Wednesday, April 30, 2014

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up

Jennifer is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at: Home Grown Mommy.

She starts the carnival with:

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If you are anything like me, this carnival is one of the highlights of the internet for you! Join me as we learn and fellowship together!

Just one little bit of housekeeping first off. The website that this carnival goes through to get submissions, BlogCarnival, has been down for several weeks which means that the number of our submissions have gone down greatly. Submissions are always accepted through the home site, WhyHomeschool. Let’s work together and bring this Carnival back up to the popularity it deserves!!
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Enjoy!


Carnival of Homeschooling

Monday, April 28, 2014

Homeschooling in the news

Back in the 80s and 90s most of of the news about homeschooling was fairly negative.  The mainstream media believed the public school system and repeated the mantra that parents weren't capable of teaching their children, and if they were, the poor children wouldn't be properly socialized.

For the most part this has changed.

Today I did a Google News search for homeschooling.  The following are the top articles that Google returned.  

Homeschooling is popular option in Oklahoma is positive for the first 95%.  It opens with a nice personal story about a homeschooling family who is doing well.  It covers the basics of the law.  And then it ends with a warning of: "But for some, so-called homeschooled student’s reality is a far cry from the picturesque scene of care and learning that thrives in the Shelton home."  One of the most frustrating things for me is how quick people are to point out the very rare instances of children suffering in a homeschooling environment and completely gloss over the tens of thousands to millions of students who suffer each day in public schools.

New Tell-All Homeschool Handbook Was Released Today By The Home Learning Association is basically an article on Terra Scholar E-book released by The Home Learning Association.  This 285 page book is touted as a great resource for parents who want to learn why and how they should homeschool their children.  I haven't read the book, but it is pretty cool that this news article is so supportive.

613 ways to learn: rabbi brings Jewish homeschooling to the Web is a nice article about a Rabbi's efforts to provide resources for Jewish Homeschoolers at his Room613 site.  This is also a pretty positive article.

How to Find Homeschooling Support provides several suggestions on how to connect to other homeschoolers.

There were several articles about the Duggar family.  Why Michelle Duggar Is a Great Homeschooling Advocate is one of them.

In Portraits of Weld County Homeschool Families Eric Hunt writes about being a mother and a homeschooler.

Cabarrus home schooling continues to grow is another positive article with details about a local homeschooling group in Concord.  It covers an upcoming event and goes over the continuing growth of homeschooling.

Does home schooling make kids more politically tolerant? was a bit surprising.  The claim of the article is that homeschoolers tend to be more politically tolerant.

Student takes home-schooling into wild, blue yonder is a pleasant article about a young man and his passion for flying.

There were many more articles about homeschooling.  All-in-all I was surprised at how neutral to down right positive these articles were about homeschooling.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Please remember to send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

Please remember to send in a post about homeschooling for the next Carnival of Homeschooling, which will be held at Home Grown Mommy.

This will be the 435th edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.

Blog Carnival is still having trouble again so it is best to mail it to: CarnivalOfHomeschooling@gmail.com

As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.

I have a reminder mailing list. If you would like email reminders, please tell me.

Carnival of Homeschooling

A danger of reading a good book

I love today's Non Sequitur.  Sometimes I wish that could happen to me.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up

Sara is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at The HSBA.

The carnival starts with:

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The Homeschool Post is happy to host this week's Carnival of Homeschooling.  We're continuing our month-long focus on building character in our children.  Homeschooling is about more than just academics - it is a lifestyle of learning with an emphasis on strong character.  How do you encourage your children to make good choices and to think critically?  In a culture sadly lacking in good role models, how do we point out positive examples of good character?
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Enjoy!



Monday, April 21, 2014

I am grateful for homeschooling

As the organizer for the Carnival of Homeschooling I try each week to submit a post to the weekly carnival. So far out of 433 I think I’ve missed less than 15 carnivals. Sometimes I find it a challenge to come up with an interesting topic for the weekly post. Today I was riding the train home from work and I started brainstorming about various possible topics related to homeschooling. A couple times the thought came to me about how grateful I was that we were able to homeschool.

I am very grateful that my children didn’t grow up in a pack minded government school where they were taught to give in to the mob. Our oldest three children really don’t care too much about what the crowd wants. Our son has an entertainer personality and will often do things to make people laugh. Since he is only seven I’m not too worried.

I am very grateful that homeschooling allowed our children to learn at their own rate. Our oldest two daughters were very late readers. The reading process didn’t really kick in until they were nine and ten. In public schools with the current rush to make them readers in kindergarten our older daughters could have been labeled failures. Now at 17 and 19 they are constantly reading. It is one of their greatest pleasures.

And I am very grateful that homeschooling allowed my children to spend so much time with each other. They like each other, most of the time. And they are very supportive of each other. One of the things I regret about my public school experience was how it taught me to only hang out with children my own age. I went from spending hours a day with my siblings up until I was ten, to hardly talking to them, for almost ten years. It was such a waste.

Homeschooling has been such a blessing for our family. I am so gratreful.

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Please remember to send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

Please remember to send in a post about homeschooling for the next Carnival of Homeschooling, which will be held at The HSBA Post.

This will be the 434th edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.

Oh, it looks like Blog Carnival is having trouble again so it is best to mail it to: CarnivalOfHomeschooling@gmail.com

As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.

I have a reminder mailing list. If you would like email reminders, please tell me.

Carnival of Homeschooling

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Pretty sad - public school teacher puts out a hit on one of her students

A kid bad mouths a teacher and she arranges for some other students to beat him up.

Teacher who ‘ordered a hit’ on 7th grader gets fired starts with:

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Florida’s St. Lucie County School Board officially fired veteran teacher Dru Dehart after their investigation found that she encouraged six 8th grade students to beat up 7th grader Radravious Williams, WPTV NewsChannel 5 reports.

The incident occurred on March 20, 2013 and was caught on a Northport K-8 school surveillance camera. Footage shows the teacher pointing to the victim, instructing the students to go after him. Williams is then seen on the hallway floor being pummeled by a group of boys. "I looked at them and I was like, ‘Are you serious?’" Radravious told WPTV during an April 2013 press conference . The older boys, ranging in age from 11 to 15, were once Radravious’ friends but were instructed by Dehart to “teach him a lesson.”
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I think most parents realize that government schools may not be safe places for their children, but then expect the teachers to protect the children.  Too often parents are surprised.

I do have one complaint that it took a year to process this.  The investigation and school board decision really should have taken only a couple weeks.

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - The thousand flowers edition

Mama Squirrel is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at Dewey's Treehouse.

She starts the carnival with:

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This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is inspired by Spunky Homeschool's post Common Core Curriculum is coming. "Time is short. School districts are scrambling. Tests are coming. The situation is 'near-impossible,'" Spunky warns. She also refers to a study in Education Week where curriculum researchers state, "Letting a thousand flowers bloom isn't consistent with ensuring that all teachers are using high-quality and well-aligned materials."

Apparently I've been living under a bit of a rock, because I had never heard that quotation about the thousand flowers and had to look it up. It is a misquotation of a policy of Chairman Mao Zedong: "Let a hundred flowers blossom."  At that time (1957), the Chinese government was actually encouraging constructive criticism from various respected thinkers, and that was the official (and very springlike) way of saying it.

In Ontario, homeschoolers are not required to test or to teach particular subjects or to particular standards. Puzzled non-homeschoolers say, "But then how do they know/you know that you are doing it right?"  They are often quick to agree (with each other) that there needs to be more standardization, that homeschoolers should be more accountable to authorities, and so on.  Their minds are obviously wandering to the exceptional cases where an abused child "slipped through the cracks," or where teenagers doing nothing educational at all are excused by their parents in the name of homeschooling. However, and I try to explain this whenever I do get the chance, the fact that we have that right is exactly the point. The freedom to learn at home, without undue interference, is much like a thousand flowers blossoming. Who would want every petal to turn out exactly the same?

Well, maybe some people would, and this is the concern of Spunky and others.  I don't usually get all political on this blog, but I have to say that those quality-control "concerns" are almost always more about control than about quality or about real concern. They are nanny-state rhetoric for standardization, in education and in other areas as well.  How can "the state" be sure that unregulated  home schools are doing a good job?  Well, it can't be sure...and it shouldn't be. Thank God for the freedom to succeed or fail, and to accept the challenge of that freedom as part of our responsibility to our own children..

And the Carnival of Homeschooling, in all its diversity, is a perfect illustration of that freedom. Let a hundred or a thousand or a million flowers blossom!

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Enjoy!


Carnival of Homeschooling

Monday, April 14, 2014

Two down! Two to go!

Our oldest daughter will start serving a mission for our church in two days.  My wife and I have been reminiscing some the last couple days.  While during their high school years our oldest two daughters both took online classes, the two of them have taken very different paths on their road to higher education.

Both of our older two children started taking classes at the local junior colleges when they were sixteen.  Our oldest finished up her high school and switched to going full time at the local junior college.  Today as Janine and I were talking about the road to higher education our oldest daughter said that she saw no point in investing in an expensive university when she didn't know what she wanted to study.

Our second daughter has known for six years that she wanted to do speech pathology.  She did attend two of our local junior colleges, but she has always been firm in her goal of going off to a university as soon as she finished her high school education.

One of the wonderful things about homeschooling is a built in understanding that children are different and can march to different drums.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Please remember to send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

Please remember to send in a post about homeschooling for the next Carnival of Homeschooling, which will be held at Dewey's Treehouse.

This will be the 433rd edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.

As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.

I have a reminder mailing list. If you would like email reminders, please tell me.

Carnival of Homeschooling

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Cool - it appears that asteroids can have rings

The Astronomy Picture of the Day site reports that it appears scientists have found an asteroid with rings!


A ring system discovered around (10199) Chariklo from Lucie Maquet on Vimeo.

So cool!

Another example of problems with public schools

It used to be that many people would attack homeschooling because they claimed parents couldn't teach their children as well as the public school system could.  Examples like College-Readiness Not Keeping Up in California pretty much destroy this argument.

The article starts with:

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 Fewer than 4 in 10 California high school students are completing the requirements to be eligible for the state's public universities, fueling worries of a shortage of college-educated workers when the value of a bachelor's degree has never been higher.

To meet entrance requirements, high school students must complete 15 classes with a grade of C or better, including foreign language, lab science, intermediate algebra, and visual or performing arts.

At the current rate, educators and policy experts say, far too few students are finishing high school with the minimum coursework needed even to apply to a University of California or California State University campus.
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Sad.

Interesting tool: Graphing the popularity of TV shows

I found Graph TV interesting.  I plugged in several of my favorite TV Shows, like Columbo.

Hat tip: Instapundit

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - The Homeschooling & Farms edition

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is being hosted at Petticoat Government.

The carnival starts with:

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With spring finally here--although I fully expect some more snow before the month is out because that's just how weather is in Colorado--for this Carnival of Homeschooling, I thought I'd look at intersections of homeschooling and farming.

Many parents, homeschooling or not, have a strong desire to teach their children about nature in-depth. My father liked to take us hiking, and my parents had us children grow a garden and raise chickens. One year we even raised a steer in our backyard for a while. He was rather bad-tempered (I wonder if he understood our nickname for him, "Dinner") and got out sometimes, wandering up and down our residential street, which taught us the importance of locking up gates securely.

While this is by no means solely a homeschooler phenomenon, I've seen many of my friends and relatives who lean towards homeschooling raise chickens and/or other livestock, grow big gardens, and dream of the little farm they're going to have someday out in a rural setting. Here are several blogs I found of homeschoolers living (or at least pursuing part of) that dream:
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Enjoy!


Carnival of Homeschooling

Monday, April 07, 2014

Looking for many solutions

Last week I compared software development with homeschooling. The point of the post was that with both it is important to step back and consider your goals.

Over this weekend a couple things happened to me which reminded me a basic principle in software development that is good to teach our children: Look for more than one solution.

Many problems in life have more than one possible solution. For example we can hand water our lawn. But this takes a lot of our time. We had pay a neighbor child to hand water the lawn. This saves our time, but would be fairly expensive. Another option is we get a sprinkler. Now we can turn on the sprinkler, go off and do something else for a half hour, then come back and turn off the sprinkler. This takes very little of our time and isn’t that expensive. Another possible solution is we put in a sprinkler system with an automatic timer. This takes a significant amount of time and money up front, but then it will take very little time in the months to come.

