Homeschooler Profile in Pictures - My Son

I'm going to show you a bit about my son, Harry because he rarely seems to get a mention here.


Harry is 6 and he has one overriding interest in this world.


I'm serious.

This is a very, very small selection of Harry's trains (the ziploc bag usually contains ripped up toilet paper or, as Harry calls it, "snow"):


This is a sampling of Harry's books:


This is Harry's art:


This is Harry's crafting:



This is Harry's math (or rather, my attempt at it with some pattern blocks):



I should add that Harry has one other love that rivals Thomas. His sister Catherine:


More profiles at Principled Discovery.

Before Homeschooling

I'm a day late on this but here's my first post for Dana's Home Education Week meme.

If there is One Big Moment in my adult life that stands over all others then it really has to be when I finally decided that I would unschool my children. And I do mean unschool. I had been thinking about homeschooling for some time but it was in the decision to radically unschool my kids that I made the first truly independent choice of my adult life. Yes, I'm counting kids and marriage in that. There is absolutely no regret about my family but, and I bet I'm not alone on this, the actions and decisions involved in getting that family weren't well-reasoned, well thought out or mature. Just wonderfully lucky.

I was at home on maternity leave (one year with Harry) when I started to think about school. Catherine was 4 and I kept looking out my kitchen window at the driveway we'd be walking down the next year to put her on the bus each day. Honestly, I can't remember what exactly made me first think of homeschooling but I do remember one of the thoughts that first had me wanting an alternative to school.

That bloody walk down the driveway twice a day was going to be a pain in the ass on cold winter days with a baby on my hip.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing. I also remembered the many struggles my mom had with school regarding her four kids. I also worried about just how we would afford things like school supplies, lunches, fees, and clothes. Most important I watched how Catherine would watch the moths that came in an open window in our bathroom at night and wonder when she'd have time for that if she was in school all the best hours of the day.

I fired up the internet and researched. This is something I simply didn't do. Research is a way of informing yourself so you can make an active choice and as I hinted at before, I was a coaster. I waited for things to happen. Not this time.

I spent six months on the AOL homeschooling forums, on email lists, reading websites and raiding my local library. In the process I learned how to really research something. How to approach people and ask them good questions. How to take a cold, hard look at my own assumptions and abilities and critically examine them. How to stand up for my choices to people close to me. How to direct my life like a grownup.

That's why homeschooling stands so tall. It marks the point where I choose a real direction in life and began to work towards it.

An Excellent Post on Science

Continuing the much needed discussion on what science is Elisheva at Ragamuffin Studies adds, Don't Call It Science!. Elisheva happens to be an evolutionary biologist so she certainly knows what she's talking about. She's also a great writer and makes her points beautifully. I'll offer one quote but make sure you hop over and read the whole post.

Science is, after all, only one way of human knowing. It is limited to making obervations about the physical world through use of the scientific method. Scientists, when they work as scientists must limit themselves to these objectives as well, although as human beings, they can enjoy a range of human endeavors different than science, and see that they all have value. I enjoy and recognize the value of great art and literature, and I appreciate the usefulness of rational human endeavors such as philosophy and ethics. None of these is science, however, and the world would be poorer if we tried to shoehorn them into being what they are not.

New Homeschooling Carnival for Canucks!

Jacqueline over at Jacqueline's Jabberings is starting up a blog carnival for Canadian homeschoolers. You can find out more about this over at her blog. She's in Newfoundland so I figure if her, me, Molytail and Andrea all submit a post, we can have all of Atlantic Canada wrapped up! Audrey would make an awesome addition (I'm not sure an About Me sidebar could get more intrigueing!) and Christine needs to submit a post as well. She's married to a mountie. Can't get a whole lot more Canadian then that!

How Embarrassing...

So I was at my sister's today and talking with her roommate and telling him about an ancestor from the 10th century (a bard who split the head of his landlord open over a rent dispute and then wrote a poem about it - I'll have to find and post the poem here) and said:

"He left Ireland in the eleventeenth century..."

There was silence as, at first, I didn't realize what I'd said. And then came the smirks. And then the giggles.

I will not live this one down.

We're Going to Town Today

Please keep me in your thoughts. We have a list of things we need to purchase that aren't availible locally so off we go to the city and the big box retailers. I was hoping we'd simply buy the stuff online but my husband wants a shopping trip. I suspect he wants to look at the big screen TVs and game consoles that we may consider buying in a month when we've got a big portion of our debt paid off (yes, we're doing it. With his new job what seemed impossible to pay off last summer may now be paid off by the end of this summer).

Anyhow, the reason you have to keep me in your thoughts is because I'm going to enforce the rule that we buy no more then we have cash for. I am still worrying that more money means we might just dig ourselves into more debt so I am maintaining that we save up for our purchases, buy them on the credit card (Airmiles!) and then go home and pay the credit card immediatly. I have this fear however that we are going to come home with a Wii. Or an LCD moniter. Or something else that plugs into a wall socket and costs lots of money.

What we need:

Paper
Toner
High quality 3 hole punch
Filing cabinet
Optical mouse
Dry erase markers

So please, hope that I come home today with just what I went in to get and nothing more.

Just a Bit of Food for Thought on Healthcare and Taxes

Awhile back I was in a discussion on a homeschooling board about Universal health care. One of the concerns that came up was the personal cost. Sure, you wouldn't have the enormous insurance payments but you'd be paying extra taxes right? I thought I'd post what I did, way back when, in response because HE&OS has a related discussion happening and so I might as well throw the information out into the blogosphere for any who are interested.

Information on Canadian federal tax rates here.

Information on US federal tax rates here.
From my post:

Our private insurance (through my husband's employer) that covers the things health care doesn't is about $70 a month. That's %80 of drugs, dentist visits (%50 for major stuff like root canals), etc.

Okay, so I just did the math on what a Canadian earning $37, 885 would pay in federal taxes as opposed to an American.
Here's what I found...

Canadian tax - $5682
American tax - $5273

So the American rate is lower...But my gosh, not by much (someone check my math!). What's a monthly insurance premium in the US?? I'm actually a little stunned. I thought Americans paid a lot less then we do.

Now I'm calculating an income for about $75,000 and it looks like a Canadian would pay about $13, 500 and an American just over $15,000? I went higher. At 155,000 dollars a year the two are still very close at about $35,000 each. I must be doing something wrong...Or I've been listening too much to people who claim Canadian rates are very high.

A later post:

Playing with math again. I just added Nova Scotia provincial taxes (they're in the higher half of provincial income tax rates) to my imaginary person (who's not too bright and doesn't deduct a thing) who's earning $37,885 and that brings their total tax load to a whopping $9384. I don't know what kind of state income taxes you guys pay so I'll leave that out. I'll say the person has a comparable health insurance plan to what our family does (it's about average for a family rate and around, I think, what a single person would have to pay if they had to do it themselves, not through an employer) do which would be $840 annually.

Total taxes and health insurance for the Canuck - $10,224

For the American earning the same amount (and who doesn't deduct anything) plus XXXX's coverage (it was sort of in the middle of our sample - $544/month) - $11, 801

I don't really have any further comment. Just thought the figures were revealing and others involved in the health care debate might be interested.

New Book!

I got a new book today! I had a gift certificate for Amazon.com so off I went and for about $5 got a book I've been wanting forever.



It's Joy Hakim's The Story Of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way. I've been wanting a history of science read-aloud so I hope this fits the bill.

On the California Kerfuffle

I've blogged about Dana's post, Homeschoolers and Certification before but there was a great comment just at the end that sort of cemented something for me.

From Alex:

The media is polarizing this issue when in fact a lot of parents who don’t homeschool have the same view point. I like that I can choose whether or not to homeschool. I always keep homeschooling as a good option in the back of my mind because I could change my mind.

I read this right after one last visit to the blog of Stephen Downes. He seems to operate on the basic premise that parents are not to be trusted.

And all this under the influence of a most excellent CBC Ideas show called The Suspect Society. Episode One has some very interesting things to say about the increasingly suspicious eye with which parents are viewed. Definitely a must listen.

The California ruling is something all parents should be concerned with. It may be a part of a larger view that frames parents as amateurs not interested in or capable of providing the best for their children.

Teaching The Odyssey

The Carnival of Education is up at Bellringers and I've been enjoying it but I stopped short at one post.

