Opinion

OUR FAMILY JUST FINISHED UP OUR 18th year of home schooling. We still have 10 more years left on our journey. Throughout the years, I have had the opportunity to meet many wonderful families and consult with countless others.

For many parents who are contemplating home schooling, some of the most frequent questions I hear include, “What does your homeschool schedule look like, and how many hours a day do you do school?” The reason for these questions is that the majority of people have been conditioned to believe that learning only takes place via the public-school model. They are conditioned to believe that “school” is a set number of days and hours, typically being spent laboring over curriculum, textbooks, workbooks and testing. That is a narrow interpretation of what education should be.

Every waking moment of every day is a learning opportunity. For many, one of the most important aspects of home schooling is to completely unlearn everything you were taught about education via institutionalized learning. That is one reason I strongly recommend de-schooling, not only for the child but for the parent as well. Due to the conditioning of government schools, most believe that learning only occurs within the walls of a classroom. Authentic home schooling is a completely different culture where learning has no boundaries or time limits. Home schooling is an extension of parenting, which doesn’t put a time limit or parameters on the acquisition of knowledge.

From Webster’s Dictionary 1928: “Edu-

cate, verb transitive [Latin educo, educare; e and duco, to lead.] To bring up, as a child; to instruct; to inform and enlighten the understanding; to instill into the mind principles of arts, science, morals, religion and behavior. To educate children well is one of the most important duties of parents and guardians.” This definition is an excellent example of the ideology of home #FREE YOUR CHILDREN schooling. Authentic home schooling accomplishes all the aforementioned with the parents serving as the BY TIFFANY BOYD primary educators of their children. Unfortunately for many, that responsibility is abdicated to strangers in a setting where parents truly have no way of knowing, directing or monitoring what their children are being taught. Do parents really want strangers teaching their children morals, beliefs, habits and personal development? The public outcry against critical race theory and social and emotional learning says no; however, a large number of parents still send their children to government institutions for the majority of their formative years. They are trusting a system whose track record is less than stellar to “educate” their children. Only 24% of 12th graders in public schools scored at or above proficiency in math, only 12% in U.S. history and only 22% in science, according to Our Nation’s Report Card. Compare that to home-schooled children. “Homeschool student achievement test scores are exceptionally high. The mean scores for every student (which are at least in the 80th percentile) are well above those of public school students,” a study titled Academic Achievement and Demographic Traits of Homeschool Students said.

The home-educated typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above publicschool students on standardized academic achievement tests. A 2015 study found black home-school students to be scoring 23 to 42 percentile points above black public-school students. A review of homeschool research found that 78% of peerreviewed studies on academic achievement show home-schooled students perform statistically significantly better than those in institutional schools.

Home-schooled students score above average on achievement tests regardless of their parents’ level of formal education or their family’s household income, the National Home Education Research Institute presents in its Research Facts on Homeschooling. Whether home-school parents were ever certified teachers is not related to their children’s academic achievement. Degree of state control and regulation of home schooling is not related to academic achievement. Homeeducated students typically score above average on the SAT and ACT tests that colleges consider for admissions.

It is time we stopped defining education by looking to a system that is churning out barely literate young adults.

“The child at school . . . has his initiative subordinated to a schedule which has been worked out according to pragmatic factors other than his creativity and needs. He has to try to become interested in hours of listening to talking. There may be no time for him to talk or to express himself. Worse, the books provided are often weak, watery and insipid,” Susan Schaeffer Macaulay wrote in For the Children’s Sake.

During my years as a public-school kindergarten teacher I tried to prevent the removal of Saxon Phonics from our county classrooms. We lost the battle and phonics was stripped from the curriculum. That decision was an epic failure, along with the Reading Recovery program that was instituted.

“At one point, Reading Recovery was in every state. But school districts have been dropping the program,” NPR reported. “Critics of Reading Recovery have long contended that children in the program do not receive enough explicit and systematic instruction in how to decode words.”

