Children 'should sleep with parents until they're five'

by Sian Griffiths, TimesOnline

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1083020.ece

The article is not new, but it was brought to an unschooling discussion by Marina Deluca-Howard, who had the following comments (and more)

There was an interesting stat in this article on co-sleeping about nursery schools. An English study shows that children's stress level goes up in nursery school. *for more than 90%, cortisol rises when they go to nursery. For 75%, it falls whenever they go home.

Note the article also points to a *neurological study three years ago showed that a child separated from a parent experienced similar brain activity to one in physical pain*

Kind of makes one wonder about all those pre-school/nursery school advocates! Where I live there is a move to start full day kindergarten. I am guessing nobody saw the studies Margot Sunderland, director of education at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London, seems to have found!

A collection of unschooling notes and comments on sleep and sleeping:
http://sandradodd.com/sleep

"Grow Thyself," Urban Tulsa Weekly

Grow Thyself

The pupil becomes the teacher as children activate the self-directed form of education called unschooling

BY ERIN FORE

I didn't make my kids learn anything," Leslie Moyer explained as she nibbled nonchalantly on a scone.

"Pardon me?"

"Well, I did make suggestions. For example, multiplication tables seem to be the question that always pops up. My son is one class shy of a math degree and he doesn't have his multiplication tables memorized." Her son, Matt, is 22.

This methodology, called "unschooling," is considered perhaps the most radical approach to homeschooling—yet it is one of the fastest, if not the fastest growing concept within alternative education.

and the rest of it

Books about Change in Thought

In a discussion on the Always Learning list about choosing what is natural over what is false or constructed (grey hair for older people; natural learning for anyone), some books have been discussed. I thought to bring them here so that those who would like to consider unschooling (or the role of homeschooling in the greater culture) could read some more direct, more basic ideas.

The authors aren't homeschoolers or unschoolers, but they're writing about ways in which a culture can adopt and nurture ideas without really looking at them.

How did so many people for so long believe the earth went around the sun even when evidence to the contrary was available?

The books named thusfar (with some of the descriptions from the list, so those descriptions have to do more with this particular angle than about the book in general, and so I will link them to the Amazon site where there will be other reviews and comments):

Chaos James Gleick: This is talking about revolutionary new science but could refer to many things. newer edition; fewer reviews

p38.: To some the difficulty of communicating the new ideas and the ferocious resistance from traditional quarters showed how revolutionary the new science was. Shallow ideas can be assimilated; ideas that require people to reorganize their picture of the world provoke hostility. A physicist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Joseph Ford, started quoting Tolstoy: "I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to othes, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives"

This really reminded me of the reaction of many to unschooling when I read it.

The more I deschool, the more clearly I can see this, even with close friends and family who feel threatened by change.

---

If I recall correctly, Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is all about that, about scientists/thinkers being invested in certain belief systems, and how that affects their abilities to think and to do research, and to evaluate the research findings of colleagues. And so, progress is very, very incremental. Great big, new, different ideas are just too difficult to accept.

It's hard to consider that the earth goes 'round the sun if you are absolutely convinced the other way around.

---

That sounds like an interesting book that would go along with what I am reading now–Agnotology [The Making and Unmaking of ignorance] edited by Robert Proctor and Londa Schiebinger...What we don't know and why we don't know it. It's not one of those books about what you should have learned in school and didn't but more the control of information and the manipulation of information to create doubt and change history etc. It discusses military secrecy, Native American paleontology, female orgasm, global climate change, racial ignorance etc. Just finished the section on the tobacco industry. I'm getting into the military stuff. The military had information that it withheld from the public that would have helped confirm the theories on plate tectonics. It took some years for that information to become available for researchers. That was mentioned in Kuhn's book description that I just found on Amazon. Guess Kuhn's book needs to be next in line for me to read.

I haven't read that book, but it fits my view that science advances through attrition. Death. The old scientists defending their beliefs/worldview die and new beliefs are allowed to sprout in the minds of younger scientists.

---

I can see that being somewhat true, but as I read Agnotology I think it is even more complex than that. What areas get funding for research.... what is the monetarily favored areas to grow knowledge..... What falls out of fashion.....Who controls information.?I know some very complex knowledge of the people that lived before us is essentially lost. I'm think of some of the agricultural practices that worked very well in the Amazon mentioned in the book 1491:New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann. Some of this knowledge is being rediscovered, but I'm betting a lot more has been lost. I'm not sure that "science" is always advancing. It seems as if we are always losing previously well know information as we learn the new.? Our brains can only hold so much knowledge/information but I think our collective brains only hold so much knowledge/information to.

By the way 1491 made the history I learned in school seem like some weird
fabrication of reality and I think Agnotology will explain some of that.

