The Size of Things

I mostly wanted to bookmark this to show my children, but then I thought there would be others who would enjoy this illustration.

Homeschooling: Back to the Future

This is an old piece from The Cato Institute that I may have even had in my files once upon a time, but I thought it was one of the more interesting pieces on homeschooling and I really appreciated the historical look beginning with Raymond Moore and John Holt. I am of the Holt persuassion, and I have often encouraged people to look to work by Raymond Moore, especially when anxieties about reading and writing come up in regards to young children.

The constituencies Raymond Moore and Holt individually attracted reflected the backgrounds and lifestyles of the two researchers. Moore, a former Christian missionary, earned a sizable (but hardly an exclusive) following among parents who chose homeschooling primarily to impart traditional religious mores to their children--the Christian right. Holt, a humanist, became a cult figure of sorts to the wing of the homeschooling movement that drew together New Age devotees, ex-hippies, and homesteaders--the countercultural left.

The two men earned national reputations as educational pioneers, working independently of one another, eloquently addressing the angst that a diverse body of Americans felt about the modern-day educational system--a system that seemed to exist to further the careers of educational elites instead of one that served the developmental needs of impressionable children. In the 1970s the countercultural left, who responded more strongly to Holt's cri de coeur, comprised the bulk of homeschooling families. By the mid-1980s, however, the religious right would be the most dominant group to choose homeschooling and would change the nature of homeschooling from a crusade against "the establishment" to a crusade against the secular forces of modern-day society.

Buttressed by their national media appearances, legislative and courtroom testimony, and speeches to sympathetic communities, Holt and Moore worked tirelessly to deliver to an often-skeptical public the message that homeschooling is a good, if not a superior, way to educate American children; that it is, in a sense, a homecoming, a return to a preindustrial era, when American families worked and learned together instead of apart.

Please take the time to read the entire article here:
Policy Anaylysis
Homeschooling: Back to the Future

Thanks, Rebecca, for the link.

Website Changes

Moving along slowly but surely... Kansas Area Homeschool Network has a website home once again. At this point it is primarily archives from the previous incarnation, but you are welcome to visit and browse. Changes and updates to the site will be announced from here.

Living and Learning in Oz
(Home of KS Area Homeschool Network)

Consuming Kids

A friend from a local homeschool group shared the following.



JoAnn's comments:

This morning I just went to a screening of this documentary:

http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/events/consumingkids.html

I give this film my highest possible recomendation, and it is my fervent hope that every parent in America would view this film immediately. In fact, I took my 11 year old with me to see it, and she was very glad that she saw it, and felt that it helped her to better understand and look with a more critical eye at a lot of things that are currently targeted to her age group. In addition, this film looked separately at every developmental stage from infancy to post adolescent, and also at differences in marketing for each gender.

It covered the full gamet including the history of government regulation of media, the breadth of marketing (schools, ipods, targeted radio on school busses, cell phones and much more) how market research is done (and this will chill you to see how children are even being recruited to surrepticiously gather data on peers, how brain waves and eye blinks are recorded in response to various types of visual stimuli) and how this all is affecting the health and well being of our entire citizenry.

Leap of Faith

This is a speech by Dagny, an unschooled teen, that I bookmarked ages ago with the intention of sharing it. It was given at the NE Unschooling Conference in May of 2008.

Take a moment to read it when you have some time to sit back and just reflect on the words. There is a lot of wisdom here.

My favorite part is this:

Parenting should be a gift to you, not a curse. Parenting should be a beautiful and scary thing. Not a wrong and stressful thing.

...

We have a trusting family base who are always there and knowledgeable and kind and supportive of us and our needs and wants from this life. Trust comes in many forms and I've found my parents’ trust in unschooling to be the most necessary part of the whole unschooling process.

I also love that she lists "42" as one of the possible meanings of life.

My kids and I recently read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy together. Although I have friends who have loved the book (and series?) over the years, I had never read it myself. I was worried that it would be above my kids' heads, but all three of them loved it, and I'm talking laugh-out-loud, quoting passages loving it. I learned to appreciate something I wouldn't have tried on my own.

Dagny's mother, Rue Kream, is author of Parenting a Free Child: An Unschooled Life.

Union Station ~ Memorial Day Weekend

Lots to do at Union Station this weekend. Click here for details.

The Art of the Brick

This would be a great event to see if you find yourself in Kansas City. The exhibit is open May 23 through September 7 and is free to the public.

The Art of the Brick™ (An Art Adventure with LEGO®
Bricks)

The exhibit consists of approximately 30 artworks created solely from LEGO® blocks, by artist Nathan Sawaya. The amazing designs include Lennon Tribute, Apples, Infinity, Sunflower and Globe, ranging in size from 20 inches to 78
inches.

Admission: FREE

Time: Open during Crown Center Shops regular shopping hours

Location: Crown Center
Shops, Level 1 Atrium

Here's a link to Nathan Sawaya if you are not familiar with his work.

Thanks, Patricia, for the tip.

Teen Driving Site

For those of you who are looking to have teen drivers on your hands soon, Teendriving.com has a lot of good information for parents and young drivers, everything from tips on teaching your kid to drive to information on insurance and safety products.

Site Status Note & Invitation to Participate

I just wanted to say that we (the mouse in my pocket and myself) are working on some changes for KAHN and the Living and Learning Blog.

First, we will be going back to a website format because people report, repeatedly, that the blog format is hard to navigate. I will announce the site address soon. I will maintain the blog for announcements and quick updates.

Second, in anticipation of our new and improved site -- please send us your contributions!

We need more Show & Tell! Photos from area homeschool get-togethers would be great, as well as projects that individual kids and families are working on. Poems, stories, drawings, movies you've made for YouTube ... anything goes. Remember that we don't publish full names of kids -- just the first name and age will do.

We are working on adding to and updating our Kansas homeschool directory, so if you are a coordinator of a support group, be sure to send us your details. ALL groups are encouraged to submit to the directory. We will just provide links where we don't have contacts.

As always, if you have a contribution -- anything from a short blip about you day to a full essay about your homeschooling life -- we would like to hear from you and/or your kids.

Thanks,
Tracy