The Carnival of Homeschooling is up - Being thankful

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

She starts the carnival with:

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Have you ever noticed how thankfulness is waning in our culture? From t-shirts to sit-coms the prevailing attitude is “me first.” I hope during this Giving Thanks holiday… that we can each find gratefulness and thanksgiving in our hearts. I for one am very thankful for all the great submissions I received this week. Take time to read through them, there is a lot of great stuff here… and it might even inspire a bit of thankfulness for that great endeavor we each have in common… homeschooling!
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Follow up on "Don't Talk to Police"

There is some good advice here:

I thought I had posted this: Don't Talk to Police

I remember watching this awhile back and being impressed by it.  I thought I had posted it to our blog, but I couldn't find it on Why Homeschool.

After watching this video I think everyone will always take the fifth.



Hat tip: Maria C. Mitchell

You may be committing "Three Felonies a Day"

I've been meaning to read the book Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent.

Here is a six minute summary of the book by its author, Harvey A. Silverglate:



Hat tip: The Libertarian Homeschooler

Another bully just happens to be a teacher

Last week we wrote about a teacher who was a bully at a school in Ohio. The parent of special-needs student had her daughter wear a wire to record the abuse.

This week I read about another special-needs student who was being verbaly abused by his teacher, in New Jersey.  The parents of this student didn't believe their son, so on his own the son videotaped the teacher.  And now the teacher is on paid leave. 

One article starts:

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A special education teacher in New Jersey unloaded a profanity-filled tirade on a special needs student - telling the 15-year-old he would 'kick his a**.'


No one believed Julio Artuz that his teacher at Bankbridge Regional School in Gloucester County, New Jersey, was bullying him, so he used his cell phone to secretly record a rant two weeks ago.


'What’s gonna happen to me? ... I’ll say whatever I want to say. You don’t like it, oh well,' the teacher taunts the teen.
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Two thoughts occur to me while reading articles about this teacher:

1) Hopefully teachers will stopped berating their students, as the teachers recognize they could easily be taped.

2) I'm so glad we homeschool, so we don't even have to worry about some out of control teacher being near one of our children.

Hat tip: Spunky Homeschool

 

Good introduction to Trade

This is a good video for your children to watch.  It is clear and basic.



Hat tip: The Libertarian Homeschooler

3 Reasons We Shouldn't Bail Out Student Loan Borrowers

The first reason for opposing foregiving Student Loans is because the loans are voluntary.  Check out the video for the other two reasons:




Hat tip: Instapundit

Interesting: Some Silicon Valley Executives send their children to a low tech school

Why Are Silicon Valley Executives Sending Their Kids to a Tech-Free School? starts with:

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You'd think executives at Silicon Valley's top tech firms would be keen to enroll their children in schools chock-full of the latest education technology: one-to-one laptops, iPad programs, digital textbooks, and teachers engaging students using Twitter. But according to The New York Times, some Silicon Valley parents—including the chief technology officer of eBay and execs from Google and Apple—are doing a 180 and sending their kids to the area's decidedly low-tech Waldorf school.


Waldorf's computer-free campuses—teachers use old-school chalkboards and students learn cursive writing with pen and paper—are a sharp contrast from most schools, where access to technology is seen as key to getting kids college- and career-ready. Advocates of Waldorf education say they're not opposed to technology, but there's a time and a place for everything. There are no iPads in kindergarten classrooms at Waldorf schools—instead you'll find plenty of play-based learning and storytelling.


"The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or to do arithmetic, that's ridiculous," Alan Eagle, an executive communications employee at Google, told the Times. His fifth-grade daughter attends a Waldorf school and "doesn't know how to use Google," and his middle school-age son is just learning to use the search engine. Instead, his daughter's class is honing their knitting skills in the hopes of eventually producing socks.
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Hat tip: Simple Single Mom

Did you know there is a South Africa Carnival of Homeschooling Blogs?

Pretty cool:  South Africa Carnival of Homeschooling Blogs.

For the tenth anniversary of the TSA let's abolish it

Ten Years Of The TSA (Yes, It Seems Much Longer) recounts a few of the many abuses the TSA has committed over the years and then concludes with this:

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Let’s give ourselves a present on the TSA’s tenth birthday: let’s demand Congress do more than merely wring its hands over this horrific boondoggle. Abolish the TSA.
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I agree.

Hat tip: Boycott Flying

I feel sorry for Europe

EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration:

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EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.


Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.


Last night, critics claimed the EU was at odds with both science and common sense. Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said: “This is stupidity writ large.