The discussion is here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlwaysLearning/message/46054

Amie Coomer, in Ode Magazine

In the June/July 2009 issue of Ode Magazine, there is a small piece on unschooling and on Amie Coomer's blog. Either image below can be enlarged with a click (and then again with another click).



OdeMagazine/coomer

A New Blog-Carnival

These online "carnivals" are sets of related writings. The monthly listing itself becomes a destination and jumping-off point.

This one is being organized by Susan Gaissert.

New York and Connecticut

Unschooling Playgroup in CT and Western Mass ;) We are hearing a bunch of people say they would like an unschooler's playgroup formed here in CT. We would be happy to organize this. Since it's summer, let's start with outdoor places and find somewhere indoors later in the year. (We have a few options in mind.) How about everyone emails us privately and says what days do and do not work for them? We will pick a day that works for most people. We would love to make it a weekly or biweekly thing. Also email where you live and we can pick a nice playground/park in the middle of everyone. We can't wait to get our kids together. Our kids have gotten so much out of being with other unschoolers at conferences. We would love to have that on a more regular basis. Peace, Esther and Jean Elizabeth and Ethan (age 9) and Ryan (age: 1 week until I'm 6!!)

NYC show "Snoopy" - All Homeschooled Cast!

laurie.marg AT gmail DOT com wrote:
My daughter and some of her friends are in this Off-Off Broadway Homeschool Production. Ticket prices are reasonable and you may be able to find parking on the street.
West End Theatre at Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew
263 West 86th St.
New York, NY 10024

Show Opens:
June 23, 2009
Show Closes:
June 27, 2009

Running Time: (includes 1 intermission)

Ticket Price: $10.00; $15.00 Opening Night

Tickets by Phone: 212-352-3101
866-811-4111(toll free)

Tuesday 6:00pm
Wednesday 7:00pm
Thursday 7:00pm
Friday 7:00pm
Saturday 12:00pm & 6:00pm

Help fund this video, please.

"Badman Report" in England

Jude sent this from England:

UK
home educators are currently threatened with the draconian recommendations
of Graham Badman's report to the government - link below

Included are compulsory registration, monitoring including automatic right
of entry into the home on pain of criminal charges, and the enforcement of
a 'suitable education' (whatever that's supposed to mean). And the
recommendations are particularly short-sighted and plain ill-informed with regard
to autonomous approaches. Worse still is the conflation of home education
with child welfare issues - we're all being smeared as abusers, and the
onus seems to be on us to prove our innocence.

I wonder if the delightful (!?!) Mr Badman might appreciate an invite to
the London Unschooling Conference to hear some properly informed debate.

This is not the link Jude sent; this is a summary from the government press release site:
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2009_0105

What Jude sent is a PDF of the entire "Report to the Secretary of State on the review of Elective Home Education in England by Graham Badman"

http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/8318-DCSF-HomeEdReviewBMK.PDF

These seem to be still at the level of formal recommendations, but if people have follow-ups, please do leave comments. Also, clarification of whether this will affect other parts of the UK or just England itself would be good. —Sandra

The gradual demise of SAT requirements

Loyola College Latest to Dump SAT

Loyola College in Baltimore is the latest of over 800 four-year institutions to make their admissions criteria SAT (and ACT) results optional. The change comes about six months after Monty Neill of Fair Test submitted invited testimony to the Maryland Board of Education on the "Limits and Dangers of High-Stakes Graduation Tests."

FairTest's testimony on graduation tests to the Maryland Board of Ed.

Better assessment methods are needed if high schools are to develop higher level skills students need for college and work. Unlike standardized exit exams, the use of assessment methods such as performances, exhibitions and portfolios has been shown to promote the development of skills, knowledge and disposition actually valued in college and employment (Wood, Darling-Hammond, Neill and Roschewski, 2007; Darling-Hammond and McCloskey, forthcoming). Employers have said they are more interested in examples of student work and problem-solving, such as portfolios, than they are in test results [or grades] (Peter D. Hart, 2008). Similarly, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (n.d.) has outlined a range of knowledge and skills students should acquire, much of which clearly cannot be measured with traditional paper-and-pencil tests – but can be assessed using other means. Only with a range of strong and flexible assessments can students or schools be fairly and comprehensively evaluated and learning outcomes improved

---

These links were sent by Kathryn, an unschooling mother of four. Thanks!

"The Impending Demise of the University"

THE IMPENDING DEMISE OF THE UNIVERSITY
By Don Tapscott

For fifteen years, I've been arguing that the digital revolution will challenge many fundamental aspects of the University. I've not been alone. In 1998, none other than, Peter Drucker predicted that big universities would be "relics" within 30 years....(the rest of it)