From: John Collins
Date: Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 2:19 PM
Subject: Dear Friends of Gregg and Sono Harris and Family

Dear Friends of the Harris Family,

I am sending this message to you with confidence that you will act and pass it along and together we can make a difference!

Over the years as a home educating father, I have been mentored, encouraged, and inspired by Gregg & Sono Harris and their incredibly talented family: Joshua, Joel, Alex, Brett, Sarah, Isaac and James. You are probably familiar with Gregg and Sono’s tireless efforts to encourage and create in-roads for homeschooling over the last three decades, Josh gave young adults a biblical approach to dating by penning I Kissed Dating Good-Bye and most recently God has used Alex and Brett to encourage youth to Do Hard Things.

About a month ago, I was in a hotel room in South Africa when I first heard that Sono was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. I can remember dropping to my knees in my room and crying out to God to have mercy on her.

How has the Harris family dealt with this life-changing event? Although difficult beyond words, they have walked through this with the same grace and courage as they have other challenges; by seeking and trusting in almighty God. You can read Joshua’s latest updates on his blog here.

At the end of last week I spoke with Gregg. He shared that God has been very gracious toward Sono in that she has experienced very little pain, however, he also shared that her body is weakening and she speaks of seeing Jesus soon. Although they have not been given any indication as to timing, Gregg said that it could be any time now.

As the devoted husband and Godly family leader that he is, Gregg has stepped down from his speaking engagements and away from his daily business responsibilities to care for his wife. Obviously this has taken a major toll on their household income and the medical bills are mounting. Gregg mentioned to me that he believed some home school organizations were trying to gather donations for the family. According to Gregg “now is better than later,” and I believe the truth is – action needs to happen quite quickly to help save this dear family from more distress.

Each year in his annual “How to End the Year” blog, Doug Phillips, President of Vision Forum Ministries, reminds me to remember those individuals and ministries who have invested in my family’s life. In Luke 17, Jesus teaches us of those ungrateful recipients of blessings who simply went their way without demonstrating gratitude, and Doug’s challenge stems from that concept. “When was the last time I responded to their investment in my life with gratitude, blessings, and even money?”

If the Harris family has been an encouragement or an inspiration to you and your family, would you consider responding to their investment in your life at this time of need?

Cards and notes can be sent to:

Gregg and Sono Harris and family – 6920 SE Hogan Road, Gresham, OR 97080

You can also donate to Noble Institute, marking the donation Friends of Sono Harris Fund.

It is my prayer that we, as the body of Christ, would pour out our love and comfort and help ‘bear one anothers burdens’ with the Harris’.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Please feel free to forward to others as you feel led.

Grace and peace,
John and Kristi Collins
The Extreme Group, Inc

John Holt: Teach Your Own Children…At Home

Read a rare, early interview with one of the true homeschooling pioneers — John Holt. Mr. Holt made two predictions in this interview, one of which came true. At that time, Mr. Holt estimated there were 10,000 families homeschooling and was optimistic those numbers would grow. He sure was right on that point. But he also proposed that by 1983, “school districts will start seeing that they should cooperate with the home schoolers so that we can move out of the combat phase that we’re in now.” He predicted that public schools would soon see the homeschool movement not as a threat to them, but actually “good for the schools.”

Q: [Interviewer] I’m quoting you now: “An early start in formal institutionalized schooling deprives children of the free exploration so crucial to the development of genius.” Could you elaborate on that and give specific ways in which institutionalized learning may penalize or stifle genius?

A: [Raymond S. Moore] Harold McCurdy, a distinguished psychologist from the University of North Carolina and a leading student of genius, says that genius is derived from the experience of children being most of the time with adults and very little with their peers. So when you start assembling children in very large numbers for long periods of time, you are on the wrong course for producing strong character and intellect. The more children around your child, the fewer meaningful human contacts he will have.

Let me give you another example, the matter of adult responses. John Goodlad, Graduate Dean of Education at UCLA, came out with an article in the Phi Delta Kappan in March, 1983. He did a comparison of over a thousand schools and found that the average amount of time spent in person-to-person responses between teachers and students amounted to seven minutes a day.

I doesn’t take much to see that if your child is one of 20, 25, 30 or maybe more youngsters in a classroom and the teacher is giving only seven minutes a day in responses, that your child is lucky if he gets spoken to once a day. If he is an aggressive or misbehaving child, he might get more attention. But when a child is home with his mother, he may get one, two, three hundred answers to his questions and ideas a day. So you can see right there where we are in terms of the sheer potential there is for the stimulation of intellect in a home.

Q. We have an only child. Doesn’t he need preschool or kindergarten in order to learn to get along with other children?

A. An only child of course needs care to avoid his becoming self-centered, but unselfishness and altruism can be taught better by wise parents than by little school children who themselves are still naturally selfish. First, we don’t suggest that you keep your child in a social straight jacket. Yet never be deceived by the modern myth that he needs socializing with a lot of other little children. Dr. Urie Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University says that the more people there are around, the less opportunity there is for meaningful human contact. These are human beings, not rocks to be polished by hitting against each other in a revolving barrel.

Because the young child learns by observation and imitation, exposure to other little children at an early age — also yet socially immature — tends more toward negative than positive socialization. Rather than learning to be unselfish, sharing, taking turns, and being kind to others, University of North Carolina professor Dale Farran reports that studies of day care children show up to 15 times more aggression than children cared for at home. This does not mean just greater assertiveness or willingness to stand up for one’s rights, but a tendency toward verbal and physical attacks on others. They are also more easily frustrated, less cooperative, more distractible and more demanding of immediate gratification. The most important socializer for a young child is the parent who not only teaches but demonstrates the qualities he wants his child to develop.

Raymond and Dorothy Moore