The Upside Down World

2008-02-29T15:50:00.002-06:00

I've moved!

2007-12-27T21:24:00.000-06:00

I've moved to wordpress. Please click the link above to go to my new site.

Ups and downs

2006-10-12T00:58:00.000-05:00

Someone seems to have erased all the cookies on our computer and it took me 2 days to remember my user name and password for blogger - so I've had an extra long break from blogging. I've had some really big ups and really big downs in the past week and a half. However, dwelling on the ups is almost always better for a gal than dwelling on the downs. Soooooo . . . let me share a couple of "good mom" moments I've been hanging onto to even out the down moments.

My 7 year old has been having a hard time getting to sleep since we moved into a new house a couple months ago and I sometimes pray with/over him to try and help settle him and calm him (and to call in the re-inforcements for help!). A couple of days ago he came and asked me to pray with him to help him get to sleep. As always as part of my prayer, I asked God to help me be a good mother to my son. When we finished Collin put his arms around my neck and said, "you don't need to ask for any help being a good mom for me, Mom." That's only because I ask all the time I responded :)

I've never actually made my 11 year old study history because he wasn't interested and I figured we can always study it all in high school anyway. However we have had some talks about various historical events and dynamics. I never know how much he's listening, however and know that I can kill curiosity by giving too much information at the least sign of interest. So you can imagine my delight when Noah explained the relationship between Hitler and Stalin in WWII, how the USSR ended up with half of Germany and Berlin, what the differences between a communist/socialist system and a democratic/capitalist system were and why the Berlin Wall was built when his father casually mentioned something about WWII. I guess that lesson stuck after all.

Noah used the word "non sequitur" in a conversation last week. The poor child's never going to be able to communicate with anyone outside of our family! :)

Collin, who has struggled with controlling his emotional outbursts has kept his cool pretty well for the last couple of weeks. When I mentioned that I had noticed this, he responded, "I just keep remembering that conversation where you explained about big things and little things and I tell myself 'this is just a little thing' and then I don't get upset over it."

Noah has always struggled with fidgeting and focus so when his karate teacher told him he could move into a more advanced class only if he could stop fidgeting and start paying attention, I wasn't surprised. I suggested some mental exercises he could use to harness his excess energy to his benefit in class (it had something to do with visualizing the urge to move as a color, storing it and releasing it with his movements while visualizing calming energies moving in as the energy was released. I don't really remember, I was kind of pulling it out of my belly button at the time.) He's done fine and has moved up a belt since then, but I had actually forgotten telling him this. However, the other day after class he mentioned using this technique (whatever it was) and how it's really helped him.

My kids have always been a little extra challenging and rarely seem to pay attention to what I say or even to the punishments which are doled out as a consequence of their refusal to listen to what I say (like clean your room, stop running, don't jump off the furniture, go to bed, etc), so it's always surprising and gratifying when something I say actually makes an impression on them.
So there are my "good mom" moments for the week. I hope your days are filled with such moments as well.

Children's Movies

2006-10-02T22:05:00.000-05:00

This weekend, my husband took our boys, ages 7 and 11 to the movies. I was a bit surprised when my husband said he wanted to take the boys to see the new Jet Li movie "Fearless". He loves karate movies and thought the kids would be interested since they have been taking karate for a while now. But the movie is rated PG-13 and there was that new children's movie "Open Season" which came out on Friday. I didn't want to see "Open Season", but my husband doesn't seem to mind potty humor as much as I do and you never know what's going to show up in a PG-13 movie, so the children's movie seemed like it would be a better bet (or at least the least likely to do major damage). Fortunately, before becoming insistent, I looked up "Fearless" on the Focus on the Family's "Unplugged" website. (This is a great place to check before seeing a movie, BTW - they will tell you about minutiae like how many characters smoke, if wine is consumed, if anyone gets punched, how many times various foul words are used and any sexual innuendo. Some of the things they worry about aren't a big concern for our family, but it sure is nice to know what you're getting into.) You can read their review of "Fearless" here. Since the movie didn't have much of anything in the way of sex or language and the violence wasn't gory, I decided not to press the issue. The boys and my husband really enjoyed the movie and my husband said that it was a very moral movie with good, manly messages.
On the other hand, I happened upon this column by Fredrica Mathewes-Green about "Open Season" and I'm sure glad my hubby made the call and not me. From her column:

Sure, potty-talk has always been funny to kids. But grown-ups didn't teach it to them. They had something more significant to impart: stories to help children prepare for the world they were growing into. The best stories were complex and unafraid to deal with tragedy, like Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid, or Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio.
Earlier generations of parents complained that cartoon versions of such classic tales stripped them of all subtlety. The process has gone a step further in a movie like Open Season, where the plot presents only a starkly polarized pair of teams, good guys vs. bad guys, and then whips up a frenzy of vengeance.

Hmmm . . . I'm going to have to remember that next time I'm tempted to settle for the "least bad thing". (You really ought to read the whole thing as it goes much deeper than what I posted here. ) Whenever I see a movie like this, or the dreadful Shrek movies, I am reminded of something I read a while ago on the National Review Online. In an interview, Craig Good from Pixar studios says:

We don't make movies for kids. We make movies for adults, actually ourselves, and then just make sure there's nothing in them that the little ones shouldn't see. . . Two things are often forgotten about kids. One: They have no taste. They will watch just about anything. This is normal and healthy. Taste comes later. Two: They are not stupid! Kids are born intelligent, and there's no good reason to make dumbed-down entertainment for them.

