Wednesday, February 09, 2022



Why This Texas Mom Started a Co-Op to Teach Her Kids

Natalie Simmons, a single stay-at-home mom, says she has no idea what public school her two children would attend in McKinney, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.

She chose another way to provide a good education to her daughters, Harlow, 7, and Harper, 5.

“Being a stay-at-home mom is hard enough because you never say goodbye to your children, but then being a single stay-at-home mom [means] you never really get five seconds,” Simmons says.

Simmons, now 40, began sending her two kids to Castle Montessori of McKinney when Harper was only 18 months old.

She says she liked the Montessori school’s child-led, unstructured environment and its emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math projects.

Simmons then sent the children to Mom’s Day Out, an affordable day school at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, Texas, another suburb near McKinney.

The children’s last stop in brick-and-mortar schooling in the fall of 2019 and spring of 2020 was The Children’s Workshop, a Montessori-themed school in Plano. The school closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Simmons says.

In March 2020, when schools throughout Texas sent children home to do remote learning, Simmons says, her attitude toward traditional education—even Montessori-themed schooling—changed.

“We never went back after spring break,” she recalls.

Simmons says that school requirements that children wear masks during the pandemic became a “nonnegotiable” for her.

Specifically, in September 2020, McKinney Independent School District released a statement saying that the public school system would have to comply with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s statewide mask mandate.

As a grown woman, Simmons says, she had trouble wearing a mask for a lengthy amount of time.

“What do you think a child is going to do?” she asks. “Sending my children back [to school] with masks on was unacceptable and not going to happen.”

Searching for a Co-Op

In July 2020, Simmons signed up her children for a co-op meeting at Obstacle Warrior Kids, a Dallas-based recreational facility.

A co-op is a group of moms who get together to teach each other’s children. A co-op typically acts as a supplemental “social learning” option for homeschooled children.

Obstacle Warrior Kids “is a perfect place for a co-op because in between classes, kids can go blow off steam,” Simmons says. “I signed up immediately.”

The moms were “crunchy, hippie, and homeopathic and adopted a gentle parenting lifestyle,” Simmons says, which resonated with own lifestyle.

“That community felt really great,” Simmons says. “The woman who started the co-op made it look effortless.”

But after exploring several co-ops, Simmons says, she felt compelled to surround her family with like-minded people.

For instance, when the new coronavirus first erupted in the U.S., it was wise to be on high alert, she says. But as time passed and more information about COVID-19 was revealed in summer 2020, she recalls, she felt alone in questioning the media’s narrative about the disease.

Harlow and Harper had not seen their best friends from their previous school in about six months, because their moms were quarantining them, Simmons says.

“Back then, you were kind of seen as an outcast because you were fighting back [against] the system,” Simmons said. “I myself was not going to wear a mask because the mainstream media’s narrative wasn’t adding up. It wasn’t logical.”

Inspired to act, Simmons started her own co-op, called Silva, in fall 2020.

Growing Silva

The first semester, Simmons aimed to sign up about 30 families in Collin County, Texas—totaling about 60 children. Silva ended up attracting 45 families, or about 90 kids.

Within three semesters, Silva’s size nearly tripled to about 240 children, and the co-op now has four chapters in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Silva—Latin for forest—focuses on permaculture, which Simmons calls “a pretty hot topic right now.”

Permaculture is a natural approach to land management that adopts what are called slow and simple principles.

“No herbicides, no pesticides, using commonsense logic as opposed to big [agriculture] farming,” Simmons explains.

After meeting Nicholas Burtner, founder of the School of Permaculture in Plano, Texas, Simmons began taking 40 online courses there to obtain a certificate in permaculture design. Burtner provided her with a scholarship.

In spring 2020, Simmons’ two children helped with a project at Grateful Farmstead, a property owned by a friend of Burtner’s in the Dallas suburb of Greenville. In exchange, Burtner taught the children about permaculture.

Permaculture’s 12 principles focus on logic and “slow and steady” solutions, Simmons says.

“I don’t want my kids to grow up on instant gratification,” she says, noting how quickly Amazon packages can arrive.

“I want to teach these kids not to suck,” Simmons says, laughing. “I want to teach these kids what hard work is. I want my kids to get dirty. I want my kids to work hard. I want my kids to do favors because they love somebody, not because they’re expecting anything in return.”

*******************************************

Chicago Students Forced To Leave School For Not Masking Up

What science does Chicago Public Schools have on mask efficacy and protective benefits that other schools across the nation and the CDC itself don’t have? Let’s call it the $340,000 question – Superintendent Pedro Martinez’s base salary.

It’s more than a fair question. Some states and locales have not required masks all year and are doing just fine. Even more pointedly, though, on the same day that hard-left Covidian Phil Murphy released his state’s government schools from oppressive mask mandates, Chicago still continues to move in the other direction, this time by actually exiting students from the building for refusing to diaper up.

First off, kudos to these young people for having more courage than most adults in America. Spineless doctors and medical professionals could take a page out of whatever textbook these young lovers of medical truth and personal freedom are reading. We can be assured that it is not a school-issued book.

Second, and more to the point, how much longer does this go on? Just like the fact that we now know conclusively lockdowns had almost no direct Covid-mitigating impact (which says nothing about the veritable social, financial, and other medical impacts we suffered), enormous cohort studies have offered finality on the issue of masking as well. They simply don’t work. We see this in masked versus maskless states. We see this in the CDC’s own studies and the Biden White House’s bizarre push to muzzle everyone with N95s. The cognitive dissonance of leftism is always there, but how can teachers simultaneously worship Fauci and ignore his new mask rules at the same time?

So, despite the science saying otherwise, CPS insists on ruining young peoples’ lives by disappearing them behind useless fabric.

The senseless mask mandates for children and students are not free of negative side effects. Therefore, when they don’t stop Covid, they don’t just not do anything else. There are very real consequences to masking young people, not least of all the detrimental effect of being unable to watch other speakers to learn mouth movement and language. There is already an epidemic of speech language pathology. More destructive is the bond that has been broken between peers and friends. People, especially young people, need and require human interaction. Masks are a literal physical barrier to that arrangement. Not only can young people not read facial cues, depending on their age they will never learn to do so properly anyways.

Rand Paul is absolutely correct when he says that masks are not about medicine but rather control. Given that no rational medical argument can be offered at this point, the only remaining option is that petty tyrants are inflicting as much damage on freedom as possible. The same could be said about vaccine passports, considering vaccination status matters little in whether or not a person spreads the virus.

As it relates to the thousands of students in Chicago’s failed government educational system, the only other fair question to ask at this point is why anyone still sends their kids there? Government schools were never great to begin with and now the ones in Chicago demand a religious observance to the Branch Covidians. Parents will you listen yet? Pull them out now!

********************************************************

Australia: Single-sex schools may discriminate against trans pupils

Single-sex schools will still be allowed to discriminate against transgender students under the government’s amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act, amid concerns that boys’ and girls’ schools would be ill-equipped to cater to the needs of the opposite sex.

Attorney-General Michaelia Cash has referred the matter, along with exemptions to discriminate against staff, to the Australian Law Reform Commission which is reviewing all religious exemptions in anti-discrimination law.

In a situation where a student transitions while enrolled at a single-sex college, a religious school would need to address issues including uniforms, bathrooms and the wishes of other parents to send their children to a single-sex school.

“If subsection 38(3) of the Sex Discrimination Act were amended to remove the exemption for religious schools to discriminate against a student on the basis of their gender identity, it could have the potential to effectively nullify the intention and ethos of religious single-sex schools,” Senator Cash said.

“Striking the balance between any individuals right to want to change their sexual identity and other parents’ and childrens’ wishes to go to a single sex-sex school must be sensitively managed.

“For example, if a current student transitioned whilst enrolled at a single-sex school, a religious single-sex school would not be adequately equipped to cater to the needs of the opposite sex. Matters such as uniforms, bathrooms, as well as the wishes of other parents to send their children to a single-sex schools would need to be addressed.”

Senator Cash said the ALRC would carefully consider changes to the SDA to “allow for these issues to managed and addressed correctly”.

“This is an important and crucial step that cannot be rushed. Let me be very clear, the government believes that discrimination against students is unacceptable,” she said.

LGBTI groups have raised concerns about whether transgender children would be included in an amendment to the SDA, prohibiting religious schools from discriminating against gay students.

Swimming legend Ian Thorpe, who is in Canberra campaigning against the reform, on Tuesday said transgender children would be further marginalised by the bill.

“This is a group of people that should be protecting,” Mr Thorpe said.

“When it comes to the biggest killer of people that are in their youth, it is suicide. And then, it is exponentially increased if you happen to be gay. And it’s even worse when we look at the statistics of someone who is part of a trans community.

“With this bill, we want to see it disappear. What this is, it becomes state sanctioned discrimination.”

Manager of opposition business Tony Burke on Tuesday said “the Prime Minister said he would end discrimination for all students”.

“He said he would end it for all students, that that’s what he said, full stop, and he should be true to his word,” Mr Burke told the ABC.

The Australian understands Labor’s major issue with the religious discrimination bill, which is separate to the SDA amendment, relates to constitutional issues around the overriding of state and territory laws, which the Victorian Labor government opposes.

Finance Minister Simon Birmingham said the government was not, at this time, removing exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act allowing educational institutions to discriminate against transgender students because it could undermine their ability to run single sex schools.

He said this was why the government had referred broader changes to the Sex Discrimination Act to the Australian Law Reform Commission.

“I understand the proposal that is put forward is to repeal the exemption as it relates to students who are being exempted from the Sex Discrimination Act on the basis of their sexual orientation,” Mr Birmingham told the ABC.

“Now it doesn’t go further than that. Those other matters, as I understand it, would still be subject to a relatively quick, within 12 month, review by the Australian Law Reform Commission to try to address the best way to be able to enact any other changes without undermining certain issues around same sex schools or other matters that are there.”

University of Notre Dame adjunct associate professor Mark Fowler said the government’s proposal to “remove the ability to expel a gay student would be consistent with what peak bodies have said – no school seeks a right to expel a student because they are gay”.

Mr Fowler said significant “complexity arises when this apparently simple proposition is placed within the framework of the Sex Discrimination Act”.

“This is why the referral to the Australian Law Reform Commission was a reasonable way to address this issue. What if a group of students within a school starts a media campaign requesting that the school discard its traditional view of marriage,” Mr Fowler said.

“Would the school be prevented from refusing that request because its actions were on the basis not only of the students’ actions, but also their orientation? If the proposal does not take account of these issues, the amendment may undermine the ability of religious schools to maintain their distinct ethos.”

***********************************

My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

*******************************

No comments: