DIY Guide to Keeping Children Safe Online Without Costly Filters

With ominous acronyms being thrown about such as CIPA and FERPA and COPPA, it’s no wonder educators are running scared when it comes to internet use and that filtering companies are profiting from the culture of fear that results. Unfortunately, doing what is most convenient (blocking and banning sites) is often not what is best for children or teachers. It is not uncommon for the tech-savvy teacher to throw up her hands because too many sites are blocked to be able to work effectively. Students have similar frustrations. The reality when it comes to filtering is that schools have not lost funding due to opening up access to valuable content for children. Of course this must be done responsibly, but it does not require the costly filters that don’t exist in the real worlds of our children. 

Here are some ways you can empower children to stay safe at school and in the world and they don’t cost a dime.

BE RESPONSIBLE

It is important for schools to take responsibility for children's safety online. Here are some ways to get started.

Responsible Use
The most important thing we can do is teach children to be responsible online. I and several of my colleagues have experience teaching in a no filter zone where instead we focus on empowering students to use the most important filtering tool available: The one between their ears. The reality is that in most cases, students don’t feel comfortable having inappropriate content come up in their searches. This is generally not something they want to engage in at a school setting. Empowering students to know how to do their own safe browsing is not only a good thing for them to know in school, but a good thing for them to know in life. Empowering them to know what to do when something inappropriate comes up is also a necessary skill for use outside of school. 

When we stop fighting and start partnering with our students, the results will pay off. We can also empower students to self monitor by having discussions about responsible use, consequences, and asking them, rather than the teacher, to hold one another accountable. In my library media center, I had several students designated with badges as “Responsibility Officers.” They supported other students in staying on track. These also often happened to be the students who typically might be more likely to get off track.

Responsible Teaching
One of the reasons I had few problems teaching in an unfiltered environment was because students knew exactly what to do. Part of lesson planning when using the Internet requires teachers to outline what sites students should be visiting and options for how to create meaning. I knew what sites my students were visiting and they were pre-screened and vetted by me in advance. 

We can’t make rules for that one child who may stray, but instead for the majority of the students that will be excited to learn relevant content using technology. That one child can get around the filters anyhow and likely one day will be employed by one of those filtering companies.

STAY SAFE FOR FREE

The Internet of the 21st century has safety features built in. Teach your parents and, if appropriate, your students how to use these effectively. Doing so will keep students safe at school and in the world for which we are tasked to prepare them.

Safe Browsing
Most web browsers have safety features installed. You can make your browser safe by activating its safety features. Here is how.

• Parental controls
  There are a variety of parent control add ons available. Decide which one is right for you by doing a search in your browser for “Parental Controls” and your “Browser Name.” Read the descriptions, install the one that best suits your needs and try it out.
• Internet ExplorerCheck out this guide to discover how restrict web browsing in IE.
• Firefox
  This article from Read Write Web suggests one option for safe browsing that looks geared toward elementary school students. Firefox also has suggestions for filtering inappropriate web content here.
• Chrome
  Chrome doesn’t have built in parental controls. Instead they recommend using an add on such as Web Filter pro or for Windows users installing something like Windows Live Family Safety which provides safe internet filters, reports to monitor computer activity and even set time periods when the computers can be used.

Safe Search
You can ensure your students search safely online with three simple steps.

• Activate it! You can go to Google advance settings and select SafeSearch which will filter out sites that contain content you would not be comfortable having children see. You can select strict filtering to help filter out explicit text as well as images. You can modify your computer’s SafeSearch settings by clicking on Search settings at the top right of the Google homepage.
• Lock it! You can protect this setting with a password so it can’t be changed without your knowledge, using SafeSearch Lock. Just click on Search settings in the upper right corner of the Google homepage. Choose “Strict Filtering” and then click “Lock SafeSearch.” Once locked, the Google search results page will be visibly different to indicate that SafeSearch is locked.
• Customize it! Create a personalized, customized search engine that searches only across sites that you specify and displays results that you want your children to see with a Google Custom Search Engine (CSE). You simply choose the websites and pages you'd like then follow a few simple steps which you can find here to create a CSE. Search engines can be created by all the teachers in the school and can be aligned to various subjects or units of study. Some teachers might consider having students create custom search engines too.

You can learn more about safe search at 12 Ways To Be More Search Savvy.

