Mary, Mother of Jesus

Love Her Mother

Fathers, want to know how to raise daughters in an increasingly toxic world?  No better advice then that offered in this video:

Children Subjected To Realistic ‘Terror’ and ‘School Shooter’ Drills Where Homeschoolers, Christians Are Portrayed As Terrorists

Children Subjected To Realistic ‘Terror’ and ‘School Shooter’ Drills Where Homeschoolers, Christians Are Portrayed As Terrorists

This is absolutely incredible!  Brought to my attention by Thoughts From A Conservative Mom:

For example, during a terror drill at a public school in Muskegon County, Michigan, students and teachers were told that “homeschoolers” were the ones attacking them….

“The exercise will simulate an attack by a fictitious radical group called Wackos Against Schools and Education who believe everyone should be homeschooled. Under the scenario, a bomb is placed on the bus and is detonated while the bus is traveling on Durham, causing the bus to land on its side and fill with smoke.”

In another case in New Jersey, students were told that the gunmen were from a group of “fundamentalist Christians” called “The New Crusaders”….

“Investigators described them as members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the ‘New Crusaders’ who don’t believe in separation of church and state. The mock gunmen went to the school seeking justice because the daughter of one had been expelled for praying before class.”

What possible purpose do drills like those have?

Sadly, those running things keep wanting to make these kinds of drills as frequent as possible.

Head here for the whole rundown.

50 Forbidden Words

War On Words: NYC Dept. Of Education Wants 50 'Forbidden' Words Banned From Standardized Tests « CBS New York

The Absurdity of Beauracracy

It always starts out with some righteous cause of making a regulation for something that probably didn't need regulating.

For instance, those words involving abuse or pornography....were they really having a problem with test makers using these words and themes? I highly doubt it. Common sense would tell you not to.

Once you get a group of people in a position of power, on a ”board”, they feel the need to tell everyone else what to do. Whether our not they need to be told! They have the power, therefore, they know what is best for you.

Check out the link site the list of words...including dinosaurs and birthday!  Hooray for the ”all-knowing” government for  ”protecting” us!

...and so socialism goes....

California Alert: A chance to teach (and learn) civics while making a real difference – Cedar Life Academy Blog

Heads up, Californians!  Here is an issue we can all take to heart.


California Alert: A chance to teach (and learn) civics while making a real difference – Cedar Life Academy Blog

California Alert: A chance to teach (and learn) civics while making a real difference--written by Karen at Cedar Life Academy

California legislators are currently considering a bill that will impact generations of young children if we don’t stand up to protect our children and unborn grandchildren today! This is NOT a homeschool issue, but is something that will impact every future 5-year-old. Please let your legislators know your opposition with a quick phone call, fax, or letter.  They will be making some decisions next week, so time is critical. They need to know if there is opposition.   If you are short on time, just tell them you are opposed to AB 2203.  It’s that easy.
The Bill: AB 2203.
What it would do: Lower California’s current full time compulsory education law from age 6 to age 5.
Why does it matter? You might be wondering why it matters if this law is enacted, because most kids already attend kindergarten. Yes, it’s customary for a child to attend kindergarten, but it is not required by law! It matters because all children would have to attend kindergarten, ready or not. The choice for a parent to make the decision of readiness would be taken from them.
If most kids are in kindergarten anyway, why change the law?Well, legislators have been trying to do this for years, because it’s part of the master plan to institute Universal Preschool – a plan that would get our 3-4 year old preschoolers into the public school system.
It’s once again time to speak up and say NO! I participated in an effort to lower compulsory education over a decade ago. We can do it again! All it takes is everyone, whether they have young children or not, to contact their legislators and let their voice be heard. Legislators do listen!
My personal reasons for opposition:

• The law is not needed. Most 5-year-olds attend kindergarten, so we don’t need to legislate it. Legislators need to stop trying to fix things that aren’t broken.

• It will cost the State more money, and none of us can afford more taxes or the loss of a more important program!

•  It will bring us closer to Universal Preschool because the State will set up new classes for 4- to 5-year-olds who just missed kindergarten or aren’t ready. So, we’ll be paying for pre-kindergarten classes. I don’t like the expense, but more important, I don’t like taking kids from their parents at such a young age.

• Parents will be required to enroll their children even if they don’t believe their child is ready for kindergarten. This is wrong!

• As I read the bill, it looks like they are talking about full timerequired schooling starting at age 5. Children just aren’t ready for full time school at that age! The only reason to do so is to support working parents so that they have free child care, and I’m not willing to be part of such a horrible change that will affect innocent unborn children in the future.

Concerned citizens have successfully helped defeat similar bills.It’s time to do so again. It’s an empowering feeling to be part of history by speaking out.
If you have older children, this would be a tremendous civics lesson, better than any workbook. Explain to them how to search for a bill and how to be an informed citizen, and how to let a legislator know your thoughts. And let them know how important it is for parents to have the right to decide when a child is ready for kindergarten. Your head will be spinning if this is new, so read the information on this page with your kids (because homeschool learning is a family project!)
You should always read the legal stuff for yourself, so here are some important links. If you’ve never followed a bill as it works its way to becoming the law, I think you’ll find it fascinating!

• Legislative Counsel’s Digest. This is an analysis along with current law and the proposed changes.
• Committee On Education. This is the committee that will be hearing this bill on March 28, 2012. Contacting them immediately would help a lot, since it’s better that they hear about opposition before they make any decisions.

For future legislation, here’s a good site to bookmark. Then whenever you hear about legislation in the news, you can go read the original source.  You can type in the name of the bill (this one is AB 2203) and then read the status and history of the bill. You can even sign up to receive emails when there has been any change. How cool is that!
I’d love to hear the responses to your phone calls, if you choose to call. Send me a private email or post on my Facebook page. And if you decide to write and want some moral support or even proofreading, just send it to me at karen@cedarlifeacademy.com. I would not make such an offer if I didn’t feel so passionate about protecting our young children. Together, we can make a difference!

Jamie of Simple Homeschool--Thoughts on homeshool as a social movement.--EXCELLENT!

This article SPOKE to me on so many levels.  I cut and pasted a brief section, to whet your appetite, but please click over to the full piece.  It is succinct yet passionate and I couldn't agree more.

"Concerned

Photo by mikebaird

Godin is right–the world should be concerned about crazy homeschooling families like mine and yours.

After all, social movements have always been started by groups of people who made solid institutions feel “concerned.” I imagine quite a few were concerned when abolitionists would no longer keep silent about the evils of slavery or when women rose up and demanded the right to vote.

These movements went on to change and influence the world, and as homeschoolers continue to model a successful path through our modern-day educational minefield, so will we.

Time Commitment

“The cost (in time) of one parent per student is huge–and halving it for two kids is not nearly enough. Most families can’t afford this, and few people have the patience to pull it off.”
~ Stop Stealing Dreams, Chapter 121

Without a doubt, homeschooling involves a major time, effort, and cost commitment from families, making it out of reach for the majority. But it is within reach for many, and the important things in life always involve a sacrifice of time, cost, and commitment.

I’ve heard a similar argument before–when my husband and I completed two international adoptions to add Trishna and Elijah to our family. Opponents of adoption say that the cost is prohibitive and therefore it doesn’t work on a mass scale. Some suggest that those who adopt should instead donate the money to charity, to make a difference for greater numbers of children.

There is some truth to this argument. Adoption is a broken system–a miracle for the one, not a solution for the masses. I don’t know why my two adopted children received this miracle, but they did. And our entire family is blessed because of it.

Industrialized schooling is a broken system as well. And if it’s in my power to give my kids a superb education, it’s also my obligation, my responsibility to do so.

Just because we can’t solve the beast of schooling and all its problems overnight, it doesn’t mean that we can’t give our own kids the education we know they need and deserve. Mother Teresa said it well: “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”

The one lives in our homes, and through our choice to homeschool we act to nurture their dreams. Not because it’s easy, not because we have the patience to pull it off, but because our children are worth it.

So we rise to the challenge."

..."My children don’t need a great education someday, they need one now."

Read more at Simple Homeschool

From Finland, an Intriguing School-Reform Model - NYTimes.com

Hmmm...food for thought?

"Ever since Finland, a nation of about 5.5 million that does not start formal education until age 7 and scorns homework and testing until well into the teenage years, scored at the top of a well-respected international test in 2001 in math, science and reading, it has been an object of fascination among American educators and policy makers."

