Maggie Mashia for School Board, yes. If you are a Portland, Ore. resident, please give her your vote at election time.

one of my girlfriends sent this along and asked me to share. — wm

PRESS RELEASE
3/1/11

For Immediate Release
Contact:

Lori Walker
Village Home Education Resource Center
Executive Director
503-484-5191

Email: lori.walker@villagehome.org

On line auction raises friends and funds for non-profit

Village Home Education Resource Center reaches supporters across the country

BEAVERTON, OREGON – March 1, 2011 – On March 5, 2011, Village Home Education Resource Center kicked off its annual auction with a party at the Multnomah Arts Center in southwest Portland. At the event, party goers socialized, ate an array of hors d’oeuvres, and watched a student talent show. Unlike most non-profit auctions, all the bidding will be done on-line for ten days, March 4-13. (Additional auction items can be found here, here and here.)

Village Home, a non-profit resource center that primarily serves homeschooling families in Beaverton, Portland and surrounding communities, decided to switch to the on-line auction in 2010. Director Lori Walker enthusiastically embraced the change and is looking forward to this year’s event.

“In previous years, we had great donations, but buyers were limited to those who attended the auction party,” says Walker. “By going on-line we now have bidders and vendors from all over the country. Last year, fifty per cent of our winning bidders were from outside our community.” Bidders include out of town relatives of Village Home families and a surprising number of on line shoppers who peruse sites like “Bidding for Good” for bargains on everything from gift cards to spa packages. Despite the overhead costs of using the on-line service, gross profits went up 50 percent in the 2010 Village Home auction.

Walker recommends on-line auctions for other non-profits, both for the monetary gain and for the increased attention for the organization. “The on-line auction is raising money and raising friends for Village Home at the same time,” says Walker.

Village Home Auction on Bidding for Good

Village Home is a dynamic, choice-based learning community creatively integrating family, education and real life to empower learners of all ages. Located in the Portland, Oregon metro area, we offer community, classes, and more for learners of all ages, by providing academic and social enrichment in a family-friendly environment.

…drop-out. George Fox University is a no-go.

“Why worry when you can obsess?”

and

“The hardest year of marriage is the one you’re currently in.”

Have truer words ever been spoken?

Also, homework should be outlawed.

buh-bye.

— wm

more stinkin’ books:

“Pedagogy. From the Greek roots “to lead a child (pais: child & ago: to lead).”

writing a five-page paper. two pages down.

the end.

How To NOT Do Your Homework

By Wackyboy & his friends

Chapter #1 1st you feed it to your dog, cat ect. If you do not have one then you must “accidentally” drop it in the sink

Chapter #2 2nd ( if chose to drop it in the sink) fold it in half 20 times and throw it over the fence.

Chapter #3 3rd well actually 2nd if you feed it to a cat or a dog . Then you go tell your teacher that your dog/cat ate your homework.

Chapter #4 Now it happens that some teachers give you waterproof homework. If this happens then you should tear it up and put it on your dad/mom’s salad.

i hate teaming up with people for presentations. i hate it so much that it makes my skin crawl. so this part of grad school is not going that well for me.

“It’s all presentations,” one of my co-workers informed me, “You’re teaching, and you’re paying for it.”

“Your profs should be teaching — they’re the ones with the doctorates, not you!” another co-worker said. “You shouldn’t have to teach the class.”

they make me choke once i get up there, these presentations, they make me angry, they make me uncomfortable. and not in a “growing, expanding your mind” kinda way. in just an angry, this is not working for me kinda way.

i don’t like being yoked with someone (other than my husband and kids, and God knows they give me the space I need, and i can generally predict what they’re going to do.) “group process”? I do okay with group process — i yield, i go with the flow, i offer up ideas, and if something is really important to me, i fight for it. God knows we did enough of that with our political associates and PPS Equity.

i acted in a lot of plays in high school and college, worked as stage manager, managed a hair salon, modeled, all sorts of different “presentations.” Productions, if you will. i’ve competed in voice, done some theater work with Steve, i’ve presented to the school board, i’ve introduced myself and given my schtick at about one bazillion meetings. Get in, get out, hit it and quit it. Know your lines. All good. I’ve taught all grades from kinder to 8th grade in the library, and i’ve worked with high schoolers, too. I fly with that just fine.

so why the freak-out, McGill?

i saw a black guy sitting with a white guy at the library once — they were reading together. one with dreads, serious look on his face; one dishevelled, looking anxious. i could not get a bead on them — until i realized that the black guy was teaching the white guy how to read. literacy. adult literacy. one-on-one.

he didn’t know how to read but he was learning.

was that when I decided I wanted to teach? i don’t know. maybe.

all i know is that that moment, right there, with those two guys who were oblivious to me and the rest of the world around them — that is teaching.

and it did not involve a powerpoint presentation, printed hand-outs or props.

peace. and wish me luck, would you?

— wm

“Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ”

— Paulo Freire

“For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”
— Paulo Freire (“Pedagogy of the Oppressed”)