Mitsumasa Anno Hans Magnus Enzensberger Martin Gardner ... in pretty much that order.

Congratulations! I hope you're enjoying Highet. The Art of Teaching was a book I read at the outset of our homeschooling journey, and it was a strong influence on my approach to education.

This morning finished 29. Hardy, Jude the Obscure. While Hardy's not-so-subtle intention is that the reader should feel that the legal, social, and religious strictures on marriage should be done away with, so that the characters might be happy, all I could think was how very badly all these people needed therapy. I found the early sections of Jude, where Hardy critiques the social and institutional obstacles to an intellectual life that perpetuate the class system, much more interesting. A famous passage, in which Jude, after years of self-taught Latin and Greek, has just been denied entrance to Christminster university and advised to stick to manual labor: --------------- At ten o'clock he came away, choosing a circuitous route homeward to pass the gates of the College whose Head had just sent him the note. The gates were shut, and by an impulse, he took from his pocket the lump of chalk which as a workman he usually carried there, and wrote along the wall: 'I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these?'--Job xii.3.

I read Flowers in the Attic in 6th grade like evryone else. I bought the sequel and started it; my mom found it, skimmed it, and told me that if I let her throw it away she'd pay me back for it. I was happy enough to agree as I'd quickly discovered it was atrocious tripe. I never told her I'd already found and read her hidden copy of Fear of Flying.

One could make the reverse argument. Parents often show up at homeschool meetings after the beginning of the year whose children are sick to their stomach in dread of school each morning, or have shown severe behavioral changes, or who are being bullied, or who, despite promises from the school, aren't being given the assistance they need. Often these things started gradually the previous year, but it took the summer break, with the kids being happy and normal, followed by the shock of school and all the bad stuff returning, to rid the parents of the illusion that This Year Things Will Be Different. Anyway these parents are often hesitant to pull their children out of a bad situation without sufficient planning. Veteran homeschoolers often urge them to pull the child now, and plan as you go. It can be more important to stop something that's damaging than to keep on out of fear of not being ready enough, or looking silly because you've barely started the school year.

28. The Odes of Pindar. Trans. Richard Lattimore That was some difficult poetry. I asked dh, who acquired some Greek in college, whether Greek poetry was really written in long, complex, highly allusive sentences, and he assured me it was. -------------------------- Mother of games, gold-wreathed, Olympia, mistress of truth where men of prophecy by burning victims probe the pleasure of Zeus of the shining thunderbolt, what story he has for folk who strain in spirit to capture magnificence of strength and space to breathe after work's weariness: his will is steered by men's prayers to favor of piety. --from "Olympia 8"

Thanks, friends; I didn't realize they were common, I thought they were kind of a specialty item. Good.

Reading the thread on what to put on a medical bracelet, it occurred to me to wonder if medical personnel would hesitate to treat a child with a medical-looking bracelet on. Here's what Wee Girl wears: http://www.roadid.com/kids/ Firstname "Name.I.go.by" Lastname Mom's cell: (555) 555-5555 Dad's cell: (555) 555-5555 Non-verbal No known allergies I got it for her after an unpleasant incident with a LEO who decided a child her age who couldn't confirm her identity was reason for suspicion. And if she got lost, she wouldn't be able to give ID or contact information. But if she ended up needing medical care, I don't want the ID bracelet to raise unnecessary concerns that there might be any medical problems and lead to withholding treatment until they have a parent on the phone. Should I worry? More than I already do?

I've been reading a very interesting book, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, and one thing that stands out is how the Edwardian public schools that were opened after the educational reform and compulsory education laws managed a near-100% literacy and arithmetical competency rate, despite class sizes of 50 or more mixed-age and -ability students, and home lives in which parents were not only generally unsupportive but often hostile to education. Parents saw reading, especially, as a waste of time for boys that would be going to work in the coal pit at 14.

Yes, exactly it. Glorifying God in all things. Somtimes it turns out to be just the things we thought were too trivial even to think about that suddenly turn into the challenges to our love of God and our neighbor. Like cupcakes. ;)

Absolutely. Latin, and the particular sentiment expressed, belong to all. :)

There aren't any female Jesuits, as Jesuits, unlike most other religious orders, are all ordained as priests. I'm not aware of any third orders affiliated with them, though I could be wrong, and there's the youth service group Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Or maybe she was taught by Jesuits. The AMDG acronym has caught on in recent years among some Catholics as a way of dedicating one's written work to God. It's a combination of the practice of students in Jesuit schools of writing AMDG at the beginning of their papers, and of the devotion in which one dedicates one's daily work, no matter how prosaic, to God. Personally, I think it's not a bad idea to give oneself some reminder before posting on the internet that one's words must be written in charity and truth.

South by Southwest! Austin! March 7-16! Get your wristbands now! Really, if you like live music, film, and general celebratoriness: SXSW.

