5th Graders Against Homework

Benjamin Berrafato, a fifth grade student from Seldon, New York, is fed up with homework and he's not going to take it anymore. In an open letter to his peers, Berrafato urges his fellow fifth graders to "unite against homework" and makes a case for why it should be abolished. Berrafato argues that homework is "cruel, inhumane, stressful, unhealthy," and ultimately, illegal: "Homework is assigned to students like me, without our permission. Teachers expect us to do homework, even though we'd rather not. It can be hard sometimes. We get punished if we don't do it. If we do it, we get no reward; we just don't get punished. Simply put, if we don't, we get punished, and if we do, our reward is ... nothing.
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Weapons of Mass Instruction: John Taylor Gatto's New Book

A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling: John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of familiar schooling that cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of rote-memorization drills. Gatto's earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, put that now-famous expression of the title into common use worldwide. Weapons of Mass Instruction promises to add another chilling metaphor to the brief against schooling.
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Why kids hate school: sociologists explore issue in new book

University of Texas at Arlington Sociology Professors Ben Agger and Beth Anne Shelton, say the problem of ineffective education cannot be remedied by more math courses and rounds of educational testing. Agger and Shelton, co-authors of a book titled, “I Hate School: Why American Kids are Turned Off Learning,” contend that by the time American students are in junior high and high school, they hate school and cannot wait to finish an acceptable terminal level of education and establish careers and families, mimicking the suburban lifestyles of their parents.
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How to convince your parents to let you drop out of school

New article (by Oni-Chiisu): How to convince your parents to allow you to drop out of school, and/or to get a GED. Dropping out to get your GED is a tedious process because a lot of parents remain blissfully ignorant of what exactly dropping out means for the drop out and what you can accomplish with a GED. I’m going to cover that subject. (Read full article)

17-yr-old catches typo in standardized test

"...while taking his state writing test last week, the East High junior saw something that didn't make sense: The word "emission" -- as in "the emission of greenhouse gases" -- was spelled "omission." "I thought, 'Surely they're not talking about leaving out carbon dioxide altogether.' It just didn't make sense," said Stanford, 17. "It had to be a mistake." It was. Stanford, a linebacker and International Baccalaureate student, alerted English teacher Jennifer Fry, who alerted the district test coordinator, who alerted state education officials, who were, as you might imagine, embarrassed.
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Boy becomes father at 13

Baby-faced Alfie, who is 13 but looks more like eight, became a father four days ago when his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman gave birth to 7lb 3oz Maisie Roxanne. He told how he and Chantelle, 15, decided against an abortion after discovering she was pregnant. The shy lad, whose voice has not yet broken, said: “I thought it would be good to have a baby. “I didn’t think about how we would afford it. I don’t really get pocket money. My dad sometimes gives me £10.”
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North Carolina boy shot on a school bus

A middle school student who was showing off a handgun brought from home shot a friend in the leg aboard a school bus Wednesday, and the wounded boy is recovering, authorities said. Lawrence Lavon Muzzon, the father of the boy who was suspected of bringing the gun on the bus, was arrested and charged in warrants with failing to store a firearm to protect a minor, authorities said.
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Judges accused of jailing kids for cash

For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses. The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench. In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.
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Nine-Year-Old Creates iPhone Applications

He's only nine years old, and he's already done something most of us could never do: create an iPhone application. Lim Ding Wen, a Singapore native, created a new app for the iPhone called Doodle Kids, according to Fox News. The program lets users draw pictures with their fingers right onto the iPhone's touchscreen. To clear the screen, you just shake the phone.
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10 year old hangs himself at school

A 10-year-old boy found hanging in an Evanston school restroom had threatened to take his life, sources said today, underscoring experts' warnings to take cries for help seriously even from the very young. Scolded by a teacher, Aquan Lewis responded with a threat to kill himself the same day his body was discovered, said sources familiar with the investigation. The 5th grader hanged himself Tuesday afternoon by his shirt collar on a hook in an Oakton Elementary School restroom stall where a footprint was found on a toilet, a source said.
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Woman rapes man in Colorado

A 53-year-old Longmont woman was arrested Wednesday on suspicion that she drugged a male friend during a backyard barbecue and then raped him, police said. Janice Lynette McCarl was booked into the Boulder County Jail at 7:40 p.m. Wednesday on suspicion of sexual assault, a class-three felony. “She allegedly took unwanted advantage of this friend in a manner he did not want or approve of,” Lewis said. The man told detectives the incident happened on Nov. 9 at his Longmont house and involved “unwanted penetration.”
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Tranquility Bay Closed

Widely hated torture camp Tranquility Bay has closed down. Jamaican government officials have confirmed that the last inmate left the country on 5 January, 2009. All equipment from Tranquility Bay is being sold. It is believed that the closure is due to new passport requirements and illegal loans.
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Learning outside classes, civilization and animal souls (forum posts)

Saving Civilization
Concerning Animal Spirituality
On Men of learning
A suggestion on learning things outside of classes