Homeschool Changes in California – ISPs are now PSPs « Just Enough, and Nothing More – Doesn't affect me since I file as a private school myself, but FYI for those who use ISPs. "The groups are recommending that California homeschoolers make a change from using the descriptive phrase “Private School Independent Study Program” (and its v
Frustrated parents sneak ‘old math’ to kids – CNN.com – “They call it the Math Wars: The debate, at times acrimonious, over which way is best to teach kids math. In its most black-and-white form, it pits schools hoping to prepare kids for a new world against reluctant parents who feel that the traditional way is best and that their kids are being shortchanged.” (See comments for a link to a very interesting blog post on this topic.)
The Yale Law Journal – “Home Schooling” in California – Yale Law Journal report on CA homeschooling case: "The views expressed above are consistent with the amicus brief filed by the Department in the Rachel L. case on behalf of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell."
The School Law Blog: Home Schooling Case Reheard by California Court – This post at Education Week has links to several of the amicus briefs filed in the case. I’m working my way through them. The governor’s brief was interesting: makes a clearly articulated case for allowing the current interpretation of state education code to stand.
CA Homeschooling Court Case – Detailed account of Monday’s hearing at the website of Sunland Christian School, the ISP involved in the case.
In defense of home schooling – Los Angeles Times – “All of you recognize the issues before us are monumental,” said Presiding Justice Joan Dempsey Klein in wrapping up the proceedings. “We’re as frustrated as you are.”
(A roundup post with links to my notes and reviews)
Hey, what happened to all those booklists you used to have in your sidebars at the old blog?
They're still accessible at melissawiley.typepad.com, where this blog lived from January 2005-March 2008. You can also find all my Lilting House posts there, or try the search bar here. All my previous Bonny Glen and Lilting House posts have been imported to this site.
Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.
(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
—Victor Hugo
Twitter Updates
“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?