic attack. If long division with remainders hadnt been invented, this would not have been happening.

Actually, panic attack isnt the correct diagnosis. A panic attack is typically a response to an imaginary threat, but there was nothing imaginary at work here. I had a rock-solid reason to be slumped on the linoleum wheezing into a paper bag. I had been homeschooling my daughter for two whole days and found myself suddenly, brutally aware of how completely unqualified I was for this assignment. Here was my childmy one shot at creating a decent, kind, productive member of societyand I was treating her like a goldfish Id won at a carnival.

I was entirely incompetent to educate my own offspring. Sitting there in my miserable, hyperventilating state, I remembered that Id spent weeks and weeks trying to teach Alice how to tie her shoes. Then, one afternoon at a playdate, a four-year-old friend taught her how to do it perfectly. I was less qualified to educate my child than someone who had to be reminded not to lick the class guinea pig. Perhaps I should find a preschooler to replace me for the next eight years, someone to educate my daughter while I live quietly here in the laundry room, folding underwear and otherwise not doing my child harm. I breathed slowly and carefully into the paper bag and tried to remember why I was doing this.

I n the beginning, much of education came easily to Alice, as it had come to me. Im not saying were smarter than the average bear; Ive know quite a few people with lovely large brains for whom school was a years-long exercise in frustration and humiliation. No, the key to this easiness was reading. My family seems to be wired for literacy. I started reading at an early age and because reading was fun and stories were excellent, I read a great deal. This, predictably, made me a better reader. By the time I started nursery school, anything having to do with letters fell upon me as gentle rain that I soaked up with delight. Eventually this led to my skipping second grade, which turned out to be the last time I overachieved in a classroom. Academic apathy aside, I never lost my enthusiasm for reading, and in the fullness of time I had a wonderful daughter to whom I read constantly. I read to her because I loved reading, because it provided a great opportunity to snuggle with my kid and because I hated playing Candy Land.