It's hard to pick my favorite Cold Stone Creation but after much deliberation, I'd have to go with "Coffee Lovers Only": coffee ice cream, almonds, Heath bar bits, and caramel sauce. Yummy!
Friday, July 13, 2007
MommyCommunity Friday Fave: Ice Cream Flavor
The theme of this week's MommyCommunity Friday Fave is "Ice Cream". I absolutely lurve ice cream. Because I'm somewhat following South Beach, I don't generally keep it in the house. But I do make the occasional trip over to our local Cold Stone Creamery to get my ice cream fix.
It's hard to pick my favorite Cold Stone Creation but after much deliberation, I'd have to go with "Coffee Lovers Only": coffee ice cream, almonds, Heath bar bits, and caramel sauce. Yummy!
It's hard to pick my favorite Cold Stone Creation but after much deliberation, I'd have to go with "Coffee Lovers Only": coffee ice cream, almonds, Heath bar bits, and caramel sauce. Yummy!
CHBM Photo Friday: Don't Let the Baby Drive the Boat
The theme of this week's edition of the Crazy Hip Blog Mamas Photo Friday is "Summer Time!"
My DD has always loved riding in my dad's boat. As a toddler, she would talk about it incessantly for the 9 months of the year that the boat was in storage (darn that short New England summer!) The following photo was taken when she was 8 months old. Don't worry, she had tons of sunscreen slathered all over that bald noggin of hers! I just pulled her hat back so that I could get a better shot of her face :-)
Let's see all your summertime cuties!
My DD has always loved riding in my dad's boat. As a toddler, she would talk about it incessantly for the 9 months of the year that the boat was in storage (darn that short New England summer!) The following photo was taken when she was 8 months old. Don't worry, she had tons of sunscreen slathered all over that bald noggin of hers! I just pulled her hat back so that I could get a better shot of her face :-)
Let's see all your summertime cuties!
Are Homeschoolers Capable of Educating Their Children?
I enjoy reading Dana's posts over at "Principled Discovery" because while I don't always agree with her conclusions, she always makes very thought-provoking arguments. For all that Conservative Protestants get a bum rap in certain circles as being "brainless", many of them like Dana show that their intellect is as strong as their faith in Jesus and the Bible.
Anyways, she wrote an interesting post the other day entitled "Is It Even Possible to Fix Our Educational System?" She makes a lot of good points in this post, but the one that jumped out at me was her discussion of parental abdication of responsibility for their children.
The "professionalization" of teaching over the past century or so has led to a belief that only those who hold a state teacher's credential are capable of teaching. Critics of homeschooling will often make fallacious comparisons to other professions, making statements like "Only properly trained and credentialed doctors should do brain surgery and only properly trained and credentialed teachers should teach." This would be a lot more convincing an argument if earning a teaching credential was like earning board certification as a neurosurgeon. I discussed this issue about a month ago. Also, the elite prep schools in this country do not require a teaching credential and generally avoid graduates of schools of education, preferring instead to recruit from those with an actual degree in the subject they will teach from our nation's top universities.
I read an excellent book by Jay Greene of the Manhattan Institute called Education Myths: What Special Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools — And Why It Isn't So, which had a whole chapter devoted to the topic of teacher credentialing. He discussed the research evidence showing that possessing a teaching credential doesn't result in any significant increase in teaching effectiveness, and neither does possessing a degree in education.
In studies of homeschooled students, there is no significant difference in test scores between students taught by a parent with a teaching credential and those with a bachelor's degree in another subject. If only the former are truly qualified to teach their children, why isn't there a clear advantage in terms of measurable outcomes?
Furthermore, there are so many resources available to homeschooling parents these days to help them teach- online courses, software, DVD's, dual-enrollment at the local community college, co-ops, museum classes, teaching manuals with scripted lessons, full-service independent study programs, and so on. There are numerous books, websites, and email lists dedicated to helping homeschoolers locate the materials they can use to teach a particular topic.
If I am planning a unit on botany, for example, I don't have to rely on some dumbed-down textbook dictated to me by a committee of educrats in Sacramento. Instead, I can get recommendations from my friend in our local homeschooling support group who formerly worked as a botanist and holds a Master's degree in the subject. I can also pick the brain of the horticulture librarian at the local botanical garden, which has over 1,000 children's books (at least their website claims they do, I've never counted but it does seem extensive!) I can throw the question out to the members of the various homeschooling e-lists I'm a part of to get more ideas. In short, I have no problem finding resources that will help me provide an education that is in many ways far superior academically to what they would receive in our local government-run school.
