The context in which I hear about stressed out, burned out kids is when they are compelled to attend a school with a busy schedule and super high standards. They kid can't quit and the teacher also has to stick with the program. You, on the other hand, can stop whenever you want and hang out at the park, go fishing, or drop down to a half day schedule if you think that's what you need to do. And you can then pick things back up when everyone is refreshed and ready to go. If your kids seem happy, they ARE happy. Trust your instincts that they are just fine and be flexible when they need a break. Everything is going to be fine, you'll see.

No. But perhaps it's not just basic adult literacy that special interest groups and leaders are interested in: Take Mary Ann Corely and her impeccable career and credentials for example: Her interests in teaching the teachers are that they, " Have the "courage to teach" antiracist and anticlassist curricula ...provide professional development for instructors to help them explore issues of poverty, racism, cultural dominance, power, and internalized oppression " As she says, this can't be instutionalized over night, but if she has enough money she could probably achieve her social goals quicker.

Here is a copy of Aristotle's Physics online. You can compare the text to the books that you have to see if it's the same thing. Otherwise, there is your free copy :-)

In fact there are few things some people love more than being offended. And some people do not get offended by statements directed at them personally. In fact, they don’t even have a problem making offensive statements about other groups and people not even on this board. As a rule, some posters strongly prefer to get offended on behalf of other people. On some internet forums (surely not this one!) to accuse someone of being offensive usually has the effect of silencing the person, of getting him or her to quit. This usually works because the "offensive" statement is usually a minority opinion. John Stuart Mill says that it is often those whose opinions are part of the majority ones that rely on invective to silence their interlocutors. So what offends me? Someone who responds with the "how dare you/shut up" card played by being offended rather than examining and challenging the assertion with "how so?" or "what do you mean by that?". Furthermore, censoring ourselves lest we be accused of offending someone, has the negative side effect of ruining otherwise interesting conversations. In the words of one blogger:

Since the author of that article is into diversity then he'll be happy to welcome my dissenting opinion. That is the biggest piece of hypocritical politically correct self congratulatory clap trap that I've read in a long time. The charge of social elitism against graduates of the Ivys has been around for as long as I can remember, but don't fear, this author is different. We know this because he told us so. And despite accusations that "being smart isnt the same as being an intellectual" he informs us that he is enlightened about this as well. Who could hope for more? He's got his elite education, a trophy job, and is not only socially aware but he's ALSO an intellectual! "Since the idea of the intellectual emerged in the 18th century, it has had, at its core, a commitment to social transformation." No. Plato originated the idea of the philospoher king, the intellectual. That goes much further back. "I’ve been struck, during my time at Yale, by how similar everyone looks. " Judging people on the basis of their clothing. I can't think of how much superficial it can get. Is a this profound or intellectual insight? One can find high school drop outs doing as much. "The tyranny of the normal must be very heavy in their lives. " And yet Yale, Harvard, and Princeton graduates are anything but normal in their academic and intellectual lives, including insights and solutions in the fields of medicine, business, politics, economics, math, etc. Maybe MLK was right, it's the content of their character and ideas that count. "A pretty good description of an elite college campus, including the part about never being allowed to feel alone. What did my students think of this, I wanted to know? What does it mean to go to school at a place where you’re never alone? " Another English professor substituting therapy in lieu of literature. Nice. "What happens when busyness and sociability leave no room for solitude? The ability to engage in introspection," I know the answer to this one. You get online and exchange hundreds of posts and emails with people and talk about how much sad it is that OTHER people have no room for solitude. More than likely he's earning the average of what any Ivy Leager does, upwards of 150,000 and sitting around his university office and feeling guilty about all the problems in the world and to make himself feel better he likes to be socially aware of things. Now that he is an enlightened Ivy graduate no one can accuse him of doing anything wrong. Political correctness isn't about changing the world or actually rectifying real problems it's about acting in such a way that no one can accuse you of having contributed to those problems. Like Eurthyphro trying to pinpoint the defintion of piety, this author abdicates all reason in his claims for secular piety. (Socrates then asked Euthyphro if the gods are good because they are holy or if they are holy because they are good). Now if only this secular Eurthyphro will instruct me on what true morality is (don't dress like everyone else!) then I will become his convert.

