About Dana Hanley

Dana is a homeschool mom to six children, aged 6, 9, 13, 15, 17, and 21.

She believes the purpose of education is to teach students how to learn and to challenge them to stretch their knowledge and experience to open as many opportunities as possible. Learning a foreign language is important not only for communication in a rapidly globalizing marketplace, but to learn new ways of thinking and seeing the world which enrich our daily lives. Exploring other cultures gives us a greater understanding of others and also ourselves.

Dana is passionate about her faith, homeschooling and supporting other moms through the trials of motherhood. She blogs about faith, motherhood, and homeschooling at This Unexceptional Life where she concentrates on everyday stories that encourage connection with our children and our faith. She is also active on Facebook.

Homeschool Experience

Mrs. Hanley has graduated one daughter who went on to become the local director for Child Evangelism Fellowship and a farrier. She has five children still at home aged six through seventeen. She has also taught other homeschool students in co-op settings. She currently teaches in a cottage school together with four other homeschool moms. She teaches German and writing to students from four to fourteen.

Professional Degrees & Experience

She has a Bachelor of Arts in Germanic Languages and Literature from the University of Kansas. She graduated with distinction. During her junior year in high school, she received a Congress-Bundestag scholarship to become an exchange student for one academic year in Germany. She also did a year of graduate work a the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany on scholarship where she concentrated on curriculum development.

She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from the University of Kansas. After college, she joined Teach for America and taught two years in a low-income school in southern Texas. She went on to work as a house parent in a Christian group home then transition to family support work for foster families with the same agency. After her second child was born, she made the choice to stay home and focus on raising and homeschooling her growing family.