The tour is based upon the schools featured in the book Colleges That Change Lives, 40 Schools you should know about even if you’re not a straight-A student, by Lauren Pope. This is one of my favorite college-prep books; check out my review and you will begin to understand why.

The 2009 tour includes 26 cities, so be sure to check the list for the one nearest you!

Roberta is putting the fun back into scientific exploration! Two of her recurring posts are:

• Bug of the Week
• Weekend Science Fun

I especially enjoyed her Making a Science “Boredom Bin” post. There is no way anyone could ever consider me a science person, so the ideas that Roberta gave for a Science Boredom Bin would have been invaluable to me when my children were young. In fact, I might just have to put some of her ideas into action for my granddaughter.

Be sure to subscribe to her RSS Feed (found at the bottom of each post) so you don’t miss a post! And leave comments! We bloggers love comments!

The Audacity of Hope

The Audacity of Hope, Thoughts on Reclaiming The American Dream was a slow read, not because it was not interesting, but because each chapter gave you cause to stop, think, consider and reread sections.

Audacity contains a prologue and epilogue and then nine chapters. Each chapter goes in some depth about the past choices that America made, both as a country and as individuals, to bring us to where we are now in each of these areas. Obama then explores what may occur if we continue on our present course and what alternative courses we could choose.

Republicans and Democrats

Obama discusses the relatively recent events that led to our “great political divide” and explains what politicians gain from adopting polarizing viewpoints. Unfortunately, their gain is our loss. As Obama states, “It is such doctrinaire thinking and stark partisanship that have turned Americans off of politics. But for those of us who believe that government has a role to play in promoting opportunity and prosperity for all Americans, a polarized electorate isn’t good enough. What’s needed is a broad majority of Americans – Democrats, Republicans, and independents of goodwill – who are reengaged in the project of national renewal, and who see their own self-interest as inextricably linked to the interests of others.”

Obama believes that the electorate is waiting for politicians to rise above dogma and the polarity that has been the norm in Washington for the past thirty years or more. He believes that Americans “are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point.”

Values

This chapter discusses some of the core values that most Americans believe in: family, community, patriotism, obligations of a citizenship, a belief in something bigger than ourselves, an individual’s value as a person. And the ensuing tensions that those often contrasting values create in a society.

“In a country as diverse as ours, there will always be passionate arguments about how we draw the line when it comes to government action. That is how our democracy works. But our democracy might work a bit better if we recognized that all of us possess values that are worthy of respect.”

Of all the values Obama mentions, there is a recurring theme of empathy throughout the whole book. “I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those people who are struggling in this society. After all, if they are like us, then their struggles are our own. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves.”

Our Constitution

Before Obama became a U.S. Senator from Illinois, he taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School. His admiration and respect for the Constitution comes through loud and clear. It is obvious, too, that he is not a strict constructionist, stating “… it is not a static but rather a living document, and must be reading the context of an ever-changing world.” Later in the chapter he writes, “In sum, the Constitution envisions a road map by which we marry passion to reason, the ideal of individual freedom to the demands of community. And the amazing thing is that it’s worked.”

Coming soon: Part Two, covering the next three chapters of The Audacity of Hope.

All of their courses go on sale one month out of every year, so only buy them on sale! And, if you are willing to part with them after watching them once or twice, they seem to hold their resale value very well on E-bay.

Background: We have homeschooled our children for many years. Our eldest is now in college. But my dw continually stresses out about curriculum and “being behind,” and this stress is loaded upon the remaining child as she is pressured to complete particular work.

Questions: Is it possible to transition to an unschooled paradigm with only a 15-year-old left in the house? How? What difficulties can one expect? How does one set up transcripts for college?

Thanks,
Unschooling Wannabe Dad

Dear Unschooling Wannabe Dad,

The quick and easy answer is, “Of course it is possible to transition to unschooling!”

Does your youngest child wish to unschool? Does she already unschool in some fashion and just does not realize it? If she has some input into what her studies are and how/when she does them, then she may already be unschooling to some degree.

Unschooling Difficulties

One key to unschooling success is to have everyone in the household at least willing to give it a good try. If your wife is already stressing and worrying, then I suspect she will have a great deal of difficulty adjusting to the notion of unschool. You might need to do some “selling” of unschooling to your wife: meet some local unschooling families, learn about unschooled students who successfully made it into college, joining some unschooling email lists or support groups, and read some good unschooling books.

How is your eldest doing at college? Is your wife worrying because the eldest is having difficulties adjusting to college? Or is she just worrying because that is her natural tendency? If she has specific concerns, such as writing abilities or particular math levels, it may be necessary to compromise and continue with an academic schedule (plan) for those areas and then allow your daughter to unschool in all other areas of her life.

