HS Comments on the Fly

I am surprised that anyone would give anything that Robin Sampson (aka Robin Scarlata) has done a negative review. And yet, remarkably, it has happened.

The following quotes come from Eclectic Homeschool Online, and they are about Robin’s book, The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach.

Mrs. Sampson presents the Hebraic educational model in a well-researched and thorough manner. Her treatment of the Greek/Classical educational model stands in stark contrast as biased, superficial scholarship. I wouldn’t accept the imbalance in resources from either of my high school age students, and I certainly expected better from Mrs. Sampson. A great deal of these chapters amount to a thinly veiled attack on what the author perceives as the evil of classical education. Her campaign runs into problems with the details.

Her repeated use of poor logic antagonizes the very people (classical homeschoolers) she’s trying to convince. Her classical education bashing rests on the unstable foundation of a number of logical fallacies.

… she assumes that other homeschool parents can’t recognize the propaganda in these chapters. Perhaps this is because she doesn’t recognize that it IS propaganda.

Ouch! I think that’s gonna leave a mark.

But that’s not all! Eclectic Homeschool Online points us to John Mark Reynolds at Scriptorum Daily who gives The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach a thorough tongue lashing.

These groups attack a straw man by arguing against “Greek education” and advocating “Hebrew education.”

… [I]t is easy to demonstrate … that good intentions on sites like “Heart of Wisdom” combined with bad information are not going to help the Christian home school movement.

It is an abuse of history to argue that the varied educational methods that produced thousands of years of Church leaders are simply “pagan.”

The problem with the “Heart of Wisdom” argument is not the intentions, but the reasoning.

Which Greeks? The atheists? The ones who welcomed Paul at Mars Hill (Acts 17), because he had the answer to their philosophical questions that had prepared the way for their reception of the gospel? The Platonists? the neo-Platonists? The Cynics? The Stoics? The Epicureans? They agreed on so little that making a chart of their beliefs as a unified whole is absurd.

One would be hard pressed to find a single doctrine on this chart that would command a majority of Greek philosophical support. It should disturb home school folks tempted to believe these folks that [Robin’s] chart is just wrong . . . not wrong from a worldly point of view, but wrong factually.

The fact that this chart can rapidly be shown false not just in some small details … but in almost every point should cause the home school mom to lose faith in it.

The Heart of Wisdom folk risk reading books to educate their children in a way that guarantees that their children could not write the books they are reading.

There’s a lot more that is said at Scriptorum Daily. Robin Sampson and the homeschooling parents who use the Heart of Wisdom program are really taken to task.

Not to change the subject very much … here’s a recent interesting and instructive post on Robin’s blog for you: Should Homeschoolers Teach Logic? (This might be a better link.) Yeah, we did and will, but who knows if they should. Does it really matter all that much? I should get started on it with my daughter; the end of the school year is looming. We used Traditional Logic with my son and my daughter will go through it also. We only use Book 1 because … um … maybe it’s because I kind of listen to my kids and let them decide on a great many things pertaining to their education once they are upper teens. My son took one look at the second book of Traditional Logic and said that it went into it further than he was interested in going into it. I think that part of it was the format changed a fair bit and the lessons seemed to be less practical than the first book. But that was a few years back, and my memory is fuzzy.

If you want to buy it:

Traditional Logic, Book 1, Student (35% off special, limited time only)
Traditional Logic, Book 1, Key
Traditional Logic, DVDs (24% off special, limited time only)

Traditional Logic is easy to use, simply set up, takes about a semester. I just threw it in with the English class. It’s decent training for the mind. If your student wants to learn logic, and many do, then it’s probably the best product on the market for homeschoolers. For those homeschooling for reasons other than religious, the religious flavor of the program is probably skippable in the first book of the series but not the second.

BBC1 has developed a mini-series called Cranford. It is based on Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell which I was reading earlier this year. It got so depressing … what with a lot a dying and lost love … that I couldn’t bear it and put the book down and have not picked it back up.

