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Posted in Believe it or not!, Home School, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Same Song, Second Verse; It’s Worse.

Posted on by Katharine

Continued from the 18th.

The last time hopeless ideas about homeschool hit the legislature, anyone trained in logic could see: it was not logic. In fact, Arkansas lawyer, Dee Black, of Home School Legal Defense Association, dubbed it, “one of the most blatant  . . . ever seen.” This new piece, hoping to take its place and succeed where it failed, is just as bad. It is “Big Brother” by definition, regardless of the home-school facet of it. It looks—and is—very much like the worst of Hitler or Marx. If he were alive today, you could just ask Einstein. He knew when it was time to leave the German schools and had to flee Germany to do it.

This proposal does not affect only bad schools or bad homes. Any school, however good or bad, can become a target for danger, these days, as Columbine and Nickel Mines proved. Any parent, however good or bad, could desperately need to override the notification date for removing children. The facts are: YOU, Dear Taxpayer, wherever and whoever YOU are, could find YOURSELF desperately and immediately needing to remove YOUR child from school on some date that does not correspond with the August or December deadlines.

When we do insert the home-school element, though, we realize a truth proposed by world-famous author, George Orwell: it seems some of us are more equal than others, aren’t we! Look: if you have the funds to access a private school situation for your child, you may withdraw your child at any time. You retain your freedoms. If you are short on discretionary funds—who isn’t these days?—then you will lose your freedom. And that fact, the fact that only the wealthy Arkansan may have permission to protect his children in Arkansas, is unconscionable.

It makes sense that as an Arkansas taxpayer and American citizen, I should demand equal protection for my school-aged children. It makes sense that a parent should demand the freedom to remove his child from a dangerous situation. It makes sense that the law should trust a parent’s word—how much more that of a psychiatrist, pediatrician, lawyer, or other neutral professional practicing in his own profession!

No decision regarding the safety of a child should depend upon the financial situation of the parent.

No decision regarding the safety of a child should depend upon the financial situation of the state school.

You know, it also makes a sort of perverted sense that a hireling, teacher-lobbyist group, would ask us not to trust the child’s medical, psychological, or legal professionals, but only the teachers.

It does NOT make sense for us to trust the word of a member of a tax-funded near-monopoly. Of course, they think their situation better than yours! Of course, they want more power over your home! Of course, they-and-only-they can know or care about what is best for your child.

But you pay their salaries.

The end.

Pleae forward the contents of this post to everyone you know living in Arkansas. Thanks.

Posted in Believe it or not!, Home School, Who's the mom here?

We Told Them so Many Times!

Posted on by Katharine

Continued from yesterday:

They think you and I do not know when our children should come home. That’s what it’s about. Yes, Arkansas legislators are wasting time and money arguing with parents about whether or not we know anything, where we want our children to be all day, whether or not the idea of being at home is harmful to children.

A new piece of legislation, rebounding off a similar piece instigated in the past by David Cook, manages to insinuate that if the child wants to exit the school during a time of illness, stress, or danger, then the home must be bad, antagonistic, even hazardous. How insulting to all homeschoolers! How insulting to all parent, to all homes!

And if it should happen that the home is truly bad, they say, then we need more new laws to enlist the help of the public schools to protect the child from the home situation.

That is a lie.

Arkansas law already provides protection for such children, in that it provides the Department of Human Services (DHS). And the law, by providing mandated reporters, even provides that educators play a part in this protection.

Educators argue that the DHS never does anything, so, they do not want to call on them.

No, they do not want to call DHS. They want to be DHS. They want to be judge, jury, and jailer for any child who, in their opinion comes from an inappropriate home, regardless of—and by that I mean: completely disregarding—the inappropriateness of conditions inside the jail.

The teachers’ opinion, their judgment that the home is invalid, they tell us, finds its basis in innuendo and gossip from in-laws, only, and not in any type of home case study. Oh, and in the desire to homeschool.