Find more here:

From Finland, an Intriguing School-Reform Model - NYTimes.com

Mommy Life: Steve Jobs on Education

Mommy Life: Steve Jobs on Education

Concerns That Every Parent Should Understand Before They Send Their Children to School

At first this title made me giggle. Upon reading the article, I did have a change of heart. It is a thoughtful and well-written article. I think too much emphasis is put on vetting out the "alternative" methods for educating children. Really, with such a wide spectrum of educational opportunities available, parents might look closer at the pros and cons of each educational opportunity before shunning one. As a parent you will be able to make the best choice for your family when you take in the whole picture with an objective mindset.

Here are a few excerpts from the article, but do click on over for the full story!

Just Enough and Nothing More Blog







Inspired by the many articles on the internet about what parents should be prepared for if they homeschool. Creating a little reporting balance.

Maybe you’re counting the days until your little one will finally be going to school. Maybe your 4, 5, or 6 year old is also waiting on bated breath to hear school bells telling them to go to class or to bring home homework assignments to do together as a family every night at the dinner table, with smiles and laughter, eating s’mores.

But there is a reality to school that few people talk about. There is a cultural fantasy about the beauty of public school, that once kids go to school, they shall learn, and be free, and grow up to be upstanding citizens. And every year, children all over the United States strap on their backpacks for the first time, and start their first school day in their 12 or 13 year long educational career. Yet, before taking the big leap into this long-term investment, have the parents taken the time to consider the very real challenges that school brings to a family?

Before sending a child to school, families need to do some hard thinking. Is this change really going to benefit their children? Does the fantasy of school match the reality? Do the parents know if the child’s temperament is a good match for school? And what kind of legal rights to parents have if school doesn’t work out? These questions and so much more are important to think about before signing up for a 13-year family commitment of public school.

Time considerations. Very few families understand just how much time and energy is required of not just the student, but the entire family when a child is in school. There are fundraisers, meetings, homework and project time, afterschool activities, school shopping that happens throughout the year, not to mention possible costume design, volunteering to decorate and clean up, and other special event requirements. Being a good, involved parent of a child in school takes a lot more energy and commitment than most realize. It’s not easy to be a school parent. There might be hours during the day that are free, but most school parents say that their time is very full and do not spend their free time reading books all day. It’s hard work.

Limited and unpredictable environment - Once your child enters school, that will become her world. Most of her friends will be there, she will formulate her opinions based on the school children’s social trends, and will be raised by other children who may or may not have the best social skills. Over time, the friends from school and that social community within, will become everything. She will not be exposed to the outside world much, except on social outings with the friends she makes at school and through fieldtrips she takes with friends at school. The world will become very small. Making sure this doesn’t happen will take a lot of work. In addition to making sure she has all of her school work done and attends all of the school events, keeping her in the loop with the rest of the world will take devotion and time. Making sure to get her out into the world, to take classes with other children who don’t go to her school and make friends outside of her small circle will be hard. Many children resist this once their very comfortable social circles are created. But it’s important to remember that in the end, their social skills outside of school are just as important as having tight, default friendships.

Shy and active children will often have problems - There is a misconception that school will bring out the extrovert in shy kids and will calm down the hyper ones. If your child is quiet and reserved or very physically active and talks a lot, they will probably have challenges in school. The schools will want your child to behave a certain way, and they will have to either force themselves to change to comply, or will get into trouble or have social and academic difficulties. If your child is not already attending all-day classes regularly, where they have to sit for long periods and focus, and do schoolwork when asked, see if there is a program nearby that allows you to try it one or two days a week, to see if it’s a good match. Many parents send their children to school with no idea how they will like it, and then if it doesn’t work out, feel obligated to finish out the year, or even several years, at that school, using a lot of emotional energy and time trying to figure out how to fix a problem that didn’t exist until the child was in school.

Legal rights - One of the biggest misconceptions that parents often do not know about public school is that once they sign their child up for the school, they lose a lot of their rights. And what rights they don’t lose legally are often suppressed with pressure from the school and the community. They lose their right to decide what their children are learning, they lose the right to be with their children whenever they feel like during the day, they lose their right to decide when to go on vacation or whether a child is sick enough to stay home (that has to be decided by a doctor). And the social pressure to take the standardized tests, for the children to do homework even if it’s far too hard, far too easy, or far too much, for the children to participate in every single project or class function even if they are not interested, for the children to stop what they are doing when they are engaged to stay with the group, and for the children to not stand up for themselves and maintain the authority of the teacher even if the child does not agree or is not happy - all this pressure to let go of parents’ and children’s rights starts the minute the children’s name is on the teacher’s roll call. Many parents don’t understand just how much they will be giving up until they are imbedded in the system, and it’s much harder to get out. To avoid this pitfall, understand exactly what your rights are before your child starts school, and understand from the beginning your options if it doesn’t work out. The feeling of having no other option but public school is what keeps parents and children’s rights so suppressed in the first place.