Safety Features in Frequently Used Sites
Many frequently used sites have safety features. For instance, teachers know YouTube is the #1 tool for learning, but at many schools it is blocked due to unsafe content. Check the site’s safety settings and activate them. Here is how to do this for YouTube.

• YouTube When you opt in to Safety Mode on YouTube it means that videos with mature content or that have been age-restricted will not show up in video search, related videos, playlists, shows or films. It is also designed to hide objectionable comments. To activate it, click on the link at the bottom of any video page to select Safety Mode and lock it for that browser with your YouTube password.
• Other sites Determine what the frequently used sites are at your school and enable their safety filters. Empower your parents, and, if appropriate, students to do the same.

PREPARING STUDENTS FOR THE REAL WORLD
While it is certainly easier to plop down money for Internet filtering software, doing so is not what is best in preparing our children for success in the real world. In fact often there is a false sense of safety, and important conversations about responsible use are overlooked. Additionally, paying for filters in school does nothing toward preparing children for safety and success outside of school.

While it is true that outsourcing safety is easier than taking on the responsibility, it truly is not what is best for children.

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Building your personal learning network infographic

Well this is pretty cool.  The folks over at the ThingLink and Learn blog used the image tagging technology provided by ThingLink to create this embeddable info graphic to share my ideas about developing your personal learning network.  Check it out by mousing over the image on small dots.

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20 Things Students Want the Nation to Know About Education

It's rare for education reformers, policymakers, and funders to listen to those at the heart of education reform work: The students. In fact Ann Curry who hosted Education Nation's first *student panel admitted folks at NBC were a little nervous about putting kids on stage. In their "Voices of a Nation" discussion, young people provided insight into their own experiences with education and what they think needs to be done to ensure that every student receives a world-class education. After the discussion Curry knew these students didn't disappoint. She told viewers, "Students wanted to say something that made a difference to you (adults) and they did. Now adults need to listen."

Here is a video of the student panelists followed by a recap of some of the sentiments they shared.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Below are the sentiments shared by these current and former students during the segment.

1. I have to critically think in college, but your tests don't teach me that.
2. We learn in different ways at different rates.
3. I can't learn from you if you are not willing to connect with me.
4. Teaching by the book is not teaching. It's just talking.
5. Caring about each student is more important than teaching the class.
6. Every young person has a dream. Your job is to help bring us closer to our dreams.
7. We need more than teachers. We need life coaches.
8. The community should become more involved in schools.
9. Even if you don't want to be a teacher, you can offer a student an apprenticeship.
10. Us youth love all the new technologies that come out. When you acknowledge this and use technology in your teaching it makes learning much more interesting.
11. You should be trained not just in teaching but also in counseling.
12. Tell me something good that I'm doing so that I can keep growing in that.
13. When you can feel like a family member it helps so much.
14. We appreciate when you connect with us in our worlds such as the teacher who provided us with extra help using Xbox and Skype
15. Our teachers have too many students to enable them to connect with us in they way we need them to.
16. Bring the electives that we are actually interested in back to school. Things like drama, art, cooking, music.
17. Education leaders, teachers, funders, and policy makers need to start listening to student voice in all areas including teacher evaluations.
18. You need to use tools in the classroom that we use in the real world like Facebook, email, and other tools we use to connect and communicate.
19. You need to love a student before you can teach a student.
20. We do tests to make teachers look good and the school look good, but we know they don't help us to learn what's important to us.

The students are ready to talk to us.  How are we going to make time to listen and incorporate their voices into the policies and decisions that affect them?

*Panelists:
Nnamdi Asomugha, Cornerback - Philadelphia Eagles
Shadrack Boayke - Brentwook, NY
Colton Bradford - Mobile, AL
Ron Daldine - Auburn Hills, MI
Rayla Gaddy - Detroit, MI
Katie Oliveria - Las Vegas, NV
Stephanie Torres - New York, NY

The people tweeting about student voice at Education Nation.

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Why I Don't Like Standardized Tests

Guest post by Cathy Earle

As an educator, I am sometimes called upon to teach children test preparation skills. I do so because these particular children are going to have to take a particular test – it's a reality. However, the first step of my test prep lesson is to tell the children that I don't like standardized tests, especially high-stakes tests. I don't believe they should have to take them, and, I tell them, I didn't subject my own kids to them.

Here are my major reasons for my antipathy toward standardized tests:

1. Standardized tests measure only certain kinds of knowledge or abilities -- arguably the lowest level and least important. They don't do a great job of measuring higher level thinking skills or creativity, and they say nothing about whether or not students are able to solve real-world problems, let alone whether or not students are willing to read for information or enjoyment.

2. Standardized tests are very much open to cheating, and with high stakes testing, the motivation to cheat is high.

3. Standardized tests encourage something that, though it is not considered cheating, completely undermines any knowledge one might gain about a learner, institution or system: test prep. Are we testing which kids have skills and which schools produce knowledgeable students, or are we testing who spends the most time and money on preparation for the tests? Test prep undercuts the entire education system, since as tests proliferate, more and more time is spent on preparation for tests, to the detriment of everything worthwhile.

4. Standardized tests cause anxiety--sometimes extreme anxiety---in many test-takers, thus reducing any useful knowledge about their knowledge or abilities. Since we aren't going to learn useful things about these kids through the scores, why put them through the pain?

5. Standardized tests give artificially low scores for kids who are late readers but who know a lot and are highly intelligent. Ditto late bloomers in math. (Research shows that late formal academics is better for kids, at any rate, so I shouldn't even be calling these kids "late"!) Thus, testing in elementary grades can be especially harmful as it doesn't give kids time to develop skills according to their own developmental schedule.

6. Standardized tests give artificially low scores for kids who aren't detail oriented and who find carefully filling in bubbles, completely erasing changed answers, keeping track of item numbers, and other niggly details almost impossible to care about, let alone accomplish. Testing also punishes with low scores the wiggly kids who need to move in order to think. Many of these kids are incredibly bright!

7. Standardized tests are unfair to people from minority cultures or unusual backgrounds. Also, many test items are extremely ambiguous or open to multiple interpretations, which is another way of being unfair. Of course, test makers assure us that they have thought of all of this and have worked hard to solve these problems. But I've worked with the most up-to-date materials, and there are still a lot of problems.

8. If we trusted parents, teachers, and administrators to care about kids, work hard on behalf of kids, help kids learn, work to solve problems, and communicate with each other regarding the kids' progress, we wouldn't need standardized tests. If we can't trust school personnel to do these things, we can't trust them with the kids, at all! We as a nation don't actually need to track, compare, rank, and label every student! Ditto teachers, schools, and districts.

9. Adults who are certain that standardized tests are imperative for children should let kids off the hook and go ahead and set up high-stakes testing in their business, churches, organizations, and homes. Measure away! Label and rank your workers, and be sure to publish the scores. Give your spouse spending money based on test scores! Keep your rabbi and cantor, or club president and committee leaders, or board of directors accountable by testing them. All of this would be incredibly unhelpful and counter-productive, of course--but it is, as well, for kids!

10. We know a lot about what learners need - and we should provide those things and then TRUST that learning is happening. Learning is stunted or even stopped by constant or intrusive evaluation. Paraphrasing John Holt, who paraphrased an unnamed father: If a gardener planted carrots and provided the right amounts of minerals and air in the soil, sunlight, and water -- but then, in his anxiety over his crop, dug up the baby carrots every day and measured them to make sure they were growing -- well, the farmer might not get a crop of carrots at all! If some of the carrots still grew despite all the digging up and replanting, they would probably be smaller and less straight than if the farmer had just let them grow. In the same way, we should provide good learning environments for children, but then trust them and let them grow.

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Cathy Earle is an educator who has taught in public schools and a variety of private venues. She was a curriculum lab director at Orange Unified School District and a managing editor for American Learning Corporation, where she wrote and edited textbooks and a wide variety of learning materials. She has been a freelance education writer working for such clients as The Learning Company, Orange County Department of Education, and Disney Software. She homeschooled her own children from birth to college, using child-led and interest-based methods rather than formal academic techniques. Her daughters are now all grown, and it is nice to be able to report that “it all turned out fine”: Two have graduated with honors from four-year colleges, and one of these has gone on to earn an advanced degree. The youngest daughter, just 19, is a professional dancer for Holland America Cruise Line.

Her blog for children, Every Day Is Special, can be found at http://every-day-is-special.blogspot.com/.

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7 Filter Myths to Keep In Mind for Banned Sites Awareness Day and Always

As part of the American Association of School Librarian's "thinking outside the ban" blog series for banned websites awareness day, Doug Johnson dispels the following seven filtering myths. 