Sooooo . . . this post really has no point except to say that my kids saw a movie that was good, even though it was PG-13 and children's movies are generally stupid and a sign of the degradation of our society (like that's never been said before!). Good day! :)

The Wall of Taxonomy

2006-10-01T09:53:00.000-05:00

Since my 11 year wants to be a herpetologist (reptile scientist), he decided he needed to get more serious about his science so we're studying biology right now. We've been looking at taxonomy (the classification of living things) and I came up with a fun activity I thought I'd share with you. It's basically just a worksheet on a wall, but my son enjoyed it.
In order to create our "wall of taxonomy" I started by creating a sketch of what the final layout on the wall would be. A taxonomy chart is a lot like a family tree where you start with great great grandma who had three kids who had a couple more kids each who had a couple more kids and so on down the line. The idea is that you start at the top with very broad classifications which split off into more and more narrow classifications. For example, kingdom animalia branches into phylum arthropodia and chordata. Phylum chordata branches into class reptilia, mammilia, amphibia, fishes, and ave. Class mammilia branches into carnivoria and cetecea. And so on until you get down to specific species of animals. I looked at charts like the ones found on this page or this page and mapped out how the classifications start at the top with one broad kingdom which gradually split into more and more narrow classifications all the way down to species. Once I had a map on paper of what the end product would look like, I started making slips of paper with the various names on them. The trick here is that if several animals share the same classification (class mammilia for example), you only made one slip of paper with that name on it. When you make the slips of paper, don't include the classification, just the name, BTW. So write "mammilia" not "class mammilia" for example. Once all of the names were on their own slip of paper, I made enough arrows to map the splits. Since my son is just starting this, I put the arrows on the wall where they should go to help him out. For example, on our taxonomy wall, Kingdom Animalia split into Phylum Arthropodia and Chordata, so under the spot where the piece of paper saying "animalia" would go, I put two arrows pointing to where arthropodia and chordata should go and so on.
Finally we're ready to go. To start, I had seven slips of colored paper with the seven classifications (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species) used in taxonomy and had my boys arrange them in the proper order along the right side of the wall. I also made an additional slip which said "common name" to put at the bottom after "species" and made slips of paper with the common name of animals we were working with along with the names of their phylum, class and such. Then I gave my son the pile of (mixed up) slips of paper I had made with all of the various classification names on them. His job was to place them all in their proper spots. I had him start by spreading the slips out on the floor, picking out the things he knew to put up first and then grouping names which he thought went together. I told him he could use books to help him out, but he really tried to do it without looking for help. In the end, he got it all correct and we snapped the picture above before his little sister started trying to tear the pieces of paper off the wall (taking a picture of a wall in a hallway is pretty tough, BTW). One of the nice things about this activity is you can make it very hard or very easy. If you have a more advanced student, you may not want to put the arrows on the wall for him or her so that they will have to remember what the splits are without the help of hints. Also, you can do as many or as few organisms as you want and can use it to study groups of living organisms and how they are related. I'm afraid my explanation may not be that great and I probably made it sound harder than it was, but the prep time for this activity, including hunting down charts listing classifications which I link to above and cutting up paper (perhaps post-it note would have been a more efficient method!) was probably about an hour and a half. I think I got a pretty good bang for my buck. Anyhow, I just thought I'd share!

Since that last picture only took about 5 minutes to load . . .

2006-09-26T00:56:00.000-05:00

I'll share this sweet photo of little Sophia. Don't ya just want to eat her up? :)

And no, I don't ever put clothing on my children - we just let them run around naked like monkeys. It's part of our homeschooling cult religion, you know! ;p J/K

One more for "momhood" . . .

2006-09-26T00:45:00.000-05:00

You're glad you know how to type because your toddler pried off half the keys on the laptop keyboard and you're typing by touch on rubber nubs until the new keypad gets in. I love you, Michaela Rose!

Education and conservatives

2006-09-25T23:49:00.000-05:00

If you are a conservative interested in education, you need to read this excellent column by Neal McClusky on conservatives embrace of big government education muddling on National Review Online. Mr McClusky starts of with this:
For decades, conservatives stood against big-government intrusions into American education. They defended local control of schooling, championed parental choice, and pushed to abolish the federal Department of Education. But then, tragedy struck: Republicans took power in Washington, and conservatives suddenly learned to love big government. Indeed, some are now so enamored of it that they are proposing what was once unthinkable: having the federal government set curricular standards for every public school in America.
As you may be aware, over the weekend former secretaries of education Bill Bennet and Rod Paige had a column in the Washington Post advocating for the creation of a national test for education. Because the solution to something government meddling has already badly screwed up is . . . even more government meddling.
This flies in the face of what we have learned from the few government programs which have had some success in reform; states, when given the freedom are excellent incubators and laboratories for innovative approaches to entrenched problems. Welfare reform and Medicare reform are two excellent examples. I am also willing to bet that in 20 years we will be looking at state experiments like what is going on in Minnesota and Massachusetts as the beginning of healthcare reform.
The idea that education can be improved by giving more power and influence to Washington politicians is laughable. In fact, I would argue that the growing influence and involvement of national politics in the education issue have served to thwart any meaningful movement in improving education. There are, in my opinion, 3 things which need to happen in order for meaningful education reform to happen: teachers must be treated as professionals and have control over the conduct and content of their teaching, parents must be free to make educational choices for their children including enrolling their children in their schools of choice and the influence of large national teacher's unions must be diminished. The nationalization of education works against all 3 of these changes. More and more teachers are being treated like trained monkeys who are expected to jump and hop according to what bureaucrats demand rather than using their brains, experience and skills to meet their student's needs. A national agenda for education makes it very easy for powerful, out of touch national education unions to influence any education reforms which are enacted (one big target is much easier to handle than tens of thousands of smaller, local targets which are less likely to be influenced by lobbying efforts). In contrast, parents find it very difficult to get the attention of national politicians as opposed to local school board members and administrators who might be willing to respond to their concerns (if their hands weren't actively being tied by national politicians and teacher's unions). Not to mention that as long as the national teachers union has a strong influence in the political arena, parent's are unlikely to be given much leeway in determining where their children will attend school.
Although nationalized testing and curriculum are taking on an air of inevitability, we must resist the temptation to short-cut our way into further disaster by giving the federal government even more say over what goes on in the classroom. As Mr. McClusky points out in his NRO piece:
no matter how much conservatives wish it weren't so, decades of monopolistic public schooling have proven that government will never provide desirable standards. Indeed, the numerous inherent problems of government are among the many reasons that the framers of the Constitution gave Washington no authority over education. . . As Congress moves inexorably closer to next year's scheduled reauthorization of NCLB, conservatives must reject calls for federal standards and tests, and remember the principles that they once held dear. Politically compromised, big-government policies will simply never provide the education our children need and deserve. Only pulling government out of education, and empowering parents and families with school choice, will do that.