Sending children to school is a great option for some people, but not for others. There are many resources and places to get information on public schooling which you should research before doing this; every child is different, and every parent has their limitations.

Here’s to the New Year: Why I Homeschool, Part 1 | TheHomeSchoolMom Blog | TheHomeSchoolMom.com

Here’s to the New Year: Why I Homeschool, Part 1 | TheHomeSchoolMom Blog | TheHomeSchoolMom.com

ClipArt ETC: Free Educational Illustrations for Classroom Use

ClipArt ETC: Free Educational Illustrations for Classroom Use

When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

So much to say about this. One thought that comes to mind? These tests that determine your future are so in line with socialist thinking. "This is as good as you'll ever be. We can't all be the best, so stand over there and do what we tell you. Don't try to be anything more than that. Just enjoy what you have and contribute at your level. Which level, I will remind you, WE decide based on OUR ideals."

Hopefully I will get a chance to come back and update this post with my full thoughts!

In the meantime, check out this link:

When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids

By Valerie Strauss

Update, 4:40 p.m. Tuesday:

Revealed: The school board member who took standardized test

Original post:

This was written by Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author.

By Marion Brady

A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do. He took versions of his state’s high-stakes standardized math and reading tests for 10th graders, and said he’d make his scores public.

By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school board responsibilities. The margins of his electoral wins and his good relationships with administrators and teachers testify to his openness to dialogue and willingness to listen. ....

...Here’s the clincher in what he wrote:

“If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had.

....

Go to the Washington Post to read the rest of this article.

Interesting Home school article in Stanford Magazine

This is an older article, but interesting none the less.

In a Class by Themselves:  A wave of homeschoolers has reached the Farm--students with unconventional training and few formal credentials. What have they got that Stanford wants? And how do admission officers spot it?

by Christine Foster

MICHAEL BUTLER WAS NEVER TARDY to his high school homeroom. He never left an assignment in his locker. He never earned a disappointing grade--or any grade, for that matter. He didn't get a diploma. He did, on the other hand, raise honeybees, train with an army and study modern Hebrew. And he managed to get into Stanford. His unconventional education has been largely a solo journey, but Butler, '04, isn't alone. Together with at least eight others on the Farm and thousands more nationwide, he's part of a new demographic surge: young Americans schooled at home who are now going to college. Homeschooling isn't new. History is full of self-starters who bypassed the classroom, sometimes with brilliant results: Edison left school at age 7 and was soon building chemistry sets in the cellar; Dickens picked up much of his knowledge on the streets. But the practice of parents teaching kids at home didn't draw much attention until the 1980s, when many fundamentalist Christians, distressed by what they saw as declining academic rigor and a lack of moral guidance, began pulling their children from school. Homeschooling became a full-fledged movement, with its own publications, support networks and Internet curriculum providers. No single organization tracks the numbers of homeschoolers nationwide, but using state-by-state data, the National Home Education Research Institute estimates that 1.3 million to 1.7 million students were educated at home last year--or roughly 1 in 33 school-aged children. Over the past decade, according to the institute, the number has risen by some 7 to 15 percent each year. It's unclear how many homeschoolers are currently of high school age, but according to the Educational Testing Service, 5,663 students who took the sat last year described themselves as homeschooled. As a result of the movement's vocal--and still predominant--religious wing, many Americans continue to picture homeschooling as a mother and her children gathered around the kitchen table, alternating between a math workbook and a Bible. But an increasing number of families cite education, not religion, as their primary reason for abandoning conventional schools. These are parents who simply feel that neither public nor private schools will meet their kids' needs. They want the freedom to focus on each child's strengths and weaknesses and to let maturing students chart their own intellectual journeys. Of course, there comes a point when even the most self-directed learner can use guidance from scholarly instructors. When high-achieving homeschoolers reach that threshold, many look to top-tier colleges and universities. In competing for admission, they want the same sort of academic recognition enjoyed by their more conventionally educated peers, even though they're short on formal credentials. Among the nation's elite universities, Stanford has been one of the most eager to embrace them. Despite the uncertainties of admitting students with no transcripts or teacher recommendations, the University welcomes at least a handful every year. Stanford has found that the brightest homeschoolers bring a mix of unusual experiences, special motivation and intellectual independence that makes them a good bet to flourish on the Farm. THE UNIVERSITY'S SPECIAL INTEREST in these students originated, in large part, with a single admission officer. Jonathan Reider, '67, PhD '83, is a national expert on college-bound homeschoolers. He spent 15 years at Stanford as senior associate director of undergraduate admission and as a lecturer in the Structured Liberal Education program. Though he left the Farm last summer to direct college counseling at a San Francisco high school, his enthusiasm had spread and become institutionalized. For the past two years, for instance, the University has tracked every application from a homeschooled student. These forms get flagged with a special code that lets reviewers find them among stacks of applications and helps admission officials chart emerging trends. Many top schools do not do this, including Harvard and Yale. "I don't think anyone has caught on to the fact that these are such interesting kids," Reider says. The latest Stanford numbers show a rise in homeschooler applications. In 1999, the first year of tracking, 15 applied. Four were admitted, and all four enrolled. In 2000, there were 35 applications, more than double the previous year's. Nine were accepted, and five, including Butler, started classes on the Farm this fall. That's a tiny subgroup, just 0.2 percent of the applicant pool. So why is the University interested? Admission officers sum it up in two words: intellectual vitality. It's hard to define, but they swear they know it when they see it. It's the spark, the passion, that sets the truly exceptional student--the one driven to pursue independent research and explore difficult concepts from a very early age--apart from your typical bright kid. Stanford wants students who have it. Looking very closely at homeschoolers is one way to get more of those special minds, the admission office has discovered. As Reider explains it: "Homeschooled students may have a potential advantage over others in this, since they have consciously chosen and pursued an independent course of study." Indeed, when he and his colleagues read applications last year, they gave the University's highest internal ranking for intellectual vitality to two of the nine homeschoolers admitted. And an astounding four homeschoolers earned the highest rating for math--something reserved for the top 1 to 2 percent of the applicant pool. "The distinguishing factor is intellectual vitality," says Reider. "These kids have it, and everything they do is responding to it." DOES STANFORD LURE MORE OF THEM than other elite schools? It's hard to tell when others don't keep the same statistics, but Reider has given the University a particularly high profile among families in the movement. popular speaker at homeschooling conferences, he has offered hundreds of families encouragement and advice on getting into college. In 1997, the magazine Growing Without Schooling published Reider's explanation of the University's requirements and his tips for homeschoolers seeking to apply. Written in the form of a letter to a Stanford hopeful, his article went to thousands of readers and has been passed from family to family. Today, homeschoolers who ask Stanford about its policies receive that letter as part of the reply. When Reider talks to college-bound homeschoolers, he acknowledges the difficulties they face in completing the traditional forms. It's hard to sell yourself in a college application without grades or teachers to back you up. "But wait," he joked at one conference in Sacramento, mimicking a hypothetical student. "My mom is putting together a transcript--I got an a in everything! I'm valedictorian!" The audience laughed. Reider may tease, but this is the crux of the problem for application reviewers. In making sure a student has the right stuff for Stanford, "what we want is validation." Stanford likes homeschoolers to get at least two of their three recommendations from non-family members--say, tutors, mentors, community college professors, or civic leaders they volunteered with--although a parent's letter will