Hello! My name is Joanne Calderwood, and if you are on this page, you are probably curious about a few things. I always like to read about the folks I come across on the Web, so here is a little about my background as well as my family.

     I was born and raised near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, under the alias of Joanne Raser. Three years after graduating with honors from Geneva College, near Pittsburgh, with a degree in Elementary Education and a minor in Music, my husband, Tim, and I hopped in the car and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. ("...so we loaded up the truck and moved to Tennessee...."  not unlike those Beverly Hillbillies!) We felt the Lord was calling us to Nashville.
  
     Once here, I taught 4th grade at a school in Nashville while Tim worked for  a major tire producer. I was not enthusiastic about having babies and didn't plan to have children basically because that would entail changing diapers. I had not even *held* a baby yet at age 25! I just knew that other people's children could really make their parents mad. Nobody seemed *happy* to have children. 

     In 1989, all of that baby stuff changed when our first son, Nicholas, was born. The nice folks at the hospital even let us leave with him, even though we felt we should tell them that we had no idea what to do with this little bundle of squirming and squealing baby. I called my mom in PA and begged her to come down and help me! (I was such a wimp!) Tim worked strange hours and was sleeping when baby was awake and really couldn't help me much at that point. BTW, Nicholas is now 120 He has safely made it to adulthood! And we have really, really been happy to be blessed with children! We are parents who enjoy our children!

     The rest is, as they say, history. Within a year we had baby Lauren, (now 19). Over time we followed her with others, since the first two seemed to be relatively....well.....normal. The other children soon followed, and I will happily give you names and current ages. We have Taylor, age 18; Franklin, who is 16; Olivia, age 14; Adrienne, age 12; Lydia Hope, age 10, and Lilie Faith, age 78  Yes, the Lord can and still does change hearts! I am ever so grateful that He changed mine.

     We are just a normal family of ten. We have great days and we have the occasional, “Tell me again why I got out of bed this morning” days. Either way, our lives have been simplified over the past 10 years out of our 15 homeschooling years. How? Hopefully you are about to learn about the Self-Teaching method of education which has yielded excellent results for those who have set out on the path of a self-teaching journey! 
          
     Tim and I have found that it is possible to raise happy, obedient children who like each other and enjoy learning! You can raise lifelong learners who will love to learn on their own!     

                                                

Here is my *Official* Bio and then enough is enough!

     "Joanne Calderwood has been working with children for 25 years. She graduated from Geneva College in 1985 with a degree in Elementary education. Since then, Joanne has been a Youth Director, a Houseparent at a Children’s Home, a 4th Grade Teacher, and has had her own eight children. (72 months of pregnancy,but who’s counting?)

     She and husband, Tim, have been married for 25 years. They are the authors of an SAT Vocabulary Preparation Course, and they serve many via their 8 year old home business. Joanne has written several articles for various publications and is a regular columnist for Home School Enrichment magazine, and she is the author of The Self-Teaching Manual: I'm the Mom; I Don't Have to Know Calculus!If you visit www.URtheMom.com, you can see what else she has been doing in her spare time. Many self-learning helps can be found here.

     Joanne enjoys sharing the secrets of raising self-teaching learners with others and is a popular conference speaker. In her spare time she enjoys gardening, drying flowers, and taking naps. The Calderwood family resides in Normandy, Tennessee, where they homeschool their crew and try not to disturb the neighbors. 
              
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     That's that!  I do want to add an addendum to "my" bio....it is the story of two lives, as my husband has contributed greatly to who I am today, and vice versa. That is the blessing of marriage. Or the curse, in some sad cases. Tim is an exceptional husband and a wonderful dad. He truly is my better half!

     Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, and we are humble servants who fail often but repeatedly call on the Holy Spirit to make us more and more into the likeness of Jesus. It's all about *Him*; it's not about joanne calderwood. Jesus IS Lord! What assurance there is in those three words. 
                              
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