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Ester Maria

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Everything posted by Ester Maria

  1. Another vote onto that unanimous poll. Do not give in and do not buy her the dishes. :glare: To be perfectly honest, I do think she should get her beloved dishes back. Eventually. In the grand scheme of things, it can certainly wait and it certainly cannot be a priority. And if something went wrong with the dishes (lost / damaged / whatever), again, in the grand scheme of things, it does not matter all that much anyway. Her request is obnoxious.
  2. Ironically, I am a pretty laid back person. My general parenting choices probably tend to fall on the "permissive" side in many things. I tend to take time constraints less "seriously" than most people and the notions of punctuality or deadlines, for example, are more fluid in my mind. But when it comes to school, I do draw a firm line and I mean "business". That does not mean that it is my way or the highway all the time, but there is a certain framework that I require, certain boxes that I want checked - what we can discuss are specifics (incl. small "cosmetic" changes) and the modalities of execution of the plan. My children get plenty of that "interest-driven", relaxed, "self-paced" thing with their own interests. Because - gasp! - they still have them and my having a certain master plan and insisting we actually adhere to it (with revisions and modifications as needed) has not drained the life out of them nor killed their "love of learning". On the contrary, it has given them tools to enjoy areas of their particular interest even more - in terms of a broad perspective, a solid skill foundation, and so forth. I am not even sure they would not be good candidates for unschooling or a more relaxed thing. Judging by how they tend to spend their free time, they are quite into the whole learning thing. I just choose not to, because I think a structured basis is a needed cohesive element, a glueing principle, for any "random" interest-led education to make more sense and perspective, and then there is the issue of things I find culturally necessary to cover. I allow self-scheduling, I do not micromanage, I am willing to negotiate how to tie things with their interests. But at the end of the day (more like week / month, we do better with more broad goals that leave more leeway in when and how they are accomplished), the box is checked off. Kids happy, mom happy. If occasionally life gets into our way, or we really get carried away by something, oh well. That is why I always schedule MORE time than we actually need, with extra weeks, because in my "planner" mindset I have even thought of that and calculated, with some trial and error, how much leeway we need for the structure to function and for us to be happy rather than miserable. :lol:
  3. I use it as a "technical term", really. I know classically educated people whom I do not consider very smart or knowledgeable, but they do have that moment of classical culture due to the received instruction of classical languages and civilization. At the same time, I know extraordinary people who were not classically educated, whose education was not skewed to put a particular emphasis on the antiquity and its transformation - who, sure, encountered some of it in snippets, having read some ancient literature, having even studied some Latin, etc., but who do not own it in a sense of having actually acquired a certain proficiency - and who may not even have an interest in that particular niche of knowledge, nor share the ideological convinction that that niche of knowledge is a neccesary one to provide a solid cultural education, yet they are interesting, knowledgeable, accomplished people. Do I consider their education ideal, if they are Westerners? No, becuase I have that particular cultural-ideological bias. So I personally will always see an essential fault in it. (Not that they should care.) Do I deny that they are intelligent, interesting, knowledgeable, accomplished, happy people and professionals, living fulfilled lives, many of them in other ways what I would consider "cultured people"? Not for a moment. A technical term, like I said. Not a value judgment, not a "mystical" anything, a little technical precision of the "bent" of their education with the inclusion of certain areas, which typically influenced some other areas covered too.
  4. :iagree: I have a really, REALLY high tolerance for that kind of stuff. Extraordinarily high. I studied letters, for Heaven's sake, most of what I encountered in modern scholarship could probably be classified as that type of thing (essentially fluff, but thought out with minute elaboration). So I am used to that kind of stuff. I should be able to read it without batting an eye about it. I am also used to ample theoretizations myself, which are not always as substantial, as precise and as consistent as they should be. So really, all things considered, I should have been able to read it. I. just. could. not. finish. At the same time, I am very happy for people to whom that thread "spoke" in ways it did not "speak" to me. After all, to each their own and we may find inspiration, support and, sometimes, sense (:lol:) in wildly different things. So for those people, I am glad they found a common platform and, seeing how the thread has grown and seeing there was a positive, supportive atmosphere in the air last time I attempted to check, I do think it is a worthy time investment for some people.
