Is School Prison?

Math Games For Kids : How to Play The Money Game

Learn how to play and teach this great game for practicing money values with expert teaching tips in this free online kids math games video clip.

Expert: Courtney Hester
Bio: Courtney Hester has a degree in elementary education. She has many skills and talents, including making various crafts. She has made many different types of crafts with her students.
Filmmaker: bobby Hester

What Makes A Good Relationship?

      Today in America and many other parts of the world divorce is at all time high. Families are being broken up every day! I am sure you have heard it on the news and see it first hand in your own life, it may be you personally or someone close or not so close to you, chances are you know many people who are divorced or getting divorced. I my self have seen it over and over again in my life.

The divorce rate in America is nearly 50%! And according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology, 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce. We have to ask our self why? Why are the numbers so high? In this modern world human beings have created things like Internet, space travel and deep sea exploration and all the other technology we are seeing today.

Yet we seem to be lost in the sauce when it comes to relationships and choosing who we are compatible with to spend the rest of our life together. Choosing a relationship should be a piece of cake and top priority! Sadly it is not and the men, woman, children and future children of the human race suffers greatly for it. What is the cause? There are many reasons why people split up and divorce but I want to talk about the main issue I see. That is compatibility with each other! So what makes a good relationship? How do you find one? The first thing I have seen and experienced my self is the authentic self problem or lack of.

People are getting in relationships way to soon, this leads to creating families and getting married when people are truly not ready. I am not even talking about age here but authentic self knowing who you are, truly! And where you are going. Your authentic self is the person you are created to be, your life philosophy which you live by and what you value in life. If you do not know the answers to these questions then finding a good relationship, a life long lasting marriage will not happen. The old saying opposites attract don't apply here and only leads to problems! We are not magnets! How can you find the right person who you are most compatible with if you don't even know who you are?

Get real with your self first, find your answers to these super important questions. The second thing is communication, which I feel it terribly lacking in our societies. You must ask questions before you get seriously involved with someone. That way you know for sure if this person matches with your authentic self! Based on my experience these are the most important questions that you need to ask.Now!

1. Religion or Life philosophy:

What do they believe?

Is it in line with your beliefs?

You need to ask these questions. If your beliefs are not the same as your partners then forget about it a relationship will not work with this person they are operating on a totally different life philosophy than you and this will only lead to a spiritual disaster, depression and lack of hope for the future. for you and or your partner. The other issue is when kids are added to the equation. What will you teach your kids?

Who's religion or philosophy will you teach to your kids? A situation like this required one or both partners to deny their true self and what the believe in order to make the relationship work, but it is only short lived soon the shit hits the fan! Sure you may be able to work through it and if you are in this type of marriage then you must work it out find out what you can do. With every mistake good can come, you just have to figure it out and it will take lots of work and many many tears! The best thing is just to avoid it in the first place. This is also a good reason why you need to know who you are and what you believe in before you get into a relationship because one day you will have your answers, you will find your self and it won't be compatible with your spouse. This is what happens when couples grow apart and no longer or never did want the same things in life. That is because they never asked questions before the relationship got serious!

2. Family and Values:

Do you want kids?

How Many?

What about birth control and abortion?

You must find out the answers to these questions. Are the answers in line with your own answers, your authentic self? Not asking these questions and not having this information can be devastating for you and lead to serious trouble and divorce. You owe it to your self, your future partner and future children to find out this information before it's to late, and your emotional health and relationship suffers. How would it feel if your wife or husband finally tells you they don't want children when you totally do or woman your boyfriend or husband wants you to have an abortion when you want your baby? Please just think about this and consider asking these super important questions.

3. Money:

Who will work in the marriage and who will stay home if possible?

Will you have joint accounts and who will pay the bills?

Obviously these are not as serious as the others but still very important. If you are a woman and intend on staying home with the kids, will you be supported in that? Will there be enough money for you to do that? These things must be worked out before hand as well. One of the biggest issues married people argue about is money and I feel much of it can be avoided if you just ask!

These are the most important things you need to ask before getting into a relationship or marriage. It is about your life and the life of your future children at stake here and it should have top priority over anything else in life. Sure there is hope if you are already in a relationship where you failed to ask these question, you can still have a good relationship but the questions need to be asked now before the relationship moves forward. Chances are if this is you, you have been unhappy with your relationship for a long time.

Once some things are realized within your self. There comes a time in our life when we do finally find out who we are and what we believe for real. For some it is late in life for others sooner after all we are all capable of not living an authentic life and sometimes we need to experience some things before we truly know our selves. Find out who you are that way you can be on your way to living authentically and sharing your life with someone you can truly be happy with! This does not just apply to you but to your partner as well if both people are living life authentically then there is a super good chance that you will have a long and happy marriage.

Unschooling, Homeschooling, Eclectic Homeschooling!

     I have been spending a lot of time learning about unschooling lately. I really like a lot of the philosophy around unschooling. For those of you who don't know to much about it, here is the basics. Unschooling is a type of homeschooling/home education. It is focused around child lead education. Children will learn to love learning more when they are in control of it. No standard curriculum is used and no testing, it is not school! Unschool children choose what they want to learn, not some state, or parents even.

I want to tell you how I feel about unschooling. First a little about our home education. My kids have never been to school or day care. We have been homeschooling through a public home based charter program for many years now and we unschooled prior to that, new born to age 5. We started officially homeschooling with the Charter because we wanted to be a part of a homeschool community and have access to many fun activities with other homeshooled children. Every year we go to the science class once a month at our local natural history museum and the kids enjoy meeting others when we get a chance to attend other activity.

We do use standard curriculum, consisting of workbooks and text books. To be honest we don't spend a whole lot of time on workbooks, but we get done what is appropriate at the time. Learning can consist of many different fun things, with  a fair amount of basic studies and intentional learning.

I like to call our style Eclectic Homeschooling! That is, I  learn about all the different methods of home education and take what I feel will work best for my family and create a unique experience for my children's education. Not something any school can do! When my kids reach the age for high school we will fit more into the standard unschool method. Our Charter goes to 8th grade and we will probably not be using any other programs after that.

With unschooling parents trust that their kids will learn on their own, I think this is great, with a fair amount of intentional time spent on reading, writing, and math. I have been told that, that is not real unschooling, and typically unschoolers do not have intentional learning time unless it is child lead. I feel a concept of unschooling is to do your own thing and not try to fit into someone elses mold? Unschoolers believe in freedom and not doing things the way others want.

My definition of  unschooling is NOT to teach your children, but to provide an environment conducive to learning, and learning with them and on your own, leading by example! Unshcooling will not work for children who have parents that don't like to read or learn, and just wants to watch TV all day! Parents must get kids involved in daily activity and yes, contribute to the House hold in one way or another, family values and team work principles. Children need to be lead to a love of learning by those around them for unschooling or homeschooling to be effective and more!! Kids are a product of their environment and individuals, unschool philosophy gets this!

I do feel however that there is so much room for children to learn what they want, when they want to. I had a private school education and a public school education, until I home schooled my self in high school and graduated one year early! I learned how to read, write do basic math and know basic history stuff. My real education started when I got out of school to home school my self. All the years in school and I hated learning and gave my mom and teachers a hard time! At the age of 16 I started Independent study, went to school one hour a week to turn in sample work. I did use curriculum and didn't mind it, It was about 3 days of work and I would get it done in that time and have the rest of the week to hang out with my friends. Not only did I do my work I started reading books not school related.

I think that to unschool effectively, parents should have lots of educational material around and not only encourage your children to use them but to learn with your children. Parents need to pay attention to their kids, that way when an interest is expressed you are right their to assist them in finding the information they seek. Children are natural learners, but getting into a habit of watching TV all day is not a positive thing. In our home we do not have Television, we do have a TV and the kids use it for movies. We also spend a lot of time watching movies as a family!. 

Unschoolers also don't participate in state standardized testing. This isn't a big deal to me and I don't really see how these tests help kids anyway. I do believe that a basic knowledge is a good and positive thing, but it does not have to come from curriculum. I don't care if my kids learn exactly what the state thinks they should. We learn what we are interested in at the time, but my kids ask some great questions and we find the answers.

We also love video games and my kids have been using some great tools for creating their own games and my son says he like creating his own game better than playing video games. Some days that is all we do, while other days they may do art all day.

Learning about unschooling has helped me relax in our home schooling life, I know more about how children learn and agree with most of it. I don't stress over getting workbooks done, because I see how they are learning anyway. We have a lot of board games and other activities for them to do and we spend time doing out doors activities as family. A Win Win!

I will continue to learn about homeschooling methods like unschooling and keep incorporating what is best for my children and family! 

If you are already an unschooler you may not agree with everything I said or my opinion of what unschooling is to me. I am just stating my opinion of the degree I feel appropriate to take with my own children.

To Your Success!

Eclectic Homeschooling on Facebook


Unschooled Children Learn Because They Love Life And Learning!

Stupid in America

History of education in America Part 1

This video will start to take you from the beginning of America's free schools and how the education system evolved to socialism where we are at today!