The Country Fair
13 03 2008Remember that? I’m planning to resurrect it. I’ve moved it here and off of homeschooljournal.net - not that I don’t love homeschooljournal and Andrea and Ron, especially the gracious way they provide webspace for so many - but now it’s on my dime and it frees up a wee bit of bandwidth for them.
Yeah, there’s already a homeschool carnival, I know. And I’m not going to argue about “unity” and all that - much discussion (here, there, everywhere), and the example set by reactionary hysterical conservative homeschoolers in the past week (and showcased on the last carnival) convinces me that there’s never going to be this Utopian common ground, where we can all group hug and sing camp songs. I don’t have to participate in something I don’t believe is worthy in order to honor diversity, I can do that by providing a different platform.
And if the association with HSB (homeschoolblogger) isn’t uncomfortable enough, the HSBA (homeschool blog awards) hype is starting - and who remembers last year’s unethical performances? The carnival of homeschooling will be a primary vehicle for promoting that spectacle again.
So anyway, I’ve got it moved, and set up, and now that I’m a wordpress wizard (not), I’m going to edit it a bit and clean it up.
I am juggling ideas of where to go with it - and welcome suggestions.
1. Keep it the same, as a diverse monthly carnival of more liberal homeschooling posts, with a “question of the month” to help those who can’t think of what to write about.
OR
2. A monthly focus, perhaps something to do with a monthly holiday or celebration (Earth Day is in April)
Let me know what you think (let me know you CAN think!)
I vote for a combination of the two depending on available holidays and whatever questions arise.
I agree with Sam, offer both. It will make for a wider range of posts.
I’d say the same. How ever the muse hits.
I’d be happy to swing hit occasionally if the offer is still open.
Another vote for a combination of the two. Can’t wait to have the Country Fair back.
I like the monthly theme, that may be enough to provoke a specific post by me
The questions always seem so, so, so, schooly and tougher to answer the farther away from that world our life moves.
I look forward to participating (’specially now I feel safer ::bg:: )
The disclaimers made me chuckle.
I was going to say 1 with a sprinkling of 2 as “questions”, but then I saw diana’s comment and I think she has a point about the questions sometimes being a bit “schooly”. So I guess you can do what you like
I think it is important to have a carnival that showcases liberal homeschooling stuff whatever we all might be doing. And not all of us do much in relation to those holidays. glad you are reviving it.
I wouldn’t mind seeing the questions maybe branch out a bit and get away from the typical homeschool / education / related subjects. One really good way to showcase the diversity of homeschoolers would be to encourage us to occasionally write about something other than homeschooling.
Keep ‘em coming. I’m taking notes here.
[…] 14, 2008 in homeschooling resources, living our lives, unschooling Good news: Doc is resurrecting the Country Fair Carnival of […]
So glad you will be doing this. I would love to see something more liberal available to us and I am with cobranchi. Branch out, let the diversity begin!
COD and I had some fun with the “life story in six words” thing recently. So I vote for the offbeat writing prompts and anything that is NOT schooly!
And as an aside, I don’t do ANY carnivals, ever, especially Carnival of Homeschooling. I don’t like carnivals and fairs much in real life either, truth be told. But latcomer though I am, I just like The Country Fair somehow. It feels like a midway I can let loose on, with folks I can “know” and understand, and really enjoy. . .
Unity, I’ve been meaning to find a moment to mention — all that touting of the the Judy Aron white-conservative let ‘em eat cake stuff as constitutional scholarship, you won’t see much “liberal” input on Unity-n-diversity. Real turnoff. And seriously, how “diverse” can we expect Connecticut’s worldview to be anyway?
I used to hate fairs, too much noise, too many people. Then, about a decade ago, I started attending (not by choice) as a “participant”, having to stay for an entire week, knowing what goes on behind the scenes and when the gates close - and it gave me the perspective that allows me to enjoy it. I rediscovered the joy of moron watching.
As long as I’m not at their mercy!
I like the first option.
I like what Chris said, about a lot of the questions being “schooley”. Even unschooling voices makes me think too much these days.
My kids are mostly off on their own, dong their own thing. I usually have to take a survey of some kind.
Maybe I should do a reflective post, or a moment-in-time thing. Sarah’s been realizing she’s had to pretty darn good compared to her peers.
Also, HSJ is back up. Except for support emails. *sighs*
A couple of years ago I participated in a carnival like writing project that used a wiki to organize. They set up a wiki and announced that months subject on the wiki. Anybody that wanted to participate simply added a link to their post on the wiki.The wiki also archived everything in one place, which was useful. If you used a free Wiki service like Wetpaint.com it would take about 10 minutes to get set up.
I have tikiwiki and phpwiki (neither of which I’ve even looked at) as freebies from my host. Know anything about them? This could be fun and separate from the Country Fair.
I use PMWiki for Evolved Homeschoolers, and the problem with it and your choices is that it forces you to muck around in the wiki code a bit. It’s really not that big deal, but it could keep the really code phobic folks from participating. Maybe that it a good thing though
PBWiki.com is easy for the non techie to use, as it the wetpaint.com that I mentioned above.
One thing I’ve discovered from managing the Carnival of Children’s Literature for a few years is that when the host announces a theme ahead of time, the submissions are not always as strong as when people are simply submitting their best kidlit-related post of the month. There’ve been exceptions, but in general the quality of posts-written-specifically-for-the-carnival hasn’t been as high as the “submit your best post” months. (In those cases the host usually comes up with a unifying theme *after reading the submissions* for organizing the posts/adding a fun element –but that is not a requirement and I discourage it if it’s going to make hosting feel like too much work.)
Writing prompts can be cool, but I think it’s good to keep the prompt questions optional.
Hello,
I’m shuffling in a bit late, but I’m wondering what page I should be following for the latest news on the Country Fair.
Kind thanks,
Lanna