  5. Erm... :D My point was that there is a difference between not "getting" humor and not GETTING humor. People who do not "get" humor are often perplexed by it as children and annoyed by it as adults, but they understand what humor is, what is the connection that is being established (why an uttered falsehood is "funny", i.e. what is the original, non-reversed information), they are fine with the notion that language is not exclusively literal, but employed also in some other ways. Also, they often do not "get" humor due to lack of information behind humor (it is hard to get a joke if you are not familiar with what it is about). People who do not GET humor do NOT get this distinction, it is not just a matter of some bewilderment or annoyance, but they have a more generalized issue with non-literal language, a certain type of mental rigidity which does not allow for the appreciation of the notion and recognition of it. / DELETED PERSONAL STUFF / People who do not GET humor have this certain, shall we call it, deficiency in thinking (this is not supposed to be a "bashing" expression, I am just trying to word it with greater precision). Inability to "play around" with a piece of information, get the meaning behind the metaphor, recognize different levels of the language, etc. This deficiency in thinking also coordinates with other similar ones - e.g. inability to separate categories. Being able to classify objects by shape, but not by color, having a problem with rigidity as in, not finding it easy to switch categories. People who do not "get" humor DO NOT HAVE that particular deficiency IN THINKING, but they may demonstrate all the deficiencies IN SOCIAL FUNCTIONING that result from their idiosyncrasy and may thus appear as not GETTING it, i.e. as really genuinely not understanding it. Small children especially who do not have an elaborate language to explain what exactly is "wrong". So they will appear clumsy, socially awkward, and as though something was neurologically odd with them, but if the humor thing is not coordinated with a whole other set of similar "issues", it may as well be just a personality thing that a child is too young to demonstrate otherwise. With time, those children appear to "grow out of it" - they either acquire common sensibilities, either fake it till they make it, either find a way in the middle. And because of that, I would be reluctant to think something is "wrong" on a more fundamental level unless this tendency seems to come "in the package" with other things that point to that possibility. Just my $.02.
  6. Maybe your daughter has a more... erm... "different" sense of humor than that of most people. I despise most of what passes for humor and it provokes in me a desire to roll my eyes rather than laugh most of the time. My children are mostly the same. We are not really "serious" people and most of what we do / say is intervowen with subtle ironies, but none of us seems to click very well with mainstream humor nor find mainstream jokes all that funny. My children have given many a bewildered look in the past, but when I analyzed those situations with them later, it was typically a "what the heck is your problem" type of bewilderment, not a "I genuinely do not understand where that connection comes from" type of bewilderment. They would just not find it funny, or they thought the ironized connection was too banal to merit the joke, or something along those lines. You need to distinguish, before you create an issue in your mind, whether there is an issue in the first place. Many children of that age are VERY literal. The problems appear if she is unable to get the essence of the humor (taking an information, "reversing" it and pointing out in such a specific way that the original information is represented with a certain attitude towards it). Some jokes kids cannot understand due to the lack of information about what they are about, some they just do not click with - all of that is fine. The problem is if she does not 'get' non-literal speech as such and those subtleties of thought involved in things such as humor, metaphors, subjunctive expressions, etc. are a complete mystery to her, if she cannot snap out of the view that language is exclusively literal, conveying literal information. That is an inflexibility in general thinking which is typically indicative of some more profound issues at hand - but I would be very careful not to "box" your child there if she does not belong there.
  7. Talk about regaining my faith in decent university educational standards for full few minutes! :tongue_smilie: Thank you!
  8. To actually respond to Eleanor, finally :) - I definitely teach my children what I understand to be truth, with major caveats along the way in terms of what one can actually know in the first place and to which phenomena truth is a relevant category through which we may reason (so I have both an epistemological and an 'ontological' caveat incorporated there, in that there are phenomena out there of which it cannot be told that they are "true" or "false"). I also definitely teach them art, but through the prism of skill employed in the formal execution, NOT through the prism of "beauty" or often even the sublime nature of the ideas behind that formal execution. I think art is concrete and that its defining qualities are skill and form, not the master background of ideas or context which motivated them. I do talk of beauty with my children, a lot. Heck, I almost went into art history, I know about art almost more than about letters, and I can relate to it on some immediate levels on which letters can never function. But I parse it differently, as you can see. I am a rather "concrete" type of person. There are concrete skills that are important to me, there is a concrete network of knowledge within which I want them to be able to operate, and there is a concrete cultural inheritance with which they must form their own relationship - my duty is to provide it, not to dictate the kind of relationship they will have with it. The specifics stem from culture, tradition, their own aptitude and general intellect. So, I think in those terms more than in a master philosophy of education way. :)
  9. For me and in my neck of woods, classical education is synonymous with education in classics (= classical languages and letters). The only schools which bear the label "classical" on them are those that teach, well, classical languages and letters. More specifically, both of them, since Latin alone is not endemic to those schools (my husband had it through the graduation as well and his school did not bear the "classical" label). Like I emphasized in the past, you can use the words however you wish because nobody has the "monopoly" on the label. The tricky thing, however, is that insisting on the term "classical education" in a context that excludes an "education in classics" is going to make you misunderstood precisely in those circles in those countries which still have a more or less unbroken chain of tradition of it (even though that education has certainly transformed over time, there is still a certain, even institutional, continuity). Anecdotally, when children from these schools are asked what languages they study, I rarely hear them specifically bringing up Latin and Greek. It goes without saying the moment you said you attended a classical school. To insist on it would be like insisting that you study math or history in the context of general education - of course you do. So, when people ask you about languages, they actually want to hear about those languages which are not a part of the "default setting" of such a school and which may vary from class to class, student to student - modern languages. Which is another reason why it sometimes makes me all :confused: reading about a completely different paradigm behind the label. Now, I argue with some people about the "right" way to do that classical education thing. :D We argue about things such as whether the letters part is to be approached chronologically or genre-wise; whether this or that fleshing out of morphosyntax is a better way to go about it; etc. We, however, never argue about two things: (i) both Latin and Greek are taught; (ii) they are both taught at a high level (PAST formal grammar studies into literature). These two things are tacit axioms the moment we started talking about "classical education". These boards are the only place where I have ever discussed "classical education" where that was disputed and the only place where, even more, the "antiquity" component of the classical education was disputed (as in, you can be "classical" without ever touching on Latin and Greek, or putting a specific focus on the civilizations and letters of classical antiquity, because what is classical is a method, not content? :001_huh:). For me, who grew up with the 'content definition', it was a totally new way of thinking (and to be perfectly honest, I prefer my 'old' way of thinking about it). In a more broad context, classical education serves the exact function you mention: transmission of culture. That is all there is to it, really. Now, the Judeo-Christian part is a can of worms (I think that label per se is absurd, but that is another discussion), but it is most definitely a part of the game - with the principal emphasis being on the civilization and letters of classical antiquity. And then in addition to such classical education, children, of course, receive a more mainstream type of education typical for their national tradition, age, and time. So of course that mathematical and scientific literacy, to different extents (relative to the child's aptitude, capacities, specific program of the school, time, etc.), is a part of the child's education. But its presence or absence or the kind of presence is not what is "classical" about it. FWIW, I have one that is most likely STEM-bound and with whom I have compromised some things - namely, Greek - in the upper years, because there are only some many hours in a day and if something's gotta give or reduce to the minimum, it was going to be Greek before many other things. So, it is not that "classicism" of an education is necessarily a consideration that trumps all other considerations - but if we have a shared goal of the transmission of that particular heritage, those are some of the lines that each of us has to draw for ourseleves. I do not think a solid STEM education is in principle incompatible with "classicism" in education, but each of us has to choose her priorities in relation to our children and our realities. For me, Greek was atypically high on the list, but still lower than some other things.
