Guest post by parenting columnist and psychologist John Rosemond

    A mother asks why I don’t believe in ADHD. Her son has ADHD. After administering a battery of tests, a psychologist said so. According to the mother, the psychologist also said the boy probably inherited the disorder—a biochemical imbalance—from his father, who admitted to having been bored, inattentive, and fidgety in school. ADHD must have something to do with biochemistry, she said, because her son is now taking medication and it has helped a lot. (Note: I am not able to speak directly with the psychologist in question; therefore, I am assuming that the mother has represented him accurately. Regardless, I have heard very similar stories pertaining to psychologists from lots and lots of parents.)

   I asked if the psychologist had ordered a brain scan, blood test, or genetic testing. After a moment’s reflection, and with a puzzled look, she told me that he had not.

“Psychologists are not medical doctors,” I said. “They are not qualified to make statements concerning a person’s physical condition without consultation with a physician or physicians who have made the determinations in question.”

“Then why did he tell me that?” she asked.

That’s what he believes, I told her, and I do not question his sincerity. She asked what I believed, so I told her that no physiological anomaly has been reliably found in children diagnosed with ADHD. Said differently, there is no compelling evidence that ADHD is caused by faulty biology. Furthermore, the idea that brain chemistry is “out of balance” supposes that one can determine the proper state of balance. Brain chemistry is in a state of constant flux. According to experts with whom I have spoken, it varies according to mood, situation, prior history, and other factors too numerous to mention. Brain chemistry in “balance” is whimsy.

As for ADHD being genetic, that too has not been proven. Furthermore, it fascinates me that whenever I have heard a story of this sort—and I have heard hundreds—the parent who supposedly passed the gene to the child in question is almost always the father (I estimate the preponderance to be above 90 percent). Yet girls are diagnosed with ADHD, so one is prompted to ask, “If girls possess the gene, how is it that they seem to pass it on so rarely?”

The criteria that define ADHD are found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.* Those criteria are subjective, which means the diagnosis rests on no objective standards. Furthermore, they are replete with such unscientific words as “usually” and “often,” as in, the child “often has problems finishing tasks.” In other words, children diagnosed with ADHD sometimes act like they have it and sometimes act like they do not have it. The only rational conclusion to draw is that they do not “have” anything at all.

It is worth noting that none of the criteria are test-based; therefore, a psychologist who administers an battery of tests under the pretense that tests are a diagnostic essential or claims to have made the diagnosis based on test results is misrepresenting the nature of the tests. If one believes a diagnosis of ADHD is appropriate, there is value to knowing the IQ of the child in question, but an IQ test is not a valid diagnostic tool.

Last but not least, the medications in question are stimulants that have the predictable effect of lengthening attention span and increasing ability to focus…in everyone. It is not true that certain people (those “with” ADHD) have one reaction to these drugs and certain other people (those “without”) have an opposite reaction. This canard is put forth to support the unproven claim that the ADHD nervous system is substantially different from the non-ADHD nervous system. As for the oft-observed fact that when highly active children take these drugs they become less active: an increase in attention span results in a decrease in activity level.

   “So,” I asked the boy’s mother. “What are your thoughts now?”

   She told me she was going back to the diagnosing psychologist prepared to ask some tough questions and insist upon clear answers. More parents should do the same.

(Author’s note: “Before I published this column, it was reviewed and approved by two psychologists, one of whom has published extensively on the subject of ADHD, the other of whom is skilled in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD, and two pediatricians, one of whom specializes in treating children who exhibit ADHD symptoms.”)

* The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatic Association.
	Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions on his website at www.rosemond.com.
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Several years ago, a friend of ours decided to eliminate gender stereotypes from her children’s upbringing.

As it turned out, her kids weren’t buying it—neither one of them.

Much to Mom’s dismay, her little boy would drive the hapless doll around on its stomach making vroom-vroom sounds. His big sister, on the other hand, did pretend to drive the little trucks around the carpet, all while narrating a story of archaic domesticity: “Mommy’s putting the baby in the car seat, and they’re going to the grocery store!”

Though raised in a very up-to-date, trend-conscious family, these young children had a natural bent toward traditional gender roles. Sometimes gender “stereotypes” aren’t an evil invention of a patriarchal world but instead reflect tendencies built into us by a loving God. And we can use those tendencies—in fact, we ought to use them—to improve our homeschooling effectiveness.

What about the stereotype that boys like science and girls don’t? Maybe it’s not the subject but the way it’s presented. When researchers in Luxembourg asked a group of eighth- and ninth-grade students what they thought of a suggested science program for the coming year, they found that girls were more interested in science when scientific concepts were presented within the context of real-life feminine topics. Likewise, boys were more interested in science when scientific concepts were presented within the context of masculine topics:

Girls showed considerably more interest in topics such as “how a laser is used in cosmetic surgery” and “how to calculate the probability of a miscarriage” than in topics such as “how to calculate the force a rocket needs to take off” and “how to calculate the probability of a car accident.” One of the authors . . . said that girls were more interested in social and real contexts such as the decline of forests, whereas boys clearly found mechanics and technology more compelling.

When you introduce a scientific principle in your home school, can you think of different ways to apply it to appeal to your children? Let’s say you want to discuss heat, the expansion of gases, and their relationship to pressure. It’s equally valid to think of the forces exerted by steam in a locomotive boiler or a pressure cooker. The physical quality of fluid viscosity works the same with motor oil or vegetable oil. Ultrasound imaging is used for both non-destructive testing of mechanical parts and non-surgical diagnosis of soft-tissue injuries. In fact, when we show our children that scientific concepts–God’s physical laws–work the same on the kitchen counter as they do at Cape Canaveral, they will grow to appreciate the wonderful consistency of His creation.

How about the stereotype that girls like to read, and boys don’t? Sadly, there is plenty of statistical evidence for this school of thought. Boys are in fact reading less and getting less benefit from it than ever before. Last year I interviewed several school and public librarians who were stocking their shelves with dozens, even hundreds, of Japanese comic books in a desperate attempt to get boys to read something. Anything. One librarian told me, “A solid quarter to third of what I circulate is graphic novels,” mostly to boys. The catalog of the public libraries of Charlotte, N.C., lists more than 600 titles of manga alone.

This is not just an American concern. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that in 2009 girls were, on average, a full year ahead of their male classmates in reading proficiency in every one of the sixty-five countries studied.

However, the problem may be that librarians and teachers have misjudged what is appropriate reading for boys. Sociologist Morris Massey describes schoolboys on a playground arguing about the wingspan, airspeed, and engine thrust of the different airplanes flying overhead, then dejectedly leaving recess to go string beads indoors. No teacher would assign such technically advanced information for second-graders, but the kids will eagerly dig it out for themselves if the subject grabs their attention.

We’ve seen this over and over with our six sons. If they have a personal passion for a subject, they will willingly plow into the most remarkable books. We’ve had sons who researched transcripts of Constitutional debates in our state in order to write a script for a video project. (It didn’t hurt that they won a prize for it!) Our children have acquired startling amounts of information about reptiles, fish, European military history, web design, and application programming simply because they had an interest these subjects.

Maybe instead of assigning predigested textbooks and anthologies, you can point your young learners to popular histories, biographies, and topical books from the adult section of the library—the same ones you might read to feed your own curiosity. Well-written novels like historical fiction by G. A. Henty and first-person accounts by explorers, missionaries, generals, and presidents introduce history in an engaging way (and beef up kids’ vocabulary, too). Practical manuals on subjects like carpentry, electrical wiring, or yard maintenance will provide them with hands-on application of physics, chemistry, and geometry.

We must be alert to the unique character God has built into each one of our children. Maybe Susan wants to learn biology by studying horses and wildflowers, while Robert prefers to think about dinosaurs and amoebas. Or maybe it’s the other way around. The key is to embrace the student for the unique person he or she is, not for the demographic others may think they represent.

———-

Along with his other projects and duties, Hal is the editor of Apologia Educational Ministries’s monthly newsletter, Apologia World. This article originally appeared in the October 2011 issue.

You can subscribe to their free monthly e-newsletter here! 

Martin Luther was a young German law student when he underwent a remarkable religious conversion.  Taking a bolt of lightning as a warning from God, he left the university and entered the Augustinian order as a monk.  From there, his restless search for peace with God led him to the Bible, then a doctorate in theology, then a teaching position with the tiny University of Wittenberg in German Saxony. 

Attempting to address certain abuses in the medieval Catholic Church, the young Dr. Luther posted a challenge to other scholars to debate a number of practices he questioned.  On October 31, 1517, he nailed the notice to the door of the university church, a common practice itself since the broad heavy doors were routinely used as bulletin boards.  He chose the Eve of All Saint’s Day, or All Hallow’s Eve, to post the theses because that was a festival day which would see the church full of the scholars he wanted to discuss these things with. The list of propositions known as “The 95 Theses” lit a firestorm of controversy that quickly spread across Germany and central Europe.  Luther had attracted the attention not only of academics and churchmen like himself, but the wrath of Pope Leo X and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, as well!

Called before the Imperial Diet at the town of Worms*, Luther was challenged to withdraw his proposals and repudiate his writings.  In the front of everybody’s mind was the memory that the Czech reformer, Jan Hus, had made many of the same propositions decades earlier — and was burned at the stake in consequence. 

Luther’s response, after begging a recess to consider the Emperor’s demand, followed a sleepless night of anxious prayer.  When called for his answer the next dawn, Luther replied:

Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason–I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other–my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.

Here I stand.  I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.

Knowing what had happened to others who raised the issues he had, Luther stared death in the face and stood on the word of God – never mind Pope or Emperor.  In fact, he was declared outlaw by the Emporor and faced:

Confiscation and loss of body and belongings and all goods, fixed and movable, half of which will go to the Lord, and the other half to the accusers and denouncers. With other punishments as given more fully in the present edict and mandate.

Jan Hus Burned at the Stake

Notice loss of body — that’s called martyrdom — that’s what he faced. Among other things. What an incredible, gutsy thing to do.  It’s one of our favorite events in history.

What was Luther’s philosophy that put him in such conflict with the Church of the day? One way to summarize it is called the Five Solas:

Sola Scriptura – Scripture Alone
Solus Christus – Christ Alone
Sola Gratia – Grace Alone
Sola Fide – Faith Alone
Soli Deo Gloria – The Glory of God Alone

All of that flowed out of Luther’s realization of the meaning of “the just shall live by faith.”

Here at the Youngs’, we make a big deal out of Reformation Day (October 31).  It’s a great time to teach our children the heroism of the fathers of our faith as well as our sure foundation: salvation by grace through faith in the substitionary death of the God-man Jesus Christ. That means that as God made flesh, He was infinite in nature and had no sins of his own to die for, so could die for the sins of all his people, taking the death they deserved on Himself. What a rich truth!

On Reformation Day, we eat German, usually bratwurst, sauerkraut and hot German potato salad, then troop into the den to watch Martin Luther, a terrific B&W documentary made in 1954 and starring Niall MacGinnis as the reformer.  The movie was filmed at the actual location of some events, and they did a good job finding actors who actually looked like Luther, Charles, and Pope Leo.  And the scene at Worms is classic!

(The DVD is available from several places, but and is now available streaming from Netflix.)

During breaks we love to sing hymns of the Reformation like A Mighty Fortress is Our God, written by Martin Luther, Now Thank We All Our God, written by a Lutheran pastor during the Thirty Years War (one of the Reformation Wars) after a dreadful seige that saw him officiating at 50 funerals a day, and We Gather Together, written after a victory in the battle between the Reformed population of the Netherlands and the might of Spain, whose General Alva slew men women and children alike as heretics, unworthy of keeping his word towards.

And we do have a concession to the candy-intensive holiday … we play “Pin the Theses on the Wittenberg Door.”  We draw big fancy wooden doors on brown paper with a different treat written on each panel. We use Post-it(TM) notes for the Theses.  Everybody wins, which the boys don’t mind as long as they get lots of candy!

Our friends are getting in to the spirit of things, too. One year friends of ours came in the middle of the night and stuck a copy of the Theses on our door with a bag of candy and a sign, “You’ve been nailed!”

Instead of justifying Christians participating in a holiday that is in no wise holy, why not celebrate a real Christian holiday this year? 

*I’ve always loved thinking about “The Diet of Worms,” but to be fair, it’s pronounced “Vorms” in German.

Read Part One of our thoughts on the holiday here.

Read Part Two here.

Swan Boats in Boston Public Garden by Daderot

We’ve gone so far as to sit in Boston’s Public Garden reading a copy of Make Way for Ducklings purchased at the Corner Bookstore, then riding the swan boats afterward. How sweet to hear that little guy in my memory, since he’s all grown up now, shouting with joy, “Mama, it’s Mr. Mallard!” as a fine drake swam by.

