More Rules

I thought of some more!

Finish reading every book you start. There are probably hundreds of books that I want to read - really. If I finished every lousy book I started, I would never get to the good ones. If I get a book that is just sitting there staring at me, after I've tried to read it a few times, I bag it. On to something more exciting.

Make your bed every morning. You're just going to get back in it at night!

Brush your teeth while camping. Now, if you are going for a week, then yes, please brush! But I always thought it was funny when moms would run around every night nagging their kids to brush their teeth, at Girl Scout camp or a camping weekend. One or two days of not brushing is NOT going to make your teeth fall out. You might wonder why other people aren't talking to you, but your teeth will still be there.

Keep the heat at 68 and the air conditioning at 78. Strike that, reverse it. I love air conditioning! I wish we had it. If we did I would keep it on every single day, and I would make sure I could feel it. None of that half-hearted - maybe we should turn on the air stuff for me. Same with the heat. In the winter I want to be warm. Now I know this does cost extra money, but hey, I can use the money we save on not paying for the boob-tube.

Rules

Why do people have so many rules?

Like, sorting clothes before washing. Alex said someone at camp asked him if he could wash a light blue shirt with a dark one. He was like - "sure...". We don't sort clothes around here. Why should we? We don't really have that many white clothes and anyway, I read somewhere a few years ago that clothes are made so poorly now-a-days that they won't last more then a year or two - even with precise washing machine care. So why?

Cats should not go on the table. Realistically, if you have a cat in your house, its fur is everywhere, all the time. Just because your cat is shunned from the table does not mean there will not be any fur on it. If it bugs you, then you will need to wipe the table down everytime before you eat anyway. I do draw the line on cats on the table while I eat. I also really don't like them on the counter - but that's what a squirt bottle is for.

Pots, pans and sharp knives shouldn't go in the dishwasher. Why not? They get cleaner, especially since these are the things that usually are touching meat. They don't get handwashed and then sit for a few days in the drying half of the sink, waiting to be put away. I say the more things in the dishwasher, the better.

Mow the grass every week. Who cares about grass? I really wish all our grass would go away and be taken over by more natural landscape like Oregon Grape or Sallal. Especially in our front yard. If we have to grow grass in the back, then I prefer it to be the type that is healthy for deer and elk and the rabbits who come through here. No fertilizers and pesticides. And if it grows long, there's more for the critters to eat

Don't use too much butter. WHAT! Again I say the more, the better. Especially on vegetables, And especially if it is pasture butter.

Kids need to play sports. Again why? I am all for physical fitness, but really. Four seasons of team sports, practices, games - no time for family vacations, or even family dinners. See this.

Kids need to go to school. Enough said.

For rules that might actually be worthwhile, see here.

In Defense of Consumerism

I have a question. How can I "know" so many bloggers with the same values (in general - not political) as I, and yet meet so few in person? I guess it could be the blogs I read - blogs of good friends, and blogs like this and this and this and this. But what about the "mainsteam" people? Don't they blog? I'd love to read some blogs of people defending why it is good for your kids to text 24/7. And why shopping at the mall for designer clothes is a family activity. Living life with your "friends" on Facebook instead of, well, living life. (And Farmville? Come on!!!) Watching TV enough so that your kids hear 14,000 references to sex in one year? Playing video games for hours on end instead of reading or playing a family board game - please enlighten me!!! I'd love to read about what is going on with the affluenza set, because that seems to be how most of the people I meet in person think.

If you know any blog sites like this - defending consumerism - please post them as a comment.

Judge Not.

Today, in the place where I should not be judgemental, I was. During Mass - ALL of it - a little girl 3 pews in front of us spent the whole time playing her Nintendo DS! At first I thought this girl had a pink book. Never mind that she looked to be around 8 or 9 years old - at the very least past First Communion age when kids should be listening. But while looking up at our priest during the homily, I was startled to notice it was a DS! This little girl sat all through Mass, even when the rest of us stood, playing DS with her little sister looking over her shoulder.

It drives me crazy enough when parents allow their kids to bring the DS into a restaurant, rather then take responsibility and teach them how to sit and socialize, but church? Come on! Now I have to add this to my list of things that irresponsible parents do in church. (My list also includes food in church - it's only an hour, eat before...) I even contemplated telling her smug, affluent looking parents that I would pray for them at the end of Mass. And then, right after the Eucharest, I looked over and the girl's mom was kneeling, and praying and crying. And I realized, who am I to judge? I have no idea what is happening in that family. And maybe if the DS was the only way to get that family to Mass and allow the mom to have Communion and pray and cry, then so be it. God doesn't mind, so why should I?

