I suppose it's inevitable that a person with a slightly inflated ego and a dissertation on education policy would think that she could educate their children much, much better than a local school system with a defeated school budget.

Yes, I periodically imagine homeschooling my children. But the school bus pulls up and I happily wave good-bye to the children, so I can read and write without interruptions. The boys happily wave good-bye to me for six hours where they can goof around with their friends. It's perhaps not surprising that most of my homeschooling thoughts happen when the boys are away.

So, how would you homeschool?

During the summer, we do some half-assed homeschooling. I've got an atlas on the floor next to the kitchen table. During dinner, we've been learning the names and capitals of countries. We're using Parragon's Atlas of the World. In addition to clear maps, it has pictures and descriptions of each country's culture and history. 

We also have mandatory reading hours, computer-free hours, and as much physical activity as I can pack in. (The boys and I swam for two hours yesterday, and I'm sore, sore, sore.) We take lots of trips to see friends and to museums.

But things are pretty random, because I know that the kids will learn stuff in school. I can be a dilettante homeschooler. Our educational trip today is to IKEA and to the GAP to buy Steve some new T-shirts.

I suppose if I were really going to homeschool the kids, I would have to set up more of a routine and philosophy. I think I would read some utopian thinkers from the early twentieth century who were all about strong minds, strong bodies — Teddy Roosevelt types. I would make them write essays in the morning and take hikes in the afternoon.

Usually, my homeschooling fantasies come to a screeching halt after a long weekend of bickering children and demands for lunch and wails about being bored. It's tough to get a block of uninterrupted thinking time. So, it's off to the school bus they go. I figure it's easier to plug up the deficiencies in his public school education, than to do everything myself.

For me, homeschooling is much more fun to imagine than to implement.

Related: The Good Classroom