Carnival Atmosphere

"Step right up, and see for yourself the most exciting trend in education since free public schools!"

Run, don't walk, to The Carnival of Homeschooling - Women's Independence Day Edition if you want to experience a fantastic selection of blogs of all kinds relating to homeschooling. If you are not familiar with home schooling, this is the place go and see what all the excitement is about.

Our carnival barker and hostess is Renae of LifeNurturingEducation.com, and this carnival is commemorating August 18, 1920, the ratification and final adoption of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. She includes a very informative timeline on the struggle for women's suffrage, for those who are interested.

On Friday, Moms In The Right also posted about women and voting. In this post, she gives us a glimpse into the Night of Terror, that occurred on November 15, 1917, when the warden at Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia gave an order unleashing the guards on the suffragettes imprisioned there for the unspeakable crime of picketing the White House for the right to vote.

Talk about a carnival atmosphere. Only the carnival was in a Stephen King novel.

My mother was only two years old when women won the right to vote. My grandmother was 26. I don't believe either of them ever missed an election. They understood the sacrifices that had been made, and they passed that on to me.

My mother got up off a sickbed in November of 1994 and had people practically carry her to vote in November of 1994 before she died the following March. My grandmother's last election was the June primary before she died in September of 1985.

In the June primary this year here in New Jersey where I am an election board worker, our district of over 1,000 voters managed to attract 30 Democrats and 32 Republicans, 90% of whom were over the age of 60. Two of the seven total voters under the age of 25 were homeschooled.

I wish I was kidding.

There is an interesting statistic in Homeschooling Grows Up, a report by the National Center for Home Education about behaviors of adults who were homeschooled, that says 76% of those 18-24 have voted in a state or national election within the previous 5 years, compared to 29% of the general US population, and a staggering 95% of those 25-29 have voted versus 40% of the general population.

No doubt many of those were women whose moms passed on to them an understanding of the blood, sweat and tears that went into our being able to vote.

So, step right up! Find out more about the kind of schooling that produces informed, engaged citizens!

Discover homeschooling!