be considered. As for the missing transcripts, Reider wrote in his article: "This is actually not as serious a problem as you might expect, since there is not a great deal of difference between someone with no grades and someone with excellent grades but from a small, rural high school with which we are otherwise unfamiliar." Whereas some state schools insist on seeing grades--prompting homeschoolers to cobble together course lists and rate their own performance--Stanford asks gradeless applicants to describe their curriculum in detail. The core of the application then becomes what the students write about themselves and their education. "We would like to hear about how the family chose homeschooling, how the learning was organized and what benefits (and costs, if any) they have derived," Reider wrote. Standardized test scores also carry extra weight, although tests aren't decisive by themselves. In addition to the mandated sat and act tests, the University urges homeschoolers to take some sat ii subject exams (formerly called achievement tests), even though these aren't required. Overall, though, the University isn't forcing these kids through lots of extra hoops to prove themselves. Nor are other elite private schools, such as Harvard or mit. But that's not always true of public universities. Ross Hensley, a current Stanford sophomore who scored perfect 800s on the three sat ii exams he took, says one of the schools he initially looked into, Georgia Tech, required homeschoolers to take eight of those tests. And Michael Butler decided not to apply to the uc system after discovering that every applicant must provide one of the following: an official high school transcript, evidence of success in community college courses, or a math/verbal sat total of at least 1,400. STANFORD'S CURRENT HOMESCHOOLERS aren't the first to reach top-tier institutions. The poster children of the movement were the sons of Micki and David Colfax, two former teachers who raised their children on a goat farm in Northern California's Mendocino County. During the 1980s, three Colfax boys headed off, in succession, to Harvard. Their admittance created a national media sensation. The Colfaxes happened to live not far from Michael Butler's family. ("We bred our goat to theirs," he recalls.) "On some level, they had really validated homeschooling," says Butler's mom, Esther Baruch. "But I was not sure we had homeschooled the same way, so I didn't take it as evidence that Michael could get in." To cover the bases, he applied to 10 colleges. He was accepted by six and rejected by four, including Harvard. Butler's schooling was shaped in part by where he lived. To get there, you start in the small city of Ukiah, drive an hour west toward the hamlet of Philo and then turn onto a dirt road. About three miles down, you turn off and go down a hill into a clearing in the redwoods, marked by two mobile homes connected by a porch. A proper supermarket is an hour up the road; the nearest high school is a half hour's drive. It's a place where homeschooling is vastly more convenient. But conviction, more than convenience, is the reason Baruch kept her children at home. At age 16, she vowed that if she ever had kids, their education would differ from hers. Baruch attended a traditional Hebrew yeshiva in Brooklyn. "I was very much excited about learning, but there was not time to just learn for the love of learning," she says. "There was an hour [for each subject], and when it was up, the bell rang. That was it. Interested, not interested, awake, asleep--you moved on to the next thing." Butler, in contrast, has followed his fancy, learning mainly by experience. His mother seized upon daily activities like cooking and gardening as educational opportunities. Butler and his siblings practiced math by dividing recipes in the kitchen; they devoured books on dinosaurs and mammals. Through an afternoon class offered at a local school, Butler got hooked on beekeeping. NATURALLY, FAMILIES VARY in how they school their kids. Ross Hensley had a different experience--also self-styled, but decreasingly home-based. His parents started homeschooling tentatively, as an experiment, when Hensley was in sixth grade. He had attended a local public school and two private schools, where he remembers feeling bored by the workbook assignments. "They just piled on pointless, easy work." He took advantage of the freedom of homeschooling to push himself beyond anything regular schools might allow. At age 13, for example, Hensley got a textbook and dove into the physics of special relativity, even though he hadn't been taught the calculus that most teachers would consider a prerequisite. Leaving school at an early age, he says, "gave me a tremendous amount of time to pursue my interests in depth." Later, he sought more formal instruction. The Houston native--who passed seven advanced-placement exams, including the tough calculus test when he was just a high school sophomore&emdash;spent most of his senior year at nearby Rice University doing college-sophomore-level coursework in math and electrical engineering. He attended a Stanford-run summer program for gifted high schoolers and took distance-learning courses over the Internet through Stanford's Educational Program for Gifted Youth. Add all that together and you get enough credits to enter the University with junior standing (although Hensley's social class is '03). AMONG HOMESCHOOLERS who end up at Stanford, "self-teaching" is a common thread. Parents usually teach in the early grades, assigning and correcting work, but later shift to a supervisory role, spending more time tracking down books and mentors. Stanford-bound homeschoolers typically take several college courses before they apply. The admission office encourages this, both to help with evaluation and to give students a taste of classroom learning before they arrive on the Farm. A few, like Becca Hall, '03, pursue a free-form, follow-your-heart sort of home education known as "unschooling." During high school, Hall did an hour of math and an hour of writing each day, but filled the rest of her time doing crafts, taking nature hikes, apprenticing with an herbalist and studying labor history through old folk songs. Along the way, she picked up enough knowledge to earn a 1,480 on the sat (including a 750 out of 800 in math, a subject she once feared). But a lifetime of "unschooling" can make it hard to embrace a structured institution like Stanford. Hall, who grew up near Seattle, says she's considering transferring to somewhere "more liberal," perhaps UC-Santa Cruz or Washington's Evergreen State. If she stays at Stanford, she will likely pursue an individualized major blending her interests in ecology and religious studies. "It's definitely weird being in an institution now," the sophomore says. "I want to be able to pursue what I want. I want to be somewhere where it's okay if I don't want to follow the rules." HALL'S DISCOMFORT RAISES A WORRY often cited by critics of homeschooling. Can these students learn to live with the rules of the larger world? Are they properly socialized? Parents say they can hear the socialization question coming before it's asked--and it clearly annoys them. (They even call it the "s" word.) "People always ask in this tone of voice that suggests they're the first to have thought of it," Baruch says. "I sometimes answer, 'Yes, I think the way schoolkids are socialized is a terrible thing; I don't know what to do about it.'" She dismisses fears that homeschoolers aren't well socialized. "I don't think [those worries] are borne out at all, in any way." Backing her up is a 1999 survey organized by Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute. Ray found that the typical homeschooler takes part in at least five social activities outside the home every week--from dance classes and sports teams to scout troops and community theater. He also collected previous findings by educators and psychologists suggesting that children taught at home are actually socially and emotionally healthier than those in schools. They are more comfortable interacting with adults and less likely to pin their self-esteem to the fads and whims of teenagers, Ray says. The way these youngsters learn social skills--modeling themselves after adults rather than peers--is more consistent with the way children have been socialized through most of history, Esther Baruch asserts. "Until about a hundred years ago, the rich kids learned from adult tutors, and poor kids went to work early," she says. "Now, [kids in schools] model themselves after the other kids, who model themselves after tv characters--and the results of that are clear." Homeschoolers tend to meet adults in the community during the day when they're out running errands, doing public service projects or seeking out mentors. Becca Hall, for one, is grateful for her friendships with adults. One of her closest confidantes is 35--"and that's fine," she says. "I also have younger friends. I think that is more healthy than every one of your friends being your age." ROB REICH, a Stanford political scientist who has studied the homeschooling phenomenon, doesn't worry about socialization. Of more concern, in his view, is the risk of intellectual isolation. "One of the fundamental purposes of education should be to engage kids with ideas that are different from the ideas they encounter at home," he says. Intellectual isolation may be more prevalent, he says, when children's educations are shaped by religious dogma. Reich, MA '98, PhD '98, who describes himself as a cautious supporter of homeschooling, has another reservation: the practice is essentially unregulated in much of the nation, and even where regulations do exist, families interpret them loosely. Each state decides whether parents need any sort of certification to teach their children and must file reports on student progress with their local school district. Most states require no certification, although a handful demand that the instructing parent have a high school or college education. In California, parents can either arrange an independent study for their children through the local district or submit documents to gain classification as a private school. The statute does not give local districts the right to disallow a homeschool program and does not require standardized testing of these students. Reich has some qualms about parental qualifications. However, he adds, "there certainly are very competent people who don't have a college degree and don't have a high school degree." Instead of requiring a degree, he thinks local districts should assess parents' competence by reviewing the materials they would use to teach their kids. He also supports annual student testing to confirm that homeschoolers are progressing. Even college students who thrived with homeschooling sometimes point to drawbacks. Hall and Hensley, after living in dorms for more than a year, are beginning to suspect they missed out on a few things. They had no high school prom. No passing notes in class. No football games. No lunchtime club meetings. None of the common vocabulary of the school experience that most Americans take for granted. This can leave kids with a sense of separateness. "Ideally, homeschooling is a lot better than public school, but it can be easy to get lonely," Hall says. "You have to be willing to be weird, to not fit in." "It worked great for me, but I'm not going to evangelize for it," says Hensley. "The conditions have to be very specific for homeschooling to work right." GINGER TURNER, '04, WOULD ARGUE that in her case, the right conditions--supportive parents, self-motivation and a thirst to pursue new interests--all fell into place. While Turner was homeschooling in Galveston, Texas, her parents logged thousands of miles chauffeuring her to activities--ballet classes, choir practice, a gig as a guide at a local historical site. "For me, homeschooling has always been about being out in the community," she says. Turner, like others, has tried education both ways. When her public elementary school wouldn't let her skip first grade, her parents taught her at home for second and third. She went back to public school for fourth, fifth and sixth, then decided she'd rather be home again at the beginning of seventh grade. For the first three years of high school, she studied through a correspondence course offered by Texas Tech University. Then she spent her senior year taking classes at Texas A&M-Galveston. Homeschooling sparked esoteric paths of inquiry, she says. Watching her younger brother struggle with a speech impediment, and then hearing her Salvadoran cousins speak Spanish, encouraged an early interest in linguistics&emdash;a field most kids don't encounter before college. While researching on the web, Turner stumbled across work by Yale linguistics professor Abigail Kaun. Turner began corresponding with her, eventually auditing one of Kaun's courses online. "I've done so many things I wouldn't have been able to do if I'd been in regular school," Turner says. "It allowed me to maximize my potential and customize my education." OF COURSE, THE REAL TEST for Turner and Butler is under way this fall as they adapt to a more structured academic environment and to the close quarters of dorm life. Hensley, Hall and others have paved the way&emdash;adjusting pretty well, both say, to the competition with other exceptional students and the daily interaction with professors. Because most homeschoolers have done significant college coursework before they arrive on the Farm, freshman year can be less a major change than another step in a continuum for them. As Hensley recalls it, "There was no real sense of a huge break from my prior life." Linda Dobson, author of Homeschoolers' Success Stories (Prima Publishing, 2000) and news editor and columnist for Home Education Magazine, believes the very nature of homeschooling--requiring kids to be self-driven and to handle the details of their own education--can give these students an edge as freshmen. "It's not, 'I'm free now--I'm going to go to college and party,'" Dobson says. "These kids know what it's like to handle responsibility." Despite that confidence, homeschooling families sense that their successes and failures will be watched. "Whatever we do, we are sort of pioneers," explains Esther Baruch. "This is the first good-sized wave, and you feel as though the movement sinks or swims with you. You don't want to let down the side." Christine Foster is a Bay Area writer and a frequent contributor to STANFORD.

