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Showing posts with the label homeschooling

Children's greetings to Pope Benedict

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My sister Jane in Birmingham writes to tell me of a homeschool group meeting that took place the other day. The children talked about the life of Pope Benedict, his childhood with his family and his teenage years spent growing up in Nazi Germany, his days at seminary, and his work for the Church, culminating in becoming Pope in 2005. The children all then set to work drawing and designing over thirty cards to send to Pope Benedict, offering him spiritual bouquets of prayers to help him in his work. Jane writes: The amount of genuine affection and enthusiasm from the children for their beloved Pope was very moving. After tea we went into the church and Deacon Stephen led us in prayers for the Pope in front of the Blessed Sacrament. We are all greatly looking forward to his visit later this year. Here are some of the cards to be sent to the Holy Father:
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Another good Catholic project

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I just stumbled across The Work of God's Children's Educational Project , a co-operative online venture that is developing a free public domain curriculum for home-educators. I came across it because of the collection of public domain images . This includes several hundred black and white images that are useful for newsletters, as well as a good collection of images of saints . The main project is an excellent idea with a lot of potential to become a resource for families, whether homeschooling or not. The site uses wiki software to enable people to edit the pages and improve them.
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Persecuted German homeschoolers granted asylum in USA

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The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) provides advocacy to defend the rights of parents to direct the education of their family, and to defend the freedom of families. They are also involved in political and media lobbying. On their website today, there is news of a surprising case in which Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman granted the political asylum application of Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, Christians from Bissinggen, Germany, homeschool their children and have fled from Germany because of its draconian anti-homeschooling legislation. Judge Burnham said: “Homeschoolers are a particular social group that the German government is trying to suppress. This family has a well-founded fear of persecution…therefore, they are eligible for asylum…and the court will grant asylum.” See: Homeschooling Family Granted Political Asylum Mike Donnelly, staff attorney and director of international relations for HSLDA said: “This decision finally recognizes that German ho...
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Policy based evidence making

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Freedom for Children to Grow is the site for the Home Education campaign run by Education Otherwise . They have an article about yesterday's Queen's Speech in which Her Majesty announces her government's legislation. One sentence was: "Legislation will be brought forward to introduce guarantees for pupils and parents to raise educational standards" This refers to the Children, Schools and Families Bill which will "introduce a new home educators' registration system." A good article on the Badman Review of Home Education, which has been used to justify the new legislation, describes it as " Policy Based Evidence Making ." [ Correction : many thanks to those who corrected my impression that the Bill was to be debated in the next few days. I've removed that section of the post. I'll post something more later. ]
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Those elusive Catholic Homeschooling programmes

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As I reported yesterday, the Catholic Education Service for England and Wales has broadly supported the Government's proposals for registration and monitoring of home educators. In its response to the Government's consultation, the CES said that it was not aware of any model or programme for Catholic Homeschooling. Commenters have been industrious in offering the CES some helpful information in this regard. Looking at these sites, I am most impressed by the quality of material offered and the courageous approach to curriculum development. Commonly the programme websites list the various universities to which graduates of their programmes have transferred. First of all a couple for which I have found official recognition from the local Bishop: Seton Home Study School officially recognised by Bishop John Keating of Arlington as entitled to call itself "Catholic" under canon 803.1 Angelicum Academy A "Great Books" programme officially recognised by Bishop Mich...
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CES broadly supports Government Homeschooling proposals

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I have not time to do much analysis of this but I thought readers might be interested to see the response of the Catholic Education Service (CES) to the Government's proposals for registering and monitoring homeschooling families. The CES agrees with proposals for registration, agrees that someone should have the right to visit and inspect (though suggests this should be OFSTED rather than the Local Authority), but disagrees with the right to interview children alone - suggesting that a "trusted person" should be present. The CES also wants a share of the monitoring arrangements: We have also been told of parents describing their home schooling arrangements and curriculum as being “Catholic home schooling". There is no such model or programme of which we are aware and it is important that monitoring authorities are aware of this and feel able to revert to diocesan authorities and/or CESEW for advice if such queries arise. We would also find it helpful to be kept in...
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"Witness to love" posts on homeschooling

Radagast, husband, father and teacher who blogs at the Witness to Love blog has started a series on homeschooling which may be of interest to some readers. As he says: What child would not want to get up late, do several hours of study with mum or dad, play or go out on a field trip collecting frogspawn and then come home to talk about it together? No bullying issues, no disruption to learning issues, no sex education issues, no poor or erroneous catechesis issues and no parents' evenings or SAT tests. Should be an interesting series.
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Popular posts from this blog

Baptism water rosary photo

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This photo is doing the rounds at the moment. Here is the accompanying text: This was taken at the baptism of Valentino Mora, son of Erica, a single mom of 21 who asked the photographer to take a picture of her son for free. The photo of the baptism of Valentino Mora is sweeping the Internet, because at the time the priest pours the Holy water over his head, the water flows in the shape of a rosary. This story began at the Parish of the Assumption of Our Lady in Cordova, Spain, where the baptism of a one month baby took place. At the time that Valentino came to the baptismal font for the sacrament of baptism, Erica asked the photographer Maria Silvana Salles, who was hired by other parents baptizing their babies, to take a photo of her son as a favor, since the young mother had no way of paying for it. The photographer, moved by Erica's request, agreed to take a photo of Valentino. Maria Silvana works with a traditional camera and had to send the film to be developed to a shop in ...
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Is your alb back to front?

Fr Z has initiated a roaring discussion by asking the simple question whether maniples can be used in the Novus Ordo Mass. ( What Does The Prayer Really Say?: Maniples ) One commenter has referred to an important source for the question that has proved popular among modern liturgists. An answer in Notitiae of 1978 said: "When the rubrics of the Missal of Paul VI say nothing or say little on particulars in some places, it is not to be inferred that the former rite should be observed. Therefore, the multiple and complex gestures for incensation as prescribed in the former Missal are not to be resumed." This is, of course, a strange answer. Saying that it must not be inferred that a rite should be used does not imply that it must not be used. We need to check the Latin of this text. (If anyone with access to a library can check it, I have seen the reference given elsewhere as Notitiae 14 (1978) 301-302, no. 2) Let us in any case take the more restrictive interpretation, bel...
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Saint Gabriel

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The angels call for our veneration and awe as part of God’s creation. Part of the destructive modernism of the 1970s included advice to Catholic school teachers that they should not talk to children about angels. This wrought lasting damage which continues to need rectifying. We should include in our prayers a heartfelt recourse to our own Guardian Angels. The Archangel Gabriel “God is my strength” would be terrifying were he to appear to any of us. Our Lady was “troubled” at the word of Saint Gabriel and wondered at the manner of the salutation. Immediately, according to his mission, the awesome messenger explained himself. Modern retelling of the event is often reduced to the jejune “Mary said Yes to God”. In fact, she said “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word”. This conveys more accurately the flawless faith and trust of the Immaculata. In the infinitely wise providence of the Father, we now know the structure of the event in even more detai...
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1962 Missal pdf online

The Church Music Association of America and Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement have made available the 1962 Missal online in pdf format (72Mb). The file is hosted at Musica Sacra , the website of the CMAA, thanks to a generous gift from Fr Robert Skeris While you are at it, take a look at the articles clarifying the rules for music at Low Mass and music at High Mass .
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The blessing of a chariot

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When I studied Latin in Rome with Fr Reginald Foster, he used to suggest that a good word for a car was autorhaeda , a word in fact used in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis of 1965 when speaking of a visit made by Pope Paul VI to the Basilica of St Chrysogonus in Trastevere. The word raeda (without the "h") was used by Caesar, Cicero and Horace for a travelling wagon with four wheels and the addition of "auto" does not make for too awful a neologism. In the Rituale Romanum , the blessing for a motor vehicle is the Benedictio vehiculi seu currus . The word currus is normally translated as chariot and reflects the way that people often view their car. Since one's motor vehicle is more likely to be the locus of one's death or injury than many other artefacts, it does make sense to have it blessed. Above you can see us striding purposefully past the Georgian houses of Victoria Road and here is the blessing of the classic mini: The blessing given in the ...
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