I would like to say that the mini-series is more upbeat, but it really isn’t. It doesn’t go into the detail the book does, so I’m not left weeping. However, I’m still seeing lots of death and sadness. The good news is, though, that Imelda Staunton as Miss Pole has me laughing so hard that I’m spewing hot chocolate. It’s actually best that I don’t eat while I watch it. I do wonder, though, if she actually intended to say “renumeration” instead of “remuneration.” Or maybe I just heard it wrong.

I watched it Saturday night on YouTube.com in 10-minute increments. It’s a bit trying to watch it in such short bits, but I otherwise wouldn’t be able to see it for a few years, I imagine. It’s just now showing on British TV and isn’t on DVD yet. It’s not on BBC America yet either. But it’s worth buying, so we’ll probably buy it when it comes out.

I’m dying to see episode 5. I hope someone uploads it to YouTube in the next couple of days. The rest of the family watched it Sunday evening, and I rewatched bits of it. It’s very well done. It’s about a very small town basically run by older women, some of whom believe that men in a home just get in the way. Men come and go, but the leading ladies in the town aren’t married. The town has various trouble and events — things like a garden party, railroad issues, new doctor, amputation, young love, old-and-wrinkled love, the croup, gypsies, problems with the help, a sickly sister, proposals, visitors, the cat that ate the lace made by nuns, hair dying with indigo, etc., etc., etc. Victoria is the Queen, and it’s set in the early 1840s up near Manchester, England.

My only student has now picked up the book and is reading it. And, of course, this is homeschool related. It’s a mini-series based on classic literature and has inspired my student to read the literature. So. There ya’ go. Of course, she’s already completed all of her literature credits and should be focusing on science, but I’ll turn a blind eye. It’s not like the US didn’t win the space race, right? Sputnik causes no fear these days.

In an effort of full disclosure, here’s what I wrote back on 01-DEC-06:

I’m reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. I spent some quality time with it while waiting for Costco to balance and rotate my tires. I sat in the food court. I felt a little self-conscious while laughing at the funny bits though. I’m surprised that it’s as amusing as it is. I mean how can two townspeople fighting over the literary talents of Samuel Johnson and Mr. Boz be amusing? I don’t know, but it is.

It’s a story about life in a fictional small town in England in the mid-1800s. It’s slow; it’s not like The DaVinci Code. It’s simple and yet complex. You have to pay attention, though, sort of like watching Michael Kitchen’s face as Foyle, or you’ll miss the humor. Maybe I should spell it humour since it is British humor.

Gaskell also wrote North and South and Wives and Daughters. I’ve not read those; I’ve only watched the DVDs. I’m reading Cranford because I picked up a lovely little vintage copy at a booksale, and I grabbed it off the shelf on the way out of the house knowing I’d be stuck waiting on my tires.

Oh, wanna hear what’s on the back cover of our newer softcover version?

Elizabeth Gaskell’s comic portrait of early Victorian life in a country town describes with poignant wit the uneventful lives of its lady-like inhabitants, offering and ironic commentary on the separate spheres and diverse experiences of men and women. As the external world necessarily impinges even on Cranford, the unlikely juxtapositions of old and new brought about by the pace of change are also explored: the effect of Victorian commerce and imperial expansion co-exist with the survival of customs and habits of thought from much earlier times.

Yeah. So there.

Go get some hot chocolate and a cozy blanket and start watching it on YouTube now. It will give you a little peaceful diversion after a long day of homeschooling and momming. My advice: Do not delay. Things have a way of disappearing off of YouTube pretty quickly in some cases.

UPDATE: Episode 5 is now up!

When Amazing Grace showed up in the mailbox last week, I was disappointed. Markedly so.

As I am quite sure you are aware, we Netflix. Since I am a Michael Gambon* fan, Amazing Grace was in my queue. But I had intended on removing it from the list when I heard the movie was about the writing of the song Amazing Grace by a missionary. Wow, that sounds like a snore, doesn’t it? So, anyway, I forgot to remove it from my Netflix queue and that’s how I ended up with it in my mailbox. To be true, this is a sad tale of woe. Getting the wrong movie … it is just a tragedy.

But since Michael Gambon is in the movie and Romola Garai, too, I plopped in in the DVD player and we started watching. I was bracing myself for the worst. It starts out with William Wilberforce being sick (colitis) and going to Bath (England, of course) to drink the healing waters from the hot springs. He’s being set up by his friends for romance. Then he begins telling this woman he just met his past history — the history of his struggle to get Parliament to outlaw the slave trade on UK ships. Yeah, it’s about the slave trade, not the song Amazing Grace.

Sure, I guess that Wilberforce is a religious man; maybe he was a clergyman … I don’t remember if the movie said … but it’s not primarily a religious movie. It’s more about Wilberforce’s struggle to get his bill through Parliament, plus the bit of romance with this woman he met in Bath. The town, not the tub. Wilberforce’s persistence is epic, and his female friend’s support of him is critical to his eventual success in the face of defeat.

I suppose Wilberforce’s laudanum use would bother some, but he was in a lot of pain from his colitis and wasn’t sure what else to do. Laudanum was pretty standard back in the day. He did eventually kick the habit, and I believe he was off it entirely by the time his six children came along.

I would heartily recommend this movie as a history film. I really enjoyed it. Of course, I had extremely low expectations that colored my opinion. But the history is interesting. Here’s some of the stuff touched upon in case you might want to incorporate the movie into your homeschool studies.

• William Pitt the Younger, good friend of Wilberforce who was Prime Minister
• plenty of time shown in Parliament’s House of Commons where you can see how British government works, even with the yelling
• show importance of public speaking abilities
• quite a few political twists based on their system give the movie some energy
• shows Quakers briefly
• shows inside of slave ship
• discusses how slave trade worked
• shows why there was resistance to abolition in Britain
• the actual lines that Wilberforce used when speaking in the House of Commons were in the movie
• actual lines from a letter from Prime Minister Pitt to Wilberforce were in the movie
• Abolitionists in England
• short discussion of French Revolution

I would think that this movie is probably for students 12 and up. Setting: London. Time period: right around 1789.

*For the few who may not know, Michael Gambon plays Dumbledore in the later Harry Potter films — that’s where I think most people would know him from. I, however, enjoyed his performances in Longitude and Wives and Daughters. He was pretty good in Amazing Grace, too.

Hey, I just figured out that I can link to a preview. Scratch that. I can’t figure it out. Oh, well.

K12 Inc. has “acquired” Power-Glide. Well, that’s interesting. (source)

Do you remember back when Power-Glide first hit the homeschool market. What was it? Around 1995? Maybe it was before that, but I remember it around ‘95. In fact, we bought the French version.

Do you know what I learned with that purchase? Not French, sadly enough.

I learned: Don’t buy anything just because a reviewer in a catalog LOVES the program before she’s even used it.

I bet you can see all the warning signs, huh?

Warning sign #1: Reviewer in a catalog. Who’s the reviewer working for? So the reviewer is actually a salesperson, huh?

Warning sign #2: The product is new. Results so far = none.

Warning sign #3: The reviewer hasn’t used it beyond a couple of lessons. Again, results = none.

Anyway, I tried and tired to get Power-Glide to work for me — yeah, just me — but I never could. I worked on it alone after the kids had gone to bed, but I finally had to give up. I don’t think it included enough practice … at least not enough for me. I’m glad I tried it on me before trying it on the kids.

CBD sells Power-Glide, but I don’t recommend it.

We watched An Ideal Husband today, laughing at Wilde’s wit and enjoying the actors. We like Wilde much better than Shaw, but I guess that is only based on Heartbreak House, The Importance of Being Earnest, and An Ideal Husband. So, that’s a rather flimsy opinion.

An Ideal Husband, though, isn’t as good as The Importance of Being Earnest, which is also by Wilde. An Ideal Husband is a bit of a morality tale — which isn’t bad in itself, but it not inherently amusing. One lesson: “No one should be entirely judged by their past.” And another: “Sooner or later we have all to pay for what we do.”

The Importance of Being Earnest, with its identity twists, is by far more entertaining than An Ideal Husband. There are also many more quotes that can be stolen and used in everyday life, much to the amusement of oneself and one’s knowledgeable companions. However, you only sound crazy saying something like, “I couldn’t find any cucumbers at the store today — “… not even for ready money” to someone who’s never seen the movie.

Link to An Ideal Husband (Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Rupert Everett, Jeremy Northam, Minnie Driver)

Link to The Importance of Being Earnest (Colin Firth, Reece Witherspoon, Rupert Everett, Frances O’Connor, Judi Dench)

I won’t link to Heartbreak House by Shaw because I think it’s not worth the effort. My apologies to Shaw fans.

My husband pointed me to this blog entry over at Healthbolt about cognitive bias and how it affects our decision-making abilities. I guess a lot of the time we’re just deluding ourselves, which is probably not really surprising if I really think about it.

I thought I had a lot of decision-making stuff taken care of with Logic and critical thinking curricula. I was wrong. I should have covered this with my son. I can still cover it with my daughter, but I’ve never heard of most of this stuff so teaching it won’t really be all that easy. Drats.

Here’s an excerpt to pique (not peak) your interest:

A cognitive bias is something that our minds commonly do to distort our own view of reality. Here are the 26 most studied and widely accepted cognitive biases.

1. Bandwagon effect - the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink, herd behaviour, and manias. Carl Jung pioneered the idea of the collective unconscious which is considered by Jungian psychologists to be responsible for this cognitive bias.
2. Confirmation bias - the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.
3. Disconfirmation bias - the tendency for people to extend critical scrutiny to information which contradicts their prior beliefs and uncritically accept information that is congruent with their prior beliefs.
4. Endowment effect - the tendency for people to value something more as soon as they own it.

See? They’re rather in depth — or at least unfamiliar to me for the most part.

You know, we only did the first semester of Memoria Press’s Logic and maybe that’s why we missed some of this stuff. But my son quickly perused the Book 2, thinking it would look like Book 1, and promptly rejected it, I believe, because it had a bit of a different look to the content. That’s fine with me … you can lead a horse to water, etc. Book 1 was quite good; in fact, it was what I’d been looking for for a number a years. Book 2’s likely good also, but I no longer have it to comment upon. Easy come, easy go.

Anyway, I digress as usual. The list of 26 cognitive biases is well worth covering in this homeschool since how we make decisions in life is so important.

Oh, yeah, and my son did use the instructional DVDs for Logic 1 a little. I think it depends on the student if they can stand the repetitive nature of reading the lesson and then listening to it all over again on the DVDs. A younger student would probably want the instructional DVDs.

Yea! Branagh’s Hamlet is available on DVD! It’s about time! Okay, it doesn’t ship until August, but you can order it now!

I think Branagh’s Hamlet is the best. Hands down! It’s entertaining and actually enjoyable to watch. Branagh makes Shakespeare so much fun. I’m not kidding.

Hopefully, your English teacher in high school didn’t ruin Shakespeare for you and you are capable of enjoying Shakespeare’s stories. I managed to make it all the way from Kindergarten through 4 years of university without ever having a teacher or professor taint Shakespeare for me. That’s right — no Shakespeare in school for me — ever. I’d be appalled at the state of U.S. schools if I hadn’t purposely tried to focus on Greek and Latin Literature. Of course, I wasn’t the least bit interested in Shakespeare because I’d heard all the horror stories from others, so I’d not ventured beyond Zeffirelli’s version of Romeo and Juliet, which my parents took me to at the drive in when I was young and sleepy.

Ignore Mel Gibson’s version of Hamlet; it’s abbreviated/abridged. Plus it’s dark and dreary. Branagh’s Hamlet is a production meant to engage and entertain the audience rather than be a dull high school reading by amateurs. Hamlet isn’t only palatable in Branagh’s hands, it becomes a feast. A four-hour long feast, btw — so get the popcorn and nachos ready before you sit down.

Playright, George Bernard Shaw turned this place into Heartbreak Homeschool for the past three days as we slogged our way through Heartbreak House. (Heartbreak House at Wikipedia and at Gutenberg)

Oh, the misery he caused us. True, we could’ve turned the show off at any time — and we often did — but we felt we must give it a fair shake by watching it all. We are slated to watch an acting company perform Heartbreak House soon; hence our watching now to familiarize ourselves with it. As a result, though, I’m re-thinking things.

It’s a play with a message. The message overpowers the entertainment value. Plus, I was expecting a comedy, but it just wasn’t all that funny. So part of the reason I didn’t like it was expectations. But it also seemed like there was just too much whining about the opposite sex and stuff. So, it just wasn’t as much fun as I was hoping for. (review)

The bright spot in the whole play was Sir John Gielgud, a true master. I first became familiar with him by name when he stole the show in Arthur. I know … shame on me for not knowing of him sooner. Watching him in Heartbreak House cemented my respect for his talent. I’m not sure why he’s so captivating, but he is.

Is it just me or does Britain turn out more good actors than the rest of the world? (Rickman, Branagh, Kitchen, Rush, Harris, etc.)

I’ve been recently trying to get a quilt put together and onto a frame, so that when I do sit down and watch something on TV, I won’t feel like such a slacker. I’ll be trying to get 8-10 stitches per inch while I prick my middle finger into hamburger. (quilter’s joke - ha) Yes, that will be much better than just sitting there.

So while I’ve been sewing on the borders, basting, and such, I’ve had shows on. Yes, multiple shows because I’m a novice quilter and I’m slow! One show that I enjoyed was misnamed King Arthur’s Britain. I haven’t the foggiest notion why it was titled that because the appellation (not, Appalachian) is not apt. It must have been some sort of ill-thought-out marketing scheme. So if you watch it, don’t expect an in-depth analysis of King Arthur’s rule.

Here’s what the back of the case states:

… British archaeologist … Francis Pryor disputes the belief that Britain reverted to anarchy after the Romans left in 410 A.D., sinking into the Dark Ages until the Anglo-Saxon invaders restored order. The truth he says is far more complicated.

In this three-part series, he uncovers the continuous culture that was not destroyed by outside invaders but rather strengthened by them. Travel with him as he makes ancient history come alive at the scenes of bloody battles and key archaeological sites that reveal the clues to this new view of early Britain.

So, you see, it’s about that time between the years A.D. 410 and A.D. 597 which is considered the Dark Ages in Britain, when history closes its doors and permits no peeping Toms. But Francis Pryor (since he’s not named Tom) dares to question the historical powers that be and decides that “These were not the Dark Ages.” I think Francis Pryor does quite a good job of it.

I know that when we were studying Rome and Early Britain (at multiple different times through out the years of homeschooling, mind you) that I often called it the Dark Ages and said things like, “The Romans picked up their toys and went home, leaving the early Brits without anything to prop their society up with.” But Francis Pryor basically puts that myth to rest and says, “It’s time to start re-writing the history books.”

That’s a big deal — particularly if he’s correct. Pryor gives example after example of Roman society in Britain going on after A.D. 410. Yes, he believes that the British had a Roman society after the Romans left because that’s what everyone was — Roman. The locals had been Romanized during the years of Roman rule.

Pryor travels from Cornwall (extreme southwest) up to Hadrian’s Wall (up north, near border with Scotland) and points in between, showing us all sorts of examples of life during the 5th and 6th centuries in England. He shows us sites and then the artists come in and do a visual reconstruction for us showing us how it would have looked during Roman times. This happens a number of times and is fascinating. Pryor also takes us to an area where the Lady in the Lake may have had influence and describes a system of warrior traditions which included throwing swords into the lakes. He also travels to Sutton Hoo and tramps around a bit there. If anyone is interested in “Dark Ages” Britain, this DVD is worth a watch. Netflix lends it out or you can buy it through Amazon.

I would guess that this is a DVD for parents who will be teaching Roman Britain — so that they may adjust their views of Roman and Dark Ages Britain if they feel the need to do so. It would also be a good addition to a high school world history course or British history course if the student enjoys this era. The visuals are really well done; this is an entertaining DVD.

Considerations: These ideas are only one man’s point of view. His views on the Anglo-Saxon invasions, for lack of a better term, are not as convincing to me as his anti-Dark Ages argument is. But at the high school level, this type of DVD can lead to further study or make for good discussion.