Book Review: God's Love in Action

Title: God's Love in Action

Author: Kiana Jackson-Resendez

Date: 2024

ISBN: 979-8-9899419-1-9

Quote: "I've got the rhythm of love."

This quirky picture book features Isaias, "the first student" at a school where all the other students are color drawings. Isaias does some things that children should know better than to do before they go to school. The text then invites child readers to touch the book, or the computer screen, to indicate what he ought to do in each situation. Should Isaias push another child aside on his way up the slide, or wait in line behind the other child (who is a cartoon figure while Isaias is a live photo spliced into the drawing)? In between scenes Isaias dances to a refrain, "I've got the rhythm of love."

Having been a five-year-old who really did, of my own free will, "practice" for school by playing with imaginary classmates, being mindful of whether I might have bumped into an imaginary person while racing around the room, I can say that this way of presenting basic information about good manners makes intuitive sense for some children. Whether parents want to teach children to put their hands on computer screens is another question. I'd teach children to touch screens only with the special stylus or, better yet, use only electronic devices that have proper keyboards. 

The PDF e-book I received looks as if there is or will soon be an interactive version with sound and animation. I didn't get that version.

New Book Review: Mission Possible Young Readers Edition

Title: Mission Possible Young Readers Edition

Author: Tim Tebow

Date: Today, 7 March 2023

Publisher: Waterbrook

Length: 176 pages

ISBN: 978-0593194072

Quote: "We are each on a mission to make a difference."

And this book addresses readers as young as age ten--usually a pre-spiritual stage of life, but you never know--encouraging them to pay attention when their emotional hearts "ache for the kid in your class who always gets picked on" or feel "touched by a need" when they see TV commercials for charities.

Homeschooled preacher's kid Tim Tebow, best known as a football star, put most of the profits of his first career in sports into his charitable organization, but he launches this book with the story of how he invested time as well as money in proposing to his wife. A focus on the planning and staging, rather than "eww ick, mushy stuff," may keep this story interesting to middle school readers. Know your students.

Homeschoolers tend to push the envelope when it comes to imagining what children may be capable of. It works in the homeschool setting because parents usually have a good idea of how much their children understand. 

I say "usually" because part of the normal human learning process seems to be that adults assume that a child who can do or understand A can also do or understand B, and this usually produces a manageable amount of stress as the child pushes itself to do or understand B. I've often reminisced about the things my father expected my brother and me to do just because I was able to see letters and sound out words at age four: "If the older one could read Disney picture books and Dr. Seuss at four, she ought to be reading news magazines and Bible stories at five, and the younger one ought to be reading picture books at four likewise." We weren't. We had high I.Q.s and loved reading things ahead of "grade level," but Dad had few grown-up friends because of his tendency to expect even adults to learn more new information faster than they could. Then when his audience were thoroughly confused Dad was apt to start berating them for being "stubborn and stupid." So, at least we grew up with a solid role model of how not to teach. And so today, if this web site seems to assume that readers of one post know more than they do and readers of another post don't know as much as they do...I try to keep everything at this post accessible to a bright ten-year-old reader. Some posts will actually interest that ten-year-old reader and some will not. Since it's only a web site I do assume that readers can browse about, find their own level, and look up anything they don't understand. In real life I'd have audience reactions to go by; in writing I have to do the best I can, as all writers do. Tebow's writing a serious evangelical book for very bright ten-year-olds or, more likely, normal fifteen-to-twenty-year-olds is probably a reflection of his own early life, spending most of his time with highly educated, mentally active, adults who might have found in their clever child something they missed in most of their friends their own age. 

This book will work for some middle school sports fans but I would emphasize that there's nothing at all to worry about if your own half-grown football fan prefers books with more pictures of actual games and less talk about missions and God. I'd be more concerned about a child if adults created pressure for the kid to show more interest in "spiritual things," even in Fellowship of Christian Athletes terms ("Celebrate God all day and every day. I mean...revel in Him!"). That generates a rebellious reaction in which "cradle Christian" teenagers seem to want to go out and do something they can repent of. While cultural expectations that this Rumspringe phase will merely bring the young back into the church seem to work for a majority of teenagers in Amish, Seventh-Day Adventist, and Southern Baptist communities, the Rumspringe experience can be dangerous for individual teenagers. 

I would offer this book to any young reader who is interested in now-retired football stars, but I'd probably say something like, "Tebow grew up a bit different from the average kid. You might get more out of this book when you're in high school or college." And let all further discussion of the book begin with the student. Spirituality does not develop on the same schedule as language and math skills or physical growth do. Here I stand to testify that although I was sounding out words in adults' books and magazines at four, although I was the first skinny eleven-year-old to find a use for a bra in grade six, I didn't have an adult spiritual life before my early twenties. My "adult baptism" at sixteen turned out not to be a great mistake, but I wasn't altogether sure whether it was going to be a mistake during my years as a young "adult" church member.

For readers who aren't totally turned off by the story of a man's setting up an elaborate scene to propose marriage, Tebow goes on to share other stories of more interest to kids. As a homeschooler, he tells us, he was encouraged to socialize in a church that had a large youth group and staged lots of activities. The group had enough students to require auditions for their plays and pageants. "Eight-year-old Tim Tebow" was ordered to recite a poem he "mumbled...[s]taring down at my shoelaces" and rush through a rendition of "Jesus Loves Me" in which "Every sound...fumbled out of pitch. When I was done squawking the last line, I speed-walked to the side curtain." After this audition, due to family connections no doubt, he was given a part in the play and a position in the choir. Though "basically taking up space in choir due to my lack of talent," he came to feel real gratitude for the adults who "didn't see me as a one-sided jock" but patiently taught him to sing. 