"Such examples do not belong in a Logic program, unless it is pointed to as a statement that falls into the category of "scientifically unprovable" Neither science nor religion belong in a logic class. You don't use logic to prove scientific facts you use empircal evidence to prove scientific assertions. Of course we all use logic to derive a priori results that might be very related to either science or religion. Religion has every bit as much of a claim in your logic class as science does but more accurately neither has any place since both religion and science are a posteriori (In fact, some religionists think that religion is a priori and in that sense it would have more of a place in a logic course than science.) If we apply the condition of "scientifically provable" to the premises which must be used in a logic course then math itself would be left out. Assertions in math are not proved via the scientific method and "science" because math is a priori. I am not a religious person, but neither am I some sort of secular positivist. Ironically, it would seem that even in our acceptance of a definition of what it means for something to be true or false we can not escape cultural warfare: Here is how the reliance of science is characterized by a site on atheism and agnosticism: This definition of empiricism: If one were uninformed in such matters one might assume a false dichotomy of religion/science exists. It is not that there is anything "wrong" with science, it is what it is. However, to the surprise of many modern empiricists there is an alternative to both "faith" and "science" as the means to justified true belief, and that is rationalism. And as it turns out it is rationalism that is the basis of Western thought via Plato's Academy. As Whitehead said, "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. " To be frank, empiricists and postivists are going to be very unhappy with the low priority that science, a practical field, plays in a classical education which has always exalted philosophy, logic, and the humanities due to a reliance on rationalism and the fact that a classical education has almost by definition been about "paideia" (rather than mechanical trades and skills which is the outcome of an education base in science) and it was in fact, the rise of the emphasis on empiricism a way of acquiring knowledge and the result of an emphasis on the practical scientific education which brought about the downfall of classical education beginning about the middle of the 19th century onwards. Science and modern languages are the alternative to classical education. (See Diane Ravitch's Century of Failed School Reforms and Tracy Lee Simmon's Climbing Parnassus) Kant (recommended reading in Well Trained Mind) is in direct contradistinction to the empiricism of Hume. Lest we be too dismissive of the role of logic in Islam, the influence of rationalism can be seen on Islamic theological considerations. It isn't necessarily just about some sort of theological axe to grind, but ultimately about figuring out vexing open issues. PS. I still think Cothran is wrong about his overemphasis of Aristotelian logic. (cough cough, for those who know what I'm talking about) and falsely identifies modern logic with science in general rather than with rationalism. The connection between the cultural war, science, logic, and religion Modern logic was in fact developed by positivists like Bertrand Russell in the hopes that he could in some profound sense show that math is really just an extension of logic and even if he failed Hilbert was right behind him saying that math was formalizable and that all the results of math could be formally derived based on a relatively small set of consistent axioms. (Remembering that axioms are not "scientifically proved" they are simply accepted, you are more than welcome to not accept them, just like you don't have to accept the rules of poker, but then you will be playing some other game and not poker) Had either of these projects worked out, essentially that would have closed math off from philosophy and set up mathematics and physics and the rest of the natural sciences as a complete alternative to philosophy or religion. This goal was called "logicism" and Hilbert's objective was known as "formalism" but it was all debunked by the landmark nuclear explosion of a paper in 1931 by Goedel's incompleteness theorem. So while Goedel's incompleteness theorem does not prove the existence of free will, or inherent uncertainty in the universe, global warming, or any other of the infinitude of assertions made in debates on the internet, it did radically change the direction of modern logic by showing that math is not closed off from philosophy and that these a priori considerations in philosophy, NOT the empirical ones in science, are the basis for doing anything else related to knowledge of any sort. Did anyone actually make it this far reading? And now straying yet further afield, "that is what broke baby bird's blue balloon", or in other words, why we are rationalists and handle our math education philosophically as opposed to technical training, (which is the theme of my blog), why we like classical education, and why we embrace modern logic.

