Educational Insights

Last week we received Isabella's acceptance letter in the mail.  Phew!  She finally got into PS 87.  She was #10 on the wait list for awhile.  Have you read this Wall Street Journal article?  An Unhappy Rite of Spring: The Wait List.  I love it.

Since posting my very brief thoughts on our experience with New York City public schools a lot of family, friends and some strangers have been quite generous in sharing their thoughts and experiences about school and education.  I love learning from others and really appreciate everyone's concerns and insights, especially concerning homeschooling.  Homeschooling is one of those funny topics that everyone has an opinion on and everyone loves to share their opinion!

Much of my (extremely limited) free time is spent researching education.  It is the most important decision we will be making in our near future.  Isabella and education: what is best for her and, therefore, best for our family?

If you didn't know, I'm a non-conformist by nature.  (It's a blessing and a curse, trust me!)  I have 6 siblings and I'm the only one without red (very red) hair.  That's how it all started, I'm sure.  As a kid, when it was time to pick an instrument to play I chose the violin when all my siblings were budding pianists.  They all chose to learn German, I picked Spanish.  I never graduated from high school (nope, not even a GED) but have a college degree.

It's in my nature to question conformity.  And so, I must learn.  Since so many of you were interested in my thoughts the last time I wrote about school I thought this might be a good forum to share some interesting articles, lectures, etc. as I come across them.

Do you know Sir Ken Robinson?  I love his lectures and agree with a lot of what he has to say.

This animated lecture by Sir Ken Robinson is great:

And, just in case you are curious, here are my five brothers:

**I do have an awesome older sister (who has matching red hair) but for some reason I don't have any good digital photos with everyone.