Practical Homeschooling

Alberta Ballet Refuses to Accommodate Homeschooled Children

Laura — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:39:19 +0000

An Open Letter to the Edmonton Journal

A lady in our local homeschooling wrote this letter to the Edmonton Journal, media sponsor for the Alberta Ballet. Please send in your own letters of support so that their Alberta Ballet’s many sponsors become aware of this unfair treatment.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to you because The Edmonton Journal is one of the media sponsors of the Alberta Ballet. The Alberta Ballet offers each year “Discover Dance, a Community Outreach Program designed for students and teachers to view culture in a new way.”

This year, Alberta Ballet has informed homeschool families that they are not allowed to purchase tickets to participate in this program unless they are grouped as schools do. This means that Homeschool children can only access the ballet if they are part of groups of 1 Adult per 10 children. Organizing such groups is very difficult to do as homeschool families are independent small “schools” on themselves.

Organizing a group that meets the Alberta Ballet requirements may mean that most homeschool children would have to participate in this program with a stranger, instead of their parent (teacher). School Children are allowed to attend the same program with their teacher. As you can imagine, most families are sadly choosing to let this program pass this year instead of putting their children into a potentially unsafe/uncomfortable situation.

School teachers know the children in their class and take responsibility for their care while participating in a program like this. Just like parents do. Homeschool kids should have the right to access the Discover Dance program with someone they know, trust and cares for them: their parent.

The Alberta Ballet Marketing and Customer Service wrote to me “… we got in some trouble with funders because this program, very popular with homeschoolers, filled the house with parents..” Isn’t this program for all students? Why is there a problem with its popularity among homeschoolers? Why does the Alberta Ballet thinks that school teachers have more right to take their class children to this program than a parent that is teaching their children at home?

I find very hard to believe that Alberta Ballet sponsors such as Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, Nexen Inc., Enbridge, TD Bank, Esso, Husky, Lexus, Field Law and the Alberta Government would agree to put barriers to the access of any Alberta children to the Ballet company they support.

Please note that this is not a financial issue. Homeschool parents always pay for their tickets. Unlike school teachers who get free tickets for taking their classes to the Ballet.

Other Art institutions offer fair access to tickets to both School Teachers and Homeschool families. The Alberta Ballet should have the same fair policy. Have the Edmonton Journal, the Alberta Government and all the major corporate sponsors being informed that dozens of students cannot participate in this program because their teachers, their own parents, are not allowed to go with them?

If you can do anything to convince the Alberta Ballet to offer fair access to tickets, On behalf of all the little children who love ballet, Thank you very much!

Survey Needs Homeschoolers Responses

Laura — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 17:22:23 +0000

Dear Homeschooler,

My name is Roya Dedeaux. I am currently working on my Master’s degree in Counseling at California State University, Long Beach to meet my goal of becoming a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT). I was homeschooled from the age of ten, when my mother removed me from the public school system. From that time, I have been interested in how our alternative education has impacted us as a culture.

As I began my studies in the Counseling field, I became more and more aware of how many therapists are unaware of the diversity that the homeschooling population includes. I also heard many anecdotal stories of homeschoolers who felt they could not go to therapy because they were afraid that the therapist would not understand their lifestyle.

I decided to use my current studies to benefit the homeschooling culture that I grew up with. The purpose of my study is to measure adult homeschooler’s mental health needs, and their attitude towards seeking therapy. The results of my thesis will hopefully be used to benefit the homeschooling population by providing much needed information to the mental health profession. If there are any significant barriers for homeschoolers to seek therapy, this survey will isolate those as well.

I found your homeschooling organization’s email address from an online search. To qualify to take this survey, you need to be over the age of 18. Additionally, you need to have EITHER been homeschooled yourself, OR homeschooled your own children. Any types of homeschooling methods, religious affiliations, or mental health needs are welcome. It should take approximately 25 minutes, is completely anonymous, and at the end you are qualified to win one of 2 $50.00 electronic gift certificates to Amazon.com!

Please feel free to pass this survey along to any other adult homeschoolers you know. I have two goals: 1st, to get 1000 responses, and 2nd, to get responses from every state!

Thank you in advance for your help and support of a fellow homeschooler.

–Roya Dedeaux

THE SURVEY:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/homeschoolerssurvey

Free Printable Islamic Coloring Pages

Laura — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 23:20:22 +0000

If you’re looking for resources to teach your children about and Islam (we are nearing the end of the holy month of Ramadan), I have a page on Squidoo full of coloring pages on numerous topics in the religion of Islam.

For Islamic coloring pages, click here.

Students paid $100,000 not to go to college

Laura — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 05:32:22 +0000

I just HAD to post this article that another homeschooler discovered on Yahoo News. It’s nice to see how society is beginning to understand that it’s our instinctual desire to learn and advance ourselves that will determine who we will become – and not be defined by what school or college you attend. Read on!

It sounds like a teenager’s dream and a parent’s nightmare.

Peter Thiel, PayPal’s co-founder, is paying 24 college-aged students $100,000 to just say no — to college.

For two years, winners of the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship have focused on developing business ideas instead of heading to class.

The fellows will work in Silicon Valley with a network of more than 100 mentors where they “will pursue innovative scientific and technical projects, learn entrepreneurship and begin to build the technology companies of tomorrow,” the press release states.

Two Canadians are among those selected.

Eden Full, a 19-year-old woman passionate about making solar power more affordable, is the founder of Roseicollis Technologies, an enterprise she began at the age of 15. Her SunSaluter, a solar-panel-rotation system, currently provides electricity for two small villages in Kenya.

Albertan Gary Kurek, also 19, has spent the last four years developing mobility aids. Inspired by his grandmother’s battle with cancer, he built her a walker-wheelchair hybrid that adjusts to a user’s moment-by-moment power needs and encourages strength restoration.

Four hundred applied for the positions, all eager to prove Thiel’s hypothesis that they’ll learn more in two years in the real world than four in the classroom.

Thiel has made no secret of his opposition to higher education, calling it the next bubble and criticizing the often-crushing cost of study.

“A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” Thiel told TechCrunchearlier this year. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”

He decided to offer students an alternative to the direct-to-university path.

“There is irreducible conflict between staying in college and implementing a great idea,” Thiel told USA Today. “The pernicious side effect of the education bubble is assuming education [guarantees] absolute good, even with steep student fees. That is often not the case.”

His experiential fellowship may prove that future Mark Zuckerbergs and Bill Gates of the world — both of whom dropped out of Harvard — don’t have to be the exception when it comes to success in business.

(Photo credit: Doug Palmer/Reuters)

I Walk By Kids, They Run Away (Repost)

Laura — Tue, 24 May 2011 02:55:44 +0000

Face it, as a society, we are becoming increasingly paranoid for the safety of our children and loved ones. Despite evidence that crime rates are on the decline, the Internet and the news have managed to convince us that the opposite is true.

On her blog, Free Range Kids, Lenore posted a letter sent to her from a retired pediatrician about how children are warned to run away even from their longtime neighbors.

Here’s a note from a doctor, Par Donahue. He’s author of thebook and blog, Messengers in Denim, all about the things we can learn from teens (and life). Here’s one lesson he got from kids that he did not like. (Nor I.) — L

Dear Free-Range Kids: I am a retired pediatrician who walks my dog twice daily in our neighborhood and enjoys talking to kids — after all, that’s what I did for almost 40 years. But, now I feel like bogeyman.

When kids are outside, they see me coming and run into the house. If they are waiting for the bus, they stare at the ground or cross the street when I approach. If I say good morning, or, “Have a nice day,” they either do not respond or they grunt without looking up!

Some years ago my wife and I moved into a new neighborhood where a family with two small kids lived next to us. They were usually in the fenced back yard when we came home from work and would always run into the house as we walked from our garage to the house. After 6-8 months of this the younger boy, 4 or 5 years old, stayed out and actually said, “Hi.” His older brother, 6 or 7, quickly grabbed his arm and said, “Don’t talk to them, they might be kid-nappers.”

What a terrifying life parents make for their kids when they teach them to be this afraid. With very rare exceptions, kidnapping is done by estranged parents or other relatives. We, of course, hear about the half dozen kids in the USA who are kidnapped each year by strangers. Fear, as Michael Crichton said in “State fo Fear” controls! So sad! — Par Donahue

If you appreciate the sentiments expressed in this letter, I HIGHLY suggest that you subscribe to her blog so that you can meet about the triumphs and trials of raising children today. While you’re at it, subscribe to Practical Homeschooling so that you can receive automatic updates via your inbox or favorite RSS feed.