We'll be using Patrick Suppes First Course in Mathematical Logic next year. It has a whole lot of what is covered in a normal logic course such as rules and inference, truth and validity, but by the end of the book it has worked the student up to doing real proofs in math on topics and concepts in arithmetic that a junior high student would be familiar with. (They are not sophisticated proofs) Informal fallacies are not covered. You can look at many sample pages at this link which takes you to google books. What looks so promising about this book is that it begins with natural language and ends with symbols. One of the more difficult pedogogical issues in logic and philosophy seems to be how to get someone to translate common English into formal logical sentences and this book seems to help someone down that road and is one of the few that I have found that is accessible by a younger student.

Singapore's NEM is integrated.

I remember when B&N came into existence a couple of decades ago, it was a cornucopia of books compared to the small books stores in local strip malls. Now that the internet exists, B&N in comparison is lame. I only go there maybe two or three times a year. The religious section is limited, but so is their knitting and math. In fact, the math books found in math would more accurately shelved as "physics." If I'm casually browsing nonfiction with nothing in mind, then B&N is okay, but if I'm looking for a particular topic I look for recommendations online, check them out in google books and buy them through the mail. I think the problem that you are describing is bigger than just religion, it encompasses many topics and subjects. I think you are just being confronted with the anti-intellectualism in this society. For example, the B&N by Chapel Hill has a more to offer in the philosophy section than the B&N in Monroe, LA...I was genuinely shocked to not be able to find Euclids Elements at my local B&N nor was Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago there either. I gave up on B&N after I was lectured that Aristophanes was a philosopher and not a dramatist and to look in the philosophy section for Greek drama...I eventually got what I was looking for through interlibrary loan and rarely do I now patronize B&N. They can go out of business and I wouldn't miss them at all. PS And sometimes things are shoved in hidden shelves and the employee is too lazy to help you find them. Saying that it doesn't sell is a get-out-of-work free card.

I didn't do anything after level 8 but give him books. He did just fine after level 8. I have two more younger ones and I'm using MCP Phonics at whatever grade level they are at for reinforcement and review. Another idea for after ETC 8 is to study Latin and Greek roots. I bet you can find some recommendations in the Well Trained Mind.

My daughter is "unmathy" It took her a year to master addition and subtraction facts within 10! I'm still staying with Singapore and now that we are at in the second half of P1 I'm finally starting to see my patience pay off. It certainly was worth the wait to see her mental math ability improve. There were many times in which I knew that it would be "quicker" to simply give her a sheet of addition problems which are stacked on top of each other and have her pencil in "carry the one" marks as she adds, but I stuck with the program and she's now on her way. It did take more than the sheets provided in the workbook. I had to come up with practice problems (this is easy in the first grae) and have her work with manipulatives for much longer than my other two kids needed at that stage. I don't consider Singapore something to be used just with kids who are already mathy, but something to be used to "fix" the kids that aren't. There were plenty of times when she did express frutration but I consider part of learning math to be learning how to deal with frustration at not figuring something out immediately. She needed more assurance that she was doing just fine even though she couldn't think of the answer, that it was okay to spend time thinking for as long as she needed and that she was doing a great job thinking, etc. I also have a son with a receptive and expresive language delay that struggles with the wording of word problems it just takes time and patience on my part to teach him word problems. He's slowly coming along though. My oldest son who is ADHD and has dyslexia also went through Singapore math with his own issues. One thing that I kept reminding myself was that in Singapore this program is for all children and not just the gifted and talented ones. The ones who are slower just get extra practice and more patience.

Kelli, How about "If you would like some help remembering X I can ask Ms. A to help you with that, would that be okay with you or would you prefer to try to remember on your own?" I've given my 8 year old choices like this (on different issues rather than potty issues) and let him decide for himself. It's win-win. I don't have to go behind his back, he has a choice. It gives him ownership of his "failures" and successes as well as control over his dignity. He doesn't always make the same choices that I would make though and I have to stick with his choice even though I think I know what's coming. It's wonderful when he proves me wrong and does it all by himself without any help and I also want him to see that it is okay for HIM to ask adults directly for help rather than mama always doing that for him.