A month ago I started a new job. I’ve been taking the train. The new job has been a lot of fun, but we’re still learning new rhythms and patterns.

Last Friday Janine took the girls up to the big city to see some art. My new job is about half way between our home and the big city. I wanted to take the family out to a nice restaurant in the evening, since our oldest daughter is will be leaving our home next week for a mission. Scheduling was a bit challenging. The first solution we came up with was for Janine to pick me up at a train stop close to our home or another one somewhat near the restaurant. Then I thought maybe Janine should just pick me up from work. But she pointed out that for her to pop off the highway into where my new office would cost her about a half hour. Then I thought about taking the train up to the big city. The down side for this was I’d have to leave work much earlier. As I’m still new on the job I’m trying to be very focused and get off to a good start. Friday morning Janine had an idea just before I was about to get on the train to head off to work. She would leave one of our cars at the train station near the restaurant. She would take another and go off to the big city afterwards she pick up our son and head directly for the restaurant. In parallel I could leave work, head for the station near the restaurant, pick up the car and go to the restaurant. It worked out just fine. It was the fourth solution we came up with which made things go smoothly.

This morning I learned the lesson again. I was taking the train to work again. My sister sometimes take the same train. I wanted to take my children over to my parents tonight, so I was going to have my children pick me up at the train station and then we would go to my parents. My sister said I could catch the train home with her and she could drop me off at our parents. This would allow my children to leave earlier and spend more time with the grand parents. Here the second solution was much better than the first.

This is something we often find in software development. Often it is the second, third or fourth solution we think of which does a better job of solving a problem.

And it is a good lesson to teach our children.

Saturday, April 05, 2014

A funny sketch in a company setting

One of my co-workers recently shared The Expert at work.  The sad thing is everyone at work said they had experienced similar situations.  We watched as a group at lunch yesterday.  I think we'll be making references to the sketch for weeks to come.



Enjoy.

Thursday, April 03, 2014

Please remember to send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

Please remember to send in a post about homeschooling for the next Carnival of Homeschooling, which will be held at Petticoat Government.

This will be the 432nd edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.

As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.

I have a reminder mailing list. If you would like email reminders, please tell me.

Carnival of Homeschooling

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Paul Jacob explains Why Homeschoolers Make Good Citizens

Paul Jacob has a nice column on Why Homeschoolers Make Good Citizens.

He starts with:

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Horace Mann promoted the “common school” not primarily to increase literacy or prepare kids for college. No, the movement that gave birth to the modern public school system in America was designed to inculcate good citizenship by putting all kids through a “shared experience.”
A few years ago, Mann’s notion was re-iterated by a college professor in an essay called “The Civic Perils of Homeschooling.” Public schooling, he wrote,
is one of the few remaining social institutions . . . in which people from all walks of life have a common interest and in which children might come to learn such common values as decency, civility, and respect.
Are we really supposed to believe that public schools instill decency, civility, and respect?
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This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - The April Fool's Edition

Jamie is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at momSCHOOL.

She starts the carnival with:

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April the first stands mark’d by custom’s rules,
A day for being, and for making fools: —
But, pray, what custom, or what rule supplies
A day for making, or for being — wise?
(Rev. Samuel Bishop, 1796)

This is one of the earliest known mentions of April Fool’s Day. Though the exact origin is a bit cloudy, most historians trace a general air of tomfoolery back to antiquity.The Romans celebrated a festive holiday during the end of March known as Hilaria. The Jewish festival of Purim is also celebrated during this time and incorporates costumes, carnivals, and pranks.While I’ve heard that an ancient Dutch poem mentions April Fool’s and was written in 1561. So, in any case we can see that playing pranks and making all sorts of general merriment is the custom for this time of the year!

I personally just love April Fool’s Day, and at our house we are always on the lookout for some fun and exciting ways to celebrate this quirky holiday. So, in conjunction with our typical article submissions we’ll have some great ways to celebrate this silliest of all holidays!
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Enjoy.


Carnival of Homeschooling