Does anyone know of free online videos that would go along with Jacobs Geometry 2nd edition? Thanks!

We liked these lectures. They are meant for high school, but my middle schoolers were able to understand them. This podcast episode by Phil Vischer about the origins of the universe is simple to understand. Here is a long video by John Walton, an Old Testament scholar, about his research. I'd suggest listening instead of watching since it's a bit cheesy visually! I like this introduction for middle school aged kids about the intersection of faith and science. (Follow the menu down the right side.) This is slightly off topic but this sermon series has at least one sermon on the topic. The Author of Life films are well done. And, yes, BioLogos has loads of information, including videos! I used this video of Bill Nye and Ken Ham touring the Ark Encounter as an example of what NOT to do. There was no true communication happening there. When talking with those we disagree with, we should listen in order to understand and not be so desperate to prove our point that we bulldoze over the other person.

THANK YOU, forty-two, for every one of those 10,000+ words! Truly. I've read through what you've written three times now, and I'm starting to understand a little better. I think especially this spiritual/immaterial/material distinction has A LOT to do with the many questions I've been facing for years. I need to read up on it more. Thank you for the book list! I've added many to my wish list. If you'd care to explain your view of sin, I'd love to hear it. No pressure, though! You've written enough for me to mull over for quite a while!

Thank you, Lisa! I appreciate hearing (reading) your thoughts. I may have something more to reply once I've had time to think through this more. (Maybe I can be a closet sacramentalist at a Presbyterian church! Lol. I'm also a wannabe Anabaptist. And I'd like Hillsong style music without the hype/lights/etc. and with lyrics that always have depth. I'm all over the place!!) Oh, I would love for you to dive into that one! You're welcome! I'm glad they've been so helpful to you!!

Thank you for this. It reminds me of what I've read from N.T. Wright. He is an Anglican, which I believe is also a sacremental group. Many evangelicals are reading him right now, and there seems to be a shift toward this way of thinking.

Could you give another example besides the soul for something that is immaterial but not spiritual? What you're saying about the spiritual not being separate from creation reminds me a bit of some things in John Walton's books on Genesis. He's a professor at Wheaton College, so I'm wondering if there are more evangelicals than you think who may think that way? Of course, He's also an Old Testament scholar, so he would be much more familiar with a pre-modern point of view than your average evangelical off the street.... This is so interesting. I'm taking it all in and am not ready yet to comment intelligently. I want to mull it all over and come back, though. Thank you for taking the time to write all of this out. This is a good reminder. Thank you. Lisa, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I see that your signature says you are an Orthodox Christian. Do you see your beliefs on this topic aligning more closely with the Catholic and Lutheran perspectives represented here than what you know of Protestant beliefs? Do you agree that a sacramental view of reality makes virtue ethics non-problematic?

Thank you so much, everyone, for fleshing this out for me. You're taking my foggy thoughts and making them sharper. Would you mind listing the best resources you've come across? This is an interesting topic to me. OK, I have no idea what your last paragraph means, but I'm gonna keep trying! Lol My religious experiences have all fallen within the non-sacramental Protestant category, and your explanations do sound like what I've always heard. I'm very interested in other views, though. We are currently at a Presbyterian church which definitely teaches that huge separation between spiritual salvation and physical good works. We don't consider ourselves Reformed/Calvinist, but I can see how the theology is making this topic difficult for me to wrap my mind around. I have no understanding of a sacramental view of reality, and I have no idea how to NOT equate the immaterial and the spiritual. (If you have more to share on that, I'd love to hear it!) I'm really stuck right now in trying to figure out how to handle the issues of failure and sinfulness and virtue and grace with my kids. We deal with perfectionism and pride and selfishness and laziness, etc. every day (as I'm sure all families do), and I sure wish I had a solid foundation to stand on when speaking with my kids about it. Not at all! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, as they are helping to bring clarity for me! I appreciate you stepping in with the Catholic point of view since I'm so unfamiliar with it.

I have a sense that you answered all my questions here, ... if I can only understand it! I'm gonna keep reading this and look into the book you mentioned, too. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

Such good thoughts. Thank you, everyone! I posted this same question on a private Facebook group, too, and it led to quite a bit of interesting discussion. I'm going to copy and paste some things I wrote there to see if any of you have more to say... Maybe I just like the word virtue better than character since I don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to it as much as to the former? It does seem, though, that there is a difference in the tone between the two. Character makes me think of trying to be a good little Christian girl (moralism). That gives me an “ick†feeling inside because that’s what I excelled at when I was younger and it led nowhere but pride. When I hear these people from Circe and Classical Academic Press, etc. talk about virtue, it just seems different somehow. I haven’t yet put my finger on exactly how, though. So, here is an example of what I would consider moralism (and where I have a negative gut reaction to the word character) The Good and the Beautiful Level 3 Sample This is a sample of The Good and the Beautiful curriculum that I keep seeing praised everywhere. I really like the look of it (and that it’s free!) except that I think her conception of what teaching the Good and Beautiful should look like is very different from mine somehow. Specifically I’m talking about pages 18 and 87. Something about that just makes me get that “ick†feeling inside when I read it. I couldn’t pull off reading that to my kids. Maybe because I was so steeped in legalism and moralism when I was young I’m overly sensitive to it now? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ____________, I really like your last sentence. Maybe that is why the Circe/CAP people talk about using story so much. And not moralizing. (I'm thinking specifically about Andrew Kern here, but also maybe Andrew Pudewa, and Adam Andrews/Center for lit people) "Living" a story along with a main character who has flaws and struggles to overcome them seems like a more genuine and appealing way to learn and love virtue. And, yes, I agree that the heavy handed approach does seem tacky. It lacks what I think Andrew Kern would call incarnation. And it doesn't seem like a good way to develop love for a thing. Andrew Kern on moralizing... Moralizing Stories How to Avoid Moralizing Stories (and Why It's Important) How Do You Avoid Moralizing a Morality Tale? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I wonder if this trouble with character/virtue training vs moralism is more of a problem for Protestants than Catholics (and Orthodox?). I’m getting that sense. Is it because of the Protestant focus on being saved by grace and not by works? Are we (protestants) hyper-sensitive to anything that looks like works-based righteousness? I really don’t know much about Catholic doctrine, so I’m stepping into unknown waters here. Catholics, please correct any mistakes I make here. Or could it possibly be the difference between WHEN Protestants and Catholics believe a person is regenerated. Catholics believe that happens at infant baptism, I think. Protestants believe it happens when a grown person hears the call of the Holy Spirit and makes a conscious choice to follow Jesus. (I know there are myriad ways to express this and I’m sure I haven’t done it to every Protestant’s satisfaction here, but I’m focusing specifically on the TIME in life that this happens.) So. from the Catholic perspective, one is baptized into the Faith and is already covered by grace, and a pursuit of virtue is the process of partnering with God as one grows in faith. And from the Protestant perspective, we can’t know someone else’s heart so we can’t be sure that our children are already “in†(sorry if that seems coarse). Therefore we aren’t guaranteed that the process of sanctification has already started in our children. (I believe that is a premise of the book Give Them Grace, if I remember correctly.) And, if the process of sanctification hasn't already begun, then any virtue/character formation that happens is an opportunity for our children to feel like they can be "good" on their own and not realize their need for salvation. Thoughts? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also, if someone were to ask you (or any Catholic), "Why do I need Jesus?" What would the answer be? I think for most protestants the answer would begin with something about being a sinner. And, with that as a premise, virtue training (training someone to be less sinful, essentially) could potentially be a bad thing if it causes one to not see him/herself as a sinner. Virtue training could make the premise seem false, which would make the conclusion about needing Christ false as well. I believe this is what ________________ was saying above. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If we need God's grace to grow in virtue, then how do you explain those who are virtuous without being followers of Jesus? It seems like their lives are proof that it is possible without God. - Not that perfection is possible - though maybe the ancients believed that theoretically, I'm not sure - but that being a virtuous person is possible. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ironically, Center for Lit just did a podcast this week on this very subject. I'd been wondering what their thoughts were since they are very Protestant with a strong focus on man's sinfulness. Here's the link for anyone interested: Educating for Virtue And a few other links from Classical educators about virtue education: The Liturgical Classroom and Virtue Formation by Jenny Rallens Intellectual Virtues by Christopher Perrin Mimetic Teaching and the Cultivation of Virtue by Andrew Kern Why (and How) Memory Cultivates Virtue by Jenny Rallens The Centrality of Virtue in the Ancient View of Education by David Diener

I’m intrigued by all I’m hearing/reading on virtue training within Classical circles lately (Circe/Andrew Kern, Classical Academic Press/Christopher Perrin, etc.). But I have some questions… What exactly are virtues? How do they differ from the fruit of the Spirit? DO they differ? If not, why does the Bible say the fruit of the Spirit comes from God (Spirit), yet those in the Classical Christian tradition are saying that virtues are trained and built through human effort? How is virtue training different from moralism? Anyone have insight, resources, etc.?