  10. This is so angering me that this was one of my thoughts, too: how could one bypass the law? Nonsense. Frugalmama, what actually happened when you got warned? Somebody actually asked $500 from you?! Or they 'just' told you, "Sorry, Mrs, we recently outlawed helping and voluntary exchanges?" :glare:
  11. Well, to be honest, it would not surprise me if this were THE place for those kinds of discussions on the internet. I was just hoping random people knew of other random gem or two around.
  12. Wait a second. Without any political undertones, a serious question - it is a free country, what do you mean I am not allowed to offer a gift whoever I please with whatever I please, provided the exchange is voluntary for both parties?! :confused: What if I had a ticket for some event, decided right there that I did not feel like using it, and then gave it away as a gift to one of the people who are trying to get last minute tickets? (A random example I thought of, since I actually did that.) What if I just got out of a shop and figured out the candy I bought contained something I am allergic to - would I not be able to perfectly legally ask a random group of people there: "Hey, wrong purchase, I cannot eat this - somebody wants it?" (I did those kinds of things too.) If these are fine, why not give anything I want to a homeless person too? Regulations like that are CRAZY.
  13. That is one of those cultural differences that blow me away. Especially the "how much do you earn" as a fourth or fifth question, LOL. (I have some ties with one such place too.)
  14. Sure. Nothing is nearly as good as this place. :D I would like something comparable, like an awesome archive of useful discussions (mostly to read, not really to participate because I spend too much time here anyway), with a certain depth, etc., like we have here - but in other languages and reflecting other academic traditions, so that I can search it and drool over that as I think through some things. What I found so far are: 1) Get-together groups (not really discussions); 2) Too general things; 3) Education / parenting as a subforum of other primary boards, and while there are some gems out there, it is not nearly as intense as this place.
  15. I sort of agree, but disagree with you. :tongue_smilie: I agree with the part that it is legitimate to claim Latin being "dead", but I would draw some distinctions elsewhere. I do not think the formal infrastructure of a statehood or a context of a formal education all the way through in that language is needed for the definition of a dead or a living language. However, I do think the language needs to be versatile enough for all the major societal functions to be carried out in it relevant to that community, and that that has to be actively done. Languages like Latin or Hebrew have historically had a rather awkward position, in which they were not fully functional languages of a society, but they were fully functional within their own restricted circle of scholarship and were even used as spoken languages in that context. That made them more like zombies than truly "dead" - like walking anachronisms used for some functions, but not for others, without a culture within which they could function as stand-alone idioms. Basically, we agree, I would just word it a tad bit differently.
  16. We need a facepalm smiley for situations like these. How can they outlaw it? :confused:
  17. The line of what is a "too personal question" is strictly cultural. I do think it has become a commonplace to avoid questions on age, along with the questions on matters such as finances, political attitudes, weight and other "hot topics", unless one knows the person very well. The practice, though, is not universal. I like the taboo on this one. :D
  18. The Italy one looks like more of a get-together place. I am interested more in the actual discussion than just connecting with people.
  19. How does one look into those? (I did only basic Google searches for forums and "groups", and did not come up with satisfying results.)
  20. ... in other languages? :bigear: By "like these", I do not mean necessarily predominately HS-ing and HS-related boards, I am okay even with more general places in which education (even if not specifically classical; and "general" parenting) is being discussed at least semi-seriously and where one can run into interesting discussions. I feel like I really wish to discuss some things with more people (since IRL things are more limited), but the perspective I need / want is the one of people largely educated in academic traditions other than the Anglo-American world. I feel like I have picked up most of the good ideas I needed to pick up from there, but now I need / want to move on somewhere closer to home. I accept all major Romance languages (incl. Portuguese because I can figure that out if it really interests me, but excl. Romanian), Greek, German, Hebrew. If you know of really interesting discussions beyond those, bring them up anyway, maybe I can find a way to get around the language barrier or point them out to somebody else. Posting this on the General Board because there is a greater circulation of people here than on the Bilingual Board. I am convinced something like that must exist, but obviously I am bad at finding it. TIA.
