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

The next Carnival of Homeschooling will be held at SmallWorld.

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

Heavy internet use affects teenager's ability to concentrate

Internet rewiring youngsters' brains reports:

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Students are losing the ability to study properly because constant internet use is "rewiring" their brains, researchers have claimed.
Experts believe the internet encourages users to dart from page to page, rather than concentrating on one source such as a book.
Described as "associative" thinking, researchers believe it is reducing youngsters' capacity to read and write at length because their minds are being remoulded to function differently.
A survey designed to examine the internet's impact on the brain examined how 100 12 to 18-year-olds responded to a series of questions requiring some form of research.
They discovered that most of the respondents gave their answers after looking at just half the number of web pages older people examined.
They also found that younger people took far less time to research their answers and were therefore less thorough.
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The article concludes with this painful account:

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Dr David Runciman, political scientist at Cambridge University, added: ''What I notice about students from the first day they arrive at university is that they ask nervously,? What do we have to read?
''When they are told the first thing they have to read is a book, they all now groan, which they didn't use to do five or 10 years ago.
''You say, 'Why are you groaning?' and they say, 'It's a book. How long is it?'
''Books are still at the heart of what it means to be educated and to try to educate. The generation of students I teach see books as peripheral.''
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Janine can confirm this, but my impression is our daughters spend one to two hours a day on the internet. Often my daughters will reach for a book, especially the younger two.


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Technorati tags: parenting, children, education

Keep pencil and paper handy at all times

This is from my Covey Planner:

"A man would do well to carry a pencil in his pocket and write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought are commonly the most valuable and should be secured because they seldom return."
Sir Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

I use a Covey planner to be organized. I also have a thin notebook about the same size. I typically jote down more than a dozen ideas a day in the notebook. It has been very effective for me.


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Technorati tags: notebook

Bad Parents in the News (who happen to be homeschooling)

I just hate it when a story like this hit the news. Obviously, this is not what homeschooling is about, but for some people it will only confirm the stereotype of homeschooling to hide abuse.




Arizona teen locked in homemade dungeon for months; daring escape leads to parents' arrest

...Police documents say the officers found a blanket, empty cans of food and a bucket filled with urine in a "dilapidated" room, the station reported.

Scott Bass reportedly told police he locked the child up as punishment for stealing food and cheating on her homeschool assignments.

A medical exam of the girl appears to reveal severe malnutrition.

It just makes me ill that someone would treat a child this way. I wonder how the parents got so far off track.

I hope the public will do a little research before jumping on the "we need to regulate" homeschoolers bandwagon. CPS already knew there was a problem in this household.

CPS apparently received a handful of complaints about the Basses in the past.

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

Kind of confirms what many believed

Obese Children Twice as Likely to Die Before 55 starts with:

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Obesity in children may pave the way to an early grave, a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds.
The study, published Wednesday, followed nearly 5,000 American Indian children from childhood to middle age and found that those who were obese as children were more than twice as likely to die from disease before the age of 55.
This is the first large study to confirm that childhood obesity is a risk factor for long-term complications, though that is something experts have suspected for years.
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Technorati tags: Obese, children

The Debt Limit Made Simple

I like Heritage Foundation's explanation of the debt limit:



(Hat tip: WILLisms.com)


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Technorati tags: Debt, Limit

Sounds like what many homeschoolers are doing

Students in charge of own education reports on a "new" approach to public education:

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The school's four subject teachers and principal have undertaken education reform that gives students as much time as they need to learn, eliminates the point-earning model for homework and tests, and has turned student incentives on their head.
It's the kind of culture-changing reform that proponents of the "proficiency model" hope that national leaders are referring to when they talk about overhauling the American education system.
The proficiency model is a main theme in Oregon's application for Race to the Top, a national competition for federal stimulus money that has been called the centerpiece of the Obama administration's education reform efforts.
"It's changing the concept of school from 'here's what you have to know, you get it or you don't get it and we're moving on anyway,'" said Susanne Daggett, an education specialist with the state department of education.
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Starting in the mid and late 1800s the states took over education, step by step, they exercised more control. Public schools in America were largely modeled after the Prussian factory approach. It was more efficient to put thirty children in a room and teach them all the same thing, at the same time and in the same way. It didn't matter if the students weren't interested, weren't ready or already knew the material.

