Brain Games

We are watching a psychology show on Netflix right now.  Brain Games explores the way the brain works, and how it can play tricks on us.  There are plenty of optical illusions and interactive activities.  (After several episodes my curiosity got the better of me -- I did peak once when they said to close your eyes and listen.  The sign on the screen?  "We told you to close your eyes.")

One episode was quite interesting in that it began with the premise that --from birth-- men and women are different.  They think differently.  They have different brains with different strengths and weaknesses.  This is inbred in our cells and DNA.  I was amazed that such a thing would be stated so bluntly a mere 3 years ago.  (We've made quite the rapid slide into nonsense here the last year or so, eh?)

Another interesting episode was how people tend to be overconfident.  We don't like to think we don't know.  We don't like to accept that we make mistakes.  We justify ourselves.  There are spiritual and theological ramifications to this psychological fact.  (Or maybe flip it around: they showed the psychological ramifications of what is actually a spiritual fact.)  It makes me even more put off by [ahem] confidence.

The episode on paying attention helped me understand some situations I face at work ... and why it's so easy to overload a mind (especially after a brain injury that compromised my thinking skills).

In many ways, I apparently think more like a man than a woman: my color perception, my spatial skills, my verbal skills.  Oh well.

The episode on memory showed me something else that I suspected.  My memory has really gone downhill.  [My apologies, Gary.  But it has.]

The oddball thing of this whole series?  My brain is more like Maggie's now than it used to be; we're finding quite often that we both come up with the same answer in the interactive games.  But we keep answering the "wrong" answer (that is, the unexpected answer, given by a small minority of their subjects).  We're wondering if we have trained our brains this way.  If so, I think it's a good thing.

If You Measure It ...

"If you measure something, it will get better."

That is the premise behind a new program "offered" by our health insurance.  (And by "offered," I mean that we get to pay $1000 more on our health insurance premiums next year if we don't participate.  No.  Wait.  I take that back.  We don't pay more if we aren't following this new program.  We pay less if we are following the program.  What?  You don't see a difference?  Neither do I.  But I'm guessing there's a legal technicality that matters in how it's phrased.)

Anyway, we are supposed to rack up points.  Enough points earns you the bonus money.  We get points for reading their daily health tips.  We get points each day for self-reporting on three health-habits.  They provided us fancy high-tech pedometers, and we earn points for every 1000 steps it measures.  Extra points if you have your blood-pressure tested at work at least once a month.  And much more.

#1.  Do we suspect that the requirements will increase quarterly or yearly?  Yes, we do. 

#2.  There's some comfort in hearing that loads of other folks are bothered by the tracking of personal health data and are feeling that their privacy is infringed.  And yet, everybody feels that the huge cost difference means we must comply.

#3.  Do we think this sort of thing will become commonplace with nationalized health care?  Yes, we do.  Do we suspect that mere tracking of information will eventually morph into helpful suggestions of ways to improve our health?  And then instructions?  And then demands?

#4.  The computer glitches.  OH, the computer glitches!  Points not being counted here.  Habits not being registered there.   Besides the regular computer glitches, daylight savings time threw another humongous monkey wrench into it all.  This does not instill confidence in the system.



#5.  And finally, the so-called axiom on which the entire program is built: "If you measure something, it will get better."  Sorry.  I don't buy that.

For one thing, we've seen how that works with standardized testing in school.  We test more and more and more.  And education has not improved.

The whole point of improvement-through-measuring is that we will be embarrassed to have "bad numbers" and will then work harder to prove that we exercised or skipped dessert or lost weight.  But what the ceaseless measuring does is cause us to always be looking at ourselves and evaluating ourselves.

This is navel-gazing.
It's also stressful.
Neither of these contributes to health.

Furthermore, I noticed the effect of "if you measure it" when I first chose my health habits to track.  I thought I would choose meditation as one of my options.  It would be easy to [ahem] score well, seeing as how I already have established a habit (albeit a habit that is not as consistent as I'd like).  But you know what?  It really REALLY messed with my mind and my soul and my prayers.  Just being aware that I'd have to report the number of minutes each day?  [Shudder!!]  It was so creepy that I quit after a day and a half, and chose myself a different health habit.

Measuring made it worse.  A lot worse.  Not better.

Andrew found the same thing when he had to log his food for nutrition class.  Logging it changed what he ate.  For the worse, not the better. 

When Maggie first joined Curves, she was initially interested in weighing herself daily.  Not a good plan.  That's how people become overly caught up in the numbers instead of actual health and fitness.  Occasional measurements are fine.  But measuring too often is counterproductive.

In our society, nigh onto everybody was raised in a school system that tracked and measured every little thing.  Look how people LOVE to take those little tests on Facebook that measure personality type, or which famous actress you're like, or how many of these trivia facts do you know, or which state would best suit you.
I think we've developed a mentality that takes for granted "Measuring Makes It Better."  And now we're stuck with it.

Music Appreciation

Oh, the grand plans that homeschool moms come up with!  And how hard to execute all those lesson plans!

I was intrigued by the program used by our congregation's school.  The Brummitt-Taylor Music Listening Program includes 131 music selections.  The concept reminds me of the Five-in-a-Row curriculum for little kids:  choose something good [be it kiddy-lit or a piece of classical music] and repeat it daily for a week.  I've been wanting to develop my own list of music to be used in a similar way:
just a few minutes a day
just listening -- no projects or study
repeated exposure

This is what I've come up with.  Our plan at this point is to use each piece for half a month, and not necessarily in the order listed here.  I'm including you-tube links, but there are multiple places to find the pieces, online or through purchased CD's.  We will not have the script offered with the B-T program, nor their comprehensive list, but I'm telling myself that familiarizing ourselves with some classical pieces is better than nothing.  At the rate of 2-3 pieces per month, I've got two years worth of plans here.

Rossini:  Barber of Seville -- Figaro's Aria

Britten:  Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (2-minute intro)
(full version)

Vivaldi: Four Seasons -- Summer
Vivaldi: Four Seasons -- Autumn
Vivaldi: Four Seasons -- Winter
Vivaldi: Four Seasons -- Spring

Bach:  Air on the G string

Handel:  Xerxes -- Largo

Purcell:  Trumpet Tune and Air


Charpentier: Prelude in D-major to "Te Deum"

Handel:  Water Music Suite #1 -- Air
Handel:  Water Music Suite #2 -- Hornpipe 

Chopin:  Minute Waltz

Rossini:  William Tell Overture -- Finale

Mozart:  Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Serenade #13 for strings in G minor

Bizet:  Carmen -- Overture

Bach:  Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

Clarke: Trumpet Voluntary

Copland: Rodeo -- Hoe-down (beef commercial)

Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor

Tchaikovsky:  1812 Overture

Beethoven:  Fur Elise

Sousa: Stars and Stripes Forever

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody
Tom & Jerry's Hungarian Rhapsody

Bach:  Wake, Awake

Mendelssohn: Wedding March
Wagner: Wedding Chorus  (Here Comes the Bride)

Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries

Gershwin: I Got Rhythm

Mouret: Fanfare Rondeau  (Masterpiece Theater theme)

Brahms: Lullaby
 
Levine:  Fanfare for the Common Man

Grieg:  Peer Gynt (from Mountain King)
Grieg:  In the Hall of the Mountain King  (another version)

Offenbach: Can Can Music

Bach:  Bouree from Lute Suite -- BWV 996

Debussy:  Claire de lune

Schumann:  The Merry Peasant

Delibes:  Sylvia -- Pizzicato

Shastakovich:  The Second Waltz

Albinoni:  Adagio in G minor



Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake Ballet
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite -- March
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite -- Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite -- Waltz of the Flowers

Handel:  The Messiah -- For Unto Us a Child Is Born
Handel:  The Messiah -- He Shall Feed His Flock
Handel:  The Messiah -- He Was Despised
Handel:  The Messiah -- I Know That My Redeemer Liveth
Handel:  The Messiah -- Hallelujah Chorus

Vivaldi: Double Concerto in D minor for two oboes

Mozart: Symphony #40 in G minor K 550

Mozart:  Piano Concerto 21 -- Andante

Pachelbel: Canon in D Major

Mozart: The Magic Flute -- The Bird-Catcher

Beethoven:  9th Symphony, 4th movement

Prokofiev:  Peter and the Wolf March

Ravel:  Bolero

Mendelssohn: Song Without Words

Dvorak:  New World Symphony, part 1, 4th movement
Khan Academy on Dvorak's New World Symphony

Beethoven:  5th Symphony
Khan Academy on Beethoven's 5th Symphony, part 1
Khan Academy on Beethoven's 5th Symphony, part 2
Khan Academy on Beethoven's 5th Symphony, part 3


Haydn: Symphony no. 6, movement 1
Listening guide to Haydn's Symphony #6

Stravinsky: Firebird Suite Finale
Khan Academy on the Firebird Suite




Glenda steered me in the direction of Harmony Fine Arts that could be used to supplement and deepen the simplistic list I've gathered.
Cheryl offered some ideas, as well as pointing out "52 Most Important Classical Works of All Time" which may expand your own list of pieces to include as you learn more about music.

Modern Art

Maggie and I are watching the Sister Wendy videos about art history and art appreciation.  Neither one of us likes it much, but it's one of those things I make the kids do for school.  Cultural literacy and all that. 

In the Christian-homeschooling world, I had heard that Impressionism was bad.  It was the first step in a break-from-reality in paintings, the beginning of a slippery slope.  So, does that make me bad?  You see, I like the Impressionists.  Now I know that the Impressionists cared about beauty.  Even if they were painting impressions instead of realistic depictions, it was still about beauty.

Today as we watched the show about modern art, Sister Wendy told us that an important contribution that Picasso made to the world of art: breaking from the notion that art would be about beauty.  With modern art came the choice to paint what was beautiful or not.  Ugliness and violence was worthy of art too.  (Oh, yeah?  That's one doozy of a "contribution" to art.)

We also learned about a modern artist who believed in the big bang theory.  His art therefore showed a mess, a big ugly mess.  Because, you see, disorder and disarray are where new life and fresh things are created.  (Uh huh....)

Sister Wendy kept telling us that modern art is about freedom -- "freedom from the constraints of reality."  Yes.  Freedom from being bound to the rules.  Yes.  Freedom to think and dream without limitation.  Yes, that sounds to me like "nightmares." 

And that would be why I don't like modern art.
It's not just my silly little preference.
It's about God and reality and beauty and truth.

Standardized Testing

Common Core increases (yet again) the testing requirements on students.  a) Testing doesn't measure what it purports to measure.  b) Too often, the existence of standardized testing controls the curriculum, as schools "teach to the test."  c) Testing takes time away from real learning.

Not only that, but testing can frustrate children and make them feel stupid.  Here is one story of a mom who helped administer standardized tests to a kindergarten class.  It makes you want to cry.  Even in the best of circumstances, standardized tests are designed so that kids CANNOT do them: that's the sorting mechanism.  The tests are supposed to be so hard that everybody hits a point of incompetency.  On top of that, tests aren't always administered in the "best of circumstances." 

For those with kids in the public schools, many states allow parents to opt-out their kids from the state-mandated testing.  For Wisconsin, information is available at the DPI website.  Information for other states may be researched at an Opt Out website. 

Common Core

First it was "A Nation at Risk."  Then under Pres Bush it was "outcome-based education" with nation-wide curriculum goals.  Then during Clinton's term, the name was "Goals 2000."  Then came the younger Bush's "No Child Left Behind."  The current reincarnation of national standards is "Common Core."  I'm sure the proponents of these plans think each plan is different and unique and wonderful, while the Other Guy's Plan is bad bad bad.

But all I see is the feds taking control of education.  Whether the nationalized goals are excellent or wretched -- it doesn't matter.  Control of education should be LOCAL.

In Indiana two moms got involved in fighting the Common Core, encouraging their state to back out of the program and say "no thank you" to the wad of cash with which the feds are attempting to bribe the states to go along with the program.

Two comments:

Heather Crossin and Erin Tuttle did not get involved in opposing Common Core because of anything Michelle Malkin or Glenn Beck said to rile them up, but because of what they saw happening in their own children’s  Catholic  school. When experts or politicians said that Common Core would not lead to a surrender of local control over curriculum, Heather and Erin knew better. (Ironically, the leverage in Indiana was Tony Bennett’s school-choice program, which made state vouchers available to religious schools, but only if they adopted state tests — which were later quietly switched from ISTEP to the untried Common Core assessments.)

Got that?  These moms didn't even have their kids in public school.  But the school voucher system (which many conservatives are FOR) was what allowed the State to dictate curriculum to the private schools.

That's critical.  It's critical to decision-making in our parochial schools, our private secular schools, and our homeschools.  Taking government money is setting you up for submitting to government testing and government standards.

So why are so many good conservatives, from Jeb Bush to Rick Snyder, supporting Common Core? Many conservatives signed on to a clever strategy that asked them to endorse, not the specific standards, but the idea of high “internationally benchmarked” national standards. It is a principle of psychological persuasion that, once you act, in however small a manner, you will feel cognitively compelled to justify your action. 