From such adults he also learned values like integrity ("While it's nice to be rewarded with stuff, it's more fulfilling to please our Heavenly Father"), gratitude ("when I shift to being grateful...the muscles in my neck relax"), and excellence ("Your Work Is Worship"). And he learned that your vocation to work, which may or may not be the job that pays your bills, is "your mission superpower." 

For Tebow's target audience of talented teens...I'm one of the people who routinely use the term "teenagers" to include ten-to-twelve-year-olds who are developing the sense of purpose and ability to concentrate that are normally found in thirteen-to-sixteen-year-olds...it is commonplace to have a strong sense of vocation. A talent was probably noticeable before they were even five years old, though that's not always the case--sometimes kids don't have access to ways to develop and show their talents early in life, or their talents aren't recognized as "real" vocations because adults' prejudices suggest that things like cooking are less "real" vocations than things like teaching. (Grandma Bonnie Peters rebelled in youth against pressure to get a college degree and teach school, because that was the "upscale" thing for young ladies to do with their intelligence. Her vocation first manifested itself as a talent for cooking, and later matured into her vocation for home nursing, nutrition counselling, and life coaching.) Small children may also show a precocious talent that turns out not to be their vocation, as when my natural sister, who was able to sing on key before she was able to speak clearly, lost all ability to hear sounds in the soprano range at age five. 

Most talented young people, however, do know what their talents are, and are ready to have a "first career," even if it's a short one, in middle school. We want them to keep learning and exploring different things but we need to let children use their talents and energy. Sometimes people still show vestiges of an archaic belief that every boy has to be a soldier and every girl has to be a mother, starting as early as possible--why make them wait till they're eighteen, when boys can fight and girls can get pregnant at fourteen! In fact civilized societies flourish when most men never have to go to war and most women never have to give birth. Focus on their other talents is probably best for society as well as for these individuals. Children should "start small" with relatively short work days, if possible, and "safe," well supervised tasks that won't compromise their ability to do other jobs later. There are still countries where giving kids jobs in textiles or machinery is the way nice people keep children from being recruited as pickpockets or prostitutes, but having them work with toxic waste, as has been reported in modern China, is going too far. In the United States we tend to go too far in the opposite direction, nannying at children who are perfectly happy with their first steps toward their vocations: "Put down that book, you read too much. Must you practice your music every day? Normal kids don't ask for math books for birthday presents--you'll never have any friends if you go on like that! You're too little to handle needles or hammers or whatever, you might cut yourself. There'll be plenty of time to sell things for money when you're grown up, don't start that now," and so on.  Tebow encourages kids to take those first small steps into their vocations. Their work is worship. He's right.

He also sides with "Convictions Over Emotions": "[F]eelings come and go. [God's] love for us does not." This detail is important, yet divisive. It hinges on one of those physical differences we're not comfortable even recognizing--probably the only physical difference that needs to make any difference in the way people behave toward one another. "Race" doesn't matter at all when intelligent people want to accomplish something. Age and sex matter less than we might think. Even physical abilities can often be worked around. But the difference between introvert and extrovert brains may remain crucial.

In contemporary American society we often meet people who do have consciences, vocations, the ability to work alone, and even some conspicuous introvert-type talents and perceptions, who believe they are extroverts because they are not shy. This doesn't mean that they are extroverts in the sense that is relevant in the light of recent scientific discoveries, the sense of incomplete neurological development. It means that they're still using an outdated working definition of what appear to be introvert and extrovert behavior, according to which that mythical "balance" between the two is possible. People have either introvert or extrovert brains but a healthy introvert brain normally does develop social poise, especially under the guidance of healthy introvert adults who appreciate a quiet, focussed, talented child. Shyness is typical of adolescents who know they're raw beginners at most of the things they do, of extroverts who have less wealth or "looks" than those around them, and of introverts who've been emotionally abused by extrovert bullies who were not taught to be grateful for the attention they get. When we as a society become more vigilant about training children not to start a bullying relationship, saying things like "You're yapping at someone who wasn't even looking at you? How DARE you? Go to your room until you can get some control of that mouth!", then the stereotype of the socially awkward introvert will probably disappear.

The real difference between introvert and extrovert brains is not always obvious from behavior, but it's permanent and important. Introverts have convictions because, whatever specific talents our brains also develop, we all share the crucial part of the brain that links spirituality to the sense of right and wrong, the conscience, from which we make aesthetic as well as moral judgments. We need to heed and develop our consciences. Extroverts fail to develop the conscience, which is a real disability and needs to be recognized as one. They need help; they need guidance; they do not need a great deal of individual responsibility, because all they have to go on, when making decisions, are the emotions they feel primarily about other people's reactions to them. Because of this difference in the physical brain, extroverts remain stuck at what Kohlberg called a juvenile stage of moral development, while introverts reach what Kohlberg thought was moral maturity. 

This doesn't mean that all introverts always behave well. Anyone can consciously choose wrong, for bad reasons, such as money or social pressure. Introverts do need to learn effective ways to communicate in situations where their moral senses and social senses conflict. Left to ourselves introvert children are likely to want to solve social problems by beating up bullies, thus putting themselves in the position of super-bully or else getting beaten up themselves, or screaming ineffectually at adults, thus usually getting a harsher reception than Greta Thunberg has so far received. We need positive instruction in how to communicate our beliefs, but the kind of "counselling" many adult introverts got in the 1970s and 1980s, which began with "feelings" and "Can you remember when you lost your warm fuzzy feelings toward other people? Who did what to you when you were just a baby or toddler? Was it your mother or your father? Did they actually molest you or did you just feel the way they cleaned your bottom as something like sexual abuse?" does no good at all. Neither did the milder, or New Age, version of "Let's all just go back to a more primitive level of civilization where nobody dared to make value judgments." For one thing that view of history is almost certainly false--when isolated primitive tribes failed to develop a coherent moral law they usually seem to have been dominated by superstitions about what might appease the hostility of their vicious "gods"--and moreover it's counterproductive for individuals and for society. We need to heed the moral judgments of enlightened people.

Tebow discusses what might be seen as the sad end of his first career in this context of where "feelings" fit in the Christian life of a neurologically complete adult, or what is now the objective scientific meaning of the word "introvert." "As I walked around the Star" in the Dallas Cowboys' extravagant complex, "I became swept up in unmet longings...I wish I had a chance to be a player in this facility...God, I wish You had a different plan. Seeing the Cowboys' facilities made me miss football," even though his adult moral sense knew, "My mission that day was to have an impact on a bunch of souls" as a preacher whose football career was over. Nobody can be a professional athlete forever and most athletes would do well to be thinking of their second careers as their adult careers, since most athletic competitions are dominated by the crazy teenage energy that just subsides when the body has stopped growing. Most of the time, Tebow tells us, he knows he's here to preach and "encourage" and raise funds for his charity, but he has moments when he misses football. 

(Eventually, I'd like to encourage him, it settles down into pleasant nostalgia. Pleasant feelings associated with our adult careers displace the older memories of pleasant feelings associated with our earliest successes. This, too, is a physical process. During the process nostalgia can stab like a toothache as easily as it can give pleasure and inspire works of art, later. The challenge is to resist any temptation to "drink to forget" what we lose by growing up.)

For Tebow, whose own emotions must still be making strong waves in his consciousness, "feelings" are like the two wolves in the story he tells. Some readers may need to be reminded that for Native Americans the predatory animals, even the deadly dangerous wolf, bear, and eagle, were symbols of power rather than danger. Humans can tame and train those animals. Legendary heroes of American culture did that. So in the terms they used, it made sense to describe emotional energy as like "two wolves fighting" and one wolf being "good, kind, and generous" while the other was vicious. A wolf who became your friend and protector, like Julie's Amaroq in Julie of the Wolves, would fight off a hostile wolf who might want to eat you. Anyway, our emotions are like the two hypothetical wolves fighting. The one that wins is the one you feed. We can use our moral judgments to choose which emotion to feed our attention to. 

This will not give teenagers, instantly, the power to snap into the emotional mood an emotional abuser might demand that they feel or simulate, Nor should it. Nor should they. Their feelings are their own and they have the right to feel tired, impatient, even frustrated by tasks they've not yet mastered. The rewards go to those who learn to work through those feelings. 

Tebow's phrase is "Embrace the Grind." For every skill we learn there will be times when learning itself is difficult, and times when using what we've learned is boring. Rewards come to those who push through the drudgery to recover the joy and glory of their work.

Adult readers, at least, know where this book is going--the last full-length chapter will call attention back to a beneficiary of Tebow's charity, and the last page will be the Christian Altar Call--but this review leaves a good dozen stories for readers to discover in the book. 

Disabled Students: Virginia HB 389, Improved So As to Highlight a Potential Problem

Thanks to State Senator Carrico for the comments on HB 389 at the bottom of this post, which alerted me to the progress of Virginia House Bill 389. It's had an interesting history thus far. Here's the original text proposed by Delegate LaRock:

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+ful+HB389

To which I commented:

http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2016/02/virginia-house-bill-389-just-right.html

That was my comment, not the official position of this web site. There are homeschoolers and Tea Parties that have in the past distrusted bills like HB 389 due to concern that, if state funds support alternative schooling one year, the state will move to dictate the curriculum content and other school policy matters next year. There are fiscal conservatives and Tea Parties that distrust anything that involves disbursing any state funds. I believe the potential problems with HB 389 (as proposed by Delegate LaRock) could be resolved; not everyone, even in the alternative school movement, agrees.

I knew David Peters well enough to stand by the claim that he would, during his lifetime, have wanted alternative schooling to be equally as available to less privileged children as it now is to our neighbors. I can't say, since the weather and her health were not conducive to meetings or long phone calls, that Grandma Bonnie Peters--his mother--would agree that state funding is the way to do that. This web site has aired points of disagreement between its founding members before, but I do respect her judgment.

So...HB 389 passed the House, but without Delegate Kilgore's vote. Well, his job is to represent the majority of his constituents. I'm not always convinced that they are right, but every year, when I identify points of disagreement with Delegate Kilgore, I have been convinced that the majority of his constituents are being represented. I even respect the man enough to consider the possibility that his judgment reflects his access to political information that I may not have, or that correspondents may not have. (That's why this web site has not aired more of those disagreements.)

And the fiscal conservatives seem to be the ones who threw in a drastic modification to HB 389. Look at it now!

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+ful+HB389H1

It's still a good bill, in some ways a better one, and I still support it...but I see one significant potential problem...not with the bill itself, but with the way it might work for one type of student and family.

There is some undeniable benefit in redefining a "qualified student" who can receive funding for an alternative education plan as a student with a "disability." The clear advantage is that this reduces the demand for such funding. Fiscal conservatives should be delighted. Another possible advantage is that it may slow down the retreat from public schools that may or may not be failing, giving these schools a chance to salvage themselves. An additional advantage, that I personally love, is that it creates a counterbalancing incentive for public schools not to declare every child whose parents let school staff get away with it either "attention-deficient" or "on the autistic spectrum."

There are schools, notoriously in Tennessee, where certain venal school employees appear to be using those "disability" labels as if they were no more than synonyms for "extrovert" and "introvert" respectively. They are not. It may soothe the egos of a few parents of genuinely brain-damaged children if their offspring are lumped together with every other child who ever learns something slowly or has a personality conflict with a teacher, but it's not actually helpful to the children.

