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Editor-in-Chief of Editor-in-Chief
of Editor-in-Chief of Author of unschooling books Interview on Radio Free School
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Musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings about unschooling, natural parenting, sustainable living and more by Wendy Priesnitz. Archives - September, 2007 Citizen Scientist Programs Threatened – September
25, 2007
The latest piece of evidence that the Canadian
government doesn’t take global warming seriously is last week’s 80
percent slashing of the budget of Environment Canada’s Ecological
Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN). It is a partnership of over
600 organizations (international, national, provincial, territorial,
other federal government departments, universities, intergovernmental
organizations, NGOs, aboriginal groups, community groups) and
individuals who undertake ecological monitoring in Actually, this is just one of many slashes, worth $10 million, that have happened to Environment Canada’s budget over the past year. Since the Conservative minority government announced just last month that the budget surplus for the 2007-08 fiscal year will come in higher than the $3-billion projection made in the federal budget earlier this year, lack of funds cannot be the reason for these cuts. Since these programs deal with climate change, the government explanation that the money is being redirected to climate change programs cannot be true. If this was a bloated initiative full of corporate executives billing gigantic fees, rather than a small staff doing wonders on a miniscule budget and working with hundreds of volunteers, cutting it might make sense. In fact, this was a very small investment for a huge return, providing access to a large amount of timely data at minimal expense. Oh, and there’s the educational value for all those citizen scientists. Perhaps Halifax Liberal MP Geoff Regan has a better explanation for the cuts. He is vice-chairman of the House of Commons standing committee on the environment and sustainable development, and in a news release calling on the government to reinstate the funding, he said, “Perhaps the Conservative government feels that by eliminating the science, it can somehow erase the issue of global warming and climate change from the minds of Canadians.” If that is the aim, it won’t work. Public awareness
of climate change is here to stay. I hope that
the thousands of volunteers involved in the programs run by the EMAN
coordinating office will tell Environment Minister John Baird (by email
or mail: Les Terrasses de la Chaudière, 10 Wellington Street, 28th Floor,
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3) about the importance of those monitoring
programs...and tell him that cutting them is not in the government’s nor the public interest. If you care about wildflowers, frogs, migratory
birds and our climate, send Baird a message. And encourage your Scout
Troop, workplace, non-governmental organization, etc. also to write to
him. You can copy the EMAN coordinating office. Breastfeeding is Not Obscene – for the gazillionth
time! – September 12, 2007
As I
wrote earlier this year, there is no excuse for this Neanderthal
behavior in 2007. It is jaw-droppingly astonishing that some people don’t
understand that feeding children is the purpose of breasts…and
it’s a very sad commentary on our messed up culture that we connect
feeding a child with sex and relegate it the bedroom, or with other
bodily functions and banish it to the bathroom…or remove photos of it
from the Internet because it is obscene. Shame on Facebook. Makes me want to boycott them.
We’re compiling a list of baby- and breastfeeding-friendly
alternatives for posting on the Natural Child Magazine website. Please
send me your favorites. Telling Us What We Already Know...Don’t We? –
September 6, 2007
And yet, a professor of psychology at the University Southampton was quoted in the press as saying that we now, for the first time, have clear evidence that mixtures of certain common food colors and preservatives (namely sodium benzoate) can adversely influence the behavior of children. Of course, the same guy noted, simply removing the additives from food would not prevent hyperactivity in children. Of course not. So does this mean that industry-sponsored
scientists will now suddenly agree with independent researchers about
something that has long been obvious to observant mothers? Don’t hold
your breath. The new research was apparently greeted with skepticism by the International Food Additives Council, an
Atlanta-based trade association. Healing the Ugliness of a Schooled Society –
September 5, 2007
Any exploration of this sort inevitably pokes around at the true meaning of education, both for individuals and for society. And that’s the focus of a number of the articles and columns in the September/October issue of Life Learning, now on its way to subscribers. Gea Bassett – a 29-year-old unschooled mother of a young child – describes how the time and space she was given as a child became the path to self-reliant, open-ended thinking. And, she reasons, that sort of thinking is the key to fixing this broken old world’s social and environmental perspectives. Dan Grego – director of a community organization that helps at-risk youth become productive adults and responsible community members – comes at the problem from a different perspective but ends up at the same place. Recognizing that learning isn’t something one switches on and off at certain times or in certain locations, he suggests that all schools be closed, at least temporarily. Then, he says, “Without the crutch of the schools to lean on, everyone in a community would have to reclaim his or her own responsibility for educating the young.” Homeschooling author and speaker David Albert makes some suggestions about how families can do that in the column he writes with Joyce Reed. Along the way, he describes the soul-destroyingly ugliness of the schooling experience. He also describes the alternative, which, of course, is based on our trust in children. David writes, “Our children have within themselves, or so I am led to believe by my experience of them, an inner yearning for the beautiful, a potential wonderment and a delicious longing and love and trembling waiting to be empowered on its quest.” David and Dan Grego agree that this yearning is not
likely to be fulfilled in a school or a shopping mall, that we can’t
buy our way to a healthier, saner world; nor can we school our way to
it. But we can get there by creating the environment where happy,
self-reliant, fully engaged, truly well educated children can develop
the ability to heal the problems that previous generations of schooled
adults have created. I hope these three ways of making the same point
encourage you to believe in the beauty of the unschooling path. Learning from the Learners – September 2, 2007
I’ve just finished his latest book, a memoir
called Painting Chinese: A Lifelong Teacher Gains the Wisdom of Youth (Bloomsbury,
2007). Honestly and humbly, Kohl describes how, late in a productive
life and searching for something new to engage in, he stumbled into a
Chinese painting class…where his fellow students were all young
Chinese children. He writes about studying alongside the children while
reflecting on his life. Painting took on a meditative quality and helped
him come to terms with waning energy and the cancellation of a beloved
university program. But more importantly to me, the supportive
environment and hands-on, noncompetitive learning process he experienced
in the painting classes led him to articulate things he’s danced
around in his long career as writer, educator and social justice
advocate. Kohl’s body of work is focused on helping teachers fit the
square peg of unstructured creative learning into the round hole of
school environments. Learning with children rather than teaching them
has given him a seemingly new perspective. “Children,” he writes,
“when unencumbered by adult demands and channeling educational
structures, are extraordinary watchers and learn through what they see
and experience.” Return
to current weblog copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2007 |
Topics & Passions: natural learning ~ What I'm Reading:
Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth - New Poems by
Alice Walker (Random House, 2003)
~ What
I'm Listening To:
The Living Room Tour by Carole King (Rockingale
Records, 2005) ~
Fav
Bookmarks:
Daughter Blog ~ Fav Quotes:
Art, Writing, Creativity
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