Funny thought about phones and computers

From Dan Galvin's Thought For The Day mailing list:

I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.

Bjarne Stroustrup - computer science professor, designer of C++ programming language (1950- )


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Technorati tags: computers, phones, Bjarne Stroustrup, Dan Galvin

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up - The Marriage Edition

MrsMamaHen is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at MrsMamaHen.com. She writes about some of the similarities between marriage and homeschooling. She starts with:

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Homeschooling and Marriage have some similarities that may not be obvious at first, but with some reflection, they are pretty clear.
For instance. A marriage has to have good foundations. Trust, compassion, compromise.
Homeschooling has to have good foundations as well.
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Drop in and enjoy.





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

In the News

This article caught my eye.

Experience Doesn’t Teach

....wide body of research shows that on average, teaching experience beyond three years contributes little or nothing to student learning. In fact, according to a review of the research literature by Stanford economist Eric Hanushek, only 41 percent of “high-quality” estimates—analyses that account for prior student proficiency—could distinguish any relationship between the amount of time a teacher has spent in the classroom and his or her effectiveness....

The results of a study by Hanushek, Steven Rivkin, and John Kaine published in Econometrica, one of the world’s most prestigious economics journals,.... found that the teacher to whom a child gets assigned is the main school-based factor determining the size of his test-score gains during a given year. Seeking to identify the characteristics of the most effective teachers, they found that experience and credentials accounted for only about 2 percent of a teacher’s contribution to a student’s test-score gains.

....Since the number of years teachers spend in the classroom hardly explains why some of their students show lots of progress and others show none at all, it makes almost no sense to decide, entirely based on seniority, whom to let go and whom to retain.

.....A recent National Bureau of Economic Research paper by Brian Jacob and Lars Lefgren found that principals are quite good at identifying the best and worst teachers in their schools. Just as other scholars have, Jacob and Lefgren found that teacher experience was unrelated to the size of student test-score gains. However, principals’ subjective rankings of their teachers correlated well with measures of teachers’ influence on student scores. Principals struggled to distinguish one moderately effective teacher from another, but they could accurately identify the best and worst teachers in their schools..

I hardily support the end of teacher tenure. It's one of the many reasons we've opted out of the public school system. Too many good teachers are let go while really bad teachers keep their jobs.

Even if my children do not go to public school, my tax dollars do. I like to see them used well.



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

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

You have just about ten hours to send in your entry for this week's Carnival of Homeschooling, so act now, don't hesitate, submit your post before you forget or get distracted.

MrsMamaHen will be hosting the carnival tomorrow.

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.





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

Family History and homeschooling

My sister is quite into genealogical research. I tagged along with her at a recent presentation on Family History expecting to be mildly bored. It ending up being one of the most amazing events I've ever attended. The music brought me to tears. The keynote speaker, author David McCullough who wrote the biography of John Adams, was fabulous.

Because of security issues, we were not allowed to bring bags into the conference center. The whole time I was thinking, "I wish I had a notebook to write this down, I hope they are taping this, I want my kids to see this."

Here's some quotes by David McCullough in the local newspaper.

"I've never known much about the subjects I've written about when I started. Each book was a journey, a hunt, a detective story. That has been the joy of it, the compulsion of it," he said, noting that everyone can share in that joy.

"Curiosity is a wonderful thing. It is accelerative. The more you know, the more you want to know. It's what separates us from the cabbages."

McCullough talked of phrases that should be excised from our vocabulary, such as "self-made man" — "we are all shaped by other people," he said; "foreseeable future" — "there's no such thing. People back then had no more idea how things would turn out than we do." And, "living in the past" — no one lived in the past; they lived in their present and to understand them we have to understand their times."

And, he added, "we should never say 'gone, but not forgotten.' If they are not forgotten, they are not gone. They created the society, the values, the experiences we all live by. We must not lose sight of them."

McCullough talked of visiting Normandy with a Jewish couple, who placed pebbles on the grave of a Jewish soldier. "They said it was their way of staying in touch. That's what we all should be doing. History — whether you call it history or local history or family history — transcends time, transcends nationality, transcends geography. It reminds us that we are all part of the human family. We must stay in touch."

McCullough spoke at length about the "inadequate job of educating our children and grandchildren on the history of this country." He added that, "students are not being prepared for college, let alone for citizenship."

This presentation has got me thinking about how we study history in our homeschool. We are doing a lot of things right, like personally visiting historical places. But, there is more we could do to make it personal for our children.