“The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are: highly-paid, highly-pensioned officials worrying about the obvious qualities of water and trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true.
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I wonder if next the bureaucrats will deny the existence of gravity.

Just amazing.

Hat tip: My brother, who posted on Facebook a link to: EU Bans Claim.

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

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

Next week's carnival will be held at momSCHOOL.

This will be the 308th edition.

Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.

Currently Blog Carnival is not forwarding submissions.  We can dig them out, but it would be easier for me and the host if you submitted your entries directly to CarnivalOfHomeschooling@gmail.com.  Learn how here.

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

Nuture your child's curiousity

A recent study found that Curious Children Perform Better Academically:

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Intelligence is an influential factor that helps determine a child’s performance at school. But what about curiosity? Psychological scientists have started looking at factors other than intelligence that could influence how some students do better than others, writes Yahoo News.


A new study has found that curiosity has a large effect on academic performance. Having gathering the data from about 200 studies with a total of about 50,000 students. The researchers found that when put together, conscientiousness and curiosity had as big an effect on performance as intelligence.
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The Hallelujah Chorus from Quinhagak, Alaska

A friend sent me a link to this fun version of the Hallelujah Chorus:



I had posted it last year.  Here is what I found out about Quinhagak:

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About two thirds of the way down this report on Quinhagak is a chart on the modes of transportation to work. Between 5% and 10% drove a car alone to work. A little over 10% carpooled to work. Close to a third walked to work. But over half of them had some other mode of transportation. Given this is a fishing village I'm guessing they went by boat. But maybe in the winter most of them use a dog sled to get to work?
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An anonymous comment posted out that many may use snow machines.

It sure would be a different world.

Bullies at public schools aren't always students

Ohio Special-needs Student Wore Wire to Tape Aide's Caustic Comments starts with:

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The mother of an Ohio teenager with special needs had her daughter wear a wire to secretly record a barrage of disparaging comments from a classroom aide, officials and the family's lawyer said.


On the four days of tapes, made last spring, the aide Kelly Chaffins is heard telling the 14-year-old girl that she is "dumb" and "a liar" and saying, "No wonder you don't have any friends."


"Don't you want to get rid of that belly?...Go for a walk. Do you know how to? You are just lazy and your family is lazy," she castigated the child, according to the complaint in a lawsuit filed by the girl's family.
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The school paid the family $300,000, but the teachers didn't really suffer.  Chaffins resigned and will probably get a job at another school.  The teacher is on maternity leave and has agreed to take eight hours of training about bullying and recognizing child abuse.  This is just a slap on the wrist, after all the teacher will probably get paid for the training.

Hat tip: Natalie Winningham

Why did we have an explosion in standard of living in the 1800s?

I like this Introduction to the Industrial Revolution:



Here is a summary:

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What was the industrial revolution? According to Dr. Stephen Davies, it was an extraordinarily innovative period in history that generated the highest living standards the world had ever seen. For instance, over the course of the 19th century, average per capita income in the United Kingdom rose by a factor of six. To put this in perspective, prior to the industrial revolution, it typically took 300-400 years for the standard of living to rise by a factor of 0.5. Why did this explosion of human flourishing take place? Dr. Stephen Davies claims that people began to embrace an engineering culture along with a respect for trade and business. It was this synergy of trade and engineering that led to a revolution in production and business organization.
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Hat tip: The Libertarian Homeschooler

I think the answer is NO!

Do Failing Schools Deserve a Second Chance? makes the argument that just because a school is in the dumps and children aren't learning that we shouldn't close the school. 

After all "A school building does not cause low achievement."

The claim is that transfering students to another school doesn't always prompt better performance and better education.

But if a school has been consistently destroying the lives of the students, then we have a known quantity, and I would take the chance of improvement over a hope that some day the school will improve.  A broken school has a broken culture.  It is almost impossible for a few good teachers to come in and turn a poorly functional school around.

Hat tip: Waiting for "Superman"

I have asked my daughters to read this

Cal Newport asserts that If You’re Busy, You’re Doing Something Wrong: The Surprisingly Relaxed Lives of Elite Achievers.  He recounts a study which found average and elite violin players spent about the same amount of time practicing, but that the elite players were both more focused and more relaxed.  They were more focused when they practiced and more relaxed the rest of their day.

He summarizes the results as:

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• The average players are working just as many hours as the elite players (around 50 hours a week spent on music),
• but they’re not dedicating these hours to the right type of work (spending almost 3 times less hours than the elites on crucial deliberate practice),
• and furthermore, they spread this work haphazardly throughout the day. So even though they’re not doing more work than the elite players, they end up sleeping less and feeling more stressed. Not to mention that they remain worse at the violin.

