We have already discussed ds travelling by container ship through the Panama canal to Boston, if AirNZ is not flying. 🙂 Hoping for in person classes!

Well, it is done. Elimination in NZ. Just listened to the conference, and the PM and Director of Health said that on the eve of lifting the level 4 lockdown and moving to level 3 tomorrow, we have eliminated Covid19. Elimination from an epidemiological standpoint is not eradication (the extinction in a region), rather it is where *all* cases are known, tracked, and managed. For the past week, we have had all new cases in known clusters and in single digits (today it was 1 confirmed). Zero positive cases in 6000 tests each day of asymptomatic people for the past week. Borders locked with all returning kiwis in guarded quarantine facilities for 14 days. Contact tracing ramped up to be able to handle 10,000 calls/day. So tomorrow we loosen our lockdown. We will now be able to shop on line and have carry out! Whoo Hoo! However, for 2 more weeks at least, we will all be working from home unless you cannot work from home (construction workers, cooks, plumbers, gardeners, online-shops filling orders etc). And now we will be allowed to swim, surf, mountain bike, play tennis, golf, hunt! But still no boating, quad bikes, or driving out of your locality. Schools have opened for essential workers or families who need them. But the PM has asked for anyone who can keep their kids home to do so. My 1st-grade teacher friend helped her school call all the families and they will have 8 kids out of 210 attend next week. All other families are doing as asked, and continuing to stay home! We are allowed to enlarge our bubble now to include a caregiver, isolated individuals, or partners who live separately. But it must stay exclusive. We have been asked to track all people we come in contact with each day to help with contact tracing if required. These rules are for our LOWER level lockdown! In 2-4 weeks, we will completely open back up but with restrictions on the size of gatherings and continued border closure.

My older ds recommended Anna Karenina. I know nothing about it. Would it work? Not on the teacher list, but maybe she knows it.

We actually just realized that Heathcliff has ambiguous class standing like Jane Eyre. Which might be fun to bring in a male perspective. Does he try to conform? Does he know how to conform? Do his peers know if he has conformed or not if the requirements are ambiguous. So P&P, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights. Just need one more.

Thanks Lori! Actually, DS feels like his focus has always been conformity, and doesn't care if that is mob psychology or class structure. The teachers have finally made it clear that it is easier to make a more nuanced comparison if the works are more similar, otherwise the differences you see can be too large to be meaningful. I think that the teacher might need to know the books, which is why she said any by Austen or the Brontes would be fine because she knows them well. I do like your American set, though! I know them better than the British set. DS will be using P&P for his final exam in November, so it makes sense to revolve this paper around a similar set. He is OK with it. So ds is considering these 3 lenses now: 1) Psychological: Humiliation, ridicule, and shame as driving forces to conform. Also, social acceptance. 2) Sociological: Scandal was a big thing. If you didn't conform, it would stain your entire family. So the girls conformed because to avoid stigma of their loved ones. 3) Socio-Economic: How did conformity requirements differ by class? How nonconformist could you be and still stay within the requirements of your class? So we are going for P&P. But we need a book with a scandal, and a book with characters of a slightly different socio-economic class than those in P&P. So out of the Austen/Bronte books, which one might help him with his 3 lenses? Thanks for going on this journey with us! We have learned a lot and had many good discussions. We have also watched a ton of awesome movies. So it has been a bit long-winded. But still fun! He has 10 weeks to read the books (or watch the movies), and then write the paper.

Ok, in the ongoing saga, it has finally become clear that we do really need to keep to one time period. If we go with Lord of the Flies, then she is recommending 1984, Brave New World, and Handmaiden's tale. This is really not OK with my ds who hates dark depressing books. Really hates them. So we are going to do conformity on books like Pride and Prejudice. She said we could pick any from Austen and the Brontes. So which of those 10 books focuses the most on conformity but also hits this theme in different ways so ds has something to talk about. I'm thinking Wuthering Heights would be pretty hard to do even though I love that book. Thoughts?

So we have just sent this list to the teacher. Theme of study: Conformity Books: Lord of the Flies Huck Finn Scarlet Letter Pride and Prejudice 3 lenses for evaluation 1) Compliance (group acceptance) 2) Identity 3) Internalization We will see what she says....

Thanks guys! You have given me lots of ways to rethink the paper. I'll talk to ds about an era to focus on. He has read some of these books, so I think he use that knowledge to pick a focus. You guys brought up a bunch I had not thought of that he has read. One of the things we have to do is attack the issue of conformity through 3 different lenses. The examples we were given were: psychology, sociology, philosophy, mental health, economic, feminist, political etc. I'm a bit confused as to how to do this, but basically sounds like he needs to have 3 sections of his paper and each section needs to use one lens to compare/contrast the books through his theme on conformity. I can see a psychological lens - why individuals need to be accepted or need an identity. And I can see a sociological role with conformity helping with stability or even class differentiation (although I think this would be very hard to write). But I'm a bit stumped on the third lens. Clearly it would depend on the books. Thoughts? Any high level movies on Conformity?