Think for a moment! Forget homeschooling. Would YOU want your child’s future based on what your in-laws say about you? ME NEITHER!

But let’s back up a bit here. Do teachers actually want to do anything about the home situation, based upon fact, or upon existing laws? No, they are quite happy to leave things alone, quite happy to forget the home situation after 3:00 p.m., as long as they have that child (and I must add, the accompanying tax moneys) for a few hours.

Never mind where the bus takes the child afterward.

People who have qualms about allowing children to be in bad homes should become social workers, not teachers. Social service personnel who have qualms about entering or overseeing bad homes would make better teachers.

Or maybe, what we really need is law-abiding people who would mind—I mean, truly pay attention to—their own business, in both professions.

And, maybe, just maybe, if teachers, as mandated reporters, were upholding their end of the law, their students would not be so prone to breaking it. Now wouldn’t that make a difference!

Arkansas does not need one more law to give anyone any more power over our homes, our children’s homes, or our grandchildren’s homes. What Arkansas needs are effective penalties for dealing with public servants who refuse to obey the already-existing laws.

Any presumed problems this proposal might pretend to address would better find solution in complete reformation of public schools and complete reformation of the Department of Human Services.

Please forward this to everyone you know who lives in Arkansas.

Posted in Believe it or not!, Home School, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Arkansas Freedom

Posted on by Katharine

Homeschool freedom or this?Americans want several things from their government. We expect freedom. We expect protection. We work hard for them.

Although most of the people in the entire world homeschooled at one time, the current, popular, en masse return to homeschooling began in America.

This is the do-by-self country. American parents have always grabbed any challenge that might improve things for their children.

Today’s homeschool is American, transcending all barriers, and the school choice of the parents of one-third of our presidents. It is one big expression of the American way. (Two million strong, now.)

Americans in Arkansas, however, have had to fight harder for this way. In some states, few raise an eyebrow at parents desiring to provide the education. In Arkansas, though, parents struggle to stay one step ahead of their legislators. It seems a case of the government attacking the citizens instead of protecting them.

We’re gearing up for battle again, beating back the legislators again (in spare time we want to spend on our kids.) A new proposal is poised to posture itself before the legislature, wasting yet more time and money on hopes for a bill no one wants. Again.

This proposal aims at curtailing our freedom and undermining the privileges and obligations inherent to parenthood.

Lest you think you should yawn at another homeschool gripe, this proposal, if enacted, would make the state the mom, even if you never plan to homeschool.

Especially if you never plan to homeschool.

The time to wake up is now.

Imagine, if you can, your small daughter blood-spattered and traumatized, from seeing classmates and teachers murdered at school, and forbidden to stay home because someone on the school payroll deemed the home (THE HOME!) an unsafe place.

And never mind the child’s own psychologist has prescribed removal from the school situation.

Our new proposal sets this scenario.

Or perhaps your son has refused to “do” a classmate in the locker room. He has been kicked in the lower back repeatedly with a steel-toed boot, is urinating blood, and forbidden to stay home because someone on the school payroll deemed it just not timely.

Never mind the child’s own pediatrician demands removal from school.

The new proposal sets these parameters.

Or try this idea: Your child tells you the most exciting thing he learned in school today is how to put a condom on a dead bird.

Or your mother is near death and your children want to be beside her as much as possible while they still can.

Or your child has MS and must nap daily and eat five times daily and it’s not happening when he’s at school. Not only that, but because his speech is difficult to understand, he is left to sit at his desk and educate himself by reading a dictionary all day, every day.

Or your daughter is receiving sexual threats and her only instructions from school staff?—to kick the bully between the legs.

These things all have occurred in Arkansas schools. Of course, children everywhere are molested, accosted, assaulted, threatened, harassed, or raped while at school. At almost every school. Even the “good” ones.

But in Arkansas schools we would have no recourse.