For example, Henry was born in Alaska in 1961. I'm thinking about doing a unit study on Alaska history and then on what it was like in the years 1961-1964 (the years Henry lived in Alaska.)

Henry's parents and grandparents homesteaded in Alaska and our family could focus on that time frame too.

We could work our way down the family tree, state by state and year by year, country by country. We could put a name and even sometimes a face with our studies. [My mother's family has quite an extensive collection of family portraits going back to the 1850's.]

I'm excited to get home and get to work.

Update:

Here's a link to the opening segment of the event I attened.


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Tags : homeschool , home education , public school , family history , parenting , education , David McCullough

What next?

I just had to roll my eyes and groan when I saw this headline.

It’s a sad day for Happy Meals in Santa Clara County

Happy Meal toys and other promotions that come with high-calorie children's meals will soon be banned in parts of Santa Clara County unless the restaurants meet nutritional guidelines approved Tuesday by the county Board of Supervisors.

"This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's' love of toys" to sell high-calorie, unhealthful food, said Supervisor Ken Yeager, who sponsored the measure. "This ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes."

This is another example of how parents are being marginalized. Big Brother will take care of everything, so parents don't have to be bothered to say "no" to a whiny kid.

I sent an email off to Ken Yeager*, who by the way is single and childless, to let him know what an idiot I think he is. Actually, I was very good. I didn't use the word idiot even once.

(* I've included the link to his web page, in case you want to call or send an email).


Here's what I sent:

What next? Let's ban Twinkies in the grocery store?

That's sarcasm if you can't tell.

Your disdain for parents is evident.

I personally don't care for Happy Meals and don't buy them for my children. But, that is my choice to make, not yours. What my children eat is not your business nor the business of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.

It is evident by this "Happy Meal" ordinance that you have no concept of good government policy or the role of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.

This may be a insignificant little ordinance, but it sets a dangerous precedent.

Your opponent in the next election will be receiving a large donations from me.

Have a nice day.

Janine Cate

Mother of 4.

It's won't make any difference. "Vision of the Anointed" types are so sure that they know best, there is no reasoning with them.


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Happy Meal, Parenting, Big Brother, Vision of the Anointed, Bad Policy, Homeschool, Public school

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up - The Wrinkly Superhero Edition

Mama Squirrel is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at Dewey's Treehouse. She starts with:

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"When I recently expressed to an acquaintance that I was struggling with balancing everything, she asked me what had happened to my Wonder Woman costume. I promptly told her it was a wrinkled mess under my bed, along with everything else I can’t find."-- "Confessions of a Not-So-Super Homeschool Mom," posted at Hearthside Homeschool Reviews...and More!

For those of you struggling to even find your superhero costume, much less iron it or fit into it, this week's Carnival of Homeschooling is for you.
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Hop on over and enjoy this week's carnival.


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

The power of example

Baby Bop did the cutest thing yesterday.

He noticed that I had a small flag on a shelf near my desk. He asked to play with it and since I was working on the computer and hoped that he would leave me alone for a few minutes, I let him have it.

A few minutes later, I happened to glance up and saw him in the next room holding the flag in one hand with his other hand over his heart, pretending to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I use the word pretend, since Baby Bop has a profound speech delay and doesn't yet talk intelligibly.

Baby Bop was imitating the flag ceremony that takes place every week at our homeschool co-op group. Our co-op includes many boy scouts who have been trained in the proper handling and formal presentation of our country's flag.

This incident got me thinking about a conversation I had with Baby Bop's speech therapist that same morning. She urged me (very politely and earnestly) to consider sending Baby Bop to kindergarten instead of homeschooling because the interaction with 30 peers could help his speech delay.

I understand her point of view. Baby Bop's language skills improved more rapidly during the five weeks we cared for two foster children the same age as Baby Bop.

However, what she doesn't understand is how dependent Baby Bop is upon the example of those around him. He imitates literally everything he sees which is typical of young children, let alone those with his type of neurological challenges.

Our goal is to keep good examples around him while we train his developing brain to sift what he sees. That kind of brain development, even in "normal" children, generally doesn't emerge until the age of 8 or older.

All day kindergarten with 30 children in a classroom with one teacher and a teacher's aide will not provide the kind of examples we can provide with homeschooling.

The families with whom we associate train their children well and do not allow inappropriate behavior to continue unchecked. (No, the children are not perfect, but the parents are vigilant.) We have the benefit of mature older children modeling behavior for the younger children to follow. We have the benefit of a good parent/child ratio.