1. The Childhood Protection Act (CIPA) is specific and  broad in what must be filtered in schools. 
2. It’s the filtering company that determines what is blocked. 
3. Some sites must be blocked due to bandwidth limitations. 
4. The processes for re-consideration of print materials don’t apply to online resources.
5. The technology department must determine what is blocked. 
6. Internet filters are so good that supervision of students while online and instruction in online safety and appropriate use is not necessary. 
7. Internet filters and intellectual freedom are mutually exclusive.

To read the truth behind each of these myths, check out the original article here.



For more information about Banned Websites Awareness Day resources and support materials, please visit AASL Essential Links.

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AASL Thinks Outside the Ban with Banned Websites Awareness Day - September 28th

Editor's Note:  This article was also posted on the American Association of School Librarian's site.  If you'd rather read it there, go here.  


More than a decade into the 21st century and the very tools and sites we need to ensure student success in the world are banned and blocked in many school and learning centers. Though banning and blocking is more convenient, it  is not what is right when it comes to preparing children, who will need to use and navigate these waters, for success in the 21st century. The American Association of School Librarians (AASL)  is bringing awareness to this problem by naming September 28th “Banned Websites Awareness Day.” This serves as an extension of the American Library Association’s long-standing censorship awareness campaign, Banned Books Week, beginning September 24. This new campaign directs national attention to the important conversation of the impact filtering has on our students.

In many schools today, our children are living in a digital world, but being prepared in bubbletest schools that whittle kids down to easily measurable, but often irrelevant and outdated, data points.  In fact, using the tools necessary for success in the world is considered cheating when completing these outdated assessments. Most educators, parents, and business leaders understand that these high-stakes, artificial situations do little to meaningfully prepare children for success in the 21st century. Sadly, outside of today’s test prep-dominated curriculum, there are virtually no opportunities to share resources and collaborate with the real world.  This is understandable when we recognize that doing so is not measured or valued in our schools. This is in part what makes banning and blocking so desirable.  Since schools are not evaluated on providing equity and access to real-world skills or tools, not providing access to the world outside of schools becomes most desirable.  However,  when life inside of schools looks so different than life in the world of work, civics, and personal relationships, one must consider what what the real purpose of schools has become.  Unfortunately, many students today feel the disconnected life in schools much more resembles that of a prison than one which will prepare them for successful careers and relationships.


For students to successfully engage in the world outside of school, the world inside of school needs to match it.  This can’t happen unless school leaders begin to think outside the ban and make children’s success a priority.  Common sense dictates that blocking and banning students from the sites they need to succeed does not keep them safe. While no one would argue that doing so is easier, it clearly leaves our children unprepared.  The Banned Websites Awareness Day campaign brings attention to the fact that this must change in order to keep our 21st century learners competitive and ready for life outside school walls.  Teachers and leaders must become educated on how to use the web responsibly and enable their students to do the same.


To do so, here are some shifts that need to happen.


We need to move...

From	To	with sites such as…
restricting use of sites	responsible use and support in enabling safety filters	Google Images, YouTube
standardized textbook learning	personal network learning	Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Blogs
disconnected classrooms	rich, global communication centers	Skype, Google Hangout
teacher as the only source of information and lessons	on-demand learning from others around the world	YouTube, Twitter, Open Ed Resources
students doing work for an audience of one (the teacher) or some (the class)	students doing work worthy of the world for real audiences	Blogs, YouTube, authentic publishing sites

Banning, filtering, and blocking keeps students locked up in an artificial world that does well at ensuring compliance but little when it comes to enabling students to expand their wings and have the freedom to learn what is important in the world today.  To that end I’d like to commend Michelle Luhtala for conceiving of Banned Websites Awareness Day and the American Association of School Librarians for bringing to life an essential ingredient necessary for learning in the 21st century.



For more information about Banned Websites Awareness Day resources and support materials, please visit AASL Essential Links and Banned Websites blog posts.

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What's Popular This Week on The Innovative Educator

Here’s the roundup of what's been popular on The Innovative Educator blog this week. Below you’ll see my top weekly posts along with the number of pageviews in the past 7 days. I hope there's something that looks of interest to you.  If it does, check it out. If you’re so inspired leave a comment.

