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Editor of Editor
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Radio Free School
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Welcome to these regular musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings by Wendy Priesnitz. Archives - September, 2006 Junk Food and Truant Officers Visit Park Place – September 28, 2006 Homeschoolopoly purports to celebrate the best of homeschooling. Apparently that includes avoiding “running into the Truancy Officer lying in wait to send a homeschooler to court!” But don’t worry, you can use your “HSLDA Member – Get Out of Court Free” card. HSLDA is one of many businesses that have paid big bucks to have their name and other promotional material on the game board and in a flyer inserted in each box. Aside from the fact that it doesn’t reflect the diversity of the homeschooling community, this game seems to me to ratchet up the commercialization of the movement. But the designers of that game have some stiff competition in the hawking stuff to kids department. Hasbro has released a new version of Monopoly itself, which has ads for McDonalds, Starbucks, Motorola and other corporate sponsors on the game tokens. “Shame on Hasbro for hawking junk food and caffeine to children,” says Gary Ruskin, executive director of an organization called Commercial Alert. “Hasbro is toying with the health of our children. Maybe it thinks that the childhood obesity epidemic is just a game, but parents know better.” “Hasbro has undercut one of the prime virtues of its own product,” adds Jonathan Rowe, issues director of Commercial Alert. “Whatever else one thought about Monopoly, at least it conveyed to kids the importance of savings and investment. Now the game is touting consumption instead. Maybe Hasbro should rename it ‘Huckster Haven.’” Commercial Alert’s mission is to keep the
commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from
exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family,
community, environmental integrity and democracy. For more information,
see their website. Freedom of the Press? – September 18, 2006 There is a whiff of autumn in the air, and football has begun. One can feel the excitement. Why? Because it is back to school time! I know many children who just can’t wait to begin, from kindergarten to high school, looking forward to seeing the friends, including teachers, that have been missed during the summer. New clothes, new books and a new start in the year. Truly one of life’s greatest milestones when everything is filled with promise. However, there is a group of children being robbed of this incredible experience. Their parents, probably that they are being especially virtuous, have decided that they will keep their children and “home school” because they (the parents) believe that they are able to bring all knowledge and learning to their children…There are several new studies that deal with this overzealous parenting. Too much home pressure, too much togetherness, no chance for the children to find their own way. I have written in the past of a Harvard study that followed a flock of homeschooled children that found no significant difference in their academic achievements that the traditionally schooled children, with the exception of some gaps where the parents were just not knowledgeable. However, the mothers do get a huge ego boost.” You get the picture. You can read
the rest if you have the time and the stomach for an ill-informed, unsubstantiated, mixed-issue rant. Clearly Ms. Boyce has a serious problem with
home-based learning and perhaps with what she calls “controlling
parents” and perhaps even with logic. I don’t who she is, what her problem
is or why she has it. But I do know that the editor of that newspaper doesn’t need to
provide a platform for her ignorant neurosis. You might want to
tell him that, even if you’re not inclined to point out for the
millionth time the strengths of home-based learning and the painful lack
of promise shown by our public school system. Sit Still or Be Drugged – September 10, 2006 I continue to receive both support and censure for that stand. So it’s good to see others coming to the same conclusion. Jane Fendelman, an Arizona-based child and family counselor, says that psychiatrists who participate in this diagnosis and treatment are on the wrong track. The author of the book Raising Human Beings calls ADD and ADHD “an adaptive response to a society that’s stuck in the hamster wheel…We want them to go fast when we say so and slow down and stop when we say so.” Plus, she notes, “they may be bored with a below-par curriculum.” Fendelman was recently interviewed on a radio show produced by the Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights, a three-decade old organization fighting psychiatric abuse. She points out that not only are the pharmaceutical companies making billions of dollars selling Ritalin and other addictive (and sometimes fatal) drugs, schools also have a vested interest in students being diagnosed with ADD or ADHD because they then receive money for servicing these “special needs” children. The interview discusses how the psychiatric drugs
children are given do not address the basic problems they may be faced
with, and often lead to many other problems, such as serious physical
and psychiatric side effects, drug addiction and even death. She reasons
that difficulties can well be expected later in life when one has gotten
through school using amphetamines as a crutch, because the students have
not learned new skills or how to deal with their problems. However, the
situation is not hopeless; as the show’s guest explains, knowledge
equals power. The interview can be downloaded
here (patience is required.) Sitting Still – September 7, 2006 These three apparently very important skills are self-care (putting your own coat and shoes on), sharing…and sitting still. The author writes: “One of the primary components of preschool is circle time, when children sit and listen to a story or sing songs or even do some simple academics as a group.” So parents are told to have their pre-pre-schoolers practice sitting still by having a circle time at home. Having a set time at home for snacks is important too, apparently, so that your preschooler will learn how to sit and eat at specifically scheduled times. Of course, this could be important advice for
people who send their ever younger offspring to school and don’t want
them diagnosed with ADHD, which, by the way, I heard mentioned yesterday
in a radio ad as one of the “mental illnesses and addictions” for
which the local association for mental health could provide help. What
is an illness is the idea that such classroom passivity should be
inflicted on active, joyful three- and four-year-olds. The Power of Images – September 5, 2006 If I’d taken the call, I would have pointed out that the very essence of life learning is that people learn best through experimentation – yes, even if that means being hit on the nose by a softball from the height of a few feet. Perhaps this particular little girl had a knowledgeable person (of any age) nearby with whom she could have discussed the problem post-nose bonking. Or perhaps she would have tried a different hand angle all on her own. As for “girls’ softball”, maybe this little
girl was just having fun tossing a ball around. Maybe she didn’t have
aspirations to play a competitive sport. Or maybe she was on track to developing a high level of competency, based on an acquired passion for throwing and catching balls. Learning from Living …and Video Games –
September 1, 2006 Although Johnson doesn’t say so, this is a great
argument for life learning. There is another not-bad one (plus a plug
for Life Learning magazine) in yesterday’s Kansas City Star. Thanks to the local unschooling group there, the members of which
I assume passed along our contact info to the reporter. Return
to current weblog copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2007 |
Topics & Passions: natural learning ~ What I'm Reading: Tangled Lives - Daughters,
Mothers and the Crucible of Aging by Lillian B.Rubin (Beacon
Press, 2002) ~ What
I'm Listening To:
Songs of Loss and Healing by Roseanne
Cash (Capitol/EMI, 2006) Movin and Groovin by Jake Langley
(Alma Records, 2006) ~
Fav
Bookmarks:
Malcolm Gladwell's Blog
~ Fav Quotes:
Art, Writing, Creativity
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