Bending the Twigs

Proof It Really Is a Buyer's Market

2009-06-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

We went to a party a couple weeks ago at the home of one of DH's grad school classmates, who lives in one of the towns where we're househunting. DH's friend bought the house one year ago this month. So when a listing came into my email for a home in the same neighborhood, I decided to check public records on the friend's home. I knew prices had come down quite a bit from last year, but it's really something to see it.

DH's friend paid $881.5k for a 3 BR/2.5 BA 1608 sq ft home with a pool, or roughly $550/sq ft.

This current listing is for $725k for a 4 BR/2 BA 2012 sq ft home with a pool, or roughly $360/sq ft. Now I've not actually seen the inside of this house in person, but the photos look similar to the one owned by DH's friend.

Unfortunately, we've had to postpone our purchase due to difficulty finding attractive financing. Although we've got excellent credit and a good, stable income, all the lenders we've talked to won't touch us because we have <20% to put down. A couple of the lenders we talked to want 30% and one even said 35%. So we're staying in our current rental townhouse as cramped as it is and trying to save up a larger downpayment.

An Experience is Worth 1,000 Textbook Pages

2009-06-17T11:40:00.000-07:00

Remember how I had mentioned about a month ago that I had never been to the Northwest? Well, I can now say that I've been to Oregon, Washington state, and British Columbia. DH had 3 weeks in between when he left his old position and when he begins his new one. So we decided to road trip up to Vancouver. Along the way, we saw Redwoods Natl. Park in Northern CA, Crater Lake in OR, Seattle, and Mt. Rainier Natl. Park.

Miss Scarlet checking out animal tracks on the banks of the Rogue River in OR.

Crater Lake, OR
The Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, WA designed by Frank Gehry.

Mt. Rainier Natl. Park in WA

On Overrated Rich Schools

2009-06-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

Via the "Kitchen Table Math" blog, I came across an interesting debate about "nominally high performing" schools. That is, schools located in affluent neighborhoods that score reasonably well on standardized tests because of their demographics but in reality are actually mediocre. Like the one my own children are zoned to attend, which is ranked in the top 10% statewide but the bottom 20% when compared to other schools with similar demographic profiles. I was especially struck by the following:

"Parents and school boards in affluent communities may not want to hear that the teaching in their schools is mediocre. The accountability system does not call attention to the problems of instructional quality in these schools, nor does it reinforce efforts to solve them....Unlike low-performing schools, which may be galvanized by external pressure to improve, so-called high-performing schools must often swim against a tide of complacency to generate support for change."

I get so frustrated at the perception gap in my town. "We're a California Distinguished School!" the school boasts. "We moved here because of the good schools!" beams an acquaintance. I just smile politely but inside I want to scream, "wake up and smell the coffee, people! Things aren't as hunky-dory as you all seem to believe they are!"

Laura McKenna over at the "11D" blog takes a more blase view of the problem of underperforming affluent schools:

"First of all, you should not rely on your schools to educate your kids. I spend a lot of time with my kids teaching them random things. If Jonah's doing his homework, I will be there in the room using the homework as a jumping board for my own lesson. If he does sloppy work, I make him redo it. I reteach the math lessons. We'll go up to the computer to look up a country in Africa. No school does this."

If a parent has to "afterschool" in order to make up for the academic deficiencies of the school, then what's the point of enrolling the child in the first place? Why not just homeschool and free up the child's afternoons for enrichment activities and unstructured play?

Laura follows up with a post detailing a number of the things she dislikes about her kids' school:

"Jonah's teachers have been terrible about math. They don't do enough repetition of math facts, and they just explain things really badly.
They don't do handwriting anymore, because the teachers tell me that all work will happen on laptops in the future.
Their time in specials (art, library, computers, health) is a complete waste of time.
They don't do enough writing.
They are not preparing the kids for good colleges. In fact, the head administrators seem to think that college consists of kids working in groups on laptop computers. They aren't preparing the kids for big lecture halls and blue books.
They assign book reports that consist largely of art projects that the parents complete.
They assign stupid homework like word searches and crossword puzzles."

So again my question is- if the academics are so lacking, why bother sending her kids there in the first place?

Is it "socialization"? I discussed that issue a couple weeks ago. Also, just today I was reading the newsletter from my town mothers' club when I came across a humor piece in written by a woman whose oldest child is a kindergartner. Here is an excerpt from it:

"They say a parent's influence only makes a difference for about the first seven years of a child's life. Well, make that five years. As soon as they enter the stream of public education and co-mingle with the throngs, they soak up everything like a sponge: the latest YouTube videos, the trendiest fashion fads, the most in-vogue vernacular. Soon you'll find yourself made obsolete as the go-to source of all things hip and happenin' and you feel as redundant as yesterday's newspaper (wait, make that newspapers, period)."

Yeah, I think I'll take a pass on this kind of "socialization" of my kids.

Now, quite possibly Laura is employed outside the home and is looking to her kids' school to provide childcare while she is at her job. I don't know her situation so I'm not going to make a judgment about that one way or the other. But for me personally, I'm a full-time homemaker and (God willing) plan to stay that way for a while. So that's not a reason for me to put my kids in a subpar school. I'm only going to enroll them in a school that would do a better job educating them than I can do myself. And that's definitely not my local government-run school...

Planning for the Upcoming School Year

2009-06-05T20:42:00.000-07:00

We homeschool year-round so the division between one school year and the next is an arbitrary one. I usually pick the Monday after return from our annual trek back East to visit relatives.

As Rusty will be turning 4, I've decided it's time to start some gentle preschool work with him. I'm not planning to do kindergarten until 2011 because his birthday is November and I think he could probably benefit from the "redshirting". Also that way both kids would be on the same part of the cycle for history & science.

With Rusty, I've decided to try the first activity book of the Core Knowledge preschool sequence. I feel that given his speech & language delay it would probably be a good idea to follow a formal preschool curriculum even though I did not use one with Miss Scarlet. As his speech therapist puts it, some kids just need explicit instruction for stuff that most kids pick up on their own. I liked the look of the CK preschool book and the price was certainly reasonable. Miss Scarlet decided to play teacher when the book arrived and did a few of the activities with Rusty. Some were too easy for him but others were on the challenging side. So overall, I think it's the right level.

Miss Scarlet will be "officially" in second grade but she's all over the map in terms of what she's doing. It's tricky trying to figure out what will be challenging but not too frustrating.

For religion, she's going to be finishing up the 2nd grade Faith and Life book (we had to shelve it around Christmastime in order to ensure we completed the parish CCD book We Believe by Sadlier prior to her 1st Communion). Once we're done with that, we'll continue on with the 3rd grade F&L volume.

For math, we're currently in the middle of the Level C book in Right Start. I'm trying to decide whether to continue on in that program when we finish or switch to Singapore. I really liked Level B of RS but am less happy with C. I had her take the Singapore placement tests to see where she would be in that program. She got everything right on the 1B test except for the two subtraction word problems. She could solve subtraction equations but got stumped by the word problem aspect. Right Start is a bit weak on word problems so even if I don't switch programs entirely I'm going to have her work through the Singapore Challenging Word Problems books. On the Singapore 2A test, she had trouble with the word problems again and also the multiplication & division equations. So my other math goal for the year is to have her memorize the multiplication table.

For science, we're going to be studying chemistry, and I think we're going to try The Elements by Ellen McHenry. I did not use a formal curriculum with science in the past but I'm less confident about my ability to properly teach chemistry. I did take chemistry in both high school and college; however, I don't feel like it's a subject that lends itself as easily to "winging it" with library resources as biology, geology, and astronomy did.

In history, we're going to be continuing doing unit studies in a roughly chronological order. We're finishing up our study of ancient India right now. Future units include ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Islam, the Vikings, Mesoamerican civilizations, medieval times, feudal Japan, and so on.

For English, I'm going to continue working through the Writing With Ease workbook for copywork, dictation, and narration exercises. I'm also going to try Story Grammar for Elementary School by Don & Jenny Killgallon. Thanks to Catherine Johnson at the "Kitchen Table Math" blog for the recommendation! Finally, I'm going to have Miss Scarlet do the Seton Reading-Thinking Skills 5 for Young Catholics workbook. It's great for vocabulary building and she really seemed to enjoy the grade 4 book when we did that one.

For spelling, I'm going to continue using the lists from the Words Their Way book. I discovered this one at my local library and really like how the lists are organized. The lists aren't groups of random words to be memorized but rather grouped by some feature. For example, the most recent list Miss Scarlet did had words with an unaccented final syllable ending in -r (e.g. motor, farmer, similar and so on).

For music appreciation, we're going to be using How to Introduce Your Child to Classical Music in Fifty-Two Easy Lessons from Emmanuel Books. I already had most of the pieces either in my CD collection or on my "I should really get a copy of this" list (and here's my excuse to get off my duff and acquire them!) The rest I should hopefully be able to borrow from my library.

For art, I'm leaning towards enrolling her in the local parks & recreation drawing class. Plus we'll continue to take field trips to local art museums.

For home economics, we're going to finish up Level 1 of Pearables Home Economics for Homeschoolers and then start on the Future Christian Homemakers Handbook. I'm not wildly thrilled with the tone in both books that the traditional homemaker role is the only proper one to which Christian girls ought to aspire. Yes, it's a very valuable one- in most cases the ideal one when a woman's children are young. But I certainly consider it a season in my life. I was employed full-time in the past and plan to resume my career at least on a part-time basis when my children are older and more independent. I want my girls to know there's nothing wrong with wanting both a career and a family, it'll probably just take some sequencing of the former in order to give the latter its proper priority. Okay, I'll get down off my soapbox now :-p

Anyways, I do like the actual lessons contained in the home ec titles mentioned so we're using them. Miss Scarlet will also continue participating in 4-H. She wants to do the baking project again and also the sewing project. That one will take special permission since she'll be younger than 8. If I can get her skilled enough on the sewing machine by the fall I think they may let her.

I think I've covered everything I'm planning to do in our homeschool next year.

Are Homeschoolers Motivated by Racism? Pt, II

2009-06-03T06:23:00.000-07:00

The demographics of homeschooling families has come under quite a bit of scrutiny recently, particularly the findings that an increasing percentage of them are white, college-educated, and have incomes >$50,000 than in 1998 (though it is unclear whether that particular number has been adjusted for inflation). These findings play into the belief among certain critics of homeschooling that racism/ethnophobia is a major factor driving families to choose homeschool.

I discussed this topic back last December. You can read the full post here, but the key part is this:

"Is there any evidence that homeschoolers are disproportionately likely to reject integrated schools? I'm not aware of any research on the topic, but anecdotally it doesn't hold true for the homeschoolers I know personally....The school my children are zoned to attend is only 2.8% Hispanic and a mere 1.8% black. Low-income students of any race/ethnicity make up only 3.2% of the school's enrollment. So obviously my decision to homeschool is not due to a 'fear of mixing with the opposite race or class' because there are hardly any black, Hispanic, or poor kids at our neighborhood school. In fact, I'm pretty sure the percentage of black and Hispanic kids in our homeschool support group actually exceeds the percentage at the school (it's certainly not less)."

The fact that homeschoolers are disproportionately white, college-educated, and higher income means absolutely nothing if the schools they are rejecting are filled with students of the same demographic. If critics want to make an argument that homeschoolers are motivated by racism, they need to provide some data to show homeschooling rates are higher for families zoned to attend a diverse school than for those zoned for a non-diverse school.

Jesse Scaccia of the "Teacher Revised" blog asks in his post "The Case Against Homeschooling":

"How can a young person learn to appreciate other cultures if he or she doesn’t live among them?"

That is a fair question, but his proposed solution of enrolling in the government-run schools is no guarantee that a child will encounter a diverse set of classmates. The above quote from my previous post shows how faulty that assumption can be. And the school my kids are zoned to attend is hardly alone in its lack of diversity. Consider the demographics of the following government-run schools from across the country.

Located in Massachusetts, where the statewide numbers are 8% African-American, 13% Latino, and 29% low-income.

My alma mater: 2% African-American, 1% Latino. Less than 1% are low-income.
My dad's alma mater: 4% African-American (many of these are bused in from Boston through the METCO program rather than town residents), and 3% Latino (again many of these are METCO participants). 2% of the students are low-income (again most are METCO kids).

Located in Ohio, where the statewide numbers are 15% African-American, 3% Latino, and 36% low-income.

My mom's alma mater: Less than 1% African-American, 1% Latino. Less than 1% are low-income.

Located in California, where the statewide numbers are 7% African-American, 49% Latino, and 51% low-income.

The high school in one of the towns where we're considering buying a home: 1% African-American, 4% Latino. Less than 1% are low-income.
The high school in the second town where we're considering buying a home: Less than 1% African-American, 3% Latino. Less than 1% are low-income.
High school #1 in the third town where we're considering buying a home: 7% Latino, 4% African-American. 3% of the students are low-income.
High School #2 is: 8% Latino, 1% African-American. 3% are low-income.

Homeschooled children therefore are far from alone in having there be "probably only one race/background in the room" as Mr. Scaccia puts it. De facto segregation is still a real problem in the U.S. four decades after civil rights legislation put an end to de jure segregation. But regardless of how important a challenge it is for our society to overcome, it is not a homeschooling issue. So don't try to make it into one.

Bureaucrats vs. Bible Study in San Diego

2009-05-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

My mom and her church small group ministry should be glad they don't live in San Diego. Holding regular meetings in someone's home to discuss Scripture and other religious topics without paying thousands of dollars to obtain a "religious assembly" permit apparently violates county regulations there. Rev. David Jones' weekly Bible study typically attracts about 15 people, less than many ladies' bunco or guys' poker nights. But after a fender bender between vehicles belonging to one of the members of the Bible study group and a visitor to a neighbor of Jones, some busybody called county officials to complain. A code enforcement officer was sent to grill Rev. Jones about the gatherings, after which the county issued a formal citation.

Doesn't San Diego county have more important things to worry about- say the $244 million shortfall in the county budget? Or are the two things related? Christians seem to make easy shakedown targets for Californian bureaucrats these days. The city of San Francisco is trying to levy a $15 million tax on the city's Catholic archdiocese on properties transferred from one administrative arm of the archdiocese to another.

The First Amendment should protect religious groups in these types of cases, but unfortunately activist judges have been chipping away at that protection for decades. And with the election of Barack Obama, I don't foresee the situation improving in that regard any time soon in the Federal judicial system.

Let's pray that the San Diego bureaucrats stop persecuting Rev. Jones and his Bible study group!

Hats off to Those Who Made the Ultimate Sacrifice for Freedom

2009-05-25T11:28:00.000-07:00

Last year on Memorial Day I was in the midst of first trimester morning (noon, and night) sickness so I neglected to post a thank you on this blog to all those brave men and women who gave their lives so the rest of us could be free. My apologies for not feeling up to giving a more public display of gratitude!

This year, I've decided to share the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn as my Memorial Day post. Emerson was writing about the battle of Concord in the Revolutionary War but his beautiful poem is a fitting tribute to all those brave Americans who paid the ultimate price for our freedom.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We place with joy a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free, --
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.

6 Going on 16: Yet Another Reason to Homeschool

2009-05-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

The other day I was walking through the park on our way home from the library with the kids when we passed two little girls who appeared to be practicing a cheerleading routine. They had bunches of flowers in their hands that they were waving around like pom-poms and they were doing high kicks, dance moves, and other cheerleader-type stuff. The two girls looked a bit younger than Miss Scarlet, who's 6 1/2. I would guess that they were 5ish. No parent/guardian was in the immediate vicinity.

What really bothered me about these two little girls was their provocative clothes and dance routine. I'm not a huge fan of midriff-baring spaghetti strap tanks and miniskirts even on teens but these were prepubescent children! And the sexualized routine just struck me as icky. Just because the Laker Girls dance like that does not mean kindergarten-age cheerleaders should, KWIM?

Miss Scarlet was fascinated, however. It struck me that if she were enrolled in a traditional school, this is what she might be learning at recess from her classmates.

I was reminded of this incident when I read a depressing article in the Rethinking Schools journal entitled "Six, Going on Sixteen". It was written by a veteran elementary schoolteacher who currently teaches a combined K/1 class. Here is what she describes happening in her classroom:

"I had 5-year-old girls vying for the attention of the 'coolest' 1st-grade boy. They would push to be near him at the sand table, and groan audibly if I didn't place them in his book group. Students in the class thought of each other as 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend.' Freeze dance and soul train, which are usually a big hit and lots of fun, had a new dimension as students danced out the social scenarios they had seen in music videos. Performer Chris Brown was the ultimate favorite, though 50 Cent and others were also on the scene. My 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds played out and talked about 'being in the club' and 'drinking Heineken.' They wrote about the music world in their journals and turned the block area into a radio station. Sometimes they used the hollow blocks to build a stage to perform on. Small cylindrical blocks were their microphones. This type of play was OK with me, except who was 'in' and who was 'out' was a constant social battle.
There was another aspect of this that negatively impacted our classroom community, and that was the idea of certain kids wearing the 'right' sneakers. This was among a group of boys, but the rest of the class was affected. It was something we had class meetings about, and tried to minimize the negative effects of, but it was a continuous struggle. One morning, as they walked up the stairs to our second-floor classroom, a kindergarten boy and a 1st-grade boy got in a pushing and hitting fight because the younger boy said he was wearing 'Carmelo Anthonys' and the older boy said, 'No, those are Jordans.' Another boy, whose mom refused to buy expensive sneakers, had repeated meltdowns (crying, throwing things, yelling) when other boys arrived at school with new sneakers, stylish shirts or outfits, or big plastic gold rings."

These types of narratives just reinforce our decision to homeschool. The homeschooled kids of my acquaintance don't exhibit this type of pseudosophistication. The little girls dress their age rather than looking like mini-streetwalkers. If there's dancing, it's typically something like the Hokey Pokey or ballet.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2009-05-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

Things have been kind of crazy around here in the past couple of weeks. After a 7 month job search, DH was finally able to land a great new position. He loved his old one but his employer had gone through 7 rounds of layoffs with more rumored to be on the way. Not to mention that since the company had accepted TARP funds, they Are now bound by the Congressional rules limiting the size of his year-end bonus.

I understand anger over the AIG situation but what the average American doesn't understand is that in the financial industry, a bonus isn't really a "bonus" (i.e.. a one-time reward for unusually good performance that only a handful of folks at the company receive). It's actually more like a sales commission- an expected bit of deferred compensation to make up for the relatively low base salary. You hit or exceed your target numbers, you get your bonus. To put it into perspective, the base salary at DH's new job is more than twice what his current base is., though the total estimated comp is only somewhat more than his 2007 total comp. The only reason that Wall St. firms can get away with paying their employees a relatively low base salary is because of the bonuses. When Congress arbitrarily restricts bonuses to 1/3 of the base, anyone who can find another position is almost certainly going to leave. Those are typically the best performers, like my DH. He made his employer a ton of money last year and the first part of this one even with the bear market. He had absolutely *NOTHING* to do with the mortgage mess- why punish him for mistakes other people made?

Getting off my soapbox and back to my main point. Now that DH has accepted this new position, we've decided to take the plunge and buy our first home. It's kind of sad that it's taken us until the age of 33 (for DH) and 32 (for me) and over a decade of marriage to get to this point. My parents were only 27 and 23 & newlyweds when they bought their first place. Granted that was a teeny 2BR ~1000 sq ft starter home and we're looking at 4 to 5 BR homes that tend to be in the ~1800-2400 sq ft range. And the towns we're considering are nicer than Campbell, the suburb of San Jose where my parents first lived. But we're probably going to be spending triple or even quadruple the inflation-adjusted cost of my parents' first house. That's even with the recent declines in the housing market.

I'm finding the househunting process exciting but a bit overwhelming. Fortunately it's not the frenzy of a couple years ago. More properties seem to be coming on MLS than are going off and there are a LOT of reductions in the listing price.

Proof That I've Been on WAY Too Many Road Trips...

2009-05-13T18:13:00.000-07:00

The next time I drive cross-country, I've got half a mind to take I-90/I-94 and hit the northwest & northern Great Plains states. I've done the I-80 and the I-70/I-15 routes in the past. DH did the I-40 route once but Miss Scarlet was a baby at the time so we decided it would be best for me & her to fly rather than go in the U-Haul.

I have visited 36 states (72%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Ban on Communion Wine: Prudent or Paranoid?

2009-05-03T22:04:00.000-07:00

Today was a big day for our family as it was Miss Scarlet's First Communion and Princess P.'s baptism. We did both on the same day since most of our family does not live in the area. My parents, both of my brothers, DH's parents, and his sister came. The only one who was not able to make it was DH's brother, who is finishing up his last semester at college and scrambling to try to find a post-graduation job (it's a tough, tough market out there for this year's seniors!)

Anyways, at the First Communion Mass the priest read a letter from Archbishop Niederauer stating that because of the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu in the archdiocese the parish was not to offer the Eucharist under the species of the Blood. Miss Scarlet was happy to hear that, as she'd tried the unconsecrated wine at the rehearsal & hadn't liked it. But it just struck me as a bit overly cautious given that the total number of probable cases our county has reported so far is two.

Our parish could've just given the kids receiving their First Communion the Blood and not the rest of those attending the Mass. The schools in our town are all open, and that IMHO is a more likely method of transmission than the Communion cup.

Cool Site to Check "Walkability" of Addresses

2009-05-02T00:58:00.000-07:00

Now that we've had a 3rd child, the townhouse we're currently renting is getting a bit cramped. Also, the dip in home prices is making buying our own place a more attainable goal than it was a few years ago. So I was checking out the real estate section on SFGate.com to see what they had listed. I noticed the listings included a "walkability" score. Our current home is rated "somewhat walkable" with a score of 58 out of 100.

I love the concept, though I would quibble over the details of the algorithm. The biggest flaw IMHO is that it's missing one of the most important places to which I would ideally like to walk: church. When DH was in grad school and we lived in student housing we used to walk to church every Sunday. Unfortunately, our current parish is 2.6 mi away from our home, which is farther than I care to walk with the kids on a regular basis. I couldn't care less whether there's a bar within walking distance (one of the categories that *IS* listed) but it would be very nice not to have to drive to Mass every week.

File This Under "D" for "Duh"

2009-04-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

Last month, the elite media heavily publicized the finding by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life that 10% of Americans have left the Catholic Church after having been raised Catholic. Those ex-Catholics are fairly evenly split between those who are now Protestant and those who are now unaffiliated with any faith (only a small percentage have converted to non-Christian faiths). An article in today's Christian Science Monitor goes into detail about why survey participants reported leaving Catholicism:

"When asked to explain in their own words the main reason for leaving the Catholic Church, about half cite a disagreement with the church's religious or moral beliefs. For those now unaffiliated, about half were unhappy about birth control, 56 percent about teachings on abortion and homosexuality, and 40 percent about the treatment of women."

Yep, those are the 3 issues where Catholic doctrine most prominently differs from the "anything goes" mentality pushed by secular modern culture. While a number of the mainline Protestant denominations have chosen to abandon the traditional Biblical teachings on these issues in the name of "modernization", the Vatican has thus far resisted the pressure to do so.

As St. Paul preached to the Galatians almost 2,000 years ago:

"For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1:10-12)

The CSM article mentions in passing the fact that most people who switch affiliation do so prior to the age of 24, but the Pew Forum website goes into more detail. Nearly half (48%) leave Catholicism prior to the age of 18. An additional 30% leave between 18 and 23.

To me, this statistic shows the failure of families, parish CCD programs, and Catholic schools to properly catechize Catholic youth as to the reasoning behind Catholic doctrine. I've discussed this issue at length here and here. If we want young Catholics to "follow the narrow way" and resist the siren song of moral relativism, we need to do more than simply tell them the rules. Catholics of whatever age are far more likely to obey if they understand *WHY* the Church teaches X, Y, or Z. It's far easier to dismiss simple appeals to clerical authority than it is to dismiss a reasoned argument in support of Church doctrine.

One More Reason to Feel Old

2009-04-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

Rusty's speech therapist has given me a packet of various oral motor and vocabulary exercises for daily practice at home. One page in particular he's been having all kinds of difficulty with. It's a part/whole analogies exercise, which is not the easiest concept for a 3 year old to grasp to begin with. However, he does okay on a different analogies exercise in the packet that has clothing and body parts on it (e.g. "toes are part of ____" matched to a picture of a foot).

On the page Rusty has been struggling with there are pictures of 5 items: a cathode ray television set with rabbit ears, a car, a pocket watch, a film camera, and a typewriter. Here are the questions:

"A ribbon is on a _____"
"A windshield is on a ____"
"Film is in a _____"
"Minutes are on a ____"
"A screen is on a _____"

The only one Rusty can answer is #2. He's familiar with watches and television sets, but the ones in our home don't look much like the pictures on the page. And I don't think he has any conception whatsoever of film cameras and typewriters, LOL! I suspect for him they'll be like an 8 track tape player and a telegraph machine would be for folks my age- something we've heard about but never actually used.

HALO Breast Cancer Pap Test Featured on Rachael Ray TV-Show

2009-04-24T14:48:00.001-07:00

New Non-Invasive Breast Cancer Screening Test

2009-04-24T14:32:00.000-07:00

As I am in my 30’s, I am at getting to the stage in my life where female acquaintances my age are starting to be diagnosed with breast cancer. In fact, two of them sadly recently lost their battles with the disease). But I am still too young to undergo routine mammograms. I know that earlier detection of breast cancer leads to a better long-term prognosis, and that is important not just for myself but for my family. I have 3 young children who depend on me and God willing, I want to be there for them.

A friend of mine recently sent me a link for a new non-invasive breast cancer screening test. It's called the HALO Pap Test for the Breast. It takes about 5 minutes and costs about $100 (not yet covered by most insurers). Unfortunately, there are not yet any doctors in my area who offer the test, but I wrote a letter to my OB-GYN practice requesting that they offer it to patients like me who want it.

Please be aware that I have no affiliation with the manufacturer or any other sort of financial interest in the product- I just wanted to get the word out to other women who might be interested.

Catholics Called to Take Action on Climate Change

2009-04-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

Via the link the commenter on my post the other day left promoting the "Meatless Mondays" campaign, I eventually wound up discovering a website for a group called the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change. It was launched yesterday to call Catholics to "make a serious commitment" to all of the following:

"PRAY and reflect on the duty to care for God's creation and for the poor and vulnerable;

LEARN about and educate others on the moral dimensions of climate change;

ASSESS our participation-as individuals and organizations-in contributing to climate change (i.e. consumption and conservation);

ACT to change our choices and behaviors contributing to climate change and;

ADVOCATE Catholic principles and priorities in climate change discussions and decisions, especially as they impact the poor and vulnerable."

As a Catholic, I do feel a moral obligation to try my best to be a good steward of God's creation. If we wait to take action until the debate over global warming has been settled it may very well be too late.

I also believe it's important for the Church to make its voice heard on this issue to make sure that any proposed government action does not conflict with Catholic doctrine. There are many environmental activists who would like to see family size limited in the name of "saving the planet". Catholics need to ensure that the focus is on reducing consumption through simpler and more sustainable living rather than fewer births.

Let's lead by example that families do not have to be small to be "green"!

How Green is Your Diet?

2009-04-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading an excellent new book entitled Go Green, Get Lean: Trim Your Waistline with the Ultimate Low-Carbon Diet by Kate Geagan, RD. I had known that a "flexitarian" diet has a much lower impact on the Earth than the typical American way of eating (of course, a vegetarian one is even more eco-friendly but I'm not ready to give up animal proteins entirely just yet). As a Christian, I feel a responsibility to try to be a good steward of God's creation. I also want to take good care of the gift of the body He gave me and make the most of the financial resources He has been generous enough to put at our family's disposal. There are so many families in our area who are hurting in this recession and demand for our local food pantry is up 50% from last year :-( If reducing our meat consumption frees up money in our budget to help feed the hungry, that's a sacrifice I believe Jesus would have us make.

Anyways, while I had a general sense that eating a plant-based diet with meat "as a condiment" was the way to go, reading Go Green, Get Lean has been a real eye-opener. I had no idea that the average American diet creates more per-person CO2 emissions than the typical amount Americans drive. Or that the food system consumes nearly 20% of all petroleum burned annually in the U.S. Red meat alone accounts for 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions from food in the average American household. Every 1 kilogram of beef consumed (~8 quarter-pound servings) has the same CO2 emissions as driving the typical European car for 155 miles. If Americans were to substitute 1 lb. of bread per month for 1 lb. of beef each year, that would save energy equivalent to 120 million barrels of oil!

Eating a "flexitarian" diet rather than a meat-heavy one also makes it easier to maintain a healthy weight. 1 lb. of porterhouse steak contains 388 calories vs. a mere 94 for 1 lb. of tofu. Not only does obesity raise the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and other health problems but it's also bad for the environment. A study done by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reported on CNN today found that the increase in obesity in the U.K. from the 1970 to today accounts for 270 million metric tons annually of additional greenhouse gas emissions. Yikes!

Regardless of one's views on the "hot button" issue of climate change, I believe we should be erring on the side of caution. I hate to sound like an alarmist, but if we wait to take action until the debate over global warming is resolved it very well might be too late. Reducing our meat consumption, especially red meat, is an easy and inexpensive way to lower our carbon footprint.

Our next car (at least we hope!)

2009-04-19T18:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of a car aficionado, but I am officially in love with the Tesla Model S electric sedan prototype. One of DH's friends from grad school works for Tesla and invited us to come down to their showroom in Menlo Park to check it out last weekend.

The car is super stylish and HUGE! Tesla claims it seats 7; I'm not sure about that but it would easily seat 6. It's supposed to go 300 miles on one charge and re-charge in 45 minutes.

Depending on what happens with DH's job situation, we're seriously considering buying one when it comes on the market in 2011. It'd cost almost triple what we paid for our current car, but we've shared a single economy car for the entire 10 years we've been married. And it's not like we're buying a BMW or Lexus- the premium is for the green technology. We don't wear designer clothes or fancy jewelery, go on exotic vacations, own pricey electronics, etc. I think one splurge on a car that will also help the environment is justifiable at this point, assuming we can spare the cash.

Right now because of the turmoil in DH's industry, we've built our emergency fund up to a higher-than-normal level. We want to make sure that we'd be okay if he were to be laid off and had to endure a lengthy job search. But if the outlook starts looking more rosy, then we could put a portion of that cash towards the purchase of a second car.

DH's friend has promised to arrange a test drive for us soon and possibly even a tour of their manufacturing plant.

Smiling on the Outside and Screaming on the Inside

2009-04-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I had a meeting this morning with the school district's special education program regarding services for our DS, "Rusty". What an incredibly frustrating experience it was!

I knew going in that the district is financially strapped and was not going to want to pay for services if they could at all avoid it. The hospital speech therapist he's been seeing had warned me that he might not qualify at this point. So I was not surprised to hear that he did not meet the criteria for speech and language impairment as set forth in the CA Ed Code. It's a stringent standard- the child has to score below the 7th percentile for his/her chronological age on two or more standardized tests of speech & language development. While I believe that this is overly strict, nothing would be gained by arguing the point with the district special ed personnel. Their job is to follow state law, not to write it.

What frustrated me was not that the district determined that Rusty did not meet their eligibility criteria for special education, but that the evaluation revealed a significant discrepancy between where he is in terms of his language capabilities and where he really ought to be.

On the non-verbal portions of the IQ test, he scored well above average- and this was very likely an underestimate because he got bored partway through the block design subtest and decided in typical 3 year old fashion that he'd much rather stack the blocks than copy the design that the evaluator had made. At home, I've seen him copy complex tangram patterns that are designed for kids several years older than him.

On the verbal portions of the IQ test, however, he scored about 3/4 of a standard deviation below the mean. This is considered within the normal range, but to me it raised a big red flag. Typically, verbal IQ and non-verbal IQ differ by less than 2/3 of a standard deviation, and for Rusty's scores the difference was nearly two standard deviations (or more if he indeed underperformed on the block design subtest). DH, Miss Scarlet, and I all tested within the gifted range and normally there's a high correlation between parental/child IQ scores and also between siblings' IQ scores.

On the speech and language assessment, there were also wide discrepancies between the various subtests. Rusty scored above average for a subtest that was primarily a memory exercise (repeating complex sentences spoken by the evaluator). On most of the others, he was somewhat below average. And on a few, he was quite a bit below average.

It is so clear to me that Rusty does, in fact, have some sort of speech and language impairment. If he had low scores across the board and came from a family who also tended to score low, then there would not be much cause for concern. But he's got certain scores that are well above average and he comes from a very high-scoring family. I'm positive his high baseline is masking the disability, because it causes him to score within the normal range even with the impairment.

Fortunately, we do have insurance that provides coverage for speech therapy so we can continue getting Rusty the help he needs. But what if we didn't? Our therapist charges a whopping $1400/month for one session per week. There's no way we could afford that kind of expense if we were responsible for the full cost.

All We Care About is Talking, Talking Only Me & You

2009-04-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't talked all that much about our DS, whom I call "Rusty" for the purposes of this blog. We suspect he's what's known as "twice exceptional"- both intellectually gifted and disabled. In Rusty's case, he has speech and language delay. Although I've got serious reservations about getting involved with the government-run schools, tomorrow we've got a meeting with the district special education program to discuss an Individual Education Plan.

Our oldest, Miss Scarlet, has always been very advanced verbally. At 14 months, she answered my parents' first names when asked the question "who is that?" At 16 months, she knew color names including secondary ones (in fact, her first color word was "purple"). At 18 months, she knew all the letters and their sounds and was speaking in phrases of 3-5 words or longer. By 2 1/2, she was speaking more or less fluently, albeit with certain immature pronunciations (e.g. "f" instead of "th"). Now at age 6, she has a more sophisticated vocabulary than a sizable percentage of adults.

When Rusty had slower language development than his big sister I was not initially all that concerned. He was more advanced in certain other areas than Miss Scarlet had been at the same age. When he was 12 months, he could build a stack 6 blocks high. He excelled at puzzles, and at 2 1/2 figured out how to play a DVD without help (a two-step process). As he clearly was bright, I just figured we had the stereotypical mechanically inclined boy and verbal girl.

As he got older, however, I began to worry about his speech, particularly his articulation. Even though I spent all day with him, I had difficulty understanding much of what he was saying. He would say a whole long phrase and I might be able to figure out a single word. People who saw him less frequently like DH and other relatives basically found his speech unintelligible. I hoped he might just need some more time to develop, but eventually my mom goaded me into having a formal evaluation by a speech therapist. He was diagnosed as having articulation disorder with receptive and expressive language delay.

Between June of last year when Rusty had the evaluation and when he got off the waiting list for therapy at the end of September, his speech did improve quite a bit. But he still was behind what was typical for his age. He saw the therapist twice per week until our baby was born in January, and has been going once per week since we resumed therapy in February. Our health insurance covers 30 sessions per year plus another 30 with authorization, but we're still responsible for a $30/session co-pay. Fortunately, my parents have been generous enough to reimburse us for the co-pays thus far. But now that he's 3 and old enough to be covered under special education, we'd like to try to get the district to provide speech therapy.

I'm hoping that he'll continue the progress he's been making in therapy and outgrow the need for it before he reaches kindergarten age. If not, the district does supposedly offer an independent study program, which might be a possibility if there aren't too many strings attached (yeah, right).

This afternoon, I came across an intriguing book entitled The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late by Thomas Sowell, an economist at Stanford's Hoover Institution and the parent of a late-talking child. As I was reading the reviews, I recognized my child in what they were describing:

analytical
musical
strong-willed and stubborn
slow to toilet train
loves puzzles, blocks, and Legos
loving and affectionate but sometimes aloof
concentrates on some tasks & ignores requests/directives to perform other tasks
can work almost every tool and gadget in the house
relatives who are tech geeks and/or musicians

I've requested the book from the inter-library loan program. I'm curious to see what Dr. Sowell has to say in it. From the reviews, it appears that he takes a skeptical view of speech therapy. We've found that to be helpful with Rusty, and I'm not going to discontinue it based on the opinions of a single author. But I'm hopeful that the Einstein Syndrome book will help me better understand my little Mr. Mechanical.

College Admissions by Lottery of Qualified Applicants? Part II

2009-03-31T14:18:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of March, which means it's time for the annual ritual of high school seniors learning which colleges they've been accepted to and for my jaw to drop at how insanely competitive the process has become. There's good news and bad news for this year's applicants to selective colleges.

First, the good news: applications to certain of the liberal arts colleges were down, allowing a larger percentage to win acceptance. More fat envelopes are going out this year from the following: Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Pomona, and Grinnell.

Unfortunately, many more of the top schools are reporting record low admissions rates:

Harvard 7% vs. 8% last year
Stanford 7.5% vs. 9.5%
Yale 7.5% vs. 8.3%
Columbia 9.8% vs. 10%
MIT 10.2% vs. 11.6%
Brown 11% vs. 13.4%
Dartmouth 12% vs. 13%
Duke 17% vs. 20%
Penn 17% (same as last year)
Cornell 19% vs. 20.4%
Wesleyan (CT) 22% vs. 27%

Chad Aldeman had an iteresting blog post a couple weeks ago over at "The Quick and the Ed" calling for selective colleges to hold lotteries of all applicants who meet the school's minimum academic qualifications:

"What this becomes, more or less, is a lottery. And if it's a lottery, and everyone treats it that way except the students who invest their time, money, and emotions, maybe we should just start treating it that way. No more pretending it's about student activities, their essay, recommendations, or their devotion to the school. We've all heard about the perfect 4.0 student with excellent extracurriculars who gets rejected from their dream school. Instead, let's just institute a lottery. Schools set their baseline, kids submit their numbers, and then we run a giant lottery for the spots. Poof, like magic. Such a system operates in other fields that we're perfectly comfortable with--medical residency programs or coveted charter schools, for example--so maybe it's time to give it a shot for college applicants."

As I blogged almost two years ago, holding lotteries would go a long way in reducing the pressure cooker atmosphere at many of today's high schools.

There's a girl in our 4H club who is the valedictorian of her class at one of the local government-run schools. She was telling me at one of the recent project meetings about her crazy workload. She's currently taking FIVE (!) Advanced Placement courses. I took one AP course my senior year and thought that by itself was a lot of work. I can't imagine multiplying the demands of that by five!

If students knew that they did not need to try to impress an admissions officer, maybe they could stop obsessing over external markers of achievement like grades and standardized test scores- and start focusing on learning for its own sake. The current system encourages kids to "play the game" of school and often penalizes those who stretch themselves intellectually by enrolling in courses where they won't receive a high grade. Shouldn't we be discouraging students from settling for the "easy A" and rewarding those who challenge themselves?

Please Pray for our Neighbor

2009-03-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

The elderly gentleman who lives across the street from us was just taken away in an ambulance. I'm not totally sure what happened, but when the paramedics arrived at his house they brought in one of those defibrillator machines. So I'm guessing that he may have had a heart attack. He was conscious when the ambulance left, which hopefully means that he'll be okay. Please keep him in your prayers for a speedy and complete recovery.

What's Up With the Adoption of "Fuzzy Math" in Silicon Valley?

2009-03-28T14:31:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I ~~ranted~~ blogged about how my local district voted to adopt the notorious "Every Day Mathematics" program. As it turns out, my district is not the only one in the area making the switch. The "Kitchen Table Math" blog has an excellent series of posts on the battle over the adoption of EM in Palo Alto.

I just don't understand why the districts are pushing to switch their math programs now. Doesn't it cost a lot of money to buy new materials and train teachers to use them? Aren't the schools facing huge cuts to their budgets because of the state's economic crisis? Not that I think that they should ever adopt a "fuzzy math" program like EM or TERC Investigations. But it strikes me as a spectacularly bad waste of scarce resources at the present time.

3 Kids is a "Large Family"?

2009-03-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

Opening up my email this morning, I saw an invitation to join a website called "Large Families Today". This struck me as just a bit odd since I only have 3 kids. Maybe because I'm Catholic and also have a number of Mormon friends, but I don't consider myself as having a "large" family just yet. It's only since the birth of our 3rd in January that I've even started to think of myself as having a medium-sized family. To me, a "large family" has 5 or more kids.

We may get there some day- I'm only 32 and taking it one baby at a time. DH has already started in about wanting baby #4 but I told him to check back with me in a year or two. Right now I'm still adjusting to having a 3rd! For me, being "open to life" does not equal "have as many babies as physically possible". It means seeing children as gifts from God and not setting an arbitrary limit on family size. It means keeping an open dialogue with God and DH about whether to try to conceive, try to avoid pregnancy, or something in between.

Large families are wonderful and I personally believe our society would be better off if there were more of them. It makes me sad when I hear others give materialistic reasons as justification for having only 1 or 2 kids. Wouldn't it be nice if children were again seen as blessings rather than burdens?