Too Much Fun at the P20 Educator Conference in Twin Falls!

Having a blast at the P20 Educator Conference at the College of Southern Idaho! I have to thank all the people who turned out for my first presentation of Faith and the Public School Teacher. You were all so generous and civil (I say that because we covered some controversial territory!) and didn't complain about my not having enough handouts for the 31 of you who packed the room. Next time I'll request a bigger room and more time! But truly, the discussions were thoughtful and helpful, and I couldn't ask for a better crowd. Thank you to my friends and family who prayed for me!

My earlier presentation on Choose Your Own Adventure: Writing and Publishing Narratives Using Digital Technology was also tons of fun. I gathered lots of ideas from my wonderful attendees on classroom strategies to try, tech stuff, etc. and I even found a new friend who has agreed to guest blog for us soon.

One more quick story before I crash for the night. . .

The College of Southern Idaho has a wonderful planetarium at the Herrett Center. Several of us teachers went and viewed one of the planetarium showings ("Rock on Demand": The 60s, 70s, & 80s) to relax after our busy day at the conference. I had the pleasure of being seated between two adorable children (one of whom went to sleep partway through) and being surrounded by fellow teachers.

Toward the end of the showing, the Pink Floyd song "Another Brick in the Wall" came on, and we all started chuckling because the song is a protest against teachers brainwashing their students in a "rigid" school system, to paraphrase Wikipedia. To me it's about a dystopian (or just plain Communist?) society, brainwashing vulnerable school children with government-approved propaganda--not something any of us would approve of. I felt like we had a moment.

Blessings,

Maestro Classics: Music and Stories for School and Home

Music teachers, parents, babysitters, and anyone else who spends time with small children (especially in the car!) will want to stop by maestroclassics.com for award-winning story and music CDs of the highest quality. My kids love them, especially Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel based on the classic children's book by Virginia Lee Burton. Right now you can get a great deal on a 12-CD set, and I'm getting hints by email that the site's Black Friday deals will be monumental. Maestro Classics is on my short list for gift shopping this year.

Homeschooled Kid

Today I shared with my students a few of the times I as a homeschooled teen stuck out like a sore thumb. First there was the time I visited my best friend's Christian school and read A Tale of Two Cities while she and her classmates did math homework in study hall. A boy near me asked if it was a cliffhanger. No; I was reading Dickens as if it were a cliffhanger, though. Then there was the time I was at the public library doing research on the bubonic plague. Sharing the card catalog (yes, those old-fashioned wooden drawers with cards in them) was a public-school boy who was also conducting research. "Is that for an essay?" he asked. "No," I replied. "I'm writing a story." It was a novel, actually, but I didn't want to sound pretentious. And when I was on the Christian school's softball team one year (at the same best friend's pleading), I rode the bus with kids my age who tried to be friendly by asking what kind of music I liked. "Country?" No. "Well, what, then?" "Opera," I said.

It would be an uphill climb for me to be able to relate to public school kids and eventually teach them! But I believe in God's perfect plan, and my homeschool-kid background has definitely helped shape me into who I am. According to educationnews.org, the number of homeschoolers is on the rise. It behooves public school teachers to respect the education choices of parents, whether it be to pursue online schooling for their child or to enroll the child in a charter school (which is also a public school) or something else entirely. For Christians, a major argument in favor of school choice is for parents to have more say in how their children are taught about moral and religious matters. No matter where they are and who's teaching them, they're getting an education.