Nature Journal: Mountain View

We stayed one night at Jenn's awesome mountain cabin, and early that morning, Livy and I went out for a nature walk. This post, the first of two, includes the pictures we took right by the cabin.

Livy says: There are mountains. You see them every day when you get up. And the good part is that they make pretty pictures.

Kelly says: This is the view from the cabin's back porch. This tree leaning in from the left looks amazing. I think this is one of the best pictures Livy has ever taken.

Livy says: We found this tree in the backyard of Jenn's cabin.

Kelly says: We saw this little pine tree standing out among all the grey winter trees. I loved how green it looked in contrast.

Livy says: This picture is a brown flower by Jenn's cabin. I think it looks pretty because it's leaning into the picture. I think it looks pretty because it's kind of brownish and it's an unusual picture.

Kelly says: This is a dried hydrangea bloom. I love hydrangea bushes for just this reason: they look amazing all year round, even in the winter. I actually took this picture! Woot!

Livy says: This fern was taken at Jenn's cabin in her backyard. I think it's pretty because it's a little bit purplish around its leaves. I also liked that it's just growing down the mountain.

Kelly says: These ferns were growing down the mountain like Livy said. You can't really see that from the picture, but they were spilling down a large hill.

Livy says: These are berries taken in Jenn's sideyard. These berries were hanging down from the bush. You can't see it from the picture.

Kelly says: This is a nandina bush. I remember that my Papaw had a really big one in the front yard, and I used to love to pick the berries and try to get birds to come and land in my hand to eat the berries. Of course, they never did, but it was great fun to call them to me by made-up names.

Livy says: These berries were the same ones as the picture on top of this one, except it's more close-up and has more sunlight on them.

Kelly says: I am so proud of this picture. I took it, and it turned out to be so shiny and beautiful. Nandina berries have never looked so good. If those birds from my childhood saw berries that looked like this, they would have come to me for sure. :)

Nature Journal: Jump, Squirrel!

Livy says: This picture is from Aidan's neighborhood. 

Kelly says: On the way to a friend's birthday party, we saw several black birds (I think they were crows.), and we pulled over to take their pictures.

Livy says: This picture is also a crow.

Kelly says: I thought this picture turned out great. I love how the crow shows up so well in the leafless tree.

Livy says: This is a squirrel that was running into a bush in Aidan's neighborhood. I was trying to take his picture, but the squirrel ran away. All it left showing was his tail.

Kelly says: Darn you, squirrel! But it did turn out to look kind of cool.

Nature Journal: Squawking Birds

Livy and I recently joined a nature journaling homeschool group. We meet once a month to look at the journals and see what everyone else has done, and we have plans to go together to some parks and hikes and to do the Backyard Bird Count. Livy and I decided that we wanted to work together on the journal and to put our entries online instead of in a print journal. We may eventually get a blog just for our journaling, but for now, we are going to post our entries on this blog. Livy loves to take pictures, so most of our entries will be photographs. She took them all, unless I specifically say that I did.

Our first set of pictures is from our own house and neighborhood.

Livy says: I was standing on the porch. The tree is across the street from our house. The birds were squawking.

Kelly says: Aaron came to get us because he heard this loud sound. There were about a million birds all squawking at the top of their little birdy lungs.

Livy says: This flower was in our front yard. They grow right when it gets hot during winter.

Kelly says: Livy sometimes picks these for me. They are really tiny weeds that spread all over the yard, and you have to look really closely to notice them. But Livy always notices them and says how pretty they are.

Livy says: This mossy tree is across the street.

Kelly says: I never noticed this until Livy pointed it out to me, even though it is right across the street. She really has an eye for finding interesting details. I hope this nature journaling will help me to get better at noticing all the pretty things and the interesting things that we pass by every day.

Livy says: This bush is from our front yard. It blooms lots of pretty purple flowers each year.

Kelly says: I really should trim this loropetalum bush (it covers our entire bay window), but I never do because it is so humongous and lovely. I just can't bear it. Livy says that I just don't like to trim bushes or mow the lawn. Hmph.

Science Is a Good Subject Too: A Life-Learner's Revelation

Regular readers of my blog will recognize that I am a ginormous geek, but my geekdom is pretty well confined to the humanities. I read classic literature, translate Latin and Greek, work on French and Spanish (once in a while), learn history, diagram sentences, peruse ancient rhetoric texts, write creative non-fiction, recite poetry, and think about linguistics. It's not that I don't like science and math; I went to a math and science magnet school for high school, for Jupiter's sake. It's just that they don't thrill me and fill up my daily life.

So, as Livy accompanies me on a romp through existence, her exposure to ideas and educational materials can be a little bit one-sided. Of just how one sided, I was unaware until recently.

As you know, I have been bemoaning her lack of academic interest and worrying about what it means and generally not living up to my standards of minding my own business about her interests. At least, I've been doing that in my head. I've still been good about not bothering her and bossing her into doing things she isn't interested in. But, as I was reminded on a trip to the local science museum, science is an academic subject. Who knew? :)

In the hands-on section of the museum, Livy did every single electricity project available, and she did them thoroughly. It took us about 45 minutes, during which her friends moved on to something else (unusual because she would ordinarily have followed them). When I saw how strong her interest was, I realized that I haven't been meeting her sciency needs.

She is an engineering type, I think. She likes to build things out of Legos and to figure out how things work on her own by tinkering. Math has always been a stronger interest for her than reading, and she loves to hear me read non-fiction books on animals, space, and fossils. I don't know how I got away from providing her with the option for science exploration, but I did. I guess it just doesn't come naturally to me, and so it fell out of our lives.

I've learned my lesson now. Since the museum, we have done tons of electricity experiments of our own (series and parallel circuits, resistors, LEDs, fuses, building an electromagnetic motor, and using switches). I checked out a bunch of books that I think she will like about a multitude of science topics, and we are considering a junior astronomy course at our beloved museum. Basically, I am not neglecting this whole interesting side of human knowledge as I provide her with materials and options for learning.

So, I'm taking a few new lessons from this experience:

1. Everyone is not like me, and I need to get out of my own head and into Livy's. I can't use my yardstick to measure everybody else.

2. Science is pretty fun, and I can expand my own life-learning journey by participating in Livy's.

3. The second I start to worry about Livy's progress, some new thing will come along to surprise and inspire me. I need to chill.

4. That key ingredient of life-learning, strewing the environment with cool stuff, requires me to get outside my own comfort zone of activities and materials.


For those of you living with science lovers: We've been using Snap Circuits to do electricity projects, and we LOVE them. The kit comes with millions of parts and a project book, and the snap in pieces are easier for Livy to manage than wires (though we are using those too). She can use the Snap Circuits much more independently. Have fun!

An Update on the Parenting and Education of Livy

It's been a while since I have written much about parenting or homeschooling (unless it is about my own worries). I don't write a lot about parenting because it doesn't take so much energy anymore. Livy is easy to get along with and pretty self-sufficient, and though we talk about things and I share information with her, it feels much less like active, constant parenting. It feels more like hanging out with her, being a model for her, and working through problems together. It feels like a real relationship with a person instead of a teaching and limiting role, like it did much earlier. Not that she doesn't need a limit set sometimes, but it's less of a teaching thing and more like the limits I might set with anyone else. "Here is what I am going to do." Or "Please stop that. It affects me in such and such a way."

I also tend to talk less about parenting because the situations in which Livy does need my guidance are often private. She doesn't have fits anymore about not getting what she wants; she has emotional issues about her relationships, her plans for herself, her fears, etc. These aren't conversations that belong on my blog.

When I do post, it's often about my own issues. I've found that when I behave myself appropriately (listen, empathize, be selfish, etc), most of our problems go away. She's such an easy-going child, and I'm sometimes kind of a challenge to live with. Like my relationship with Aaron, my relationship with Livy is usually as easy, happy, and positive as I make it. I'm the wild card. So when I think about problems with homeschooling, it's my worries that I write about. When I think about problems that have arisen at home, it's usually my too-hot temper that caused them.

I don't post a lot about education because for us, it looks so relaxed and so leisurely and so all over the place that I sometimes can't make a coherent post about it. We read, we play, we watch movies, we go places, we have conversations. But those things don't always look like traditional education. Were my posts about our Texas trip education posts? I don't know, but the trip involved learning for each member of our family. It's hard for us as life-learners to pull the education piece of our lives free of all the other pieces, and so it's hard to post about it. I'm just going to try to list some of her current interests and activities and how she and I are fulfilling them. That may be the best I can do for an educational post.

• She just finished a Lego project she has been working on since Christmas, a model of the Burrow, the house of the Weasley family, in Harry Potter. She did it completely by herself, following all the instructions in the manual. She really seems to enjoy this kind of detail work, and she took some of it apart several times when she discovered a mistake. Next, she wants to try the Hogwarts model.
  
• She is learning and practicing making different kind of balloon animals. So far dogs, poodles, coiled snakes, dinosaurs, and giraffes.
• She is watching lots of movies, like Strawberry Shortcake, Johnny Test, Scooby Doo, the Narnia movies (we saw the newest on in the theater), and Harry Potter.
• We watched all of the Gilmore Girls together, and she watches some of the episodes of 24 with Aaron and me.
  
• We are listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
• We have been playing a lot of games, like Labyrinth and Outburst.
• She has been taking chess at our homeschool co-op, and she loves it! Must get Aaron to play with her more often. I hate it.
• She has also been taking American Sign Language from Miranda at the same co-op, and she loves it even more. She constantly makes up new signs and shows me the ones she learned in class.
• She and her friends the Casey kids have invented a battle game based on a video game she loves called Halo. They play it a lot.
• She likes to cook and makes eggs by herself all the time. I think she enjoys the independence and the eggs.
• She is interested in (and very good at) cleaning and has mentioned starting a cleaning business when she is "a very young adult."
• She has been making business ideas a lot lately, and with my help, has narrowed it down to car washing at Roberts school, making balloon animals for kids at Roberts school, or doing cleaning chores for money. I'm not sure if she will follow through on these ideas; she may just be playing with them in her head. She still isn't super interested in money.
• She is taking sewing lessons from our friend Melissa. They have chosen a pattern for a dress for Livy and bought fabric and notions. Next lesson they begin the process (mysterious to me).
• Livy has expressed interest in going to some concerts. We REALLY like the Dixie Chicks, so that would be ideal, but I am going to look for other things the two of us might enjoy.
• Livy wants to go dancing with me, so I am trying to figure out how you could do that with a child. She can't go to clubs (more's the pity), but where can kids just dance and not do classes?
• As a family, we have been watching lots of documentaries on human evolution and the Space Race.
• Livy enjoys socializing with her 4 closest friends. She likes to see them most days, though she likes to have alone time in between. She also enjoys the kids at co-op, but she likes to be in large groups much more rarely. She was talking to me about how she likes being with people in small groups best of all and how she likes to be alone the whole morning.
• We talked on our vacation about doing a tour of Southern zoos because we both like to see animals very much.
• Livy photographed every second of our Texas trip with her new camera, and she has expressed interest in doing a photo collection of nature pictures to turn in at the Nature Exchange at the Chattahoochee Nature Center.
• This spring, she will be taking her first horseback riding lessons.
• The snow and ice prompted an interest in ice skating, so we'll have to do that soon.
• Livy has shown interest in my Crossfit training, and she wants to get involved in a Crossfit kids or a similar kind of program eventually.
• She plays the keyboard sometimes and plays around with songs she learned in her class.
• She plays video games with her super-cool babysitter Miranda and at her dad's house. She and Miranda play some iteration of Super Mario, and I'm not sure what she plays at her dad's, except for Gears of War, which she tells me about in all the gory details.
• She loves to work mazes, find words in word searches, and decipher codes. She also likes WordUp (kind of boggle) on Aaron's fancy phone.
• She has talked about wanting to do gymnastics again, but I'm not sure if that will last.
• She is quite a knowledgeable gardener (more so than many adults I know) and wants to have her own separate plot this year to grow veggies and flowers.
• We love to visit the Tellus Science Museum, Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Zoo Atlanta, and the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. We have memberships to these places, so we go as often as we like.
  

Okay, I think that may be it. I was surprised at the number of her interests when I wrote them all out. And some of them were good reminders to help her set some of these things up. Now you have a better idea of what Livy does with her time and the direction in which her education is headed right now.

My Worries and Balloon Animals

Lately, I have been a worry wort. I try to control it, but that's the thing about worrying - it's not really in my control. Mostly, I am a super chill mom to my life-learning daughter, but sometimes, I just snap and lose my mind. I always lose it in my own head and not out loud, so I don't think Livy is really aware of it. But it makes me miserable.

This latest worry fest is about reading, one of my worry triggers, as you can see here. Livy (at age 7) has finally learned to read kind of (three letter words and such), but she shows pretty much zero interest in getting any better at it. I know that she is only 7 and that she would be starting the second half of her first grade year right now. I know that she reads at a level that is common for first graders.

But I am also me. I am the person who learned to read early enough to not remember it. I am the person who read adult novels in elementary school. I am the person whose entire life revolves, and has always revolved, around books and the act of reading.

But Livy is not me. She may love to read one day, or she may not. Right now, she doesn't really have any reason to improve her reading. What does a 7 year old really NEED to read? Basically, I should to chill out. She has plenty of time to improve her reading, and like everything she has ever done, I feel sure she will improve it suddenly when it seems worthwhile to her. She's one of those people who does nothing without a DARN GOOD REASON.

Why is it so hard for me to relax? I'm sure it is partly my own academic leanings, but I also think that as she gets older, I feel a lot more external pressure about reading. Will people treat her badly at chess class? Will my family worry about her future? Well, screw them. Not really, I mean, I like the people at chess class and I love my family, but their worries or opinions have never guided my interactions with Livy. I shouldn't let them now. I wouldn't force her into trendy clothes to avoid teasing, so I won't force her into reading. I wouldn't punish her to please my family, so I won't force her into reading for them either.

I also need to remember that SHE WILL LEARN TO READ. Why would she not? She isn't a masochist; she'll be able to see how valuable and useful it is and want that value for her life. She isn't cognitively challenged; she'll learn it fast enough when she wants to. She isn't growing up in a house without books and text; she'll learn from us that reading is a part of adult life. I need to be strong in my convictions and not let irrational worries inside me or irrational worries from others make me shaky.

So today, when Livy has spent another 3 hours (in addition to the 3 or 4 last night) making balloon animals, I am going to take a deep breath and enjoy that process. She is engaged in learning something in which she finds value, and that has to be good enough for me. Maybe this will be the interest that drives her into the library, but if not, it's value is not diminshed.

For a post that helped to snap me out of my worrying streak and reevaluate, look at Elisheva's post about her teenage son's educational and career choices. It helped me to remember that Livy does not have to do what I do to be happy and virtuous.

Homeschooling with the Gilmore Girls

I am a huge advocate of being able to learn from ANYTHING. This was put to the test two days this week. I've been sick. So sick that I didn't want to get out of bed and do anything. What did Livy and I do? We watched Gilmore Girls ALL DAY LONG and made 6 million paper snowflakes and construction paper chains, which are now hanging all over the house.

Livy and I had lots of conversations about the Gilmore Girls while watching, and I think she learned a lot from the experience. Some examples:

• What is economics? (Rory's granddad is teaching it at Yale.)
• What is base diving? (Stupid, stupid Logan)
• What does it mean to have a collapsed lung? (Base diving, anyone?)

The biggest category of learning is about people and their behavior. We talked constantly about people's motivations: why did he do that? What did she mean by that? Why would a person say that? This is one of the great things about TV. Because we are not so emotionally involved as we are with out actual relationships, we can analyze people's interactions in a more dispassionate way. We ended up talking about how we can think a person did wrong and still understand their feelings and why they did it. We watched the results of bad decisions and talked about what might have been better. We talked a lot about morality because, as you know if you have seen Gilmore Girls, they make some terrible decisions.

And the best thing about the experience? It wasn't forced. I didn't ask her questions like the reading section of standardized tests. We just talked about what we thought, and I answered her questions. For a private child like Livy, I think it sometimes takes too full days of just being together at home for her to start asking and talking. It was wonderful, and it was homeschooling.

What I Have Read, What I'm Reading, and What's on Deck

September reading

Seeing a Large Cat, The Ape Who Guards the Balance, The Falcon at the Portal, and He Shall Thunder in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters (novels from the Amelia Peabody series that everyone in the whole universe should read immediately)

4 Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle: "The Speckled Band," "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," "The Stock-Broker's Clerk," and "The Red-Headed League" (I like "The Speckled Band" best cause it's so exotic and morbid.)

Prologue to Confessio Amantis by John Gower (Absolutely loved it. Must get to the whole thing one day.)

Piers Plowman by William Langland (Meh. Enjoyed seeing the portraits of the 7 deadly sins. Portrait of gluttony made me quit smoking.)

The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African-American Students by Gloria Ladson-Billings (Didn't agree with everything, but found her insight and the insight of the master teachers into the needs of African-American students helpful. Made me want to learn more about African-American English, so I may take a class.)

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein (Nothing need be said about this marvel of the modern world. Even the elves didn't have anything this good.)

By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder (How the Ingalls family gets settled on their final homestead. Adult Almanzo enters story. Yay!)

about a million articles about composition theory and pedagogy that I don't think any of you care about but were very edifying

Things I am Reading Right Now

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Rebecca by Daphne DuMarier (Wow, this is depressing, but her psychological state is really well written.)

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkein (More perfection surpassing even the works of the men of Westerness.)

Writing About Your Life: A Journey Into the Past by William Zinsser (Half Auto-Biography, half how to write aut0-biography.)

Talking to Tweens: Getting it Right Before It Gets Rocky with Your 8- to 12- Year Old by Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer

The Story of the World:History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times by Susan Wise Bauer

about a million articles about composition theory and pedagogy that I don't think any of you care about but will be very edifying

What I Have on the Shelf to be Read

Between Parent and Child by Haim Ginott

A Yank Back to England: The Prodigal Tourist Returns by Denis Lipman (won this at Dragon Con for answering a Shakespeare question correctly)

A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters (a NEW Amelia Peabody, and this time she's in Palestine!)

Archaeology by David Hurst Thomas and Robert L. Kelly (My mom took a course in archaeology, and this was her text. Livy and I are both very interested, so I thought this might be a good starting place.)

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan (a new series about the Egyptian gods from the author who gave us Percy Jackson)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (recommended by nerdy librarians at Dragon Con in the Young Adult Track)

More Sherlock Holmes stories (probably chosen at random)

First Test by Tamora Pierce (another YA Dragon Con recommendation)

The Original Mother Goose (with all those old and beautiful illustrations)
about a million articles about composition theory and pedagogy that I don't think any of you care about but will be very edifying

What have you read lately? What's on your shelf?

A Really Good Day

Livy and I had an awesome day today, and I just wanted to write about how great it was. Our schedule has returned to my usual in-school schedule. I go to school and work Monday-Thursday, and I get Livy Thursday night and keep her until Monday morning. So, I had been missing her all week long.

So Friday morning, I got up before her and spent some time on the computer chillin' on Facebook and Twitter and the Blogosphere. Then, I cuddled Aaron awake. (I am trying to get him on my new early schedule, so I dare not let him sleep in.) When I was reasonably sure he wouldn't roll over and fall asleep again, I went in and cuddled Livy awake too.

With all this cuddling taken care of, I took a shower. When I got out of my hot, pleasant shower, Livy was getting ready. We decided we would go to the Tellus Science Museum (which we love and have a membership to and go to all the time). Usually, Livy wants to stay home and do quiet restful alone kind of things, like books and movies and video games. But today she was up for adventure, so yay!

At the museum, we watched a movie about how the earth was formed and how life evolved on it and half a movie about Saturn (cause it was dead boring and we walked out). We looked at the fossil gallery with lots of different dinosaurs, huge mammals (mammoths and such), flying and swimming reptiles, and about 4 million trilobites. Livy got to dig for fossils in their kid's area, and we brought home a fossilized shark tooth.

We spent a little time in the rock and mineral gallery, mostly looking at what kinds of mineral were in the products we use. We saw the spots on the world map where earthquakes happened today and yesterday, and we looked at igneous vs. metamorphic vs. sedimentary rocks. Livy got to pan for tiny minerals, and we brought home a small bag of rock samples.

We looked at a replica of Orville and Wilbur Wright's plane and read all about them and their first flight. (We talked about Kitty Hawk and the Outer Banks in honor of you, Jenn.) Livy did many hands-on science activities like breaking light into a rainbow using a prism, changing the amplitude and frequency of sound waves in a tube with sand, and moving metal from one place to another with an electromagnet she could turn on and off.

We've been to the museum a million times and done all of these things before, but something about today was just special. We had missed each other, but we miss each other often. It was just one of those glorious days when the two of us click - we want to do the same thing in the same way and do it together.

A quote from Anne of Avonlea sums it right up:

"'After all,' Anne had said to Marilla once, 'I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.'"

Child Friendly without being Child Centered

I am not one of those people who hates kids. I like kids! My tolerance for noise is high, and I smile at every child in sight. However, I have an abiding hatred for the people who let their kids run wild in restaurants and theaters. I mean, why not teach children right from the start to behave themselves? And when they can't (which is many, many times with toddlers and an occasional time or two with older kids), take the screaming little angels out. Please don't make me ask the manager to have you and your offspring removed.

However, I also hate hate hate the kind of people who think kids should be locked up until their manners and silence are developed enough to meet the Queen. In case these people haven't noticed, children are the young of our species. Get over it. They live in the world and want to get to experience it, too. If a baby cries for one second and its mom puts a boob in its mouth, rejoice instead of sneering. That's the way it's supposed to be; children are allowed to make a little bit of noise, just like you.

