HS Comments on the Fly

Format: Title - One compelling sentence quoted from article.

The Ron Paul Conundrum - The whole point is that everyone gets to let their own indvidual [sic] freak flag fly no matter what they believe.

Major Talent - “The last time I didn’t pay attention to my wife,” he said, “I got struck by lightning.

To Be or Not to Be in the Classroom? - On her first day of writing, Hannah’s goal was to complete 100 words — not bad for any aspiring novelist, let alone one who’s only 6.

The Legend of Will Smith - “Every problem Jada and I have ever had, we found the answer in a book.”

Bowman Academy Returns Trophy, Teacher Resigns - While SCISA does allow substitutions at matches, Davis’ son is home schooled and not eligible to play, Watt said.

Teen Steps Up to the Plate as Thanksgiving Volunteer - As project coordinator, the home-schooled [13 yo] eighth-grader solicited and collected food donations and organized volunteers during the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.

Booklover’s Reading Passion Benefits Festival - The Armstrong children excel in several areas, and Caron Armstrong said that Catie, 11, and Josie, 8, decided that they wanted to do math one evening at 10 p.m.

Children’s Book Outrages Parents - Two couples claimed it violated their civil rights, but a federal judge dismissed the case, saying the couples have the right to send their children to private schools or home-school them, according to The Boston Globe.

Now on You Tube (lower article) - … the Allens will be traveling to Baltimore in January with the Violin Virtuosi for performances at the Peabody Conservatory and downtown Baltimore.

As I topped the french bread pizzas with grated cheese, an aroma wafted up. It was not quite unpleasant, but it was not pleasant either. Of course, I had to have everyone smell it. It was not moldy, but none of us knew for sure if it was safe to eat mozzarella that smelled a little alcoholic. I was encouraged to look it up.

So I tried. I got mostly just goofy sites when I used search terms like: mozzarella smells like alcohol rotten can I eat smelly mozzarella. Is there a site out there that tells us what the progression is on decomposing food? Sort of like, “When going bad, refrigerated guacamole will form a brown-gray layer due to oxidation. For the first 2 hours, you can scrape this off and eat what’s underneath with minimal fear of death.” I have no idea if that’s true or not, but there needs to be a site out there like that, right? I tossed way too much mozzarella in the trash. Maybe the dogs could have eaten it, but I wasn’t sure.

So, anyway, on one site that was rendered as a search engine result for my rotten mozzarella, I found this really good song. It’s from an amusing commencement address and it’s by Greg Crowther. It seems like good advice.

Information all around –
Some is bad, and some is sound.
How can I decide which statements to accept?
There’s a logical recourse:
Locate each primary source,
So conflicting sets of rumors can be checked.

CHORUS:
Show me the data.
You’ve got to show me the data.
If you don’t show me the data,
Then how will I know?
Show me the data.
You’ve got to show me the data.
If you don’t show me the data,
Then how will I know?

Is that candidate a jerk?
Does this toothpaste really work?
I must gather all the facts and then decide.
If there’s truth in what you say,
Let me see Exhibit A.
Then my thirst for details will be satisfied.

CHORUS

In conclusion: remember that the world is full of information and that your success will depend on your ability to distinguish the good information from the bad. Go forth with a skeptical but open mind. Congratulations, good luck, and may the data be with you!

Words to live by. Nice, huh?

Oh, and I put provolone on the pizza instead. Tasted fine.

Well, it looks the same, donchya think? Maybe bigger, but that’s because I didn’t shrink the photo. I haven’t watered it yet. According to the online experts, I’m supposed to let it dry out between waterings. I’m not looking forward to that because it’s not supposed to sit in the run off, so I expect I’ll have to move it to water it. Urf. It’s heavy.

An interesting note: It’s not smelling up the house at all. You’d think that maybe it could have worked like a natural Glade Air Freshener. But no.

A boring note: Wednesday will be Lavender Death Watch day. Usually. I think. No promises.

I’m thinking that a name for it might be nice. I’m not thinking too hard though. If you’ve got a name for it, just pop it in the comments. Thank you.

I do not have to nag my daughter to practice her piano. I never have. Amazing*, but true!

She wanted to take lessons for a long time, but we put her off for all the usual reasons. Finally when she did get lessons, she was so happy that she just has not had a problem getting practice in. Maybe a lot of kids are like this. Maybe she has an inspiring teacher. Maybe … anything. It is all just so Alfie Kohn-esque. Yes, I read his book PBR back in ‘94/’95. I can’t say I agree with it all, but I still remember, albeit vaguely, the story of the child and violin lessons. So, the reward, for my daughter, I presume, is in the playing of the piano. I don’t have to bribe her to play. And I also don’t have to nag. It’s been her choice all the way, which is a relief to me.

I have, however, bribed/rewarded my children. Used consciously (with a little thought) rewarding children seems harmless and sometimes beneficial. So I don’t think that people are “punished by rewards” in every instance. I do think that piano playing could be damaged that way though.

For us, it worked well to give the kids a 50-cent credit every time they read a chapter book. When they saved up enough credits, we’d go to the bookstore and they could pick out one educational book. I didn’t care if it was literature or non-fiction or activity. It just had to have the essence of “education.” The 50 cents wasn’t enough of a carrot to make them read non-stop like crazed bibliophiles, so it really didn’t change their everyday behavior. But it was a sweet little bonus that they appreciated and anticipated. Plus, by making the reward a book, I think I was helping to show that learning was the ultimate reward of reading. Maybe. I hope that makes sense. I suppose I’d have to increase it to $1 these days, though.

Threats of bad grades never worked around here. My unthinking comments came out, “If you aren’t careful, you’ll get an F.” I was always caught unaware when I got a blank stare as a response to my comment. It’s a weird thing, to me, to not be motivated by getting an A or an F. It’s what I was taught by the classroom schools I attended. But grades were not motivational in our homeschool, which I think was a good thing, because I do believe in learning for the sake of learning.

Anyway, this was my daughter’s recent recital piece. See the pic? A little dark, huh? That’s too bad because on the cover is a neat painting of “Festivity given to the Sultan’s wife in the Seraglio,” which doesn’t seem to be showing up any where else online so I can’t link it. She played one of Mozart’s Sonatas. Okay, for the musical readers, it’s Sonata in A Major, K. 331 for the piano by Mozart with a whole bunch of notes/comments which are edited by Maurice Hinson. She played it well. She didn’t, however, dress up like homeschooler Lauren, whose mom blogs, did for her recital in an exquisite blue dress. Wow! Go and see for yourself. Regrettably, I lost all the stuff off of my camera that I took at my daughter’s recital. ::kicking self::

*Maybe no one ever nags their kids to practice, but somewhere I got the idea that nagging occurs all too often.

If I type a mistake or even a typo, should I be banned from blogging?

What if I’m just a horrible proofreader and can’t see my own mistakes? Does that mean I should refrain from posting online?

Am I a bad representative of homeschooling because I don’t know that I should use pique instead of peak?

Should we apply the Strike Out method to our reading? Why or why not?

I don’t know. But I do wish there was some way to post all the absolutely hilarious mistakes I’ve seen without embarrassing the authors. There is an error today on a homeschooling blog that just has me in stitches, but I can’t share it. I can’t even save it for later, because it will be saved on the internet for years and years and you’d be able to see who the author was if you searched on the quote I provided. But it is funny. Okay, it might be funny to about 20% of the population. So, not that funny, actually. But I like it. It’s so funny when people get all bent out of shape, telling people that they’re oh-so-very intelligent and then they go and make a mistake in the next sentence.

I will have to save it to share with my life partner who should be coming through the door soon.

Oh, you know, it’s kind of like that quote from Pride & Prejudice where Elizabeth’s dad says:

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

Yes, I’m sure there are lots of errors in my very own online journal and other web pages. My apologies to those whose finer sensibilities upon which I am trodding.

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.

When Melanie Krumrey’s son Cooper developed migraines and stomach aches, she never knew it would lead to her becoming an author of a book for children. But her book was published just two months ago in September 2007.

Cooper endured many tests on the road to diagnosis, including blood tests, an MRI, and an endoscopy. When they finally discovered that he had Celiac disease (sometimes called gluten intolerance), they had to change Cooper’s diet and remove wheat, barely, and rye, which made it impossible for Cooper to eat his favorite food … bagels. Hence, the title of the book, Bagels, Buddy & Me.

From the article:

People with the disease can’t eat anything with wheat, barley and rye. Oats can be off limits, too, since they can processed with wheat. Soy sauce also has wheat in it.

How does a mother feed a family with such dietary restrictions? “You can learn to can adapt almost anything. There is rice flour, potato starch, soy flour … there are lots of options. … I can get pizza, shells, cake mix,” she said.

“We have muffins every Monday morning,” she said, pointing to the plate of gluten-free muffins on the counter. Krumrey said the field “is exploding. There has been quite a difference in three years and in the number of products.”

Melanie even figured out a way to make gluten free bagels for Cooper.

As homeschoolers, they visited the library often. While there, they searched for a children’s book that would easily explain what it’s like to live with Celiac disease. They couldn’t find one. Eventually, after a few years, Melanie Krumrey wrote her own. A book like this is necessary as gluten intolerance becomes more and more prevalent. It seems that 1% of the population is gluten intolerant, but I hear plenty of folks don’t even realize they have it.

Anyway, come to find out, along with Cooper, Melanie and her two other children also have Celiac disease. Sources claim that it’s genetic, but that doesn’t explain why their dog Buddy is also gluten intolerant.

Sometimes it’s spelled Coeliac disease, which I found at at Wikipedia, where I also found out that the Roman Catholic Church used to restrict men with Celiac disease from becoming priests because they couldn’t take the bread portion of the “bread and wine” and substituting a non-wheat wafer wasn’t an option.

Source: Amherst Bulletin and H/T to blog reader Izzy.

More Info: Melanie’s book web site and Celiac Disease Foundation and Celiac.com

This is about science. And, basically, I just do not get it. But it does sound amazing. It sort of reminds me of the spiral PHI book that my son read — only the visual depiction of this new theory for the universe is just a really pretty spiro-graph-like design.

And to think that an impoverished surfer/snowboarder bum (you know, sorta like “ski bum”) came up with this theory that is receiving rave reviews! The fellow’s name is Garrett Lisi. Okay, so he’s also got a doctorate. But who says the uber-bright can’t enjoy carvin’ lines and catchin’ waves?

From an article from 14 November 07:

… his proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics.

Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles, perhaps even using the new Large Hadron Collider atom smasher that will go into action near Geneva next year.

[Canadian] Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics … describes Lisi’s work as “fabulous”. “It is one of the most compelling unification models I’ve seen in many, many years,” he says. (British put quotes inside punctuation.)

Lisi’s inspiration lies in the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics, called E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan.

That’s almost unbelievable. Manhattan??? But that’s about 23 square miles!

From another article:

What makes this group of symmetries so exciting is that Nature also seems to have embedded it at the heart of many bits of physics. One interpretation of why we have such a quirky list of fundamental particles is because they all result from different facets of the strange symmetries of E8. I find it rather extraordinary that of all the symmetries that mathematician’s have discovered, it is this exotic exceptional object that Nature has used to build the fabric of the universe. The symmetries are so intricate and complex that today’s announcement of the complete mapping of E8 is a significant moment in our exploration of symmetry.”

From another surfer dude article of 21 November 07:

Hollywood is now chasing the “surfer dude,” who last week electrified the scientific community with his theory of everything, so that his extraordinary story can be told in a movie.

Ever since an article on his work appeared last week online on telegraph.co.uk he has become something of a celebrity and he admitted yesterday that he was finding the attention overwhelming - indeed he has refused to appear on television.

That is a photo of my lavender plant. This is the first year I have tried growing lavender. Ever. But since I wanted to pretend like I was keeping away the scorpions ala A Good Year, I thought it might be fun to grow some.

We do not have any flower beds up near the front of my house, so I plant pretty flowers in pots and strategically place them around the place. Since it is in a pot, I have to bring it into the house or it will die from cold without enough dirt to insulate its roots — at least that’s what I think the reason is. The other outdoor potted plants usually die before I can bring them in — death by felines.

However, lavender is supposedly really difficult to grow indoors because it needs full sun. So now we’re on a death watch. I’ve got a black thumb. You do remember my polka dot plant don’t you? Sadly, I did finally euthanize it.

I eventually came up with a way to place the lavender in a south window. It took 45 minutes to accomplish the task. It seems to get sun from around 8a - 4p. Hopefully, that’s “full sun.”

Anyway, so a new photo will be posted each week so we can monitor its progress … or demise. These will be the Lavender Death Watch journal entries. I am not taking bets on how long my lavender will last. You’ll have to bet amongst yourselves.

If you have ever had lavender live indoors through the winter and then put it back out in the spring, please share your pointers.

Oh, yeah, and we do have to put in some school time today.

Okay. The shock has worn off. That was quick, huh?

Yeah, I was not nominated for the 2007 Homeschool Blog Awards. I know you are shocked right along with me.

I will give honorable mention to By Sun and Candlelight for the blog nominated in the most categories. It looks like she’s been nominated in 8 different categories. If you can see that someone else should hold this prestigious position, please correct me. I just did a quick run through of the blogs, and this one stuck out has the most popular.

So how much money can each blog spend on their campaigns? Is that in the rules? You do know that winning means more traffic and more traffic = more $$$ so, of course, campaigning will occur. Besides campaigning, is there something else these nominees can do to help get themselves those coveted awards? Let me know!

Here’s an excerpt from Carmon’s blog that caught my attention:

I am aghast at the idea of a home with fewer than 10 books, and marginally appalled that 100 books in a household would be considered a number great enough to make a significant difference in test results for the student who lives with those tomes. There are more books than that scattered around my room, begging for me to read them. I’m amused that the researchers found people with college degrees who had fewer than 10 books in their households. What are they teaching them in schools these days?

10 books? Only 10 books in the home? Are you kidding? And this isn’t a poverty issue (one caused by lack of money) because you can get really inexpensive books at library sales or thrift stores. This is a poverty of another kind. Why wouldn’t people want more than 10 books in their homes? Why is it that they don’t need more than 10 books in their homes?

However, when you think about it, you can get a ton of stuff online. Shakespeare, automotive repair, world atlas, home remedies, gardening, general household repairs — all that kind of thing can be found online now. In fact, I hardly ever use my cookbooks when I need an idea on what/how to cook anymore. I just use a search engine and type in — as I did yesterday — chicken pot pie recipe. Then I read about five different recipes and go make chicken pot pie. It’s much easier to do that than to dig out five different cookbooks and read the recipes in them. So, life is different with the internet — and I suppose with XBOX, DVD players, and IPods, which we also have.

But still … we have more than 10 books. I probably bought nearly that many just in the past month.

And I don’t think I even believe that the researchers found people with college degrees who had less than 10 books in their homes. That’s not possible. When I finished university, I had tons of books. I can’t imagine someone just dumping the books they’ve bought during the college years as soon as they’re done with college. It just doesn’t work like that.

Anyway, both of my homeschooled students seem to like books, and they buy their own these days. They each own over 100 and will take them with them when they move out. So, I don’t think either of them will purposely live in a home without 10 books in it. Mission accomplished.

Hint for newbie homeschoolers: Buy each child their own bookcase early on.

American Idol winner Jordin Sparks has a CD out. Review. Oh, yeah, and she was homeschooled so that she could spend more time on her singing.

I heard a while back that the Edwards were going to be homeschooling this year. It was on the news and I got the impression that it was partially because Elizabeth had a lot of doctors appointments, etc., along with the campaigning. But I could be wrong.

So anyway, Christine Escobar interviewed Elizabeth Edwards about homeschooling at the Edwards’ house and it doesn’t sound like homeschooling to me. But maybe I’m splitting hairs.

The Edwards kids are being taught at home by a certified teacher in a special classroom with the public school curriculum materials from their assigned teachers at the public school that the two children are enrolled in. So it is technically schooling that is happening in the home instead of the classroom at the public school. It’s homeschooling because it happens at home, right? But it probably wouldn’t be considered homeschooling if you looked at the homeschooling law. The Edwards’ type of homeschooling is actually public schooling that happens at home. I wish there was a better way to describe it because it seems like any education that happens at home is called homeschooling and it confuses the issue.

Elizabeth says:

Frankly, I think because [the children] are getting a much more intense experience, they’re actually sort of going through the material more quickly than the class itself is.

Are we seasoned homeschooling mothers and fathers surprised by this?

Elizabeth says:

I am going to put my children back into public schools. We’re believers in public schools.

So the Edwards believe in public schools. Yeah, me, too. I believe in public schools. I’ve seen ‘em and touched ‘em, too. Public schools are real. (Okay, so I don’t like it when people use the word believe in that way. Seems like a silly way to say, “We support public schools.”)

When Elizabeth was asked about John Edwards’ plan for access to Universal Preschool at age four, all I could think of was Sparta, which I learned about at public school, strangely enough — at least Sparta let the children stay home with their family until at least six or seven.

Elizabeth Edwards was asked if homeschooling was a good thing for our country. Her answer was:

[Blah, blah, blah….] Some homeschooling experiences being truly spectacular and some that are considerably less so.

I think she pretty much said very little when she answered the question — as in lack of substance. Or maybe she said that homeschooling is good for our country only when it’s truly spectacular. If that’s the case, then we’re in trouble. Maybe your homeschool is truly spectacular, but there is nothing truly spectacular about our homeschool. And frankly, I don’t remember anything that was truly spectacular about the public schools I attended. And if everything in education was truly spectacular, then that would end up making it all just average. (Like the “awesome” discussion on Chuck.)

So, while Dave over at Political Machine thinks that Elizabeth Edwards is an ally of homeschoolers and that the NEA doesn’t like what she’s doing, I don’t get that at all out of this interview. Not at all. The Edwards children are being taught this whole year by a certified teacher, and they’re going back to the classroom next year. I don’t see any support for homeschooling by her. None. And that’s okay by me.

Maybe this is old news, but here is Google in Latin for the classical among us.