This leads us to the scenario we have today. According to a study conducted in April 2015 by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy (literacyinc.com), 32 million adults in the United States can’t read above a fifth-grade level, and 19% of high school graduates can’t read.

Our Nation’s Report Card proves that our current method of educating our children is failing; a more in-depth look at national scores in various categories can be found at: nationsreportcard.gov.

I encourage parents to stop giving credence to a system that produces lessthan-stellar results. Embrace learning as an atmosphere and a lifelong goal. I encourage parents to give authentic home schooling a consideration.

In the words of Christopher Milne, “Young children are eager to learn, and when we send them to your schools, in two years, three years, four years, you have killed their enthusiasm. At 15 their only eagerness is to escape learning anything.”

Parents can foster a love of learning in their own homes with much better results than the government model of education. You are equipped.

Tiffany Boyd is the founder of Free YOUR Children, a home school advocate, consultant, speaker and the founder of Middle Tennessee Christian Homeschool Connection. She and her husband have home educated for 18 years. She has appeared as a guest on Homeschool Loft podcast, on the Schoolhouse Rocked podcast and on The Sentinel Report with Alex Newman. Tiffany will be hosting an upcoming seminar, “Creating an Authentic Homeschool Culture,” for parents that are considering home schooling or for new homeschool parents. To learn more about this event or to host one in your area, contact her at freeyourchildren@gmail.com.

by MEREDITH THOMAS

WHEN I HAD THE BRILLIANT IDEA to hijack Mr. Murfreesboro’s Minute this month to draft a little something about my dad in honor of Father’s Day, I certainly had no idea that it would be such a struggle. It’s not like I don’t have a boatload of unique anecdotes, fun historical facts or whimsical little nuggets to share. It’s just that I had no idea how to do that in under 700 words and still accurately refl ect my sense of awe and wonder and love and appreciation for the entirety of the life that has been led by such a beloved and revered man. He always reminds me that “no good deed goes unpunished,” so I guess this week, this one’s mine.

Throughout my life I have always heard from family friends, acquaintances, and an impressive number of strangers that my dad was arguably one of the best athletes ever to come out of Murfreesboro. Growing up in my house, all evidence pointed to that being indisputable fact.

Rarely did you see a day on the calendar that wasn’t fi lled to the brim with some type of athletic competition, practice, or last-minute pick-up game in the backyard. Competing in organized sports was just something that my brother and I always did. Our summers were fi lled with swim-team meets, junior golf tournaments and tennis clinics, softball games and Little League baseball. Fall and winter months started on the football fi eld and ended in a basketball gymnasium. My childhood was jam-packed full of organized sports and I loved it.

My dad was the main catalyst for this great love. He not only instilled in us the basic fundamentals of every sport we played, he really helped us learn valuable life lessons through organized team and individual sports that still guide us to this day.

His athletic accomplishments and accolades came frequently and in abundance while genuine humility remained his default. His skills and talent always demanded the spotlight, but the man himself wants no part of it.

As a quarterback and starting point guard for Murfreesboro Central High School in the ’60s, Dickie Thomas cleaned house with awards and honors as a star high-school athlete—All-State, MVP, Player of the Year awards and 1965 State High School Basketball Champion, just to name a few. And of course there was that time he was named to the 1964 Nashville Banner’s Banquet of Champions alongside All-American and #1 NFL Draft pick Tucker Frederickson and a little known hall-of-fame SEC football coach by the name of Paul “Bear” Bryant. I mean, come on, now—that’s just cool.

DID YOU KNOW: Prior to the Blackman boys’ basketball team win in 2014, it had been nearly 30 years since a boys’ basketball team from Rutherford County had even played in a state championship fi nal (Oakland, 1984) and 50 years since a team from Rutherford County had won a State Championship fi nal (Murfreesboro Central, 1965). Do you know what those two historic teams have in common? Dickie. Thomas. He was the starting point guard for Central in ’65 and, as head coach, led Oakland to four state tournament appearances, with a record of 218–61 over 10 seasons.

Tune into WGNS at 100.5 FM or 1450 AM each Sunday at 9 p.m. for The Mr. Murfreesboro Show or on Apple Podcasts. Follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook and Instagram.

WILLIS BURKS

THE TRAIN DADDY IS BACK with sports news, life lessons and politically incorrect talk. All aboard!

Let’s start this off by talking about the Titans’ fi rst-round draft pick Treylon Burks, a receiver out of Arkansas. Is it fair that Burks is being compared to A.J. Brown from the get? Probably not, but that’s reality.

What a roller coaster of emotion for Tennessee fans on draft night. A.J. Brown, in a twist, gets traded to the Eagles and, immediately after, the Titans take the receiver Burks with the 18th pick overall. What makes the pick even more interesting is Treylon was being compared to the likes of A.J. and Deebo Samuel long before draft night. Treylon has all the tools at 6 feet and 2 inches tall, 225 pounds, a physical receiver in a league where yards after catch makes a lot of difference. A.J. Brown excelled in that category.

The media is toxic; between the way they treated Ryan Tannehill this past month to the headlines about Treylon exiting practice early, a lot of the Titans news hasn’t been pretty.

Video of Treylon hitting his inhaler brought up questions about his conditioning. Fact is, Tennessee allergies are no joke for newbies, and I won’t read too much into it . . . yet!

The Titans have a history of missing at the WR position in previous drafts. So of course it hurt to let the best receiver ever drafted by Tennessee walk out like that. Time will tell if the Titans letting A.J. walk for 100 Milly was smart.

While A.J. Brown is a bona fi de superstar, he had some injury concerns last season and I’m really not trying to punch low, but this is a player who recently was talking about his struggles with suicidal thoughts and then, shortly after, talking about how he would love to play professional baseball. A.J. wears his emotions on his sleeve, and between what I just said and his repeated tweet/deletes, maybe Tennessee made the right move? I think that’s fair to point out—this is a business.

Alright, next topic—quarterbacks! Let me be crystal clear with my thoughts on Ryan Tannehill and our newly drafted QB with exciting potential out of Liberty University. I saw some backlash from the media and some fans following the press conference, where Ryan talked about the ugly loss in the playoffs and stated it wasn’t his job to mentor Malik Willis.

The backlash to his words was ignorant because Ryan was correct. I mean it’s not like we have QB coaches for no reason. And we have numerous and recent examples throughout league history of QBs saying similar things. Ryan’s words were unfairly twisted and portrayed as selfi sh, when at the end of the day they were human.

Tannehill has been stand-up on and off the fi eld through the entirety of his long career. Anyone with sense knows Ryan wasn’t going to shun Malik Willis, because that’s what being a good person is about. And, lo and behold, guess what? Weeks later, Ryan has Malik over for dinner, and a few media events later both Ryan and Malik have acknowledged how well things are going as they work together while also competing to win the starting job.

Fact is, with the way Tannehill’s heavy salary cap hit is this year, he was always going to be QB1 in 2022. Releasing him wasn’t fi nancially feasible. Tannehill needs to focus on one thing, and that’s being better this season, especially if he wants to play out the last year of his four-year deal, because the Titans will have the opportunity from a fi nancial standpoint to cut ties in 2023. The bar is high. Nothing short of making the playoffs and not being the reason they lose will save his job.

With that said, I am super-excited for the potential a player like Malik brings to the future of this team. Dude reminds me so much of my favorite player ever, Steve “Air” McNair. Malik is far from polished and it’s not like he was going up against SEC talent week after week playing for Liberty. But some analysts had Malik projected in round 1 of the draft due to his potential. The beautiful thing about grabbing Malik in the third round is it’s no sweat off J-Rob’s back if Malik doesn’t work out. The Titans didn’t reach for Malik, and it was exactly the joy needed for the fan base on Day 2 after Day 1, when Tennessee traded away one of its best players and then traded away the other fi rst-round pick.

