This week has been a challenging one for our little homeschool cooperative.  We experienced some group conflict as a result of diving forward into the new year without a clear set of guidelines for how we'd make group decisions or resolve disagreements.  A seemingly simple decision over an upcoming festival turned into two meetings, then three, then phone calls and long conversations, some confusion and disagreement, and even a few hurt feelings. It's so natural for conflict to arise in groups, and particularly in a homeschool cooperative environment, where each of us is so fully invested in our children's education; discussions naturally bring out big emotions. But we were unprepared for … [Read more...]