We have gotten more clarity as to what is expected. DS needs to expand out of mob psychology because it is too mucky. He has decided to focus on conformity. He also needs to attack the topic from 3 different lenses - so psychology (point of view of individual), political or sociological (point of view of society), and one other lens. We have been kicking around the issue of conformity with Pride and Prejudice and Lord of the Flies, but now need more books or movies on this topic. The teacher said it would be easier (but not required) to focus on 4 works in the same time period, which clearly LotF and P&P are not. Can you guys help us find books of a high level that deal with issues of conformity. He is not that interested in state control, although he is considering Brave New World from the point of view of conformity. The Wave and The Lottery were deemed too low level, so we need something with depth but not University level (so not War and Peace or something).

If you want advice on original, mind-expanding course ideas, start a new thread. There are a number of us on this board who have kids who have been accepted into top colleges with home-made courses.

NZ is doing autopsies on anyone who might have died of covid. 1 of our 12 deaths was identified after death. And 3 of out 12 deaths were in people who were already in hospice and they were still listed as covid deaths.

haha. I believe it. Australia has less to gain.

I'm hearing chattering here in the news that if Australia, NZ and Singapore can bring things under control, that they may resume flights between those three countries. 8 cases for us today, all in known clusters. 1000 random community tests in 'hot spot' areas with 0 positives.

I very much appreciate your thoughts. DS loves movies more than books (sigh), and to get him excited about reading a bunch of books, we are starting to get into the topic by way of movies. But he is struggling with the intensity of the visuals in the movies. He has no issues discussing real-life situations, that is part of why he is interested in this topic. But he apparently likes *discussing* NOT *watching*. I'm just coming to realize this. So moving forward, we only watch tame movies, but we can read more difficult books and discuss difficult topics. Just no visuals. He is really loving this topic, and we have only been doing it for 3 days. So far so good!

Yes! It is very helpful. Thanks, Lori! We just got one third of the way through 1993 Crucible movie this morning and abandoned it. Way way WAY too intense. We will instead try to read the play as a family, each taking a separate part. I think part of the problem is the visuals. Next up is the Ox Bow Incident, and since it was made in the 40s, I think we will be OK. DS has read Lord of the Flies many years ago and liked it then. Maybe he has gotten more sensitive over time as he realizes how real things can be, or maybe he is just having trouble with the images of moving pictures. I'll go look at House of Stairs, because from your description, it sounds fascinating. We are also starting to kick around how someone gets indoctrinated. In The Wave and Lord of the Flies, we watch the indoctrination process, but in The Crucible and Fahrenheit 451 the people are already indoctrinated. Started us thinking. Do you know any other books/movies where we can see the indoctrination process in action?

Just an FYI to understand the scale of contact tracing required, NZ has needed about 180 people to effectively trace 60 cases a day.

Retin A topical creams are known to make it worse for about 1 month before clearing it up. It kind of brings all the underlying problem spots to the surface which you then see as more acne. But then no new ones form.

I loved that book, but I don't think my ds can actually understand it. The themes/situations may be just too adult.

This is exactly the problem my ds is having. He has SO MUCH work to do. SO MUCH. Like 12 hours a day. And he has lost all the joy that came from living on campus surrounded by others working just as hard. It is the interactions you listed above that make working so hard a joy. (deleted the detail) He works alone in his room all day and all night, and he is starting to get really stressed as the work builds up. Everything is just so much slower when he has to do it alone, and the stress is so much greater because he has lost his entire support system.

We live in a block of flats in the city with each apartment at about 600sq ft. My upstairs neighbor is a professor and has a 1.5 and 4 year old. 'Luckily' for her, her dh lost his job due to lockdown so can take care of the kids. But these kids are unable to leave her alone for 8 hours a day for her to work because the flat is so small. So she has been sitting outside at the BBQ table every day for 8 hours. We live in the windiest city in the world and we are currently in autumn, so we are talking about an average of 35mph winds and about 50-60 degrees. The table is somewhat sheltered, so might be just 10mph winds down there. When I went out to check on her, she not only had a hat and a coat on, she had a full rug wrapped around her back. When it rains, she records her lectures from her car.

I've put it on the list I'm sending her tomorrow. Last week, I sent her a list with it on it, and she never mentioned it. She suggested 1984 and Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 (which weren't on our list). I'm not sure she understood at the time ds's themes, because ds was quite vague about it as we hadn't started watching the movies yet. But I am also worried that there is some list that he has to pick 3 books from and then only the 4th can be 'off list.' She has sent us a 'senior reading list' but I need to ask if ds has to pick off of it. I didn't think so.

Thanks Lori! I'm not sure he can handle the House of Stairs. I've not read it, but it sounds scary! Do the kids for a mob or turn on each other? What I read on Wikipedia, it looked like mostly getting into each kid's head independently. As for Crane Pond, I think we will do The Crucible instead as the teacher has already agreed to that one. He watched the Monsters Twilight Zone last night and found it both scary and very believable.

Thanks for these. He has read To Kill a Mockingbird, and although he likes it, he is more interested in a full book about mob formation if possible. As for Far from the Madding Crowd - I'll check it out. I'm not a fan of Hardy, but that doesn't mean ds won't be. 🙂

I'll bring up both short stories. She said she would consider them in the context of the full reading list.

Good point. Unfortunately, I've lent that book out and now we are in lockdown. 😞