Cleaning carpets, educational theories

This evening, Taliesin and Nathanael enjoyed helping me shampoo our living room carpets. Taliesin told me, "I'm a good helper." I told him he definitely is. It looks pretty good. I really like this carpet, it's the kind that's like a plush, but it's not. It's more like strings or thin rope. It's cream color, but it has grays and blacks varigated throughout it. Doesn't show much of the dirt, which is nice with a three year old, a five year old, two dogs, five cats, and two adults living here. There was a magic marker line that I kept hidden with a table - courtesy of Nathanael. It came up. And there was a purple stain from where a popcicle melted. It came right up as well. And at least Taliesin and Nathanael enjoyed helping. That's one of the most important thing - after all, such is unschooling. :^)

Speaking of schooling (or the lack thereof), I have been responding to many of the posts for this week's college assignment. This week, we all had to read an article from a professional journal on the subject of diversity in the classroom and post the essay on our class discussion board. I chose to do mine on a topic that I think is a good start for reforming schools - equity schools. Equity schools combine traditional and progressive education tactics to reach students in need - either students from low income households, students of color, students whose first language is not English, etc. The article mentioned that the goal is for all schools to eventually follow this teaching pattern. Wouldn't that be a positive change - with schools the way they are now, focused on testing in mathematics and reading while ignoring creative subjects such as music and art? I have had one response to my original posting. There seems to be one other student who is seeing the beauty of allowing children to follow their interests. Her essay was written on the subject of literacy - and a new program that some teachers have instigated to encourage children to read more and more proficiently. Some teachers are allowing their students to pick books (readers) that are written about topics that interest them for their reading in the classroom. I think that is also a good start - children learn so much more by following their own interests. I think many of the other students are more in the mode of public school thinking more than homeschool thinking. But, then, most of them are studying to be teachers in either public or private schools. So that is to be expected. They probably think I'm from Mars when I write about child-directed learning and progressive education; but my hope is that it will spark some good discussion.

Speaking of college, I think while Taliesin and Nathanael are downstairs eating pizza and watching Dumbo, waiting for the carpet upstairs to dry; I shall do some of my reading assignment and take my last quiz for the week once Kelsey gets home from work.

Kandy