Kid Power

My son's school is closing, due in part to tough economic times and a big mortgage. Luckily for us, one door closed and another opened. One of the parents decided to open a mini-school in her home. (No payments for space will make it much easier for this school to survive.) It's very exciting to be in on this as it forms. I've been studying educational alternatives since I was a teenager, and I have lots of resources to offer.

We will probably set up a school blog or wiki, or something, but meanwhile I'm going to start linking to good posts here. I think this post about kids changing the food system will be exciting for the parents and interesting for the kids (who are mostly 8 years old). My favorite part:

[Orren] Fox has twenty-seven hens and four ducks in Newburyport, 35 miles north of Boston. Last year, he started O’s Eggs, a small farm business selling eggs for $5 a dozen.

That Sunday, he held one of Novak’s hens, which he used to discuss chicken anatomy. He pointed out the crop, where food goes to be digested with the aid of swallowed rocks, the comb (he suggested using Vaseline in winter to keep it from freezing) and tail, where the hen produces wax that she uses to clean her feathers. “If your hen looks like she doesn’t have a head, she is probably just cleaning herself,” he said to laughter.

His love of chickens started early. At age nine he was a volunteer cleaning chicken coops at a local farm, learning all he could about the birds. Then he adopted his own flock. After choosing chickens as the subject of a school research project, “I found out how horribly most hens in this country are raised,” he said. “I know chickens are smart, they have personalities, and opinions. I am not ok with what I consider mistreatment of these cool birds for cheap meat and eggs.”