HIS WAY: Ross Hensley taught himself special-relativity physics at age 13. Glenn Matsumura Photo by Robb Kendrick NATURAL STUDENT: Becca Hall apprenticed with an herbalist. Rex Rystedt

The Book of Mormon -Another Testament of Christ

The beautiful closing song in this video is performed by The Mormon Choral Organization.  My sweet daughters sing with the Young Singers and Children's Chorus of this organization and my cool sister-in-law plays violin in the orchestra.  They are awesome!! By "they" I mean the organization, my daughters and my sister-in-law.

If you are ever in Orange County during December or in the Spring you can see them perform at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.

The Christian Case for Mormon Values?

Hmmm..lots to think about after reading the article found here.


It was written back in February by one of the On Faith panelists at the Washington Post and raises some interesting points about Mormons in America.  Neither of the two Mormon Presidential contenders has nabbed my vote, yet.  Hunstman is far too liberal for my tastes, but I have not ruled out Romney.  It will be an interesting election year for sure.

Mark 400th Anniversary by Studying Bible

Mark 400th Anniversary by Studying Bible


Picture found at http://www.sirbacon.org


It's hard to believe that 400 years have passed since the King James version of the Bible has been published. I plan on devoting a little more time to studying it's precious words this month. I'm so grateful for the sweet words contained within it's pages and for the sacrifice of those who made it's publication possible.

One of my FAVORITE books on one of those dear martyrs, is Fire In the Bones, by S. Michael Wilcox, which I HIGHLY recommend. It is one of my favorite books. Reads like a story, though it is NOT historical fiction.

From the book jacket:

He was William Tyndale, and the
story of his life, told in Fire in the Bones, reads like a novel, as
exciting in its facts as any fiction could be. He knew the smugglers' secret
marks and their intense, fraternal loyalty. He tasted the salt of shipwreck and
knew the despair of lost manuscripts buried under the waves of the North Sea.
Intrigue, safe houses, bribes, spies, covert conversations, last-minute flight,
aliases, imprisonment, loneliness, all wove their spell into the riddles of his
hidden world. He died at last as a martyr, but not before he had bequeathed to
the world some of the most beloved and sacred phrases and terms in Holy Writ,
including Atonement , still small voice , and Let there be
Light. Readers everywhere will be captivated by his story.

Cab-Schooled Student Earned Ticket To Harvard : NPR

Cab-Schooled Student Earned Ticket To Harvard : NPR


Linda and Kerry Anderson (photo Associated Press)

I love this interview! Kerry Anderson shares her experience of homeschooling on the road and the surprising outcome. It just makes me laugh at the absurdity and yet I find myself awe inspired at the sacrifices this mother made for her children. Perhaps road schooling is in our future?