In the market for artwork for kids' rooms?

I am lucky to know two talented artists who make artwork for children's rooms. My friend Allyson has been selling her whimsical children's artwork and hand-painted children's clothing on ebay and at mygiggleart.com for quite a while.

My friend Christy has just started selling original and custom art for children at Doodles and Delights and on ebay.

I highly recommend both of them! How to choose? I have no idea-- better order from them both!

Experimenting with economics

Until very recently, I was certain that economics had something to do with money. I didn't know what, because it was never clear to me why business schools needed to cover money in so many different ways-- finance, accounting, economics, marketing..., but I knew without a shadow of a doubt, that economics had something to do with money.
Then I read Freakonomics (it's a good, quick read, even if I don't agree with all his conclusions), and realized that I had no clue what economics is.

Here's a definition from Wikipedia's entry on Economics:

Economics, as a social science, studies human choice behavior and how it affects the production, distribution, and consumption of scarce resources. Economics studies how individuals and societies seek to satisfy needs and wants through incentives, choices, and allocation of scarce resources. Alfred Marshall in the late 19th century informally described economics as "the study of man in the ordinary business of life".

So, economics can be about how people spend their money, but it can also be about how they make other choices (Freakonomics discusses how parents name their children, among other things).

Lately, we've started watching the tv show "Deal or No Deal". It's a very simple game-- there are set dollar amounts hidden in each of 26 cases, ranging from $0.01 to $1,000,000. The contestant eliminates cases one by one, and is periodically offered cash by "the banker" in exchange for stopping. Theoretically, if a contestant eliminates all but one case, he or she gets the value in that case. It is an ideal case for studying economics, so much so that (also from Wikipedia):

A team of economists - Post, Van den Assem, Baltussen & Thaler (report) - have analyzed the decisions of people appearing in Deal or No Deal and found, among other things, that contestants are less risk averse when they have seen their expected winnings tumble. "Losers" tend to continue playing the game even if this means rejecting bank offers in excess of the average of the remaining prizes. A separate experimental study (report) with student-subjects playing the game with scaled down prizes reveals a similar pattern. The findings provide support for behavioral economists, who claim that the classical expected utility theory falls short in explaining human behavior by not accounting for the context of decisions. The study of the four economists is unique, for the underlying "experiment" Deal or No Deal is characterized by high stakes, a transparent probability distribution and only simple stop-go decisions that require minimal skill or strategy.

Here is how we like to watch it: we tivo it, so we can skip commercials and chit chat. Then we track the expected value (the average value) of the remaining cases in excel and compare that to the banker's offer. Pearsonified says that a contestant should accept any offer over the expected value. I disagree, I believe that the opportunity to play is so valuable, stopping while there are lots of cases (including at least 2 high value cases) still in play, is a mistake. I want to calculate the offer value you're likely to get meet or exceed in all but the worst case scenario (eliminating, say, the worst 10%). I'll update the post when I have made the calculation.

Learning new things is fun!

Dr. Phil and homeschooling...

For quite a while, I've been seeing solicitations for homeschoolers to appear on the Dr. Phil show on various homeschooling message boards. I rarely watch Dr. Phil because too often his topics are inappropriate for young kids. Actually, I'm not sure his show is really appropriate for anyone, take Monday's show, for example--I didn't watch it, but here's the blurb from DrPhil.com:

The Dr. Phil House: House of Hatred

Dr. Phil starts a groundbreaking social experiment. Six individuals from different walks of life, with different judgments and prejudices will live under the same roof, in an attempt to break down the walls of hatred and intolerance. Gary, 26, is a white supremacist who hates all people of other races. B., 58, is an African-American woman who thinks all white people are "ignorant sociopaths." Staci, 22, is a thin woman who thinks obese people are "disgusting blobs" and not people at all. John, 24, is over 600 pounds and hates skinny people. Christina, 22, believes all homosexuals are sinners. Tessa, 19, is a lesbian who hates straight people. Dr. Phil puts them to the test with assignments that force them to work together with their adversary. It doesn’t take long for hostility to break out, sending Dr. Phil over to the house, saying, “This has got to stop.” Will these guests learn acceptance, or turn on each other?

