Friday Five - Favorite Blogs

I’m subscribed to quite a number of blogs. Most of them, however, don’t have regular updates. I’m looking for some more blog reading material. Also, I feel like there are so many good blogs out there, but I’m missing them!

Here are five of my favorite blogs to follow, because they have regular content and lots of food for thought.

1) Problogger Blog Tips - I swear, 90% of this blog’s content is usable in some way. There is a reason this guy is a professional blogger, and makes a lot of money doing it. His titles and content keep me coming back for more.

2) Sometimes I’m Actually Coherent - A blog that is near and dear to my philosophical heart. So often I’ll pop over to read his most recent post and by the end I’m in awe because he’s said an exact thing that I want to say, but so much better than me. I admit, however, that Timothy can be a little long-winded at times (hmm… sounds familiar). And I don’t always agree with him (hmm… also sounds familiar). Never stops me from coming back to see what he has to say.

3) Zen Habits - Oh man, if you haven’t seen zen habits, you’re missing out. Chalk full of good advice, ideas and stories. Mostly lists of advice. Easy to digest. Lots of food for thought.

4) The Rejecter and Writer Unboxed - I’m cheating and putting two blogs for #4 because they are both writing blogs. The Rejecter is an agent’s unfiltered view of the writing industry. She answers a lot of reader mail. And Writer Unboxed is a team of editors who give their take on the industry. It’s a good well-rounded couple of blogs to get a good idea of what it takes to become a novelist/author.

5) HEM News and Commentary - If something is going on in the homeschooling world, Valerie will post about it. Not just that, but she gives lots of food for thought on what’s going on, and gives links to other great sources for news and info.

There are about 5 more blogs I could add to this list. Right now, these are the 5 blogs I have been reading regularly over the past months. I like to point them out because they are doing something right. And for those of us who have fledgling blogs who want to grow up, these are good blogs to look at.

What are your 5 favorite blogs right now, and why do they keep you coming back again and again?

Would You Want to Have You as a Teacher?

I came across a blog today, that asked, “Would you read your own blog?” It got me thinking about my blog, and my content, and whether I would, indeed, keep coming back here to read it. It’s a good question, and worth considering.

Then, as per the norm, I starting thinking how this same question could apply to homeschooling. Would I want a copy of me to be my teacher?

Now, what about being a parent? Would I respond well to my own parenting style?

Any thoughts about this in your own blogging, teaching, and parenting?

Homeschool Success Secret - Restart Everyday

Whether at work, at school, or with family, when we first meet someone, we are open to anything. We are curious about the other person. We are looking for things in common, and how to get along.

In the beginning of a relationship, we don’t have built up expectations about how this person fits into our lives, or how they should be around us. But somewhere along the way, during a relationship, things change, and we get comfortable. So comfortable, that we allow ourselves to be affected by all the things the other person does, to try and make things the way we want them, and to try to get the other person to be more like this or more like that.

Think about someone in your life right now, who you have a hard time dealing with. Was it always like this? Was there ever a time when it was an easy relationship, or when that person did not bug you? What was different?

The more we know about a person, the less forgiving we are of certain kinds of behavior. The more we know about a person, the more we feel it’s OK to have a negative feeling towards someone. When we have this kind of negative thinking, it can mess up a relationship.

Think for a moment about this: Imagine that person who you aren’t getting along with right now, or who bugs you. Imagine that you are meeting them for the very first time. Imagine they are a stranger. How would you react to them? Would it be the same kind of expectations, frustrations, reactions? Would you be more likely to let bad behavior slide? Would you be more likely to let them be who they are? Would it be easier to get along with them?

I was thinking about this in terms of children. When we teach children things, we have a long list of things we know we already taught them. But, if we were teaching another child the same exact thing, we react differently to them. This is true for academic type knowledge, or how to get along with people, or family behavior.

Imagine, now, that you are meeting your child for the first time. How would you react to him? Would you have a basket full of expectations?

Perhaps right here is the key to why parents so often say that kids listen to their teachers more than to their own parents. Parents bring along baggage into every single communique. That baggage is heavy. That baggage makes it difficult to change and grow into a new, better version of ourselves.

There’s something very refreshing about meeting someone who doesn’t know much about us. We can be who we want to be without the baggage. When we’ve known someone a long time, not only do we expect them to be or act a certain way, but we know that they have their own expectations of us, and their own opinions formed because of our history. Compared to certain kinds of relationships, meeting someone new is extremely refreshing. Perhaps this is one reason why so many kids don’t “enjoy” being with their parents, and vice versa?

This brings me to an interesting conclusion that treating people we are close to as if they are a new friend, gives them a huge amount of freedom and comfort. This is what accepting people really means. To see them as they are right at this moment, without having in our minds all the things they did before. By allowing them to redefine who they are with every contact, we make space for them to grow without the weight of our expectations

So when we are working with our children, we can create homeschooling success by “meeting” our kids everyday. We can start fresh. Make no assumptions. We can give our kids the most opportunity for growth by not dragging the past into our present, and restarting our relationship everyday. If something in our past helps create a better now, go ahead and touch on it. Sometimes, reminding ourselves of times we’ve shared increases our current connection. But if it creates frustration, anger, arguments or any negative feelings, then leave that thing in the past, and get back into the now.

We all want our kids to grow. And in order to do that, we have to let go of their past, and our past. We can help our children grow by restarting our homeschool everyday, and meet our kids again and again as they mature.

“Nice to meet you, again, my child. I enjoy getting to know who you are today.”

Stumble It!

Friday Five - Books In Your To-Be-Read Pile

How many of you have a to-be-read pile a mile high next to your bed? What are the top 5 books?

Here are mine (not counting the ones I’m in the middle of reading):

1. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

2. Getting Things Done by David Allen (I’ve had this book for three months. I really need to read it.)

3. The Universe in a Single Atom by The Dalai Lama

4. Earth by David Brin

5. Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress by Tina Ferraro

Your turn! If you put your list on your blog, make sure to link it here in the comments!

5 Incredible and Unique Benefits of Homeschooling

This list of 54 Unique Benefit of Homeschooling is going around our homeschool lists. I think in this case “unique” means “different than the other things on the list”. As I was reading it, I came up with some “unique” benefits that are “different than what most people see on lists of why it’s good to homeschool.”

5 Incredible and Unique Benefits of Homeschooling

1. Freedom to enjoy the process. Pressure is everywhere to be smarter, faster, earn more money, get independent, grow up, win, win, win. There is a perpetual push to strive for what we’re going to have tomorrow, and the sooner the better, because it’s tomorrow that will finally bring us happiness. That is total and complete baloney on Wonder bread. Homeschoolers can discover the joy that comes from not being in a huge rush to attain a goal, and be comfortable in the process. Life is a process. Getting the goal isn’t the good part, it’s the experience of working towards it that is exhilarating.

2. Freedom to fail. Homeschoolers can fail over and over without the stress of having to report those failures to a assessor. Real learning comes from having the freedom to fail, then getting back up to try again. And many times, these failures need to happen at our own pace, without the constant scrutiny of an expert, or someone more experiences. Our schools abhore failure. There is no time to fail. If a child fails once, that puts him behind. Where is there time to really learn if a child doesn’t have the room to fail over and over? Homeschooling gives children the freedom (and the parents too), to take their time to fail. And not to define themselves by these failures, but to see them as steps towards growth and understanding. When a child is considered “smart” because she never fails, I challenge you to look close at the child’s behavior and see how often she’s willing to take real risks. Homeschoolers don’t have to be in a rush to win, so they can risk all they want, and be free to fail all they want. Homeschoolers never fall behind when there is no push to constantly be successful.

3. Freedom to be comfortable. Homeschoolers can work where they want, when they want, in the clothes they want, with the tools they want, with the people they want. They can eat, sleep, talk, read, write, draw, listen to music, and watch TV when they want. They can wear make up or not. They can dye their hair any color, go barefoot, wear T-shirts that say whatever they want. Basically, being a homeschooler means freedom to be physically and psychologically comfortable.

4. Learning to be personally accountable. One of the reasons school is such an appealing prospect, is that when we send our children to traditional school, we give up a huge part of our own personal accountability. We are giving the responsibility to the teachers to impart their wisdom on our children, giving the teachers the responsibility to know what they need to learn, and giving teachers the role of having to be accountable if something doesn’t work. That’s what the schools want us to do, and parents are happy to do this. It is liberating. Unfortunately, the kids learn to do this too. They give up their own personal accountability because school is all about what is assigned to them. Just as parents give up their role as directors of their children’s education, children give up their role as directors of their own education. The children who make an effort to stay in control of their own learning are considered rebels and trouble makers. Homeschool children have the opportunity, if so given by the parents, to learn to be personally accountable for their own lives and learning. The more practice that have with this as they grow up, the more likely they are going to be personally accountable and responsible adults. And that’s not to mean that they will be good little workers, like our society wants our school children to be. It means that these children don’t wait to be told what to think or to learn. They take initiative to learn what they need to because they have learned that nobody is going to hand their lives to them on a plate. They can serve themselves. This is not an innate benefit of homeschooling. This is an opportunity that homeschoolers can choose to have.

5. Learning how to deal with emotions. How many of us have memories of being humiliated, embarrassed, angry, helpless, stressed, or lonely during school? It’s a common myth that homeschooling is supposed to keep kids from feeling these things. Or that it’s to protect them from all the bad that comes with childhood. Homeschooled children feel the same emotions during their childhood. They have similar experiences arguing with friends, being disappointed, being upset, humiliated, and all these things. The difference is that kids in school have to learn to deal with these emotions by huddling together with other kids their own age, who have no idea either how to deal with them. It’s the lucky few who have adults in their lives who they can confide in totally, and learn to deal with those emotions on a regular basis. Homeschooling offers that. It is normal state of affairs that if a homeschool child has a strong emotion, they head straight for an adult for help. The adult, who, in most cases, has a much stronger grasp on emotions, can help them deal with them. Homeschooling offers the opportunity for children to fully feel these emotions often. Emotions are tough to learn to deal with for any child. It’s part of maturing. Just as adults who have trouble dealing with their own emotions can’t learn from unstable friends, kids can’t learn from other kids how to be mature. Kids and adults learn from those who are more evolved, compassionate, in control of themselves, and have learned from their experiences. Homeschooled kids have access to that kind of emotional strength on a 24/7 basis. And because of that, they have the opportunity to learn to deal with their emotions in a gradual way, by fully experiencing them, and then having a safe place to recover from them.

Can you think of anything to add? Have you seen any benefits that don’t get talked about much?

Less Homework Means More Learning

In today’s world of homework, classes, and sports, when do our kids get a chance to just be? Perhaps even more importantly, when do they have a chance to pursue their own interests without adult intervention or control?

Vernon Barford junior high school, in Edmonton, Canada, changed its policies in 2006, and decided to give its students less homework. As a result, tests scores improved. So did morale.

The concept of our schools assigning too much homework is not new. In 1999, Time Magazine’s cover declared, “Too Much Homework!”, subtitled with, “How it’s hurting our kids, and what parents should do about it.” A surprisingly outspoken piece, The Homework Ate My Family, calls parents to arms in the homework war, encouraging them to allow their children to have a stress-free childhood.

A sprinkling of schools and parents might have learned from those who have been warning us against the alluring draw of homework, but there is still a pervasive cultural bias towards filling our children’s time with it. According to the Vancouver Sun article, a parent complained about the new Barford Vernon homework policy, that his son “still had an hour in the evening with nothing to do.” When did having an hour of “nothing to do” become a bad thing?

The Vancouver Sun also profiles Carl Honore’s new book Under Pressure—Rescuing Childhood From the Culture of Hyper-Parenting, where he discusses the role of homework and other time filling activities as commentary on our achievement-oriented and hyper-scrutinizing parenting culture of today.

If you are interested in a deeper discussion of homework specifically, another book by Alfie Kohn, called The Homework Myth, discusses the disadvantage to homework and why it is has become so important to us in today’s educational atmosphere.

In a world where more=more, it’s refreshing to see attempts at moderation. It’ll be interesting to see if this becomes a trend.

Chelsea Link, 18, Homeschooled, Accepted to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, U of Chicago, and Northwestern

Chelsea Link says this about her extraordinary, yet relaxed, life: “I think I’ve had a pretty normal high school experience . . . just without the high school.”

Another interesting quote by Christopher Watson, admissions dean at Northwestern, “We haven’t changed the way we review applications, but the way home-schoolers are submitting applications has changed,” he said. “They’ve become very good at taking out the question marks.”

Perhaps it’s a combination of the two? Northwestern may not have changed it’s admissions process, but other universities have.

Congratulations Chelsea! Reading science magazines and playing music is a fine way to go through childhood.

A (Home) School Like Mine

Have you seen the book, A Life Like Mine? It has profiles of children all over the world, and what their everyday lives are like. Beautiful, vibrant pictures line the pages. It truly gives a snapshot into the various ways of life in our global community.

Imagine my surprise when I saw A School Like Mine at the library, which has profiles of what children of the world think of their schools, and it includes an American homeschooler as one of the profiles! I must say, I am quite impressed.

There is a third book called A Faith Like Mine. I was impressed with how well it covered the essence of each religion - specifically Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism, which are the three I know the most about. The other religions also seemed quite thorough and accurate.

These books rise up to the challenge of showing the diversity of the world to our children in a much deeper way than one would expect with so little space in which to express it.

Before I finish this review, I’d like to mention how extraordinary it is that this new book, A School Like Mine, incorporates a homeschooler as one of the profiles. This has a serious implication of how homeschooling has become so tied into the national view of American culture.

I don’t think that this has come around simply because we’ve been growing in numbers (although that is part of it), or because we’re on the brink of an educational revolution which will either change or break our public school system. I think that this global recognition has come around because homeschoolers have risen up to be a force to be reckoned with both politically and socially, primarily by tapping into the powerful network of the internet. We have a pretty large footprint here. We’re a major part of the emerging online culture.

I still am convinced that the internet is what will be the tipping point of when and how American education adapts to modern needs. With that, homeschoolers are riding the wave, and we’ll sail in right along with it, because we’ve been surfing on it for a long, long time.

Friday Five - Favorite TV Shows

TV shows. There are only about five billion available. Which five TV shows are your favorites? (Kids’ favorites are fair game too.)

For those of you who do not watch TV, list five things you do instead of watching TV.

My family’s five: (Disclaimer, I don’t watch much TV, except when the family is watching.)

1) Just for Laughs - Canadians have the best sense of humor. I get a good chuckle from this when the kids turn it on.
2) Mystery Diagnosis - OK, I admit, when I am in the mood to watch TV, these real-life medical dramas are one of the few shows I flip to. I like the ER shows, and the “I barely survived” shows. I’m not sure why I enjoy watching them. Especially since when I watch too much MD, I end up fearing for weeks that I have some rare disease that nobody’s heard of.
3) Ben 10 - What is UP with this show? It’s the kids’ favorite. Even more favorite than Pokemon. If I had done this list 2 months ago, Pokemon would have been first. Now it’s Ben 10. They can’t WAIT until the live action movie comes out.
4) Unbeatable Banzuke - The Japanese know how to make a game show. And even if they don’t, they get many extra credit points for creativity and tenacity. (I’m really not a big fan of this show, but I do appreciate the effort.)
5) Dexter - I have ONE more episode until I’ve finished watching the DVD of the first season. I really can’t stand gore and people being murdered and all that. But this show isn’t about that. It’s about psychology. No really. It is.

Ok, your turn!

Carnival of Education Includes Homeschooling Posts

The Carnival of Education is pretty picky about which homeschooling posts they accept. So, I was happy to see that they included mine. Scroll down. It’s under “Homeschooling.” Link is “being invited.”