It is bright, dry, and 102 degrees here and we're all lying on floors or sofas, prostrate from the heat, reading books and sweating as the AC fights its losing battle. A day to immerse yourself in a book until you forget it's Texas in August. ;) Muchos gracias for your Borges link. That was fantastic. I'd had no idea he was so interested in A-S poetry. I couldn't resist the copy of The Book of Imaginary Beings for 50 cents at the used bookstore (the clerk looked at the brown, brittle pages and hoped I wasn't planning to read it more than once), so more Borges I think this year.

27. Leonardo Sciascia, To Each His Own. Light and engaging reading. Technically a mystery, but not of the whodunit genre; it's not a puzzle for the reader to solve. The interest isn't in the clues, but in the people of the Sicilian community and their reactions to the murders, to the police investigation, and to the inquiries of the 'detective.' Making progress in various other books, and have added Jude the Obscure. Not much reading time lately. Just for the heck of it, here's what various family members are reading: Wee Girl: Carolyn Haywood, Eddie Makes Music. (She couldn't resist the picture of the little girl playing the cello on the front cover.) http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/B000NPQ07O Middle Girl: Howard Pyle, The Garden Behind the Moon http://www.amazon.com/The-Garden-Behind-Moon/dp/0765342421/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1 Great Girl: Winston Churchill, The Gathering Storm http://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Storm-Second-World-War/dp/039541055X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378091454&sr=1-2&keywords=The+gathering+storm Mr. Crown: William Gresham, Nightmare Alley http://www.amazon.com/Nightmare-Alley-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590173481/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378091562&sr=1-1&keywords=William+gresham

We just had this happen today. Last week our Earthlink account was hijacked by a spammer using it as a spoofed address, so we got flooded daily with all the bouncebacks, 50+ each day. The Earthlink FAQ said to just wait, and after a week Earthlink noticed and changed the password to the account. Dh had to do a live chat with the Earthlink rep to get the new password - they couldn't e-mail us a notification, obviously.

Congratulations, Emma! I love books that get one fired up about teaching.

So that's what happened to my best bookmark-thong.

This must be the same phenomenon that attracts me to sea adventure literature. I can't even tolerate a bus ride, and just looking at a boat bobbing on the water turns me quite green. Terra firma, plus my imagination, will do for me.

Yowza! What's next?

Legal advice on-line is generally worth what you pay for it. In fact it's often worse than nothing, as armchair attorneys can sound very convincing as they send you down the wrong path entirely. Further, I'd worry about the liability the moderators could be opening themselves up to. It's one thing to host a forum where people happen to give out bad legal advice; it's quite another to create a sub-forum explicitly for the purpose of offering legal advice. Finally, I wasn't aware that homeschoolers with special needs had any particular rights or entitlements, beyond those they may enjoy locally. Frankly, I don't want the Lidless Eye of the federal, state, county, or city governments turning toward my little family and feeling it ought to be making decisions about how (or if) my little girl with special needs is homeschooled and/or how her particular needs are dealt with.

Stoked Veg out Burn! Excellent (1) Mr Burns style, rubbing hands together: Eeeeeexcellent. Excellent (2) Bill & Ted style: That was like totally excellent dude.

Hey! I'll have you know I'm reading this right now: http://www.amazon.com/Each-York-Review-Books-Classics/dp/0940322528/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377627170&sr=1-1 Not even fifty years old. See??? I can be adaptable.

I've read 5 of Stacia's seafaring book list (A High Wind in Jamaica, In Hazard, Treasure Island, Master and Commander [and the rest of the series, twice], and Moby Dick), and watched Das Boot a few times. Which last shouldn't count on a book list, but there it was. Middle Girl wanted to know why the Swallows and Amazons series wasn't on it, nor Captains Courageous. Now there's a girl who knows a lanyard from a halyard. Zero on Paisley Hedgehog's campus novels, but I'm pretty sure dh the academic has read 9 of them. And only 8 on the 50 must-reads list, though there should be extra credit for the number of times I've read Outside Over There. Finished Chekhov for my 26th book this evening, putting me at my yearly goal, so everything from here is gravy! ---------------------- http://www.amazon.com/Plays-Penguin-Classics-Anton-Chekhov/dp/0140440968/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377567525&sr=1-2&keywords=Chekhov+plays+penguin TROFIMOV. What were we talking about? GAYEV. About pride. TROFIMOV. We talked a lot yesterday, but we didn't agree on anything. The proud man, in the sense you understand him, has something mystical about him. Maybe you're right in a way, but if we try to think it out simply, without being too far-fetched about it, the question arises - why should he be proud? What's the sense in being proud when you consider that Man, as a species, is not very well constructed physiologically, and, in the vast majority of cases is coarse, stupid, and profoundly unhappy, too? We ought to stop all this self-admiration. We ought to - just work. GAYEV. You'll die just the same, whatever you do. (from "The Cherry Orchard")

All of my girls have loved this Tolstoy collection: http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Stories-Legends-Leo-Tolstoy/dp/039491614X