GG WITI.{O{JT S Issue 103
Friendships Between flomeschoolers and School Students See page 21
Separating School and State
Folk Dancing Groups
Learning about Writing from Other Kids
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Foster and Adopted Children
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News & Reports p. 3-5
Separating School and State FoIk Dancing Groups p. 6-7
Iearning about Writing from Other Kids p. &l I Writing clubs, exchanging work with pen-pals how homeschoolers are learning from one another Challenges & Concerns p. 12-f 6
Finding Others, Help with 4Year Old, How to Help Older Reader?, Recordkeeping Watching Children Learn p.
17
-20, 32-33
Learning about Money, Science Club, Working with Veterinarian and with Water Testing Project
arise.
FOCUS: Friendships Between llomeschoolers and School Students p. 2l-25
Ilomeschooling Foster and Adopted Children p.26-27 Their School-Choice Question p. 2&3 I Stories about trying school, entering school,
leaving school r.ists of Resources p. 35-38
Helpful teachers, lawyers, professors, psychologists, school districts, resource people, and
grown-up homeschoolers
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Can people be friends even if they have very different experiences and perspectives? When I talk wift homeschooling kids and teenagers, this question comes up a lot. It's an understandable preoccupation, because most homeschoolers have friends, sometimes very close friends, who go to school. This of course means that their daily lives are different. Often, it also means that the way they see and think about some things are different. But that doesn't mean friendship is impossible or not worth pursuing. The deeper question indeed we could say that /iis is the real socialization question homeschoolers face - is not whether b:ut how to maintain friendships across these kinds of differences: how to find the points of commonality, how to listen to and appreciate another's story even if it is not the one you would tell, how to learn from each other, how to cope with tensions, jealousies, and misunderstandings that may
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GWS rrlusrnarroNs sv Erlrr-v LINN Col'r,n puoro rs or ArnrlJoHNSoN AND CnprstNa DunsrnrEy. Snn Focus SrqnoN, pacr 21. Growing Without Schooling #103, Vol. 17, No. 6. ISSN 1il47!5305. Published by Holt Associates, 2269 Mas. Ave., Cambridge MA 02140. $25,/p. Date ofisue: February I, 1995. Second<las posage paid at Boston, MA and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to GWS, 2269 Mms. Ave, Cambridge, MA 021,10 ADWRTISERS: Space resenation deadlines ae the 1st ofodd-numbered months; copy deadlines are the lsth. Write for rates.
For this issue's Focus, we interviewed three pairs of friends. In each pair, one is a homeschooler and one goes to school. We could have simply asked homeschoolers to tell us about their friendships with school kids, but by listening to both kids we get a richer sense of the texture of the friendship and of what the benefits and difficulties are on each side. Both kids were able to reflect on the particular nature of a school student-homeschooler friendship, although it's also true (and a good sign, I think) that this did not strike the kids as the central fact of the relationship. It may strike readers, as it did me, that none of these three school kids felt very positive about school. This is not to say that they all wished they were homeschooling, but none comes across as enthusiastic about the school experience. It would be interesting to know if other homeschoolers' friends feel differently, since this is only a sample of three. Still, I couldn't help wondering whether there's some correlation here. whether a school student who has developed a critique of school is more likely to be interested in being friends with a homeschooler - if only because such a student will not be inclined to see school as the whole world. On the other hand, a student who dislikes school has more reason to be envious of a homeschooler, so in that sense it might be easier to be friends with a homeschooler if you were a school student who felt very comfortable and huppy in school. These issues come up in adult friendships, too, and perhaps these interviews will encourage parents and kids to talk to one another with the understanding that friendship across difference is not simple for anyone. Ironically, school is supposed to make it possible for kids to be friends with people who are different from themselves, but for so many, just the opposite is true: cliques form around sameness or perception of sameness, difference is discouraged or shunned, and kids may actually get less practice at bridging differences between themselves and their friends than these pairs ofkids get.- Susannah Sheffer GnowrNc
Wnuour Scnoor-rNc #103 r FrsnuARv,/MARcs 1995
/[*t E./lqora Separating School and State Pat Farenga unites:
fu our federal and state governments offer us another expensive round ofschool reform proposals, amid cries cries from educators that this timz they got it right, a growing number of people are actively discussing the concept of the disestablishment of schools. This is reminiscent of what Ivan Illich described in his 1970 book, Deschooling
Society.
Illich wrote:
Two centuries ago the United States led the world in a movement to
disestablish the monopoly of a single church. Now we need the constitu-
tional disestablishment of the mo nopoly of the school, and thereby of a system which legally combines prejudice with discrimination. The first article of a bill of rights for a modern, humanist society would correspond to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "The State shall make no law with respect to the establishment of education." There shall be no ritual obligatory to all. To make this disestablishment effective, we need a law forbidding discrimination in hiring, voting, or admission to centers of learning based on previous attendance at some curriculum. This guarantee would not exclude performance tests of competence for a function or a role, but would remove the present absurd discrimination in favor of the person who learns a given skill with the largest expenditure of public funds or - what is equally likely - has been able to ot>
tain a diploma which has no relarion to any useful skill orjob. Only by protecting the citizen from being disqualified by anything in his career in school can a constitutional disestablishment of school become psychologically effective.
This idea ges a fresh look from Sheldon Richman, a homeschooling parent who is also a senior editor at the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank. His book Separating School and Stateis a short and very readable study about the current state of education, the nature of learning, and the history and politics of compulsory government schooling. The considerable information and quotes from opponents of public schooling, from the seventeenth century to the present, are fascinating, and they provide homeschoolers with many reasons for helping children learn without forcing them to go to school. I was often struck by the foresight so many of the early critics of state-sponsored compulsory schooling had about how such schooling would dumb down the population through standardization, how it would create perrnanent bureaucratic swamps, and how it would diminish local community as well as family freedoms. I think this information is very useful for putting our own actions, as homeschoolers, into a historical context. We will likely be selling this book in the fall, but for now you can order it for $12.95 from The Future of Freedom Foundation, 11350 Random Hills Rd., Suite 800, Fairfax, VA 22030. Moving from ideas to action, a group called "The Separation of School and State Alliance" has come into being to promote this concept. According to their literature, the Alliance has "no political or religious affiliations. The Separation Alliance plans to be strictly educational and to leave to others any ballot initiatives, lobbying, or electioneering needed to accomplish Separation." The Alliance's two initial goals are: first, to find their natural allies, by which they mean "successful acclaimed, respected educators" who will be willing to "publicly declare how their own schools in their own districts are not serving kids, and never can as long as they're run by the
GnowrNc Wrruour ScHoorrNc #103 o FrsnuARv,/MARcr 19gb
state." The second goal is to "find
good answers to crucial questions." The Alliance identifies these four questions as key. Ifschool and state were separate:
l. Will the poor get a beuer education than today? Who'll pay? 2. What about irresponsible Parents? 3. When parents choose ethnic
or
religious schools, will the separatism help or hinder civic harmony? Race relations? Tolerance? 4. What about teacherjobs, salaries, pensions, credentialling? School accreditation? The energetic founder of the Alliance, Marshall Fritz, is looking for donations as well as ideas, books, and people he can work with to further the cause. You can contact this group at 4578 N. First #310, Fresno C,A93726; (209) 292-1776. The allure to homeschoolers of the idea of separating school and state is obvious, and we are certainly interested in further discussion of the idea and its practical implications. At this point, we don't know enough about the Alliance to form an opinion of how well it, in particular, sewes as an agent for these ideas, but we want to let readers know about it. As with all such things, it's best to investigate directly yourself. Some thoughts, in the meantime: while the history and arguments in favor of disestablishing schools from state control are compelling to me, there can be no doubt that many Americans are highly critical, if not suspicious, of the idea. A poll commissioned by Mr. Fritz shows that one in four Americans supports the idea of separation of school and state; ironically, that is about the same percentage as the number of Americans who support homeschooling, according to a Gallup poll done a few years ago for the Phi Delta Kappan. As homeschoolers know, having 257a of the population on your side when you're doing something that runs against the grain of society is impressive and comfort-
ing, but it still means we are a minority. How do we make a convincing case to everyone else that separating school and state is a good idea? 3
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Making persuasive arguments and citing historical precedents aren't enough or all we'd have to do is share Mr. Richman's and others' books with enough people and that would be that! And, as is always the case in polemical writing, many of this book's
start any kind of school, profit or non-
assumptions, quotes, and statistics will be readily challenged or dimissed by
and apprenticeships should be scrapped. All restrictions on homeschooling should be abolished."
critics. Mr. Richman's political biases are well-stated and obvious since he is a prominent Libertarian. However, he does a fine job of citing examples from all across the political spectrum of people in support of separating school and state. On the other hand, this can backfire on the Alliance too: Richman cites the work of Charles Murray several times in his book; Mr. Murray's views on the intellectual inferiority of African-Americans (he co-authored the controversial book The Bell Curue ) are almost certain to shut down, or seriously derail, dialogue about separating school and state if opponents succeed in painting the separation idea as an intellectual cover for a racism. If Richman and Fritz are sincere in their advocacy for nonpartisan action on this issue, it seems to me that they need to be extra thoughtful in how they present and support this important argument. Indeed, anticipating the backlash, Mr. Fritz notes in several places that "the group in the Wirthlin Poll that most highly favored separation was people with incomes under $f 5,000 (35Vo)." In order to win people to this issue I think we need to make it personal and concrete. It is here that I think homeschoolers have much to offer the Alliance. Moving from theory to practice is a slow and personal process, as the growth and increasing acceptance of homeschooling demonstrates. To accomplish this I think we need to stop phrasing the choice as taking away something that Americans have grown accustomed to having for over 150 years - public schooling - and replacing it with a free market overnight. Mr. Richman summarizes his position this way: "The urgent solution to the education crisis is complete separation of school and state. The public schools should be sold to the highest bidder, school taxes scrapped, and compulsory attendance laws repealed. Anyone should be free to 4
profit, religious or secular. There should be no governmental requirements for curricula or textbooks. Parents should be free to send their children to any kind of school - or to none at all. Laws regarding child labor
Certainly these positions have great appeal to most homeschoolers and private schoolers, but that's preaching to the converted. With our long and quarrelsome education history hanging over us, telling people they now must rely on the free market strikes me as being as arrogant as telling people they must send their children to government schools. There are generations of emotional, as well as financial and intellectual, ties to the existing education system that truly complicate enacting any tlpe of systemic changes to our schools. Visions of destroying democracy, abandoning the poor, and creating an
illiterate underclass are powerful to many who do not understand why these things will not necessarily have to happen if we disestablish schools. We at GWS try hard to show how communities are enriched by homeschooling, how young and old work well together in mixed age settings, how meaningful socialization and learning occur outside of schools, and how some school people side with and encourage homeschooling; I hope the Alliance will expand on these examples rather than just declaim the economic superiority of the free market. Illich is careful to show the reader examples of "convivial institutions" that exist today, or that can be readily created from past examples, to fill the void if schools are disestablished.John
Holt, particularly in his book Inrtead of Education, offered many concrete ways in which we can learn, grow, and find work worth doing without compulsory schooling, and in hisbook Freedorn and Bqond he includes a useful analysis of why deschooling would help rather than hurt the poor. In our current troubled, insecure times people seem to want a road map, even if it is only a sketch, rather than just promises that the free market will take care of GnowrNc
everything. I hope the Alliance will work more on creating the road map than on shouting at opponents. To take the hard line and insist "Full separation now or nothing!" will probably harden positions on all sides of the issue rather than move the dialogue forward. For instance, though some homeschoolers advocate an adversarial attitude towards schools, there are other homeschoolers who want to work with their school districts. And there are a great many more who don't care one way or the as long as nobody is dictating to them how to live with their children. Does cooperating with your school district play into the hands of school officials who want to completely control or abolish homeschooling? Certainly cooperating with schools can lead to co-opting homeschooling, but it doesn't follow that it must. Successful partnerships between schools and homeschoolers do exist; some teachers and school officials do support homeschooling; and overall, homeschooling is now more popular and accepted than itwas even ten years ago, despite these tactical differences among homeschoolers. This indicates that we don't have to adopt a "take-nohostages" policy in pursuing the goal of separation any more than we do for
other
maintaining our homeschooling freedoms. We can instead tolerate a variety of positions and approaches that. over time and taken as a whole, will put schooling decisions back in each family's hands. As much as I support the goal of separation of school and state in principle, I feel we can't ignore or belittle the issues that prevent others from agreeing with us. If we oversell the separation argument as a "silver bullet" solution ("How to solve America's Public Education Crisis in One Simple Step" proclaims Mr. Friz's literature), we risk marginalizing this issue to the fringes of debate and lose an opportunity to introduce this idea into general public discourse. The arguments in favor of separating school and state shoud be made in many ways in order to reach as many people as possible. By making free market philosophy the prime argument, we risk alienating people who are suspicious of free markets where
WrHour ScHooI-rNc #103 r FrsnuARv/MARcs 1995
* those with the most money rule (Adam Smith warned his readers
&
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processor, was getting ready to leave
job. And as our shipper, Manoj Padki, was getting ready to leave us to be at home with his new baby, Gautam, Phil Cranshaw was interested in joining us. Phil, who is Day the
about "the vile maxim: All for ourselves, nothing for other people"). Also, we risk losing sight of the very important point that Illich makes often: education isn't a commodity to be priced and sold in the market like groceries. People learn without needing to buy learning in an education market, though the term "education free market" may imply otherwise. Further, even if we could separate school from the state tonight and abolish compulsory attendance laws, we would have only dealt with a regulatory matter. We would still have to contend with many of the social problems that our assumptions about learning cause: the problems of separating children from adults; separating living from learning; forcing children to learn; the conspicuous consumption of education ("I got my Bachelor's from Yale. Where did you get yours?"). None of these issues is directly addressed by
separating school and state and many may even be exacerbated by a free market in education. Nonetheless, it is good to have this issue raised and even better to keep it alive through dialogue. The more we can talk about it, and publicize examples of how it works, the sooner we can move it from abstraction to realitv.
