The true version of our beginning. I got really lucky that night, even if I did go home alone

Could such a go-it-alone ideology ever be truly progressive—by which I mean, does homeschooling serve the interests not just of those who are doing it, but of society as a whole?

via Homeschooling and unschooling among liberals and progressives. – Slate Magazine.

WTF? In what universe are engaged, educated, independent kids not good for society as a whole? Even if the public schools were a bastion of love and peace with no hint of violence and high test scores all around; having every kid come out of the same mold is not good for society. Diversity is good. You don’t get diversity from warehousing kids in a room with their same-age peers all day, every day, for 12 years.

Also, I don’t know one single progressive homeschooler that is going-it-alone. Very few homeschoolers are loners. Like I’ve been saying for years, the interesting thing about homeschooling is that it is nothing like school, and we are rarely at home.

The author misses another key point too. Well actually, she misses pretty much everything about homeschooling, Homeschooled kids have time to be engaged in their communities. If you are in school 7 hours a day, then doing band / football practice, then doing 3 hours of homework, you have no time for anything except self-interest. HSers, who frequently are putting in a couple of hours a day tops, have all kinds of time to devote to the sort of socially progressive causes that would impress Dana Goldstein.

Really, this is the quality of journalism I expect when reading about homeschooling. But usually, it’s coming from HSLDA.

On my desktop, a failed upgrade to XFCE 4.8 left me without a functional 4.6 or 4.8, and all sorts of dependency problems when trying to reinstall 4.6. I reverted to Gnome for now, until I decide what to do. I may just upgrade to 11.10 for now, then move to the new LTS once 12.04 has been out for a month or two,

My NAS appliance failed. Everything was backed up to S3, so no data will be lost. I’m awaiting the arrival of an eBay sourced USB drive enclosure to see if the drive is still usable.

Last night my Sansa Clip locked up. It took me about an hour to finally get it to a point where I could plug it in and reflash the OS. Then I had to spend 30 minutes reloading music and podcasts back onto it.

Whatever I did to annoy the technology gremlins, I’m apologize. Now please leave my stuff alone.

http://blogs.fredericksburg.com/toontalk/2012/02/08/caption-contest-156-finalists/

If you don’t think mine is the funniest, vote for it anyway Voting ends at noon on Friday 2/10.

Thank you for your support.

2/14 update: I won!

Historians don’t actually use the term Dark Ages anymore. While it’s true that it took Europe about 1000 years to get back to the general level of technological advancement of the Roman empire, the Chinese and the Southern American cultures were advancing just fine during this time.

I had never heard of the Battle of Tours prior to today. Some believe that battle is what halted the spread of Islam into the West. Others believe it was a skirmish with a raiding party and of no real importance.

I’ve often wondered how the religion of a pacifist like Jesus Christ ended up being used to justify so much war. It may have all started with the Christian conquest of the Germanic tribes. Christianity changed from a pacifist movement to a religion where killing was kind of ok if it was in defense of a divinely appointed king. Once that was accepted, it wasn’t a huge leap to the Crusades, where killing the right people actually took previous sin off your permanent record.

Apparently people are still arguing about whether Charlemagne was French or German.

My son is scary. At least a dozen times during the podcast, as Carlin was leading into the next subject, Breck knew in advance what was coming. His AP History test scores should be fabulous

First of all, Monument Ave may be technically cobblestone, but it is not the quaint narrow cobblestone street that you are probably envisioning. The cobblestone surface is very smooth, the road is 2 lanes each way, with a 30 mph speed limit that is ignored. Most cars are doing about 40 through there. The locals use the wide grassy median as a park, hanging out and picnicking. On previous drives through, I always thought the stately houses were really pretty. And they are nice, but when you are walking you can see that many of them are really apartments, and judging by the number of craft beer bottles I saw littering porches, populated by a party happy crowd. That probably also accounts for the number of young female joggers that were out today. It’s definitely not a bad choice of neighborhood if you are a young single guy in Richmond! Quite a few of the houses needed some basic maintenance too; and generally, it’s not quite as uppity a neighborhood as the Richmond tourist sites lead you to believe. It’s nice, but not as extravagant as I was expecting.

If you are wondering how an Arthur Ashe monument ended up on a street with monuments to 5 Confederate war heroes, you aren’t alone. I think it’s one of those things still likely to start an argument in many places in Richmond. IMHO, the Ashe monument is out of place and probably should have been placed somewhere better than the northern edge of the Monument Drive park.

More pictures.

Monday – Pizza of undetermined origin.
Tues – KFC
Wed – Subway
Thur – Salsarita’s
Fri – Dairy Queen

Really? This is what they are teaching kids about healthy eating? This is a $7000 a year private school, you’d think they could do better than pump the kids full of fat and sodium every day at lunch. Are the parents there really ok with this?

Oh, and if your parents forget to add money to your lunch account?

Lower School students who do not have a lunch or a balance in their account, will be given a package of crackers and water and we will send you a note advising you of that action.

Obviously, no kid going to this school is depending on the school lunch as his only decent meal of the day, However, the prison like crackers and water bit is a little over the top. More sodium too! I’d think for $7000 a year the school could toss a hungry kid an apple.

Is this as ridiculous as it looks to me?

I think my kids would have done fine in school. They probably would have been like me, disinterested yet accomplished students going through the motions and maintaining a B average. But I wonder if either would have turned out to be the uniquely cool young adults they are (or are becoming) today. The school might have beat the uniqueness out of them, one worksheet at a time. And I don’t know if either would have developed the deep passions for their particular interests that they did while homeschooling. They might not have had the time.

It makes me wonder how many thousands (millions?) of talented, uniquely focused kids we miss out on developing each year because they are trapped in a school system that simply does not work for them. How many bored business majors at State U this semester would have been passionate “something elses” if they had been given the opportunities my kids had to develop those passions as kids?

Or does it?

The book is extravagantly written, and at times veered off into deeply detailed descriptions of events that don’t really advance the plot. There isn’t a likable character in the book, in fact, the two stars of the book are miserable human beings. The descriptions and setting in Victorian England are wonderful, and Wilde was clearly playing the book for satire in many places.

In the end though, the book is somewhat disturbing morality tale that borders on horror at times. It’s one of the classics, and I can’t believe I made to 2012 without reading it. I’m glad I finally got to it.