Why we're losing the cultural war

2006-09-20T22:57:00.000-05:00

I just read an essay in The American Conservative by Claes G. Ryn which I found rather insightful:
Modern American conservatism has been enthralled by politics. It should be obvious to all by now that this has been a debilitating preoccupation. Society's long-term direction is not set mainly by politicians. It is set by those who capture a people's mind and imagination. Conservative politicians and policy wonks have failed to reverse any of the main deleterious social trends of the last half-century not because they have lacked financial resources but because efforts like theirs have limited efficacy in the first place. . . To recover, American conservatism would have to reorder its priorities and most especially put politics in its place. America's crisis is at bottom moral-spiritual and cultural. . . The problem, simply put, was lack of sophistication - an inability to understand what most deeply shapes the outlook and conduct of human beings. Persons move according to their innermost beliefs, hopes, and fears. These are affected much less by politicians than by philosophers, novelists, religious visionaries, movie makers, playwrights, composers, painters, and the like, though truly great works of this kind reach most minds and imaginations only in diminished, popular form.
Yet the conservative movement did not direct its main efforts toward a revitalization of the mind, imagination, and moral-spiritual life.

This brings to mind a recent discussion I saw which pointed out that the most politically conservative parts of the country have the greatest problems with divorce, out of wedlock birth, crime and other modern social ills. If conservative politics was reallpanaceancea for what ails our country, wouldn't that be just the opposite? I think Mr. Ryn is correct in his assessment of the problem. We have been looking for shortcuts - elect the right person, enact the right laws, structure the social programs correctly and then we can recover from the mess liberals have created. In the meantime, traditional minded people have lost the culture wars. We've made some progress in recent years in reducing teen pregnancies and abortions, but overall we're losing the war. I don't think many of us even expect to have a shot at reversing the trend anymore. Our entertainment becomes crasser and more obscene all the time, yet it keeps making money. Who's buying this stuff? I doubt that it's only (or even mainly) liberals. I also doubt that liberals are the primary ones getting abortions, std's or having babies before getting married. We've been looking to politics to solve our problems for too long. While those on the left spent their time crafting ideas and promoting them vigorously in media, education and the arts, we've given the world Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
I have thought for a long time that the only thing a traditional minded person can do in today's world is withdraw, regroup and set about getting their own little world in order. Whatever change is going to happen is going to come from the bottom up. Then again, as Mr. Ryn says, it is the "philosophers, novelists, religious visionaries, movie makers, playwrights, composers, painters" who change hearts and minds. What can we do to become those who inspire people to change? How do we take on this task? Ideas?

You know you've achieved full "Momhood" when . . .

2006-09-18T22:39:00.000-05:00

- You go to the bathroom while holding a baby (bonus points if you were breastfeeding at the time).

- You find yourself saying odd combinations of words like "don't lick yogurt off the window".

- It occurs to you that if you kick your oldest child really, really hard you could have everyone in the house crying at the same time.

- You yell at the kids for not being dressed even though it's 1 in the afternoon and you're still in your bathrobe.

- Your toddler follows you into the bathroom and helpfully tries to wipe your bottom.

- You allow your child to draw all over themselves with marker simply so they will stay occupied long enough for you to finish making their lunch.

- You share a couple of cookies with the kids just so when your husband gets home and finds the empty package you can say, "well, the kids ate some too."

- You give your children cookies with their breakfast so that you won't eat them all yourself.

- You can carry on a 10 minute conversation with your child about Pokemon without him catching on to the fact that you haven't heard a word he said. (Trick: repeat the last 2 words of every second or third sentence and it seems like you're actually listening - my husband's been doing it to me for years.)

- When your 2 year old proudly says the f-word you encouragingly respond: "that's right, Sweetheart - truck!"

- You see your toddler tearing up an artificial flower arrangement and figure, "it can be re-assembled" so you don't bother stopping him.

- You insist on being the one to get the mail because you need your daily exercise.

- You plan all of your trips out of the house to minimize the number of times a child will have to be removed from a car seat.

- You know that trip planning has nothing to do with buying plane tickets and everything to do with grocery shopping.

- Your version of a cost-benefit analysis involves weighing whether cutting out a round of getting kids in and out of car seats is worth paying 50% more for diapers at the grocery store.

- You respond to a kid's "why?" with "because I'm mean and I don't like you very much."

- You know that one day your child will tell his own child, "because I'm mean and I don't like you very much" after being asked "why?" for the 5th time.

- You think other people are jealously admiring you and your attractive, smart, fun kids when really they're just watching you so they can go home and start a conversation with, "I saw this poor woman while I was out today . . ."

