Everything In Our Society Relates to Education

“Parent choice” proceeds from the belief that the purpose of education is to provide individual students with an education. In fact, educating the individual is but a means to the true end of education, which is to create a viable social order to which individuals contribute and by which they are sustained. “Family choice” is, therefore, basically selfish and anti-social in that it focuses on the “wants” of a single family rather than the “needs” of society. – Association of California School Administrators

All who have meditated in the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of the youth. – Aristotle

My husband has noted to me on several occasions that I have the ability to connect unrelated things to each other and find where they are parallel.

Perhaps he’s right. One thing he’s absolutely right about is that I see the connection to education in practically everything I read.

This is a sampling of the news today, and how I connect these stories to education:

New Classification of Spinal Deformity Defines Range of Normalcy: The article is mainly about how the science of spinal medicine has developed and resulted in a thorough catalog of the various ways the spine can be messed up. This is how our society works. We define normal by what is abnormal. The more we are able to pinpoint and identify abnormal states, the smaller and smaller the window of normal becomes. This is exactly what has happened in education and psychology (which often crossover, as any parent of a child with ADD or Autism can tell you). We laud, as a society, our ability to find more and more specific ways that we are messed up as individuals, and identify how to cure those problems. As a result, we are less and less tolerant of differences.

What the President Should be Reading: President-elect Obama has been caught many times with book in hand. In fact, the publishing industry is wondering if he’ll become the new Oprah when it comes to book sales. Well, at least in the political book market, since all of Obama’s books are either biographies of political leaders like Roosevelt or Lincoln, or books on national politics like, “The Post-American World.” The reason why this is so interesting to me is that people care what he’s reading. I cannot remember, ever, when our country cared what a president, let alone any other political icon, was reading.

I’m encouraged by this. Our president is reading to learn. He is the ultimate role model in life-long learning. I hope that many children see the attention this is getting, and see how even when a person has reached the pinnacle of success, there is still much to learn. Books are not the enemy, as we learn in school. Self-directed learning is what successful people do. I hope Obama gets caught with many more books in hand.

‘Brave New World’ Just Around the Corner: One of my all time favorite books is the Brave New World. I read it two years ago for the first time. I’m so glad I didn’t read it until I was an adult. I would not have “got” it as a kid. As an adult, involved in the education of my own children, and involved in national politics (on a personal level), I am in a place to truly appreciate what Aldus Huxley had to say. Although I don’t agree that we’re all that close to Brave New World Utopia status, that’s where we seem to WANT to go, as a society. Peace means predictability in our culture. We’re so afraid of change and challenge. Our children are being trained to be risk-less, satisfied with mediocrity, and afraid to do anything on their own. Thank God we have 1% of our population choosing homeschooling, and 2% of our population choosing private school to keep things stirred up a bit.

Pope Cautions Against Blurring Lines of Religious Differences: How can religion have anything to do with education, you ask? I’ll tell you. One of the main problems with public school, and most group schools in general, is the blurring of the line of individuals. Now, I’m somewhat moderate when it comes to individualism. I believe that every person is an individual, with individual needs and abilities. While I also believe that we are all connected, and what we do as an individual affects everyone in our world. School pushes too far to the extreme, which is – blur the lines on what you believe.

I used to think that it was important to keep kids as a blank slate until they get old enough to have their own mind. And I used to get annoyed by how misled I was a child about the “Truth” of our world. But now that I’ve had some experience talking to teens who are amorphous in their beliefs, I’ve come to see that most kids don’t want to come up with their own belief systems. They want to hang on to what they are taught.

Now, I wonder, is this something we’re fostering in our schools? Is it the way our educational system works that keeps kids wanting to follow whatever is told of them, or is it part of the maturation cycle? Do kids who blindly believe what their parents or teachers believe do it by choice, and by personal preference? Or is this a coping mechanism of the developing mind – it’s easier to go with what is being taught to me than to struggle with the big questions.

I don’t have teens, but this intrigues me. Does it really matter if kids are led to believe what they are taught is “true”, if the doubting and self-discovery phase doesn’t really happen until the late teens or early twenties anyway? Or does this phase happen at this age simply because we’ve nurtured that delay of development in our children by holding off real inquiry until they are “adults”? Those with teens, what do you think?