So, we plan to give kindergarten a pass.


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

The 149th edition of the Carnival of Space is up

It is great to see that the Carnival of Space is still going. (I started it about three years ago.)

The 149th edition of the Carnival of Space is up at Starry Critters.


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Technorati tags: carnival, space

Another good reason to homeschool

Articles like this remind me why my children have never gone to public school.

The whole article and its links are worth looking at. The author's style makes it a little messy to excerpt with so many cross references. I tried to pull out some of the main points.


The Hijacking of Art Education

Parents and others who think that children are mainly learning about painting and drawing in today's art classrooms should consider this: a movement has for some time been afoot to hijack art education for purposes of often radical political indoctrination.....

"Art Education and Social Justice": The 2010 NAEA Convention

(National Art Education Association)

One of the chief sources cited in the 2010 NAEA program coordinator's notes is a White House Briefing on Art, Community, Social Justice, [and] National Recovery held in May 2009. According to a published report, the purpose of the briefing was, in part, to determine "how the remarkable mobilizing power of community arts can be used by the Obama administration as a tool and a pathway for national recovery" and "to identify existing efforts within the cultural and social justice movements that are in alignment with the national agenda . . . on such issues as green jobs, health care and economic justice."

...Greene Grants [Maxine Greene Foundation for Social Imagination, the Arts, and Education] of up to $10,000 are awarded to teachers who "go beyond the standardized and the ordinary"; artists "whose works embody fresh social visions"; and individuals "who radically challenge or alter the public's imagination about social policy issues." The 2008 grantees included the Education for Liberation Network--whose 2007 conference, entitled "Free Minds, Free People: A Conference on Education for Liberation," bore the following slogan on its program cover: "If education is not given to the people, they will have to take it."

The source of that quote is Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Latin American [communist] revolutionary.

Oh, but it gets better. William Ayers is on the board of directors for the Greene Foundation.

Quinn [Theresa Quinn] is the author of "Out of Cite [sic], Out of Mind: Social Justice and Art Education," one of the sources cited by the NAEA regarding its 2010 convention theme. (Quinn also co-authored another of those sources with Ayers, and will co-present the aforementioned Freedom School session with him.) Quinn's article could well be regarded as sounding the keynote for the conference. Tellingly, she spends most of her 20-page paper discussing the concept of social justice and almost none of it discussing art.

In Quinn's view, social justice encompasses both "recognition and redistribution" (a phrase borrowed from feminist theorist Nancy Fraser). The concept of redistribution, Quinn explains, refers to "the equitable allocation of resources"--a goal implying that government should intervene to ensure equality of results.

....A National Education Taskforce (NET) headed by Dennis Fehr--an associate professor of "visual studies" at Texas Tech University--has proposed inserting new language into the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), requiring both the study of "visual culture" and the "examination of social justice and ethical questions posed by artworks."

The good news is that with all the budget cuts in school, hopefully these types of art programs will get cut.

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

Trying something new

Our homeschool is always evolving and changing. Lately, I've struggled to meet the needs of my youngest daughter (age 9) because Baby Bop (age 3) takes so much of my time. My older two are pretty self-sufficient.

If I do something with Baby Bop so he is not bothering my youngest daughter, she feels left out and doesn't work well alone. If Baby Bop is around distracting her, she doesn't work well either.

Henry is picking up the slack on a few things, but I'm still not happy with her structured school work. I should add that my youngest daughter does a lot of very good unstructured things on her own. I not an unschooler at heart, so it is too unstructured for me to feel comfortable (though a little unschooling is an important part of homeschooling.)

Normally, at Baby Bop's nap time, I read a few story books to him and then he gets in to his bed. I then read out loud from my book until he falls asleep. Sometimes it is the scriptures or a murder mystery, whatever I'm in the mood for.

This is my new strategy. After I read the story books, I invite my youngest daughter (age 9) to lay on the other bed in Baby Bop's room. I then read out loud from a history/science book called the Out Line of History. We discuss it quietly and I keep reading until Baby Bop falls asleep. My youngest daughter really enjoys it even if the book is a bit over her head. I also hope a little of the information will end up in Baby Bop's head too.

Today, I couldn't find the Out Line of History, so we read from Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling, not Disney). Baby Bop stayed awake for almost the whole story. I'm enjoying this time with my youngest daughter and figure it is a good way to get my little terrorist to sleep.