Anyways, it's not as if government schools were doing such a spectacular job that we as a society really need to focus so much energy worrying about the approximately 5% of students who are being homeschooled!
Anyways, she wrote an interesting post the other day entitled "Is It Even Possible to Fix Our Educational System?" She makes a lot of good points in this post, but the one that jumped out at me was her discussion of parental abdication of responsibility for their children.
Unfortunately, no matter what we as a society do, it is unlikely that little Johnny will learn to read until his parents value his education highly enough to get involved. But that is a little difficult to mandate. No matter how we look at it, we are stuck with treating symptoms. Parents ceased taking responsibility for the education of their children a long time ago. Instead of educating them, they turned them over to the factory or allowed them to run the streets. Organizations developed for the health and safety of these children, creating the beginnings of free and compulsory education. The responsibility for the children was thus handed over to the local school district.Not all parents have completely ceded the responsibility of their children to the State, but even those who have retained an interest have by and large bought into the mindset that they are not capable of educating their own children.
The "professionalization" of teaching over the past century or so has led to a belief that only those who hold a state teacher's credential are capable of teaching. Critics of homeschooling will often make fallacious comparisons to other professions, making statements like "Only properly trained and credentialed doctors should do brain surgery and only properly trained and credentialed teachers should teach." This would be a lot more convincing an argument if earning a teaching credential was like earning board certification as a neurosurgeon. I discussed this issue about a month ago. Also, the elite prep schools in this country do not require a teaching credential and generally avoid graduates of schools of education, preferring instead to recruit from those with an actual degree in the subject they will teach from our nation's top universities.
I read an excellent book by Jay Greene of the Manhattan Institute called Education Myths: What Special Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools — And Why It Isn't So, which had a whole chapter devoted to the topic of teacher credentialing. He discussed the research evidence showing that possessing a teaching credential doesn't result in any significant increase in teaching effectiveness, and neither does possessing a degree in education.
In studies of homeschooled students, there is no significant difference in test scores between students taught by a parent with a teaching credential and those with a bachelor's degree in another subject. If only the former are truly qualified to teach their children, why isn't there a clear advantage in terms of measurable outcomes?
Furthermore, there are so many resources available to homeschooling parents these days to help them teach- online courses, software, DVD's, dual-enrollment at the local community college, co-ops, museum classes, teaching manuals with scripted lessons, full-service independent study programs, and so on. There are numerous books, websites, and email lists dedicated to helping homeschoolers locate the materials they can use to teach a particular topic.
If I am planning a unit on botany, for example, I don't have to rely on some dumbed-down textbook dictated to me by a committee of educrats in Sacramento. Instead, I can get recommendations from my friend in our local homeschooling support group who formerly worked as a botanist and holds a Master's degree in the subject. I can also pick the brain of the horticulture librarian at the local botanical garden, which has over 1,000 children's books (at least their website claims they do, I've never counted but it does seem extensive!) I can throw the question out to the members of the various homeschooling e-lists I'm a part of to get more ideas. In short, I have no problem finding resources that will help me provide an education that is in many ways far superior academically to what they would receive in our local government-run school.
Anyways, it's not as if government schools were doing such a spectacular job that we as a society really need to focus so much energy worrying about the approximately 5% of students who are being homeschooled!
Free Museum Day is Sat Sept 29th!
Mark your calendars: on Saturday, September 29th, hundreds of museums and cultural institutions across the country will be offering free admission for 2. Just download the free card at the Smithsonian website. No museum-hopping though, as the card will be collected upon entry.
Here in the Bay Area, participating museums include the Exploratorium and California Academy of Sciences in S.F.; Chabot Space Center in Oakland; the UC Berkeley Art Museum; the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek; and the Blackhawk Museum in Danville.
Museums are a great way to bring concepts studied to life. Unlike in a traditional school where field trips to museums are limited to only a handful of times per year (if that) because of the logistics of bringing hundreds of kids, homeschoolers can take full advantage of their educational value.
Here in the Bay Area, participating museums include the Exploratorium and California Academy of Sciences in S.F.; Chabot Space Center in Oakland; the UC Berkeley Art Museum; the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek; and the Blackhawk Museum in Danville.
Museums are a great way to bring concepts studied to life. Unlike in a traditional school where field trips to museums are limited to only a handful of times per year (if that) because of the logistics of bringing hundreds of kids, homeschoolers can take full advantage of their educational value.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Petition in Support of MMR-Autism Whistleblower
As I discussed the other day, the British researcher who first blew the
whistle on the link between the combined MMR vaccine & autism, Dr.
