CM, Children and Lots of Grace

Happy Thoughts

2012-01-31T13:53:00.000-08:00

The world is so full of a number of things
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

--Robert Louis Stevenson

In my early twenties, I worked at a dinner theater in Nashville. All the actors worked the cash register, hostessed, waited and bussed tables. As we did our restaurant diligence, we played characters in improv. Once the guests were settled, our improv characters put on a show. (We were actors playing improv characters playing other characters onstage. It was soooo fun.)

My improv character was Polly Doodle, the hostess. She was very cheerful. After guests were seated, she went around to people that looked put out and told them each a happy thought. (Thankfully, the management provided me with the book, 14000 Things to be Happy About. I would have quickly exhausted my own powers of invention!)

I figured I would be rebuffed, but most people pleasantly accepted Polly's happy thoughts. Apparently people do not want to stay in a bad mood. At least people who go to dinner theaters do not.

It was fun.

This week I am reading 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It is a serious look at joy in the midst of grief and pain. Not that Polly Doodle was frivolous. The task of encouraging others to embrace happiness is a serious thing, humor notwithstanding. But Ann Voskamp takes it to a higher level, exhorting us to purposely recognize our blessings no matter what.

So I made a list of Happy Things. (You knew that was coming, didn't you?) In the interest of transparency I confess I got a very bad haircut yesterday, which did NOT make the list. I'm still working on thankfulness in the midst of that one. But I did list other things that at first glance might seem more like burdens and less like blessings.

1. pale brown coffee
2. dancing child early in the morning
3. pain that says something needs to change
4. full box of paperclips
5. handmade quilt and afghan on my bed
6. cobalt home-sewed dress for theater
7. big clean towel and hot shower
8. flawed people allowed in God's house
9. patient waiting kitten
10. cantabile piano floating out of the silence
11. two weekdays (in a row) at home
12. people that teach for free
13. Sun rising in the east, shining through south windows
14. pistachios during math
15. pie charts and crayons
16. knowing the difference between multiples and factors
17. big and little containers
18. using the cat for math
19. a tall bed
20. the possibility of a calm, gentle voice
21. conflict... an opportunity to imitate Christ (I had to pray through this one)
22. ninja kitty attacking vicious ice
23. child pondering faith and salvation
24. texting at lunch
25. vile, disgusting carpet that we are waiting to replace... waiting, I'm learning to wait...
26. kids that clean messes
27. Old Navy gift card (I purchased workout clothes)

Ten Thousand Thousand Precious Gifts

2012-01-30T07:09:00.000-08:00

I started reading One Thousand Gifts this weekend. A stanza from the hymn, "Tender Care," sung by loved ones in my very first church, has echoed in my mind since yesterday evening. I pray for that cheerful heart.

When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I’m lost
In wonder, love and praise.

Thy Providence my life sustained,
And all my wants redressed,
While in the silent womb I lay,
And hung upon the breast.

To all my weak complaints and cries
Thy mercy lent an ear,
Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learned
To form themselves in prayer.

Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my infant heart conceived
From Whom those comforts flowed.

When in the slippery paths of youth
With heedless steps I ran,
Thine arm unseen conveyed me safe,
And led me up to man.

Through hidden dangers, toils, and deaths,
It gently cleared my way;
And through the pleasing snares of vice,
More to be feared than they.

O how shall words with equal warmth
The gratitude declare,
That glows within my ravished heart?
But thou canst read it there.

Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss
Hath made my cup run o’er;
And, in a kind and faithful Friend,
Hath doubled all my store.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the last a cheerful heart
That tastes those gifts with joy.

When worn with sickness, oft hast Thou
With health renewed my face;
And, when in sins and sorrows sunk,
Revived my soul with grace.

Through every period of my life
Thy goodness I’ll pursue
And after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.

When nature fails, and day and night
Divide Thy works no more,
My ever grateful heart, O Lord,
Thy mercy shall adore.

Through all eternity to Thee
A joyful song I’ll raise;
For, oh, eternity’s too short
To utter all Thy praise!

--Joseph Addison (first published in The Spectator, 1712)

Classical Composition

2012-01-25T20:03:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago at our church, my dad did a Bible study that dealt with the book of Proverbs. As part of the study, he explained some of the literary devices used in the book. It certainly elevated our understanding. He has mentioned the literary devices in other books of the Bible too-- Revelations, for example, is written in apocalyptic style. Knowing this fact can completely change the interpretation.

This is why I am so excited about progym. Last week I listened to a talk given by Jim Selby, author of Classical Composition. He mentioned how some students in his school were able to identify the different figures in one of Paul's letters, and realized that he must have been educated using Aphthonius' progym. Mr. Selby said the progym was pervasive, crossing both cultural and language lines in the ancient world, so it is very possible some New Testament authors were educated this way.

Wouldn't it be great to grasp the literary meaning of "rest in Christ" and "we are no longer the servants of sin"?

I would really like to learn and teach something like that.

Update: I did some more searching and came up with a 2002 discussion (authored by Karen Glass) of Charlotte Mason, narration and progymnasmata. It is in a yahoo group, but it pulled up when I did a search, so here is the link. BTW, the yahoo group contains ten issues of "Magnanimity", a newsletter put out by Karen "for those interested in the educational philosophies of Charlotte Mason and classical education". The messages can be read without joining the group.

I am also reconsidering our grammar. With my oldest, I used Winston Grammar in the elementary grades, with a chaser of Our Mother Tongue in junior high/high school, but my younger two seem to be stuck in Winston Basic. I think it just doesn't have enough context for them. So I have printed out the first Master Book of KISS grammar to see if it will be a fit for us.

Teaching Composition and Feeding Souls

2012-01-23T20:02:00.000-08:00

I am still thinking about writing programs. Some folks from the LTW mentor list have taken time to email privately, giving me tremendous help toward understanding progym-- what it is, what it is not, how it compares with other things.

I'm getting sort of geeked up about progym. I do not like writing programs as a general rule, so this is different for me. (LTW was the first exception. I still like it a lot. I just wonder if something beforehand mightn't be amiss.) I think Charlotte's audience must have already known about teaching composition, so she didn't give a lot of details... the way she didn't say much about math... I don't know. I did a search through Volumes 3 and 6 to confirm that I wasn't missing anything... either I don't get it, or she didn't go much beyond narration, copywork and dictation. I may not understand what she meant by those terms. Or maybe as a teacher I get in the way. Or maybe life holds too many distractions for my kids. I don't know. I have one that is a natural writer and still struggles with argument and form. I can't teach that without a practical map. As a writer, I was poorly educated, and I can't find a practical map for middle/high school level composition in the CM Volumes. If I am missing it, someone please point it out. (I already know about the writing handbooks recommended at AO. I have all of them. They didn't help as much as I would have liked. It is possible I did not use them properly.)

Beneath the thrill of possibly finding the 'answer', quotes like these keep me cautious:

"...thesemen... can read and write, think perversely, and follow an argument,though they are unable to detect a fallacy...why do so many... seemincapable of generous impulse, of reasoned patriotism, of seeingbeyond the circle of their own interests...? These are the marks ofeducated persons... Why then are notthese persons educated, and what have we given them in lieu ofeducation?” (CM Vol. 6)

What is education? What is knowledge?

"Knowledge... is passed, like the light of a torch, from mind to mind, and the flame can be kindled at original minds only. Thought, we know, breeds thought; it is as vital thought touches our minds that our ideas are vitalized, and out of our ideas comes our conduct of life." (CM Vol. 6)

It is about more than discipline, more than form.

"...let us be careful that our disciplinary devices, and our mechanical devices to secure and tabulate the substance of knowledge, do not come between the children and that which is the soul of the book, the living thought it contains." (CM Vol. 3)

Oh, criminy. I wish someone would just tell me what to do.

Chores

2012-01-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

Sneezy: Hey, someone stole our dishes!
Happy: They ain't stole. They're hid in the cupboard.
Bashful: My cup's been washed. Sugar's gone.
Happy: Something's cooking. Smells good.
Grumpy: Don't touch it, you fools! Might be poison. See? It's witch's brew.

--from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

I could never make chore schedules work at my house for more than a couple months. I looked for a good schedule for years (wrote my own and also used others I found for free or in helpful household organizer books) before I defaulted to another way. I no longer assign weekly chores. The kids are responsible for their personal chores-- they do their own laundry and take care of their own rooms, and they take turns cleaning out the cat's litter box-- and then I expect them to pitch in for around thirty minutes per day when we are home.

Everyone that is home helps. I tell the kids what I need done and either assign or let them pick the task they will do. I only list what needs doing right then. (I do have a sort-of system for what to clean when: if I can't stand it anymore, it takes priority. If everything is in relatively good condition, I check with Flylady to see what Zone she is on this week.) If someone is not home, they do not have to do the half-hour of chores. They are already working, either at a class or at a job.

My kids are age 11 and up. I have more free time than they do in the mornings. They have constant schoolwork while I have free moments in between them needing my help. A little over a year ago I realized the landscape of our day had changed. It seemed silly not to dust or tidy the bathroom because that was So-and-so's chore. I was available to do it and they were working on schoolwork. I didn't want to give them the idea that it is okay to neglect a needful task if it's 'not my job'.

Sometimes I am otherwise engaged in the late afternoon. If that happens, I have one of the girls make dinner. After dinner, whoever does not have an activity does the dishes. If we are all home, I ask the person that seems to have had the easiest day to do the dishes, and usually I help. I generally don't take no for an answer. I do listen respectfully to appeals, but unless the kid really has a point, I say thanks for the input and please do the chore. You eat, you work.

Some weeks this means we don't get much beyond dishes, bathrooms, laundry and basic vacuuming. I'm okay with that. Other weeks we get plenty of detailed cleaning done, which is good. Those are my favorite weeks.

The biggest drawback to this way is that I have to keep asking for help. Some day I hope we will all do what needs doing when it needs doing without being asked. I'm still figuring out whether this method encourages that.

Housework is never-ending, especially since we are in our house all the time. We eat and sleep here, we do school here, I teach other students here. There is always some project. I want our house to be clean, but I want it to be relaxed too. If you come to visit, you will probably find dusty picture frames, although not this week. (I dusted them while watching Inception on Friday night.) Things will not be perfectly clean, but hopefully we will be able to fully engage in your visit. I would like to honor our guests with a company-ready house, and do so as often as I can. Our whole family enjoys a clean house, too. But sometimes we just can't manage it and still be civil. Sometimes the most important thing is playing Monopoly and forgetting about the dishes in the sink.

I daresay we could play Monopoly after everyone pitches in and does the dishes. That would be the best solution, but I'm not there yet. Hopefully soon. I want to keep my home tidy and welcoming. I also want to teach my daughters the hidden art of making a warm, inviting home. Throwing away the chore chart and going with something more dynamic appears to be one step (hopefully not the only one) in the transition. It may be a normal transition in a home with tweens and teens. That's where we are right now.

How to Secure Students' Attention

2012-01-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

(Taken from the introduction to Volume 6) This is mostly for my own benefit.

First, what not to do:

1. Don't depend on personal magnetism, force of influence, etc. Yes, this works at the time, but it does little to develop the long-term habit of attention. Your sparkling personality is simply the shiny thing of the moment. When someone flashier comes along (say, a comical classmate or charismatic politician), the student's attention will stray.

2. Don't depend on interest. The student can go down rabbit trails in his spare time. Knowledge gotten in lessons ought to be consecutive.

2. Don't talk so much. Who is learning if the teacher is narrating? (My children have confessed that sometimes when they don't feel like narrating, they ask questions that they think will lead me to narrate myself. According to them, I usually fall for it. Oh yes. My honest, wicked children and my naive, foolish self.)

3. Don't ask many questions. The only questions should be Socratic "for the purpose of moral conviction."

4. Don't encourage competition or approval-seeking. This chokes the child's innate desire for knowledge. "It seemed to me thatwe teachers had unconsciously elaborated a system which should secure thediscipline of the schools and the eagerness of the scholars,––by means ofmarks, prizes, and the like,––and yet eliminate that knowledge-hunger, itselfthe quite sufficient incentive to education."

What to do:

1. Regulate the lessons as carefully as you do your kids' nutrition (which is actually not very careful at our house right now, but I'm working on it... ). Lessons should be evaluated for literary quality, beauty, and generous variety.

2. Be brief. Introduce the lesson if you must, READ the passage (this should be the longest part of the lesson), have the kids narrate, then briefly offer one or two points if you must. (If you have a lot to say, then write something. Make sure it is clear, succinct and literary. Then let your kids read it when they are ready. If you don't have time to write something worth reading, you probably shouldn't lecture during lessons either.)

3. Avoid monotony by reading the passage only once. This also ensures enough time to read the large number of books Charlotte recommended.

4. Require narration at the end of the reading. Knowing they are required to narrate afterward (and that the teacher will not be narrating for them in her misguided attempt at elucidation) will help students pay attention in the first place. (Aravis says the exception is when the student had a rough morning, ie., overslept, rushed, got in trouble, etc. It is difficult to pay attention when you feel guilty and tired. Which leads us to practical habit training, but that is another subject. Sort of.)

5. Respect the student's desire for knowledge, however hidden it might be. "Poetry, history, romance, geography, travel,biography, science and sums are all moral foods, and must be presented tochildren without predigestion by the teacher." For no reason may we limit the child's proper curriculum.

6. Teach students about their abilities. Each one of us is capable of self-direction, and also has some capacity to relate intellectually, imaginatively and morally to the things and ideas we find in this world. It is our duty to USE our abilities. It is not okay to drift through life entertaining ourselves. Ourselves is a great resource for this fortifying of the will. Also Proverbs provides warnings and explains where to look for help.

Still trying to figure it out...

2012-01-20T07:14:00.000-08:00

I am taking the kids ice skating today. While they skate, I am going to go through materials on writing, including progym and LTW, and compare them with CM's volumes and some great articles on how CM *is* classical education. Oh yes, I am so excited. :DDD

I got discouraged this week considering basic composition programs that are mostly based on progym. I was recalled to sanity by a couple of posts by Cindy of Ordo Amoris. When will I learn that much teaching is liable to kill learning? I mean, I need to internalize this! I must not have it if I still need reminders.

Here are the resources I plan toperuse. (I probably will not get to all of them.)

Towards a Defenseof Charlotte Mason by Cindy Rollins

"To divorce a subject from itsmeaning was the error of modernity, a mad quest to produce more in less time.The classical authors and educators from antiquity until now were not searchingfor efficiency and it is puzzling that modern classical educators have missedthis point." --Cindy

Toward aPhilosophy of Education

"Education is the Science of Relations;that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things andthoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts,science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business isnot to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many asmay be of 'Those first-born affinities/That fit our new existence to existingthings.'" --Charlotte Mason

Teaching from aPlace of Stress

"There is a way to have both rigorand meaning but we must not take shortcuts through the avenue of too manysubjects." --Cindy

Language Arts: My Opinion

"The more important a 'subject'the greater danger we are in of over-teaching it." --Cindy

The Classical Sideof Charlotte Mason

"She was seeking a classicaleducation that would serve the needs of the general population, but founded inprinciples that had weathered well." --Karen Glass

Several recordingsfrom the 2011 Society of Classical Learning

Since I don't know a whole lot aboutClassical Ed, I want to limit myself to teachers that have CM's principles atthe heart of their teaching while also understanding Classical Ed. I feelmore certain of this with Andrew Kern than I do James Selby, but I really likeSelby's presentation of the progym so far.

The VerticalIntegration of Aphthonius' Progymnasmata

This was the article that really scaredme. I am going to read it again, writing comments and questions in themargins.

I also have some materials from Kern's LostTools of Writing, Selby's Classical Composition program and the Classical Writing program (by different authors).

Why am I doing this to myself? Because I need to have a foundation of understanding. When I workwith my kids on their writing, I want it to be in a way that respects thenature of the student. But I lack knowledge. I have littleunderstanding of the nature of writing! I intuitively get some things butdo not see the path on which to lead others. I NEED this. How can Iteach otherwise?

Magnetic Poems

2012-01-19T19:15:00.000-08:00

For Christmas, the Warrior Poet gave me Magnetic Poetry and a new copy of The Princess Bride. He makes me so happy.

Now my fridge is a poetry workshop. Folks come from all corners of the house to compose their thoughts. Sadly, two of LittleLa's inventions were lost the other day in an incident involving a broken solenoid and an impromptu waterfall. So I am recording the family's poetry here to prevent further losses. These are from all five of us, and I mostly cannot remember who wrote what. The poems are all lower-case without punctuation because they are magnetic poems. :)

she is a summer night

thrive

imagine

dream

savoring the universe through garlic butter

make like a free-range chicken and wander

peace

through

sweet

moist

shade

behold

a season

for the elephant

thick with memory

kiss that magic monkey ghost

a woman at home eats prosciutto

sings of sausage

shares vegetables

morning music

prairie born

lonely murmur

cloud

blossom

soul

flower

star

follow me

my brother

together

we will ride

every noble horse

silly vinaigrette

bloomed in spring

fly

live

love

wish

laugh

listen

a bug

strange with sacred life

falls through tendrils of fragrant grass

withered in winter's wild frost

a tiny animal soul becomes cold and quiet

its cycle made full

be as pure rain in summer

Updated to add one I missed and one new poem:

then they walked around it
and followed in passion this tomato

but between that wind and I
there is only sunlight
and clear bright sky

Sandwiches are Beautiful

2012-01-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

"I have to leave the house at six o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Ew."

I hoped the Warrior Poet wouldn't mention sandwiches. I get to sleep until 6:30 every morning. His schedule is more erratic. Some days he leaves early, some days he leaves late. But he usually needs a sack lunch, and for some reason it is very important to him that I make his sandwiches.

That was last night. He did not bring up the topic of sandwiches. This morning I heard him moving around. "I should really get up and just make them," I thought. But, yuck. I didn't have to get out of bed yet.

Snooze.

Suddenly the bed moved. A furry animal was shoved in my face. "Hey," said WP. "Skittles wanted to say good morning to you."

Skittles leaped off the bed and went to inspect the bathroom sink.

"He doesn't love me," I said. "He's a naughty cat."

Obviously, the WP was getting ready to leave. I must be in the clear.

"Sorry about the sandwiches," I said, snuggling further into the covers.

"Oh, I was actually coming in to let you know I still have a few minutes. You have time to make them!" He smiled as if he were giving me a gift.

Drat.

"Mmm... Or you could make them yourself. Then I could stay in bed."

"Oh... okay." He left the room.

I suspect some of you are thinking how horrid I am for not getting up and ironing his shirt, making him a big breakfast and sending him off with a gourmet sack lunch. (He is totally worth that much effort, btw.)

Others are probably thinking, "What's the big deal about sandwiches. Does he not know how to make a sandwich?"

That was my line of thinking as I argued with my conscience.

"But, Lord, it's just a sandwich. Really? He needs me to make his sandwich?"

He LIKES you to make his sandwich. It makes him happy to know you made it.

"But I want to stay in bed! I still have time to sleep..."

But he needs a sandwich made with love when he goes out in the world to slay dragons...

"No. I am not getting out of this bed to make a sandwich."

Hmm... will you be able to live with that decision later?

Argh. I got out of bed and went to the kitchen. WP stood in front of the refrigerator tapping on his phone. "Oh, hi," he said sheepishly. "This is as far as I got. But you still have time."

Haha. I made him his sandwiches-with-love. My knight went off to battle, sandwiches safely stowed in his lunchbox. I had a cup of coffee, wondered at the blessing of sandwiches, and felt happy.

My Family

2012-01-15T17:44:00.000-08:00

My brother took this remarkable picture...

...and Mariel got a picture of him taking pictures of us!

Progymnasmata

2012-01-14T07:01:00.000-08:00

This week, the word "progym" kept coming up in a thread on the LTW board. It appeared to be a classical plan for teaching basic composition. As I read digest this morning I thought, "I am going to have to ask about that, because I keep wanting to start LittleLa (5th grade) in LTW, but something is holding me back. Maybe she needs progym...?" Then another member of the group asked the question first. Yay! Other members explained and gave a link.

I am enjoying my foray into the classical education world. I'm sure it is because I am following the excellent folks at the Circe Institute. I appreciate their care and respect for children, as well as their commitment to virtuous ideas and careful habits. I am just wading in the shallow end of the pool curently, but that is my impression.

I also enjoy the classical education discussions because of the words they use-- words like "exordium" and "trope" and "nominalization". I relish five-dollar words. Jargon can be fun. It feels like secret code. I am slowly learning these terms and will soon have enough to participate in the conversation.

Today I learned what I think must be the fanciest word in the classical lexicon: progymnasmata.

It sounds like gymnastics, but from what I can tell, it means learning the basics of writing in a classical way. Lost Tools of Writing appears to be the next step after progym. (They call it "progym" for short. Like a nickname. I suspect few people can actually spell the entire word without looking it up, lol.) You can read more about it at the link above.