UPDATE: I met with the girl and her mom yesterday! It went well! I was wrong about the ACT. It is the PERT test that they want her to take. So she'll only need to get through Algebra 1. I've decided I don't like Math U See. From what I can tell, not enough time is spent on mental math, he teaches multiplication via skip counting (which doesn't work for kids who can't do rote memorizing well), and I prefer the way beast academy teaches the multiplication algorithm. The girl is very sweet and willing to learn. She did struggle to subtilize when younger. She now has dot patterns memorized. She struggles remembering a list of numbers (numerals) if she can't write it down. She struggles with algorithm steps. Very unsure about multiplication facts. Has difficulty with time and measurement. She says the numbers on the clock are wrong somehow. I sensed some math anxiety and low self-esteem, which makes sense considering the circumstances. Digit span seems within normal range. I might still have her work on that, though. She has facts to 10 memorized and knows how to cross over/bridge ten because of using RightStart years ago before they switched to MUS. (Though she had been trying to do the addition algorithm in her head for mental math which would cause a working memory overload) We worked on mental addition (adding tens then ones) with the MUS blocks, mostly within 100 but some larger. She did great. Then we moved on to multiplying by 4. I taught her to say "of" when she sees a multiplication symbol so that she would grab 4 of the 7 rod for 4x7. Then split it in two pieces. Figure out 2x7. Then double that. We worked up to problems like 21x4 and 53x4 (with blocks and drawings). We did a few x8 problems. We talked about and modeled the commutative property. It was actually quite enjoyable working with a young adult! No fidgeting. Lots of motivation. Good articulation about needs and understanding. The mom told me today that the daughter said she really understood what we did, so I'm anticipating future sessions going well, too. If anyone has more insight now that I have more information, I'd love to hear it!

Hey everybody, does it matter which edition of BCM I get? EDIT: Looked it up on the forums. I ordered the 7th edition plus solution manual.

I was thinking of having her do 1-1.5 hours per day of some type of homework. I'm not sure if she'd make much progress with just 15 minutes per day. I like the idea of using Khan, too, though. And teaching ahead of what she's practicing.

Thank you! This is helpful. I'm going to buy BCM.

I'll pass this info on to the mom. Thank you!!

Yes, I agree that it seems unrealistic. Since I haven't actually met with her yet, though, I'm waiting to make any solid judgments about the situation for now. We'll see what happens. No matter what, I'm gonna do the best I can to help her out!

Thank you! I think this was the one I'd read when we made the videos. I just ordered it through interlibrary loan.

I forgot about MEP! I'll definitely check this out. Thank you!

Another thing I'm thinking over is whether there are some topics that are okay to skip over and, if so, what they are. I'm so used to teaching every tiny little thing to mastery. But does she really need to know how to add 99 (or 98 or 199) in her head? Is it alright to help her understand the long multiplication and long division algorithms and why they work but not go bigger than numbers in the thousands place? She can use a calculator for the big numbers. It seems like the benefit of learning those algorithms is really just to gain greater number sense about the distributive property. Otherwise it seems like a waste of time when we have calculators at our fingertips all the time. I mean, my kids use Beast Academy and AoPS. There are lots of things in there that the average kid doesn't NEED to learn. I guess I need to get clear on what are the bare necessities....

Thank you for helping me think through this. :) According to the mom, the daughter is a visual and kinesthetic learner. So I'm counting on the MUS blocks to help a lot. I've used Cuisenaire rods to teach for years, including kids with dyscalculia - though they were elementary age - and I looked through a couple Ronit Bird books when I was making the videos in my signature, so I'm pretty confident that I can help her. I have a friend who teaches high school level math that I can hand her off to if necessary, but it really sounds like the girl is struggling with the foundational basics, so that will have to be dealt with first.

I haven't begun working with her yet, so no placement tests have been taken! I just sent her mom a message asking why they switched from MUS to Life of Fred. She is currently working through LoF PreA with Physics. All three of the girls in the family (other two are 10th and 8th grade) are in PreAlgebra right now. I know their mom struggles with math, so I'm not sure if it's the instruction that's been lacking or if they all have math learning disabilities. The mom is going to get the 18yo tested soon to see if she can get accommodations for when she takes the ACT/SAT. Would that show whether or not and what type of learning disabilities she has? Why do you think the curricula I own wouldn't work for someone with math learning disabilities? What curricula would you recommend? EDIT: The mom just texted back to say MUS got confusing, and then they had a family issue and just switched to LoF. I guess I'll have to find out more in person once we start tutoring.