Other than getting your wife on board, the only real difficulty I can think of is if your youngest is uncertain about unschooling or believes that unschooling might not work. Sometimes students are so used to having their academic work laid out for them, without their having any input into what they study, that the idea of unschooling seems scary or even wrong in some way. They worry that they won’t cover the necessary material to get them into college. Or they flounder for a while, not certain what to do nor when, simply because they are so used to following someone else’s schedule.

Deschooling

Your daughter might find it necessary to deschool for a while, just to gain the time and perspective to see what she wants to do for herself. Deschooling is like a vacation from prescribed learning, allowing the student to regain touch with her own desires, her own reasons for learning. Sometimes deschooling is necessary for students who have always followed a strict regimen of learning where they had no input into what they learn (whether school-at-home or in public school). The rule of thumb with deschooling is one month for each year that child has been in public school. Since you have already been homeschooling for a number of years, your daughter might not need that long.

Transcripts for Unschoolers

As for transcripts, there are many ways they can be done, depending upon the homeschool regulations in your particular state. Many homeschools are considered private schools; if that is the case in your state, you create your child’s transcript, translating their activities and interest into “schooly” subjects. In Alabama (the state I have the most familiarity with), homeschoolers join church schools and the church school provides the transcript and/or diploma, based upon the information provided by the homeschooling family.

There are also some “unschooling schools” that provide transcripts and diplomas for unschoolers, which might be a way of reassuring your wife that the necessary material will be covered for college. One such school is West River Academy.

Unschooling High School

Unschoolers can and do graduate from high school and go on to college just fine. We graduated two unschoolers, and while our eldest decided not to attend college, she easily could have, given her grades and SAT scores. Our middle child is currently enrolled at Tallahassee Community College, majoring in computer science, and made the Dean’s List last semester. Both unschooled their high school years, each in their own particular way. I chronicled some of their unschooled high schooling a few years ago, which you can read at Unschooling High School.

Unschooling Wannabe Dad, please let us know what your family decides to do and why!

Readers, do you have any suggestions for this Unschooling Wannabe Dad? Please post your comments!

I have a question about Universities. I home-schooled my daughter and son till the 12th grade. They both have dyslexia which with a great deal of hard work have managed to overcome. My daughter was also diagnosed with add/hd but my son was only diagnosed with add. They have both finished high school and started in our local community college.

Ironically, my daughter is doing relatively well with the help of the access office with is a program that allows for students such as herself more time with tests, helps with note taking, etc. My son on the other hand has not done so well. I believe he is a late bloomer. He is not so willing to be a part of the access office of the college. He failed the few courses but never fails to be absent from a single class and is always 30 to 45 min early to class. Yet he struggles to meet the required work for the class. I truly feel that he would benefit from attending a small university that understands these types of students.

During the time I home-schooled the children there was not as much support available. At times I was even told I was doing my children a great disservice. The schools were very damaging to my children’s sense of self worth and self esteem and I can clearly see this in my son to this day.

I was hoping I could get some information about a small University that would accommodate this type of student.

I would deeply appreciate any information you may give me.

Thank you so much for your help.

A worried mom

Dear Worried Mom,

There are universities and colleges that “specialize” in students with learning disabilities. I believe there were two or three mentioned in Lauren Pope’s book, Colleges That Change Lives (read my review of Pope’s book).

I did find this website about dyslexia and college, through a Google search, that looked as though it offered support to the dyslexic college student: Dyslexia At College. That website has a discussion forum where you might get better information about specific colleges / universities. It does appear as though the site is selling some sort of dyslexia testing, just so you know.

Since your son’s current college is already offering assistance, though, it sounds like the issue is that your son is not willing to take advantage of that assistance. If your son is not willing to accept assistance offered locally, going away from home to a university likely will not improve that situation. If anything, it will throw additional stressors into the equation, causing him to question himself and his abilities even more. Has he given a reason for why he is not willing to seek out help from the college?

You say you believe your son is a late bloomer, so I wonder if maybe he is just not ready yet for full-time college. Has he tried just taking one or two courses during a semester? Or maybe he is not ready for college at all? Does he have some other interest that he could pursue for a career, something more hands-on? Maybe the reason that he is not willing to seek out the help is because he would rather be doing something else?

Come on, LeapingFromTheBox.com readers! Step forward with your thoughts and suggestions! Feel free to comment if you have advice for Worried Mom.

Last month, though, I learned of a new homeschool magazine, Secular Homeschooling. It was quite by accident, really. The editor of Secular Homeschooling, Deborah Markus, had one of her articles plagiarized, which caused quite a stir in the homeschooling community. I blogged about it at “Plagiarism Exists.”

In that post, I mentioned that I felt one way to turn her experience into a positive one was for homeschoolers to subscribe to her magazine and I did just that. I received the first issue of Secular Homeschooling a few of weeks ago and then the second issue last week. Unfortunately, the first issue got a quick glance through and then set aside, quickly forgotten. But yesterday I took the second issue with me to read while my son was at karate and, boy, am I glad I did! What a great magazine!

Secular Homeschoolingis a non-religious magazine that does not advocate any particular method of homeschooling. Their website states, “Its readers and writers are committed to the idea that religious belief is a personal matter rather than a prerequisite of homeschooling.”

Issue Two includes articles about a family of four (mom, dad, two eight-year-old boys) biking around the country for a year; rescuing a hummingbird (and showing your children you are smart enough to know you are stupid); how homeschooling shaped the life of a teen who was homeschooled all her life and is now in college; and a large section of articles concerning Charlotte Mason homeschooling. My hands down favorite article was an Op Ed piece by Madison J. titled “It’s a Southern Thing.” As a transplanted Yankee who has lived in the south for close to thirteen years, I found this piece to be hilarious and oh, so true!

As a past homeschool magazine writer / editor / publisher, I know the efforts that have gone into the creation of Secular Homeschooling. I applaud Ms. Markus on her achievements in this second issue and am now scrambling to find where I “hid” the first issue. I have another karate class to sit through and I am sure that I will find issue one to be just as engrossing and entertaining as issue two!

Secular Homeschooling is published four times a year; $28/ one-year subscription. Visit the Secular Homeschooling website for more information and read “Smart Enough To Know I’m Stupid” from Issue Two. You can still purchase a year’s subscription and ask that it begin with Issue One!

Fostering an entrepreneurial spirit in our homeschooled children is a recurring discussion topic on Friday chats. Homeschooling often leads families (parents and children) to question the “worker” model that public schools teach their students. Many of us hope that our children will be able to avoid the “worker bee” mindset and find ways to make their interests and passions also provide their income. The question becomes, how to foster this entrepreneurial growth in our children, especially as they enter the teen years and (hopefully) begin to define their passions and focus turning them into career goals.

It seems as though we have always had a side business in addition to my husband’s main career income, businesses in which one or more of our children could participate. When they were very young, I had a two-acre garden in which I grew vegetables for sale. The children worked side-by-side with me in planting, weeding, harvesting, marketing and sales. Their favorite, by far, was the selling and collecting the money, which was fine with me, as I enjoyed the other aspects more. Unfortunately, after we moved from New York, that sort of business venture was no longer a possibility. But I believe it laid the seeds of an entrepreneurial spirit in at least two of our three children. Today, as teens and young adults, those two children have stated goals of owning their own businesses. The recent purchase and playing of Cashflow 101 (see my January 4th review) has only intensified that goal in the eldest.

I would love to hear how you have fostered entrepreneurial spirits in your children. Leave me a comment.  If I get enough ideas, I will make a future blog post listing all of them!

This year my board game choice was Cashflow 101, produced by Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad fame. I have looked longingly at this game for the past two Christmases, but the price always made me turn away and purchase something else. I have no clue what games I did buy those two years, as no one played them, therefore making them bad investments. Cashflow 101, though, has proven to be an excellent investment, even with its hefty price tag. The only one who has not played it at least twice so far is Bill. My son-in-law has even taken to driving a four-hour round trip on his days off to play the game. I am not sure that is a good investment on his part, given the price of gas. But it was nice to see my four children (three children, one son-in-law) all around the dining room table playing at getting out of the rat race.

Escaping the rat race is the main goal of Cashflow 101. In order to accomplish this, the game forces you to begin thinking differently about your money. A big screen TV is not an asset, nor is a boat, not a true money-earning asset. By delaying purchasing things you want in the game and actually putting your money to work in a money-making asset, like a rental home or dividend paying stock, then you can begin to use the money your assets are earning you to finance those things you want to buy. The key is to see those moneymaking possibilities, to recognize them as opportunities rather than throwing up your hands and declaring that you cannot afford them.

Each person in the game begins with a career and an accompanying income and expense sheet. You quickly see that while some careers pay more, there are also more expenses (college loans, etc.) and it seems that those who make more always have higher expenses (bigger house, more toys, etc.). Having a child greatly increases your monthly expenses. Along the way you have the opportunity to buy stocks, invest in real estate, buy boats, give to charity, all real-life possibilities. In order to get out of the rat race you must grow your passive income (income earned from investments) to the point where it is higher than your expenses, thus allowing you to quit your day job.

Once you have played the game successfully a few times, escaped the rat race, then you are encouraged to make up your own “career” cards, using your current, present-day career and expenses. This enables you to see how you can actually implement the ideas of the game into your own life, using your own finances.

Not only is this a great game for beginning to view your finances in a more opportunistic way, but it is also a great game for honing your math skills. Each roll of the dice causes you to have to refigure your balance sheet, make decisions based upon ROI (return on investment), bank loan repayments, percentages, etc. Lots of math involved here!

Final analysis? Even though this game has a pretty hefty initial investment, it’s ROI appears to be very good. Only time will tell whether the game truly makes a difference in our financial lives. But its entertainment value is high and it is a great learning tool for reinforcing ones math skills. That makes it a better investment than many other games I have purchased in the past. I definitely recommend it for your family.

Flying Crows, by Jim Lehrer

Did you know that Jim Lehrer, the PBS News Hour anchorman, is also a fiction author? I didn’t, so I was surprised to learn that Lehrer has written over a dozen fiction books. Flying Crows concerns two mentally ill men who are inmates in a mental institution in the 1930s and a present-day cop trying to unravel their interwoven stories. Lehrer writes good dialogue and has a real feel for the mid-west, particularly Kansas City. Flying Crows was a quick and enjoyable read, although not necessarily mind-altering or deeply memorable. I would definitely read another of Lehrer’s novels if it were to drop in my lap, but I likely will not go out of my way to find another one.

Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey

I used to say that I did not care for fantasy and I still do not care to read about non-human characters or worlds that do not resemble our own. Kushiel’s Dart is fantasy, with human characters and a setting that is almost, but not quite, European. Kushiel’s Legacy is an epic trilogy (think Tolkein), that revolves around the trials and tribulations of its heroine, Phedre no Delaunay. Carey weaves a masterful plot in Kushiel’s Dart, creating memorable characters and provides plenty of good dialogue and rousing action. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and could not wait for book two, Kushiel’s Chosen, to become available used, so I went out and bought myself an early Christmas gift.

On Becoming Fearless in Love, Work, and Life, by Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington is an author, political commentator and owner of the Huffington Post, a very popular blog. I first became aware of Huffington when she ran for governor in California several years ago, but had never read any of her books. Huffington wrote this book for her daughters when she realized that they were being negatively affected by societal messages. Those messages, from media, from well-meaning friends and relatives, and even from ourselves, often cause women to live their lives fearfully, cautiously, slowly losing confidence in themselves and their abilities. Huffington relates stories and anecdotes about her life and other women’s lives, showing by example ways to become fearless. I am not sure what I expected, certainly something more than inspirational anecdotes, some concrete exercises or actions to take, but there were none of those. Overall, while the messages were inspirational, I did not really feel that my time was well spent reading On Becoming Fearless.

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman wrote one of the weekly “rah-rah” letters for this year’s NaNo participants, reassuring us that we could reach our 50K writing goal. Not ever having read any of his works, I took a chance and requested one of his more popular titles from PaperbackSwap. I will say one thing for Gaiman, he created some memorable characters in American Gods, ones I am not likely to forget right away. The plot, too, was memorable, although I did figure out two major plot twists about two-thirds of the way through the book, which disappointed me. While it was difficult to put down American Gods until I finished it, at the end I was left with that familiar post-Christmas “is-that-all-there-is” feeling of disappointment. And a vague wondering “what was the point?” of reading this book. I think I will reserve judgement on Gaiman until I read another of his books … if I read another one. There are just too many authors out there that I wholeheartedly enjoy to read more by an author that I was so-so about.

I know I said there would be four book reviews, but I thought I would throw in a bonus and add the book that I am currently reading.

Iguana Love, by Vicki Hendricks

I have not finished Iguana Love yet, but already I can see that I will not be recommending it to anyone. It is not a genre I usually read (Amazon lists it as a “Mystery & Thriller), but that really is not the problem. The characters just are not engaging me in any way. I am about half way through and I really could not care less what happens to anyone in the book, let alone wonder how it will end. I need a book with memorable characters, either those you love or those you love to hate. This has neither. What does it have? Ramona, who lives in southern Florida and who kicks out her husband because she is bored with her life. She goes deep into debt in order to take diving lessons. She has sex (and it does get explicit) with any breathing male that appears before her, or for that matter, behind her! Of course, she does not like the nice guy but goes for the dark, seedy guy who seems ready to involve her in drug running. I will finish the book, but only because it is a short book and I would like to see if it improves, even just a tiny bit. Given my current feelings, though, I doubt I will read another book by Hendricks.