I had one with an intermittent fever of 106 for a few days while under doctor's care. They were concerned enough to do bloodwork (and something did turn up!) ,but they weren't so concerned that they wanted him in the ER. Had the fever been continuous maybe they would have reacted differently. The kid had a low grade fever for most of the day and then three times a day for about an hour it would just spike. They did bloodwork, found a massive infection, and treated it. Fever gone within hours of the first dose of antibiotic.

What group of people is doing this? I'm trying to google this and what I'm finding is a www.keepersofthehome.com which is a Christian organization that offers support to adult women but also offers some activities for girls---once a week after school activities. There is a big disclaimer on the keepersofthehome site saying they are not to be confused with Keepers at home which is a curriculum for girls that can be found at keepersofthefaith. But when I went to that website they only offer K8 material and it all just looks like typical stuff.

Physicists, programmers, engineers, and accountants may use computers and calculators to solve physics problems, engineering problems, etc, but real mathematicians still prove theorems using paper and pencil. For more details see page 30 of Krantz's article here. The math that is taught in K12 is not "real" math. It might be more accurate to say that it's training in the math methods used by physicists, accountants, etc. It's about career training more so than learning about the field of math. A mathematical problem deals with a problem in math, such as the Poincare Conjecture and Fermat's last theorem. A real math problem would not be "how many bags of fertilizer are needed if 3/4 of a bag is used per 7/9 of a row and 15 rows need to be fertilized" ( I don't know if that's what you were trying to get at):tongue_smilie: Both my husband, who has an advanced degree in math, and my father in law, who was a math professor, communicate that math is interesting to the kids but they don't do that by giving them books or lectures, they do that because they both love math and love talking about and can't resist thinking about questions that come up. It's like veganism, sports, or music, if the parents are doing it and sincerely excited, the kids will catch on. (Books and lectures are used for teaching how to calculate bags of fertilizers, an important skill, to be sure, but nobody cares how much the kids like doing that sort of thing. They are obliged to learn it whether they like it or not) They don't tend to apply theories so much as invent theories and prove that it's true, if that makes any sense---like nosey, curious mechanics trying to figure out how some novel machine works by taking it apart with logic. Then if you say you think that it works one way, they lawyer you to death to show that you must be wrong or you get the ultimate reward which is having your clever argument acknowledged. In order to survive these brutal cross examinations you develop airtight arguments to support your beliefs. As an aside, I once brought up the idea to them that anyone that likes to debate law would love to debate math but they debated me on that one too. There really isn't a whole lot out there for kids still in arithmetic. We use Singapore because it encourages children to think creatively and gives challenging problems that they can't get without hard thinking and also Singapore's Intensive Practice. In general, we want mastery of basic algorithms and facts but do not judge mastery by absolute speed, but rather by the kid's ability to use the properties of numbers to solve problems he's never seen before. I have another book that teaches geometric constructions to the 4,5,6th grade range... lots of neat designs result and you can talk about the principles informally. I've used a lot of origami ideas and projects. I've also used Number Theory by Art of Problem Solving and in algebra (6th grade) we are using Gelfand's Algebra to supplement. Dmitri Fomin's Mathematical Circles doesn't teach math but it has some awesome and interesting problems in it once you can do a little algebra.

1960s Moise and Downs...if you can find one.

NPR just did a segment on one of an unanticipated outcome of chicken pox vaccination policy in the US And naturally, the solution to this problem is more vaccinations, this time for adults at $160 a pop: The whole segment can be listened to here.

My son got chicken pox and he still was required to get the vaccination. The people enforcing the rules are bureaucrats and just do their jobs and follow orders. If the orders state that the kid needs a record of a vaccination, then whether he's had the disease or not is irrelevant to the bureaucrats. They aren't being paid to concern themselves with contradictions in logic on the issue. There may be some issue whether getting the disease itself offers stronger immunity than what you would get with a vaccination.

I found a website that discusses the effects of temperature on shelf life of dry beans. If you keep your house at about 70 degrees, they will last 10-20 years. I use black beans for black bean soup and burritos. We eat lentils with freshly baked bread, and red beans (not kidney beans, but New Orlean's style red beans) for red beans and rice.

I'm going to agree with you, Pam. And I'll add, it certainly was useful to have read Plato, Hume, Kant, Mill, Hobbes, etc to see that most of what we imagine is our original and modern thoughts about morality can be traced back hundreds if not thousands of years. If anyone thinks you are being contentious I'll say they are profoundly ignorant about how these ideas have been discussed in one of the longest discussion threads ever on the message board otherwise known as "Western Civ."

The literacy organization that I worked with said that most people overestimate their literacy and numeracy skills by two years. It sounds like she might be functioning at the fourth grade level. Proliteracy offers both private tutoring and materials for free for adults that enroll and can work with adults who don't even know the alphabet. They also have basic adult education that preps folks for the GED, but I think that because of how state laws work only certain organizations can legally claim that they have a GED course, so they call it "basic education" or something like that. Since ProLiteracy does not accept any government funding they only have to collect minimal data on students, needing only a contact number and name, they also insist on confidentiality and do not discuss or share information about students. You can contact that organization to get a catalogue of materials which you can order from. Now, you would have to pay if you order, but if she is an enrolled student she would get the materials that her tutor recommends for free. Nonetheless, the materials are specially developed for adults. I can think of commonly used homeschooling programs that are much better but the problem is that they are designed for children and that's not very motivating for most adults.

\ I use it in combination with Explode the Code I postponed using MCP phonics for the earliest stages of reading because it relies more on sight words than I would care to do initially. The other thing that I don't like about it is that it doesn't give enough practice on some digraphs. Sometimes the child only has one day or two days of work on something before they are off to something else and that isn't enough for it to sink in. Explode the Code gives more practice on a single digraph, MCP offers more review and a wider variety of activities so I use them both together.

Well, it made sense to me that there had to be a law, but then again maybe not, if it's all done through Homeland Security.... Short, but interesting article with that quote And since then colleges have declared lockdowns in which they detain adults.

Probably false imprisonment The legal right of law enforcement and schools to declare lockdowns under highly irregular circumstances is given to them via special laws...or else they could be accused of false imprisonment as well, actually, they'd be accused of civil rights violations. If I really needed to leave a business that arbitrarily decided that it had the right to lock their front door on me, I might choose to make an unannounced stealth escape through one of the fire exits which must remained unlocked during business hours. An attempt to physically restrain me might be considered assault. My guess is that the clinic uses "lockdown" as a figure of speech and is completely unaware that they need a specific legal right to forcibly detain any individual. I guess it's a sign of the times that this is the state of morality in our country: "What, you mean I can't just arbitrarily keep adults from doing things just because I personally think it's dangerous or wrong, you mean I need the law on my side? Vigilante do-gooders gone wild. ;-) It is too bad that poor lady got killed by a tornado, but as far as I know in this country, we still have the right to make really stupid mistake--unless someone has passed a law making it illegal to strive for a Darwin Award during a tornado. Public schools do have the legal right to declare lockdowns and prevent parents from entering and retrieving their children, and that's another reason that I am glad that mine don't go to public school. :001_smile: If you are up for an R-Rate movie, rent Steven King's "The Mist" it's all about a group of individuals making decisions about who is allowed to leave a grocery store during an attack of tentacled aliens. I don't want to give away the ending of this fine cinemantic production :tongue_smilie: but there is one lady that everone is completely sure will get eaten and they try to keep her from leaving, and she escapes out of the store...

Here is the Third Court's Ruling to the Appeal The summary goes something like this....no evidence...no evidence...no evidence...and a chastising over presuming that every member of a religion has identical beliefs and behavior.