Shady Tree Academy

Book Review

2011-12-05T05:24:00.002-05:00

This is a book review I recently wrote on Amazon for WH Uffington's The Greatest Lie Ever Told.
____________
I've recently been reading a bit about early Christian history and the evolution of pagan ritual and iconography which effected those in Christianity. My first stop along the way was to read Edward Carpenter's Pagan and Christian Creeds: their origin and meaning which describes an origin to Christ mythology in very early sun god worship and how that took shape out of a combination of agricultural and astronomical phenomenon. I've also read Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities : The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew and I'm very comfortable with the idea that The Bible is not a literal interpretation of the word of God and that has also been manipulated over time to meet people's political and economic ambitions.

I picked up Uffington's The Greatest Lie Ever Told expecting it to be a bit more scholarly than it ended up being. On the surface it seems extremely well researched and the author is careful to cite sources for most of what he presents. I'm always glad to see that, but there are several ideas in the book with which the author makes some great leaps of imagination, leaving the realm of sure footed research and diving headlong into the untested waters of wishful thinking.

The book has a central thesis that I find both appealing and potentially realistic. Uffington's idea is that:

1. The single generation of monotheism established by the pharaoh Akhenaten around 1,300 BC was kept alive after his death by priests and scribes who did not want to revert to polytheism.

2. These Aten worshipping priests left Egypt and settled in Canaan and over several hundred years their ideology evolved into early Judeism.

3. The early Judaic mythologies of the Old Testament about Jewish slavery in Egypt and the Exodus out of Egypt were a complete fabrication by Jewish writers in the 7th century BC for mostly political reasons.

4. Other influential aspects of Egyptian mysticism were kept alive over the centuries and collected together in Alexandria after the Ptolemy dynasty built the library there. Greek philosophers (Pythagoras, Plato, etc.) studied in Alexandra and brought these ideas back and spread them around the Hellenized world.

5. In the 500 years or so before Christianity, this mysticism took the shape of the many "Mystery Cults" that existed all over the Mediterranean and Middle East regions. These cults generally had a central hero or mythological figure with common characteristics, such as a virgin birth on or around December 25 and a death plus resurrection in the spring. Uffington contends that the priests of these cults understood an allegorical meaning behind their myths which was not to be taken literally, however...

6. After Rome sacked the Jewish homelands and brought back many slaves into Rome itself, the Jewish people's latched on to these allegorical myths and adopted them as literal teachings. Uffington makes a case for Jesus never existing, even as a historical figure and that Christianity became a literal bastardization of a set of allegorical mystical teaching that originally began in Egypt a long time before. Finally...

7. The original allegorical mysticism was kept alive through a sect of gnostic Christians who passed it on to the Templar knights and the Freemasons who encoded their symbols on many Christian monuments and cathedrals. Thus, this passing down of the original Egyptian mysticism explains why we continue to have Egyptian symbols on our money and around our government buildings.

If this were Uffintgon's only argument I would find it compelling. In and of itself it isn't enough for me to believe it to be "true", but it is enough for me to want to read more on the subject so that I can come to a more informed opinion later. At the very least I find it pretty clever and I do enjoy theories of how religion and mythology evolve over time and are carried on from one group of people to the next.

However, Uffington goes a bit further and makes two claims that throw the whole argument into the realm of wishful thinking. These are:

A) That the "original" source of Egyptian mysticism came from ancient aliens who helped build the sphinx and the pyramids about 10,000 BC, and,

B) That the truth behind the Egyptian mysticism and the mystery cults really actually IS TRUE and if we can figure out what that truth is then we can really understand how the universe operates for the betterment of all mankind.

This is where the book is at its weakest. Uffington's argument for an unusual interpretation of the development of monotheism along with subsequent Judaic and Christian history is both interesting and worth consideration. I would have preferred it if the author would have kept his personal desires for universal truth separate from his historical research.

I actually think it would be cool if aliens HAD visited ancient peoples on Earth and gave them technology and culture. But I've never been convinced that this is what happened. Like they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, whether those claims are about God or aliens. (One thing that has always puzzled me is this: If aliens gave so much technology to the ancient Egyptians, why didn't they also give them some basic engineering knowledge like the wheel or the pulley or the arch? Why help them levitate giant stone blocks and not give them the wheel?)

At the end of the book Uffington uses one of his several appendices to describe his version of cosmic truth. His idea (not a new one) is that human souls evolve in much the same way life evolves and that, as we learn to master the lessons of one plane of existence we evolve after death into a new, higher, plane of existence with more "lessons" to master. I'm a little murky on the details, but if I understand him correctly, I believe he is suggesting that God is not a separate entity who created the universe, but is instead the collective consciousness of all living things and that our goal through the process of life (or lives) is to reunite with and become one with that God. (If you google search the world "gnosticism" you'll find more information on that idea.)

I'm religiously agnostic and I've never been a member of a major religion. If I had to choose a way for the universe to operate I would certainly find these ideas appealing. They at least are more attractive to me than the morality plays of the Judeo-Christian tradition with their promises of eternal salvation and their threats of eternal damnation. But, just because I like the ideas doesn't make them true. At the very least this brand of gnosticism that Uffington is selling promotes the idea people should work together for the betterment of ALL of us; that there are no "chosen" members of an elite religion and that we should respect and tolerate our differences because of that. This is a very humanistic ideology and I respect it for that.

So, in the final analysis, I'm very glad to have read this book. I found it fascinating and often compelling and I'll be thinking about it for some time. I'm just not ready to drink all the Kool Aid that Uffington is selling. There are a lot of questions for which the answer "I don't know" is really the best option. It's really tempting to fill in all the gaps in our knowledge with all the things we wish were true, but we should take that leap very carefully and be honest with ourselves when we do so.

Article - Homeschooler Goes to College

2011-10-12T08:27:00.004-05:00

Salon posted this article recently. It's a good read, but the many bitter comments also drew my attention.

Teaching Math

2011-10-02T10:42:00.002-05:00

I don't know if this will be a long post or not, but I just wanted to quickly comment on teaching math at our house.

I always wanted to be a math teacher....I thought it was my true calling...that is, until I had a job teaching 5 remedial classes at a high school--six weeks of my life I will never get back.

Right now we are using Singapore math to teach both Simon and Gwen. Gwen is on level 2 and Simon is on level 5. For the most part, it is just a book with worksheets that are about 1-3 pages per lesson. I used to always think "practice makes perfect" and the more problems you did, the better you were at math....but my opinion has changed. It turns out, I can usually tell by 4-5 problems whether or not my kids understand the math. I know Simon hates long division (as do I) and if I see him doing everything right, I usually cut the assignment in half. Most of the pages seem to have about 10-14 problems, but again, half of the problems is plenty, especially since I know they'll be repeating the skills again in another lesson.

I guess I find it interesting (to me) how much my opinion of how kids learn has changed since we started homeschooling. It is obvious when they are frustrated, and definitely clear when they are enjoying the lesson....but I guess that is easy when you have a classroom of 2 kids plus teacher...

So, I am enjoying this new school year. I really look forward to coming home after work and doing math and science lessons with the kids...

That's all...now back to my lazy Sunday...

Born This Way

2011-07-05T15:15:00.002-05:00

I am writing this blog post to vent my frustration at the many well meaning parents of angel children, or better yet, the friends who have no children but apparently know exactly what it takes to be perfect parents and how they would handle every situation or how it would NEVER happen to them.

I just read another article, Permissive Parents, Curb Your Brats, that just about put me over the edge again when it comes to other people's opinions about other people's kids.

I would have posted this on facebook, but I figure less people read our blog and I have a smaller chance of offending those I might be referring to, even though I know these people do not know I even co-write a blog. In fact, I am not even facebook friends with these people so I don't know why I worry about appearances.

But really...I am happy for you parents out there who have mastered, "The Look" or "The stare" or whatever magical ability it is you claim you use to control your children. I am glad that YOU are never frustrated, overworked, underpaid, exhausted, etc. enough to let me know that I am a bad parent. Thank you for that. All of us with the "children who run wild" REALLY appreciate knowing how much we suck!!!

Thank you for letting me know my child is a brat and is annoying everyone around them. Believe it or not, the screaming child in the restaurant does not annoy me--it makes me feel normal.

My kids are not BAD or EVIL or anything like that. I have one super sensitive child who practically sobs if he thinks he has done something that we disapprove of. I have another child who could care less what anyone else's opinion is other than her own and truly seems to believe at the ripe old age of 6 that the world does indeed revolve around her.

Did I raise these kids differently? Not that I am aware of...they have grown up in the same house, with the same two parents who rarely fight, who have been married for over 16 years.

Am I impressed by my childless girlfriend's tales of her sister's kids who once threw up at the dinner table and the sister made the kid clean up his own vomit? Not really. Am I upset when I see a kid crying their eyes out in a shopping cart at the store to a mother or father who is begging them to stop? No, I am just feeling a little bit of empathy for mom, dad and the kid...I don't know who is the most exhausted and I wish I could give all of them a break.

I am reminded by my own mother, while once in Kmart I remarked at the wise old age of 7 that if she BOUGHT my little sister the toy while she was having a temper tantrum, then she would merely learn that if she throws a tantrum she will know she gets her way. I also remember my mom's response to my wise advice which was, "Talk me me again after YOU have 8 kids."

As far as I know, I was a fairly shy and quiet child who didn't misbehave a lot. But my dad ruled by the iron fist (spanking) and yes, I was deathly afraid of him when he was mad. My mom usually just left the room. I have 7 siblings that range from shy and nerdy to outspoken and fashionistas. We were all raised by the same two parents...my mom and dad, still together after 52 years.

At this point I am sure it just sounds like I am babbling, but I do have a point. I honestly think that each kid's personality, for the most part--your kid was born that way. So for those of you lucky enough to have one or more angel children who do everything you say when you say--congratulations. I am very happy for you. And for all of my well-meaning friends out there who have no children (but want children) and have all this great advice on what we are doing wrong, well...I can't wait until you have kids of your own.

And finally, to all my friends who do not have any kids and never want to have any kids....if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything. We don't need your help and it only hurts our feelings when you tell us how much our kids annoy you!

And finally, for all the parents of kids like mine who may or may not listen to me at any given moment of the day, I feel for you and I understand....baby they were born this way....

Barbnocity...

PS...I love my kids JUST the WAY THEY ARE!!! Thanks!

Teach Yourself

2011-06-08T04:50:00.002-05:00

I've been following a conversation on homeschooling at one of the Amazon forums. In it, someone made a couple of points that I felt the need to follow up upon. The first of these was that teaching a child to read required specialized knowledge and the second was that teaching most subjects through the high school years required a professional, "expert" teacher. Here's my response:
__________________________________________________________

I have to disagree that teaching reading requires specialized knowledge. I've taught two of my kids to read in the past few years and all it took was researching a good phonics program to use, and then using that program for just a few minutes a day. (We used "The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading"). Reading is just not a difficult thing for a child to learn, nor is it difficult to teach.

Regarding more complicated subjects in the high school years, there are a couple of schools of thought about this. A parent can first teach themselves a subject and then teach their child; a parent can, instead of "teaching" the subject, learn it alongside their child but act more as a facilitator of the process; an especially self directed kid may simply be able to teach themselves if they have a good set of books to use; or, by the high school years, a teen can often just take a class or two at a community college, which also helps get them college credits.

Earlier this year I decided to teach my son Latin (He's 9 years old). I took 2 semesters of Latin myself in college almost 20 years ago, but I didn't remember much about it. Instead of hiring a tutor (which I couldn't afford anyway) I studied the language myself every day for about 6 weeks and then researched and purchased a good Latin primer directed at elementary school kids. Now we do 1-2 lessons together from this primer each day and we're both learning the language together. It really just takes a conceptual change in now we think of learning. A teacher who lectures and then tests isn't necessary for most subjects up through high school (or perhaps beyond) when an adult and child together can learn alongside each other with great success.

I believe that one of the problems with our school system is that it conditions people to think that experts are required in order to acquire all new knowledge and skills. In school someone else always decides what you learn, how you learn it, when you learn it and (most importantly) whether or not you've succeeded. I believe that this process has conditioned many people to over-rely on expert opinion rather than trust their own capabilities. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely times when a good teacher is critical, but I believe that we've come to rely on them too much.

There is so much we can learn ourselves, and all it really takes is planning and dedication. As a homeschooling dad, part of my job is to teach my children, but it's also critical that I teach them how to teach themselves.

The Last Guardian

2010-11-14T22:48:00.008-05:00

A couple of years ago I wrote a bit about two video games I'd been playing called Ico and Shadow of the Colossus (here). I was very moved by the stories in both and was excited to hear that a third game in the series is coming out for the holidays of 2011.

Here are a couple of trailers for the new game, called The Last Guardian:

Homeschoolin' - Fall 2010

2010-10-11T09:24:00.004-05:00

I've been meaning to write up another post describing this year of homeschooling, but just haven't gotten around to it until now. It's pretty similar to last year except that Simon is now in 3rd grade and Gwen has joined us for a few formal lessons as part of Kindergarten.

Prior to last year there was a big difference in how much school we planned in August and how much we actually got done as the year progressed. Last year we felt like we hit a sweet spot where we accomplished pretty much what we planned so this year we took the same approach.

Here's what our days look like on Mondays through Thursdays:

7:00am: Wake up. I drag the kids out of bed and drop them on the couch in front of the TV. They are allowed to watch 3 short shows while they wake up. During this time I usually either clean the house or, if I'm too darned tired, I go back to bed until 8:30am when they come to get me.

8:30am to about 10:30am: Lesson time.

First Simon does his spelling. We ask him to do one page a day from the Spelling Workout series. This year he's on book D. He generally does this on his own without my help.
Next he does his English Lessons. We use Jesse Wise's First Language Lessons, volume 3 for 3rd grade. We did volumes 1 and 2 in the past couple of years and have been very pleased with them. This involves learning a lot of basic grammar rules and parts of speech along with memorizing and reciting short poems, such as Robert Louis Stevenson's My Shadow.
Following that Simon does his writing lessons. For this we use Susan Bauer's Writing with Ease program. We're on the grade 2 version of this series for two reasons. First, only volume 1 existed last year when he was in 2nd grade and second, he was initially having a bit of a hard time with writing. He's doing a bit better now and I'd like to somehow skip up to "grade level" for him, but I don't want to push him too fast with it. Overall, though, I can't speak well enough of this program. There's a great emphasis on reading passages from classical stories and then working together to summarize the passage which he then has to write down (generally 1-3 sentences each). I think the skills it is building are invaluable and are progressing at a nice slow pace for him.
Sometime during this part of the day Gwen does her reading lessons. Just as we did with Simon, we've been using Susan Bauer's Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. It is a phonics approach which does an excellent job of slowly building on each previously developed skill. She's picking is up very quickly and does a great job of sounding out the words she doesn't know yet.

I should note that even though it takes us about 2 hours to get all this done, most of that time is spent "taking a break". Each individual lessons takes 10-15 minutes and then they run around and play for 15-20 minutes. I try to keep a close eye on their attention span and don't ask them to sit still for longer than they can do so comfortably. As I write this they are playing "Secret Agent" in the giant cardboard box our new recliner chair came in which I cut a door and air holes into. They filled it with blankets and pillows and are trying to convince "Secret Agent Daisy" (our new kitten) to play in the box with them. (Daisy thinks they're nuts and would rather hide behind the couch.) When I'm done writing this we'll go finish another lesson.

Around about 10:30 we do one of two things. Either we get out of the house to go shopping or playing somewhere (The mall, a local park, a McDonald's Playland, Apple Orchard, etc.) or we decide to hang around this house and just goof off here. If we stay home then how they spend their time is up to them. They might watch TV or play video games or they might spend the day drawing pictures, playing pretend games, reading Garfield books or whatever they like. I used to worry that they watched too much TV or played too many video games, but they seem to self regulate that pretty well. And, even if they are watching TV it is usually something like Martha Speaks or Cyberchase which generally teaches them much more about language or math than I'm doing myself.

Then, about 2pm Mommy comes home from work and we have 1/2 hour to all spend together before I have to go to work myself. While I'm gone Mommy does Math, Science and Arts & Crafts with them.

For Math we're still using Singapore Math, which totally rocks. They are both a year ahead of their grade level. Simon is using the 4th grade books and Gwen is using the 1st grade books. Simon is able to complete his required 1 lesson per day pretty much on his own. Barb has to help him a bit with long division, but he's pretty darn good already with fractions (thanks to Cyberchase!) Gwen can't read the instructions yet so Barb has to help her with those, but she's really picking up basic addition and subtraction and learning things like ordinal positions and whatnot. In fact, Gwen has been so excited about math in particular that she is about a month ahead of where we planned her to be right now. She's something like 3/4 through the first book, which we planned for her to finish by Christmas. Both kids appear to have their mother's innate math skills and my appreciation for the finer things in life... like video games.

For science we're still looking for a curriculum we like. So Far Barb's been doing ad hoc projects like raising butterflies or visiting local nature centers. That portion of our lessons is still pretty unschooly, but we plan to research to find something more formal.

Then, I get home from work around 7pm or 8pm. Around 8pm the kids get the "3 shows before bedtime" warning where they can have another hour and a half of PBS shows (or the Simpsons or Scooby Doo) while Barb and I collapse in bed and watch a movie.

This is a bit different on Tuesdays because we have now joined the cub scouts. Barb and I are both assistant den leaders and we go to meetings at a local elementary school. This has been a ton of fun because the whole family is invited and there is even another 5 year old girl there for Gwen to play with.

That pretty much describes Mondays through Thursdays. On Fridays we don't do lessons at home at all. Instead we've signed the kids up for lessons at Palaestra. This is a private local homeschooling organization that offers classes for homeschoolers of all ages all day on Fridays. They both have a 10am class and an 11am class.

Simon is taking "Literature Explorations" in which they read two novels over the course of the semester and discuss them with added short writing assignments. They are currently reading the Newberry winner "Lilly's Crossing" which he seems to be enjoying. His second class is called "Molecules in Motion" which is a science class focusing on Chemistry.

Gwen is taking Ballet and "Great Artists". Ballet is self explanatory. The art class discusses great art of the past and then lets them create their own pieces out of different mediums (pencils, crayons, paint and clay, mostly).

The only other thing I think I've forgotten to mention up to now is bedtime reading. After their three shows every night we read one or two chapters of something before sending them off to bed. Currently we're reading the Little House series. We've been working on it for about 6 months and are now on book 6 (Little Town on the Prairie).

Then, we send them off to bed. Our general rule about bedtime is this: You can stay up as late at night as you want as long as certain conditions are met. You can't leave your room except to go to the bathroom and you have to be quiet. We intentionally don't allow them to have a TV or video games in their rooms, although they do have CD players if they want to listen to music (this rule will apply until they go off to college someday). Gwen tends to fall asleep fast and is almost always unconscious within 20 minutes or so. Simon, however, stays awake until at least midnight every night. We've stocked his room with all sorts of books. His favorites are his collections of Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, although he's recently begun reading his own "chapter books". The first of these was Stuart Little and now he's reading Lilly's Crossing for his class. He still prefers comics, though. Someday, when his interest switches from Garfield to super heroes, I'll give him access to the thousands of comics I have in the basement from my own wayward youth. I'm looking forward to that, but it'll be a few years.

So, in a nutshell that's how homeschooling is working for us. We've found a nice sweet spot between organized and systematic learning combined with lots of free time for fun and play. As they get older we'll add more lessons. For example, I've been putting off adding history and a foreign language to our repertoire. I'll definitely add history next year. I'm still thinking about the foreign language. I would still like to have us learn Latin together, but it might be too much. I don't want to upset the balance we've found so I need to think about that some more and / or wait until their attention span increases enough to allow the extra study without too much frustration.

Plato's Republic

2010-05-21T09:12:00.005-05:00

No proposition is likely to scandalize our contemporaries more than this one: it is impossible to establish a just social order. -Bertrand de jouvenal, Sovereignity
There are two primary threats to reason. The first is the idea that you have found truth. The second is the idea that there isn't any. -Allan Bloom (paraphrase)

Plato's Republic has been sitting on my bookshelf for years. I've tried to read it a couple of times but I couldn't even really figure out what it was about. I've always felt that I "should" read more classic literature, but it was always too dense for me to get through. However, after reading two summaries of western philosophy by Russell and Durant this Fall I took another stab at it. This time I felt like I understood the point of the book and its historical context before I started. Knowing that gave me a handhold to grasp on to.

Background

In a nutshell this is what I learned that let me get started with Plato: For almost 2,400 years people in western culture have been thinking carefully and writing a lot about what it means for a person or a society to be "good" or "just". There are a lot of different ways to look at "goodness" and how you do so determines what sort of person you are. How a society does this determines what sort of society it is. In western society Plato started this conversation with his book The Republic, which was written about 380 B.C. in ancient Greece. This was the first book about political philosophy and the first book about education in the west. In the last 2,400 years every serious book or idea about western politics or about how to educate young people has been based on addressing what Plato wrote, whether it admits it or not. This conversation was started by Plato and was carried on by people like Aristotle, Kant, Rousseau, Machiavelli and John Dewey, among others. In order to fully understand modern politics, you have to first understand where it all began, which is with Plato.

Actually, it is likely more fair to say that it all began with Socrates, who was Plato's teacher, mentor and father figure. That's really where Plato got many of his ideas. But, Socrates never wrote anything down so everything we know about him is filtered through the writings of others, like Plato. In any case, The republic has a couple of different things going on within it that must be understood to fully grasp its meaning. First and foremost it is a very personal story about the ideas of Socrates as written by Plato. Here's a little background.

Ancient Athens was the world's first Democracy. It was not a country but a "city state". Not far away was another city state named Sparta, which was the world's first totalitarian, single party state (as popularized by the recent movie 300.) Around 400 B.C these two city states began a war called the Peloponnesian War. Sparta won this war and for a few years Athens' democratic government was destroyed and an oligarchy was propped up by Sparta. Then (I'm fuzzy on the details) the city revolted again and the democracy was restored. As a political power, Athens would never recover. It dwindled out after that. However, as a cultural power its influence would last until today.

During the period of the war, leading up to the collapse of democracy, Socrates was a philosopher in Athens who tried to convince others to examine their culture through a very critical eye. He saw a number of problems with democracy and wanted people to think carefully about their form of government. He got a lot of young people to follow him and one of these young people was Plato. After Athens collapsed and was then rebuilt, the new democratic leaders blamed Socrates for "corrupting" the young and essentially helping Sparta to conquer them. They were pissed about it and put Socrates on trial for treason. He was convicted and executed by the government of Athens. Socrates had a number of ways out of his execution. There were things he could have said or done that would have allowed him to live, but he was deeply idealistic and chose to gracefully drink the poison hemlock rather than betray his ideals. (The picture at the beginning of this post is The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David in 1787.)

(I had known that Socrates was executed for his political beliefs and somehow died for "freedom", but I had always assumed that he had died in the name of democracy at the hands of a non-democratic group. But in fact he was executed by a democratic government for being critical of democracy. Grasping this was one of my first "Aha!" moments which told me that many of my historical assumptions were incorrect.)

Plato wrote a number of dialogues about Socrates. Plato's Apology was about the trial. His Phaedo was about the death of Socrates (he was there... that's him sitting facing away from Socrates in David's picture) and The Republic is a recreation of Plato's political ideas written in a way to explain them to the people of Athens to make them understand exactly what it was Plato was saying that they killed him for. It is written as a dialogue, which is very much like a modern play, with different speakers taking turns speaking. The characters in it are Socrates (of course) and some other historically real people in ancient Athens that Plato uses to convince in the absence of the real people themselves.

So, on a very personal level Plato is writing about a man he loved like a father, a man who taught him everything he knew and who was unjustly executed by the government. He is bringing Socrates back from the dead to describe for everyone what he really thought about politics and how he was trying to help rather than hurt society. On that level The Republic is very much an act of love, as much as it is a treatise on politics. It is the story of a son defending his father (figuratively, if not literally) who is now dead and lost to him forever.

Defining Justice

On the political level The Republic is about the individual and social virtue of "justice." Plato considered there to be four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, moderation and justice. In later years Christianity would determine seven deadly sins and focus the lives of Christians more on the avoidance of sin than the pursuit of virtue, but to Plato there was really only the pursuit of virtue. In The Republic, Plato attempted to define justice, to describe what it means to be a just person and what it means to be a just society.

The Republic is arranged in ten "books" and the first four or five primarily examine different definitions of justice. The minor characters in the dialogue (everyone except Socrates) offer some options, which Socrates examines but finds lacking in some way.

The first of these is that justice occurs when good things happen to good people and when bad things happen to bad people. This is rejected because Socrates decides that justice must always improve those who are touched by it. If someone is not improved by being punished, then that punishment cannot truly be called justice.

Another definition offered is that justice is a purely social construct and is fulfilled whenever the desires of the rich and powerful are met. In other words, might makes right. Whatever is good for the ruling class is just, whatever is bad for them is unjust. This leads to an interesting conversation on whether it is necessary to actually be just, or just to appear just. Plato also considers whether an unjust person can really be happy or if a just person can be unhappy. Under this definition it sure sounds like it, but the discussion is problematic and not fully completed.

By the end of this portion of The Republic Plato fails to find a complete and satisfactory definition of justice. And that is part of the whole point. There are, however, a couple of ideas that get close. One of these is that justice is the knowledge of how to direct a person (or a society) toward the "good". That is to say, when considering justice as compared with the other virtues (moderation, wisdom and courage) justice is both the sum total of the other three and the principle that guides them. As such, moderation, wisdom and courage might have an analogy in the crafts of bricklaying, woodworking and plumbing, justice is the architect that assembles that knowledge into a greater purpose which is able to use them to design and build a house.

Another critical aspect of justice lies in the first definition offered. Plato suggests that, rather than justice occurring when the good are rewarded and the bad are punished, a truly just person takes a different tack. A just person, in Plato's view, will be drawn toward the good, but will be indifferent toward the bad. A just person does not want to punish the bad, but instead shrugs his shoulders and turns way without interest. This is wholly different from Christianity in which evil is punished and even the most petty evil is punished repeatedly for all eternity.

Universal Ideas

A key to understanding Plato is in his view of the notion of "universals" and the extent to which he is an idealist. The word "idealist" is very specific in this case and is not used in quite the same way we use it in ordinary speech. Consider this - when you think of the idea of "cats" you can imagine a house cat, a tiger, a lion, one of those ugly hairless cats or even an animated cat like Garfield or Hobbes. We can say that all of these are cats, but each individual example of a cat does not properly describe everything you mean when you say "cat." If you try to specifically describe "catness" (without resorting to a scientific definition using kingdom, phylum, order, etc.) it is hard to do so without using the specific examples mentioned. For Plato there is an ideal concept of "catness" that is real, but cannot be pointed at, touched or defined with much specificity. The ideal exists, but is so much bigger than any one example that a definition of the ideal must be abstract. So, what is true for "catness" is also true for justice. It cannot be truly and easily defined, but it can be held up as a perfect example of what we can strive towards in our understanding of human virtue and excellence. The important thing to remember is that justice, like "catness" cannot fully be achieved. It is an impossible goal. However, for a person to be happy (or just) it is not important to achieve the goal, only to pursue it. Just like in Taoism, it is not perfection that is important, but the path that leads you there.

One of the things that I found most interesting about Plato is the way he uses some specific words that are common today, but mean different things. Two of these words are "virtue" and "idea". In Allan Bloom's introduction to his translation of The Republic he calls attention to this, but I didn't really absorb what he meant until I had finished the book and thought about it for a few days. When we say "virtue" we apply a specific moral meaning. And, when we say "idea" we mean merely a thought or an imaginary concept. However, I really didn't feel like I understood Plato until I understood what he meant when he said these words. In summary, "virtue" is a path towards an unattainable human excellence and "idea" is a collective sort of oneness that all things of a common type share.

Bloom warns that understanding these two words is critical to understanding all western philosophy from Plato to the present because all western philosophers are in some way responding to Plato's argument about them. Bloom specifically warns against common translations of Machiavelli because they frequently take the Italian word "virtu" and translate it as "freedom" instead of "virtue". Bloom says that this is a source of misunderstanding because the reader loses the sense that Machiavelli is part of the same conversation that Plato started. This makes me want to read Machiavelli with this in mind.

Because of this unscientific way of looking at the world, Plato is viewed as a "pre-Christian" philosopher. He was himself a monotheist in an era of polytheism and sets the stage for later Christianity. (Aristotle has a huge part to play in this as well, but I haven't read him yet.) However, as we have seen, there are some important differences between Plato and later Christians. Specifically he is not interested in punishing sinners. To Plato a happy person avoids "sin" not because it is bad or because of a fear of punishment, but because "sin" simply does not offer further happiness; it does not lead one toward virtue. Therefore, it is not hated, but simply avoided because it is uninteresting. For Plato this type of person is a "philosopher" which becomes important a short bit later.

Describing Utopia

After spending about half of The Republic trying to define justice as an abstract idea, Plato switches gears and sets about to describe a perfectly just society. While he does this it is important to remember what is happening in the world around Athens at this time. Athens has gone through a point of high culture (especially under the leadership of Pericles from 495 – 429 B.C.) However, by the time Socrates and Plato were around, the city's culture was in decline and they were being conquered by Sparta. Unlike Athens, Sparta was not a free society. It was what might be described as a military aristocracy in which the ruling class were warriors who lived an ascetic and communistic lifestyle. So, Sparta was a communist, military and totalitarian regime. So, it is not hard to imagine an Athenian in a declining city admiring them and being in awe of their social structure. When Plato described the perfect city, he has Sparta in mind. It is the basis on which he builds his own ideal because pure democracy has not worked out well in the end for the Athenians.

One of the interesting things about Plato's Republic is that it does not at all seem like the sort of republic we would recognize. Instead it seems like a combination aristocracy / monarchy ruled by a highly intellectual philosopher-king who is specifically trained and educated to rule. There is also a very strong element of communism built into it, but it would be a mistake to call his ideal society communism in the way we know it today. His city, in fact, combines elements of democracy, communism, aristocracy and monarchy. I'll try to describe each of those elements in turn. (In order to keep things somewhat clear I will refer to Plato's book as "The Republic" and the perfect city he describes as "The City.")

Problems of Democracy:

It is important to note that democracy in ancient Athens was not exactly what we know today. Athenian democracy was not a representative democracy. All citizens (not slaves) came together to vote on public affairs. There were both elected leaders and those chosen by ballot (in a process called Demarchy), but Athens did not have a senate in the way that Rome and America would later adopt. Plato has some very particular problems with democracy. Specifically he felt that masses of people coming together were not truly in a position to make the best possible decisions. It seemed to him that decisions would in fact be made by strong personalities within the city who could best flatter the multitude and tell them what they want to hear. Thus, elected leaders would not be those who had best proven their leadership abilities, but instead those who had proven their ability to become elected by pandering to public opinion.

Another problem Plato has with democracy is the individual personality and value system it encourages in its citizens. Later in The Republic Plato describes that specific types of government will invoke specific personality traits in its citizens and that the character of the government and the character of the individual are one and the same. While this may not be literally true, I appreciate the spirit of the idea and recognizing it was my first step in understanding Plato's allegory of the cave, which will come later.

The personality of democratic citizens, according to Plato, is one in which people have lost a higher set of ideals and instead value things and ideas merely on the their ability to deliver personal pleasure. In other words, people in a democracy are not governed by a sense of universal "truth." Instead they define the "good" as whatever pleases them and "evil" as whatever displeases them. The reason for this is that, in a democracy, all ideas are equally valid and subject merely to public debate. There is no grand, universal "good" there is only public opinion.

I think both of these criticisms are very valid in America today. I think our two party system virtually guarantees that our leaders, our representatives, senators and presidents, are not elected based on their ability to lead us, but instead on their ability to create the most effective sound-bites. We don't elect them for their abilities to govern, but instead based on their charisma, their personality and their ability to tell us what we want to hear.

Likewise we are a people who cannot agree on what is "good". Conservatives have one definition and Liberals have another. In my most cynical moments I think we are so addicted to being entertained at all times that the greatest good for Americans is what entertains us and the greatest evil is simply what bores us. I think that the American founders (who had all read Plato) anticipated these problems and tried to bake into the system an overarching ideal of "natural rights" for Americans to collectively gather under regardless of demographic characteristics, but this ideal is no longer firmly in place.

We have replaced the universal ideal of natural rights with ideals of cultural and moral relativism. Instead of teaching our children that there is a grand and universal set of truth that apply to all people regardless of time and space, we instead teach them that all ideas and cultures are equal and that they all deserve our respect. Thus, to paraphrase Allan Bloom, we give our children infinite possibilities in what to be, but no particular reason to choose one idea over another and surely no real mechanism for assessing the merits of one set of ideas over another. Cultural relativism is a mistake, I think, because it doesn't allow us to pick individual cultural practices and decide that some are good and some are bad, but rather it coerces us to believe that there is no good or bad at all, merely what we like or do not like.

This switch to emphasizing tolerance and openness over natural rights is in some ways understandable given America's history of racism, sexism and imperialism, but it fails to recognize why America's founders built the system of natural rights in the first place. I think one reason was to prevent Americans from becoming what Plato predicted, a people who emphasized personal pleasure over the greater good. Or, as Tocqueville put it: "in democratic societies, each citizen is habitually busy with the contemplation of a very petty object, which is himself."

Democracy, Aristocracy and Monarchy in The City:

In Plato's perfect city democracy is limited to the way in which people are educated. For Plato the problem of who is to rule a city is one of the primary problems of society. Because he sees so many difficulties with the traditional democratic approach to choosing leaders, Plato suggests that leaders should be chosen based on their ability to progress through a rigorous educational system. In this system everyone who succeeds will be of the ruling class, regardless of gender or the social status of their parents. The "philosopher-king" would not be allowed to rule the city until he or she has been educated for a full 50 years (since birth).

Up until puberty the education focuses primarily on "gymnastics", by which Plato means physical fitness. Then as the child ages they are to learn more and more "music", which refers to all the arts through which the artist is guided by a muse. So, "music" really means art and literature, as far as I can tell. Then, the focus of school is art and literature until the student is about 35 years old. At this point he or she is to leave their ivory tower and spend the next 15 years among the people, running a business, negotiating deals and generally getting to know intimately the people they will someday rule over. Then at age 50 they have the opportunity to actually govern.

The point is that all students enter the educational system, but at specific points throughout this system the students are tested and those found lacking are kicked out and will not be allowed to govern or be a member of the ruling aristocracy. It is important that the children of the rich and powerful be allowed to fail, if necessary, and that the children of the poor be allowed to succeed if they merit doing so. This is how Plato plans to avoid a hereditary aristocracy.

Those who make it almost, but not quite to the end will become the city's "Guardians". They are an aristocratic ruling class who are not only expected to administrate the political needs of the city, but also to act as its army. That's right... the aristocratic ruling class become the warriors of society. This seems crazy to us, but it made sense to anyone who had watched the warriors of Sparta kick ass at the battle of Thermopylae. That battle was not fought by poor Spartan conscripts, but by its ruling elite.

Now that I've read it in Plato, I think this is the source of Thomas Jefferson's idea of the "natural aristocracy". Here's a quote from Jefferson. Note the use of the word "virtue". It makes more sense now that I've read Plato.

For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it's ascendancy.

I highlighted the above section which, I think, makes a very specific reference to Plato's Republic. The best government is one that provides the best education. And the goal of this education is not merely to get a job and provide a good living for one's family. The best education is one that prepares all citizens for the eventuality of governing, if they are competent to do so.

Jefferson intended something similar to happen in America to that which Plato imagined. That hasn't really happened because we do not have "governing" as the goal of education. Also, we have decided that no child should ever fail and that everyone has a right to all levels of education. It seems that we've reached a point that if children are failing in school, we simply make school easier to compensate. Either that or we determine a very limited set of skills required to succeed and then teach to the test to make sure everyone succeeds. Rather than focus on an equality of opportunity, we have instead insisted on an equality of results, which is doomed to frustrate us. We would probably be much happier with our school system if we allowed people to leave a the purely academic line of instruction and to enter trade schools where skill sets (and "virtue") coincide.

In any case, equality of education is the primary area in which Plato retained an element of democracy in his utopia. The result of the education is to create a governing aristocracy which is renewed with each generation not by the children of the Guardians alone, but by the children of all classes who show merit and virtue.

Plato is unclear about how the actual philosopher-king is to be chosen from the body of possible candidates or how long that person will rule. It is possible that the education is so difficult that there may be only one final candidate in a given generation.

Communism in The City:

Along with democracy, Plato sees a great difficulty in ownership of private property. Anticipating Marx almost 2,000 years later, Plato sees private property as a source of avarice and greed. In essence, private ownership will distract people from the common good and therefore, it must be restricted or forbidden.

I think it is important to pause here and describe what I think to be the absolutely most critical problem in all political philosophy. Anyone who is creating a society (or even an organization) must address this problem. It is this: Individuals have needs and desires to serve the self. Societies have needs and desires to serve the whole. These parallel sets of needs and desires are generally in conflict with each other. All political stances must ultimately address the problems that arise when you mix individual needs and desires with those of a collective group. On one hand they might consider the needs of the individual to be supreme (as in libertarianism) and rationalize that the needs and desires of the individual ultimately support and sustain the needs of the society. On the other end of the spectrum, a society might decide that individuals should have no individual needs and desires and that the needs of society are paramount. This is my interpretation of communism. Beyond the needs of food, shelter, basic sustenance and an overriding equality, the needs and desires of individuals under communism must be denied.

This is why Plato offers up communism in The City. He is not concerned with happiness of any individual person or of any individual group within society. He is rather only concerned with the happiness of society as a whole organism. For that reason, all things are to be held in common, including children and wives. (This isn't strictly true, however. There is one person in The City that Plato is very concerned about. That is the philosopher-king himself.)

In The City everyone must give up the idea of an individual family. Children are not told who their parents are, but rather grow up being raised by the community as a whole. That way, no particular parent can influence their child's future educational attainment, because they don't know who their biological children are. This also prevents parents from thinking that their child might be "better" than anyone else. They are thus in a position to judge all children without bias.

The City in Summary

So, this is Plato's perfect society, with elements of communism, democracy, aristocracy and monarchy. He does an excellent job having Socrates present it in the dialogue and the other characters are suitably impressed and are ultimately convinced of the necessity of such a city. When asked by the other characters how they can make it happen and actually found this city in real life, Socrates responds in an interesting way. He tells them that all they have to do is start with their current city (Athens) and convince everyone over the age of 10 not only to leave the city, but to leave their small children behind. Then, Socrates and the other characters (the first of the Guardians) will begin the education of the children and found The City with a fresh batch of new citizens.

A careful reader might begin to wonder at this point if Plato's utopia is even remotely possible, or even if it is intended to be presented as such. Most interpretations assume that he is serious. My opinions are tainted by the fact that I read Allan Bloom's companion essay to The Republic that suggests otherwise.

At this point I should mention a problem I noticed while comparing Bertrand Russell's interpretation of The Republic to that of Will Durant, in their respective histories of western philosophy. The problem is that when Plato describes the communistic lifestyle of his utopia, he only does so fully with respect to the Guardian class. He does not completely extrapolate this idea and apply it to the whole of his city. There are some things that are assumed to apply to both, such as the collective raising of children and the educational system, but he does not explicitly say that private property is banned for all citizens. This appears to have led Durant to conclude that Plato's communism only exists for the Guardians, but not for the lower classes. Russell concludes that it is universally applied. The only thing I could find that suggests that Durant is correct is one passage where Socrates advises that the Guardians should not interfere with the contracts and negotiations of business. This suggests that the lower classes live in a free market system while the Guardians are an ascetic anomaly looking over them from on high. To give examples of this political system in action, Durant points to the social makeup of ancient Egypt and that of the ecclesiastical period of Medieval Europe after the fall of Rome, but before the rise of powerful nations around the time of the Protestant Reformation.

As an intellectual exercise it is interesting to imagine both versions of The City and compare them. Durant's version is more appealing to me, but it is hard to imagine how the class of free-marketeers would allow the communal raising of children while being given free reign over commerce. For the sake of a pure reading of Plato I have to agree with Russell that Plato's communism is universal in his utopia. However, it is important to note that this is open to interpretation.

The Cave

At this point in The Republic Socrates stops discussing his ideal city and takes a new direction in an apparently unrelated concept. He describes the allegory of the cave, which is probably the single most interesting and evocative element of The Republic. I had seen and heard references to it for many years and knew it as a concept I "should" understand, but didn't until I read it for myself.

Here is the allegory in a nutshell:

Imagine a cave in which a large number of people are seated facing a blank, white wall, like a movie screen. The people are not only chained to their seats, but their heads are held in place so that they can look at no place except the screen in front of them. Behind the people is a light source of some kind. The light source is either a fire or sunlight from outside the cave shining in. Behind the seated people, between them and the source of light, there are figures moving. Puppeteers are operating marionettes and the light source shines on the moving puppets and projects shadows up on the wall in front of the seated and immobilized people.

The seated people have been chained there for their entire lives. The only reality they know is that which is made of shadow and projected on the wall. They are free to discuss these shadows with each other and comment on the substance and nature of the shadows, but they have no reason to think that the shadows are anything other than real objects.

Here are a couple of pictures representing the cave:

Every once in a while someone comes along (a philosopher) who is able to stand up, turn around and walk outside the cave. This person is initially blinded by the light of the sun and does not fully realize what he now comprehends. But, in time he realizes that he is seeing a new and different form of reality; a "real" reality unhampered by the former perceived understanding of the shadows on the wall. Then, the person goes back into the cave, but his eyes are now accustomed to the light and the interior is too dark and shadowy to see clearly. The philosopher sits again with his comrades and tells them what he has seen and experienced and how everything they thought was real is really imaginary, but his friends fail to comprehend. How could they? Instead they ridicule and terrorize him, blaming him for their own narrow vision.

This is a great allegory for a couple of reasons. First, it is fairly simple to understand. At least, it is not difficult to come up with "an" interpretation that suits you, if not to exactly figure out what Plato meant. Second, once it is understood and internalized (and made one's own) it gives a seeker of truth an idea of action that they can follow to find that truth. That is, one can imagine oneself standing up and leaving the cave and gaining a new perspective on life. Finally, it clearly describes what Plato believes happened to Socrates in real life. He pursued truth, examined that truth and brought it to the people but they recoiled at the thought that their treasured interpretations were being called into questioned so they killed him. Many people have suffered in society for questioning the established order of things.

But, what does it mean? I think there is a general and specific meaning to be found in the cave. In general, I believe the cave represents a set of knowledge and experience one has become accustomed to over a long period of time, which binds a person together with others with a similar set of knowledge and experience. But, eventually a small number of people become dissatisfied with the set of knowledge and experience because it reveals itself as containing an unacceptable amount of internal contradiction and paradox. So, dissatisfied Christians who become atheists due to gaining a greater understanding of science might be said to have left the "cave of Christianity". The same could be said of atheists who read C.S. Lewis and convert to Christianity or of any ideology, religion or political movement.

However, I don't think this is what Plato meant. It works in that general sense, but I think he was driving at something more specific. Plato does not interpret the cave for the reader, but he does something else that is very telling. He walks the reader through a set of systems of government, including his City, Timarchy (military aristocracy without a philosopher king), aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny, and describes the personalities of citizens of those cities. His point is that every system of government creates people with personality traits and opinions which sustain that government.

So, the point of the cave is, I believe, as follows. The cave is the culture you live in. Without realizing it, most if not all of our opinions and desires, along with how we perceive reality and politics is based not on our own intellectual interpretation, but on the formal and informal education we have received as a member of our society. Unless we take rigorous measures to prevent it, we cannot say that our perceptions of reality are "real". We have to admit that what we think it real is merely a reflection of a greater reality whose existence we've never even guessed at.

(I should note at this point that after reading The Republic, but before writing this summary, I've read Allan Bloom's interpretive essay about it. This has definitely shaped my view of Plato, but it was necessary because I'm studying this on my own without a teacher or classmates to share ideas with. I hope that I am not merely adopting Bloom's interpretation, but am instead mixing it with my own thought.)

That sounds very metaphysical, but I don't think it is necessarily meant to be that way. Regarding our society, here in America in the early 21st century, I interpret the cave in a specific way where politics are concerned. If we view the political reality around us through the lens of being a "Liberal" or being a "Conservative" or being somewhere in the middle, we are doing ourselves a disservice. Labels like Liberal, Conservative or Moderate have no real meaning outside of our specific point in history. Or, if they do have meaning, then they mean something different than they mean today.

If you study ancient Rome, for example, you cannot point to Augustus, Caesar, Hannibal or Cicero and decide that some are Liberal and others are Conservative. Those labels would quickly lose their meaning and reveal themselves to be shallow constructs. To me this means that, in order to gain a fuller, more complete sense of "reality", in order to leave the cave, one must stop viewing the world from inside our own culture looking outward, but rather from the outside of our culture looking in.

Over the past few years I have been gradually becoming more and more critical of Liberalism. I have always been critical of Conservatism so expressing that is, for me, like beating a dead horse. Likewise with organized religion... that horse has sailed (if you'll pardon my mixed metaphor). The political predicament I've found myself in is that, if I distance myself from liberalism, I'm not sure what the other options are. Must I stay on the continuum and merely walk further to the right and become more conservative? That has been nagging at me a lot over the past four years or so. I don't like that result. I find both the political Left and the Right to be rife with contradictions and internal paradoxes which I find problematic and no longer satisfying.

If nothing else, reading The Republic and especially the allegory of the cave has taught me that I have other options I didn't know about. First and foremost, I am no longer tied to believing that the Left-Right continuum. I am able to stand aside from those ideologies altogether and ask more important questions. I am not close to answering those questions. In fact, I've just begun to realize that there are other questions to ask, but I am at least terribly excited to realize that there is another way.

Another thing I was excited to realize was how often Plato's ideas have worked their way into popular culture without my knowing it. Now that read and digested The Republic I see how the movie The Matrix was adapted from the cave myth, although in the movie, the "cave" was technology and the way that machines control our lives. Also, I think it is safe to say that the science fiction novel Ender's Game was adapted from The Republic; not using the cave allegory, but instead the manner in which the students are isolated from family and taught to save humanity while being segregated from humanity. Good stuff.

Interpretation

In order to get a handle on the entirety of Plato's message in The Republic, it is helpful to summarize again what he is attempting. First, he defines justice, or attempts to do so. In the end he develops a grand idea of justice, but fails to fully satisfy what we want to hear about it. He never gives us anything concrete and easily packaged. As I mentioned earlier, I think this is part of the point. He is saying that justice, as a figurative architect of the other three cardinal virtues (moderation, courage and wisdom), is no more easy to define than it is to be a just person. It is an ideal idea, an unachievable goal, but it is not necessarily the goal which is important, but rather our ability to question the variety of definitions available to us and direct ourselves toward this goal. That is, it is the path to virtue that is critical for humanity, even though we must admit we will never fully arrive there. It is discovering the questions that leads one to truth, not in discovering the answers.

In any case, this leads into the concept of Plato's "universals", which I described earlier. In order to accept this argument at all, one must first agree that there is a universal concept of justice, of good or of evil that apply to all human beings regardless of space and time. This is a problem for modern readers unless they are specifically religious in some way. Those trained to view the world scientifically will not be able to accept such a proposition because ideas of good and evil are generally viewed as pure superstition. However, acknowledging this idea is necessary to understand Plato's thesis, whether you accept it or not. In the end these universal ideas are meant to apply to all humans, but are not completely within the grasp of any of us. They are out of our reach, except as abstractions. So, at this point we recognize justice to be a universal ideal whose very definition cannot fully be described and which can never be fully obtained by any individual or society.

After spending considerable time trying to understand justice Plato describes The City itself; his version of a just society. In it, citizens must give up their own individual goals and desires for the sake of the community. The only individual goals a person in The City has are those related to fulfilling bodily needs, food, housing, and general sustenance. All other goals are directed toward the benefit of the city. Even family, permanent romantic love and particular relationships with children must be sacrificed to this greater good. Then, on top of this extreme communism sits an aristocratic but ascetic warrior class trained not only in combat, but in philosophy, art, literature, mathematics and history. Of that group, in every generation, one person is chosen to be the philosopher-king of The City. There is no voting or public debate, only a perfectly democratic system of educational opportunity by which to select the ruling class.

Then, after convincing all the characters in The Republic of the necessity of his just society, Socrates lays out a plan for implementing it. He suggests that all adults have to leave the current city and abandon their children who will be raised by Socrates and his friends as the first generation of new citizens. There is a bit more to The Republic related to music and poetry but I've had enough of a struggle to understand this much, so I will end my summary here.

My understanding is that most interpreters take Plato fairly literally and examine the nature of his utopia just as he describes it. However, Allan Bloom, in his companion essay, makes a strong point suggesting why Plato's city should not be interpreted literally. In doing so Bloom is effectively putting words in Plato's mouth that Plato never said. This is inherently dangerous, but Bloom is convincing. If I understand it correctly his point is this:

First, the city Plato invents is patently impossible. He describes it as if it is fully possible, but when he suggests that the current adults in Athens should abandon their children he cannot possibly believe that this will happen. He must be being ironic in some way because it is completely absurd that people will willingly give up their children or their families in such a way. And, if force is used to compel this social change, it would be like creating a new and free America with an established order of slavery pre-existing within it. The internal conflicts and strife would be tremendous and long lasting, which would prevent the citizens from happily disavowing their personal goals and desires for the sake of society. It simply cannot work as Plato describes.

Secondly, in the first part of The Republic Plato has already created the expectation that what he defines for the reader will be unattainable. Justice and truth, he says cannot be grasped, but can only be journeyed towards. He does not apply this explicitly to his city, however. But, if the reader makes this leap and connects the dots, it is additional evidence that Plato may not be being intentionally literal.

Why not? It may be that Plato is making a political argument not for all future readers, but for his particular time and place. What he wants is for Athenians in the 3rd century BC, to question the specific problems inherent in their democracy that have lead to an overthrow by a neighboring state. In doing so he points out the particular strengths of their conquerors and creates an imaginary new society which combines elements of both Athens and Sparta. He wants them to begin a process of analysis and change and wants to give them an ideal they might morph into. He recognizes that this ideal is unattainable, but cannot tell them that because it might discourage them and prevent them from taking on the project at all. Or something like that. This paragraph is completely my own interpretation so it is subject to the fact that I don't really know what I'm talking about.

But, Bloom's argument is that Plato is intentionally creating an impossible system. He is acknowledging that perfection is unattainable and is highlighting specific contradictions in the system to draw our attention to the problem. The problem, thus, is the balance between individual and social needs and desires. In order to fully meet the needs of society and create a complete idea of "justice", individuals must abandon everything they hold dear. They must become pawns of society who have no internal desires other than the good of the whole. Then if they do this, the Guardians (and specifically, the philosopher-king) will be free to not only fully explore the world of ideas, but to make those ideas manifestly real through their political power. Related to this, Bloom makes this comment:

"What is so intolerable about The Republic, as Plato shows, is the demand that men give up their land, their money, their wives, their children for the sake of the public good, their concern for which had previously been buttressed by these lower attachments. The hope is to have a happy city made up entirely of unhappy men." (TCAM, p. 130).

Bloom's point is that, if parents give up their attachments to their children, they will no longer have an incentive to work toward the betterment of society. The family acts as a buffer between the individual and the collective whole. The social contract tells the individual parent that if they work towards a better society, society will return the favor by assisting in the protection of their children. If you remove family from this equation, it is doubtful that solitary individuals will maintain a strong loyalty to the greater good. Thus, such an extreme requirement of collectivism may paradoxically lead to greater individualism, or a different sort of individualism.

So, Plato is not really describing the perfect city for everyone. He is describing the perfect city for philosophers. He is making a hidden argument that the only truly happy person, without reservation is the philosopher because only that person is free to pursue the excellence of the human spirit without ties to the material world around us. Everyone but the philosopher must sacrifice all that is important to them (philosophers do not tend to have families, apparently... interesting but true if you examine their lives throughout history). Ultimately, Plato is not saying that "justice" is to be found in any particularly "just" political design, because those are either filled with flaws or are impossible. He is instead saying that true justice can only be found by those who lead a philosophical life, regardless of the politics of the world around them. Of all the governmental systems that Plato describes in The Republic (His City, Timarchy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy and Tyranny), Bloom says that there are only two in which the philosopher is free to think and teach openly. The first is in Plato's utopia, which Bloom says is impossible. The second is in democracy. So, Bloom concludes that the only political system which can realistically lead to maximum happiness for its citizens is that of democracy, despite its several flaws.

I will leave it up to the reader to make their own conclusions as to how much Plato should be taken literally or ironically. I'm still working on that myself. At this point, however, I find Bloom's argument compelling.

What I've Learned

A full description of the historical impact of Plato's Republic is beyond my capabilities. It is fair to say, however, that is ideas have dramatically influenced every corner of Western culture in the past 2,000 years. For my purposes, there are a couple of ideas I wanted to conclude with about how I am incorporating his thoughts into my worldview.

First and foremost, what I've appreciated about Plato's perfect society is the fact that education is used to create a ruling class because the primary purpose of education is to prepare students to govern. This is completely different from our notion of education today. We are not preparing students to rule, but merely to get a job.

Second, regardless of whether or not Plato intended his Republic to be taken literally, I have to conclude that his city would be impossible to implement in reality. And, if it were attempted with any degree of accuracy, life within it for the non-Guardians would be dreariness incarnate. In our time we have seen a number of attempts at communism and, without exception they all seem to be horrible places to live for the citizens. The Republic, at least, encourages real philosophical thought and exploration. Real life communist societies never allow this. They are forced to limit free thought to those ideas that explicitly support the regime because they are in a constant struggle against human nature. Thus, communism in reality will always quickly become tyrannical.

Also, in the area of personal sacrifice to social groups greater than the individual, in our time we are witnessing a harsh and outspoken public battle between Liberals and Conservatives. Liberals seem to be making an argument similar to a literal reading of The Republic, which is that in order to make a healthy and "fair" society, people should sacrifice their individual selfish desires for the sake of the greater good. Conservatives, however, react with great anger to the idea that they must give up the things that belong to them in the name of fairness.

There are elements of the Conservative argument that, I think, are just silly and based on bigotry and fear. They seem to be forever trying to prevent a full adoption of civil liberties to groups who don't match their particular moral standards, e.g., gay marriage today or the full rights of women in the workforce throughout the proceeding few decades. However, if you strip away those more emotionally charged issues and consider the concerns that Conservatives have about the family, I think they become a bit more sympathetic.

Since the cultural revolution of the 1960's the far Left has been instrumental in reshaping the way that Americans think of family. In one way this has been good, in that it has resulted in greater gender equality, but in other ways it has brought about changes that I find disturbing. As both parents left home to work, the loudest message from the far Left during the 60's 70's and 80's was that true personal satisfaction cannot be found at home with family or children. Those intimate relationships (especially with men) were viewed as inherently oppressive and, thus, to be viewed with suspicion if not avoided altogether. Children, also, were not viewed as a source of personal growth and fulfillment, but as an obstacle to such fulfillment. But, prior to this time it was women who had the primary role and dedication to child rearing. When women left the home to join men in the workforce, nobody remained at home who was dedicated to this role. No person stepped in to fill the vacuum.

Some of this attitude has changed in the last 10 or 20 years. Women are likely very familiar with the public "Mommy Wars" that appear on the internet with some frequency. One side of these battles is held by traditional Feminists who argue that women who stay home with family are somehow betraying the efforts of the original Feminists who fought so hard for equality. On the other side are women who found their lives severely split by work on the one hand and by motherhood on the other. They often find that work is not as fulfilling as it was promised to be and they yearn to be home with their children.

My opposition is not to women's equal rights, but instead to the idea that the home stopped being the place where children were raised and taught to be adults. Instead, outside organizations such as day care centers and government schools took over to a greater and greater extent and for decades the length of the school days and school years has been steadily increased as parents became more and more willing to allow the government to effectively raise their children for them. Ultimately, in order to rationalize and justify such a system, people must begin to believe that for any child, the adults in their lives are largely interchangeable and that it doesn't matter who is raising them. It also must not matter if the adults in the children's lives are no longer permanent fixtures, but rather change periodically as people leave one job to begin another.

