I don’t know why but I’ve been thinking about Hawaii lately.  There’s something irrepressibly optimistic about the place.  Just bought a shirt online to keep things summery in the coming dark months, in lieu of taking a trip.

Every time the band plays a gig more and more of us show up dressed like islanders, shirts and all.  I bought a Hawaiian hibiscus sticker from www.stuckonmaui.com to stick to the tele.  Here she is:

Summer winds down.   We’ve been listening to the complete works of Mark Knopfler.

If you haven’t fallen in love with this guy’s music your probably too tightly wound.

Honestly lighten up.

Just got a copy of “Dumbing us Down” by John Gatto.  16 pages in and my mind is BLOWN.  Here are a handful of other titles that have had that effect on me in recent years (in no particular order, secular titles only… contact me privately for non-secular titles):

1. Good to Great
2. The Four Hour Work Week
3. The Entreprenurial Emergency (Rich Schefren Ebook)
4. The China Study
5. Predictably Irrational
6. The Talent Code

All titles except the Schefren book are availble as an audio book on Itunes if you think you might enjoy driving and reading at the same time.

My driver and I are headin to the big smoke. Goodbye hay!

Three Weeks to Age Six and “Grade One”

We’re going into grade of of my son’s home schooling.

I read an interesting line in a book last night on curriculum development. Allow me to paraphrase: “If your focus on a topic is strong enough the topic will lead you everywhere else. “

I find that to be quite encouraging.  I dovetails with my own learning philosophy. I personally believe in starting a task you don’t understand and then allowing the task to demand the right learning to suit the situation. When I learned Photoshop all those years back I started out with complete magazine ads I have found and tried to replicate them.  What happened was this:  I quickly became conversant with the subject in a very practical way.

The Province of Ontario allows parents to develop their own curriculum juts as long as they follow the legal tenants of “The Ontario Education Act”. (see http://www.ontariohomeschool.org/legal.shtml) if you are interested.