Thursday, March 06, 2008

A few more thoughts on "You Child's Strengths"

I forgot to mention in my review of Your Child's Strengths by Jenifer Fox a couple things.

Jenifer has a Strengths Movement web site. If you are interested in learning more, check it out.

While reading this book I thought about a video I'd seen recently. A lot of what I think Jenifer is trying to saw is captured in this video:





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

The interview went well

Janine is a contact person for a local homeschool group. A reporter for a local television called this morning around ten after finding her name via Google. It was funny, about five to ten minutes later another reporter for another television station called. Janine directed the second television station to a homeschooling friend of ours.

I came home about 11:45 AM. The reporter and cameraman showed up about noon. They were very polite.

The reporter wanted the girls to be working around the kitchen table and Janine helping them as a "typical day of homeschool." Normally Janine gives the girls a list of things to do for the week and provides little direct supervision. Janine went ahead. The girls buckled down and did their work.

While the cameraman was in the kitchen with Janine and the girls, the reporter interviewed me in the living room. He asked general questions about homeschooling, like why did we get started, what advantages did we see, and how we homeschooled. They he asked me about our reaction to the recent California court case "outlawing" homeschooling. I said that there had been multiple United States Supreme court rulings acknowledging parent's right to homeschool their children and I figured things would work out in the end.

Next they had us get together in the living room. We chased the girls and our foster care toddler upstairs, so it would be quieter. The reporter covered some of the same questions. Janine and I took turns answering.

It was all over about 12:45.

We watched our 60 seconds of fame tonight. We were featured about 5:15 and 6:30. I thought it went well. Janine was worried that we looked mad. Our middle daughter tried to comfort Janine and said "You only looked tired." Janine wasn't comforted.

If we ever get interviewed again we'll try to smile more. Janine said she'd wear some makeup.

It was kind of fun.

Funny thing was we got yet another call this afternoon. The local newspaper called. We'll see on it goes.


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

Anyone following closely the recent court ruling in California "outlawing homeschool?"

Janine was called this morning by a local television station. We are going to be interviewed in an hour about the recent court ruling. I have been aware of the recent case, but haven't studied it.

I do have the HSLDA's copy of the ruling. I've printed it off and will skim it.

If you have been following the court case closely, could you send us email, or leave a comment, pointing to a good summary?

Thanks.

And wish us luck.


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

Vote for favorite MEDIUM size image for the Carnival of Homeschooling

We are now in phase two of the contest for images to represent the Carnival of Homeschooling. Below are the finalists for the medium size. Please carefully and thoughtfully consider study the images. You might consider the following when reviewing the images:

1) Which image do you think best represents the Carnival of Homeschooling?
2) Which image do you find the most appealing?
3) Which image do you like the best?

If you think of other considerations, please add them in the comments.


After viewing the images, then please vote at the end of this post.


Image A:










Image B:








Image C:










Image D:








Image E:















Update I - 10 March 08
Note: The contest will end on the 27th of March.
Please encourage your readers to come vote.


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

Vote for favorite WHATEVER size image for the Carnival of Homeschooling

We are now in phase two of the contest for images to represent the Carnival of Homeschooling. Below are the finalists for the whatever size. Please carefully and thoughtfully consider study the images. You might consider the following when reviewing the images:

1) Which image do you think best represents the Carnival of Homeschooling?
2) Which image do you find the most appealing?
3) Which image do you like the best?
If you think of other considerations, please add them in the comments.
After viewing the images, then please vote at the end of this post.

Image A:












Image B:

The submitter asked me to pull the picture.



Image C:

The submitter asked me to pull the picture.


Image D:






Image E:





Image F:












Image G:














Update I - 10 March 08
Note: The contest will end on the 27th of March.
Please encourage your readers to come vote.

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Phase two of the contest for Carnival of Homeschooling images

We are entering phase two of the contest for Carnival of Homeschooling images. We have three categories of images: small, medium and the whatever size. We started phase one by requesting people to submit images.

We had a great turnout for the medium and whatever sizes. There were many, many creative and attractive entries.

There were four entries to the small size; only one of them fit the requirement of being 80 by 15 pixels. I tried changing the size of the other images, but the images looked poor.

The winner for the small size is Nancy of The Kings Kreation. Nancy submitted:







My wife and I struggled to narrow down the several dozen entries to a small handful of finalists. We finally picked them. Now we are looking for your help in selecting the winners. Vote for which image you think best represents the Carnival of Homeschooling in:


The medium size images

The whatever size images


Update I - 10 March 08
Note: The contest will end on the 27th of March.
Please encourage your readers to come vote.


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

Good News Thursday: 6 March 08

Much of the news today is depressing. Newspaper headlines tell us about awful things happening in our neighborhood, at the national level, and around the world. Google News today reports on Small Explosion In Times Square, Gaza Conditions Are Worst Since 1967, and then there is the US Presidential Campaign.