Office News [SS:] If you called our off,rce during the week between Christmas
and NewYear's Day, you know that we were switching to a new computer
inventory system during that time, so things have been somewhat hectic around here as the staff adjusts. We appreciate our customers' patience and we are grateful that so many of you bought subscriptions and books from us during the holiday season. New staff members have joined us as well. Catherine Streiffer is our new order processor, and she brings 8month-old Samuel with her. Catherine is a GWS reader who noticed. in one of our previous "Office News" columns, that Holt Associates sta.ff members were able to bring their children with them. That appealed to her, and she got in touch with usjust when Milagros Chil, our previous order GnowNc Wnnour Scsoor-nrc #103
Nnws
.
Farenga's stepfather, has a fondness
for small businesses and is interested
in homeschooling. We welcome Catherine and Phil, and we know that we'll be in touch with both Milagros and Manoj even though they are no longer in the office every day. Thanks to the many people who responded to our notice in issue #102 and volunteered to rype GWS back issues onto disks (we continue to welcome such volunteers, if you're interested). Sue Miller, another one of our new staff members, is the one coordinating that project, and when she comes into the office she brings l1year-old Danny and 9-year-old Rachel. We've also had some valuable volunteer help recently. Some of you may have gotten mail from 2o6 Blowen-Ledoux, a homeschooler from Maine who spent several days here in December, helping with correspondence and other GWS work. Sarah Shapiro, a student at Brown University who is interested inJohn Holt's work, has begun volunteering with us once a week, and some of you have already gotten letters or calls from her as well. We are just now working out plans for an event in midJune (the exact date is not yet set): we will sponsor a talk by Grace Llewellyn, most likely on the subject of her book-in-progress, which is about the connection be-
tween homeschooling activities and future work. I (Susannah Sheffer) will most likely also give a short talk at the same time, on the subject of my forthcoming book, homeschooled adolescent girls. This is a great opportunity for people in this area to hear Grace Llewellyn in person, since she does not often come to the east coast. Watch for further details of this event; as always, we'll also be mailing information to people in the New England area. AIso, check the Calendar (below) to see where Pat Farenga will be speaking in the coming months. A year ago, with issue #97, we started putting the date on the cover of each issue of GWS, but we got off to a slightly awkward start by giving the
Fnnnueny,/Mancu 1995
date'January/February" to an issue that readers would not receive until mid-February. This has caused some con-fusion throughout the year, so with the new year we're taking the opportunity to correct things by making this issue, #103, our February/ March 1995 issue. From now on, that's how you'll see the date on our issues, with the even-numbered month, the month in which you receive the issue, listed first.
Calendar March 25. 1995: "Survival Tools
for Homeschooling Teens" - interactive seminar by Cafi Cohen and
KathleenJulicher at Alliance Church, Norwalk, OH. For info: 21G839-2311 or 419-668-1706. March 3l-April 2: Second Annual AIIPIE Spring Retreat: Living and Learning. Old Chatham, NewYork. For info: Alliance for Parental Involvement in Education, PO Box 59, E Chatham NY 12060; 518-392-6900. April l: Georsians for Freedom in Education Family Conference at Mt. Paran Church of God Central in Atlanta, Georgia. Keynote speaker, workshop leader, Pat Farenga. Other workshops, activities for children and teens. For info: Sandy Tucker 40+4634781. April 22: Marvland Home Education fusociation's l5th anniversary conference. Workshops by Pat Farenga, David Colfax, Nancy Wallace, others. For info: Manfred Smith. 410730-0073.
April 28-29: Wisconsin Parents Association l2th annual conference on home education, in Stevens Point. For info: WPA, PO Box 2502, Madison
W
53701; Melissa Rice, 715-341-6378. April 28-30: A Familv Affair Home
Learning Conference in Vancouver, BC, Canada. For info: Wondertree, Box 38038, Vancouver, BC, Canada
YbZ 4L9; email hknox@wimsey.com; phone 60+7 39-59 43; fax 60 47 39-6903. Tune l0: Utah Home Education Association conference. Pat Farenga, keynote speaker. For info: Shauna Peatross, 801-9648013.
Deadline for GWS #104 listings (events in May or later) is 3/10. Deadline for GWS #105 (events inJuly or later) is 5rzl0.
O
lots of others. Our large Boston-area homeschoolers' network has had several successful series ofevents over the years, but none has been as consistently well attended and met as many goals as our folk dances have. My family started folk dancing two
Folk Dancing Groups
years ago, so we could get exercise
Monthly Dances for Homeschoolers Susan Richman (PA) tnites:
One of our favorite music,/social activities these days is our monthly homeschoolers square dances at a grange hall near our farm. My husband Howard calls the dances and fiddles, and anyone attending is welcome to take part in the informal band. We've had hammer dulcimer, keyboard, piano, harmonica, fiddles, guitars, even a l0-year-old on harmonica helping make the music. Everyone dances, all ages, with a few babies on hips or backs or toddling around between everyone's legs. It's made for wonderful and fun social times for everyone, with no age
segregating (well, not much - most adults try not to get in the older kids' square when some wild crack-the-whip type dances are going on!). It's such a good alternative to typical teen dances where kids are completely off in an only-teen world, with parents only serving as chauffeurs to the event. It's our answer to the "But what about the prom?" question. One very nice newspaper reporter I was speaking to earlier this year paused when I was telling him all about the square dances
(my response to his dating question about homeschooled high school age kids). After I'd finished explaining what great fun it was, there was a long pause on his end. Then he said, "Well, gee, this all sounds nice and wholesome and all, but you know, I just can't imagine that when I was a teenager I would have ever wanted to go to a dance with my parents!" I told him thisjust showed how homeschooled high schoolers were different - and a positive difference at that. Another plus is thatJesse (now l7) is also learning to call dances, and calls a set of three dances every month, with an almost all-kids band to back him up. It's been interesting to me that he always calls dances that Howard doesn't do, preferring instead to find his own square dances in various calling books we have around the house and to figure out how to do them on his own.
Building Community Maurem Carel (MA) wites: Folk dancing is a wonderful way to build community. You can't dance alone; you need the cooperation of
in
the long Massachusetts winter. Typical of our unschooling, we began this activity for itself, not to contribute to the education of our daughter, but it ended up a significant part ofjust that. Aidin hadjust turned 8 and was not at all bothered by being the only child at most of the dances we attended. She assumed she was socially on an equal level with the adults in the dancing community. People really enjoy her, and because they get to know her before they find out she is homeschooled, they can see that she functions well and they never ask if she has adequate socialization. Along with learning dancing itself, Aidin has used this experience well by taking up many of the support and leadership tasks that must be done for the dances to happen. She has made friends with the organizers and has of her own volition dismantled the band's equipment and put away the microphones and wiring, taken out and put away the lost and found items, collected up to hundreds of water cups, taken admission at the door and counted thousands of dollars (which no one objected to her handling by herself), washed the floor before the dance, taught basic steps to newcomers, and played with toddlers so their parents could dance. She very naturally perceives the needs of the group and goes about doing the tasks that she enjoys doing. She is especially
valued because her presence and confidence as a small and expert dancer are a calming influence on some of the men who can get a bit too forceful in the way they lead their partners. As a seasoned long-time caller said, "She helps keep those guys
in line." About
a year and a half ago, the g).rn at the school across the street
from our house became available, and the woman in charge of it, whom we Timmy Carq tries out a f.dd,le at one of
the
folk
d'ances.
happen to know, asked me if I wanted to use it for anything. I immediately thought of it as a place for Gnownrc WrrHour ScuoouNc #103
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Fnnnuenv/MencH 1995
homeschoolers, and I realized it was a great dance space. I put a notice in our group's newsletter saying that I wanted to organize weekly dances, but I needed a commitment from about G 8 families for it to work well. I got a lot
of response right away, and word spread. Most of the people didn't know how to do the dances, but I knew someone who wanted to learn how to call dances and was willing to call for us, so we started with dances that beginners could learn easily. Our weekly Monday night dances go from 5:30 to 7:00, timed so that the 9-5 working parents, usually the ones less involved with homeschooling activities, can participate. This has resulted in a whole new dimension for the previously left out parents, mostly the dads. It is enormously valuable that they get to meet and have fun with the people they hear about all the time, and they have gotten to know each other. This is especially helpful for the dads who are skeptical about homeschooling, because they have gained confidence in the whole thing through this constant close contact with lots of families and through discussions with the other dads. It many ways traditional dancing is an excellent activity for homeschoolers because it provides a forum where children and adults can interact on an equal and mutually satisrying basis. It is a real (reel?) activity whose component parts are classics in that they have stood the test of time. At our Monday night dances, some of the children and adults have begun to play instruments to accompany the others, Sving them a great opportunity to develop their musicianship and inspiring the kids who are just beginning to study music. It is an amazing sight to see thirty to seventy people, from toddlers to parents in their fifties, doing organized, joyful dancing to beautiful music, while the nursing babies and the parents who want to chat hang out on the sidelines. Many families tell us it is the highlight of their week. Families obviously can't be senr home to start dinner at 7:00, so we follow the dance with a potluck meal at our house. Up to about eighty people share excellent food, good conversation, and enthusiastic play. Aidin has also used the Monday Gnowlrc Wnuour Scnoor-rNc #103
night dances to learn how to call the figures and teach about five different dances. Gaining experience and confidence from that, she has gone on to do the same at a number of adult dances in the area and at the New England Folk Festival, where she was calling for complete strangers. There were five professional callers in the auditorium at the time, and they all complimented her on her work. It was real work, with professional musicians accompanying her efforts and both adults and children learning and having fun because of her leadership. She earned her own admission to the enLire festival by thatjob, and she wore a badge the whole weekend that proclaimed her a performer. Still only 9, she has recently been granted a
scholarship (worth $90) as a caller to a festival that will attract dancers from all over the U.S. and Canada. Last year, she was the only child who participated as a dancer in all of that weekend. An activity like our weekly homeschoolers' dances could be started almost anyr,vhere. It is a good way to focus existing nerworks of homeschoolers or it could be a way to build a nerwork. It's also a natural way to make links with people not involved in homeschooling. The two ways I know of getting free halls for dancing actually demand as a condition of their use that the events be open to the public. There are after-school programs in public buildings that have access to gynnasiums and are looking
for creative programming ideas that cost them no money, and other municipal buildings like town halls that are available to residents for special functions.
You need one person who knows a
form of dancing and would like to try leading a group in learning it, and you need music. There are national traditional dance networks to help find local people. At a local dance, you could put the word out that you have a volunteer opportuniry for someone who would like to develop his or her skills with a cooperative, uncritical bunch of novices. Music can be as simple as a couple of dance tapes that are made specifically for the purpose and a used sound system borrowed, rented, or purchased from a music
o FssR.uARv/MARcn 1995
store or from local musicians. Even better, get the fledgling musicians from both the younger and older generations, and the parents who say they used to play an instrument, to form a band to accompany the dancers. Or look for local musicians who could have a great time with your
group. We find that we can have the activities we want in our
homeschooling community if we figure out what our needs are, how to provide a place and whatever leadership is needed, and put the word out through the newsletter. The projects themselves have been a great success and, more important, have led to invaluable community building and strengthening. a
The '95 Burlinston College Homeschoolifr'g Institute Featurins:
GraceLlewellyn
editorof R"EALLMS, 1l Teenagers Who Don't Go To School
& author of Teenage Liberation Handbook
June 13-17 Burlington, Vermont Presented by Burlington College An exciting alternative college on the shorâ‚Źs of Lake Champlain *Panels and discussions on science, math, language arts, curriculum building & more
* Arts workshops for families *sailing or kayak lessons * l5-mile bike path adjacent to site * 60 waterfront tent and RV sites * day trip to world-famous Shelburne Museum *daytime childcarr available * Come early for 6-day DISCOVER JAZZ Festival with over 5fl) performers *lots of discussion time *send your ideas for open workshop times
An affordable family learning opportunity and vacation in one of America's most dynamic small cities. Senil $2 for complete Institute schedules, costs, hotel list, interest survey, & area guide to:
Burlington College Homesch6oling Institute c/o Burlington
College 95 North Avenue
Burlington, VT 05401 tel. 80-862-9616 fax 802-658-fi)71