When it was all said and done, I loved this draft class! From A.J. Brown’s much cheaper replacement to a Round 2 cornerback in Roger McCreary out of Auburn that hopefully— with last year’s fi rst-round disappointment in Caleb Farley—can bring some stability at CB. After seeing that 9-sack performance and loss in the playoffs, the Titans must get better in the secondary because, up front, the Titans have one of the best run stops and aggressive pass rushes in the NFL.

The Titans waited until the third round to address my biggest concern, the offensive line. And this OT Nicholas Petit-Frere must produce, or I am afraid J-Rob will look like a fool and Tannehill once again will be one of the most sacked QBs of the season.

At least the Titans managed to keep center Ben Jones, a massive offensive line win!

I was a little surprised they grabbed a running back in the fourth round and not too happy about it, but Hassan Haskins out of Michigan is a similar downhill runner to Henry and it’s imperative they limit Henry’s touches this season. No way in hell can the King average over 30 touches per game to start the season again. Titans need a changeof-pace RB2 to handle 10 touches a game and then, as December and January creeps around, you unleash the King. With all that said, why in the hell didn’t they resign D’Onta Foreman? Foreman was fantastic and I am still of the belief that had the Titans sat Henry in the second half of that Bengals game and pounded Foreman away, the Titans would have won that game! Look at how cheaply the Panthers signed him for a backfi eld that already consists of CMC and Chuba Hubbard. What a stupid loss for the Titans, unless they know something we don’t?

One of my favorite picks is the tight end out of Maryland, my dude Chig—Chigoziem Okonkwo. He isn’t huge like Kelce or Kittle, the premium TEs, but he is comparable to Jonnu Smith, and Chig was the fastest TE in the draft. He is a physical specimen, built like a tank, and he moves like a sports car. Watch out for this dude paired with Hooper, a major upgrade at the position after they tried and failed with Firk as TE1 in 2022.

Round 5 saw a slot WR out of UCLA; depth at the position is needed. Kyle Phillips is a phenomenal punt returner, a slippery receiver who managed to fi nd the end zone often at UCLA. Not saying this dude is Cooper Kupp, but I believe Kyle could be the surprise fan favorite from this draft.

Rounding out the draft, a hometown kid out of Tennessee, Theo Jackson, will get the chance to learn behind arguably the best safety duo in the game in Byard and Hooker. The last pick for the Titans, an LB out of Ole Miss, Chance Campbell isn’t afraid to get dirty. I saw people I respect call Chance a hidden gem. Good luck!

I realize that my passion for this Titans team is at a level that would be considered extreme. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I have probably 40 more good seasons left in me if I don’t die tragically from whatever the next overblown virus is.

All I ask is that the Titans can win me one, just ONE, Super Bowl before I am put back to the mud! I don’t feel like that is asking much. Listen up, Titans! It’s imperative that you win a Lombardi before the year 2050. My luck, they will win it the year after I kick the can. Choo-choo!

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BY JENNIFER DURAND

HOW DO YOU FEEL when you are in the middle of telling a story and your audience, whether an individual or group, looks away because something caught their attention? I have observed many such situations over time, and even more recently, thus prompting this article. Sometimes I have been the one talking, sometimes I’ve been the one who got distracted, and other times I’ve been one of the group witnessing the look on another’s face when, mid-story, they lose their audience.

For many years I have been a keen observer and student of body language, communication, and the human spirit. I have witnessed and experienced the effect of emotional highs and lows in these realms. There are so many distractions clamoring for our attention and there is also the illusion of importance associated with allowing ourselves to be distracted. Your phone may buzz, someone may come by and tap you on the shoulder, or you could simply have a thought in your head that you inadvertently blurt out because you “don’t want to forget to mention it.” This false sense of importance interferes with what’s actually taking place in the moment and in fact you gain less importance when you break the connection with the one talking to you.

“No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important.” — Mary Kay Ash

I’ve witnessed many people shrug off the offense or move on to the next person, but not before noting the look of dejection, annoyance or bewilderment at what just happened. It makes people feel like they are unimportant, boring, or simply not signifi cant. I have felt all of those feelings personally at different times. I have seen this same effect on others, sometimes caused by me. As a body language expert I have been able to recognize this and correct the situation. There are many more people though, who do not pay attention to the signs and simply continue being rude or ignorant.

What if you don’t know you are doing this? What if the people you’re talking to don’t tell you straight up that you are being rude? True friends will tell you, but not all will. And how do you receive the information if someone tells you they feel insignifi cant when you interrupt them or become distracted? How do you feel when you tell someone else they’ve done this to you? Do they acknowledge what you’re saying? Do they honor your feelings? Or do they make up excuses?

“The fastest way to improve your relationships is to make others feel important in every way possible.” — Brian Tracy

If you are aware that you’ve done this to someone who is talking to you, there are a few things you could do or say to make up for the inconsideration: • Make eye contact • Acknowledge with an apology • Smile with sincerity • Ask them to please continue • Be attentive • Stay in the moment • Don’t do it again

If you are unaware of doing this to others, there are other signs you could pick up on: Do people spend less time with you? Turn their back on you? Make small talk rather than share anything signifi cant? If more meaningful connections are not important to you then you won’t be concerned with this. If you do want more signifi cant relationships, then fi ne-tuning your observation skills will be helpful.

It doesn’t have to take long to give someone your undivided attention. Most people are good with just a moment or two. If you want others to listen to you, be sure you listen to them. One of the best compliments you can get is when someone who has been doing all the talking says “wow, you are so awesome” and you haven’t said fi ve words. You are awesome because you were attentive and made them feel important.

“When you make people feel important, you’re going to be ahead of the game.” — Zig Ziglar

What can you do if you are the one telling the story and you lose your audience? 1. Ask them “am I boring you?” This can bring their attention back to you. 2. Analyze your audience and the content of your story. Is it the right fi t? 3. Try not to be hurt, but know they may not be the company for you. If they are someone whose attention you do seek, fi nd another approach.

I never stopped and looked, I never paid attention to you / I didn’t think that you were worth my time / A passing glance my way caught me on a day like today / And all your brilliant colors light up my eyes / I’m falling in, I’m spinning now / I’m trapped in you, and I don’t want out — “Web of Roses” by Jen Foster

If you put yourself in another’s shoes, you will become kinder, more attentive and well liked, perhaps even loved. Be mindful, and be engaged in the moments!

Jennifer Durand is the owner of The Nurture Nook, a certifi ed qigong and breath empowerment instructor and is licensed in massage therapy, body work and somatic integration. For more on fi nding your personal “ahh . . .”, visit nurturenook.com or call 615-896-7110.

Dear Rutherford County Taxpayer,

Hello, my name is Royce Olen Johnson. I am your neighbor and lifelong Rutherford County resident. I am not a career politician. I am a Constitutional Conservative running to be your next County Mayor and would treasure your vote on Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022. As a child growing up here, my family was poor and received food stamps, government cheese and the free lunch program. I understand the challenges and impact of hard times and struggles. As a product of the local public schools, I received my education attending Bradley Elementary, Central Middle School and graduated from Riverdale High School. After high school, I worked days and attended MTSU and Ashford University taking classes at night where I obtained: * A bachelor’s degree in business administration * A bachelor’s degree in public administration * A master’s degree in criminal justice As a lifelong learner, I have obtained the knowledge and experience to best serve our county. I am successful in the corporate world and have over 20 years of management experience. My wife and I are also small business owners. I have a heart to serve our community and give back. I put God FIRST, then family, serving others and freedom. I believe in the American Dream. As a Republican Constitutional Conservative, I believe in putting America fi rst! Together, we can keep America fi rst and keep Rutherford County FREE by voting our values and supporting like-minded neighbors to serve in public offi ce. If you support truth, transparency and access at all levels of county government, if you want to keep Rutherford free, if you’re tired of political bickering, career politicians and wasteful government, vote for me to be your next county mayor. I am humbled by this opportunity and I look forward to serving you. You will have my ear, and my door will always be open to the taxpayers of our county. Very truly yours, your neighbor — Royce Johnson royceforrutherford.com | 615-605-9067