It Was a Maple Syrup Sunday ... But That's Not Nearly As Sweet As It Sounds

We haven't had much of a winter around here. There were a couple of snowstorms, but nothing significant. In fact, the last snowstorm we had, dumped so little snow on us that we didn't even bother to shovel, and I think I've only shoveled twice - total - the whole winter ... which just.never.happens.

I kept thinking (for two months, now :) that, perhaps, this was just a teaser, and that winter would be here any day now, but the forecast for the next ten days has temps below freezing at night and above freezing during the day - typical spring weather for Maine.

And, maybe, we might allow ourselves to keep waiting and watching and believing that winter was still going to come our way, except for two things. First, the skunks are out. They are year-round here in Maine, but they are mostly sedentary during the winter, not venturing out, at least not too far, until the weather starts turning to spring. Second, the sap is running.

There are many aspects of the life Deus Ex Machina and I lead that are very seasonal. One of them is the sugaring season, and we keep a pretty close eye on the weather so that we know when to tap. Conventional wisdom will give a date - usually around late February - but it's been our unfortunate experience for the past two years that if we wait until the calendar says we should tap, we end up missing a few good weeks, and the season has been far too short for too many years recently.

We've never tapped this early, though, and if I didn't trust Deus Ex Machina's judgment about these things, then I would have cautioned us to wait ... until mid-February ... like we've always done ... and we would have, again, missed at least two weeks.

Interestingly, the USDA recently released a new hardiness zone map. In a disclaimer I saw in one place where the map was published, the USDA wanted to be sure that people understood this new map shouldn't be construed as proof of the global warming theory.

The last map, the one used extensively by most of us in the 1990's until now, was developed using data taken between 1974 and 1986. The new map uses data taken between 1976 and 2005. The new data used for the new map spans a significantly longer period, but also seems to show a definite up trend in temperatures. Where I live, in Maine, we've changed a whole hardiness zone from 5 to 6.

As they point out, it is important to note that there are other factors influencing what plants will thrive in a given area, including the amount of day light, but it is a little concerning to note that there really and truly has been a warming trend, and at this point, with the crazy, unsettled weather we've all been experiencing for the last decade, anyone who tries to deny that something has happened with our global climate is simply deluding himself and lying to the rest of us. It's like, Fletcher (Jim Carrey's character) in the movie Liar Liar, who, with his face covered in blue script, declares, "the ink is blue".

The "ink" is blue, and we simply can't deny it any longer by trying to pretend that it is red, because ink on our faces will be the least of our worries.

I love sugaring season, but I'm not terribly happy about it coming this early in the year. Winter is a time of rest, a time of inner contemplation, a time when we should be able to go inside - both figuratively and literally. The garden is under snow, and all of the plants are resting and waiting. Usually, January is a time to learn other kinds of skills or to plan for the next season, but mostly it's simple stuff, a break from the harvesting and preserving that dominates the rest of the year.

Last year, I was still in food preservation mode in November with my salt-dried fish, and we were still picking (and preserving into cider and sauce) apples in October.

With such a late canning season, I feel like I never really got the usual time off this year, and now, with maple sugaring season upon us, the whole cycle is beginning again. Soon, it will be time to start to turn the beds and start planting seeds. The question is, if our climate is changing, what do I plant?

Trying to figure out what will really thrive in my climate has always been an ongoing challenge for me. If it's that much of a challenge for me, in my limited space, I can't imagine how people who do this for a living will be able to make the adjustment.

Two years ago, we had an early warming spell followed by a killing frost. The result was that the apple trees were tricked into blooming early, and then, many orchards lost a significant amount of their crop when the blooms were killed in the frost.

When it comes to the whole global warming argument, there are too many people who are stuck in the blame game, and, personally, I think they're doing us all a great disservice. The problem is that if we agree that global warming is a direct result of something man has done (i.e. burning copious amounts of fossil fuels), then we agree that we need to stop doing that activity that caused the problem so that we don't make it worse. Right?

And any discussion about future action stops *right*there*, because no one wants to stop using fossil fuels. They're too much a part of the livestyles to which we, in the West, have made ourselves believe we are entitled.

The problem is that, as we remain impotent and inactive, wacky weather is wreaking havoc on our natural environment, and we have no plan for how to mitigate what could become quite a disaster.