The post is Odyssey Unit from Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable and it makes me squirm. This is why:

Next up: my unit on The Odyssey. I'm doing the filter a little bit differently, though; for the "why are you teaching this?" I really want to go into more depth, because as far as I'm concerned, The Odyssey is not what I'm trying to teach. I want to use The Odyssey to teach an understanding of character definition and development, the way that setting affects the events of the plot, the push/pull of cause-and-effect tension between actions, results, reactions, and further results... and more.

Let me admit that I don't know anything about what this teacher is actually going to do. I'm going by what I feel the above quote implies and my own experiences with literature in school. This teacher may do wonderful things with The Odyssey, I don't know, but the choice of the word use just sets off more general frustrations with how schools approach literature.

See, to me it implies that The Odyssey is going to get hauled up onto an altar, cut open with a huge knife and then have it's entrails pulled out to be examined by a classroom full of children. What The Odyssey is, in itself, isn't important. The value of it lies simply in what examples of plot and character it's belly can offer up while the work itself lies dying on the table.

I am guessing that the work of reading the epic will fall to the kids ("Because we have enough copies for everyone.") which always seems a tad wrong for a work that was crafted through oral tradition. An in-class reading would be so much more appropriate and a recording of it read by a professional even better. It was an audio book recording of The Illiad and The Odyssey (although adapted for children) that fired up my daughter's (then 8) interest in the epics and ancient Greek. A bunch of grade 9 students ploughing through it in a format that's a poor second to how it's meant to be approached seems destined to create disinterest.

If appreciation of a piece for it's merits alone isn't the goal then simply leave it untouched. Let the kids pick the book up in 10 years with no memories of mundane activities regarding setting or plot development that might make them shy away from it. Keep it off the altar.

Another Evolved Homeschooler!

I was browsing the newest Carnival of Homeschooling today over at PHAT Mommy and found a post called Teaching Creation Science or ID? A Formula For Putting Your Child’s Christian Faith At Risk from Rebecca at The Upside Down World.

Here, in part, is what Rebecca says:

Those who are teaching their children using creationist curriculum are in particular danger of setting their children up for this fall. To see why, I’d like to offer a challenge. Take your child’s creationist materials and look at whatever footnotes and references are provided. Now take an evening and look up the names of the authors cited. Odds are excellent that virtually all of the authors are creationist scientists. Now, take the names of any mainstream scientists who are quoted or whose work is referenced and attempt to track down their work. Specifically, see if you can find the particular quotes used in your child’s materials. Google books can be a great way of doing this. Now, read through whatever you can find with an eye towards evaluating the accuracy of the quotes provided (ie are words changed, relevant sections replaced by “. . .”). Also try and honestly evaluate if the author of your child’s materials has accurately conveyed the substance of what the author is saying.

Now, if you take the time to actually look at the methods used to source creationist materials, you should already be disturbed by the idea that these purportedly Christian groups who produce such materials indulge in such blatant dishonesty to sustain their ideas. An idea which is true should not depend on deception. And if you can bring yourself to this point, perhaps the danger this teaching poses to your child will start to become clearer to you.

This is really what we need. Not simply homeschool bloggers posting on good science. Not just Christian homeschoolers letting it be known that they accept the Theory of Evolution. We need Christians challenging Creationist Christians on the claims they make not only about science but about faith.

I'd like to invite Rebecca and her readers who are of like mind to stick an Evolved Homeschooler graphic on their blog. It's nice to know you're out there!

The Difference Between a Law and a Theory

The difference between a law and a theory in science really needs to be cleared up. Its causing, as my Thomas the Tank Engine-obsessed son would say, confusion and delay in my blog comments. Let's explore.

I found this very nice entry at the MadSci Network in which Dan Berger offers this:

The current consensus among philosophers of science seems to be this:

Laws are generalizations about what has happened, from which we can generalize about what we expect to happen. They pertain to observational data. The ability of the ancients to predict eclipses had nothing to do with whether they knew just how they happened; they had a law but not a theory.

Theories are explanations of observations (or of laws). The fact that we have a pretty good understanding of how stars explode doesn't necessarily mean we could predict the next supernova; we have a theory but not a law.

This is not, "a simplistic, hierarchical view of the relationship between theories and laws whereby theories become laws depending on the availibility of supporting evidence." (from the same site)

If you're an auditory learner and need a nice, simple explanation try this page, scroll to the bottom and click on, "To hear this program click here." From the transcript:

D: Well, the definition of a law is easy. It's a description--usually mathematical--of some aspect of the natural world.

