Each box that you mark on each test that you take,
Remember your teachers, their jobs are at stake.
Your score is their score, but don’t get all stressed.
They’d never teach anything not on the test.

From the lyrics to Not On The Test by Tom Chapin and John Forster

It’s a gentle song with a powerful punch.  And, despite the song’s digs at teachers, it’s intended in support of programs that help them reach their students.

Even as Secretary of Education Spellings is strengthening No Child Left Behind, Tom Chapin is gathering a groundswell of support  on notonthetest.com to speak up for keeping music, art, drama, and sports in education because:

It’s no secret that American industry has outsourced most factory jobs to other countries to take advantage of cheaper labor costs. So why are we putting so much effort into a form of education in which there is no creativity? This is the time that our youth should be taught to think ”out of the box,” not be put into a tighter one!

As some of my favorite public school teachers have described, NCLB is sucking the joy out of teaching (and learning.)

I’m signing up to act now for Not On The Test, but I’d love to hear a follow-up to this song that highlights how our nation’s brightest are being left behind.

The Fordham Institute’s latest report confirms that:

1. The nation’s top pupils have “languished” academically while the lowest-performing youngsters have gained dramatically.

2. Most teachers feel pressure to focus primarily on their lowest achieving students, and neglect the high achievers.

Any suggestions for a song title?  Here’s my lame song title attempt - Shut Up, Turn Off Your Mind!  Come on, I know you’ve got some good ones.  Share them in a comment.

More On Living By Learning articles on creativity and school:

In this TED Talks video, Sir Ken Robinson questions: Do schools kill creativity?

Advocating for change in education is a slow process.  In the meantime, creativity is one reason to homeschool.

If you would like to join our learning journey, sign up to receive free articles from On Living By Learning by Email.  (Click this link.  Fill out the form.  Don’t forget to click on your verification Email.  Look for this in your mailbox.)  You can also click here to receive updates on a RSS Feed Reader.

Last week I initiated a new On Living By Learning feature - Friday Find - that I thought would get me out the door quicker, so I could enjoy my weekend that much sooner. 

The first Friday Find was on Instructables, just because I couldn’t resist writing about chocolate bacon.  Despite the silliness, I thought it was worth sharing this site since it’s a good way for kids to explain their projects.  (Warning: my kids are planning their own Instructables.  Be afraid, very afraid.)

That post worked out just as intended: it was quick and easy.

So, this week, I started bookmarking potential Friday Finds as I ran across them.

Like every single “quick and easy” project that I have ever ventured, I am now sinking in a deep well of choices.  In just one week, I’ve found dozens of Friday Finds, enough to write a post every week for at least a year.

Still, I was pretty much set on my Friday Find selection until I ran into Edutopia’s Reader Survey.  Awk!  There are so many cornucopias of educational plenty linked in this survey, that I almost don’t know where to start.

Free Lessons and Materials:

In just one section of the survey - Best Site from Which You Can Download Free Lessons and Materials - there are current and new favorites on the poll:

• ThinkFinity
• ReadWriteThink
• Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators 

Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators is an old favorite.  Every week, I discover fabulous educator resources in Kathy Schrock’s S.O.S. (Sites of the School Days) Update for Busy Teachers.  Just this week, I found the Edutopia Reader Survey and the new Google Sites free collaborative website tools.

ReadWriteThink is another excellent resource, but you can find its content on my new favorite resource - ThinkFinity.  I don’t know what I like more - the content, the graphics, or the navigation - but I love ThinkFinity. 

In the After School Selected Resources section I found resources for analyzing photography, making videos, questioning advertisements, designing a travel brochure, and learning about the role of nonprofits in an economy.  I’ll definitely be returning to explore each of these in greater depth.

Since there is never enough time to explore online (and elsewhere,) I think that what I love most about ThinkFinity is that it provides one-stop learning.  It is a collaboration of content partners that includes the following organizations: 

American Association for the Advancement of Science

International Reading Association

National Center for Family Literacy

National Council on Economic Education

National Council of Teachers of English

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

National Endowment for the Humanities

National Geographic Society

ProLiteracy Worldwide

Smithsonian National Museum of American History

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

As always, the more I learn, the more I realize that I want to learn.  Okay, next week, I’ll keep the Friday Find short and sweet (well, maybe, not so sweet!)

More Friday Finds and Wired World Articles:

Find out where you can get instructions for chocolate bacon and blender lamps on Friday Find: Instructables.

Get driving directions and listen to your favorite tunes and audio books when you are Wired On The Road.

Find suggestions for selecting an audio book and leading a discussion on Reading On The Road.  Our choice for this road trip: Animal Farm.

If you would like to receive free articles from On Living By Learning by email, click this link.  You can also click here to receive updates on a RSS Feed Reader.

“We are a curious race,” claims Stargate SG-1’s Colonel O’Neill, leader of planet Earth’s inter-planetary exploratory mission, to a super-intelligent, advanced alien being who underestimates human abilities.

Yes, we are a curious race.  We are born with an innate desire to learn.  A baby explores its environment, seeking to learn, by sticking everything in its mouth and intense observation of even the most mundane items.  The older child asks endless questions such as, “Why is the sky blue?”

Unfortunately, the child’s intense desire to learn is often squashed by other needs, what I think of as the “have tos,” as he matures. You “have to” get an education to get a job.  Later, you “have to” work to support your family.

Somehow, in the midst of all the “have tos”, you can lose the desire to make time for learning. 

When I was a teenager, I met an elderly man who was taking classes at the local college.  Until then, I thought the only reason to go to college was to get an education to prepare you for a career.  It hadn’t occurred to me that there is value in learning for its own sake.

Over a lifetime, he had acquired several academic degrees, and he intended to keep on taking classes.  Well into his retirement, he continued to learn and share his knowledge and abilities as a volunteer at my high school and church.

That lovely, generous person exemplified the best in humanity.  He inspired a life-long passion for learning and my desire to share knowledge. 

As a parent, educator, and youth leader, I’m always looking for ways to inspire life-long learners.  Over the years, I’ve developed programs, classes, and enrichment activities for my own children, but also for their youth groups and schools.

I’m sharing these ideas On Living By Learning.

Learning is a pleasure for it’s own sake, but it’s a treasure when it’s shared.

Are you a life-long learner?  How were you inspired?  And, how do you find time for learning? Please comment and share your learning experience.

If you would like to receive free articles from On Living By Learning by email, click this link.  You can also click here to receive updates on a RSS Feed Reader.

 The first time is the hardest…

I can’t get that tune out of my head. Homeschooling hasn’t been all that hard. It’s life in general that’s been a bit much.

So, OK, Alex and I love homeschooling! Yeah!

The Good - He is self-motivated to learn and loves to read. He loves his blog so that has been a great way to encourage his writing. It’s also a way to sneak in some math when he checks his traffic statistics. Alex’s frustration with writing has been significantly helped by allowing him to mentally compose and verbally articulate his “writing.” Freed from the constraints of using a pencil, Alex is an awesome writer!

The Bad - He hates doing math drills or any work that involves handwriting.

The Ugly - We have a lot going on in our life right now so it’s hard to drop everything and focus on homeschooling. My sister is getting married next week in southern CA, and we’re going to be there for a week. Also, Dave is switching to a new group practice and we’re living through a 4 month notice & severely reduced income. Stress, Stress, Stress

Unexpected benefits - Alex recently fell in love with tennis so we took advantage of his free homeschooling schedule to arrange for several morning tennis lessons during ideal weather conditions.

Challenge - There is so much that we can do in any given subject, that it’s difficult to keep it manageable. Also, the projects and ideas that I find fascinating are not always so cool to this 8-year old.

My Lesson - I’m finding that if I back off a bit and give him some room to explore, he does end up choosing to learn.

Alex usually can’t wait to rush through the lesson plans, and he negotiates every precious word or number that he has to write. However, he will sit for hours reading, or playing math games on funbrain, or watching educational programs like the BBC Walking With Cavemen or Walking With Dinosaurs DVDs. Alex likes to initiate his own projects. This week he convinced his Dad to help him dissect a round battery; he asked me to save boxes for a mysterious construction project; and he’s working on a comic strip inspired by Calvin and Hobbes .

So, I’m sticking to the daily math plan and playing around with everything else.

If you would like to receive free articles from On Living By Learning by email, click this link.

Lucy, Alex’s piano teacher, shared a beautiful story about a rare creature that she once observed on a public beach. This rare creature was a dad who combined an extraordinary athleticism, the knowledge of a football coach, and the patient wisdom of a preschool teacher.

This gifted teacher man was playing football with his 3 year old son, while the toddler ran between his legs. That alone is a challenge, but it gets even better. The dad came prepared with two balls, a small football (that was really too hard for the preschooler to hold) and a round, red rubber ball. The dad alternated throwing the two balls so that the child felt like he was playing football, but he was gaining confidence with each successful catch of the round ball. The athletic football coach knew how to perfectly time his throw with a cue to the son to head out for the catch. His control of the throw landed the ball right in the kid’s arms every time. And the preschool teacher knew to stop while the youngsters were still having fun.

The point of Lucy’s story is that a great teacher can break down the elements of something as seemingly simple as catching a ball, so that the student enjoys learning.

It’s so easy to forget that simple tasks aren’t so easy the first few times.

Today, Alex & I read two books on archaeology. Then, he brainstormed, outlined, and wrote a paragraph on this subject. Later, I posted this paragraph on his new blog. Sure, a paragraph doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a marathon for a second grader. He is still learning to write sentences! What was I thinking?

So, now we’re going to break it down and work on learning how to write a paragraph. Remember - baby steps first!

Receive free On Living By Learning articles by email.  Click this link.