Ok, NerdDad came home with another one. I am surrounded by American Idol nuts so with the finale this week I decided to help them launch their own Idol dreams. Sara, April, Maya and the rest of you. Just invest in this for $12 from Target.
I am not to be held resposible for your lack of washing in the shower or your extended time in there;).
(HT: Gizmodo)

As I am entering into homeschooling kindergarten I am evaluating the place testing will have in our home. This is going on at the same time I am hearing about all the testing going on in the public schools. Between No Child Left Behind and the new High School Exit Exam here in California, we are all hearing the horrors of “teaching to test”. I hear friends of mine who are teachers complaining all the time that all they do is test. I hear parents complain and some do even more than complain. I know 1 parent who has decided that all the testing is ridiculous so she pulls her kids out for the testing (I do not endorse this method, play the public school game or don’t). She says the kids no longer even take the tests seriously so they make patterns on the Scantrons and other nonsense. So what is the purpose for all this testing? It is for money right? I disagree and put forth another theory. Some teachers and schools do a bad job and we need to monitor the progress. We have been getting kids coming out of high school who aren’t ready for college, balancing a checkbook or just being an informed adult.
As I started thinking about how much testing my own kids needed, being homeschooled, I started really looking at the reason for testing. I think that testing is really just a way to mark a child’s progress. So in theory, testing is not needed. Just be diligent in what the students are learning and watch their progress on their homework. But, it isn’t that easy. The National Department of Education says that they get $71.5 billion a year and that is only 8% of the money sunk into public schools. What are we getting in return? Not much. According to the Secretary of Education:

Currently, our 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 developed nations in math literacy and problem solving. Almost half of our 17-year-olds don’t have the necessary math skills to work as a production associate at a modern auto plant.

The testing provides an element of transparency and the ability to see where the problems are. We, as a nation, have tried to just throw more money at the problem but that has proven to be a mistake. Money without accountability is not helpful and if you are unsure look at Washington DC. They spend more per student and test the worst in the nation.
Yes, I understand that teachers are teaching testing material instead of concepts but at least that is something. According to Secretary Spellings, in his testimony before Congress:

With No Child Left Behind, we’ve laid a solid foundation of student achievement. Scores are at all-time highs for African-American and Hispanic students, especially in the early grades. Over the last 5 years, more reading progress has been made among 9-year-olds than in the previous 28 combined.

How many times do they have to hear these individual facts before they have an effect? Well, it may be a path worth taking. Compare that with the High School Exit Exam here in California. Over at Why Homeschool there was a good analysis on the test:

There are 60 Mathematics Sample Questions. The first 50 problems are on concepts taught in grades 6 and 7. The last 10 problems require some basic algebra. If students only need to get 50% correct to pass, and they get several chances (over 2 or 3 years) to pass, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to require students to get a passing grade to get a diploma.

Is it reasonable to expect them to pass? Well, according to the LA Times, at least 10% of seniors can’t pass it. While I think testing isn’t the best cornerstone to education, I think that while we are paying we should have some sort of accountability. We as a nation are not dumping millions of dollars into a system to produce people we will have to continue to support forever. If I am not paying for other’s education, you can run it however you would like but until then I believe the testing is here to stay.

The 21st Carnival of Homeschooling: The Map to A Progressive Dinner is up over at Principled Discovery. She has done a great job and there looks like there are many great articles. Make sure you go check it out!

So you may all have read my post on types of schooling last week. Well, since I am just doing kindergarten this year I am winging it;). I think on the whole we are going to go with classical unschooling but right now I don’t think it matters. Since the NerdBug doesn’t read yet I think I am just going to get a good math and reading program. I have had Explode the Code highly recommended so I am planning on using that. I figure that all the other subjects really are secondary to reading. In other words, he probably needs to learn how to read before we jump into science, geography and history. Now the math program is giving me pause. I was a huge math geek in school (I know everyone is shocked;) and I used Saxon a large portion of the time. But, I have heard in the last few years that the Saxon program is faltering. A program that I have heard great things about is Singapore Math. It appears to be highly logical so it naturally appealing to the NerdParents. But, the Well Trained Mind seems to have concerns but Sonlight seems to like it. The Well Trained Mind seems to question wether kids are ready for such a logic based approach so young. So I still have questions that I am researching and asking advice for.
1) What math programs do you recommend?
2) Am I doing harm by waiting to introduce other subjects?

The Kid’s Comedy Carnival is up over at World’s Greatest Place to Live INSIDER. If you need a good laugh go check it out!

This week has been a collection of cuteness from the NerdBug. When my 3rd child was born (9 months ago), upon seeing him, the NerdBug loudly declared that we would have another baby in the future and that it would be a girl. Periodically since then NerdBug has asked when we are going to have another baby. Well, for those of you who don’t’ know, baby #4 is on the way. This means a lot of morning sickness (well actually, all day sickness). So yesterday NerdBug was asking why I was eating something different than the rest of the family for lunch. I tell him that when I am pregnant, mommy’s stomach can feel sick so I eat different things so it feels better. So today we are at Costco and I decide to pick up lunch for everyone. I get my self a turkey hye roller and a pizza for everyone else. As we are making our way out NerdBug very loudly proclaims, “You aren’t having pizza because you don’t want to share with the baby in your tummy!”. I look around and there were people at 3 different tables just cracking up. Oh well, who can deny that he is very cute?

Ok, let me start with I am not just a Pat Robertson basher. In 6th grade I accepted Chirst as my personal Savior while watching the 700 Club and in high school I did stuff with my parents in the Christian Coalition. That said, what is wrong with that man? For those who do not know, Pat Robertson has decided to share what God “revealed” to him. According to an AOL article:

“If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms,” Robertson said May 8. On Wednesday, he added, “There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest.”

This comes after he made a statement that the US should assasinate Hugo Chavez. And while I am not a fan of Chavez, that was uncalled for. I understand that Robertson may desire to be the “Jeremiah of his time” (a description often used of Winston Churchill) but I don’t think that he is even coming close. Is this helping? Hurting? I don’t think that Pat Robertson is helping anyone. Wheither or not God revealed this to him is almost irrelevant. Was he sharing this to help people in love or scare them. I understand the “hell fire and brimstone” method of preaching but this isn’t really the situation. For those of you not familiar, this was a method of scaring you into realizing that you need God and then tells you about God’s grace and mercy. While this isn’t my preferred method, it can be effective. The difference with that and what Pat Robertson is doing is large. A preacher has you for the hour, Pat Robertson has you for the sound bite. When we all hear these quotes we aren’t getting to have the chance to hear about God’s love for us and grace. I have to say that I am quite sad by what Pat Robertson is doing to himself and his reputation. I also hope that people don’t judge God and His Son by a Robertson sound bite.

So I am toodling around the blogs and I see that Mexico is a little upset with President Bush’s plan to send the National Guard to the border. Last Night on the O’Reilly Factor, Bill said:

After hearing President Bush order 6,000 National Guard troops to the southern border earlier this week, Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez, went on a radio program in Mexico and said, “If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people, we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates.”

Where does the Foreign Secretary get off? Does anyone else think that they would have no right to walk into our courts and sue our government? One of the biggest miscommunications of our system is that rights are for noncitizens. This is a constant issue. Who all has a right to a license, education, free health care (which I don’t get), etc? Now because we, as a nation, are trying to secure our borders the Mexican government is going to sue us. Now I don’t take quite as a hard line as Bill O’Reilly, who says if they sue boycott anything from Mexico. But I do think that something has to be done. According to a news story from KFOXTV in El Paso, the Mexican government has sent armed soldiers over the border. Some claim it is to investigated what we are doing but others fear for the safety of the people living on the US side of the border. Given all this, I think that if the Mexican government doesn’t help to secure the border and deal with illegal immigration, we should seal the border. What all would that entail, I am not sure. But, something has to happen. When one nation decides to violate another country’s border we call that declaring war. This is no longer just individuals wanting for a better life but it appears to a nation trying to invade our space and way of life. What are we going to do about it?

(HT: Two Babes and A Brain)

So last week I was at Bible Study and we were studying Philippians 3. One of the things being discussed was Philippians 3:8-9:

8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

One of our study questions was, “What does faith look like to you?”. Someone said they trust science and math so believing in anything unquantifiabled was faith. Our leader was talking about God being the same today, yesterday and forever. Suddenly it clicked. Living with God leading your life is like a Calculus problem. Before we go any further you have to know that I loved calculus. There is nothing more satisfying than working on a problem that takes at least a page to solve (ok, at least academically).

So how does this work in my twisted little mind? When you are sitting in a classroom you are assigned a problem. Your teacher knows that you have the tools (books, past problems, class notes, etc) to solve the problem but you are not sure. This is similar to God. God put’s things in our life (problems, obstacles, growth opportunities, etc) but He has equipped us with all the tools we need to get through it (the Bible, prayer, wisdom of other mature Christians, etc). When you start to solve a complex math problem you review all the details and occasionally diagram the problem. Then using your various tools, take it one step at a time. When you take the first step, you take blind. You do not start a complex calculus problem knowing what the answer is. Frankly, you don’t even always know what you 2nd step is until you take the 1st step. That is similar to faith. You have to believe that you have the tools to complete the task you have been given. You just have to take it one step at a time until you reach completion. You will just frustrate yourself if you look to far ahead. God will never give you anything that you don’t have the tools for. You have to also remember that one of the biggest tools is prayer because that is how we communicate with God. Just like our math teacher is always there if we need help, so is God. So while people think that math and faith are at odds, really math can teach you how to have faith.

The new Carnival of Family Life is up! There are so sweet and funny family stories.