My DH is a public high school teacher without a degree in education (he was a math major). At least in "critical need" fields like math and science, it's usually fairly simple to get certified without an education degree. He didn't even take any classes in education; just did a one year "mentorship" program while he was teaching. He taught for a year with a provisional certificate by just passing a couple of tests. I was in grad school in an English ph.D. program before I had kids. Had I finished and gone on to teach at the college level, I would have had much more teaching experience (I taught 3 semesters of freshman writing, was a teaching assistant for one semester, tutored ESOL, and would have done more had I continued) and "training" (a one semester seminar on pedagogy and a 2 day workshop before each year started) in education than my husband did when he started teaching high school.

My son has been working through Life of Fred: Fractions in the evenings with my husband, who's a high school math teacher. I knew my son was enjoying it, but I didn't realize how much DH was, too, until he came in last night and announced, "Life of Fred is great! All my students should be doing it!" Then he started reading over the website about the upper level books and really getting his math geek on :) "That's a PERFECT way to explain functions!" "Modern geometry--ooh, cool!" etc. So there you have it: both mathy eight year olds and their math-loving fathers wholeheartedly recommend Life of Fred.

Ours is up!

He's not basing this on any evidence from the study. He's basing it on his own assertion that the SAT is an accurate measure of critical thinking abilities and achievement tests are not.

The article you link to is arguing that he disagrees with the conclusions of a study comparing public and private schooled high schoolers. He says, "It's true that controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) eliminates most of the public-school/private-school differences in achievement-test scores in math, reading, science and history" and then goes on to argue that he thinks the people running the study should have placed more emphasis on SAT scores, which were higher for private-schooled students, and on the specific type of private school (some did better than others). There are other recent studies that show little gap in achievement between public and private schools when you control for socioeconomic factors. Here's another one: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.asp I think he's certainly right, though, that it makes sense to look not at public vs. private per se, but at what individual schools--however they're funded-- with high student achievement are doing right.

My understanding is that tips are no longer included in the dining plan. So, yes, you need to tip. Other than that, there shouldn't be any extra costs unless you order appetizers or alcoholic drinks. The servers are usually very good about explaining exactly what's included in the plan, IME. Have fun; I love free dining!

Ha! Maybe that's why the amount of arguing here/on the internet in general DOESN'T surprise me. I feel like I spend practically ALL my time with people who disagree with me :lol: (and some who do agree, too, but my crowd of friends/family is certainly a mixed bag, politically speaking. I think it'd do the whole country good if people broke out of their bubbles a lot more, in fact).

:iagree: I just checked mine and the first person I clicked on was a statutory rape.

I'd say you can save a lot of money baking yourself versus buying baked goods of the same quality at the store. I doubt I save much baking my own bread over what I'd spend buying the cheapest loaves at Aldi. But it's probably about the same price or a few cents cheaper and much, much better tasting and healthier.

In my area, it seems to again be the norm that students take algebra in 7th or 8th grade. My husband's a high school math teacher, and it's only the weaker math students who wait until 9th grade for algebra. I graduated from the same school district 16 years ago, and this was definitely not the case then; when I was in HS only the strongest few students took algebra in middle school.

A couple of my professors used to have this debate when I was in grad school; one insisting students are much better educated and better writers today and the other strongly disagreeing. I wonder if it's just that, just like today, there's a lot of variation. We're reading the Little House books right now, and it's hard to imagine that THOSE kinds of schools--where the kids go for a couple of months at a time and then take whole years off when the grasshoppers show up--could really have been particularly rigorous. Maybe the MOST rigorous schools back then were as rigorous as the most rigorous schools today, which is to say a lot more rigorous than the average schools today. Boston Latin's curriculum today might look different than it did 300 years ago, but it's still pretty intense, after all--I just checked and they require 4 years of Latin AND 4 years of a modern language.

No, not really. I mean, you can tell the difference, but you get used to it very quickly--Neither dh nor I has had any trouble at all, and we're definitely not super-experienced bikers or anything. They have cheaper versions at Target, et. al. but I read some bad reviews of those, so we held out for the Adams and Piccolo. The Adams was $90 used on Craigslist, I think, and in like new condition.

A suggestion for longer bike rides while you're working on getting rid of the training wheels...my six year old (and my three year old) rides a trail-a-bike. We have this one: http://www.trail-a-bike.com/product/trail-a-bikes/original-folder-1/ and this one: http://www.burley.com/products/child/piccolo.cfm both bought used. Much easier than hauling a trailer, and I think it really helps them get a feel for balance and all that. I expect we'll keep using these for longer rides even after my 6 year old sheds his training wheels...I suspect it will be another year or two before he's ready to keep up on rides longer than 3 or 4 miles.

I have read it--thanks! That's one of the reasons I picked Mixed-up Files to start with...I pulled some ideas for tomorrow from the section on it in the book.

I volunteered to run a kids' book club at our local homeschool center for ages (approximately) 6 through 10. The first meeting is tomorrow, and they read From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. And then tomorrow I'm going to let them vote on the next book--either Cricket in Times Square or Stuart Little. But I need some help coming up with choices for the rest of the year. It's a pretty broad age range, so I need books that will interest older kids but still be accessible to younger kids (reading level isn't especially important; parents can read the books to the kids who aren't strong readers yet). I also need books that lend themselves to discussion and analysis (I'm doing a lot of introduction to literary terms and criticism kind of stuff). And then also a mix of male and female protagonists and no books so "girly" or "boyish" that half the group will likely hate them. I have some ideas, but I'd love to have a bigger list to pick from, and I know you all will have great suggestions. TIA!

I think it goes beyond selfish jerk, though. I felt like it was almost sadistic the way he controlled her entire life. From the time she was a little girl, feeding her the bits of information to keep her dependent on his visits. And then it just seemed plain cruel to me that he told her he'd be coming back at some point, knowing it wouldn't be until she was an old woman--like he needed or wanted to maintain that control after he died. It's been awhile since I read it, but I found the whole dynamic of their relationship really disturbing. I kept expecting there to be some kind of awareness of it or commentary on it in the text, but there never was. I remember writing somewhere when I first read it that I've never understood the appeal of men who need to be saved. And I think that's part of it. I think Niffenegger is sort of in love with Henry herself, and that maybe a sympathetic reading of the novel requires being a little in love with Henry. But I found him insufferable.

Okay, this thread re-ignited my periodic dog food guilt, so I did some research today...and found out that Taste of the Wild, rated 6 stars on that dog food review site, is sold at the Tractor Supply Company down the street from my house AND isn't much more expensive than the stuff we buy at Petsmart. I picked some up today, so we'll see how they like it and if any miraculous improvements in doggie health and behavior result from the change. It was $42 for a 30 lb bag, btw.

Ours is up!

I assign books for his "schooltime" reading (35 minutes during the day); he picks whatever he wants at bedtime (when he'll read anywhere from 10 minutes to a couple of hours, depending on what the book is.)

I have almost exactly 2 years and then 2 1/2 years. The 2 1/2 year gap was much easier when they were little, but I think that's as much a matter of personalities as anything (my second DS was a much more laid back toddler than my first (or my third)). They're all very close now; the oldest two are probably a little tighter, but I think that's mostly because the youngest is still a toddler; he can't do as much big kid stuff (although he thinks he can!). This is an interesting thread...I've encountered a lot of discussions like this on boards where most people have younger children. I think you get a lot more cautionary tales about close spacing on those kinds of boards. It seems like once people live through baby and toddlerhood, they become much bigger fans of close spacing. In general I think it's very hard early on, but the rewards come later.

Time Traveler's Wife is on my list of things everyone else likes, but I can't stand. I thought Henry was a controlling, manipulative jerk, and I was amazed that the reader seemed to be expected to think he was just terrific.

15 minutes. We could never go back to any other way! (well, unless we had to. But we'd try very hard not to).

Two. We have male and female littermates, and they're very sweet together. They developed completely different personalities as they grew up, but they're still great friends. And with 3 dogs and 3 little boys in the house, I figure a cat definitely needs an ally.

You can't tell for sure until they crow, but, yeah, roosters have pointy hackle feathers (and their combs grow faster, if they're all the same breed). I'm trying to remember when our supposed-to-be-a-hen started crowing--4 months, maybe?

We paid our housesitter $200 for 2 weeks this past summer, job very similar to what you describe. We can't afford to pay much more than that, so we always look for someone who likes the idea of having a place to stay, too, so it's a mutually beneficial thing. In this case, it was a high school student who was thrilled to have her own place for a couple of weeks and pick up a little money. Sounds like that's what you have with your housesitter, too...I'd probably try to offer a little more to an adult, though.