Y: Like gravity.

D: Exactly. The law of gravity describes and quantifies the attraction between two objects. But the law of gravity doesn't explain what gravity is or why it might work in this way. That's because that kind of explanation falls into the realm of theory. And the theory that explains gravity is the theory of general relativity.

Y: Right. According to the National Academy of Sciences, a scientific theory is a "well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." In other words, all scientific theories are supported by evidence, and you can test them, and--most importantly--you can use them to make predictions.

D: So based on that definition, theories never change into laws, no matter how much evidence out there supports them. Formulating theories, in fact, is the end goal of science.

Y: So to say evolution is just a theory is actually an argument for it and not against it. You can't do any better in science than to be a theory.

Interesting.

Here's a fun page from high school chemistry teacher, David Dice - Proof and Science. This page isn't simply valuable for the person who doesn't understand the difference between theory and law but also for those of us who tend to talk of evolution being 'true'.

No scientist will ever claim that a theory is true. What they will do is state that the evidence agrees with the theory.

Maybe those of us who accept the theory of evolution need to tidy up our terms too. The site is an excellent read, generally agrees with the definitions from the MadSci Network and has a quiz. Kudos Mr. Dice!

Let's hear from Ronald Matson, Professor of Biology at Kennesaw State University but instead of his definition of laws and theories (you can guess by now what at least one of his definitions will be), let's hear what he has to stay about what laws and theories most definitely are not:

Regardless of which definitions one uses to distinguish between a law and a theory, scientists would agree that a theory is NOT a "transitory law, a law in waiting". There is NO hierarchy being implied by scientists who use these words. That is, a law is neither "better than" nor "above" a theory.

I hope this clears the matter up somewhat. A theory is not a baby law. A law is not a theory that's been proven. Next time you're discussing the matter with someone defending the theory of evolution you will know that you simply can't, with any honesty, claim evolution is a theory because it's unproven. Next time you're discussing the matter with a creationist you will know that when you insist evolution is the truth, you're using inexcusably sloppy language.

I am the Nameless Blogger in Question

Update: Brian has added a credit and link to the blog post in question.

First, thanks to ImPerceptibility for letting me know the Homeschool Insider Blog was quoting me without credit and thanks to Doc for pointing out that I should be given credit for quotes.

The problem is this post from the Homeschool Insider Blog where portions of my writings are reproduced without a linkback or any credit. Brian said:

We refuse to play the “attack others by name that don’t agree with our viewpoint” game, so we will not mention the name of this particular blog.

I just want to make clear that I have no problem with Brian using my name. If his readers would like to visit my blog to see the posts and comments in question they are more than welcome. They certainly deserve the chance to see the discussion in it's entirety and come to their own conclusion on the matter. Even if they don't agree with me. :)

Brian's blog is fairly new so I'll certainly give him the benefit of the doubt regarding blog etiquette and copyright issues but I have to insist that either I get a linkback and credit or else the quotes get removed. I've let him know my feelings on this and I'm sure he'll respond appropriately.

Note: I've added a nifty creative commons license icon on my right sidebar to clear up any future confusion. If anyone else would like one they can be found at Creative Commons - License Your Work.

More on Credentialing

Dana at Principled Discovery has an excellent post that continues the discussion with Stephen Downes by responding to Half an Hour: Homeschooling, Abuse and Qualifications.

One important point that Dana makes is:

When a parent chooses to send his child to public school, the school (the state, if you will), acts “in loco parentis,” in the place of the parent, in executing those duties which primarily befall the parent.

Stephen, on the other hand, says this:

We need some sort of evaluation, some sort of assessment. Something that would indicate to us, incidentally, that the 'involved' parent can also fill some of the functions of the teachers they are replacing.

And there's the problem because, as Dana points out, it's the teachers who are replacing the parents.

When I choose to homeschool, I do not act “in loco regimenis” (or whatever the Latin would be).

Certainly, if it is discovered that I am manifestly unqualified to teach, the state has some obligation to ensure that proper decisions are being made with respects to the education of my minor children. But the burden of the proof is on the state to show that I am not fulfilling this, it is not on me to prove that I am. Much like the burden of proof rests with the state in proving probable cause to search my home for drugs, rather than on me should an officer knock on my door.