You People...

Yesterday, Alex, my mom and I picked up Rachel from Veterinarian Camp at Purdue. There was a "graduation" ceremony and the speaker was really interesting. Here's the gist of what she said:

"Purdue has been running it's GERI summer program now for 33 years, and it just keeps getting better and better. Programs like this are so important for kids like yours, given the state of education. Most of these kids are probably straight A students. Some maybe not - they're too bored. Those are my favorites - the ones too smart to conform. They go to school everyday, but are they really getting what they need? Mark Twain said "I never let schooling interfere with my education". Unfortunately, education today is a lot like filling a pail full of water and never using it. Eventually it either gets dumped out or stagnate. At GERI, we make sure it's not stagnate. Our classes give kids hands on opportunities to dive into their subject. There are no grades, because we want to encourage kids to soar, not worry about what kind of grade they will get. We want them to think of a million ways to do something. Benjamin Franklin said "I didn't fail the test, I just found a million ways to do it wrong." We think kids should be allowed to specialize in what they are interested. Whose purpose does the "well-rounded" student serve? If someone is brilliant in math, but still required to take 4 years of English, what purpose does that serve other then taking time away from what that student does best? We think kids should have the opportunity to learn in a way that is encouraging, fun and meaningful."

(There was more - her speech was 20 minutes. She mentioned things like 99% of Valedictorian's end up in middle management...)

At the end, I was like WOW! They really get it here at Purdue. I went and talked to her, thinking she might have some good resources for high school kids who have the luxury of not having to sit in class all day, learning information that stagnates. Here's the conversation.

Me: I really enjoyed your speech.
RM: (huge smile)
Me: I am currently homeschooling two high achieving kids
RM: (frown)
Me: (now hesitant) and was wondering if you have suggestions or resources, especially for high school students that will be applying to college...
RM: Well, you know they still need to take AP classes and all the tests and anyway that's not my area of specialty. Don't you people have all kinds of resources?

You people... Really? Someone that sounded so enlightened could only reach as far as offering a 1 week summer alternative to schooling as a solution to what she five minutes before called stagnate? Very closed minded. Alex called her hypocritical. Rachel said her speech was bull(onie!) I am not very enamored with Purdue. Maybe Ms. Mann needs a lesson from Ms. Goldson.

Valedictorian Against Schooling (a must read & was not written by me)

(Author's horse - bucking the system!)

Dear Editor,

(The following was read as the valedictorian's speech at Coxsackie-Athens High School in recent weeks, creating quite a stir among administrators, to great applause from students and many of their parents)

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master: "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen?" The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years . ." (The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast - How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" (Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path."

This is the dilemma I've faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, "Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer - not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition - a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, "We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness - curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don't do that." Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.
H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States. (Gatto)

To illustrate this idea, doesn't it perturb you to learn about the idea of "critical thinking." Is there really such a thing as "uncritically thinking?" To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn't for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren't we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don't have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can't run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be - but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, "You have to learn this for the test" is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.
For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn't have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a "see you later" when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let's go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we're smart enough to do so!

Erica Goldson
Athens, NY

Here's her blog - America Via Erica . And, read the comments too!

And, here's an interview - Washington Times Homeschool Community.

"Love in a Time of Homeschooling"

I just read a new book - Love in the Time of Homeschooling by Laura Brodie. A super easy (like 3 hour) read, and pretty cute. The author decided her daughter needed a sabbatical from school and homeschooled her for 5th grade. I appreciated mom's description of real life homeschooling - it's not always a June Cleaver world. I also thought it was cool that most of the books that inspired the author to homeschool like The Well-Trained Mind, and Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense were my inspirations as well. Since the Brodie's plan was to homeschool for just a year though, they created an insane plan to make sure they covered everything the public school was covering. This left little time for fun and flexibility, and I found that pretty sad. The main thing I am going to work on for next year, in fact, is more FUN! I did not sign up to be a Nazi homeschool mom, and I don't want to have to micromanage the kids' work. Now if they would just get their stuff done...