Maybe the world won't mourn the loss of real maple syrup (and it's a real possibility that, if the earth continues this warming trend, that it will happen), but maple syrup is just one, tiny symptom of a systemic problem - the proverbial canary in the coal mine - and at some point, there will be some very valuable crop that is no longer available for human consumption, and then, maybe, we'll start paying attention.

But, by then, it might just be be too late to start making changes to mitigate the disasterous consequences of full-on crop failures.

In the meantime, as long as we're able, Deus Ex Machina and I will continue to tap our maples to make maple syrup, and maybe we'll put back a few of our preserved jars for the far future. Who knows, someday, maple syrup might be worth more than gold, and as the holders of the last quart of the real stuff, we'll be richer than kings ;).

Through some very good fortune, Deus Ex Machina and I recently acquired a (n extra) copy of the book The New York Times Field Guide to Medicinal Plants by Arnold and Connie Krochmal. Connie Krochmal is my aunt, and she co-wrote the book with her late husband back in the 1970s. She and my uncle were prolific writers and spent a lot of time studying plants and plant medicine. The book is an excellent resource for those who are interested in learning a bit more about plant medicine and identifying medicinal plants.

In recognition of surpassing 100 posts on his blog, Deus Ex Machina is giving away a copy of Connie and Arnold's book on his blog. If you're interested in being included in the drawing, please comment on his blog. The drawing will be February 29 - Leap Day :).

Film on Schooling in America in the Twenty-first Century - RaceToNowhere

Whatever anyone thinks about my ideas for changing (and perhaps improving) our school system, the fact is that what we have is not only not working (especially financially), but there seems to be a very large body of evidence that it's hurting our children.

And it's not my research, and it's not my interpretation of things I've read, and it's not John Taylor Gatto's website, which has an excellent pictoral essay on the real power players behind the forming of our modern school system (hint: according to his essay, it's not Horace Mann or John Dewey, who did work to promote free education for all, but rather Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller and Ford, who wished to start early with cultivating a consumerist mindset in the American people - knowing what we know about our education system and our modern culture, who do you think prevailed?). It's not something I conjured and decided to share.

What it is, is a stark and terrifying film about the real consequences of the kind of "education" and lifestyle choices we are forcing on our children.

But, please, don't take my word for it. See for yourself:

The New School: Visions of a Future in Education

My idea of virtual school went over like a lead balloon - to borrow a favorite cliche. While it would save a significant amount of money, were it implemented correctly, there is a huge concern that there would be this throng of unsupervised children, and goodness knows we can't have that - although I suspect that it would be far less of a problem than those who've left comments believe it to be.

As an alternative for those parents who don't want their children at home three extra days per week, perhaps a low-cost childcare option could be set-up in one of the former school buildings. Parents would have to pay for those extra three days of school, and those parents who have an exceptional financial need could be given a tuition waiver.

But what is not being recognized in the comments is that having three days of "virtual school" would actually open up a whole new opportunity for "alt-education" facilities, like The Fiddlehead Center for the Arts (which already provides "afterschool" care and summer camps) or the Ferry Beach Ecology School, to flourish, which would mean all sorts of new jobs could be created, and children would be exposed to a plethora of ideas and resources that aren't available to them when they're in school six hours per day five days per week. It would also give them a little more freedom with their time to explore specific areas of interest, and for older students, individual self-study plans could lead to future careers.

And for those parents who do not have any disposable income to devote to paying extra for education, there are all sorts of financial assistance and scholarship programs. But those parents (or the students) would be responsible for finding those funds.

For the parents, it's not as easy as putting Little Johnny on the bus, but it is workable.

There are still other options to consider, as well. Things we could do that would save money on education, and, perhaps, actually improve the education we are offering our students here in the United States without decreasing the school week for all students at all levels.

The first thing we could do is to enforce current compulsory attendance laws, and I don't mean rounding up all of the law-breaking parents, but rather limiting free and open access to public schools to only those students who fall within the age range required by compulsory attendance laws.

In most of the states in the United States of America, Compulsory attendance laws require that children be in enrolled in an educational program from about age seven until the age of seventeen. In Pennsylvania, the age range is eight to seventeen. In Maryland it's five to sixteen. In Oklahoma and Virginia compulsory attendance is from five to eighteen and this idea would not work for them.

The point is that not all parents are required to send their children to school when they turn five. Truancy laws, at least here in Maine, only apply IF the child is over seven, but younger than seventeen, or IF the child who is under seven was previously enrolled in the public school system and has not been subsequently placed on an "equivalent" program or reenrolled (i.e. if the child was enrolled at the local school for kindergarten but not first grade, she will have to be a registered homeschooler OR have been enrolled in a private school).

Since most people don't know this fact, parents enroll their children in Kindergarten at the age of five, and most students stay in school until they are eighteen. What this means is that we are paying for an additional three years of schooling, per student, at an average cost of $10,000 per year.

What I propose is that we don't pay for those extra years with public funds. The savings would be in the millions of dollars. To wit: if we have 100 Kindergarteners and 100 first graders and 100 seventeen year olds, by *not* using public funds for these students, we could save, immediately, $3 mllion per year.

That doesn't mean that none of those kids could go to school. That just means it wouldn't be free. That is, parents who have children younger than seven and older than seventeen would be required to pay tuition if they wanted their children to attend the public school.

There is no evidence to support the idea that children who go to school at a younger age learn more or better. In fact, except in extreme cases, those students who went to preschool will eventually be performing at only the same level as those kids who didn't have formal education until later - and by extreme cases, I mean cases in which the students are developmentally delayed due to physical or mental handicaps or by extreme poverty. In all of those cases, early intervention proved to be paramount to the children's future academic success. But for the average kid from the average household there is no discernable difference in later years between kids who completed preschool and those who entered school when they were older.

There are already educational-assistance programs available for low-income families, and these programs could continue on a proven-need basis. That is, people who meet the financial hardship criteria could enroll their children in a public school program and receive a waiver for tuition fees. All other parents can pay to have their children in school.

Cutting one year of "free" high school would mean that most high school aged children wouldn't graduate. Therefore, it would be necessarily to adjust the graduation requirements. Right now, a good deal of what high school-aged students "study" is simple repetition. In English class, for example, the lessons are all based on a study of literature ... for FOUR years. There is some writing, but there's no instruction in grammar except as an adjunct to teaching writing techniques.

As an aside and as a former teacher, I think it's backwards. In the early grades, students should concentrate on developing a passion for the written word, which means studying literature for the pure beauty and poetry of our language and unfettered writing exercises without the constraints of grammar rules. In fact, I submit that children who are exposed early and often to QUALITY literature learn to spell and use accurate grammar by the simple process of being given examples of good spelling and accurate grammar (Hint: Junie B. Jones and Harry Potter, while fun stories, are not "quality" literature), and only when they've mastered expressing themselves on paper, should their written musings be red-inked and organized into Standard English prose. In short, elementary school teachers should teach reading, middle school teachers should teach literature, and high school teachers should teach grammar. Seems like a more natural progression to me, which is a natural segue to ...

... changing the things students study at the high school level - i.e. graduation credit requirements.

In some schools, there is an opportunity for students to gain some practical, marketable skillset while still in school and have those credits count toward graduation, but for most kids what they learn is basic, "trivia-based" knowledge.

What I mean is that most kids spend a lot of time in school memorizing stuff they promptly forget and rarely need to recall later - just so they can take a test, to pass a class, to earn a credit, to meet a graduation requirement. It's all meaningless, trivial information. As a high school student, I earned credits in all of the standard college-prep courses - very few of which helped me while I was actually in college. For what I do now for a living, only three of my high school classes are even relevant: typing, business math, and Home Ec. We might include anatomy and physiology and/or any of the biology classes I took, but in truth, I remember very little of what I "learned." Most of the knowledge I use day-to-day is stuff I've picked-up since I left school.

What I propose, then, is that for the high school level, instead of having a one-size-fits-all education plan for all students, that students be permitted to choose a career track based on interest AND ability level. Students who wish to go to college would be required to follow a course of study that is similar to what kids do today, i.e. trivia-based, memorization.

For all others, their studies would be more vocational-based, but that doesn't have to be limited to "shop" or "home-ec". A student interested in studying nursing could, conceivably, complete the prerequisites for a LPN certificate while still in high school, which include anatomy, physiology, psychology, and English. More advanced nursing courses could be part of the "early study" program.

The University of Maine system currently offers a program for high school students called "Early Study" or "Aspirations." The program pays for one class per semester for qualified students and offers a second class for half-price. If high school courses were accepted as "prerequisites" for LPN studies, a seventeen year old could "graduate" from high school as a certified LPN.

But it doesn't have to be all "book learning", either. What if, instead of requiring that all high school students spend six hours a day, five days a week taking classes at the local school, we sent some of those kids out into the community in a work-study or apprenticeship program?

We could reduce the size of the student body at the high school by at least 1/3 by allowing fifteen and sixteen year olds the opportunity to participate in an apprenticeship program (how about learning shoe repair?) instead of requiring that they be present at the school sitting through endless, useless classes which prepare them with no marketable job skills at the age of 18 when they are expected to enter the workforce as "educated" individuals. This is not the same as allowing sixteen year olds to get a job. This would be an apprenticeship program that be a collaboration between local business owners interested in teaching their skills and the local schools. Not only would it give students some marketable skils, but it would also build bridges between groups of community members that aren't currently there, and it would make our communities stronger.

In short, by eliminating the three non-compulsory grades, we'd save, immediately, $3 million dollars. By allowing students to earn graduation credits as apprentices or through a college early study program, we could save an additional $270,000, because fewer students who need to occupy physical space in the schools would mean that a smaller space would suffice, and classes could be consolidated into fewer buildings, which would result in saving money on the cost of maintaining facilities and would provide potential revenue for the town by renting out space in the abandoned schools.

If we also implement my original "virtual school" idea, but only on the high school level, we could further reduce the number of buildings we'd need.

It is true there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem of how to fix our schools. In truth, what works in Maine won't necessarily work in Texas, and what works in Kentucky could devastate the public school programs in Alabama. The problem is our current system tries to be a one-size-fits-all, and so everything from the school year time line (school begins in the fall, there's a break at Christmas, there's a spring break, school ends in late spring and there's a three-month summer break) to the basic curriculum is homogenized, and our teachers here in Hollis, Maine try to teach our students the same things teachers in San Antonio, Texas are teaching, but guess what? Hollis, Maine is not San Antonio, Texas. Every.single.thing about those two communities is different from the natural environment to the clothes to the food they eat to the way they speak, and finally, given all of those environmental influences, to the way they view and interact with the world. And I've lived in or near BOTH of those communities - so I know of what I speak.

We need to, as communities, take a good hard look at our schools, and we need to make changes that will save us money and prepare our kids for what is shaping up to be a future where the majority of us have even less than we do now - and certainly less than most of our population believes it is entitled to have.

Based on my experiences with the public school system as a parent, as a teacher, and as a student, and my experience as a homeschooler, I have offered two possible solutions.

I'm sure there are other solutions I haven't thought of, and any or all of them could help solve the problems, but none of them will, if we don't act.

Pulling Schools into the Twenty-First Century May Mean Redefining the Term "School"

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When I published my most recent post, I knew that I would come under fire. My stance on education is not a popular one. I'm not anti-school. I just think our school "system" is broken and needs a serious overhaul.

But for the record my ideas do not stem from some elitist ideals – like the fabled let them eat cake. In my time, I have been a poor working mother trying to support my family on minimum wage while I was also going to school full-time; a public school teacher struggling to work with students for whom the system clearly was not working, never had, and never would; and a parent of publicly schooled children, who were doing well, but could never be said to be “thriving” in that environment. We won’t get into my personal experiences in public school, but suffice it to say that I was a very good student, but never could one be so deluded as to think I “thrived” in spite of my academic and perceived social success. It was those combined experiences that resulted in my decision to home school my younger children.

My ideas are not based on some bourgeois position of entitlement, but rather from a very long history of experiences with the public school system and an intimate knowledge that the current “system” does not work for anyone – even those children who seem to be “thriving.”

