Dixie Dillon Lane

Dixie Dillon Lane
8 POSTS0 COMMENTS
http://TheHollow.substack.com
Dixie Dillon Lane is an American historian and an Associate Editor at Hearth & Field. Her book, Skipping School: Finding the Roots of Modern Homeschooling in the American Past, is under contract with Eerdmans. Dixie lives in rural Virginia.

Recent Essays

Prickly Porcupine on Natural Law: A Review of David Lyle Jeffrey’s Tales From Limerick Forest

Hence this book is something special: a new set of Christian fables on natural law that do more than teach simple morals or seek to modify children’s behavior.

Hand-Cranked Ice Cream Against Despair

Whether the experience goes beautifully or our best-laid plans go awry, hand cranking ice cream with a few dozen kids is a whole lot more powerful than dithering in paralyzing despair. As always, and as we so often forget, the light wins out.

Learning to Read in 2023

Why does my third child, my little son whom I mention above, need me to be in physical contact with him while he reads? Because it helps him feel warm and safe, I imagine, and so he is not as afraid of making mistakes. Alternative educators recognized this in the classroom decades ago: that children read better with an adult’s arm around them, or while piled onto soft pillows with a couple of friends.

A.I. Doesn’t Cause Cheating. Fear Does.

Front Royal, VA. How do you catch a cheater? This is the question that is plaguing the minds of college and high school faculty...

American Parenting and the Terror of Risk

All of parenting is risky because nothing is more important to us than our children. And the decisions we make do matter, sometimes greatly. But if we allow risk to dominate our thinking and practices, we will become unmoored from reality and pass down this paralyzing anxiety to our children.

I Wish I Were A Mountain Goat: Lessons From Harpers Ferry

We should not reject the good fruits of our modern era, but let us also not neglect the good it does young bodies and minds to run up and down the cliffs, to have a mountain to rest the eyes against, and to sometimes simply be outside without parental interference.

In Schooling as in Life, More Than Enough is Too Much

Being a teacher is a demanding job, whether in a college, school, or home setting. It requires tremendous energy, responsiveness, and mental flexibility. It requires that you, the teacher, also be willing to let yourself be taught.

Hard Times, Landscape, and Memory

The memory of pain has the power to protect our joy. The land, the place, the names, the people; these are what connect us to today and to every past day.