Hi Readers — This story struck me as slightly, oh, I don’t know, BIZARRE? A worm was found in the local high school toilet and immediately all drinking fountains were shut off. Talk about giving kids a new idea of how to disrupt school! Here goes, from the Alamogordo Daily News: Shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday, the administration at Alamogordo High School reported finding a small worm of unknown origin in a toilet at school, according to a press release from Alamogordo Public Schools. District administrators responded immediately and coordinated with the New Mexico Environmental Inspection Department, New Mexico Department…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers! Here’s something I never wish upon any of us: Suffering a trauma. That being said, I was nonetheless cheered to read this article in The Wall Street Journal on the “growth” that children can experience after a tragedy: …Research on children traumatized by disaster is revealing that some children have a surprising capacity not only to bounce back, but to grow stronger than before. Once thought possible only in adults, this “post-traumatic growth” is marked by increases in self esteem and compassion, a greater appreciation for relationships and a deeper sense of meaning or spirituality. Children may say,…
Hi Readers! Just got this interesting letter from a Florida gal named Linda Wightman, who blogs at Lift Up Your Hearts. I haven’t seen the book she describes, but I thought her list of things that are going wrong in society was as tight as it was right. So here it is! The Parallels Between a Free-Range Farmer’s Book & Free-Range Kids, by Linda Wightman As I was reading Joel Salatin’s book, Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front, I was repeatedly struck by the similarities between his struggles on a “family owned,…
Hi Readers! Here’s today’s story from across the pond (thank you, Virtual Linguist, for sending it along): A father who lets his 7 year old daughter walk to and from the school bus stop has been threatened by the authorities who say they may report him to child protective services. And just how far away is the bus stop? 20 yards. The girl has to cross what the dad calls a country lane on the way. He thinks it’s very safe. He thinks his daughter is capable of handling it. But apparently, the local county council does not. And while…
Hey Folks — Look at this illuminating list of what constitutes “news,” at least according to the Minnesota Associated Press guidelines for reporters, as posted on the blog Business Insider and first reported by Libby Reinish on savethenews.org. Note that train wrecks, airplane crashes and drownings are news, as are car crashes if there are “multiple victims or unusual circumstances.” Fatal fires, exceptionally violent robberies, ice storms and damaging floods are also all “news,” while plain vanilla deaths are not. That’s why it always seems like the world is coming to an end: Only the worst, creepiest, goriest stuff, as…
Hi Folks — Read it and weep, but not too hard or you may get suspended from school! Two days after a 16-year-old Texan’s dad died, he decided to return to school to feel a little normal again. Except when he arrived late and went to the office for a tardy pass, the admins noticed his suspiciously red eyes and suspended him for suspected marijuana use. Didn’t matter that he did not appear high, or that no one said they’d seen him smoking, or that there wasn’t any marijuana on him. His mom took him to a doctor who did…
Hi Readers — Here’s a plea for some great ideas from a mom whose “excellent” public school has killed recess. Has your school tried this, too, and realized its folly? If so, how did it come to its senses? Or is your school considering this and you, too, are trying to figure out how to stop the soul-crushing steamroller of “test success at all costs”? Do tell! — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: My son just started kindergarten a few weeks ago and I have been so worried about the lack of “Free-Range”-ness in schools — like free choice and play…
Greetings, Readers, from the land of the free, home of the — YIKES! A stuffed animal! Perhaps you’ve heard this story: Yesterday, a stuffed-animal about 2 feet high standing near a school caused imaginations to go wild in Orlando (where you’d never, ever expect to see a large, fake animal). It was a pony-shaped thing and the bomb squad was summoned. Next thing you know, the school goes into “modified lockdown,” the neighborhood gets cordoned off, a robot is sent it to examine the stuffed animal. In sci-fi, the robots are always smart. But here in the real world, this…
Hi Readers! This woman needs our help devising good arguments to bring to her pre-k’s PTA. Over to you! — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m a regular reader of your blog and love to hear your input and that of your readers on Free-Range issues. Well, my Free-Range issue came up while I was at preschool orientation for parents the other day. The orientation leader announced that all the fund-raising money this year will be used to buy a security system. I first thought I’d misunderstood. I wondered why a small co-op preschool in a church in a quiet neighborhood…
Hi Readers — All of you, including the new ones who caught my piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. It was all about the fact that so few kids are walking to school these days — about one in ten. And here’s a note that sums up the whole craziness: Dear Free-Range Kids: My son started kindergarten and the dismissal procedure is for the teacher to open her classroom door to the outside and let the kids out if she sees a parent or person assigned to pick up the child. When I asked another parent about letting the kids…