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Tip of the Week: Avoid “Lemming Behavior”
Lemmings are small rodents. Their actions have been popularized by Disney with the classic nature film, “White Wilderness.” Lemmings have also been used in light-hearted video games by the same name. Their behavior points to a phenomena of human behavior: our tendency to conform, to “not rock the boat,” to simply “go with the flow.”…
4/21/20 Achievement Testing Update: Moving Forward
Weeks ago, President Trump decided to suspend requirements for end-of-the-year standardized testing for public school students. The question surfacing immediately in home schooling communities was, “Does this apply to us?” Basic Skills reached out to the Oregon Department of Education for clarification. We requested, in light of the Coronavirus, that there be some modification of the…
Slow Down and Ask Questions
If you hosted a Christmas dinner earlier this week, maybe you felt like collapsing afterward. I know I did, and my wife was the one who did most of the work. I took the day off before our get together and dedicated my time to whatever tasks she needed me to do. Doing so helped…
Thinking About Rescheduling Testing?
You could reschedule testing, but do you want to? Do you have to? Why would you? The reason for asking seems obvious. The coronavirus! One suggested option circulating among home schoolers is, if your examiner has canceled your exam, simply ask your examiner to reschedule. The problem with this suggestion is that any rescheduled date…
Thanksgiving Reset?
Are you rethinking how you will be celebrating Thanksgiving this year? As we approach this holiday, I’ve been thinking back to where I was two years ago. In August of 2018, I was getting ready for a two-day-a-week class I would be teaching to junior high students. I had purchased gratitude journals for each of…
See with Your Ears
Last week I wrote, “Things are not always what they seem to be.” What I meant was that we often draw mistaken conclusions based on what we “see.” To correct this we need to “see” with our ears, and teach our children to do the same. To help explain this, consider two characters from the Bible….