Moonfinder by Jay Ryan is one of our kind of books. I love books that are gentle and sweet and memorable for young children. I also love books that stretch their minds and spark interest in finding out more about the world. Moonfinder is just our kind of book.

In Moonfinder, a young boy is led by his father to learn to watch for the moon and to understand why it changes phases. The family relationships between David and his father, mother and siblings is portrayed in just the right way – happy, secure, joyful. Just right!

The lovely paintings, which are also by Jay, are pleasant and peaceful and full of joy. I especially love the facial expressions – so delightful! They are just right for reading to young children. My two year old, though the information was a little much for her was so delighted with the paintings she absolutely demanded I read the book to her. Our six year old was fascinated by the explanations and tried to figure out exactly how the moon worked. Our nine year old enjoyed reading it to his younger siblings, especially the science behind it all.

Jay Ryan is the author of  Signs and Seasons: Understanding the Elements of Classical Astronomy, an astronomy curriculum we’ll be reviewing soon, and that is yet another thing that told me I’d love this children’s book even before I opened it. Have you ever wondered why the old Landmark books are so, so good that they haven’t been matched in decades? It’s because they are each written by an expert in that field, instead of some so-called expert in children’s books. There’s something irresistible about a fanatic! In my experience, no one can pass on the joy and essense of a kind of knowledge better than someone who’s made it a passion.

Moonfinder is a beautiful book that is sure to become a picture book classic. Beautiful paintings, science, family life, and nature study all combine to make a volume both boys and girls will love. This is one you need on your shelves! Highly recommended. 

Moonfinder by Jay Ryan, Fourth Day Press, 8.5 x 11, Full Color Hardcover, 32pp. Buy here from the author’s site to keep great books coming out!

Liberty, and especially the freedom to parent our children as we choose, is something that can’t ever be taken for granted. After hearing this week about a family in Spain being sentenced to jail for successfully homeschooling their child, it was a pleasure to see homeschoolers fighting for their rights in Illinois. Dave  at Home School Dad is rejoicing It’s done! It’s done! The home schoolers won! After all, the research proves Homeschooling Works! as Barbara Frank of Cardamom Publishers says at Barbara Frank Online.

Pamela talks about those Grumpy Mornings we all have at Blah, Blah, Blog. Enjoy those lazy days while your children are little, seriously, they pass so quickly. Annie Kate on her Tea Time blog encourages us all to use these Four Record Keeping Tips for Homeschools so we don’t forget these times.

Letty Brown of The Bold and Fabulous shares her moving story of God’s intervention in her plans for her life with lessons we can all benefit from in My Arms Were Too Short to Box With God.

Robin Phillips lays out some awesome, simple ideas for Home School Writing Kids: Three Techniques For Writing Fiction at Crack the Egg and Amber has a Book Review: The Wheel on the School (And a Read Aloud Tip) posted at The Mommy Earth. If you are interested in other books set in the Netherlands, we loved Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates (get the unabridged, there’s a lot more to this story than the Disney-fied version) and Scout: The Secret of the Swamp.

At The Sloan Homeschool, TaMara shares a photoessay of India and Butterflies as their children do some hands-on homeschooling. Sara’s family is not only doing, but “Watching Geography” — she tell us about using NetFlix to see the world at Small World. Speaking of hands-on homeschooling, Dena Wood has a lot of great ideas for Food Learning! posted at PJs All Day. Love that blog title!

I think everyone is worn out with winter, because this week is full of great activities like Makita presents in GEMS :: Bicycle Breakdown at Academia Celestia. We have got to do this one. Jennifer shares her daughter’s Apologia Young Explorers Zoology project’s Completion at a glimpse of our life.

Rational Jenn tells about A Day in the Life with young children posted at Rational Jenn, while Miss Nirvana, of Nirvana Homeschooling, teaches a cool Noncontact Method of Painting with Watercolors to her young child. You can get more art ideas from Dragana, who posts Every Child is an Artist from an art school in Hungary. This week they have Pictures with straws. Then check out the art lesson Cindy shares with us, and it includes math, too(!) in I Spy Shapes in Art (Math + Art = Fun!) posted at love2learn2day.

Susan had an insight in understanding her son being unwilling to show his math work in Two Steps Back? Or a Big Leap Forward? posted at Homeschooling Hearts & Minds. Denise enters the Blog Carnival Math Teachers at Play #35 posted at Let’s Play Math! for fun math ideas. Andrea Hermitt tells us about Tapping Into Their Genius and a program to accelerate children she just found out about at Notes From A Homeschooling Mom.

ChristineMM really breaks down some of the advantages and dis- advantages of community college classes in Dual Credit for Homeschoolers Leads to Thoughts About Our Family posted at The Thinking Mother. Janine Cate of Why Homeschool is using community college classes for her daughter. She lays out her plan in Homeschooling to College. Makes me glad we’re in North Carolina, where the colleges are very homeschool-friendly. And a homeschool graduate studying at Oxford University (our son, John Calvin) shares his visit to The Tower of the Five Orders at Further Up and Further In. Don’t miss the “About” on his blog. BTW, the picture in the margin is All Souls College, Oxford, the original ivory tower, where dons have no duties but to think!

At Successful Homeschooling, Carletta’s Homeschool Mom’s Dirty Little Secret #1 – The Unhappy Marriage is a not-to-be-missed been there/done that. This is an issue we all need to be talking about more – how can you make your relationship stronger in the stress of homeschooling. In fact, Hal and I are about to come out with a new book on marriage. Hey! If you have any great ideas for a title, please share! It’ll be a lot like Raising Real Men: a comprehensive look at the topic with a lot of real stories, a good bit of humor and a Biblical foundation.

And finally, our own contribution to this week’s Carnival, Bad Company & Good Morals, in which, Hal after a sojourn on an oil rig, talks about what you can do when you can’t avoid bad company. Thanks so much for stopping by Raising Real Men! We hope you’ll look around a bit while you are here and  join us on Facebook, too. It’s been great getting to know you!

Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of homeschooling using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page. Oh, and if you posted something to the Carnival that didn’t get posted, be sure to let us know how your entry relates to homeschooling, if it’s not obvious – are you a homeschool family, is this interesting information for homeschoolers? We’re getting more and more link-farm  entries and completely unrelated entries. Help us help you!

A sampling of online catalogs in larger North Carolina cities uncovers hundreds of titles, everything from books about cartooning to Asian teen romance comics and educational titles like The Manga Guide to Calculus. Enter the term “manga” at the website for the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, and over 600 entries come up in this one category of comics.

“A solid quarter to third of what I circulate is graphic novels,” said Meg Harrison, the teen services coordinator for the Forsyth County Library [Winston-Salem, NC]. “Most of my readers are boys. If it’s in manga or comic book format, they don’t care if it’s targeted for girls — they’ll read it.”

(Carolina Journal, 8/31/10)

So if you start them with Japanese romance comics and Captain Underpants, somehow they get a taste for Shakespeare later on?  I have to think content matters.  I’ve read my share of superhero stories and other fluffy stuff, but not as a school assignment, and not as the preferred, promoted format.

We don’t think boys should settle for stupid stuff, even when they’re young.  Thomas Spence had an excellent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal recently:

Education was once understood as training for freedom. Not merely the transmission of information, education entailed the formation of manners and taste. Aristotle thought we should be raised “so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; this is the right education.” …

This kind of training goes against the grain, and who has time for that? How much easier to meet children where they are.

One obvious problem with the [pandering] philosophy of education is that it is more suited to producing a generation of barbarians and morons than to raising the sort of men who make good husbands, fathers and professionals. If you keep meeting a boy where he is, he doesn’t go very far.

And the content issue extends beyond avoidance of the disgusting – we ought to be realistic about the interests of boys, outside the gross-out variety.  Even while promoting the use of comics, the Canadian Council on Learning got this much right:

“Boys are much more likely [than girls] to enjoy reading science and nonfiction books, informational texts, and ‘how-to’ manuals,” the authors wrote. “They are also more likely to enjoy fantasy [and] adventure stories … [yet] these genres and media are generally underrepresented or even unavailable in school libraries, a reflection of the views of teachers and librarians who judge such material inappropriate.” 

So what do we do?  Here are some ideas we found helpful with our boys …

Set the Example:  Do your children ever see you reading a book for pleasure? No, really – a book, not the newspaper, not online.  I used to do my Bible reading on Bible Gateway or The Blue Letter Bible, — both useful websites, by the way – and carried my PDA to church (Multiple translations in my shirt pocket — cool, huh?)  But then I realized my children couldn’t tell at a glace whether I was deep in the Scriptures, or deep in my email and to-do lists.  I went back to the big, solid study Bible as a testimony to my kids.  Let them see you pick up a book for fun, too.

Read to Them.  We know we’re supposed to read to the little ones – try reading aloud as a family sometime.  We’ve gotten tremendous enjoyment out of sharing classics like The Chronicles of Narnia, Little House on the Prairie, and The Swiss Family Robinson (we wore out a copy!)  Even the teenagers will hang on for the next chapter.  Great fun, and it keeps us off the Internet in the evenings.

Introduce Them to Worthwhile Stuff, Early.  Certainly there are the classic children’s books like the ones above.  There are some great biographies and histories written on a grade-school level, too.  The Childhoods of Famous Americans series is good, and even now I enjoy the Landmarks series of nonfiction titles – they’re better than Wikipedia for a quick overview of a subject! That’s just scratching the surface.  Sarah Clarkson has a new guidebook, Read for the Heart: Whole Books for Wholehearted Families (you can get it from Apologia), with lots of summaries and commentary to suggest what to look for.

Our own list of favorites includes, in no particular order,

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
Ralph Moody, Little Britches (the series)
J.R.R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit
Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous
Grace Livingston Hill, The Witness
John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity and the Space Trilogy
Josh McDowell, More Than A Carpenter
R. M. Ballentyne, The Coral Island and The Gorilla Hunters
Everything by G.A. Henty! 

(By the way, Vision Forum has Henty on sale this week — see their website here!)

Those are some ideas.  What have your boys found fascinating?

We’re so glad you’re here! I hope our site is a blessing to you –
Hal & Melanie

CARNIVAL OF HOMESCHOOLING
September 14, 2010 …

Renae at Life Nurturing Education is bravely climbing “Middle School Mountain” with the help of friends who share the load of lesson planning … and provide a little peer pressure:

Projects are so easy for me to drop when we get busy, but now I know other families are taking the time to create hieroglyphics. The pressure to give my children the same opportunity compels me to purchase clay and slip it in my children’s workboxes …

Marbel of Two Kid Schoolhouse describes how she is tweaking math for her son, while Lizzie writes about this year’s curriculum at A Dusty Frame and includes a lot of links for Civil War resources.

I’m still following Charlotte Mason and doing things the same way. We’re just stepping out of the rotation for a year. I really enjoyed choosing my own books. Now that I got a taste of picking everything myself, I don’t know if I’ll be able to go back to being told what to do! (My rebellious streak coming out!)

God Made, Home Grown: Tiana has young homeschoolers, a potty-training toddler, and another on the way. That spells “interruption” – as well as fatigue and nausea – but God shows her the solution.

Laura Grace Weldon takes her daughter to the symphony, enjoys beautiful music, and deals with a sublimely rude man.  Even better, she offers six ways to introduce fine arts, using the happy idiot method.

We probably all know how Charlotte Mason taught children, but Nancy at Sage Parnassus writes about how Charlotte Mason taught teachers — that’s us! “It’s why teachers made a commitment to her philosophy.  It’s also why, after 15 years, I’m still anticipating the upcoming school year,” she says. Jen at Living Charlotte Mason in California does a fantastic job of explaining this philosophy beyond the couple of things we think we all know. Get inspired.

Speaking of Charlotte Mason, do you keep notebooks?  Not just fill them, but keep them?  Susan Gaissert at The Expanding Life explains why she does in “Notebooks, Notebooks Everywhere.” So what do you do with all those notebooks – and textbooks, lined paper, art supplies, and on, and on, and on … Leave it to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers to find creative ways to run a household and a school in the same space — Kris shows how she does it!

Micro Business for Teens: Carol Topp, CPA, shares advice from and for teenaged businesspeople.  One of her clients, an 18-year-old entrepreneur, was interviewed by USA Today!

Someone said there are two kinds of people in the world – those who divide people into two groups, and those who don’t.  Barbara Frank looks past the Christian/secular divide, or even the multi-faceted classifications-by-methodology, and sees two complementary camps — which need each other:

Instead of viewing other homeschoolers as those using a different method, we can look at them as being proactive or reactive homeschoolers. We all fall into one of those two groups, and each is the perfect helper to the other. We need to have a cooperative spirit with other homeschoolers instead of feeling different from them, because the assault on homeschooling freedoms continues. As Benjamin Franklin famously said upon signing the Declaration of Independence, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Tea Time with Annie Kate shares natural ways to teach your children another language in “How We Study Dutch,” and Robin Phillips helps them remember it in “Homeschooling a Foreign Language: 7 Additions to Make It Stick” at Crack the Egg.

“Queen of Carrots” doesn’t use a math curriculum when Introducing the World to her young students (5 and 6) — she has lots of other ideas that sound like fun ways to combine basic math with literature, fine arts, traditional games and more. Lynn at Eclectic Education has gathered resources for file folder games that she’s hoping will help out her son, who’s facing some challenges in learning. She links to a nice directory she’s made.

At Online Education for Kids, J.T. Gaddy asks “Where are the Patriots?” and inspires us to get busy raising some! Janine, at the originating blog for the Carnival of Homeschooling – Why Homeschool, shares a fascinating and surprising story about technology in education.

Having one of those days and trying to remember why you are homeschooling? Linda Dobson at Parent at the Helm will help you out with some shocking truths about remedial classes in college. Karen at Homeschool Girls posts pictures and thoughts that help her remember why, too. If you’ve just figured out you need to homeschool, Carol Alexander at Everything Home…With Carol has a great resource list to help you get started.

As the parents of six boys, you can imagine that we like to discuss raising sons! At Four & Twenty, Kim’s boys are having a “Da Vinci Summer” and learning that ancient boy skill of using refuse to build dreams on. At Books for Boys, children’s book author Max Elliot Anderson answers the question, “How Can You Interest Your Boys in Reading?” Kim at Homeschooling Peeps is talking about that, too, in “Instilling a Love of Reading.”

We love adventure, too, especially the kind you find in the midst of ordinary life and Pamela Jorrick of Blah, Blah, Blog (Love the name!) decides there’s a better way to cross the Golden Gate Bridge than merely driving across it.

Katherine at No Fighting, No Biting, is struggling over the transition from summer freedom to school year discipline.  Her twelve-year-old son isn’t responding consistently to either incentives or punishment. Katherine, we’ve gone through that stage with several sons and it ain’t pretty! Our entry in the Carnival may give you some encouragement:  Arrrggghhh Hope For Teenage Boys & Schoolwork

We’ve had a great time reading all the encouraging and informative posts in this week’s Carnival. I hope you do, too!

Technorati tags: carnival of homeschooling, blog carnival.

How about $122,478 ?

That’s median per-pupil expense for thirteen years in the ten largest school districts in our state – and it doesn’t count the cost of buildings and buses, only the operating expense.  

It puts another perspective on property taxes, private school tuition, and the hidden impact of homeschooling, doesn’t it?

Psychologists Joseph and Claudia Allen say that low expectations have undermined the transition from childhood to adulthood, and twenty-somethings are still trying to figure out what their parents knew as teenagers. The age of marriage is rising, the number of young men living in their parents’ basement is climbing, and America is raising a generation that’s really good at Facebook and Halo 3, but doesn’t know where to begin when it’s time to grow up.

Is 25 the new 15?  We say NO — and we don’t have to play that game!

Hal and Melanie Young will be speaking on “Doing Real Things, for Teens and Their Families,” during The Old Schoolhouse Expo, October 4-8. Young men and women will hear how they can stop just marking time and start making a mark on the world. Parents will be inspired and equipped to help their children make the transition to adulthood more easily.

To help promote this online event, we’ll be on The Old Schoolhouse’s Facebook page this afternoon from 4:00 Eastern for about 15 minutes, answering your questions live!

AND … We’ve got a couple of specials to give away –

(1) For someone who leaves a comment on this post, we have a free ticket to the Expo — a $19.99 value for all five days!  We’ll draw the winner at noon on Tuesday …

(2) For someone who leaves a comment on this post, we have one set of volume one and two of our new Hero Tales audiobook! A $10 value and we’ll draw the winner at noon on Tuesday…

AND  a sale!

(3) For a limited time, you can order our “Homeschooling Teens Bundle”, three hour-long CDs of ideas and encouragement, including “Homeschooling High School,” “Aiming For College,” and you know what teenagers need – food in bulk, Melanie’s popular “Sanity’s in the Freezer”!  Regularly $15, you can get all three for $12 with free shipping! Just click here.

So come by www.facebook.com/theoldschoolhouse this afternoon to join in the conversation -

And to enter, drop us a comment here. For extra entries, link to this post on your Facebook, Twitter, or email loops. Just be sure to leave another comment to let us know you did!