Ordo Amoris

Three Easy Pieces

2012-01-26T13:40:00.002-05:00

When I started homeschooling I approached it with all the brashness of youth. I was super-confident that it was the only way to go and that it almost guaranteed that all my children would turn out to be a cut above.

I began reading aloud chapter books to my oldest when he was 5 and his Kindergarten year still brings back fond memories. We went fishing everyday at lunch time.

Things went along pretty well until I had my 5th child and then I entered about 10 years of intense child-bearing, child-rearing and pretending to farm. One year I gave up completely on Morning Time and regret it to this day. Why didn't I give up math or science or that blasted farm? One year I bought Lifepacs for everyone. Everything was an experiment as far as our school went. Each year I tried whatever new thing I could afford. But except for that one year, I kept Morning Time.

The last 10 years things began to change. The boys started to grow up. 10 years ago they all lived at home. There were no more babies waking me up in the middle of the night, and then no more diapers and then one day I had taught all 9 of my children to read and to this day I consider that my greatest life achievement. But things were still very intense, even more intense. Launching children into the world is stressful. Give me a toddler any day.

Over all these years some of my students have been easy to teach and some difficult. Almost across the board 12th grade homeschool has felt like a giant tug of war with some give and take on all parts and anger and tears and second guessing.

Over those 10 years I lost all of my confidence, hubris and bravado about homeschooling. I squiggled and squirmed and looked for a way of escape and then mostly just muddled through.

And you know, all of sudden it seemed like everything was all right. None of my boys so far have grown up to be nerdy professors but they really did learn to understand and appreciate the value of learning. During the last 10 years boys have left our home to do all sorts of things most of them pretty amazing and dangerously worrisome. We have had 3 weddings and now almost 7 grandchildren. 3 are still in college playing baseball.

For years I was the mom with a homeschool of 7 or 8 students and a toddler. To tell the truth when moms with only a couple of students were weary, I didn't quite get it. Of course, it only takes one difficult child to disrupt a homeschool.

But this semester my school dropped from 4 students to 3. 3 easy pieces. It feels so good! Suddenly I am not madly treading water or standing at the edge of a cliff waving my arms in an insane attempt to steady myself from falling to the depths below. In 10 short years I went from overwhelming intensity to normalcy. Most days I am happy with what we have accomplished.

For years I went to bed deeply aware of all that had not happened during the day that should have. It was a bad feeling. And yet in spite of all the subjects I missed and holes I left in the education of my children, it still turned out all right. And now I know that even though I have everything nicely laid out and working well, that is not what really matters after all. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE IT but is not the thing.

The thing is that we are a Christian family and we live and love and learn, all of us, near and far, everyday, good times and bad. Homeschooling didn't save us after all; Jesus did that. But I am thankful God blessed us with this life.

Vital Remnants: Should we not vote for Gingrich because of his past marital problems? [del.icio.us]

2012-01-24T10:49:09-08:00

Just putting this out there as part of the overall discussion. I have been told that as a Christian I cannot vote for the lesser of two evils and I am wondering if I can vote for the lesser of 3 evils at all. And then I am told to vote my conscience as if God had already marked the spot with an X for the correct candidate.

Read, Write, Repent, Repeat

2012-01-20T22:22:00.000-05:00

Trisha has a terrific post on the dangers of airing confessions on our blog as a way of justifying ourselves. It is a sad post because of the example she uses to illustrate her point. I am sure that I am guilty of sharing confessions in the hope that other sinners will excuse me. It is a dangerous game.

My own TV post earlier in the month has brought a lot of conviction to my own heart. In a way the post was good for me, it convicted me of too much watching. Add to that conviction the realization that my TBR list is possibly already longer than my expected life span and I have decided to stop watching and start reading, except sometimes, like when Downton Abbey is on...and Justified.

The good news is that I finished 3 books this week and made headway in a couple more. The bad news is that none of those books are on my TBR list. I ran into the library to pick up a hold and ended up grabbing 3 non-fiction books off the shelf.

All 3 books center around writing and writers.

~The first is almost too short to be called a book, more like a gift book:

It is a list of ten writing tips interspersed with cute illustrations by Joe Ciardiello.

My favorite: Never use an adverb to modify the word "said." Whew, that makes life easier.

~A Couple years ago I read Nora Ephron's delightful
I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts On Being a Woman
I did not realized she had followed it up with:

which is another delightful book of essays. My favorite essay in the book is I Just Want to Say: The Egg-White Omelet. I could have written that chapter and I am so happy Nora said it out loud. Too bad no one believes us.

~The next book is my first title by the prolific modern horror writer Stephen King. I have never read Stephen King. Never even thought of it but I saw this book a couple times at our local used mega-bookstore MacKay's, and I like to read memoirs and I like to read about writing, and blogging for Circe has me scrambling to up my game. So I picked this up at the library when it presented itself.

What a great book. I enjoyed the memoir and and I benefited from his thoughts on writing, I hope. He agreed with Elmore, skip the adverbs as much as possible. He also insists that writers must read and write and maybe take a walk sometimes but they don't have to drink. Warning: bad language. Ok, that made me giggle.

Now that I have started reading books on writing by writers, I would love to hear suggestions.

And if you are looking for suggestions on where to begin reading Wendell Berry, you can check out my latest blog post over at Circe.

And Don't forget the Saturday Review of Books!

Four Moms (Plus 1): Clothing

2012-01-19T10:41:00.000-05:00

Contrarian Mom

I often see those 4 Moms posts at The Common Room. I am almost always tempted to give my opinion as the 5th mom, the contrary mom, then I don't have the time. But I think I might have something to contribute to the discussion on buying and maintaining clothing.

I used to have a system for dealing with the boys' clothes. I say boys because Emily was much easier. I kept her off-season clothes in her closet in a bin, having no hand-me-downs to sort through.

New Jersey

But with the boys it was different. We lived in NJ for 13 years and 2 times a year we switched seasons. Not only that, but anyone on Earth who had boy's clothing to give away naturally thought of me. We had to buy two houses, smashed together in 1750, in order to keep up with all the clothes. We turned one bedroom into a closet and I numbered and kept lists of all the bins in the attic. I could say to my oldest, "bring me bins 8, 5, and 24." And he would bring them all at the same time since he was going to grow up to be a mighty warrior which he actually did grow up to be. He would also stand still and let wasps crawl all over him while he was in the attic. This is one reason I numbered the bins and sent couriers; if I went up in the attic I inevitably ended up flapping my arms wildly, running and screaming while the boys all shouted,"Stand still!" Apparently, the mighty warrior gene did not come from me.

For some moms this clothing switch takes days and days.
I could never live in that state of chaos so I made sure that we neither ate nor slept until the switch was finished. I do not jest. We did not eat while clothes were strewn from one end of the living room to the other. This motivates everyone to get the job done.

College Boys

The only clothes bins in the attic now belong to the boys who have moved out. They invariably leave a ton of clothes behind which they demand that no one touch. Then every once in a while they demand to know where their flannel shirt is and after they have accused the entire younger cache of brothers we go look in their bin in the attic. See I have used the verb 'demand' twice.

Tennessee

But for the boys at home it is different...and we live in Tennessee where we only need a few winter clothes. Andrew is a big boy, physically, he is past being a 'big boy' emotionally because he actually is a big boy. Alex is a little boy, physically and emotionally. They are 3 years apart in age and 6 in size. Therefore I do not save clothes. Every season, if an item is needed I just buy it at Walmart. I mostly stick to plain sweatshirts and plain t-shirts. Sometimes I buy them new church shirts at Marshall's. I never, ever do the switch thing anymore. No one gives us clothes anymore either. Maybe because the boys wear newer clothing now and not grab bag stuff. Or maybe we just don't know anybody anymore.

If, no, when the boys wear a shirt over and over again, I say,"take that off and throw it in the garbage." At which point they explain that it is their favorite shirt which interpreted means, it is the shirt that is always on the floor of the room when they wake up in the morning. I highly recommend doing this at least once a season. It keeps everyone off their guard and a mother of boys has no greater tool than to keep the boys thinking you are just a tiny bit not right in the head and unpredictable.

Socks

I am tempted to reiterate my sock advice. Can't find matches to the socks? Throw them all away and go buy new ones. This is the key to raising sons. I promise you there is no system on Earth for sorting socks that will work without becoming a full time job. Do you really want to spend your life worrying about socks?

In Conclusion

So my advice is don't have very many clothes. Clothes will suck the life out of you. Move South. Don't organize things, get rid of things and you will find true riches and time to read.

Stop SOPA

2012-01-18T21:25:00.001-05:00

Here is a chance to stop the loss of another freedom. This would devastate the free homeschool exchange of ideas which the Internet provides. Contact your representatives ASAP. I am pretty frustrated that my own congressman, Chuck Fleischmann, refused to tell me where he stood on this issue. What is a representative? If he votes for this bill I will not vote for him again.

Mystie at the Healer's Geste linked to this great video by the famous Khan.

Birthday Present Idea

2012-01-17T13:33:00.000-05:00

KEVA 200 Piece Block Set

These Keva Planks were recommended by a friend so we bought a set for Christmas. I thought they would be a great toy for all ages, even grandbabies. They are a perfect toy for Morning Time too, except it's 1:30 and Andrew couldn't stop building his tower after MT. If we had more planks he would still be at it. Even Emily spent a day building something. You can even find You Tube videos with ideas for projects. Apparently you can build anything with a stable plank. Curiously we read about the tower of Babel in our devotions this morning.

The expression here is because one of the planks just dropped to the floor from his hand and it looked like might topple the whole thing.

MLK on the Blog

2012-01-16T16:33:00.003-05:00

"With regard to domestics in this country, now and then, I think Dr. King said it best: 'All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance." Octavia Spencer's Golden Globe acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress

Emily and I watched the Globes last night and this speech touched my heart. When I was a young girl I worked in a daycare center. It always seemed odd to me that mothers could even afford to work. It seemed to me the people caring for the children were doing the most valuable service to a society. Therefore, they should get paid the most. Why should a person working in a paperclip factory get more honor and esteem (financially) than the person caring for his or her children? This is not about feminism but rather the suicide of a culture through the disordering of the affections.

( Her main point starts around 1:49.)

Afterthoughts: Charlotte Mason, Total Depravity, and the Divine Image [del.icio.us]

2012-01-16T07:42:53-08:00

If you stumble over Charlotte Mason's words, "Children are born persons. They are born neither good or bad," this post by Brandy may help you.

The Undiscerning and Dangerous Appreciation of Ron Paul [del.icio.us]

2012-01-14T20:09:29-08:00

In Which I Make People Mad or Ron Paul

2012-01-13T14:34:00.000-05:00

(Here is a link to Mark Steyn's article.)

I thought I would attempt a little friendly discourse on the subject of Ron Paul. Although Paul supporters feel themselves to be in the minority, my Facebook stream is a constant barrage of Paul support.

For the last few years I have frequently listened to Paul because I felt like his economic message was excellent. I fully expected to be a Ron Paul supporter in the primaries and I may still end up voting for him.

But a few things have bothered me about his campaign and about the way his supporters have promoted him. These are only perceptions on my part but I thought maybe it would help Paul supporters to understand.

I was deeply distressed by Paul's attitude in the debates. Frankly, I was shocked by how unlikeable he came across. Yes, I know that is not a Constitutional reason not to vote for him but it has affected me deeply. He seemed whiny, condescending and naive.

When he opened his mouth on foreign policy it seemed like he wasn't even trying to understand the times. In one debate he dismissed nuclear capability and Iran as if it would take someone 6 months to sail around the horn. And just because his followers followed up with tons of links refuting his ignorance I still couldn't shake off his nonchalance. This is a Constitutional problem in my book. Whatever else the president does and I believe nothing else might be good, he should at least protect and defend us physically.

In my mind there is no worse road to barbarism than Facebook. It has dumbed down everything from language to discourse with the real fruits yet to be spat out. So I have started viewing Facebook statuses about Ron Paul as if I were a non-Christian listening to Christian discourse. And to tell the truth the statuses have been offensive, as if the only reason I would not vote for Ron Paul is that I am a nominal Christian, idiot, Neo-con, who shops at Walmart and listens to Rush Limbaugh. This hurts because only some of that is true :)
I am just not elite enough to get it is the eye-rolling, heavy-sighing message I am picking up from my friends who support Ron Paul.

I say this not to explain myself but to explain how your statuses might be perceived. You are not drawing people to Paul you are pushing them away by trying to push them into narrow categories.

So that is my background. And let me say I do think we should examine what we are doing in the Middle East. In speaking of this to one of my sons he made a good point. It may not actually matter what any of the candidates say on foreign policy because none of them really 'know' anything yet. Even Obama has not been as magnanimous in the Middle East as he promised, probably because he knows more now than he did while campaigning.

And not all of my FB friends have been 'in your face'. A couple of men that I know do a pretty good job of presenting the issues without pointing the finger. A special hat-tip to Perry Coghlan who just might convince me yet.

Now the reason I posted- I do not want to debate the merits of Ron Paul in the comments what I want to do is ask Paul supporters or people who have listened in on this campaign, a couple of questions.

Do you disagree with Ron Paul on any point? This is my go-to question whenever I am trying to decide if someone is a leader or a guru.

Can you still respect people who don't vote for Ron Paul?

Have you noticed the condescension of the discourse? Has it drawn you to Paul or pushed you away?

How can this campaign help us to understand our times and learn how to present the Gospel without sounding pompous?

Language Arts: My Opinion

2012-01-12T15:00:00.000-05:00

First let me say something that is likely to be misunderstood. The more important a 'subject' the greater danger we are in of over-teaching it. Therefore, when I say you can spend less time on something I am not saying it isn't important. I am saying it is so important you don't want to complicate it unnecessarily.
We are not trying to make 'subjects' easier, we are trying to simplify how we learn them.

As regards the word 'subjects', it is a real problem philosophically and maybe if we get rid of it we won't be so vulnerable to marketing. Maybe we could use the word 'tools' for those areas that are skill based such as spelling and 'disciplines' for those areas that are wisdom based such as history, literature, and Bible. Just a thought.

Skills are important but they are not that important. That is not saying they don't matter and should not be taught. They just need to know their place. On the other hand, you could almost throw out the disciplines from the homeschool as far as formal learning goes and just set aside a block of time for reading through them which is essentially what David Hicks suggests in Norms and Nobility.

I am pretty sure the above paragraph is incoherent but I am going to leave it in so we can hash it out in the comments if necessary.

Let me try to break this down by subjects in no particular order:

Phonics:

I personally prefer using some form of The Writing Road to Reading : The Spalding Method of Phonics for Teaching Speech, Writing and Reading as the foundation. This is basically teaching phonics as logic. That point alone blows out of the water the idea that the grammar stage is not for logic. True phonics is a preparation for logic. WRTR lays a thorough foundation and it takes about 3 years to complete if you go slowly. Your child will be reading long before that but when you are finished you can forget a few other subjects forever. If you get bogged down doing WRTR spend a little time using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. That is a good book for first time reading teachers, especially the first few lessons where you can learn how to teach blending letters together.

Here is a step by step approach to WRTR.

Now if you begin to teach your child to read and you reach a brick wall-Stop. This is very important. Do not just keep pushing along, it will only lead to frustration and then anger. It is futile to proceed. Wait a month or two and then begin again. Do this however many times you need to.

If you must teach a younger child to read out of social pressure begin with the phonograms from the WRTR. I didn't even teach my children the alphabet until they knew the sounds the letters could make. This did make it awkward at the eye doctor. My son looked at a letter and said, "Eh, EE," and even though this was a very smart thing to say the doctor thought he was addled.

Keep doing WRTR until the program is finished possibly 3rd or 4th grade. If you can, find a scripted program to teach it. It can be difficult to understand just from the original book. The best way is one step at a time.

Do not confuse the logic of phonics with the beauty of art or the teaching of history. Phonics has nothing to do with those subjects, it is a skill and should not be confused by extraneous information.

Handwriting:

Read a different blog. I have failed to teach this subject well even though philosophically I think it is important. With Alex I am using the Memoria Press stuff. They sell the simplest materials, sparse and focused.

Spelling:

WRTR is essentially a spelling program. When you have finished it you will know whether you have a child who can spell or a child who cannot. If your child can spell DO NOT use a spelling program; just make sure you correct any spelling errors you come upon in his writing. If your child cannot spell, DO NOT use a spelling program. It will most likely bog the child down in frustration and not help his spelling at all. Have spelling bees to motivate the child to teach himself to spell if he is competitive. Use some sort of computer spelling drill program like Dr Aardsma that takes only 5 minutes a day or less and carefully go over his written narrations for spelling errors. When you come to one teach the word using the tools you learned in WRTR. Teach him to use spell check on the computer. I also think Charlotte Mason was on to something when she said, "Never let your child see his spelling error on paper." Do not dwell on the error, dwell on the correct spelling.

Writing:

By age 9 or 10 a child should be writing daily written narrations, every single day for the rest of his schooling. I start my children out writing 5 sentences a day on some topic from their reading. This sometimes deteriorates into something like this:

"I am reading a book. It is a good book. I like it a lot. I have 20 pages left. I think you will like it too."

That is not a narration. Do not let them do that. Have them write about the story. I let my children pick which book they want to narrate. Sometimes in 7th grade I assign the book to be narrated. By 7th grade they should be narrating almost a full page a day in cursive preferably. My children try to trick me by writing everything in print. In high school I let them type at least some of their narrations.

Correct their narrations for what they already understand: spelling, apostrophes etc. Most of this they learned in WRTR. You can teach them paragraph forms etc just using their narrations. You can use their narrations to discuss grammar concepts.

After several years of daily written narrations you can introduce a formal writing program, if you want. I would say not before 7th grade. My older boys basically wrote every day of their lives and then went through Jensen's Format Writing .

My younger 5 did The Lost Tools of Writing which I can now highly recommend. It is not an easy program to use but like the WRTR it is the only program you will have to use. Or many families use IEW materials. But a formal writing program should not replace daily written narrations.

This scenario is great preparation for college where ease of writing is a key skill needed. I know some rigorous programs suggest all kinds of difficult feats in low grades such as 4th but I would not waste my 4th grader's time teaching him to outline, etc. It will be a lot of time spent for very little reward.

Grammar:

My older boys grew up with very little grammar. I had not learned grammar and I failed to teach it properly to my sons. When I was 39 I was still spelling a lot as alot, probably because I learned everything I knew from reading and most great authors don't use those words :) I have spent the last 10 years trying to learn something about grammar but my brain has a hard time holding on to the concepts. Still, I don't stare blankly anymore when someone uses the word 'preposition'.

My 3rd and 4th sons went to college together and their first semester they had a strict English professor. He cleaned up their writing and they went on to do very well in all of their college writing assignments mostly because of the vast reservoirs of poetic knowledge they applied to their writing. By the way, they both had very high SAT Verbal scores. With virtually no formal grammar at all, my oldest almost maxed out on SAT Verbal. I don't tell you this to brag but to ease your worries.

I still think grammar is important BUT how to teach it effectively? That is the question. My suggestions:
1. Mom begins to teach herself grammar.
2. Mom applies what she is learning to discussions with her children.
3. Mom uses her knowledge to go over narrations with her children.
4. Mom reads aloud and discusses an excellent grammar book such as the Mother Tongue books, the vintage ones not the one by Nancy Wilson, or Descriptive English Grammar.
5. Perhaps have the child spend a year or two in a grammar workbook program to solidify what he is learning. NEVER think of this workbook as the THING. It is only a small tool.

As I said I am not an expert on grammar, I am only promoting what has worked in our family. My older children were rescued by voracious reading. With all the distractions these days and all the atrocious writing in texts and on Facebook, it may be more important than ever to give your child a strong foundation in grammar.

The problem is that often we think a strong foundation means using a lot of resources and time. This is tricky with grammar because teaching isn't learning. It is a subject that can quickly become meaningless to the student and so care needs to be taken that it is taught in context as much as possible. And it is also a subject that the child can continue to learn throughout life IF he is enlivened to a love of grammar and not instilled with a hatred for it.

Literature:

I tend to look at literature as a humanities package. A school day to me is basically: work on a few skills and read. Reading will cover Bible, history, literature and, in the elementary years, science.

Language arts is probably the most important place to remember that it is a unified discipline and not a series of subjects. Once you understand that you can avoid buying 5 or 6 different programs to cover it.

Poetry:

Poetry is a cross between a wisdom subject and a logic subject. It is a nice bridge between the humanities and mathematics. I believe it should be taught at all times in every possible way. First as sheer fun and joy. Read lots of poems but then also read some poems over and over again. Even an obscure poem will come alive if read over a period of months. Eventually you can delve into the bones and logic of poetry through dissecting poems for patterns and devices as long as you don't turn it into some sort of debunking or tearing down. I believe poetry absorbed into the bloodstream will do its work without too much outside help. I do not mean just the meaning of the poems will do their work but the way they 'mean' will be absorbed. And when that has happened your child will be ready for any subject, any time. Yes, I really think that.

Southern Literature Suggestions 1-20

2012-01-12T08:52:00.000-05:00

I am participating this year in the Southern Literature Challenge IF I can figure out how that works. Southern Literature is one of my loves. I guess I should participate in a more difficult challenge like Asian Literature, Self-help, or those pesky Puritans, but I am not. I am going to stick to what I love. My affections have been ordered this way.

To start the challenge out I thought I would catalog which books I have already read from this extensive list of Southern Literature. Perhaps my list will inspire you to check out Southern authors and stories. Many of these books qualify as classics.

Books 1-10

I have read 7 of the first 10. That is an encouraging start.

To Kill a Mockingbird

A book of true depth and insight.

Gone with the Wind

Our 8th grade Civil War class in Deland, Fl was taken to the theater to see the movie of this book. I wonder if northern schools did that?
By the time I was 16 I had read this at least twice.

Huckleberry Finn

Great family read-aloud.

The Help

A great story which suffers from naive writing but the movie is fantastic. I would not put this high on my list of favorite Southern literature.

The Sound and the Fury

I love this book and I love Faulkner. His writing is the definition of Southern literature: poetic, pathetic and gothic.

Tom Sawyer

Their Eyes were Watching God

I especially enjoyed this book as I spent my childhood in many of the places she writes about. Strong, Southern voice.

I would give 5 of them 5 stars, one of them 4 stars and The Help 3 stars. I really do like Southern Literature.

Things begin to drop off. I have only read 3 of the next 10 but have seen two of the plays and had to quit reading one because it seemed to foul.

(Now for an aside. I have tried to find out the exact rules for capitalizing the words South and Southern to no avail. Therefore, I have decided to make up my own rules. I will capitalize those words and in an act of rebellion against northern aggression I will keep the words north and northern lower case. We all must do our part.)

Books 11-20

A Good Man is Hard to Find

I am not sure why I struggle with O'Connor. She writes well and pathetic and gothic, maybe just a bit too gothic. The title story will stay with whomever reads it like a bad Neil Diamond song. A friend almost hit a good Samaritan on the head with a tire iron once because of this book. In her defense we were stranded on a south Georgia road in the middle of nowhere not too far from Milledgville. Perhaps those Georgia roads are haunted by the ghost of Flannery as well as being speed traps.

As I Lay Dying

In another life I would be William Faulkner or maybe just the housemaid who pours his whiskey.

Cold Sassy Tree

This is a thumping good read. If you need a place to start reading Southern literature this would be it.

(I hope to continue going through the Good Reads list over the course of the next couple of months. Next up 21-40.)

Teaching from a Place of Stress

2012-01-11T12:04:00.000-05:00

(You can read my defense of Charlotte Mason on the Circe Blog.)

There are great advantages to having homeschooled a long time and there is nothing like an evening with young moms to remind me that they have so much more stress than I do. I have the confidence of seeing that things work out in the long run and also the ability to see how unnecessary most of my daily agonizing was. I can almost teach from a place of rest these days. Not quite. I still enjoy my old habit of wringing my hands but I try to think up new reasons to do it.

Often the questions young moms bring to me baffle me. Usually it goes something like this. First they ask a question about writing or phonics or math or science. Then I begin to answer it. Then I stop and ask them how old their child is and then they say something like 3 or 6. And I just smile and say, " Really, you want to waste time teaching spelling to a 6 year old?"

The other night at the local Charlotte Mason meeting I began to feel like an unschooler. Every time a mom asked me a question about a subject I most often answered, " I wouldn't even begin that subject until the child is older." Grammar, older. Latin, older. Science, older. Formal writing, older.

Moms of young children load their days down with so many premature subjects that they don't have time to do the things that really matter, all in the name of rigor. And in order to fit all those subject into the day they have to teach them divorced from true meaning. This is where Charlotte Mason's idea of short lessons can save the day. For instance, take grammar, over the years I have become more and more convinced of its high place in the temple of learning but at the same time I have also become convinced that it must be taught in context. A few minutes a day discussing and using grammar in context is far superior to hours and years bent over a workbook.

The problem is the way we go about planning our school. It usually works like this: we see a problem."Oh, my goodness, my child can't spell!!!" Then we spend a couple of hours thinking of their future life in the gutter bewailing having been homeschooled or more likely, "What will my mother say?" Then we hit the Internet or the homeschool catalog. At this point we read glowing reviews of spelling programs written by people who just took the program out of the box and liked the pretty pictures. We decide that no matter how tight our budget, we are going to buy the most expensive program because obviously that is the safest bet. Our purchase arrives. We spend all summer reading the teacher's instructions. We make up our plan and maybe even write a review of how the product saved our life. Then we proceed to use the program for two weeks before we realize that our child WILL learn to spell with the program but that is all he will learn because the program takes the whole day. Now your child can win The National Spelling Bee but he can't add. Two weeks in you wake up one day and say, "Oh, my goodness, my child can't add...."

This can go on forever because we are looking at school as a series of subjects rather than tools of learning.

Buried in this treadmill is the idea that rigor equals learning. Because Charlotte Mason found a way to re-infuse meaning into subjects through living ideas, great books and short lessons, educators who promote 'rigor' often misunderstand and dismiss Charlotte Mason unnecessarily. There is a way to have both rigor and meaning but we must not take shortcuts through the avenue of too many subjects.

( In part 2, I hope to discuss my personal opinion about what is important when based solely on my own experience.)

Which World?

2012-01-10T08:30:00.000-05:00

I have been pondering something lately so I decided to throw it out there on the blog. When we first were introduced to the homeschool movement we didn't even have children. By the time our kids came along we were locked into the idea of homeschooling, something that has brought me intense joy over the years. Unfortunately along with being locked into the idea we were also locked into the ideology, the ISM, if you will. We became more and more afraid of the world and the effect it would have on our family. Because so many Christian families were floundering it seemed natural to do things differently.

We began accumulating conservative Christian teachers. Plenty of men were willing to lead us to the New Jerusalem. After 2000 years we were going to get Christianity right for once and our children were too. There were only two Christian paths to follow: submission to these teachers or rebellion. We were just rebellious enough not to drink all of the Kool-aid. In those years our identity in Christ was tied up in our lifestyle and we searched for what a friend calls a lifestyle church. It wasn't all our fault, most traditional churches only wanted one kind of person or family in their congregation and we were not that kind. There wasn't any room for diversity in either camp.

So we became more and more 'conservative' until one day we just couldn't bear the weight of it anymore and then we eased to the middle. This left us still out of sync with the traditional congregations, we were still pretty happy to be a large, homeschooling family, but also pushed us out of our deeply conservative circles.

We had listened to 'teachers' for so long it was hard for us to interpret where we should stand firm and where we should take another look at things. So we drifted. And over the years many, many other families ended up in the same place and we enjoyed discussing these issues with them and this has helped too. Did we first fall off the horse one way to get back up and fall off the other way? Sometimes that is what it seemed like. But now I think that is only because I was still interpreting my walk with Christ as a lifestyle rather than a relationship.

Then yesterday I had a sort of epiphany. I won't even tell you the subject that brought it to light. I started thinking how radically differently I am from my former conservative, visionary friends. Had I become more wordly? Were they less worldly because they lived in, essentially, a counter-culture while I was more engaged now in the regular culture? And then it hit me. In the old days I was just as worldly if not more so than I am today. I hadn't protected myself or my children from anything I had only created a different "world" to worship apart from Christ.

Your heart can be captured by your own world or you can be beguiled by the world of pop culture but they are both the same sin, only the first is more difficult to recognize which I guess, makes it more insidious. In those days we liked to talk about the regular Christian subculture as being a ghetto, but then we just moved across the street to our own ghetto. Our reasons were not all bad but the outcome in our own hearts was.

The Bible says that God is looking for a people to worship Him in spirit and in truth. I am learning not to presume what that means or dress it up to look just like me.

The good news is still The Good News and that covers both sides of the horse.

The Problem of Pleasure.

2012-01-09T13:21:00.001-05:00

My latest Circe blogpost is titled The Problem of Pleasure. It is an important post from my point of view, especially so in light of my ridiculously long TV post which has convicted me of way too much watching.

Discussions on Education

2012-01-09T10:35:00.000-05:00

While James was home for the holidays we had an interesting conversation about education. He is a first semester senior history major at Covenant College and hoping to graduate next December. His plan is to coach baseball after college, a plan we have encouraged from the time he graduated high school. While all the boys are pretty good at baseball, James seems to have inherited the gift of coaching from my dad. I have great respect for Covenant and their insistence that students think in all areas as Christians. It is a tough school with high academic standards.

James was telling me his class schedule for the semester and I was drooling. I mentioned that I would LOVE taking those classes but as I was saying it I realized that I really wouldn't love all the pressure. What I would really like to do is audit the courses, listening and learning, but not being assessed. It was just a passing thought that I did not share.

James started discussing why he switched from physical education to history and I thought about the article I had read on Finnish education via Melissa at MMV.

I had been brooding over the article for several days because I had not liked everything I had read but had found it challenging to my own views. I started to explain to James a little about how the Finnish stumbled into success and before I had even gotten to the punch line he said, "You know what I think, I think it has to do with testing and assessment. American schools are so tied to outcome they are unable to succeed."

What he said next was the kind of thing a homeschool mom lives for, " Frankly, I think I learned more at home than I have at college because of the way we did school, without ever really having grades but just reading and learning naturally. I have learned less in college because I have had to concentrate on beating the system and studying for the test."

The planets aligned: Charlotte Mason (O, Wonderful Friend), Andrew Kern (who has spoken extensively on assessment and yet I have never quite been able to figure out how it all fit together or exactly what he has been saying), The Finnish schools and my own dear hame.

I am not always encouraged by homeschooling. Sometimes I wonder if it was a big mistake. Yes, I do. But it was the path before me and I have followed it to the best of my ability and I have enjoyed the ride but it is so refreshing when my children encourage me with understanding.

To Be Read 2012: Part I

2012-01-07T13:27:00.001-05:00

My TBR pile is ridiculous and unrealistic and yet after all of Sherry's 2011 reading lists I have continued to add to it. Here are a few books that I have added to either my Paperback Swap List, Chattanooga-Hamilton Public Library requests list, Amazon wish lists, Kindle free books, or Audible Wish List recently. Take it with a grain of salt, I still haven't read Island of the World.

But after my ridiculous look at what I watched last year, I am determined to mingle my lazy pleasures with more edifying ones. More on that on my New Year's Circe post to come.

You can find more suggestions at The Saturday Review of Books .

Sherry suggested I read The Little World of Don Camillo and I am intrigued.

Somewhere recently I heard of a series by J. Mark Bertrand which begins with Back on Murder (A Roland March Mystery) . I think maybe Cindy Marsch. I have already started reading book one and I will probably proceed to Pattern of Wounds (A Roland March Mystery) . The writing is uneven. I think the writer has to dumb down his protagonist in a way that is not consistent with his own style. When his style shines through I enjoy reading the book but when suddenly the character speaks in the vernacular it seems put on.

Rossettis in Wonderland

Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel
Quite a few end of the year reviews of this book.

The Confession: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery (Ian Rutledge Mysteries)

22 Britannia Road: A Novel

The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God by Tim Keller

I have downloaded free to my Kindle several of these Frank Boreham books of essays. They came highly recommended by Ravi Zacharias.
Frank Boreham

And

By Frederick Buechner, an author whose name I have run across several times this year, only I didn't know he wrote Fiction as well as Non-Fiction.

I am not one of those people who adore Trollope. I like his books but would probably not reread them. Here is a new one for me He Knew He Was Right

The Belfry by May Sinclair. I have completely forgotten why I downloaded this free to my Kindle but I am thinking it may be a WWI story.

I hope to read this a maybe even a couple other Ferguson books this year.

I may do another post on my intent to re-read through some Oxford Christian books, my southern literature plans and few other non-fiction hopefuls.

TV Shows I Watched in 2011

2012-01-05T08:30:00.000-05:00

(If you have trouble commenting on this blog please email. If you did have trouble and worked it out please email your solution also. Thanks. dominionfamily at gmail dot com.)

This year I went on a frenzied search to replace my old go-to shows: Monk, Numb3rs and LOST. I did not find anything to replace LOST :( but I did find a few good shows. I generally like to watch shows after they have come out on DVD since I can watch the seasons as a whole. Some of these our whole family watches but often I watch after the kids are in bed on nights that Tim is at work. This list is a little bit embarrassing because it appears that I watched a lot last year.Oh, well.

1. Psych

Right now Psych stands on some sort of all-time good show list in my mind. It is silly and I didn't even like the first episode of it that I watched but I love Psych. I love the characters and the chemistry of the cast. USA is right; characters are welcome on their network. It is generally OK for kids to watch too. It is a smart, funny show. If you don't like Psych then we can't be friends anymore.
Btw, the premise is that Shawn uses the observation skills his police officer dad taught him while growing up to pretend to be psychic. His friend, Gus, is around to keep him grounded or sometimes not. Psych was around before The Mentalist which is why they frequently make jokes about it.

2. Justified

We saw a preview for this last year at the theater and having moved to Kentucky right before I left for college and since my parents still live in Lexington even on a road frequently mentioned in the show, I thought I would give it a try. It is gritty, dark, humorous and very violent. The theme music may be part of the draw of the show. It is weird. The group that sings the theme music is called Gangstagrass, a coming together of gangsta music and yes, bluegrass. Like I said, weird, but attractive, too. Season 2 was just as compelling, if not more so, than season 1 and I was happy to see Margo Martindale get a well-deserved Emmy for her role as Harlan County matriarch Mags Bennett. Not for everyone.

3.Downton Abbey

This awesome British series dominated the Emmy's. As I said in my movie post, this one is another Julian Fellowes product. One caveat: the first episode is a bit racier than the rest of the episodes. If you can get past that the rest of the episodes are fine. Season 2 is filming right now. If you like Foyle's War or other such British television series, you will love Downton.

4. Midsomer Murder

This is my guilty British pleasure, even though Midsomer must be a pretty awful place to live in. If someone doesn't like you they generally just kill you in Midsomer which can make finding the killer pretty difficult for DCI Tom Barnaby. But there are thatched cottages, bicycles with baskets, and of course, plenty of tea. Not as innocent as a Miss Read book but certainly enough Earl Grey for the most discriminating anglophile.

5. Blue Bloods

This is a new family show for us. It is the perfect replacement for Numb3rs since it is also centered often around the family dinner table. One other great thing about Blue Bloods is they give even conservative opinions at the dinner table. The characters are well-drawn and that is what makes this a great TV show. I highly recommend this one.

6. Sherlock!

Need I explain myself. I like the casting of this excellent BBC show both Sherlock and Watson are well-played. You never even notice that it is modernized. Gotta love the BBC.

7. Castle

Nathan Fillion won a place in our hearts on Firefly so forgive us if we will watch Captain Mal lead another ship into TV land. But really Castle is a fun show. The script has been above average and the themes of the show are a lot of fun. I also love the hook that Castle is a writer and the supporting cast: Stana Katic, Seamus Dever and Jon Huertas, are perfect.

8. House

I did watch House last year. It was a big disappointment but I have remained a loyal fan hoping they will pull it together. I wish they had just kept Dr Cameron years ago. Hugh Laurie is a joy to watch as an actor in any setting. The whole House/Cuddy thing was a disaster and I am relieved she is gone. Who would dress like that at work anyway? Come on, House, pull yourself together.

9. Parks and Recreation

Another guilty pleasure. Hilariously funny if a bit risque and inappropriate at times. Still the humor is set in a small community parks and rec department and it exudes a genuine warmth. Who doesn't love Ron Swanson?

10. Bones

I am the only one in my family that watches this and I keep my eyes closed most of the time. I blame the DHM for suggesting this show to me. But I like Temperance Brennan and think it is a smart show with a well-developed cast.

New Possibilities:

Last Man Standing

Tim Allen's new family show. Modern, yes, funny, yes, and sometimes almost conservative in its outlook. Tim Allen is a pro and it shows. Plus I love the clothes his wife wears.

Once Upon a Time

Please be a good show. Please be LOST. Hi, Dr. Cameron.

Person of Interest

We have found ourselves enjoying this show much more than we planned. Any show with Michael Emerson, the best bad guy ever, will at least get a try from us. We have given this show a couple of episodes to grow on us and it has.

Friday Night Lights

We are going to try this. It has come highly recommended and James, college senior, is loving it. He watches it whenever he needs to study. This looks to be high drama like LOST and I usually watch either humor or darker dramas. We will see. It is something I will probably relate well to since I grew up in a small town, the daughter of a college baseball coach, and at the football field every fall Friday night. You can even see the stadium where I spent my childhood, even before high school because my dad was a referee in the baseball off-season, in the movie Waterboy, where it serves as the practice field. I get teary every time I see that movie, in passing, because I think Waterboy is a pretty awful movie and have never watched it start to finish. That would be painful.

The Middle

Ok, this show just cracks me up. The kids are super-annoying especially Axl but he is also more than vaguely familiar with his ever present abs. But from the first episode when I saw with Patricia Heaton giving her kids frozen brownies for their school lunches I was hooked. Sadly, I can relate to Franky Heck. If I didn't laugh I would cry.

Noteworthy Movies 2011

2012-01-04T12:57:00.000-05:00

Ok, these are movies that I watched not movies actually produced in 2011. Mostly they are movies that I loved until you get to #10.

1. The King's Speech

Hands down the best movie I watched and bought in 2011. Actually it is the only movie that I bought for myself last year.

2. Midnight in Paris

I LOVED this movie. I expected to mildly like it because of the scenery but I enjoyed it in the same way I loved A Good Year , a movie I can never watch too many times and often even listen to the soundtrack.

3. The Tourist

Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant make this movie spot on perfect.....oops.....make that Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. I must note that Julian Fellowes worked on this script. He is one of our family's favorite characters, Kilwillie, from Monarch of the Glen . He also won an Oscar for the his great movie Gosford Park and this year he won an Emmy for his new series Masterpiece Classic: Downton Abbey , more on that in my TV post.

4. Red

I talked my dad into watching this while he was visiting last spring and even he liked it. It is a great movie for almost the whole family. It has action for the boys and humor and dialogue for the adults and you get another weird John Malkovitch character just for fun.

5. The Help

Some of you may remember I was less than impressed with the book. The story was good but there was a certain fatal undertone of immature writing that bugged me. The movie has erased all of that and left the story intact and improved. One of the few times in my life, maybe the first time, where I liked the movie better than the book.

6. Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows

When Colin Firth is in short supply substitute Robert Downey, Jr without missing a beat. Our whole family loved the 2nd movie in this Sherlock Holmes series. My friend Linda gets a little peevish about how these movies are good movies but not faithful adaptations of the books. I thought this movie was much closer to the spirit of Conan Doyle than the first but even if it wasn't it would still be a thumbs up for action, adventure, script and plot.....not to mention actors. We saw this in the theater.

7. Wild Target

Here is an indie selection for those who like British humor and Bill Nighy. I am a fan of both not to mention Emily Blunt who is always fun. What can I say, entirely British!

8. Life as We Know It

Just let me state for the record that I am not a fan of Katherine Heigl. She does annoying so well that I believe her to be a truly annoying, high-maintenance person in real life, if not she is a great actress. But in spite of that I liked this movie. I guess it was a feel-good movie for me. Not for the whole family probably.

9. The Tree of Life

I eagerly anticipated this movie. I was not sure whether or not I liked it while I was watching. Emily certainly did not. But afterwards it stayed with me for many days and I found myself wondering what Timothy and Nicholas would think of it. In the end I think it is worth watching and discussing. It is very, very slow which is something I tend to like in a movie.

10. Melancholia

This movie did not earn me any brownie points with either Tim or Emily......or myself! I had wanted to watch this for a few months before I finally had a chance to sit down and do it. The reviews ("sense of ecstasy") and previews had intrigued me. I thought it would leave me thoughtful like The Tree of Life. IT DID NOT. What an existential mess and colossal waste of time. The only redemption for having watched this is perhaps to understand the times. I hope this movie is not a reflection of widespread existential despair. Those Scandinavians need to get a sun lamp.
And for those who need to know it had quite a bit of nudity, not too provocative, but nudity. And by the way there is no sense of ecstasy unless meaninglessness turns you on.

Spoilers:

To further discuss it let me say that two things struck me as wrong.

1. The main character, Justine, knowing the world is going to end, rebukes her sister for wanting to turn it into a ceremony or rite of passage. Instead she is somehow going to make the whole thing better by rejecting ceremony and ritual because, of course, they have no meaning and apparently never did.....hence the weird wedding.

2. Justine then tells the little boy something that would be great except it strikes a dissonant chord in her worldview. She tells him that his father has "forgotten about the magic." Except there is no magic. So after rejecting ritual and religion essentially she then creates a pathetic attempt at her own religion of nothing by building 'the magic' cave made out of sticks signifying nothing.

Here there be madness.

Morning Time January 2012

2012-01-02T13:48:00.001-05:00

Ambleside Term Selections:

Composer: Mozart

Spotify has made this a breeze. Here are two links to my Spotify term selections:

Mozart

Nikolaus Harnoncourt & Concentus musicus Wien – Mozart : Requiem

Authentic Amblesiders are doing Vivaldi this term but I am doing him next term.

Artist: Caravaggio

As you can see I have completely failed to sync my composer to my artist. Oh, well. I like what I like.

Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part II

I am kinda jazzed about Part II as I enjoyed Part I.

Plutarch: Numas Pompilius

Morning Time Weekly Selections:

Bible Reading:

The Gospel Story Bible

The Gospel Story Bible

REVIEW: Jeremiah 9:23-24

Learn: Ecclesiastes 12:13,14

Books of NT

Titus 1, 2, 3

Lord’s Prayer

Daniel 1:17

Micah 6:8

Poetry:

REVIEW:

The Fool’s Prayer

The Classic Hundred Poems

(one poem a day with discussion)

Sonnet on his Blindness

Four Things

To a Mouse

The Road Not Taken

Miscellaneous Memory:
Work on relearning the 1st Amendment and review other 9 Amendments-2 a day.

Read Aloud:

George Washington's World

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

The Mother Tongue Book II

(I am still trying to decide which biographies of Mozart and Caravaggio to use) Any suggestions?

Favorite Apps for Spiritual Growth

2012-01-02T10:20:00.001-05:00

Every once in a while I like to discuss apps. This is not a entirely new selection but an important one I believe.

1. You Version Bible

I have tried other Bible apps but this is my favorite. I am not sure how they do it but you can get the ESV free on this app. It is nice during MT to switch between King James, New King James and ESV. Over the years we have memorized our verses in all three versions. It used to get confusing but now with the touch of a button I can switch to the version we need.

I love the reading plans to. My usual reading plan is 2 chaps in the New Testament and 3 in the Old Testament a day. Doing that you read through the NT twice and year and the OT twice.
Sometimes I add in reading 5 Psalm's a day. Last year I squeaked out 2 chaps in OT and 2 in NT sometimes just reading one each. This year I am on day to of the Robert Murray M'Cheyne reading plan. I tried it once before but without resolve.

Many of the versions in this app also have audio and the ESV audio is very well done. After a lifetime of Bible reading I am wondering if listening on audio will be a fresh wind.

2. Spurgeon's Morning and Evening by 43rd Element

I have an audio version of this book but I deleted it from my phone. I much prefer to just read this daily. I have been more successful with reading through Morning than Evening but this year I am going to try and read in the evenings more often.

3. My 3rd most used iPhone app is from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

I LOVE this app. I LOVE this app. This app puts Ravi's radio broadcasts at my fingertips. I have been listening every morning while frying bacon and eggs. I am determined that my high school students will listen to as much as Ravi as I can squeeze in this year and read his books also.

4. Matthew Henry Commentary by Timbecca

I actually paid for this one and I love it. I have blogged this before but for years my ginormous MHC sat on the shelf occasionally being brought down in fits of productivity and arch plans for improved Bible study. Ha, ha, ha. But now that I can quickly consult it while reading my Bible, it gets used all the time. What I especially like about reading Matthew Henry is that he takes me back to a time before Dispensationalism was the only orthodoxy. Therefore he isn't for or against Dispensationalism, he just gives the modern student a fresh perspective from the past.

5. Parish Pres

The app for our old and much-loved church Parish Pres in Franklin, TN. It is a great app to link up to church podcasts which we do on Sunday's when we can't go to church generally because of illness.

6. Westminster Confession of Faith in 90 Days

This is a great app for Morning Time. You can study and be quizzed on the Shorter Catechism.

I would love to hear about your favorite apps for spiritual growth!!

Now a caveat. The world is changing rapidily. It seems to me to be a good thing that some spiritually uplifting things are available on the gadgets we love but there are drawbacks. I worried this year that my children didn't see me reading my Bible anymore. They do know that I get up, grab a cup of coffee and read my Bible but it now doesn't look any different than if I was playing Words with Friends (Ordo Amoris). Dawn recently linked to a post about the difference in reading ebooks over real books. It seemed to me that the article was comparing real books with the more flashy books found on the iPad rather than with the more ordinary print you find on non-Fire Kindles but I could be wrong.

I don't know how to change the world back. There are so many negatives to this technological shift and yet maybe there are positives too. Maybe people will read more. I still only allow my younger boys to play video games when the college boys are home and thankfully the PlayStation is only home when James is home. It is overwhelming philosophically and a reminder that even thought he centre cannot hold God is still triumphant. Still it is probably worth some effort to try and understand the times we live in.

2011 Reading Finale and Glance Forward.

2011-12-31T11:22:00.001-05:00

I have almost finished Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins but it doesn't look like I will be able to finish it today. That's Ok because it is a great book to start out the Southern Literature Challenge I plan to participate in during 2012. Add in the biography of Wendell Berry I am reading and the challenge is smooth sailing and one I am greatly looking forward to.

I am also thinking of returning to an Oxford Christians set of reading with Till We Have Faces leading the pack. I am hoping to reread a couple of Charles Williams books that I read 30 years ago which went right over my head. Are there any Oxford Christian reading challenges out there?

I wanted to highlight 3 books I finished in 2011 that I missed in the previous posts.

1. Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination by Eugene Peterson

I greatly appreciated this book. I come from a tradition where we were exhorted over and over again that a literal interpretation of the Bible and especially The Revelation of John was the only orthodox view. I long ago pushed away from those waters but had never comfortably found any other moorings. Peterson's book was that mooring for me. It gave me courage that imaginative language and orthodoxy can be friends.

2. Byzantium By Stephen Lawhead

This was my first Lawhead book, believe it or not. I found it to be very slow going at first and the 800+ pages seemed daunting. Even now I am not sure what I think about it and it has had me thinking about the difference in the way to approach a long book and also the way to judge it. It took me 2 years of slow reading to conquer War and Peace and I felt like that was the best way to read that tome. Byzantium is not a page-turner which can often make reading huge volumes enjoyable but in the end it was a satisfying read and I will look for other Lawhead books. While perusing Lawhead on Amazon I noticed reviews for an author named Frederick Buechner. I am especially interested in his fiction and wonder if any of y'all have read his books?

3. Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Vintage) by Gary Taubes

Here is a book that I cannot recommend highly enough to anyone who has ever struggled with weight and weight loss. Taubes says things I only imagined to be true in my own mind and never, ever would have said out loud. The book is controversial. If you are a disciplined person who has maintained your weight over the years by hard work or so you thought, you probably won't like the book. But if you are someone who has fought the fight with an uncooperative body and a disbelieving medical establishment then I recommend this book. I lost 80 lbs years ago doing exactly these things and have lost weight this year returning to this model. Besides all that the book is fascinating.

Now hop on over to Sherry's house for all those great book lists!!
My other year end book posts can be found below:

2011 Year in Review
2011 Fiction
2011 Non-Fiction

2011 Top 10 Non-Fiction Reads

2011-12-29T15:30:00.000-05:00

This year my real favorites were mostly non-fiction and indeed many were life-changing.

Non Fiction

#1.
Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers

This is such a 'Duh' book maybe it shouldn't be on the list. It would make any list I could ever make.
When we got to the last page Alex asked me in a puzzled voice, "Haven't you read this before? Why are you crying if you already know what happened?" I was crying for a lot of reasons, Alex, not just the obvious ones.

#2.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

We loved Seabiscuit and we loved this. This book reminded me of Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter , just when you think things had to get better they got worse. I am not sure I am even the same species as the men in this amazing true story.

#3.
Witness by Whittaker Chambers

Not always easy to read but well worth the effort. The chapters on Whittaker's mother are especially fascinating for educators and autodidacts. It is also interesting to note that he felt his best defense against evil ideology was personal agrarianism.

#4.
The Bible and the Task of Teaching

You can find my extensive blog posts on this book here.

#5.
The Abolition of Man

C.S. Lewis on education and philosophy. My blog posts here. A year without Lewis is not a good year. I plan on rereading more Lewis in 2012. What about a book club on Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold ?

#6.
The Romanovs: the Final Chapter By Robert K. Massie

Where to begin. At 16 I was a Romanov junkie. I read Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty by Massie in those years and then when on to obsessively read about Anastasia, my favorite book being this one by Peter Kurth,
Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson. I passed my love and my book along to my niece Alicia and she even named her daughter Anastasia something my husband wouldn't allow me to do and also we didn't have a daughter in those days, but still..... And then I for a while I forgot all about it and didn't even pay much attention to all the DNA testing going on a few years ago. I don't think I wanted to know. I wanted Anna Anderson or someone to be the lost princess.
But alas, the time came and this fall I read the final chapter. Such a sad, sad chapter of history. We can use the Romanov's sad story to ask many, many questions about the meaning of history and the power of story and the power of the man who controls the story. For in the early days it was Lenin himself who promoted the story that some of the Romanov's had escaped. Why would he do that? Something to think about.

#7.
In Defense of Poesy by Sir Philip Sidney

I blogged about this old gem over at the Circe Blog.
Free online and for Kindle.

#8.
School Education: Developing a Curriculum (Homeschooler Series)

Charlotte Mason's Vol. 3. and yes, I blogged through this one too....24 times!

#9.
The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

I got this free for Kindle but it is not available free at this time. Happily, Cumberland Books is selling it for only $5.00 along with several other Berry titles. This is not the best compilation of Berry essays but it is still very good. By not the best, I mean it is probably not the best place to start reading Berry but the essays while dated are still excellent and as always thought-provoking (Read:depressing).

#10.
My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

I didn't get a chance to read Alan Jacobs' The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction yet but I thoroughly enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane with Pat Conroy whose The Water Is Wide: A Memoir is one of my favorite books. I even blogged about the joy I found reading about Pat's reading choices.

And that's all. Isn't reading fun? John Tesh, can't stand that guy (JK), says that reading increases the size of the frontal lobe. I am counting on it.

2011 Top 10 Fiction Reads

2011-12-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

In an interesting turn of events many of my favorites have turned out to be books I listened to. Not sure why. I usually listen while traveling and I traveled quite a bit this year.As MMV mentioned about her list, I did not include the obviously superior Shakespearean plays I read.

Fiction

#1. All Clear (Audio) (Read in January)

All Clear is the end of a series that began with Blackout. These are time-traveling WWII stories by the wonderful Connie Willis. This is a lot of reading and some people have complained about keeping all the characters straight. I think I just got absorbed in the story and didn't stress too much over unraveling every character. In the end I was deeply moved and completely satisfied. The first book of the year was not trumped in the fiction category.

#2. A White Bird Flying (Read in October)

I have been meaning to read this ever since I read the lovely A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich. I was so happy it finally came available on . After the first chapter I was a bit concerned that it was going to end up being a book with the worn out theme of a college girl breaking away from her family's expectations and I almost put it down, but I was wrong. By the end I was greatly touched and encouraged. A great book for the autodidact, stay-at-home mom.

#3. The Heart of Darkness (Audio) (Read in July)

The Heart of Darkness read by Kenneth Branagh

This book has not traditionally been one that I loved. And frankly I just couldn't see what made it so great. It just seemed to be a long river trip narrated by a goofy guy. And then this went on sale for $5.00 last year from Audible. I thought I would buy it for Andrew's high school reading list. For some reason I decided to start listening one day and was mesmerized by Branagh's interpretation of this story. It was beautifully, beautifully read.

#4. The Wee Free Men (Audio) ( Read in October)

Alex, Andrew and I listened to this on our first fall trip to Kentucky. We ended up driving around a few minutes before we pulled into our driveway after the long trip home in order to finish this up. Not sure I am up to seeking out the rest of the Discworld books (last count 39) but this one is a winner. Favorite quote:
"If you trust yourself and believe in your dreams and follow your star … you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy."

#5. Olive Kitteridge (Audio) (Read in August)

This was another Audible Sale Book. About halfway into it I felt like I had made a terrible mistake. I don't really like New Englanders having lived on Cape Cod once. I always felt they were afraid of children and coddled their dogs and cars. Olive is not likable either really. But after a while the book grew on me and I found myself a bit teary at the end.I also found myself in awe of the talent of Elizabeth Strout who took an unsympathetic character and made a lovely sympathetic story.

#6. The Secret Scripture (Audio) (Read in November)

I didn't intend to read this either! I intended to read Barry's other lauded book On Canaan's Side: A Novel and bought this in a package deal on......Audible. I did not love On Canaan's Side but ended up being deeply touched by this story of Ireland over the last century.

#7. The Hunger Games trilogy (Audio) (Read in September)

This is not one book but a trilogy of a distopian United States. I am not sure what I think about these books philosophically but they are page-turners. My good friend Renee Mathis makes some very compelling points about the new ideal of the female heroine saving the poor guy. I ended up letting Andrew (age 13) read these but he never finished the last book which I found interesting. I thought the last book disturbing because of the fire images and wasn't sure if I wanted to let him read it. Still I think we will be interesting in seeing the first movie come spring. And I find myself relating back to these books often, especially the increasingly strange beauty treatments that the people in District 1 participated in.

#8. The Grand Sophy (Kindle) (Read in September)

Now this is embarrassing. I am not a fan of Heyer but her books were offered for Kindle very cheaply or free for a while in the fall and this one turned out to be delightful. The other one I downloaded, Cotillion, was not so good. I enjoyed this so much I thought Emily might like it and she did. Very enjoyable light reading.

#9. Stalky and Co. (Kindle) (Read in August)

There is a reason some books and stories stand the test of time. These Stalky tales are great stories of life in an English boarding school for boys. Kipling is one of those writers who gets it right every time unlike Kingsley (I just wanted to say that since I am still bitter about The Water Babies).

#10. A lot of books could hold this spot. One by Charles Todd, Fairacre Festival by Miss Read, MT selections like Johnny Tremain or The Marsh King , the grown-up novel Cutting for Stone or the farcical Freddy and Fredericka even Jasper Fforde's One of Our Thursdays Is Missing . I can't decide!!!

Next up my 10 favorite Non-Fiction books which turn out to be even better books than the fiction selections.

The Year in Reading: Overview

2011-12-28T15:30:00.000-05:00

This Saturday (Dec 31, 2011) Sherry over at Semicolon will be putting up her Saturday Review of Books. This edition will be a consortium of yearly reading lists. That means it is time for me to do my own reading round-up for 2011. Sherry has already published 3 highly entertaining preview posts.

Booklists Preview1
Booklists Preview 2
Booklists Preview 3

I absolutely have no need to read any book lists having recently moved the books by my bed to an overflowing bin in the closet in order to begin a new pile by my bedside. I call this the cycle of life which will finally end in my death by tumbling books.
The nice thing about the Kindle is that it probably won't kill me in my sleep someday.

This year I read about 72 books (I am still reading).
I began the year with Connie Willis's All Clear and I am ending it with Steven Lawhead's
Byzantium. I am also in the middle of at least 3 other books including the Iliad, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It by Gary Taube, and Wendell Berry and The Agrarian Tradition by Kimberly K. Smith available for only $5.00 from Cumberland Books which is sadly going out of business. They have lots of $5.00 books!

24 were non-fiction.
20 were audiobooks.
10 were Kindle books not audio. ( I listen to most audio books on my phone or Kindle.)
8 were Morning Time reads. I slowed way down on reading aloud last spring but I expect this spring to be better as I have made a hard decision regarding homeschool baseball.
16 could be called murder mysteries mostly by Bruce Alexander and Patricia Moyes and 3 could be called general mysteries such as Christmas stories by Anne Perry and Mary Higgins Clark. Purely light reading.

Next up my top 10 Fiction and Non-Fiction reads from 2011. By reads I mean books I read in 2011 not books published in 2011 necessarily.

The Logic of Poetry

2011-12-28T10:46:00.002-05:00

Don't know much about education. I know you know this but I wanted you to know that I know it too. It is a topic that has fascinated me since I was 12. God just made me that way I guess. The danger about discussing education is that it sounds like I am asserting something when really I am just thinking about it out loud. I am working "towards a philosophy...."

Blogging gives me a chance to think out loud. Whenever I get some hair-brained idea I blog about it so people can laugh at me behind my back or correct me publicly. I have learned a lot this way.

I am rereading The Iliad, my first time through with Richmond Lattimore's translation . Reading the Iliad always makes me a little thoughtful. I tend to respond to pathos.

Recently on my favorite email list someone mentioned that Sister Miriam Joseph wrote in The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric that logic is the heart of classical education. I believe this is true. This means that I am far, far from completely grasping the ideals of a classical education, surprising no one. And I have been brooding over this thought quite a bit, not just as a mother, teacher and learner but also as someone who has been working on a giant puzzle my entire life. Here is a new piece. Yes, I knew that logic was a piece of the puzzle all along but now I have to reshift the whole puzzle. How do I reconcile the larger role of logic with what I already believe about education?

And then there has been the puzzle of the difference in the trivium/quadrivium and the liberal arts. I tend to interpret classical education through the lens of the liberal arts rather than through the trivium.

Then on The Mentor email list Andrew Kern mentioned that parallelism is a literary device linked to logic. Whoa and Duh! The world seemed to right itself. Poetry is logic alive. Poetry has the ability to capture the heart and the mind (logic purely the mind) making it ......the bridge between the trivium/quadrivium and the liberal arts.

In the foreword to the Iliad, Richmond Lattimore makes an interesting observation. In former times the Iliad was considered superior to The Odyssey but in recent times (and Lattimore's translation was published in 1951) more people know and read the stories of The Odyssey rather than the Iliad. Lattimore chalks this up to the fact that modern people rarely have time to read a work more than once!!!!! If this was true of 1951 it can only be even more true today with our myriads of new amusements.* The Odyssey is accessible as pure story but the Iliad, like all great poetry, can only truly be appreciated by multiple readings.

Poetry is not just some side subject not even acknowledged by classicist. It is the final product (Think-David, Dante, Milton, Piper...) the marriage of mind to heart, logic to meaning, word to truth. It is a terrible thing to teach logic and not teach poetry but the reverse is not true because poetry is logic and ever so much more.

*Logically this would be called a broad generalization which is my favorite logical(?) form.

Christmas Stream

2011-12-22T09:51:00.001-05:00

Whew! Christmas is hectic. These days I have to get up early to enjoy drinking my coffee in front of the tree during my devotions. I used to love sitting quietly in the living room after putting the children to bed but these days certain children also sometimes called college students and even once in a while adults, stay up past my bedtime.

Christopher brought home baseball Monopoly but I am pretty sure his recent win was so obnoxious that he won't be able to get anyone to play with him today. We have also been playing Bezzerwizzer. Took us a while to figure it out but it is a pretty fun trivia game. The younger kids don't enjoy it so much not having accumulated much trivia.

Emily and I are basking in the glory of year 2 of our new practical joke and we can see no end to our ability to pull it off every year. The heart of this joke is that every year I ask the guys to stay out of the cookies until I get some groups together for the neighbors and every year they whine and say, "Why do we have to give cookies to the neighbors?" They don't seem to have gotten the message that it is better to give than to receive at least when it comes to cookies. And really it is hard for a family of so many boys to have enough cookies for them to eat over the holidays. Not only do they whine but they sneak cookies. So last year Emily and I made a really awful cookie full of onions and pepper and garlic and any nasty spice we could think of. We set it out and said, "Don't eat that cookie....." We got at least 3 people with it. This year we iced the cookie with chocolate vinegar-Worcestershire solution. It worked. I am already working on ideas for next year's awful cookie. I hope you appreciate this idea. It is true that you do not get cute ideas for Christmas crafts or holiday punch recipes from this blog but where else can you learn how to get revenge on your children for years of frustration?

Today we are decorating the sugar cookies for our annual decorating contest.

And I am still not done with my shopping. I have 21 immediate family members to buy for and I kept seeing the cutest things for the grandchildren and delayed buying gifts for regular kids. This is wrong but it is true.

I love Christmas. It wears me out and sometimes it gets tense and emotional around here but I love it.

Emily's Photo Shoot: Anabella's First Christmas

2011-12-16T10:28:00.000-05:00

Literary Criticism Book List [del.icio.us]

2011-09-24T05:41:48-07:00

This is an excellent article by Martin Cothran that I plan on referring to for years to come.

Stressed Parenting [del.icio.us]

2011-09-20T21:05:40-07:00

"The basic point of Caplan’s book is that parents make parenting too hard by trying to do too much, getting too worked up about little things, and thinking they have almost sovereign control over their children’s future. I certainly don’t agree with all his suggestions and findings, but Caplan is right about this: it would be better for us and for our kids if we made fewer outings, g0t involved in fewer activities, took more breaks away from the kids, did whatever we could to get more help around the house, and make parental sanity a higher priority."

Stressed Parenting [del.icio.us]

2011-09-19T12:18:52-07:00

Homeschool Blindspots [del.icio.us]

2011-09-14T19:55:06-07:00

This is a hugely important article that is written by homeschoolers to homeschoolers. It has always been my opinion that we need to be able to be critical of ourselves.

What Does It Mean To Be Educated? [del.icio.us]

2011-09-12T08:11:21-07:00

Interesting article on what it means to be educated.

We Cant Teach Students to Love Reading - The Chronicle Review [del.icio.us]

2011-08-11T14:32:43-07:00

I share Jacobs experience with the Kindle. It has drastically reduced my time online.

The Best and Worst Parents [del.icio.us]

2011-06-23T07:45:22-07:00

We have worked our way into a bad parenting place.