What Parents Really Want to Tell Teachers: What Yo... Sep 15, 2011, 54 comments  1715 Pageviews

School is Not School. A Place Where The Community... Sep 18, 2011, 4 comments   1666 Pageviews

School redesign as a community project-based learn... Sep 21, 2011   1 551 Pageviews

Bring Back Play and Disorganized Sports to Our Chi... Sep 20, 2011, 1 comment    1530 Pageviews

Student Driven Learning = Passion-Based Classrooms... Apr 22, 2011, 6 comments   1 472 Pageviews

If School Was Causing Your Child’s ADD / ADHD Woul... Sep 19, 2011, 2 comments    1 376 Pageviews

Mobile Phones in Schools As A Lifesaving Tool Sep 22, 2011, 1 comment     1272 Pageviews

Stupid in America Sep 16, 2011    1161 Pageviews

The Contraband of Some Schools is The Disruptive I... Apr 26, 2011, 11 comments   936 Pageviews

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Rethinking Learning with A Child-Centered Lesson Plan

Editor’s note:  After reading How Andgragogy Might Look in the Classroom on the Mystified Mom blog, I asked if she could pull out the parts regarding lesson plans so that people could get a better idea of what a learner-centered lesson plan would look like. 


Guest Post by Mystified Mom

People often claim that learner-centered methods are not practical for mass delivery systems due to the fact that standards have to be met. As a veteran educator, I have not found this to be true. To follow are the eight parts of a lesson plan and my comments about what could be added to gear them toward how students learn best. 


Header
The header typically include the teachers name, grade level, topic, and time allotment. This is all standard information. The one piece of information that can be rethought is the time allotment. Unless things have changed, the typical time allotment for a lesson is 30 minutes to an hour. Every now and then, I will see lessons that take longer or will span the course of a few days. Students and teachers should allot more time to do lessons. 



A lot of high schools have gone to block scheduling to give students more time in a class. That means that they do not have every subject every day. Why can't that be done in elementary schools? Why can't teachers spend half the day doing nothing but math or English or Social Studies? I bet that would give teachers a lot more options for making lessons come alive. It would also give more opportunity for teachers to coach and work one on one with individual students. In the period of an hour, it is very difficult to get around to each student and give each student help.

People learn best when they are given the opportunity to completely immerse themselves in a topic. Schools do not allow for that level of immersion. As soon as a kid gets involved in an activity, it is time to put it up. Rethinking the class day so that each day is devoted to a particular subject would make more sense. It would allow for more continuity. If a teacher wants to spend a week doing an art project, put it all in one day so that a child has more time to follow his/her muse. I remember being in high school art class and getting frustrated because I would have an inspiration and would try to get it done but it was inevitable that the bell would ring before I could finish it. That required me to put it up and try to pick up the muse later. That is difficult to do. 


Materials Needed
The second part is materials needed. That is pretty simple. It is good to have the necessary resources available before teaching a lesson. However, if you wanted to focus more on the students, you could have an open ended component where students select their own materials. Instead of using the fancy math manipulatives, make an allowance for them to use manipulatives that are ordinary items such as pencils or crayons. Give them the opportunity to find ordinary materials that can be used to further the lesson objectives.


Lesson Objectives
The next section is the objective section. I have added an element in italics to demonstrate how the current elements could be added to in order to take the learner into account.

• Which standards the lesson meets
• How this lesson will help the child outside of the academic environment
• Long-term objectives (How this fits into the larger lesson.)
• Short-term (lesson) objectives: Specific outcomes that are usually phrased as "the student will be able to"

I propose an extra element to these objectives. If the intent of schools is to prepare kids for life or adulthood, then I think kids should be told how these skills are going to help them outside of the classroom and in the real world. It would be rather simple to add an element that requires the teacher to identify how a specific objective will help a child in life right now or even later in life. Kids should be treated as though they are citizens right now.


Procedures
The next section is procedures, which spells out how the teacher plans to go about delivering the lesson. In the procedure section, most places recommend that teachers start out with an attention getter to introduce the lesson. What better attention getter than to tell students how this knowledge is going to help them be a part of the world. No, people don't want kids to think outside of the classroom. Another tidbit is that the attention getter should activate prior knowledge. What if the kid does not have prior knowledge because he has forgotten it?


The procedures section typically involves spelling out how the goals of the lesson will be reached, what the students will do to meet the objectives set out by the teachers, and what the students are expected to do. That is all fine but I think that perhaps the procedures should be more open ended. Or, at the very least, students should be given more time. I am thinking about how things work in a college classroom. I have worked with college professors that teach face to face courses. They have notes and they make sure that they have all of the supplies necessary for any particular class but they are not required to write up what they are going to do every single day. They create a syllabus at the beginning of the semester that contains the learning outcomes, assignments, and expectations for the semester. I realize that it might not be realistic to expect a 6 year old to follow a syllabus but I do think it would be a good idea if things weren't broken down into such small chunks.

