The Fellowship of Stamping: Building Trust

The primary purpose of KNS (Kids Need Stamps) is to foster fellowship through stamp collecting by assisting parents and mentors with the tools necessary to kick-start this fascinating journey. While it's easy (and I don't mind doing it) to bash the modern distractions of video games, computer toys, and ipods---the deeper truth is more complex: we are parents must be engaged in our child's lives regardless of their past times. Without this positive attitude the superior educational value of stamp collecting is certain to fall short of its real impact.

Fellowship Stamping elicits wonder, knowledge, curiosity, and above all, an ample amount of joy due to the geniality of verbal communication, physical care taking of precious objects and the emotional satisfaction of building something new. Collections are built new; yet also fruitful relationships. I am a firm believer in attributing child behavior to the amount of time parents devote towards their kids well-being. There is a cause and effect. I've heard all the excuses and seen all the guilt-gifts parents often buy their kids, but in the very end, if you cannot devote the time in this dangerous day and age, your kid might wind up doing time.

I'm not trying to be a stamp collecting Dr. Phil but we must reconsider a great deal of what we have cast aside in this society in the past 30 years. The reduction of gym classes is connected to higher rates of child obesity. The easy availability of soda, candy and snacks has increased juvenile diabetes. The major crackdown in drugs and alcohol has definitely decreased those horrors but what have we allowed to replace them: television, video games, digital music and a distorted value of money is equally bad--it just takes longer to see the results, i.e. teenage years or worse still when they grow up and mimic parental neglect.

Kids need more attention these days than ever before; we can easily combat the poor role models by operating the opposite way and we can counter the lousy values out there with good values if we are prepared to stick to family activities that reinforce communication, truth, respect and love. Stamp collecting is one of those special activities that transcend the mere title of hobby because it harkens back to the old days when a parent, a sunlit room and a box of stamps were more important than all the fancy gadgets in the universe. We can have that again.

The Teaching Environment: Clubs and Classrooms

The teaching environment for stamp collecting is by default a mentorship program. Meaning parents are a secondary support system. The true measure of success for stamp students solely rests with mentors insuring follow-up support from parents and stamp-peers. The basic definition of support from parents is positive encouragement and the procurement of necessary supplies to continue the hobby. The bonding of stamp-peers is also a valuable tool to assist the collector in approaching stamps in an non-academic setting. The trading of both stamps and ideas is a natural development of peer-bonding and becomes a prime catalyst to full engagement for stamp student to graduate to stamp collector.

Clubs and Classrooms are the best and most likely locations for the teaching environment of stamp collecting. Yet these traditional settings actually hold different approaches to how stamp collecting is presented to a student body. Take notice of the following:

Classrooms: Due to the academic setting of a school atmosphere--the mentor is a licensed teacher and will likely tailor their stamp teaching to topics, subjects, events, geographical locations, cultures, etc. that might be elements of normal classroom instruction or discussion. The good example would be a history teacher rolling out stamps that contain famous historical figures or battles or locations that he/her can expound upon in greater detail.

Clubs: Clubs are normally based out of libraries, community centers and churches and are either free-form and can simply focus on stamp collecting in the most basic manner: how to find stamps, how to mount stamps, how to id stamps, etc., or completely theme-oriented on one country such as Italy or topical like stamps with airplanes, birds, cars, etc. The club setting permits more time for students than a classroom, but this isn't always an advantage over classrooms since clubs tend to have more experienced participants who often add to the instruction.

Kids Need Stamps stand ready to help teachers and mentors, clubs and classrooms with stamps for every interested student. The informational segment attachments are an excellent resource to guide students in understanding the vast world releasing stamps to preserve their art, heroes, culture, religion and even athletic achievments. While the core ambition of Kids Need Stamps is to be clearinghouse of cost-free assistance to further one-on-one stamp instruction between parent and child--we recognize this ideal is always possible and wish to lend a caring hand to stamp teaching mentors from every walk of life.