Recalling the children anonymized here as Blair (the one who really is autistic), Tina (the one who has other perceptual handicaps and has been mislabelled autistic), and Chris (the basically normal one whose emotional growing pains caused different greedheads to mislabel him as both attention-deficient and autistic)...Blair hasn't had a lot of the opportunities and successes that Tina has, and Tina hasn't had a lot of the opportunities and successes that Chris has, and they never will. It's not kind to Blair or to his parents to suggest that Blair is in the same situation, or can benefit from the same learning plan or environment, as Chris. It won't help Chris or Tina find suitable jobs when they grow up, either, to suggest that either of them has ever had much in common with Blair.

Anyone who talks to Chris in a normal way, as distinct from the unique way greedhead school staff talk to children, can communicate with Chris. To communicate with Tina I have to choose different words, speak on different pitches, and repeat a lot, but I can affirm that Tina thinks the way other humans think--at least if they're very young, slow of sight, hard of hearing, sheltered, and slow learners. Communicating with Blair...some people think communicating with genuinely autistic humans is like communicating with cats. They are wrong. Blair's consciousness does not seem to me anything like the cats'. He's more like a possum, or maybe some more exotic animal that's even harder to domesticate.

You'd hire Chris in a minute if you were looking for someone strong, energetic, and intelligent, but not academic. You might hire Tina. You would not hire Blair; at some point we have to face the fact that whatever genuinely autistic people perceive is different enough from what the rest of us perceive that they can't be entrusted with jobs or money.

This brings me back to the memory of David Peters. He was officially classified as "gifted." During the legal battle over homeschooling rights, at some point he was tested and determined to be ready for college-level classes in English and general knowledge, but only for eighth or ninth grade math. (He was in grade seven at the time.) Ooohhh, what could this mean? If you were a friend, parent, or any reasonable observer, it meant a bright boy who'd always learned fast, read a lot of nonfiction and remembered what he'd read, talked with older kids and adults and remembered what he'd heard, but had never gone out of his way to work ahead of grade level in math. If you were the greedhead anti-homeschooling psychologist who talked to David Peters for one hour and then presumed to pronounce on the condition of his brain, it meant some sort of "learning disability" possibly associated with some sort of "neurological abnormality" that might even warrant psychiatric intervention!

That's the sort of student whose parents might be tempted, now, to think that the current form of HB 389 provides an easy solution to problems they may be having with a failing school. Just accept the greedheads' mislabelling of your child, and not only will your problems with the school system be over, but you may even get some extra money out of the deal...right?

Wrong, I say to parents in this situation. If you do accept a greedhead's misdiagnosis and affirm that any problem your child ever had was due to some sort of blurrily defined "disability," you're likely to be signing custody of your child over to social workers...which can be even worse than working with the school system. Your child may still be subjected to genuine brain damage, not to mention torturing pain, from the side effects of unnecessary experimental "medication" that some greedheads have touted as helping attention-deficient children focus and autistic children (theoretically) feel happier. Any disagreement between you and either your child or the social workers may still get your child placed in a foster home...see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for (obscene) details about the kind of thing that can and does happen to children with alleged mental "disabilities" in foster homes.



Young working parents may be tempted to accept theoretical brain damage as an explanation, perhaps depend on it as a solution, to almost any problem your child is likely to have. HB 389, if enacted into law, could add to the temptation. Resist. If your child is bored in a slow-paced class (as David Peters was) and, instead of working ahead of grade level in fifth grade math, concentrates on ways to get a tenured but abusive teacher removed from the school system (as David Peters did), your child may be creatively annoying, but s/he is brilliant, not brain-damaged. You need to set your child up for the future success s/he deserves, not for a future as a "disabled" ward of the Welfare State.

David Peters' parents were not wealthy, but they were dedicated enough to yank him out of the public school system the minute brain damage was mentioned. For other children whose families (and/or extended families) are equally dedicated, HB 389 presents no problems. A majority of the fiscal conservatives and Tea Parties I know in Virginia are in this category: if they have school-age children at all, they know whether their children are or are not disabled, and are dealing with their situations as seems appropriate. But I've been seeing some very ugly developments in Tennessee, with lower-income working parents who have eagerly accepted the state's "help" with problem children, and then had their children harmed, rather than helped--not so much by the state policy itself as by individual greedheads here and there.

So what I'm hoping this long post will accomplish is that those who've sent correspondence about HB 389 will follow through, and educate young parents about the real nature of "attention-deficit disorder" and autism as real disabilities that are not to be confused with ordinary personality differences and/or learning problems. Most of the learning problems children have are short-term problems with absorbing information. Some common reasons for these problems have to do with (a) the pace of a child's growth, or (b) lack of a mental "framework" the child will later use to absorb new information, or (c) resentment of being ordered to learn the information, or (d) cognitive dissonance, or (e) emotional reactions to life situations--all of which are vastly more common than real learning disabilities. Most children who aren't learning something one way may benefit either from having the material presented another way, or leaving the material alone for a year or two and learning it later. Relatively few children really have major mental disabilities, and when they do the problem is usually obvious long before anyone tries to teach these children to read or count.

(Can I throw in a link to a book Christian families should read? Sure, why not? Click this image to buy, not even the classic that made John Holt famous, but the updated version that reflects his correspondence with hundreds of successful teachers of problem children--including David Peters.)



It's important to acknowledge, and work with, major disabilities when they exist; expecting a genuinely attention-deficient or autistic child to learn anything in ordinary classes is like expecting someone to walk on a broken leg. But it's equally important not to try to exploit "help" for major disabilities where they do not exist; treating an ordinary mixed-up kid as if s/he were attention-deficient or autistic is like applying a cast to a healthy leg and immobilizing it for months.

