The Boss'

This weekend I undertook the task of making a rope swing for my kids. They had been using an old, rather thin, piece of rope in a makeshift fashion for a few weeks, so I thought it was time that I gave them something decent.

First of all, I wanted to make them a swing that would be easier to hold, but wouldn’t cost me a fortune. After much deliberation in the “rope aisle” of Home Depot, I settled on a natural fiber rope because it was the best combination of thickness and cheapness. In true Sam’s Club fashion, I bought not just what I needed, but an entire 150 foot spool of the chosen rope. “If a little is good, then a lot is better.” Someone famous said that, I’m pretty sure.

I have what I consider to be a great location for a rope swing. Great in the sense that it there is a branch from a massive White Pine nearly parallel to the ground about 15 feet up. The ground beneath it slopes gently so it enables one to get a running start, grab the rope, and take off. In order to help the wee ones hang on, I had planned to put a number of knots in the rope at somewhat consistent intervals to be used as handholds and footholds. To accomplish this, I broke out the Handbook of Knots that I had gotten my son for Christmas last year. (What? you don’t have the Handbook of Knots! Buy it, fool!) The Stopper Knot appeared to be the perfect solution to my particular problem. Check out the photos.

I placed four stopper knots near the swinging end of the rope.

When it came time to tie the rope to the limb, the project came to a grinding halt. In software development, we call this phenomenon “Paralysis by Analysis”. I must have spent an hour straddling the tree limb trying to balance my Handbook of Knots in my lap while attempting various knots, only to have each one come loose. Having my kids staring up at me pestering me with questions didn’t help. “Is it tied?” “Can I swing on it now?” “Are you still trying to tie it?” “Just tie it like you’re tying a shoe!” “Just tie a normal knot!” My problem was that I wanted the knot tied in such a way that it could be easily untied if need be. I ended  up doing a Slipped Square Knot, which is really pretty simple, and shouldn’t have taken more than a couple of minutes. Part of the problem was the coarseness of the rope. It’s harder to get rope to bind and cinch itself when it is so inflexible. In that way, I could not follow the recommendations in the book exactly.

I am pretty happy with how it turned out, and the kids are getting the hang of swinging on it. Initially, the kids complained about how rough the rope was; how it hurt their hands to grab onto it. They also complained that there was nothing to sit on…it’s just a rope, no sack or tire or anything like that. I explained that the whole point was just to hang a rope from the tree that was better than their old rope. We’ll see if it gets used as much as I imagined. I’m still recovering from the hour I spent straddling that tree branch.

And for those who are curious, check out this site showing animated knot tying demonstrations.

I thought this was a great article from The Onion. I wonder if Tiger has read this. I’m sure he’d get a chuckle out of it.

ATLANTA—Following his dominating performance at this year’s Tour Championship, in which he not only ran free of the field with an overpowering eight-shot victory but also took home the first ever FedEx Cup Championship, 13-time major winner Tiger Woods told reporters Sunday that he is looking to participate in a more competitive golf tour during the 2008 season. “Don’t get me wrong—I love to play golf, I love to win, and I’ve loved the time I’ve spent on the PGA Tour, but winning this easily isn’t making me any better,” said Woods, adding that he has been searching online and making numerous phone calls to locate a golf tour where the players are “at least twice as good as the opponents I’ve faced up until now.” “It’s not about the money, as I’ll play for free if I know I’m being pushed to even half of my ability.” Woods added that he would consider playing certain PGA Tour events next year if Commissioner Tim Finchem allows him to spot the field 10 strokes, play at night, and use only a single golf ball and a 2-iron.

Hey, I know these people! Katie is a member of the West Michigan Ride Team for the JDRF Ride To Cure Diabetes. I think she’s riding in Death Valley. The MSNBC story tells about her experience using the continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system. Her daughter, Ellie, also a Type 1 diabetic, uses a CGM as well, which I think is really cool. I’d love to get Ben on one of these some day. For now, insurance companies are reluctant to cover it until the health benefits are known, but I’m optimistic about them being covered in the future. Anything that allows a diabetic to know their current blood glucose level round the clock is going to improve control, and thereby reduce complications related to diabetes, which in turn will save insurance companies money. It’s just a matter of time.

I heard a couple of interesting tidbits today that I thought I’d pass along. I came across them while listening to an interview that James Dobson did with Dr. Raymond Moore. Dr. Moore died in July and can honestly be described as the grandfather of home education in this country.

You’ve been given the mind of a child to nurture and raise…That child’s mind has more potential and more power than all the computers on earth all working at the same time. There could be no better use of our time.

Another interesting idea that he brought up…keep roughly the same bed time as your kids. As far as sleep is concerned, the hours prior to 12AM are far more valuable than those after 12AM. In the same way, the hours before breakfast are more valuable for study than those hours after supper.

Does that sound doable? The super early bed time would be hard to get used to. I guess it makes sense that focus and concentration would be better early in the day, but heading to bed a 9PM seems unrealistic.

And one more thing…

Why does every article on home schooling have to throw in a quote from some anonymous school district official declaring their skepticism of home education? Here are a couple of recent examples. (You can find links to the full articles in my “Shared Items” list in the right hand margin)

KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC Ina Cronje has slammed home education, saying it has a seriously negative impact on the overall development of children.

“I am utterly against it. Part of a child’s learning is to socialise and learn to cope in the world. If schools are microcosms of society, depriving the child of that learning experience will have a very serious impact on overall development.

“Children may do well in a subject, but education is much more than simply failing or passing,” said Cronje, while confirming there had been an increase in the number of registrations for home schooling in KZN over the past year.

And one more…

Edith Cowan University education head Greg Robson said the added value available at schools was difficult to match in a home environment.

I know that the factory model of education is the norm, but is it really that hard to believe that the tutorial model of education would work? Doesn’t human experience show us that individual instruction (think one-on-one) by someone who loves and cares about the well being of the pupil (like, say, a parent), is the most effective way to impart knowledge? Have you ever taken piano lessons? How may people where in your piano class? That’s a silly question, right? It was just you and your piano teacher. Why the small class size? Why not put 30 other aspiring piano players in the same class? (some of them would be “aspiring”, most would rather be somewhere else) Wouldn’t it be more efficient to teach 31 students all at once rather than one student at a time? We know the answer to these questions. The reason we teach kids piano one at a time or in a (very) small group is that it produces a better piano player. I have no doubt that some things can be learned in a large group of same age peers, but that doesn’t mean that everything should be taught in that way.

Officials and others who question whether or not a home educated child can be properly socialized are just showing that they’ve run out of valid criticisms of home education. If they could, they would point immediately to the poor academic performance of home schooled children, or they would point out that those educated by their parents at home are more likely to commit violent crimes, or end up on welfare. Of course, none of these things are true, so they turn to something that is more difficult to quantify, and that most people don’t take the time to analyze. They contend that only ”school” can properly socialize a child. How could government controlled, compulsory schooling possibly prepare a child for the real world? The fact that we use the term “real world” when referring to life outside of school is proof that we know in our bones that schools are something else altogether. Something other than the real world. The school environment is the most contrived, regimented, and unrealistic place in the world, except for maybe a prison. Young people grouped together and isolated, first by age, then by ability. Where else would that happen? In one of the quoted articles, the statement is made that “…if schools are microcosms of society, then depriving a child of that experience will have a very serious impact on overall development.” I would agree IF, in fact, schools were microcosms of society. They’re NOT! Industrialists and bureaucrats applied the model of mass production to this county’s educational system to ensure the production of a reliable, predictable, manageable “product”. Again, I don’t believe that school is a proper way to socialize a child, but even if they did, isn’t it a lousy investment? We spend billions of dollars a year as taxpayers funding education, and officials can only point to this ill-defined concept of “proper socialization” as proof of their success. Higher test scores? No. More civic involvement? No. Closer family ties? No. In almost every measurable statistic publicly schooled children will lag behind their home educated counterparts. And home education need not be expensive. We forget that life itself is an excellent (and free) teacher.

The other day I had a chance to spend some time with 19 year old girl who’d been educated at home her entire life. Was she “normal” as our society would define normal? No. She was as far from normal as I can imagine. She cares deeply for her younger siblings, she runs her own successful business, she pays cash for college and completes courses online, she is respectful and affectionate toward her parents, and she is capable of having a conversation with people both far older, and far younger, than herself. Normal? Not when compared to the many freshmen currently sleeping off a hangover at our nations college campuses. She showed me what a young woman can be. She showed me the potential in my own children. She was an inspiration to me, not because she was normal, but because she was so different than most people her age.

I’ve given up trying to prove that, even though we teach our kids at home, they’ll be “normal”. We can do better than normal. They can be exceptional, and I think the world can use as many exceptional kids as it can get. Children who are raised and educated “in the real world” will be better socialized than their peers who’ve had to spend the majority of their early years preparing for the real world in government schools.