Principled DiscoveryPrincipled DiscoveryHomeschooling mother of four takes a break from third grade to reflect on issues of faith, family and education. 
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Homeschooling, blogging and vacation
2007-10-08 17:42:00 I am getting ready to leave on vacation. Since even the wilderness has internet accesss these days, and we recently purchased a laptop, I was planning on keeping up with my blog the whole time. Then I thought, "What? Are you nuts?" So, I changed my plans.Instead, I am going to repost some old favorites. My favorites and yours, as determined by traffic, links and commments. For my long time readers, I hope you will enjoy revisiting them. For my newer readers, I hope you will enjoy the introduction to this blog.And I have a favor to ask of you. Select your favorite post from your blog and enter it in the Mr. Linky below. It can be current or old. Then I will have some reading to do when I get back and not have to get overwhelemd when my Google Reader says "1000+" in the corner.And do not forget about the Homeschool Network. I may be a little slower in responding, but I will still be checking and sending off invitations! More About: Homeschooling , Blogging , Vacation
Columbus Day Carnival
2007-10-08 16:01:00 Renae at Life Nurturing Education has done a wonderful job with this week's Carnival of Principled Government. Even if you do not care too much about Principled Government, you may enjoy the pictures and facts about Columbus ' journey.But this fascinating system of government we created subsequent to his landing is an interesting topic to discuss. More About: S Day
FeedBurner basics
2007-10-07 14:31:00 Since starting up the Homeschooling Network, I have received a number of questions ranging from "What is a feed?" to specific questions about redirecting a feed through FeedBurn er. This entry is an attempt to answer these questions and help you navigate through the process if you are interested.What is a feed?Essentially, it is an easy way for people to keep up with your content, along with the 1000 other blogs they read. You likely already have one. And if you have readers, you likely already have a subscriber or two. That largely depends on your audience's familiarity with blogging.How do I find out what my feed is?For Blogspot users, it should be one of the following:http://yourblogname.blogspot.co m/feeds/posts/defaulthttp://yourblogname. blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rssS ubstituting "yourblogname" for your blog's name. (Mine is gottsegnet, not Principled Discovery, for example. You need to look at the url.)If not, somewhere in your sidebar, you likely have somethin... More About: Feedburner , Basics
Carnivals coming and posted
2007-10-06 05:04:00 The Carnival of Principled Government is going to be hosted at Life Nurturing Education. Here is the carnival submission form for your convenience.The School Politics and Philosophy Carnival is posted.And, if you needed any reassurance whatsoever, The Frasier Institute finds that homeschooling reduces the impact of socioeconomic factors. Of course we knew that, but why is a little validation so encouraging?And do not forget to let me know if you are interested in joining the homeschool network. I will try my best to answer any questions, and will probably make a post out of the most common questions so far tomorrow. More About: Carnivals
Measuring school success
2007-10-05 12:23:00 Monday October 1, the Lincoln Journal Star published a piece in its Homeroom section (page 4C) that looks at the ten elements of successful schools as identified by the Alliance for Excellent Education . I want my children to attend the very best school available, so I determined to assess her school based on their qualifications.1. Challenging classes.Our school uses the Principle Approach materials to guide our curriculum, which has largely been developed by me. Our core vision is to maintain an academically rigorous program of instruction to give each of our children the education they need to maintain liberty. Our program is a little weak in the area of spelling, and I finally abdicated this role to a workbook that my daughter seems to be progressing through well.2. Personal attention for all students.Our student-teacher ration is 4 to one. The younger children naturally get a little more focused attention from the teacher, but that is one thing that my daughter does seem t... More About: Homeschooling , School , Success
Homeschooling Network
2007-10-04 05:29:00 I just started a Feedburner network for homeschooling blogs. If you would be interested in joining, please let me know and I will send you an invitation.Essentially, this will pull all member feeds into one place. Here is the page for the Homeschooling Network , but at the moment, I am the only one there. Here is the Family Friendly Network so you can see what the page looks like when there is more than one member.There are a number of advantages to this network, I believe. The page will allow interested readers to peruse a number of posts from the homeschooling community quickly and you can subscribe to the network's feed to have that delivered straight to your feed reader. You can also download all member feeds as an opml file if you desire. When you accept the invitation, you will be asked if you are interested in hosting advertising in your feed, which is purely optional. That may be an advantage to some, and a non-issue for others. Qualifications: 1) Your blog must be a ...
