[email protected]

In a message dated 8/26/2002 11:40:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:


> But my overall feeling of the issue, be it violence, music with
> "pornographic" lyrics, pornographic literature... etc is that the time you
> spend engaging your mind in, really does effect your thinking. We can see
> this with other forms of literature.

I think there is some truth in this - but not entirely. The attitude with
which you "engage" matters. I'm just constantly amazed at my almost 18 yo
daughter's assessment of the lyrics of songs. She's not just absorbing, hers
is not an empty head that is being filled with junk, she's listening very
critically and thinking all the time about WHY a songwriter says the things
he/she does and what does it mean about his/her life and so on.

--pam

National Home Education Network
http://www.NHEN.org
Changing the Way the World Sees Homeschooling!


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/26/2002 11:40:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:


> And some of that advice has been SO helpful to me. However, don't we
> also have to plan for our future? If, right now, I see a chance to
> get a better law, shouldn't I do something, right now, to help my
> children's future? I guarantee the NEA is doing what they can to take
> away the future of homeschooling.

The National Home Education Network actually wrote to the NEA and got a reply
recently. Come on over the NHEN-Legislative list --- that's where we talked
about it. That's where we talk about better and worse laws and that's where
we try to figure out how we can maintain or create homeschooling freedoms for
our children's children. Different lists for different purposes.

--pamS

National Home Education Network
http://www.NHEN.org
Changing the Way the World Sees Homeschooling!


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/26/2002 11:40:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:


> I don't care if it's rap or rock or classical, if it's not a good
> moral song, why would we want to let our kids listen to it?

Now THERE is a good unschooling question. I like it.

One answer, for me, is that moral behavior isn't learned by listening to
moral music or reading only moral books, etc. I think it is learned by having
a look at immoral behavior and its consequences - in other people, in
ourselves, in books and music and movies.

I'm NOT suggesting pornography or graphic violence for young kids. But, even
fairy tales are filled with evil -- I happen to think that exposure and
examining and discussing this kind of thing is an important part of moral
development. Perhaps some popular music fits that same category for some
teens and young adults. It seems to be the case for my oldest daughter.

--pamS

National Home Education Network
http://www.NHEN.org
Changing the Way the World Sees Homeschooling!


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/26/2002 11:40:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:


> A month ago, for example, when I was new here, I listened to perhaps twenty
> days of back and forth from several women about one's relationship (years
> before) with a rock musician named Winger. During those (slow) times, I
> often wondered how that conversation related to the list even as it took so
> much space.

Checking archives, it appears to have been about 25 posts spread over 5 days
and mixed up in over 700 other posts during that time. The initial posts were
about a song lyric that directly pertained to the unschooling discussion.

--pam


National Home Education Network
http://www.NHEN.org
Changing the Way the World Sees Homeschooling!


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/26/2002 11:40:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:


> I think maybe that it's the people living in the freer states who
> often don't want to discuss the politics of unschooling? Or maybe
> people want to pretend like the taking of our tax dollars to pay for
> other people's kids third-rate education is ok? Like if you don't
> think about it it doesn't exist?

I LOVE to discuss the politics of unschooling/homeschooling and EVEN
schooling. I've always been interested. In fact I do a lot of such discussion
over on the NHEN-legislative list as do a number of other people here. I
think it is fascinating and critically important to our children's children's
freedom to homeschool/unschool.

So - please don't think that not wanting to do it here means hiding our heads
in the sand. I've spent the last 3 years of my life extremely involved in
helping to found the National Home Education Network and one of our major
tasks has been specifically to create places for homeschoolers to get hsing
politics information and provide places to discuss and debate and network.

I just don't think THIS is the best place for it. The list owner and the list
moderators and a number of long-time active listmembers have consistently
asked people to try to understand what this list is really for and try to
support that and not hinder it. A little off-topic chit-chat is one thing,
but consistently turning topics into anti-public school tirades is, at best,
a list-culture faux pas.

Those who care a lot and who have very strong political opinions sometimes
seem to have a problem catching on to where and how much to go on about their
pet topic. They often think that it is their ideas that people are offended
by, when, in fact, people are offended by their going on too much and seeming
to turn every topic into the opportunity for yet another rant on their own
favorite subject. What surprises me is that they keep doing it even after it
is obvious they are either boring people or offending them -- neither of
those is going to win converts to their cause.

---pamS
National Home Education Network
http://www.NHEN.org
Changing the Way the World Sees Homeschooling!


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Luz Shosie and Ned Vare

on 8/27/02 2:39 AM, [email protected] at
[email protected] wrote:

> Why do they want so much to change this list
> to fit their vision of what it should be? Sounds like a power trip to
> me.
>
> Priss


Priss,

What do you think this list should be, and please give an example; and what
do you think I think is my vision of what this list should be, based on
something I've written. Thanks.

Ned Vare

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/27/02 3:13:03 PM, nedvare@... writes:

<< What do you think this list should be, and please give an example; and what
do you think I think is my vision of what this list should be, based on
something I've written. Thanks. >>

Ned,

Tell is clearly about this homeschooler in Utah who was shot dead by police
just for homeschooling.

Or else shut up entirely.

<<But what it boiled down to was exactly that.>>

No, it didn't.

<<Thanks again, Mary, for your research. The story speaks for itself..>>

The fact that MARY did the research proves you were unwilling or unable.

The story speaks to you having been WRONG about the cause of shooting.

Sandra

Sandra

Tia Leschke

>
>Priss,
>
>What do you think this list should be, and please give an example; and what
>do you think I think is my vision of what this list should be, based on
>something I've written. Thanks.

I'm not Priss, but I'd like to go back to the kind of list we had before
Ned arrived.
Tia

"Unschool: Live your life as if there were no such thing as school." Ned Vare
*********************************************************
Tia Leschke leschke@...
On Vancouver Island