Really, I think a monthly syllabus or even a weekly syllabus would be a good idea. It would give parents the chance to work ahead with their children. I think it would also give the teachers more flexibility. Right now, teachers typically break the day up into subjects. I haven't been in an elementary classroom in a while but I am thinking that the chunks of time for a lesson are usually about an hour. If the subject is boring, then an hour seems like forever. If the lessons or activities are fun, then an hour isn't near long enough.


Independent Work
This section typically spells out the types of independent work that a student is expected to do. Ideally, the independent work should reinforce the lesson, build upon it, and create background knowledge for the next lesson. If all of this were done in larger chunks of time (day, half day, several hours), there would be more time for kids to explore and the lessons could be intertwined so there would not need to be as much instruction time. When I was in the classroom, I found that the hour long lesson was a problem because it made it difficult for me to plan lessons. There were lots of things that would have been cool to do but it would have been very difficult to spread them out over the week. The other problem was that kids would sometimes forget what they learned from one day to the next because they were never really allowed to fully immerse themselves in the topic.


With larger chunks of time, there could be more options for independent work. There could be a written component such as work sheets or book work, there could be an exploratory component where kids are allowed to explore the topic in a hands on fashion by doing a project of some sorts, and there could be a play component. If all of these components are set up at the beginning, then students could work through the different components at their own pace and allow the teacher more time to assist students that need more help. With larger chunks of time, the classroom could have a lot more self-directed learning going on.


My argument for more time for lessons is that I think the little 45 minute and 1 hour lessons do not prepare kids for the real world. (There, I said it. I am tired of people saying that to me with regard to homeschooling.) In the real world at real jobs, people are expected to work on the same activity or subject for hours at a time. I know that when I am working on my online course, I will sometimes work on it for 3 or 4 hours at a time. School didn't prepare me for that. Heck, I think schools gave me a short attention span because of spending years in classes that would only allow short periods of time for classes. The fun classes went by too fast and the slow classes took forever. I suspect that having longer class times wouldn't change that.


Assessment
And then, of course, is the dreaded assessment. Why does every single lesson have to have an assessment component? When you break learning down into such tiny bits, it can sometimes be difficult to determine whether or not somebody actually learned something. In a lot of cases, I think assessment is merely assessing a child's ability to follow directions.

I think larger chunks of time would also for more authentic types of assessment such as observations or personal success plans or portfolios. One of the biggest hurdles in the classroom is not enough time. When the day is broken up into 5 or 6 subjects, it makes it almost impossible for teachers to do anything but test. If people want to move the focus away from tests, then teachers are going to have to be given more freedom and more time.


Reflections
Depending on where you look, some will list reflection as part of the lesson plan. The way it is worded is that it is the teacher's opportunity to decide whether or not the lesson was effective. All it would take for the focus to move from pedagogy to andragogy would be to ask for student feedback, which leads me to my last and final point.


Rating a teacher based on the students test scores is the most outrageous thing that I can imagine. First, how a student scores on a test does not indicate how much they have learned nor does it indicate whether or not the teacher is a good teacher. In all honesty, I don't think that I will be happy until student evaluations are introduced into K-12 classrooms. All the test scores in the world and all the observations by administrators are not going to make an ounce of difference. In my opinion, what matters is how students react to the teacher.


Kids can be given a voice in the classroom without eliminating standards and without removing mass instruction. Mass instruction can be tweaked to address how students actually learn rather than how people wish they would learn. Pretty much all of the articles that I have read about child development have said that kids learn best when playing and having fun. I think it would be really easy to build that into mass instruction. It could all be done with a mind to the standards. Maybe I am crazy but it seems like there is too much of an either/or dichotomy here.

---

Mystified Mom
I am passionate about learning. I have four beautiful daughters (10, 7, 4, & 2) and I am married to my best friend. We live a lifestyle of learning, which means that learning is a part of everything that we do. As somebody that is always learning and always seeking new ideas and perspectives, I am not tied to any one method of learning. My goal is to examine my life and the world around me so that I may grow as a mother, wife, and human being. I am very interested in child advocacy, especially as it relates to the rights of children.

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