The Lion King is back in theaters!  Joshua and I saw that movie together when we lived in our first apartment in Alphabet City.   We were on 2nd St. between Avenues A & B, and although there was a drug den on the corner of 2nd & B that did double duty as a recording studio for grunge bands, the drug dealers were all passive, they had it if you wanted it types.   Ironically our ‘dangerous’ area had a very low crime rate due to the presence of the Hells Angels Club on 3rd St. between 1st & A.  (It’s still there.)   It was like living in a ‘family’ neighborhood.   Nobody wanted to risk messing with the Angels…

But I digress.

The first time we saw The Lion King it was also a Saturday night, but we went to a later show and probably walked from our apartment to the theater.   Tonight we saw it again, this time with Ben and in 3-D.   It was every bit as good as the first time around (although the 3-D wasn’t necessary in my opinion.  It was brilliant enough without adding bells and whistles).   We went to an earlier show and a later dinner – Maya joined us for that part of the evening, having had no interest in seeing the movie – and now everyone is either reading or watching videos.

Pretty wild and crazy, right?

Wild and crazy or not, something about Saturday Night makes me want to kick back and relax, so to that end I’m posting a video of John Taylor Gatto talking about unschooling instead of talking about it myself.   Mr. Gatto, as many of you know, was the NYC Teacher of the Year the year he quit teaching because he could no longer stand to be a party to the damage he believe schools inflicted on children.    He has since written several books, the most famous of which is probably Dumbing Us Down, and the most recent of which is Weapons of Mass Instruction.     He’s been an advocate for homeschooling/unschooling for the past 20 years.   I think you’ll enjoy what he has to say.