Andrew Wakefield, is the subject of a "witch hunt" and facing a
disciplinary hearing on July 16th. Please consider signing a petition
in support of him to the General Medical Council. The organizers are hoping for 10,000 signatures, and so far they've received almost 7,800.
If anyone reading this happens to live near London, there will be a
rally outside the GMC building at 8:30 A.M. on the 16th in support of
Dr. Wakefield. You can get more details here.
Please pass along this information to anyone you think might be
interested!
whistle on the link between the combined MMR vaccine & autism, Dr.
Andrew Wakefield, is the subject of a "witch hunt" and facing a
disciplinary hearing on July 16th. Please consider signing a petition
in support of him to the General Medical Council. The organizers are hoping for 10,000 signatures, and so far they've received almost 7,800.
If anyone reading this happens to live near London, there will be a
rally outside the GMC building at 8:30 A.M. on the 16th in support of
Dr. Wakefield. You can get more details here.
Please pass along this information to anyone you think might be
interested!
Family Gets Kicked Off Plane When Mom Refuses to Drug Chatty 19 Mos Old!
Continental Airlines last month kicked off a mom & her 19 month old son after she refused a flight attendant's demand that the toddler be given Benadryl to get him to stop saying "Bye-bye, plane!"
I've got a 20 month old so I can definitely sympathize with how tiresome it can be to have to listen to a toddler repeat a phrase over and over and over. "Bye-bye" is a common one in our household too. It's just a developmental phase (albeit an annoying one).
The mom, Kate Penland, told a local TV station in Atlanta:
I've got a 20 month old so I can definitely sympathize with how tiresome it can be to have to listen to a toddler repeat a phrase over and over and over. "Bye-bye" is a common one in our household too. It's just a developmental phase (albeit an annoying one).
The mom, Kate Penland, told a local TV station in Atlanta:
"At the end of her speech, [the flight attendant] leaned over the gentleman beside me and said, 'It's not funny anymore. You need to shut your baby up."When Penland asked the woman if she was joking, she said the stewardess replied, "You know, it's called baby Benadryl."
And I said, 'Well, I'm not going to drug my child so you have a pleasant flight,'" Penland told the TV station.Penland said other passengers began speaking up on her behalf, and the flight attendant announced they were turning around and that Penland and Garren were going to be taken off the plane.
"I was crying, I was upset and I was thinking, 'What am I going to do? I don't have anything with me, I don't have any more diapers for the baby, no juice, no milk."
The nerve of that flight attendant! This toddler was not disrupting the flight, just being chatty. That's no reason to demand he be medicated. FWIW, Benadryl can often make kids even more hyper (as I learned when I gave it to my DD as directed by my pediatrician one time).
The flight attendant apparently told the pilot that Mrs. Penland threatened her, but several fellow passengers have come forward to refute that claim.
Mrs. Penland and her husband filed a formal complaint with ExpressJet, the regional partner operating the flight for Continental. After over a month passed with no response, the Penlands decided to take their story to the media and are considering filing a lawsuit.
I don't know if it's worth tying up our courts with this type of matter, but IMHO Continental at the very least owes the Penlands a public apology and a refund of the cost of their unused tickets.
Flying the friendly skies indeed!
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
TT: 13 Stereotypically Female Things I'm Just Not Into
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1. Shoes. I'm no Birkenstock-wearer but I've never understood why so many women go absolutely gaga over footwear. 2. Handbags. I've been schlepping around a diaper bag for almost 5 years now but even back when I was childless it was always more of a utilitarian object than anything else. 3. Manicures. The handful of times I've gotten one, my nails have chipped within a day or so anyways. I don't even bother wearing polish for that reason. 4. Pedicures. I've got ugly feet and wearing toenail polish is like putting lipstick on a pig. 5. Primetime soaps like Grey's Anatomy. I think the last one I got into was Melrose Place back in high school. 6. Diet Coke. I don't dislike it, I'm just not much of a soda drinker. 7. Richard Gere. I've never understood his appeal. 8. Ashton Kutcher. Ditto. 9. Keanu Reeves. Ditto. 10. Vince Vaughn. Ditto. 11. Yakking on the phone for hours. When I'm with somebody in person, I have no trouble chatting away all night but for whatever reason I don't care much for long phone conversations. 12. IMing. Maybe this is a generational thing, but I really dislike it! 13. Chain letters and blog memes that have you tag X number of people. I like doing voluntary memes such as TT, 10 on Tuesday, or the Crazy Hip Blog Mama Carnival but I hate ones that put people on the spot. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! *Please note that I take no responsibility for the content found on other blogs* |
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