MrsPages recently gave 2 very well received seminars at our local Homseschool Association conference. In order to let people just sit and listen and not have to worry about taking notes, we promised to post the information from her presentation here.
The originals were in OpenOffice format, and were quite large, so here the are in PDF format:
I Am, I Can, I Ought, I Will: The Ideas of Charlotte Mason
Organizing The Chaos
We were touched by the number of people who were grateful to get information about Charlotte Mason, and the personal stories of people who also struggle with home organization were very moving.
Thank you to those who attended and made the effort worthwhile.
If you were there, please let us know you were here by commenting!
EDIT TO ADD: THE “CONTACT US” FORM WAS BROKEN AND WASN’T SENDING US MESSAGES. If you tried to use the “Contact Us” form recently, please do it again because we didn’t get your message. It works now.
The US has just implemented the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which intends to reduce the amount of lead that children are exposed to. A noble goal.
In reality, the impact and broad reach of this law is insane. Every single piece of anything sold for children needs to be tested, at the seller’s cost. Which means anyone who crafts or sells anything for kids needs to have every single component of every single item tested at hundreds of dollars per test.
The most horrible aspect of this is that lead was only banned from printer’s ink in 1985, which means that it is now a crime with a $100,000 fine to sell a childrens book printed before 1985.
That’s not a hyperbole. That’s not a misstatement of the law. That’s it. Printed before 1985 = no sale.
Well, actually, the law says you can sell it, and you don’t even have to test it. But if it has lead in it, you’re guilty.
As homeschoolers, especially as homeschoolers following the Charlotte Mason philosophy, this is a real blow. Many, if not most of the books we use are very old. I’ve encouraged MrsPages not to get rid of old versions, even when the temptation was there. The temptation was “We can use the shelf space, and they’ll always be at the library.” But that’s no longer true. Libraries, used book sellers and thrift stores all have to follow this law.
As Canadians, it doesn’t affect us directly, but Canadian sellers are pulling kids books because the primary market is American. The primary source is American, so suppliers are drying up.
I’m left trying to figure out what sort of lobby group would have pressed for something like this. Who does this benefit?