We've Got to Be That Light

Dr. Jeff Goldstein of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education contacted me about helping him to spread the word about an inspirational video he made based on a keynote address he presented to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) National Conference in San Francisco. He wrote,

 

I received the comment below from YouTube on 11/30/11 from a homeschool mom that was touched by the video. It really got me thinking deeply about the vital importance of homeschooling, and homeschool moms and dads, as a fundamental element of national education. I think the video might be a wonderful thank you for homeschoolers.

 Here is the homeschooling mother’s comment he is referring to:

As a homeschooling mother, I am a teacher of one child. It is very challenging, but also full of the freedom to teach the way she needs. However, I miss the inspiration and support that school teachers get from the school system. Your video brought me to tears, because it gave me that inspiration that I need, in my isolation. I also loved the groove of the musicalization of your speech; it was very artful. I'll be sharing this with all the homeschooling moms I know. Thank you.

The powerful institutions that control schooling refuse to cooperate or otherwise support homeschooling (see the NEA resolution, section B-82), but there are individuals and smaller groups within those places who nonetheless reach out and consider homeschoolers allies and not enemies (and vice versa). In this spirit, here is Dr. Jeff’s video.

Class Dismissed Fundraiser

This film is still being made, but everything I’ve read and seen about it so far makes it seem worth supporting. Here is what the director wrote to me:

 

About Class Dismissed:
 
All across America, parents are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the state of public education, and a growing number are choosing to pull their children out of school and seek alternative ways to educate them.
 
The current state of our educational system requires us to assess the purpose of schooling, confront long-standing assumptions about education and seek out developments that will better serve the future. We live in a time where education is under siege from every angle; under-staffing, teacher layoffs, overcrowded classrooms, budget cuts, over-testing and failing grades.
 
Class Dismissed will focus on the topic of education, specifically the validity of home education as an alternative to the industrial school model. The film will examine the numerous approaches to home learning, exploring both its history and recent growth. There are many choices when it comes to teaching our children, and Class Dismissed will ask some big questions:
 
·      What does it mean to be educated?
·      Is it possible to get a great education without attending school?
·      What happens to children who never go to traditional school?
·      Can learning outside of a traditional classroom really provide a nurturing and   educationally rich ground for children to grow and blossom?

Class Dismissed will challenge its viewers to take a fresh look at what it means to be educated, and offer up a radical new way of thinking about the process of education.
 
To learn more and to find out how you can be involved, visit our website at www.homeschoolfilm.com.
 
Many thanks,
Jeremy Stuart and the Class Dismissed Team

Home Education Magazine Needs Your Support

Running a small business is never easy in any economy, but it can become nearly impossible to stay sane and calm when, in addition to running your business, you must defend it against lawsuits. My friend, Helen Hegener, the editor-in-chief and owner of Home Education Magazine, is currently in the midst of such a mess and she is asking for help to keep HEM operating.

In short, Helen and another party, Heather Idoni, were sued for libel because they published articles about Mimi Rothschild’s business practices. Helen writes, 

Many friends are wondering about the lawsuit now that it's coming to an end, and asking questions on discussion groups, Internet forums, blogs, and privately. Long story short, the good news is we won in every important aspect. The bad news is it was a philosophical and moral win, not a material or financial one. It literally cost me everything I own and more; it cost my attorneys almost a year they could have been putting toward more important and constructive efforts; it cost my family dearly... But we won.

I'll share information about what happened during the hearings when I can, but I am not going to write anything substantial about the lawsuit without my attorney's approval, and we're still working on the resolution details. I deeply appreciate your patience and understanding; it's taken us almost a year to reach this point of resolution, a few more days won't make much difference. 

Here's what I can share from PACER, the Public Access to Court Electronic Records:

Order of October 14: ORDERED that the above action is DISMISSED with prejudice, pursuant to agreement of counsel without costs. 

My attorneys and I are still working on the agreement referenced above, so I can't say anything about it.

Order of October 13:

AND NOW, this 12th day of October, 2011, following oral argument, it is ORDERED the Motion for Leave to Withdraw as Counsel for Plaintiffs filed by Richard Hans Maurer (Document 45) is GRANTED.

It is further ORDERED Defendant Heather Idoni's Bill of Costs (Document 71) will be GRANTED. Plaintiff shall pay the bill of costs in the amount of $3,725.30 within ten days of this Order.