Imagine a world without religion
2007-10-03 16:39:00 The Freedom From Religion Foundation is one organization that is perfectly clear in how it would change the US Constitution if given the chance. And they are taking their message on the road through a campaign to "place freethought billboards around the country, wherever an irreverent billboard is needed -- which is practically everywhere!" Like this one, standing just off the west Beltline in Madison, Wisconsin.If I did not know what they meant by that, I might tend to agree. Religion and dogma are not the same thing. And freethought and dogma are not necessarily opposites. A smaller billboard to go up in a place where it will be passed by nearly everyone leaving the airport in Madison will read, "Imagine No Religion."Imagine a world with no religion. Dawkins has. And he is bringing his campaign to the United States in order to realize it.I would free children from being indoctrinated with the religion of their parents or their community. The GuardianTo what lengths are we ... More About: World
COH and a few good homeschool laws
2007-10-02 18:47:00 The Carnival of Homeschooling is up over at Tami's blog. I've been through about half the entries so far and there are many worth reading. Don't miss Why Homeschool's entry on Homeschool Laws . I have one to add, although it is perhaps a little more on the serious side.10. Law of cost. All costs are opportunity costs, the true cost being what is given up to get something.The perceived loss of income in choosing to homeschool may be made up for in the increased opportunity available.The Carnival of Christian Women is up as well. More About: Good
How would you change the Constitution?
2007-10-02 06:39:00 According to Political Science Professor Larry Sabato, our Constitution is a little out of date.There have only been 17 amendments (the first 10 must be considered a part of the original document), one of which simply reversed another, others of which have been quite minor. Despite the new realities of the modern United States, our government runs under the direction of a document written with quill pens. This is not what our founders envisioned. Thomas Jefferson insisted that, "No society can make a perpetual Constitution...The earth belongs always to the living generation." He wanted major Constitutional reform every generation. One of Jefferson's great contemporaries, James Madison, agreed on the matter, saying that constitutional revisions would be "a salutary curb on the living generation from imposing unjust or unnecessary burdens on their successors." Daily KosI have always thought these basic facts demonstrate how successful our Founding Fathers were in constructing a gove... More About: Government , Change , The Constitution , Chang
The Tradition of Freedom of Speech
2007-10-01 07:02:00 I don't do this very often. Actually, I am not sure that I have ever done it. But Peggy Noonan's words need no commentary.You don't want to judge Christ by Christians, someone once said. He is perfect, they are not.In a similar way you don't want to judge capitalism by capitalists, or the legitimacy of democracy by the Democrats, or the vitality of our republic by the Republicans. You have to take the thing pure and in itself, while allowing for the flaws and waywardness of its practitioners.I say this because here in America we have reached a funny pass. People are doing and saying odd things as if they don't know the meaning of the thing they say they stand for. In particular I mean we used to be proud of whom we allowed to speak, and now are leaning toward defining ourselves by whom we don't speak to and will not allow to speak. This is not progress.Conservatives on campus are shouted down. A crusader against illegal immigration is rushed off the stage at Columbia ... More About: Freedom , Tradition , Freedom of Speech , Speech
Carnival of the Insanities up
2007-10-01 05:37:00 Hold on to your Munchian screams, the Carnival of the Insanities is up over at Dr. Sanity's place. Just what you need to jump start your week!
Marketing ignorance?
2007-09-30 14:50:00 English literary tradition has produces a number of great works with which we should all be familiar. Schools are doing a good thing when their required reading list includes such works as Of Mice and Men, Moby Dick, Lord of the Flies, and, as much as I despised reading it, maybe even Jane Eyre.But like any good student, you want to get out of as much work as possible. So, in combining the old and the new, you buy a set of Cliffs Notes and pop popcorn with a movie rental to see if you can glean enough of the story line to pass the test. Noticing the spike in literary movie sales at exam crunch time, MGM marketing director Chris Franchino and his colleagues at Fox Home Entertainment decided to make things even easier by repackaging a few classic movie titles together with the popular study guides."Maybe this isn't a bad idea," Franchino says of the strategy involved in the new series. "The students are already doing it and maybe we can actually try to make it more educational." ... More About: Marketing , Media , Education , Ignorance
Training a standardized citizenry
2007-09-29 06:35:00 In Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, I found an interesting passage which echoes some of my own thoughts on our culture.Excessive fear can transform a person and modify behavior permanently; it can change the very structure of the brain. The same can happen to a whole culture. What will it be like for children to grow up in socially and environmentally controlled environments--condominiums and planned developments and covenant-controlled housing developments surrounded with walls, gates, and surveillance systems, where covenants prevent families from planting gardens? One wonders how the children growing up in this culture of control will define freedom when they are adults.Property has always been closely tied to liberty in American thought. It is the basis of our founding. Our founders knew that, and John Adams even noted that "[p]roperty must be sacred or liberty cannot exist." It is why a nation of affluence fought a long and bloody war to defeat "tyranny" that amou... More About: Education , Government , Training , Citizen
Link roundup
2007-09-28 07:19:00 First off, for those of you who have been checking my blog about our Australian history study, I thank you for your patience. And I have finally updated it with the next chapter of Australia's history: the convicts. The accompanying video is excellent, but worth pre-screening.We have been taking advantage of the frequent traveling to and from Colorado to learn a bit about that aspect of American history, but since everyone, including my husband, is back in Lincoln, we are back to our original plans. But you might enjoy a few pictures of our birding hike near Georgetown, CO. We are taking another field trip today, so should have those posted over the weekend.Next to being recognized at number 18 on a list of popular parent bloggers, I received the much coveted spot at number 10 on MyBlogLog Sunday over at (can I say that on a family friendly blog?) It was really a great honor to have happened to have been one of the last ten visitors to have visited the site while happening to... More About: Roundup , Link
Are good schools "Not as Good as You Think?"