4th Body Found When F-18 Hit San Diego Residential Area: My immediate thought was – what if this hit a school? Perhaps it’s better to keep the kids scattered. Ok, so that’s a little over the top, and quite disrespectful. But hey, anything and everything can be linked to education, and that’s what happened to me when I became a homeschooler – my brain turned into an education radar.

Subway and Scholastic Contest Excludes Homeschoolers; Homeschoolers Get Mad

Subway and Scholastic announced a writing contest to win $5,000 worth of sporting equipment for a school. In their contents rules, they state the following:

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. Contest is open only to legal residents of the Untied States who are currently over the age of 18 and have children who attend elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6.No home schools will be accepted.

A homeschooler caught wind of this exclusion, and word spread fast through online communities that Subway was discriminating against homeschoolers. In the span of three days, there have been letter writing campaigns, calls to action, blog posts and articles denouncing Subway because it “hates homeschoolers“.

Subway obviously misunderstood the homeschooling community. They put together a contest that explicitly excluded homeschoolers, but did not do their research into what “home school” means. Instead, they relied on a cursory social definition (i.e. homeschoolers alone in their homes not being involved in anything organized). They also did not do enough research to understand that many states don’t have homeschoolers at all. By including “private schools” but excluding “homeschoolers”, their rules aren’t legally coherent in these states.

It is fairly clear why Subway chose to exclude homeschoolers. The prize is intended for a large group of kids who will use it on a regular basis. They did not want the prize to go to a single family. Excluding groups of people from prizes is common practice in contests like this. There are contests that are open only to girls, contests open to only residents of certain states, there are contests that exclude anyone working in the media industry.

However, when was the last time you saw a specific minority restricted from a contest? This is where Subway made their gaffe – they did not recognize that homeschoolers are a minority group. The emotional outcry that is coming from the homeschooling community is akin to a minority response – you’re not allowed to exclude us without a damn good, obvious, legal and fair reason.

The response from homeschoolers, by and large, has been emotional. One homeschooler even started a petition to boycott Subway unless it changes its rules for this contest. Knee jerk emails and letters have been popping up all over the blogosphere and email lists. Homeschoolers are not happy, and they aren’t going to sit down and take it.

Then, sprinkled amongst the anger and incredulity, there have been a few brave souls who spoke up and said, “Has anyone stopped to ask why?”, “Perhaps we should talk to them reasonably,” and even, “So what?”

Unfortunately, these calls for sanity have been met with argument and more emotion. It doesn’t seem that the letter-writers and boycott-creators actually want to talk reasonably, not even within their own community.

Fortunately, there have been a number of homeschoolers who have written reasonable letters to Subway. Subway claims to recognize its mistake, and has promised to do the proper research in future promotions, because it’s too late to change the rules right now.

I’m not so sure if that’s true. The rules aren’t all that clear in the first place, and one could argue even now, that if a homeschooler from a state where “homeschoolers” aren’t defined in the law, wins this contest, that they are eligible. A homeschooler in California, for example who is enrolled in a ISP or has their own private school at home, is eligible under the “private school” qualification. Does adding the stipulation “no home schools will be accepted” actually mean anything? Does taking out that stipulation in the rules actually mess things up? I’m thinking not.

A few questions to be asked about this situation

1) How important is Subway’s gaffe? I ask this, because from the outcry that has been going around internet, it would seem that this little contest is pretty damn important. Is this a real threat?

2) How effective is the emotional reaction to Subway’s exclusion? At first, I thought that the emotional outburst of the homeschooling community in reaction to this contest was wasted effort. But if we look at our social history, it’s the emotional reactions that get heard. It’s when people cry out far beyond what is proportionately expected that things change. It’s when people are really pissed of that stories get in the news. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

However, I have to question the long-term results of this kind of reaction. Homeschoolers get annoyed when people write us off, and think of us as extremist, isolationists, or social retards. Well, I have to say, that these perceptions come from somewhere. Writing letters to Subway that say, “Perhaps you should have had a homeschooler write your contest rules so they would catch all the missspellings,” or, “Are you excluding homeschoolers because you are afraid that homeschoolers will win all the prizes?” or “I’ll never eat at your establishment again, and you made my son cry,” (these are all actual things that people have claimed to have written to Subway,) does not help our image. In fact, these emotional knee jerk reactions make us look like idiots.