It is further ORDERED Defendant Helen Hegener's Bill of Costs (Document 72) will be GRANTED. Plaintiff shall pay the bill of costs in the amount of $2,988.00 within ten days of this Order.

People have been asking if they could share this news. Yes, please feel free to share it anywhere, via discussion groups, forums, blogs, newsletters, anyplace where people who've been wondering about this lawsuit will find that it's over and we're moving on now. But there's a little more I'd also like to have widely shared:

A friend wrote to ask about the costs involved; they'd heard that Mimi had to pay our attorney fees, but that is not so. The costs are enormous; almost a quarter of a million dollars now, and Mimi and her lawyer do NOT have to pay all our expenses. She will pay only my attorney's costs and travel expenses from the Oct. 7th hearing Mimi didn't attend, and they're pretty minimal, under $3,000. Still, it's an important victory in the sense that she's paying us, and we are not paying her a dime.

We did not receive any compensation for the loss of business from losing our web site and our ordering systems at the height of what is normally the best time of year for us. We not only lost the HEM site because of Mimi's harassment, but ALL our other web sites, even those not related to homeschooling. But perhaps the biggest and potentially most significant loss was my ability to communicate in my normal manner and volume. I've had a long-running problem with carpal tunnel syndrome, but I've kept the situation under control for many years by moderating the use of my hands. The extreme volume of typing with all the filing and emailing and communications that this lawsuit has necessitated has my hand almost crippled. I shouldn't be typing this, but hopefully it will help get the word out that this is over, and we're ready to set about the difficult task of rebuilding almost 30 years of work.

We need help. If you've ever considered becoming involved with this publication, please contact me at helenhegener@homeedmag.com and explain what you'd be interested in doing. If you have no idea but just like the idea of helping, I'll be putting together a list of what we need and will post it at our HEM Networking discussion group on YahooGroups sometime in the next few days: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HEM-Networking/

And if you can help financially, even a tiny little bit, you can send it via PayPal to orders@homeedmag.com or via check to Helen Hegener, PO Box 759, Palmer, Alaska 99645 (yes, that's my personal address). I'm working on a 'Friends of HEM' web site, and I'll share more on that soon.

Thank you, everyone, for your support,

Helen

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Helen Hegener, Publisher

Home Education Magazine

http://homeedmag.com

How you can help:

If you are not a current subscriber, please consider subscribing to Home Education Magazine.

http://homeedmag.com/ord/order.html

If you are a current subscriber, consider renewing at this time.

http://homeedmag.com/ord/renewal.html

If you live outside the US you can still subscribe:

http://homeedmag.com/ord/orderfrgn.html

 

Major Newspaper Stories about Unschooling

Here are two good articles that discuss homeschooling. One, in the Hartford (CT) Courant, focuses on unschooling. Though the headline makes it seem like the article will view unschooling as a way to reform school, the article itself is more about one family and their journey to unschooling, and how North Star and other options can help families with self-directed teenage learners.

The Chicago Tribune did a story about homeschooling, with a focus on unschooling. The article was aimed at non-homeschooling parents, as the subhead indicates: "Supplement your child's education by stealing a few pages off the home-schoolers' playbook." Interesting how both stories intersect on the issue of how non-school activities and places can supplement or replace conventional schooling for children whose parents are not able to fully commit to homeschooling.

Back to Playing, Not Back to School

It’s been a busy few weeks for me and I haven’t updated my blog in a while. However, I’ve been collecting some stories I want to share with you that give support for living and learning with children in non-technocratic ways.

At a time in our culture when economists and educators who view schools as giant machines that process people for jobs and social cohesiveness are in control, it is always refreshing—and important—to find researchers and opinion leaders from within the school system who support more human, relationship-based approaches to living and learning with children. One example of the technocratic view of education is the diminishment of physical activity, especially free play, for children. Many parents have internalized the messages the schools have been putting out over the years—your children need lots of academic rigor and the earlier they are brought into line with school standards the better—to the point that children’s free play, pick-up sports games, and other child-initiated and organized games are considered frivolous, if not an actual waste of time. However, as homeschoolers know and have written about for decades, free play is how children naturally learn and develop interests and skills. John Holt explains how this happens beautifully in his revised edition of How Children Learn, in his chapters “Games & Experiments” and “Fantasy Play.” Most recently, Dr. Peter Gray has edited a special edition of the American Journal of Play that focuses on the importance of play for children and its diminishment among schoolchildren.