- Even when all of your kids are crying at once - except for the oldest who wandered off to look at Pokemon cards and is now having you paged over the store intercom system because he didn't see you when he looked up to ask if you'd buy him a pack of cards, you never think of yourself as "this poor woman". You're too busy enjoying your attractive, smart, fun kids.

Talking with our kids about 9/11

2006-09-11T14:40:00.000-05:00

Ack! It's been a while since I posted, but we've been very busy and I just haven't had time. I still don't really have time, but since today is the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I thought I'd share a conversation I had over the weekend with my 7 year old about the attacks on the World Trade Center. We were watching something on TV about the attacks. Afterwards Collin asked several times why the terrorists had done it. How do you explain to a 7 year old why people would deliberately kill themselves and so many others for no real discernible purpose? I'm not sure how much he understood, but here's what I told him:

There are things which are right and wrong. Sometimes there are things which are so wrong we make laws against them like killing someone else. Sometimes there are things which are wrong, but which are choices people must make for themselves - like watching trash on TV. There are some people who think that no one should be allowed to make choices which they think are wrong. Here in America we believe that people should do the right things, but that they must be free to make their own choices even if that means that they will choose to do the wrong things. Here in America, you can do whatever you want even if it's a crazy thing to do because we believe that each person must make their own choices. This is even how God works - he wants us to do good things, but he allows us to choose to do the wrong things. The people who attacked the WTC aren't like that. They want to force everyone to dress, act, speak, think and live only in the ways they think are right. They hate that we don't do that. They hate that whenever people around the world see how much freedom we have to decide how to live, they want that same freedom for themselves. They don't think anyone should be able to do that. That is why they hate us and would like to see us become less powerful. They would like it if instead of seeing our freedom and wanting it for themselves, other people around the world would start hating us just like they hate us.
So they attacked us to show the world how strong they were and how weak America is. They hope that we won't stand up for ourselves and will try to do things to make them happy. They want to make the rest of the world think we are the bad guys if we don't do what they want us to do. They say, "see? People are being hurt because America won't just do what we want. It is because America is allowing people to be hurt like this that we must keep fighting against them" - even though they are the ones who are causing all the problems. But the fact of the matter is that even if we do things to try to make them happy, they will keep trying to attack us because what they really want is to be the ones in charge, deciding what choices people get to make about their lives. If one person fights and the other person just runs away, it is the one who is fighting who will win. So they think if they just keep fighting and get other people to hate us, we will give up and then they will win. Then people will have to live how they want them to live.
The other thing which is different about America and the people who attacked us is that we value individual people. These people killed themselves because to them individual people don't matter as much as gaining power to control others does. They will even kill their own people because they think that no person matters as much as what they are trying to accomplish. We believe that each person is very valuable and precious. We would never say, "there's this really good thing we want to get done and you are not as important as that thing, so we'll kill you if we think it will help us reach our goal." Americans are the sort of people who say, "even my own life is worth giving up to protect another person. There is nothing more important than any individual person's life."
[As an example I told him the story of flight 93 and how the passengers fought back to stop the terrorists because they would rather die than allow the terrorists to kill more people.]
The terrorists kill themselves in order to hurt other people. Americans will allow themselves to be killed in order to keep other people from being hurt. It's hard to fight people who don't care about hurting other people. We see them hurting other people and want it to stop. Since we don't want other people to be hurt, it's hard for us to fight back because when we do people will be hurt. However, we cannot afford not to stand up for ourselves and the other people these terrorists would like to have power over. Because even if they got what they wanted and were able to force people to do what they think is right, they wouldn't stop hurting people - they don't think people are important and don't feel bad at all about hurting other people. There will always be some reason in their mind why it's OK to kill even people who are doing nothing wrong. We hate it that people get hurt when we fight back, but at least at the end when we win people will be safe. Once the fighting is done, we will die in order to keep people safe, because people are precious. Unlike the terrorists we do not think we have the right to take away a person's life or their freedom to choose how to live.
That's why we can be proud of being Americans. We aren't perfect and too many people in America do use their freedom to choose to do things which are stupid or wrong. I wish more people made better choices about how to live, but that doesn't mean I think I should be able to do something even God doesn't do and take away their freedom.

I happen to think that this administration has made and continues to make terrible errors in trying to fight the ideology of Islamic fascism, so I'm not saying these things as a way of defending a particular course of action. However, our kids may well be fighting this battle when they are adults and I think it's important for them to know that as much as America gets wrong, there are some very important things we get right. If we won't stand up and defend those things, we will lose. It's just that simple. If there's anything in here which you find useful, please share it with your own kids and pass it around.

Ewwwwwwww!

2006-09-02T01:12:00.000-05:00

Right now on the kitchen counter next to me is a small, smashed, sun-dried snake that my 11 year old found. What is wrong with boys? Yeesh!

5 year old boys and "A Well Trained Mind"

2006-09-01T23:05:00.000-05:00

Earlier today I was reading the very good "Crunch Cons" blog over at beliefnet and the author, Rod Dreher was responding to a reader question about preparing to homeschool his daughter in a few years (the child in question was under 1 year). Mr. Dreher responded first by explaining that he and his wife were no longer homeschooling their son who is now six. Then he offered his wife's advice on what to do if you're planning on homeschooling. Now, before I get myself in trouble, I just want to say that I do not want to claim that I know what is best for the Dreher family or that they have made an error by putting their son in school. I am not privy to their lives and am willing to accept that this was the very best decision for them and their son. However, there were two red flags which I wanted to address, not in order to critique this family's actions, but because they remind me of problems I have seen played out in other families and a general error in our thinking about kids and education which is pretty prevalent. So, I am writing this not to address the Dreher's specific situation, but in order to make a couple of more generalized points.
The two red flags I saw were these: By way of brief (and I'm sure in no way complete) explanation Mr. Dreher says of putting his son in a private school: "we'd had so much trouble getting him to focus on his work at home". Further down in her recommendations, his wife says "If you really want to read something I'd take a look at Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer's books, which I found inspiring (and depressing because they made me more aware of the massive holes in my own education). She outlines a kindergarten curriculum that involves about 15 minutes of actual study per day."
(For those of you who don't know, Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer are authors of A Well Trained Mind which is a guide to using a classical approach to education at home.)
Here's the problem: a 5 year old who refuses to focus or co-operate with attempts to educate him/her is a perfectly normal child who will probably do very well with homeschooling. Too often we view a young kid who is not co-operative with learning as a sign that homeschooling isn't working. I think nothing is further from the truth and know many kids (including my younger son) who did pretty much nothing for kindergarten (or longer) yet did just fine as they got older. The idea that a 5 year old should be doing anything more rigorous than singing silly songs, reciting the alphabet and learning to count to 100 is actually pretty recent and often developmentally inappropriate. If a young child simply refuses to cooperate or focus, more than anything I think that means wither they aren't ready or the approach being used doesn't work for him/her. Yet I have known several families who have abandoned homeschooling after just a year or two because they thought the fact that their kid wasn't cooperating with attempts to educate him/her showed that they weren't cut out for homeschooling.
I think part of the problem is that while we may see that socially schools are unhealthy places for our kids and that the results are mediocre, we often accept the way and rate at which they do things as correct. We assume that homeschooling's magic isn't in using a completely different approach to learning and education but in the fact that we teach our kids one-on-one. So, we worry if our 5 year old won't sit still while we read a book or that our 6 year old won't work on phonetic lessons because everyone knows that this is how children learn to read. And heaven forbid if our 4th grader doesn't have their times tables down cold. However, none of these practices or time tables are based on any actual evidence that they are the "right" approach. It's probably the main reason schools don't work for so many kids - they insist on doing everything on some predetermined schedule in some predetermined way without regard to where the child is developmentally. Some 5 year olds will sit quietly while being read to, others will be practicing their cartwheels and not listen to a word you say. Allowed to learn on their own schedules, both will probably be independent readers by about age 8. Forced to work on someone else's time schedule one of them will probably struggle with reading disorders created by being forced to do something they weren't developmentally ready to do.
Which brings me to Jesse Wise and Susan Bauer Wise's books. Now, don't get me wrong. The Well Trained Mind is a great book in a lot of ways and the classical approach to education definitely has many appealing aspects to it. I actually use some of their ideas with my 11 year old. However, it is a very structured approach and I have never seen it work with a kid under the age of 9 or 10. I have, however, seen families become overwhemed, frustrated and demoralized trying to do it with their younger kids. What the Wise's do not say is that although their approach is in many ways very traditional, it is an approach which in the past did not start until age 8, 9 or later. Their book takes an approach meant for older kids, reduxes it and attempts to apply it to younger kids without regard to their developmental needs and abilities aside from using less time. Not only that, but at the younger ages, they rely heavily on usborne books, which in my experience, are too simplistic and only mildly engaging. I have never gotten one that my kids did anything other than glance at briefly. I can see how any parent who is uncomfortable not having much or any structure for their young child and then tries to use methods like the ones outline in the Wise's books will not succeed.
Which brings me back to why I wanted to post on this here, despite running the risk that it would look like I was trying to judge the Dreher family's particular situation: we have been so indoctrinated by many generations of institutionalized schooling that it takes an enormous amount of self-confidence and self-assurance to stand your ground when it's your kid who isn't fitting into the accepted framework. Even more so when everyone around you responds to every challenge you face by offering the structure of school as the solution. I want to challenge people to think differently about how we educate our kids (especially young boys) and offer re-assurance to those who are struggling to stand against the current. The magic of homeschooling is so much more than just one-on-one instruction or even a more demanding curriculum. The magic of homeschooling is really in freeing ourselves and our kids to learn in an entirely different way. I would go so far as to say that when we educate our kids according to their particular temperament and developmental readiness, even when it means letting a young child do little or no structured work, we are coming as close as we are able to helping them learn the way God designed them to learn. And despite what Sec. of Education Spellings might have us believe, God doesn't seem to intend for 5 year old boys to learn by sitting down and focusing on the work adults give them all that often.

Bugs galore!

2006-08-31T12:15:00.000-05:00

Here's a cool website for those seeking to identify unknown bugs: http://whatsthatbug.com/
FYI, there is a picture of wheelbugs mating which prompts a comment about "bug pornography" by the site authors. Nothing major, but I thought I'd give a heads-up in case that sort of thing bugs you. (Get it - bugs you! Harhar.)

Homeschooling at work!

2006-08-31T10:53:00.000-05:00

In our house when one of my boys does something particularly boneheaded, my darling, ever helpful hubby will often sarcastically remark "Homeschooling, eh?" Yesterday my 11 year old gave a truly spectacular demonstration of the superior results of homeschooling while filling out a form. First he didn't capitalize his last name, then he spelled homeschool "homeskooll", then he started to spell his guitar teacher Steve's name with a lower case "s". I finally took the pen from him when he corrected himself by writing a capital "S" - backwards.
Of course the real problem is that my ADD child was trying to look at all the posters on the wall, listen in on my conversation with his choir director and watch paper being fed into the laser printer on the table next to him all at the same time. Anyone else out there homeschooling an ADD kid without the aid of drugs? Any hints?
In the meantime, let's all say it together: "Homeschooling, eh?"

Why do we put up with this?

