52 Churches

There’s an article in the NY Times about a former judge who is going to bat for a young man named Qing Hong Wu, who got into trouble a few years back, reformed, and is now being tossed out of the US as a “criminal alien.” The judge and the juvenile had grown up on [...]

The top of the alternative bleach bottle that I lost down into the mechanisms of the clothes washer weighed about 8 grams. I know this because the top from the real bleach bottle fits onto the alternative bleach bottle weighs 8 grams. I have recovered approximately 5 grams of said bleach bottle from the bowels [...]

I should probably stop reading blogs by well-meaning teachers because first they make me sad, and then they make me rant. The question the author, Jill Guerra, purports to ask herself is a good one: “I concerned only with control in my own classroom and school, or do I want enduring transformation for our youth? [...]

Why is our democracy so apathetic? Might it be because we’re training our children, in their formative years, systematically, in schools, to expect that the Constitution is meaningless? Last spring, I attended a lecture by Naomi Wolf, who said, “It’s a freaking democracy people! How hard can that be [to participate]?” And it got me [...]

Jesse Scacciawrote: One attitude among some homeschoolers that I find endlessly frustrating is that, as you say, you “don’t need to know.. how the other half works.” Don’t you think this sounds a little arrogant? Don’t you think you sound like you’re maybe bragging about possible gaps in knowledge/practice in your pedagogy? Even the best [...]

A response to Jesse Scaccia’s assertion that homeschoolers are arrogant in our assertion that we understand how the public school teaching profession works. This is how public education works: A bunch of previously ideological “teachers” get a captive audience of “students” (compelled to attend by force of law) to whom they must “teach” a set [...]

Is there something in the water? This is in response to the op-ed piece Parents must consider disadvantages before home schooling from THE OLYMPIAN, June 12, 2009 Public schooling has become an attractive alternative to homeschool or private school. Parents feel they will be giving their children a better education by sending them to government [...]

In response to this: It sounds like HS vs. PS is like comparing a race car to a giant bus: one is smaller, easier to maneuver, but in some ways more vulnerable, while the other is bigger, slow to turn, but in some ways the safer choice. Let’s examine the analogy. The occupants of a [...]

It’s true: I only homeschool to piss off other parents. I don’t homeschool because I want to provide a superior education for my child; I just homeschool to piss off other parents. I don’t homeschool because the school she was in was failing my child; I just do it to make other parents feel bad [...]

An answer to the question School Discipline: Is It Ever Okay to Physically Restrain a Student? Yes. If physical restraint is the only way to prevent a student from physically harming to another person, it is not only “okay,” but necessary to physically restrain the student. But this article asks a different question–if or not [...]