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This is a good article for students to read.  I've asked my daughters to read it.

Hat tip: My brother-in-law.

Another beautiful picture from the Astronomy Picture of the Day

Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Obs) gave me permission to post his beautiful picture of IC 59 and IC 63 in Cassiopeia:

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

Dave is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at HomeSchool Dad.

He explains the theme:

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My response to twitter when I first heard of it was exactly the same as my response to Facebook when I first heard of it was about the same. Why would I ever do that. With twitter I was intrigued about the process of condensing my thoughts and even did a few twitter sized posts on my blog. Finally I warmed up to the idea of twitter and started using it from time to time.


Earlier this year it dawned on me that about the only time I read all the carnival of homeschooling articles is when I host the carnival. I even read other hosts say the same thing. Each time I have hosted I get so much out of the carnival since I do read each post. So as a writing challenge to myself and a chance to read an entire carnival I tweeted every post of COH#286 that was hosted @ As For Me and My House this past summer.


I really enjoyed all aspects of the experiment, I got to read every post and I got to work on my writing chops by reviewing each post in twitter sized chunks. So when my turn came up to host the carnival I decided to tweet the entire carnival. As each submission came in I tweeted intro and even made up a hash tag for the carnival, #CH307. Most of these tweets came on Monday night because like the title of the aforementioned COH 286 there were technical difficulties in getting all the links to me in a timely manner.


So, for your enjoyment, enlightenment, entertainment and 3 other words that don't start with an "e" or end with a "t", here is the Twitter edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling:
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You can read his tweets at #CH307.

What is going on here?

"Meet Blue Jay, probably the greatest talent to come along in 200 years. At age 12, he has already written 5 full length symphonies."



Just amazing.

Homeschooling might have saved a life

Bullying and Suicide -- 10-year-old Takes Her Own Life is a sad story about a ten-year-old girl who saw no way out of the bullying that made her life hell.  (Think of the paragraphs we could write about the importance of "socialization" that occurs in government schools.)

Just days before Ashlynn Conner had: "begged her mother to pull her out of Ridgefarm Elementary School, and to put her in homeschooling."

If a child is suffering this kind of abuse there is no good reason to force them to go back to public schools.

Hat tip: Spunky Homeschool

 

Some of our best posts from June 2006

Janine and I have been blogging about homeschooling for over five years now. If you missed some of our early posts, you have missed some of our best thoughts. Here are some highlights from June 2006:

Janine wrote about how Friendship is in decline and then shared some more thoughts about Friendship.

I shared a few lessons learned from hosting the Carnival of Education.

Janine explained Why Gender Matters in Education.

Money was a popular topic in June. We had a post on Teaching Children to be the Master of Money, a post on How to teach basic economics to children and a post about Ways homeschooling can save you money.

We had two interviews.  One was with Jennifer James - Director of National African-American Homeschoolers Alliance. The second was with the author Beverly K. Eakman.

One of the family stories we often share is when our youngest daughter told Janine "I want to be smart!"

We also wrote about a short cruise we took out of LA.

It isn't just the miles

From Dan Galvin's Thought For The Day mailing list:
Some people try to turn back their odometers.
Not me; I want people to know 'why' I look this way.
I've traveled a long way,
and some of the roads weren't paved.

-Will Rogers

A little science: Laughter really may be the best medicine

Maybe along with our daily vitamins we need to take a daily dose of jokes.

The Reader's Digest runs a section titled Laughter is the best medicine.  A recent scientific study found that Happiness contributes to longer life:

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Previous studies on happiness and longevity have looked at how people felt in the past. These recollections of feelings are not always accurate. Not everyone can remember exactly how they felt last Tuesday, so the information is a bit faulty.


For this study, researchers led by Professor of Psychology at the University College London, looked at 3,800 participants between the ages of 52 and 79. They were asked to record their levels of happiness, anxiety and a variety of other emotions at four specific points throughout one particular day.


Based on answers, the researchers divided the participants into three groups based on their level of happiness and positive feelings. Each group was comparable in ethnic makeup, employment status, overall health and education but varied in terms of age, wealth and whether or not they smoked.


After a period of five years, the researchers discovered that within in the groups, seven percent of the least happy group had passed away compared to only four percent in the happiest of the three groups. The middle group was at five percent.


Researchers then looked at each group again and controlled for age, chronic diseases, exercise, alcohol consumption, depression and socioeconomic factors. With these factors taken into consideration, they discovered that 35 percent of the happiest group was less likely to have died and the middle group of happiness was 20 percent less likely.
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So don't worry, be happy: