Advance planning

All right! It's almost 11:30 the night before we start up lessons again, so it's prime time for me to start my lesson planning. This is how I roll. This afternoon at 2:30 I was feverishly printing out Epiphany coloring sheets and vocations crosswords for my religion class at 4:00. Tomorrow I'll be writing out details of the children's schola I'm leading for someone's co-op on Tuesdays. I'll be planning a day in advance for that because they're paying me a bit.

I'm flipping through our Core Knowledge books at the appropriate grade level to see what we've covered so far for each child. I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that we've already covered (and demonstrated some mastery) of all of the first grade math topics. Fifth grade? Not so much. I'm not too worried about fractions because I've overheard the girls dividing up cookies or portions of candy with a methodical care and accuracy that they rarely put into their math worksheets. Still, we're going to start our math time with ten minutes of quick drill, carefully timed and not a minute over.

Drill? Yes. I'm beginning to see just how crucial constantly pounding certain facts can be, if you actually want the kids to learn them. How much time did we spend last year talking about the Revolution? How much time on the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence? I asked Eleanor (age 10) this evening, "Eleanor, when was the Declaration of Independence written?"

She paused. "1556?"

"Nooo. Try again."

"1992?"

It was to laugh, or weep, take your pick.

I've been beta-testing a spelling program this year, one that involves learning words by copying paragraphs from a model, provided right there in the workbook. It's okay. The first grader likes it just fine, copying out lines from nursery rhymes and finding the vowel chunks and silent-e words. The fifth grader puts up with it -- it's only ten minutes a day, and at the end of the week, she copies her paragraph from dictation instead of the model, and counts up the words she's spelled right. The paragraphs all have to do with stories from American history, and the words aren't too difficult.  But Julia, in fourth grade, has taken against it, and when Julia takes against something, let it be anathema. She says it is too easy and tells me so in angry, misspelled notes. She wants tests and crossword puzzles and little varying exercises. Back to the MCP workbooks for her, I guess.

Speaking of taking against, it's pulling teeth this year to get anyone to read anything that smacks of sneaky education. I remember devouring biographies, novels, easy science books, that "day in the life of" series about different careers, anything, at this age. Then I re-read them. The big girls moan and sigh if I demand they read a chapter about the Transcontinental Railroad (it was an interesting book, I thought) or begin Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates. I liked that book. Something I wonder on occasion is whether my children are spoiled by living in a houseful of books. It's as if the books are so commonplace, they've lost their allure. When I was little, we didn't have a lot of books, and I read and re-read ours until they fell apart. I remember the glory of receiving a box of books from my great-aunt when I was nine or ten. It contained Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, a set of old encyclopedias with synopses of great world lit alphabetically arranged at the end of each volume, a Mary Renault novel, and a bunch of children's books the titles of which I can't remember even though the plots have stuck with me, in detail. (Anyone ever read the one about four children, one of whom was named Ham and one who might have been named Dorry, who vandalize an old house and are made to clean it up, and in the process they discover lots of great historical detail about it and see the error of their stupid prank, and then learn that the crochety owner is going to have it torn down because he can't afford to keep it up?) I still read almost anything that comes into my hands, but these ones, although they will do their school reading when required, are in a phase in which they only want to read books called "The Spy Princess" or involving Harry Potter or fairy tales.

We were conveniently between readalouds over Christmas break, so I've been perusing the shelves looking for our next book. At the beginning of the year I'd resolved to add more poetry into our diet, and one of the authors on my list was Longfellow. I'm considering Evangeline. As a warm-up, I read the last section of The Song of Hiawatha tonight ("By the shore of Gitche Gumee,/ By the shining Big-Sea-Water...). Eleanor started improvising a tap dance to the drum-like rhythm, weaving increasingly intricate and faster patterns around the ONE-two-three-four of the lines. It was like being part of a  minor number in a mid-century musical.

A college friend of mine, Bill Powell, recently wrote a book called Christmas by Heart: How to Memorize the Christmas Stories from Matthew and Lukewhich we started using over the break.  Although the book includes schedules for memorizing the stories either on an Advent or Christmas track, we're a few days behind and it doesn't make a difference in how we use the daily prompts. It's full of good advice and tips for effective memorization, so I read those myself and then incorporate them into our memory sessions, which are usually after evening prayers when the girls are in bed. We'll continue this almost until Lent. Anyone who's interested in learning more about what we're doing can find lots of detail and sample chapters at Christmas By Heart.

And that's about as much planning as I can handle tonight. I don't know how the real teachers do it. I admire you mightily for your developed curriculums and your fine lesson plans. You can admire me for my... well, the way I... for my ability to make it up as I go along, I guess.

Interior Castle for the Young

In honor of the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila, we read the first chapter of Interior Castle, in which Teresa uses an image of the soul that the girls found congenial: a castle made of a single diamond. Teresa is an engaging and easy writer, and this first section is a very accessible introduction for children to her thought.

* * *

 THE FIRST MANSIONS

 CHAPTER I. THIS CHAPTER TREATS OF THE BEAUTY AND DIGNITY OF OUR SOULS AND MAKES A COMPARISON TO EXPLAIN THIS. THE ADVANTAGE OF KNOWING AND UNDERSTANDING THIS AND THE FAVOURS GOD GRANTS TO US IS SHOWN, AND HOW PRAYER IS THE GATE OF THE SPIRITUAL CASTLE.

  1. Plan of this book. 2. The Interior Castle. 3. Our curable self ignorance. 4. God dwells in the centre of the soul. 5. Why all souls do not receive certain favours. 6. Reasons for speaking of these favours. 7. The entrance of the Castle. 8. Entering into oneself. 9. Prayer. 10. Those who dwell in the first mansion. 11. Entering. 12. Difficulties of the subject.

 1. WHILE I was begging our Lord to-day to speak for me, since I knew not what to say nor how to commence this work which obedience has laid upon me, an idea occurred to me which I will explain, and which will serve as a foundation for that I am about to write.

2. I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in heaven there are many mansions.If we reflect, sisters, we shall see that the soul of the just man is but a paradise, in which, God tells us, He takes His delight. What, do you imagine, must that dwelling be in which a King so mighty, so wise, and so pure, containing in Himself all good, can delight to rest? Nothing can be compared to the great beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our intellects may be, they are as unable to comprehend them as to comprehend God, for, as He has told us, He created us in His own image and likeness.

 3. As this is so, we need not tire ourselves by trying to realize all the beauty of this castle, although, being His creature, there is all the difference between the soul and God that there is between the creature and the Creator; the fact that it is made in God's image teaches us how great are its dignity and loveliness. It is no small misfortune and disgrace that, through our own fault, we neither understand our nature nor our origin. Would it not be gross ignorance, my daughters, if, when a man was questioned about his name, or country, or parents, he could not answer? Stupid as this would be, it is unspeakably more foolish to care to learn nothing of our nature except that we possess bodies, and only to realize vaguely that we have souls, because people say so and it is a doctrine of faith. Rarely do we reflect upon what gifts our souls may possess, Who dwells within them, or how extremely precious they are. Therefore we do little to preserve their beauty; all our care is concentrated on our bodies, which are but the coarse setting of the diamond, or the outer walls of the castle.

 4. Let us imagine, as I said, that there are many rooms in this castle, of which some are above, some below, others at the side; in the centre, in the very midst of them all, is the principal chamber in which God and the soul hold their most secret intercourse. Think over this comparison very carefully; God grant it may enlighten you about the different kinds of graces He is pleased to bestow upon the soul. No one can know all about them, much less a person so ignorant as I am. The knowledge that such things are possible will console you greatly should our Lord ever grant you any of these favours; people themselves deprived of them can then at least praise Him for His great goodness in bestowing them on others. The thought of heaven and the happiness of the saints does us no harm, but cheers and urges us to win this joy for ourselves, nor will it injure us to know that during this exile God can communicate Himself to us loathsome worms; it will rather make us love Him for such immense goodness and infinite mercy.

 5. I feel sure that vexation at thinking that during our life on earth God can bestow these graces on the souls of others shows a want of humility and charity for one's neighbour, for why should we not feel glad at a brother's receiving divine favours which do not deprive us of our own share? Should we not rather rejoice at His Majesty's thus manifesting His greatness wherever He chooses? Sometimes our Lord acts thus solely for the sake of showing His power, as He declared when the Apostles questioned whether the blind man whom He cured had been suffering for his own or his parents' sins. God does not bestow these favours on certain souls because they are more holy than others who do not receive them, but to manifest His greatness, as in the case of St. Paul and St. Mary Magdalen, and that we may glorify Him in His creatures.

 6. People may say such things appear impossible and it is best not to scandalize the weak in faith by speaking about them. But it is better that the latter should disbelieve us, than that we should desist from enlightening souls which receive these graces, that they may rejoice and may endeavour to love God better for His favours, seeing He is so mighty and so great. There is no danger here of shocking those for whom I write by treating of such matters, for they know and believe that God gives even greater proofs of His love. I am certain that if any one of you doubts the truth of this, God will never allow her to learn it by experience, for He desires that no limits should be set to His work: therefore, never discredit them because you are not thus led yourselves.

 7. Now let us return to our beautiful and charming castle and discover how to enter it. This appears incongruous: if this castle is the soul, clearly no one can have to enter it, for it is the person himself: one might as well tell some one to go into a room he is already in! There are, however, very different ways of being in this castle; many souls live in the courtyard of the building where the sentinels stand, neither caring to enter farther, nor to know who dwells in that most delightful place, what is in it and what rooms it contains.

 8. Certain books on prayer that you have read advise the soul to enter into itself, and this is what I mean. I was recently told by a great theologian that souls without prayer are like bodies, palsied and lame, having hands and feet they cannot use. Just so, there are souls so infirm and accustomed to think of nothing but earthly matters, that there seems no cure for them. It appears impossible for them to retire into their own hearts; accustomed as they are to be with the reptiles and other creatures which live outside the castle, they have come at last to imitate their habits. Though these souls are by their nature so richly endowed, capable of communion even with God Himself, yet their case seems hopeless. Unless they endeavour to understand and remedy their most miserable plight, their minds will become, as it were, bereft of movement, just as Lot's wife became a pillar of salt for looking backwards in disobedience to God's command.

 9. As far as I can understand, the gate by which to enter this castle is prayer and meditation. I do not allude more to mental than to vocal prayer, for if it is prayer at all, the mind must take part in it. If a person neither considers to Whom he is addressing himself, what he asks, nor what he is who ventures to speak to God, although his lips may utter many words, I do not call it prayer. Sometimes, indeed, one may pray devoutly without making all these considerations through having practised them at other times. The custom of speaking to God Almighty as freely as with a slave--caring nothing whether the words are suitable or not, but simply saying the first thing that comes to mind from being learnt by rote by frequent repetition--cannot be called prayer: God grant that no Christian may address Him in this manner. I trust His Majesty will prevent any of you, sisters, from doing so. Our habit in this Order of conversing about spiritual matters is a good preservative against such evil ways.

 10. Let us speak no more of these crippled souls, who are in a most miserable and dangerous state, unless our Lord bid them rise, as He did the palsied man who had waited more than thirty years at the pool of Bethsaida. We will now think of the others who at last enter the precincts of the castle; they are still very worldly, yet have some desire to do right, and at times, though rarely, commend themselves to God's care. They think about their souls every now and then; although very busy, they pray a few times a month, with minds generally filled with a thousand other matters, for where their treasure is, there is their heart also. Still, occasionally they cast aside these cares; it is a great boon for them to realize to some extent the state of their souls, and to see that they will never reach the gate by the road they are following.

 11. At length they enter the first rooms in the basement of the castle, accompanied by numerous reptiles which disturb their peace, and prevent their seeing the beauty of the building; still, it is a great gain that these persons should have found their way in at all.

 12. You may think, my daughters, that all this does not concern you, because, by God's grace, you are farther advanced; still, you must be patient with me, for I can explain myself on some spiritual matters concerning prayer in no other way. May our Lord enable me to speak to the point; the subject is most difficult to understand without personal experience of such graces. Any one who has received them will know how impossible it is to avoid touching on subjects which, by the mercy of God, will never apply to us.

Find the rest here.

Fish Heads, for fun and mental profit

I know that there are philosophical songs and then there are philosophical songs, but around here few pieces of music have occasioned as much discussion as Fish Heads, by Barnes and Barnes.


The list of conditions for what is or is not a fish head have led to great speculation as to which of our acquaintance may actually be a fish head in disguise.

For example, here are some of the conditions of fish headery:
a) they don't wear sweaters;
b) they don't play baseball;
c) they're not good dancers;
d) they don't play drums.

Some of the youngsters were a bit worried that Daddy might be a fish head, then, until it was pointed out that he does, occasionally, wear sweaters. In fact, most of us make the non-fish head category by virtue of our positive association with sweaters, although Julia is a good dancer, Jack has played the drums, and I have played baseball. Any one of these is sufficient to establish non-fish head status, but we like to be doubly protected.

What are the positive conditions of being a fish head?
a) roly-poly;
b) in the morning, happy and laughing;
c) in the evening, floating in the stew;
d) get into movies free;
e) can't talk.

Fortunately, c) bars Baby from being a fish head, although her dinnertime habits make one question.

But now, examine this statement: "Roly-poly fish heads are never seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with Oriental women (yeah)." There's a lot to unpack here. Do fish heads never drink cappuccino, or is the cappuccino ban only in effect when they are at Italian restaurants? What if they're at an Italian restaurant with Polish women? Or Oriental men? We're not given enough information to make broader statements, but with the help of Graph Jam, we put the statement into the form of a Venn diagram.

Let me anticipate correction by pointing out for myself that yes, I misspelled "cappuccino".

So we can say with certainty that if one meets all three of these conditions, one is definitely not a fish head. But wait! What happens if one meets all these conditions invisibly? After all, non-fish headery is contingent on being seen doing all these things.

Obviously, there are layers of richness here that we have yet to unpack.

Augustine's Confessions, for children

Yesterday being the feast of St. Monica, and today being the feast of St. Augustine, it seemed like a good time to break out Confessions and read about the childhoods of the saints.  Augustine writes so simply and clearly that he is not onerous for school-age children to listen to, or to read for themselves, but he's also very prolific. I found myself editing on the fly, skipping passages, and flipping around a great deal to find the sections that would be of most interest to the youngsters here.

I've gone through Books 1 and 2, which draw from Augustine's infancy and youth, and highlighted passages that I think will be most compelling for children to listen to, or read themselves. (Teenagers ought to be able to read more extensively on their own -- Confessions is definitely not an inaccessible or difficult book, stylistically.) Each section is short and concise -- certainly children reading at a fourth-grade level or above should have no difficulty reading a passage a day by themselves.

All of Book 1 is appropriate for children. The sections that I have not bolded are ones that can be skipped in the interests of time or flagging interest on the part of the youngsters, but I recommend them all.

Book 2 moves into Augustine's adolescence, and starts examining issues of lust and sexual incontinence that parents might want to avoid with pre-teens. Parents might want to preview the sections here that are not bolded before reading them aloud or assigning them to younger children.

My translation is by R.S. Pine-Coffin, from Penguin Classics.

Book 1.1: Introduction, "you made us for yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you."
1.2, 3, 4, 5: Continuation of Augustine's questions to God about His existence, His creative love, His attentions to Augustine himself. These are interesting, I think, to children who are themselves so full of questions, but can be skipped.
1.6: Augustine's babyhood.
1.7: faults of infancy
1.8: early boyhood, learning to speak
1.9: trials of going to school
1.10: sports
1.11: Augustine is gravely ill, but recovers before his family feels the need to baptize him.
1,12: the paradoxes of study
1.13: the trials learning Greek and Latin
1.14: Homer vs. Virgil
1.15: short digression on using study for God's glory
1.16: teaching children to admire the false example of false gods
1.17: Augustine recites the speech of Juno
1.18: intellectual vanity vs. eternal concerns
1.19: Augustine's bad habits of childhood
1.20: Augustine's good qualities of childhood

Book 2.1: Augustine recounts his adolescence and sins, particularly lust, to which he was prone.
2.2: continued.
2.3: onset of lust, and his father's unwillingess to check him.
2.4: theft of the pears
2.5: reason informs all behaviors, virtuous or vicious
2.6: meditation on the theft
2.7: acknowledgement of sin
2.8: Augustine explores why he stole the pears
2.9: incitements to the theft
2.10: wandering from God

Augustine also recounts some of the life of his mother, St. Monica. We enjoyed reading these sections yesterday on her feast.

