Major General Stanley and Judy O’Neill

by Malachi Johnson
PHS Press staff member

Math teachers.  They help you solve problems that you would never have without them. 

Judy O’Neill was inspired to teach by watching teachers and learning from them.   O’Neill began her teaching career in 2008 at Planet Homeschool. 

O’Neill started teaching at Planet Homeschool because one of her two daughters started attending. To O’Neill, a typical day at Planet Homeschool is very busy with every thing being set up. Never the less O’Neill very much enjoys teaching algebra and geometry. 

On a more personal note, unlike Major General Stanly, O’Neill has not incorporated the Pythagorean theorem into her parenting style. Because “I don’t think of the Pythagorean theorem and parenting as intertwined. The Pythagorean theorem is really straightforward and clear-cut, where-as parenting has none of those qualities,” she said. 

Meet PHS teacher Jeanne Bain

By Emily Weinlick

PHS staff member

Planet Homeschool (PHS) teacher Jeanne Bain enjoys teaching lots of things at PHS: Creative Writing, Speak Up, Impromptu, Philosophy. Next spring she will be teaching a Fan Fiction class. Jeanne says she likes to teach classes that get young people “talking to each other about issues and experiences." In Jeanne’s mind the most wonderful gift in the world is to be a part of a teenager’s life. She says that there is so much to learn from them.

Jeanne started teaching in her basement. Jeanne pointed out, “School was my favorite thing to play yet my least favorite to attend.” She started her more advanced teaching around 8 years old by holding a summer camp in her backyard. When she grew into an adult she started coaching speech and teaching theatre classes, after she had left the world of professional theatre. When she was in her twenties she really realized where her heart was… it was with teaching. She likes to make all her classes engaging and energizing because otherwise she and her students will get bored. Jeanne says, “The students at PHS teach other so much, it is through exploration and experience that learning happens so I’m lucky to just stand back and hold space while it unfolds!”

Jeanne started teaching at PHS because Kate Searls asked her if she would be interested in teaching a Creative Writing class. Her son Sam was an amazing writer and had many creative, and intelligent friends that wanted a writing class. They preferred a low-pressure class that focused on the creative process instead of creative product. This was definitely her sort of class! At the time Jeanne was also an instructor at The Loft Literary Center’s summer youth program, so to her teaching writing during a school year sounded terrific!

Jeanne says, “Sadly, I wasn’t homeschooled myself. I went to a traditional school.” Jeanne didn’t even know any homeschoolers while growing up in a small town in southern Minnesota. Jeanne said she had a lot of amazing teachers in her school experience. She had a teacher named Dennis Kalow who taught a class named “What’s Art All About” that made Jeanne the teacher who she is today. And then in her college she had a professor named Philip Morseberger who really made her think about art and life and made a huge impact on her.

Jeanne has two kids. Aidan is a freshman at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. Jeanne homeschooled Aidan for 2 years. Alas, he hated it. Jeanne homeschooled Finn for 1 year. Finn is now in 4th grade at the Cyber Village Academy.

What does she enjoy most about PHS? She said, “How willing the kids and teens are to take risks, jump in and have fun. They aren’t afraid of doing things wrong.”

And finally some personal info on Jeanne! Jeanne became a Doctor Who fan at the urging of Victoria Signorellli and Kathleen Willard. She enjoys sewing yet admits that she isn’t that great at it. She likes cleaning and organizing her house, yet this will make a laugh because her students think that she is the most disorganized teacher that PHS has ever had, she thinks. She owns a three-wheel bike and occasionally rides it. She enjoys family time like most people and going to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on her own to work on her novel. And to wrap this up, Jeanne’s favorite time of year is Fall. She loves the slow descent into the season of hibernation.

PHS student uses iMovie to create movie

by Ava Holsather
PHS Press staff member

Last month, Emily Weinlick, an 11-year-old Planet Homeschool student, and her cousins made a movie called "Stupid Agents" using an app called iMovie.

Emily Weinlick (Photo by Paavo Downing)

They got together one day and filmed the preview.

 Next time they got together they started the movie! They got inspiration for this movie
when they saw what looked kind of like a secret agent car and decided they should make a movie about it.

The movie had some sound effects, and costumes! Weinlick says they were "Not that great".

They all had experience with acting, and they talked about what they were going to do before the scene, and if something didn't work out as planned they would make something
up as they were recording.

Ada Lovelace

By Willow Skidmore

PHS Press staff member

Ada Lovelace (also known as Augusta Ada King) was the Countess of Lovelace and known as the first computer programmer. According to Wikipedia, she was born as Augusta Ada Byron on December 10, 1815 in London, England.

Her mother (Anna Isabella King) encouraged her interest in Logic and Mathematics because she was bitter at Lord Byron (Ada’s father) for divorcing her when Ada was just 1 month old. Lady Byron wanted to take Ada’s interest away from her father. In spite of this, Ada remained interested. Part of the reason for this was that she never met him. He died in Greece when she was 8 years old. 

 Ada was often ill and at the age of 8, she experienced headaches that blocked her eyesight. In June of 1829, she was paralyzed by measles. She was kept in bed for nearly a year, which may have extended her time of paralysis. By the year 1831, she was able to walk by using crutches. Even while ill, she continued her studies.

According to Wikipedia, on July 8, 1835, she married William King (who was the 8th baron of that name) and became Baroness King. They lived in Ockham, Surrey, UK. They had three children: Byron (b. May 12, 1836), Anne Isabella (b. September 22, 1837), and Ralph Gordon (b. July 2, 1839). After Anne’s birth, Ada was sick for awhile. In the year 1838, her husband became the Earl of Lovelace. She was considered the Countess of Lovelace for most of her married life.

According to the San Diego Supercomputer Center, Ada translated a paper written in French about her friend Charles Babbage’s work. It is from there that she gets her fame. She was called the first computer programmer because with her math she worked with Babbage to create the design of a computer. She was called his Enchantress of Numbers.

Modern day people saw Babbage’s notes and for 30 years they didn’t know who his “Enchantress of Numbers” was. Then 15 years ago, their research led to Ada’s identification. Since then, many people have written novels about her. 

Ada died at the age of 36 on November 27, 1852 from cancer. By her request, she was buried next to her father at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene Hucknall in Nottingham, England.

Aurora Pass is on a Swim Team

By Willow Skidmore

PHS Press staff member

           

Aurora Pass (Photo by Emily Weinlick)

Aurora Pass (age 12) taught herself to swim. She started swimming because she loves to be in the water. She started competitive swimming because she watched the Summer Olympics and wanted to be like the swimmers that she saw.

Aurora started swimming with the Otters team last year. Her swim meets are approximately every 2 months. Her best race so far is the 50-yard Butterfly.  She practices three days a week: on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. When asked where she swims, Aurora said, “Well, I swim all over the place because of the swim meets, but I practice at the YWCA in Midtown.”

 When Aurora uses swimming tools she uses the kickboard. When doing the Butterfly she likes to use flippers, because then she can go very fast. She says that she is fastest at the Butterfly. When asked whether she does a flip turn she said, “No,” emphatically and then described how to do the Butterfly.

So first you push off as fast as possible. Then you do one dolphin kick. Then you
             push your arms forward making an S-shape. You pull your arms out of the water at the
              back. Then you put them back in the water.

  

She finished up by saying that she enjoyed speaking about swimming.

A Community Which Opens Language Barriers…

by Willow Skidmore

PHS Press staff member 

Martha’s Vineyard is an island off the coast of Massachusetts where most of the population is deaf or culturally deaf (which means hard of hearing). About.com says that the first recorded deaf person on Martha’s Vineyard was Jonathan Lambert in 1692. He and his family came from England and established the first English settlement on Martha’s Vineyard. Lambert had seven children, two of whom were deaf.

Many of the early settlers carried a gene for deafness. This gene started with Lambert’s family and two other families: The Tiltons and the Skiffes. They created Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language, which later mixed with French Sign Language to create American Sign Language. At one point, one in every four children on Martha’s Vineyard was deaf .

History Collections tells us that Alexander Graham Bell noted the large amount of deafness on Martha’s Vineyard in the late Nineteenth Century after visiting the island. Previously, people believed  that “maternal fright” was the explanation for this phenomenon. The theory of “maternal fright” was an effect on the baby from psychological stress on the mother during pregnancy. Bell thought about this and believed that the deafness was hereditary. In the Nineteenth Century in America, one in every 5,728 people was deaf, while on Martha’s Vineyard, one in every twenty-five people was deaf.  Hearing people then and now communicate using sign language while on the island. According to History Collections, that is why the people of Martha’s Vineyard do not consider themselves a “deaf community,” but “a community which opens language barriers.”