The first kind of person, who makes every activity about the child, gives in to its every desire, and does not consider the rights of others in the world, is child-centered. As I have written before, I think a child-centered life is a disaster for both parent and child. It leads to a resentful parent and a spoiled child. The second kind of person, who thinks the world revolves around him and who feels entitled to never be inconvenienced even a tiny bit by others in public places, seems to want a world that is totally adult-centered. How they think that these children will grow up to be adults anyone can stand to be around without being taken to civilized places is beyond me.

If you put loud children who are the whole focus of their parents' adoring attention on one end of a line and snooty yuppies who think McDonald's is the only restaurant a child should be seen in at the other end, you might think that the answer is to balance the two. As usual, the correct answer is not found in the middle of the wrong ones. It's not even on the line.

It's possible to be child-friendly, but not child-centered. I recently saw it in action.

I have been singing Sacred Harp for a month or two, and I went to a big singing at a tiny church near Atlanta. Singing is done in a square with a volunteer leader in the middle. I first noticed how unusual the congregation's attitude toward children was when I saw a little boy (maybe 4?) go to his father, who was leading the singing.

So that you can imagine the set-up, here's a photo of a Sacred Harp singing.


Because his dad was the center of the group, everyone could see him as he squeezed his way to the front and leaned his head against his dad while he stood directing and singing. The usual reaction would be either to send the little boy right away or to focus attention on him (adult-focused or child-focused). This dad did neither. He let the boy hold onto him and move around at his feet while he continued right on doing what he was doing.

I looked around to see if other people were annoyed by the distraction, but they weren't distracted! Except for an old lady or two, who were looking at the boy sweetly, no one else was paying him any attention at all. The attitude seemed to be that the presence of a child was expected, and everybody went about their own business. How refreshing! No one was oohing and ahhing over him like blathering idiots, and no one was scowling at him as if he had a disease that was catching.

There was a group of older children who were playing quietly away from the singing square. No one was paying them the least mind. A baby was sitting on her mother's lap while the mom sang, and the baby made a little bit of happy noise, not enough to bother anyone. Occasionally, an older lady would take the baby and bounce her while singing.

The 4 year old boy who was standing with his dad started to get a little rambunctious, playing too energetically for the center of the singing circle. Without the dad saying anything, a man in the front row took the boy's hand and led him out of the circle. I didn't see where he went, but since he came right back, I assume he left the little boy with the group of older children. During this process, no one stopped singing, and no one batted an eye. Inappropriate behavior, it seems, was also expected. When it happened, it was stopped but without any malice or scowling from child-haters and without any bribing or pleading from child-spoilers.

I so enjoyed this child-friendly atmosphere because I love the idea of generational mixing. I like that children are learning by example and from people other than their parents. I like that old people are interacting with the young, providing them the wisdom that comes from experience, and that the young are enlivening the singing of these older people. I like that children and adults were able to coexist in a way that was fun for both.

And I love that the atmosphere wasn't child-centered. The adults were pursuing their own values (singing and companionship) with other adults. The purpose of the gathering wasn't to entertain or to educate the children, and thank heavens, no one tried to make it all Disney-fied. The singing was designed around the needs of the adults, yet the children were welcome to participate as long as they didn't detract from the adults' gathering.

Here are some ways my life is child-friendly, but not child-centered:

• Livy went with me to a party Friday night, where she mostly played Super Mario and then fell asleep in my lap as I talked to friends about Standard English and how to teach it.
  


• She watches many adult movies (not that kind!) with Aaron and me.
  


• We take her to dinner with us at all kinds of restaurants. We ignore children's menus, for the most part, and expect that she will eat normal food like a normal human.


• She goes to work with me occasionally and hangs out while I teach. I hope to take her more this semester, as she is really very useful for my students to learn spotting.


• When I am working at home, I am happy to have her around, but I don't interact with her every second. Mostly, she does her stuff near me, where I am doing my stuff.

Take that hovering, helicopter mommies! Take that child-hating curmudgeons!

P.S. Here's a another cool picture of a singing where kids are welcomed: Lookout Mountain in 1968

Thoughts on the Hierarchy of Knowledge

I hear talk about the hierarchy of knowledge all the time and what it means about this education program or the other. It is often used to stress the necessity of certain curricula or the wrongness of child-led learning. So, I want to explore this idea a little.

First, I went to the Lexicon to see what Ayn Rand had to say about the hierarchy of knowledge. These quotes are all from the Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

"Since the definition of a concept is formulated in terms of other concepts, it enables man, not only to identify and retain a concept, but also to establish the relationships, the hierarchy, the integration of all his concepts and thus the integration of his knowledge. Definitions preserve, not the chronological order in which a given man may have learned concepts, but the logical order of their hierarchical interdependence."

"To know the exact meaning of the concepts one is using, one must know their correct definitions, one must be able to retrace the specific (logical, not chronological) steps by which they were formed, and one must be able to demonstrate their connection to their base in perceptual reality."

"Concepts have a hierarchical structure, i.e., . . . the higher, more complex abstractions are derived from the simpler, basic ones (starting with the concepts of perceptually given concretes)."

So, in light of that bit of explanation, I want to ask a few clarifying (at least to me) questions.

1. Where does this hierarchy exist?

It lives in our brains. It is in that amazingly cool realm of mental constructs created using real world data. This is what it means for concepts to be objective. They are based on real facts, on things that really exist. And they are made using human mental processes. Not subjective (can't be based on any crazy thing a person might dream up), not intrinsic (the concepts and the order don't exist in nature independent of a human brain).

2. If the hierarchy is created and integrated in our own heads, why would we have to enter data in any particular order?

I don't think we do have to. In fact, I think people often learn based on the kinds of facts and experiences they encounter in their households and lives. They do not learn "out of order," as long as they integrate their knowledge logically. As Ayn Rand says, a person "must be able to retrace the specific (logical, not chronological) steps by which [their concepts] were formed, and one must be able to demonstrate [the concepts'] connection to their base in perceptual reality." It is the logical connections we make between our concepts that must be in a certain order, not their chronology. We can introduce any kind of knowledge that interests us into our heads; we just have to be aware of what we are introducing and conscious about integrating it with other things we know.

Rand's description of Gail Wynand's childhood and adolescence in The Fountainhead includes his reading habits. "Without advice, assistance or plan, he began reading an incongruous assortment of books; he would find some passage which he could not understand in one book, and he would get another on that subject. He branched out erratically in all directions; he read volumes of specialized erudition first, and high-school primers afterward. There was no order in his reading; but there was order in what remained in his mind."

What Ayn Rand describes is Wynand forming his hierarchy of knowledge. The disorder of his pursuit of facts did not negatively affect the order in which he held the fact in his mind because we must each create a logical hierarchy, no matter what facts we get or in what order we get them.

3. Wouldn't learning sometimes be more time-efficient if we go in the order another person has already figured out?

Certainly. But that isn't essential to correct understanding. A person might choose to save time and effort by using someone else's work as a way to study a subject. Another person might get joy out of figuring some part of it out by himself. Time efficiency and minimizing the effort required is only one way (though often a convenient way). If the goal is to get the info in order to do another value, the quickest and easiest seems best. But if the goal is different (not a specific value but enjoyment of the experience or honing one's skills), it might be better to tackle it in a different order.