  21. This is definitely a part of the picture. Although my advice to the OP would be, naturally, to just disregard the scores on any tests, meet the kids where they are and build from there. They are hardly regressing, probably just being compared to a larger pool of kids, and then again, the percentile tests measure you against peers, not against your own previous record, so they are inadequate to measure "progress" - only specific points in time, a quick snapshot.
  22. I really want to take this conversation to the private sphere, but one point you brought up: There is something to it' date=' though.[/font'] In the past I have given the sample PISA exam questions to my two older girls, the older of whom has just turned 15, so they were both a bit below the actual age of taking PISA. Then we had a conversation about it. Now, you must understand that we do not do exclusively "school at home", i.e. what I do with my children is not a direct copy-paste of any school system in particular that we would follow by the book, but rather a mishmash of various things and traditions. It is, however, largely modeled after the Italian system, but with my own modifications (read: improvements). My children scorned the exam :lol:, their major complaint being the exact same "Anglo-American bias" that you mention. They, too, thought the test was inadequate in the modality of taking it, in the way questions were formed, and that it did not test concrete knowledge, but vague 'competences'. They also thought it was possible to guess one's way out (which would not be possible to do with a different format of the test and a more knowledge-based approach), although I must always take their opinion with a grain of salt, both being quite academically precocious, so to few of them peers the same things are "obvious". Throughout the years, I examined them the Italian way, all the way through, on the 10-point scale. I do strictly knowledge-based written exams, which are prerequisites for oral exams, and then on oral exams once we have "confirmed" the basis of concrete knowledge, I do other stuff (cross-curricular, interdisciplinary connections, application, all the other stuff that are a part of the learning process, but given the basics have been acquired and demonstrated). I think the MAJOR issue with the US school system is that it is not knowledge-based, but application-based. It emphasizes "higher order thinking skills" (what I mentioned earlier: non-linear connections outside the very same field, interdisciplinary reasoning, application to different kinds of situations, etc.), but at the expense of the solid base. You cannot "manipulate" an information you do not HAVE, when the context becomes complex enough (educationally, way past PISA stage). The fault of the Italian school system, when things are not done properly, is that it stops on the "lower order thinking skills" kind of teaching / testing: the reproduction becomes the point, the wider understanding is compromised by being trapped inside schematic thinking, and the whole of educational process boils down to learning the book and the lectures. However, not always it stops on the "mechanics" and "fluency in mechanics". Sometimes it goes much further than that - but the mechanics is a part of it and a certain level of concrete knowledge and fluent skill is expected, while not being the ultimate point. That is the kind of education I remember. :D "Concrete", knowledge-based, with a clearly spelled out program and expectations, but with the very upper range of grades incorporating ALL of the "competences" / application / divergent connections. That was the profile of an excellent, distinct student: a knowledge base integrated with the rest... although the rest was always perceived as a more of an individual thing, rather than a system thing. The point of the system was to provide the base more than to deal with the ways you can spread out from there and connect things - that was up to you. First things first. That is where the element of "home digestion" kicks in. It is a matter of mentality. You send a child to a school not for the *totality* of their education, but to get (i) get presented a structured base of knowledge; (ii) exercise educational breadth in order to get a generalized learning ability (which can later be applied to a variety of fields), and (iii) all of that to be done in a context where it is formalized. That is how it always presented to me. The point of school was NOT to "teach" you, strictly speaking - in terms of imparting the knowledge, thinking of all sorts of creative ways in which it may click with you, making sure every student is approached individually in ways unique to them... all of these are the Anglo-American inventions, not ours :D, in the context of a model of the school where school goes above and beyond "business only". That is why intervals / recess are cut down to a minimum, why extracurriculars typically take place outside of schools, why the actual digestion goes home with the student, rather than be the part of the process. School is the formal structure, not the education. It makes perfect sense once you present it in your mind that way. The problem is in efficiency because