I know many homeschoolers who frequently point out this flaw in the dominate public school approach today.

In many ways the trial in Oregon is not a "new" approach, but returning back to what we did before. Back at a time when the literacy rate was higher than it is today. It used to be that children were lumped together according to their abilities and not by age. Some children would move faster, others would take longer. The traditional one room school had one teacher helping children across a variety of ages, each children progressing as best they could.

I’m glad the students at this school in Oregon are getting a chance to go at their own pace, whither it is fast or slow, but this isn’t a new approach.

(Hat tip: Joanne Jacobs)


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

Totally amazing: Lab on a piece of paper

Ever since I heard about the idea of putting diagnostic lab on a chip for analyzing blood I've been fascinated by the potential.

Just two months ago I came across news on IBM was getting closer to bringing this to the market.

George Whitesides just blows my mind with the same idea, but using paper:



It is such an amazing world.

Be warned, there is a little swearing in the last minute.


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Technorati tags: blood, test, paper

Georgia is having trouble giving tests

Suspicious test scores widespread in state starts with:

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One in five Georgia public schools faces accusations of tampering with student answers on last spring’s state standardized tests, officials said Wednesday, throwing the state’s main academic measure into turmoil.
The Atlanta district is home to 58 of the 191 schools statewide that are likely to undergo investigations into potential cheating. Another 178 schools will probably see new test security mandates, such as stepped-up monitoring during testing.
The findings singled out 69 percent of Atlanta elementary and middle schools — far more than any other district — as needing formal probes into possible tampering.
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I struggled a bit with the math. There seemed to be a contradiction.

I read it again and realized that it is 20% state wide of all public schools, while it is 69% of Atlanta elementary and middle schools.

It looks like things are rotten in Atlanta.

(Hat tip: Betsy's page)


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

Some people have trouble learning the lesson the first time

Other people never seem to learn the lesson.

Cal Thomas writes about Unlearned Lessons. His point is that politicians often don't realize that when taxes get too high people will start moving. His case in point in New Jersey:

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Last week, the Newark Star-Ledger reported that New Jersey lost $70 billion in wealth over the past five years. The reason? Affluent people have moved to states with a lower tax rate or no income tax at all.
The findings are from a study conducted by the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, the first study on interstate wealth migration in the country. The report found that wealthy New Jersey residents apparently grew tired of the state treating their success as an ATM for politicians and so they moved to Florida, Pennsylvania and even New York, a state not known for low taxes, but its levies are not as high as New Jersey's.
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I had not realized that taxes were so bad in New Jersey that people were escaping to New York. I always thought of New York as one of the worse states in the union.


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Technorati tags: taxes

Funny: Miss me yet?

Someone, or group of people, arranged to have a billboard with a picture of President Bush and the caption "Miss me yet?" For more details check out NPR: ‘Miss Me Yet?’ Billboard With Photo Of Bush Is Real; Not An Internet Trick.

Instapundit has a link to a similar picture with the same caption. But this picture is of the Constitution. I'd love to see this picture on billboards across the US.

I wonder what it costs to get a picture made and to rent a billboard?


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Technorati tags: Constitution

Using math & computers to find fake art

This is a fun story - Math Professor Helps Uncover Art Fakes:

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Determining what is real and what is fake has long been a problem for art curators. It is estimated that 20 percent of the worldwide art market is made up of forgeries. But art lover and Dartmouth College mathematics department Chairman Daniel Rockmore has developed a technique that is helping to determine the difference between excellent copy and the real McCoy.
"I joke a lot that I am a mathematician by mistake," says Rockmore. "It was something that I had an aptitude at, but I've always had lots of interests."
One thing Rockmore is particularly interested in is art. And a few years ago, his professional skills and personal interest collided.
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the article continues later with:

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He realized that if he had digital images of the drawings, he could use his math skills to design a computer program that would analyze the pen strokes and characterize which were Bruegel-like and which weren't. So he and some colleagues got hold of the digital images, and wrote the program.
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Pretty cool!

(Hat tip: reddit)


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Technorati tags: fake, art

More reasons to homeschool, from the archives

As I mentioned earlier this week, long ago, before Janine and I started blogging, I used to browse around the internet looking for reasons to homeschool. Here are a few from 2004:

Reason to homeschool: To protect your children from the NEA. This book review of "The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions are Destroying American Education" should cause any parent to consider pulling their children.

Reason to homeschool: To make sure your children read good books, instead of trash. In 2 lazy 2 teach Michelle Malkin starts with:

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Have you checked your child's summer reading list? Beware: Some lame-brained school officials have decided to ditch the sonnets of Shakespeare for the tripe of Tupac.
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Reason to homeschool: To teach your children about money. Teach Kids About Money....Or You'll Pay For It! (Steve Moitozo has a few more reasons to homeschool here)

Reason to homeschool: To protect your children from lead poisoning. School district ignored lead hazard. Lead-tainted water in Seattle schools stuns parents has more information.

Reason to homeschool: Because school lunches aren't always safe. Elizabeth Lane Lawley gives the details in another reason to homeschool.


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

What are you acting on?

From A.Word.A.Day:

We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.
-J.K. Rowling, author (b. 1965)


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Technorati tags: good, evil

"Pipe Dream Set" - Animusic

Several months ago a friend suggested I check out Animusic for Baby Bop. I hadn't heard about them before. Here's a sample:



It is pretty cool.


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Technorati tags: Animusic

The real danger from robots

A lot of science fiction is about robots revolting and taking over the world. Terminator is an extreme example.

Home Robots May be the Next Target for Hackers has a twist on the real danger from robots. Current models are open to hackers:

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A paper published recently by researchers at the University of Washington shows that several commercial home robots--essentially small, wheeled bots with cameras, microphones and other audio-visual surveillance features--are not as secure as their owners might think. The researchers studied 2008 models of the Erector Spykee, and WowWee's RoboSapien and Rovio robots and found security holes that include unencrypted audio-visual streams, unencrypted usernames and passwords for accessing and controlling the bots, and tricks for taking over the robots remotely.
The researchers say on their website:
"[These vulnerabilities] mean that someone might be able to drive your robot around your home, look around the house, listen in on conversations, and knock over small objects."
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Technorati tags: robots

John Stossel explains why the laws are so complicated

I've always had a frustration with the increasely complicated government laws that get passed every year. I had never really thought about why Congress keeps making the laws more and more obscure and confusing.

John Stossel has a great column explaining The real reason politicians like complicated tax and regulatory schemes. He concludes with:

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Let's not be misled. Government is as manipulative with selective tax credits as it is with cash subsidies. It would be more efficient to cut taxes across the board. Why should there be favoritism?
Because politicians like it. Big, complicated government gives them opportunities to do favors for their friends.
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Now you know.


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Technorati tags: laws, taxes

As the father of three girls this worries me

The New York Times reports on The New Math on Campus:

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ANOTHER ladies’ night, not by choice.
After midnight on a rainy night last week in Chapel Hill, N.C., a large group of sorority women at the University of North Carolina squeezed into the corner booth of a gritty basement bar. Bathed in a neon glow, they splashed beer from pitchers, traded jokes and belted out lyrics to a Taylor Swift heartache anthem thundering overhead. As a night out, it had everything — except guys.

...

North Carolina, with a student body that is nearly 60 percent female, is just one of many large universities that at times feel eerily like women’s colleges. Women have represented about 57 percent of enrollments at American colleges since at least 2000, according to a recent report by the American Council on Education. Researchers there cite several reasons: women tend to have higher grades; men tend to drop out in disproportionate numbers; and female enrollment skews higher among older students, low-income students, and black and Hispanic students.
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(Hat tip: Joanne Jacobs)


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Technorati tags: college, male, female

I expect a lot of Congressman are worried about this Fall

Rasmussen reports that 63% Say Better for Country If Most of Congress Not Reelected:

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Most voters think the country would be better off if the majority of the current Congress wasn’t reelected this November, and their confidence in their own congressman continues to fall.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 63% of likely voters believe, generally speaking, that it would be better for the country if most incumbents in Congress were defeated this November.
Just 19% disagree and say it would be better if most congressional incumbents were reelected. Another 18% aren’t sure.
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Technorati tags: Congress, election

A video on the recent Federal Budget Freeze proposal

This is done by the same guy who did 10,000 pennies:



(Hat tip: WILLisms.com)


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Technorati tags: Budget, Freeze

Will you let others listen to their drummers?

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

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer,
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
-Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

This is one of the great secrets to human relationships. Way too often one person will try to manipulate another. Almost always it is because the first person believes they know what is best. They know what kind of food that person should be eating, or how they should vote, or how they should work, or how they should raise their children, or how they should worship God.

Inviting a friend to try a new food, or come to your church or consider a candidate is appropriate. But we need to be careful if we start doing more than offering to share what we have learned.


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Technorati tags: freedom, drummers

Internet 2009 in numbers

Internet 2009 is numbers has some interesting statistics. Here are a few:

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90 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2009.
247 billion – Average number of email messages per day.
1.73 billion – Internet users worldwide (September 2009).
126 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
350 million – People on Facebook.
50% – Percentage of Facebook users that log in every day.
2.5 billion – Photos uploaded each month to Facebook.
1 billion – The total number of videos YouTube serves in one day.
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If you enjoy these numbers, check out the post for more.

(Hat tip: Rackspace)


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Technorati tags: Internet

Cute idea, I wonder how valid it is

Typealyzer takes the URL for a blog and tells you what type of blog it is.

It says Why Homeschool is: ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers.

It is kind of a fun idea.

(Hat tip: Hacker News)


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Technorati tags: blog, tools

Column on "Race to the Top"

It seems like every where I turn there are more reasons to homeschool.

In Federal Control of Education on Steroids, Dr. Karen Effrem reviews proposed legislation, she starts with:

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Without the slightest bit of legislative discussion in either chamber, the Obama administration quietly slipped $4.35 billion of education funding into the stimulus ("porkulus") bill passed last year for a program called Race to the Top (RTTT).

With the nearly one trillion dollars spent for the stimulus as well as the trillions spent or proposed for the federal budget, health care, and cap and trade legislation one might reasonably wonder why a few billion dollars for more federal education spending is any big deal. The answer is that federal government is using this program to bribe states to accept even more federal control of education, a constitutionally and traditionally state function. This dangerous trend of more federal control of education was greatly accelerated by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. However because of the intense opposition engendered by NCLB from all points on the political spectrum and the difficulty that the Obama administration has run into trying to implement its expansive and statist domestic agenda, RTTT is accomplishing more of that same federal control without having to go through the messy process of reauthorizing the controversial NCLB.
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Large bureaucratic organizations do not tend to improve situations with complex problems. Too often they'll be driven by their own goals.

(Hat tip: EducationNews.org)


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

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. Here are a few from 2004:

Reason to homeschool: Because teachers unions work to destroy charter schools. Veto the charter-school moratorium has the details.

Reason to homeschool: So girls can escape bullying. New age teens has the details.

Reason to homeschool: Because schools will say one thing and do another. The Heritage Foundation reported in Comprehensive Sex Education vs. Authentic Abstinence: A Study of Competing Curricula that:

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In recent years, a new approach, termed “abstinence-plus” has played a prominent role in the public debate over sex education. This approach is presented as the middle ground between safe sex and abstinence.
Research conducted by Heritage Foundation analysts, however, reveals that traditional abstinence and abstinence-plus curricula differ radically in their contents and messages. It also revealed that the claim that abstinence-plus curricula place an emphasis on abstinence is false.
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Reason to homeschool: Because the teachers might go on strike, and then the students will have to go to school through the summer. In Students not to blame Mike Throgmorton reports:

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The subject for our game today is the Marysville teachers' strike. Prior to the start of this academic year, teachers in Marysville went on strike for a state-record 49 days, effectively delaying the start of the term until October 22. Since state law mandates 180-days of academic instruction to constitute a full academic year, the lockout has had the effect of pushing back the start of summer vacation until July 19th.
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Reason to homeschool: To protect your children from the sexual predators in public schools. Report: Up to 10 percent of students sexual targets:

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While the Catholic Church continues to wrestle with the ramifications of decades of sexual misconduct by some priests, another institution responsible for even more children has its own shameful record of protecting child molesters -- public school systems.
As many as 10 percent of public school students are targets of unwanted sexual advances, and the perpetrators are often popular, award-winning teachers, a new report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education states.
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Sex Abuse by Teachers Said Worse Than Catholic Church has more.


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