Why on earth would this be worth an hour of my time?

But for reasons that are beyond me, Dr. Phil has a large audience. He's a best-selling author and seems to be using his fame to make his wife a celebrity. Apparently she's speaking at a Women of Faith Conference beginning October 27-- the same day that the Dr. Phil Show was originally set to show what is reported to be an attack show on homeschooling. Considering that conservative Christianity and homeschooling are often related, I can't help but wonder if the show was rescheduled to avoid putting his wife in an awkward position.

Here's the thing it took me far too long to understand: television networks DO NOT sell commercial time so they can afford to put on TV shows, television networks put on TV shows so they can sell ad time. What this means is that Dr. Phil makes his money by luring viewers, to sell access to their eyeballs during the commercial breaks. He doesn't need to maintain a good reputation among his professional peers, or behave ethically, or even offer good advice, he just needs to put together a show people like to watch, and avoid offending any large groups. Apparently the easiest way to do that is to appeal people's baser tastes while attacking unpopular minorities.

Once I had my lightbulb moment about advertising and the media, it suddenly became clear why most mainstream parenting magazines are pointless. They offer just enough content to entice subscribers, while carefully avoiding taking a stand on, well, anything. Circumcision, breast-feeding, sleep-training, discipline, you can count on one thing, they will cheerfully tell you that whatever you do is just fine. Because they've got a barrel, the advertisers have a shotgun, and we're the fish.

Finding my spot...

I'm a new homeschooler in a new town. I don't know many people, and I'm trying to figure out where I fit in. I am a relaxed homeschooler who is otherwise fairly mainstream (except in the ways I'm not, LOL!). Because my oldest is just kindergarten age, I can still sign up for some preschooler activities (like Moms' groups), but often get to deal with some pretty ignorant attitudes about homeschooling. Most homeschooling groups are (understandably) geared toward children who are more solidly school-aged. We are Christian, but I'm not making Christianity the central focus of our homeschooling, so I don't seem to fit into Christian homeschooling groups. I have found an inclusive group I like a lot, but there are very few kids the same age as mine. We're going to keep going to that group as long as my kids like it, hoping that more families with young kids will eventually start coming.

What I'd really like is a monthly support group that meets in the evening, but I can't find one that's right for me. I know that I should just start the group I'm looking for, but at the moment I'm not feeling that brave.

Mummifying a chicken...

I have quite a science project on my kitchen counter--it's really creeping out my sister. We're mummifying a chicken! The first step is to wash and dry it very thoroughly, then cover it in spices. After that we filled the cavity with salt, and put it in a large ziploc bag filled with salt. The salt draws out the moisture.

The instructions I'm using recommend changing the salt once a week, but the first week, the bag filled with moisture after a couple days, and so it got an extra salt change. Once a week, I am rinsing all the salt off and weighing the chicken (the instructions say to weigh it, and this is the only way I can see to get the old salt off). The results are in this spreadsheet. Then I dry it, add some more spices, refill the cavity with salt, and put in a new salt-filled bag.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but so far it doesn't stink-- it just smells mildly of the spices we used. Unfortunately, I seem to be more interested in this than the kids, but my oldest wants to keep doing it, as long as I do the dirty work, LOL!

A brief vent about the S-word...

I'm having "those" conversations. You know, the ones where someone who I've recently met (which is almost everyone I know right now), finds out I homeschool. And they cheerfully let me know that it is fine with them if I homeschool, "as long as the kids are getting enough socialization." Gee, Thanks! I love it when relative strangers give me approval to parent my kids, especially with contingencies!

I know this is intended nicely-- they don't intend to be critical, and anyone who doesn't know anything about homeschooling "knows" that socialization is the real challenge, right?

The thing I don't get is this: I don't knit. If I met someone who was taking up knitting, I wouldn't give them advice, because I would assume they probably know more about it than I do, even if they were just starting. Homeschooling is a much bigger undertaking than knitting a scarf, and yet people seem to assume I've leapt into it with no thought at all.