the teaching methods have remained, mentally, in the era of "reading from the book" and material being presented in a less interactive way. (We did have discussion periods, though. High school was very interactive, but maybe that was a mix of the age and the actual approach.) There I would like to see more diversity. I would, however, not like the school day to get longer due to revision / individualized approach / and all the "extras". I do think schools should be "business only", and that the actual responsibility for learning is up to students and families, not school. I would just like schools to do their own part - which, in my view, is probably limited as regards your view - better. In a more efficient way, with less time wasting, less reading from a book, less artsy and craftsy knowledge, better spaced out breaks (though they do exist in some schools, you know) to aid concentration, and cutting all the distraction to the minimum. That is what I did at home, so of course, I think that is how things ought to be done. I managed to teach my children both the Italian and the American "standard" base of knowledge every year, amplified, and with the early classics instruction, within that same school day. Of course, one on one type of education can never equal a classroom situation, but the inefficiency is still rampant, IMO. I tend to LIKE the Italian inefficiency in some general lifestyle things, but when it comes to schools, it tends to irk me. The US schools are horribly inefficient too, but unlike the Italian schools, they often have no clue what they want in the first place (no clear scope and sequence, clear benchmarks and goals, spelled out base of knowledge for promotion and failure, etc., except on the individual school levels in some cases), so it gets even "better" there. It is not the educational tradition and the baggage that is the problem. It is that it is not imparted well, because the newer generations of teachers have received a woefully inferior education themselves, and it is also partially the university reform. Liessman's book explains it perfectly - I do not have it here, though, nor my notes. Will summarize based on what I remember, but next time. Probably in that same PM response that I am taking ages to finish. I do not think the Italian system needs to become any more "anglo-americanized" than it already is. I think it needs to find its own way within its own tradition, which is knowledge-based, text-based, linear, from the bottom up, rather than some other learning traditions, as attested by the style of the higher level scholarship as well. And when done well, it is a legitimate academic tradition which has a LOT to offer, in a unique perspective. The same goes for Austria and their upheaval over PISA. We should both be dealing with failing standards - regardless of PISA and not specifically prompted by PISA either - within our own tradition. ETA: Just a clarification, to prevent confusion. I find a BIG difference between a general attitude of taking things home for "digestion", without much of a burden of a formal proof of that digestion / mastery - and burdening kids with insane amounts of homework. I am actually, in a way, principally opposed to much formal homework at all, I think most of what passes for homework should not be compulsory types of activities at all. I do think however that the element of studying needs to go both ways, not to be expected to be "done" at school - school is a starting point and a cohesive element, structurally, not the be all end all of students' learning.
  23. Well, my anecdotal experiences would confirm that, yes. An early / simultaneous acquisition of two systems, approximately to the same level, does wire a brain in some additional ways which generally easen flexible thinking (in terms of categories, just like the experiment with kids suggested). The brain also classifies those languages differently than the languages learned later in life, no matter how well one learned them - the primary system(s) are supposedly held in a separate part of the brain, and the whole "cognitive bilingual advantage" has to do with the fact that two languages are held there rather than one. After a certain "window of opportunity", though, the cognitive advantage of bilingualism of that type is no longer possible, because the brain begins to classify additionally learned languages in another part of the brain. Languages learned later in life still modify thinking and rewire the brain, as anything one does does, but it is different. In some types of brain trauma occasionally it happens that one temporarily loses one "set" of languages (whether the primary set or the latter additions), which is a further evidence into the sets being held separately. Those are all the "miraculous" cases of being temporarily unable to function in a native language, but being able to function in foreign languages, etc. Some physicians told me about it, but I do not know the nitty gritty details about that, only that it supports the theory of a physical separation of the two sets inside a brain.
  24. I was waiting for you to answer so that I can quote you and put :iagree:, LOL.
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