2006-08-31T00:24:00.000-05:00

According to the government, we spend an average of $8,287 per student in public schools. That's $207,175 for a class of 25. The average teacher makes about $47K. Yet every year we read stories like this. If the money isn't going into teacher salaries or supplies for the classroom - where the blazes is it going? And why do we put up with this?

Technology only a man could love

2006-08-30T23:26:00.000-05:00

When my hubby told me about BMW's new technology which allows a car to park itself, I was pretty impressed. Until I read about how it actually worked. Turns out this technology only works if you're parking your car in the garage. And you have to stand next to the car and hold down buttons on the key fob while the car parks it's self. Hmmmm . . . How very useful. I know plenty of people hate parallel parking or having to drive around a parking garage looking for a spot or even fitting their car into a tiny spot in a parking lot. I can't say, however, that I've ever heard anyone say, "I wish there was a way I could get out of my car by the garage door and stand there holding buttons down while it parked itself. Having to actually pilot the darn thing into the garage just drives me nuts!" I suppose if you were one of those people who either runs the car into the back wall or leaves the tail end hanging out, such a device might be useful, but I'm thinking hanging a tennis ball from the ceiling would be cheaper.
Now if they really wanted to make something useful, they'd put in bottons which allowed you to smack an obnoxious child in the back of the head remotely while driving. HaHa - just kidding. That'd be silly - a fly swatter on the front seat works just fine! I'm just kidding. Really. ;p

Link-o-palooza!

2006-08-27T23:16:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Tribune had a list of useful links for students and teachers which I thought I'd pass on to you. I copied these addresses and desciptions from the story and have tried to correct incomplete addresses, but if you come across something which doesn't work, leave a message and I'll try to fix it:

ACADEMIC ALL STARS
http://www.ipl.org — Tough to say enough good about the little known Internet Public Library site. It was started by the University of Michigan and provides links to online pages in numerous academic fields. And it will probably get even more comprehensive because 14 other schools have signed on to join the project.
http://www.sparknotes.com — The primary mission of this site from Barnes & Noble is to feature study guides to novels and nonfiction. But it also has free reference guides to other topics such as biology, math and physics.
http://www.howstuffworks.com — Provides a look at the inner workings of the mundane (pencil, hair dryer) and complex (brain, atomic clock). Great for science reports.
http://www.ask.com — Takes questions in plain language. Works best with simple queries such as, "When was Benjamin Franklin born?"
http://www.google.com — Still the best search engine.

ANATOMY
http://www.anatomyatlases.org — "Atlas of Human Anatomy" offers fantastic images of human body parts.
http://www.bartleby.com/107 — This is the 1918 version of the classic Gray's "Anatomy of the Human Body." Still a handy, basic guide.
http://www.innerbody.com — Interactive site that's used to identify body parts (not just skeletal but also digestive, muscular and other systems) and to learn about their functions.

ARCHEOLOGY
http://www.archnet.asu.edu — Arizona State University's list of links to museums and other resources, organized by geography and topic.
http://www.cyberpursuits.com/archeo — Assorted links, organized by region.

ART HISTORY
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah — The Metropolitan Museum of Art's timeline of art history, from Mal'ta carvings in Asia in 20,000 BC to video installations by Bill Viola that the museum purchased in 2001.
http://www.witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html — Extensive links to art periods, artists and museums.artchive.com — Not the easiest site to navigate but worth the trouble. The online guide provides images of works by prominent artists.

BIOLOGY
http://www.biology.arizona.edu — University of Arizona's site has links organized by topic.
http://www.mnstate.edu/weibust/internetresbiostu.htm — Minnesota State University Moorhead's list of links, by topic.

CENSUS
http://www.Factfinder.census.gov — Official U.S. population numbers, by ZIP Code, from the federal Census Bureau. Breaks information down by race and other factors.

CHEMISTRY
http://www.chemicalelements.com — Of the many periodic tables of elements sites on the Web, this one's particularly well designed. It began as an eighth-grader's science project in 1996.
http://www.chemdex.org — Originating from the University of Sheffield in England, this site features more than 7,000 links.
http://www.antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/index.shtml — Quizzes, glossaries and tutorials from Frostburg State University in Maryland.

CONVERSION TOOLS
http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/conversions.html — Metric conversions of distance, area, weight, speed, temperature and more. Also converts fractions to decimals.
http://www.xe.com/ucc/full.shtml — Converts more than 180 world currencies. Continuously updated.

LANGUAGES
http://www.translation.langenberg.com — Translates words and phrases in 13 languages.
http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/index.asp — Conjugates verbs in numerous languages.
http://www.ethnologue.com — Information on nearly 7,000 living languages.

LITERATURE
http://www.gutenberg.net — Now in its 35th year, this spectacular collection of 18,000 public-domain books includes all works by Shakespeare, "Moby Dick" and numerous religious texts. All selections can be downloaded to be read either on the computer screen or on paper.
http://www.vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=3 — World literature links from UC Santa Barbara.
http://www.cliffsnotes.com — The famed Cliffs Notes study guides to hundreds of books can be read on the website for free, although you'll have to pay to download a print version in a PDF file.
MATH
http://www.algebrahelp.com — Algebra practice problems.
http://www.mathplayground.com/flash cards.html — Remember flashcards? Here's an online version.

MUSIC
http://www.music.indiana.edu/music_resources — From Indiana University comes this list of links, organized by music genre, composer and performer.
http://www.carolinaclassical.com/links.html — Good set of links, organized by era.
http://www.classical.net/music — More than 5,000 links, plus thousands of CD reviews and recommendations.

PHILOSOPHY
http://www.plato.stanford.edu/contents.html — The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a work in progress that provides short essays on nearly 1,000 names and concepts. All are written by professionals in the field.
http://www.epistemelinks.com/index .aspx — These links are organized according to philosophers, eras and topics.
http://www.philosophypages.com/dy — Dictionary of names and terms, many of which include links to other resources.

PHYSICS
http://www.aip.org/history — Interactive exhibits from the American Institute of Physics on landmark discoveries in the field.
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/index.pl — An interactive site from the University of Colorado at Boulder demonstrates physics principles behind microwave ovens, X-rays, lasers and more.

POLITICAL SCIENCE
http://www.thomas.loc.gov — The Library of Congress site includes the daily Congressional Record and updates on pending legislation.
http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/official.htm — Links to government websites worldwide.

PSYCHOLOGY
http://www.allpsych.com — A glossary of basic terms, plus numerous other features such as a timeline.
http://www.psychology.org — Links to publications and resources.

REFERENCE
http://www.dictionary.reference.com — Enter a word and get a definition from the American Heritage Dictionary among other sources.
http://www.encyclopedia.com — Brief entries from the Columbia Encyclopedia.
http://www.infoplease.com — Almanac of statistics and information on politics, business, sports, weather and entertainment.

WORLD FACTS
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook — Not everything the CIA does is secret. The agency's public directory of countries includes such information as a nation's population, government type, terrain, agriculture, health systems, languages and broadcast stations.

Learning by Osmosis

2006-08-27T22:31:00.000-05:00

If you have read this blog for any amount of time, you may have noticed that I go through cycles of worry and paranoia about how we teach our two sons, ages 7 and 11. Much of this is fed by the fact that the homeschool moms I spend the most time with are the type who buy curricula and are pretty darn disciplined about following a particular schedule. Hearing about how their kids get up, eat breakfast, grab their workbooks and are sometimes done with school before all of my kids are out of bed makes me a bit insecure and I end up wondering if we're really doing enough. We, as I have mentioned before, are not strict unschoolers but we're definitely closer to being unschoolers than anything else. We approach learning as something which happens naturally, prodded on by life and inborn curiosity and try to save more formal lessons and such for things which the kids are unlikely to learn without a more concerted effort. It is a method which fits our style as a family and matches our family's philosophy about people and learning. However, I have to admit, it also leaves me a bit insecure about whether we're "doing enough".
For this reason, I cherish experiences like the ones we had at brunch this morning. A few months ago I wrote about coming to the realization that my younger son's math workbook (which I got for him because he asked) not only had no relation to his understanding of math, but was probably holding him back. I've been feeling kind of bad that he's probably behind where he could be with math since we wasted most of last year being dependent on the stupid workbook. However, this morning, Collin demonstrated his ability to do simple multiplication problems and was even able answer his brother's "Oh yeah, if you're so smart what's 10x20?" question correctly. I never taught him that. Hmmmm . . . Perhaps that's what happens when math is a practical process used in everyday life rather than a series of steps or facts to memorize.
Then my older son surprised me by commenting that my husband (whose birthday was today) is now old enough to be president. I never taught him that either. I have often been concerned over the fact that he shows no interest in history or civics, yet somehow he knew this little tidbit of trivia.
Apparently they're learning by osmosis. Another homeschool mom I know has commented that she wonders sometimes if our attempts to educate our kids actually cause them to learn or if they just happen to coincide with what the child was going to learn anyway. She may have something there. So I'm feeling pretty good about our approach today. That should last for another hour or so before I start worrying again :p

The Girl's Got Style

2006-08-24T17:54:00.000-05:00

Not only is my 18 month old beautiful, smart and lots of fun to have around, but she's got great taste - she hates Barney! No purple dinosaurs in this house! Woo-hoo! ; )

Pedophile Identification . . . Please pass this on

2006-08-22T21:26:00.000-05:00

The New York Times today printed a truly chilling piece today about the psyche of pedophiles using the web. Now, I want you to understand that I am not the sort of person who is given to alarmist views or paranoia. I don't pass on alarming e-mails about people who want to take away your religious freedoms or use your cell phones to target marketing to you. I know that stranger kidnapping is extremely rare and think the number of people in low-risk areas who don't want their kids to play outside because of the danger is ridiculous. In almost all areas I tend towards minimizing threats. However, this was the scariest thing I have read - perhaps ever.
The Times conducted an investigation into online sites, chat rooms and such directed towards pedophiles. What they found were people who were working awfully hard to convince themselves and re-assure each other that they were not deviants who posed a danger to children. In their view they are working to free children to be the sexually expressive creatures they were meant to be with themselves as the lucky recipient of children's sexual expression. The end result is people so delusional that one poster expresses surprise at the violent angry reaction of boys who are told of a political party in the Netherlands which seeks to make sex between men and boys legal. These online discussions could easily "normalize" behavior and thoughts in the mind of the pedophile which he would otherwise seek to repress. Once a behavior is seen as normal or even good, he would likely be less inclined to resist temptation and act on his impulses. Honestly, I don't even know if I should recommend that you read it because it's a look into the face and mind of evil without any way of doing anything constructive about it except becoming angry, paranoid and distrustful. However, there is a piece of useful information contained in the article which you absolutely should pass on: pictures of jewelry and symbols used by pedophiles to indicate their identity to those in the know. Here they are:

Top row, pendants symbolizing "boy-love."
Second row, "girl-love" pendants.
Third row, logos representing "boy-lovers," at left; "girl-lovers," at right.
Fourth row, logos for "child-lovers" at left; and at right, for "online pedophile activism."

