Homeschoolers Content to Take Children's Lead

Susan Saulny of the New York Times interviews an unschooling family in Chicago, Illinois to learn more about this growing trend in homeschooling.

"As the number of children who are home-schooled grows — an estimated 1.1 million nationwide — some parents like Ms. Walter are opting for what is perhaps the most extreme application of the movement’s ideas. They are “unschooling” their children, a philosophy that is broadly defined by its rejection of the basic foundations of conventional education, including not only the schoolhouse but also classes, curriculums and textbooks.

In some ways it is as ancient a pedagogy as time itself, and in its modern American incarnation, is among the oldest home-schooling methods. But it is also the most elusive, a cause of growing concern among some education officials and social scientists."

Read the full story here.

Celebrity Homeschoolers

The December 2006 issue of Reader's Digest features an interesting interview with Will Smith, star of the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. As an aside, Will mentions homeschooling and gives a picture of their family's homeschooling style.

"RD: Have you ever thought about going back to college?
Smith: The things that have been most valuable to me I did not learn in school. Traditional education is based on facts and figures and passing tests -- not on a comprehension of the material and its application to your life. Jada and I homeschool our children, because the date of the Boston Tea Party does not matter.

RD: When you say you homeschool, do you mean you actually teach them?
Smith: No, we have hired teachers who teach what we feel is important. For example, Plato's Republic -- kids need to know that. Why is that not taught in first grade?

RD: You think kids in elementary school should read Plato's Republic?
Smith: Yeah. You cannot be an American without reading it and Aristotle's Politics. That is what the forefathers of this country read, and they used them to create what I believe is the finest system of government that has ever existed.

RD: So, you don't see any reason to go back to a formal education yourself?
Smith: I know how to learn anything I want to learn. I absolutely know that I could learn how to fly the space shuttle because someone else knows how to fly it, and they put it in a book. Give me the book, and I do not need somebody to stand up in front of the class.

RD: They put physics in a book, but I know I could never be a physicist.
Smith: The first step is you have to say that you can."

You can read the brief article or listen to the complete interview at RD.com The audio is long, about one hour and twenty minutes, but well worth it. Turn it on while you read your email or fastforward ahead 29 minutes to get to the 10 minute discussion on homeschooling.

Real World Science -- Mission to Mars

How would you feel if you packed the car and hit the highway, knowing that your vacation destination would be moving continuously during your trip? As Astronaut Sidney Gutierrez explains, that's the problem mission planners face when sending a spacecraft to Mars. Make real world curriculum connections with classroom problems and activities with Mission to Mars.

Drumming in Fractions
When students tell you, "I don’t need math, I’m going to be a musician!" Introduce them to Ndugu Chancler. Understanding fractions is an essential skill for playing the drums.

"It goes almost without saying that writing and playing music is a highly creative skill. What is easy to overlook in the midst of the glamour and publicity of the recording industry is that musicianship is also a highly technical ability."

Read more by downloading the Movie Guide before watching the 3:00 minute Video.

Seterra -- Learn Geography

Seterra is a challenging geography program with 70 different exercises. Learn about countries, capitals, flags and cities in Africa, Europe, South America, North America, Asia and Australia, using outline map exercises! Examples of exercises: countries in Europe; American states; American state capitals; French cities; cities in Mexico; countries in Asia, etc, etc... Seterra runs in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish or Swedish. Each exercise has a high score list to keep track of your progress. A colorful and addictive way to learn geography! Requires Windows 95 or Windows NT (or better). Seterra is freeware.

"Outstanding content and a straightforward interface make Seterra an oddly compelling geography-quiz program. You can test your knowledge of world cities, capital cities, countries, geographical features, and flags. Most quiz types are broken out by region, such as Australia and Northern Africa. The game gives you a number of chances to guess, color-coding the correct answer by how many times you picked wrong. After three wrong guesses, the correct answer lights up green; when you click it, it turns red. This creates an easy visual representation of which areas you need to study more. The high-score tables provide a subtle but effective spur to learn. We had only two small quibbles: we would have liked a desktop icon option, and sometimes the place names overlap and obscure nearby location dots. Anyone interested in learning more about our world, especially students, can get sucked into Seterra's spell."
--Download.com

Black Families Integral in Homeschooling Movement

Another media outlet has taken notice of the fastest growing segment of American homeschooling -- African-American homeschoolers.

"The numbers of black and white home-schoolers rose about a third from 1999 to 2003 to encompass about 1.3 percent of U.S. black students and 2.7 percent of whites.

Researchers say the number of black parents who are home schooling their children may now be growing even faster.

More than half the students who are home-schooled come from families with three or more children, and more than one-quarter from families making less than $25,000 in 2003, when the nation's median family income was $56,500.

More than half of home-schooled students came from families making between $25,000 and $75,000."

Read what else Leslie Fulbright of the San Francisco Chronicle reported on November 5, 2006 here.

Cancelling Noise with Dr. Amar Bose

Problem: How do you cancel out all that distracting sound around you that you don’t want to hear when you’re listening to music?

Solution: Use mathematics formulas to prove the engineering is possible to create noise-cancelling headphones.

In 1978, Amar Bose, CEO and founder of the world-renowned Bose Corporation, was frustrated by the inability to hear good music in a noisy airplane cabin. Then he got curious and wondered if there was a way to separate what one wanted to hear from what one didn’t. And the rest is… well, watch this 3-minute movie.

Gifts for MythBusters Fans

For fun, real-world and hands-on (well, sorta) science check out Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. And just in time for Holiday Shopping, buy MythBusters gear at the Discovery Store!

It's a tough job separating truth from urban legend, but the MythBusters are here to serve. Each week special-effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman take on three myths and use modern-day science to show you what's real and what's fiction. That's right, they do more than explain how something may or may not be scientifically possible. Through trial and error they actually demonstrate it.

MythBusters gear on sale now!