The ability to empathize.

n a year-long program focused on group music-making, 8- to 11-year old children became markedly more compassionate, according to a just-published study from the University of Cambridge. The finding suggests kids who make music together aren’t just having fun: they’re absorbing a key component of emotional intelligence.

Read more here.

HomeSchool and More Open Houses

We will be having 3 Open Houses in 2012—Our Spring Open House will be held on Friday and Saturday April 27th and 28th from 9 AM to 5 PM each day. Come shop in our showroom for the best selection, see what’s new and get a head start on planning for your next school year.

Our Late Summer Open House will be held on Friday and Saturday, August 24th and 25th from 9 AM to 5 PM each day. We will have a good inventory for those last minute curriculum requirements.

Our November Open House will be held Friday and Saturday, November 23rd and 24th from 9 AM to 5 PM each day. Just reminder that we do have Gift Certificates available in any amount.

Curriculum Fairs and Conferences

New Brunswick

The HENB Annual Home Educators Conference will be held at Sussex Wesleyan Church, 280 St. George St., Sussex, NB on June 1st & 2nd. Sally Clarkson will be a speaker at this year’s conference. We encourage you to attend this event if you are in the Atlantic Canada. Sally is one of Marlene’s favorite authors and a strong source of encouragement over the years. For further information check the website http://www.henb.org/.

Nova Scotia

The  NS Annual Homeschool Convention will be held on June 8th and 9th at the Lake Echo Fellowship Baptist, 17 Peter Court in Mineville. For more information check the web site at http://www.hems-ns.ca/

Newfoundland and Labrador

The Christian Home Educator’s of Newfoundland and Labrador (CHENL) ‘Conference on the Rock’ will be held June 17th and 18th at Spruce Hills Community Church, 1496 Topsail Rd. in Paradise. For further information check the website www.chenl.ca.

Prince Edward Island

The tentative date for our Curriculum Sale on PEI is May 12th. Date confirmation and location information will be announced shortly.

“Geniuses are just people who had good mothers.” Buckminster Fuller

“Moms are the ones who can grow the souls of our children. Moms are the ones who can provide them with the spiritually safe environments so that they can make the choices that help them discover their talents, passions, and values. Moms are the ones who empower them to go beyond being mere cogs in the capitalist system to become creators of what Dr. King called the beloved community. Moms are the ones who nurture emotionally intelligent global citizens. Moms are the leaders we’ve been looking for.” Barbara Stachowski

“Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.” Linda Wooten

This is terrific post on the influence of mothering.

“It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.”Albert Einstein

Matt Lintner, a teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia offers his reflections on what children are learning, and not learning, in school in a piece he titled “Race to Nowhere.” Consider the following: you can graduate from high school with straight A’s without ever having:

1. Searched for answers to unknown questions.
2. Budgeted your own time.
3. Discovered what most interests you.
4. Initiated a project requiring sustained commitment.
5. Taken risks or experienced failure.
6. Led a team in the pursuit of a worthy goal.
7. Practiced consensus building or the messiness of compromise.
8. Asserted yourself, even if it meant challenging authority.
9. Built something of value.
10. Created art that speaks to the soul.
11. Explored the natural world.
12. Interacted with people outside your age group.
13. Volunteered substantively in your community.
14. Apprenticed in fields of your choosing.
15. Started a business.
16. Traveled and gathered perspectives outside your comfort zone.
17. Acquired practical skills like saving and investing, handling tools, programming, growing food…

Obviously, homeschooling can be different and can provide these experiences. In your homeschool planning, how many of these 17 experiences are you incorporating into your children’s lives?

So I was pleased to see the following beautifully worded summary of Berry’s influence (and reading good fiction) -

I wasn’t intellectually persuaded by Mr. Berry. Rather my heart was reordered. He helped me to love that which I had previously found unloveable. And I knew, on some deep level, that all of the trappings of modernity, that which I had held to be superior, were really the cause of all my feelings of isolation and alienation and fragmentation. At last I had discovered what my soul was missing. And I was faced with the great irony that my whole life I had been celebrating the death of the very things that were, in fact, life.  Angelina Stanford

It’s true too… if you read Berry, you will be changed. What’s more, read any good fiction and it will shape your heart. Well, any fiction will shape your heart; that’s why you should read good fiction. The first time I read Wendell Berry was the winter of 2009/10 when I innocently picked up a copy of Jayber Crow from downtown Lincoln’s Bennet Martin Library. To call the book’s effect on my thought “seismic” would be to understate the point, but it’s the best approximation I can offer. He will reorder your heart, mind, and imagination. Read him. Jake Meador

For more information on Wendell Berry see here and here. We can special order any Wendell Berry books. Mention this blog post and we’ll give you 20% off.

“Reading for pleasure is again moving centre stage. Education policy since the 2010 (British) election has focused on the mechanisms of learning to read, in particular the promotion of systematic synthetic phonics.

“Now politicians are increasingly identifying the importance of children’s reading which engages their hearts, minds and imaginations in a way in which nothing else can.”

Schools minister Nick Gibb said: “Schools and parents both have an important part to play in introducing children to ever more challenging novels.

“I firmly believe that once children experience the rewards of reading a wide range of books they will go on to develop a lifelong love of reading.”

Read more here.

Listen here…

A mini-industry of homeschool consultants has cropped up, especially in New York City, whose homeschooling population has grown 36 percent in eight years, according to the school district. (While states usually require homeschoolers to register, many parents choose not to, so official estimates skew low.) In Seattle, even the public-school system runs a center that offers classes just to homeschoolers.