Homeschooling

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8373690.stm

Dirt can be good for children, say scientists

Children should be allowed to get dirty, according to scientists who have found being too clean can impair the skin's ability to heal.

Normal bacteria living on the skin trigger a pathway that helps prevent inflammation when we get hurt, the US team discovered.


Messy play should be encouraged, according to the hygiene hypothesis

The bugs dampen down overactive immune responses that can cause cuts and grazes to swell, they say.

Their work is published in the online edition of Nature Medicine.

Experts said the findings provided an explanation for the "hygiene hypothesis", which holds that exposure to germs during early childhood primes the body against allergies.

Many believe our obsession with cleanliness is to blame for the recent boom in allergies in developed countries.
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From YES magazine.

12 Things You Might Not Have Learned in a Classroom
by John Taylor Gatto
posted 14 Aug 2009

You won't find 'honours classes', 'good grades', or 'attends only Ivy League schools' on John Taylor Gatto's list of qualities of an educated person. Gatto taught in New York City schools for 30 years and was named New York State's Teacher of the Year, but his experiences convinced him that what students need is less time in classrooms and more time out in the world. Building character and community, Gatto argues, is more valuable than learning from tired textbooks and rigid lesson plans.

Really educated people:

* Establish an individual set of values but recognise those of the surrounding community and of the various cultures of the world.

* Explore their own ancestry, culture, and place.

* Are comfortable being alone, yet understand dynamics between people and form healthy relationships.

* Accept mortality, knowing that every choice affects the generations to come.

* Create new things and find new experiences.

* Think for themselves; observe, analyse, and discover truth without relying on the opinions of others.

* Favour love, curiosity, reverence, and empathy rather than material wealth.

* Choose a vocation that contributes to the common good.

* Enjoy a variety of new places and experiences but identify and cherish a place to call home.

* Express their own voice with confidence.

* Add value to every encounter and every group of which they are a part.

* Always ask: Who am I? Where are my limits? What are my possibilities?


This list was adapted from John Taylor Gatto's latest book, Weapons of Mass Instruction (New Society Publishers, 2009), for Learn as You Go, the Fall 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Gatto was a New York State Teacher of the Year three times. An advocate for school reform, his books also include Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling.