Child-led

UPDATE:
HARVARD ENDS EARLY ADMISSION although I note it was a mere handful of years ago that Ivy Educrats claimed to have rejected early admission in favor of "early decision" (or the other way around?) and so what? This new claim to care about kids and parents isn't much less convoluted. . . to me, the only real news may be that Harvard and her ivy-covered sisters come across as skittish and hard-glittery, apparently feeling the pressure to seem to be doing SOMETHING -- even if in the end, the trumpeted splendor of their insular "new" attitude amounts to little more than deigning to serve the clamoring rabble of parents and kids one afternoon of cake.

Here's the published recipe for what they've cooked up:

Harvard’s decision — to be announced today — is likely to put pressure on other colleges, which acknowledge the same concerns but have been reluctant to take any step that could put them at a disadvantage in the heated competition for the top students.

“We think this will produce a fairer process, because the existing process has been shown to advantage those who are already advantaged,’’ Derek Bok, the interim president of Harvard, said yesterday in an interview.

Mr. Bok said students who were more affluent and sophisticated were the ones most likely to apply for early admission. . .

Home education & other stuff– a libertarian-leaning edu-blog

I've been interested in teaching and how people learn since I was six, and (as is usual in big busy lives) all I've done before has led up to what I'm doing now. I grew up in northern New Mexico, I've been blessed with curiously bright and curious friends who shared their questions and answers with me, and there's nothing to do with that but pass it on to any curious others.

Resources, forums and links to some of the most influential voices of the unschooling movement.

On this site you will find bloggers bringing you up-to-date homeschooling information, news and views, free online newsletters, networking lists, and selections from Home Education Magazine, including articles, interviews, columnists, resources, reviews and more!

The PDE website was founded by JJ Ross and Nance Confer. It contains a variety of opinions and information on various aspects of education -- all designed to assist parents in making informed choices. In parent-directed education, there usually isn't a "right" answer that fits everyone because it all depends on one's personal thought process.

Dr. Seuss titled one of his illustrated stories, "Oh the Places You'll Go!"

Today I offer two short stories to illustrate that wherever you go and whatever you see, what matters most is why you go and what you think you're looking for.

My two little stories are word-for-word true;
I wrote them down right after they happened.

I do that often, figuring my purpose in life is faithful witness to the lives I love.

Susan Sarandon in "Shall We Dance?" dismisses her private detective when she realizes mature love isn't about power and control or even knowledge, that she and Richard Gere are "witness" to each other's life and that what she sees depends on why she's looking. So she determines to change her own focus -- and that change in her eye as beholder makes all the difference.

That's the story I see at home. We unschool and always have, which means only that there is no "in loco parentis" in our living arrangements. I see myself as privileged witness for my children, not a teacher, preacher, pumpkin-eater, spy or enforcer of social norms, nor feminist foreperson driving them to market and/or to mark the world. I don't send them off to any of those folks to mold or judge, and I refuse to BECOME any of those folks at home, "in loco publicus."

What a week for trying to walk, talk, learn and think at the same time!

First, our 10-year-old son is listening to NPR in the car when he's riveted by news of an important fossil discovery linking fish and land creatures, a so-called tetrapod, lifeforms that left the water to walk on land.

He isn't interested in the news or politics, although he just
discovered Stephen Colbert and gets some of the comedy. He likes the
split screen where the contradictory wisecracks are on the right as
Stephen pontificates on the left. It reminds him of the wisecracking
moose commentary on the Brother Bear DVD.

But yesterday in the car, he suddenly wanted us to turn it up, so
he could hear all about the new fossil link. That was the first really
interesting "news" worth hearing, he proclaimed, but there wasn't enough
to the story. (He actually said this, exactly that way, pronouncing
judgment like a seasoned media critic.)
Intense investigation ensues when we can get online, after which my little boy, who has never been made to think about anything, hugs me with a goofy grin and says, "Hello, my fellow tetrapod!"