So conservatives are concerned with lousy results from the school system.  They cry for higher standards and more control.  But "more control" means putting the federal government in charge.  And then ... look what we get.   But because people have made up their minds that they're in favor of "higher standards" and school-choice vouchers, they continue to support programs that are costly (both in terms of children's educations and in terms of tax-dollars).  And thus, the liberals and the conservatives both fight for more federal regulation of what happens day-by-day and hour-by-hour in kids' schools.

Something is wrong.

Toward Perfection

Admit it.  We're two-faced about perfectionism.  We say it's bad for us.  We say it's stressful.  We say, "Well, nobody can be perfect."  And yet, if we're not compelling ourselves to be perfect, we've got those teachers and bosses pushing us toward being perfect, always setting the goals higher and higher.  Once we reach the first goal, then a new goal is set.  There's no contentment, no resting, in a job well done.  Or in significant improvement.

Why is it, the closer we get to perfection, the more we're aware of our imperfection?  A kid who scores C's and B's on his tests won't flip out when he sees "C-" on his test.  But the kid who earns A's will freak over a B.  And the kid who scores 99% will be upset over a "lousy" grade like 96%.  Same thing at work.  The goal for the team is to eliminate backlogged work.  But no matter how much they improve over the year, no matter how many cases they resolve, it's never enough -- it's never perfect.  But the drive for it to be perfect is more compelling when the goal isn't as far out of reach. 

The closer we get to perfection, the more we yearn to have it.

With regard to civic righteousness, striving for perfection can drive a person bonkers and hike his blood pressure.  But with regard to religion, it can become damning if we determine that more effort on our part can get us to where we measure up.

Pre-Verbal Learning

Liz posted this picture yesterday of the competition between the fire departments.  For those of you who don't live in small towns, it's kind of like football or a tug-of-war.  The barrel hangs high on a line between two poles, and the teams squirt water in an effort to send the barrel sliding all the way to the other team's pole.

Whenever I see these contests, I begin to ponder again how kids learn before they are verbal.   You see, many years ago, we attended a celebration in the twin cities of Tiffany and Shopiere.  One of the boys (I think it was Andrew) was too little to talk.  We petted goats.  We watched the parade.  We watched the firemen's contests.  Nice day.  Nothing notable.

A couple of years later, the munchkin-in-question was explaining to me how that contest worked, how the water from the hoses moved the barrel along the rope.  He had questions.  But he also had some pretty clear memories and was able to verbalize what had happened that day. 

I think in words.  I communicate with words.  I attach words to images and sounds and smells and feelings.  It still boggles my mind to consider how those memories (a half-lifetime past for Andrew) were stored, without words, without explanations, but just as images, and how they poured out in words once the words were accessible.

Is That Kid Paying Attention?

Philip was one of those kids who would've been kicked out of school unless we put him on Ritalin.  He was bright.  He had an awesome memory.  He could problem-solve like nobody's business.  But he wiggled.  He touched everything.  He bounced.  He had to move.  If you're homeschooling, it's no big deal.  "Hey, Philip, go run across the field out back, and run back."  Some large-motor use, some exercise, some calories spent, and he was ready to play with Matchbox cars while I read some more history to him.

His father knew this.  And yet, even his father came home one night from confirmation class, frustrated as all get out that Philip couldn't sit still during class.  (Now, I realize that some people think that it's far more important for kids to learn to sit still, behave properly, and not be a nuisance to others.  But I am a bad person, and at home I cared more about whether he was absorbing the books we were reading and whether he was learning to think critically.)

Back when Philip was about 9, Gary would try to drum up discussion at the dinner table on Sunday about the sermon.  What did the kids hear?  What was the story?  What did Jesus do for us?  One Sunday, Gary directed his first question to Philip: "So, what was the sermon about today?"  The quick and innocent answer was, "I don't know; I was being good today." 

Gary looked at me quizzically.  What was this all about?!

I knew!  I was surprised Gary didn't.  It took SO much effort for Philip to sit still, to stand still, to not wiggle wiggle wiggle his way through church, not poke his sisters, not turn around and check out where everybody was sitting, etc etc, that he couldn't listen and be good.  It was one or the other. 

Is that good?  Probably not.  Do lots of people disapprove?  Probably so.  But that was the reality of his childhood. 


So, now Katie has said things to Alia's Sunday School teachers, expressing appreciation for their efforts.  The teachers don't seem to think Alia pays attention.  She is the youngest one in class.  She sometimes walks around during the lesson.  To all outward appearances (especially if the observer expects calm, compliant, classroom behavior) Alia couldn't possibly be getting anything out of class.  Her outward behavior is not consistent with what most teachers expect from a child who is paying attention.  But what she says at home to her mommy shows that she's absorbing the stories fabulously.

Yesterday the children processed with palms while they sang "Sing Hosanna to the Son of David."  Alia didn't exactly stop right where she was supposed to in the line-up.  Alia sang sometimes and didn't sometimes.  I'm sure many people would've thought she was clueless.  But just before the kids sang, "Wave your palms and sing your praises; blessed is the king who comes," Alia began waving her palm branch vigorously. 

She knew where they were in the song.
She knew what the song was saying.
And boy, she was ready to wave her palm!


(Guess what?  She's paying attention.)

Math: Right-Brainers or Left-Brainers

For those of you who have a hard time keeping it straight, left-brained is the orderly, rule-oriented side of the brain, and right-brained is the creative, free-thinking side of the brain.

Conservative people tend to value the school-way to do math. "Do this step. Memorize these facts. Drill these facts like crazy. Follow this step next. No, you can't do it that way! Do it this way instead." When you're dealing with a classroom full of children whose needs must all be met as best as possible, when you have children who annually change from one teacher to the next, it helps to have standardization in the math program.

Some teachers and curriculum-planners have tried to bring reform to that staid, old-fashioned, rule-oriented way to do math. People may have conniption fits over the changes. "It won't work. That's not the way to teach." Both sides have their points. The old way of teaching math leaves most kids without understanding of what's truly going on with their computations. On the other hand, with the newer ways of teaching math, there are problems. There's too much instability as kids change teachers annually. Kids mature at different rates, and teachers become impatient for "results" (that is, good scores on the standardized tests) instead of developing math-brains and math-smarts. Occasionally, teachers will even go so far in wanting kids to "understand the process" that they give equal credence to right and wrong answers. If a teacher doesn't understand math, she's going to have a booger of a time helping kids to understand math. And so, sometimes the best a school can aim for is to give up on math, but to make sure the kids can manipulate their numbers and do their arithmetic.

And, YES, there is a difference between arithmetic and mathematics.

Arithmetic is a tool. Being adept at arithmetic involves not only some understanding of what's going on with the numbers and why they work the way they do, but it also involves memorizing addition tables and multiplication tables and some formulas. Becoming good at arithmetic involves enough practice and drill that processing those numbers becomes simple.

But math? Ahhhh. Math is beautiful. Math is like art. Math is creative. Mathematics explains and explores and delves and marvels.

Amazingly enough, arithmetic is NOT necessary to understanding mathematics. Kids can begin to understand decimals and negative numbers before they've done the grunt-work of learning their addition and multiplication facts. Kids may begin to toy with number theory before they can earn A's and B's on their third-grade math worksheets. Kids know something about fractions before they've learned to count to twenty. Kids can wonder at the concept of infinity before they've learned that 6x5=30.

Good math teachers want their kids to learn (eventually) to do their arithmetic painlessly. Arithmetic is a vital tool for mathematicians. But as Penrose and Marilyn Burns and Sir Cumference will show, mathematics is a treasure over which little hearts can delight ... even prior to having mastered simple arithmetic!

Teaching math is like teaching reading. You can teach a kid his phonics and he may be able to decode words, but the higher priority is to teach him to cherish books and reading. Phonics is merely a tool. Same for math. Teach the left-brained arithmetic (hopefully on a timetable that fits the individual child), but don't let arithmetic sap the child of his wonderment over mathematics.

Classical Education

Ever since classical education became popular again, I've been trying to wrap my mind around what it is. Some people tell me that I'm a classical educator. Others say I'm not. I can't figure out who has the "naming rights" to say what is and isn't "classical."

One thing I do know. I like my congregation's school, and it's definitely known as a classical academy. I like how the teachers and students interact. I love how the staff recognizes that they draw their authority from the parents, and don't see the parents as the ones there to support the school. I like many of the materials they use at our school; their list of books looks remarkably similar to mine (except for math and grammar). I love that our school has chapel every day and great catechesis.

The last couple of weeks, I've been editing a project for the school. Over and over again, the materials talk about "training a child to think." Even when the materials tell about Latin class or memorizing math factoids, it's always with "teaching them to THINK" in view.

This makes me wonder if the ability to think critically is the main determinant of what constitutes "classical education." And if so, would those who consider themselves "classical" see others (who use very different methods to achieve thinkingness) as classical too?

Talking to Yourself

On my second day of training at my new job, my mentor took me aside and told me that I had to stop talking to myself. She said that a couple of customers had given me odd looks while I was rehearsing to myself which step to take next in processing transactions. Sometimes the computer prompted me to insert a certain slip of paper into the printer, and I would pick up the wrong one, and then I told myself, "No, not the pink ticket, but the blue one."

Apparently, that is verboten.
People should not talk to themselves.

It was hard! I had spent decades narrating my life to children. That is a big part of how kids learn: Mom explains what she's doing and why and what the steps are. And then, when you homeschool kids, you have to discuss a gazillion different subjects, reading, dissecting, analyzing, postulating, all day, about nearly everything that comes into your life.

On top of that, I have found that I can focus better when I hear things and talk my way through new situations. I don't think that's so unusual, do you? I mean, maybe I ought not need that, but it helps with problem-solving in unfamiliar territory.

I worked hard to bite my lip at work and not let myself verbalize my way through the day.

It was SO good, then, when I repeatedly noticed my boss doing the exact same thing I'd been told to put a halt to. I'm not getting in trouble now for the times I slip up and talk to myself. And it's a good thing, because I still want to make use of the teaching tool of talking my way through the day!

I wonder about other people. Have you found that raising toddlers and/or homeschooling has nudged you into the world of talking to yourself? Is it normal for people to talk to themselves (and the refrigerator, and the laundry basket, and the toothbrush, and the grocery cart) more as they get older?

Thriving in the 21st Century

Barbara Frank has a new book out. It's about the economic changes in the last couple of decades and what impact that has on our families and how we raise our children. Check out the website for some interesting reading!

Homeschooling: An Intellectually Stimulating Job

On Saturday I was chatting with a woman at Gary's company Christmas party. She had just started her job about five weeks earlier and had been very nervous, just as I am about my new job. She said that, the week before she started, she kept thinking of all the things that might go wrong. But after she started, she found the job to be so intellectually stimulating. She promised me I'd find the same thing after being at home with kids for so many years.

A job? Intellectually stimulating?

My job for the last couple of decades has been exceptionally varied. I have managed my own time and priorities. I have taught children with various strengths, weaknesses, skills, motivations, and learning styles. Just recently, I have played with exponents and graphed quadratic functions, read literature set during World War I, studied different economic systems, explored the causes and results of the Mexican-American War, and read about statistical analysis and how it can be abused and twisted for propaganda's sake. Over the years I have studied more about the Civil War and whales and mountains and Shakespeare than I ever dreamed anyone could know. I have repaired large and small appliances. I have delved into the intricacies of my daughter's birth defects, cardiovascular system, speech therapy, and learning disabilities. I took on gardening and canning. I have become a superb cook and bread-baker, and I know an awful lot about nutrition and a little about herbology and alternative medical care. If I'm not the Queen of Frugal, I am at least a contender for the crown, and that takes creativity and hard work. I stayed up on politics, testified at hearings at the state capitol on various pieces of legislation, and led homeschooling workshops for hundreds of parents. I have edited theology books and articles by Scaer, Korby, Bender, and Fabrizius.

And somebody thinks, in comparison to this (this just-a-housewife job), being a bank teller will be intellectually stimulating?

Teaching Yourself

Some people think that high-schoolers should be able to teach themselves. They say that homeschooled kids should be trained to read and study and digest information so that, by the time they are 12-16, they will have become quite adept at doing their schoolwork without involvement from Mom.

That happens for some kids. Especially when they are highly motivated to absorb that particular type of information. But what happens when they want to do their schoolwork and do it well, but aren't particularly interested in the topic for its own sake?

What's so bad about needing a teacher? Is a kid a failure because he can't set up an educational program for himself and figure out the material from a book or video? Don't a lot of homeschooled kids take college classes in their teen years? Why? Because sometimes it's just plain easier to learn to use lab equipment or to understand the causes of the Spanish-American War or to repair a lawnmower engine when you've got somebody to teach you. Isn't that why we have colleges? It's easier to master the material when a master is helping to explain it and make it clear.

I don't think it's bad (or selfish or untrusting) of a teacher to think that her students would be better off if they were taught instead of trying to figure things out on their own.

Need More School?

Oh no!
Test scores are falling!
American children score near the bottom of the heap in _________!
Drop-out rates are climbing!
The sky is falling!

I know. Here's what we'll do. We're obviously not teaching them enough. So longer school days! More school days! Start 'em at 5 instead of 6! No, wait -- start the kids at 4 instead of 5. No wait -- maybe they should start at age 3...

Barbara writes briefly about the news of what happened in some school districts where they decided to have four-day weeks instead of five-day weeks.

Homeschoolers are not surprised.

Fieldtrips

Some homeschoolers I know have been talking about decompression time, when a family new to homeschooling takes some time off to recuperate from the school-way of studying, resting first, and allowing the kids to begin to find their own interests, to discover books or projects that excite their minds. In a similar way, I keep wondering if I'm still in "decompression" from autumn 2007.

For a long time, I've been wanting to learn something about photography. When [free] workshops were offered at the Janesville library, somehow they never worked out with our schedule. Last Thursday, our local library offered a photography class. I was hyped for it. But the other activities of the day (supremely fun activities) pushed back dinner-prep, and I wasn't ready with food early enough for us to be on our way by 6:15. (By the way, I don't regret how I spent Thursday at all.) A day or so later I realized that other families might have gone to Culvers and picked up burgers on their way to the library. Spending money at a restaurant never crossed my mind.

Maggie and I are reading about birds these days. It would be a great fieldtrip to visit Sand Bluff Bird Banding Station. Even though it's a 4-hour roundtrip, I think it would be worth it. Thing is, it's only open on the weekends, and you really want to arrive between 8 and 9:00 because the birds are more active in the morning. I was trying to gather my energy and my will, and make this Saturday the day for the big trip. Thing is, the kids decided to attend Matthew's play on Friday night with a bunch of the other folks from church. There was no way we were leaving the house at 6am, for a long day, a long drive, and hiking, after teenagers put themselves to bed at 11:00 or later. Two fieldtrips untaken this week. As it turns out, with the rain this weekend, we wouldn't have gone anyway.

It's that time of year when I long to visit Mackenzie Environmental Education Center. We often stopped there on our way to the state homeschool conference which used to be held in Stevens Point. I love that place. I love the wildflowers in late April and early May. And the kids love the two-headed pig in formaldehyde.

If we drove as far as MEEC, another great fieldtrip for learning about birds is the International Crane Foundation.

I really need to look into finding some volunteer opportunities for Maggie. We've done some websurfing, looking for stables that offer therapeutic riding for the disabled. I should talk to the folks back at Smiles and see if they can point us in the right direction.

I think we should go to museums more. To the zoo. To nature centers. To the beach when it's warmer (IF it ever gets warmer... thankyouAlGore). To re-enactments. To art shows. To concerts and plays. To ball games. And then there are music lessons, sports teams, and summer-school classes from which the kids might benefit if we signed 'em up.

Especially since we moved and the economy tanked (thankyouBigGovernment), the cost of these activities is usually prohibitive. The county parks and the state parks require different entry passes. This year we're going to have to pick one vehicle to be the going-to-the-park car, because it would be wasteful to buy passes for both cars. But it's not just the money. Finding time to go to the zoo or the museum is the bigger problem. I'm just too tired.

We go to chapel most mornings, and we take Maggie to choir 3x a week. We buy groceries now and then. Pretty soon we need to make a trip to Mankato to get Paul's car back to him; we'll hit up some Betsy-Tacy sites and may consider stopping to see cranes. There's a homeschoolers' beach day coming up that I want to attend with friends. We'll have to get to Chicago to see Rachel and Matt's new place. There's also a family reunion and symposium. It's not like we never go anywhere!

How do we fit in more activities? How do we make time for volunteering at a horse barn or at the library or some other opportunity for Maggie? Why can all these other families provide music lessons and art lessons and dance lessons and softball teams and 4-H, and still fit in cool outings? I'm doing good if I can remember to make supper every day.

I want to give my kids the mind-broadening, fun opportunities that can acquaint them with new ideas and give them new skills. But it seems like laundry and supper take everything I've got. So schoolwork is done the lazy, sit-on-the-couch, read-the-book way, and not the fulfilling way of experiencing all those different places & people & concepts. It reminds me of the Erma Bombeck essay about the mom who was old, and how her youngest had such a different life from the older brothers.

Sometimes I think maybe we're the ones with our act together, not over-committing and running around like crazy. But other times I wish we could be free to get out there in the Real World the way we used to.




PS: This is blogpost #2500. Good grief....

Accurate Ears and Intuition

Sandy tells the story of how, when she was little, her uncle would play a game of asking the kids to "sing an A" or "what is an F-sharp?" Sandy has perfect pitch, and she could never figure out what the "game" was; somebody asks you to sing a B-flat and you do; so what's the trick?

When I was in school and the music teacher would have us listen to a concert piece, she would point out, "Do you hear what the oboe is doing in this section?" or "Aren't the violins beautiful here!" I didn't get it. I could hear music, but I couldn't hear individual instruments. Of course, I was the kid who drove my 1st- and 2nd-grade teachers batty when they tried to teach me to spell pen and pin, or are and our. "Can't you HEAR the difference?" Nope. Sure couldn't. (By the way, now that I'm grown up, I can hear the difference in the words, and I usually can recognize the trumpets and the cellos and the flutes in a recording of a symphony.)

When Gary was repairing the deck, there was almost nothing I could do to help during the day while he was at work. He had a picture in his head of what needed to be done, and he worked methodically at bringing that picture to life. But to explain the steps to me? Couldn't do it. He didn't have it all figured out; he just had something in his mind that he was making come about. Paul would do the same thing with Lego castles. They have a mechanical-spatial intelligence that I don't have.

People on the autism spectrum don't read faces well. They don't pick up on social clues so as to know what other people are thinking and feeling, or what's motivating the other guy. Then there are others of us who are pretty darn perceptive when it comes to noticing other people's feelings or motivations. When asked to explain how I know what somebody's thinking, I can't do it. But that doesn't mean I don't know -- just like Gary knew what he was doing with the deck but couldn't say why, just like Sandy can pull an on-key pitch out of thin air when other people can't even match a pitch as they're hearing it.

When other people can't see something that is obvious to me, sometimes I try to convince myself that I don't know what I know. After all, I can't explain why I know. I can't prove it. Other people don't see it. So am I nuts to perceive things that other don't perceive? Or is this just like when a 9-yr-old can't hear the difference between pen and pin? Some people detect things that others do not; some people have intelligences that are not as well developed in others.

Educational Standards

As Andrew and I prepped for his ACT, we were both initially intimidated by all the stuff that he was supposed to know about literature. I don't Teach Literature here. We read. We discuss. We enjoy. Sometimes we even analyze ... but NOT in the way we studied literature in school.

In light of those recent experiences, I found this article to be telling.

Now assuredly what these literary artists [such as Melville and Austen] hoped above all else was that a century or two from their own time students in high schools would be using their great works not better to understand love or honor or revenge or nobility or happiness, but to "analyze how multiple themes or central ideas in a text interact, build on, and, in some cases, conflict with one another"; as well as to "analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed)." We know that this sort of innocuous thing is what the authors had in mind because that is what our teachers told us in school. We remember the drill: the plot graphs -— rising action, climax, falling action (or denouement) -— the cast lists of main characters and outlines of "main ideas," the possible literary techniques -— foreshadowing, alliteration, onomatopoeia. What we do not remember is one dad-gum thing about these stories.

I heartily recommend the rest of the article to those who care about education and how the government is undermining education. The article is also a good wake-up call to those of us who have been hearing the sirens singing as we waded into the public-school mindset which is inherent to ACT testing.


Thanks to Beth S who forwarded the link on FB.

Getting to Know the World's Greatest Inventors and Scientists

This series doesn't look as interesting as the other two, but I want them sorted out for perusal anyway. After all, how will I know where to plug them into our history outlines if I'm looking at names that I may be unfamiliar with? (A few of these "world's greatest scientists" I'd never heard of until I was hunting up the artist series and stumbled upon this series and the President one, written by the same author.)

1706-1790
Benjamin Franklin : electrified the world with new ideas
electricity; other inventions such as lightning rods and bifocals

1847-1922
Alexander Graham Bell : setting the tone for communication
telephone

1847-1931
Thomas Edison : inventor with a lot of bright ideas
light bulb, movies, phonograph, etc

1856-1931
Daniel Hale Williams : surgeon who opened hearts and minds
first heart surgery

1867-1934
Marie Curie : scientist who made glowing discoveries
radioactivity

1863-1947
Henry Ford : big wheel in the auto industry
mass production; automobiles

1867-1948
The Wright brothers : inventors whose ideas really took flight
airplane

1878-1968
Lise Meitner : had the right vision about nuclear fission
radioactivity

1879-1955
Albert Einstein : universal genius
theory of relativity

1904-1950
Charles Drew : doctor who got the world pumped up to donate blood
blood banks

1907-1964
Rachel Carson : clearing the way for environmental protection
marine biologist and environmentalist

1911-1988
Luis Alvarez : wild idea man
radar

1934--
Jane Goodall : researcher who champions chimps
studied primates; environmentalist

1942--
Stephen Hawking : cosmologist who gets a big bang out of the universe
black holes; theoretical physics

1950--
Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak : geek heroes who put the personal in computers
Apple computers