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School Issues
- Academic Issues
- Age Division
- Alternatives
- Bullying at School
- Compulsory Education
- Deschooling
- Education of Girls
- Effect on Children
- Future of Schools
- Good Schools, Bad Schools
- Homework
- Parents Are Best Teachers
- Political Interference
- Problems with Standards
- Safety Issues
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- Dispelling
the Stereotype
- Education Reform
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Is Best
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Gatto
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Programs
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Home Education
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The "S" Word
- Taking Charge
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& College-Bound
- Thoughts
& Hard Facts
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- Tolstoy
As Teacher: Leo Tolstoy's Writings on Education
by Leo Tolstoy, Robert Blaisdell, Bob Blaisdell (Editor), Christopher
Edgar (Translator)
On testing: "...Experts will probably tell me that without
this it is impossible to determine a given student's knowledge.
To this I answer that it is really impossible for an outsider
in an hour's time to determine what a student knows
..."
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- Dumbth
: The Lost Art of Thinking With 101 Ways to Reason Better &
Improve Your Mind
by Steve Allen
- What IS "dumbth"? It is not just ignorance, although
the ignorance of american students is appaling; it is contempt
for knowledge as "elitist" and "snobbish".
The End of Homework
How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits
Learning
by Etta Kralovec, John Buell
In assigning massive amounts of homework to students, teachers
and schools are essentially abdicating their responsibility to
teach. The authors forcefully advocate for protecting the leisure
time of children, who need a balance.
- Tomorrow's Children: A Blueprint for Partnership
Education for the 21st Century
by Riane Eisler, Nel Noddings
- Riane Eisler's new book is a stunning contribution to multicultural
pedagogy. Using her macrohistorical theory of dominator/partnership
swings, she offers a new framework, structure and content for
education. This is one of the most important books to come around
in a long time.
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Bullies & Victims : Helping Your Child Survive
the Schoolyard Battlefield
by Suellen Fried, Paula Fried
Bullies and Victims explores the context of teasing and the power
of relationships between children, as well as the roles of adults,
schools, the media, and society at large.
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Deschooling Our Lives
by Matt Hern (Editor)
A provocative, practical response to the crisis in our schools,
this book argues boldly for replacing compulsory schooling with
a wide variety of home, neighborhood, and community-based educational
efforts.
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- Best Selling
Homeschooling Books
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School Issues
What's wrong with this picture?
Academic Issues
You know there is a problem with the education system when
you realize that out of the three Rs, only one begins with
an R.
Science
Myths in K-6 Textbooks and Popular culture
So you think you couldn't teach science correctly at home? Homeschool
father and engineer, Bill Bickle, has links to show how school
texts mess up science facts.
Stand
and Deliver Revisited
The untold story behind the famous rise -- and shameful fall
-- of Jaime Escalante, America's master math teacher. By Jerry
Jesness.
Why Nerds
are Unpopular
The key to this mystery is to rephrase the question slightly.
Why don't smart kids make themselves popular? If they're so smart,
why don't they figure out how popularity works and beat the system,
just as they do for standardized tests? By Paul Graham.
Age Division
Isn't
it natural for children to be divided by age in school?
The fact is, however, that most American schools were ungraded
until the second half of the nineteenth century, writes Karl
Bunday.
Alternatives
Chalkboard,
computer, homeschooling
Use what works best. Amy Trollinger, special to the South Florida
Business Journal, writes about Jim Kunz. Kunz is on a one-man
crusade to convince educators, parents and students that "self-directed
learning" is the wave of the future.
Charter
Schools
A new phenomenon has arisen within communities either frustrated
with local education reform. If a school could be free to develop
its own educational charter, perhaps it would be able to find
more teaching success.
Bullying at
School
Bullying may be a good reason to homeschool
I think that when parents find themselves trapped in a situation where they cannot get their bullied kids into a different school, then homeschooling is an option that must be considered. By Andrea Hermitt.
Home schooled due to bullies
Parents of both bullying victims and expelled bullies are turning to home schooling in a bid to salvage an education for their children.
Is Home Schooling the Solution to Bullying?
When a parent decides to home school a child, an often cited reason is that the child is being bullied. While the subject of bullying is discussed more often nowadays and most schools have a policy on how to deal with bullies, many parents still feel that not enough is done when bullying is reported.
Compulsory
Education
An
Argument Between Friends: Compulsory Education vs. Unschooling
I am an avid supporter of free public education. Even though
I choose not to utilize the public schools, I am happy to support
them. My argument, therefore, is not against public schools,
but against compulsory education. I would like to see free public
education become just that: truly free. By Shay Seaborne, HEM
M/A 06.
Case Against Compulsion
Mary Novello's brief is that compulsory school attendance serves no clear educational purpose while costing untold amounts in dollars and psychic energy.
The
Emergence of Compulsory Schooling and Anarchist Resistance
The history of the development of Western schooling is a complex
and meandering thing, but I think it is worth looking at in a
very abbreviated form here. A little insight into the logics
and basis for contemporary compulsory schooling might be useful
to social ecologists. By Matt Hern, Institute for Social Ecology.
Forcing
Kids to Learn
Evidence suggests that the purpose of compulsory school attendance
may not be improving education, but social engineering, including
protecting children from the bad choices of parents. Nat'l Center
for Policy Analysis.
Government
Cafeteria?
Just suppose for a minute that in addition to our education,
government officials suddenly took it into their heads to control
what we eat?
Deschooling
Deschooling
Society
Ivan Illich's 7 chapter book, all of it, online here. From chapter
1: "The pupil is thereby "schooled" to confuse
teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma
with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something
new."
Favorite
Quotes and Excerpts
The American Homeschool Association welcomes submissions for
this collection of quotes and excerpts about children, learning,
families, education and more.
Education of Girls
AAUW Research
On the education of girls in the American school system. Numerous
research projects by the American Association of University Women
(AAUW). Available for purchase.
The
Effects on Adolescent Girls of a Girls-Only Math and Science
Curriculum
August 3, 2004. Mathematics and science instruction in girls-only
classrooms may result in higher achievement levels and enrollment
persistence for girls enrolled in those classes.
Geocities Site: Vanishing October 26, 2009. Move your content to A to Z Homeschool Blogs
Everything
I Learned At Government-Run Tax-Funded Schools
Such as "No matter how well behaved you are, if you're sitting
beside a trouble maker, you'll get in trouble."
How Schools Shortchange Girls
When girls call out answers in elementary school, typically they
are chastised and told to raise their hands. When boys call out
answers, teachers listen.
Effect on Children
Getting
Hit on the Head Lessons
If a practice can't be justified on its own terms, then the task
for children and adults alike isn't to get used to it, but to
question, to challenge, and, if necessary, to resist. By Alfie
Kohn
Nobel
Prize Winners Hate School
Karl Bunday quotes Nobel Prize winners' thoughts about schooling.
Future of Schools
Closing
the Gap To Build Support for Education
If you could see the lineup of people, resources, and money behind
the effort to persuade you that all is well, you would be astonished
that any negative or critical coverage appears anywhere, at any
time. From the Education Intelligence Agency.
The
Economy, Public Schools, and Homeschooling
Why should homeschoolers spend time thinking about what's happening
to public schools? After all, didn't a lot of us choose homeschooling
so we wouldn't have to deal with public schools? By Larry and
Susan Kaseman, HEM M/A 07
Open
Portal Schools
My friend, Liza Loop, takes you on an imaginary journey into
the future. Say, Fall of 2010. (Written in 1986, Liza manages
to predict what many of the public homeschool centers have turned
out to be like.)
Good Schools, Bad
Schools
"But
We Have Such GOOOOD Schools!"
Charlotte Monte confronts the dilemma of homeschooling in an
area where the schools are considered "so goooood."
First to Worst
The Merrow Report. In the 50's and 60's California had the best
school system in the country. Now it is one of the worst. What
happened in the past 40 years to lead to the decline and what
is being done to help it improve.
Mistakes
Educational Leaders Make
Having problems with your kids' principal? One in three end their
careers being fired! Here's just teachers' complaints about principals.
Leaders in area homeschool support should also take note and
try to not make the same mistakes. ERIC Digest
Schools
and Kids
Wash, DC: What do you think of homeschooling? Can it be a force
for improvement, like Charter schools? Diane Ravitch (professor,
researcher and author of Left Back: A Century of Failed School
Reforms): I don't advocate homeschooling but I respect
the right of those parents who choose to do it.
Steve
Wozniak Interview
I was the sort of person that learned pretty much on my own.
The teachers - it didn't so much matter.
Ten
Signs that You Need to Find a Different Kind of Education for
Your Child
Many parents do not realize that the education world has changed
drastically since they were in school. By Jerry Mintz.
Homework
The
Homework Ate My Family
"It's ironic that politicians talk so much about family
values," says Mandel, "when you can't have any family
time any more because the kids are so busy keeping their nose
to the grindstone." Time Magazine, 1/19/99.
Modern
Grade-School Pressures
Toward too much homework, too little freeplay, by Teresa Gallagher.
Pressured to spend more time memorizing and less time playing,
our children are being labeled ADD when they stress out.
Parents Are Best
Teachers
Myth
#4 "You Need Teacher Training, Dearie"
By using and constantly honing the parental qualities you already
enjoy, you are much closer to learning the secrets of lighting
fires within youngsters' minds, setting them on a course to appreciate
and pursue learning for a lifetime, than many, if not most, trained
teachers. By Linda Dobson.
Oz
Never Did Give Nothing to the Children That They Didn't Already
Have
As in Baum's story, if we are to witness a happy ending in the
non-fiction educational story unfolding today, exposure is the
only option that ensures the Mighty Education Wizard breaks down
to tell the truth. By Linda Dobson, HEM S/O 01.
You
Have Choices
The public school system implies that there really aren't any
school options. You can send your kids to public school, or you
can send your kids to public school. By Ronnie Ugulano.
Political Interference
Interview
with Susan Ohanian
When Standardistas don't allow students and teachers to negotiate
curricula together, we risk losing students. By Peggy Daly Masternak,
HEM J/F 05.
Petitioning
to make all schools private
The system Ms. Miller is eager to expose is not a communist dictatorship.
It is the United States public-school system, which, according
to Miller, wastes money, destroys children, and "causes
nothing but misery." Marjorie Coeyman, Christian Science
Monitor.
Problems with
Standards
Life and Music
How life and education ought to be more like a musical composition than a means to and end. An animated philosophy by Alan Watts.
School is Dead, Learn in Freedom
Karl Bunday offers the arguments for the freedom to homeschool.
Schooling: The Hidden Agenda
So you see that our schools are not failing, they're just succeeding
in ways we prefer not to see. Turning out graduates with no skills,
with no survival value, and with no choice but to work or starve
are not flaws of the system, they are features
of the system. These are the things the system must do
to keep things going on as they are. By Daniel Quinn, The Ishmael
Community.
Standardistas
The education standardization movement across America has occurred
without any meaningful public discussion of what those standards
should be, or what they mean. By David Albert, HEM J/F 02.
Top Ten Mistakes in Education
Here are ten top school system mistakes, favorite not because
I like them but because eradicating them would go so far towards
helping kids learn. From Engines for Education.
Safety Issues
Homeschooling
is Safe Schooling
To provide and protect, those are my jobs as a parent. When there
is a dangerous place which threatens my child, it is NOT my primary
responsibility to change the dangerous place. From At Home
in America.
