I just read The World's Best Family Christmas Letter from The World's Best Family. It's a hilarious treatise. Basically, you get letters from people who never call, write or email you, but who want to let you "catch up" about their kids, church volunteer efforts, accolades and careers all rosied up with tidbits about how environmentally friendly and health-conscious they are.
Have you also noticed that the older the letter writers get the more it reads like a health journal? (Grandpa had [insert procedure] done to his liver. I had my [insert organ] removed.)
Us? We blog. That's how we brag about our kids, volunteer efforts, accolades, etc. =)
What They Play is a guide for parents to know about the content of the video games their children are playing. A great resource if you have pre-teens that are getting into games with grown-up themes.
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil." -- CS Lewis.
This is a warning issued in 1978 but is more applicable than ever.
"Resistance to abortion will be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened.... Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even in these, however, let us leave a record so that the choices are clear, letting others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, but others will step forward, having been rallied to rightness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds which was, till then, unconscious of itself. Jesus said that when the fig trees put forth their leaves, 'summer is nigh.' Thus warned that summer is upon us, let us not then complain of the heat."
(Elder Neal A. Maxwell, BYU devotional address, Oct 10, 1978)
30 years ago - almost to the day - Neal A. Maxwell said the following at a BYU devotional.
In 1995, Gordon Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sought to bring clarity to many of the questions at stake in modern debate. (And what's the role of a prophet if not to provide the long-range view on these kinds of matters!)
Over the years I have loved the simplicity and clarity of the language that outlines the fundamental organizing principles for a healthy society. I remember thinking how timely the announcement was in 1995 but it seems all the more timely given recent legislation in Massachusetts, Canada parts of Europe and in California.
This is a defining moment and here is what I believe a modern Prophet has to say on the matter.
1- Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children.
2- Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.
3- We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.
4- Children are entitled to birth within the
bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor
marital vows with complete fidelity.
5- We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere
to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family
as the fundamental unit of society.
The full text is here: http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,161-1-11-1,00.html
We weren't sure what we'd think of Amtrak. We knew it would be slower than driving, and much slower than flying. We knew I'd enjoy not driving and that the kids would be ready for an adventure. So we charged our laptop batteries, got some good novels and snack foods and took the train up to Washington.
Riding a train through the dark with the glint of moonlight on the Pacific Ocean was truly beautiful. We woke in the morning in Northern California, catching daybreak in the mountains around Mount Shasta. The passengers were much more laid back than airline passengers. The cafe-car food was like eating at 7-Eleven, only with less variety and more freezer burn. The dining car food was fine, but overpriced as we expected. But that didn't phase us, we were determined to enjoy the trip.
But our return trip was another story and holds the reason we won't be traveling by long-haul Amtrak again.
The rest of the story includes 3 passengers taking meth who threatened a passenger when he asked them to stop. It included us staying up all night; afraid to take our eyes off our kids (since we couldn't all sit in one row) and a crew that was inept at handling criminal behavior. The conclusion involves making phone calls to Amtrak, to California police, then to Amtrack police who finally told us to call our Congressman.
I can deal with "colorful" stuff; I used to live in Oakland and New York City. No, the disgusting part is the way the crew turned a blind eye to illegal and threatening activity taking place in a passenger car on a publicly funded vessel.
The first lesson is Amtrak is not cost effective and is under staffed and under funded. The second lesson is that when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he wants to build a multi-billion dollar high speed rail connecting LA and SF, I have to laugh. He doesn't have a magic formula to make rail travel successful and get the ridership needed to make it viable.
This is a thoughtful post about creating video games infused with
attributes of our faith. So interesting that I added my own comments
about how some video game genres cross the line with games that are heavily bent toward creating addictive gaming behaviors.
Focusing not on the "how" of home education, but the "why"
First up is this talk by Sir Ken Robinson, a professor from England, titled "Do Schools Kill Creativity" given at TED Conference. "Think of it." He says, "Children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065... Nobody has a clue what the world will look like in 5 years time, and yet we're meant to be educating children for that."
The talk highlights some aspects of education that go deep for us. First is the notion that schools are not designed to educate individuals in the diverse ways they each can excel in life, they're built to reward those students who think like university professors. The system is designed as if the pinnacle of achievement is to become a university professor. That's not bad, he asserts, it's just bad if that is the only and the highest achievement on offer to young people.
Second is the notion of creativity. I love this sentiment given by Picasso and elaborated on by Sir Robinson, that we are all artists as children, but the trick is to remain an artist as an adult. I happen to be a designer by profession, and trotting out "art" always bugs the entrepreneur in me. The bigger application, not to be missed, is that our creativity is educated out of us as we grow up and that school systems are chiefly to blame as they instill a fear of failure; a fear of trying something original. Being wrong is not creativity, but creativity requires a willingness to be wrong. For me, the notion of being willing to try must coexist with a willingness to fail; and then to try again.
Watch the video. I think you'll enjoy it. Sir Ken Robinson - Do Schools Kill Creativity
Maybe you've wondered about how homeschooled children will fare academically. Have you ever asked a homeschool friend if they think they'll homeschool through middle school or high school? Do you still think homeschooling means that children actually stay home all day, every day?
I personally have many friends, family members and colleagues who raise these questions to us, and they seem genuinely concerned; if not curious. Their curiosity has me on the defensive (somewhat) and I hope to smooth off some of the rough perceptions of home schooling by talking candidly about them.
Thankfully there are plenty of good studies and mainstream news articles pointing to the academic merits of children educated at home, so I don't feel a need to address that here.
So, what about the high school question? For us, the answer is not yet in stone. However, the longer we homeschool the more evidence we see of the benefits and the more we want our children to fully reap those benefits of a non-traditional and custom tailored education for as long as they possibly can.
The older our children get, the more we're able to contrast their education, their social and cultural influences and interactions versus their generation of peers. As they approach middle school and high school those influences are becoming stronger as parents' influence naturally diminishes. This only reinforces our inclination to pursue homeschooling because of the social, religous and behavioral fruit it bears. As children mature they are less reliant on parents, we fully understand and expect that. We also believe we will be, and this is our hope, a continued touchpoint for them as our influence diminishes and as their peers and their own aspirations gain importance in their lives.
Some of our friends', even our religous friends', biggest concerns is that their pre-teens will be introduced to drugs or promiscuity. This is not even among the top concerns of the parents in our local Christian homeschool group. My wife and I were in public school. We're well aware of what was happening after school dances and at 6th grade camps. Those things are nowhere near our horizon as we consider the next few years for our students.
And what about the last question. Does this all happen at home? No. The reality is most homeschooled children do more field trips and get
more civic and community involvement in a 9 month period than public
school children will get from their entire K-12 experience. More on this subject when I plug in my laptop...
