Linky Love: Some random learning links ( with lots of dino stuff)

Math:

Celebrate Math Holidays (and listen to Monty Python's Galaxy Song...)

Instacalc looks like it might be amusing to play with.

Make math worksheets

Random numbers

Writing:

Read what kids are thinking at the NY Times' Student Opinion page

Recently, the Times had this to say about this project:
One thing that’s surprised us is the number of posts we receive from students on holidays, over weekends, and late at night — comments that seem not to be written because a teacher assigned them, but because the student has something to say. We’ve been impressed by the homeschooled community, in particular, since quite a few of the articulate kids who post at these times identify themselves as part of it. Read more here.

Reading:

Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children
By JULIE BOSMAN

A quote: Parents have begun pressing their kindergartners and first graders to leave the picture book behind and move on to more text-heavy chapter books. Publishers cite pressures from parents who are mindful of increasingly rigorous standardized testing in schools.
“Parents are saying, ‘My kid doesn’t need books with pictures anymore,’ ” said Justin Chanda, the publisher of Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. “There’s a real push with parents and schools to have kids start reading big-kid books earlier. We’ve accelerated the graduation rate out of picture books.”

Booksellers see this shift too.

“They’re 4 years old, and their parents are getting them ‘Stuart Little,’ ” said Dara La Porte, the manager of the children’s department at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington. “I see children pick up picture books, and then the parents say, ‘You can do better than this, you can do more than this.’ It’s a terrible pressure parents are feeling — that somehow, I shouldn’t let my child have this picture book because she won’t get into Harvard.”

The article has generated controversy because one parent quoted in it, who is portrayed as extremely pushy, has stated that the quote was taken completely out of context.


Dinosaur related:

When T Rex Became Tryrannical

Milky Way panoramic image

Eye position and numbers

Fanged venomous raptor discovered.

T Rex's little cousin

Dinosaur with red tail

New Tyrannosaur species

Dino relative

Velociraptor's cousin

Dwarf Dino from Transylvania

India's Jurassic Park

Horned dinosaur

Kickboxing raptor

Humped Dino

Dino discoveries

More dino discoveries

Striped dinosaur

New long necked dino

Dino skin impressions

Long horned dino

Terror birds


Other:

Do cricket moms pass on predation knowledge in the absence of maternal care>

Buzz Aldrin raps.

Habitable planet?

See the ISS and/or Space Shuttle fly overhead (Link takes you to NY info, but you can click around from there to find info for any area.

Mannahatta curriculum

Music as a CPR tool.

Some of this stuff is brand new, some a bit old, all interesting, IMHO...

NY Post on Homeschooling in NYC

The title is distasteful, but the article is sort of positive... It does trot out some of the extremes (there *had* to be a creationist homeschooling to avoid Darwin in there, as well as a radical unschooler!) and tends to ignore the center, as usual. It gives credence to the "parents are unqualified" myth, citing a misspelling in an email as evidence of doubt regarding the same, and raising the glorious alternative of paid tutors (our "expert" worshiping culture rears its ugly head), but at least it debunks the religious fanatic, banjo playing hillbilly myth... and mentions how diverse homeschoolers are, at least partially debunking the countervailing wealthy white elitist racist foe of diversity myth (while at the same time choosing to highlight parents in elite professional occupations, so backsliding somewhat there). In the negative column, the quoted expert's comments raise the specter of the socialization red herring... A further quibble is that the quote provided regarding the NY Regulations does not give a completely clear or accurate picture of them, and may exaggerate in referring to NY as the "most regulated state" -- Pennsylvania may actually be worse! Anyway, here is the link:


Is home schooling for freaks? Or the best option for NYC parents?
By SARA STEWART

An excerpt:

[T]he New York home-school movement is surprisingly diverse. The Bagleys are part of an increasingly visible network of local parents who’ve given up on regular school, for wide-ranging reasons — some religious. But many others think institutional learning turns kids into robots, worry their child is being bullied, or feel the curriculum isn’t challenging enough. “It isn’t a scene out of ‘Deliverance,’” Bagley says with a laugh, referring to the image that many have of home-schooled kids.

Given the dire state of the city’s — and nation’s — educational system, it’s not hard to understand why families are taking matters into their own hands. Charter schools are overflowing, private schools are unaffordable for many families — the Chapin School on the Upper East Side, for example, costs $33,400 a year — and even if they’re not, most have lengthy wait lists. Public schools vary in quality from one district to the next, and it can be next to impossible to transfer a child to a better district.

According to statistics released by the NBC-sponsored Education Nation summit at Rockefeller Center last week, American students rank 25th in math and 21st in science compared to 30 other industrialized countries. And 68 percent of eighth-graders can’t read at their grade level.

Look at the stats in that last paragraph! I am so tired of people questioning parents' competency to teach their own. How much worse than the "expert" results cited above is it possible for a committed parent to do? I'll give you a hint-- my kid reads high school level science books for fun. He's 7.

Maybe instead of trying to ridicule and regulate us out of existence, the experts could take a look at what we do and try to figure out what's working. Maybe there's something there that could help them help the kids. After all, isn't that what is supposed to matter? Not professional bragging rights, job security, or dissing the "competition", but actually helping kids to learn? The numbers in that paragraph are simultaneously pathetic, laughable and scary, if you buy into the idea that standardized testing is a reliable measure of performance... Which many homeschoolers don't, but the system claims to. Hoist on their own petard, methinks...

Homeschooling in the News

There have been three articles in the past couple of days. There's a piece in the NY Times about possible closure of NYSED's Office of Non-Public Schools, which has run interference between homechoolers and overreaching or ignorant school district personnel, who either misinterpret the state homeschooling regulations, or think they are free to invent their own special, additional requirements, just because. You can read it here. CNN has a video and a companion article which recognize the growth of secular homeschooling! Wow, progress! It is actually positive! And the Wall Street Journal has an article about "school refusal", in which psychologists caution against "well meaning parents" homeschooling in order to help kids with anxiety disorders. While the well meaning psychologists dismiss homeschooling, the comments are surprisingly favorable. As a person with an anxiety disorder, I can tell you that forced exposure to triggers never helped me any, and I doubt it helps kids with school anxiety. Being so overwhelmed and stressed can't possibly be good for children (or adults, thankyouverymuch.) It saddens me that the psychologists interviewed apparently can't think outside the box enough to see the benefits of homeschooling. Oh, wait-- they don't teach thinking outside the box in schools anymore, do they? Or perhaps they lack the compassion to realize that sacrificing someone's mental health in the name of making the "normal", societally approved, choice is folly. Or maybe they are just too knee jerk accepting of the socially maladapted homeschooler myth to be able to see the tremendous advantage that homeschooling can give an anxious child, allowing him/her to able to learn without the unnecessary distraction of sheer terror, or the "solution" of being drugged into compliance. Grrr.

On Why Homeschooling Works

An interesting article on the merits of homeschooling by two former public school teachers who homeschooled their own.

Just Commenting...

The NY Times' website published my comment on the hipster homeschooling piece they ran: Homeschooling is a very misunderstood practice, subject to a host of stereotypes that pieces like this do nothing to dispel. The media persists in painting it as the sole province of religious fanatics or the extremely privileged. That is not the reality. I am constantly surprised that articles on this subject are not better researched. Homeschooling is a mosaic of people from all walks of life, from every conceivable background, who have a multitude of reasons for choosing this path, and who follow many different educational approaches. The generalizations, the highlighting of the most extreme philosophies and practices, and the dogged refusal to accurately portray homeschooling is not good journalism. The subjects of this article are keeping their preschool-aged children home with a tutor. As lovely as the situation sounds for the families involved, it is not homeschooling. My far less succinct reaction to this piece, and media coverage of homeschooling in general, with some home truths about homeschooling, is here: http://homeschoolingonhudson.blogspot.com...

Why Does the Mainstream Media Reflect Only the Fun House Mirror Version of Homeschooling?

It seems that the mainstream media is dedicated to promulgating a distorted vision of the homeschool community, in which "most" or "the majority of" homeschoolers are religious fanatics, or else we are extremely privileged and wealthy hipsters. Apparently, the press would have America believe that we are all bigots or brainwashers, or too trendy and elitist to be taken seriously. Here's the latest from the New York Times: In which a bunch of urban artistes with preschoolers apparently make homeschooling in vogue. After the hatchet job that ABC did on unschoolers, I predict far more of the silly stereotyping, because most homeschoolers who don't fit the narrow media image are completely uninterested in signing up to be misrepresented to the world and ridiculed. Perhaps someday the media will understand that:

• Homeschoolers come from every race, ethnicity, socio-economic class, educational background and belief (or nonbelief) system. My homeschool group is far more diverse in every conceivable way than my neighborhood school. I do not homeschool to keep my child away from "people who aren't just like us" as the charge is often made. I homeschool to give him the world as his classroom, with all the wonderful diversity it offers.
• Single parents and families in which both parents are employed can and do homeschool. We are not all wealthy. In fact, many of us have considerably downsized our lifestyle in order to be able to do this. And some of us have the laudable stamina and dedication to be able to do it in the hours when we are not working outside the home. The "homeschoolers are wealthy elitists" stereotype spits in the face of all the families making financial and personal sacrifices in order to follow this path.
• We don't have to do it the same way the schools do, and are not bound by their choice of schedules or curricula. Homeschooling can happen in hours other than 9 am to 3 pm, Monday through Friday. Some of us learn in the evenings and on weekends. Some keep a year-round schedule as opposed to taking the long summer break that the schools do. Additionally, it does not take as much time to cover academic material with one or two of your own kids, whom you know better than anyone in the world, as it would in a school setting. Homeschoolers do not have the bureaucratic and crowd control concerns that you end up needing to address with large groups of children who are virtual strangers taught by strangers.
• Homeschoolers enjoy an unbeatable student to faculty ratio. Our kids get individualized attention, and we do not need to subject them to standardized tests to assess their progress, because we are intimately involved in it. We have the luxury of teaching to our children's individual level, and taking as much or as little time as is required for them to master the material. We do not have to bore a kid who "gets it" with endless repetition because some of his peers do not. We do not have to leave a struggling student behind in order to keep pace with the average student. This is the tremendous advantage of homeschooling. The differentiation that public schools can only strive for, we can make reality. We also are not hamstrung by administrators requiring us to teach to the test, and practice practice practice the test, at the expense of real learning. Many of us decided to homeschool for just these reasons.
• Homeschooling doesn't mean we just stay home all day, everyday. This is why we have no patience left for the uniformed inquiries about socialization. Homeschoolers are out and about, enjoying the real world, while schooled kids are stuck in an artificial age-segregated microcosm of society. Yes, there are some weird, socially awkward homeschoolers, just as there are some weird socially awkward school kids; it has more to do with personality type than educational choice.
• Parents do not all need to be able to teach calculus and high school physics in order to even consider homeschooling. First of all, we can outsource those subjects to more skilled teachers, if necessary. There is an amazing wealth of curriculum materials and classes that homeschoolers can access. Secondly, while we may have forgotten what we learned in school, we are perfectly capable of learning a subject alongside (or just slightly ahead of) our children. We value instilling in our kids a love of learning and the ability to find the answers they need in life above rote regurgitation of a set of facts. Children can only be inspired when they see their parents learning and growing along with them.
• Does the hypothetical horrible example homeschool parent exist who doesn't care about his/her child's education at all? Probably. Certainly there are parents who are utterly disinterested in their schooled child's education, and who do nothing to ensure that homework is done, or that studying happens. There are bad apples in every barrel. But unlike the school systems, homeschoolers don't think the hypothetical lowest common denominator should be used as an excuse to infringe the liberty of the rest of us who are doing the right thing. Nor do we believe that the government is entitled to dictate what goes on in our homes and families in the absence of probable cause to believe that abuse exists. That's the standard for government intrusion into family life. The fact that we homeschool doesn't mean that we have waived our constitutional rights to due process so that different rules apply. When the government is free to come into your house and check whether your kids did their homework, and not before, will I agree to have it look over my shoulder. Or maybe not. Because on that day, America will have ceased to be a free country. In the meantime, I will comply with the existing state regulations, and oppose any attempt to broaden state control over my family.
• Homeschoolers in most states do not receive any funding whatsoever from the government. I think that Alaska and maybe a couple of other places do have some sort of financial aid available, but here in New York, and in most places, homeschoolers do not get subsidies. However, we do pay school taxes, from which we reap no personal benefit. Teachers are allowed to deduct supplies they use in the classroom, but not so homeschoolers. And most of us like it that way, because there are no strings attached, as there might be if we were accepting public funding. Public schooling is state action, undertaken with public funds, and that is why it is regulated. Homeschooling is a purely private endeavor in which the government should have no purview. So that is why we don't all agree with the premise that, "Well, if you are doing the right thing, why shouldn't you want your kids tested like the school kids? If you have nothing to hide, why not?" Because I'm not an arm of the state, responsible to the people, nor am I sucking on the public teat, and spending money in which the American taxpayer has an interest. I am raising my own child, and saving the system the resources it would otherwise need to be commiting to his education. Why that makes me a presumptive villain, I will never understand.
• Ultimately, homeschoolers believe that the privilege and responsibility of raising our children and educating them belongs to families, not the government, and we are prepared to buck the system and do it ourselves, because we believe it is the best thing for our families. That is in no way a comment on what is best for anyone else's family, or a knock against people who send their kids to school. Everyone should be free to choose the best course for their own family. For us, it is homeschooling.

But Aren't You Worried About Socialization?

Um, no, not when the schools have lost their minds:

"Most children naturally seek close friends. In a survey of nearly 3,000 Americans ages 8 to 24 conducted last year by Harris Interactive, 94 percent said they had at least one close friend. But the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying. ... That attitude is a blunt manifestation of a mind-set that has led adults to become ever more involved in children’s social lives in recent years. The days when children roamed the neighborhood and played with whomever they wanted to until the streetlights came on disappeared long ago, replaced by the scheduled play date. While in the past a social slight in backyard games rarely came to teachers’ attention the next day, today an upsetting text message from one middle school student to another is often forwarded to school administrators, who frequently feel compelled to intervene in the relationship."

From this article in the NY Times. Please read the whole thing.

Structured recess, stupid zero tolerance policies than involve zero common sense, and now control over kids' friendships! Am I worried about my homeschooled child's socialization? That would be a huge NO!

I cannot fathom how schools can ignore actual bullying (to the extent that some targeted kids are driven to commit suicide), but get all "proactive" about intervening in purely hypothetical cases because two kids may be too close for some administrator's taste and maybe, just maybe, someone might possibly feel left out at some time in the future.

This is the oft-praised socialization that only school can teach? We'll pass.

It's quite ironic that one of the most frequent digs directed against homeschoolers is that we are trying to protect our kids from negative social interactions that some people feel are necessary to positive character development and being able to get along in "the real world" later in life. In "the real world", has anyone ever told you you are not allowed to have a best friend? This latest trend just highlights the fact that "school culture" is a manufactured and artificial microcosm that bears little resemblance to reality.

Now the Nanny State is sheltering kids from the "hard knocks" we homeschoolers are so often told we are wrong-headedly depriving them of, in the absence of any actual harm. Why do people think government regulation of every aspect of our lives is preferable to individual responsibility? What are schools really teaching kids? That they are incompetent to make even the most basic decisions, about who to spend their time with? That they cannot possibly be trusted to think for themselves even to this extent? Talk about dumbing down! Now it isn't just academics that have to be dragged down to the least common denominator level? We need to do it to social skills too?

People are inordinately concerned over the "socialization" of a tiny percentage of school aged children who are homeschooled, yet turn a blind eye to how the fantastical machinations of government schooling affect the development of the vast majority of children. It is completely illogical to think that, in the absence of probable cause for a finding of illegal activity, they are entitled to know or control what happens in private homes, and yet, to simultaneously accept the statistically far more significant potential harm to multitudes of children under the rubric of "school as norm", rather than critically examining state action (in which, unlike my living room, they are actual stake holders since it is bought and paid for with all of our taxes, and government, at least in the USA, is supposed to be answerable to the people, not vice versa.)

Am I worried about socialization? Well, now that you mention it, yes, I am. I'm worried about what passes for socialization these days in the schools!

The Gift of Edu-Speak

There's an article in the NY Times about new standards for math and English developed by the nation's governors and school honchos, which links to a couple of pdfs with the new proposed standards. I've glanced at them and realized they are kind of useful for coming up with edu-speak for drafting my IHIP next year, and thought I would pass them along, for what they're worth. They haven't been adopted yet, as I understand it, but I think they're an interesting look at what the government thinks is appropriate grade level material... not that I particularly care what they think (and frankly, I'm not at all happy with the concept of a nationalized curriculum), but like the World Book lists, it's interesting, and may be some guidance...

Anyway, links here:

NY Times Article

Math

English/Language Arts

From the Daily News: Space Nuts, My Family Included: Shuttle2NYC

New Yorkers get 'spaced out' to ride shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square to support Intrepid

Sign the petition here. Help bring the space shuttle to NYC!