3) Do level-headed letters to Subway make a difference? Several leaders in our community have come forward volunteering to write letters and explain to Subway why their rules are unfair and probably wouldn’t hold as legally binding. From the letters that people have received in response from Subway, it looks like they now understand their mistake. They are continuing to give the same response of, “We’ll do more research next time.” It is these leaders in the homeschooling community who have a sliver of a chance to really change the minds of Subway, and perhaps work with them in the future. Anyone who writes a calm, clear and serious letter to Subway is a leader in our homeschooling community. Subway certainly won’t ask the knee-jerk letter writers for help in understanding homeschool laws and community needs. Knee-jerks might get Subway scared of us, but they won’t encourage companies like this to work with us.

4) What does it mean that Subway even thought about putting this exclusion in their rules? This is an example of mainstreaming growing pains. Even just a few years ago, it would be surprising to see a large company like Subway consider homeschoolers as a potential demographic. We were too fringy and small beans to get any attention in a large national contest like this that was aimed at public schools. But today, we are emerging into the educational community as a legitimate educational entity—an entity that is still marginal and unpredictable, so mainstream media and large companies don’t really understand who we are. They know we’re out there, but don’t know what to do with us.

We’re going to see more of these kinds of gaffes as our culture becomes more comfortable with our homeschooling existence. It’s not a matter of if, but when will the next unresearched exclusion be. When we are met with these social assumptions about who we are, we have to then choose how to react. It’s how we respond to these kinds of large-culture gaffes and infractions that show how we are adjusting to being a part of the larger educational community.

Where is the homeschooling community going?

My conclusion from all of this, is that it doesn’t matter how homeschoolers respond to exclusion or discrimination – whether we wave flags or make repeated reasonable arguments, we’ll eventually get to a place where there will be less push on us, less pressure, less discrimination. The big question isn’t whether we’re becoming more well-known and accepted into larger society as “normal”.

No, the question is how do we want to be involved in the larger cultural context when we get there? Do we want to simply be left alone like the little brother who everyone is nice to, but everyone knows not to entrust with anything really important, because he’s got a temper and doesn’t play well with others? Or do we want to be a part of the family phone-chain when Aunt Margaret has to be admitted to the hospital?

In the political context, I have no vested interest in either outcome. I’m much more interested in personal strength, and making sure that we all have the freedom to have the choice of how to educate our kids. Whether or not we are taken seriously by the public schools or the media, doesn’t really concern me, except that we don’t lose our freedoms. And certainly, this Subway gaffe, no matter how it’s handled, won’t have a direct effect on anyone’s freedom to homeschool.

However, I do find it interesting to see how many people say they want to be accepted and understood, but don’t offer that same courtesy to others. What shocks me is when people get upset for not being understood, or to be excluded, then turn around and react in the same way as if when they do it, it’s OK, because, see, they are somehow better. I just can’t get on board with that perspective, even when it’s coming from the very people I hope will always have the right to educational choice.

The truth is that we never really have power until we are able to see it from the other side’s point of view. When we truly understand that, from a “That could be me if I had different experiences,” point of view, then we have power. We understand them, and they don’t understand us. We’ve got the upper hand, and can express ourselves in ways that gets us what we want, and then we gain their respect.

Listening is a two way street. People listen to us, when we listen to them. Period. Nothing has taught me that more than the go-around we had with our Democratic representatives here in California. It was through listening to them, understanding their needs and showing them where we have the same goals, and making it clear that we really want to help them (while, at the same time helping ourselves), that we have bridged the gap from writing us off as crazies, to being worth listening to, by many of the Democratic representatives. We have created ties that would not have ever been made had we jumped up and down, sent nasty emails and letters, or cried out.

In other words, we have a choice between being mature, and immature. Immature works well. Just ask the mom who gives candy to kids who scream in the grocery store. It works great! But it also creates resentment. People don’t like to be forced into things. There’s a time and a place for forcing companies, people, politicians into things, but it has to be chosen wisely, because each time we do that, we lose the opportunity to have someone on our side. We get what we want, but we have a stronger, more annoyed enemy.

A lot of people are mad. Is it worth it?

All that said, I’m very curious to see how all of the Subway contest outrage turns out. Will hollering and screaming do the trick? Will homeschoolers get good mojo and good results from the petition? Will the those who wrote sensible letters gain support from the Subway corporation? Or perhaps, even after all of this energy and venting, none of it will matter in the long run?

Stumble It!

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.

