New Ideas at the Eclectic Telegraph

Public School Violence: Since When is Violence Entertainment?
Amy Cortez - Editor Eclectic Telegraph

You aren’t compelled to loan your car to anyone who wants it, but you are compelled to surrender your school-age child to strangers who process children for a livelihood, even though one in every nine schoolchildren is terrified of physical harm happening to them in school, terrified with good cause; about thirty-three are murdered there every year. From 1992 through 1999, 262 children were murdered in school in the United States. Your great-great-grandmother didn’t have to surrender her children. What happened?

from The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto

Bush Plans Conference on School Violence
POSTED: 9:33 a.m. EDT, October 3, 2006 at Cnn.com

..."Three schools have been hit by deadly attacks in the past week. A gunman killed himself and five girls Monday at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania; on Friday a 15-year-old Wisconsin student shot and killed his principal; and last Wednesday a man took six girls hostage in Colorado, sexually assaulting them before fatally shooting one girl and killing himself...

The interesting thing to me about all of the recent press about ending school violence, is that there is no mention of the ease in which a teen can get a gun, or other item of violence, nor did anyone utter anything about the idea of how teens are inundated with violence in our society.

Since when is violence entertainment?

I am not opposed to guns. Some are beautiful items and in the hands of a responsible person an item that is OK to possess. Part of our history. It is when we permit violent images such as what is found today on TV, in movies, in video games, in music, in our headlines, in our magazines, online, into our lives, as a society we are condoning the resulting violence in the community. Then we scratch our heads and wonder how to end the violence in our schools. This idea is about as silly as No Child Left Behind dictating how our children ought to be evaluated.

Many homeschool families have pulled their children out of school because of the violence in the schools. Though I can't relate to that reason to homeschool, I can understand it. [read on]

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What I Learned About Taekwondo & the Gifted Student
Amy Cortez - Editor Eclectic Telegraph

When people hear the phrase “martial arts”, often they assume it is the militaristic way of the Asian past. "Tae kwon do" means “The way of striking with hand and foot”. Taekwondo, has a fierce history, but presently it enjoys the status of being an Olympic sport that is mastered by world class athletes. It is a sport that disciplines your spirit, mind and body. It is comprised of “forms, “breaking” and “sparring”. Forms are memorizing a series of typically 10 up to 20 movements using your arms, legs and full body - similar to a dance. Breaking is the ability to use your strength and mental training to break a board using a punching or kicking motion. Sparring is learned through a series of “one-steps” or body movements designed for self defense. Sparring at the adult level can be vigorous, but with the kids, it is light contact with the purpose being to learn the movements of self defense. All three, in addition to attiude and philosophy, comprise the sport of Taekwondo.

What I learned about Taekwondo was....[read on]

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Other ideas at the Eclectic Telegraph:

• Add Travel To Your Curriculum!
• Want to Resell You Homeschool Materials?
• When Should Your Teen Take the PSAT/NMSQT® ?
• Rights of Young People
• Public School Violence: Since When is Violence Entertainment?
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• A Listing of Awesome Websites
  
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