Due to the tremendous response we've gotten, we've decided to give The Rugged Elegance Inspiration Network site room to grow by moving it to a new, improved location:

http://www.ruggedelegantliving.com

Please re-set your bookmarks as all new posts will occur on the new site.

As part of the move we are also transitioning to a Moveable Type content management system, which will allow us to add more editors while providing better search and categorization capabilities.

Thank you your continued support. Growth is good.

-Tim
1:41:54 PM    comment []  

Unfogging the Future: What to Look for in the Next Harry Potter

Book Magazine:

After three knuckle-biting years of waiting for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, we finally have a date. On June 21, J.K. Rowling's latest dose of Harry, Hogwarts, Hermione and Hedwig will be delivered to millions of grateful readers. To help fill the gap between then and now, Book went to work, gathering every hint that's been dropped -- including surprising revelations by Rowling herself -- about what to expect in Book Five. Here's what we've divined.

5:56:26 PM    comment []  

The New York Times:

MADELINE NELSON of Steubenville, Ohio, has been in the third grade since last fall but has met her teacher only a few times. She has plenty of schoolwork to do, including book reports and her favorite, art projects.

She gets her assignments online through the Ohio Virtual Academy, which she attends along with her sister Therese, 7, and brother Gabriel, 5, from the dining room table at home.

If Madeline, 9, were a traditional home-schooled student, her mother, Gretchen, would be instructing her (her father, Mark, works full time outside the home). But even though Mrs. Nelson believes home schooling is best for her children, she does not feel capable of teaching them.

For those friends who have chosen to homeschool their children, I hope you find this article inspiring.

-Jen

Keywords: Computers and the Internet, Teachers and School Employees, Children and Youth, Equal Educational Opportunities
11:26:36 AM    comment []  

Child Trends' Research Brief: What Works-Youth Development

Most American adolescents are psychologically, socially, and physically healthy. A vast majority are good citizens who are free of major mental, behavioral, and addictive disorders; an increasing percentage volunteer in their communities; and declining numbers are violent, become pregnant, or smoke. Despite these encouraging facts, adolescence remains a time of considerable change and risk.

In this brief, I especially like what Dr. Moore and Dr. Zaff say about viewing teens positively, promoting their skills and assets rather than focusing on the negatives, their potential problems and deficits.

It is clear that "relationships" are key to adolescent well-being.

-Jen
2:17:04 PM    comment []  

Latest 'Harry Potter' Book Fastest Ever Seller

Indiantelevision.com:

The boy wizard Harry Potter is growing from strength to strength. Online distributor Amazon.com has said that the latest installment in the Harry Potter book series has already become its fastest-selling new product ever, with more than 500,000 copies ordered in advance of the book's publication on 21 June.

11:53:27 AM    comment []  

New York Times:

By lowering testing standards, states hope to evade the penalties that a federal law imposes on schools whose students fare poorly on standardized tests.

10:46:36 PM    comment []  

ScienceDaily News:

Backpacks have gotten a bad rap. For years, specialists have urged school children to lighten their loads, wear their backpacks on both shoulders and avoid lugging around those heavy school bags whenever possible. But new research from a University of Michigan Health System physiatrist indicates backpacks don't cause the stress and strain on young backs that they've been linked to.

Comforting news, especially after having picked up my daugther's (heavy) back pack the other day.

-Tim
12:48:24 PM    comment []  

International Herald Tribune:

The population of America's jails and prisons passed two million last year, for the first time in history. The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and one that falls unevenly. An estimated 12 percent of African-American men between 20 and 34 are behind bars, more than seven times the rate for white men the same age.

There is clearly a direct tie-in with the research I saw presented last Wednesday. According to Mark Coehn in The Monetary Value of Saving a High Risk Youth, the lifetime cost to society of a career criminal is $1.3 million per prisoner. The cost to society, therefore, is $2.6 trillion to deal with 2 million prisoners.

What to do? Support an early prevention and intervention program, such as Friends of the Children, which finds seriously at-risk children and gives them a paid adult mentor from age 6 through 18.

An ounce of prevention is certainly worth a pound of cure.

-Tim
2:08:53 PM    comment []  

CIOL:

Girls stole the show at the Intel International Science & Engineering fair held in Cleveland. The top awards this year went to Anila Madiraju, of Canada, Elena Glassman of Pennsylvania and Lisa Glukhovsky of Connecticut.

This is further evidence of the advances that girls are making at all levels.

-Tim
1:05:41 PM    comment []