Not All Homeschoolers Support Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee

Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee have been in the news quite a bit, pandering appealing to homeschoolers. Now, I am not uniformly against either candidate. They do have some interesting perspectives. However, one thing I know for sure, they are not “the homeschoolers’ candidate”. There is no such thing. Period.

Homeschoolers are not a unified front politically. We don’t even agree even on fundamental educational ideas.

Doc is for Hillary. She made a button. She encourages everyone to make their own button. Show the world that homeschoolers aren’t all the same.

That’s an important lesson for anyone new to homeschooling – even if it our local groups indicate otherwise, we are not homogeneous. We are an incredibly diverse group of people. I was surprised in the beginning. And sometimes I’m still surprised by the variety in opinions, perspectives and practices of our nation’s and world’s homeschoolers.

So, it’s not at all surprising to me that not every homeschooler is in support of Paul and Huckabee. In fact, I would be disappointed if we all agreed on one candidate, simply because he allegedly is taking the homeschoolers’ side. There’s a lot to think about. A lot more than whether or not the presidential candidate wants to give me and 1% of other Americans a tax cut, or even recognition. There’s a lot more to what a president does. Homeschoolers, with such a diverse range of perspectives on money, government, social security, the war, oil, the budget, health insurance, and many other political topics, shouldn’t be agreeing with one another. It means we aren’t thinking if we all agree.

And that’s one thing I can say for sure – we’re thinkers. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t have made the decision to go against the grain and homeschool in the first place.

Update: Here’s a list of other blogs on the same topic.

Is It All Really About Money?

So, I wonder – what’s wrong with letting a kid control their money, even if they are incompetent? Even if their parent is incompetent? Why is it that money makes the difference?

We probably don’t know but the very tip of the iceberg. I’m sure there are many, many details of this case that we aren’t privy to. Knowing that our opinions are based on minimal data, what do you think of this girl’s assets being controlled by the government, even though she is the one who built up the business?

Is this really about money? Or I’m wondering now, if really, this is about relationships. And isn’t it always about relationships? If this family were connected and working together, would this be an issue? Is this about money, or about how, when there is a breakdown in family cohesiveness, it’s the government that comes in and is our parent for us?

Because it seems to be, that’s what the government did in this case. They are the “real” parents, sweeping in and saying, “Well, you guys obviously aren’t getting along, so you’re going in a time out, and until that time out is over, we’ll put your toys up here on the shelf.”

What do you think?

I Am Your Teacher, You Will Be Assimilated

You know, I won’t even make a comment about this article. Just read it. I can’t believe the NJ newspapered publish this article as “News”.

School Choice Increases Services for Parents/Kids

Some would say that an increase in parental control in school is a bad thing. I mean, isn’t there a group of mysterious “those parents” out there who are always causing problems, and who don’t really care about their kids? Right.

So anyway, school choice. I’m on the fence about it. It’s one of those ideas that I really, really, really support. While the possibility that public funding and/or corporate monopolies are going to screw up and/or take over causes me concern.

This post about school choice in Michigan gives me hope. Sometimes, we do have to take the bad with the good. And it may be that in order to move forward with allowing more parental/student control of education, and changes in schools, we have to work within our commercially based society. Meaning, realize that when schools have to attract students to fill their seats, they will use every tool available – including using school money to advertise.

But hey, if it turns out that the schools can use that money to advertise and *still* manage to offer more services and more flexibility to appeal to parents, then hey – kill two birds with one stone: We get kids a better education, and we prove once and for all that more money does not mean better schools.

Free Online College Courses

MIT started the inevitable trend. Now, iTunes is jumping on the bandwagon. (If you have iTunes, just go to the iTunes store in the program, and select iTunes U.)

The iTunes classes are great for the visual and audio learner. Some are podcasts, others are videos of lectures.

Personally, these vids put me to sleep. Give me a book and a good conversation w/a pro over coffee. But hubby, when he saw this iTunes selection, he nearly lost it. “OMG, this is AWESOME!”

This is only the beginning. I’m tellin’ ya, the internet is changing education and the way kids think. Heck, it’s changing the way adults think. It’s changing the way we access knowledge.

HT: Mark

And More News of the Obvious…

So, yesterday, they discovered that tutors help kids learn. Today, they find out that tests don’t measure a person’s true ability. What will they find out next? This is going to be a week of incredible discoveries. I can just feel it.