One of the arguments against my idea was that an un-educated populace is the fastest way to societal decline. First, I would argue that our society is already in decline, but that’s beside the point, because the implication is that our current system “educates” our population. I disagree. One hundred percent of our children between the ages of 7 and 17 are enrolled in some sort of educational program. Under penalty of law, children can NOT be withdrawn from some sort of educational equivalency program until they exceed the maximum compulsory attendance age (between 15 and 17 depending on the State). As such, 100% of America’s children receive an education from Kindergarten through, at least, the 10th grade.

In 1992, the National Adult Literacy Survey found that 50% of adults tested at Level 2 or lower on a prose literacy scale. That doesn’t mean much, until we add that a number of national and state organizations … have identified Level 3 proficiency as a minimum standard for success in today's labor market . source

But it gets worse than that. According to this article 32 million Americans can’t even read. They are functionally illiterate … but that statistic is just the ones who can only read enough to go to the right bathroom. What about the ones who can do better, but only slightly? There are no statistics for them, but I’ve known them. What are their job prospects? Even the military requires that recruits have a minimum of an eighth grade reading level, and, believe it or not, I've actually known people who took the test, but couldn't meet the minimum educational standards required to enlist in the Army.

And I wasn’t going to, but I will mention those absurd “on the street” reports in which Americans are quizzed about trivial sorts of facts that should be common knowledge and invariably are not. Like, we’ve been at war in the Middle East since 2001, where is the Middle East? And respondents can’t place a pin even in the general area. Or, who’s the Vice President of the United States? Or any other fairly pertinent piece of fact that we should, as an “educated” population, know but don’t.

Arguing that transitioning away from the current system would result in MANY children falling through the cracks and that it would result in an uneducated populace is ridiculous, as many children fall through the current system, and we, arguably, have a fairly uneducated populace already. The current system, for all the money we pay toward "educating" our children, is not even providing them with any marketable skills, and invariably, if they want a "good" job, they have to do some sort of training program after they graduate. Hanging onto our current system has resulted in MANY children falling through the cracks (at least 10%) and an uneducated subset of adults who have little or no job prospects in the kind of service-oriented economy we have developed here in the US over the past several decades.

The fact is that our current system doesn’t train our population to do anything but sit and take orders – great if we’re all going to join the military, but *see above*.

I never suggested that everyone should be forced to home school. What I suggested was virtual school, which means that teachers wouldn’t be working part-time, rather they would be working full-time, but 3/5ths of their school week would be telecommuting in a virtual classroom.

Of course, there really does seem to be a huge misunderstanding about what telecommuting actually is.

I work from home and have done so for more than a decade, but I do not “telecommute.” I am self-employed and have a home-based business. I am a freelancer, an independent contractor. I have clients, but not an outside employer. Nobody gives me a W-2 at the end of the year.

I do recognize that not everyone can be self-employed. It requires a willingness to let go of the security of having someone else do the job of making sure there’s work for which one will be paid. I have no such assurances, and if I want to earn money, I have to find people who are willing to pay me. I have no safety net when it comes to my job – no vacation pay, no health insurance, no sick-pay, no tuition reimbursement, no 401K, no guaranteed paycheck, and no legal recourse if the person paying decides he no longer needs my services (i.e. no unemployment).

That said, there’s also very little over-sight, no micromanaging and no time clocks. I do the work, in the privacy of my home office, at my leisure, when it suits me. I get paid for a completed job, and while my clients always have an expected turn-around time, I am completely free to work when it pleases me and to sit on the couch and read all day if I decide I don’t feel like working. As long as I get the work done when they need it, they don’t care if I work from 9 to 5 or at midnight. If we wanted to apply the analogy to education, being self-employed is like home schooling.

The only real similarity between my home-based work life and telecommuting is that a telecommuter gets to work at home. Often, however, there are designated “work hours”, and many telecommuters will be connected to the home office via an intranet or the Internet during these work times. The telecommuter is an “employee” and must meet certain expectations with regard to accountability. That is, the employer will want to be assured that the employee is working the required number of hours.

The telecommuter has all of the perks the on-site full-time employees have, namely, the safety net of having an employer that includes set wages, vacation/sick pay, health insurance, and should there no longer be a job, the opportunity to apply for unemployment benefits.

The virtual school I proposed is like telecommuting. Students (and teachers) would be required to be, physically, at the school for a minimum of two days per week. The other three days, they would be telecommuting via the Internet to a virtual classroom, where the teacher would be available to help.