The primary social message for everyone in this system, parents and children alike, is that all relationships are impermanent and that everyone has more important things to do than to develop true intimacy. And, for men especially, who stereotypically avoid lifetime commitments until they are foisted upon them in some way, the idea that adults are interchangeable where children are concerned gave them even fewer reasons to dedicate themselves to family life. Why not leave your family for another woman in this environment? As long as you pay your child support the kids will be fine. We have eradicated the days of "duty" and "honor" and "responsibility" in respect to our personal relationships. We celebrate their loss because they resulted in unequal gender roles, but we have not replaced them with anything but a vacuum of rationalized self interest.

The irony is that the far Left is very focused on an individual being willing to sacrifice their personal desires for the greater good... as long as that sacrifice is for society at large and not for an individual or small group. Selfishness regarding individual relationships is applauded because it frees you to maximize your economic potential, but selfishness towards the needs of society (or the environment) is criticized and held up as the greatest evil. Our current fears about global warming are an excellent example of this.

So, when Conservatives complain about the deterioration of the American family, I believe that they are unconsciously invoking Plato's Republic and their fear that the Left is leading them towards an even greater sacrifice in family relationships for the sake of the greater good. In this regard I think they have a very strong point.

On the other hand, where conservatives approve of self sacrifice for the sake of family, they appear to have no sense of any collective responsibility to solve social problems. They complain endlessly about how their tax money might be spend to help poor people get to the doctor and insist (privately) that poverty is mostly a problem of laziness and lack of ambition. They are loudly and openly selfish whereas the selfishness of the Left is a bit more hidden beneath a surface ideology of social justice.

For these reasons, although I tend to continue to vote for Democrats because I find them less objectionable, I am no longer willing to consider myself a "Liberal" but I'm surely not willing to adopt the "Conservative" label.

In my efforts to figure out what I might call myself, or what social and political perspectives I might call my own I have turned to the ancients because, even if they don't offer easily pre-packaged answers, they have much better questions. So far, Plato has taught me a considerable amount, not just about what I am not, but about what I might become and what I might teach my children to be.

Whereas Liberalism is, I think, a valuable political philosophy but a poor personal philosophy, Conservatism is just the opposite. I like the personal, internal family values of the Conservative but find their politics objectionable. What I'm looking for is a single philosophy which is both personal and political. What I have learned from Plato's Republic is a very strong admiration of his description of the four cardinal virtues of courage, moderation, wisdom and justice. And, within the elements of justice, what I have learned to value most is the idea of selflessness. For me a single philosophy reflecting both my personal and political ideas must be centered on a universal and not a partial virtue of selflessness.

One of the definitions Plato has of justice is that it is served when someone does good things to good people, but is indifferent to the bad. Plato's problem is in how to determine who is good and who isn't. He says that we cannot be trusted to label our family as automatically good, because we are biased. Thus, we must distance ourselves from family in order to make an unbiased interpretation of what and who is "good." Now, I like Plato and am not sure if he is meaning this literally or ironically, but I have to say that I find this argument to be, essentially, bullshit. I agree with Bloom and a core belief that one's family is the greatest example of an ideal social group is instrumental in maximizing a greater sense of social loyalty. In order to fight for a greater good, we must first have something real and tangible that we are fighting for.

I believe that justice is best served for the individual to begin by giving the most of themselves to their family and then working outward from there. That is, I believe that selflessness should be inversely proportional to the social distance between the individual and the target social group. Imagine this group of concentric circles:

I believe that justice exists in part when a person is selfless to the needs of them closest to them. Selflessness is important to community, nation and humanity but decreasingly so as you leave the center of the circle. It is unrealistic to link selflessness directly between the individual and humanity without considering these more central groups along the way. Humans are not herd animals. We are pack animals. We do not easily stand together in a multitude and feel comfortable and secure without first feeling that there is an intimate group protecting us like a barrier from the greater whole; a group that deserves our primary loyalty. But, we must also acknowledge our part in the greater human whole. Thus, as individuals we have less personal responsibility towards all of humanity than to those closest to us, but we still have that responsibility. It is good to be most loyal to your spouse and your children above all else, but that does not mean that you should have no loyalty at all to mankind. I think one of the critical elements of this idea is that selflessness does not detract from the person being selfless, it rather adds to the greater whole of the group being selfless towards, including the individual who is being selfless.

Thus, in this model it would be considered a vice to ignore the realities of social inequality and social injustice, but it would also be a vice to put your personal needs and desires above those of your family. It would also be a vice to put the needs of your job, your community or your nation above the needs of your family. Patriotism is secondary to family, but the needs of society cannot be ignored. In the past several decades we have been taught to mistrust an "us vs. them" mentality because it produces prejudice and inequality. But, if no one has an "us" to call their own, then we have nothing to feel duty and honor and responsibility towards. In attempting to destroy all prejudice we have killed off even the good kind.

This is what I have learned from Plato's Republic so far. I'm still not sure if his City is to be taken literally or ironically, but his lesson of justice and the other cardinal virtues of wisdom, moderation and courage is one I have taken to heart. I especially love it that his idealism is tempered with an ingrained sense of moderation. In our time we consider idealism to be fanatical and extreme, but to the Greeks virtue necessitated that idealism should be measured carefully and moderated within the human soul. It is a shame that we no longer teach these virtues or Plato's ideas of justice in our schools. We no longer seem to be much interested in duty and honor.

Schoolin' time... Playin' time

2010-05-20T09:24:00.002-05:00

A couple of months ago the New York Times ran this editorial on its op-ed page. The author raises a number of good points critical of how we teach kids the things that we believe they should know.

Here are a few paragraphs I liked:

So what should children be able to do by age 12, or the time they leave elementary school? They should be able to read a chapter book, write a story and a compelling essay; know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply numbers; detect patterns in complex phenomena; use evidence to support an opinion; be part of a group of people who are not their family; and engage in an exchange of ideas in conversation. If all elementary school students mastered these abilities, they would be prepared to learn almost anything in high school and college.
Imagine, for instance, a third-grade classroom that was free of the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students, and that was devoted instead to just a few narrowly defined and deeply focused goals.
In this classroom, children would spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers.
Children would also spend an hour a day writing things that have actual meaning to them — stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another. People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade.
In our theoretical classroom, children would also spend a short period of time each day practicing computation — adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Once children are proficient in those basics they would be free to turn to other activities that are equally essential for math and science: devising original experiments, observing the natural world and counting things, whether they be words, events or people. These are all activities children naturally love, if given a chance to do them in a genuine way.
What they shouldn’t do is spend tedious hours learning isolated mathematical formulas or memorizing sheets of science facts that are unlikely to matter much in the long run. Scientists know that children learn best by putting experiences together in new ways. They construct knowledge; they don’t swallow it.

One of the things that stuck with me about this is the continued realization we have while homeschooling that a good education is neither expensive nor terribly time consuming. We spend about 45 minutes (max) in the mornings and another 45 minutes in the afternoons on formal lessons (spelling, grammar, reading, writing, history, math, science, etc.). The rest of our time is spent just having fun, goofing off, playing games, reading books, watching TV, going to the zoo, park, mall, grocery shopping or whatever.

I'm sure the time spent on formal lessons will increase as the kids get older and their attention span increases, but I can't imagine spending anything like 6 hours a day on school. That just seems absurd. In any case it is hard to compare the amount of things the kids learn during formal lesson time vs. what they are learning during the whole rest of the day. All that free time is not just wasted time seeking out various forms of mind-numbing entertainment. That's the time for the kids to process things on their own, to explore their own world, to design their own art projects and to play with other kids.

For some reason our society has reached a point where we only really value those skills we imagine to be tied to future economic success. But, as the article above notes, we don't seem to really understand how those skills originate. And, along the way, we have forgotten that economic success is not the only goal in our lives. We don't seem to know anymore what it means to be a "whole" person or to pull from life anything other that a kind of competitive success to allow us to buy more stuff or have bigger houses or fancier cars.

Those things are nice, but for me education also means gaining an understanding of the whole story of humanity as well as a deep appreciation for the kinds of relationships we build with others or especially the mechanisms we use to define core philosophical principles that help us define what is "good" or "just" and which ultimately help us to define our political ideas.

I don't believe that these things can be forced on a kid by sitting them in a room, filling them with one kind of knowledge, ringing a bell, moving them to another room and repeating the process all day, 5 days a week, 10 months a year for 12 years (at least). Learning these things requires a deep curiosity and creativity. The way we currently design schools seems designed to stifle curiosity and creativity through years of repetitive busy work and a denial of personal creative freedom.

Ugh.

Hugo and Nebula Winners

2010-05-19T19:13:00.000-05:00

My lovely bride bought me a Kindle for Father's day this year. So far I've read about 9 novels on it including Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I've also read a handful of more modern novels on it including the newly published The Passage (vampire apocalypse) and a bunch of trashy thrillers.

Since I haven't been reading much science fiction lately I thought I'd set myself a goal of reading all of the Hugo and Nebula award winners to date. This will take some time, but I'll come back to this post periodically to cross them off as I read them.

Here's the list of them all. The titles in red are the ones I've read before.

Hugo Winning Novels:
2009 Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
2008 Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union
2007 Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End
2006 Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
2005 Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
2004 Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls
2003 Robert J. Sawyer, Hominids
2002 Neil Gaiman, American Gods
2001 J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2000 Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky
1999 Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog
1998 Joe Haldeman, Forever Peace
1997 Kim Stanley Robinson, Blue Mars
1996 Neal Stephenson, Diamond Age
1995 Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance
1994 Kim Stanley Robinson, Green Mars
1993 Vernon Vinge, Fire Upon the Deep
1993 Connie Willis, Doomsday Book
1992 Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar
1991 Lois McMaster Bujold, Vor Game
1990 Dan Simmons, Hyperion
1989 C. J. Cherryh, Cyteen
1988 David Brin, Uplift War
1987 Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead
1986 Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
1985 William Gibson, Neuromancer
1984 David Brin, Startide Rising
1983 Isaac Asimov, Foundation's Edge
1982 C. J. Cherryh, Downbelow Station
1981 Joan D. Vinge, Snow Queen
1980 Arthur C. Clarke, Fountains of Paradise
1979 Vonda McIntyre, Dreamsnake
1978 Frederik Pohl, Gateway
1977 Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
1976 Joe Haldeman, Forever War
1975 Ursula K. LeGuin, Dispossessed
1974 Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama
1973 Isaac Asimov, Gods Themselves
1972 Philip Jose Farmer, To Your Scattered Bodies Go
1971 Larry Niven, Ringworld
1970 Ursula K. LeGuin, Left Hand of Darkness
1969 John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar
1968 Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
1967 Robert A. Heinlein, Moon is a Harsh Mistress
1966 Roger Zelazny, ... and Call Me Conrad
1966 Frank Herbert, Dune
1965 Fritz Leiber, Wanderer
1964 Clifford D. Simak, Way Station
1963 Philip K. Dick, Man in the High Castle
1962 Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
1961 Walter M. Miller, Jr., Canticle for Leibowitz
1960 Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
1959 James Blish, Case of Conscience
1958 Fritz Leiber, The Big Time
1956 Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star
1955 Mark Clifton, They'd Rather Be Right
1953 Alfred Bester, Demolished Man

Nebula Winning Novels
2010 The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
2009 Powers, Ursula K. Le Guin
2008 The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon
2007 Seeker, Jack McDevitt
2006 Camouflage, Joe Haldeman
2005 Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold
2004 The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon
2003 American Gods, Neil Gaiman
2002 The Quantum Rose, Catherine Asaro
2001 Darwin's Radio, Greg Bear
2000 Parable of the Talents, Octavia E. Butler
1999 Forever Peace, Joe Haldeman
1998 The Moon and the Sun, Vonda N. McIntyre
1997 Slow River, Nicola Griffith
1996 The Terminal Experiment, Robert J. Sawyer
1995 Moving Mars, Greg Bear
1994 Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
1993 Doomsday Book, Connie Willis
1992 Stations of the Tide, Michael Swanwick
1991 Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
1990 The Healer's War, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
1989 Falling Free, Lois McMaster Bujold
1988 The Falling Woman, Pat Murphy
1987 Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
1986 Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
1985 Neuromancer, William Gibson
1984 Startide Rising, David Brin
1983 No Enemy But Time, Michael Bishop
1982 The Claw of the Conciliator, Gene Wolfe
1981 Timescape, Gregory Benford
1980 The Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C. Clarke
1979 Dreamsnake, Vonda N. McIntyre
1978 Gateway, Frederik Pohl
1977 Man Plus, Frederik Pohl
1976 The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
1975 The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
1974 Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
1973 The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov
1972 A Time of Changes, Robert Silverberg
1971 Ringworld, Larry Niven
1970 The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
1969 Rite of Passage, Alexei Panshin
1968 The Einstein Intersection, Samuel R. Delany
1967 Babel-17, Samuel R. Delany
(tie) Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
1966 Dune, Frank Herbert

How could it possibly be March?

2010-03-22T19:43:00.002-05:00

Seriously. Time can slow down ANY time now. JD has been finished with Grad school almost 2 years now, so I do not need time to fly!!!!

We are still doing our found money project...not doing as well as last year this time, but we have found over $7 in coins...I think more people are picking up pennies these days. I can't blame them. A penny saved is a penny earned...

Simon is 8 already and Gwen is 5. The other day we all hopped in the car and after we were driving for about 20 minutes I realized that I hadn't begged both of them to use the bathroom for the 20 minutes prior to leaving, nor did I have an extra bag of clothes packed for them in the car for accidents. Have we finally reached that stage in life where diaper bags are gone? No more wet wipes? No more, oh, shoot...we just left and now someone really needs to go to the bathroom right this second where is there a McDonald's without bullet proof glass and locked bathrooms? OK, so maybe not everyone thinks like that...especially at their age, but it still has not been a full year since Gwen said goodbye to her pampers, so this is kind of a new way of living for us. The idea of maybe taking a trip somewhere on a plane and not having to drag strollers or worry about forgetting someone's blanky??? Dare I dream?? (Dream, indeed, since we'd have to win the lottery to fly anywhere right now, but I digress).

Gwen is really into talking to people on the phone now. She wants to talk to Grandma and Aunt A. She won't stop talking either....so I think that is cute. I was never much of a phone person. I tend to use it only if I need to know where someone is, or if I forgot why I went to the grocery store.

Simon is getting a lot taller...he is still the skinniest boy in the planet, but he is going to be a tall boy like his dad....his feet are huge...it kind of reminds me of when our Great Dane was a puppy and he had these enormous paws....Dunstan definitely grew into them and I expect Simon to do the same.

I wish I had something more interesting to post at the moment...I just felt like I should write SOMETHING as it has been so long....

Well, maybe tomorrow I can think of something interesting to post...

Hope all is well in your world....

Palaestra

2010-01-22T13:35:00.003-05:00

Last week we added a new element to our homeschooling routine. There's a homeschooling organization out on the west side called Palaestra that offers Friday classes for homeschoolers. The classes run an our each and go all day long. They aren't in the core educational areas, as most of us cover that stuff at home already, but are things like arts & crafts, clay modeling, literature studies, ballet, spanish, chess, singing, martial arts, musical instruments, writing, etc., etc.

We decided to start off slow, with just one class for each of them. They're both in a separate Arts, Crafts & Games class (Gwen's in the preschool version). So far they've started work on a puppet show and Simon's teacher has let me know that, for his birthday next month, she'd like him to give a little presentation about himself. There are a number of poems he has memorized so maybe he can recite on of those also.

All in all I'm very impressed with the place. It all seems very well organized and there are a lot of kids there ranging from preschool age all the way up into the teen years. They have a large community room where the parents hang out and it is pretty well filled with families waiting for the young'uns while they're in class and other kids playing together between classes or while they wait for siblings.

Next Fall we'll try to do 2 classes for each of them, but we wanted to start off slowly. Simon (but not Gwen) was pretty nervous before we started this up last Friday. This has been their first classroom experience with a teacher and he was a bit shaken by the prospect ahead of time. Now that we've done it twice he's lost his nervousness, though. Gwen was never even nervous to begin with. On both days that we've gone so far she just runs right into her classroom and promptly forgets that I even exist.

The only downside is that it's a little price (at about $70 per kid per class). However, I think it's important enough to consider that just an additional cost to the homeschooling thing. Our current budget is only about $100 per year per kid so it shouldn't be hard to justify upping that a bit for some formal classes.

Another potential downside is that the organization is Christian in nature, but I haven't seen any sign of that anywhere but on their website. There doesn't seem to be any praying or Christian based themes in the classes themselves, other than the fact that the classes are held at a church out in Livonia.

Anyone interested can find their website here.

Happy New Year!!!

2010-01-12T16:26:00.002-05:00

I keep meaning to write a post. It isn't like anyone reads this blog anymore besides Hawksbill or me, but I still want to keep things documented for the kids.

Last year's found money project was very successful. We found over $74 USD, a book of stamps, and various country coins...I restarted the counter on January 1st and slowly but surly the pennies are adding up.

Homeschool is up and running and Hawksbill signed Simon and Gwen up for one Friday class for each of them so they could get out of the house more. It has been so cold and miserable, it is hard to motivate oneself to go anywhere during the week, so hopefully this will help break up the cold weeks...

Christmas was good, New Year's was fine, not much else to report. I am thankful I am still employed and hope this is a good new year. Last year wasn't horrible, but I am hoping things are better this year :)

Until next time....

Time to catch up

2009-11-07T21:15:00.004-05:00

Where do I even start?

Summer came and went too fast. Our big trip to the island was postponed due to an unexpected family emergency. July disappeared before our eyes, but we still managed to plant some little seeds for zucchini, cucumbers, carrots and sunflowers. The zucchini plants grew HUGE only to be eaten by the local bunny population, the carrots and sunflowers were non-existent, but we are happy to report we had a crop of 13 lovely cucumbers this summer. It is better than nothing, and boy, were they tasty! I think we broke even with the cost of seeds :)

Daddy Hawksbill celebrated his 40th birthday so we had to have an Indiana Jones cake....it was between that and Hello Kitty, so we went for the manly cake ... it was tasty...no, of course, I did not make it myself...that would take effort.

I was bummed that we missed out on camping so on the spur-of-the-moment one weekend in September we decided to go to Lakeport...it was only for two days, but it made up for how sad I was about not having a vacation this summer. I found at least 30 petosky stones for my garden, and the kids had a blast, even though it was a bit colder than we had hoped...but the whole summer seemed cool except one week in July perhaps....I was just glad to get away from home for a couple of days and enjoy the water and the rock hunting...

Gwen enjoyed riding her bike around this summer. She's still 4-wheeling it, but, may I add, she is still totally potty trained--which will bring me to one funny story for today, but I will bring that one up later...

My youngest sister, K, was married in Vegas so Hawksbill and I for the first time ever left our kids with relatives overnight and went out of town. Vegas was fun, we lost our limit of $100, but unless I am going to see some type of show, I don't think I need to go there again. Maybe because we had only 1.5 days there and it seemed like we spent more time on the plane than anything else, but I think we just get bored too easily with gambling (I think that is probably a good thing). The quarter poker games were fun, but that was all we really did other than the delightful wedding. I am not posting a photo of K since I didn't ask, but I will post a picture of Hawksbill and me and some cool tree thingy inside the hotel where we stayed....

Next came work work and more work. I held a conference at work -- and even though I reminded these lovely people for 1 full year that I have never planned anything -- not even a potluck, I somehow still managed to plan, organize and hold the entire conference by myself. No really. I am not bragging--I am stating a fact and you can ask Hawksbill and my boss. I had no help. It was crazy...I am glad it was small, but at least I know what NOT to do next time (although I hope I never have to do this again). Mistake number 1 was having a 3 day conference at 3 different locations, but that is all I will say. It was my number one thing that made me the most nervous for the last 3 months of my life, and I am glad it is finished. The people who needed to be made happy appeared to be happy, and that is all that matters.

The day after my conference was over was Halloween....

As you can see, Simon and Gwen went as Cinderella and
Jengo Phet or something like that...he gets mad when I screw up the Star Wars character names...he was a bounty hunter...I think I can spell that. We ended up taking the kids to my sister, A's, house to trick-o-treat with her kids and they all had fun. The candy is pretty much gone, but you know, I had to make sure all the snickers bars were safe...so I think I ate them all....

Then came November. Man, this week has been one heck of a week. On Sunday, my mother called to tell me my Godfather, S, had passed away but she didn't have any details. I saw him at my parents' 50th anniversary last year, and we are pictured below:

S will be missed. Before this picture, I don't think I had even seen him since my wedding almost 14 years earlier, and he was very young. Just a shock to his family. He never married, had no children, but played Santa Claus during the holidays...he will be missed. Today was his funeral mass (and my little sister's wedding reception) so it was a busy day today.

In addition to this loss, my brother, B, lost his Father-in-law suddenly on Wednesday to an asthma attack; my mother lost her cousin; my mother-in-law lost a close friend; and my sister's neighbor lost her mother. This has been the most shocking week in a long time...too many people passing so quickly. I am thankful the rest of us here are healthy and doing well. I really would rather not go to any more funerals anytime soon.

Homeschooling has been progressing for Simon and Gwen--mostly Simon still, since Gwen is only 4 and is mostly interested in drawing pictures and changing her clothes over and over again and pretending she is some princess in distress who has to ninja kick herself out of a dungeon, if that makes any sense...Hawksbill has been doing most of the work, but I am helping with Math, Science and Arts and Crafts...Simon does most of his work with me on his own, and for that I feel guilty, but now that most of the chaos (at least I hope) is over this year, I can spend more time reading and looking things up with him. He is still obsessed with planets, starting to get into dinosaurs, history, definitely more interested in Geography than I ever was...so, I am looking forward to learning with him.

My one little, I guess funny-to-me story, happened in the restroom at my sister's wedding reception today. A friend who is 8 months pregnant was talking to another friend who is apparently having trouble potting training her son. I made the mistake of butting into the conversation with, "Oh, I have a book...." to which the frustrated mom looked at me and said, "If you say m & m's and sticker charts, I am going to punch you!" to which my pregnant friend said, "No, really--it is ok, she had lots of trouble potty training her kids"

I pointed to Gwen, who, although is 4 years old, looks like she is 6, and said, "see her, she's only been potty trained for about 6 months now." Now the flustered mom looked at me and said, "Oh, thank God--I CAN talk to you--if I hear one more story about how someone potty trained their kid in 2 weeks, or they were only 2 years old, etc. so forth, I was going to shoot myself. " So we all stood in the ladies room talking about trying to potty train stubborn 3.5 year old children, to which I told her my kids hit 4 before they were trained, so don't feel bad and we all had a good old time...except maybe my 8 month pregnant friend who has yet to experience this joy. I hope we didn't scare her...but it was fun discussing how certain we were our kids would be wearing Depends and how we hate when other moms come up and say, "Have you tried candy?" when you just want to scream, "IF IT WERE THAT EASY, IT WOULD BE DONE BY NOW!!!..." So, needless to say, I have a new found friend in the potty training hell world that I will be passing a book to soon via my sister. M&M's and sticker charts my a$$ :) No offense to anyone who was successful with sticker charts and M&M's but it was nice to share my pain with someone going through the same thing we dealt with for what seemed like forever--nice to know other people have "willful" children. Of course, this mom had the best story of trying to pay her kid for using the potty, except he decided to EAT the money she gave him which resulted in a trip to the ER. Oh, these darn kids.

So here we are. It is November 7th already, and the holidays are just a couple week away. I could care less. I am too freaking tired from the last 4-5 months of my crazy life to even think about Turkey or Christmas presents. The only thing I want this winter is a healthy, happy family, and to be thankful for what we have. We still have jobs even though we are in Detroit that has the highest (or close to the highest) unemployment rate in the nation, we have a roof over our heads, we have food, and we have our health. So, thank you if there is anyone out there watching over us. I am so thankful for my family right now, now if I could just get back into a normal routine...I think I might feel normal again. And I want to say goodbye to all of our losses this week. May you all rest in peace and feel no pain....you will all be missed.

Salon Homeschooling Article

2009-09-28T08:20:00.002-05:00

An article from Salon today.

Here's my favorite quote:

"We're not ready to surrender our kids, and ourselves, to a 10-month-a-year, all-day institution whose primary goal, at least at this age, seems to be teaching kids how to function within a 10-month-a-year, all-day institution."

The comments to the article are especially interesting. Lots of angry tirades. But a few sensible ones also. I especially liked the one at the bottom of this page, which I will reprint below.

Not home schooling, home educating

Last year, we started "home" schooling our daughter in the 8th grade. To say this was a controversial decision with our family and friends, would be an understatement.

Someone joked that we were doing it in the wrong order, as people usually start home schooling their kids in the early grades, not the higher grades. They thought our daughter was going to turn out to be an un-socialized misfit, weirdo. Despite the protests, we decided to plow ahead anyway.

So, why did we leave the system? The answer is specific to her circumstances; but I want to highlight two reasons that people don't seem to appreciate.

First, most people are focused only on their school and how wonderful it is. The truth is, the best schools in America seriously suck at offering math or science. "Oh, it is different in my school. We have AP courses and advanced flim-flams," you might say. Okay, then try your 10th grader on these exams:

http://www.2mminutes.com/pressblog8.asp

(WARNING: the math and history tests are pretty hard).

Your kids would need to pass these exams to continue onto 11th grade in India. I can give more examples from Europe to South America, where your kids would flunk spectacularly, especially in science and math.

You may have great teachers, supportive schools, but what you don't have is parents that want their kids challenged. Send home a problem that Johnny can't answer... well, there's a problem with the teacher. Ask a question on the exam that was not covered in class... well, the teacher must be bad.

So, even if the schools could offer the children a wonderful challenging environment, the parents would be "up in arms." They would complain their kids are not being spoon fed anymore. If the kids don't get it right away, and actually have to struggle, then it's too hard. We have to dumb-down the material so no one is left behind.

The second problem is that schools don't encourage risk taking anymore. This is driven by an irrational fear of vocal parents, who want to protect their children from ALL risks. Bring a knife to school -- get expelled. Bring a prescription drug to school -- get suspended. Act up -- get placed on Ritalin. Get one bad grade -- forget about going to Harvard.

Zero tolerance. What a moronic idea. If people are to make mistakes, is it not better for them to make them when they are growing up. When do we want them to make mistakes... when they are the President?

Between the colleges, the parents, and the schools, we have screwed a generation of kids. They have learned not to rock the boat. Like a sponge, they attempt to absorb hour after hour of monotonous drivel, repeated ad nauseam. And at the end of the semester they wring out the contents out of their brain, forgetting the useless facts that they've learned, ready to waste another semester on more useless facts.

I have seen far too many children of boomer parents come home to live with mom and dad. Not because they want to, but because they have to. They drift through life underemployed, desperately searching for some meaning in life. Rather than blame these kids, I blame the parents and the schooling system that the parents demanded.

Given these perceived problems, this is what are we attempting to achieve with our home schooling experiment. We want our daughter to grow, by taking risks. We want her to pursue ideas that she is interested in. What we would like to have, when she leaves our home, is a young woman who has a good sense of who she is, what she wants to do, and a plan on how to get there. And we want her to know it's okay if she changes her path. The point is, we want her to live her life to her fullest potential.

We feel strongly that the current schooling system wants nothing to do with our goals. It wants conformity. It wants obedience. It wants children to respond to arbitrary rewards. In short, it is perfect at creating workers for the throw away jobs that America seems to create by the thousands.

New School Year

2009-08-17T08:26:00.008-05:00

As we enter our third year of homeschooling I have come to really look forward to our late summer planning sessions. Around the middle of each August Barb and I sit down to try to figure out exactly how our homeschooling year will take shape; what it will look like and how it will be structured.

One of the things I've come to expect is that we will plan more structure than will actually happen. By nature I am a planner and an organizer. I enjoy trying to figure out optimum strategies. I also enjoy feeling like I can accurately predict the future, even if reality always proves me wrong. I'm perfectly happy with the illusion of control, even if I have to admit that it is only an illusion.

The truth is that we have a very rigorous daily schedule. In order to live comfortably we both have to work. But, in order to homeschool our children one of us has to be with our kids at all times. So far we've been able to manage it all, but not without some sacrifice. Barb gets up ungodly early and works until around 2pm. She comes home and I go off to work at one job where I am a therapist for troubled teens from 3-6pm and then to another job where I write case histories and treatment plans for a local community mental health agency. Then I come home around 9pm and we enjoy some sort of family time until we all pass out from exhaustion.

And that's the biggest sacrifice we've made in our determination to both live comfortably and homeschool: we're very tired. That's what always interrupts our careful homeschool planning. We plan for a certain level of educational structure, but we're always too tired to maintain it exactly as planned. But that doesn't really bother me anymore. I've come to terms with it because, even if we don't follow through with all my plans for a given year, I have yet to be disappointed with the progress the kids are making.

That being said, this year I've tried to find a balance with the planning. I keep trying to find the sweet spot that satisfies my need to plan and predict the future while being realistic enough to complete on a daily basis.

So, with that in mind I thought I'd outline our plans for this current homeschooling year in which Simon is entering "2nd grade" and Gwen is in her last year of preschool before "Kindergarten" (they are 7 and 4 years old respectively). This year Barb wanted to be more involved so she gets her own afternoon time slot dedicated to the subjects she excels at. Note that these formal lessons are designed for Simon. Gwen definitely likes to get involved with school time, but she does more age appropriate activities while Simon is tackling his assignments.

It looks like this:

Morning lessons with Daddy:
3 Lessons:

Spelling
English / Grammar
Writing

Afternoon lessons with Mommy:
Each day choose 2 of these 3:

Math
Science
Arts & Crafts

Bedtime lessons:
Daddy reads history stories

This may seem like a lot, but most lessons only take 10-15 minutes at most so we're talking about a half hour to 45 minutes in the morning, about the same amount of time in the afternoon and then just reading to them before bedtime. I've found that short, concise lessons each day (just long enough for a 7 year old's attention span) are perfect. Any more time than that and everyone loses patience.

I'm very pleased that Barb is taking over a big chunk of the homeschooling. Math and science are areas that she excels at (she has a graduate degree in mathematics after all) and this frees me up to focus on the areas I have the greatest passion for which are language skills, literature, history, rhetoric, etc.

It has taken a couple years of research to pick the curriculum material that works best for us in the subject areas we've chosen. Here's how it breaks down:

Spelling
Spelling Workout series. I like these books because Simon works on it autonomously with very little input from me. This frees me up to work on phonics with Gwen while Simon works on this.

English
First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind. This is part of Susan Bauer's Classical Education curriculum and was written by her mother. It contains lessons in grammar, memorizing and reciting poetry, narration, writing, etc.

Writing
This year I'm adding Susan Bauer's Writing with Ease program. I will probably stop including the writing requirements from the English lessons above and just use these instead. Her primary focus is to practice the twin arts of putting ideas into words and putting words on paper with the intent of leading a student toward a later study of rhetoric and persuasive writing in the high school years.

Math
Singapore Math. Simon is starting the level 3 books this year. We tried Saxon math a couple of years ago, but they were too expensive and just didn't work for us as well as the Singapore program does.

Science
We've have several different books for a couple of years now and haven't used them as much as we'd hoped. They are: Sandbox Scientist, Backyard Scientist, Mudpies to Magnets: A Preschool Science Curriculum and The Everything Kids Science Experiment Book. I think part of the reason these fell by the wayside is that, as I said before, my main interests are in language arts. Now that Barb is taking this over she'll probably get a lot more done than I did.

Arts & Crafts
This will be pretty ad hoc, I suppose. Whatever Barb can think of, she'll do with the kids.

History
I'm going to start with the Usborne World History Encyclopedia and then work in the Ancient History volume of Susan Bauer's classical history series for kids (aka The Story of the World, Volume 1). After that I plan to use both books together. Simon listened to the audio CD version of this book a couple of years ago, but that fell out vogue with him and I wanted to start over with both kids.

Next year I will probably add a Latin program. I'm waiting for Gwen to get just a little older so that she and Simon can learn it with me together. The same company that makes the Latin curriculum (Memoriapress.com) also makes a formal logic program that I'm considering also, but that probably won't be needed until Simon hits about 7th grade or so.)

That's about it. Hopefully we can keep up with everything, but if we have to sacrifice parts of it to maintain our sanity, so be it.

3 Months Later....

2009-08-08T18:56:00.001-05:00

...and still diaper-free. No major accidents to speak of...I just felt like posting about this...so happy to not be investing in Pampers anymore!!

Two weeks ago I was getting a bit discouraged about my found money project and then I found a $20 and the next day I found a book of unused postage stamps...so I guess now I should say I am getting really discouraged about playing the lottery ;)

Not much going on here...Hawksbill is at the retreat until tomorrow, the kids are watching Garfield videos, and I don't feel like doing anything. I wish the weekends were 5 days and the work week only 2. Oh, well...

No new pictures to post, but our cucumber and zucchini plants are quite large now. No veggies on them yet, but maybe that is because some animal (I presume) keeps eating the flowers off the end...maybe someday...

Until next time....

Bullicide?

2009-07-02T08:32:00.001-05:00

Great. Teen suicide following bullying in school is now common enough that it has its own name.

Here's another recent case.

So, This is June?

2009-06-03T20:21:00.002-05:00

I thought it was supposed to be WARM in June. Not that I am complaining about this 60-ish degree weather, but it is weird wearing a turtleneck to work on June 3rd. AND a light jacket. So very weird.

Gwen has been potty trained for 1 month now. We have had a couple accidents, and a full week of her trying to hold #2, but she got over it. It was actually a little bit amusing this week when Gwen accidentally wet her bed and claimed that she did NOT wet her bed, but was actually just very sweaty. Sure...whatever....I am just so thankful to not be buying diapers, I didn't care that it was 5 a.m. on a work day. We truly thought we would be investing in Depends this summer, so again, a little super early morning accident is nothing...I hope she can handle camping on an island with only outhouses or the great outdoors as her toilet. We shall see....

The last two months at work whipped by while we submitted grant proposal after grant proposal...now to cross our fingers and toes and get them all funded!!! (Or at least SOME of them, but I am aiming high--I want them all funded!!!)

Hawksbill starts another new job next week--so he will have 3 part-time jobs total (gotta love this recession!!) I am thankful to be working only 1 full time job right now rather than 2 or more part-time jobs, but our schedules are still kind of a pain. So, I will just say I am happy neither of us have to work on the weekends!!!

Hawksbill and I have started using our rowing machine again...I love this thing, although I am taking an unplanned day off today due to a major headache.

We planted our flower/vegetable garden in the front yard this year. I don't know how it is going to do with this weather...I do not see anything sprouting up yet after a week of sun and water, but we also live in a land filled with bunnies, so they might be eating anything that may have come up...again, we shall see. We only planted cucumbers, zuccini, and carrots (plus another attempt at sunflowers). I saw a lot of sunflower seeds dug up and split open, so I think the squirrels were eating the garden, too. Oh, well...

I would love to report something more interesting, but dull can be good, too. Until next time...I hope it warms up a little.

Disciplinary Actions

2009-05-20T09:01:00.003-05:00

CNN has run some more articles lately about goings on in schools.

This article discusses a US govt. GAO report (Government Accountability Office) which concluded that there is "widespread abuse of techniques use to restrain or discipline special-education students in U.S. schools, with some deaths linked to the practices."

Apparently it is not rare that special needs children with autism or Down syndrome are treated in ways not dissimilar to those forced upon prison inmates. One of the more common disciplinary techniques is to lock children as young as six years old in a small room completely alone for up to hours at a time.

Here's another article about these seclusion rooms (which are also, my wife tells me, called "responsibility rooms"). This article discusses the particular case of a 13 year old boy in Georgia who killed himself in one of these rooms. The teachers locked him in and gave him a rope to help keep his pants up. He used the rope to hang himself. This picture is of the door to that exact room (front and back of the door, I assume).

Thank God in Michigan, where we live, state law prohibits using these rooms for more than 15 minutes at a time and the child must be "supervised" during that time. Good thing my state is especially enlightened.

Since this has been publicized it is unlikely that this particular sort of discipline will continue to be used (at least for a while). But apparently when it was used the parents were seldom if ever notified. And, if parents did become aware of a child being forced into solitary confinement, the parents were not allowed to see these rooms if they requested to do so.

Taken from the second article, here are some examples of other specific instances of disciplinary actions used against American students:

• A Tennessee mother alleged in a federal suit against the Learn Center in Clinton that her 51-pound 9-year-old autistic son was bruised when school instructors used their body weight on his legs and torso to hold him down before putting him in a "quiet room" for four hours. Principal Gary Houck of the Learn Center, which serves disabled children, said lawyers have advised him not to discuss the case.
• Eight-year-old Isabel Loeffler, who has autism, was held down by her teachers and confined in a storage closet where she pulled out her hair and wet her pants at her Dallas County, Iowa, elementary school. Last year, a judge found that the school had violated the girl's rights. "What we're talking about is trauma," said her father, Doug Loeffler. "She spent hours in wet clothes, crying to be let out." Waukee school district attorney Matt Novak told CNN that the school has denied any wrongdoing.
• A mentally retarded 14-year-old in Killeen, Texas, died from his teachers pressing on his chest in an effort to restrain him in 2001. Texas passed a law to limit both restraint and seclusion in schools because the two methods are often used together.

This also reminds me of a case in the news a few weeks ago in which a 13 year old girl was strip searched by staff at an Arizona school because another student had ratted her out for having contraband Ibuprofen. Here's another CNN article on that case. Apparently the school staff didn't find the drugs when they searched the girl's purse and school bag so they assumed that she must have hidden it in her bra or panties. So they searched there also.

The girl was an honor student. The drug was a headache medicine. No "drugs" were found in her underwear either.

The US supreme court agreed to hear the case, but a decision has not yet been made. If history is any guide they will probably rule in the school's favor.

Over all these and other cases over the past few decades have pretty much established that students in US public schools shed their constitutional rights when they walk onto school property. Specifically, they no longer have their 1st, 4th or 8th amendment rights (to free speech, to privacy or against cruel and unusual punishment).

But, I guess we can all take comfort that these shedding of rights is done in the name of safety. After all, we can't keep kids safe unless we strip search them and lock them in "responsibility rooms" can we?

Dry Girls Get Pop

2009-05-05T19:28:00.004-05:00

Only read ahead if you REALLY care to hear the story of potty training Gwen this weekend, and if you are not easily offended by language, and sarcasm. Otherwise, skip this, and I'll post about something else another day.

I hope I am not jumping the gun here, but feeding off Hawksbill's nice comment below, GWEN IS FINALLY POTTY TRAINED!! (At least, I hope she is) Woo hoo!!!

I took Wednesday through Friday off last week and on Friday Hawksbill and Simon went off for a "boy's weekend" and Gwen and I were going to have a "girl's weekend" where my goal was to yet again, attempt to potty train her. I promised her pop. I promised her that stinking doll my sister bought last August that has been collecting dust until she just peed on the stupid toilet one freaking time (JUST ONCE!!!) Finally, I bought another book (Toilet Training in Less than a Day by Nathan H. Azrin and Richard M. Foxx) a DVD (which I forgot about and is still shrink wrapped), a potty chair that you can remove the seat from the top rather than the bottom, and a doll that wets herself.

Yes, I read another stinking book on how to get my kid to do something she would eventually do, but I couldn't stand waiting any longer since she is now 4 years and 3 months old and size 6 diapers weren't cutting it anymore. This book "claimed" to have an average child trained in 3-4 hours...HOURS??? Ha ha ha....yes, right....hah ahahahahahhhahahahhahhahahha...but so goes it.

Friday we said we were going to teach the doll to pee on the potty because she was a big girl now and big girls stay dry. Well, step one, I SHOULD have tested the damn doll before I used it--I assumed a doll that wet itself had a little compartment to hold the water before it came spewing out the bottom, but no...the instant water hit "Melissa's" lips, water came out the other end...not exactly the effect I wanted, but we put the doll on the froggy potty chair (yes, I wasted another $10 on yet ANOTHER potty chair--1 of 5 now) and showed Melissa how to go. I explained to Gwen that she had to wear underwear now (am I the only person on the planet who hates the word "panties"?) and she had to stay dry....this all the while stuffing her with Pringles, candy, pop, juice boxes, and any other unhealthy thing I could manage to stuff in her that day. If I never see another Nestle crunch bar, it will be too soon.

Friday went ok....Gwen had 3 accidents, never went on the potty, but managed, at one point, to hold it for about 7.5 hours. I never asked her if she had to go potty, just asked her if she was dry, because dry girls get pop and candy...so, she was willing to hold it as long as possible for these rewards...not for peeing, but for staying DRY.

Saturday was interesting...she immediately put on underwear in the morning, and sometime around 3 pm, demanded I put her in a diaper because she didn't want to pee on the floor...so, in my gentle motherly way, dragged her butt kicking and screaming to the bathroom and told her (very sweetly--no seriously, I was speaking very softly whilst I dragged the devil child to her the place of her own personal hell) she couldn't leave the bathroom until she peed on the potty (please note this part deviates from the book). She cried, screamed, punched me, scratched me, I waited for CPS to show up, and I held that naked butt over the toilet and smiled a huge crazy grin and said how proud I was that today she was going to be a big girl and I just knew she could do this.

After a 45 minute tantrum, it finally happened...she couldn't hold it any longer, and whoosh...her first time peeing on the potty in about 9 months...

I jumped up and down, shouted, smiled, told her how proud I was, called Daddy, called Grandpa, called Auntie, told the neighbors, gave her the new doll from Auntie K (that has been waiting for her) and then continued to praise her for staying DRY.

So, the rest of the day, she told me when she had to go, and just did it by herself. This made me suspicious, but we went with it. I had just about enough cupcakes to kill a small horse, but anything she want, she got because she stayed dry. The only thing I would ask her from time to time was, "Are you dry?" and "If you have to pee, what do you do?" to which she would tell me, "Pee on the potty!!!"

Saturday night I was a little too optimistic and let her wear underwear to bed and sleep in MY bed (whoops--hey, it was my side, not Hawksbill's) so I put the diapers on that night and the next day, she threw out her diaper, put on a new pair of underwear, and would do everything herself...except #2 which she had been holding for 2 days now....

I will admit, I deviated from the book again around 9 pm Sunday night when I KNEW she had to do #2, and held her butt over the toilet for about 2.5 hours this time, but by 11:30 pm, we were tired and gave up....but...miracles do happen, and on Monday, after I got home from work, she let us know she had to do #2, went by herself...and that was that...

Gwen was home with Daddy Monday and Tuesday during the day, and took care of business herself all day long. She did have one accident this evening, but to be fair, she was outside, splashing in water in her bathing suit, knew she had to go, but just couldn't make it...but after she dried off and came back inside, she continued to do everything on her own, and let us know she was still dry.

So, I am sick of potato chips, juice boxes, cupcakes, twizzlers, you name it, if it is junk food, I don't want to see it. Gwen is wearing underwear now AND sitting on the couch without a towel under her or anything. I think she has finally got it. That diaper genie is TRASH.

This whole potty training ordeal has been especially stressful because of all the advice that EVERYONE seemed obligated to give us to tell us why we were doing it wrong.

So, let me end this with the only piece of parental advice I am willing to spew out to anyone anymore. Don't listen to anyone's unsolicited parental advice on ANYTHING. Just go with your freaking instincts. If you want to buy the wet wipe warmer, have at it. If you don't want to buy a diaper genie, don't buy one. If you want to feed your kid formula instead of breast milk--guess what, they won't die!!! If you think training girls are easier than training boys, you had a girl who happened to be easy to train. If you want to have 27 kids, have 27 kids. If you want to name your son "Qn8" (Pronounced, "Nate" the "Q" is silent)--have at it. If you only want your child to wear purple with yellow polka dots--What the f*ck ever.

Seriously. Everything everyone will tell you will either help or not help, so just do what works for you and screw everyone and everything else. If it works for you, don't doubt yourself...just DO IT and say to those with the unsolicited advice, "Thanks for the great advice! I'll have to try that!" while inside you are really rolling your eyes and thinking, "F*CK YOU and your stupid f*cking 'advice'!!!!"

The End.

:) Barbnocity

PS--Oh, did I mention Gwen just peed on the freaking potty again? Thank the Lord!!!

Best. Wife. Ever.

2009-05-03T20:48:00.002-05:00

I don't want to steal Barb's thunder. I'm sure she'll post on this topic soon on her own, but she's being super mom this weekend and I just want her to know I think she's amazing!

You rock, Baby. I love you like the wind!

Bullied boy commits suicide

2009-04-25T10:40:00.008-05:00

Here's an article CNN put out this week about an 11 year old Georgia boy who committed suicide because he was being bullied at school. Very troubling. The boy was originally from the Virgin Islands and other school children were using that fact to taunt him with sexually related language. The article also alludes to a similar case only a month ago in Massachusetts where a boy killed himself after being harassed in school and being called "gay".

The boy in the story had complained about the situation to his mother, who in turn complained about the situation to the school. And what did the school do? They hired a "specially trained liaison" and asked students to sign a "no-bullying pledge".

A "no-bullying pledge???" That's just about one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of. It is as if the school is saying: "Well, the kids signed a contract vowing not to bully. I don't see how they can possibly bully after signed a contract like that. What else can we do?"

So, after a long time of this the boy concluded that nobody could or would help him. One day he came home from school happier than normal and went up to his room where he hung himself. I've heard of that before. That depressed people, once they actually decide to kill themselves, will appear happy and content just before doing so. I've never heard of that happening with children, though. In the end the boy must have decided that he had no other choice.

On warm days I take the kids to the park. We do this all summer long. You know what we see? All around us are parents and kids. The kids are playing. The parents are either playing with the kids, standing around talking with each other or reading magazines or whatnot. But, each parent is always keeping one eye on their child. When we see a child misbehaving we jump in, reprimand them, correct the behavior and then send them back into the social fray to try again. Then we keep doing that until the situation is resolved. If it doesn't get resolved we take our kid home and get them out of there.

I've even had other parents come to me and say: "sorry to bother you, but your kid is playing a bit rough." Then I thank them for letting me know and I go correct the problem. Yesterday I did the same thing when another little boy was playing too rough with Simon.

The other day at the mall a boy was playing to rough with Gwen and she complained to me. I didn't know who's kid it was so I just said loudly: "Gwen if that boy in the yellow shirt is being mean you should just stay away from him." 3 seconds later another dad ran over to have a serious talk with his son.

The point is, none of us are holding "sensitivity training" or asking our kids to sign a "pledge" not to behave poorly. What we're doing is monitoring our children's behavior. When they misbehave we jump in to reprimand and correct the behavior before things get out of hand and remove them if it does.

It seems to me that schools are unable to do this. In schools it is nobody's job to teach children how to behave in social situations. Perhaps this is because, in schools, students so outnumber teachers and other staff that it is impossible to provide the kind of one on one attention I described above.

In any case, students are largely left on their own to create their own social dynamics with their own rules and their own power struggles. And, if social problems arise, kids learn that adults are powerless to help them. Adults are not part of the reality of a student's social life. Instead they are observers who stand outside the social arena, ignorant of its dynamics and impotent to affect it.

Think of it like this: if you had a puppy you wanted to train to be a mature, gentle, responsible adult dog, the last thing you would do is to lock it in a room with other untrained puppies. In that situation you would never expect the puppy to learn the skills you wanted it to learn. And, if the puppy left the room and had bite marks all over it, what would you do? Wring your hangs and ask why these puppies can't learn to get along better?

But, that's essentially what we do with kids in school. We expect other immature kids to teach our kid "socialization." After all, who in a public school is responsible for the social maturity of your child? Nobody. There is no adult in any school who is responsible for the mature social growth of children. And yet we expect them to become "socialized" by sending them to school.

And then, when schools do not do this properly and also fail to properly educate the children, some even suggest sending children to schools for longer each day, more days per week and more weeks per year. The end result is that children spend less and less time with those who are responsible for their social development (their family) and more time with their peers until the peer group replaces the family as the group the student really identifies as "belonging" to.

The only solution I can think of to solve problems like this is to have much smaller schools, with much greater teacher to student ratios. And, it would seem like a good idea to have a bunch of volunteer parents stationed around the cafeteria and playground to monitor and correct social problems as they arise. But, realistically, this is very unlikely. Such changes would be both prohibitively expensive and would take parents away from work.

But, if the best you can think of is to hire a "liaison" or have the kids sign an anti-bullying "pledge", then all you're really doing is reinforcing the lesson that these kids are learning while being bulled: that adults are incapable of helping them when they are in trouble, and if they are unable to solve the problem themselves then they are totally screwed.

In fact, if your school's plan to battle bullying is similar to that described above (sensitivity training and written contracts), isn't that really a sign that the schools are just covering their own asses and they really have no idea how to solve the problem? And if that's the case, then it is true that children really do have no one to turn to if they are being terrorized by other children in school.

In this environment suicide, while horribly tragic, seems almost rational.

A night at the park with our new telescope

2009-04-18T15:37:00.001-05:00

Slowly but surely my telescope kit is taking shape. Last night we walked to a local park to do some star gazing and took the whole thing along in a wagon. Here's what it looks like all packed up.

I bought the case a month or so ago. It was designed for Orion's 110ED scope, but it turns out that my 120ST fits in it quite nicely.
Here's a closeup of the case innards. It has slots for the diagonal, two 2" eyepieces and three 1.25" eyepieces.
And here's what it looks like fully assembled.
The wooden legs are also fairly new. It is an Oberwerk surveyor tripod that I found on sale for 50% off. The legs are longer and more stable than the stock aluminum legs that come with the Voyager mount. I played around with the height for a while before settling on where it is. I raised the legs about 4 inches which allows me to see almost the whole sky from a seated position. Objects too near the horizon still require a standing position, but for the most part I can sit leisurely while stargazing. The only drawback is that I have to squat down close to the ground in order to find objects with the EZFinder.

The park last night was a bit disappointing, though. We set up the scope near second base on one of the local ball fields. This gave us a nice wide swath of sky to view and we got to look at Saturn again. However, there were people playing tennis nearby and the court flood lights were so bright I could read by them a couple of hundred yards away. Very annoying. It turns out that my backyard it a better viewing spot due to the lack of gigantic stadium sized flood lights.

Oh well. We're starting to plan our summer vacations which will be at various dark sky spots around northern Michigan and away from big city lights. I can't wait to see some really wide field views of the summer Milky Way from a very dark site. I'm getting very excited about it. I'm hoping to see some galaxies, which are very elusive in the light polluted skies of Detroit.

School: 7 days a week, 11 months a year!

2009-04-09T09:22:00.004-05:00

Here's an article from Denver's Channel 9 news team.

On a recent visit to area schools US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced his plan to improve national education: by lengthening the school day, the school week and the school year. Duncan says he thinks "schools should be open six, seven days a week; 11, 12 months a year."

Personally, I think it's laughable to assume that kids will suddenly to better in school if you just make them endure more of it. One of the things that we've discovered here in our home school is that teaching the kids does not take that much time. We deal with each subject in our daily lessons for about 15 minutes at a time, which is enough time (at their current ages) for the subject to be interesting without becoming boring or too frustrating. We spend less than an hour a day on formal "lessons". This is our 3rd year of doing it this way with Simon and he is at least a year ahead in math, spelling, reading, etc.

Duncan does have an idea I do find laudable, though. In the article he calls for more "autonomous" schools. He doesn't describe exactly what this means, but it fits in with changes I have in mind for public education.

In short, I would be very much in favor of eliminating large administrative boards of education. Instead I would have each individual school run by a board composed of parents and teachers who would have autonomous authority to choose curriculum and establish school policy and spend their own budget. This would give teachers and parents, rather than state and national administrators, considerably more influence and control over the schools in their neighborhoods. Along with this, of course, I would prefer that schools were much smaller with considerably smaller class sizes.

I think it is a big mistake to have schools run by gigantic state bureaucracies and a national department of education that sets rigid curricula for all children everywhere and which, by nature of the size of the bureaucracy, is highly resistant to change and flexibility.

So, I like the idea of "autonomous" schools, but I think the all day, all week, all year school idea really sucks.

New Haircut

2009-03-30T15:26:00.004-05:00

Hawksbill said it was time to update the blog, and what could be better than a tale from the kiddos this weekend.

I am home sick today fighting some bug I have had for almost 3 weeks now, and Simon has it, too. Friday I was totally miserable, and my mom-radar did not kick in properly when Simon came downstairs to say, "Gwen and I need some privacy."

"Why?" I asked, too sick to budge from the couch.
"Just 'cause," answered Simon.
"Are you doing anything bad? Are you making a mess?"
"No!" Simon answered, and although I could tell he was lying, I was still too tired and sick to get up from the couch...until Super Model Gwen came down to show off her brand new haircut...

Here are some before and after shots...and some pics of what it looks like after a trip to Borics to see if there was anything they could do to fix it...sigh...

The evidence

What Gwen looked like a week ago

The new haircut, a la Simon (ok--Gwen actually cut her own hair here, but Simon stood watch so I wouldn't catch them in the act)

She's so proud!!

The mullet....

Trying to avoid the camera, but look how long it WAS -- almost down the middle of her back :(

Here is what the outcome was after the trip to get it fixed...Gwen loves it...she said she looks just like Simon now...it's just hair...it will grow back....at least it is easier to brush.`

Winter Break

2009-03-11T14:13:00.004-05:00

Since Simon's right arm has been broken for the past 3 weeks we've put a hold on school lessons. We're calling it a month long Winter Break. No math, no spelling, no handwriting. Aside from the broken arm thing it's been a pleasant reprieve for all of us.

The kids have still been doing a lot of things. At Simon's suggestion I made up several signs that said: "What shall we do today? Games? Activities? Music? Stories?"

Then, when they get bored we go to the sign and pick one. We went to Target and bought a bunch of games like Bingo, Operation, Let's Go Fishing and a Curious George dice tower game the kids like. Out of all of these the favorite is Bingo, for some reason. They really like spinning the hopper and watching the ball fall out.

Gwen's also been doing a ton of coloring and drawing. We've given her free access to the printer paper and she goes through about 20 pages a day of just drawing pictures. She's also taken up playing with the word processor. It turns out she really likes typing the words she's been learning how to spell. So far it's just "Mommy" "Daddy" "Simon" "Gwen" "Cat" and "Dog", but it's a start.

While he's waiting to get out of his cast Simon has been playing with a lot of Legos. Here's some pictures of the new set he bought with his allowance today. He no longer wants or needs my help putting legos together. Kind of a bummer for me, but I like watching him be so absorbed.

Not much else to report. Next Monday he gets his cast off and we'll start back with our formal lessons on Tuesday.

First week of non-potty training....

2009-03-03T19:40:00.002-05:00

So we have completed one week of non-potty training. No bringing up the bathroom, the toilet, peeing or pooping, nothing. Hawksbill did invest in some cheap diapers in the hopes that Gwen would be uncomfortable and want to use the bathroom, but no...she is fine soaking through to her pants...whatever.

At the beginning of last week, when we started this, Gwen mentioned the potty a couple of times, in terms such as, "If I pee on the potty, I'll start to get my allowance again, right?" To which all we replied was, "yes" and that was that. No other interest in taking control over this bodily function...

So, we are no closer than we were a week ago, however, there is no crying, screaming, fighting, arguing, begging, pleading regarding the bathroom. I like that part, at least. And the next parent who tells me she is too old to be in diapers...again, I offer you $200 cash...show me the way!!!

Not much else is going on that is fun to report. We are all just chugging along. So tired, but what else is new. :)

Happy Birthday, Simon!!!

2009-02-15T20:02:00.003-05:00

Simon is 7 years old today!! Just a lazy family weekend watching videos, bad tv, and eating cake and ice cream! Simon opened his presents today and received more legos (shocking!), a transformer toy, some videos and a video game, some books...

I have to post pictures again sometime soon, but JD's broken arm post summed it up with how the kids look right now :) Gwen's hair has been brushed, however....so she doesn't look quite so feral.

On an unrelated note. No.Gwen.Is.NOT.Potty.Trained.Yet. I offer $200 cash to the first person who can train her -- even if it takes 6 more months. I can't take this anymore. I have yet to hear an idea that we haven't tried yet (except paper training her like a dog or duct taping her to the toilet...I just can't bring myself to do that.) Yes, we have bribed, threatened, taken things away, tried to reason with her,tried being stern with her, tried putting her hand in warm water as she sat there, stickers, charts, potty boot camp, treats (m&m's, twizzlers, pop, etc), money for her bank, take away her allowance, potty videos, potty books, take treats away, beg, pleaded, cried, picked out cool undies, had her wear undies and pee in them, have her wear undies under diapers and let her pee in them, keep her in wet undies, make her wear wet pants, pullups, let her run around with a n*ked butt, blah blah blah blah blah....I give up...seriously...if you have an idea that does not involve duct tape or beating the child, I am all ears. Somebody call Nanny 911--I don't even care if she calls me a bad parent--if SHE can potty train Gwen, I'll take all the verbal abuse that she can throw my way...and I don't even watch that bloody show.

The Boy Got Broke

2009-02-13T14:52:00.010-05:00

Well, after many years of jumping, bouncing and leaping through the air, Simon finally broke his arm. It happened like this:

We have a large dog crate in our basement, which we use periodically to keep Liesl (a Husky mix) in when we have big parties. The crate is about 3 feet tall. A few weeks ago I brought it upstairs for the kids to use as a fort. They love it. We also have some large rubber balls the kids love to play with. The balls are about 1.5 feet in diameter.

Well, the other night we were watching The Simpsons and I was researching telescope eyepieces online. Barb was upstairs. When I wasn't looking Simon apparently took one of the big rubber balls, put it on top of the dog crate and started bouncing on it. I didn't see it happen, but I very definitely heard a "CRASH" followed by a prolonged "SCREAM".

In and of itself this is not unusual. As I mentioned, Simon is a natural born jumping, leaping, bouncing machine. He is always banging himself up and he often screams like crazy when he does it. What was unusual is how long he screamed and how long it seems to hurt him. He usually forgets about a minor injury after about 3 minutes. Not so this time. He was still crying and moaning after 15 minutes so we figured something was really wrong.

So, I took him to the ER. Fortunately, we were their only customers that night and they got us in and out pretty quickly. Well, we were there for about an hour and a half, but it felt pretty quick to us. I had the forthought to bring along some of Simon's Garfield books so we spent the time reading those to each other. It took that long to get the X-Rays read and to find out that he really did break it, but after that we got to come home. It was after midnight at this point, but we were both wide awake so I got us some McDonald's fries and we came home to watch some Star Trek before heading off to bed.

They did give us a CD with his X-Rays on it, though, so we could bring it to his doctor. Of course we made copies of our own. Here they are:

As you can see, it isn't the most serious break in the world. But it was apparently quite painful.

Here's a picture of Simon and Gwen today:
Broken Boy and Princess Girl!

Hmm, between her messed up hair and the crazed look on her face, Gwen looks more like "Feral Princess Girl". (Actually, Gwen's personality seems perfectly consistent with the image of a cheerleader raised by wolves, but that's another story. :)

So, because he busted up his writing arm we've declared an early "Spring Break" here at Shady Tree Academy. No more lessons for a couple of weeks. At least the boy isn't hampered from reading his Garfield books. He's totally obsessed lately. He stays up hours later than everyone else just reading Garfield. I wonder where he gets that from?

Oh, and I moved the dog crate back down in the basement. I know he'll find other things to bounce on and leap from, but at least I'll get rid of the obvious candidates.

Math Lessons

2009-02-09T11:26:00.003-05:00

Simon has been getting a bit tired of doing his math lessons lately so I've been looking for other alternatives.

Yesterday we were playing with Cuisenaire rods. Just playing around. He took it on himself to figure out the total length in centimeters of all of our rods. So, without my input he counted up all the 1cm rods and multiplied by 1. Then he counted up all the 2cm rods and multiplied by 2. This went on for all 10 different lengths and colors of the rods, until he was multiplying the size 10 rods by 10. Each time he did this I wrote down the answer. When he was done I gave him the 10 numbers I'd written down and he added them all up. The answer: 577cm in Cuisenaire rods.

We didn't discuss it ahead of time, but after that I told him he could skip his math lessons for the day.

This morning he said he wanted me to find multiplication problems on the computer. After a bit of searching I found this cool multiplication problem generator. I printed a page out for him and he's working on it now, as happy as can be. These are the same sorts of problems as in his regular Singapore Math workbook, but somehow this is different and more entertaining. Besides, he loves multiplication and hates subtraction. This way he gets to pick the kind of math he does.

In truth I like the Singapore math workbooks because they methodically take him through the steps to learning increasing levels of difficulty. But, I also like the unschooling approach now and again. I can't really argue if he wants to find new, fun ways to do math. But, since he's almost done with the 2nd grade Singapore math book anyway, it's probably time to find other things to do.

Telescopery

2009-01-28T11:42:00.005-05:00

After months of research and saving up money I finally broke down and bought us a new telescope. Here are some pictures with Gwen, who was kind enough to play spokes model for me.

The telescope is an Orion 120ST mounted on an Astro-Tech Voyager Alt-Az mount/tripod. I chose this scope for its portability and versatility.

Anyone who is interested in all the details can read my summary of everything I've learned about telescopes and astronomy over on my new, re-branded, hobby blog: Hawksbill's Hobbies. I've decided to use that space for all my ranting about astronomy, board games, miniature painting, etc. and reserve this blog for discussions about the family and homeschooling and whatnot.

Happy 4th Birthday, Gwen

2009-01-25T13:31:00.001-05:00

Gwen is 4 today!! Woo hoo!!! She just opened her presents and now we are eating cake. Very exciting :)

Happy Birthday my sweet sweet girl!!!

XOXOXOXOXO Mama

Jedi Training

2009-01-11T18:52:00.006-05:00

We went to Greenfield Village yesterday--braving the nice winter storm we had...but as soon as we found out that they would be having "Intergalactic Saturday" where you are supposed to dress up as your favorite Star Wars character, well, we just HAD to go. They had Jedi Training, lots of different types of storm troopers (don't ask me which is which--Simon knows them all--ask him.)

It was a pretty fun day hanging out with a couple of my siblings, their spouses, and our kids (except Hawksbill had to work yesterday). Simon was the only one in our group who dressed up (he's Han Solo, if you couldn't tell what his costume was). Gwen's Princess Leia costume from 2 Halloweens ago was not big enough (I couldn't find the hair anyway) so she went in her regular street clothes.

I would write more, but it was just a long day of standing in line to have the kids pictures taken with various Star Wars characters. I thought it would be more of a "geek fest" with grown ups all dressed up, but for the most part it was just younger children in Halloween costumes. We had a lot of fun, long lines and all. I would definitely do this again--but next time I will remember to have MY photo taken with Darth Vader. I can't believe I forgot to do that!!! Here is a small sampling of the photos we took yesterday...

R2D2 is THE coolest...

Simon taken prisoner...

Hanging out with the dark side...

Storm troopers just keep getting younger and younger...

Hanging out with the bad guys again...

Simon hanging out with the good guys...this is "Obi Quiett" Hey, I didn't make it up so don't groan at me!

Kids say the darnedest things!

2009-01-03T21:40:00.004-05:00

The kids and I went up to my parents' house today, as Hawksbill was hanging out with a friend. We saw the movie, Bolt, went out to dinner, nothing out of the ordinary.

My sister and her children came over, too, so Gwen and cousin S decided to draw some pictures for Grandma to put on her fridge. Gwen proudly presented her 3 pictures to Grandma, and when she was asked what she drew, she responded, "This picture is a bunny. This picture is a kitty. Oh, and this picture is the bloody head fairy!"

Ah, yes...my darling Gwen :) I am just glad Grandma didn't bust out the holy water.

Until next time...thanks, Ren and Stimpy.

Happy New Year!!

2009-01-02T10:47:00.002-05:00

Hi, all and Happy 2009!!

Just a quick post to wish all a Happy New Year and wish the best for everyone this year!

I also need to reset our "found money" counter. Last year we found $44.46 US, $4.20 CAD, $0.10 EUR and $0.10 KYD. A much better year than the previous when we only found $9.11 total -- but we didn't start until March of 2007 for that project. I also never separated the US dollars from Canadian. Most of our found money that we found was in coin form, however we did find 1-$5 bill and 1-$1 bill. I also found 1/2 of a $1 bill, but I didn't count it since what do you do with a dollar ripped in half??

This year I am resetting our counter, but since we found $0.11 at Denny's yesterday, we start above $0.00 already!! Woo hoo!! We shall see if we can beat last year's record. We have yet to beat Hawksbill's record of $50, but no fair since he found a $50 bill on the floor of a bar!! OK--so it counts...but this year, we will beat that record-I know we will!!

As a reminder of our "found money" rules: 1) You cannot keep money that you physically see someone drop--you have to give it back (my kids don't like that rule). 2) Money found in your own car, your own house, or in your own couch cushions does not count. 3) Money found someone else's house, car, etc. also doesn't count because you know it belongs to whoever owns that house, car, etc. Finally, 4) you are not required to pick up money that you find in gross places (public bathrooms, in puddles of gross mud or oil, money that generally looks disgusting for some reason or another.) At the end of the year, you can do whatever you want with your found money--invest it, spend it, donate it to your favorite charity...it is all up to you.

Have a wonderful New Year everyone!!!

The Dream is Always the Same

2008-12-24T13:23:00.004-05:00

I have this recurring dream. I've been having it since my late teens or early twenties. I don't have it often, maybe once a year or every other year. And it isn't like what I normally think of as a recurring dream. That is, it isn't the same every time. Instead, it is progressive. I'll explain.

When I first had the dream, maybe 20 years ago, it went like this: I was on the top of a tall building, very high up, and I was standing on the edge holding 2 clip boards. It was scary. It was maybe 15 or 20 stories tall in the downtown area of a city I didn't recognize. I could see people and cars far below. Then a violent gust of wind came up and knocked me off the edge and I plummeted towards the grown below. I could feel that queasy falling feeling in the pit of my stomach as the ground rushed up to meet me.

Then, and I can't explain why I did this, I put a clip board in each hand and held them parallel to the ground in a desperate attempt to slow my fall. And it worked. I could feel the pressure of the air against the clip boards as they pushed my arms up. The more I pushed down against the air, the slower I fell until I crashed landed on the ground below me. I had slowed down enough to land safely, if not still violently. Then I woke up. It was a very vivid dream and I could remember every detail and every physical sensation of falling and landing. It stayed with me all day.

A year or so later I had the same dream. Same rooftop, same vividly experienced height. Same clip boards. But this time I remembered my previous dream and instead of waiting for the gust of wind to blow me off the edge, I grasped the clipboards firmly in each hand and jumped. This time I glided in a gentle spiral down to the ground and landed much more gently than the last time. Then I woke up with the same vivid memory of each visual and physical detail that stayed with me all day.

After that I kept having the dream every year or two. Every time it was a lucid dream, meaning I knew I was dreaming and could consciously act within the dream. The specifics would change, though. Instead of spiraling down to the ground I learned to control my glide so that I could travel a distance. After 8 or 10 years of this I finally learned that I didn't need the clipboards any more. I could support myself in the air merely by spreading my hands out and using them to grab the air currents. Every time I had the dream I got better and better at it. I learned to soar and it was exhilarating. I would find myself in the dream and look for a big building I could leap off of and take an elevator to the top. Then I'd spend the dream catching the updrafts and swerving in and out of buildings until I glided to the ground.

Two nights ago I had the dream again. It has been a number of years since the last one. Like usual, I greeted it like an old friend. I was standing on the top of a big parking structure in a remote area. As soon as I realized it was the dream I sprinted towards the edge of the roof and, without looking beforehand or caring what was below me I launched myself into the air and glided around until I hit the ground running. Then I sprinted back to the parking structure, up the stairs and did it all over again. I must have done that a dozen times before I finally woke up.

I don't know what there is about my psyche that prompts these dreams, but I love them. I love that each one is different and that I get better and better at flying each time. I love that I feel like I can look forward to them year after year. If not like clockwork then at least in a predictable sequence. I'm looking forward to the time in the dream when I can fly up from the ground instead of just gliding down from high up.

I figure if I have around 40 more years to live, that should be around 20-25 more dreams, if they keep happening. Maybe by the end I can achieve orbit.

Homeschool Article

2008-12-21T23:08:00.002-05:00

Here's an article about how homeschooling is becoming more mainstream.

Feeling Thankful

2008-12-21T11:04:00.003-05:00

Happy Holidays everyone! Just a quick note to say I am thankful for this year. I know it isn't quite over yet, but it has been a good year for our family, and we are all pretty darn happy.

Hawksbill graduated from U of M with his MSW, I found a new half-time job that is turning out to be pretty fun, and Hawksbill will be starting another part-time job on Monday through one of his other part-time jobs. So between the two of us, we technically have 5 part-time jobs, but you gotta do what you gotta do in these times. It is nice to know between the two of us, we have enough skills to take on a variety of jobs, and we know if we have to, we will do anything to take care of our family.

We are thankful for our friends, old and new, and hope the season is treating them well. I had a wonderful birthday last week, and happy to report I will be a perfect square for this whole next year. Simon and Gwen are "growing like weeds" and have been having fun in our little homeschool.

If anyone is keeping track (and thanks for all of my grown-up friends last night for listening to my potty training woes) but for the record, Gwen is no closer to being potty trained than the day she was born. Yes, I know she will be 4 years old next month, but she promised when she turned 4, she will start going on the potty. I have to say, if this is my biggest worry or complaint in my life, then life is pretty good.

My family is healthy, we have a wedding to look forward to next year, we are plugging along and enjoying our lives. I just wanted to say thank you to all of our friends, and we are looking forward to seeing more of you over the holidays, and wish you all the very best!!

I also wanted to say Happy Holidays to the entire city of Detroit--it has been a crazy year, but I hope the new year will bring new prosperity to the city. I love Detroit and have worked there for more than 10 years now, and hope that others would come and visit the downtown and new center areas and see what the city has to offer.

Happy Holidays and Keep WARM!!!!

Happy 50th Anniversary

2008-12-01T20:44:00.006-05:00

Thursday, November 27, 2008 was my parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary. In true Catholic fashion, they had 8 children. In fact, we like to say, "Our parents are so Catholic, their names are 'Mary and Joseph'". Um....Actually, that isn't a joke...those are their real names.....all of us kiddos are named after saints, of course.

Some fun facts on my family (since I like numbers)....since my mom had 8 children, that means she was pregnant for 72 months, or 6 years of her life. There are 5 boys and 3 girls in my family --all 5 boys came first, followed by the 3 girls (I was the 7th child born). My oldest sister turned 40, 2 days before my parents' anniversary which means they had 6 of their 8 children before their 10th anniversary. In fact, my mom had 5 boys before she was 30. I have a new appreciation for her having so many kids after watching 5 children last weekend as a present for my sister's birthday. {{Shudder}}

My 3rd brother was born in a hospital which is now a jail (so he likes to say he was born in jail). My older sister was an "accidental" home birth (and the only home birth). It just happened that way. My mom was also pretty shocked to have a girl...she figured after 5 boys that was all she was having....

My dad was born in '36 and turned 72 this year. I was born in '72, so I will be turning 36 before the end of the month. Also, my dad and I were both born the year of the Rat. I am sure plenty will say that is appropriate for both of us....My mom was born on the exact date that Amelia Earhart went missing. I'll make you look that date up. :)

My parents were actually married on Thanksgiving Day in 1958, and their 50th anniversary was also Thanksgiving Day, 2008. (Yes, they served turkey at their wedding--we had our party this year on Saturday so we opted to not have turkey that day).

At my parents' 25th wedding anniversary, my oldest sibling, J, announced his engagement to T and they will be celebrating their 25th anniversary next September. At my parents' 50th anniversary last week, my youngest sibling, K, announced her engagement to M. They will be married next September (actual date pending--but should be close to exactly 25 years after my oldest sibling was married).

All of my siblings still live in the metro Detroit area, which is a pretty amazing feat considering the economy around here. 4 of my brothers work for the auto industry (one for Ford, one for GM, one for Chrysler and one for Delphi). Keep your fingers crossed for all of them (and the rest of us working in this area!!!) My dad worked for Ford Tractor for his entire career before taking early retirement in 1987.

I am sure I could come up with a lot more, but I don't know who (besides me) would be interested...so Happy Golden Anniversary, Mom and Dad!!!

You know you eat too often at the drive-thru...

2008-11-23T21:15:00.001-05:00

...when the cashier asks you to tell your husband that they changed their sizes on curly fries, so he should order the child's size now instead of small the next time he brings the kids through.

Queen of the Jungle

2008-11-16T17:26:00.003-05:00

I finally finished the Jungle Queen mini I've been working on all summer. Here's the final result:

I decided to keep the base minimalistic and not decorate with fake earth or shrubbery. I like the simplistic feel of it. I also experimented with a new way to hold the mini down on the wood. I used a combination of putty and rubber cement.

If anyone's interested in more details of the painting process I kept track of it over on my painting blog over here.

Hawksbill's Art Projects

2008-11-11T07:57:00.005-05:00

Here's the latest on my art projects. The final versions of my dice towers, based on my own design using PowerPoint:
If anyone would like to make their own towers using my design, just let me know and I'll send you the PowerPoint file.

And the final version of my latest mini, the Queen of the Jungle:

This figure also came with a leopard that I have to paint, but it is still sitting on my shelf.

Halloween cop-out and other ramblings

2008-10-27T15:53:00.003-05:00

OK--so we had great plans to make the Saturn costume with Simon, but high levels of exhaustion from trying to find a darn balloon or ball large enough, to the fact that Halloween is FRIDAY led us to talk Simon into just being a power ranger (especially since he already bought the costume a month ago). This reminds me of last year when all 4 of us were going to be Star Wars characters, but lack of funding resulted in only Simon and Gwen having costumes...ah, someday I will buy a sewing machine and start making things--one of these days.

I wish I could get a good routine or rhythm going this semester. I feel like I am trying too hard to do too much all the time, hence, I completely crash on Sundays...to the point where I am so exhausted I feel like I have the flu and could sleep 24 hours straight until work starts again on Monday.

Hawksbill's and my schedule doesn't help. I work from about 7:30 am - 3:30 pm, come home and he walks out the door to return anywhere from 8-10:30 pm. Somewhere in there one or both of us works with Simon with his studies (well, mostly we just tell him he has to do one of his lessons and he does it himself and shows us when he is finished) but still...or I feel obligated to take the kids somewhere to make sure we are getting out of the house before the snow comes. We might just drive to the mall, drive around to look at the leaves, or all the way up to my parents' house, but just SOMETHING so we are not watching tv while I am half-passed out from exhaustion on the couch.

Take tonight...I really wanted to go out to buy things for our Halloween potluck at work tomorrow, but instead I am sitting here typing a blog entry trying to think of the least expensive place I can pick up something pre-made so I don't have to think about it anymore. So much for cooking from scratch!!! Ha!

My found money project seems to taken a huge backseat lately....I am hardly trying to find money...I think I still pick up a penny or two a day, but my penny walks are over since I can't find a way to leave my office to take a break for 15 minutes.

We have been having fun collecting free things, lately. I would not normally call myself a packrat, but I can't seem to turn down free stuff lately, no matter how weird or useless if might seem. I am not too proud to drive through the neighborhood on garbage day (hey-admit it, you have seen good *trash* and picked it up, too) like when someone throws out a perfectly good Step-2 slide or toy that just needs a good washing rather than paying $50 at the store for it--it also helps that my neighbors seem to have good trash :) I have been rummaging through my dad's garage, too, taking whatever we can just because...my dad said a few more trips to his house we'll have cleaned him out. But he is the ultimate Sears shopper--always buying everything off the clearance racks or shelves, so I found a battery powered radio, camping stove with propane canisters, decent pencil sharpener, used binders, and the list goes on and on. He also has this weird habit of buying lots of toothpaste he will never use "because it only cost a penny after all the coupons" so I don't think I have actually purchased a tube of toothpaste in over a year now. Why not? It never hurts to have extra things on hand for an emergency and if it is free--even better :)

This weekend I babysat my sister's three children along with Simon and Gwen at her house overnight. The funny part of the night was when her next door neighbor was looking at my minivan asking if it had a DVD system. I told him we didn't have one, and our CD player broke over a year ago when Gwen stuck a dime in it. Well, wouldn't you know, my sister's neighbor is an electrical engineer who installs DVD and radio systems for my make of car, and he just happens to have a replacement radio in his garage that he swapped out for my broken player for free--how nice is that?

I don't really know what the point of this blog entry is right now except to say, as exhausted as we all are right now, I am happy to report we are happy and getting by each day. I love my family and I am thankful for my husband, children, friends, family and everything. I feel very fortunate that we are all healthy, are still working, and are meeting new and interesting people every day. I am happy about the choices we have made, and am looking forward to the years to come, even if things are still tight, might get tighter, might be different, but I am, indeed, very happy right now. :)

49 + Butterflies = I Love You

2008-10-17T17:37:00.002-05:00

The above is the equation Gwen came up with the other night while Simon and I were working on his math. I am not sure that it is mathematically correct anywhere except Gwen-dimensional space, however, Hawksbill thought it would make a good blog entry title.

I haven't felt much like blogging lately. I am completely shocked that it is the middle of October already. Again, I am still stuck in August waiting for school to start for Hawksbill. This whole lack of going to college for one of us is very strange and confusing to me. Sure, I am at the university all the time, but not taking or teaching any classes. It feels like something is missing. However, right now I wouldn't be caught dead taking a class for a grade. No thanks.

I am afraid Hawksbill and I seem to see each other even less now that he is finished with his schooling. Now I work days and he works late afternoons/early evenings and some Saturdays...so we usually see each other on Sunday at least. Plus trying to coordinate working with Simon and Gwen with their studies or what not, not to mention seeing family or friends. I have been trying to drive up to my parents' house about once a week while we prepare for their 50th anniversary this year.

Simon is still plugging away with his math homework. He really likes multiplication. He wasn't so thrilled with subtracting two 3-digit numbers where you had to borrow something in order to do the problem. He seems to understand it except he gets very frustrated subtracting when the top numbers had zeros in them. All in good time.

Simon also decided on his own he wanted to learn cursive. We had no plans to even bring this up except Simon loves to string his letters together so we told him there was a special way of writing where you automatically connect the letters and he was hooked. Of course, I couldn't remember how to write all the capital cursive letters (seriously-I have always hated that capital Q that looks like a weird 2) so we found the letters online and he has been teaching himself how to write this way.

Today was arts and crafts day when I got home. I thought it would be fun to decorate the front window for Halloween so we drew and cut out pumpkins, bats, ghosts, witches, spiders and one black cat. The window is pretty well covered now and the kids had fun.

Two weeks until Halloween, my favorite holiday!! Hopefully this weekend we can start putting together the Saturn Costume for Simon. My artist sister gave me some ideas for putting one together, so if our large balloon with paper mache doesn't work, we'll give some other ideas a try.

Until next time....

Thank You Note

2008-10-05T10:05:00.014-05:00

This weekend Barb and I are cleaning out the basement for the first time in years. It was a complete and total Hellhole down there and we've set aside a TON of trash to go out on garbage day. But, we've also found all the old mementos we'd thought we'd lost or had forgotten about long ago. Take, for example, this thank you note we designed ourselves and sent out to folks after our wedding back in 1995. It was easy to fill out and took almost no time at all. As easy as 1,2,3 and all our post-wedding social obligations were fulfilled!

Dear _______________________

Barb and I would like to thank you for:
___ Your generous gift of ______________________.
___ The very beautiful ________________________.
___ The unique and useful ______________________.
___ Making the beautiful / delicious _______________.
___ Paying for the wedding.

We hope to:
___ Purchase the rest of our china with it.
___ Display it proudly:
........___ in our living room. It matches the decor perfectly.
........___ on our bedroom wall. It matches the decor perfectly.
........___ on our bed. It matches the decor perfectly.
........___ in our kitchen. It matches the decor perfectly.
___ Cook many fine meals with it.
___ Read it before next summer.
___ Play with it on road trips.
___ Use it often.

___ We are very happy you made it to the wedding.
___ We are disappointed you were unable to attend.

___ We really appreciate you standing up in the wedding. It meant a lot to us.
___ We really appreciate you reading the:
.....___ First reading. You did a wonderful job.
.....___ Second reading. You did a wonderful job.
.....___ Prayers of the faithful. You did a wonderful job.

___ We hope you had a nice time. It was great to see you again.
___ We missed you and hope to see you soon.

___ We should get together sometime and have lunch.
___ We hope to be able to visit you soon in ___________________.
___ If you ever come to Detroit, we would love it if you would stay with us.
___ We are praying for your quick parole.

___ Love and affection,
___ With deep gratitude,
___ Sincerely,

-Barbnocity and Hawksbill

Costumes and Legos

2008-09-25T07:48:00.008-05:00

We've been having fun with costumes lately. First, Simon and Gwen saved up their allowance to buy themselves some Power Rangers costumes. Not for Halloween though... just to have. They still want to be planets for Halloween. Still figuring out how that's going to work. Here they are:

Then, Grandma Karen sent them some impromptu gifts. Gwen got a new Fairy costume which suits her perfectly.

And Simon got a new Lego set from their Mission to Mars series. Here are the kids together with their new toys:

I had to leave for work right away after they opened their gifts, so I wasn't able to help Simon with the Legos. When I got home last night, though, it turned out that he didn't need any help at all. It took him a couple of hours, but he did the whole thing all by himself. First he sorted all the pieces into piles by color, then he followed the instructions step by step. Well done, young sir!

Thank you, Grandma Karen! The kids love their presents!!! :)

1st Grade!

2008-09-03T12:36:00.010-05:00

Woo Hoo! Simon started first grade this week! Yesterday we all got up right at 7am, brushed our teeth, ate a quick breakfast and rushed out the door to get everyone where they had to go.

Well... not really. Instead, here's how our morning went on the first day of school yesterday:

Barb got up at 6am and left for work at 7am. Simon and Gwen got up around 8am and turned on the TV. I got up around 9am and got them some food. Around 9:30 Simon did one of his math lessons. At 10am we left to go to a park where we meet a bunch of homeschooling friends when the weather is nice. At 3pm we got home and Simon did a half of another math lesson. At 4:30pm Barb got home and I went off to my evening job. At 8pm I got home (earlier than usual) and found Simon working on a writing/drawing lesson with Barb. He had finished the other half of his math lesson, completed one more and then did the drawing lesson. Then we all hung out and got ready for the kids to go to bed. In other words, our first day of school was very relaxed. That's how we're planning them all to be.

Here's how Barb and I decided to organize 1st grade. First we selected a bunch of curriculum materials based on Rebecca Rupp's excellent book Home Learning Year by Year. This is a great book. It is organized by grade levels and for each grade it recommends a set of educational topics and resources for each topic.

Here's what we selected for Simon's 1st grade while trying to maintain our balancing act between structured schooling and unschooling:

Reading:
For this topic we've decided to stop actively or formally trying to teach him. The boy is reading just fine and doesn't really need our help. I read to him every night (the Narnia books, currently) and he reads his own books without our involvement. Other than reading to him, we figure he doesn't need our help with this one.

Writing and Drawing:
We combined these lessons into one topic because we found this great series of books called Draw. Write. Now. There are 8 books in the series and each one is broken up into lessons. Each lesson provides step by step instructions in how to draw a picture (animal, tree, barn, etc.) and also some accompanying text to copy down. We only bought the first book and now have to go back and get the rest of the series.

English:
This is a broad category including grammar, listening skills, narrative interpretation and recitation. For this topic we selected Jesse Wise's First Language Lessons. It is a two year program in one book intended for 1st and 2nd grade. If it goes well we'll pick up the next books in the series which go up to 4th grade currently.

Spelling:
On a whim, and based on a number of good reviews we bought Spelling Workout Level A. We haven't used it much yet so I don't know if we'll be happy with it or now. I did notice that this book starts very easy with the phonic sounds of each letter. A bit too basic for Simon. We may have to start the book in chapter 5 or something.

Math:
Singapore Math level 2. We did level 1 last year and Simon loved it. Now he's in 1st grade doing 2nd grade math and cruising right through it. This is only day two of 1st grade and he's already finished more than a week of math lessons. He finds it very intuitive. He doesn't get that from me. We tried Saxon math last year, but it was much more expensive and we all hated it.

History:
Susan Bauer's Story of the World series, part two: the medieval world. Last year we used the first volume on ancient times. To tell the truth, I like these more than Simon does. See below for how we're incorporating this into our daily lessons in a way that makes us both happy.

Science:
For science we mostly just let Simon's interests in astronomy and chemistry drive what we do, but we did pick up two books to help us. Sandbox Scientist and Backyard Scientist both offer a number of experiments to do around the house using household items.

Art:
For art, apart from the drawing lessons mentioned above, we bought a book called How to Teach Art to Children, which discusses color theory and making your own color wheel and things like that. Haven't used it yet, but it looks good so far.

Music:
We haven't selected anything yet for this topic, and I'm not sure yet how, if at all, we'll cover it. I did bring up two guitars and a full size keyboard up from the basement. Also, the kids really love the Disney TV show called Little Einsteins. Each episode discuses a famous work of art and a famous piece of classical music. They walk around some days humming tidbits from Schubert or Pacabel. I really want to find a book/CD about classical composers that gives a kid's history of them along with samples of their music. I haven't found anything I like yet though.

When we first put this list together it occurred to me that we were never, never going to cover every topic every day. We would hate it and the kids would hate it. It would by necessity become much more structured than we wanted to be with our homeschool.

So, we thought for a couple of days and came up with this solution. We discussed it with Simon and he agreed.

It goes like this: Every day we agree to do 3 lessons, one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. At each of these times Simon gets to pick the topic we study from the above list. If he wants to spend a week doing nothing but math, that's ok. If he spends another week bouncing from topic to topic, that's ok too. It's up to him. If we feel like some topics are being left behind we try to push them to the forefront without mandating it.

The only exception to this plan is history. Last year we bought the main book, student exercise worksheets and the audio CD for Bauer's Story of the World: Ancient Times volume and all he wanted to do was listen to the CD. It came on 7 discs. Almost every night for the past year Simon has listed to one of the seven discs of the ancient history volume. Over all he probably listened to the whole book more than 40 times. This year we asked him if we should buy the audio discs for the next book in the series or if we should get the actual book for me to read to him. He picked the CD's.

I'm a bit disappointed by this because I wanted to be involved in the history lessons (my favorite topic right now), but we agreed to let him handle this how he likes. So, we got the new discs in last week and he's already started listening to them every night before he falls asleep. He calls them his "stories" as if he watches General Hospital every day. He doesn't usually talk to us about his "stories" so I'm not sure how much he's absorbing. However, the other night I noticed that, while listening to one disc he hit the pause button, ran off to the bathroom and ran back to bed to hit the play button again. Apparently he didn't want to miss anything. That's good enough for me. :)

So, that's our plan for 1st grade. We didn't want so much structure that we were just recreating school at home, but we also don't want to go all the way to unschooling. Also, I want to keep the "classical" theme alive with history and grammar lessons. In a year or two we'll add Latin, but it is too early for that yet. All in all there are a set of subjects we want to make sure our kids are learning, but we want to organize it in a very relaxed and fluid manner so that "school" becomes an integrated part of our daily rhythm. Also, because Barb's working days and I'm working evenings, this allows us both to be involved in our "lessons". So far so good.

To wrap this up, here's a picture of Simon with his first drawing from the Draw. Write. Now. book. He was so excited that he learned to draw a chicken that he spent two days doing little else. A damn fine chicken, too, if you ask me. :)

End of Summer?

2008-08-27T18:39:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because I have been waiting for Hawksbill to post his "Foot Foot Retreat '08" post, but since it hasn't happened yet, I will jump in here with an update on stuff.

Simon lost his first tooth--I cannot even begin to tell you how glad I was it came out on its own. My family has a history of baby teeth that will not budge (I still have one baby tooth molar, my mom has 2 and I know at least one brother has 1 baby tooth left!) My adult teeth pretty much all came in BEFORE the baby teeth fell out, so when Simon's bottom tooth seemed loose, I was so so glad it happened all by itself...(mostly because the boy has no tolerance for pain, and the thought of taking him to the dentist to pull it...well, we just won't go there.)

We went on a vacation with Hawksbill and the Foot Foot retreat--I won't spoil it for Hawksbill, but I am sure his version of the trip will be quite different from mine ;) That's ok, though, because he made up for it by taking us to Lakeport for the weekend a week later. It was nice out (I am loving this crazy cool August weather--who would have thought I'd be wearing a freaking jacket to work in August) and the water was nice...a bit rocky, but the fact that so many Petoskey stones were there for the picking, well..I was in rock heaven. Call me a geek, but I do love my Petoskey stones. We had found about 7-8 the week before at Foot Foot, but I am sure I brought home at least 30 from Lakeport.

And while we were at Lakeport, playing on their little playground, Hawksbill was pointing out a different style tent to me, when he said, "Hey, doesn't that look just like your brother, J?" Yes, J and his wife and kids were spending the weekend at the same campground. J called my sister, A, and her kids who came up later and we all hung out at the beach and toasted marshmallows, etc...fun for me--maybe not what Hawksbill wanted--running into my family on a trip, but it was a good weekend (IMO).

My other, sister, K, went to Chicago the same weekend and bought a doll for Gwen. I am only bringing this up because Gwen is still not potty trained. In fact, I think it is never going to happen now. Ever. The point of the doll was a gift if Gwen would just sit and pee on the potty ONCE!!! She won't go near the bathroom if you mention potty training, so I am trying my hardest to just not bring it up anymore. Gwen says she is going to do it when she is 4, and I think Hawksbill and I have come to the conclusion that using the potty has to be her idea now. The girl has an IRON WILL and even the mere mention of using the toilet sends her shrieking...so, the doll sits on a shelf and Gwen says she doesn't care. I am really really tired of changing diapers...especially on a kid who says, "I'm getting too big for this," every freaking time we change her diaper. She has won...I give up...maybe she'll just tell me she needs to go one day and it will happen, or maybe we'll all be in therapy when she is 12 and wearing Depends.

This is the last week before "school starts". Since I still work at a university, I still think about school starting...it still makes me nervous, yet, I have nothing to worry about here. Hawksbill is done with classes, there is no way in HELL I am taking any classes again, and Simon and Gwen will be doing school at home this fall. So, why the usual pre-fall anxiety has hit me again is beyond me...or maybe I am just crazy :) Or maybe it is the thought of trying to get into the freaking parking structure the first 2 weeks at the same time as 35,000 other people...

Hawksbill ordered Simon's school stuff for the fall, so we are waiting for it to arrive...we have things we'd like to do, but we'll wing it, too. Simon seems to be pretty good at letting us know what he likes to study, and what he doesn't so hopefully this will go well. I think last year and this summer did go well and am looking forward to what we will learn this year.

Until next time....

Dice Towers

2008-08-22T07:02:00.008-05:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been working on a little craft project to make myself a set of dice towers. If you know me at all you know that I play a lot of board games with my friends. Many of these games involve rollings lots of dice that often fall off the table, especially if the players are tipsy. The main point of a dice tower is to randomize the dice and yet still have them contained in a confined space for ease of use.

So, for the past month or two I'd been looking around online for a dice tower to buy. It turns out that the nice wooden ones cost anywhere from $40.00 to $100.00 and it occurred to me that it is silly to buy something that you can make for yourself. Also, I really wanted two towers because it is annoying to have to pass the tower across the table as turn order passes. This way players on each side of the table can share one. So, I searched around and found this set of plans for how to make your own dice tower out of foam board.

Then, I made myself a set. They look like this:
They are very simple. They way they work is that you drop the dice in the top, where they then clatter around on three separate, slanted steps on the way down, then they come out into the attached receptacle. Many dice towers have a separate tower and base so that each one is a two piece unit. I liked these because each one is a single piece. That way, if you do pass one across the table you only have to grasp it gently by the top to pick it up.

Basically, all they are is foam board held together with Elmer's glue and toothpicks and then painted with a textured spray paint, with red felt in the base receptacle. They are surprisingly sturdy.

Next up I plan to make my own pattern for a slightly larger set of towers with more steps on the inside and with windows in the sides and crenelations along the top to make it look more like an actual tower. Once that is done I plan to make a prototype out of foam board and a final set out of wood.

It's Elemental, My Dear Alchemist!

2008-08-20T10:33:00.010-05:00

What does this picture look like to you? It may appear at first glance to merely be some little colored circles, but it turns out that they are instead the building blocks of nature!

Simon has lately transferred his interest in the planets to an interest in the chemical elements. We've been learning what different things are made of and put up a poster of the periodic table for him.

The other day we were at a craft store to buy some materials for me to make some dice towers (another story) and we found some Shrinky Dink paper. It was a set of blank sheets that you could color anything you want on. I described for him what you could do with Shrinky Dinks and told him he could make whatever he wanted. So, he decided to make a set of atoms.

The blue circles in the picture are Hydrogen atoms, the red circles are oxygen atoms and the large gray circles are iron atoms. He looked up their relative sizes on the periodic table so that they would be roughly correct in proportion to one another. Then he spent all afternoon playing with them in different combinations. He put one oxygen and two hydrogens together to make water. Then he'd put the oxygen together with the iron to make rust (iron oxide). Then he put them all together and said: "Daddy, guess what this makes!" When I said "I don't know" he told me. It turns out that when you combine iron, hydrogen and oxygen you get "wet rust".

The funny thing is, none of this was our idea. It's not like we woke up one day and said: "Let's teach the boy chemistry." He decided to do this all on his own. All I did was color in the iron atoms and bake the Shrinky Dinks. I guess we need more Shrinky Dink material so he can make carbon and gold. I don't know why he wants to make gold, but I have no desire to squash his interest in alchemy. Maybe we'll buy him a bunch of real lead to experiment with and see what he can do. This little fellow's going to be a gold mine!

There's a definite trend with way Simon gets interested in and immerses himself in a given subject. Whether its stars or planets or cartoon characters or now the elements, he always does the same things. He draws pictures of them over and over again, which I cut out. Then he carries them around with us wherever we go and they become his imaginary friends. He personifies them, talks to them and has them talk to each other. He has this really cool combination of scientific curiosity combined with a deep emotional attachment. The other day he said: "Daddy, I wish the planets could really talk to me. Where can we go to talk to the planets?" When I told him that planets couldn't really talk to us he actually cried a bit and I had to console him. I think he decided to forget that conversation, though. Within a day he was right back playing with and talking to stars, planets, care bears and now the elements.

Next I want to order us a copy of the card game Elementeo. It's a two player game designed and marketed by a high school student. In it you have cards representing different elements and you combine them together to blow up your opponent. Very cool!

Finally, here's a picture of Simon relaxing with his favorite Curious George PS2 game with Gwen advising him on how to get through the tricky bits. It's good to relax with a good game after an afternoon of building wet rust.

Film Homeschool

2008-08-20T09:06:00.001-05:00

Here's an article I just found on CNN. It's about a son who hated (and was failing) school and a dad who pulled him out and then immersed him for 3 years in a subject they both loved. Super cool!

Foot Foot '08: 9 Geeks, 9 Days, 68 Games!

2008-08-12T08:50:00.058-05:00

Where we live in Michigan real men (non gaming geeks) are awarded a certain birthright: hunting. That is to say, real men are not only allowed to spend a week in the woods away from their spouses and children where they drink beer and shoot guns with their friends, but they are expected to do so. It's what they do and God help you if you stand between them and their hunting trips.

As you may have guessed, I am not a real man. I'm a gaming geek. So are my friends. We may drink beer, but we don't hunt. Instead, we play games. Lots and lots of games. The sad part of this is that we were somehow left out of the part where we get to leave home with our friends for days at a time to pursue our hobby without distraction from spouses, children or jobs.

A few years ago our group got together and decided that the madness must end! So, we designed the Foot Foot Gamers Annual Retreat (named, of course, after The Shagg's 1969 international hit My Pal Foot Foot). The first year we had the retreat was 2006. That year we rented a cottage on a bluff overlooking Lake Huron and gamed from early one Friday morning until about 2pm the next Sunday. Last year we took things a bit further. We arrived at the same cottage on a Wednesday night after work and played through Sunday. (You can read about those retreats here and here.)

For our retreats we designed a scoring system, logged all of our games and awarded a grand prize to the "Best Overall Gamer". The prize is a plaque with 12 blank name plates on it. If you win the plaque you get to have your name engraved on it and you get to keep it for a year. Jake won our inaugural event in '06 and Paul won it last year in '07. There are enough name plates on the plaque to keep us doing this until 2017! After that, we buy a new plaque.

My lovely bride with the coveted prize.

Anyway, this year we decided to take things a bit further. This year we rented a different cottage for 9 days from 4pm on Saturday, August 2nd until noon on Sunday, August 10th. Not everyone could show up at the same time, though, so we broke the week up into segments. From Saturday to Wednesday morning would be a free for all in which any of us could use the cottage and invite our spouses and children. Sunday, specifically, would be "family fun day". Then, from 12pm on Wednesday until 12pm on Sunday would be gamers only time. The entire week would feature a lot of gaming, but the official scoring wouldn't begin until Thursday morning at 6am and would last until we left on Sunday.

The following is a narrative of how the week went, what games we played and the other fun things that happened.

Saturday, August 2nd
Barb and I, along with Simon and Gwen (who are 6 and 3 years old), arrived at the cottage at about 4:30pm on Saturday. We were the first ones there and Paul was the only other Foot Foot member we expected on that day. While we waited for him we took some pictures of the cottage, which was much nicer than the place we rented the previous two years. Here are some of our pictures:

Here is the front/side of the cottage we rented.

Here is the back yard as seen from the patio door. Because there would be so many guys in the house for the week I opted to bring our tent along. That's chateau Hawksbill there on the left. This picture must have been taken later because Lake Huron isn't visible in the background. Must have been a bit foggy at the time.

This is the view from the edge of the bluff overlooking the lake. We spent a lot of time between games standing out there looking at the water and telling gaming war stories.

At 5pm, before Paul arrived we decided to take the kids down to the water to check out our beach access. I don't have pictures of it, but our path down to the water was by way of a very long staircase. About half way down we reached the first landing and I noticed a few bees flying nearby. I foolishly said "stand still kids... don't scare the bees." That's when the 2 or 3 bees disappeared under the stairway and came back moments later with 15-20 bees. Then they attacked! Seriously! The swarmed all over us and we all ran back up the stairs yelling. Simon and I both got stung three times. Gwen got stung twice. Barb escaped being stung at all. Nature sucks!

A little while later, at 6pm, Paul showed up and we helped him unpack. Then he and I went out and bought 2 big cans of some bee-killing chemical that sprayed 2o feet away. We went back down the stairs to investigate. We found that we could get fairly close to the bees without causing them to swarm and that we could figure out where the hive was based on their activity. It turns out it was right under the staircase. So, we planned to crawl under the staircase with the cans of Raid and hose them down from about 8 feet way. That's when we noticed something else. The entire hillside was covered (completely!) with poison ivy. Ugh!

So, our plan was this: To return to the cottage and cover ourselves completely in clothing from head to toe and then to return to the staircase where one or both of us would crawl through the poison ivy, under the staircase and kill the bees, all the while hoping that the bees didn't launch a full on counter attack.

At 9pm this is what we did. I put on long pants, tucked my pant legs into my socks, put on a hooded sweatshirt which I pulled over my face trekked back to the staircase, ready for battle. Then we decided who would crawl through the poison ivy to kill the bees. For some reason I volunteered. I don't know why I did this. I knew I was very allergic to poison ivy (A few years ago I got a horrible rash after chasing a black bear into the woods, but that's another story). Anyway, I hopped over the railing, crawled through the poison ivy on my knees and elbows and finally located the hive. Then I emptied two large cans of Raid on it. The bees didn't know what hit them. They not only didn't counter attack, they merely fell and died instantly. It turns out that, although bees may have a huge dodge bonus to melee weapons, they have a profound weakness to chemical attacks. Score one for the good guys.

After this Paul and I want back inside where I stripped off my presumably diseased clothing and took a very hot shower. Then we all took a walk down to water with the kids. I was very interested in seeing the beach because our gaming retreats are often filled with drunken midnight swimming. Here are some pictures.

Gwen and Simon on the beach.

Gwen, me and Simon admiring the big rocks.

After this it was time to prepare for the arrival of more gamers the next day. We went back up to the cottage and organized our games.

My stack of games. (Note the kids games up front... ready for family game day!)

Paul's stack of games. Lots of good stuff!

In addition to games, Paul took steps to make sure that nobody would be thirsty this week.

At 10pm Paul and I sat down to our first game of the week: Saint Petersburg. He and I had been playing this one fairly often on Yucata.

It was nice to play it again in person. It was my turn to win this time. After this we all turned in for the night.

Sunday, August 3rd:
For most of this day Paul and I were the only gamers on site. After a nice breakfast of egg sandwiches and bacon we settled down for a 2 player game of Aton before heading out to explore the beach some more. After that Simon, Paul and I chilled out to a game of Blokus, which is one of Simon's favorites. Then Paul and I played some Babel and 3 games of Blue Moon. I won Aton, Blokus and Babel, Paul won 2 out of the 3 games of Blue Moon.

Around 3pm that afternoon our pal Mark and his family arrived and after getting them all settled we all went back down to the beach for some swimming. At about 6pm Mark made us all some burgers. Then around 6:30pm Mark, Paul and I settled down for a game of Nefertiti, which I totally didn't grok. Mark took 1st, Paul 2nd and I came in last. Then, to wrap up this first day, Paul, Mark, Angela (Mark's wife) and I played a game of Settlers at around 9pm which Paul won.

Monday, August 4th:
This was a very rainy day and we were stuck inside most of the time. This morning Larry arrived and we opened up the gaming day with round of Gulo Gulo. Playing were me, Paul, Larry, Mark, my son Simon and Mark's kids Kip and Athea. Simon beat us all. He's pretty good at the Gulo Gulo! Then me, Simon, Athea and Mark&Kip (teaming up) played some Blokus and the Mark&Kip team cleaned all our clocks. Around 11am Paul and Larry played We the People (Paul won) while Mark and I played some Babel (I won). At 2pm Larry, Mark, Paul and I played some Saga, which Larry won.

At 3pm I showed Angela how to play Castle Keep in case she and Mark wanted to pick up a copy for their kids and at 3:30 me and Mark conducted a teaching session of Chateau Roquefort with Athea, Kip, Simon and Gwen.

At about 4:30 that afternoon Mark's family left and me, Mark, Paul and Larry played a game of California. I came in 1st. I'm glad to get some milage out of some of those Tanga deals!

At 6:30 Paul made us a great dinner of short ribs. Here's a shot of Paul, Larry and Mark around the grill.

At about 8:30 Paul, Mark, Larry and I sat down for our first heavy game of the week: Wealth of Nations. This is probably one of my favorite new games of the year. It is still on my wishlist. I really do need to get myself a copy.

Wealth of Nations (that's me in the middle, flanked by my minions Gwen and Simon)

About midway through the game, around midnight sometime, Paul and I did some late night swimming in Lake Huron. Midnight swimming is one of my favorite parts of the retreat. We halted the game for the night, to be complted the next day.

Tuesday, August 5th:
This morning Barb, Simon, Gwen and I went out for breakfast while Paul, Larry and Mark played some St. Petersburg. (Paul one).

After that we finished up Wealth of Nations. Mark kicked arse with a total of 103 points. I was close behind at 102. Around 1:30 that afternoon we played some Tichu, which is one of my all time favorite games. Mark and Paul beat Larry and I handily. Later we played some Magic: The Gathering (sealed deck). My notes don't say who won, but I know I choked badly. I think Paul won, if memory serves, but I could be wrong.

Later that evening, around 8:30 I played some O Zoo Le Mio with Barb, Larry and Simon. As usual, Simon won. As with Gulo Gulo, he's pretty good at this one. After that Paul, Larry, Simon and I played a round of Hare and Tortoise, which Paul won. (Hm... this is not the best picture of Gwen, I think. :)

Late this night, around 11:30 we played another of my favorite new games of the year: Primordial Soup. Larry, Mark and I played with Larry coming in 1st. Good stuff. Who doesn't love a game about poop?

Wednesday, August 6th:
The next morning Paul introduced me to the game Tamsk, which I'd never heard of before. I managed to win dispite that, though. Then I went off to breakfast with my family again while Larry, Paul and Mark played some Aquaretto with Larry taking first place. I like Zooloretto, but I still haven't played this spin off.

Then from 1pm to 5pm we played another heavy. Paul brought out Perikles which he and I and Mark and Larry played. I don't think any of us had played Perikles before and I don't think any of us liked it very much. Someone quite accurately described the game as being very much like spending several hours doing someone's taxes. Not very interesting. I won anyway, but it would have been a more satisfying win if I'd actually enjoyed the game more.

A little before 7pm that evening our buddy Steve arrived and we all sat down to a game of Glory to Rome. Mark took 1st with me coming in a fairly distand 2nd.

Then, around 9pm Eric showed up and we jumped into a 5 player game of Relationship Tightrope (with me, Steve, Eric, Paul and Larry... Mark didn't join us for some reason.) I really like this game. It has quite a silly theme, but it is fast, entertaining and pretty challenging. Larry took 1st place with only 10 points! Go Larry!

Finally, we wrapped up the evening with a 6 player game of Hoity Toity, another one of my favoirites. I really like the simultaneous reveal mechanic. Somewhere in the middle of the game Eric spilled his glass of Red Bull and coconut rum all over the table, which made quite a mess, but the rest of the game smelled quite nice. In the end Mark won and Steve came in 2nd.

Thursday, August 7th:
This morning marks the beginning of our official scoring to win the fancy plaque! From here until noon on Sunday all the games count for the big prize!

We started off splitting into two groups. Paul and Steve played some We the People (Paul won by killing Washington). Me, Mark and Larry got started with a game of Amazonas. Mark won this one. Amazonas is a fairly nice little game, but the tie breaking mechanism is terribly flawed. If I ever play again I'll push for a tie breaking system similary to O Zoo Le Mio.

Eric spent the morning sleeping it off.

Since Paul and Steve were still paying We the People, Larry, Mark and I played a game of Stone Age, which I won.

Steve and Paul playing We the People.

Mark and Larry prepping our game of Stone Age.

At 11:30am we all gathered together again for a game of Tribune. Well, all of us except Eric who was still asleep. Larry won very handily with a strategy of acquiring laurels, favors of the gods and cold hard cash. At 2:30 we split into two groups again. Steve, Larry and Mark played Antike (Mark won) while Paul, Eric and I played some Caylus (I won). After that, around 5:30pm or so Steve made us all dinner by serving up his amazing pulled pork sandwiches. Good stuff!

Then, at 6:30 Paul, Larry and I played Hollywood Blockbuster (Larry won) and Erik, Mark and Steve played Metropolis (Mark won).At 8pm Jake and Ben arrived, bringing our total now up to 8 players. We split into two 4's with Ben, Eric, Paul and Mark playing Notre Dame (Paul won) while Steve, Jake, Larry and I played some more Primordial Soup (I won). What can I say? I just can't get enough poop related gaming!

At 11pm everyone but George jumped into a game of Pow Wow, which was madcap and crazy. I took 1st while Paul came in 2nd. Then we split into 2 groups again and Larry, Eric, Steve and Jake played Situation 4 (Eric and Jake won) while Paul and I teamed up against Mark and Ben in another game of Tichu (Paul and I won). After Situation 4, Eric, Jake, Larry and Steve played their own game of Tichu with Larry and Jake winning.

That brought us all to about 3:00am in the morning and we all passed out exhausted from a fantastic day of gaming.

Friday, August 8th:
Early this morning at around 3:30am our friend George finally arrived from New York and our group hit its peak of 9 gamers. When we woke up Mark made us a fine breakfast and Paul served us up some delicious mimosa.

At around 7:30am Jake, Paul, Steve and Ben played a game of Nefertiti. Later, at 9:30am Larry, Paul, Ben and Steve played a game of Friedrich which Ben took 1st in as France. At the same time I sat down to another game of Wealth of Nations with George, mark and Jake. Mark cleaned up with 80 points and I took 2nd with 71. Mark played brilliantly. He managed to get an operational bank on turn 3 and spent the game totally focusing on money. Good stuff!

Mark and Jake planning their Wealth of Nations conquests.

At around 1:30 on Friday Larry, Eric, Steve, Ben and Paul sat down to some Puerto Rico, which Steve won and Paul came in 2nd. At 3pm, Me, George, Mark and Jake finished Wealth of Nations and tried out Caribbean, which I totally sucked at and George dominated.

Later at a bit after 4pm two new games started. Paul, Steve, George, Jake and Larry played El Grande which Paul won and Jake came in 2nd. Also, Mark, Ben, Eric and I started up a game of Stone Age. Mark took 1st while I came in 2nd.

A beautiful sunset overlooking Lake Huron on Friday night with my own personal barracks in the foreground.

At 8pm Steve, Paul, Jake, George and Eric played a game of Quo Vadis?. Steve won this one and George took 2nd place. At the same time, Ben, Mark and I played Midgard. Once again Mark took 1st place and I came in 2nd. By this time I was getting crazy tired after being up so late the night before. My ability to think coherently was seriously diminished and I went off to bed at 11:30.

After I went to bed Larry, Jake, Paul and Steve played some more Relationships Tightrope. Larry and Jake took 1st and 2nd respectively.

Then around 10:30pm a big game of Antike formed with Eric, Steve, George, Jake, Ben and Paul. Sometime around 12:30 I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep so I came back inside to watch the action unfold. Finally, around 1am Steve completed his Antike domination and Paul followed him with 2nd place.

Around 2am we all packed it in and went to bed.

Saturday, August 9th:
Wow, our last full day of gaming before returning to the real world.

This got off to a bit of a slow start this morning. The gaming didn't really begin until 10:30. George, Paul, Larry, Steve and Eric played a game of In the Year of the Dragon, which Paul and George took 1st and 2nd in. At that point I hadn't played this game yet, but in the last year I've had the chance to play it many times and have even picked up my own copy. I like it quite a bit.

At the same time Jake, Ben, Mark and I played a game of Vikings. Once again Mark took 1st and I came in 2nd. Vikings isn't the best game in the world, but I find it very pleasant. I like the way it mixes a number of familiar game mechanics in a pretty interesting way.

Later on, George and Paul took 1st and 2nd in a game of Modern Art. Good auction fun.

At 1:30 on Saturday another game of Settlers broke out between Jake, Ben Mark and myself. I took 1st and Jake came in 2nd.

Then, at 3:30pm we played yet another game of Primordial Soup. I just couldn't get enough of that poop eatin' fun! Since the retreat I've purchased my own copy of this game along with the 5-6 player expansion set. I really like it quite a bit. I took 1st place while Ben came in 2nd.

While we were playing Primordial Soup, George, Paul, Steve, Jake and Larry played a game of Wallenstein. I was glad to miss this one. I never really liked Wallenstein. There are some heavy games my head flows naturally into. Wallenstein isn't one of them. It just makes my skull hurt. Ugh!

Primordial Soup and Wallenstein both took quite a long time to play. The next set of games didn't start until 8:30 Saturday evening. Eric, mark, Jake and Paul sat down for a match of Age of Steam while George, Ben, Larry and I played a nice game of Ra. Paul and Mark took 1st and 2nd in Age of Steam while George and Larry tied for 1st place in Ra.

Age of Steam took a lot longer to play than Ra, so while those guys were still playing that one George, ben, Larry and I played a quick round of For Sale (I won) and then another game of Pizarro & Co. (George and Ben came in 1st and 2nd). I have to say, Pizarro & Co. is one of my favorite auction games. I'm always happy when this one hits the table.

Then, around 1:30 in the morning Mark and I teamed up against Jake and Ben in a game of Tichu. Mark and I got our hats handed to us. It's tough sitting down against Jake in a game of Tichu. He's just plain good at it.

After that, it was once again time for bed.

Sunday, August 10th:
Ah... our last day. We all got up around 7:30am and started cleaning up. For some reason I stopped taking notes at this point so I'm not exactly sure what happened this day. I was getting a ride home from Jake and he had to leave a bit early, so I don't think I got in any gaming on this day.

I'm pretty sure that several of the guys stayed until noon and played the customary final game of Ticket to Ride, but I don't know who won or anything.

What I do remember is that on the ride home my neck started itching like crazy. By the time I got home I had a crazy, itchy, scratcy rash on my hands, neck and cheeks. It turns out that I had contracted poison ivy the Sunday before when I'd crawled around in the underbrush to kill the bee hive. I didn't know it had such a long incubation period, but it waited to hit me until the ride home a full week later. I spent the next 3 days trying not to scratch my skin off and taking lots of Benadryl. Ugh!

The next day Paul tallied the final game results and it turns out that he took the overall grand prize for the 2nd year in a row. I came in 2nd place while Mark took 3rd.

Well done Paul! Next time we will crush you!!! :)

My thanks to the whole group for all the fun and good times. I hope we can keep this up for many years to come!

What it takes to teach

2008-07-19T11:09:00.011-05:00

Lately I've been reading John Holt's book Teach Your Own. So far I would set it, along with Gatto's Dumbing us Down aside as the two seminal books critical of public education. It it also about unschooling, which we are only partially implementing here at home, but it is a very enlightening read. I especially enjoyed an early section called "common objections to homeschooling" which you can find reprinted here.

One thing that also captured my attention the other day was Holt's description of what is required in order to teach something to anyone. One of the realizations we've come to over the past few years is that teaching is not nearly as difficult as we have been led to believe. In America, if you want to teach children in a school you are required to spend several years in a special school just learning "how" to teach. This strikes me as being very silly. From what I've learned through my own research and through talking with people who've gone through this specialized education (like my wife), it appears that teacher's schools teach primarily 3 things:

A lot of overly complicated theories of very simple ideas
How to manage large groups of children and keep them under control
How to negotiate the huge amount of administrative red tape required of teachers in a public school

In Holt's Teach Your Own he describes 7 principles of teaching that definitely ring true for me. These are (from page 41):

To help people learn something you must first understand what they already know;
Showing people how to do something is better than telling them, and letting them do it themselves is best of all;
You mustn't tell or show too much at once, since people digest new ideas slowly and must feel secure with new skills or knowledge before they are ready for more;
You must give people as much time as they want and need to absorb what you have shown or told them;
Instead of testing their understanding with questions you must let them show you how much or little they understand by the questions they ask you;
You must not get impatient or angry when people don't understand;
Scaring people only blocks learning

And, as Holt puts it, "These are clearly not things that one has to spend three years talking about"

It strikes me that the career of "teacher" has been built into a kind of priesthood where only the specially trained can hope to accomplish anything and everyone else should fear to tread there. In my opinion teachers learn how to be teachers through the experience of teaching and not by sitting in a classroom learning pedagogical theories.

If I were hiring teachers for a private school I would require that applicants impress me with a sufficient knowledge of the subject matter they have specialized in as well as an understanding of principles similar to those 7 mentioned above. I would be less impressed by people who described spending years how to teach, but who hadn't spent the same or more time mastering the subject they wanted to teach.

I don't at all mean this as a dig against teachers. But, I don't see that a special study of education in and of itself is especially necessary to do their job. Instead I'd rather see professional requirements be limited to a proven understanding of the topic to be taught (math, chemistry, etc.) through an undergraduate degree (if not actual work experience) and an apprenticeship program. Maybe a class or two in "teaching theory", but surely not a multi-year program learning only how to teach something to other people.

To be fair, I consider the same to be true of my own profession of Social Work. Especially the great majority of work that I did during my last internship at the hospital. I can't see how that work would really require a 2 year advanced degree.

The Great Rock Candy Experiment of '08

2008-07-13T11:17:00.014-05:00

Last week we watched a new show on PBS called Nova Science Now. Simon watched the show pretty attentively and afterwards he asked if we could do science experiments here at home. We've had a few kids science experiment books sitting on the shelves at home waiting for the kids to express an interest, so we said "of course!"

A few weeks ago Simon was watching Zula Patrol (my favorite kid's show, along with Cyberchase) and they had a segment on "solutions" vs. "mixtures" so he told us he wanted to do an experiment that involved a "solution". So, we decided to make rock candy. I quickly found a recipe online and we got started last week.

We decided to make four of them in different colors so we boiled up some water and added more than 5 full pounds of sugar, carefully watching the sugar dissolve 1 cup at a time. We then separated it into glasses where we added colors. Then we used clothes pins to hang wooden skewers in the sugar/water solution. Then we set them aside to wait the alloted 7 days for the sugar crystals to form. Here's what it looked like the next day:

It's hard to tell from the picture, but it seemed that nothing was happening. So, we re-read the recipe and figured that we had "cured" the wooden sticks improperly. So, we removed the sticks, rolled them in sugar and let them dry overnight. The next day we re-boiled each glass and added 1 more cup of sugar before putting the sticks back in and putting them back on a shelf. This time we had dramatic results. The following day it looked like this:

And, the day after that it looked like this:

And then finally:

And this was only after three days. I think that adding that last extra cup of sugar drastically increased the growth of the crystals. In fact, one of the candies grew so big that it stuck to the side of the glass. When I tried to remove it I broke both the candy and the glass. Here's what they all looked like after removing them from their solutions and letting them dry:
And, finally, here are some shots of happy kids & parents eating their first science experiment:

In preparation for future rock candy experiments I cured a couple of dozen sticks and have put them in a ziplock bag in the freezer. This way we'll be all set to do it again many times over the next year or so.

So, our first experiment was not only a resounding success, but was very tasty too!

Here are the most important things we learned if you want to make rock candy:

1. Cure the sticks ahead of time. Let them soak in a hyper-saturated sugar-water solution for at least a few hours. Then take them out, roll them in sugar and let them dry for a day or so. This gives the sugar crystals a preliminary surface to attach to once the sticks are placed back in the final solution.

2. You need less water than you think you do. If, like us, you're using glasses that hold 1.5 cups of water each, you do not need to boil 1.5 cups of water per glass, but instead only 1 cup of water per glass. The volume of the water will increase considerably since you're adding 2 cups of sugar per cup of water. Next time we do this we'll follow the recipe more closely and only use 4 cups of water and 8 cups of sugar.

3. Getting a deep color takes a lot of food coloring. We used 5 drops of food coloring per glass and the solution turned a deep color, but the final product was more pastel and light colored. I'm not sure what the right amount is.

4. Next time we'll experiment with adding flavors. Ours turned out great, but they were really just sticks of sugar. Adding something fruity might be nice.

Oh, and regarding solutions and mixtures, Simon said something really funny the other day. He said: "A solution is when something dissolves in a liquid. If you put monkeys in water it is just a mixture because you can filter out the monkeys with a net."

Truer words were never spoken.

Penny walks and other unrelated items

2008-06-26T18:51:00.007-05:00

So, I haven't posted in a while, but probably because everything is just about the same as always. The only thing I have added to my day lately is a "penny walk". It is my mental break at work. To keep sane during grant writing season, I am picking a time in the afternoon and going for a 15 minute walk looking for pennies for my "found money" experiment. That way, the only thing I am thinking about for 15 minutes is finding pennies and NOT why I do not have everyone's NIH style biosketch for the grant that is due in at 5 pm, even though I emailed everyone weeks ago for the information...grrrrr.

I just started doing this penny walk about 2 weeks ago, and was excited this week when I found my first Canadian Loonie (1 dollar coin). It made me think that maybe, since probably 2-3 dollars of the loose change I have found so far is Canadian, I should separate my found money counter this year by currency since I know the coinstar machine is going to spew out my non-American currency anyway...and I was curious to see how much Canadian money I have found so far. Maybe I will do that tonight. (Edit: OK--we were bored so Simon and I separated out the currency on the sidebar. I actually had more money than I thought--I guess I haven't been keeping track as well as I thought.)

Today I found my first 10 cent Euro--would you call that a Eurodime? I have no idea...it has to be worth at least 5 bucks by now, right? Ha! But the best part of today was finding my first $5 bill. I can't even remember the last time I found a $5 bill just lying in the street. It made up for the $1 bill I missed in the student center a month ago when some other eagle-eyed student snatched it up seconds before I could get to it!! B*st*rd!

In unrelated news, I joined Weight Watchers this year. Before anyone rolls their eyes or starts mocking me (as Hawksbill promised that would happen), I was just trying to lose that darn 12 lbs I haven't been able to lose the last 3 years since I had Gwen. I knew I was in trouble when I went to the first meeting and the woman who RUNS the meetings took one look at me and said, "We have plenty of skinny people join ALL the time." Sigh...but anyway...I managed to lose my 12 lbs since joining, and have just today made "Lifetime member" status--which I thought meant they just gave me a little gold sticker, but apparently I can go to WW for free now...so that was pretty cool. I have been using the points system, which means I can eat anything I want as long as I limit myself to 20 "points" of food per day. Losing weight was easier after I discovered my morning banana nut muffin was freaking 14 points!! But, like all diets, it is mostly, eat less and exercise.

Changing the subject AGAIN, we have had a rash of crime lately in our otherwise sleepy, boring neighborhood. On our street alone (and this is all I know about) we have had the tires stolen off 2 cars within 4 houses of our own. I can imagine it would suck to wake up to find your car sitting on bricks. My next door neighbor is missing some bricks from a retaining wall, so she thinks hers were used in at least one of these crimes. Then last weekend someone broke into our favorite pizza place down the street making off with $13 from the register after smashing the front door. One of the employees said that they also tried to steal the grease trap from under the fryer, but perhaps they thought it was a safe, or maybe that it was some type of "metal" they could sell at a scrap yard. The employee said that these particular criminals have already been caught, so I am kind of hoping these are the same people who have been stealing tires...but I have no idea.

The kids are doing well. We are calling this time "summer vacation" and are not doing any formal homeschooling, but the learning is still happening. We had planned on having Simon work on his printing skills for writing letters next fall, but he decided about a week ago he wanted to start doing this on his own when he found a book with dry erase markers that shows you how to write your letters...Simon knows how to write all of his letters upper and lowercase already, however, he wasn't using anything (lined paper) as a guide, so everything still comes up all squiggly. So, he just started practicing this last week. He is also finding new planet facts to tell me about every time I come home such as how many Plutos it would take to circle the Earth--apparently the number is 17.

Gwen is learning new things, too. I asked her if she could count to 20 the other day and she looked at me and said, "20." I guess if she is counting by 20's, then technically, she is correct. :) But after a short pause, she started saying, "21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28...." and I honestly didn't know that she knew any numbers past 20. Gwen has also become obsessed with 24-piece puzzles...another skill I did not know she possessed, but she can put them together without any help. I thought that was cool. :)

Not much else is going on except that I cannot believe it is the end of June already. It is weird not worrying about Hawksbill going to school in the fall since he is done. It is weird to know that I really DON'T have to think of life in semesters anymore...however, since I work at a university, I still do and probably will for as long as I live.

I have to go sit on the porch with Gwen now. Until next time, I hope to have some more interesting information to share. :)

Hawksbill on Potty Training

2008-06-15T08:45:00.008-05:00

Sometimes you just have to admit when you're wrong.

I really wanted to do the potty training boot camp last week for a couple of different reasons. First, because Barb sent that video she mentioned and it all made so much sense; second due to the increasing cost of diapers; but third because I got some disapproving comments from another parent at the park last week about Gwen still wearing the diapers. I'm ashamed now to admit it, but it is that last reason that really drove it.

So, I decided that, starting on last Thursday morning we would get up and put Gwen in underwear instead of diapers. Then, if she messed in her pants she would have to do the following all by herself:

Take paper towel, get down on her hands and knees and clean up the pee/poop (depositing poop in the toilet herself if needed)
Go into the bathroom, remove her soiled clothes and clean her self off
Go to her bedroom and put on clean clothes
Come back out and do it all again in 15 minutes

So, that was my plan. And can you guess how it worked? Well, it worked perfectly... sort of. She did all that without complaining at all. She was perfectly comfortable getting down on her hands and knees and cleaning her own piss and shit off the floor. She didn't seem to mind at all. She accepted all of that as a given. What she wouldn't do was to ever pee / poop on the potty.

It didn't work on Thursday so we tried again on Friday. Both days she peed all over our house. Upstairs and downstairs. On hardwood floors and on rugs. 15-20 times a day.

By the end of each day I was experiencing Hulk-like rages. I totally lost my mind. Each day when Barb got home from work I left immediately to either go to the movies or to game at Steve's. I like to think that I'm normally a fairly laid back person, but on these days I didn't even recognize myself.

And how was Gwen? Exactly the same as always. She didn't react to the potty training routine and she didn't react to my hugely increased level of frustration. She took it all in with zen-like grace. But she refused to pee on the toilet. I told Steve about this on Friday night and he said: "Damn, Gwen's a bad ass!" And he's right. She is a bad ass!

In the end it stopped seeming like I was trying to potty training her and more like I was trying to break her will, or her spirit. In the end I had to admit that it not only wasn't working, but also that this whole thing was violating every principle of parenting I hold dear. And the process was turning me into a horrible father so on Friday night we put the diapers back on. Gwen actually seemed a bit disappointed by that. She wanted to keep wearing her underwear, even if it meant scrubbing her own piss off the floor.

What can I say? My little girl is a f@$%ing bad ass!

Potty Training Boot Camp Day Two--Failed

2008-06-13T21:47:00.002-05:00

Oh, yes...day two of potty training boot camp was yet another disaster. Gwen woke up dry as usual, and we reminded her that if she had to pee, she had to pee on the potty. So, she took off her diaper, put on her underwear, went into the living room, and proceeded to pee 15 gallons of pee all over the floor. I think the only bladder that I have ever seen bigger than this girl's would be our late Great Dane, Dunstan. For those of you who remember Dunstan...well...he could pee for about 15 minutes straight....200 lbs of pure love that dog was...of course, HE was housebroken. Grumble. Grumble.

So, Hawksbill called me around noon or 1 o'clock whilst I was enjoying a lovely shot of something blue at the world's most awesome restaurant in Greektown called Mosaic (yes, that was a plug--but dude--their food is sooooo good, but I digress). The news from Hawksbill was that potty training boot camp was going exactly the same as yesterday, except today it is raining out so all the accidents are occurring INSIDE our house. Hawksbill seemed like he was in ok spirits still, however, was starting to think maybe this experiment with Gwen the Terrible was not working so well, and maybe we should go back to a diaper or pull-up or a somebody ELSE walking behind her with a bucket...

By 4 pm, Hawksbill called again pretty incoherent...I heard mumblings of damn potty training, pee everywhere, need to leave, get out of the house...when the heck are you coming home??? You know how it goes...

So, potty training boot camp ended today by 4 pm. It was a total loss. Gwen wore a diaper for the rest of the evening with not even a hint of being interested in trying to pee anywhere except in her pants...so, I guess lesson learned is that she is actually NOT ready and we'll just give up for now...maybe another week....another year...no...not another year, but seriously...it ain't happening this weekend.

But, before I go, I did get some other ideas from someone from work who actually remembers her mom potty training her and her brothers...she said her mom would sit them on the toilet and put their hand in warm water to get them to pee on the potty...hmmmm...maybe that coupled with the food coloring in the toilet idea (you know, put in blue color so the kid can make it turn green or something) maybe something to try another day. Of course, I have to remind myself that trying to get Gwen to just SIT on the potty is about as easy as trying to bathe a cat. Until next time...potty boot camp is over.

Potty Training Boot Camp Day One--Failed

2008-06-12T19:02:00.003-05:00

So, anyways...here is another thrilling post about potty training...how exciting. I can hardly contain myself. Really. But Gosh! Darnit! Gwen is freaking 3 years old, quickly approaching 3.5, and the news announced an expected 5-8% increase in the price of diapers (on top of the already added $5 a box that happened after Christmas this year) and that girl needs to freaking pee/poo on the potty!!!!

I can't remember if it was last week, or just a few days ago, but I stumbled across this video of the "potty whisperer", a woman in Chicago who runs a little kid boot camp and claims she can potty train your child in one day...well..when you watch the whole thing, she actually says it may take up to three days, so today was day one of our own potty boot camp at home.

If you really don't want to watch the video (don't worry, I won't be hurt!) the idea is make it the kid's responsibility for their body. Don't ask them if they have to pee--tell them, "If you have to pee, you have to pee on the potty." If/when they have an accident, they have to clean it up (you help them initially, but remind them that it is their responsibility--along with cleaning up themselves, and changing into dry clothes.

Keep in mind, it is Thursday and I had to work, so Hawksbill basically set out to do this on his own today...I knew he was in for a fun day this morning as Gwen lay in a fetal position on her changing table crying that she didn't want to wear underwear....but before I left, she was in her underwear and all excited about potty training. Uh, huh.

Hawksbill spent pretty much all of today upstairs in the part of our house without carpeting watching Gwen pee her pants over and over again...she has mastered the part of cleaning herself up, putting her wet clothes in a bucket and cleaning up her mess on the floor, but that was it. My favorite was when he called at lunch time to say she pooped in her pants and wanted him to change her, but he told her it was her responsibility and that she had to do it herself...fun!! So, after she figured out how to get her soiled clothing off, and it was messy I hear, and after stepping in said mess and being told she had to clean it up herself...well...the day just went on.

I came home about 5:30 pm to a disgruntled Hawksbill who had already picked out a movie to go to tonight and left me in charge of boot camp which lasted until 7:30 pm tonight....Gwen had another 4 accidents (but happily took off her clothes, cleaned up her mess, and redressed herself...)

So, I don't know. Was it worth it? I really don't feel like we are any closer to potty training than we were yesterday. I have a load of totally pee soaked clothing and towels in the washer right now, and Hawksbill is somewhere at a movie. Gwen is in a diaper now--not because I am giving up, but because it is almost time for bed, and I am a realist about trying to let her sleep without a diaper tonight. I know she can hold it all night--she wakes up dry, but I have only had 1 time EVER that I convinced her to pee on the potty in the morning before she soaks the damn thing.

My hope is that maybe, just MAYBE, if Hawksbill has the patience to do this again tomorrow, that she will try to sit on the potty...that maybe she'll pee just one time...or a miracle will happen and she'll just decide to do it. If you know Gwen at all in person, you know she HAS to do everything herself--feed herself, dress herself, get things down from shelves herself, she'd probably try to peel her own apple if she could reach the knives, so the resistance to free herself from the evils of the diaper is beyond me.

On a slight side note, going back to the price of diapers...don't these diaper companies (and I mean YOU Kimberly-Clark) understand that raising the price of diapers only encourages more people to not want to use disposables EVER? It makes you want to use good old fashioned cotton diapers which in turn leads to the parents potty training their kids earlier...eliminating the NEED for disposable diapers..heh heh....and for those of us who never used cotton diapers...it only makes us that much more eager to not be a slave to the diaper genie.

Our Different Drummer

2008-06-09T08:14:00.010-05:00

Simon's not the only one who has been learning new things lately. A few weeks ago I thought it was about time we started teaching Gwen about the alphabet and the letter sounds. So, we bought her some foam letters and starting going through them, but it turns out she already knew. I don't know if she learned all the letter sounds from TV or from Simon, but she's pretty much up to speed on all the "short" letter sounds.

Next up we can start learning the "long" sounds and the difference between upper and lower case. Here are some recent pictures of Gwen being as adorable as always:

I don't know how it happened but Gwen is turning out to be quite the girly girl. She didn't get it from me, that's for sure, and Barb has always leaned towards the tom-boyish side of things. But, Gwen is a stereotypical girl if there ever was one.

It all started right around her 2nd birthday. We had a big friends & family birthday party for both kids (their birthdays are 3 weeks apart) and our friends Eric and Karen bought Gwen a "princess kit" which included silvery high-healed shoes, a tiara and a silvery plastic wand. Then someone else bought her a huge feather boa. For weeks after the party she paraded around the house wearing that outfit and saying (over and over again) "I'm a MAGICAL PRINCESS". We didn't even know she knew the word "princess" but there she was... hooked on a totally new lifestyle.

Nowadays she changes clothes many times a day and almost always dresses herself. If we try to pick out her clothes she usually gets mad at us so we just let her do it herself. In fact, she was dressing herself independently long before Simon was, and he's 3 years older.

And, she often uses her allowance money to save up for all sorts of princess related toys. A few weeks ago, much to the consternation of her mother's inner feminist, Gwen decided that the thing she wanted most in the world was a Barbie doll in a wedding dress.

When this all started we talked briefly about trying to prevent the accumulation of all the princess paraphernalia and the whole ideology in general, but we ruled that out pretty quickly. This is just who Gwen is. She glommed onto the whole princess thing in the same way that Simon became obsessed with stars and planets. Something just clicked inside her and resonated with her soul. She definitely walks to the beat of a different drummer around this house, but it's her drummer, damnit!

Finally, to wrap this post up, here's a picture of Gwen doing what princesses do best: suffer with a smile!

Oh, and for the record, she wasn't just pretending to wash the cupboards in that picture. Without us suggesting it she got a wet sponge and washed all the kitchen cupboards that she could reach. Sometimes princesses can be VERY helpful!

(As a socio-political aside: I used to assume that gender roles like those associated with stereotypical femininity or masculinity were entirely socially created. However, now that we have a child of each gender and we've had the chance to see them develop their own styles and interests, I've had to revise my views. There may be social elements to some of this stuff, but most of it sure seems to be innate. You could argue that Simon's interest in astronomy was encouraged by me... but nobody has been encouraging Gwen's obsession with all things princess.)

Kindergarten Recap

2008-06-04T08:19:00.008-05:00

I'm not the only one in our family who graduated recently. A couple of weeks ago Simon finished his final formal assignment for his Kindergarten year. This ends our first official year of homeschooling, so I thought I'd write a bit about how it went.

First, here's a picture of our happy Kindergarten graduate.

When I had originally planned his Kindergarten year I had a very organized and structured curriculum in mind. When we experimented with that, though, it turned out that nobody was having any fun at all. The whole thing was just a drag so I went back to the drawing board and re-planned the whole thing. This is how we organized what ended up working very well for us.

First we set out to determine exactly what a kid “should” learn in Kindergarten. For this I consulted Rebecca Rupp’s Home Learning Year by Year and E.D. Hirsch’s What your Kindergartner Needs to Know. What came out of that research was roughly this:

Language arts:

Know all upper and lowercase letters and the sounds of each
Begin to read 3 letter words
Recognize their own name in print
Understand syllables

Writing:

Be able to write all letters – upper and lowercase
Be able to write simple words, messages & such

Listening & Speaking:

Follow simple 1 & 2 step directions
Retell familiar stories
Invent & tell fantasy stories
Memorize & recite short stories & rhymes

Mathematics & such:

Be able to group objects into sets
Identify and continue simple repeating patterns
Count from 1-31
Identify ordinal positions (first to fifth)
Adding and subtracting number from 1-10
Solve simple story problems
Identify pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and recognize dollar & cent signs
Understand measurements of length, weight & capacity
Tell time to the hour
Know days of the week

History & Geography:

(Note: the books I referenced above recommend starting with US history, but we opted to teach history chronologically a la the “classical” approach that I’ve written about before so we modified this to suit our needs)

Listen to stories about ancient times including Greek & Roman mythology
Able to use maps and globes, learning US geography and understanding the major world land masses

Science:

Sorting objects according to physical characteristics
Understand living vs. non-living
Become familiar with plants
Become familiar with animals
The five senses and the associated body parts
Basic composition of the earth
Understand the seasons and weather

Art & Music:

Name and describe colors, shapes & lines
Experiment with a range of art techniques & mediums
Be familiar with rhythm, melody and harmony

Health & Physical Education:

Know importance of exercise, cleanliness, good nutrition & sleep
Participate in age-appropriate athletic activities

Then, after compiling a list of things that a Kindergartener “should” learn in Kindergarten, the next thing we did was to assess what Simon already knew. It turned out that there was quite a bit he already knew. For example, by the time he was 5 he could read simple sentences and he already knew all the colors and shapes. Also he could already count to 100 and add & subtract numbers between 1-20 in his head without using manipulatives.

The next step in the process involved reducing the previously mentioned level of structure in our homeschool. So, we decided to decided to divide his “lessons” into two categories: formal and informal (or, structured and “unschooled” if you will).

The “formal” lessons were things that we tried to do on an almost daily basis and included the following:

Math lessons: for this we chose the Singapore Math text and workbook level 1. We actually started with Saxon Math level 1, but it was really boring and repetitive so we switched in mid-year to Singapore, which we all liked a lot more. Using level/grade 1 actually put him a year ahead of things in math, but he already knew all the kindergarten math basics so it would have just bored him to keep things too simple.

We didn’t do math lessons every day, but some days he would voluntarily do 3-4 days of lessons all at once so it evened out over time. From these lessons he learned more complex addition and subtraction (numbers 1-100) and even multiplication. He also began to learn the basics of division, but on a very superficial level. There were also a bunch of lessons about money… learning to add and subtract various coin amounts and whatnot.

History: For this we used Susan Bauer’s Story of the World Volume 1 (Ancient Times) on CD. This is a 7 disc set and every night for the past year Simon has been listening to 1 disc at a time at bedtime. I tried reading the book to him also, but he was annoyed that I was just repeating things that he already heard on his discs so I gave up.

Read good books: Every night at bed time we’ve been reading novels like Charlotte’s Web or The Chronicles of Narnia and also traditional fairy tales, Greek & Roman mythology, Aesop’s Fables and anything else he seemed interested in. I tried also reading to the kids during the day, but they weren’t interested in that and couldn’t sit still. Bedtime it is then.

That was it for the “formal” part of our lessons. Everything else was informal or “unschooled”. For us, what this meant is that we would pay close attention to the sorts of things Simon was interested in and we would make sure that he had all the books, software, videos, arts & crafts, comics and everything else he wanted to do his own research into these things. We decided not to impose any further subjects on him, but rather to trust him to develop and pursue his own academic interests. This may not work with all kids, and it may not work with Gwen in a few years, but Simon had already established himself as being able to deep dive into subjects he was interested in and we figured that would continue.

The way this took shape over the course of the last year completely met our hopes and expectations. On his own Simon continued to research and study everything he could get his hands on about astronomy. The boy is completely obsessed with stars and planets. We found a ton of books for him and also some really great free astronomy software (Celestia) that allowed him to tour the solar system, visiting every planet and moon and also to learn about the constellations. As part of this we are constantly printing out black and white pictures of the planets the he loves to color. Then we cut them out and he will carry them around with him all day talking about them. His bedroom is filled with planet books, planets hanging from the ceiling, little plastic planets littering the floor and giant inflatable planets pushed into every available nook and cranny.

What has been especially interesting about this is the way that other subjects become organized as part of his particular passions. For example, introducing him to Greek & Roman mythology was easy, once we learned that they Roman Gods have the same name as the planets. Then, when we read the myths we were, from his perspective, reading stories about the adventures of the planets. Also, becoming a better reader became important to him because he wanted to read more about astronomy, so he put a lot of effort into learning more words and letter-sound combinations. And, he became interested in really large numbers, because of the distance between the planets and the sun. So, he learned about hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, etc.

(The other day Barb and I were sitting in the living room and Simon walked in and asked: What’s 365 times 248? We said “huh”, but he insisted we find the answer so we pulled up the calculator and figured out that it was 90,520. Then he explained that 90,520 was how many days it took Pluto to go around the sun.)

But, the best education Simon is receiving happens after bedtime, after we read to him and shut his door for the night. It turns out that the boy is a night-owl. He loves to stay up late. So, after some discussion we’ve decided to let him stay up as late as he wants, long after we’ve gone to bed. The following rules apply: he was to stay in his room with the door shut (except to visit the bathroom) and he must be quiet and not disturb anyone else.

Neither of the kids will ever have a TV or a computer in their bedroom, so he spends this time (from 9pm until after midnight) reading and playing with toys. Before I leave his room for the night he will often ask me to pull some books down from high on his book shelves for him. Also, recently he asked us to get him a set of foam letters. For the past couple of weeks he has spent this quiet time with these letters and a couple of phonics books. The other night I peeked in on him at about midnight and he had the books open and was spelling out words with the foam letters. I asked him how it was going and he started telling me all about letter “blends” and what different letter combinations sound like if you put them together. We did not suggest that he do this at all, it was all up to him.

So, that’s been our first year of homeschooling. We’ve decided that there are a few things that should be learned in a systematic way (like math and history) but for almost everything else we’ve learned that we can trust him to more or less teach himself. Our job is mostly to pay attention to the kid’s interests and then to make sure the house is full of books, software, art supplies and toys relating to those interests and they pretty much do the rest.

Now that I review the list of things a kindergartner “should” learn with what Simon actually learned this year, there are only a couple of things I think we missed. Foremost of these is to develop skills associated with summarizing stories and repeating back the story’s basic theme or plot. We haven’t done much of that. Later in the year when we start first grade I plan to add an additional “formal” lesson to our repertoire dealing with general language skills. I plan to use Jesse Wise’s “First Language Lessons” which is a two year program for 1^st and 2^nd grade which is a gradual and systematic study of grammar and other aspects of English language study. It includes memorizing short poems and also begins the process of learning to summarize story elements (first verbally and later in writing).

Overall, though, Simon’s kindergarten year accomplished just what we hoped. It has become a blend of the classical approach (with an emphasis on history and “great” books) and an unschooling approach in which we follow the kid’s interests. We’ve decided that there are some things that should be taught in an organized way, but that many things can be left up to them with us more or less just supplying resources.

The way that these two elements of our homeschool are balanced may change over time, but for now this seems to be working for everyone. It’s been a good year.

Lucky 13

2008-05-27T20:21:00.002-05:00

Thirteen years ago today I said I would love you forever...Happy Anniversary, my sweet! Here's to forever, and lucky 13!

I love you more each and every day! Thank you for such a lovely day today!

More Mini Painting

2008-05-27T10:12:00.001-05:00

I haven't painted in almost a year, but I recently go the itch to get back to it. Since the last time I posted we got our own digital camera and I painted two more minis. Here are two that I painted in the summer of 2007:

The crypt:

The Barbarian Giant:
I'm pretty proud of them both, but the camera sure picks up all the flaws in my paint job. Still, I'm looking forward to picking up my brushes again. I just ordered this model and am waiting for it to be delivered:

Phase 2: Complete

2008-05-09T07:45:00.006-05:00

My "grow your own geek" project has completed an important milestone.

Last night Simon and I had a boys night out to go see the new Iron Man movie together. This was great for a number of different reasons. First off, the movie rocked. Definitely one of the best super hero movies I've ever seen. I collected the Iron Man comic for many years in my youth and it was amazing to see him finally hit the big screen.

Also, it was great just to go out and do guy stuff with my son. He had a good time and is also excited about going to see the new Indiana Jones movie with me in a couple weeks. He even said he'd go see The Hulk when that comes out later this summer. This is new for us. I tried to get Simon to go see Spider Man 3 last summer, but he was still afraid of non-animated action movies. This year he's totally cool with it.

Mostly though, it reminded me of the time when I was 7 years old and my father took me to see my first "grown-up" action movie. It was the 1976 King Kong and I loved the fact that it was just my dad and me going to see it together. It was the first in a long, long line of me and dad going to see action & cheesy horror movies. Just me and him. No chicks allowed.

The funny thing that occurred to me as we were leaving the theater is that my first movie with my dad and Simon's first movie with me both featured Jeff Bridges. What's up with that? It's like my father, me, Simon and Jeff Bridges are all doing this Circle of Life thing together... but Jeff Bridges doesn't even know about it. I wonder if I should tell him?

But seriously, it was weird how such a simple thing, taking my kid to a movie, was so strangely satisfying... both for its fun in the here and now, but also for its nostalgic value. The super-hero theme, the remembering of times with my dad, the realization that there's a whole new activity that Simon and I can do together that we couldn't before because action movies scared him... all of these things made it a fine, fine evening.

Now I just have to wait a few more years to teach Simon how to play pool. Two (or more) guys + action movie + hanging out in a pool hall afterwards = best times ever!

He Did It!!!

2008-04-27T20:10:00.005-05:00

It's official!! Hawksbill graduated yesterday!! Woo hoo!! He now has a Master's in Social Work from U of M!! The whole family went to his graduation ceremony and we are all so proud of him!! The last 2 years have been busy, crazy, exhausting, but it was worth every minute!! It is kind of weird having him actually finished now. What to do with our evenings? Hang out? Cook dinner instead of buying pizza for the 10,000th time? Take a family walk? So unreal!!

The above shot is Hawksbill lining up before graduation. Simon, Gwen and I sat in the very back row of the auditorium with my parents. I tried to take pictures inside, but the lighting wasn't great for photos.

A blurry shot of Hawksbill being "hooded" onstage.

Hawksbill with Simon and Gwen after the ceremony. It was a very windy day, but also nice and sunny. This was the first day I really noticed that spring has sprung. I have been so tired, exhausted, stressed out, etc. waiting for graduation, that I hardly noticed winter ending and all the trees blossoming. Wow--it is nice out and I have been missing it!

Finally, a family shot outside of the auditorium. I am glad that we brought the kids to Hawksbill's graduation, however, I have to say that it was difficult trying to make Gwen behave through the entire ceremony. I can only hope the keynote speaker didn't hear Gwen shouting, "Big Armpit!" while she was addressing the audience. I do want to apologize to the people sitting in front of us who were videotaping the ceremony, as the first 30 minutes of their tape is going to consist of me saying, "Gwen, please sit down, please be quiet, please, I'll pay you..please stop touching your brother...no, I don't have gummies, please stop! Give me my camera back!" etc. and so forth.

Two years, 60 credit hours, and countless sleepless nights, but you did it! So, congratulations again, my love! I am so proud of you! You did it!!!

My addiction

2008-04-21T16:01:00.009-05:00

When I first applied for and was accepted to grad school I was required to send in a couple hundred dollar deposit to "hold" my spot in the school of social work. That was three years ago. Then I started school about two years ago, took out a ton of student loans and recently finished up all the classes and whatnot. But, for some reason the school never applied my deposit to any of my classes. A few weeks ago I called them about the negative balance on my account so they just sent us a check back for the deposit amount.

So, what do you do when you get a couple of hundred dollars you weren't expecting to get? I asked my lovely bride who said: "I don't care, spend it on whatever you want."

What else was there for me to do? I Promptly ordered another dozen board games for me and Simon. This time I picked out six games that were mostly kid oriented and six that were for me and the Foot Foot gang. They arrived last week.

In all I got: Amazonas, Babel, Caribbean, Castle Keep, Chateau Roquefort, Hare & Tortoise, Jambo, Mykerinos, Elfenland, O Zoo Le Mio, The Thief of Baghdad and Vikings.

So far they seem to be a fine batch o' games, but we've still only scratched the surface of all the games we've bought lately. Of this batch Simon and I played Chateau Roquefort and Hare & Tortoise a couple of days ago. And, the other night the Foot Foot gang had a gaming night and I played Vikings with Paul and Larry. Everything else is still shrink wrapped.

So far, Chateau Roquefort is about the coolest family game I've seen in a long time. The physical game itself is a bit of an engineering marvel. It is difficult to describe, but the game is played on 3 layers of thick cardstock representing the roof, and two layers of floor of a castle. Each player controls 4 mice who roam the castle in search of cheese. But the players can move the floor tiles underneath themselves or their opponents. This may either move a prized piece of cheese closer to your mice... or it might move a hole in the floor underneath an opponent causing one of their mice to fall into the "dungeon" and out of game. It is really quite clever.

Hare & Tortoise is a great game that Paul introduced me to some years back. Simon and I enjoyed playing it the other night and he does understand the rules, but still has a hard time choosing an optimum move out of all possible options. I consistently had to point out several good options for him to choose from when it was his turn. He did end up winning, but I wasn't entirely doing my best.

I'm also very pleased with Vikings, although it will be a long time before the kids can get into that one. In it each player controls a band of Viking explorers trying to find new islands in the north Atlantic. The game uses a number of familiar mechanics like an auction phase and tile placement, but it combines them in a very unique way that feels completely original. In the end of our game I tied with Larry on the scoring track, but he beat me on tie-breakers because he had ONE more gold coin than I did. Yeesh!

So, in the end I have a TON of new games to play and I can't wait to get them all to the table. I still have a big wishlist of still more that I want to buy though.

I can stop any time I want to. I just don't want to.

No more teacher's dirty looks!

2008-04-16T13:28:00.009-05:00

A little earlier today I went to my last class and submitted my final assignment for graduate school. I have one more day of internship left on Friday. Then, a week from Saturday I graduate with my Master's degree in social work (MSW).

This most recent semester was much less stressful than the Fall semester. This time I only had 3 classes and the workload seemed significantly lighter overall. It was quite a relief because I really thought I was losing my mind last November / December.

This year my internship has been at an urban Detroit hospital where they have a therapy program for children and adolescents who had either been witness to or been victimized by physical or sexual abuse or they had witnessed the death of a loved one. Along with conducting therapy sessions I was also responsible for interviewing families who had a child in the hospital for medical reasons. In these cases I had to determine what, if any, additional resources the family might need. I also had to ferret out possible child abuse and neglect.

Overall I filed about a half dozen cases with the local Child Protective Service agency. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm glad if I helped remove kids from dangerous situations in their home. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that these same kids won't face equal or worse abuse/neglect in foster care. There are very few good options for children in this situation.

This was a very different internship from the one I had last year. Last year I worked with adults who were violent offenders with schizophrenia. This year I worked with children and teens who were victims of violence in some way and with families dealing with difficult medical situations. Both were great internships, but this year's was more emotionally draining.

This year I saw dozens of families in moments of absolute crisis. In therapy I worked with kids who had witnessed terrible things at home, ranging from arguments and chair throwing between parents all the way to witnessing one parent murder the other and then commit suicide. On the inpatient units I worked with families who were living through nightmarish scenarios, such as a child's severe spinal injury or the diagnosis of a horrible disease.

This year I saw some people be unwaveringly strong and others demonstrate incredible stupidity. I talked with parents who showed admirable bravery in the face of Hell, and I called security on parents who couldn't control themselves and who started fighting in the hospital hallways. I worked with successful middle class, two parent families from the suburbs and I worked with impoverished, unemployed, homeless mothers with as many as ten children and no family or friends to help out. I saw the system work sometimes and I watched helplessly while children were taken away from their mother for no other reason than that they were poor.

All in all my classes were pretty good. Some of the classes were kind of a joke, and some were very difficult, but it was at the internships where I got my greatest education. It's been a good couple of years.

It may sound corny or schmaltzy, but one of the things I learned the most this year was sheer gratitude for Barb and the kids. My family is intact and not affected by divorce, violence, illness or poverty. After spending all that time at the hospital this year, things like divorce, violence, illness and poverty started to feel like the norm. It's easy to take our happy and pleasant life for granted.

Now I have to find a job. I have a couple of irons in the fire, as they say. I have my resume out to an outpatient adolescent medical clinic where they want to have a mental health therapist on staff and another resume out to an adolescent HIV/AIDS clinic. Barb's sister knows people at the local V.A. hospital and sent my resume to them yesterday for work with traumatized and/or addicted veterans.

So, that's it. The only thing left between me and my Master's is the graduation ceremony, which I wasn't even going to attend, but Barb is making me... and my mom is flying in for it as well. Even Simon is excited about it.

Until then, I just get to hang out, goof off, be lazy and play with the kids.

Tax Return = Games, Games, Games!!!

2008-04-02T18:08:00.009-05:00

So, we got our tax return back the other day and allocated some of it as "fun money" for each of us to blow on anything we wanted. I, of course, spent my share on games. Board games, in this case. My shipment just arrived and I can't wait to try them out. Some of them are family games for me, Barb and Simon to enjoy now, and some are for when the kids are a bit older. And some of the games are for me... ones that I thought the guys would like also. All in all I got:

10 days in the USA, Arkadia, Aton, Blue Moon, Cartagena, Hera and Zeus, Lost Cities, Niagara, Odin's Ravens, Saint Petersburg, The Downfall of Pompeii and Zooloretto.

The other day I made a geeklist of all the games I'd like to get to have around the house for the kids (both for now and as they age a bit more. I selected these because a lot of them got good comments on that list.

Simon is really looking forward to Niagara. I borrowed it from Steve some months back and he really liked it and keeps asking when we'll get a copy. I also played Zooloretto at Steve's and I think Simon might like that one as well.

For our gaming group, I picked out Saint Petersburg, Downfall of Pompeii, Arkadia and Aton, unless there are only two players when any of the Kosmos games might be a good time.

Fun stuff. I can't wait to play 'em all!

Update:
Simon and I played two games of Niagara tonight and it went quite well. I thought I might have to simplify the rules a bit for him, but he did just fine and we were able to play with all rules as written. He doesn't really get the strategy yet, but he really does like the whole gem collecting aspect. But, he made me exchange the canoes for little paper stars he colored earlier and has been playing with all day. So, instead of canoes we were paddling stars up the Niagara river. Go figure. He says he can't wait to play more tomorrow. Woot!

(home)school in the news

2008-03-27T18:46:00.007-05:00

Around here we typically only discuss the pro-homeschooling arguments, like this recent Washington Post article. Well, this week on the Diane Rehm show there was a pretty balanced discussion between pro-homeschooling reps from the HSLDA and some Stanford professor arguing for greater oversight of homeschoolers. Both sides raise some good ideas and it's a pretty good all around discussion. (Thanks to my attorney for sending the link.)

And, then, for another side of the story altogether, here's a link to a video highlighting some really interesting educational advances the Tampa, Florida school district is experimenting with. If this had been going on when I was in high school, I would have ran away from home just to go to school in Tampa! The video tries to explain the situation like it's controversial or something, but, they're just putting a negative spin on it.

Ok, yes I'm being completely sarcastic there. That link is to a news video describing three separate arrests in two weeks in Tampa of women teachers who were having sex with their 14-15 year old male students. That's THREE completely separate incidents in two weeks in one city. It apparently brings the total in Tampa up to 10 since 1995. I'm sure this is nothing new. It's very likely that women teachers have been seducing students since the 1870's and we're just now starting to pay attention to it. Just as male teachers have been doing the same thing (but in much higher numbers that hardly ever get media attention).

Other than the prevalence rate the only real difference seems to be that men get sent to prison and women get probation and told not to do it again. But, it makes sense. Judges don't like sending pretty women to jail. There are good reasons for this. I guarantee that if you're a judge and you send a pretty woman off to jail... she definitely won't sleep with you. Nothing turns a women off like incarceration! Probation on the other hand... totally different story.

And, finally (and more seriously), here's an article from an Arizona paper about some parents of autistic kids who are having quite a bit of difficulty with their local school district. The parents have organized and are trying to collectively encourage the school district to treat their special-needs children humanely and to, you know, educate them. Here's a good paragraph from the article:

District officials argue that the complaint process in some cases didn't end the way that parents would like, dismissing concerns about specific administrators who in one case denied a mother's request that staff members stop using physical force on her 5-year-old son.

The comments in the article are pretty interesting as well. Lots of fed up and frustrated parents and a few pro-establishment folks who feel that parents who complain too much when school staff use "physical force" on their autistic 5 year old kids are just a bunch of "whiners." It's like: Dude... you're kid's autistic. What'd you expect?

Well, that last bit was supposed to be more sarcasm, but there may be a point there. If you have a child with special learning needs and you send them to an average American public school... what do you expect? If you aren't rich enough to move to an affluent neighborhood or to put them in a private school you're just kind of screwed. Or, to be more precise, the students are screwed and the parents just have to put up with it.

So, I guess the overarching lesson is this: If your child is attending public school but is autistic or has other special needs... or if they go to school in Tampa... they're screwed.

Is it spring yet?

2008-03-26T12:11:00.002-05:00

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?????

Sniff

Two posts in one day

2008-03-19T13:58:00.002-05:00

You can tell I am home sick :)

I forgot I wanted to post about this, but it is mostly so a year from now I can re-read THIS post and say, "Oh, what was I so worried about!" Yes, Gwen is now 3 years and almost 2 months old and no closer to potty trained than the day she was born. I am getting grief over this because, "She is a girl and they always train so easily!! She'll be out of diapers before her 3rd birthday!" Yes, well, that didn't happen.

I know Simon was almost 4 (yes, 4) before he was potty trained...and I know I am not the only mother on the planet with a 3-year old daughter who isn't potty trained, but I just dread doing this whole thing again. We went out and bought "big girl underwear" and a new potty seat a few weeks ago, which resulted in Gwen announcing she was a big girl and didn't wear diapers anymore. That lasted about 3 hours--the amount of time she held it before she peed her pants, freaked out and said she wanted a diaper again.

She will sit on the toilet about once a week now and do nothing. She can hold it ALL NIGHT long and sometimes even an additional 2-3 hours after she wakes up. She tells me when she needs a new diaper, and you always know when she has to do #2 because she hides somewhere and shouts, "Don't look at me!"

So, why is she not potty trained? Is it because I am too tired and lazy? Probably. I am too tired right now, that is for sure. I was hoping she'd be trained by this summer so we could go camping without having to drag 500 diapers with us, but I doubt we'll be so lucky.

So, the point of this post is just to vent about the lack of potty training that is going on here...the fact that diapers went up about $5 a box and she has to wear a size 6 diaper...which means you get about 12 in a box for $40 now...we even bought the cheapo brand this time which reminded me why we stopped buying the no-name brand--they leak like crazy and do not come in a size 6.

Anyway...my hope is that 1 year from now, I will read this, and will not have a single diaper in my house. The diaper genie and changing table will be things of the past, and I will never have to change another diaper again.

Wednesday, March something or other

2008-03-19T11:09:00.002-05:00

I am home sick today. Well, I work from home Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but I have some horrible throat/nose/cold/ache thing going on...it was bad enough yesterday for me to go into the doctor, only to be told that I didn't look that bad and take over the counter stuff. Does it make anyone else mad when you wake up in so much pain you cannot even talk, your abs and back hurt from coughing so much, and the dr says, "Oh, you look fine." Thanks...this is why I almost never go to the dr anymore...unless I am in extreme pain (like yesterday). Lot of good that did...I thought for sure I had strep throat, but I won't know that until tomorrow. Probably not--probably just a cold...from hell.

Simon is forcing me to watch every episode of Star Wars...yesterday we watched Episodes I, III, and V, (the odds) and so far today we have watched Episode II. I imagine we'll watch the IV and VI when we finish this one....I like the original movies from the 70's but do I even have to comment on the new movies?

Simon is plugging away with his schooling. I had to explain away homeschooling to the new dr and the rest of the office staff yesterday which I wasn't in the mood for. The question I have been getting a lot lately, and yesterday was no exception, was what "state standards and tests" did I have to put my kids through in order to homeschool. As usual, I got the usual looks of horror when I said I didn't have to do anything in the State of Michigan while homeschooling... I just had this debate with some coworkers last week who don't even KNOW that I am homeschooling and was surprised by the ones who said, "Why should the state decide what your kids need to know." More importantly, why should your kids have to study and memorize a bunch of stuff they are going to forget the minute after they take a test because it is boring and they aren't interested in it.

The conversation on homeschooling continued yesterday when a physician's assistant asked Simon, "Don't you want to go to school so you can have lots of friends?" Yes, I thought. I had SO many friends in school. Note sarcasm here. Not that I would expect my kids to be social outcasts like I was, but it tends to run in my family. I was then asked if I was doing the homeschooling (as opposed to Hawksbill) as it seems like that is what people think--it is the mom's responsibility or something...but no, I said we were both teaching him. I don't know why this question bugs me so much. As if only one person should be doing this, the mom only, the certified teacher only, I don't know...it just kind of irks me. I should have been more polite or more excited while describing homeschooling, but I was tired, sick and feeling a bit defensive yesterday and wasn't in the mood for the list of usual homeschooling questions so I made some excuse about not feeling well (ha!) and left.

Simon has been learning a lot of Spanish words lately. He was mad that the Spanish word for "no," is "no," because it isn't different. We were reading some book the other day and I said to Simon, "I wonder what the Spanish word for 'snake' is?" and he replied, "Uh, mommy...it's 'culebra'." I had to look it up because I didn't believe him and he was right!! I had 2 years of high school Spanish, and three semesters of college Spanish and I might remember how to count to five yet my kids know more Spanish than I do after watching Dora or reading books they find laying around.

Hawksbill is at school today. His afternoon class was canceled, but he is staying later to do homework. I have a lot of work I should be doing, but I officially called in sick again this morning. I am so tired I can't think straight, but hopefully this will pass by tomorrow.

This weekend is Easter, but Hawksbill will most likely go to Ann Arbor to study so I imagine I will take the kids to my parents' house on Sunday. I used to love Easter, but I am really not in the mood for it this year. Maybe because it is so early--March 23rd?? It just doesn't feel like a Spring holiday should be taking place so early in March. The Easter bunny still comes to our house, but I don't know if he wants to hide eggs this year...ah, we'll see. Maybe I am just grumpy since I am sick.

My found money project is going well this year. I know I started the project later last year, but I have already found more money than all of last year in these past 3 months. I have even had to pass up some potential found money...I am hit or miss and the drive through...I saw about 5 pennies on the ground yesterday, but decided to pass since I was sick and there were about 5 cars behind me in line...but if there had been some silver coins, I would have gone for it :) Yes, I admit, I will open my door at the drive through and pick up coins under the drive through window. I never would have done something like that before, but I found almost $2.00 this year in one stop by a fast food restaurant. Yes, I am a nerd or geek or freak, but hey, if you don't want your quarters, I will gladly take them.

Skittles?

2008-03-13T09:20:00.005-05:00

Here is a CNN report about an 8th grader in Connecticut who was caught with "Skittles" in school. That's the candy. It's not a euphamism for Oxycontin or heroin. Candy.

Michael Sheridan, an eighth-grade honors student who was suspended for a day, barred from attending an honors dinner and stripped of his title as class vice president after he was caught with a bag of Skittles candy in school ...

After getting bad publicity the school apparently decided to take things down a notch and they reinstated the boy to his position on student council.

Sigh... next thing you know schools will be calling the police and arresting 6 year olds for throwing temper tantrums. Oh, wait... they already do that.

If children would just learn to act like mature adults we wouldn't have these problems!

Snow Day!

2008-03-05T15:50:00.006-05:00

Today, I experienced something that is rare for my work--A SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY!! Woo hoo!! Ok, so we did get about 8-10 inches of snow last night, but my work almost never closes. It would have been a more pleasant surprise had today been a day I work at work rather than work from home (and it would have been the ultimate of nice surprises if people from work weren't emailing me with stuff to do anyway) but at least I don't feel as guilty about putting off work until evening when I know no one is in the office.

I have to say, the above two photos of the trees and the snowman are actually from last week when we had a really good snowstorm of packing snow...last night's storm is summed up in the photo below--this was the lowest point on our driveway after Hawksbill took the snowblower to it this morning.

And, I am sure Hawksbill would agree, it would have been the best day ever if HIS school would have closed for today, but god forbid someone paying their tuition miss a single day of class -- no, we don't want to worry about public safety, the nasty drive and roads, but gosh darn it, if I am paying tuition, I better get every last dollar out of my professors even if it means car accidents and slipping and falling all over campus!

Although the snow is pretty, I can say I am officially OVER winter. We have had snow pretty much every week, seems like every other day, not to mention today is MARCH 5th!! And I am looking forward to spring. I heard that we are supposed to get a couple more inches of snow tonight, and more this weekend. I have to send out a big thank you to my sister who gave us her practically brand new snow blower since she has a snow service now. I didn't think we'd even use it this winter, but Hawksbill has put it to good use twice already.

And for my parents who spent 3 hours waiting on the runway in a plane waiting to fly to Florida last night, well, at least they are in Florida for a week instead of here with piles of wet, melting snow all over the place. I hope Spring gets here soon. I'd like to see some tulips, thanks!

Gaming Day

2008-03-03T08:14:00.012-05:00

This past Saturday was a big all day board gaming day at our house that lasted from before noon until almost 2am. We had a great turnout and almost all of Team Foot Foot showed up. In all there were 8 of us, although not everyone could stay for the whole time. It's hard to get 10 guys with family's & jobs together on a regular basis, especially when some of them live in Grand Rapids, Washington D.C. or even New York. I hate waiting until the August retreat to see everyone though, so I've been trying to schedule these all day sessions every other month or so. I've been doing very little gaming with the guys while I've been in school anyway. I've been missing it.

My attorney showed up around 10am from D.C. and we played a 2-player game of Aquadukt, which I recently ordered off Tanga for about $8.00. Simon and I had played this one the day before and although it isn't a bad game, I'm glad I didn't pay more for it. After that my attorney and Simon and I played a 3-player game of Gulo Gulo. Simon is always glad to play one of "his" games with "the guys".

By that time it was noon and Paul, Steve and Larry showed up so we played a 5-player game of Fearsome Floors, which I'd never heard of before, although it was designed by the same guy who created Power Grid, which is one of my favorites. Fearsome Floors is a game that takes place on a large off-sized grid with a monster who makes predictable yet somewhat complicated moves. The players each control three characters who are trying to make it from one end of the map to the other without being nabbed by the monster. It's quite a fun game and I'm thinking of picking up a copy for myself because I think the kids would like it some day.

After this we were waiting for Jake and Mark to arrive so the 5 of us played a filler game of For Sale, which is one of the best 10-minute fillers around. The others still hadn't shown up by the end of that one so the 5 of us moved on to a fairly short game of Citadels before they got there. By the end of that time I think both Jake and Mark had arrived, which meant we now had 7 and had to split into two groups. Me, my attorney and Mark played Colosseum, while Steve, Paul, Jake and Larry played Cuba (I think. I've never played Cuba myself although the others did rave about it.) I do like Colosseum, but it doesn't work well as a 3-player game. It really needs at least 4 so that there's enough competition over resources. But, it is a fun game nonetheless.

After that my attorney, Mark, Larry and I played a 4 player game of Thebes, which is fun but suffers from too much randomness. After that I sat down with Mark, Steve and Eric to play a 4 player game of Power Grid with the new power plant expansion set. Initially I liked the new power plant expansions, but I'm not so sure now. They seem much more powerful than the original set. At the end of the game all four of us were powering 16-19 cities, which would have been unheard of in the original set. The original set is much tighter. Maybe I'll have to try it again though.

Finally, as we usually do lately, we finished the evening with a game of Zopp. There were 6 of us left shortly after midnight so we divided into two teams of 3 and battled it out. When I say "battle" what I really mean is that we occasionally shot the puck around the board, but mostly we discussed strategy and argued about how much of the puck was over the foul line. I was just glad that I scored a goal (maybe two, I don't recall). It is a much harder game than it looks and I should really practice more. Our team (me, Paul, Eric) finally won against Mark, Steve and my attorney when Paul made a stunning (and accidental) goal from one end of the board to the other. (At least it looked accidental to me... Paul may claim he did it on purpose.) Good times... good times...

All in all it was a great gaming day. I think I won a few games like Aquadukt, For Sale, Zopp, but Aquadukt was only a 2 player before the group arrived and Zopp was a team effort. That leaves me with For Sale as my only source of pride for the day... the 10 minute game.

Special congratulations to Mark, though! He was truly on fire. I think he won almost every game he touched. I seriously hope he gets that out of his system before the retreat in August! And, my thanks to everyone for coming over and having fun. I don't get to do this often enough with my current school schedule.

Next up, we're discussing a full day in May to play a single game of Advanced Civilization. Civ is one of my favorites, but it is an endurance game and can take over 9 hours to play. It was a brilliant game back in the early 90's, but it suffers now just because better (and shorter) games have been produced in the last 15 years. Still, I like to try to play it every few years. Back before we had kids Barb joined me for several consecutive years traveling down to the Origins game convention to play Civ with me and a bunch of strangers. It has been about 3 or 4 years since we've played it though, and I'm itching to try it again.