I want to try something different. I invite you to join with me in focusing on good news. This can be as local as your baby taking his first step or you saw the first flower of spring. It could as earth shattering as someone has solved world hunger or there is a break through in a Grand Unification Theory. It could be some new insight you had about a topic you are studying, or life.

If you would like to contribute, in the "Your name" field put the name of your blog, then in parenthesis include a short summary of the good news. For the "Your URL" field put the link to your post about the good news, use the perma link. Then mention Good News Thursday on your blog.




(Hat tip: This is patterned after Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books)

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Technorati tags: Good News

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

A few thoughts on "Your Child's Strengths" by Jenifer Fox

I was flattered when asked to review an advance copy of Your Child's Strengths by Jenifer Fox. I have started reading it. I wanted to get up my first impressions so if any of our readers wanted to meet Jenifer, they could before her book tour is over.

Jenifer argues that public schools do a poor job of educating children, because they don't go with the children's strengths. In some ways this sounds like unschooling.

Jenifer says that if teachers would find out what children are interested in and encourage them to chase their bliss, the children was be more engaged. Jenifer says one of the problems with public schools is they focus on children's weaknesses. Children are stressed because both teachers and parents are constantly evaluating and pointing out where each child doesn't "measure" up.

Jenifer says that if children don't understand why a particular subject is important, then they will tune out. "When children are not engaged in learning, they stop paying attention." (p. 13) She says that public schools do not want students to be active learners. "The majority of high school classrooms require that student absorb rather than interact with the information provided by the teacher." (p. 18)

Jenifer wants the students to be in the driver's seat, or at least be able to help with the navigation. "Parents and teachers are often clear about what they expect from children's schooling, whereas children are rarely given the opportunity to state what they hope to get out of it." (p. 25)


There are many points in the book which I agree with. Jenifer writes about several problems with standardization versus the power of individual instruction. Ever since I read The Lioness' post about The Golden Quote it has been very clear to me one of the reasons why homeschooling is so powerful, one-on-one tutoring rockets children through learning while public school's factory approach is a slow boat to China.

There are a few areas in which I disagree with Jenifer. Jenifer does not like tests. I think tests have a place. It is important to have a rough idea if a child is mastering a subject. Tests provide a fairly quick way to get a handle on the progress of a child. I'll acknowledge that NCLB may have gone overboard in testing children to death, but we test our children. We want to have some objective measurements to verify our own evaluation of our daughter's progress.

Jenifer does not like A Nation at Risk. She believes it was harmful to the education process. She writes about the report: "Despite the lack of data or evidence proving that America was actually falling behind in the world economy, the commission nevertheless zeroed in on the following areas as ones demanding national public attention, ..." (p. 30)

I have a copy of the book. It is thin, 116 pages. There is little "data" in the book, but it does reference dozens of other reports. The main focus of A Nation at Risk is that there has been a significant decline in public education in the decades before 1983. It seems wrong to claim that because there was no data in the book, that there wasn't a problem.

I think it is reasonable to enter into a dialog with teenagers and give them some freedom to find there bliss. I see little benefit trying to explain to a seven year old why learning math is worth while and hoping she accepts my explanation.

I'm not sure about the overall claim of the book, that public school are capable of working with a child's strengths. I am concerned that the bureaucratic organization we call public school is not capable of treating each child as an individual, all sixty million of them.

I'll continue to read the book and see if her approach has possibilities.


If you are interested in meeting Jenifer Fox go check out her Book Tour schedule. I think it would be interesting to hear her speak. (I did enjoy listen to Joanne Jacobs' when she did the kick off for her book Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School that Beat the Odds, here is my report on Joanne's kick off meeting.)


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

Has your style or approach to homeschooling changed over time?

I am still playing around with different poll widgets. (If you have an opinion about which widget is best, please vote.)










View this quiz on Quibblo
More quizzes on Quibblo
Quibblo



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

Yet another survey question

I am still playing around with different poll widgets. (If you have an opinion about which widget is best, please vote.)

For this question please exclude money spent for more than basic academics. Don't include music lessons, sports, and so on.



Create polls and vote for free. dPolls.com



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

Will you homeschool your child all the way through high school?

I am playing around with different poll widgets. (If you have an opinion about which widget is best, please vote.)



Here's another question, using SnapPoll:



Homeschooling survey
Will you homeschool your children through highschool?
Yes
No
Don't know











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

A lesson I'm trying to teach my daughters

My first job out of college was at a startup. One of the managers shared a lightbulb moment. (In the comics when a character gets a great insight, the artist draws a little lightbulb.) As a teenager this manager realized that:

"There wasn't anything I couldn't do, but I couldn't do it all."

I've been doing early morning planning with my daughters for two months now. We've talked about this principle several times. They want to play and read and use the computer and ....

Some times they'll get upset when they don't get to do something they have their heart set on. I'll talk with them about the choices they've made through the day. Maybe they read for a couple hours and played with their sister. Well now that it time to go to bed they don't have time to watch television.

At a concious level they get it. Sometimes they still find it frustrating that they can't do everything.

I have to admit, to an extent I'm also still learning the same lesson.


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Technorati tags: life, balance, life balance

Are you looking for more blogs on homeschooling?

Blogged has a category of K-12 Education Blogs. I was pleased that about a third of them are homeschooling related!


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

We must be doing something right

I try each week to give my daughters an allowance for the work they do around the house. (We blogged about the details of our approach over a year ago.) Often I'll get distracted and the allowance backs up for a couple weeks. Saturday I sat down with them. We balanced out the money I gave them and how much they had spent in the last month.

My oldest had a gift card for Barnes and Noble. She wanted to spend it. Janine stayed home while the foster care toddler slept. The three girls and I went to check out books.

They bought books. Almost a dozen books. Together they spent over a hundred dollars.

We must be doing something right!


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

Snapshot Puzzles - your own personalized puzzles

My youngest daughter dug out a puzzle recently. The jigsaw puzzle was of a picture from a family reunion about 12 years ago. My children talked a bit about family members they haven't seen for a couple years.

We ordered of several personalized puzzles from Shapshot Puzzles about ten years ago. We were very happy with the puzzles and the service.

The prices range from $15 to $35.

If you are into puzzles you might check them out.

It is fun to put together a puzzle of your own family.


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Technorati tags: puzzle, jigsaw puzzle

Other recent homeschooling carnivals

This week's Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival is up at The Heart of Harmony. From the carnival: "If you would like to submit an entry for the next edition of the carnival, coming out on March 18th, here is a direct link.Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival Entry Form."

This month's Unschooling Voices is up at An Unschooling Life. Here is the main page for Unschooling Voices for details on how to submit a post, and who will be hosting next.


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

How long have you been homeschooling?

While I wait to see what online polling services people like best, I am going to play around with some of the different services. I have used Vizu and now I'll use PollDaddy.com:





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

Eureka! For your budding scientists

Eureka! is a television show created in 1980 to teach children physics. There are 30 cartoon episodes which cover all the basics.

If your child, or you, enjoys the first episode:




you might want to check out others.


(Hat tip: Nerd Family)


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

The Carnival of Education is up

This week's Carnival of Education is up at The Education Wonks.

The Ed Wonks started up the Carnival of Education back before blog carnivals were popular. He has done a great job of running the carnival and getting others to host.

If you would like to submit to the next Carnival of Education, go here.


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Technorati tags: education,

What is your favorite poll widget?

Janine and I have selected the finalists for the Carnival of Homeschooling image contest. We haven't had a poll or survey on our blog before. At first I couldn't even figure out what a good phrase was to google for to track down a survey service. It turns out one way to find them is to search for widgets. "poll blog widget" provided a good list.

I came across a list of Top 40 Online Polling sites. I ran them through Google Blog Search and narrowed it down to the list below.





Thank you for your help.



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Technorati tags: online, polls

Monday, March 03, 2008

Dr. Helen reports on why homeschooled boys do well with reading

Historically boys have been readers. All the Hardy Boys and Tom Swifts were not read by girls. But over the last couple decades there has been a noticeable decline in the percentage of boys who read.

Alert Dr. Helen found a good article which explains part of the problem: public schools tend to have books more interesting for girls. Over time boys in public schools just tune out.

The problem is with how public schools are run, not with boys. The article explains:

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Educational consultant Joe Manthey, who led a workshop through the Napa County Office of Education about educating male students, cites the almost nonexistent gender gap for home-schooled students in English as proof that schools are part of the problem.
The reason that home-schooled boys score as well as their female counterparts in English is twofold, said Manthey. First, they are more likely to be given a choice in their reading material. Second, “they’re less likely to fall through the cracks,” he said.
Manthey’s research shows that boys are more inclined to read nonfiction than fiction, and are more likely to relate to subjects related to science, sports and stories that revolve around male characters.
“Then you see boys required to read books like ‘The Joy Luck Club,’” he said, referring to the book by Amy Tan about immigrant mothers and daughters.
It’s no wonder, said Manthey, that boys tune out in English class.
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If you have a son in a public school who is struggling with reading, consider homeschooling. He could learn to love reading.


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

Another reason to homeschool

At the bottom of her blog template The Reluctant Homeschooler has this profound thought:

"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.”
Albert Pike, Scottish Rite Freemason (1809-1891)


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

Saturday, March 01, 2008

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

You have less than 60 hours to send in an entry for the next Carnival of Homeschooling, which will be held at PalmTree Pundit.

As always, entries are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.

Here are the instructions for sending in a submission.


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