I’m currently reading The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer, and found this gem:
Look at the general state of peace, joy, and sexual fulfillment at the average high school and ask: Is this what I want my teen to be socialized to?
“Mommy, you’re the best homeschool mommy in the world!”
— David, today.
Today was the first day of formal homeschooling for the year. I guess the kids are excited. 🙂
And it was wonderful going to the Project Grow potluck/meeting tonight and being told how happy and relaxed our kids seemed to be. Not that we’re doing this for public affirmation, but it’s great to hear some positive feedback once in a while.
Just found Sixteen Cows by Lisa Wheeler and Kurt Cyrus. It’s a romantic bit of rhyming whimsey about Cowboy Gene and Cowgirl Sue and their eight cows each. The kids love it; it gets the “Again!” seal of approval from Rachel.
I picked it up at the library because I’ve really liked Kurt Cyrus’s work before. Slow Train to Oxmox was one of our favorites for Josh and David a few years ago, and Tangle Town is great too. (Amazon.com claims both are out of print, which is really too bad.) Funny, inteligent enough for the adults, silly enough for the kids, and beautifully illustrated — what more do you need?
Favorites from the previous library haul were Get Set! Swim! and Hello, Ocean. (Hmm, I’m sensing a water theme for last week …) I was all set to not like Get Set! Swim! for being too PC (our heroine is Puerto Rican, there’s a small bit of angst about having to compete against the rich suburban schools who Have It All™), but it turns into a very nice little story of sportsmanship, and I ended up liking it anyway. I thought Hello, Ocean was OK as far as the writing went, but the illustrations are gorgeous (and Nancy and I are both jealous that they depict the beach outside the author’s home). Both of these made the “read it again and again!” list for the last few weeks.
… to find that the NEA thinks homeschooling is awful.
I especially love this part:
Instruction should be by persons who are licensed by the appropriate state education licensure agency, and a curriculum approved by the state department of education should be used.
In other words, go ahead and educate your children at home, but you have to do it our way.
I guess they’re just sore because it’s now become news when it’s not a homeschooler that wins the National Spelling Bee. (Congratulations to Pratyush Buddiga on that accomplishment.)
Ah, well. The only thing more I can think to say to this kind of nonsense is to quote my son David: “Na na na na boo-boo!” Will not! So there! Can’t make me!
Greg Popcak points out that Serious Researchers™ are investing Serious Research™ into something that Nancy (veteran of many day care centers, elementary schools, and Mommy of four small snifflers) knew already: Day Care Makes Kids Sick While Breeding Superbugs.
Like so many things, the solution is simple: Stop pressuring families to be dual-income. Kids belong with at least one parent.
A less radical solution: Get employers to recognize that Kids Get Sick. Get daycares to stop insisting on “24 hours on antibiotics” as a return-from-illness criterion.
But then, nobody asked me. Or Nancy.
Are parents boycotting public schools?, asks Wendy McElroy. We sure are. So are many of my coworkers and neighbors. My highly unscientific and ancecdotal take is that many is becoming most, at least in my circles.
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