Book 9.8: Monica's childhood and early addiction to drinking wine
9.9: Monica's humility and careful dealings with her husband and mother-in-law (be prepared to discuss how it used to be acceptable for husbands to beat their wives!)
9.11: the death of Monica

I really feel that there is a niche for a beautifully illustrated children's book about the boyhood of St. Augustine, with text taken from Confessions. I would buy it.

The Homeschooling Post

It's been a while since we've written about homeschooling. There are several factors at play in this; the primary one is that we've finally grown out of the idea that we have any wisdom to offer. Somehow, in our early years, we labored under the misapprehension that being homeschooled ourselves, we had some unique purview into the education of children, and we made ourselves insufferable by offering vast opinions on what every 18-year-old should know.  (This last is the sort of thing that sends me to my knees in thanksgiving that the blogsphere was not in full swing when we were 18; if you think we were overblown at 27, imagine how it was when we were at the age to know everything and tell everyone about it. --And according to my time in the 5K the other weekend, I run a mile in 12 minutes.) Thanks, jerky 27-year-old Darwin.)

But! We're still slogging on, educating our children and educating ourselves. Since the local public starts today, it seems like a good time to take stock.

First of all, this article by Jennifer Fitz on Putting Together a Last-Minute Curriculum, although aimed at first-time homeschoolers, was helpful to me in assessing my planning priorities (especially since I do everything at the last minute). Her first point: before you do anything else, be legal. Here's what Ohio mandates that I teach:

a) language, reading, spelling, and writing;
b) geography, history of the United States and Ohio, and national, state, and local government;
c) mathematics
d) science;
e) health;
f) physical education;
g) fine arts, including music; and
h) first aid, safety, and fire prevention.

As Jennifer points out, religion and Latin are not on that list. This is not to say that those subjects are unimportant, but they're not the first topics I need to plan, nor do I need to consider them when getting our work ready for our yearly assessment (no problem on the Latin, because we haven't started that yet, but my brother is a Latin teacher and Darwin was a classics major, so I ought to have all the support I need when I need it -- we're having fun right now with Minimus: Starting out in Latin). We'll be using the Faith and Life books for religion, and doing some scripture memorization as well, and the girls are enrolled in classes down at church. And I just found out that I'm teaching the fifth grade class.

This year we're covering 5th, 4th, and 1st grades, and perhaps teaching letters and numbers to Young Master (depending on how much effort I have to put into it -- Baby will probably be a more willing pupil). For a list of grade-appropriate topics, I consult the Core Knowledge series: What your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, What Your Fourth Grader Needs to Know, etc. These books don't constitute a full-fledged curriculum, and that's fine with me. Instead, I'm dividing up the topics by weeks, and covering the year's worth of history or science that way, give or take when we need to. Each section (Language and Literature, History and Geography, Music, Visual Arts, Math, Science) contains an overview of the year's study, broken into topics or brief chronological narratives. With that as our basis, we'll be supplementing with primary sources, stories, topical reading, biographies, histories, and textbooks if we find ones that we like.

We tend to read a lot of literature, out loud and individually. Some books I plan to read, some we pick up as inspiration strikes, and some we pull from the reading selections in What your X Grader Needs to Know. Not all of the suggested reading is new to us -- the current fourth grader heard some of the literature last year when the current fifth grader was studying it. The fifth grade book recommends selections from Little Women, but we read the first half out loud last year, and we'll finish it this year. Some of the material we'll expand upon -- the story of Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence, and an abridged version of The Red-Headed League by Arthur Conan Doyle are suggested for fifth grade, but I'll have her read the original Sherlock Holmes story, and more of Tom Sawyer, if not all of it. (The issue being that I haven't even read all of Tom Sawyer myself, so I need to get cracking. Tom Sawyer: appropriate for a ten-year-old? Discuss.) I want to read more poetry this year, especially some of the longer poems of Longfellow. Maybe Hiawatha, maybe Evangeline, maybe both. Right now we're finishing Belles on Their Toes as summer reading. I read that when I was ten, and it's such a joy to me to see my ten-year-old laughing at the jokes and following the story.

Both the big girls followed the fourth grade history, which covered, in part, the Revolutionary War, but it won't hurt them to hear it again this year. And next year too, probably, if the answers I got when I asked recently about the thirteen colonies are any indication. The books cover various world history topics, in roughly chronological order, and I'm not worried about doing world history injustice. Do you know how little history I'd learned before I went to college? My kids are already doing better than I did.

Many homeschoolers like to follow some sort of program: Seton, Calvert, Abeka, K12, etc. That's fine if it works for you. Over the years I've learned that I do not do well trying to teach to someone else's educational schedule, and that if I try to do so, it ends in madness -- I like to compress, expand, speed up, slow down, as the spirit moves us. As I've cleared off my shelves in preparation for this school year, I've found that the first things to go are anything that smacks of curriculum: the spelling textbook someone gave me, the English program I never used, the kindergarten workbooks that we used to distract the baby when she wanted to climb on the table. There are a few exceptions. This year we're beta-testing a spelling program, and I'm already apprehensive at the idea of going at someone else's pace. This is where we start building good life skills.

We've used the Miquon books for math, which are really a collection of lab sheets instead of textbooks. And we supplement with the MCP math workbooks for practice. The big girls do math together. This seems to suit their abilities, in general. The younger has a stronger head for numbers. But every now and then we get some divergence, so I ease up on the younger and do some more in-depth work with the older, and that's borne good fruit.

I worried that we hadn't been doing enough writing, and was considering purchasing the Excellence in Writing program, but an experienced friend told me exactly what I wanted to hear: that if you're not confident in your own abilities as a writer, you'll find it helpful; if you are, and you feel like you can impart grammar and hone stylistic abilities on your own, you'll find it frustrating. Color me convinced! Anyway, the trick to doing more writing is to do more writing. So that's the plan.

Something we enjoyed a lot last year was doing a bit of logic, so that will continue this year. My aunt gave me a big anthology of Lewis Carroll's writings, and included were a selection of his logic games. I also took a lot of guidance from Brandon's post on teaching logic to children, which introduced us not only to a number of concepts, but to the Wayside School books by Louis Sachar (in which we learn that dead rats live in the basement). Another aunt gave us, over the summer, an assortment of logic puzzle books from Ivan Moscovich's Mastermind Collection. I find myself sorely out of my depth with most of these, especially when they tend toward the more mathematical, but the kids enjoy just paging through the books. I'm fine with that. I want them to have an introduction to this kind of thinking, and to find it enjoyable instead of onerous.

Phys. Ed.: everyone dances. Why dance? I don't know. The local arts center is a block and a half from our house, which means the kids can walk there, but after forking out the dough for this year's lessons and Company and recital costumes and extra pre-pointe class, I'm wondering why we just don't form our own basketball team. One child is gung-ho for archery, and Darwin is gung-ho to assist her with that. Also, this is the year we start piano lessons again. I mean it. And go to more art museums and plays. I mean it. I lead a children's schola on Fridays (music! Latin!), where none of my children pay me any mind because obviously it doesn't matter if you goof around if Mom is the one teaching the group, and she's not going to spank offenders in public. The Catholic school kids, meanwhile, are good as gold.

I don't know how we'll top last year's fire prevention lesson, in which we learned that smoke detectors in basements really do save lives, and that when your boiler combusts in November, it gets cold in the house. I hope that's a lesson we only need to learn once.

Confessions of a Wanne Be Classical Homeschooler

This was the second day of summer vacation in the Darwin household, but from the activities it would have produced some of the better homeschooling bragging rights of recent months.

I'd ordered a copy of Minimus: Starting out in Latin, which arrived while I was at work today (along with a copy of Istanbul Passageto get me through upcoming plane flights.) Our 10-year-old (who had been reading the first couple pages over my shoulder via Amazon when I ordered it) immediately snagged it, ran upstairs, and read the first ten chapters with enough comprehension to drive her eight-year-old sister nuts by correcting her on Latin vocabulary as she was trying to read it later. (Punches were thrown.)

Then when I got home from work I got out the telescope and projected the sun's image onto a piece of paper so the kids could see the transit of Venus across the sun's face.




From this, you could almost get the impression that we're some kind of homeschooling superheroes. If we're this good when school isn't in session, how much better are we when it is?

Well...

Despite past ambitions, we seem to keep finding ourselves to be much less of classical homeschoolers than we had imagined we would be. The things that very reliably happen around here are: math, spelling, religion, and reading/read alouds. Much to our relief and happiness, the oldest two have really blossomed into recreational readers over the last year, and the read alouds they enjoy are, I'm convinced, fairly decent. (I recently finished reading them The Hobbit and am now reading Stuart Little, while MrsDarwin is working through David Copperfield with them.)

However, while I know we'd both pictured guiding the kids through a detailed round of world history, mythology and the beginnings of world literature, this has been a lot more rocky. We were really good about reading mythology with them (and our oldest now enjoys reading it herself). They've heard plenty of the bible and about the saints. And we had a moderately successful run at reading Gombrich's A Little History of the World aloud to them a few years back. However, in a whole variety of other text books, story books, and books picked up from the library we've stalled out repeatedly in attempts to cover world and US history with them at a level that interests them as 3rd and 4th graders.

A big part of the problem, frankly, is me. Over the last 10 years, since leaving college, I've fallen back in love with reading history and read a lot of it. The problem is, that in the process I've managed to pick fights with nearly any book we try to use with them, except historical novels aimed at kids (The Winged Watchman was a hit in a way in which my attempts to explain the nature of communism and fascism over dinner was not) and a limited number of other subject specific books and materials. All the history books aimed at 3rd and 4th graders seem so simplistic. And yet, the kind of complex, conflicted, history that I enjoy reading so much simply doesn't involve an eight or ten year old, to whom a good story involves good guys, bad guys, and the whole world in the balance.

In some ways, I think time may simply be our friend here. As they get a little older, they'll be able to read and appreciate better stuff. And, frankly, I don't look back and think "wow, I learned so much in third grade history, it's a good thing that I got all that covered". Third grade history in parochial school involved something about California and the main things I can recall is the model of a Mission I built and the argument I got into with my teacher as to whether the Vikings discovered America before the Spanish. (I was told if I wrote "The Vikings" rather than "Columbus" on the test I would be marked down because that textbook discussed Columbus and not the Norse, and any reading I had done on my own was beside the point. I went ahead and did it anyway because I can never walk away from a fight.)

David Copperfield for the Young

The month of May is just redolent enough of summer that it's hard to be motivated about anything, but homeschooling is getting especially sluggish. I reassure myself on two points: 1) the math book is almost finished; and 2) we're reading David Copperfield aloud, and Dickens is an education unto himself. 

It has weighed upon me that my girls are getting older, and that their lives have been wholesome, happy, and easy. We are blessed that so far our family has been sheltered from the real ugliness of life. I don't regret that the last death in our family occurred before any of them were old enough to remember, or that we've had little to no serious illness or injury. I'm not sorry that they don't know any families sundered by divorce, except my own. I thank God that none of their friends have been abused or hungry or homeless. But there is a big world out there full of people who don't know such a warm and comfortable life. One day they will encounter the vale of tears personally. I want to shepherd them through their first vicarious brush with the harsh fact that life is not so kind to every child.

Hence, David Copperfield. Young David is emotionally abused and beaten by his cold and controlling stepfather, sent to a brutish boarding school, is bereft of his mother, forced to fend for himself in the big city while working at a degrading job, and has to tramp alone across country, all before he turns 11. There's lots of dramatic potential there, and Dickens works it for the full Dickensian effect. The girls have been following along quite well. At a third of the way through the book, we've had many good conversations about how adults should treat children, about bad forms of education, about trust and self-reliance and people who will take advantage of others. Dickens's prose has settled in their ears and his plot in their imaginations and his themes in their minds.

Until now I've been reading unabridged, but I've run up against my first insuperable obstacle. David, on holiday, has once again met up with Steerforth, his eidolon, and they have traveled to Steerforth's home. There Dickens gives us Steerforth's idolatrous mother and her companion, Rosa Dartle. I cannot get a handle on Rosa. She loves, she hates, she insinuates. She is all smothered intensity and desire and fury. All this is well and good. But I can't find her voice, and if I can't interpret the character for the girls, they lose interest. Rosa's brand of repressed sexuality and rage is not interesting to the 10- and 8-year old, to say nothing of the 6-year-old. When I'm struggling through a passage trying to work out some tactics and motivation while the kids are hanging upside down on the couch with their legs kicking in the air, I know I'm beat.

I consulted YouTube to see what various film adaptions had done with Rosa, only to find that she seems (at least in this early appearance) to have been excised from the story. So I'm doing the same right now. We'll skip ahead to Yarmouth and let Steerforth have his first fateful encounter with Little Em'ly. Miss Mowcher the dwarf comes up in a few chapters, and she too may end up severely edited or on the cutting room floor. We need to move on to Dora, a character so ridiculous that all the young ladies will howl at her silliness, and David's too. Puppy love is a familiar, if goofy, concept to them.

And of course they're already asking when they can see the movie.

Homeschool Bleg

Some of you, and you know who you are, are organized. Some homeschoolers have had their lesson plans and their booklists all set out on their lace tablecloths while the freshly ironed curtains float in the breeze, gently rippling to the happy shouts of the children as they weed the vegetable garden.

Please. Here I am, a few weeks before school starts, pulling together this and that so we won't fall on our faces in the first four days. I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that crayons and pencils and glue sticks are consumables, not one-time purchases. I'm hoping the inkjet printer will hold out one more year if I hit it that special way. And I'm finally sitting down to write up some notes on curriculum.

This year is a fresh start (just like every other year). We're making a semblance of being settled in the new house, even though all the books on the shelves in the school room are still the random collection that were shoved here and there when we unpacked. Last year we faced the constant issue of never being able to find anything at the moment we needed it, which I hope will be resolved this year by better structure and beatings.

So, books. Bearing has recommended Joy Hakim's A History of US as a good history spine. I'm intrigued, but the entire set is rather expensive. Has anyone else used and enjoyed this? (Darwin spent a couple hours reading through what's visible on Amazon and says, "It seems to have a slightly liberal and secular point of view, but it seems scrupulously fair, which may actually be better than having an openly conservative or Christian book that isn't.")

The oldest two are heading into 3rd and 4th this year, and since it works well to have them do things in unison we're leaning towards putting them through two years of US history and kids literature (with enough Ohio specific side-lights to say that we met the state education requirements) and then circling back to World History for 2-3 years before launching into the high school Humanities Program (four years Western history and literature from origins to modern day.)

Diocese of Austin: Homeschoolers Need Not Apply

Twenty years ago, when my parents began homeschooling first my younger brother (who had some non-standard learning needs) and later all of us, homeschooling was still very much a fringe phenomenon. It was not unusual for people to predict, on hearing that children were homeschooled, that they would not be able to get into college, or for neighbors to harass homeschoolers by repeatedly calling the truancy officers on them. The extent to which homeschooling has become mainstream since that time has been quite extraordinary, and due in no small part to the academic and personal successes that homeschooled students have shown themselves capable of. Many states' public education systems are now actively friendly towards homeschoolers, and make state curricula available free of charge to homeschoolers who wish to use them at home.

Sadly, one area where this increasing social acceptance of homeschooling has often been lagging is in Catholic circles at the parish and diocesan level. Homeschoolers are sometimes seen as a threat by parochial school systems -- this despite the Church's teaching that parents bear the primary responsibility as first educators of their children.

Such a situation has recently reared its head back in our old home diocese of Austin, Texas. A local Catholic homeschooling group, Holy Family Homeschoolers, sent an invitation to their annual Homeschoolers Blessing Mass to newly appointed Bishop Vásquez. In past years, an invitation had always been sent to the bishop. Bishop Aymond had officiated at the Blessing Mass when he first came to the diocese and had allowed a certain degree of openness in dealing with Catholic homeschoolers at the parish and diocesan levels.

Given the many demands on Bishop Vásquez's time, it is hardly surprising that he was unable to attend this year. What is, however, both surprising and distressing is that the response to the invitation sent to Bishop Vásquez's office came not from the Chancery but from the Catholic Schools Office, and in a tone which was decidedly dismissive:

> Bishop Vásquez received your invitation to celebrate a Eucharistic liturgy for the fall homeschooling blessing Mass.
>
> Bishop Vásquez believes Catholic education, and in particular Catholic school education, is an essential part of the life of the Diocese of Austin. As you know, Catholic schools are at the heart of the mission of the church.
>
> Bishop's presence at the homeschooling Mass would convey a contradictory message equating the importance of Catholic school education with Catholic homeschooling; therefore, Bishop Vásquez must respectfully decline the invitation.
>
> Sincerely in Christ,
>
> Ned F. Vanders, Ed.D.

Ned Vanders is the diocesan Superintendent of Catholic Schools, and I think that the above email pretty clearly backs up the complaint I have heard that he is "openly hostile to homeschooling".

Again, let me be clear: I think it is quite reasonable and understandable that Bishop Vásquez is unable to attend. A note from his office to that effect would in no sense be offensive. However, I think that the response that was received by the Holy Family Homeschoolers is worrisome in two senses.

First, it suggests that "Catholic education" means nothing other than institutional Catholic schools run by the diocese. Understand, Austin is not one of these diocese with a long and rich history of parochial schools. In a rapidly growing diocese of half a million Catholics in 125 parishes, it offers 17 elementary schools and 5 high schools, serving a mere 5,000 students. Clearly, the diocese is equipped to serve only a small minority of Catholic school-age children directly through its schools. One would think, under such circumstances, that the diocese would be especially eager to work with parents who take it upon themselves to provide a Catholic education to their children in the home. Instead, what we see is the claim that "Bishop's presence at the homeschooling Mass would convey a contradictory message equating the importance of Catholic school education with Catholic homeschooling."

Surely, Catholic education is something more than a particular 22 institutions in the diocese, serving a small fraction of the diocese's children. Catholic education includes not merely those 22 schools, but also the religious education programs in all 125 parishes, and also the efforts of those parents who, in the spirit of the Church's teaching that they are the primary educators of their children, take on the responsibility of educating their children. If "Catholic education... is an essential part of the life of the Diocese of Austin" then surely this essential part encompasses more than 1% of the people in the diocese. Surely it involves the education, in the faith, of all the children in the diocese. This does not mean that the bishop must be present at a mass blessing homeschoolers. He is a busy man with many duties, and such things are often not possible. But it does mean that it should not be suggested to homeschooling parents that they are acting in opposition to "the heart of the mission of the church."

Secondly, it is concerning to see such a response issued on behalf of the bishop and the diocese to members of the flock. Politeness is something which costs very little. A simple, "Bishop Vásquez appreciates the efforts of Catholic parents who are striving to educate their children in the faith, but the demands of his office make it impossible to officiate at the Blessing Mass this year," would have caused the diocese no inconvenience and earned it continuing goodwill among a dedicated and active group of parents. Instead, the response sent seems calculated to be as dismissive (if not actively adversarial) as possible.

In my experience, such an openly contemptuous communication to the public is almost never made by an administrator unless he believes that he has the full backing of his superiors -- or believes his superiors to be so oblivious to his actions that he has free rein. If Superintendant Vanders' email is an accurate indication of Bishop Vásquez's attitude towards Catholic homeschooling, it seems to suggest a great deal of unnecessary antagonism on the bishop's part. If it is, instead, an indication that the Catholic Schools Office receives little guidance or oversight, that seems a troubling sign for the diocese.

Either way, this is a regrettably provocative opening in the relationship between homeschooling families and the Austin Diocese.

Seven Quick Takes

This is not my post in response to Darwin's submission post, needless to say. It was just something I had ready to go up.

1. I've seen the future of low-budget children's programming, and it's cheap-ass computer rendering. Sorry junk. I hate the TV right now.

2. Here's how we do school here: the girls are writing out their Christmas lists in their best cursive because Santa can't read bad handwriting.

3. Here's our other homeschooling activity right now: we sing the times tables along with this CD. Hey, it works. I remember my younger siblings singing these songs, and a dedicated homeschooling group was able to help me locate it for my own kids. I find myself wandering around singing the Sevens waltz and the Eights boogie, so you know it's catchy.

4. My grocery shopping takes twice as long now because I don't know where anything is in the new store. Before we moved I had it down to a science; now, I wander aimlessly through the aisles because everything is in the wrong place.

5. This song:



It's so bizarre, and yet I have to listen to it for the weird twangy beat and the bass progression. Upon youtubing it, I discover that it's from Paul McCartney, and now I never want to hear another Beatles song again. Curse you, Paul McCartney, for the strangest Christmas song ever.

6. Diana (who will be henceforth called Pidge, because that's what we call her) rolled off the bed last night. I had five months of baby immobility, but now it's over. I wish she wouldn't, and yet it's so cute to see her squalling and kicking on her stomach, having rolled there and not knowing how to roll back.

7. Just a heads-up: my birthday is coming up, so get your thinking caps on...

Thanks to Jen for hosting.

School Day Diary

Started off the morning with a big argument over whether the instant oatmeal would be heated in the microwave or with boiling water. Kids eat breakfast while I check the email and read around. Reading around takes longer than it ought; kids are running around and baby is crying by the time I finish.

Take baby upstairs to nurse, while yelling at kids to come up and read in my bed. Kids take their time. Finally everyone is assembled, but Jack won't hush, and Isabel won't hush hushing him. It irks me no end to read aloud when there's so much noise it seems like no one is listening, so I order them out of the room, but they won't go. We reach compromise level and read: Sts. Monica and Augustine, and then some selections from Confessions. Lots of good stuff in Confessions for the kids (we read St. Augustine's ponderings on his infancy) -- I wonder if anyone's ever done a picture-book version for kids. Eleanor listens and is able to tell me what we read; Julia is busy making place cards for her birthday part. I notice in passing that she's spelled almost every one of her friends' names wrong; that's our spelling work for later.

We've been talking about the late Roman Empire, hence Augustine. Trying to buy some quiet time so I can take a shower, I assign Eleanor a chapter from a book about St. Helena ("Did you know that St. Augustine was born about forty years after Emperor Constantine decreed that Christians would not be persecuted anymore?") and tussle with Julia over what's she's to do. She doesn't want to read, she's tired of hearing about saints, she wants to do crafts. Fine.

I take my shower, though I don't get any privacy -- all five kids make their way through the bathroom at some point. Julia has done art: she's drawn a portrait of Eleanor with vacuum. Eleanor has read all of three pages of her book. Time to change gears and write.

Mutiny at the table. Julia refuses her copywork outright, glowering at me under angry brows. Jack scribbles on her neglected copy book and tears out a page. Eleanor doodles and misspells her way through her report on what she's read. Isabel sasses and pouts so much that she's sent to her room. I finally get it out of Julia that's she's not pleased about copying a nursery rhyme, so I write out for her Psalm 117, which we memorized last week. She's still angry but copies the first line. We discuss how even in regular school you don't get to do whatever you want and sass the teacher and refuse to work.

While they write, I call Isabel down and read to her on the couch. Jack tumbles all over us, but finally settles. Eleanor finishes her corrected paragraph and brings her math work (writing out some multiplication tables) into the living room, using a book on cheese to bear on. I realize I've gotten all the copy work out of Julia that can be expected, so I ask her to bring that in and I'll circle my favorite letters.

Julia is prancing and wriggling around as I read, and I realize that although she's tall for her age and mature about some things, she's young for the grade work I'm setting her. I need to revise down and make sure I'm not overburdening her with a constant stream of school work that's too hard for her.

After a multiplication bee, I give into Eleanor's request (formed upon flipping through the book on cheese) that we do a cheese-tasting. We compare Parmesan to Cheddar, and then we taste Cheddar by itself and with apples. Seizing the opportunity to make it educational, I have Eleanor write down the our descriptions of the cheeses and the apple. At last everyone is cheerful and engaged -- the way to a kid's heart is through her stomach.

Norse Mythology Comes to the Humanities Program

My little sister spent her wild young days studying Old Norse and Old English at Oxford, before settling down as a mild mannered web-programming lay Dominican, so it was of course irresistible to ask her to tackle Norse Mythology for the elementary Humanities Program (volume two covers the "dark ages"). First up, the Norse creation story:

In the beginning there was Múspell, the realm of fire, and Niflheim [niv-uhl-heym], the realm of ice. Between them there was nothing except a vast emptiness called the Ginnungagap [gin-oong-ga-gahp]. For many ages there was nothing else. But gradually, sparks began to fly out of Múspell while icy fogs billowed out of Niflheim. They met in the middle of Ginnungagap, which became as mild as a summer's day; the fog condensed into water-drops, and the drops were given life by the sparks.

Out of the mixture condensed Ymir [ee-mir], the first giant....

However, you must read the whole thing to find out about the giant who gave birth via his armpits and about the world cow.

Socialization Problems

I was reminded the other day, at a large social function, of the frequently expressed worry that homeschooling one's children would result in "socialization problems".

To be sure, the kids, homeschooled and otherwise, were getting along famously. However one of the mothers, a new and enthusiastic convert to homeschooling, was pursuing with dedication another woman, determined in explaining to her in detail how the influences of John Dewey and the Prussian School System clearly proved that to send one's children to public school would be to turn them into automatons rather than to educate them.

What she seemed not to notice, in her dedication to her topic, was that the woman she was addressing kept moving away from her. Nor did she appear to connect this with the fact that the woman she had chosen as her audience is a public school teacher.

One Last Humanities Program Post

I know this is probably only of interest to a subset of readers, and I'll doubtless get busy and move on to other topics soon (I've had the luxury of time over the last week since my mother-in-law has been here to help with Her Tiny Cuteness) but I've just finished putting together rough cuts of the lists for the 3rd and 4th years of the high school level Humanities Program, and I'd like to solicit feedback from them that's interested in such things.

Year Three: From the Rise of Islam to the Protestant Reformation

Year Four: The Modern World

In Year 4 especially I have the feeling that the list is both too long and incomplete, as is perhaps necessary in such an attempt.

The goal here is to lean more towards cultural literacy and having a feel for the flow of history than hitting all the Great Ideas type works, so a lot of the heavy duty philosophy that you'd find in a traditional Great Books list is not here. Suggestions and comments very much welcome.

You are welcome comment there as well as here if that's easier, but if I proceed to make a bunch of changes to the lists I may eventually clear out the comments on the Human. Prog site for the sake of cleanliness and relevance. That, and I'm thinking I need to come up with a more actionable format broken into weeks, not to mention links to editions and brief framing commentary on some of the works.

Religious History Bleg

One of my goals over this baby-cation is to revise and post at least rough reading lists for years 3 and 4 of the High School Humanities Program. I'm working off the three versions that each of us kids in my family used (Dad would revise the reading list each time, trying to fit everything in) and trying to trim to down to a reasonable length and deal with the occasional blind spots and ommissions.

One of the main areas where I'd like to add or change selections is in Year 3, which is supposed to cover from Muhammad to the Protestant Reformation. We tried various attempts at covering the rise of Islam, from the basic (reading the Catholic Encyclopedia and Britanica articles on Islam and Muhammad) to actual primary source (reading the first three books of the Koran: Al-Baqarah, Al-Imran and Al-Nisa). I'm not really sure what the right approach is here, especially as Islam is much more talked about now than it was in the mid 90s, and so a student is likely to be coming to the program with a certain amount of perception already in place. I've got 1-2 weeks of a bright high schoolers history/literature reading time available -- perhaps 100-200 pages depending on the difficulty of a source. What suggestions do people have as to the best intro to Islam and/or Muhammad? I've got separate selections for covering the Crusades, etc. Here we're pretty much looking for Islam in the 700-800 range and introducing it as a religion. Reading level is bright high schooler/entry level college.

The second area I want to add some texts is at the opposite end of that year. Somehow, we never covered any Reformation texts. This is probably for roughly the same reason we didn't actually include the Bible in the list back in the first two years -- we assumed that we knew a bit about that. But I'm thinking that it's a good idea to have something here. One can, of course, read the 95 Theses, and that's probably a good idea. They're short, after all. But it seems to me that we need some better examples of the thought of the early Protestants. Any suggestions on good selections from Luther, Calvin or other early Protestants which would provide a good feel for early Protestantism? (Pilgrim's Progress and Paradise Lost to be covered later.)

Humanities Program site update

As I posted a while back, I've been working at moving the Humanities Program site over to a new, Blogger-based website. (I'll do a post in a few days on some of the techniques I picked up for designing a "real webpage" looking site with Blogger.) I've not re-pointed the Humanities Program domain, so that the new Humanities Program site is live.

Overall, I'd rate the custom domain process for Blogger as pretty pain-free. And I'm pretty pleased with the new site. Also trying out the site metering from StatCounter after long years of being a SiteMeter kind of guy. We'll see how that goes.

For those who haven't been over there in a while, there are some newer stories such as Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon in the Elementary Humanities Program. There are also some cool new illustrations up, such as the one of Romulus and Remus with a somewhat quizzical looking mother wolf.

On the High School side of things, the reading lists for Year One: The Rise of Civilization through the Hellenistic Period and Year Two: From the Rise of Rome to Beowulf. One of my projects over the next week and a half while I'm at home is going to be to reconcile the various versions of years 3 and 4 which existed and my own thinking on the topic and get some reading lists for those two years up.

What Your 18-Year-Old Needs to Know

Darwin's in a conference all day, and I just don't have anything interesting to say, so here's a rerun from 2006 that garnered lots of comments at the time. Feel free to add your own ideas.

For the record, now that my kids are of homeschooling age, I like the What your X-Grader Needs to Know series, just as a point of reference.

When my folks were getting into homeschooling back in the mid eighties, there was a really popular series of books for parents out there, each titled What Your X Grader Needs To Know. I don't know if these are still around and popular -- the monkeys are rather young yet, and MrsDarwin and I have a rather blase approach to homeschooling since we feel like we've been there before.

But for whatever reason, I was thinking this weekend about things one ought to know before being turned out into the world to college or work of basic training of wherever it is that you head off to at eighteen. This is a pretty rough list, and I'd love to see what else readers would suggest. It's not so much meant to be a sum-and-total of necessary education, but sort of a minimum required list for being civilized and functional.

By the time you leave home at 18 you should:

• Read two out of these three: The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid
• Read four of Plato's dialoges including Apology and Phaedo.
• Have read all books of the Bible at least once.
• Read Augustine's Confessions.
• Read Beowulf
• Read at least one of the volumes of the Divine Comedy (Inferno or Purgatorio would be the recommended choices).
• Read Introduction To The Devout Life.
• Read The Little Flowers of St. Francis and The Little Way of St. Therese.
• Read Brideshead Revisited and Lord of the Rings.
• Read C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves.
• Read at least one novel by each of the following: Dickens, Austen, Dostoyevski
• Read/see at least four Shakespeare plays including Hamlet and Macbeth.
• Read the Constitution of the United States.
• See Citizen Kane, The Third Man, Casablanca, The Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Chinatown and at least one Hitchcock movie.
• Know how to calculate the profit and loss and balance sheets of a small business.
• Know the basics of how a relational database works (e.g. a database with order, order detail, products, and customer tables)
• Know the basics of how to use excel.
• Know how to calculate compound interest.
• Know how to replace a hard drive, add additional RAM and reinstall an operating system on a computer.
• Speak a foreign language well enough to communicate on a basic level.
• Know how to drive a manual transmission car.
• Know how to change a tire and change your oil.
• Know how to operate basic power tools safely and build simple furniture (like a bookshelf or table).
• Know how to cook at least five different meals.
• Know how to do your own laundry.
• Know how to shoot and clean a rifle and handgun.
• Be able to run mile in under nine minutes.
• Memorize the Nicene and Apostle's Creeds, the Gettysburg Address and at least one piece of poetry longer than 100 lines.

I can't claim to have done all this stuff by the time I was 18, but I never claimed to be fully civilized or fully functional. Still, I wish I had done all this stuff by 18, and it doesn't seem impossible to do so.
------------------------------

MrsDarwin adding on here:

By the time you leave home at 18 you should:

• Know how to change a diaper
• Be able to bake a loaf of bread from scratch
• Hear Handel's Messiah, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
• Know the table of elements
• Be able to start and to finish a conversation politely
• Be able to compose a thank you note, a letter of sympathy, an essay, and a job application
• Know how to read music, and play at least one instrument
• Understand how the human reproductive system works (both male and female)
• Have spoken in public at least once
• Know how to lay a fire
• Know how to thread a sewing machine and sew a straight stitch, and know how to sew on a button by hand
• Have nurtured a simple vegetable or flower garden
• Know how to set a table and use a cloth napkin
• Know how to draw basic three-dimensional shapes

Update:
By popular demand:

• Know how to balance a checkbook
  

Another Update:
Opinionated Homeschooler has some good thoughts on the list.

Also, to clarify a bit -- wanting to keeping the post down to something like a vaguely reasonable length, I tried to make some decisions about scope that would make sense. For instance, I think everyone should have read Winnie The Pooh, but since most people do this by the age of eight, I left it off. Other things, I assumed were covered by higher level items. So I assumed that between calculating compound interest and being able to produce a simple balance sheet, you must therefore also know how to manage checking and savings accounts and deal with a credit car or home loan.

The list was also pretty clearly a Catholic list. If you weren't Catholic, St. Francis, St. Therese and St. Francis de Sales would drop off, though I think anyone in Western Culture would do well to read the Bible, Augustine and Dante.

Opinionated Homeschooler is dead right in adding some Aquinas plus math through calculus (sorry MrsDarwin) to the list, as well as knowing the rules to football, baseball and poker.

The great stumbling block for me was trying to think of what you ought to know about science. Some things are so basic it seemed hardly worth mentioning: Know the names and the order of the nine planet. But the tricky thing with science is that it's not based on a few basic seminal works that you to understand the field. That's what strikes me as the weak point of great books programs where science education consists of reading Origin of Species, Newton's Principia, and several of Einstein's seminal papers. Reading "great works" of science is certainly helpful, but it doesn't really get you there.

I continue to be stumped by the science angle, so I'd be eager to hear suggestions -- seeing as some of our readers know a great deal more about science than I do. The one thing I'm pretty sure at this point should go on is:

• Be able to explain and use Newton's universal laws of motion.

Homestead Day!

I hope you're all having parties to celebrate Homestead Day today, the 148th anniversary of the signing of the Homestead Act by Abraham Lincoln!

The Homestead Act was one of several United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to up to 160 acres (1/4 section, 65 hectares) of undeveloped federal land outside the original 13 colonies. The law required three steps: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title. Anyone who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government, including freed slaves, could file an application and evidence of improvements to a federal land office.

The original Homestead Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} Because much of the prime low-lying alluvial land along rivers had been homesteaded by the turn of the twentieth century, a major update called the Enlarged Homestead Act was passed in 1909. It targeted land suitable for dryland farming, increasing the number of acres to 320.^[7] In 1916, the Stock-Raising Homestead Act targeted settlers seeking 640 acres (260 ha) of public land for ranching purposes.^[7]

Only about 40 percent of the applicants who started the process were able to complete it and obtain title to their homestead land.^[8] Eventually 1.6 million homesteads were granted and 270,000,000 acres (420,000 sq mi) of federal land were privatized between 1862 and 1934, a total of 10% of all lands in the United States.^[9] Homesteading was discontinued after 1976, except in Alaska. Individuals may no longer homestead on public land as a way to acquire title.

This week we've read a book about the Homestead Act (which is why we know that the anniversary is May 20th), watched the new movie of Little House on the Prairie (some historical inaccuracies, but surprisingly good -- the ladies enjoyed it thoroughly), started reading The Long Winter, with its early chapters on harvesting hay on a homestead, and read about the new farming machinery that allowed Pa to farm 160 acres of Dakota prairie.

Today we're going to braid hair like pioneer girls and make ginger water, which, being a bit sweet and gingery, was easier on stomach on a hot weary day than plain cold water.

School-ish musings at the end of the year.

It's that time of the year again -- the time when all of our school supplies have dried up, vanished, or been sharpened to nubs. We're scrounging for crayons, pencils with erasers, pencils without erasers, paper, tape, children's scissors, etc. Of course, you say, there's always the store -- go buy some! Yes, but we need so many things that I'm hesitant to start buying for fear I may not stop.

We've had mixed success this year. I do think the girls have more knowledge than they did at the beginning of the school year, yes. I see more math skills, or at least a bit more problem-solving acumen. I like the Miquon Math that we've been doing, but some of the more conceptual parts are going over the girls' heads. Right now, after some recent math fails with the oldest, we're doing a page of drill each day, and next year I'm going to start Singapore Math.

Reading has improved, and most importantly, both older girls (8 and 6) have found a love of quiet reading and will sit curled up with a book -- usually one of the A-Z mysteries that our library stocks in droves. That's fine -- I'm not one of those, "Well, as long as they're reading something..." people, but these are unobjectionable, and the pride on my six-year-old's face when she says, "Look, Mom, I'm already on page 40!" warms the cockles of my heart.

But... we just never got any scheduling off the ground. After a strong start, we all came down with the flu in September, and it took us a good month to fully recover. Then I unexpectedly fell pregnant (an English turn of phrase) in October, which kind of scratched our November. Then it was Christmas, and who gets much schoolwork done in December?

All year we had lots of extra-curricular stuff. I'd made several large time commitments before getting pregnant, so all year I taught Eleanor's First Communion class with the two youngest in tow. I'd also promised a friend to write and direct a condensed version of Peter Pan to go along with my girls' dance recital, so we had dance classes and play practice all spring. Directing is not a low-commitment or low-energy activity, so by the performance two weeks ago I was about ready to collapse. (Not to mention that a minor injury to my lead actress had me thinking for ten minutes on performance day that I would have to go on and play Peter Pan at seven months pregnant.)

We went over to a good friend's house every week for a French class, which the girls thoroughly enjoyed even if I can't get them them to pronounce "Est-que je suis une petite fille?" correctly. However, due to the marvelous snacks each week, the girls can ask for pain avec chocolat like natives. Nutella, you're the best spread ever!

The big girls have been in piano all this year, and have been enjoying it for the most part. Having the outside accountability makes it easier for me to make sure they practice. The six-year-old is very diligent and will just sit down and do her practice -- she seems to enjoy the precision of her exercises, and practicing a piece until it's right. The eight-year-old, though she has some talent, has been demonstrating some very real problems with focus and attitude -- she's not a perfectionist, like her sister, but though she's bright, she gets easily irritated when she can't do something easily, and would rather pout and sulk in a babyish fashion than just do the work. Fortunately the teacher won't put up with the attitude during the lesson, but we haven't made much headway in improving this disposition, either in this instance or generally. I'm glad that these character issues are coming to light now so that we can work on them, but Darwin and I have been taken aback and a bit unsure at how to deal with this persistent problem -- scolding, encouragement, cutting allowance, and other solutions haven't made much impression.

We've done a quantity of writing -- not enough, though, and handwriting is something that could be improved. The six-year-old is pretty proficient, but the eight-year-old is sometimes all over the place. However, I think I may do cursive with them this summer, since we're heading into 3rd and 2nd grade. 3rd grader needs to learn it; 2nd grader has the art and handwriting skills to master it. Plus, whatever new thing one does, the other has to do as well. I'm torn between continuing on with the Italics cursive, which I think is elegant and clear, and teaching them traditional Zaner-Blosser cursive. I'd just do Italics, but I hear from people who never learned traditional cursive that they wish it was a skill they'd learned. Maybe we'll do both -- both girls enjoy calligraphy-style alphabets and copying fancy letters, and if it's presented as a low-stress summer activity then it'll just be a fun art project.

(For the record -- I learned Zaner-Blosser cursive in school, and I've never liked my cursive handwriting, yet I can't shake some of the forms. So I dunno, maybe it's best to just leave Z-B out of the picture. I think D'Nealian cursive is just ugly. For a look at these and other handwriting styles, see this link.)

My four-year-old has been remarkably resistant to sitting down and learning her letters from a book or in formal instruction, yet I've noticed this spring that she likes to practice her "writing". She'll copy letters from our alphabet chart, and has been practicing with some of the letters in her name. I haven't seen this translate that much into trying to decipher sounds -- she knows a few basic phonemes, but loses any interest if I crack our copy of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She likes looking at workbooks, but doesn't want me to show her how to pronounce the letter on the page or do the activity. She enjoys playing with Cuisinaire Rods and can count just fine, but doesn't care to be instructed in numerals. (She does know the number 2, after pushing the button in the elevator all year to go to dance class.) And really, that's fine. I don't have the time to put a lot of work into coercing a four-year-old with a newly discovered disposition to throw tantrums that she has to do schoolwork. I tried that with my oldest, but I had more energy and less commitments then.

The baby, at 20 months, is an unstoppable force of destruction. (I shouldn't call him "the baby" any more, because despite being a very small guy, he's definitely all toddler boy. He's a madman.) He prefers to be on the table while the girls are trying to write, or else he's pulling chairs up to the counter and trying to snitch bananas. Or he's throwing toys over the bannister or pulling books off the shelf. We did buy him his very own light saber, which is apparently the very best toy a little boy could have. Now he sleeps curled up with it. The guy is the craziest, sweetest little boy ever, but I wish he'd settle down for a minute. Or at least that he could be placated by something other than throwing the Cuisinaire rods on the floor during schooltime. I'm a bit concerned as to how we'll keep it all together when he's two and I have a newborn.

For the summer: baby is due at the beginning of July, so I'm not really planning to go out that much. We're considering some summer classes for the big girls, but we're not sure how that jives with our Dave Ramsey-ish desire to pay off the van by Christmas. Here in Texas, there's a period in the middle of the day when it's just too hot to go outside, so I want to use that time for a bit of scholastic endeavor. The oldest will do some daily journal writing -- just a page a day on whatever subject -- and we'll have plenty of reading time, of course. And probably plenty of movie watching, realistically.

Waiting On Math

This article has been on my brain ever since seeing it on a friend's Facebook page a while page. The claim: teaching math can be delayed entirely until junior high and students in the end learn it better.

In 1929, the superintendent of schools in Ithaca, New York, sent out a challenge to his colleagues in other cities. "What," he asked, "can we drop from the elementary school curriculum?" He complained that over the years new subjects were continuously being added and nothing was being subtracted, with the result that the school day was packed with too many subjects and there was little time to reflect seriously on anything....

One of the recipients of this challenge was L. P. Benezet, superintendent of schools in Manchester, New Hampshire, who responded with this outrageous proposal: We should drop arithmetic! Benezet went on to argue that the time spent on arithmetic in the early grades was wasted effort, or worse. In fact, he wrote: "For some years I had noted that the effect of the early introduction of arithmetic had been to dull and almost chloroform the child's reasoning facilities." All that drill, he claimed, had divorced the whole realm of numbers and arithmetic, in the children's minds, from common sense, with the result that they could do the calculations as taught to them, but didn't understand what they were doing and couldn't apply the calculations to real life problems. He believed that if arithmetic were not taught until later on--preferably not until seventh grade--the kids would learn it with far less effort and greater understanding.

Benezet followed his outrageous suggestion with an outrageous experiment. He asked the principals and teachers in some of the schools located in the poorest parts of Manchester to drop the third R from the early grades. They would not teach arithmetic--no adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing. He chose schools in the poorest neighborhoods because he knew that if he tried this in the wealthier neighborhoods, where parents were high school or college graduates, the parents would rebel. As a compromise, to appease the principals who were not willing to go as far as he wished, Benezet decided on a plan in which arithmetic would be introduced in sixth grade.

As part of the plan, he asked the teachers of the earlier grades to devote some of the time that they would normally spend on arithmetic to the new third R--recitation. By "recitation" he meant, "speaking the English language." He did "not mean giving back, verbatim, the words of the teacher or the textbook." The children would be asked to talk about topics that interested them--experiences they had had, movies they had seen, or anything that would lead to genuine, lively communication and discussion. This, he thought, would improve their abilities to reason and communicate logically. He also asked the teachers to give their pupils some practice in measuring and counting things, to assure that they would have some practical experience with numbers.

In order to evaluate the experiment, Benezet arranged for a graduate student from Boston University to come up and test the Manchester children at various times in the sixth grade. The results were remarkable. At the beginning of their sixth grade year, the children in the experimental classes, who had not been taught any arithmetic, performed much better than those in the traditional classes on story problems that could be solved by common sense and a general understanding of numbers and measurement. Of course, at the beginning of sixth grade, those in the experimental classes performed worse on the standard school arithmetic tests, where the problems were set up in the usual school manner and could be solved simply by applying the rote-learned algorithms. But by the end of sixth grade those in the experimental classes had completely caught up on this and were still way ahead of the others on story problems.

The article goes on to speculate on why this might be, and why it hasn't caught on. In addition to children of younger ages often (I've certainly known extreme exceptions) possessing limited abilities to grasp mathematical concepts, the article seems to lay much blame at the feet of elementary teachers, who are often required to be generalists and often personally do not like math and know little more than what they are trained to teach. (In one example, the author of a recent study goes through an entire elementary teaching staff and fails to find anyone able to explain to him correctly how to calculate the area of a rectangle, despite being responsible for teaching multiplication.)

Also important to note, it seems to me, is that despite the audacity of the overall suggestion, the proposal tested by Benezet did not actually involve not teaching math in the younger grades (at least, not as we would think of it) but rather not doing drill in arithmetical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions.) Instead, it says he asked his teachers to, as well as focusing on recitation, "give their pupils some practice in measuring and counting things, to assure that they would have some practical experience with numbers." Obviously this kind of more practically focused work has since 1929 become much more common in better classrooms and certainly in the books used by most homeschoolers.

Still, this does tie well with my own reaction to "math class" when I was in parochial school, which was that underneath all the drill we learned very, very little between second grade and fifth. And come to that, very little more was done up until seventh or eight grade when the curriculum started taking baby-steps into algebraic concepts. I wasn't a math wiz, but I was at least able to latch on to what we were doing within the first couple days after a new concept was introduced (up till now you've done "short division" up through twelve, we will now do "long division" of larger numbers) and proceed to be bored for the next two to three months while we repeated it. (We now move to from long division of five digit number to long division of six digit number. And now, we will do word problems involving long division. And now we will do long division of decimal numbers. Buckle your seatbelts!)

Also, at a minimum, this kind of finding strikes me as reassuring as a homeschooling parent, since a couple times a year MrsDarwin and I take time out to sit down and freak out that we aren't getting through enough stuff with the girls. Being assured that there's still plenty of time to get people up to full mastery later is thus a plus.

In the end, though, while the viewpoint it interesting, I'm hesitant to commit to actually holding off on introducing arithmetical concepts (and drill) until that late. Homeschooling parents often see their children as being like those of Lake Wobegon, with all of them above average. And MrsDarwin and I do both know very well how to calculate the area of a rectangle. So surely, we can get these concepts in sooner and avoid the mental chloroform trap, right?

I do, however, find the article very interesting. And I remain convinced there must be something applicable we can get out of it, though I am unsure as to what.

UPDATE: From one of the links The Other Sherry provided, some more info on Benezet's approach:

. . . Benezet in Manchester, N. H., carried out a study from which he concluded "If I had my way, I would omit arithmetic from the first six grades . . . . The whole subject could be postponed until the seventh year . . . and mastered in two years’ study." This led many people to conclude erroneously that all arithmetic could be deferred until the seventh grade. However, closer observation showed that there was much arithmetic taught in grades I to VI. Thiele visited the Manchester, N. H., schools and said: "Firsthand observation leads me to conclude that Benezet did not prove that arithmetic can be taught incidentally . . . . Instead, he provided conclusive evidence that children profit greatly from an organized arithmetic program which stresses number concepts, relations, and meaning. Buswell found that Benezet had only deferred "formal" arithmetic, and that all other aspects of a desirable arithmetic curriculum were present. Of the formal arithmetic, Buswell said, "I should like to eliminate it altogether." On the same topic, "deferred arithmetic," Brueckner says, "From these studies the conclusion should be drawn not that arithmetic should be postponed, [page 18] but that the introduction of social arithmetic in the first few grades does not result in any loss in efficiency when the formal computational aspect of the work is introduced later on, say in grade three." — What does Research say about Arithmetic? By Vincent J. Glennon and C. W. Hunnicutt, National Education Association, Washington D. C., 1952, page 17. [source]