This is what homeschooling can look like....Whole Child - Whole Life Schooling
Advice, ideas, mindfulness activities, and more.
We'll help your family on a path of learning whether you are choosing to homeschool or are suddenly homeschooling.
About Us
Our Background
Ali and Michael Malley met 27 years ago as classroom teachers in the Columbus City Schools. They have four children ages 13 - 32 and two grandchildren, ages 6 and 2. After raising one child successfully through the school system, they decided to change their lifestyle and homeschool their three youngest children. Ali became an unapologetic homemaker and Michael became a performing artist "Michael the Storyteller."
For 25 years, Michael has told tales around the country, while also offering writing workshops and mindfulness practices for schools. Ali is firm in her belief that creating and making home is an important and vital contribution to the world. Along with homemaking and homeschooling, Ali teaches classes for homeschool students, leads mindfulness groups for children and teens, coordinates Michael's storytelling business, provides childcare for her grandchildren and others, and gardens with folks of all ages. To learn more about Ali and Michael’s work visit their mindfulness website.
The Malley Folk House
Michael and Ali call their home “The Malley Folk House.” They consider home to be a sacred space. They encourage everyone to assess their relationship with their own homes - asking the question, “What do I want my home to be?”
At “The Malley Folk House,” the Malleys have home birthed, homeschooled, held mindfulness camps for children, and led mindfulness groups for adults. They’ve hosted dozens of fabulous dance parties for people of all ages, as well as hundreds of other parties and gatherings.
As homeschool parents, their home has become a restaurant (Popeye’s Pizza), a summer camp (Camps for Kids, By Kids), and a movie studio/theater (see M to the 4th Production on Youtube). Michael and Ali’s home has also been a place for writing and literature classes, haunted houses, and a safe, loving place for their community of friends and family to gather.
Why this Website?
Ali and Michael’s aspiration is that their websites, video podcasts, and blogs will help parents and families around the world who are suddenly homeschooling to feel confident in their ability to homeschool their children.
Their advice begins with:
1) Homeschooling does not look like traditional schooling.
2) Relax. Everything you do is school.
3) Your children are precious and you are your child’s most important teacher, whether they go to a traditional school or not.
4) You can do hard and so can your kids.
5) Have fun. Be creative. Foster joy. Learn together.
6) Homeschooling is "life-schooling." Homeschooling is so much more than the basics.
7) We are alive right now, in this present moment. We can bring mindfulness and presence to every aspect of our lives, including our homeschooling.
Michael and Ali live with the recognition that “Everything Matters." As parents, we are always teaching our children, whether we are actively parenting and homeschooling, or not. Our children are watching us. They are continuously learning from us. When we are not thinking of ourselves as “parenting” or “teaching” them, when we are not even aware that our children are present in the room, they are still learning from us. Everything we do, every action we take, every word we speak is a teaching. And you are the teacher.
In this moment of crisis and fear, we have the opportunity to slow down, reassess, and connect with our children in new ways. We all want our children to be happy, healthy, adults who are confident in themselves and their abilities. We want our children to grow into adults who have the skills to negotiate this world with equanimity, grace, and compassion. We want them to be life-long learners who think creatively to solve the problems of our modern society. We want our children to see the sacred in all that surrounds us, in every interaction, in every conversation, in every challenge, in every opportunity for growth.
Ali and Michael invite you to think about what you ultimately want for your children when they are grown. As parents - and now as homeschool parents - we are invited to recognize that what we are doing now, even during this crisis, can play an incredibly important role in our children’s future.
As an Earthen community, we are all being invited - at this moment - to be kinder and more resilient than we ever thought we could be, and so are our children. Our journey together as one human family has always been fundamental. Now, more than ever, we are invited to awaken to the deep value of this journey - to our work together as a human family on our one Earth.
Your children are precious. Everything matters. Your home is sacred. Compassion, joy, curiosity, and deep kindness ground your work as homeschool parents. Slow down. Imagine who you hope your children to be. Awaken to the sacredness of this moment. Join us on the journey.