I'm not sure what one could do if you saw someone using these symbols except keep your children very, very far away. As a related aside for those of you who read the article and are now contemplating never allowing your children out of their room again, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children does not recommend teaching your kids "stranger danger", but rather encourages parents to help their kids be confident enough to recognize signs of danger and act quickly should they ever be faced with a dangerous situation. Kids who are confident and self-assured don't make good victims. Being good parents, fostering familial bonds and self-confidence are better protection against predators than locking your child up and never letting them out of your sight.
Hat tip to Education Wonks for pointing out the NYT story.

Carnival Of Homeschooling's Up!

2006-08-22T11:04:00.000-05:00

This week's carnival of homeschooling is up over at Patricia Ann's Pollywog Creek Porch.
It's a trip to the swamp without the mosquito bites! My post from yesterday about the Washington Post columns on high school mediocrity is there as well as a bunch of other good stuff. So skip the Off! and head on over there.

Unclear on the concept

2006-08-21T13:04:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend my 7 year old caught a big black cricket and put it in a plastic water bottle on our counter. (This is a huge improvement of his previous practice of placing bugs under over-turned drinking glasses on the counter, BTW.) I told him that he should let it go.
"But Mom, crickets bring good luck. The Chinese keep them for pets. I want a pet cricket for luck!"
"But you're going to kill it by keeping it in a plastic bottle," I protested.
"Dead crickets are still lucky!" was his indignant response.
Uh, I don't think so.

High School in America

2006-08-21T12:02:00.000-05:00

There was a column in the Washington Post yesterday by a college professor outlining his student's general lack of literacy. Today there was a column by the Post's education writer about how uncommon overachieving high school students are. Any chance the two are related?
In his column, Michael Skube shares everyday words his students don't know. On the list are impetus, ramshackle, lucid, advocate, derelict, satire, pith and brevity. The author points to a lack of reading and grade inflation as reasons for this sorry trend. The result is young adults who cannot write (a common complaint from employers, BTW) or communicate beyond a very superficial level.
This reminded me of a recent letter to the editor which was printed in our local newspaper. It was written by a high school senior just days away from graduation complaining about the way a disciplinary issue had been handled by school administrators at the local high school. The letter was practically incomprehensible. The writer repeated herself several times and had not arranged her ideas in any perceivable order. It was like listening to a 7 year old tell a story, but on paper. Now, I don't know who this young woman was, she may well have been a special needs student for whom such a letter would have been a great accomplishment. Unfortunately, it's more likely that she's just another run-of-the-mill senior from a supposedly good suburban school with a decent GPA who has never been taught how to properly commit her ideas to paper. In the meantime, my 11 year actually used the word "undulate" in casual conversation last week.
In his column, Jay Matthews education reporter for the Washington Post seeks to correct the popular notion that it is common for today's high school students to be hyper-competitive, neurotic messes who are so busy striving they don't have time to learn to become whole human beings. Quite the opposite is true, he says. Among other things he points out that the average high school student spends about 42 minutes a day doing homework as opposed to the 3 1/2 hours a day spent watching tv, playing video games and such. One study found that high school students spent all of 8 minutes a day, on average doing non-school related reading.
I suppose the good news for those of us who homeschool is that compared to that our children will enter the adult world as phenoms. Unfortunately, one does have to wonder what sort of adult world they will be entering when their peers won't even be able to understand them when they speak.

The Battle for Marriage

2006-08-19T12:12:00.000-05:00

Not that long ago (I think it was just last year) any proponent of traditional marriage who brought up the specter of a slippery slope towards polyamory, polygamy and such if gay marriage were embraced was accused of being homophobic, bigoted, ridiculous, a scare mongerer and first cousins to bolweevils. Today, however, it is no longer social conservatives warning that gay marriage will lead to the dissolution of marriage in any recognizable form, but gay rights activists who are openly promising to work towards that end. Over at the Weekly Standard Ryan Anderson has an article up called "Beyond Gay Marriage" which looks at the recent full page ad taken out in the New York Times by mainstream gay rights activists and their supporters advocating not just gay marriage, but group marriages and the like. The statement actually advocates for polygamy, group marriage and even pairs of gay/lesbian couples deliberately "creating" children to be passed back and forth between them. Read the text of the statement here. As Mr. Anderson points out, while the authors of this statement claim that non-traditional families are now the norm, they pay no attention to the effects the breakdown of traditional marriage have had on children and society. Their only concern is that nothing impede or disenfranchise adult's rights to do exactly what they want.
Mr. Anderson compares this to what have become known as "The Princeton Principles", a statement in support of marriage created and endorsed by a wide range of religious and secular professors, thinkers and researchers. The Princeton Principles are based on extensive research into how marriage and its breakdown affect men, women, children, society and government. Suffice it to say that the evidence is overwhelming that marriage is far superior to other familial arrangements for all involved.
Additionally, the statement demonstrates that there are many, many reasons to support a traditional definition/view of marriage which are not religious in nature. IMO, the argument in favor of traditional marriage has not gone as well as it should have in large part because supporters of traditional marriage too often start and end the conversation with "God made marriage to be between a man and a woman." While there may be no more compelling argument for the religious minded than "because God said so", in order for the government to act accordingly some purely earth based benefit must be demonstrated. For today, enough people oppose same-sex marriage that voters have kept it at bay. However, that majority opinion will rapidly disappear (and in many surveys already has) if supporters of traditional marriage can't let go of their need to couch their argument in religious terms in order to put forth an argument which is self-evidently superior regardless of one's religious thinking. I think that the authors of the Princeton Principles have done just that.
So read the "Beyond Gay Marriage" statement to see what the future holds if supporters of marriage don't step up to the plate. Then read the Princeton Principles for a vision of hope and a vastly superior argument in favor of marriage. Then pass it on.