The journal is available for free, and I urge you to read it if you, or people you know, are having doubts about how much time your children spend playing instead of doing school work. Here is some information about the issue to whet your reading appetite.

Go out and play! Parents today are less likely than ever to utter these words. However, hovering helicopter parents who restrict their kids’ unstructured play may actually harm, rather than help, children according to an interview with Lenore Skenazy (syndicated columnist and author of Free-Range Kids) and Hara Estroff Marano (author of A Nation of Wimps). The authors’ condemnation of overprotective parenting appears in a special themed issue of the American Journal of Play devoted entirely to the importance of free play among children.
Guest editor Peter Gray, Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College, has gathered a distinguished group of contributors who probe the near-extinction of free play and its effects on children and society from historic, anthropologic, and psychological perspectives:

“Why Parents Should Stop Overprotecting Kids and Let them Play,” an interview with Lenore Skenazy and Hara Estroff Marano

“The Special Value of Children’s Age-Mixed Play” by Peter Gray, Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College

“The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adults” by Peter Gray,Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College

“Evolutionary Functions of Social Play: Life Histories, Sex Differences, and Emotional Regulation” by Peter LaFreniere, Professor of Psychology at the University of Maine

 

“Marbles and Machiavelli: The Role of Game Play in Children’s Social Development” by David F. Lancy, Professor of Anthropology at Utah State University, and M. Annette Grove

“Empowering Groups That Enable Play” by David Sloan Wilson, SUNY Distinguished Professor for the Department of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University; Danielle Marshall, Senior Manager of Research and  Education at KaBOOM!; and Hindi Isherhoff, former board president of City Repair

“The Design Your Own Park Competition: Empowering Neighborhoods and Restoring Outdoor Play on a Citywide Scale” by David Sloan Wilson, SUNY Distinguished Professor for the Department of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University.

The American Journal of Play is published by The Strong in Rochester, New York. For more information, visit www.journalofplay.org.

Another piece of the technocratic school is technology. Homeschoolers have been dealing with online learning for many years now, being courted, even co-opted, by some companies to embrace their products. Now research is showing that “High-tech classrooms don’t mean higher test scores.” This article, that I read in the Boston Globe, has three fascinating paragraphs near the end that I feel summarize one of the many problems that school innovation suffers from: how well-funded advocates can capture and control school funds into their agenda despite a basis in sound research. Homeshoolers have for decades heard that teaching your own children is irresponsible because there is little research to support it (which is just hogwash, by the way); however, when Big Schooling wants to do something it thinks is worthwhile it will press on regardless of what research exists. For instance:

In 1997, a science and technology committee assembled by President Clinton issued an urgent call about the need to equip schools with technology.

If such spending was not increased by billions of dollars, American competitiveness could suffer, the committee said.

To support its conclusion, the committee’s report cited the successes of individual schools that embraced computers and saw test scores rise or dropout rates fall. But while acknowledging that the research technology’s impact was inadequate, the committee urged schools to adopt it anyhow.

One reason our children are outside less and doing less physical play with each other is their increased access to technology that tethers them to screens. If only this money were spent improving playgrounds, parks, and public spaces; improving library resources (such as public computer access) and children’s health and nutritional needs; creating programs that encourage children and adults to mingle in person in their communities. If those billions had been spent in these ways since 1997 I think we would have improved children’s social capital and, in doing so, improved their school performance. Even if it didn’t improve their test scores, it would have had a positive effect on their everyday lives, which is, to me, even more important than test scores.

Finally, if you worry that you’re not spending enough time on academics with your children at home, this article might help you loosen up and let your kids play in the mud, ride their bikes, or help you do something around the house instead of doing school. The Associated Press reports that South Dakota, Colorado, and Wyoming have shortened their school week in response to budget cuts. The article notes:

According to one study, more than 120 school districts in 20 states, most in the west, now use four-day weeks.

The schools insist that reducing class time is better than the alternatives and can be done without sacrificing academic performance . . .

 . . . Melody Schopp, South Dakota’s state education secretary, says schools that have switched to four days haven’t suffered in achievement tests.