History is a wonderful example. If the goal is to get a broad overview of history quickly in order to understand modern politics, it seems logical to learn the facts chronologically. But if the purpose is to deepen your enjoyment of traveling to American Revolution sights, it makes sense to begin where your interest lies. Your desire to learn about the Founding Fathers may take you back to Ancient Greece and Rome eventually, but it would be silly to start there, when you really want to know about Jefferson. There is no violation of the hierarchy of knowledge in this example. As long as you integrate your concepts logically, it doesn't matter the order in which you gather your info.

4. If people are exposed to ideas before they understand the underlying facts and concepts, won't that cause them to hold floating abstractions?

Hearing something that you don't have the facts to support is okay, as long as you say, "Well, I don't really understand that" or at least accept a tentative kind of knowledge about a subject. Tentative knowledge and unexplored concepts are not wrong. Floating abstractions (in the negative sense Objectivists speak of) are disconnected pieces of knowledge that a person pretends are grounded and certain. A floating abstraction requires evasion of the fact that the connection of the concept to reality are not known.

5. Should children be exposed to ideas that they don't have the facts to ground?

I don't think there is any way to avoid it. Does the infant understand the language you are speaking to him? No, but he will one day. Unless you are willing to lock children in a closet and then pass him facts through a cat door one at a time and in order, there is no way to keep children from hearing and absorbing words and ideas that they don't completely understand.

Not only is it impossible to prevent children from hearing things they don't understand, I think it beneficial for them to be exposed to them. I think the best way to learn Objectivism, for instance, is at the feet of adult Objectivists. There is no reason to protect children from hearing you and your partner and friends talking about politics, ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. If they ask questions, answer them at a level the child can understand. One day, they will have an adult's understanding, and how much easier it will have been to learn a little at a time as a part of daily life than to try to integrate it whole into already arranged minds, as most of us did.

Of course, there is no point in purposely presenting ideas to children that they are incapable of understanding. There is nothing wrong with a baby watching and listening to his sister working on phonics. But sitting the baby down to learn phonics is ridiculous. Why not choose something he can grasp, if you are choosing a topic of conversation with him? I wouldn't choose to bring up the Ground Zero Mosque with Livy, but if she hears Aaron and I talking about it, I will certainly answer her questions.

So how do we prevent them from settling for floating abstractions instead of real knowledge? Ask them questions. "How do you know that?" "What made you think that?" "Where's your evidence?" Explain things by linking to reality; giving reasons for your own actions, for your requests, for your ideas, for your choices, for the limits you set with them teaches children that human understanding requires concrete data and a logical progression from that data to the conclusion. Give examples of your own floating abstractions and how you have fixed them. "I used to believe in a god, but then I realized that there was no god I could see, touch, taste, hear, or smell in the world. I had been believing it all along without having any evidence! I'm glad I looked for evidence finally."

And finally, when a child says something he doesn't fully grasp, it isn't necessarily a floating abstraction. "When I grow up I am going to marry Daddy" is not floating; the child's understanding of marriage is very limited (people who live together and love each other), but it is grounded in reality (examples of mom and dad and others). It isn't floating at all, just immature. As the child grows, she will understand marriage more fully. No reason to keep that concept from her until she understands sex, legal contracts, child-raising, and monogamy.

There are plenty of other arguments about life-learning and child-led learning (which you can feel free to ask me about - formspring might be a good way), but I don't buy this one. The logical formation of a child's hierarchy of knowledge doesn't require encountering ideas in a pre-formed logical order.

What Livy and I Have Been Reading

I haven't posted much lately cause Mini-Con is making me crazy. But now almost everything is done, so I thought I would post a reading update. (Those are my favorite kinds of posts.) This time instead of what I have been reading, I thought I'd update you guys on what Livy and I have been reading together.

Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling: Enough said. Wonderful, even for me, reading it for about the 15th time. Gotta love the book where she plants the seeds of the whole series.

Bob Books: A set of phonics readers that she can read to herself. We have done the first three packs, but we are going back through the first three again. She was starting to get frustrated with the harder books, so we are doing an easy read-through from the beginning again. I really like these books because the stories and pictures are actually funny, unlike the boring stuff usually made for beginning reading.

Arthur's New Pup: I hate these stupid Arthur books. But Livy LOVES them. I think they are poorly written and boring. She thinks they are hilarious. I have a limit; I will only read two on each trip to the library. Stupid aardvark.

Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares by Frank Murphy: A story about Ben Franklin, mostly focusing on his inventions and his mathematical puzzles (magic squares).

What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? by Jean Fritz: A great, great, GREAT children's bio. Lots more in this awesome series. We have, but haven't read, her book on Plymouth colony, Sam Adams, Paul Revere, and George Washington. The Ben Franklin bio was so awesome that I cannot wait to read the others. Livy wants to do Paul Revere next cause there is a picture of a horse, duh.

A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin by David Adler: Yes, we are currently obsessed. This was not my favorite, but I think it would be great for a younger child. It has fabulous pictures, but was a little sparse on facts for us. (Livy is nearly 7). We also have A Picture Book of Robert E. Lee but haven't read it yet. Won't it be fun to try and explain the Civil War?

Pompeii: Buried Alive by Edith Kunhardt: Loved this one. Since Livy wants to be an archeologist or a paleontologist, I have been trying to find books that show the real work those people do. I've been to Pompeii, so we had a wonderful time talking about what we learned in the book and planning a future trip to visit the site. Plus, what kid doesn't like natural disasters?
Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald Sobol: Did you guys read these as a kid? SO AWESOME. The main character solves cases, and you get to try to figure them out before he tells you how he knew. Livy has trouble understanding some of the cases but has great fun anyway.

Choose Your Own Adventure: The Cave of Time by Edward Packer: This is Livy's first choose your own adventure book, and she loves it. We spend a lot of time backtracking and trying out other options. So far, we have ended up being hanged, owning a Philadelphia printing shop, and living out our lives with prehistoric people.
If You Traveled on The Underground Railroad by Ellen Levine: I love this series. It includes books on different time periods and different people's lives. We also have, but haven't read yet, If you Lived During the American Revolution, If You Grew Up With George Washington, If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, If You Lived at the Time of the Civil War, If You Lived 100 Years Ago, and If You Grew Up With Abraham Lincoln. The Underground Railroad book was particularly interesting to us because we recently visited a museum about it in Cincinnati, Ohio. We saw the area of the Ohio River where many slaves crossed into the North. So it was neat to read about places we had just seen.

George Washington and the General's Dog by Frank Murphy: Revolutionary War heros, beloved pets, Martha Washington chasing a dog called Vulcan who just stole a ham off the table at Mt. Vernon, a mule from the King of Spain - seriously, don't you all want to read this book?

Ant at the Picnic by Michael Dahl: A story about counting by tens as your whole picnic and Aunt Helen are carried away by ants. Math and hilarity. Yippee.

Prehistoric Actual Size by Steve Jenkins: I cannot recommend this book more. It is a collection of facts about dinosaurs, protozoans, early mammals, and early amphibians, all accompanied by pictures of them in actual size. Awesome.

What Killed the Dinosaurs? by Issac Asimov: Trying out an Asimov children's book since Aaron loves them so much. I think it's a little above Livy's head, but we aren't done. And she still wants to read more about meteorites. We saw one at the Tellus Science Center that had crashed through someone's roof not far from here in 2006. How cool is that? I hope we don't get a big one though. Don't really want to go extinct.

It's Not the Stork: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Families and Friends by Robie H. Harris: We have only covered the anatomy of children's bodies so far, but Livy is hooked. There are these crazy cartoons (a bird and bee) that say funny things throughout the book. I love how frank and clear and well-illustrated this book is. Describes body parts, explains sex, explains baby development and birth, talks about appropriate touching, and does it all with humor and without making it seem at all taboo.

The Great History Search: A kind of Where's Waldo, except that instead of Waldo, you are looking for a pharaoh, a gladiator, a Viking drinking mead, an alpaca in an Incan villiage, a steam engine, a covered wagon, or a harpsichord in very busy two-page spreads about different time periods. Super fun. Unless you hate details which I do. So super fun for Livy.

several back issues of My Big Backyard, a kids magazine from the National Wildlife Federation: Livy is outgrowing this, and then we will have to stop, cause the next magazine up in age is full of environmentalist crap. This one is just focused on facts about animals and games and puzzles about them. We love the pictures!

As usual, I would love to hear about what you are reading and what you are reading with your kids. And, I would like to thank the Johnson Ferry Baptist Church Used Book Sale, where home-schoolers sold their barely used history books for 50 cents each.

Not Completely Typical Day in the Life, but What Day is Typical Around Here?

I've decided to jump on the bandwagon! I love "Day in the Life" posts, and recently really enjoyed Amy's and Lynne's. I love them because I am so nosy about what other people are doing, how they live, what's important to them. I love these posts for the same reason that I love to look at other people's bookshelves and read formspring questions. Anyway, here's my day on Wednesday:

• Woke up and immediately remembered how it rained in my Jeep last night. Went outside in pajamas to take the top down so that it can dry all day in the sun. Used 8 towels to mop the water out of the floorboards.



• Helped Livy with a technical difficulty in her morning video game.



• Checked email, blogs, facebook, twitter. Switched computers in the middle with Livy so that she could do her math, reclining like a pampered queen in my bed.



• Talked on the phone with a friend about potty training. Glad that stage is behind me.



• Read a chapter of The Subtle Knife.
  



• Chatted with my friend Shea and on Enright House (an Objectivist chat room).



• Ordered some Vitamin D online.
  



• Read out loud to Livy from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a book on Pompeii, and a choose your own adventure book.



• Had a difficult and ear splitting hair brushing experience. Why can't girls have buzz cuts again?
  



• Walked with Livy to a nearby restaurant for lunch. Chatted while we were there about going to Pompeii, going to Egypt, riding a camel, and how much money J.K. Rowling made by writing the Harry Potter series.
  



• Chatted with Shea some more (about giftedness, learning styles, and careers for different temperaments) - very neat-o stuff.
  



• Miranda came for a surprise visit, and we caught up on what's been going on this summer while I folded clothes and put them away and did the dishes. That doesn't sound like a lot, but every piece of clothing and every towel in our house was lying across the couches. It was a big job and deserves more than this little bullet point to celebrate it.
  



• Mowed the grass in higher than 90 deg heat with breaks to get water and not get heat exhaustion. Ran over a bell pepper which had drooped close to the ground. Cursed really loud, but was drowned out by the mower.
  



• Read another chapter of The Subtle Knife out on the porch, since the air is a little cooler in the evening. Smoked my last few cigarettes, since I usually don't smoke when Aaron is here (he is on a business trip). He hates the way it smells and doesn't want me to die. Go figure.



• Took a nice long bath during which I watched an episode of Angel.



• Chatted some more with Shea. It sounds like I spend much of my life doing this, and while that is sort of true, it's also true that we hadn't talked in a while, so we had a lot to catch up on. :)



• Cuddled up with Livy and watched part of the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets movie. Poked her often so she wouldn't fall asleep before we had to leave for the airport.
  



• Drove to the airport ridiculously late at night to pick up Aaron. He had been on a business trip for 3 days, and his flight got delayed, and we got back from the airport after midnight.



• Tried to put pajamas on a completely passed out child who weighs more than 50 lbs.



• Went to bed super happy that Aaron is home and sleeping beside me.
  

Life Learning Progress

It's been a while since I posted about the kinds of things Livy and I have been up to.

I let you guys know what I am reading in a post a couple of days ago, and I am also (very intermittently) working on my French. I've been preparing for my poetry appreciation class at Mini-Con and working on the podcast with Jenn. Aaron and I have been watching the first season of Veronica Mars (and loving it all over again for me).

Now, a list of what Livy's been doing:

• constantly playing Dreambox, an online math game for K-3rd grades
• occasionally reading one of the Bob Books to me -- She likes math WAY more but is willing to read a book to me now and then
• playing computer games like Strawberry Shortcake's Cookie Party, Blue's Big Art Show, Arthur Pet Chase, and Barbie Island Princess (she can handle these games by herself)
• counting her allowance and planning what she will spend it on -- Her interest in money is fairly new. Before, she didn't think about it much, but now she is planning ways to earn extra.
• making a scrapbook with pictures of family and friends
• writing and decorating cards to Grandma, Mimi, and Dad
• watching Scooby Doo, Harry Potter movies, and Strawberry Shortcake
• playing with her friends
  

Things we've been doing together:

• playing Where in America is Carmen Sandiego -- This game is for ages 8-12 and requires a lot of reading, so she needs my help.
• I've been reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets out loud, along with lots of other smaller books.
• working in our vegetable garden
• cooking
• cleaning and organizing the house
• going swimming
  
• We visited White Water, a local water park. We got season passes as usual, and when the weather is good, we often go once a week.
• With Aaron, we did a road trip to see his family in Indiana and friends in Chicago. This included the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the Museum of Science and Industry, the top of the Sears Tower, the Indianapolis Children's Museum, a drive up into Amish country, and a short wildlife hike through a marsh.
• visiting our local Tellus Science Museum two days in a row
• watched two planetarium shows, one on finding constellations and planets and things in the night sky that evening, one on planets that have been found in other solar systems and what they are like
• watching Glee together

So, as you can see, we've been having a super fun time!

Book Review: Parenting a Free Child: An Unschooled Life

I love to read books about unschooling (what I like to call life-learning), especially the ones that describe the daily lives of unschoolers. I like to know what other people are doing, get new ideas, and feel re-inspired about our lifestyle. I recently read Parenting a Free Child: An Unschooled Life by Rue Cream. Even though our thoughts on education are similar in some ways, I really hated parts of this book, and I wanted to write a review. I hope that the review will serve to illuminate further the way I choose to interact with my child.

The book is organized into questions and answers. I like the format because many of the questions are ones that we get all the time. It's interesting to me to see someone else's answers. Even when some of them irritate me to death.

I thought I would post some quotes and then tell you why I didn't like them.

"To unschool is to be available to find a map, read a book, time a swimming race, bake a cake, or play a game at a moment's notice."

Dude, are you your child's servant? I like to spend time with my child (I can't imagine homeschooling would be a good choice for someone who didn't), but I have other things I want to do as well. Housework, writing, reading, French, a nap, etc. I will usually be glad to help with things, but the child might have to wait until I am finished with what I am doing. Sometimes I might be in the mood to jump right up and play a game; sometimes not. That's life, kid. Better to learn it now. Your fun, your learning, and your life are your own responsibility. I will help, but I am not your programmable mom-bot.

"In any situation where a child has to ask me for help in order to do something, I feel it is my responsibility to happily give that help."

Mom-bot alert again. Not only do I not feel I have to do everything that they cannot do themselves, I certainly don't feel I have to be happy about it. There are some things that are essential. I would never refuse to nurse a tiny, hungry baby or help a child who is throwing up or respond to a real emotional crisis. However, most of the things children want are not essential. Just because you cannot read yet does not mean that I should drop whatever I am doing to read whatever you want me to whenever you want me to. However, asked nicely, I will almost always come to a stopping place in what I am doing and read whatever you need.

"Dagny and Rowan have their own money and equal access to any money the family has. We asked them how much money they needed each month, and that's what they get. . . . They are not required to spend it on certain things; if they want to save it all they're free to spend money from the family budget instead if it's available."

I think this is patently ridiculous. Livy receives an allowance with no strings attached, but we decided together how much it should be. She didn't just get to say. And having equal control over the family's money? If you are mature enough to control a household's money, I think you should get a job and start controlling your own. The reason I financially support Livy fully is because she can't do it herself. When she can, she will have to. I don't have any problem with a child participating in financial decisions; in fact, I support it. What better way to learn how it works? But when it comes down to a final decision, my partner and I make it. For us, unschooling is about the child being the boss of his own life, not the boss of ours.

"We do not make Rowan and Dagny go to the doctor. They choose to go to the doctor when they don't feel well and want help to feel better, just as I do."

On the surface, I agree with this. Most doctor visits would be optional for Livy. If you would rather suffer through a sinus infection instead of going to the doctor, that is fine by me. Unless you are waking up all night long and waking me up with you. Then it is "our" problem, and I would have some input on whether you go to the doctor. But, what would Rue Cream do if a child had a serious injury? I handled situations at the gym where a child has broken a bone and must go to the hospital but begs and begs not to go. They aren't behaving rationally; they are scared and immature. I believe that in situations where serious bodily injury or death or mental health or the rights of others are at stake, a parent must insist on a rational course of action, no matter how much the child may not like it. I have prevented a screaming toddler from running into the street, forced Livy into a car seat, and I would certainly make a child go to the ER with a broken leg. None of these are good situations, and I would try my best to help the child feel better about them, but in the end, I will not let you permanently damage the only body you get before you are old enough to protect it yourself. I owe it to the adult Livy to see that her leg gets healed.

There are also many things I liked in the book, so I'll share some of those, too.

"If even one person in the family is feeling over scheduled, you can all work together to come up with a solution that gives everyone what s/he needs and wants."

I like that one because so often kids are the focus of the family, and mom and dad run themselves ragged trying to meet the child's needs. It is so much healthier for everyone to work out a plan together that meets everyone's needs as much as possible. Example: Livy is an introvert, and I am an extrovert. We are constantly problem solving to find ways for me to get out and about and among people enough and for her to get plenty of downtime. Today, I wanted to go to the zoo. She wanted to stay home all day. We compromised by staying home some and by going on a less dramatic outing (a long walk to lunch and the town square playground) so that I could get out of the house.

While addressing questions about homeschoolers and socialization, Rue Cream writes, "Am I worried about socialization? Yes, but not for my own children." She goes on to talk about the "culture of conformity" in schools. I agree with her. Age segregation and the intensified peer focus of children who interact primarily with their peers are some of the worst aspects of school. I want Livy to know that age is just a number and that friendships should be based on common values. So far, she can enjoy toddlers, preschoolers, kids her own age, and older kids (she generally doesn't have much interest in adults, yet), and I want her to keep her openness to people of different ages. I want her to see people in all different stages of life, and I hope that will give her some perspective when faced with pressure to conform to the standards of her friends.

There were a million other things she said that I agreed with, mostly because she believes children should decide for themselves what to do with their time. The theme over and over throughout the book is "When you feel that you must force your child to do something, reevaluate." Unlike Rue Cream, I do force some things (life, limb, mental health, and the rights of others), but I think it is excellent to think carefully about how often we force our children to do things. It is incredibly rare in our house, and we manage to live happily, mostly peacefully, and not fall into chaos.

While I agreed with her basic premise (freedom for children), I thought that the way it is carried out in her house gives a wrong impression of what unschooling should be. It isn't a family where the desires of the child dictate what the family does. It is a family where the desires of each member of the family dictate what that particular member does. I'm not the boss of Livy (except in rare circumstances), but that doesn't make her the boss of me either.

Another Day in the Life Post

I love reading these, and I love writing them. So here goes another.

Livy woke up about an hour before me, ate some breakfast, and played quietly (relatively) in her room. After I got up, I headed off to work. She watched a movie (Max and Ruby), did some elaborate imaginative play with some empty boxes and two jump ropes, and got dressed.

When I got home, we went to lunch with Aaron at Ruby Tuesday's before he left for work. While Aaron and I chatted, Livy did a word search on her menu.

After lunch, she and I came home and played two games of Jr. Labyrinth (a rocking good game, by the way). We are definitely going to invest in the adult version soon, cause she has figured it out and could handle more, I think. The game is basically a maze that keeps moving around, and you have to move through it, using strategy, to get to several different goals.

Then, she read two Bob Books out loud to me. They are very simple phonetic (almost completely) stories. Then, we pulled out some flash cards that have a word on the front and a picture on the back, and she read them to me. We flipped them over dramatically to see if she was right.

About halfway through, she started crying and told me that Morgan (2nd child of Jenn) is a better reader than she is. Well, it's true. Though Morgan is 18 months younger, she is a far better reader. So, we talked about how different people learn different things at different times. I told her some differences of when her dad and I learned different skills. And I pointed out some things I thought she was best at. Eventually, she said she felt better.

Next, she pogo sticked in the living room. I think she chose this activity because physical activity is her comfort zone. She is super coordinated and has no trouble learning any physical skill. So, I think she chose pogo sticking because it made her feel confident again.

After I played on the internet and tried to ignore the sounds of crashing and hysterical laughter from the living room, we went to pick up our super wonderful raw milk from our super wonderful local farmer. On the way there and back, Livy did 5 pages from a math workbook on place value. We are total car-schoolers. Something about driving in the car (perhaps the inability to do anything physical?) makes Livy want to do math. She has learned almost every bit of math she knows (addition, subtraction, reading a clock, counting money, and now place value) in the car. About 50% of it was on our road trip. We also sometimes do math at the library, cause she sees the older kids doing their homework, and she thinks its cool to sit at the little tables and work like they do.

When we got home, we went out to the backyard and jumped on the trampoline for about 45 minutes. It nearly killed me (but it was fun), while she thought it was a light and enjoyable stretch of her muscles. :) We challenged each other to do x number of tuck jumps, seat drops, etc. We both worked on our front flips. Mine is pretty reliable, though I sometimes fall on my butt at the end; Livy is just learning. Then, we swept the leaves and sticks off the trampoline. Maybe we should have done that first, so they didn't poke us in the rear while doing seat drops.


After we came in and I obsessively checked my twitter feed, I worked for about an hour and a half on my French, while Livy watched more Max and Ruby, played her keyboard, cleaned her room (unbidden), and organized all her boxes and tables into a lizard (plastic) habitat (including a lizard exercise arena, a lizard shop (where lizards go to shop, not a shop selling lizards), and a lizard bedroom (to be shared with frogs and snakes).

Finally, I took her to meet up with her dad, since Thursday night is when she heads over to his house for the weekend. My plans for tonight are to work more on French, read some of Howard's End and some Guns, Germs, and Steel, and take a bath (with, though sadly not in, wine).

The end.

Life Learning: What We Did Today

Inspired by Jenn's post describing a day at the Casey family homeschool, I thought I would write about what we did today, which was a pretty typical day for us.

I met Livy's dad to pick her up at 11:45. Usually, we get up about 10:30 or so, so this was not too much of a late start for us. We went to Borders to buy some books that we had talked about, and we ordered hot chocolate and tea to drink while we read them. Livy read a few out loud to me (yes, she is reading, hip, hip, hooray!).

Next we headed for the grocery store. On the way, we listened to music (Fleetwood Mac and The Dixie Chicks), and Livy did some phonics pages in a book she likes to keep in the car.

In the store, she got a kid cart (which she freakin loves - why can't all groceries have them?) and we picked up the few items we needed. She unloaded the cart and stared down a lady who told her she needed a coat.

We drove home, put away the groceries, and cooked lunch (and put supper in the crockpot). She loves to help cook, so she put the spices on the flank steak, dumped veggies and spices into the crockpot, and helped me pour stock into freezer containers. While I browned pork stew meat, she played the piano. She started a piano class last week, and though she still mostly picks out notes that sound good to her, she has shown much more interest in the piano.

While we ate lunch, we browsed through a book on the seven wonders of the ancient world. I didn't read it out loud cause my mouth was full of flank steak, but we chatted about the pictures and decided to read it later.

After lunch, she helped me unload and reload the dishwasher. She played a 3D maze game on the computer while I finished the cleanup and started the crockpot.

She really loves to ride the bus, so even though the library is within a walk, we decided to take the bus there. We walked about a half mile to the bus stop, and she read out loud to me while we waited for the bus to come. She continued to read to me on the way to the library. Once we got there, we both browsed for things we'd like to read (in the children's section). I read a few out loud while we were there:
2 Arthur books - that's my limit cause I hate those books
Llama, Llama, Red Pajama - a true delight, we read it twice
a book about gardens
a children's version of Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale - The Chanticleer one
an African myth about why ostriches' necks are so long
We checked out several more to read at home.

We decided to walk home from the library, and she climbed all over every wall, tree, and curb between the library and our house. It was nice to be out, especially since we have been trapped inside by the ice and cold for nearly the whole weekend.

When we got home, she started playing on her computer (mostly Blue's Art Show, a game where you make all kinds of art with the characters of Blue's Clues). I played on the internet a while, read some (Guns, Germs, and Steel), and worked on my French. When the stew was ready, she ate hers a bite at a time between art projects with Blue, and I read while I ate. After I cleaned up, I tried to start a fire, but the wood was all wet. FAIL.

We climbed into bed together, and she fell asleep watching a documentary about Shakers with me. When it was over, I moved her to her bed and watched another on Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

That was our day. How fun was that?! I just love being home with Livy, and I love having the leisure to pursue, both with her and alone, all the learning that I desire.

Real interest in reading!

Livy is finally really truly interested in words and in learning to read. She is spelling out every sign we see on the road and asking what it says. She is asking me to show her how to spell new words. It just rocks. I know it is absolutely neurotic that I was worried because my just now turned 6 year old child wasn't interested in reading, but I was worried. Even though I knew my worry was ridiculous, I just couldn't get rid of it. But I am proud that I didn't push her. I sat on my hands, bit my tongue, and accepted her interests. I didn't try sneaky ways to manipulate her into reading, and I didn't show her my irrational feelings of disappointment or frustration. And now she wants to read, and I know it is all her own interest. So glad I respected her timeline. Joy, joy.

Classical Education: An Optional Value

Tonight, in one of graduate classes, I encountered an attitude about education that I have run into before in conversations with Objectivists, so after thinking about it a bit, I decided a post about it might be helpful to the mostly Objectivist readers of my blog.

I questioned, in a discussion about Aristotle's Rhetoric, whether it would really be valuable to teach a text this difficult to undergraduates in introductory kinds of rhetoric or literary studies classes. I was surprised by the vehemence of the disagreement. Basically, most of the other students thought that the difficult work of slogging through Aristotle (and it is incredibly difficult, if you've never done it) teaches critical thinking skills and to teach the principles in a more user friendly way is dumbing down the curriculum. Now, I am very devoted to my literary studies, and I see great value in a close reading of Aristotle, but I question whether that close reading (or something similar) is necessary for all students in order for them to be good thinkers. I think that critical thinking should be a part of every kind of class, English, business, math, engineering, forestry; heck, even my "how to teach gymnastics" class has critical thinking skills built in.

But the argument is broader than that. There is a popular idea in Objectivism and in other circles (English grad students, apparently) that a classical education is essential. I do believe that there are essential skills like logic (critical thinking), reading, writing, and arithmetic. But I don't believe that there are essential disciplines. I don't think that the essential basic skills are exclusive to any discipline; they are a part of every discipline, and that is why they are essential.

There is an almost magical awe around the elements of a classical education: literature, history, mathematics, a classical language. People view the possessors of this kind of education as truly educated.

I see strong benefits for a classical education. I myself chose one and continue to. I mean, I am that girl who studies Ancient Greek on the train, and when asked by the people, has to confess it is just for fun. I am devoting my life to a close reading of British literature written sometime before 1800. I REALLY love classical education. In my spare time, I read novels, listen to Scott Powell lectures on ancient history, and I practice ancient languages. I am the poster child for a lifelong classical education. I think a classical education provides an amazing context for living in our world.

But, there are lots of values. These just happen to be mine. None of them seem to be cardinal values to me (the kind that everyone must share). Though I love them dearly, I think they are optional. I don't think it necessarily leads to a less happy life if a person is almost exclusively interested in some kind of technical learning (like some computer thing or learning a sport). As long as a person has the necessary skills to pursue his values competently (logic, reading, writing, arithmetic, etc), he can be happy. It doesn't take Aristotle, or an aorist verb, or a deep understanding of the Second Punic War. It make take those things if you choose to be an English prof or a translator of ancient texts or a Roman historian, but those are all optional values.

I am arguing that a classical education is wonderful. But only as it furthers the goals of the person getting it. Other kinds of educations are wonderful too, for exactly the same reason.

Livy and Egypt

I'm so excited because Livy has her first really specific learning interest. Before now, she has liked hearing me read books about nearly anything, and her choices were mostly random. But lately, she has take a real interest in Ancient Egypt. It started with a book I picked out at the library, just a general kids book on the Egyptians. She was fascinated. Since then, we have looked at some pictures on the internet, read every general book on Egypt in the children's department of our library, read a book on Hatshepsut (specifically requested by Livy, cause she was a girl who glued a beard on her face for ceremonies), watched the IMAX movie on Egypt, and we have several more books lined up (one of pyramids she got for her birthday, and one on archaeology (borrowed from Rational Jenn) cause it has pictures of mummies. I think we will also make a trip to the Carlos Museum at Emory University, which apparently has one of the best collections of Egyptian artifacts in America and MUMMIES! It really is too bad that she wasn't so interested in Egypt when we saw the King Tut exhibit traveling through Atlanta. She liked it, but now she would LOVE it. I'm sure it will make the rounds again some time.

Anyway, I think it is so cool to see her really interested in delving into a subject (and it's cool that it is a subject I think is really neat-o like history). I know the excitement of finding a new passion and exploring it until I'm sated, and I love seeing my child experience this for the first time. I also got her a book on the Ancient Romans, and I am thinking that reading about Cleopatra and Romanized Egypt might get her interested in other historical periods. We'll see. Whatever she is interested in next will be exciting, I'm sure.