And this, I believe, is the central disagreement between Stephen and me.

I agree and I'd add that Dana's position is the one that's the truer reflection of how society treats the issue. We don't ask parents to provide qualifications when it comes to issues of parenting skills or nutrition. We step in when it becomes evident that there's a question of abuse or neglect. Why hold homeschoolers to a different standard?

I'm basically reiterating Dana's points but they're important points and contrast Stephen's argument with the reality of how society and government views the role of parents.

I'd also like to make a small comment about Stephen's closing comment in his post because it seems awkward to say the least:

The law must be made, not just for you, but for those other people. We need to know that you are not one of those people. 1,460 children died due to child abuse or neglect. Is it too much to ask for some guarantee that your children will not be among those statistics?

A little earlier Stephen says, "But it simply does not follow that the only people who try homeschooling are those who are qualified for it." But wait a minute, If someone is going to point out non sequiturs in others then doesn't it follow that that someone should attempt to avoid them? What sources, studies or information does Stephen have that would rescue that last paragraph from being simply a baseless emotional appeal? I may have missed something so Stephen or anyone else is wwelcome to point it out.

And thanks for continuing the conversation Stephen!

Plutarch Again: We're Back to Dryden.

We finally got around to reading Romulus today but not the Dryden translation from 1683. This was the condensed and easier version available for free at Ambleside Online. It was much easier and shorter and I was enjoying the light flow of it. It also had Catherine scowling at me every time I finished a paragraph.

"He had more ideas of how Rome began then that!"

"Wait! Wasn't there a version where she lived?"

"Mom, I don't like this one."

I finally looked up at that point and asked, "Why Catherine?"

"Because it leaves out too much! Plutarch had more ideas then that!"

"Um. Do you mean you want to go back to the Dryden one?"

"Yes!"

"But it's harder."

"Yeah! But it's...It's the truth!"

She meant of course not that it was more factual but that she thought, from our discussions about it, that it was closer to what Plutarch wrote himself. Yes, the ramblings were distracting but they also gave us a bit more of a sense of the man writing.

"I liked how he told a lot of stuff mom. How he had all the different explanations."

Of course we had to read the condensed version before she realized she missed what the more dense translation offered. When I said our next reading was Theseus and asked one last time if she was sure she wanted to read the Dryden translation her answer was a firm, "Yes!"

I just thought that was cool.

I Don't Understand My Children

Easter Morning. 7 am. My son wakes me up. 7 am. 7 am?

If I remember right, when I was a kid, my siblings and I would have been awake for at least two hours by the time 7 am rolled around.

The egg hunt. They hunt, not even bothering to look at the big stash on the kitchen table until they've found most of the eggs.

The big stash, the one with the bulk of chocolate and cheap toys, ignored!!! And get this, the eggs from the hunt went into a communal bowl and Catherine and Harry decided they'd divide them evenly later. Good Lord.

They finally approach the big stash. They each grab their huge Kinder eggs, open them, put aside the chocolate, and put together the toys.

When I was a kid we inhaled chocolate. No putting it aside silliness for us!

They ask for breakfast.

What!?! When I was a kid the chocolate WAS our breakfast! And our lunch. And our supper. And breakfast the next day.

It is now almost 11 am. Most of the chocolate remains untouched. A couple of suckers were consumed (who eats the suckers when there's chocolate around?) but the big bunnies and creme eggs remain.

I went wrong somewhere in the raising of them. They're considerate, reasonable and lacking in the proper helping of greed. And the worst thing is, I have no idea how to fix this.

A Response to a Response

A little while ago I wrote down my thoughts about a new blog called Homeschool Insider. The author of the blog found me out and left a comment and I thouhgt I'd respond in a post since I really had no idea what I was going to write about today anyway!

I'm not going to address everything raised by Brian but I will remark on a couple of things:

However, I think it's rather tactless to single out a blog with a viewpoint that is in opposition to your own, especially a new one, and begin a very negative attack simply because you don't agree with its viewpoint.

As a home schooling Dad myself, I like to think that we are all in this together regardless of what our viewpoints may be on controversial issues. I don't think we do anyone a service by sniping at each other.