Here's the official comment from Virginia State Senator Bill Carrico, District 40:

"

Thank you for your correspondence. It is always helpful to know how citizens of the 40th Senate district feel about legislative matters pending before the general assembly, so I am better able to represent you.

I look forward to supporting HB389 when it comes up for consideration in the Senate. I appreciate you taking the time to share your views on this important issue with me.

Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future about issues important to you.

Again, thank you for your e-mail.

With warm regards, I remain

Sincerely,

Bill

Senator Bill Carrico

40th District

276.236.0098 District

804.698.7540 Richmond

district40@senate.virginia.gov

"

Book Review: 101 Things for Girls to Do

Title: 101 Things for Girls to Do

       
Author: Lillie B. and Arthur C. Horth

       
Date: 1935

       
Publisher: J.B. Lippincott

       
ISBN: none; click here to see it on Amazon

       
Length: 176 pages, plus index

       
Illustrations: some diagrams

       
Quote: “The main purpose of this book is to provide girls of various ages with something to do during leisure hours.”

       
Boys of various ages would enjoy some of these activities too. They include leatherwork, linoleum printing, “simple jewellery work” and “mounting stones in silver,” and making candy...but you couldn’t publish this as a children’s book today. These authors assume that “girls of various ages,” though reading at a sixth-grade level, would be able to assemble a weaving loom, able to use a fretsaw, likely to have “done a little bookbinding,” and familiar with soldering.

       
It’s not that college “girls” would not be attracted to these hobbies—indeed, soldering might be a more wholesome thing for a college student to do than broadcasting her secrets into cyberspace. And I’m all in favor of the idea that children’s pastimes are not dictated by “age groups,” that parents are more likely to recommend the right books, toys, and crafts by observing a particular child than by reading generalizations about children of a particular age. Still, even for me, the blithe assumption that a fast-reading third grade girl who found this book in a school library could dive into metalwork as easily as she could take up watercolor painting seems a bit much. The references to “girls,” I think, give readers a certain right to expect instructions for pressed flowers, potato-head figures, and folding paper to make chorus lines of paper dolls. Those crafts are not discussed here. And far be it from me to make the decision for my niece that she’s “too young” to string beads on wire or take wind-up clocks apart, or “too old” to make chorus lines of paper dolls if that’s what amuses her, but personally I don’t think of anything that involves extremely high temperatures and nasty fumes as a pastime for children even with adult supervision.

       

Teenaged girls who have plenty of pocket money can have lots of fun with this book, but they’ll need teachers who can show them how the more difficult crafts are done. 101 Things for Girls to Do is strong on diagrams for embroidery stitches but weak on detailed instructions for using a fretsaw, keeping bookbinding and babysitting jobs fully separated, or preparing a place to do a bit of soldering. For parents who know how to do these things, this could be an excellent homeschooling book.

101 Things for Girls to Do is definitely in the collector's book price range by now. Although it's too late to offer it as a Fair Trade Book, the best price I can offer online purchasers is $20 for the book + $5 shipping. (But at least you can add other things to the package for that $5.)

Beautiful Elementary Math

In a new series, Peter Flom presents math in ways even adults can read for fun...and they're certainly recommended to elementary math students too!

http://voices.yahoo.com/elementary-math-beautiful-math-products-fibonacci-12507528.html?cat=4

Book Signing in Chantilly, Virginia

From Dr. Ron Paul:

"Are you worried about the state of the public schools, which can't seem to teach reading, writing, or arithmetic, but have plenty of time for fake history, Keynesian economics, war lies, and state worship?

Me, too, and one solution is for parents to take back their rights, and teach their children as they see fit. That's why I've written my latest book, The School Revolution: A New Answer for Our Broken Education System.

Millions of parents are homeschooling now, and the more the better. Even those of us who have grown children benefit from a society with parent-educated kids. So does the cause of freedom. And if it bothers the drones in the Department of Education and the teachers union, we know we’re on the right track.

My book not only makes the argument for seceding from the government schools, it shows parents how to do it. And if you are a grandparent, or not a parent at all, this book is still important to you, as is the cause it champions. You will like the historical and moral arguments, that apply to everything we believe in.

Today is the publication day. The establishment is rooting for my book to flop. But you can help me frustrate them.

Please buy a copy from Amazon, hardback or Kindle, for yourself or as a gift, or both. For the sake of saving a free society, this message must get out.
" [nice signature graphic that activates some sort of e-mail spam filter]

"P.S. Just a reminder, I’ll be signing copies of The School Revolution this Friday at the 2013 Liberty Political Action Conference.  Hope to see you there!
"

For those who've not received multiple e-mails about LPAC, here's one of several e-flyers this web site has received about the fiscal conservatives' gathering in Chantilly, Virginia:

"In less than 48 hours, the 2013 Liberty Political Action Conference will kick off at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia!

Since time is running out for you to purchase tickets if you have not yet done so (or to purchase tickets for LPAC’s special events if you have already bought your Three-Day Pass), I wanted to send you a quick reminder.

Each year, hundreds of grassroots activists gather at LPAC for an exciting weekend that includes issue education, top-notch training in political tactics, and opportunities to visit with speakers and other liberty-minded attendees from all across the country.

If you’ve never been to LPAC, I hope you will join us this year and see why so many find it to be a highly motivating and encouraging event.

Dr. Paul will speak to the General Session on Friday night, September 20.  Earlier that day, he’ll sign copies of his new book, The School Revolution (just released today), and he’ll also join attendees for a private reception.