For the record, grouping kids with same-age peers isn't something schools do to meet an innate need of children. They do it because it's efficient. There is no reason to believe kids need to spend 6 hours a day, 5 days a week surrounded other kids. My memory is that we weren't allowed to talk most of the school day; I don't know how sitting next to someone to whom you aren't allowed to speak counts as social time anyhow. We are talking all day, and regularly interacting with people of all ages (yes, including same-age peers).

The idea that putting kids in a big group with few adults is necessary to teach social skills always confused me. I wouldn't expect 5 year olds to teach each other to cook-- sure they'd probably figure some stuff out, but probably not what you were hoping for and chances are good that somebody would wind up getting hurt. I think the same is true of social skills. A key difference is that kids do need other kids to practice their social skills, but that's easily done, even while homeschooling.

Vent over!

My favorite homeschooling perks (so far)

We are about 3 weeks into our first official year of homeschooling, and I am having a great time. Living our lives without worrying about the school calendar is a heck of luxury. So far we have:

1. Visited blissfully empty museums on school days. Interactive exhibits are a lot more fun when you can actually get a turn to use them.
2. Spent a beautiful afternoon at the park, savoring the warm weather while it lasts, for far longer than a normal school day would allow.
3. Took an off-season vacation to a family resort. We got a discounted rate, and essentially had the place to ourselves.
4. Best of all: my lateriser can stay in bed when she's tired, instead of having rushed mornings where I spend my time fighting with my little dashpot, trying to get her up, dressed, fed, and out the door on-time. Our Saturday mornings aren't devoted to letting her catch-up on the sleep she missed during the week, either.

And the downside? There isn't one, so far. She's learning lots, and her pride in her accomplishments in wonderful to see. Why would we send her to school?

An interesting article about rewards...

I hope my children will learn and grow emotionally because they want to, for their own reasons, and not because I or another adult makes them. My instinct has been to avoid start charts, etc... and my oldest daughter's resistance to be manipulated this way has reinforced my instinct. It's funny, she will happily accept a bribe (and often solicits them), but is very suspicious when I use positive reinforcement techniques I've learned from parenting books. I stumbled across the article "Rewards and Praise: The Poisoned Carrot" listed in Unschooling Voices #3. It thoughtfully explains and defends the choice to avoid "positive reinforcement" much more clearly than I could. Here is a snippet:

But, rewards improve children's behavior and performance, don'’t they? Or so we thought. However, when the little gold stars or jelly-beans stop coming, the behavior we were trying to reinforce tends to peter out. Children that have grown used to expecting praise, can feel crushed when it doesn'’t come. This dampens their perseverance. There is plenty of evidence that in the long term, reward systems are ineffective. Contrary to popular myth, there are many studies showing that when children expect or anticipate rewards, they perform more poorly.

One study found that students' performance was undermined when offered money for better marks. A number of American and Israeli studies show that reward systems suppress students'’ creativity, and generally impoverish the quality of their work. Rewards can kill creativity, because they discourage risk-taking. When children are hooked on getting a reward, they tend to avoid challenges, to '“play it safe'”. They prefer to do the minimum required to get that prize. Here is a good illustration of why we made the mistake of believing in rewards, based on benefits that appear on the surface. When an American fast-food company offered food prizes to children for every book they read, reading rates soared. This certainly looked encouraging - at first glance. On closer inspection, however, it was demonstrated that the children were selecting shorter books, and that their comprehension test-scores plummeted. They were reading for junk-food, rather than for the intrinsic enjoyment of reading. Meanwhile, reading outside school (the unrewarded situation) dropped off.

The rest of the article is very good too!

Amazon has a Homeschooling Store!

Their selection isn't impressive-- it seems to be mainly books geared towards after-school enrichment of schooled kids. It looks like a new part of Amazon, so there is hope they will expand to include more of the typical homeschooling curricula (attention entrepreneurs-- there might be an opportunity for someone to open an Amazon zShop). I did some searching on Amazon, and discovered that they do sell Singapore math workbooks and textbooks, but don't have them listed in the "homeschooling store"-- it's hard to understand why they have special store for homeschoolers if they can't be bothered to put the relevant products in it.

Although my first loyalty is to the Rainbow Resource Center, it would be wonderful if Amazon could be an outlet for homeschoolers to sell the used curriculum that eBay has banned.

**Currently Amazon's list of banned items includes:

Solutions manuals. Manuals or teacher's editions that provide answer keys to student textbook editions are prohibited.

If Amazon wants its homeschooling store to ever have a decent selection, it needs to make an exception to this rule for homeschool editions (unless they choose interpret "student textbook edition" as not including homeschooling student editions). I'm not a heavy user of curricula, but there are items I wouldn't purchase without the teacher's manual. I can understand that Amazon might not want to sell teacher's manuals that are marketed to schools, but the editions that are marketed to homeschoolers really ought to be fair game, IMO.

Browsing the site, I am again considering purchasing the Bob Books. I've heard good things about the series, but we have Dick and Jane, and a series of Dora the Explorer primers, so I'm not sure if it would just duplicate what we already have.

The (Nit)Picky Mother's guide to Educational TV: Part 2

In an earlier post, I criticized the educational children's tv shows recommended by Liz Perle. In this follow up post, I'll give my own list of tv programs my kids and I recommend. My criteria for a good children's show are:

• An engaging cast who treat each other kindly (with the exception of clearly identified villains) and generally behave as I hope my kids will;
  
• A well-written script with a good storyline, interesting, well-presented information or both;
  
• Not too much merchandising, particularly for junky toys and candy, err, I mean "fruit snacks";

and

• My kids need to like it.

It doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it? Here is my list of shows I feel good about my kids watching:

1. Cyberchase. This show is as entertaining as Scooby Doo, and it presents complicated mathematical concepts in a way my 5 year old understands. It is hands down my kids' favorite show. I think the writers are geniuses.
   
2. Between the Lions. Set in a library, this show reminds me of the Electric Company from when I was little (but without the yelling, of course). There are a collection of interesting characters, recurring segments (my older dd loves Gawain's Word), and great books.
3. The Magic School Bus. Another brilliant educational show. Obeying Ms Frizzle's slogan "Take Chances! Make Mistakes! Get Messy!" the kids in her class investigate a wide range of scientific topics, from optics, to gravity, to reproduction (with brilliant discretion) to digestion. It has served as a jumping off point for many interesting conversations with my kids.
4. Little Bear. This sweet animated series is based on the classic children's books. It isn't as heavily academic as the other shows on the list, but the plot lines are interesting and creative. They've created a world that feels almost real and completely wonderful.
   

Some of my kids' favorite shows aren't children's shows at all. Here they are:

1. Mythbusters. A silly show where former special effects experts attempt to debunk myths. It isn't serious science, but they do usually explain why things work (or don't), and they use the scientific method in designing their experiments. I think my kids like the explosions.
2. Dirty Jobs. Every episode has the host being taught a couple dirty jobs. It's funny, often gross, and I learn something new every time I watch it.
3. Good Eats. A cooking show with a heavy emphasis on food science, generally with fun visual aids. And Alton Brown's recipe for fried chicken is delicious!

For the record, my kids don't watch that much tv, but I think they have learned valuable things from tv, and I disagree with the idea that children's programming is some kind of necessary evil for parents who can't figure out how to do without it. My extensive opinions are the result of actually watching with my kids (like I am now...I don't always pay attention), and a very good memory for this kind of information (It's a blessing... and a curse, LOL).

The (Nit)Picky Mother's guide to Educational TV: Part 1

The Star Tribune has an article this morning on television shows geared towards preschoolers. It's a fluff piece designed to let us know what's new this year (the companion toys are probably already on sale at Target and Walmart). Along the main article, which tries to both encourage parents to limit TV and assuage their guilt for not doing it, is a list of Picks for Kids chosen by Liz Perle of Common Sense Media. I'm not entirely proud of it, but I'm pretty familiar with the latest kids' shows, and none of the shows on her list would have made my short list. I wish she had used a clear set of criteria (one of the shows isn't even broadcast anymore), and quite frankly, I wish she had better reasons for choosing them among the 100s of kids' shows on the air.

Here is her list with her comments and mine. I'll list the favorite shows in our house in a separate post.

"Franklin": A turtle who is constantly trying to emerge from his shell. "The characters are engaging and lovely and sympathetic, dealing with dilemmas that are appropriate for kids that age."

As a homeschooler, this show is a little too heavy on pro-school propaganda for me. Also, I find the way they have anthropomorphized the animals to be weird and inconsistent. Franklin and his family eat bugs, but when Mrs. Turtle was expecting, she was pregnant, instead of tending a nest. My kids do like this show, and it doesn't have an overwhelming number of licensed products associated with it, which both count in it's favor, but there are better shows out there.

"Little Einsteins": Animated kids who love the classics, and we're not talking Yogi Bear. "The title says it all. It's geared toward parents who want their children to be fabulous."

Hmm... do I want my kids to be "fabulous"? I want them to be happy, secure, well educated, and a bunch of other things, but I don't really care if they're fabulous. As for the show, my kids got bored with it after seeing it about 3 times. I can't help but wonder where the Little Einsteins' parents are.

"Reading Rainbow": Former "Trekkie" LeVar Burton reads a book from cover to cover. "This is TV at its best. Not every family has parents that read to them. This is as close as they'll get."

Unfortunately, this show has been cancelled. I guess my kids get enough books at home, because the handful of times my kids saw this show they found it dull. I always assumed it was aimed at early readers rather than preschoolers.

"Clifford the Big Red Dog" and "Clifford's Puppy Days": Canine who constantly learns new tricks. "Clifford rocks. He's smart, loving and adorable and is a great companion to kids who are starting to have an active fantasy life."

This was a show we watched fairly regularly for a while, but we've moved on. It's not an awful show, but since I like to nitpick, I wish the relationship between Emily Elizabeth and her "friend" Jenna wasn't stuck in the rut of E stoically putting up with J's poor treatment, until J realizes she is wrong, and apologizes. As the mother of two girls, I don't like seeing the heroine act like a doormat.

"Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat": Curious cat born from the mind of author Amy Tan. "Fabulous. It broadens our sympathy for people who don't look like the girl next door."

Ms. Perle's comment is interesting to me because the only Chinese people I've seen on this show are the adults, and they aren't very sympathetic-- kids are going to relate to the animals. Having said that, Sagwa is a pretty good show. The characters aren't one dimensional, the stories are interesting, and it is visually appealing. The historical Chinese setting, language, and cultural references are a great bonus. I would be happy to have my kids watch it regularly, but while they enjoy it occasionally, they usually prefer to spend their TV time on other shows.

Babykeeper... just hanging around...

This is a device Mommysentials is selling to restrain an older baby or toddler in a public restroom. I can see the appeal of it, after all restrooms are germy places, and some kids are born to run and will take off as soon as you sit down. But I won't be buying one of these, and I'll tell you why:

1. When I am out with an older baby or toddler, I almost always have a stroller. Bringing a stroller into the handicapped stall does the same job.
2. I have never had a kid who runs away from me in public places; if I did, I would invest in a harness (combined with discipline, of course).
3. The downfall of all of these occasional-use kid items is that they don't do you any good unless you have them with you. The advertisement claims that it's "small enough to take wherever you go", but the metal hooks have to weigh something, and since we've already established it's only useful when you don't have a stroller, that is extra weight to carry around on your shoulder. My history with this type of thing is that I carry it around for a month, never use it, and it doesn't survive the next diaper bag purge. The day after that I actually need it.
   
4. The hinges on public restroom stall doors are not designed to hold children. I'm sure most of them are up to the task (especially steel ones), but I don't want to test them this way. Particularly because not every child is going to hang there as happily and calmly as the kid in the picture.
   

I suppose that there are situations where this would be very helpful, I just don't think they're common.

A college cost calculator...

Here is an explanation of how I got the tuition predictions I used in my "Saving for College" post below. I looked up the current tuition at the schools of interest using this College Cost Finder
Then I took that number and used this college savings calculator to figure out what we'd need to save. I did assume a rate of return of 8%, and I'm taking advantage of the fact that I don't have to have all 4 years of tuition saved up on the day my child starts college. If I used their default rate of return of 6%, the required monthly savings would be @$300.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up!

And I'm in it! If you haven't seen it, Category 5 has written up a piece on the Weather Conditions on the Trail of Tears. It is truly a fascinating read.

Homeschooling and financial freedom (or lack thereof)

As we begin our first year as "official" homeschoolers (my oldest is now old enough to attend kindergarten at the school up the street), my family is declaring its independence from formal learning institutions. However I find myself, as a non-earning homeschooling mom, more dependent than I ever thought I'd be as an adult. My husband's income pays our bills, and my days are spent addressing the needs of our small children. I am not a martyr, and so I'm doing my best to find a path which lets us homeschool while giving me a little more independence, both financial and intellectual. We are just beginning our homeschooling journey, but we have gotten as far as we have thanks to the help of a generous community of homeschoolers, and I am wondering if there are any members of that community who have already traveled the path I am trying to find. It seems like one that could benefit many of us.

I feel very fortunate that our family is able to afford to live on one income, but there are drawbacks for me as the non-earning parent. Since I quit I no longer have a 401k and I am not fully vested in social security. Financial experts recommend that women have their own retirement savings, and I agree with them, as does my husband, fortunately. In the unlikely event we are unable to depend on my husband's income (due to illness, disability, divorce, a change in the economy, or even a desire on my husband's part to share the burden), I may again need to earn a salary. Finding a job after a long absence from the world of work may be challenging, and if I return to my old career I will almost certainly earn less than I was when I left several years ago. Add in the challenge of finding a job which is flexible enough to allow us to continue homeschooling, and it sounds like a nearly impossible task.

To address my financial concerns, I have made some changes and am researching others. In addition to the retirement savings I accrued while working, I have a Roth IRA to which we contribute regularly. I am actively researching ways in which I can contribute financially to our family's bottom line. My goal is to find an opportunity I can pursue part-time which has flexible hours-- this may be a small business which I run out of our home. Ideally, it will earn enough to compensate me for the time away from my family while keeping my skills current, engaging my mind and giving me contacts in the world of work. Finding time to run a small business well while homeschooling my kids is a major concern for me.

In order to get myself vested in social security, I need to earn Social Security credits, and so I will either need to pay myself a salary through my small business, or I will need a second job. I can earn a maximum of 4 social security credits each year, and to do that in 2006, I would need to earn $3880-- not a small amount of money, but not a full-time job either.

So, those are my goals. Is there anyone out there who can offer tips to get achieve them, or would like to walk along with me as I seek them?

Non-earning parents in single income families are often at greater financial risk than their partner, and because homeschooling families are more likely to have a non-earning parent, and that parent is more likely to be out of the workforce for a longer time, I believe it's important for the homeschooling community to discuss this issue.

Comments are appreciated.

Target.com is missing my order!

I do a lot of online shopping (shockingly, shopping with 3 kids under 6 in a store isn't a whole lot of fun). I have mostly good experiences, however I'm getting frustrated with target.com right now. I ordered a "bumbo seat" for my enormous baby 3 weeks ago. When I placed the order, I was promised delivery by the end of the month, which I was ok with, although it would have been nice if it was marked out of stock or on back order on the website (I see now that they've added availibility information). Last week I finally got a shipping confirmation, but I was concerned because the ups tracking information never got past "billing information received". When the ups tracking info hadn't changed a few days after the package was allegedly shipped, I sent an email to target.com asking about the discrepancy. I suspect the reply I got was computer generated-- it just repeated the information on my shipping confirmation email, including giving me my ups tracking number again. UPS still claims not to have received my package.

Yesterday was the day my package was supposed to arrive, according to the most recent estimate from target.com. I sent a second email today, using their "you didn't answer my question" link in the previous email. Hopefully I'll merit having a human being look at my problem and I can either get my package ASAP or just cancel the darn order and get my baby seat from a smaller retailer that's a little more responsive to their customers.

There's no such thing as bad taste...

Or maybe there is. This handsome guy could come to your bathroom for the low price of $90 (originally $150). He holds a second roll in his hat and he's sporting the bare-midriff look. I'd love to see a bathroom where this fits (I think).

I hate cheating...

It's always been a big pet-peeve of mine. One of my favorite professors in college started each course with a speech about how he wouldn't tolerate any cheating, and would in fact do everything in his power to get a cheater expelled. So I was interested to read Jay Mathews' ideas for reducing cheating on college essays. I was disappointed in his suggestion, though because it puts the cheater right in their comfort zone-- cheating in their own high school.

10 Ways to Fix College Admissions

By Jay Mathews

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 11, 2006; 9:48 AM

It is mid-July. College campuses thunder with the sound of high school students and their parents touring dorms, questioning admissions officers and sampling cafeteria food before they decide which schools to apply to.

....

3. Write college essays in class

---

The college application essay "editing" industry has gone too far. Students can now send in a few hundred random words and get back, for less than $100, a very polished essay written by an Ivy League graduate. And some parents just cannot resist rewriting whatever their child has done. The colleges should require that the essays be written in class, with the teachers signing the papers saying they were done in their presence without anybody's help, and sending them directly to the counseling office for mailing to the college. Quality 3, Likelihood 2.

There are a few flaws with this idea. First, it puts a burden on schools that schools will bear differently. Some kids may be limited to a single class period to write, while others are given expansive amounts of time-- as any writer knows, editing is huge, so the amount of time allowed to write will greatly effect the quality of the work. Some will have access to word-processor (a must for anyone with lousy handwriting), and others won't. It's true that life isn't fair, and some kids are going to have easier access to resources, no matter what, but tipping the application process even further against them is lousy. If allowed to write outside of school, many more kids would be able to find a computer to use, either at the library or at someone's home.

Second, the committed cheater probably won't be fazed. All they'd need to do is smuggle a pre-written essay into the classroom to copy over. I imagine that not every teacher would be thrilled to have college essay proctoring added to their schedule, so they won't all do a great job babysitting.

Third, some schools and teachers will cheat. There are high schools that get a lot of prestige from the college placement of their alumni, and they may decide to take a lawyerly approach to defining what "written without help" means.

I have my own suggestion for how to reduce cheating on the college application essay. During orientation, require that each incoming student write an essay on a surprise topic in a uniformly proctored setting. These essays can be compared to the ones submitted with their application, and if they don't seem to have been written by the same person, based on quality of writing and grammar, the acceptance is rescinded. It wouldn't catch everyone, but it would weed out the worst offenders. An additional advantage to this approach from my point of view is that homeschoolers wouldn't need a special accomodation to participate.

Saving for college...

We've been revisiting our finances, and looking at college savings. To put our kids through college at a Wisconsin state school with in-state tuition, assuming tuition continues to rise as it has been, we need to save $250 per kid, every month until December of their senior year of college. Or, we could just let them borrow $140k-- that'll give them a nice start in life. If we were going to save enough to send them to MIT, assuming tuition and fees continue to rise as they have been, we'd need to set aside $883/month to be able to afford the estimated $578,756 cost.

Umm $578,756? How could 4 years of school possibly be worth that much? If a student borrowed that much money and paid it back over 30 years at 4.75%, it would cost $3,019.07 per month, more than $36k a year. I'd like to say this is such an absurd value, it proves that the estimates used at the college savings websites are seriously flawed, but I'm afraid I'll be wrong. After all, colleges get to sell themselves to 18 year olds with no real understanding of debt or even the value of money, and parents don't seem able to say no when their kids are opting to sell their future for a fancy name on their diploma.

My hope is that the coming generation will think long and hard before taking on the debt a high-priced college education is likely to require. Mainstream magazines are already questioning whether college is "worth it". Thanks to the internet, there are many degree programs from reputable universities available to anyone with an internet connection, and typically at a much lower cost than attending on campus. It's true that a student who attended college online wouldn't get the real "college experience", but there could be advantages to an online program, such as working in your field while in school. With the growth in options to traditional colleges, I believe traditional institutions won't be able to let tuitions rise unchecked indefinitely. If they don't get their costs under control, attending college in person may become a luxury few people are willing to afford.

At the very least, I hope that if my kids choose traditional colleges, they go with an appreciation for the unique opportunity college can be, and a plan to get the most out of it. I will be certain they understand the cost of whatever debt they take on. Not having any student loans has given my husband and I a lot of freedom in deciding how our family should live. I would love for my kids to have that same freedom, but if "the experts" are right, it may require some hard choices on their part.

What exactly did they expect?

The Washington Post has an article this morning about the stress men feel while in Labor and Delivery with their wives: The Feeling Her Pain
Intensity of Childbirth Experience Leaves Some Men Feeling Ill-Prepared. You'd think there would be some sense of irony here, considering that the main source of their discomfort is the fact that their wife is in agony. Childbirth is SCARY FOR WOMEN TOO. I have unusually fast and intense labors, but it would terrify me to be there without someone to advocate for me, and given the fairly intimate exposure, I prefer for my husband to be that advocate. I understand that childbirth is kind of gross to watch (there's a reason I've never asked for a mirror to witness it myself), but, seriously guys, suck it up, and be there for your wives.

A word of warning: if you think childbirth is gross, wait till you try parenting! Whether you're all passing around the flu, or someone needs stitches, kids require a strong stomach.

Luckily, kids are worth it.

Search Engine Optimization Basics

I don't have a lot of time to devote to it, but I find search engine optimization fascinating (yes, I'm a geek). It surprises me how often I find a website that looks beautiful, but hasn't done even the most basic things to ensure that the site is listed correctly in search engines. Most of what I know about search engine optimization, I have learned from my Dad, who, with my Mom, sells beautiful Amish quilts online. Here is the information I think everyone who designs websites should know.

Search engines (google, yahoo, msn, etc…) use “web-crawling” programs to find and categorize websites. To make your website easy to find with search engines, you need to have links to your website from reputable websites, and your website needs to use the right words (keywords) in the right places so the programs categorize your site correctly. The best way I know to get links from reputable websites is to have valuable, original content; you can also trade links with other websites, and buy ads. The text of the link (the blue text people click on) matters-- if the link is just your web address (eg http://novatowi.blogspot.com/ ) it won’t do you as much good as if it is your keywords.

Making sure your keywords are in the right places in your site’s HTML is an easy thing to do. Your keywords are the words people might use to search the web when they’re looking for sites like yours. Essentially, the web-crawling programs read your source code and assume that the topics that come first in the source are the main topics of your site. To look at your source code, open your site in IE or Firefox, click on the “view” menu, and then “source”; the source code will open in a new window. Your keywords should be in your website’s title, meta-description, meta-keywords, and in large type at the top of your website’s text (as seen in the source code— if the site has columns of text, make sure that the column listed first contains your keywords). It is also good to have keywords in your website address. The “meta-description” is the blurb you see under the title when a site is listed in a search engine. It should be a couple sentences, and should both include keywords, and be something that would encourage a person to look at your site.

Each page in a site should have a different title and description.

A couple surprises I get everyday...

I have signed up to receive The Writer's Almanac and a daily lesson plan by the New York Times via email. This means that everyday, I can read a poem I would likely never stumble upon on my own, and then read an article in NYT I would have likely overlooked. It's probably not as good as having a large circle of well-read friends, but it fits into my life more easily.
Culture
Cool links

Yet another blog...

We'll see how this goes! Thanks for looking.

Ellen