I think the fact that I disagree with your viewpoint is exactly the reason I should single it out. Or rather, that viewpoint in the context of your blog. If your views on evolution had appeared on a blog with a different purpose, say, a record of your family's homeschooling, I wouldn't have said anything. That it appeared on a blog that seems meant to offer advice to the general audience of homeschoolers and new homeschoolers in particular is what troubled me. If you're espousing a very particular worldview then you are in fact, not serving the general homeschooling crowd. Secular homeschoolers, homeschoolers of other religions and non-creationist christian homeschoolers will be excluded by your views. That's not a bad thing. We all have the right to speak to a specific audience. But if that's your intent then let the design and title of your blog reflect that. At the moment, it doesn't.

As for sniping at each other, I don't have a big problem with it. I'm not sure we really are, "all in this together," all the time. Some groups in the homeschooling community for instance support the HSLDA which excludes gays and unschoolers. We do harm to each other and maybe the sniping will at least draw attention to how we do harm.

I also resent the use of "Christian Worldview" to describe things that most definitely are not a universal Christian worldview. Creationism is a belief of specific denominations of the Christian church and quite a few of us, most likely most of us in fact, don't subscribe to that belief. I will snipe when I notice that kind of co-opting of terms going on.

A final thought: Why is it that the vast majority of universities, which are supposed to be schools of free thought, won't even allow DEBATE on the scientific merits of evolution? If the evidence is so overwhelmingly in their favor, they should welcome such a discussion.

If you're going to make a claim about the majority of universities then you need to cite a source to support that. I suspect that if what you said is indeed the case then it's likely for the same reason that they don't debate the veracity of Atomic theory. It's so obvious and basic to science that there's no need. However, it might also be for the reason I generally don't debate the issue anymore. Before the debate can even be had there are generally a slew of mistakes and misunderstandings to clear up. Like what a scientific theory actually is. Like the fact that evolution does not explain the origins of life ("a life form creating itself," is the concern of abiogenisis). Like the fact that both evolution and Natural Selection have clear definitions (not reflected in your comment) that need to be adhered to. Only then can the logical and mathematical stuff be gotten to. But it's a long journey just to get to that point.

There is no need to debate anyway. There are many excellent resources out there that present the evidence in a much better way then some Anglican housewife in rural Canada. Talk Origins is the grand daddy with point-by-point refutations of creationist claims. Understanding Evolution has excellent resources for teaching evolution and great explanations of the process of natural selection. I'm sure every local library has a good selection of science texts and popular science books on the matter. The information is all out there.

On the Plutarch Front

So Dryden's Plutarch was a bust. I had read that Plutarch liked to ramble on and digress a bit but holy cow, I had no idea what an understatement that is. It's not that the language is difficult, that's not the case at all. The language is clear and Catherine and I could follow it quite easily. The problem comes when Plutarch mentions Larentia who may have been the nursemaid of Romulus and Remus and then the Feast of Larentia and then offers several enormous run-on sentences about the Larentia whom the feast was based on but had nothing to do with the Larentia who had something to do with the famous twins. Reading that by one's self with some tea and a quiet house, well, that would be a delight. Reading that aloud to a nine year old who's trying to recreate what she's hearing with pokemon figurines? Unmanageable.

We've retreated to the more condensed and child-friendly Plutarch versions offered up on the Ambleside Online site. We'll try again tomorrow with Romulus. I figure that sometime in the future she'll be able to come back to Dryden's Plutarch on her own terms but with a bit of familiarity that will allow her to loiter in the style and enjoy Plutarch's rambles in way we definitely didn't today.

Carnivals!

The Carnival of Education is up at So You Want to Teach?

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Janice Campbell, Taking Time for the Things That Matter.

The submission that caught my eye and has been the most helpful to us this week was How We study Plutarch from Higher Up and Further In. Now, we're not Charlotte Mason homeschoolers and I won't be following and CM outline but the idea of reading Plutarch is neat. I followed the links to this page which gives a bit of an outline of Plutarch, printed it out and read it to Catherine. By the time we'd finished it we were both eager to start. The only decision to make was whether to try the tougher Dryden translation from the 1600's or go to one taylored for children ( Ambleside has links). Our final decision was to give the Dryden translation a shot (we found one here) and if it didn't work out then we'd try the other ones. We start today with Romulus.

