Only 19 minutes of free play in Kindergarten

A friend sent me this article.

Kindergarten Cram

....When I was a child, in the increasingly olden days, kindergarten was a place to play. We danced the hokey­pokey, swooned in suspense over Duck, Duck, Gray Duck (that’s what Minnesotans stubbornly call Duck, Duck, Goose) and napped on our mats until the Wake-Up Fairy set us free.

No more. Instead of digging in sandboxes, today’s kindergartners prepare for a life of multiple-choice boxes by plowing through standardized tests with cuddly names like Dibels (pronounced “dibbles”), a series of early-literacy measures administered to millions of kids; or toiling over reading curricula like Open Court — which features assessments every six weeks.

According to “Crisis in the Kindergarten,” a report recently released by the Alliance for Childhood, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, all that testing is wasted: it neither predicts nor improves young children’s educational outcomes. More disturbing, along with other academic demands, like assigning homework to 5-year-olds, it is crowding out the one thing that truly is vital to their future success: play.

A graphic included in the article showed that kindergartners spend on average....

89 minutes on literacy
47 minutes on math
21 minutes on test prep
19 minutes on free play

I wonder why they ask homeschoolers about socialization. It is the school kids with a problem.

Regardless of the cause, Miller says, accelerating kindergarten is unnecessary: any early advantage fades by fourth grade. “It makes a parent proud to see a child learn to read at age 4, but in terms of what’s really best for the kid, it makes no difference.” For at-risk kids, pushing too soon may backfire. The longitudinal High/Scope Preschool Curriculum Comparison Study followed 68 such children, who were divided between instruction- and play-based classrooms. While everyone’s I.Q. scores initially rose, by age 15, the former group’s academic achievement plummeted. They were more likely to exhibit emotional problems and spent more time in special education. “Drill and kill,” indeed.

Here's an irony for you. Early academics can lead to lower academic achievement and emotional problems. Brilliant!

This was one of the major reasons we choose to homeschool. We had a coveted spot at a local "basics plus" school. They were beginning an all day kindergarten program and with an accelerate academics approach. I'm so glad my kids never went to that school.

This is also one of the reasons I find universal preschool so scary. Can you imagine how much harm they would do with preschoolers?

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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education

Other homeschooling carnivals

The recent Charlotte Mason Carnival was hosted by Candace at His Mercy is New. Go here to submit an entry.

The recent Hands-on Homeschool Carnival was hosted by Kris at Science of Relations. Go here to submit an entry.

The recent Homeschool History Buffs Carnival was hosted by Brenda Sain at The Tie That Binds Us. Go here to submit an entry.

The recent Homeschool Showcase was hosted by Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Go here to submit an entry.

The last of the More Organized Homeschool Carnivals was posted at Heart of the Matter Online.


The next Homeschooled Kids Blog Carnival will be up at OnLivingbyLearning.com on May 28th, so you have a couple days to send in an entry.

I was sad to learn the Canadian Home Educators Blog Carnival is taking a break.


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education

Is being bullied a good thing?

Last month I asked Why do the adults put up with government schools? Ting-Yi Oei, an assistant principal was directed to investigate if students were using their cell phones to exchange sexy pictures. He found one instance, and was told to save the picture on his computer. Then a public prosecutor filed charges of child pornography. After spending $150,000 of his own money defending himself the judge threw the case out of court.

I wondered why adults put up with the abuse in public schools. It seems like too many teachers, and others involved with government schools, get way too many hassles.

A day after the post a reader sent me a link to an article on how Being Bullied Can Make Kids Stronger. I finally responded today. I've been working through old email, trying to get my inbasket back under control.

The article tries to look for a silver lining in the ugly cloud of school bullying. The writer speculates that little children in elementary schools who suffer from abuse will end up being stronger.

After reading the article the thought hit me, hard, if a parent some inflicted the kind of abuse these bullies inflict, Child Protective Services would yank the children away from the parents. So why is it that society seems to allow, and even justify, this ugly bully situation?

Clearly part of it is many parents feel obligated to send their children to government schools, and they are not able to protect their children. What is even worse, often schools won't protect the children. Our society has become "sue" happy. Many teachers won't discipline a bully because the bully's parents might sue the school and the teacher.

I remember few bullies at any of my schools. Kids did get in fights now and then, but there was no pattern of wide spread abuse.

There may be a few students who will suffer through the abuse of a bully and end up being stronger for it. But I expect most children are not better off for having been teased, taunted, or tortured. A long history of being made to feel scared or worthless does little to make children strong.

I am so glad Janine and I homeschool. Our daughters have had few interactions with bullies. We're able to intervene and protect them. This is our job as parents.


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, government schools, public school, public education, education

From the archives - Never doing a day of work in our lives

As parents I think one of our goals should be to help our children take initiative and find their bliss so they never have to work.

"I never did a day's work in my life; it was all fun."
-Thomas Edison (1847-1931)


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Technorati tags: work, Thomas Edison

Another beautiful picture from APOD - The NGC 4565 Galaxy

Roth Ritter (Dark Atmospheres) gave me permission to post his picture of the NGC 4565 Galaxy:










It appears the NGC 4565 Galaxy is shapped like ours. It is gorgeous.


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Technorati tags: Astronomy, Astronomy Picture of the day, Roth Ritter, NGC 4565, Galaxy

Free online books

This has a pretty amazing lists of sites with free online books: Get (Almost) Any Book For Free: 100+ (Kosher) Sites Offering Great Literature for Download.

(Hat tip: Bob Durtschi)


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Technorati tags: online books

Hamlet - The Gilligan's Island version

I watched this years ago. It was fun to watch it again. Here is Hamlet, in seven minutes:



(Hat tip: MiaZagora's Homeschool Minutes)


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Technorati tags: Hamlet, Gilligan Island

How much traffic is Youtube getting?

This is interesting Justin.tv: Our Users Upload More Video Than YouTube Users:

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Yesterday, we shared some mind-boggling stats from YouTube. In all, users now upload 20 hours of video per minute to the site, which, as we wrote “means that for every second in time about 33 minutes of video make it to YouTube(), and that for any given day 28,800 hours of video are uploaded in total.”
While those numbers are staggering, live video streaming service Justin.tv wants you to know that its users upload even more video than that. According to the company, this month they are averaging more than 22 hours of video uploaded per minute, which, would technically make it bigger than YouTube, at least in this metric.
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That is an amazing volume of video!


(Hat tip: Hacker News)


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Technorati tags: streaming, video, Youtube, Justin.tv

A few reasons why I'm concerned about the proposed National Healthcare plans

John Steele Gordon does a good job explaining why the Why Government Can't Run a Business:

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The Obama administration is bent on becoming a major player in -- if not taking over entirely -- America's health-care, automobile and banking industries. Before that happens, it might be a good idea to look at the government's track record in running economic enterprises. It is terrible.
In 1913, for instance, thinking it was being overcharged by the steel companies for armor plate for warships, the federal government decided to build its own plant. It estimated that a plant with a 10,000-ton annual capacity could produce armor plate for only 70% of what the steel companies charged.
When the plant was finally finished, however -- three years after World War I had ended -- it was millions over budget and able to produce armor plate only at twice what the steel companies charged. It produced one batch and then shut down, never to reopen.
Or take Medicare. Other than the source of its premiums, Medicare is no different, economically, than a regular health-insurance company. But unlike, say, UnitedHealthcare, it is a bureaucracy-beclotted nightmare, riven with waste and fraud. Last year the Government Accountability Office estimated that no less than one-third of all Medicare disbursements for durable medical equipment, such as wheelchairs and hospital beds, were improper or fraudulent. Medicare was so lax in its oversight that it was approving orthopedic shoes for amputees.
These examples are not aberrations; they are typical of how governments run enterprises. There are a number of reasons why this is inherently so. Among them are:
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Read the rest of the article for his reasons. He makes some good points.

(Hat tip: EducationNews.org)


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Technorati tags: government

Why do people want government schools to solve every problem?

Students at public schools in New York City are required to have and be able to recite their goals for each class. Joanne Jacobs covers some of the idiocy with this policy in Show Me Your Goals, Sir.


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Technorati tags: children, government schools, public school, public education, education

Reminder - send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

The Headmistress will be hosting the Carnival of Homeschooling next week at The Common Room.

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

Here are the instructions for sending in a submission. You have ten hours.





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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education, Carnival of Homeschooling

From the archives - What you know may limit you

"I failed on a climbing problem many times before realizing I was climbing as high as I KNEW I could and then letting go. On my next try I climbed with no thought of failure and reached the top. We cannot know what we can do in advance. The only way to find out is to go all-out trying, thinking only of success."
- Royal Robbins, Modesto resident and mountain climber/entrepreneur


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Technorati tags: life, limits

Why TED talks are so good

I've listened to a few TED talks that were just fascinating.

I like Jonathan Drori's talk on Why we don't understand as much as we think, where he makes the point that you have to be careful what goes into our brains, because it is almost impossible to change our first mental models. I don't know if there is a better reason for homeschooling.

Both Janine and I have listened to Sir Ken Robinson talk several times about how schools kill creativity.

Today I learned one of the reasons why TED talks are amazing. Tim Longhurst reveals The TED Commandments - rules every speaker needs to know. The TED organizers send a stone tablet with the rules:

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1) Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick
2) Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before
3) Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion
4) Thou Shalt Tell a Story
5) Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Skae of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy
6) Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
7) Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desparate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
8) Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
9) Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
10) Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee
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Think what that does to a speaker, to get a stone tablet with the above rules!

(Hat tip: Hacker News)


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Technorati tags: TED

Father's Day is around the corner

This is a nice video:




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Technorati tags: parenting, children, family, father

From the archives - being involved

Be involved:

The man who rows the boat does not rock it.
-Irish Proverb


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Technorati tags: life

WolframAlpha - another search engine

Google and Yahoo! do a great job of helping people find what they want on the internet. It is hard to remember what it was like years ago when information wasn't at your finger tips.

There many other search engines. Some are trying to compete with Google, while others focus on a niche.

WolframAlpha is trying to do more than merely find web pages, they are trying to be a "computational knowledge engine." It was launched this last weekend. Technology Review reports that it did over thirteen million queries over the weekend. Physorg explains:

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A new search engine described as an "electronic brain" could make searching the Internet more intelligent. Called Wolfram Alpha, the search engine computes its own answers rather than looking them up in a large database, as Google and many other search engines currently do. With its computational abilities, Wolfram Alpha could lead to new types of questions, answers and computations that today's search engines can't handle.
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Instead of building a list of links which hopefully match the keywords entered, WolframAlpha tries to build a report. When WolframAlpha is able to process the terms, it does a pretty good job. I entered the town I live in, the company I work at, and when I was born. With these WolframAlpha provided some useful information. But it drew a blank on "homeschool."

WolframAlpha is still new and I think it shows great promise. It will be interesting to see how it grows and develops. It might even challenge Google.

(Update: 20 May 2009)
Turns out WolframAlpha has a Terms of Use which is a bit restrictive.
(Hat tip: Groklaw)


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Technorati tags: WolframAlpha

The importance of family

A friend sent me a link to this a snippet from a movie. Be warned it is a bit violent, there is some blood.



At the end I thought about just how important families are to children.


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Technorati tags: parenting, children, family

An example of how politics gets into education

One of the big problems with public education is so many people try to "fix" problems via government schools. Here's a recent example of some of the politically correct trying to effect change via the schools: Parents fight homosexual indoctrination of kindergarteners.

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A California school district seems intent on teaching pre-school children to accept the homosexual lifestyle.
The Alameda Unified School District announced it was considering a supplemental curriculum to eradicate "homophobia" in kindergarten children. Brad Dacus, founder of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), said the meeting room for the public session earlier this week was overcrowded with angry parents.
"Nowhere at anytime did it give any protection for children being bullied because of their faith, their religion, their size, their race, ethnicity," he points out. "It is only going to give this special anti-bullying protection for homosexuals and transsexuals."
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Brad Dacus makes a great point. There is a double standard here. The goal is not to protect children from bullies, but to use it as an excuse to change how children think.

(Hat tip: Reddit)


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Technorati tags: children, government schools, public school, public education, education

Good explanation on "Why Credit Card Companies Are So Mean"

I like Daniel Indiviglio's explanation on Why Credit Card Companies Are So Mean.


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Technorati tags: Credit, Card, interest

From the archives - Are you making time for the important things?

No time for your health today;
no health for your time tomorrow.
-Irish Proverb


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Technorati tags: health

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up - the Baseball edition

Join Dave as he hosts this week's Carnival of Homeschooling. The Home School Dad created a Baseball edition.




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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education, Carnival of Homeschooling

Why we are still at Risk

We've mentioned a couple times the 1983 Federal Goverment report A Nation at Risk warned that education had deteriorated over the previous decades.

The report is the source of this famous quote:

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves."

The report also has another famous quote:

"Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy, and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents."

Ronald A. Wolk explains: Why We’re Still ‘At Risk’: The Legacy of Five Faulty Assumptions:

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Our new president has looked into the abyss of our current economic, energy, environmental, and health-care policies and promises to challenge the fundamental assumptions on which they are based. He admonishes us to join him in thinking and acting boldly.
We can only hope he feels the same way about education policy.
After nearly 25 years of intensive effort, we have failed to fix our ailing public schools and stem the “rising tide of mediocrity” chronicled in 1983 in A Nation at Risk. This is mainly because the report misdiagnosed the problem, and because the major assumptions on which current education policy—and most reform efforts—have been based are either wrong or unrealistic.
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Ronald makes some good points.

I'm afraid that at least for the short term government schools will only get worse.

I'm glad that we have the option to homeschool.

(Hat tip: Reddit)


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, government schools, public school, public education, education

From the archives - Take a risk

Too often we play it safe:

Twenty years fron now you will be more
disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
-Mark Twain


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Technorati tags: life, growth

What are they measuring?

Each year my children take some sort of standardize test just for the heck of it. I admit I love the little printouts we get. You know the ones that show percentiles and grade equivalence. I figure that the tests can show me if we have missed something important (like spelling).

Test taking is a skill and testing well can make getting into college much easier. So, each year we take the tests in hopes that it will help my children do better on the ACT or SAT when the time comes.

For the most part, I don't prep or teach to the test. However, I do have the kids practice with a "Preparing students for Standardize Testing" book so they know what to expect. They take the practice tests and we go over the answers they missed. A couple times, I run into questions where I can't figure out why a particle answer is right.

Here's two for example:

From Preparing Students for Standardize Testing, Grade 3

Choose the best ending for each story.

46. DeWayne and Aisha built a fort in their backyard. Their mother helped them. DeWayne found directions in one of the magazines he got from the library.

A. The End
B. It was hard work, but they really enjoyed it.
C. They were happy when it was done.
D. When they finished the fort, they celebrated.

Personally, I can't see how any answer is tangibly superior to another. None of the answers seem that good to me. I picked B. The answer key says D.

Does anyone have an explanation why D would be the right answer?



Here's another:

Choose the sentence that bests combines the two sentences.

32. Holly said farewell to her old neighbors. She said hello to her new neighbors.

A. After saying farewell to her old neighbors, Holley said hello to her new neighbors.
B. Holly said hello to her new neighbors after she said farewell to her old neighbors.
C. Holly said farewell to her old neighbors and then said hello to her new neighbors.
D. After saying hello to her new neighbors, Holly said farewell to her old neighbors.

Again, I wasn't thrilled with the options. "A" was my first choice. The answer key says "B". I can't see why B is any better than A or how it would even matter.

I notice that the original sentences don't use present participles, but only past tense. Incorporating an introductory clause with a present particle makes the text more interesting, but apparently that isn't the right answer because it doesn't identically copy the sentence form. I thought the point of sentence combining was to make the sentence more interesting to read.

Do I even want to teach my daughter how to get the right answer on this question? I think it could negatively impact her writing style.


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education

Reminder - send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

Dave the Home School Dad will be hosting the Carnival of Homeschooling tomorrow. This is his first hosting the carnival, so send in your best submission.

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

Here are the instructions for sending in a submission. You have ten hours.


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education, Carnival of Homeschooling