[email protected]

Below is another "either or" message, and in case any of you are interested
and see this before it's aired...

-=-In the last few weeks, media interest started soaring following reports in
USA Today and on CNN. In the last 72 hours a profound wave of interest has
erupted across the global stage. Tomorrow morning (Monday November 21st) at
8.06am eastern time, ABC's Good Morning America is scheduled to feature a segment
on the Indigo children and the Indigo Evolution documentary.-=-

-=-On the one hand, we have experts claiming that the Indigo phenomenon is
nothing more than some parents’ attempts to excuse and explain away dysfun
ctional behavior. On the other hand, we have experts claiming that there is real
solid evidence that today’s children are more intelligent and more multi-sensory
than previous generations.-=-

Those aren't the only two choices, and if it seems today's children are more
multi-sensory and more intelligent, maybe it's just because people are finally
starting to LISTEN to children and not just tell them to shut up.

The Indigo Children stuff is being shoved out front in kind of sneaky ways.
Christmas catalogs are coming, and one called "Explorations: Visions of the
Past * Memories of the Future" came. On the first page of the "Enlightened
Entertainment" section it shows three DVDs:
Whale Rider, Dead Poets Society and Indigo.
That pretty much sets that up as the equal of those movies.

Indigo is a documentary from this year, making weird claims, and created by
the people who run the magazine.

It's someone else making money making spurious claims, and not very useful
claims either.

At one point it seemed there was interest there about homeschooling, and I
was asked to write an article for them. I didn't know or care at the time what
their claims were, because it wasn't going to make any difference in how I
wrote about homeschooling. Turned out, though, they were basically using me to
get to unschoolers and homeschoolers for their magazine subscription base.


It's yet another thing that's about money first. And it's the ULTIMATE in
labelling children superior to others.

But anyway, it's weird and it's on TV Monday morning, and there's information
critical of the proponents and iniators of the Indigo Children stuff here:
http://selectsmart.com/twyman.html

Sandra



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[email protected]

Another false dichotomy, this time from an article here:
http://skepdic.com/indigo.html

-=-The hype and near-hysteria surrounding the use of Ritalin has contributed
to an atmosphere that makes it possible for a book like Indigo Children to be
taken seriously. Given the choice, who wouldn't rather believe their children
are special and chosen for some high mission rather than that they have a
brain disorder?-=-

Those two extremes are FAR from being the only two choices. "ADD" (whatever
bundle of indicators you want to think of) is NOT "a brain disorder." But
it not being a brain disorder in no way means that those with the symptoms
identify superior, more evolved beings from another planet.

This doesn't have much to do with unschooling directly, but because there's a
big blitz and they'll be on TV, it will be coming up in discussions, I'm
afraid. A few years back before I knew how nutty it all was, just knew there
was a new new-age magazine coming out about kids, I wrote something for them.
They didn't put it in the magazine (for which I'm relieved), it was on the
website (but isn't anymore, for which I'm relieved).

Somehow they discovered the existence of the Live and Learn conference, and b
asically saw homeschoolers as a market for their magazine, I think. (A
quote that accidently came appended to another e-mail was this:
]-=-=-"the Sandra Dodd who is their guest speaker is quite "Big" in the
homeschool/unschool realm. Notice they have a message board. Maybe they
would let us post. As I have been researching for NEXT, I am finding that
homeschooling/unschooling is much bigger than I previously thought. Maybe I
will try to find this Sandra Dodd for an article. I think we have a large
realm out their to tap for the magazine.-=-=-

So just in case this topic bubbles up on other lists or exchanges this week
or in the future, please know that it's another kind of money-making scam-like
thing succeeding not in making children's lives better, but in being a
moneymaker for its leaders.

Sandra



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