The Carnival of Cool Homeschooling is up at Homeschooler Twins. This is a new one and it looks promising!

Do Other People Do this?

In my "8 things" post I said that:

I wear a headscarf (an honest-to-goodness headscarf) most days. It's much easier than doing my hear and I get treated so well by people when I go out.

I meant to write hair. Honest I did. The problem is that I have this glitch where I seem to start writing a word and after the first letter or two my brain goes on autopilot and substitutes another word. I can start writing, "medicine," and will end up with, "mediocre." It seems to happen quite a bit with homophones for some reason but is most embarrassing when it makes it look as if I can't spell or don't know the difference between there and their.

So am I alone in this?

Enough With the Strawmen Already

Note: Apologies to those who subscribe to my feed and got a ridiculously unfinished version of this post labeled 45. I went and hit the publish post button by mistake before I was done. What's even more embarrassing? I'm picked up by HomeschoolBuzz.com where my post is now listed as 45. Oi.

A gentleman, Stephen Downes, down my way (Closer to Andrea actually I think) has made a video to explain why he doesn't think much of the idea of homeschooling. Dana over at Principled Discovery has a detailed response to his video, Half an Hour: On Home Schooling, which is much better then anything I could write. However, I'm still going to take a stab at two points of his that just annoyed the hell out of me.

Resources

Stephen, uncritically accepting the stereotype of the isolated school-at-homer, tells us that:

...I have never envisioned a society in which we simply replace the classroom with a mini classroom in the garage. If we are going to develop personal, deschooled learning we don't want to create miniature instances of that all over society. Homeschooling can be supported, I agree, but homeschooling should not simply be in the home.

He then goes on to detail his vision of community based learning which, funnily enough, looks exactly like what actual, real-life homeschoolers are doing. Forming clubs, sharing resources, searching out mentors, sharing expertise, volunteering and providing community service, building networks in the community to further the education of our children and ourselves...His vision is our reality. True, what we do doesn't happen because of government initiative or funding and isn't subject to oversight by that government but frankly, if we waited for that to happen, it never would.

Equity

According to Stephen it's the well off who homeschool. Somehow that threatens to create a two-tiered education system by leaving the children of single moms and the working poor to the public school ghetto. Except Stephen is so wrong about this that he's not even wrong. We started homeschooling when we qualified as working poor. Why? Because we didn't want to deal with the public school system and our only affordable option (cheaper then the local public school it turned out) was homeschooling. Time and time again I've met with people, in real life and online, who are poor are/and who are single parents for whom homeschooling was a blessing because it offered them an educational option that they could afford. Taking away that option would hurt those who Stephen is concerned about the most.

I think this is a man with good intentions who's clearly thought about the issue of homeschooling. The problem is that the image in his head of what homeschooling isdoesn't match what's actually going on in homeschooling families and communities. He needs to contact local homeschoolers and see how it really happens rather than argue against a strawman because we've read Ivan Illich too and while there are lots of people discussing the man's ideas it's the homeschoolers who are out there making them come alive.

New Homeschooling Blog. Blech.

I found Homeschool Insider Blog today. I don't know what it is. At first glance it looks like one of those tip blogs for the newbies but from what I read in that vein it's not offering anything that the vastly superior old timers A to Z Home's Cool and Jon's Homeschool Resources don't do much, much better. A blog always struck me as a weird format for that kind of thing anyway. Why would I, as a newbie, wait patiently for blog posts to dribble in through my rss feed when I could just visit the wonderful sites mentioned above or start asking questions on an email list or message board?

Wait a minute. I have to admit something. This blog annoyed me and that's probably why I'm dishing out the snark now. See, there's a Christian Worldview section. Uh huh. That's where the blog authors like to post stuff like this:

Both claim to be based on “science”, yet neither one is observable, repeatable, nor testable. They are both presented as fact in spite of this. And even though evolution is still the theory of evolution last time I checked, when you see it presented in the media, the word theory is seldom used.

First off, there are a freakin' pile of Christians for whom this stuff is NOT part of their Christian worldview. Be specific. Label the section "Evangelical Literalist Christian Worldview," and leave me and the majority of Christians, who have no problem with evolution, out of your issues. Okay?

Second, don't go on about what's science and what isn't if you don't even understand what the word theory means in relation to science. For future reference:

In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind,