I survived semester 1 !!!

I have been ordering new material, trying to finish existing material and praying for rest. I must say I have hit a wall with fatigue. Many of you know that I have Rheumatoid Arthritis...well, I think it is rearing it's head this month. I have had some medicine mis-haps and alot of aches. But- life goes on and so must Mom & Dad.

We finished out the last day of school, not with history or much needed math...but with Abby deciding that she wanted to write a book. We discussed it a little. We went to eat lunch at the Chinese place here in town and she discussed it with her friend, Evyn. She talked to Evyn about illustrating it, however, when we got home, she hijacked the whole thing and did it herself.

I must say, "It is a great little book." She used thesaurus.com to grab a couple of words, came up with all of the dialogue and i helped her color. She titled the book CHECKERED HILL.

She asked me if she could set up a "stand" in the front yard and sell her books. Now, let me be honest. I'm really not a good mom. I HATE doing things like this. Then she said, "I could sell my books and give the money to Jordan (her cousin) for her mission trip." What could I say?

So, out we went in the 500 degree heat to set up a "book stand". No kidding the first car that turned the corner bought a book. Several cars stopped and our friends sent some people over. All in all it was great. Our local paper came by and took a picture of her book and interviewed her...which was really cool.

Her first page reads, "Checkered Hill was an amazing town- in every way but one. The entire town was turned upside down."

If that peaks your interest and you want to buy one...I am sure that it will be available for purchase on Amazon.com in 10 or so years.

Now to the part of the post that I have been thinking about for the past several weeks. Someone mentioned in a casual conversation, that I over heard, that they "would not recommend homeschooling because home schooled kids are not very intelligent." I am using the word "casual" to describe the conversation because this person obviously did NO formal research.

"Research presented at the National Christian Home Educators Leadership Conference divulged that home school graduates far exceeded their public and private school counterparts in college by ranking the highest in 42 of 63 indicators of collegiate success. They were also ranked as being superior in four out of five achievement categories, including socialization, as they were assessed as being the most charismatic and influential."


"The median home school student in third grade out- performs 81% of the third graders nationwide."

"GES scores indicate the performance levels of home school students in terms of student grade placement nationwide. The median composite scaled score for fourth-grade home school students, for example, is 217. This is comparable to the median score expected of students nationwide in the ninth month of fifth grade. Compared to students nationwide, the median fourth-grade home school student test performance is 1.1 grade equivalents above his public/private school peers. By 8th grade, the median performance of home school students on the ITBS/TAP is almost four grade equivalents above that of students nationwide. Similar trends hold for all subject areas."

Now, these stats were gathered quickly...so I did not footnote my sources, however, my intent is not to present a formal argument. I truly do not care how people choose to educate/shepherd their children. I have two who are being homeschooled and one that is in a private pre-school. My kids are my responsibility and your kids are yours. My intent is to urge you to NOT listen to flippant comments and to NOT make them. As I have matured, I have discovered that that people will make choices for their families that I will not make for mine, nor do I agree with them. I might think that they are weird, out of touch or "unintelligent". It is my conviction, however, that I should actively engage these individuals in conversation. WHY? Because I could be wrong. I could be the one who needs to learn. I could be the one that God wants to change.

I could be the one who is really unintelligent.