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

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up - The Cartoonist's Desk

This week's is up at Carnival of Homeschooling at Home Spun Juggling. She often posts fun comics of family life and homeschooling. She built the carnival around how she creates her comics. She starts with:

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For this carnival, I thought I would let everyone take a peek over my shoulder as I draw my comic strips for this week. This is a long one, so grab your tea or coffee and make yourself comfortable!

Inspiration.
Where do I get my ideas? Life! My comics start with the day to day adventures I experience. I often remember anecdotes that happened several years ago. Although some may not have been funny when they happened, I've learned to see the humor in these old crises. As Carol Burnett said, "Comedy is tragedy plus time."
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To learn more about how she creates comics, hop over and check out the carnival.


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

More reasons to homeschool, from the archives

Long ago, before Janine and I started blogging, I used to browse around the internet looking for reasons to homeschool. Two months ago I've been working through some old email and came across some of the links I had saved, so I started posting some of the reasons to homeschool.

Here are some more from 2004:

Reason to homeschool: Because the politicians realize the public schools are bad. Here's an account where the politicians frankly discuss how they educate their children.

Reason to homeschool: Because private data may be made public. Closed schools left to vandals; books, equipment, and student records abandoned. Reread the last part: "student records abandoned!"

Reason to homeschool: Because students can graduate from high school and not know how to write. This account is from 2004, I'm sure it is worse now.

Reason to homeschool: Because the NEA doesn't want teachers to educate the students. This is a 32 page report on how the NEA disrubts the learning process.

Reason to homeschool: Because the schools are overlawyered. UK schools won't take children on field trips if there is an increase exposure to sun burns.

Reason to homeschool: Because the schools are a crazy environment. A UK boy was banned from taking sun cream to school. (Maybe he really wanted to go on a field trip.)

Reason to homeschool: Because teachers only teach the parts of history they want to teach. Fox News has made billions of dollars advertising themselves as Fair and Balanced. Unfortunately public schools haven't been able to make that claim for years.

Reason to homeschool: To protect your children. Rather than deal with difficult children many teachers want to just drug them.


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

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

You have about ten hours to get in your entry for the next carnival, which will be held at Home Spun Juggling.

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.




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

More on our trip

The last week was fun. We picked up a C-9 class RV on Monday. It sleeps ten. We loaded up and drove to the beach on Monday evening. The children had a great time. We drove back yesterday and I returned the RV this morning.

Probably the most stressful part of the trip for me was doing a U-turn to get to a gas station, and then pulling out of the gas station.

The guy at the RV place said most accidents happen at the gas stations just before people return the RVs.


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Technorati tags: children, family, parenting

About our trip

Here's a few tidbits about our trip:


1) Raccoons really like chocolate and graham crackers. They don't really care for marshmallows though. (We mistakenly left a bag with the ingredients to make smores outside.)

















2. Wetsuit type swimsuits are great.




















3. Big RVs are fun, but roll over and it feels like an earthquake.












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Technorati tags: children, family, parenting

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up! The Family Photo edition

Christine shares many family photos in this week's Carnival Homeschooling. She is hosting at her blog Our Curious Home.




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

Space Access 2010 - Frontier Astronautics / Tim Bendel, Michael Carden

Frontier Astronautics has been around for five years. Orbital made him an offer and distracted him. He is now back on Frontier Astronautics full time. They are the guys with a missile silo.

They did a design for SpeedUp. He showed the design, and the where they did the test firing. They worked on the attitude control.

They have 16 patent on a 7000 pound thrust engine, the Viper Engine. Now that the patents were accepted they’ll be releasing information on it. It is a viable thrust engine.

They have a crane for moving stuff. You can drive right into the missile silo. All the walls are two feet of concrete, so pretty safe.

XL Space is in the area and produces hydrogen peroxide. They have recently increased their production capacity.

Tim says you can fly out of his site.

Wyoming currently has a $2 billion budget surplus. They are very business friendly. The state is paying for Tim to come down to the space conference.

They are twelve miles from Chugwater, WY. In the 2000 census they had 244 people, they are now down to 185. The town is very supportive of Frontier Astronautics.


Kristof Richmond is Tim’s brother-in-law. He was reporting on what a mission to Europa. To check out Europa will need to drill through ice. Kristof went down to the Antarctic to check out a lake that was frozen over. He talked about the robotic probe and flying down to the base. He showed some pictures and a video.


The full agenda for Space Access 2010, with links


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Technorati tags: space access

The value of memorization

Ben Johnson writes about When Rote Learning Makes Sense. He starts with:

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As a youth, I remember feeling cheated out of rich content in my education when I listened to my mother in times of sorrow or tenderness, lovingly recite entire poems and passages from books she studied in high school.

We all know that practice makes perfect, but for some reason perfection is not one of the goals of learning in most schools. In today's classrooms, students practice plenty, but are not required to retain knowledge perfectly.

The M Word

Somewhere along the way, rote learning got a bad rap. Memorization (there, I said the M word) became anathema to learning. How this came to be, I am uncertain, but what I am certain is that this shift away from memorization has undermined the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process altering whole generations. Perhaps the misplaced angst against memorization has come from the notion that memorization is reserved for teachers as a teaching methodology.

The true nature of memorization, however, is not for the teachers at all, really. It is for the students. And it is the responsibility of teachers to teach students how to use it to help them in their educational career.
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He makes some good points. Go read the full post and consider having your children spend a little time doing some memorization.

(Hat tip: Joanne Jacobs)


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

Space Access 2010 - Copenhagen Suborbitals/Frank Smith

Frank is a software engineer. There are two guys in Europe trying to build stuff. They have twenty or so volunteers. They got a lot of support from private donations. Denmark doesn’t have a space program, so there is some national pride in pushing this forward. They want to put people into space.

Frank showed a video of a rocket test firing.

The rocket they are working on is fairly small. It isn’t much wider that a person, and only 600 cm tall. The space for a person is barely big enough for a person. They have plans for a launch in August.

The craft is suppose to float, so if it lands in the water they should be able to recover it.

Here is his report last year.


The full agenda for Space Access 2010, with links


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Technorati tags: space access

Space Access 2010 - Unreasonable Rocket / Paul Breed

Lessons learned from competing in the Lunar Landing Challenge:

Don’t overreach.
Simple is better
Don’t volunteer for paid projects


Accomplishments:

Successfully built four and “flew” three VTVL vechicles
A few other things


Showed several videos


Plans for the future: going to keep building rockets. His embedded computer business do poor in 2009, seems to be picking up now. Needs to pay off debt. Believes he can continue to self fund his business.

He will build composite fuel tanks. He will work on small motors. He should one that was about three inches high. He talked about a vehicle he plans to build.



The full agenda for Space Access 2010, with links


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Technorati tags: space access

Space Access 2010 - Michael Laine

Michael Laine worked with NASA for nine years, been doing Space Elevator stuff.

Today he will talk about a new project. He signed contracts Tuesday. He is now with Apollo Capital. They are looking at funding new space ventures. Michael's role is to scout out new potential businesses to fund. They are looking at civilization shifting technologies.


The full agenda for Space Access 2010, with links


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Technorati tags: space access

Space Access 2010 - Stratofox / Ian Kluft, Bob Verish

Ian Kluft is part of the Stratofox Aerospace Tracking and Recovery Team. He gave a similar presentation last year.

This year Bob is going to give the presentation.

They are 55 members, mostly in California. They will help recover lost rockets. They have had several successes. Ian talked about one at Blackrock.


The full agenda for Space Access 2010, with links


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Technorati tags: space access

Space Access 2010 - Flometrics / Steve Harrington

Flometrics does a lot of stuff, flow dynamics. They work in several industries. Steve Harrington was here two years ago.

They are working on a fuel pump. He had a chance to run an experiment in zero-g. They are real focused on finding paying customers. The government is not a good customer. They are fickle and will turn off the money at any time.

Steve had advice on the financial issues with doing rocket startups. He stressed the importance of developing good management teams. Venture capitalists like teams.

He showed some videos. One of the videos from a television show.

This is one of the fun things about Space Access, during Q&A the audience asked a whole bunch of technical questions.


The full agenda for Space Access 2010, with links


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Technorati tags: space access

Interesting quote about the source of economic progress in the US

This quote really focuses on the difference between NASA and New Space:

The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-union-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline.
-Milton Friedman

Sitting here in the middle of Space Access 2010 it is a stark contrast. These small companies with often less than a dozen people are making progress and will be soon putting average people into space, in large numbers. On the other hand NASA has spent billions of dollars and only sent a few people into space.

(Hat tip Dan Galvin's Thought For The Day mailing list)


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Technorati tags: economic, progress, Dan Galvin