Our national education system is over-bloated and extremely costly, and it is a significant financial drain on our local economies. My community is required to pay 50% of its revenues to support the school, and even that isn’t enough. So, we drive on broken roads; make do with a public library that was built to accommodate 3000 residents in a community that’s grown to three times that size (and the community doesn't bat an eye about paying $10 million per year for schools, but balks at a request of $2 million to upgrade our library); and keep our fingers crossed that the out-dated and under-sized sewage treatment plant won’t explode, this year. Half of our town’s revenues go to support an educational system that doesn’t really educate, while our infrastructure is crumbling, because we can’t afford to fix it.

My community is not unique in that respect. It’s happening (has been happening) all of the country for a lot longer than this current “Recession”, and yet, no one wants to provide any solutions other than the same kinds of fixes that have been tried and failed and tried and failed, and the general consensus seems to be that if we just had more money for education or if we just had a shinier, newer building ....

All of the solutions proffered by anyone who is trying to come up with solutions are ways to make the current system do better, but it’s the SYSTEM that is flawed, and no amount of propping up with more money is going to make it work. It’s like we have this old car with a seized up engine, and rather than admitting that the engine – the part that makes the car actually *do* something – is dead, we put on new tires and get a new paint job. Our solutions to the problem with our schools continue to be cosmetic and never really address the fact that the model on which our system is structured is antiquated and doesn’t serve our modern needs.

Perhaps, telecommuting students isn’t the answer either, but at least, it would save a significant amount of money annually on building maintenance and upkeep. It’s far cheaper to supply 1200 kids with laptop computers and have them in a physical classroom for only two days a week than it is to pay for the general maintenance, heat, electricity and water for a school building. For just energy requirements for the average-sized school, it costs $270,000 per year. My community could save half a million dollars per year, if they would just close two of our three school buildings and have students use only the third building.

The bottom line is that our current system is not working, it's too expensive, and, as I say in Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs, it will fail. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, schools closed in record numbers, and in places where the schools stayed open, teachers worked for "vouchers" and not for pay. We're headed in that direction - where we will need to make very hard choices about what to keep and what to let go, as we and our communities become poorer.

Seems to me, instead of negating ideas because we can't concieve of how they might possibly work, we should be trying to imagine other solutions. Maybe home schooling isn't the univeral answer, but wouldn’t it be better to start doing something else, right now, to ensure that EVERYONE has some access to some kind of education, rather than trying, vainly, to hold onto the current system as it slips through our fingers like melted butter?

Having Our Cake ... and Baking It At Home

In the news recently was an uproar regarding some comments made by Maine Governor Paul LePage. Apparently, he has warned the Legislature that, if they do not present him with a reasonable budget, he will close schools on May 1. He stated that it was either cut the school year or cut the funds designated for social services.

Now, I'm not supporting or defending LePage. He's said some pretty inflammatory things in the past, and his stance on environmental issues (including his goal of reversing many of the hard-won, pretty hard-nosed, environmental policies that make doing business here, especially with regard to developing "wild" areas, very difficult) isn't going to win him any points with me, but on this one thing, I think I have to agree with him ... and one can't even begin to imagine how hard it is for me to say that!

It's not that he's trying to take things away from Maine's citizens, but when one figures that 80% of the State's budget goes to fund education and social services, it's a no-brainer that cuts are going to have to come from one of those two areas.

As LePage stated, there's no money, and unlike the Federal government, our state government "can't just print more" (which, of course, is just a silly, over-simplification of the issue, and similar such off-the-cuff comments will prove to be LePage's legacy, because the Feds can't really "just print more", either). His point, though, is valid: we can't simply keep funding things for which there is no money.

The problem is that no one wants to give up, even a tiny portion, of his piece of the pie. No one wants his program cut. So, my question for those who are railing against these proposed cuts is, Are *you* willing to pay more (in taxes) to fund those programs you insist must be funded?, and of course, the answer will always be no.

No one wants to let go of any of their programs, but no one wants to raise taxes to keep them funded, either.

A long time ago, Deus Ex Machina and I realized one thing when it comes to our finances: if we wanted to have more money, we could either work more to earn more money OR we could spend less money than we make. We have opted to cut expenses, and some of the ways we've done so, have raised a few eyebrows, because they are unconventional - like getting rid of the television and the clothes dryer.