Even if the children in the above situations were to be excused from attending, in the future Arkansas that we discuss today, it could be after a three-week waiting period.

How can it be that a child could be forced to remain in such a dangerous and dehumanizing situation for three weeks, while grown-ups deliberate about whether or not to allow his removal?

How can the main questions be whether or not the parents need daytime supervision and what the date is!

How can this be happening to Arkansas’ children!

It simply must not be.

Please forward this post to everyone you know living in Arkansas.

More tomorrow.

Posted in Inspiring, Sayings

Saturday Sayings – 2

Posted on by Katharine
Frost covered tree
The Tree

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

                                                                                                        –Mark Twain

Posted in Home School, Inspiring, Wisdom

But We Still Have Freedom of Religion, Right?

Posted on by Katharine

Been checking, out there, reading sites that discuss homeschooling, and noticed a worn out question: Do homeschoolers have to be religious freaks?

Nah. You can homeschool and hate God. But . . .

 . . . those who made that point in the responses “had a hard, hard, hard time of it,” they said. They did not stay the course, they said. They had toddlers who were rampage runners, they said. Hmm.

Who is it that gives us strength if we joy in Him? We have the joy of the Lord as a natural fruit of our connection to Him, and it is our strength, almost like the life-giving sap that runs through the vine. Even when we notice ourselves tiring, often we immediately realize we forgot to rejoice. What a difference it makes when we drink of joy!

Who is it that gives us perseverance and makes us complete, as faith overcomes life’s obstacles? We have this gift of faith, this knowing that we know things we cannot see, and every time it goes for a test drive, it matures, broadens, making us feel like we can do anything. And we can always go back to the source for more, in times of great need. It emboldens us.

Who gives us the owners’ manual regarding the rearing of children? The way is set clear before us; we have no trouble knowing “What to do! What to do! What to do!”

We capture our thoughts instead of letting them run amok, we stand up with electrified backbones, we jut our chins with a grin, and make progress. But that’s not religion and we’re not freaks.

We are war orphans and were slated for annihilation, but our Captor adopted us, feeds and clothes us, lifts us up, and plans to bequeath us all He owns. But that’s not religion.

We’re grateful. We adore Him for His kindness and generosity. We’ve discovered, in Him, Someone so fascinating that we actually enjoy conversing with Him. Medical science has discovered that those who do so get sick less, heal faster, live longer, period. Since we do need to live long enough to finish what we started, it works for us.

But it’s not religion.

Posted in Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Wisdom

The End of the End

Posted on by Katharine
Car with layer of snow on it
My Frosted Car

Not the end of the world, but just the last of the snow.

This is my little car, just before I had to go to town. We were out of milk, bread, t-paper, and birdseed. Which of those disasters is worse? I don’t know, but I had to make that trip.

Since driving and allowing your icy jetsam to smash into oncoming windshields is dangerous, I had to remove all that beautiful snow. It made me sad and cold.

I wore a jacket, but debris kept falling on my legs and feet. I needed a ten-foot handle on my broom. The broom wasn’t exactly working, anyway, because this snow was soft only in the middle, after days of sunshine and nights of freezing.

One of my kids had mentioned chopping the top ice into pieces, then scooping the entire business off in gobs. I kept brainstorming until I came back outdoors with what might have appeared to be grill-time gear: spatulas and oven mitts. Now everything was perfect. My hands were as comfortable in that cold as they would have been in the oven. My largest plastic spatula was excellent for chopping out sections of the snow layer and then scooping it off, exactly like serving huge slices of a huge cake.

When the snow is dying, I don’t care what I look like. Besides, we homeschool, so everyone already thinks we’re kooks and usually admires us, anyway. Handy.

What I like about homeschool, though, is that we used our heads and figured a way to do what we needed to do without buying something first. That’s good, since I couldn’t go to the store. Necessity is a great thing, and the mother of many other great things.

Necessity caused us to homeschool in the first place. That’s also good, since I couldn’t go to the…