If you’ve already bought your Three-Day Pass for the General Session, more information about tickets for LPAC’s special side events is available here.

Other speakers this year include Senator Rand Paul, Congressman Thomas Massie, Congressman Justin Amash, Bruce Fein, Jim Antle, Mike Church, as well as three of Dr. Paul’s former congressional staffers, Jeff Deist, Daniel McAdams (now Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity), and Norm Singleton (C4L’s Vice President of Policy).

So don’t wait!

Learn more here and purchase your tickets today!
"

German Homeschool Raided

I just Google-Plussed this WND article by Bob Unruh, but a weird "successfully shared" message popped up, so I'm posting the link here, too, to ensure wider coverage. As Unruh says, homeschooling is a human right; for many children, factory-style "education" amounts to abuse.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/police-storm-homeschool-class-take-children-by-force/

Common Core: the Global Ramifications

Forwarded by Patricia Evans:

"SENTINEL INTELLIGENCE SERVICES, LLC                                

From LYLE J. RAPACKI, Ph.D.   http://www.sentinelintelligenceservices.com/About-Us.html

Protective Intelligence and Assessment Specialist

Consultant at Behavioral Analysis and Threat Assessment

Private-Sector Intelligence Analyst 

                                                                                                                                                                                                            FOR YOUR ANALYSIS AND CONSIDERATION:

 

Much like Obamacare, Common Core Curriculum appears to be a new, exciting, innovative way to deliver better quality education, just like Obamacare promises to deliver better quality healthcare to all.  Both of these programs are about control; about invasion into local and private matters; about realigning the masses creating a herding mentality removing individual responsibility.  Common Core Curriculum is even more nefarious because this program is directed specifically to grade-school children, has never been tested in any form prior to being implemented in the school systems, and deliberately removes all critical thinking processes by replacement with argumentation by rationalization; i.e., 2+2= 5, and I can argue my point until I win you over (or wear you down) to my point of view.

 

Mentioned below are still further concerns about this New-World Order program.  Please become acquainted with Common Core Curriculum in all dimensions – not just that which is presented in a glossy folder by the Department of Education.  Similar to Obamacare, Common Core is not what it appears from all the hype…you really do need to read it to find out what’s in it, and I believe you will be sad and alarmed to learn this wolf in sheep’s clothing is really about indoctrination of children into the New-World Order and away from family values, Christian values, American values, and even historical educational values which contributed to America becoming exceptional.  Common Core also replaces local home rule, removing from parents, school administrators, and school boards the right of governance as to what children are learning; replacing this fundamental right with a series of programs administered by a faceless, nameless councils and non-governmental organizations accountable to no one.    

 

Maggie has shined light on this deviously deceptive agenda to bring schools across America, and the children in those schools, into alignment with a system that is diabolical at its core. 

 

        Lyle –

Common Core – The Qatar Connection: A Wahhabi State Skypes With Your Children – Connect All Schools

http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/2013/08/common-core-the-qatar-connection-a-wahhabi-state-skypes-with-your-children/                                                                                                                                                                                                

Learn more about Wahhabi Islam from Free Republic here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1173310/posts  Wahhabi Islamists are taught from a very young age that all “non-believers” are worthless and subject to persecution and death. Wahhabists are permitted by their doctrine to “rob, murder, and sexually violate” Jahili.  This extremist Wahhabist view of “infidels” has led the terrorists to use gruesome and hateful methods including the beheading of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, with a willingness to use television and the internet to display their gruesome acts of barbarism. Wahhabi Islam counts among its adherents such names as Osama Bin Laden and various groups such as Al-Qaeda and al-Jihad.  Wahhabists and the Saudi government continue to fund Wahhabi madrassas worldwide. A recent figure estimates that the Saudi government alone has spent over 70 billion dollars funding such extremist schools.

The acronyms for America's New World Order education are mind-numbing - all the better to keep you from connecting who is connected to who/whom/which. First, I have found one source that connects Common Core Initiative Standards (CCIS) to "Connect All Schools," and that is on the "Connect All Schools" website page titled One World Education (OWE). Second, our Department of Defense (DOD) has partnered with the Connect All Schools program. Connect All Schools is connected to Vartan Gregorian. Gregorian is connected to Barack Obama in numerous ways, including as a member of the White House Fellowship Commission. Gregorian was born in Tabriz, Iran to Armenian parents. He came to the U.S. in 1956 to study at Stanford. He became a naturalized American citizen in about 1979. He graduated Stanford University, is currently the president of Carnegie Corporation and is a former president of Brown University in Rhode Island. Pertinent to this article is his seat on the board of The Qatar Foundation International (QFI).

Doha, Qatar

About one year ago, Qatar dedicated a new mosque. The event was widely seen as the initial steps to reviving their Wahhabi heritage. You should be concerned about Qatar's influence in American education. Wahhabi-ists have one goal and that is the spread of radical Wahhabi Islam worldwide.

The Qatar Foundation International, or QFI, in 2011 partnered with the Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to facilitate matchmaking between classrooms in the U.S. and international schools through something called the “Connect All Schools” project.

QFI, funded by the Qatari government, explains on its website the initiative was founded in response to Obama’s call in his June 2009 speech to the Arab world in Cairo, Egypt, to “create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo.”

QFI relates how more than 100 U.S. schools and organizations have already connected on the interactive website.

The stated goal of the initiative is to “connect every school in the U.S. with the world by 2016.”...

WND reported last May the Qatar-based foundation awarded “Curriculum Grants” to seven U.S. schools and language organizations to “develop comprehensive and innovative curricula and teaching materials to be used in any Arabic language classroom.”

QFI, based in Washington, D.C., is the U.S. branch of the Qatar Foundation, founded in 1995 by Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

Thani is still the group’s vice-chairman, while one of his three wives, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, chairs the organization’s board.

Thani also launched Al Jazeera in 1996 and served as the television network’s chairman. Source: Counter-Jihad Report

Qatar is skyping with your children across the U.S.

In January 2012, it [QFI] launched the Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics under the guidance of Tariq Ramadan, who serves as the center’s director.

Ramadan is the grandson of the notorious founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna. Ramadan was banned from the U.S. until 2010 when the Obama administration issued him a visa to give a lecture at a New York school.

QFI, meanwhile, named several institutions after Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. Many regard Qaradawi as the de facto spiritual leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

The foundation instituted the Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi Scholarships and in 2009 established a research center named the Qaradawi Center for Islamic Moderation and Renewal...

The Investigative Project on Terrorism documents Qardawi openly permitted the killing of American troops in Iraq and praised the “heroic deeds” of “Hamas, Jihad, Al-Aqsa Brigades and others.” Source: Counter-Jihad Report (more here on the Gregorian-Ayers-Obama connection)

Vartan Gregorian

Gregorian also serves on the board of Human Rights Watch which issued the appalling Goldstone Report accusing Israel of war crimes.

Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood is mentioned above and as a reminder is the head of the fairly new QFI Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (Islamic "legislation" where?) The following is a profile from one of my previous posts (as you'll see below, Arizona should pay attention):

Tariq Ramadan

Tariq Ramadan: Bush administration bans him, Obama administration throws down the welcome mat. April 2010 Tariq Ramadan is the son of Said Ramadan (see above) and the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. In 2004, Tariq Ramadan received a tenured position of Henry R. Luce Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Two months later the Bush State Department revoked the visa on grounds of terrorist ties under the “ideological exclusion provision” of the Patriot Act. The university attempted to help Ramadan regain his visa with no success. Ramadan resigned the position in December 2004...

In January 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lifted the ban on Tariq Ramadan’s presence on American soil. By 2010, America was no longer under the threat of “terrorism.” Tariq Ramadan came to the U.S.

Atlas Shrugs provides a transcript of Tariq Ramadan speaking in Dallas at a fundraiser for the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), asking young Muslims to “colonize” the U.S.

It should be us, with our understanding of Islam, our principles, colonizing positively the United States of America.

We don’t want the West to be destructed. What we want is the West to be reformed. Source

Arizona receives $465,000 grant from the Qatar Foundation International (QFI)?

According to Tucson News Now, the governing board of the Tucson Unified School District asked the school board to accept a $465,000 curriculum grant from the Qatar Foundation International, a global philanthropic organization with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of the terrorist group Hamas, and behind much of the unrest in the Middle East.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been associated with Islam-biased K-12 textbooks identified by Citizens for National Security(CFNS) and Act for America. The textbooks in the CFNS study contained pro-Islamic misinformation, and material that provided negative misinformation about Israel, Judaism, and Christianity. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), also connected to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood has targeted American schools and other public institutions for indoctrination...

The grant money is intended to implement “innovative curricula and teaching materials to be used in any Arabic language classroom,” reports the Arizona Daily Independent.Two Tucson schools, Safford K-8 Magnet School and Cholla High Magnet School, will be the recipients of the terror-infested cash, according to Tucson News Now.

About 100 students at Cholla High Magnet School are learning Arabic. At Safford K-8 Magnet School, 125 students are learning the language.

Last year’s grant for Arabic language from the Qatar Foundation was $55,000.

A handful of similar programs funded by the Qatar charity exist in other American cities. In 2012, for example, the nonprofit provided $250,000 for a three-year pilot project for Arabic language at P.S. 368 in Harlem, reports DNA info New York. Source

If you click the link 'reports' in the line above you'll see the following:

The  classes are voluntary this year, but next year, all second through fifth grade students will be required to take Arabic as part of the curriculum.

The program is the first of its kind in New York City to integrate Arabic into an elementary school curriculum, organizers said.

The classes are a joint program between the Language Project and the Washington, D.C.-based, non-profit Qatar Foundation International.

"This is important because in the near future, Arabic is going to be a global language," Mamdouh added.

"These kids are like sponges the way they learn the pronunciation and the words."

Vartan Gregorian's connections to Barack Obama goes back to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). Gregorian picked Bill Ayers for the project, and Ayers selected Barack Obama to direct the funding of Ayers' Small Schools Workshop via Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

William "Bill" Ayers

Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) has partnered with the University of Chicago...for Data Science Social Good (DSSG) summer fellowship program.

The fellowship programme is organized by former Obama for America 2012 Chief Data Scientist Rayid Ghani, funded by Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google, and led by a team from the Computation Institute and the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

Qatar Computing Research Institute is working on several key humanitarian and development projects in the region and around the globe in partnership with the United Nations, Red Cross, World Bank and others, balancing its commitment to positive social change with a vision to become a world-class institute for advanced computing research. These projects support the endeavours of Qatar Foundation's Research and Development enterprise to build Qatar into a leading center for research and development excellence and innovation. Source

The following are bits and pieces of information about Connect All Schools, partnered with the Department of Defense and the Department of Education:

Connect All Schools
Learning Arabic in the US with Teachers in Egypt

The classes are held online, using Skype or VSee, after school, and during this time my kids got to interact and speak Arabic with native speakers in Egypt!! Sabah and Muhammad, the two instructors, played learning games with us, and got the kids up and out of their seats.

Click here to see Connect All Schools Map

In my state of Oklahoma a school is "discovering" Korea, doesn't say whether north or south, and another school  is connected to "NAIS's Challenge 20/20 Project on Global Warming and Poverty - Hunger."

Texas: Two of the six programs include an "exchange visit to Jordan," and NAIS's Challenge 20/20 Project on Digital Divide, Maritime Safety and Pollution, Global Warming and Global Poverty.

If you change the map to to "connected with Qatar" you find "
"Summer of Science and Service between schools in Doha, Washington, DC and Boston!" and "Global TelePresence Student Debates"

Throughout the states you find the Summer of Science and Service between schools in Doha, Washington, DC and Boston.

Saudi Arabia has four programs.

Afghanistan's program in Maine? Skyping about politics.

Azerbaijan - Measuring Carbon Footprints with Students Around the World

Egypt - About 20 programs, including Identifying Who Our Heroes Are, and Measuring Carbon Footprints with Students Around the World

The above are just a few examples of many.

If you missed it above, the Connect All Schools "One World Education" page is here.

--
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."  - Thomas Jefferson  "

Homeschoolers' Rights: The Struggle Continues

Madeleine Morgenstern has the latest update on the Romeike homeschool "refugees":

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/19/german-homeschooling-family-will-take-their-fight-to-the-supreme-court/

Do laws against homeschooling violate people's human rights? They do if children are being psychologically abused at school--by teachers who mislabel them, refuse to educate them, penalize them for growing and learning in a different way than the majority, attack their parents' religious or philosophical views, allow them to be harassed or bullied by classmates, and so on. And, when parents and students don't have complete freedom of school choice, children will be psychologically abused at school; the opportunity to get away with abuse will attract abusers.

Ask Grandma Bonnie Peters. This web site has already discussed her past as a homeschooling activist, back when the human rights of homeschooling families weren't recognized in the United States, in the early 1980s. She and her children went underground for five months and subjected themselves to incredible socioeconomic hardships during the years when David Peters, 1969-1982, was a poster child for school choice.

We've discussed the United Nations' power grab disguised as a mandate to extend the right to education to children worldwide, too. We are all in favor of children's right to an education. We do not want that right to be compromised by any heavy-handed bit of global imperialism that would, in practice, deprive children of the right to a better than average private education.

Geological Fault Cake

Here's a cool-looking, cheap, easy-to-make cake that provides a quick visual explanation of how earthquakes work...

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/2013/07/11/baked-geology-shellis-rainbow-fault-cake/

Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for this link.

Although Dana Hunter's recipe is wheat-based, it would also work with gluten-free white cake mix. Or sugar-free cake mix.

Chris Field on the History of Homeschooling

Amazing but true...many of today's parents (and homeschoolers) don't remember when homeschooling was illegal.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/23/power-to-the-parents-the-fight-for-home-school-rights/

Twitter Rally Today, 12-2 p.m.

Karen Bracken invites everyone with access to Twitter to a Twitter Rally, 4/16/13...and here's an update. I won't be part of this; my online time will end before 12 midday. But I will share some additional information KB sent so that youall can use it to Twitter intelligently.

"

Common Core goes social media!!! Please share with everyone you know and help us make this a huge success. Mark your calendar!!! Not a Twitter person…..grab a kid and have some fun.

#StopCommonCore Twitter Rally

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Shane Vander Hart

Parent-Led Reform (@ParentLedReform) will host a Twitter Rally on April 16, 2013 which will start will go from 12:00p-2:00p (EST). We will discuss how the Common Core State Standards effect your family, community and schools? We invite you to participate.

There will be an expert panel and several organizations that will discuss#StopCommonCore. So far I know the panel will consist of:

• Me (@shanevanderhart) representing Truth In American Education (@TruthinAmEd)
• Emmett McGroarty of American Principles Project (@approject – Emmett will use this handle)
• Joy Pullmann ( @JoyPullmann) an education research fellow at The Heartland Institute (@HeartlandInst) and editor of School Reform News (@SchoolReformNews)
• James Shuls (@shulsie) an education policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute(@showme)
• Ben DeGrow (@bendegrow) the Sr. Education Policy Analyst at the Education Policy Center of The Independence Institute (@i2idotorg). (I believe he’s joining us. If that isn’t the case, I apologize in advance).

I’ll update with a live link for the Twitter Rally (or you can just follow the hashtag #StopCommonCore) and as the expert panel is finalized.

Update: Be sure to RSVP with the Facebook event invite, this will help keep you up to date with pertinent info.

Karen Bracken - I WILL NOT COMPLY - WILL YOU?

americadontforget.com
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests”- Patrick Henry

To fix "THE SYSYEM" We must become "THE SYSTEM" - k. bracken

"The change we seek has always required great struggle and great sacrifice." - Barack Hussein Obama

"The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master." - Ayn Rand"

 

"

Colorado, April 13, 2012: Parent Led Reform, a multi-issue organization that projects parental power into education reform, is hosting a rally via Twitter Tuesday April 16th at 10 am MST.  

The #Stopcommoncore Twitter Rally is a collaborative project in partnership with Truth In American

Education, and designed to share the research diligently collected by parents and citizens concerned
about the government’s push for national common standards in education.

“We oppose a lock-step approach to education that takes the focus away from the student and decisions away from the parent,” says Karin Piper, Executive Director of ParentLedReform.org. “Parent Led Reform is impressed with the voluminous and detailed research Truth in American Education has collected regarding the pitfalls of Common Core Standards, and honored to serve as a partner by moderating the rally via social media."

 

The #Stopcommoncore Twitter Rally features a panel of experts who are planning on answering

questions by the moderator, as well as taking live questions from Twitter users across the nation. The
panelists are Shane Vander Hart (Truth in American Education), James Shuls (Show-Me Institute), Joy Pullmann (Heartland Institute), Ben DeGrow (Independence Institute), Emmett McGroarty (American Principles Project)."