2007-09-27 08:13:00 Affluence is supposed to equal education, right? After all, parents all over the country scrimp and save to purchase houses above their means, believing that access to education depends on zip code. An interesting study out challenges that perception.Marin County, CA, for example, has the highest per capita income of any zip code and the highest density of BMWs in America. You would think that the public schools, with all the advantages of wealth, would be able to consistently educate the children of these professionals. But statistics at San Marin High School are a little troubling, considering the obvious advantages these children should have:Less than half of 10th and 11th graders scored at or above proficiency level on the California Standards Test (CST) English exam.Only 38% of students taking the CST algebra 1 exam scored at or above proficiency.Less than half of students taking the CST algebra 2 exam scored at or above proficiency.82% of parents went to college but only 2... More About: Schools , Good
Should homeschoolers be concerened with the NEA?
2007-09-26 06:14:00 Jen over at Follow my Whimsy responds to a little homeschool outrage over an article posted on the NEA's website. I was actually surprised this particular article was making any stir at all anymore seeing as it is pretty old. I do not remember when I first read it, but the first reference to it on Technorati was over a year ago. But this led into an interesting question:Yes, the NEA has made it clear that they do not think homeschools can offer students "a comprehensive education experience". Still, they have been pretty silent on the subject since 2002. That's five years! Why are we still worried about what they said five years ago? Actually why are we worried about what they say at all?Obvious to those who frequent this blog, I disagree. Let's start with what the NEA said and when they said it. I'll spare you the entire quote because I think we have read it enough. You can follow the link if you want to read it for old time's sake.The National Education Association beli... More About: Homeschoolers , Homeschooling , Rene
No Child Left Behind to be left behind?
2007-09-25 06:01:00 In name anyway. Because the name is too tied to Bush and Bush is unpopular. (Those were Representative George Miller's, D-CA, words, not mine.)So in all of the debate that has supposedly been surrounding NCLB this year as it comes up for reauthorization, all that we were really able to accomplish was a name change. Here are the suggestions, from the Washington Post:Quality Education for All Child ren Act, submitted by Marian Wright Edelman, president of the nonprofit Children's Defense Fund.Children First! submitted by Donna Shalala, president of the University of Miami.New Partnerships for Student Achievement or Educating Americans for Today's World, submitted by Dorothy Rich, founder and director of the nonprofit Home and School Institute. (I thought we were supposed to be educating for the future?)The first one actually sounds like something. Believe it or not, I sort of like it. With a name like that, the legislation has to be good, even if it is the same old legislatio... More About: Left , No Child Left Behind
I got an A+ in socializing
2007-09-24 05:17:00 At least the bearer of this shirt has mastered her school's most fundamental principle:so·cial·izeplay_w("S0525600")v. so·cial·ized, so·cial·iz·ing, so·cial·iz·es v.tr.1. To place under government or group ownership or control.2. To make fit for companionship with others; make sociable.3. To convert or adapt to the needs of society.v.intr. To take part in social activities.I'll let you pick which you think is most relevant. I think the public school system has embraced all three definitions and thus has succeeded in becoming a place to take part in social activities.Kathleen Lyon, spokesperson for the National Education Association, makes particular note of the importance of adapting children to the needs of society:Too often missing from the debate on home schooling are the benefits that public schools provide children, advantages that most common measures of education success overlook. Educating children to live and work in a global society where ...
Long distance fathering and other stuff
2007-09-24 05:06:00 I am working on an article about involving fathers in the homeschool who are not around as much as they might like. If any of you have personal experience with this situation, I would love to talk to you a little about it. Please email me at gottsegnetATyahooDOTcom!The All Women Blogging Carnival is up over at SultanaBlog.I also decided to see if I could figure out the whole del.icio.us thing again. I signed up a very long time ago, added two things and have not been back since. I cannot figure out how to find anybody, however. If any of you are on del.icio.us, I am gottsegnet. I think I like it now that I figured it out (other than the finding people part!).And thanks, Mamablogga! I'm speechless, which is a rarity for me.At number 18 and I did NOT rig the selection process. More About: Stuff , Long , Long Distance , Erin , Fath
Building a reflective homeschool, Tools not Toys
2007-09-23 07:58:00 Last fall, we attended a wonderful program at the Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center where the children got to spend a day on the prairie with entymologists, herpetologists, and a woman from Raptor Recovery. By the end of the day, the children were enchanted, I was exhausted and I knew what I wanted to purchase for the spring: butterfly nets, aquatic nets and a few field guides.Children are born with an innate desire to explore the world around them, to know what everything is and to figure out how it works. I see it in my five month old as her tentative hand reaches for my face while I hold her; I see it in my two year old as she unrolls a roll of toilet paper; I see it in my four year old as he watches his roly polies; and I see it in my eight year old as she draws in her journal. I want to give them the tools to explore their world, on their own and unhindered. I imagined my children exploring the field behind our house and assisting them in identifying the many insects the... More About: Education , Building , Tools , Toys , Homeschooling
Web 1.1 and driving away your readers
2007-09-22 16:37:00 I suppose it only makes sense to share insights into how to drive away readers just after posting on how to increase unhappiness in your homeschool. Normally, I try to space out my attempts at humor because I am terribly used to being taken too seriously. But Yvonne from Grow Your Writing Business tagged me with this, and I shan't keep her waiting any longer.Web 2.0 is an interesting concept , born out of some old meeting with a bunch of people who wanted to increase the accessibility of the internet. At least that is what I have gathered. Principled Discovery, on the other hand, has always been about looking back to the foundations of ideas. Older is always better, so here I am to take you back to Web 1.1 with a variety of ways to make your online existence a little more stressful and a little less productive.1. Subscribe to the feeds of at least five different blogs giving blogging advice.Implement ALL of their tips. Full or partial feed? Blog entries or articles? Stats ... More About: Driving , Readers
A homeschooler's guide to unhappiness
2007-09-21 08:41:00 School is well underway for most of us, and we are far enough into the year to begin feeling behind. Stressed, we begin looking over the fence at the Jones', where the grass is always greener and the children never whine. Meeting with other homeschoolers brings a mixture of encouragement and feelings of inadequacy as we begin to second guess those plans which looked so good on paper. If this describes you, you are off to a great start. After all, there is nothing mankind desires more or works harder for than misery. A brief survey of world literature reveals our fascination with sin, danger and tragedy. If we cannot experience it personally, we do so vicariously through what have become the classics. Even the quest for happiness robs our happiness in the end as Paul Watzlawick so aptly noted in his book, Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein (Guid e to Unhappiness). To help you along the way to maximizing your unhappiness, I have written the following guide. Some of these steps may... More About: Humor , Homeschooling
NYC high schools failing to report violence in the schools
2007-09-20 09:12:00 Thank you for the interesting discussion yesterday on my post about homeschoolers and abuse. Since commenter Elliot over on the homeschooling discussion on Asymptotia asked if "rewriting" was "one of the tactics that home schoolers use to try to get their point across," I feel compelled to rewrite part of the quote I shared to get my point across:"Once they leave the house, we lose all contact with them and the family has no way of tracking them after that."In a free society, who should be monitoring whom? I am not completely against CPS, but should our society be set up with primary concern over how easily families can be surveilled or how readily our government can be surveilled?A sampling of large New York City high schools showed that the schools failed to notify the state of a significant number of violent or disruptive episodes in the 2004-5 school year, the city comptroller announced yesterday. NYTSignificant being 1 in 5. Twenty percent. I am still trying to figure out ... More About: Education , Schools , Homeschooling , Report , Violence
Homeschooled girl starved to death by adoptive parents
2007-09-19 07:16:00 These stories are so sad. I do not really know how to comment.Crystal Ramirez likely spent the last days, weeks and months of her short life hungry, beaten and bound. Crystal, 8, died on Aug. 23. Her sister suffered the same treatment and is currently hospitalized in San Antonio for malnutrition. Victoria AdvocateAt eight years old, Crystal (or Chrystal depending on the report) weighed only 28 pounds. That is not much more than my two year old weighs. She had to be little more than a skeleton, a fact that was hidden from public view because her adoptive parents pulled the children out of the public school system in order to homeschool them.In the case of Chrystal Ramirez and her sister, both had numerous reports made to Child Protective Services during their short stay in the district.However, both students were pulled out of school over a year ago to begin home schooling."Once they begin home schooling," [N-SCISD superintendent Cathy] Booth said, "we lose all contact with them... More About: Homeschooling , Girl , Death , Parents , Parent
I'm back and carnivals posted
2007-09-19 05:01:00 Blogging from a temperamental public computer for the past several days has been interesting. And the reason behind two comments, one post and one answered email in several days.Here are two things in my inbox that I was supposed to post, although I have not even looked at them yet:The Carnival of Family Life.The Carnival of Homeschooling.I hope they are good. I think one is about family and the other about homeschooling. More About: Carnivals , Back
In honor of the US Constitution
2007-09-14 07:01:00 The study, The Coming Crisis in Citizenship by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, revealed what many of us already knew: American college students are learning frightfully little about America's heritage. In fact, in some institutions, seniors know less than incoming freshman about our heritage. Without an understanding of the rights and responsibilities which go along with our liberty, it is difficult to defend it. As George W. Curtis said in a speech delivered in 1877,While good men sit at home, not knowing that there is anything to be done, nor caring to know; cultivating a feeling that politics are tiresome and dirty, and politicians vulgar bullies and bravoes; half persuaded that a republic is the contemptible rule of a mob, and secretly longing for a splendid an vigorous despotism--then remember it is not a government mastered by ignorance, it is a government betrayed by intelligence; it is not the victory of the slums, it is the surrender of the schools; it is not that b... More About: Education , Constitution , Honor , Constitution Day
Blogspotting, liberal vs. conservative
2007-09-14 05:29:00 Are the brains of liberals and conservatives different? A new study seems to suggest so. (hat tip, Dr. Helen)Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Libera l s had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M. L.A. TimesInteresting Catch 22: if I dismiss the research, I must be a conservative. If I were liberal, I would be more likely to embrace the new idea. Except that it confirms a stereotype, an M, if you will.And what about when the new ideas become the standard and the old ideas are the new ideas? It gets confusing like that whole old coke, new coke thing. (And if anyone can find that old Pepsi commercial about the old coke, new coke, cok... More About: Education , Conservative
Job skills and educational assessment
2007-09-13 09:00:00 A survey of leaders in the business world paints a dire picture for the future of the American workforce.Nearly three-quarters of survey participants (70 percent) cite deficiencies among incoming high school graduates in "applied" skills, such as professionalism and work ethic, defined as "demonstrating personal accountability, effective work habits, e.g. punctuality, working productively with others, time and workload management."More than 40 percent of surveyed employers say incoming high school graduates hired are deficiently prepared for the entry-level jobs they fill. The report finds that recent high school graduates lack the basic skills in reading comprehension, writing and math, which many respondents say were needed for successful job performance. The Conference BoardThis sounds great for homeschoolers. Not to capitalize on the failures of public institutions or anything, but how many of us cite character related issues as a motivation for homeschooling? Not surprisingl... More About: Education , Homeschooling , Educational , Testing , Employment
Carnival of Christianity is up
2007-09-13 05:44:00 Over at Diary of 1. It is worth it just for the fascinating insights of Dietrich Bonhoffer she shares. More About: Christianity , Carnival
Happy National Video Game Day!
More articles from this author:2007-09-12 19:33:00 Happy National Video Game Day! Thankfully, this appears to be more of a cultural phenomenon with unknown origins and no apparent official status, but it is a good reason to take a look at video games:According to the study Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Children's Digital Media Centers, children aged 0-6 spend as much time with television, computers and video games as they do outside. Parents have a generally positive attitude about the educational value of these media., with about half considering educational television and videos "very important" to a child's intellectual development.Video games are a newer medium without as much research into them as television, however the research available indicates a link between violent video games and aggression in children. The connection only makes sense.However, studies by psychologists such as Douglas Gentile, PhD, and Craig Anderso... More About: Education , Video Games , Homeschooling 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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