The government equivalent would be to increase the tax burden or cut programs. Personally, I opt for cutting programs, and I don't think it would be so very difficult to do so. Some very simple changes could save thousands of dollars per year for our government.

We homeschool, and while it's not an option most folks are willing to explore, I submit that our state and our communities could save a significant amount of money by implementing a different sort of school day. The fastest and easiest way to start would be to reduce the amount of time children are physically *in* school to only one or two days a week. The other days the children could be doing lessons virtually. Think of it as telecommuting for kids.

Here in Maine, every eighth grade, publicly-schooled student (and I wanted to make the distinction so that people would understand that homeschooled children are not eligible for the laptop program - or many other supplementary educational programs offered to public school kids - even though homeschooling parents still pay their fair share of taxes to support public education) is given a laptop computer. It was one of the last programs Governor Angus King signed into law, and while I think it's a waste of money in its current incarnation, if the State were to take advantage of the program to implement a virtual school program, it would make providing those laptops useful for saving thousands of dollars per year paid out for education.

The most obvious savings would be in fuel costs. If kids were only bussed to school two days a week, for instance, it would save $100s in the cost of fuel to operate the busses.

And different grade levels could have different days off, or have staggered school times. So, maybe Monday and Tuesday would be elementary days, and Wednesday and Thursday would be junior high days, and Friday and Saturday would be high school days. They could all use the same building, instead of having three different building for each grade group. There would be a significant savings on building maintenance and upkeep.

Support staff would automatically be cut by one-third, which would save thousands in salary and benefits costs paid out.

It's true that no one wants to cut jobs, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for anyone losing his/her job, but if those extra school buildings ere repurposed for private use and then opened to the public, the "public school" employees might still be employed, but on a private level.

What if, for instance, the lunchroom was franchised by a restaurant chain and the lunchroom staff was hired to work in the restaurant?

What if those old buildings were turned into community centers (with a cafeteria??) where classroom space could be rented by the public?

As a homeschooler, one of our biggest challenges is finding a space to hold our classes. A community center would give us that space, but it would provide space for other groups, too. Right now, I'm working on securing space to have an out-of-state speaker come to Maine, but finding a place where he could speak will be a challenge.

And today, I received a call from a young woman who is looking for a person to officiate over her upcoming wedding. She wanted to know if I knew of any places to hold the ceremony. I don't, but if our former school buildings were still owned by the town and then repurposed into a community center with space that any citizen could rent, it would not only provide much needed space, but would also generate some income for the community without burdening those who don't benefit from those programs.

Or, maybe, we could repurpose the old school buildings into retail spaces. Imagine, the old high school turned into a shopping mall. What a hoot that would be! And, if the Town retains ownership of the property that would be revenue for the Town.

There is no evidence that requiring children to be physically present in a classroom for six hours a day, five days a week, 180 days a year results in a better educated populace. In fact, the opposite seems to be more true, as, statistically, homeschooled children out-perform their peers in almost every area from academics to arts and all of the categories in between.

In a society in which we are finding ourselves more financially pinched than ever, it makes sense to think up some real, cost-saving solutions. Reducing the size and scope of our education system just makes good sense, and changing from a requirement that everyone be physically present for x hours a year to allowing them to telecommute part-time would save thousands of dollars over the course of a school year.

I know that children don't require formal lessons or classrooms or even textbooks to learn. I know, because my children are learning - mostly without any of those things.

Today, they were doing math and writing.

No textbooks. No tests. No desks. No bells to change classes. No getting up before the sun to catch a bus on a cold, rainy morning.

And no extra burden to taxpayers to transport, house, feed, and educate 180 days a year.

Putting Those Decorative Pillows to Work

Some time ago, John Michael Greer was writing a series of blog posts about a movement he termed "Green Wizardry." The point of the series of posts was to illustrate the fact that with some very simple life-style changes the average person could drastically lower personal (and, subsequently, cultural) dependence on money and "cheap" non-renewable energy.

A lot of the things he suggested, my family is already doing, and of the things we hadn't yet considered, all were wholly practical ... and almost, invariably very simple (smack-your-forehead-DUH! simple in most cases) and low cost.

One of my favorite posts was about insulation, more specifically, about windows.

When we talk about insulation, the usual term is "r-value", and what that means, basically, is how much the air temperature is changed inside of a structure. The higher the r-value, the lower the rate of exchange. That is, if it's cold outside, your house will stay warmer with less heat produced if you have a higher r-value.

Since most heat is lost through the roof and through the floor, the best suggestion is to make sure the insulation in the ceilings and sub-floors is adequate, and really, if efficiency is our main concern, insulating those areas should be step number one.

Of course, in our typically Western fashion, too often when people are looking to make their homes more efficient, the first proprioty is often with changing doors and windows.

In his post on insulation, John Michael Greer points out that windows have an r-value of 0 (zero) - regardless of the number of panes and whether or not they have gas between the layers. Of course, windows aren't measured in "r-value." They are measured in "u-value", and people who sell windows will insist that a triple pane, argon-filled window manufactured by their supplier of choise are the absolute best windows ever made, and changing to those windows will save billions of dollars in energy costs over the lifetime of the house.

What they won't tell you, but they will express to each other in an online forum dedicated to building contractors is: Quite honestly it's just another extension of the tricks and gimicks [sic] that the window market is known for.

In short, if it's cold outside, no matter how "efficient" the windows are, there will be a huge heat loss through the windows *period.*

The other day, Deus Ex Machina and I discovered, quite by accident a very simple and relatively cheap way to insulate a window. Our office has a northeasterly facing window. It's a double window - the largest in the house (and yes, the fact that our largest window is on the north side of the house annoys me a bit, but does't surprise me given the wanton wastefulness and failure to plan for efficiency that's marked so much of our "American" lifestyles). When we first moved in, we installed a mini-blind, but it's a rather wide window opening, and the blinds that fit are too heavy and too cumbersome for that sized opening. We've also used two smaller blinds, but that leaves a gap in the middle of the window.

In the end, the mini-blinds didn't work for an entirely different reason that had to do with a four-legged house companion who wanted to go with us when we were walking to the library, but they have a no-dogs-allowed policy and so she had to stay home. She expressed her feelings about that plan by eating the blinds.

Over the years, we've had all sorts of coverings on that window - none of which I've been completely enamored of. Factor in that the arrangement of our furniture is often fluid, and sometimes furniture is placed in front of the window. Right now, there's a couch sitting in front of that window, which makes opening the curtains is a little awkward. And so, there's no covering over the window ... mostly.

Like most folks, the two throw pillows we actually purchased when we bought our house multiplied, and now we have 12 square feet of pillows (if we laid them all flat on the floor side-by-side. At one point, over the holidays, I was trying to straighten things up, and I put a row of throw pillows on the window sill between the couch back and the window.

The couch back is slightly taller than the bottom of the sill, which means that a good quarter of the window is blocked anyway. Putting the pillows there, blocked most of the bottom half of the window. I knew when I put them there, that they would add some insulative value to window, and perhaps, keep the room slightly warmer, but I was completely unprepared to realize how truly insulative something as simple as a few throw pillows can be.

The other day, I decided I wanted one of those pillows. I went to grab it from behind the couch, but found that it was frozen to the window.

Which got me thinking. In the lower-one's-impact circles, we have a lot of great ideas for ways to keep our homes comfortable with less energy, and of course, the topic of window coverings always comes up. Window quilts or blankets are always a great suggestion. To that, I would like to add "window pillows" :).

I don't know if my office is any warmer, but I haven't taken anything away from my comfort or enjoyment by having the pillows there, and I can still see out of the top half of the window. Seems to me, that shoving some pillows in the window frame at night would be a quick and easy way to add some r-value to a opening where there is none.

It's quick, it's simple, and it can be pretty cheap.

Of course, that's true of most of the lower-one's-impact solutions. The challenge is to get people to realize that simplifying our lives doesn't mean spending money on a lot of very complicated solutions, but really can be something as simple as a couple of throw pillows.

Old Mother Meets New "Mother"

Deus Ex Machina went to a mushroom cultivation class with his mom this weekend.

He brought home a surprise for me.

Guess what's brewing in our kitchen now ... :).