Losing my Tolerance
for "Zero Tolerance"
Passing an inflexible law does not stop murder -- which is already
quite illegal. Terrorizing a little kid for sharing candy --
and justifying it afterward when an outraged parent complains
-- doesn't stop drug use. And it never will. As far as I can
tell, Zero Tolerance has only negative effects. It must be stopped.
School
is Out
"To anybody curious about the essentials of home schooling,
I'd say that the key is this attitude: a willingness to fail
utterly at doing what the schools do." Denis Johnson.
Schools
and Suicide
Karl Bunday writes on the relationship between school attendance
(especially compulsory school attendance) and youth suicide.
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- Books about School Issues
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- Weapons of Mass Instruction
- A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling
- by John Taylor Gatto
- Focuses on mechanisms of familiar schooling that cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of rote-memorization drills.
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- Chalkbored: What's Wrong with School and How to Fix It
- by Jeremy Schneider
- Provides an entertaining and hard-hitting critique of modern education. Author's Site.
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- School Figures: The Data behind the Debate
- by Hanna Skandera, Richard Sousa
- Presents statistics, along with historical trends and cross-sectional comparisons, to provide a clear, factual picture of today's K-12 education landscape, including information on school demographics, cost and finance, testing and achievement, public school reform, and other key areas.
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- Public Schools in the United States: Agenda
Mills or Academic Institutions
- by Martha W. Daniels
- Feeling confused and helpless about our schools? A veteran
teacher gives data and explanations in "public-friendly"
terms.
-
- What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children
Struggling in Kindergarten?
by Susan Ohanian
- Ms. Ohanian's book is meticulously well researched and she
cites startling and often frightening statistics and stories
about what is considered "normal" educational proceedings
in America today.
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- The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict
What Students Learn
by Diane Ravitch
- Is this really the way schools are heading? What really are
graduates from PS going to be when it's done and over. White
bread eating robots that have no idea what the real world contains...
mindless drones to complete the tasks of adults that escaped
the system?
- It terrifies me!!
- Robin in Indiana
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- The
Exhausted School: Bending the Bars of Traditional Education
by John Taylor Gatto (Editor)
- These 13 essays, presented at the 1993 National Grassroots
Speakout on the Right to School Choice, illustrate how education
reform actually works. Written by award-winning teachers and
their students, these essays present successful teaching methods
that work in both traditional and nontraditional classroom settings.
August 2002.
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- Dumbing Us Down : The Hidden Curriculum of
Compulsory Schooling
by John Taylor Gatto
- Thirty years of award-winning teaching in New York City's
public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory
governmental schooling does little but teach young people to
follow orders as cogs in the industrial machine.
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The Schools Our Children Deserve
Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards"
by Kohn, Alfie
Teacher-turned-writer Alfie Kohn takes on traditional-education
giants like E.D. Hirsch, along with practically every state government
"raising the bar" and toughening standards, in this
attack on the back-to-basics movement. 1999 Hardcover
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Summerhill School
A New View of Childhood Vol 1
by Neill, Alexander Sutherland, et al
Originally published in 1960, it was a radical idea to allow
children to be the bosses of a school. 1995 Paperback
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- Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Md Mate
Like countless other parents, Canadian doctors Neufeld and Mat˙ woke up one day to find that their children had become secretive and unreachable. Pining for time with friends, they recoiled or grew hostile around adults. Why?
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Left
Back : A Century of Failed School Reforms
by Ravitch, Diane Ravitch
"Whenever the academic curriculum was diluted or minimized,
large numbers of children were pushed through the school system
without benefit of a genuine education," she writes. 2001
Paperback
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Creating the Multiage Classroom
by Stone, Sandra J.
Schools are trying to duplicate homeschools! Appropriate strategies
for large families. 1996 Paperback
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No More Prisons
by Wimsatt, William Upski
Inspiration and numbers and websites and addresses and names
of books that you need to do all the stuff you'll want to do
after you read this. 1999 Paperback.
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