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Catholic Homeschool Articles, Advice & Resources

The Father’s Role

Author Bio and Books

Author Bio and Books

John ClarkJohn Clark is a graduate of Christendom College and holds a degree in Political Science and Economics. He has written scores of articles about homeschooling and is a popular speaker at family and homeschooling conferences.

In between speaking and writing, he has found time to serve for several years as the coach of the Christendom College baseball team, and to raise his nine children with his wife, Lisa.

John writes the column The Father’s Role.

Below is a list of his articles, the most recent first.

Overview of a Catholic Homeschooling Father
Does Social Media Create an Artificial Reality?

Does Social Media Create an Artificial Reality?

by John Clark | Does social networking fulfill man’s need to partake of society, thus removing his binary reduction to man or beast? Is the internet a society at all? These are philosophical questions best left to sociologists. I don’t have the answers. I merely ask them in an everyday, pedestrian sense.

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Is Shakespeare in Jeopardy?

Is Shakespeare in Jeopardy?

by John Clark | As I have written previously, on the nights when I’m able, I like to watch the show Jeopardy and try to amaze my kids with my knowledge. (These are the kinds of things you do when you’re old—you get exhausted by failing to impress the world, so you spend your evenings in front of a television set in the hopes of dazzling your offspring.)

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‘I Belong to Christ’: How One Man Overcomes Depression and Finds Hope

‘I Belong to Christ’: How One Man Overcomes Depression and Finds Hope

by John Clark | This Christmas, I prayed to God: “I know that there are certain and special ways in which you want me to spiritually advance this Christmas. Please show me what they are.” During late December of last year, I read John Janaro’s book, Never Give Up: My Life and God’s Mercy, and I believe that this book was part of the answer to my prayer.

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‘Immortal Love’: How Men Express It… or Try

‘Immortal Love’: How Men Express It… or Try

Every St. Valentine’s Day leaves men at a loss for telling their girlfriends or wives how much they love them. Very often, whether a dozen red roses, a box of chocolates, or a hand-written poem, nothing seems to suffice. If you homeschool husbands find yourself in this predicament, don’t feel too bad. We’ve all been there.

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Do Homeschool Kids have an Unfair Advantage?

Do Homeschool Kids have an Unfair Advantage?

We can’t socialize well (because we never go out of the house); we’re not good at sports; it’s not healthy to spend so much time around your Mom; we’re not qualified to teach geography (because we never go out of the house); we’re not qualified to teach anything; snow days are healthy for kids and homeschoolers don’t get snow days, and so forth.

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Does Time Change How You See Things?

Does Time Change How You See Things?

A few months ago, I wrote an article dealing with blaming yourself as a Catholic parent whose children have veered off course. In it, I told the story of a man who spent an afternoon in a famous museum. The man walked around and observed the paintings of Raphael and the sculptures of Michelangelo.

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How To Be Your Best In Homeschooling

How To Be Your Best In Homeschooling

In my experience, no one makes comparisons more than homeschoolers. We say things like: “Mrs. Jones is better than I am at teaching math,” or “Why can’t we get our kids to do their violin practice as well as Mrs. Smith’s children?” or “That family doesn’t let their kids watch television—they’re better than we are.”

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Homeschool Analogies: Got Any?

Homeschool Analogies: Got Any?

Someone mentioned to my wife lately that she doesn’t usually read my fatherhood/homeschooling columns because I use too many sports analogies. For instance, over the years, I have written that baseball is like “raspberry sorbet for the mind;” I have said that life is about “how many shots you take, rather than how many baskets you make;” and I recently wrote that being a good father was like being a “hockey goalie,” and so forth.

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waffle with berries - Why We Should Sit at the Kids’ Table

Why We Should Sit at the Kids’ Table

As I took a little trip down the memory lane of my mind, I started to explain to my little children that, although I was 42 years old, I had never quite “graduated” from the kids’ table. At first this bothered me, but I had come to respect the camaraderie, the conviviality...

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how to homeschool better immediately

How to Homeschool Better… Immediately

As we parents sit down to help our children with their homeschooling, I think we would have to admit that some of the biggest distractions are often the ones inside ourselves—the ones that keep popping into our minds as we attempt to teach.

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Thank You Cards: Keeping it Grateful

Thank You Cards: Keeping it Grateful

When a person complains, his creative abilities break free. But it’s also proof to me that we fallen humans don’t commend people well; we don’t thank them enough; and we pat each other on the back far too little.

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Un-Common Core: Where Does it Go?

Un-Common Core: Where Does it Go?

There has been a lot of worry lately among homeschooling parents regarding the “common core” curriculum. Judging by the amount of views by readers of this journal, it is the biggest issue of the day. But the problem is not so much in merely having a common core—it is in what that common core consists. Some cores are good and some are rotten.

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Diary of a Country Mother: A Year Remembering Tim

Diary of a Country Mother: A Year Remembering Tim

After you finish the last page, there are books that you forget about right away. But then there are those rare ones that remain with you forever. Cynthia Montanaro’s Diary of a Country Mother is one of those. This book is a biography of her mentally-challenged son, Timothy, whose life was cut short in an accident as a teenager. Montanaro, a homeschooling veteran, says that she wrote it as a celebration of Tim’s life, but most of all as a “thanksgiving journal to God.”

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4 Ways to Stop Blaming Yourself as a Parent

4 Ways to Stop Blaming Yourself as a Parent

First, stop insisting that you “went wrong” with your kids. I don’t know exactly how Jesus felt when He was betrayed by Judas. But I do know this: I know that Jesus did not wonder where He went wrong with Judas. Jesus didn’t “go wrong.”

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Ten Books That Changed My Life (And Might Change Yours) Part I

Ten Books That Changed My Life (And Might Change Yours) Part I

My father, an accomplished carpenter, always seemed to be building “one more bookcase” to meet the literary demands of his wife. For all the things that our large Catholic family did not have, we had a treasury of books. My mother’s consummate genius in homeschooling pedagogy reached its zenith with a simple rule for her children: you can stay up as late as you want as long as you are reading.

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child eating ice cream

Cookie Cutters and Angels

It’s often lamented that babies don’t come with manuals.  Of course, this isn’t true—babies do come with manuals.  They are called “parenting books.” There are books that tell you how ...

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