Anyway, I found the scope and sequence for the different parts of the progym, and guess what? It looks a lot like what we do in our CM language arts studies! (Go Charlotte...) I won't detail the similarities here. You can see those at the links. The differences include:

1. Classical folks use translations of ancient Greek and Roman texts to teach reading and writing, and, while CM advocated the teaching and reading of Latin for other reasons, she strongly argued for the use of texts originally written in English in order to broaden the base of ideas we may share with others regarding character and conduct. It has to do with making education/discussion of ideas available to everyone rather than an elite few. I don't explain it very well. See CM Volume 6 Page 265 for more insight. I suspect the folks at Circe already get this. In LTW, the example issue is a book originally written in English. The progym is from a group called "Classical Writing", which may or may not be affiliated with Circe, and all the texts they use were originally written in Latin or Greek. The classical education world is a maze to "wonder" through...

2. Although we do narration, copywork, and dictation, including specific narrations in which I ask the children to write a poem, compare and contrast two things, condemn or praise a character, etc.-- all things included in the progym-- I have NOT been satisfied with my efforts in this direction. I get CM's ideas, but have a hard time putting shoes on them and walking them down the street. I cannot believe my lack of skill in teaching writing. My oldest is a junior in high school and a very talented writer, but needs more help with formatting, argument, style. That's why we purchased LTW. I need advice on how to structure the teaching. I suspect that in Charlotte's day, most educated people had more basic knowledge of writing than me, so she didn't need to give detailed how-to instructions. Sad to say, I cannot call myself educated in this area, although I do a pretty good imitation of a person educated in writing.

Because of these two differences, I plan to use Classical Writing's scope and sequence the rest of this year to analyze my teaching. I want to see how far I have gotten in teaching the progym using just my own knowledge and CM's principles, where I disagree with Classical Writing's ideas, and where exactly I lack practical knowledge, before I decide to purchase something. Then next year I will purchase exactly what I need.

Also, please note that although I am not satisfied with my efforts to teach writing, BOTH my middle school and high school children are thriving with LTW. It is a challenge, but not to the point of discouragement. So. I couldn't have gone far wrong. It's just that LittleLa wanders around the house needing something to do. She is very quick to finish her schoolwork and wants to have the subjects her sisters have. So I want to give her more writing assignments.

This rambling post has been brought to you by Pooh's Thotful Spot, lol. Thanks for bearing with me as I figure things out.

LTW Lesson 5 Arrangement: Division

2012-01-14T05:41:00.000-08:00

We are currently in Lesson 5, just beginning the section on Division. Once the issue has been separated into "affirmative" and "negative" sides, and you have chosen your side, you divide the other side more finely into the parts you agree with and the part you don't agree with.

This makes me happy. Imagine the discussions we can have if we take a moment to walk to the other person's side and say, "here is where I agree with you". And if we listen when another person divides his or her argument. Proactively eliminating straw men. Clearing the stubble so we can gather the wheat.

The only problem I can see with division is that people sometimes don't realize there IS a point of disagreement when you first give them the ways in which you agree. People have short attention spans nowadays. They don't always stick around to hear the end of the argument. ;o)

For instance...

Question/Issue: "Is Kindergarten the best training ground for a child?" (from Charlotte Mason's Volume 1)

Affirmative: Young children should attend Kindergarten.
Negative: Young children should not attend Kindergarten.

Charlotte took the negative on this issue, but first she delineated all the ways she agreed with the Kindergarten movement. Here is one example:

...in the Kindergarten the child's senses are carefully and progressively trained: he looks, listens, learns by touch; gets ideas of size, colour, form, number; is taught to copy faithfully, express exactly. And in this training of the senses, the child is made to pursue the method the infant shapes for himself in his early studies of ring or ball.

But it is possible that the child's marvellous power of obtaining knowledge by means of his senses may be undervalued; that the field may be too circumscribed; and that, during the first six or seven years in which he might have become intimately acquainted with the properties and history of every natural object within his reach, he has obtained,exact ideas, it is true––can distinguish a rhomboid from a pentagon, a primary from a secondary colour, has learned to see so truly that he can copy what he sees in folded paper or woven straw,––but this at the expense of much of that real knowledge of the external world which at no time of his life will he be so fitted to acquire. Therefore, while the exact nicely graduated training of the Kindergarten may be of value, the mother will endeavour to give it by the way, and will by no means let it stand for that wider training of the senses, to secure which for her children is a primary duty.

(Emphasis mine.)

See it? First, she affirms the good of the Kindergarten movement ("the child's senses are carefully and progressively trained"). Then she offers her disagreement ("the field may be too circumscribed"). Then comes the division ("he has obtained exact ideas, it is true... but at the expensive of much real knowledge"). She says in some ways Kindergarten is an excellent idea, it fits a child with exact habits of observation and execution... BUT... what about real knowledge (by which she meant knowledge obtained by children at liberty in the open air, through exercise and investigation, albeit with some direction from mother).

(Note: This also seems to contain antithesis. Now I wonder what are the similarities and differences between antithesis and division...)

And this is just one point in her Kindergarten argument. She did this with each single principle she felt was vital in the education of young children. Yet I have had conversations with people who thought Charlotte was squarely in Froebel's camp.

btw, the Apostle Paul used division too. Think about that the next time you discuss the book of Romans.

So. Division. Excellent tool. If we learn to use it, perhaps we will also learn to recognize it. ;o)

Obedience

2012-01-11T08:55:00.000-08:00

"AllGod’s revelations are sealed to us until they are opened to us byobedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking.Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. LetGod’s truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying intoit. ObeyGod in the thing He is at present showing you, and instantly the nextthing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spiritwhen…five minutes of drastic obedience would make things clear as asunbeam. We say, I suppose I shall understand these things someday. Youcan understand them now: it is not study that does it, butobedience. Thetiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens up and theprofoundest truths of God are yours straight away. Godwill never reveal more truth about Himself till you obey what youknow already." (Oswald Chambers)

(As quoted in this blog post.)

Christmas Highlights

2012-01-02T17:25:00.000-08:00

LittleLa got to meet her favorite radio personality

Caroling at the Adolphus

Ladies about Town

We thought TX had big ornaments... but they had these in CA too

Favors for Christmas-light-night

On BART in NoCal going to the Nutcracker

Auntie La (and Aunt Li) took us for tea at this charming shop!

Christmas tea (the blue sign says "Keep Calm and Carry On")

We were very pleased to see this little cutie and her brother!

At GG Dad's house

We had very nice weather (that's my dad on the left)

She's got her own kind of style

The Warrior Poet rushing to gather with family

This one has a sort of Norman Rockwell feel...

The biggest blessing of the year...
Christmas with my grandparents.

Wisdom

2012-01-02T15:00:00.000-08:00

But where shall wisdom be found?

and where is the place of understanding?

Man knoweth not the price thereof;

neither is it found in the land of the living.

The depth saith,

It is not in me:

And the sea saith,

It is not with me.

It cannot be gotten for gold,

neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.

It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir,

with the precious onyx,

or the sapphire.

The gold and the crystal cannot equal it:

and the exchange of it

shall not be

for jewels of fine gold.

No mention shall be made of coral

or of pearls:

for the price of wisdom is above rubies.

The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it,

neither shall it be valued with pure gold.

Whence then cometh wisdom?

and where is the place of understanding?

Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living,

and kept close from the fowls of the air.

Destruction and death say,

We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.

God understandeth the way thereof,

and he knoweth the place thereof.

For he looketh to the ends of the earth,

and seeth under the whole heaven:

to make the weight for the winds;

and he weigheth the waters by measure.

When he made a decree for the rain,

and a way for the lightning of the thunder:

Then did he see it, and declare it;

he prepared it, yea, and searched it out.

And unto man he said,

Behold, the fear of the Lord,

that is wisdom;

and to depart from evil

is understanding.

(Job 28:12-28)

One Last Post for 2011

2011-12-31T21:24:00.000-08:00

"I think it's important to have a good, hard failure early in life."

Walt Disney

"...human nature needs the discipline of failure
as well as of success."

Charlotte Mason

"It is good for a man
that he bear the yoke in his youth."

Lamentations 3:27

We visited the Walt Disney Family Museum on our Christmas trip home to California this past week. The first quote is displayed in the museum. Disney's story is inspiring. If you are ever in San Francisco, you should take half a day to visit.

Look at the similarity of the three quotes. The verse from Lamentations comes from a chapter that describes what I have heard termed the "dark night of the soul". The CM quote comes from Principle 17 which deals with the Will.

At the Turning of the Year

2011-12-31T12:48:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I sat down to list the year's happenings month-by-month, thinking that this year has been difficult. No doubt it has. 2011 began with a warning that the Warrior Poet's job might be in danger, proceeded with disability and job loss, and is ending with spiritual battles I will not detail here. But as I made my list, I noticed that the goods outweighed the bads.

Funny how the hard things always seem so much bigger than the blessings. I tend to discount the good stuff and wallow in the bad. I need to adjust my perspective! We will be cleaning up this year's messes well into 2012. I hope the Lord will bless us to flee temptation and focus on obeying and honoring Him. It is all raw material for glorifying God.

List: Indoor Nature Study

2011-12-01T05:23:00.001-08:00

I am not really a nature person. Even when the weather is tolerable, I'd rather stay inside and improve my mind or my indoor environment than go on a trek down the hike-and-bike trail. As a result, I have collected many ways to avoid going outside while still studying something from nature. Since my kids are 17, 14 and 11, I am more oriented toward those ages, so some ideas are more suitable for older kids:

Observe the flowerbed, grass, tree, etc., out your window at intervals over the period of a year. How does it change?
Grow a potato, avocado or carrot plant. You can plant it outside in the flowerbed when it gets too big for the house.
Study rocks and minerals using pictures from a book or online and/or a collection of purchased rocks.
Purchase a flower (or a bouquet of flowers) from the store. Note its features, sketch it, label the sketch, search online for poetry about that particular kind of flower.
Grow flowers from bulbs. Sketch at intervals.
(Did you know that simply looking at something from nature, whether in real life or in a picture, actually reduces stress?)
Catalog and label photos from previous nature walks.
We live in Texas, and winter is a prime time for bird watching. Leaves are off trees, and we live enough south that we still have a variety of birds.
When leaves are gone, it is also easier to pay close attention to tree bark.
Keep a record of the weather over a period of weeks, or note the weather once per week for a year. What are the changes? WHY are the changes? Study the tilt of the earth-- its relationship to the sun at different times in the year.
Grow lettuce indoors. It grows fast, and then you can eat it.
Catalog nature finds collected on previous nature walks. We have leaves, rocks, cones/burrs/seed pods, dry flowers, dead insects, etc. How are they the same? How are they different?
Buy several different fruits and see what is inside. Sketch.
Read books about animals you might never see in real life except at the zoo (ie., polar bears, elephants, emus, monkeys). Note characteristics you didn't know about before.
Look at a map of your area. Pay close attention to the waterways. Do you have a lake or river nearby? Where does it come from? Where does it go? Is it part of a larger system?
What is the soil like in your area? Take samples from different places, mix thoroughly with water, and let each sit until clay, sand and silt separate. Note the different combinations in each sample.
Choose a favorite piece of clothing. What is it made from? Where did the cotton, etc., come from, I wonder? If the material is man-made, what natural things were combined to make the new material?
Make a terrarium from an oversized pickle jar. Find instructions online. Add plants and a bit of water, close up the jar, and watch the water cycle work.

Most of these ideas came from other people, books or our yearly foray into the science fair. I will add to this list as I think of other things.

Rules for Re-Solving

2011-11-26T05:59:00.001-08:00

Some of the best times to begin with a clean slate:

*New Year's

*Easter

*End of school year

*Beginning of school year

*On your birthday

*Sundays

*In the morning

*In the evening as you prepare for the next day

*Anytime...

Whenever you realize that the day (or the week, or your life) has gone south, you are allowed to declare that you are starting over from that moment. Just make sure you resolve with a hefty dose of prayer. If you had been doing that in the first place, you probably wouldn't have gotten into such a mess.

I have a friend who, when her kids talk sassy and she has to get onto them and then they are sorrowful for forgetting themselves, says, "Okay. Let's have a do-over." It doesn't erase the sin, nor the earthly consequences, but it does lessen the discouragement.

Jesus did that too. "Neither do I condemn thee. Go, and sin no more."

It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. (Lamentations)

Cast Down But Not Destroyed

2011-11-23T06:09:00.001-08:00

I worried this week. The Bible says that we are to let our requests be made known to God (with thanksgiving) and "the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Philippians 4) But instead of praying and trusting God, I became stoic. I tried to endure through my own strength.

This results in worry. Stoicism is not effective at either bringing peace or glorifying God.

Annie Dillard said, "Something is everywhere and always amiss." That seems an accurate description of our life right now. In the last week, our van broke down and needed significant repair, the additional vehicle my parents had lent us mysteriously stopped running, the WP got sick with a bad cold or flu and threatened to need the doctor (no health insurance since he lost his job).... and other things I won't list... We are definitely cast down, despite his new job starting next week. There are so many details to handle regarding that change, let alone other things that have cropped up.

Thankfully, despair is not something I engage in as a general rule. I have seen the Lord's action in my life enough times to know He is going to take care of us. But I do get tired of dealing with one thing after another.

In Hebrews 4, Paul instructs us to fear lest we come short of the promise of entering into His rest. Some do not enter because of unbelief. That would be me in the last week.

"There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us therefore labor to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." (Hebrews 4:9-11)

God sees our hearts. He can look inside me and know that I have not rested in Him this week. Unbelief makes it hard for me to patiently work and wait, resting in the Lord rather than enduring through my own strength, in the face of continued hardship. What am I not believing? I know He will ultimately take care of us!

But maybe I lack faith to trust Him for the rescue of the moment when strength fails and I am tempted to cry in frustration. He is sovereign over our moments as well as our entire lives.

"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:16)

And Paul said in 2 Corinthians:

"Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

This time is not forever. That is hard to believe in the midst of struggle, but the difficulty doesn't make it less true. These scriptures comfort me and point me toward my Saviour. I pray the words of this old hymn:

"Now in Thy praise, eternal King, be all my thoughts employed

While of this precious truth I sing, cast down but not destroyed."

Lord, let me not be stoic. Help me to depend not on my own determination, but to rest faithfully in my Saviour. He overcame the biggest struggle I ever had or will have, and can handle the smaller ones too.

Exam Week: Fishergirls on the Shore of Tynemouth

2011-11-21T10:31:00.001-08:00

Mariel wrote the following answer to the question, "Describe your favorite picture from this term's picture study." She refers to this picture by Winslow Homer. She wrote her answer in the style of a newspaper article, and took imaginative liberties with unknown details. (I'm not sure what I think about that.) If you will, imagine yourself as a citizen of Tynemouth:

In this wonderfully proportioned painting, local artist Winslow Homer has captured, in a sepia tone, the authenticity. Homer, a 48-year-old American, has painted over ten paintings of the locals here in Tynemouth. This one portrays our mayor's two lovely daughters. As you know, Elisabyth (on left) is pregnant with her first child, but still loves to help her sister Magdolyn, with the knitting. "it was a great pleasure and honour to be able to paint these two ladies," says Homer. "They are the epitome of happiness. I have given them prominent positions in other paintings." We love Homer's paintings and hope that he will find the best picturesque places in our little Tynemouth.

Exam Week: Analysis and Synthesis

2011-11-21T09:36:00.001-08:00

Here is another exam narration from Little La. The book is Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley. La gets a bit cute with her answer on this one, and had a hard time spelling "analysis", but I'm glad she understands the difference between analysis and synthesis and has begun to see the importance of each. I corrected spelling for reading ease (emphasis hers):

Analysis and Synthesis were brothers and the grandchildren of Madam How. Analysis took apart and analyzed. Synthesis put them back together again.

One day, Synthesis captured Analysis because he wanted all the power. He starved Analysis in the dungeon and forced him to tell him how things worked.

Madam How was not pleased. Not ONE bit.

But after months Analysis escaped. He analyzed, but no one could do Synthesis' job. So, analysis and Synthesis made up and were nice.

Madam How LOVED this. Many bits.

Exam Week: The Berry Pickers

2011-11-21T09:21:00.001-08:00

(I removed the image because, although it appears to be public domain, I am not absolutely sure.)

Little La's narration of the ~~above~~ painting by Winslow Homer. The question is, "Describe your favorite picture from this term's picture study:

There are four girls and three boys and they all have hats and a little silver bucket to collect blueberries. It looks about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. They are by the seashore and about to have a picnic. I do not know what this picture is called. One of the girls is leaning on a big rock. There are big mountains and a village across the seashore. There are a lot of flowers, too.

Exam Week: John Bunyan's Holy War

2011-11-21T08:53:00.001-08:00

Last week the children took AO/CM exams for Term 1. I am posting some of their answers this week.

This answer was written by Little La (formerly known as Cornflower). The book is The Holy War by John Bunyan. (It is recommended in Year 8, but the girls and I are reading it aloud together. Little La is in Year 5.) The exam question is, "Tell how Diabolus took over the kingdom of Mansoul."

Diabolus and his minions set up camp at Eargate, right outside of Mansoul. Each day a new bad guy would go and tell a speech to the town of Mansoul. Now, Mansoul was ruled by King Shaddai. Diabolus was taking over, or, really, succeeding. When Diabolus stepped up to talk to Mansoul, his speech was very convincing.

"My friends in Mansoul!" he started, "You are such kind, wonderful people! So true to your King! But, have you considered why he's not making you kings? Greed! Greed! If you let us in, and help us defeat your King, make me King, I'll let you rule with me!"

Mansoul started cheering. They were corrupted and let Diabolus in.

Great News!

2011-11-15T05:45:00.001-08:00

Last Thursday marked one full month of unemployment for the Warrior Poet. Friday, he received a written job offer from a very good company in his field. Yesterday, he accepted the offer. God is good!

This job is at least equivalent to the position he held at his last company. The reimbursement for expenses is better, which is huge for us. He was spending a lot on unreimbursed expenses at the old job.

The WP will start his new job on November 28th. He will have been unemployed only six weeks. Currently, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, 57% of unemployed Americans are without work for 15 weeks or more. (The current average is 39 weeks, which seems high to me. But that's what the table says.) What a blessing from God that his span of unemployment will be so short!

Over the last six weeks, the Lord provided for us in unexpected ways. We prepared ourselves for deprivation, but instead we found abundance.

The kids would probably tell you that we have eaten a lot of beans, and they would be right. Good thing we all like beans! But our fridge/freezer is full of vegetables and meat, and our cabinets full of canned goods. Our other reserves have also been maintained. I sat at the kitchen table and did arithmetic trying to figure out how it happened. It did happen, and it works out mathematically. But I still regard it with wonder!

Ten days ago, I asked for prayer on four fronts , and many responded, both in the comments and privately. Here are the results of your prayers:

Continued good health: none of us has had to visit the doctor during this time
Sustained driveability for our van: it is still running fine. The emergency brake light keeps coming on when the brake is not engaged, but we have dealt with that problem before, and it is not a big deal. We will get it fixed next time we have to take the van in for something serious. (Our van is completely paid off. We are nursing it along until we get clear of our remaining debt.)
Level heads: we would still appreciate prayer for this as we make big decisions.
And the biggie-- the Warrior Poet has found fitting employment!

Thank you so much for your prayers, friends. My favorite blessing is the sense of peace and contentment the Lord gave us.

As we appreciate His provision for our physical needs, we also see spiritual deficits in ourselves. Our new prayer is that the Lord will abundantly provide for our spiritual needs as well as material needs, and help us to be faithful.

LTW Journal 11/10: Defining the Ring

2011-11-10T07:08:00.000-08:00

(Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

On to Lesson 4 Invention!

(Reminder of our practice essay issue: whether Boromir should have tried to take the Ring from Frodo.)

We defined the Ring today. It is a magic object, like:

1. Merlin's wand
2. H.G. Wells' time machine
3. Frodo's light
4. the nickel in Half Magic
5. the metal horse from Arabian Nights
6. the golden tablet of Ra from "Night at the Museum"
7. the cake in Alice
8. Lucy's cordial in Narnia

These are all objects that can be used to do something extraordinary. The Ring is unlike these other objects in that it is immoral. (The others are either moral or amoral.)

It has the following characteristics:

1. it is round
2. it has Elvish writing on it
3. it is jewelry
4. it is gold
5. it was created by Sauron
6. it is from Mordor
7. it is evil
8. it is hypnotic
9. it is pretty
10. it makes people invisible
11. it corrupts its owners
12. it is magic

Learning About Integers

2011-11-08T08:58:00.000-08:00

Here are some ideas for teaching positives and negatives. This year we are using MEP Math, which is available online for free. Some of these ideas are from MEP and some we thought of while working through the concept:

1. Cutaway views of cities or buildings teach the idea of above and below ground.
2. Talk about "so much cash on hand" and "so much debt" and then find the balance.
3. How far above sea level is a mountain? How far below sea level is a portion of the ocean floor?
4. The physics of sound: high pitches are positive while low pitches are negative (Little La thought of this one).
5. BC/BCE and AD/CE on the timeline.
6. Summer and winter temperatures.

(Discovering the "why" of integers captures the student's imagination, and then he is ready to learn the "how". I always needed lots of this sort of discovery before a mathematical process would stick in my head.)

Explaining Our Current Situation

2011-11-05T07:16:00.000-07:00

As our household economy has expanded by almost a third in the last several years, income has fortunately outstripped consumption. The same factors that have allowed our income to grow have contributed to ballooning future optimism, promising to spur economic and spiritual progress.

(You have to read the above paragraph in your best intellectual-Scarecrow-with-Brains voice in order to get it.)

On October 10th, the Warrior Poet's boss told him the company that has employed him for the past fourteen years no longer requires his services. WP has been unemployed for almost a month. (I did not mention it earlier because I did not know if he wanted it mentioned online. But he said it was okay.)

I keep bumping up against the fact that I am not anxious, which can only be the result of God's grace. I am high-strung and tend to overthink things, which usually makes me worry. I may be panicking next week or the week after, but right now I feel only gratitude for His providence in this trial.

One of the voices currently in my head is that of an old friend saying, "The barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail." Back in the 90s, our friend repeatedly brought up that scripture from the book of 1 Kings as his family went through a similar crisis.

So far, this has also been our experience.

We appreciate any prayers you feel led to offer up. Specifically we need:

*continued health for us and the kids
*sustained driveability for our old van
*level heads as we make big decisions
*fitting employment for the Warrior Poet

Thank you, friends.

New Blog and New Name for Cornflower

2011-11-05T06:28:00.000-07:00

The child previously known as Cornflower has started her own blog and now wishes to be called Little La. :) Her new blog is called One Little Dream. Go visit!

LTW 11/4

2011-11-04T20:35:00.000-07:00

(Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

I like Post-its. I use them to remind myself of things I need to do, or ideas I need to internalize, or people I need to contact. They are especially useful when beginning new habits. A Post-it stating "Make your bed!" or something similar jogs me out of my default routine and challenges me to develop a better one.

The format of the LTW basic persuasive essay is like a series of Post-its. When I wrote my own essay, I began to see the point of repeating the thesis in every paragraph. I had discovered so many interesting things during the research process that I kept abandoning my purpose and writing about something else. Restating (and restating and restating) the thesis forced me to notice when my proofs and supports did not follow.

I was tempted to relax the requirement for my kids before I went through the essay-writing process myself. Now I think I will let the requirement stand. It is necessary in order to building better writing habits.

Here is my essay so you can see what I mean.

STANDARD OIL (Essay 3)

If you build a better mousetrap, will the regulators beat apath to your door? John D. Rockefellerand his business partners experienced this very thing.

The Supreme Court should not have ordered the dissolution ofthe Standard Oil Trust for three reasons. The oil market regulated Standard Oil,the U.S. Government misunderstood the situation, and theSherman Act contained vague terms.

The first reason the SupremeCourt should not have ordered the dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust is thatthe oil market regulated Standard Oil. In 1882, more than 250 oil companies competed for business. Standard Oil gained market share and became wildlysuccessful due to superior products and technology. But by 1911, after forming the Trust, StandardOil’s market share had fallen from 90% to 65%: it was in the process of losing itsmonopoly.

The second reason the Supreme Court should not have orderedthe dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust is that the U.S. Governmentmisunderstood the situation. Rockefeller and his partners formed the first everholding company. The government criminalized a business practice it didnot understand. After decades ofobservation and analysis, today’s antitrust experts believe that verticalintegration usually does not damage competition.

The third reason the SupremeCourt should not have ordered the dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust is thatthe Sherman Act contained vague terminology. Congress did not define key terms like“exclusionary practice” and “restraint of trade”. Congress meantfor the Act to regulate business owners rather than workers, but President Grover Cleveland invokedit against the American Railway Union to end the Pullman Strike of 1894. The Supreme Courtdecision more narrowly defined the terms of the legislation, but it alsointroduced another vague term: “rule ofreason”.

The U.S. Supreme Court should nothave ordered the dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust. The oil marketregulated Standard Oil, the U.S. Government misunderstood the situation, and theSherman Act contained vague terms.

Why Are We Doing This?

2011-11-04T05:34:00.000-07:00

As my children get older, I am well aware that they have free will and that, despite all the training and loving we give them, at the end of the day all we can do is pray that the Lord will guide their feet. If that were not the case-- if we could follow a checklist and turn out children that love the Lord and seek virtue-- following Christ would not be a walk of faith.

Elizabeth Foss has written an amazingly honest post about teenagers and young adults and Christian homeschooling that I think all young Christian homeschooling parents (as well as seasoned homeschooling parents, and Christian parents that do not homeschool, and all other parents) should read. As we read, we should ask ourselves: "Why are we doing this, after all?" For 'this', plug in whatever you or I work hard to ensure our children receive. Then ask, "Why *should* we do this?"

She puts it so well:

Saint Peter walked with Jesus. Jesus was his teacher in the faith. Jesus was the Master Teacher. And still, Peter was a liar, a denier, a weak-willed wimp-- right up until the time that Jesus died. He was taught by God Himself, surely the best teacher of all, and he didn't get it at first...I think, dear ladies, that some of us will be called to wait in faith for the Second Act (or our own version of Acts 2).

We need to encourage one another to walk this walk of faith, but we need to be very careful that we don't rally around a certain prideful arrogance. Sometimes, in our zeal to hold each other accountable to a Christian life of virtue, we step dangerously close to pridefully suggesting that if we just do prescribed things all the right way, we will turn out brilliant, holy children. And we forget that it is not mothers and fathers who make Christians of children; it is God Himself, in His own time, according to His own plan.

Wow. Christ himself had a wayward son. And the Lord wasn't even a sinner!

I vouch for the list she gives of things that might happen despite our best efforts as parents. I too have either known personally or read about children who got the best upbringing their parents could offer and still egregiously sinned. Because, just like their parents, they are sinners in need of a Saviour.

I love our lifestyle. I believe the CM-method of Christian home education is loaded with benefits for my children, and I am so happy we walk this path. I have high hopes for my kids, too. But it is not a magic pill.

If anyone tells you it is-- if their description begins to sound like an informercial ("It slices, it dices, it even makes fries!")-- do not believe them. Raising children is a human affair, and no matter what you do, the law of sin and death still applies (see Romans 7).

It is NOT all in our hands. Not only is God involved, but so are the kids. It may take them some time to do the right thing. Wait on them, and especially wait on the Lord.

Read the comments in Elizabeth's post. Her readers have contributed many encouraging words!

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind

2011-11-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we are reading the scene that contains this beautiful yet sad poem.

Handicrafts: Yarn, Hot Glue and Fabric Markers

2011-11-02T05:26:00.000-07:00

Aravis made this costume out of yarn, hot glue and fabric markers. It took her 7 months to complete! Do you recognize her Cats character? (Hint: she is wearing pearls instead of a collar.)

For the past month, she has helped her sisters make costumes as well. She says they did most of the work. She mainly gave advice. Cornflower's costume is a Cats-inspired Cheshire Cat. Mariel's is what Rogue from X-men might have looked like had she been a Cat.

What will they do next? I am not sure. I showed them this post, hoping to inspire them. I would love for all of us to make house gowns! Utility, comfort and beauty!

Playing House

2011-11-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend we got to visit in the home of a young couple from our church. It was delightful. I relished all the little loving touches I saw in their home. I kept thinking of the phrase "playing house" as I wandered through their little cottage.

I do not mean to imply that it is merely playing. I'm sure my sister in Christ is keeping house in earnest. She is an artistic and creative person as well as dutiful, and this comes out in her home decor. I think play is a lovely thing to invoke when doing your duty, and something every true artist employs.

I felt inspired by her home. It reminded me of a quote in Bird by Bird:

You can either set brick as a laborer or as an artist. You can make the work a chore, or you can have a good time. You can do it the way you used to clear the dinner dishes when you were thirteen, or you can do it as a Japanese person would perform a tea ceremony, with a level of concentration and care in which you can lose yourself, and so in which you can find yourself.

After almost twenty years of keeping house, I admit I am tired of it. I have lost the art of dabbling, puttering and playing as I go about my chores! It is possible (dare I say necessary?) to combine beauty and duty. As I said in this post:

I'd like to choose 'artist' in every job of my life. But I have to remind myself and consciously choose it every day, sometimes every hour, praying to the Lord for grace.

Lord, I ask that you remind me of my first years of keeping house, and help me keep that fresh perspective as I go about serving my family. Amen.

The Morning Classroom

2011-10-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

First thing each day we work as a group, and then I work with each student individually. The Warrior Poet installed an HDMI cable so I can project whatever is on my computer onto the television. Very handy! I project chapters of read-alouds onto the TV so the kids can follow along. Sometimes I highlight sentences or words to illustrate a point. We also project running lists of characters, etc., onto the TV using the Office program on my computer. Homeschooling in the 21st Century...

(Note the Amazon box, coffee cup, and Legos-- all indispensible educational tools! Also, please note the Oxford English Dictionary-- on the entertainment center table-- awaiting its usefulness.)

In this picture, Mariel and I have just finished sorting through her ANI for Lesson 3 of LTW. We listed her main proofs and subproofs on the white board and now she is copying them into her notebook.

We study throughout the house, but the living room is always our morning classroom. We enjoy the light that comes through the south-facing windows.

Idealism and Reality

2011-10-29T06:43:00.000-07:00

The giant and the conjurer now knew that their wicked course was at an end, and they stood biting their thumbs and shaking with fear. Jack, with his sword of sharpness, soon killed the giant, and the magician was then carried away by a whirlwind; and every knight and beautiful lady who had been changed into birds and beasts returned to their proper shapes. --The History of Jack the Giant Killer, The Blue Fairy Book

Organizing stories are fairy tales, parables, etc., that help us "organize" our ideas about good moral character. In organizing stories, good always wins. Young children need organizing stories. They realize early on that "something is everywhere and always amiss." They need to know that dragons can and will be slain.

The opposite of organizing stories are narratives that display the complex nature of real people. Some folks never grasp this. It is easier to believe that people-- especially people we do not know personally-- are perfectly good or certainly evil. This is especially true when judging statesmen, politicians and economic leaders. However, government officials grapple with their own selfish interests as well as governing principles. New dilemmas arise in business and economics, defying empirical analysis and leaving leaders nonplussed. Senators and CEOs are complicated, just like the rest of us.

Today the world is exploding with children who think they can fix things. Young people come equipped with a sense of the ideal which struggles to rise to the surface whether it has been nurtured or not. I think this is a good thing, although it can be exploited by evil.

We do not need to give up the idea that dragons can and will be slain. They can be. They will be. But we need to understand that human beings are fallible-- more than that, they can be stupid and greedy and even evil (in some areas) at the same time that they are kind and generous and good (in other areas). People are weird. They have blind spots. NO ONE is going to behave righteously every time. Sad, but true. It is just not going to happen. That is reality here on earth.

The broader reality is that the good is coming, and it will not be ushered in by earthly governments, or by pure capitalism, or by parents or teachers or students or bosses or workers getting everything "right".

These two truths-- the earthly reality and the broader reality-- are not commonly taught to children today. (They are learned through immersion in great literature, especially the Bible. But that is an argument for another day.)

Should we try to get everything right? Yes, we should. We won't make it, but we will get closer than if we don't try. Should we be surprised when others do not get it right? No, we should not. People are unrighteous. Should we work toward improving the likelihood that people will do right? Yes. (I'm sure I don't have to point out that we as individuals do not get it right either. We already know that about ourselves. Right?)

As a nation we need to understand that people sin. This is wisdom. We also need to learn how our systems work. Unfortunately, a lot of what gets passed off as teaching is merely a list of talking points for one agenda or another. When we learn to value mercy and truth more than we value our own 'side', we will be able to educate our children. Perhaps then our children will be able to articulate what they think is right and wrong about the world, and act effectively in the direction of right, instead of blindly following utopian promises or flailing around in anger. But only if they first understand that all have sinned, and do sin, and will sin.

An article that illustrates the impact of earthly reality on ideology.

LTW Journal 10/27(b)

2011-10-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

(Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

My exordium examples are done. I enjoyed making these! I suspect one cannot have too many examples of a writing "hook", so I am sharing mine here. Also, here is a link to sample imperative sentences. And a link to a hilarious joke that illustrates the vague nature of competition law. It might be a bit long for an exordium, but I liked it.

My essay issue is whether the Supreme Court should have ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil.

(I don't know how to fix the weird bullet points. Apologies for the formatting.)

UPDATE: Let me know which one is your favorite!

Where is the balance between liberty and justice?

Should a cartel be allowed to suppress trade?

If you build a better mousetrap, will the regulators beat a path to your door?

In 1890 the Sherman Anti-trust Act was passed. That year, Standard Oil possessed 90% of American refining capacity. In 1911 the Act was invoked against Standard Oil, but due to competition from other firms, Standard's refining capacity had already gone down to 65%. (Wikipedia.)

By 1890, the United States was transitioning from an agricultural to industrial society. In the midst of unprecedented growth, the Senate passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act, 51-1. The Act then unanimously cleared the House and became a law. (Wikipedia)

Label the good guys and bad guys in this story: In 1870, John D. Rockefeller started in the oil business. His shrewd success reduced kerosene prices for Americans, and also put many would-be oil magnates out of business. Rockefeller got rich. He and his cronies were condemned for suppressing the oil trade with their innovative business model.

You are a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. The world is changing. New technology and production techniques have brought about new business models. Decide which are lawful and which are not.

In my twenties, I tried to sell Avon. Competition was fierce, and I never liked to persuade hesitant customers. I was terrible at it.

“If I never had a cent, I'd be rich as Rockefeller... Gold dust at my feet, on the sunny side of the street.” (old song)

In 1952, a representative from the Rockefeller Foundation called leprosy specialist Dr. Paul Brand. “Your work with leprosy shows good potential. Why don't you travel around the world and get the best advice possible? See anyone you want-- surgeons, pathologists, leprologists-- and take whatever time you need. We'll foot the bill.” The trip gave Dr. Brand much-needed confirmation of his findings on the dread disease. (Brand/Yancy, The Gift of Pain)

"Nothing was left to chance, nothing was guessed at, nothing left uncounted and measured. Efficiencies down to the smallest detail of the business were the order of the day. Economy, precision, and foresight were the cornerstones of [Standard Oil's] success.” (Professor Keith Poole, The American Experience, www.pbs.org)

LTW Journal 10/27

2011-10-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

(Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

Today we began the Arrangement portion of Lesson 3. After introducing the types, we came up with some exordia for our practice essay.

(The issue is whether Boromir should have tried to take the Ring from Frodo.)

1. If everyone was against you, would you still hold your opinion?
2. Can all tools be used for good?
3. Do you know the definition of pragmatic?
4. Imagine being in a forest, chased by a tall dude trying to take the ring you inherited from your uncle.
5. Consider having the fate of a world in the palm of your hand.
6. 80% of Men are prone to greed. Nine of these men are Ring Wraiths. One of them is Boromir.
7. Only three Hobbits have held the Ring. Two of them have been consumed.
8. "It is a gift, a gift to the foes of Mordor. Why not use this ring?" --Boromir

(The kids thought of all but #3. That one was mine.)

Now I am off to work on my own essay exordium while watching the Texas Rangers with the Warrior Poet. :) Here we go, Rangers!

LTW Journal 10/25

2011-10-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

(Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

Most controversies would soon be ended, if those engaged in them would first accurately define their terms, and then adhere to their definitions. --Tryon Edwards

We stayed in Invention today. First we took turns reading our definitions. The LTW way of defining a term causes us to look at both generalities and specifics. We have to keep our focus on the actual issue, too. At our house we tend to randomly include ALL the possibilities and go off on tangents, but definitions ought to discriminate.

After definitions, the kids turned in their ANI charts. Aravis was distressed because she only had around eighteen things on each list. (We were going for thirty.) She had detailed sentences for most of her points, sometimes several lines long. I was sure she already had thirty things on each list! I told her to list only one detail per bullet point. She was relieved.

On Thursday, we will move into Arrangement and learn about the exordium. I am excited. The exordium is the introductory part of the essay. At our house we have always called it the hook. This is the part where the writer reels us in and we as readers decide whether we want to stay.

I started this post with an exordium. I came up with several others, too:

* Three out of five members of our family are learning to write using Lost Tools of Writing.

* There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer. When asked to define great, he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"

He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.

* Dare to define!

* I first learned about defining terms from Mortimer J. Adler in How to Read a Book. He said to me, "Reader, you cannot understand where an author is coming from until you know his terms." (Okay, I am paraphrasing a bit.)

* Imagine a world where words have no meaning.

LTW Journal: 10/24

2011-10-25T05:29:00.000-07:00

Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

While the Warrior Poet watches the Rangers in the World Series, I am keeping him company. Well, sort of. We are in the same room, but I am working on my ANI chart for the question, "Should the Supreme Court have ordered the dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust?"

I have been working on this ANI chart for several days now. On the one hand, I think it is terrific. It makes me slow down. I have a sense of leisure about developing my opinion since I need thirty items each for affirmative, negative and interesting. (I might as well wait until I have all of them before deciding.) I need that time and additional information to correct my faulty notions about the issue, too.

On the other hand, it is torture. It forces me to look at all sides of the issue! Besides being time-consuming, looking at all sides of an issue means I cannot get comfortable with a straightforward answer.

If I had chosen an issue from an organizing story, in which good and evil are presented in black and white, it would be easier. Perhaps this is what my middle schooler needs as she learns the concepts in LTW. But my issue this go-round is one of the first debates between big business and government in the U.S. And it just is not that simple. My middle schooler's issue this time is "whether Mr. Elton should have married Harriet Smith." Much simpler than mine, but not quite an organizing story issue!

I learned about organizing stories in a book on learning differences. Interestingly, I cannot find any info on it by googling. Organizing stories are fairy tales, parables, etc., that help us "organize" our ideas about good moral character. Opposite are the more complex, mixed-bag stories in which people aren't only good or only evil. In organizing stories, good always wins. Children need organizing stories in their young lives. They realize early on that "something is everywhere and always amiss." They need to know that dragons can and will be slain. And I am beginning to think issues from those types of stories are the simplest to debate when beginning to learn the persuasive essay! Get all the messy issues out of the way while learning the process! But I don't know. It is wonderful the way these messy issues make us think.

Some folks believe that an issue like the dismantling of the Standard Oil Trust does contain characters stolidly good or certainly evil. That is not what I found, though. John D. Rockefeller and his cronies were complicated guys. People representing the U.S. government, whether politicians or statesmen, had to grapple with their own interests as well as governing principles. The world was exploding with new processes and unprecedented success in many areas. Failure flew in the face of such possibilities. And people tried to fix things.

Today the world is exploding with children who think they can fix things. Are these kids that did not have the benefit of organizing stories or never moved beyond them? I wonder. Probably the reason is something altogether different. But they do seem to lack a sense of reality.

Now I am rambling! I will stop.

Updated 10/28: That last paragraph about lacking a sense of reality has bothered me ever since I published this post. You mean we cannot fix things? You mean we have to move beyond the idea that dragons can and will be slain? That's not what I meant. I was trying to make sense of my mind's intuitive leaps: Katie, have you considered this? Have you considered that? etc. I need to be cautious about hitting 'publish' in the midst of ruminating!

We do not need to give up the idea that dragons can and will be slain. They can be. They will be. But we need to understand that human beings are fallible-- more than that, they can be stupid, and greedy, and even evil (in some areas) at the same time that they are kind and generous and good (in other areas). People are weird. They have blind spots. NO ONE is going to behave righteously every time. Sad, but true. It is just not going to happen. That is reality here on earth.

The broader reality is that the good is coming, and it will not be ushered in by earthly governments, or by pure capitalism, or by parents or teachers or students or bosses or workers getting everything "right".

Should we try to get everything right? Yes, we should. We won't make it, but we will get closer than if we don't try. Should we be surprised when others do not get it right? No, we shouldn't. People are unrighteous. Should we work toward improving the likelihood that people will do right? Yes. (I'm sure I don't have to point out that we as individuals do not get it right either. We all already know that about ourselves. Right?)

As a nation we need to understand that people sin. This is wisdom. We also need to learn how our systems work. Unfortunately, a lot of what gets passed off as teaching is merely talking points for one agenda or another. When we learn to value mercy and truth more than we value our own 'side', we will be able to educate our children. Perhaps then our children will be able to articulate what they think is right and wrong about the world, and act effectively in the direction of right, instead of flailing around in anger. But only if they first understand that all have sinned, and do sin, and will sin.

Updated 10/27 to add a great article that illustrates the impact of reality on idealogy.

Narration Excerpt: Mere Christianity

2011-10-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

And this is my favorite narration from Mariel this week. "Jack" is C.S. Lewis:

Jack found that some people were very disturbed that Jesus had said, “Be ye perfect.” They thought that that meant that “Unless you are perfect, I won’t help you.”

Jack gives them an allegory. When he was a young boy, he had toothaches a lot. When he was in bed at night and he would have these toothaches, he would wait until the pain was terrible, and then go to his mother for pain killer. But when he did that, he knew that he was running the risk of his mother taking him to see the dentist on the morrow. And Jack did not like that dentist. All he wanted was immediate relief. But when he ‘gave’ his mother an inch, she took a foot, or an ell, as he says in the book.

God is like that. In the 13^th chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples the reason he tells parables. “I tell parables because the people who listen have no ears to hear with, no eyes to see with, and no mind to understand. And they don’t want to understand, because they are afraid that they will have to repent and reform. Only the willing ones can interpret my parables.”

Jack says that God requires everything in your life to be surrendered to him, not just parts of it.

Narration Excerpt: The Microbe Hunters

2011-10-23T20:11:00.000-07:00

Now I am reading Aravis' narrations. Here is my favorite portion of hers:

When Koch told [a famous researcher] of the new discovery, he laughed and said it was nonsense, and if Koch wanted to separate bacteria he would have to have a separate laboratory for each germ. Then Koch proved to be one of the most mature, so far, of the microbe hunters: instead of vilifying Virchow and making great sweeping oratorical speeches about how stupid he was, Koch went back to his laboratory – not in the least discouraged – and set out to find a cure for tuberculosis.

Narration Excerpt: Isaac Newton

2011-10-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

I am reading the narrations Cornflower wrote last week. This is my favorite part so far:

Finally, Isaac was sure about the Law of Gravity! The moon and AN APPLE obey the same law!

Lesson Plan: Discovering Meaning in a Text

2011-10-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a lesson plan I wrote for Shakespeare class. We are reading "As You Like It". I want to show the kids that they already possess tools that will help them interpret the text.

1. What do you know of grammar? (Talk about nouns/verbs

These two parts of speech can helpus discover the meaning of a text.)

2. Using what we know about nouns andverbs, let's figure out these sentences from today's reading:

"Your virtues, gentle master, aresanctified and holy traitors to you."

(Virtues aretraitors. The rest of the sentence is Adam's praise ofOrlando.)

“My master is of churlishdisposition and little recks to find the way to heaven by doing deedsof hospitality.”

(Master is churlish. Therest is an example of his churlishness. “Churlish” is an adjective that describes Master, but we do not have toknow that to see that it follows “Master is...”)

3. Here is part of a sentence from theDeclaration of Independence. It even works for our governingdocuments!

“Prudence, indeed, will dictatethat Governments long established should not be changed for light andtransient causes...”

(Prudence will dictate. Governments should [not] be changed. Therest of the words enhance or change the meaning of the sentence. It is easier to see the changes when we highlight the main nouns and verbs.)

4. Briefly introduce selection to be read.

5. Read and narrate.

LTW Journal 10/20

2011-10-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

A thought I have been pondering:

These rudimentary lessons bring essay-writing down to its lowest common denominator, enabling students to learn a process. I hesitate to be happy about that. As I work on my own basic persuasive essay, I find that I want to go deeper and explore the issue more than the form allows.

As an autonomous adult student, I can break out of the basic rules in LTW in order to explore the issue, but I wonder about students enrolled in a class or being taught this at home by their parents. They will be brought back to simplicity if they want to include elements not yet covered. I have already done this once or twice with my own kids. The student may adhere to form while either struggling internally over what he wants to SAY or pacifying himself with his passing grade. When lessons are made simple, it is tempting to believe that getting 100 means you have everything you need, when in reality it is only the beginning of understanding. How do you teach simplified lessons without lowering the standard?

I have tried going from complex to simple. I originally taught the Essay to my oldest by having her rewrite great essays-- a method described by Benjamin Franklin in his Autobiography. Franklin successfully learned to write by doing this, but I am not sure our attempts were effective. Now I am going the opposite route, moving from simple to complex. It is easier, but the temptation to lower standards bothers me. I would love to hear from folks who have successfully used LTW and can explain how it actually raises both a student's standards and the quality of his writing.

LTW Journal 10/19: Finding an Issue

2011-10-19T05:41:00.000-07:00

(Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

I realized this week that several posters on the LTWMentor group write essays along with their students, following the guidelines of their classes' current lessons. I have not been doing that, although I consider our practice essay somewhat my own. In this essay cycle, I decided to go through the process myself, doing everything I am requiring of my kids.

We are in Invention this week, so I have to find an issue. LTW does not give too much guidance on actually picking something to write about. I told the kids that this essay needs to be about what they are reading for school. I am reading several books with the kids. Gathering fodder for an essay is tough, so I want to pick a book that fascinates me. Here are the ones I find most interesting:

1. Plutarch's Life of Crassus
2. Paul Johnson's History of the American People (currently dealing with 1880s-1920s)
3. This Country of Ours (currently reading about the 1800s)
4. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
5. The Bible (Matthew/Leviticus)
6. Emma by Jane Austen
7. The New World (Henry VIII just established the Church of England)
8. As You Like It by Mr. William Shakespeare

Next I need to discover anything debatable in these books-- an issue. In other words, a topic that can be turned into a 'whether', ie., "Whether Boromir should have tried to take the Ring from Frodo". (That is our practice essay issue.) I did not peek into the books to make my list because I want to pick an issue that inspires me to wonder. Off the top of my head, I wonder:

1. Whether Crassus should have decimated the legion
2a. Whether Congress should have dismantled the Standard Oil Trust
2b. Whether Congress should have enacted the Robinson-Patman Act (also known as the Anti-Price-Discrimination Act)
3. Whether General Jackson should have conquered Florida
4. Hmm...
5. (Sort of hard to find a debate in the commands of God (Leviticus). Ditto for Matthew, since we are reading Christ's sermons.)
6. Whether Harriet should have refused Robert Martin.
7. Whether Henry should have broke away from the Catholic Church.
8. Whether it is better to live at the ducal court or in the wilderness.

Here my two favorites:

* Whether Crassus should have decimated the legion
* Whether Congress should have dismantled the Standard Oil Trust

In the next LTW Journal post, I will let you know which one I picked. :)

Little by Little

2011-10-15T18:38:00.000-07:00

“Little by little,” an acorn said,
As it slowly sank in its mossy bed,
“I am improving every day,
Hidden deep in the earth away.”

Around five years ago, a sweet lady in our homeschool group offered to teach us crochet. We went to her house one afternoon a week for several months. I learned single, double and triple crochet, as well as granny squares. Aravis, then twelve, made a potholder. Mariel, age nine, learned the chain stitch, but quickly lost interest and joined Cornflower, age six, watching Disney movies in the other room.
I made a couple baby blankets and started afghans for the girls. Although Mariel was fascinated by crochet hooks and actually bought several at a garage sale, the girls did not want to start projects. After awhile I either finished or abandoned mine. Whenever I thought about our foray into yarn crafts, I felt vaguely dissatisfied. Evidently, my girls were not crochet-ers.

Then early this year we watched the musical, "Cats". Aravis was intrigued by the costumes. She discovered a Cats-costume-making group online. She practiced crochet stitches until she could make arm and leg warmers. She taught herself to make Cats wigs and tails, which involves fraying homespun, making wig caps out of pantyhose, and combining colors to get the proper cat effect. A drama friend offered to teach her knitting, and Aravis taught her crochet in return.

She is now officially obsessed with yarn crafts. She visits Hobby Lobby at every opportunity. She has almost completed her Cats costume and is instructing her sisters in making their own. There are yarn fragments all over the house, but especially in her room. Her spending money goes toward more yarn, and her wish list includes homespun, Simply Soft, and don't forget bamboo silk...

Tonight all three girls are listening to Chopin and working on their Cats costumes. I hear them in there discussing the proper use of hot glue and whether it is better to be paid for babysitting in yarn or money. I am telling this because five years ago I felt like crafting with yarn didn't "take". But apparently it did. It threatens to overrun my home. And I like it.

LTW Journal 10/13: Defining Boromir

2011-10-13T04:55:00.000-07:00

(Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

One of the five tools in the Invention canon is Definition. Aravis and I went through workbook exercise to come up with this definition for Boromir:

"Boromir is the member of the Fellowship who does not want the Ring destroyed."

One result of this exercise was our realization that Boromir's motives place him directly in conflict with the rest of the Fellowship. Everyone else is committed to destroying the Ring by helping Frodo get to Mordor so he can throw it in the fire. But Boromir thinks he can use the Ring to destroy Sauron.

Cornflower observed and made comments, but Mariel was sick and stayed in bed. Cornflower then wanted to define her own term, so she and I came up with this about Sir Kay in the King Arthur legend:

"Sir Kay is a man who is Sir Ector's real son."

As the girls discovered, the exercise is a bit like a Venn diagram: How is this thing like others of its kind? How is it different?

The essay for this three-week cycle will be student's choice-- anything that has to do with their reading for school this year. I'm done giving them tough topics! Learning the form is tough enough.

Update: Mariel is feeling better. We worked together to come up with another definition for the Boromir issue. She wanted to define the word, "take". I was not sure this would be a good idea, but I was pleasantly surprised--

"The word, 'take', is an action verb with a negative connotation."

I am not sure we are using "connotation" correctly. I think what we really want to say is that "take" is negative in this context. I get context and connotation confused.

connotation: an idea or feeling that a word evokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning. (Google)

context: the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning. (Google)

Wait on the Lord

2011-10-12T06:14:00.001-07:00

The LORD is my light and my salvation;

whom shall I fear?

The LORD is the strength of my life;

of whom shall I be afraid?

When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes,

came upon me to eat up my flesh,

they stumbled and fell.

Though a host should encamp against me,

my heart shall not fear:

though war should rise against me,

in this will I be confident.

One thing have I desired of the LORD,

that will I seek after;

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to behold the beauty of the LORD,

and to inquire in his temple.

For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion:

in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me;

he shall set me up upon a rock.

And now shall mine head be lifted up

above mine enemies round about me:

therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy;

I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the LORD.

Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice:

have mercy also upon me, and answer me.

When thou saidst, Seek ye my face;

my heart said unto thee,

Thy face, LORD, will I seek.

Hide not thy face far from me;

put not thy servant away in anger:

thou hast been my help;

leave me not, neither forsake me,

O God of my salvation.

When my father and my mother forsake me,

then the LORD will take me up.

Teach me thy way, O LORD,

and lead me in a plain path,

because of mine enemies.

Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies:

for false witnesses are risen up against me,

and such as breathe out cruelty.

I had fainted, unless I had believed

to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

Wait on the LORD:

be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart:

wait, I say, on the LORD.

Psalm 27

LTW Journal 10/9

2011-10-09T06:26:00.000-07:00

(Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

We are finishing Lesson 2 Elocution.

FYI: The program is organized into three-week, three part lessons. Each week we focus on a different canon, or "body of rules". (LTW is based on the first three of the five canons of classical rhetoric: Invention, Arrangement and Elocution.) We whizzed through the first lesson, but the second one took longer than three weeks! As long as we learn the material, I am okay with that. But back to my subject.

One of the friendly people on the LTWMentors yahoo group helped me quite a bit by pointing out that I was making grammatical parallelism more complicated than it needs to be at this stage. I needed to hear that. I tend toward an inflexible attitude when teaching a new format, and run the risk of exasperating my children with too much detail work.

So. The nouns do not have to be the same exact word. They just have to be nouns. Yay. Sometimes things really are as simple as they look.

What follows are the first paragraphs of the girls' introductory persuasive essays. I hesitated to post these, as they are political in nature. Therefore, I might get unnecessary political traffic on my educational blog. So if you are reading this post to find out more on Rick Perry or the TSA, please understand that we are doing a junior high/high school academic writing exercise. We are not looking to debate these issues. Yet. Let us master our rhetoric skills first. :)

(I wanted to use the Boromir/Frodo practice essay, but we did a lot of new work on it last week and I cannot find my notes. Phrasing the proofs in different ways taught us more perfectly what we were trying to prove, so we decided to alter the proofs. I'll post all that later if/when I find it. :disorganized:)

They both ended up with subject, verb, direct object as their grammar in parallel. (We found it much easier to rearrange words if we first analyzed the proof sentences a la Winston Grammar.) These paragraphs are very simplistic, so remember (with me) that our efforts will get more refined over time. Right now we are learning the form.

Aravis, age 17

The TSA should not be able to pat us down or put us throughfull-body scanners for three reasons. The TSA searches invade privacy, violatethe law and do not catch terrorists.

Mariel, age 14

Rick Perry should be President of the United States of America for three reasons. He is a Republican, he shows leadership qualities, and he gets great results.

(For the record, her father and I are leaning more toward Herman Cain. Again, not looking for a debate on the subject. If you want to debate my husband, you can do so on FB.)

Commonplace Book

2011-10-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

"Easy writing, hard reading; easy reading, hard writing."

(Robert Louis Stevenson, William Zinsser and Lord Byron have all been credited with saying this. Also Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemingway and Alexander Pope. Perhaps others too.)

Annie Dillard and Sorrow

2011-10-01T10:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday while weeding, Cornflower and I found the skeleton of a mouse. I suspect it died of thirst. It has been so dry this year. The ground is cracked, the leaves brittle, the wildflowers almost nonexistent. Fire has been a Texas norm this summer, with its attendant loss of cherished and even vital possessions. The natural world affects us.

The picture of fecundity and its excesses and of the pressures of growth and its accidents is of course no different from the picture I painted before of the world as an intricate texture of a bizarre variety of forms. Only now the shadows are deeper. Extravagance takes on a sinister, wastrel air, and exuberance blithers. When I added the dimension of time to the landscape of the world, I saw how freedom grew the beauties and horrors from the same live branch... That something is everywhere and always amiss is part of the very stuff of creation. --Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

While I embrace the idea of fruitfulness in nature, I shy away from considering its horror. I wonder how much my avoidance has to do with a strong desire to always rejoice. Yet, as Annie Dillard says, something is everywhere and always amiss. Indeed, Christ was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

I mourned when I read Annie Dillard's chapter on fecundity. I wonder if she is missing something, dwelling too much on the physical. In the midst of sorrow, I consistently crave the ability to rejoice. Reality encompasses more than the material world.

But perhaps I am the one that is missing something. We are called to mourn with those that mourn. I struggle to do this, to share the grief of others. How do we altogether mourn *and* rejoice?

Key in the process must be "sorrowing not as those that have no hope". As we witness and partake in the pain, we must embrace a truth larger than the material world. It is a fine distinction that requires practice.

Introducing... Skittles!

2011-09-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

This is Skittles, our new kitten. Javamom brought him back from Oklahoma for us. (She took this picture, too.) He is friendly, patient and playful. I didn't think I would enjoy a cat this much.

LTW Journal 9/29 (Addendum)

2011-09-30T05:47:00.001-07:00

(Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures. Previous posts here.)

Update: Grammar Girl to the rescue with a down-to-earth article on parallel construction! I knew I was making it harder than it was. Grammar Girl rocks.

I am getting in a little practice myself before my next teaching attempt. I thought I would try again with the original thesis and proofs:

Boromir was not a fit Ringbearer
Frodo was a fit Ringbearer
Wise authorities chose Frodo

First I need to fix that last proof so it lines up properly. Grammar Girl quoted Sesame street: "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong..." I got confused looking at these sentences, but Aravis happened to be nearby. She is insanely good at grammar. This illustrates both a curse and blessing of homeschooling.

The curse is not knowing enough on some subjects to "be the teacher". Often, the homeschooling mother ends up learning along with her students. (When I taught Aravis grammar, the answer key was my best friend.) The blessing is that by a certain age their affinities emerge and, never having had their enthusiasm quashed by institutionalized competition*, they begin passionate independent studies. Eventually, they are able to help younger siblings in ways the mother never could. Along the way the younger sibs embrace their own affinities and *they* start passionate independent studies. Life becomes a joyous celebration of all the things God placed in the world for us to know. I love learning.

Anyway, Aravis patiently explained that the first two sentences contain predicate nominatives-- a predicate that renames the subject. The third sentence does not. We either have to rename the wise authorities, or make Frodo the subject and rename him, or add Boromir as the subject and rename him.

(I should probably have Aravis teach the Elocution portion each time.)

Wise authorities were fit choosers. (yuck)
Wise authorities were fit judges. (hmm)
According to authorities, Boromir was a bad choice. (complicated)
Boromir was a bad choice. (too similar to first proof)

Or maybe we could take the predicate nominatives out of the other two sentences:

Boromir had bad qualities
Frodo had good qualities
Frodo had the confidence of the Council and Fellowship

It still seems like the subjects ought to be the same. Otherwise, how to line them up in a sentence?

Boromir should not have tried to take the Ring from Frodo for three reasons. Boromir had bad qualities, Frodo had good qualities, and Frodo had the confidence of the Council and Fellowship.

I don't know. It still looks complicated. If we could change the subject of #1 to Frodo, it might work. But that first point is important, and Frodo has nothing to do with Boromir's bad qualities.

Still thinking...

*I am not against competition per se. I think it is a useful tool in the learning toolbox. However, I believe it is wrong to apply it arbitrarily across a system.

LTW 9/29

2011-09-29T20:37:00.000-07:00

(Previous LTW posts)

Today we got bogged down again. It started off well, though. We reviewed the parts of speech and gave a nod to other notables of grammar. Mariel gleefully remembered all her modifiers. Aravis joked that we ought to add Lynne Truss to our list of essential grammar-tools.

Then we learned the definition of parallelism. Still good. Aravis quoted Strunk and White, and I asked what Paula La Rocque might say about it.

Strunk and White: "Omit needless words."
Paula La Rocque: "Choose the precise word."

Then we smugly pulled out the practice essay issue and main proofs:

Thesis: Boromir should not have taken the Ring from Frodo.
1st Proof: Boromir was not a fit Ringbearer
2nd Proof: Frodo was a fit Ringbearer
3rd Proof: Wise authorities chose Frodo

We could not get these three proofs to do the parallelism thing.

Honestly. They would not cooperate. The reason seemed to be that the proofs each had different subjects. We tried to switch the sentences around so Boromir was always the subject, but that did not work.

At this point, I realized I was in over my head. I was sure there was a way to make this thesis and these proofs work, but I could not see it.

Finally, we decided to use the sub-proofs from Proof 1 (Boromir was not a fit Ringbearer) as the main proofs, since they all had Boromir as the subject. Now our outline looked like this:

Thesis: Boromir should not have tried to take the Ring from Frodo
1st Proof: Boromir was spoiled
2nd Proof: Boromir was obsessed
3rd Proof: Boromir was unsupported

Here is the introductory paragraph:

"Boromir should not have tried to take the Ring from Frodo for three reasons. Boromir was spoiled, obsessed and unsupported."

Looking at this now (late at night, in the quiet), I think it would work better if it said, "Boromir was spoiled by his father, obsessed with Gondor, and unsupported by Aragorn."

Do you see the parallelism? It is the repetition of the same parts of speech in each proof. We got it in there, if rather simply. And this is just the practice essay. We will probably change it again on Monday. We work on it together as a teaching tool-- then the kids apply the same process to their real essays. I am very thankful for it, especially since I am learning along with the kids. We figure out what might be a problem when we try a new concept on the practice essay.

I did not give the kids any homework. I feel like this new concept muddied the waters a bit. I want to review and take another shot at parallelism in the practice essay on Monday before having them work on their actual essays.

Shakespeare On Adversity

2011-09-28T07:35:00.000-07:00

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much or more we should ourselves complain.

LTW Journal 9/27

2011-09-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

(Previous Lost Tools of Writing posts)

Today's session was exciting. I thought so, at least. After last week's feeling that the sub-proofs were "off" somehow, I was encouraged by the LTWMentor group to decide whether to deal with logic now or work up to it in the next lesson. Since Aravis has studied logic and Mariel has been introduced to it, I decided to mention sequitur and non sequitur and see what happened.

Yesterday I visited with Mariel about how a point either "follows" an assertion or it does not. If a point "doesn't follow," it is a logical fallacy, which makes a very weak argument. She pointed out that no one was going to read her little essay and asked if it really mattered. I listed the various ways she would use her persuasive abilities throughout her life. She hadn't thought of it that way and decided she should practice persuasion now. This made me happy. :) I asked her to find the unity (unifying thought-- this is from How to Read a Book) for each of her groups. After some questioning and discussion, she had actual main proofs to go above her sub-proofs. Then she determined which sub-proofs were strongest and edited her outline.

(Aravis' sub-points followed her main proofs already.)

This morning we went to work on the practice essay outline. We ended up rewriting the main proofs. Discussion was lively. As we talked about the third proof, Mariel objected to using only wise authorities that favored Frodo, saying that we were not considering both sides of the argument. I rejoiced inwardly and explained that Mariel was exactly right, and that later we were going to add an excellent element called "refutation", but first we needed to get the foundations straight and strong. And I saw the light dawn for Aravis, who has felt a little like the rudimentary essays are a waste of time. Now she is ready to do the tedious early work.

THEN Aravis mentioned Matthew Henry's commentary on Leviticus. We are reading that along with the book of Leviticus for our Bible twice a week. Mr. Henry got poetic this morning with his comments on the meat offering. Here is the portion we talked about:

Leaven is the emblem of pride, malice, and hypocrisy, and honey of sensual pleasure. The former are directly opposed to the graces of humility, love, and sincerity, which God approves; the latter takes men from the exercises of devotion, and the practice of good works. Christ, in his character and sacrifice, was wholly free from the things denoted by leaven; and his suffering life and agonizing death were the very opposites to worldly pleasure. His people are called to follow, and to be like him.

See how it fits with Boromir and Frodo? Aravis said we could contrast Frodo's fitness as Ringbearer with Boromir's lack of fitness. This sort of gets into the Elocution portion of the lesson, which I hadn't planned to teach until Thursday... but I went ahead and talked about "parallelism" and how we were setting up a lovely opportunity to employ that scheme.

It was like being in a fast-moving stream, teaching that class this morning. We are heading somewhere good.

Here is the revised practice essay outline:

(the old outline for comparison)

%Boromir was not fit to be Ringbearer:

1) He was spoiled.
2) He was obsessed with saving Gondor.
3) He was a Man.

#Frodo was fit to be Ringbearer:

1) He was humble.
2) He wanted to save Middle Earth
3) He was chosen by the Council and the Ring

+Wise authorities chose Frodo.

1) Aragorn let Frodo go.
2) Gandalf refused the Ring when Frodo offered it to him.
3) Galadriel resisted the Ring when Frodo offered it to her.

LTW Journal 9/25

2011-09-25T19:49:00.000-07:00

I seriously questioned my set-up this week. My two students have different needs. I wondered if I was serving them both adequately by teaching them together. The LTWMentor yahoo group helped me decide what to do for now: I will keep introducing the lessons to both of them together with discussion, and then give as much individual help as necessary. It is okay for one to go deeper than the other. I am going to have Cornflower sit in on the intro and discussions too. She will learn a lot.

***************

I find myself thinking of everything in terms of Invention, Arrangement and Elocution. It's a fun new game:

In math-- Invention is uncovering questions to be answered, Arrangement is placing terms in the proper formula, and Elocution is the (hopefully elegant) solution.

In piano-- Invention is the combination of tones and rhythm, Arrangement is phrasing and dynamics, Elocution is touch and artistry.

In personal relationships-- Invention is discovering connections, Arrangement is good manners, and Elocution is warmth.

(I am either embracing the three canons or imitating the medical student that diagnosed his friends with every disease he studied.)

LTW Journal 9/20

2011-09-21T05:06:00.000-07:00

I accidentally deleted my LTW post from yesterday! What follows is my rewrite, hopefully a bit more succinct and coherent!

Yesterday we began the Arrangement portion of Lesson 2. It was time to group all the kids' affirmative and negative ideas into groups according to kind. Using the practice essay issue, the girls made five groups and used the most 'telling point' in each as the main proof. Then they selected the three strongest supporting point in each as subproofs. They discarded the two weakest groups. They also had to decide which side of the issue they would argue. Here are Mariel's groups (we worked together while Aravis worked on her own):

Issue: Whether Boromir should have taken the Ring from Frodo.

(She chose the negative, so her thesis is: Boromir should not have taken the Ring from Frodo.)

% Boromir was angry and irrational.

i) Boromir was under the Ring's spell
ii) Boromir was concerned with saving Gondor
iii) Boromir was a spoiled, favored son

# Frodo was idealistic

i) Frodo sacrificed a lot
ii) Frodo cared for all of Middle Earth
iii) Frodo was chosen by the Council and the Ring

+ Authorities knew the Ring should go to Frodo

i) The Ring was hypnotic
ii) The Ring was too powerful for anyone
iii) Aragorn knew the Ring needed to go to Frodo

Interesting note: Mariel discovered not just one, but three of her ideas on the affirmative side were actually negatives! So she moved them over.

Also during this process, Mariel and I noticed that the arguments are only as good as the ANIs. We could only work with what we had. Then came the resolve to make better ANI charts in the next essay cycle.

One thing I really like about this curriculum is the way these needs emerge rather than being foisted upon us before we realize their importance.

I am very happy we are using an issue from LOTR. Every time we talk about it we go deeper. When Mariel said that Boromir was only concerned about Gondor, Aravis and I realized he was a nationalist, and there followed a brief discussion on LOTR as political commentary. Tolkien was a genius.

Their homework assignment is to go through the same process using their actual Lesson 2 ANIs-- the political issues they chose during Lesson 2 Invention.

Book Post

2011-09-20T20:11:00.001-07:00

I have started a new set of books and want a list to help me understand that I do stuff during the day when it feels like I am casting about here and there and not getting much done.

By myself:

1) Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

With the kids:

1) We just finished the book of Exodus
2) and are starting Leviticus (with Matthew Henry's commentary)

3) We're also reading the Gospel of Matthew
4) and Job.

5) Emma by Jane Austen
6) The Life of Crassus by Plutarch (I'm not sure I like him)
7) The Holy War by John Bunyan (not Paul Bunyan... the WP always kids us about him)

With Cornflower:

1) This Country of Ours (1800s)
2) Book of Marvels by Halliburton (The Occident)
3) King Arthur by Howard Pyle
4) The Sciences by Edward Holden (I don't feel coherent enough to write study notes at this point)

With Mariel:

1) Ourselves by Charlotte Mason
2) The New World by Winston Churchill
3) Secrets of the Universe by Fleisher

With Aravis:

1) Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
2) Ourselves by Charlotte Mason (2nd book)
3) A History of the American People by Paul Johnson

With Fine Arts co-op:

1) As You Like It by William Shakespeare

There. :happysigh: That is where the time goes.

Free and Natural Development

2011-09-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

"Probably no degree of loving intimacy willthrow the closed doors of the child's nature permanently ajar, because,we may believe, the burden of the mystery of all this unintelligibleworld falls early upon the conscious soul, and each of us must beat outhis conception of life for himself.

But it is much to a child to knowthat he may question, may talk of the thing that perplexes him, and that there is comprehension for his perplexities.

Effusive sympathy is a mistake, and bores a child when it does not makehim silly. But just to know that you can ask and tell is a greatoutlet, and means, to the parent, the power of direction, and to thechild, free and natural development."

CM Series, Volume 3

LTW Journal 9/18

2011-09-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

(previous LTW journal entry)

(all LTW journal posts)

We have been bogged down in Invention. I am surprised. I would have predicted slow and muddy progress through Arrangement or Elocution, but not Invention. We're creative at our house, right?

In Lesson 2, students are asked to list twenty affirmative, twenty negative and twenty interesting points about their issues. My students had a hard time! Their issues this time are taken from government and politics, so it may have been subject matter, but they even struggled to find twenty things in favor of 'their' sides.

In order to list sixty different points on an issue, you have to know it very well.

We reviewed the questions to ask several times. Each time, the girls went back to researching answers on their own, but still came up short. Finally, we all sat down together and worked as a team to put twenty things on each list. (20 on Aravis' affirmative, 20 on her negative, 20 on her interesting; 20 on Mariel's affirmative, 20 on her negative, 20 on her interesting.) We were stuck in Invention for two weeks!

Also, I failed to notice that Lesson 2 Invention is an *introduction* to the Five Topics and questions. I got a bit discouraged that the girls weren't embracing these new tools. But we are going to handle each Topic in detail in future Invention lessons! Note to self: do more than just scan the Teacher's Guide.

LTW Journal 9/5

2011-09-05T14:21:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Blogger changed on me and I cannot figure out how to insert paragraph breaks! I hope it isn't too confusing. I'll try to figure it out as soon as I can. And now on to the post...

Additional note: I figured it out, but it's pretty time-consuming to fix. I hope there is an easier solution I just haven't found out about yet.

Yes, we did school this morning. I couldn't explain it to the kids, but it just seemed like we ought to. Anyway, today we started Lesson 2: Invention.

We decided to keep the Boromir/Frodo issue as the practice essay for both Aravis and Mariel, because they both have strong opinions on it, and I have read that book. Lol. The practice essay is used as the "dry run" for new techniques before using them in the "real" essay.

Today we learned how to ask questions of our issue in order to generate more ideas. LTW does this in five topics or categories. I'm not going to list the categories or questions because I don't want to get too detailed. I want you to go buy the program at Circe Institute if you think it would fit your family. :)

I will tell about one question which dealt with what witnesses thought. The practice essay issue is from _The Fellowship of the Ring_: whether Boromir should have tried to take the ring from Frodo? This is our list of what witnesses thought--

1. Aragorn said it should go to Frodo.

2. Gandalf said it was Frodo's responsibility.

3. Saruman believed in survival of the fittest.

4. Elrond said it was Frodo's.

5. Denethor wanted the ring. (He was insane.)

6. Gollum thought he should have it. (He was insane as well.)

7. The people of Middle Earth, for the most part, did not know what was happening.

8. The Elves did not think it could be destroyed.

These statements are judged by the student, who places them in one of the ANI lists-- affirmative, negative or interesting. Each of the five topics (categories) contains several questions. We generated eight relevant statements from one question! Wow.

The kids enjoyed this process immensely. In fact, I tried to wrap it up after forty minutes, but we had only gotten through the first three topics and they did not want to stop!

For Thursday, they are to 1) list twenty things in each ANI list for their practice essays, and 2) think of a U.S. government question/issue for the Lesson 2 essay (the "real" one). Their daddy picked the essay topic.

For Labor Day

2011-09-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear; Those of mechanics-- each one singin his, as it should be, blithe and strong;The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat-- the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench-- the hatter singing as he stands;The wood-cutter's song-- the ploughboy's, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;The delicious singing of the mother-- or of the young wife at work-- or of the girl sewing or washing-- Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;The day what belongs to the day-- At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.--Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

LTW Journal 9/1

2011-09-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

Today we moved on to the first Elocution lesson. This week was supposed to be Arrangement, but the kids grasped the outline very quickly.

In Elocution the student takes the outline she made in Arrangement and fits it up with proper words. We started by describing what is meant by a 'sentence'. Then they were supposed to turn the thesis and points into complete sentences and string them together.

"Okay, give me one of your points as a complete sentence."

"They are complete sentences."

"What?"

I looked at their outlines, and it was true. The only two items in the outline that weren't already complete sentences were the issue (beginning with "Whether...") and the enumeration (represented by the number 3). So we decided to skip Elocution this time and start with Lesson 2 next week.

I can only assume that the complete-sentence-outlines are the result of years spent reading and narrating. As Aravis said, the girls are used to answering in complete paragraphs. Even complete sentences seem somewhat sparse.

LTW Journal 8/29

2011-08-30T05:09:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we began the Arrangement portion of the essay cycle. This is where the student plugs the appropriate words, phrases and sentences into a perfunctory outline. I tend to want to flee the curriculum at this point and search for something less likely to stifle creativity. But I stay, perhaps because I know Arrangement is only one-third of this particular writing program. We did get a whole week on Invention, after all.

The kids' issues are very different from each other. One is a question of life-or-death in a legendary context (very black and white!) and the other is an area of Christian liberty-- whether to study a subject at home or enroll in an outside class. We talked about the difficulty of evaluating arguments in the latter case. We also discovered that the way an issue is worded may limit the satisfaction a person gets from arguing it to a logical (and moral) conclusion. (I know that's cryptic, but I guess that's all you're getting for now...)

The girls produced their outlines lickety split. So far this program has not been difficult. In fact, they rolled their eyes when I began the review portion of the lesson-- they already knew that stuff. First the teacher is to teach the lesson, then the kids do the equivalent of narration, then they apply, then the teacher asks questions for review. It was the ask-questions-for-review part. The girls weren't disrespectful, but they sort of looked at me like, "We have a lot to do today. Do we REALLY need to go over this a fourth time?" So I think I will respect that, assuming they continue to understand the directions as easily as they have so far.

Their homework is to produce a rudimentary persuasive essay outline for their practice essays. The practice essay is going to span the entire year and be changed over and over again as we learn new skills. Mr. Kern says it will resemble an old, barnacle-covered ship by the end of the year. :)

The Poet's Pen

2011-08-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

--Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)

LTW Journal 8/25

2011-08-26T09:39:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we had our second meeting of the Lost Tools of Writing group (consisting of Aravis, Mariel and me). The girls turned in their issues (writing topics) and ANI charts. One of the issues concerned personal experience and the other considered the actions of a legendary figure, Havelock the Dane. These two sorts are researched differently, so we talked about that.

I required them to list ten items for each group-- affirmative, negative and interesting. It seems to be easier to come up with 'interesting' items than the other two. One of the girls did not complete her lists, and the other said she was grasping at straws by the end. We decided to write down 'interesting' things until something for or against came to mind, and then look at the interesting items and see which of them might be changed into for or against.

Next week we will begin the Arrangement lessons.

LTW Journal

2011-08-23T05:44:00.000-07:00

We started Lost Tools of Writing yesterday. I want to keep a journal of how things go with this program-- I have such high hopes for it. My plan is to post twice per week.

Aravis (16) and Mariel (13) will be doing the program, but not Cornflower. I may casually incorporate some ideas into her composition instruction, but she won't be in the full-blown program.

Yesterday was our first day. I listened to the instruction CDs during a cross-country trip we took a couple of weeks ago, so the kids (especially Aravis) had some taste of it already. As a result, we whizzed through the introductory lesson (supposed to take two class periods) and got into the first day of Lesson 1. I had done ANI charts with the kids before, but didn't fully understand all the ins and outs, so some portions were new to us. We decided to deal with the issue of whether Boromir should have tried to take the Ring from Frodo.

We thought it would be difficult to come up with affirmatives, but it was actually harder to find negatives! Even though we all instinctively take the negative side of the issue, as we reasoned it through, we discovered how easy it must have been for him to convince himself he was doing the right thing. Wow.

Now they have their own ANIs to make for Thursday. More to come!

This Year's School Subject Priorities

2011-08-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

Every year I ask the Warrior Poet to rate school subjects in order of importance (1 being most important, 10 being least). Here are his ratings for the 2011-2012 school year:

1. Bible
2. Math
3. History
4. Science
5. English
6. Civics
7. Geography
8. Fine Arts
9. Homemaking
10. Physical Education

The ratings change year-to-year. Here is the list from 2010-2011:

1. Bible
2. History
3. Civics
4. English
5. Science
6. Math
7. Geography
8. Fine Arts
9. Homemaking
10. Physical Education

...and I don't have the 2009-2010 in front of me, but if I remember correctly, it went like this:

1. Bible
2. Math
3. English
4. Science
5. History
6. Civics
7. Geography
8. Homemaking
9. Fine Arts
10. Physical Education

I keep bucking for a higher homemaking rating, but it always falls pretty low on the list, perhaps because it just isn't what we think of nowadays when considering school subjects.

The WP and I are somewhat like Jack Sprat and his wife where these lists are concerned. He enjoys rating things on a scale of one to ten, and the lists are invaluable for me as I decide whether to invest more time or money in this or that learning area.

In Memory of Thumper

2011-07-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

Aravis' bunny passed away this month.

She was a daily blessing to our family.

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.

He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.

--Cecil F. Alexander

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of Thump.

Purposeful, Determined... Gentleness

2011-07-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

Someone shared this quote someplace recently, and it really struck me. I tend to take the "Well, you'll learn from hard experience, and don't blame me" approach a lot of times when the kids don't want to take my advice. But maybe I ought to tactfully and gently insist the kids follow it. (That's the problem. I have no tact, and my gentleness goes out the window when addressing foolishness.)

But there are times when the "relations are strained"; and of these, the moment when the child feels himself consciously a member of the school republic is one of the most trying. Now, all the tact of the parents is called into play. Now, more than ever, is it necessary that the child should be aware of the home authority, just that he may know how he stands, and how much he is free to give to the school. "Oh, mither, mither why gar ye no' mak' me do it?" was the cry of a poor ne'er-do-weel Scotch laddie who had fallen into disgrace through neglect of his work; and that is just what every schoolboy or schoolgirl has a right to say who does not feel the pressure of a firm hand at home during the period of school life. They have a right to turn round and reproach their parents for almost any failure in probity or power in after-life. But no mere assertion of authority will do: it is the old story of the sun and the wind and the traveller's cloak. It is in the force of all-mighty gentleness that parents are supreme; not feebleness, not inertness––there is no strength in these; but purposeful, determined gentleness, which carries its point, only "for it is right." "The servant of God must not strive," was not written for bishops and pastors alone, but is the secret of strength for every "bishop," or overlooker, of a household. --Vol. 5 p. 200-201, "The Relations Between School and Home Life"

Convicting.

Those Poor Boys in Volume 6

2011-07-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

For the last few days, I have been thinking about the "pair of charming twins" Charlotte mentions in the last, or supplementary, chapter of Volume 6. These two young men had "the usual" preparatory school education and then "had ten or twelve years among most excellent opportunities" at university. They each had a burning desire to learn and were not afraid of the hard work of study. Yet "they left school thoroughly uneducated".

This is so sad. HOW did this happen?

I'm not going to tell you how it happened. I don't really know. What I am going to do is piece through the last chapter of Vol. 6 and see if I can figure it out.

The name of the chapter is "Too Wide a Mesh". It refers to the educational system in early 20th Century England. The system is compared to a fishing net in which the holes are so large that all but the biggest fish escape-- "escape" being, in this analogy, that they get away without an education.

Back to the brothers-- after University, one of them leads and adventurous life, while the other moves to the city and studies in his spare time, encouraging his brother to do likewise. He sets to work on a "queer set of books", meaning, I suppose, that his studies are haphazard rather than well-planned. He sets about to learn by exercising his mind with memorization. His own description of his efforts really makes it sound like intellectual calisthenics:

"Anyone can improve his memory: the best way is by learning by heart––no matter what––and then when you think you know it, say it or write it. After two or three days you are sure to forget it again and then instead of looking at the book 'strain your mind' and try to remember it. Above all things always keep your mind employed."

That "no matter what" really leaps out at me. Learning *anything* by heart will give you an education? I wonder what exactly he thought he wanted that he hadn't got at University? No doubt his school failed to educate him, but what was HIS definition of education?

I love Charlotte's description of the sort of "Mind Gym" this fellow set up for himself and his brother:

They ran an intellectual race across a ploughed field after heavy rain and the marvel is that they made way at all.

The waste of it. She says they had enough zeal to have been great statesmen if they had been properly educated.

The young man finally comes to the conclusion that he and his brother "go at a subject all wrong." Charlotte again:

These letters are pathetic documents and, that they are reassuring also, let us be thankful. They do go to prove that the desire of knowledge is inextinguishable whatever schools do or leave undone; but have these nothing to answer for when a pursuit which should yield ever recurring refreshment becomes dogged labour over heavy roads with little pleasure in progress?

Where is the delight? And yet they had enough enthusiasm and energy and will to supply ten young men.

Charlotte says one thing they lacked was a cultivated sense of humor. She seems to get a bit off-topic with the following statement, but think of it in terms of intellectual calisthenics:

Perhaps the youth addicted to sports usually fails to appreciate delicate nonsense; sports are too strenuous to admit of a subtler, more airy kind of play...

Charlotte's conclusion:

We have to face two difficulties. We do not believe in children as intellectual persons nor in knowledge as requisite and necessary for intellectual life.

:sigh: We have to actually give them knowledge rather than simply tools for thinking. God already gave them those. What they need is knowledge to chew on and digest. The really sad thing about these brothers is that they had mind-food right in front of them, but they were so occupied with the knives and forks that they never actually tasted it. Sort of like savages that have no idea of bread.

Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?
--Isaiah 55:2a

An Atmosphere, A Discipline, A Life

2011-07-11T04:56:00.000-07:00

Education is...

relational _{thought-environment}

an atmosphere...

physical _habit

a discipline...

spiritual _ideas

a life.

Doing One's Duty

2011-07-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

By this time her old disposition had begun to rouse again. She had been doing her duty, and had in consequence begun again to think herself Somebody. However strange it may well seem, to do one’s duty will make any one conceited who only does it sometimes. Those who do it always would as soon think of being conceited of eating their dinner as of doing their duty. What honest boy would pride himself on not picking pockets? A thief who was trying to reform would. To be conceited of doing one’s duty is then a sign of how little one does it, and how little one sees what a contemptible thing it is not to do it. Could any but a low creature be conceited of not being contemptible? Until our duty becomes to us common as breathing, we are poor creatures.

--from "The Wise Woman" by George MacDonald

Found this today...

2011-07-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

A ten-year-old's attempt to relate to the world through scheduling. :D

Teusday

1. wake up
2. have quiet time
3. have breakfast
4. Practice Piano
5. Do schoolwork
6. Take a break
7. Shcool with Mom
8. Play with doll
9. Eat Diner
10. go to bed
11. Read
12. go to sleep
13. Dream

(The child who wrote this is no longer ten.)

Madam How and Lady Why Notes: Ch. 7

2011-07-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

Ch. 7 The Chalk-Carts

*Interesting website on chalk in the UK:

http://www.geologyshop.co.uk/chalk.htm

*P. 138 The “ignoble army of noodles, who think nothing interesting or important but dinners, and balls, and races, and backbiting their neighbors…” Hee hee.

*The Odiham Chalk Pits are in Hampshire, Southeast England, UK

*copse: a small group of trees

*grubbed: removed by digging

*P. 139 “Learn from the thing that lies nearest you.”

*P. 141 Empirical knowledge: “…his knowledge is sound and useful because it comes from long experience.” The farmer’s knowledge came from careful observation.

*Chalk, a type of limestone, “sweetens” soil, or raises its pH, making it less acidic. (eHow)

*A great picture of the chalk grasslands in South England:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beachy_Head,_Sussex,_UK.jpg

*P. 142 The “silver Itchen” is a chalk stream. Chalk streams have unusual characteristics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk_stream

*P. 145 Kingsley compares the chalk stream to the chalk-cart. They both carry chalk, but how differently they do it.

*marl: lime-rich mud (Wikipedia). Here is a photo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MatmorFormation2009.JPG

*P. 146 A possible transformation: chalk into marl into coral into limestone into marble.

*Whernside is in Yorkshire, Northern England

*A swallow-hole is also known as a sink-hole:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinkhole

*P. 151 Cave formation; stalactites and stalagmites

*The dropping-well at Knaresborough, now known as the Petrifying Well:

http://www.mothershiptonscave.com/the_petrifying_well.htm

*Proteus: cave salamander or olm (http://a-z-animals.com/animals/olm/)

*P. 153 The vanishing lake:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Cerknica

*Mammoth Cave in Kentucky:

http://www.nps.gov/maca/index.htm

*P. 153-154 Cave adaptation: partial or total blindness, and, in the case of the ducks, lack of feathers. Interesting to note that the ducks quickly re-adjusted to life in the upper world—growing feathers and regaining their eyesight.

*The cave at Caripe, Venezuela:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cueva_del_Gu%C3%A1charo_National_Park

*Guacharos, or Oilbirds:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oilbird

*P. 157 “It will not do for us (at least if we mean to be scientific men) to use terms without defining them.”

Madam How and Lady Why Notes: Ch. 6

2011-07-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

Ch. 6 The True Fairy-Tale

*Lapland: a region in northern Finland and Sweden. The indigenous people of this area are known today as the Sami.

*P. 121 “…at the mouth of the Lena and other Siberian rivers…” This very detailed PDF gives historical and geographical information on the River Lena. I never heard of this river before I read MHLW, but it is one of Asia’s major waterways, located in the Russian Federation. Its delta system is the largest in the world.

http://profpaulcutter.com/PDF/Historical%20writings/Siberian_River.pdf

*P. 121 Kingsley discusses various land bridges that existed before the Ice Age, as well as now-extinct animals that crossed into the northern hemisphere. The Ice Age idea has always been rather hazy to me, so I like to refer back to Answers in Genesis. This web page also deals with the propagation and extinction of woolly mammoths:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/where-does-ice-age-fit

*P. 122 “…the land was sinking…” This statement and its opposite is asserted several times in the book—the land was rising, the land was sinking. What does Kingsley mean? In the chapter on volcanoes, the land rises because of the addition of volcanic matter. Where earthquakes are concerned, tectonic shifts cause rising and sinking. This is called “uplift” and “subsidence”. In this chapter, could he mean the press of ice sheets on land caused it to sink? When the ice sheets melted, perhaps there was a gradual release of the land. Also, erosion would cause sinking as well as rising because of gravel and sand redistribution. Also, rising sea levels (such as in a global warming or a global flood) would cause an illusion of sinking land. Hmm. There is so much to consider when pondering the causes of geological change. I could not find satisfying links for this question, but here are a couple of somewhat unsatisfying ones.

*A global warming article from 2009:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6226537/England-is-sinking-while-Scotland-rises-above-sea-levels-according-to-new-study.html

*“…mountains and valleys during the Flood were not the same height as they are today.” -Answers in Genesis (you may wish to refer to Ch. 5 for a reminder about the differing viewpoints of Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism)

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/07/06/did-noah-need-oxygen

*P. 122 “And it grew wondrous cold…” poetry from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

*P. 124 The arrival of man in England, France and Germany. “Perhaps they came into that icy land for fear of stronger and cleverer people than themselves; for we have no proof, my child, none at all, that they were the first men that trod this earth.”

*P. 125 Kingsley wonders at the difference between the wit of man and the wit of apes. I love that part.

*Interesting archeological find (article published June 2011) at an ongoing dig site indicates very early human occupation of the Caucasus Mountains, which are between Europe and Asia. This mountain range is the location of Mount Ararat.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=13774778

*Kent’s Hole is in Torquay, Devonshire (SW England)

*brecchia: rock composed of fine fragments embedded in sand or clay (Merriam-Webster)

*Cave etchings:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn977-ancient-cave-etchings-reveal-unusual-figures.html

*P. 128 “…[prehistoric man] had the same wonderful and mysterious human nature as you…”

*P. 129 Kingsley puts forth his “fairy” theory, that the “little people” were actual people smaller and weaker than the Picts and Scots and Gauls, and were driven underground.

*The story of Corineus and Gogmagog, as told by John Milton:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe004.htm

*P. 131 Neanderthal Man: The Neanderthal is a valley in Germany between Dusseldorf and Eberfeld. The famous Neanderthal Man, a prehistoric hominid skeleton, was found there. There are several theories regarding Neanderthals, some of which belie Kingsley’s description! Kingsley published MHLW in 1869. Neanderthal Man was discovered in the 1850s:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0217neandertal.asp

*P. 132 “Truth is stranger than fiction.”

*P. 134 “That you might wonder all your life long, God put you into this wondrous world.” In the final pages of the chapter, Kingsley encourages the young reader to marvel at the true stories of nature-- they seem like fairy tales, but are much deeper and stranger than stories devised by man. I am willing to wade through the dated science in this book for passages like this one-- passages that give us a beautiful way of thinking—a philosophy-- of science.

Creativity, Thought and Relationship

2011-07-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

Mariel is volunteering at a local library this summer. We love this library. I did in-home daycare the first few years of Aravis' and Mariel's life, and I have fond memories of into this grand old library with a double stroller of toddlers, flanked by preschoolers, for the weekly puppet show. At the time it was a huge undertaking to get the kids there and help them be quiet, but now all I remember is the excitement of a *real* puppet show every single week. Back then, the children's section was in one wing and the adult section in another. There was an atrium garden near the adult stacks, with a creek running through it-- the wonder of nature flourishing indoors.

They remodeled the library several years ago. The puppet show theater is gone, as is the atrium garden. But we still love it. So many memories. Now they have moved the children's and adult's sections closer together, so it is simpler for mommies to peruse big-person books while their children read at tables in the kids' section. And it is very, very quiet. I don't know how they do it with the two sections so close together. But it is like a monastery in there.

The children's section of the other library we visit is definitely not quiet.

You might wonder why we ever go to a different library when we are so happy with ours. Well, we no longer live within the city limits, and our favorite library requires that nonresidents pay a yearly fee to check out books. I don't blame them. We don't pay taxes in that city. But it makes me sad. I have even contemplated paying the fee. We haven't done it yet, so we find ourselves owning the experience of one library and checking out books at another.

Anyway, Mariel is volunteering at our library and having a great time. One of us drives her into town a couple times per week, and, if we don't have any errands, we stay and absorb the atmosphere. Without library cards, we cannot check anything out, nor can we avail ourselves of the computers or video games. This places us in the unusual position of having nothing to do but sit in the beautiful, blessed quiet and read books. I don't even hear the psychic noise of chores crying out to be done or bills to be paid: we aren't at home. I love that library. :)

Right now, Cornflower and I have a game going. For the first hour or so at the library, we each do our own thing. Then one of us finds Sister Wendy's Story of Painting and brings it to the other. Using the two-page spreads that are all-over detail from this or that painting (how we love those pages), we try to guess the painter and painting. (At first I thought Cornflower was just humoring me, but then she started bringing me the book and I knew the game belonged to both of us.)

This week I found a book called Hamlet's Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age. It is appropriate that I first read this book in the quiet of our library. William Powers gently argues that more is not necessarily better; perhaps we need space between digital encounters in order to obtain a satisfying depth of creativity, thought and relationship. He goes back to philosophers like Plato and Thoreau and, obviously, Shakespeare, in search of fit principles for our digital age.

I have only read a third of the book, but next week, in between rounds of the painting game, I will have more time to read. I've found a quiet space and I am taking advantage of it.

The Shallows: Ch. 2 Part A

2011-06-27T19:22:00.000-07:00

The Vital Paths

In chapter 1, Carr gave his personal experience. In this chapter, he reaches into history to show how new tools (technologies) changed different individuals. Technology gives us new metaphors for description, new ways of defining time and space. Does it also influence us physiologically?

In 1895, a very young Sigmund Freud hypothesized the existence and purpose of cells in the brain. (Then he needed money, so he went into psychoanalysis. But other scientists eventually discovered the neuron thing.)

All of our thoughts, emotions and memories are turned into electrical impulses in our brains. These are transmitted along paths of neurons, controlled by endings called synapses (what Freud called ‘contact barriers’). There are billions of these neurons, each with many branching dendrites, which in turn have their own synaptic terminals. The synapses control whether an electrical impulse is stimulated or suppressed. (The electrical impulse is the thought, emotion or memory. I’m reminding myself, lol.) All the neurons are connected to one another in what seems to me to be the craziest, most intricate web ever. Scientists still don’t understand how it all works.

But they now know that the adult brain is malleable. Yes. Our adult brains can change like kids’ brains do— not as much, but still quite a bit. This makes me very, very happy. It means you can teach an old dog new tricks. When a child OR adult experiences a sensation or perform a task, a chemical reaction takes place in the neurons. This is communicated across synapses. Certain neurons’ connections become either stronger or weaker. We can strengthen or weaken the connection by repetition of the activity or sensation.

Can you say habit training? Charlotte Mason was really onto something. I wonder if she knew about Freud’s unpublished research? What’s really interesting is that the false idea of the unchangeable adult brain was scientific dogma until the late 20th Century. Carr calls it “neurological nihilism”. Ha. One scientist did experiments proving adult neuroplasticity for thirty years before anyone paid any attention!

There is much more-- think of the implications where using the Internet is concerned. But I am writing short narrations. I will continue this chapter next time.

Grace, and the Ferris Buellers of the World

2011-06-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

This morning one of my Twitter people (Tweeps?) pointed out a blog post dealing with family worship, and, thinking it would be about family-integrated worship, I headed over to read it. It is really about family at-home worship, though. I guess I should pay closer attention when I read tweets. I'm glad I read it, though, because the author makes a very good point about legalism in general. In the paragraph entitled, "Family Worship Isn't Required by the Bible", Jerry Owen says:

...I know my point here will be used by [lazy parents] to justify and continue their laziness [in not reading the Bible with their kids]. This is what gracious biblical standards always do, and in response legalists try to curb sin by adding rules.

Actual godly standards always allow freedom to obey, and some people take advantage of that to rationalize ungodly behavior. Then come along other people who get frustrated that their fellows are not toeing the line, and, like the Pharisees of Jesus' time, they add "fences" to the standards.

I resemble that remark. I tend to want to play Big Sister to the Ferris Buellers of the world, if you know what I mean. So, here you go, Katie. You were not placed on the earth to make sure everyone else gets it right. You weren't even placed here to gripe about people who aren't getting it right. You were placed here to glorify God yourself. Period.

2001: A Space Odyssey

2011-06-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

On Friday night, we watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. I wanted to see the movie because Nicholas Carr references it in The Shallows.

I had never seen it. The Warrior Poet was surprised. See, you can still learn new things about your spouse after (almost) twenty years.

Interesting how a movie can be simultaneously boring and fascinating. The cinematography was stunningly attractive. The older girls kept saying, "I can't believe they did that without computer generated animation!" and "I can't believe they did that without green screens!"

It was a chilling movie. A rated-G horror movie, which shows the inadequacies of the film ratings system. The girls watched it with us, although I told them they didn't have to. It was sort of like looking out the window of a high-rise admiring the physics of two passenger trains crashing in painful slow motion. Only you don't really understand physics.

At one point, an astronaut is silently flung into space, disconnected from his air supply by Hal, the calmly devious supercomputer. The camera follows his tumbling progress for literally minutes, alternating between it and Dave, the other astronaut, who is also eerily calm as he attempts to bring back the body. Cornflower, age ten, finally looked at me and said, "Mom, is there no BOTTOM to space?" We have studied astronomy and outer space, but I guess the reality never hit her until that moment. What a way to learn it.

2001: A Space Odyssey is supposed to be one of the top ten movies ever made, but it depends on who you ask. As far as family films go, I would put it way down on the list. A friend at church looked at me quizzically when he found out we spent our Friday night watching this (looong, boring) movie. "I like movies like that 'Night at the Museum'. Light, funny things you can enjoy with the kids." Okay. Me, too. :)

As far as art goes, it is amazing. Also frightening. And baffling as well. Around thirty minutes in, Aravis said, "Postmodernist." Yep. I'd be scared too if I thought our own intelligence, space aliens, and the material universe were all we had.

Immersed in Reading

2011-06-25T14:49:00.001-07:00

Aravis and I finished How to Read Slowly. Mr. Sire is a kindred spirit.

'How do you find time to read so many books?'

...I have a problem. I read too much. I pay attention to plot, image, character and theme when I should be paying attention to wife, sons and daughters, the peeling house paint and the leaking toilet tank. Actually, I need advice about how to spend time not reading...

Yep. And another great quote:

...all truth is God's truth and therefore there is nothing to fear from learning anything which is true. The major problem is error masquerading as truth.

And a really fabulous quote about the world of the book:

As a child "listener" and later, as a reader, I never asked, Is the story true? Do rabbits really talk? Do dark red houses appear and disappear in various parts of the forest? No, for the time of the story all of us children entered its world, and we stayed there until the last sentence became an echo. The story had made for us a separate reality, and we really "believed" it right up to the final line. Yet, never beyond. When the story was over, we asked Mom for cookies and she reminded us of the chores...

As readers it is our task as well as our delight to enter that world with open eyes, accept it on its own merit, learn its rules and see it function.

This is something we become in danger of losing once we learn literary analysis. But if we are aware of its value, perhaps we needn't lose it.

I reminded Aravis that this copy of How to Read Slowly is borrowed and must be returned. I recommended she put in her commonplace book whatever quotes she wants to keep. She responded that she wanted to keep all of it, and is going to look for her own copy at Half Price Books. I love it when that happens.

Scales and Arpeggios - Aristocats

2011-06-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

Practice those scales and arpeggios!

"Though at first it seems as if it doesn't show
Like a tree, ability will bloom and grow!"

Summer Reading

2011-06-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

I've got quite a few books going right now, which makes me feel slightly addlepated. Seriously. My friend Javamom just shakes her head at my manic reading. Anyway, here are my recent reads:

The Student Whisperer (finished), which I narrated onto the blog. This book helped me think about interacting with kids in a mentoring way, which is good. I haven't completed all the exercises in the second half, and I am not sure I will. My favorite part is her journals at the beginning.

When God Goes to Starbucks (finished) and Is God a Moral Monster? (still reading) by Paul Copan. My dad turned me on to Paul Copan this spring. Mr. Copan is something of a 21st Century C.S. Lewis in terms of Christian philosophy. Not as imaginative, though.

When Children Love to Learn (various authors) edited by Elaine Cooper. I am reading this with a group (and narrating it on this blog). Love, love, love this book. I never read it before. Silly me, I thought it would be a little fluffy, but it is as meaty as Charlotte Mason's original volumes. (Well, maybe not quite as meaty, but close.)

Toward a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason (Volume 6). Our book club just finished this on Monday night. The last section of the book, combined with the first couple of chapters in When Children Love to Learn, taught me that I never knew what it meant to respect a person as an image-bearer of God, although I have seen it in action. I can't even write about it yet. A paradigm shift must be in the works.

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. I finished reading it, but am going back through in order to process through some of his main points. This one is being narrated onto the blog, too.

I am still reading George W. Bush's Decision Points, but I got bogged down in the chapter on Iraq. I've set it aside for the moment.

Mariel and I are reading Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis) and Churchill's Birth of Britain (almost there!) and we finished the second book of The Once and Future King (T.H. White) today. It's hard to resist the checklist mentality in the summer, but we are trying to read the books for the sake of reading, not finishing, if you know what I mean.

Aravis and I are finishing How to Read Slowly by James Sire. We are also reading Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell. We had planned on reading John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, but we haven't even started it and I just don't know...

Cornflower is done with all her school readings. Even though she is ten years old, she climbs into my lap every so often with a picture book. Ah, nostalgia.

We are all reading through Exodus together, too. The Israelites just got in trouble for worshipping the golden calf.

I checked some books out of the library the other day. Most of them sat on the table until I returned them this week. I did read one-- a book on community and the Rule of Benedict. That was a good one, but I can't remember the author. I like the Rule of Benedict as a practical application of loving one another in day-to-day life.

So that's what I am reading. What books have you read lately? Maybe I'll add them to my list...

Narration: The Shallows: Chapter 1

2011-06-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

Hal* and Me

In this chapter, Mr. Carr briefly fills us in on his gradual adaptation to digital technology. He actually does start with his birth (1959) and what he calls his “Analogue Youth”. Ha.

Since you really ought to read the book yourself, I’m not going to narrate his history. Instead, here is my own.

I had a partial analog childhood (rotary phone and all) but we got our first home computer in the early 1980s, when I was in junior high. It was a Commodore 64. The only thing I remember about it is “Radar Rat Race”, a simple and silly game similar to Pac-Man.

We used computers in high school. We analyzed our personalities in order to discover which careers would best suit us. We took exams on Scantron test forms that could then be fed into a machine for scoring. (My first class on Proper Bubbling was in high school.) We wrote reports on home computers.

My parents gave me a word processor when I went to college. It was more like a glorified typewriter than a computer. It did have a memory, though.

My second year of college, the administration did something new and different. Instead of requiring us to stand in line all over campus to register for classes, they assigned us each a time to call the registration line. We registered by punching in class codes with our touchtone phones. For the first time, I conducted business in my pajamas.

I married the Warrior Poet in the early 90s. Within four years we had a daughter and a computer. We used the computer like a word processor. Eventually we had another daughter and another computer. This one connected to a new thing called the Internet.

I am not a techie. All this electronic stuff mystifies me. What I remember about our first Internet connection is that the computer was in a windowless room ‘way in the back of the house where none of the babies liked to play. I did not use it very often. I did occasionally order groceries online to be delivered to our home. That was a real blessing for a mom with three small children. :)

In 2004, we moved. We fitted up a schoolroom just off the kitchen and put our computer in this lovely, bright room. I began using the Internet daily. Within a year, I had joined several Yahoo discussion groups and started my own blog.

Eventually we acquired all the rest of it—- laptops, Wi-Fi, smartphones, social networking, etc. And here we sit.

The Internet has enabled us to homeschool on a shoestring. We use the Ambleside Online free curriculum. Many books we read are available online for free. We use free online current events resources. We search for the lowest prices on homeschooling materials. We use the Internet to compare explanations of difficult concepts in math or science. We cross-reference timelines and biographical information. We network and connect with other homeschoolers.

What would we have done without it? I'm sure we would have done something. But what?

We didn't realize the Internet was going to be such a boon when we made the decision to homeschool in 1998. We certainly didn't realize we would come to rely on it.

(How about you? I'd love to hear about your family's journey from analog to digital.)

Mr. Carr says we give up “our old linear thought process” in exchange for the use of the Internet. Our old way of thinking is calmer and more in-depth, but the new way is very stimulating. Some of his friends have even given up reading books!

That has not happened at our house. But we do feel the pull of the Internet even when we are not online. The literary mind has been at the forefront since Gutenberg’s printing press made books common. Is it becoming obsolete?

*The title of the chapter refers to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Narration: The Shallows: Prologue

2011-06-21T16:14:00.000-07:00

"The Watchdog and the Thief"

“The medium is the message.” I have heard that many times, but never thought about what it meant until now. We usually debate content when a new medium arises— for instance, did the Internet usher in a “golden age of access” or a “dark age of mediocrity and narcissism”? Each of us has our side in that discussion.

Content does matter, but what we get out of a new technology has more to do with the technology itself than with the content. Media—and the Internet is no exception—tend to affect us at a basic physiological level. Mr. Carr will work with this assertion for the rest of the book.

Book Review: The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

2011-06-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

Neil Postman warned us about TV’s influence on public discourse in 1985; Jane Healy explained the effect of modern media on children’s brains in 1991; now, using recent scientific studies as well as anecdotes, Nicholas Carr contemplates how we win as well as lose with the new technology of the Internet.

The Shallows is an important book. I think everyone should read it. We now have more than ten years of experience with this new medium. My own household has gone from one Internet-linked computer anchored in a lonely back office to five laptops and a Wi-Fi connection. This past school year, two of my three kids used online interactive math curriculum. I want to know how the Internet is likely to influence us.

Besides being relevant, the book was a joy to read. Carr seamlessly weaves history, analogy, personal stories and scientific studies into a pleasing whole. More than once, I was overtaken by the depth of his insights.

I plan to narrate the book chapter-by-chapter. I’m going to try something new, too-- *short* narrations. Ha. We’ll see how that goes.

Reading Shakespeare

2011-06-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

"Shakespeare plays should be read throughout our lifetimes, not just once. Children may not understand all of Shakespeare, but who does?"

From Leslie N.'s summary of CM's Volume 5 (section entitled, "Poetry as a Means of Culture")

CM's original words:

Shakespeare is not to be studied in a year; he is to be read continuously throughout life, from ten years old and onwards. But a child of ten cannot understand Shakespeare. No; but can a man of fifty? Is not our great poet rather an ample feast of which every one takes according to his needs, and leaves what he has no stomach for?

2011-06-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

These days, it seems like educators are mostly concerned about making it easy for the mind to work. But I must urge that, while physical activities like hand crafts, gardening, dancing, etc., are useful to train the nerves and muscles to be ready and responsive, physical exercise does nothing to keep the mind alive. We also must not put the focus of children's education on drama--even when it's Shakespeare--or poetry--even when it's beautiful, lyrical poetry. Yes, children need these things, but they come into the world waiting to connect with lots of different things. They need to establish relationships with places far and near, with the expanding universe, with the long-gone days of history, with current social economics, with the earth we live on and all of its delightful plants and trees, with the affectionate families who love them, with their home country and foreign countries, and, most of all, with the highest of all relationships--their relationship with God. With all these things to learn about, only the most ignorant teacher will let his students spend most of their time on math, or crafts, or singing, or acting, or any one of a hundred specialized subjects that try to pass for a complete education.

--from Leslie N.'s paraphrase (pages 72-73) of CM's Volume 6

When Children Love to Learn: Chapter 2

2011-06-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

The girls and the Warrior Poet are watching Curse of the Were Rabbit (Wallace and Grommit). I am reeling from the second chapter of When Children Love to Learn. In it, the author compares this teacher's classroom with that teacher's classroom-- sort of peeking into each room and describing what he sees and how it either affirms or denigrates the personhood of the child. I just wonder what he would say if he saw some of my teaching. Actually, I'd love to know. It would be helpful.

The child is already a person with a capable mind, with vast potential as well as limits.

I like how he described Principle 2-- "Children are... born with possibilities for both good and evil." He said they are created in the image of God (good) as well as fallen (evil). I am going to have to ponder that thought for awhile.

He also contrasted CM's philosophy with other theories of education--

*Behaviorists: manage many children, efficiency, child as object

*Piaget: lead child through developmental stages (concrete to abstract)

*Bruner: help child to cognitive insights which lead to self-actualization, child as "rudderless and morally neutral explorer"

*Freud: explore child's mind for deeper meaning, child as "animal at the mercy of drives beyond his control"

*Mason: present the child with a feast of learning, child as born person

Teachers tend to have a mix of philosophies they are trying to work from. CM's philosophy presents a unified whole.

"Authority rightly applied expresses respect for the learner, and takes into account the lines by which he or she is designed. While not abrogating the biblical mandate for obedience, true authority seeks to work in relationship with those under its mantle. Thus, the teacher desires to engage students actively as co-learners functioning with respect flowing from a caring and relational authority." (p. 62)

Two conditions necessary for the proper exercise of authority and docility:

1. Teacher must "act so evidently as one under authority"
2. "Children should have a fine sense of the freedom which comes from knowledge which they are allowed to appropriate as they choose, freely given with little intervention from the teacher."

Education is a discipline, too. "The key to supplanting the weakness of will in forming character is the discipline of habits formed definitely and thoughtfully, both of mind and body. To a great degree education is the formation of habits, while trusting divine grace."

At the end he briefly discusses, "I am, I can, I ought, I will!" It is a brave and faithful motto. Students are the children of the Creator. They have the ability to do what they ought, and, by God's grace, they will.

2011-06-17T06:11:00.001-07:00

"Through what we do and how we do it-- moment by moment, day by day, consciously or unconsciously-- we alter the chemical flows in our synapses and change our brains. And when we hand down our habits of thought to our children, through the examples we set, the schooling we provide, and the media we use, we hand down as well the modifications in the structure of our brains."

--The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (page 49)

How far do we embrace the new technologies? Where should the lines be drawn?

When Children Love to Learn: Chapter 1

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This chapter was written by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay. It is called, "The Value of Charlotte Mason's Work for Today". I can already tell this book is going to be so insightful.

“Most of the progressive schools wanted really good things for children. But it is impossible to achieve such aims without the realism of the truth, at least to a certain extent, as the framework.”

Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole attended a school similar to Summerhill:

“These people had the idea that boys and girls should be allowed to do what they liked. And unfortunately, what ten or fifteen of the biggest boys and girls liked best was bullying others.” --C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

“…knowledge fits into a hierarchy according to what is most worthwhile to know.”

Romanticism assumes that “the fruits of a ‘decent society’ [will] continue to grow on a tree whose roots [have] been cut away.” This idea results in lawlessness, which creates a backlash of government intervention, “slapping on an exoskeleton” of rule from without, since kids aren’t being taught to govern themselves.

It seems that people are now trying to impose a framework, but it isn’t quite the same. The focus is more on getting ahead, or just trying to keep the kids out of trouble.

Teaching children to govern themselves is different than conditioning children to stay out of trouble. One is respectful; the other, no matter how kindly put, is not.

“[Charlotte Mason’s] ideas, being true ones, have an unchangeable underlying pattern (form) and yet give freedom for individual life and practice.”

CM’s ideas transcend culture. Although a CM education can be specifically American or British (or Canadian or German or Indian or Kenyan…), it is unified by the Christian principles undergirding it. Thus, we can have that common framework, while preserving diversity. (It also transcends time, because human beings are essentially the same in every era.)

“These truths were not a cage, and that is a huge difference from those that would legalistically impose truths on others. Many educational theories and prescriptions confine education and childcare practice to a closed box. ‘It has to be like this or that,’ depending on the theory espoused.” (p. 28)

I thought of an episode from the book, Lovey, by Mary MacCracken. She was a teacher at a school for emotionally disturbed children in the U.S. I read her book when I was in high school. She loved and respected her students, and treated them as individuals. She talks about one student that came into her class with many problems, one of which was a refusal to eat. She worked with him for some days, trying many things. She had no success. Finally, she forced the first bite, and he began to eat. The experience taught her that solutions normally eschewed may be acceptable if enough love is involved.

We should adapt our plans to fit individual children. “A combination of the benefit of individual work and the stimulation and enthusiasm of a group works well.”

“Teaching is an art—and we learn from our mistakes. If students aren’t ‘latching on’, sooner or later we cast about for a different choice or arrangement.” (p. 32)

“One ‘sin’ today is a failure to lead children into full-length living books. There is something about reading one chapter, the next, and then the next, that grounds a person’s thinking and builds a pattern that holds together.” (p. 36)

Errors abound in both directions—both in not giving enough whole books, and in stuffing in too much ‘education’. She says, “Beware. There is far too much information around.” This book was published in 2004.

Concerned parents and educators today try so hard to regain the framework, but often we err because we don’t understand the foundations. We think that if we could just go back to the ‘good old days’ or if we could just get ‘back to basics’ everything would be fine. But the solution is not reverting to a bygone era. Instead of arbitrarily applying practices that were used in times when the common framework existed, we need to first understand underlying principles-- the nature of human beings, how they are created in the image of God, how they have just obligations to follow Him, to glorify and enjoy Him forever. This is true no matter the era. As CM said, “we are the same, with a difference.” When we understand this, we become able to gather the best from all eras and from our own time. We discover postmodern, yet truly Christian, education-- education that suits the needs of our time, while embracing principles true in every time and place.

(I would love to discover that. So often I feel like I am casting about for something I don’t really understand. I go back and forth between form and freedom. Maybe someday I’ll find the balance.)

“No one can do everything that would be worthwhile. The best of curriculums must be guides, not absolute directives.” (p. 37)

“We must not quench the joy of living.”

“The rule is to give interesting material, but slowly enough that it is absorbed, possessed, not forgotten in the overflow of ‘too much’.”

(I think I have been giving my kids too much. I want to look at the page counts for my kids’ ages/grades in the PNEU programmes and try to stick with those in the coming year.)

“[Charlotte Mason] called the refusal to get between the child and the source ‘masterly inactivity’, allowing the child direct contact with and individual response to original works.”

“[Wise passiveness] indicates the power to act, the desire to act, and the insight and self-restraint which forbid action.” --Charlotte Mason, Vol. 3

(I really have to work at masterly inactivity. When I have the power and desire to act, I find it difficult to keep from acting.)

“If we get too intense and long-winded, we’ll see their eyes glaze over.”

(Note to self: work on answering questions in a few thoughtful words!!)

On the Lord: “It is terrible to turn this amazing person into a lesson. Children must catch the scent, the scene, the wonder of who He is.”

When Children Love to Learn: Preface

2011-06-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

Some of us are reading When Children Love to Learn this summer. I borrowed the book, so I cannot mark in it! I am keeping a record of notable quotes, etc., here instead. :) Please feel free to comment if you want.

***

My narration:

We have a long tradition of literary education to follow, with the one difference that ancient literate civilizations educated an elite few. At least some of those civilizations dehumanized certain segments of society.

The Hebrew idea of being human, on the other hand, consisted of being made in the image of God. Other cultures only allowed that kings or other important people might be made in the image of a god. Because we are made in the image of God, we have an obligation to know the law and act upon (that is why we all need education!). This idea was prevalent in Western society until recently. Our kids’ worth is in Christ, not in achievement or aesthetics, or even virtuous behavior.

This scripture came to mind:

“[Jesus Christ] hath made us kings and priests to God…” Revelations 1:6a

Notable quotes:
“We offer no technique, but rather the simple proposition that children are best educated by adults…who are themselves in a lifelong process of learning and subject to the same duties and freedoms within a Christian worldview.” (p. 13)

“Miss Mason was profoundly Christian, rooted in scripture, and immensely practical. (p. 15)

“…form and freedom (a phrase Dr. Francis Schaeffer used to describe the proper tension between the reality of moral law on the one hand and individual freedoms and creativity on the other).”

“She was sharp in rejecting the false ideas of child-centered “freedoms” popularized by Rousseau and followers of the Romantic movement…” (p. 16)

“This is education for a purpose and not a status symbol.”

Links In One Place: Ivanhoe Notes

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Intro through Chapter 4

Chapters 5 through 11

Chapters 12 through 18

Chapters 19 through 24

Chapters 25 through 31

Chapters 32 through 44

Contentment

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"Let me, if I may, be ever welcomed to my room in winter by a glowing hearth, in summer by a vase of flowers; if I may not, let me think how nice they would be, and bury myself in my work. I do not think that the road to contentment lies in despising what we have not got. Let us acknowledge all good, all delight that the worlds holds, and be content without it."

--George MacDonald (_George MacDonald: An Anthology: Readings_, compiled by C.S. Lewis)

Ivanhoe Notes: Chapters 32 through 44

2011-06-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: All links to the Ivanhoe notes are now in my sidebar to the right.

Chapter 32

A note on Cedric’s pronouncement of Gurth’s freedom: Cedric says, “THEOW and ESNE art thou no longer… FOLKFREE and SACLESS art thou in town and from town, in the forest as in the field. A hide of land I give to thee in my steads of Walbrugham, from me and mine to thee and thine aye and forever; and God’s malison on his head who this gainsays.”

This basically means, “I hereby make you a free person and give you land to be yours forever. May God condemn anyone who denies it.”

This made Gurth not only a freeman, but a special kind of landowner called a ‘freeholder’. He was not only given his freedom, but also some political clout, as a person had to be a freeholder in order to participate in government. (A person had to be titled gentry in order to have *real* power in medieval England, but freeholders held some sway in shire and village.) THEOW and ESNE basically equate with ‘thrall’ or ‘slave’, while FOLKFREE and SACLESS mean ‘lawful freeman’.

liard: spirited
mots: notes played on a bugle
Sathanas: Satan
ruth: sorrow for another’s misery
maugre: pleasure
quondam: former
cardecu: a quarter of a crown
leman: sweetheart

Thought question: How did Locksley divide the spoil?

Chapter 33

Introduction: The holy man in this chapter is none other than Prior Aymer of Jorvaulx, whom we met walking along with Sir Brian in the first few chapters of the book. It has been awhile since we heard about the Prior.

manus imponere in servos Domini: This is something like, “you mustn’t lay hands on the Lord’s servant”
excommunicabo vos: something like “at the point of excommunicating you”. Excommunication is being removed as a member of the Catholic church.
nebulo quidam: “a certain person without boundaries” (?)
Deus faciat salvam benignitatem vestram: “The Lord bless you with good health”
propter necessitatem, et ad frigus depellendum: “because of necessity and cold”
latro famosus: on account of (?)
inter res sacras: among the sacred objects
pouncer-box: a small box with perforated lid used for sprinkling powder on paper, or a box for perfume
morris-dancer: an English folk dancer
ye may retain as borrows my two priests: he is offering his priests as pledges that he will come back with the ransom
Ichabod: “the glory of the Lord hath departed”
dortour: dormitory
score: twenty
marevedi: Moorish coins (the Moors were Muslims that settled in Spain in the Middle Ages)

Note: Stop for a moment and make sure you know the situation of each of the following: the Black Knight, the Hermit, Rebecca, Isaac, Sir Brian, Maurice de Bracy, Cedric and Rowena. (We don’t find out about Ivanhoe until a later chapter.) The plot thickens at this point, and it is easy to get lost. If you aren’t sure where one of our characters has ended up, look back at the previous couple of chapters and find out. From now on, I will include some questions meant to ensure we all keep up with the story.

Chapter 34

Introduction: Remember Prince John’s plot to take over King Richard’s throne? John and his advisor, Waldemar Fitzurse, are still working toward that end, and the battle at Torquilstone has deprived them—temporarily, at least-- of some of their fiercest allies.

Key quote: “Richard is in England—I have seen and spoken with him.”

“I will lead them to Hull, seize on shipping, and embark to Flanders; thanks to the bustling times, a man of action will always find employment.” As we learned earlier in the story, De Bracy is the leader of a band of Free Companions— basically knights-for-hire. He wants to escape with his knights to mainland Europe and find employ in the army of some duke or king.

“I will take sanctuary in this church of St. Peter—the archbishop is my sworn brother.” Fitzurse plans to seek sanctuary at the altar of the church, similar to Thomas a Becket’s historic attempt at safety.

bewray: betray
Tristram and Lancelot: legendary knights of the Round Table (Tristram is the older English version of ‘Tristan’)
Tracy, Morville, Brito: the knights that slew Thomas a Becket at the altar of the church in Henry II’s time

Questions:

1. Why won’t De Bracy attack Richard?
2. What is Fitzurse going to do?
3. What does John do after Fitzurse leaves?

Chapter 35

vair or ermine: squirrel or ermine fur
romaunts: romances
extirpate: uproot
basilisk: a legendary serpent, like a dragon, with lethal breath and glance
consuetude: a practice that has become so customary that it seems to be law
periapts: charms

Question: What does Beaumanoir decide to do with Rebecca?

Chapter 36

A note on local government in medieval England: Beaumanoir says, "The laws of England permit and enjoin each judge to execute justice within his own jurisdiction. The most petty baron may arrest, try, and condemn a witch found within his own domain.”

The King of England was the ‘top of the heap’, so to speak, in English government; the barons served him, but they were also lords of their own land; they in turn had their vassals, usually knights, who lorded it over smaller sections of the barons’ land; then sometimes there were smaller divisions ruled by underlings below the knights. Imagine it as a pyramid, with the king at the top, the barons and knights in the middle, and the smaller landholders providing the wide base. Slaves and persons that owned no land spread out at the very bottom with no power at all. Many churchmen held positions of power similar to those of barons and knights.

Notable quotes:

“…[Albert Malvoisin] knew how to throw over his vices and his ambition the veil of hypocrisy, and to assume in his exterior the fanaticism which he internally despised.”

“Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry existed?”.

“Trial moves rapidly on when the judge has determined the sentence beforehand."

quean: a woman of bad reputation
there is little time to find engines fitting: there is little time to make up false evidence

Question: What is Sir Brian’s reaction when he finds out about Beaumanoir’s decision to try Rebecca?

Chapter 37

sortileges: witchcraft
gage: pledge

I challenge the privilege of trial by combat: Rebecca is asking that her guilt or innocence be determined by whether her champion wins or loses a fight. This medieval type of trial was based on the idea that God would perform a miracle to save the innocent, and would let the guilty die. Rebecca is allowed to have a champion, rather than fighting herself, because she is a woman.

Thought questions:

1. How might you be able to tell that a "person of God" is not actually following God?
2. How do the Templars ‘prove’ that Rebecca is guilty of sorcery?
3. What is written on the bit of parchment Rebecca was mysteriously given in Chapter 36?

Chapter 38

essoine: excuse
devoir: courtesy
appellant: one who appeals a court decision
recreant: cowardly
capul: work-horse
asper: a Turkish or Egyptian silver coin
mancus: an Anglo-Saxon coin

bring down my grey hairs to the grave: Genesis 44:29
till, in the bitterness of my heart, I curse God and die: Job 2:9
Benoni: Genesis 35:18
gourd of Jonah: Jonah 4:7

Questions:

1. What judgment was delivered by Beaumanoir?
2. What does Rebecca ask Isaac to do?

Chapter 39

Notable quotes:

“Protect the oppressed for the sake of charity, and not for a selfish advantage.”

“Proud as thou art, thou hast in me found thy match.”

“I envy thee not thy faith, which is ever in thy mouth, but never in thy heart nor in thy practice.”

“Thus do men throw on fate the issue of their own wild passions.”

“There are noble things which cross over thy powerful mind; but it is the garden of the sluggard, and the weeds have rushed up, and conspired to choke the fair and wholesome blossom."

that which is not bread: Isaiah 55:2
the garden of the sluggard: Proverbs 24:30-34

Questions:

1. What plan does Bois-Gilbert present to Rebecca? What does Rebecca think of it?
2. What plan does Bois-Gilbert present to Albert Malvoisin? What does he think of it?
3. What does Bois-Gilbert finally decide to do?

Chapter 40

Introduction and question: In the first paragraph, Scott mentions “the magnanimous Wamba”. How has Wamba demonstrated magnanimity?

magnanimity: greatness of mind; that elevation or dignity of soul, which encounters danger and trouble with tranquillity and firmness, which raises the possessor above revenge, and makes him delight in acts of benevolence, which makes him disdain injustice and meanness, and prompts him to sacrifice personal ease, interest and safety for the accomplishment of useful and noble objects.

destrier: a war-horse
jennet: a kind of horse
manciple: steward, or purchaser of provisions
falchion: a sword with a short, broad, slightly curved blade
targe: shield

Questions:

1. What does Wamba mean by the yeomen’s (outlaws’) “trade with heaven?”
2. Which “companions are worse to meet than yonder outlaws”?
3. Who attacks the Black Knight?

Chapter 41

Richard’s good intentions toward the bold Outlaw were frustrated by the King’s untimely death: This refers to events that occur in history after this story takes place (Ivanhoe is historic fiction, not actual history, but the real Richard I did meet an untimely death five years after resuming his throne).

Coningsburgh (Conisbrough) is an actual Saxon castle in Yorkshire. You can see pictures here.

since the days of the Heptarchy: Since the confederation of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia) which were loosely allied during the early Middle Ages (or late Dark Ages). Alfred the Great is traditionally supposed to have been the first king over all England.

barrow: mound
Hengist: one of the leaders of the Anglo-Saxon invasion in the 5th century AD
mendicants: beggars
harps, crowds and rotes: musical instruments
panegyric: formal and elaborate praise

Question: Ivanhoe takes King Richard to task at the beginning of this chapter, saying, "But your kingdom is threatened with dissolution and civil war---your subjects menaced with every species of evil, if deprived of their sovereign in some of those dangers which it is your daily pleasure to incur, and from which you have but this moment narrowly escaped." Do you think Richard has shirked his duty by staying in disguise so long, or was it wise for him to wait to reveal himself? For that matter, should he have gone to the Crusades in the first place, or should he have stayed in England?

Chapter 42

Introduction: This is one of the strangest chapters in the book. You may want to read it twice.

Questions:

1. What happened to Athelstane?
2. What happened to Ivanhoe and King Richard?
3. At Coningsburgh, the Normans are represented by Richard and Ivanhoe—Ivanhoe is counted a Norman because of the way he dresses. Compare the younger and older Saxons’ attitudes toward them. (I think it is interesting that Richard and Ivanhoe are thought to be Saxons by Normans at Torquilstone, and thought to be Normans by Saxons at Coningsburgh.)

Chapter 43

What was the outcome of the combat?

Chapter 44

obsequies: funeral rites
rowel: the wheel of a spur

I will appeal to Rome against thee: The pope and the Church had considerable power in the medieval world, so the Grand Master might be able to stir up trouble for Richard. Medieval government was a complicated thing.

Questions:

1. Why do you suppose Rebecca wants to leave without thanking Ivanhoe?
2. How did King Richard deal with Prince John?
3. Scott says Richard’s “administration was wilfully careless, now too indulgent, and now allied to despotism.” What do you think?
4. How do Cedric’s feelings change?
5. What is Rebecca going to do?

A final note on English government: After Richard’s untimely death, the throne passed to John, who was such a tyrant that the barons of England finally forced him to sign a document-- the Magna Carta--stating that he would respect the liberties of freemen and abide by the law himself. This document was one reason the American colonists (they considered themselves free Englishmen) resisted King George’s arbitrary laws, five hundred years later.

Ivanhoe Notes: Chapters 25 through 31

2011-06-14T05:07:00.000-07:00

Introduction: Three Norman knights. Two beautiful maidens. One desperate father. Here is a brief recap—

1. Isaac of York is the prisoner of Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, who owns Torquilstone Castle,
2. The Lady Rowena is the prisoner of Sir Maurice De Bracy, a mercenary knight in the pay of Prince John,
3. Rebecca is the prisoner of Sir Brian du Bois-Guilbert, a Temple knight…

…and they are all holed up in Torquilstone Castle.

In addition to these prisoners, the Normans have captured Cedric the Saxon, Athelstane of Conyngsburgh and a mysterious sick person.

Wamba the Jester and Gurth the Serf have located the REAL outlaws of the green wood (including Robin of Locksley) and are helping to plan a rescue, along with the Black Knight and the Hermit (who is actually Friar Tuck, one of Robin Hood’s merry men).

What will happen next?

Chapter 25

A note on Thomas a Becket: He was the Archbishop of Canterbury (the head of the English church) in the 12th Century. He was foully murdered by the knights of King Henry II (the father of Richard I) after he refused to side with the king against the Pope.

In Henry’s defense, he didn’t actually want Becket killed. When a messenger came to give Henry news of Becket’s doings, Henry is said to have bellowed in a rage, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?!!” and unfortunately, a few of his knights took him seriously. They hunted Becket down and killed him at the very altar of the cathedral. (Holding onto the altar was a sort of ‘base’ or safe sanctuary for a person in trouble with the authorities.)

St. Niobe: A character in Greek mythology. During the Dark Ages, monks and priests preserved and copied ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts. Apparently, the Prior told them a Greek myth, and they thought she was a Catholic saint. According to myth, Niobe was very proud of her fourteen children, and boasted that she was better than a goddess that had only two. The gods slew her children. She wept without ceasing, and was turned to stone.

Apollyon: “the king of the bottomless pit” according to the Book of Revelations.

cartel: a written agreement or challenge between opponents
pax vobiscum: peace be with you

Chapter 26

quidam viator incidit in latrones: A certain man, while traveling, fell among thieves (?) This appears to be a reference to the parable of the Good Samaritan.

quaso, domine reverendissime, pro misericordia vestra: This is something like, “Reverend father, pity a poor lady.”

Chapter 27

the scallop-shell of Campostella: the scallop shell was a heraldry symbol for people who had been on pilgrimage to Campostella. Legend has it that James the son of Zebedee (from the New Testament) is buried in Campostella, Spain.

their war-song of Rollo: Rollo the Viking was the first duke of Normandy.
mangonel: a type of catapult or siege machine
Woden, Hertha, Zenebock, Mista, Skogula: gods and spirits from Norse and Germanic mythology
biggin: a plain, close-fitting cap
Wittenagemotes: groups of wise older men that governed kingdoms in Saxon England and decided who would be king.

For what saith the blessed St. Augustin in his treatise, ‘De Civitate Dei’?: Augustine was one of the first priests of the Catholic church, and he wrote a book called “The City of God”.

The bull of the holy see, ‘si quis, Suadende Diabolo’: A ‘bull’ was a declaration from the Pope. The ‘holy see’ is the Vatican—the home of the Pope. The Latin phrase translates to: “By the persuasion of the Devil”.

Men of Belial: In the Bible, people who were completely given over to folly or godlessness were called ‘sons of Belial’. Belial is another name for Satan.

Seething pitch and oil: Pitch is a tar-like substance, sort of like asphalt. During a siege, boiling pitch mixed with oil would be dumped from the ramparts of a castle onto the soldiers below.

Some hilding fellow must he be: he must be low and contemptible

Chapter 28

Introduction: In this chapter, Sir Walter Scott tells us what happened to Ivanhoe. He also gives us more insight into Rebecca’s character and education.

At one point in this chapter, Rebecca says to Ivanhoe, “Bestow not on me, Sir Knight, the epithet of noble,” and yet her actions are indeed generous and courageous.

Thought question: How does Ivanhoe’s manner toward Rebecca change when he learns she is a Jewess? Does Rebecca’s manner change?

Personally, I get aggravated with Ivanhoe at this point. But, as Scott points out, he is a product of his times. Every era in history AND group in society has its blind spots.

Thought questions: What are our era’s blind spots? How about blind spots in the groups to which we belong?

We learn more about De Bracy’s character when he discovers Ivanhoe in the litter. Scott says, “The ideas of chivalrous honour… never utterly abandoned De Bracy. On the other hand, to liberate a suitor preferred by the Lady Rowena… was a pitch far above the flight of De Bracy's generosity. A middle course betwixt good and evil was all which he found himself capable of adopting…” Yet De Bracy becomes the protector of Ivanhoe and smuggles him into the castle.

Our history must needs retrograde for the space of a few pages: Let’s back up the story a bit.
importunity: a pressing demand or request
hacqueton and his corslet of goodly price: well-made padding and armor
cabalistical art: witchcraft
The fate of Miriam had indeed been to fall a sacrifice to the fanaticism of the times: Rebecca’s teacher in the medical arts had been executed as a witch.
vulnerary remedies: treatments for wounds
Nazarenes: Christians
Lion of Idumea: Idumea was the land of Edom in the Bible.
leech: doctor
the enriched traveler of Juvenal’s tenth satire: Juvenal was a Roman poet from the 1st century. His tenth satire is called “The Vanity of Human Wishes”. In it, he says that the enriched traveler trembles at the shadow of a reed shaking, but the poor traveler whistles in a robber’s face.
reversing Shylock’s position: Shylock was the Jew in The Merchant of Venice.

Chapter 29

Introduction: In this chapter we get a description of the battle, told by Rebecca as she watches from Ivanhoe’s window. Ivanhoe and Rebecca discuss glory, chivalry and nobility, too.

Thought questions: Does Rebecca speak of things she does not know of? What do you think of Ivanhoe’s definition of chivalry?

fetterlock and shacklebolt azure: a lock for a horse’s foot and a bar used for a shackle
En avant: Forward!
Beau-seant: this must have been part of a heraldic symbol
a la rescousse: To the rescue!
Saint John of Acre: the city of Acre in Palestine
assoilize: absolve or forgive
emprize: enterprise or adventure

a second Gideon or a new Maccabeus: Gideon was a judge in the Bible (Judges 6-8) who led an army against the Midianites. Maccabeus was a Hebrew around 150 years before Christ who led a revolt against the Seleucids and was considered one of the greatest heroes of the Jews.

Chapter 30

Introduction: Of all the wicked Norman knights, Front-de-Boeuf seems be the worst. Now he is mortally wounded. As he lies dying, his partners, De Bracy and Bois-Guilbert, argue over what to do next. They go to battle, and Ulrica confronts Front-de-Boeuf with his (and her) wickedness.

bruit: rumor
malapert: offensively bold
parricide: a person who has murdered his father

Chapter 31

mount joye Saint Dennis! a war-cry of the French
Preceptory of Templestowe: a religious house of the Templars
strophes: stanzas containing uneven lines

Ivanhoe Notes: Chapters 19 through 24

2011-06-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

Introduction

A note on nobility: One synonym for the word, “noble” is the word “magnanimous”. Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines “magnanimity” as, “That elevation or dignity of soul, which encounters danger and trouble with tranquillity and firmness, which raises the possessor above revenge, and makes him delight in acts of benevolence, which makes him disdain injustice and meanness, and prompts him to sacrifice personal ease, interest and safety for the accomplishment of useful and noble objects.” Cedric uses this word in Chapter 21—- be on the lookout for it!

Literary term-- Romance: Sir Walter Scott calls Ivanhoe a Romance. Nowadays, we have a pretty narrow definition for that word, but in literature, a Romance is a heroic story of mysterious or extraordinary events. It can also be a story that combines elements of joy and sorrow—a tragic-comedy.

Ivanhoe Chapter 19

“Saint George for merry England!” St. George and the Dragon was a popular medieval legend about an Eastern soldier who rescued a maiden by slaying a dragon.

dingle: a small wooded valley or hollow
defile: a narrow pass
embarrassed with baggage: the luggage is hampering his efforts
green cassocks and white visors: green tunics and white masks
vizard: a disguise or mask
reconnoitering: exploring in order to gain information
“Shall we e’en give him leg-bail?” Shall we run away?
errant thieves: roving robbers
halidome: a holy place or thing (literally, “holy-dome”)

Ivanhoe Chapter 20

Prior of Jorvaulx: the holy man who was walking with Sir Brian du Bois-Gilbert in the first or second chapter

calumniator: one who falsely accuses another person of a crime
de profundis clamavi: “from the depths I cried”
matins: late night/early morning prayers
orisons: prayers
countenance: appearance or facial expression
partisan: quarterstaff
shaveling: holy man (they shaved the center of their heads, making their hair into a tonsure)

Ivanhoe Chapter 21

Historic note: In this chapter, Cedric mentions his grandfather feasting with Torquil Wolfganger. According to Cedric, Torquil Wolfganger was the Saxon owner of Torquilstone Castle during the time of Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon king.

Harold was advancing against his treacherous brother, Tostig, and the Norwegian king, Harald Hardraada. Cedric tells us that Torquil invited Harold to stay the night at Torquilstone, which invitation was graciously accepted. Also according to Cedric, Harold’s brother Tostig arrived at the castle to confront Harold. The “magnanimous answer” Harold gave his brother was that if he would send the Norwegians home, Harold would forgive him and restore Tostig’s lands and title. Tostig refused to accept these terms.

Torquil Wolfganger and Torquilstone Castle appear to be inventions of Sir Walter Scott. History places the conversation between Harold and Tostig on the battlefield just before the battle commenced.

Harold defeated the Norwegians in Yorkshire, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. (Remember, Ivanhoe takes place in Yorkshire.) Unfortunately, William of Normandy was landing in southern England at the same time.

The King knew that William was planning to invade. William had made Harold swear that he would give the throne of England to William after Edward the Confessor died, but when Edward died, Harold had allowed himself to be crowned by the English council of earls (known as the Witanagemot) who made such decisions.

After the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Harold marched his army south as fast as he could. He was defeated by William at the Battle of Hastings in East Sussex. (This battle is depicted in the famous Bayeux Tapestry.) And that is how the Normans came to power in England in 1066 AD/CE, around a hundred years before our story takes place.

Pictures of the Bayeux Tapestry, scene by scene

“…our grand master hath granted me a dispensation.” The head of the Templars has excused Bois-Guilbert from the rule stating that Templars may not marry Jews.

Englishmen: Saxons
repast: meal
Hardicanute: a Danish king of England who died from drinking too much

Ivanhoe Chapter 22

expiry: end
pannier: basket
she is the last of six pledges of her love: Rebecca is the last of Isaac and Rachael’s six children
the blessed rood: crucifix

Ivanhoe Chapter 23

A note on Physiognomy: In an earlier chapter, the Black Knight says he can tell Locksley is a man of good character by looking at his face. Physiognomy, the practice of judging a person’s character by his or her physical features, was a popular practice in Sir Walter Scott’s time. Scott brings up physiognomy again in Chapter 23, when discussing Rowena’s personality.

Another strange practice in the 19th Century was Phrenology, the practice of determining a person’s character by the bumps on his or her head. How does the Bible say we should determine a person’s character?

Industrious Henry: Henry of Huntingdon was a 12th Century English church official who wrote a history of England.

The Saxon Chronicles: A history of the Anglo-Saxons in England begun around the 9th Century and updated into the 12th. (It looks like Scott attributes the writing of the Chronicles to Henry, or else he was quoting Henry while Henry quoted the Chronicles. A bit confusing if you ask me.)

The Wardour Manuscript: This is an imaginary manuscript that Sir Walter Scott made up in order to give his novel an authentic historic flavor. At the beginning of my copy of Ivanhoe, there is a “Dedicatory Epistle” to a Reverend Dry-As-Dust. (He is not real, either.) In this letter, Scott gives a fictitious explanation of the manuscript:

“ …the singular Anglo-Norman manuscript which Sir Arthur Wardour preserves with such jealous care in the third drawer of his oaken cabinet, scarcely allowing anyone to touch it, and being himself unable to read one syllable of its contents.”

(Sir Walter Scott must have been quite a character himself!)

foppery: the clothes of a man preoccupied with his appearance
St. Michael trampling down the Prince of Evil: The archangel Michael trampling the Devil (sometimes pictured as a dragon)
loadstar: a guiding star, especially used in navigation
crowder: a common person
avarice: extreme greed
license: unrestrained freedom or disregard for proper limits
the Empress Matilda: the granddaughter of William the Conqueror, mother of Henry II, and short-lived Queen of England. (She is usually not included in lists of English kings and queens.)
Eadmer: a Saxon historian born shortly before the invasion of William the Conqueror
apocryphal: of questionable authorship or authenticity

Ivanhoe Chapter 24

Damocles at his celebrated banquet: read the short legend here

sybil: a witch
unguent: ointment
alembic: something that refines or purifies

Thought Questions:

1. “Both the Saxon chiefs were made prisoners… under circumstances expressive of his character.” How was Cedric made prisoner? What about Athelstane? How did these events express each man’s character?

2. As events proceed, Cedric and Athelstane become aggravated with one another: “It astonishes me, noble Cedric, that you can bear so truly in mind the memory of past deeds, when it appeareth you forget the very hour of dinner.”/”It is time lost to speak to him of aught else but that which concerns his appetite!” Why do Cedric and Athelstane frustrate one another?

3. At this point in the novel, De Bracy and the Templar both have moments of grace in which they either continue down their chosen paths, or choose to change. See if you can pinpoint those two moments. The Templar's is easiest to see- after his moment of grace, good and evil struggle within him for the rest of the novel.

3. Should De Bracy and the Templar trust each other? Why or why not? What does De Bois-Guilbert say when De Bracy accuses him of conspiring to break the rules of his order?

Ivanhoe Notes: Chapters 12 through 18

2011-06-12T18:22:00.000-07:00

(Find previous notes here)

Chapter 12

Introduction: The tournament continues, with the addition of a mysterious Black Knight, or Noir Faineant. (This actually means, “The Black Sluggard”.)

palisade: a fence of pales (stakes)
vanquished: defeated in battle
derision: ridicule, mockery
the tale was found exactly complete: they had the same number of knights on each side
“Laissez aller!” No holding back!
the spears were…lowered and placed in the rests: the knights set their spears into grooves on the horses’ armor that keep the spears steady and well-aimed.
endeavoring to extricate themselves from the tumult: trying to get out of the fight
springal: something like a catapult
casque: helmet
gorge: throat

Ivanhoe Ch. 13

"What think ye of the doctrine the learned tell us of innate attractions and antipathies?" Do you think we can perceive that a person is a friend or enemy even if we don’t see the face of the person?

Front-de-Boeuf must prepare to restore his fief of Ivanhoe: While Ivanhoe was at the Crusade, the Prince had taken his land and given it to Front-de-Boeuf. Now he will have to restore it. (Ivanhoe is the name of the estate. The man referred to as “Ivanhoe” is Wilfred of Ivanhoe.)

The audience were too much interested in the question not to pronounce the Prince’s assumed right altogether indubitable: The people were receiving unlawful benefits from the Prince too, so they praised him for taking land from an absent knight and giving it to a present knight, rather than pointing out that he had no right to do so.

"She seems a minor, and must therefore be at our royal disposal in marriage." It appears from this quote that the ruler of England could use his power to insist that young ladies marry certain men. I could not find any information to verify this. Prince John offers Rowena in marriage to Maurice De Bracy. Rowena knows nothing about this.

celerity: swiftness
billet: a note
mummery: play-acting

Ivanhoe Ch. 14

The great numbers of the Anglo-Saxons must necessarily render them formidable in the civil commotions which seemed approaching: The Anglo-Saxons are so numerous that if they decide to revolt, it will be difficult to subdue them.

While their manners were thus the object of sarcastic observation, the untaught Saxons unwittingly transgressed several of the arbitrary rules established for the regulation of society: The Normans watched to see if they could make fun of the Saxons for breaking random Norman rules of feast etiquette. The Saxons, who did not know any better, definitely broke some rules.

Conclamatum est, poculatum est: We have drunk and we have shouted (?)
purveyors: managers, stewards
objurgation: rebuke, scolding
simnel bread and wastel cakes: bread prepared by boiling (like bagels) and cakes made of the finest flour
surfeit: overindulgence
beccaficos: a type of small bird
abstemiousness: temperance, restraint
ague: a fever with shivering and alternating hot and cold spells

Ivanhoe Chapter 15

"Is Richard’s right of primogeniture more decidedly certain than that of Robert of Normandy, the Conqueror’s eldest son? And yet… his second and third brothers were successively preferred to him by the voice of the nation." Although the firstborn son of the king was traditionally the heir to the throne in England, usually the approval of the nobles was sought as each new king was crowned. Fitzurse is suggesting that the barons could legitimately overthrow Richard by supporting Prince John’s claim to the throne.

a deadly feud rose up between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the Israelitish nation: This episode from Hebrew history is found in Judges 20-21. Compare the Bible account to De Bracy’s narration!

cabal: a group of people plotting something sinister
kirtle: a man’s tunic or coat
Free Companions: mercenaries-- knights who follow the ruler that pays them the most money
all the chivalry of that tribe: all the men of valor

Ivanhoe Ch. 16

A note on hermits and friars: Friars were monks who had taken a vow of poverty and wandered as beggars. It was against the rules of their order to accept money, but they could accept food and clothing. Hermits (also called anchorites) were monks that lived completely alone and devoted themselves to fasting and prayer. They also took a vow of poverty, and subsisted on the gifts of local residents. Both friars and hermits were generally thought to be wise and learned.

Yet his purpose was baffled by the devious paths through which he rode: He couldn’t get very far because the roads were bad.

assailed the door of the hermitage with the butt of his lance: knocked on the door

It has pleased Our Lady and St. Dunstan to destine me the object of those virtues, instead of the exercise thereof: I am in need of food and shelter myself.

St. Dunstan: An Anglo-Saxon monk and archbishop from around the 10th Century. Before he became archbishop, he lived as a hermit, studying, doing handicrafts and playing the harp. One tale told of St. Dunstan is that when he was tempted by the devil, he responded by seizing the devil’s face with fire tongs.

a parish pinfold begirt by its large hedge: a pinfold was a place used to stable stray animals until they could be returned to their owners.

monastic austerity or… ascetic privations: severe self-denial such as monks might practice

More Old Testament references (find these episodes of OT history in the Bible):

1. "…even as the pulse and water was blessed to the children Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego…"
2. "From the scissors of Dalilah…"
3. "…and the tenpenny nail of Jael…"
4. "…to the scimitar of Goliath."

hostelry: inn
crag: a jagged mass of rock jutting upward or outward
pater: the Lord’s Prayer (Our Father which art in Heaven…)
ave: the “Hail, Mary” (Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee)
credo: this might be the Apostle’s Creed (We believe in one God, the Father, Almighty…) or the Nicene Creed (I believe in God the Father, Almighty…)
morass: an area of low-lying, soggy ground
ford: a shallow place in a river or creek where a person can wade across
precipice: a cliff with a vertical face
parched pease: parched peas (as in, ‘pease porridge hot/pease porridge cold/pease porridge in the pot nine days old!’)
horn of the urus: the horn of a wild ox
“Waes hael” a greeting wishing good health (“Wassail!” literally, “Be hale!”)
“Drinc hael” the reply, also wishing good health (literally, “Drink and be hale!”)
lay: the song of a minstrel

Ivanhoe Ch. 17

A note on minstrelsy: Minstrels were wandering singers who told stories through their songs. Many of the tales were well-known and passed down from generation to generation.

At the beginning of this chapter, the Knight and the Friar discuss what kind of songs they are going to sing, using foreign terms. In medieval Normandy and France, ‘yes’ was oui, the poets were called minstrels, and their songs lais, or lays; in the south of France and into Italy, the ‘yes’ was oc, the poets troubadours, and the songs sirvente; in (Saxon) England, the songs were called ballads. ‘Yes’ was yes, and, as far as I can tell, the poets were also called minstrels in Old England.

If you would like to read more ballads, try A Taste of Chaucer by Anne Malcolmson (some of Chaucer’s tales are based on popular ballads of the times) or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight translated by Burton Raffel.

exceptis excepiendis: (Latin) with the proper or necessary exceptions

Unlike old Ariosto, we do not pique ourselves upon continuing uniformly to keep company with any one of our drama: The author has stepped outside the narrative to comment on the way he is writing, saying he does not mind leaving the Friar and the Knight ‘frozen in time’, so to speak, while he tells what has been going on with other characters. Ariosto was an Italian poet of the 16th Century who apparently never let his narrative about one set of characters run ahead of another, as Scott has done here. (In the next chapter, Scott leaves the Black Knight and the Friar about to answer the door, and heads all the way back to the end of the tournament in order to tell us what happened to others…)

Ivanhoe Ch. 18

Introduction: This chapter does not further the plot much, but it does give us plenty of insight. Cedric’s thoughts, decisions and actions are especially noteworthy. Also, pay attention to Gurth—he seems to be a rather insignificant character, but will eventually have his part to play.

omens: a sign that is supposed to indicate future good or evil. The Saxons were Christian, but added these ancient superstitions to their Christian beliefs.
glaive: broadsword
brown-bill: halberd (a sort of spear with a curved, double ax-head near the pointy end)
weal: the general good
gyves: shackles

Thought questions:

1. How does Prince John try to gain popularity? Should he be doing this? Why is it so difficult for him to win the approval of the people?

2. What is Waldemar Fitzurse plotting? What is De Bracy plotting? (My, there sure is a lot of plotting going on.) He claims to behave “like a true knight”. Is he a true knight?

3. Earlier, Rowena is cut off by Cedric as she says, “If, to maintain the honor of ancestry, it is sufficient to be wise in council and brave in execution, to be boldest among the bold, and gentlest among the gentle, I know no voice, save his father’s…” How do you think she might have finished the sentence? What do you think of Cedric's decisions and actions?