Jump to content

Menu

usetoschool

Members
  • Posts

    1,820
  • Joined

Posts posted by usetoschool

  1. I'm on the hunt for a specific style from when I was a kid. Do you remember the books with 3-D covers? The pics inside were dolls (?) set up in scenes: http://www.etsy.com/listing/89237094/vintage-3d-illustration-book-three

     

    I have a very treasured Thumbelina version of that style that my grandma gave me for my birthday when I was about 7. There is a small scratched out area behind the cover picture where I tried to figure out how the picture worked.

     

    Tragic to think my childhood is now collectible.

  2. I have a Classics (meaning Greek and Latin) degree from a top university. I graduated Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and was a member of the Classics honors society, Eta Sigma Phi.

     

    Yet, I feel like I have barely scratched the surface. One of my professors once confessed that when he graduated from graduate school and was "told" he was now an expert in Greek and Latin that he really didn't feel like he had mastered either language. (Thankfully, he did tell us the secret of how he finally climbed that hill--and this came from his own passion and persistence, not another course.)

     

    I have seen several people self-teach themselves Greek and Latin. If you want a very obvious example of such a person, go check out the Visual Latin dude. He is a perfect example, and I'm pretty sure he is a lot better than I am with Latin. And now his goal is to do the same with Greek (my personal favorite.)

     

    While I am thankful for the "leg-up" my studies have given me, my understanding of these two languages has greatly increased since graduation and this is due to my independent studies more than anything else.

     

    These are just my two cents, but I thought I would throw them out there.

     

    Worth more than two cents and gives the rest of us hope :) - thanks for sharing.

  3. We have been at this for 20 years, come June, so there have been plenty of opportunities for negatives. I have five years to go and was just thinking this morning that I might actually have it all figured out by then.

     

    The negatives are mostly my fault. I was too wishy washy about curriculum and got caught up in a few trends instead of sticking to the path I knew in my heart was right. I also let messes in life get in the way instead of making school my number one priority no matter what was going on and how I felt. The one negative that should be a positive but it is getting in the way is my sons annoyance at having to jump through hoops to get through college. He would like school to be totally focused on what he wants to major in. He did all the humanities, well rounded stuff at home and now wants to just study his major. He hates having to pay for classes that just satisfy a requirement. Maybe he is a little too independent and self sufficient :)

     

    The positives? The biggest positive for me was to be able to give each kid his or her own personal education based on strengths and interests. They have been able to follow the path that they set out on without too much side tracking. The other big positive is that they get along well and are friends now as adults, partly because, I think, they were each others company and friends growing up. We were also able to spend a lot of time together and go on trips and vacations and take advantage of some first person, hands on learning.

  4. I am not good at putting things into my own words so here are a couple of links to information that helped me clarify what I want:

     

    http://www.thenewatlantis.com/authors/matthew-crawford

     

    http://www.accsedu.org/files/2009%20CLASSIS/2009%20Spring%20Classis%20Online.pdf

     

    The first is a link to some articles by the author of Shop Class as Soul Craft. I particularly liked the last one about science and liberal education.

     

    The second is an old newsletter from the Logos school. I don't necessarily agree with everything they say and it is quite religious (just a warning if it matters to you - it wasn't that hard to sort the method from the messenger) from a religious viewpoint that I don't share but there is a lot about teaching science classically that helped me think about what I was doing and how. This quote made me want to step up my teaching, lol, and use the grammar, logic, rhetoric methods and Sayer's stages in how and when I taught what.

     

    A physics student in a classical

    and Christian school sits down

    to take a mechanics test. After

    completing the typical grammar

    questions of recalling certain

    terms and equations, and the

    typical logic questions of applying

    those equations in solving word

    problems, he then encounters the

    following rhetoric test question:

    “You are seated in a gathering

    of somewhat sophisticated adults

    watching a World Series baseball

    game on TV. In response to a

    batter hitting the ball over the

    outfield fence for a home run,

    one of the people in the group

    wonders out loud how fast the ball

    must have been going right after

    the bat hit it in order to barely

    make it over the fence such a far

    distance away. Another person in

    the group, knowing that you are

    trained well in mechanics, turns

    to you and asks you to explain the

    physics involved in the baseball’s

    travel. Write a detailed response,

    clarifying all the factors involved.â€

    Not only must the student

    express exceptional understanding

    of the phenomenon in question, he

    must also now clearly, concisely,

    and persuasively communicate

    this understanding in terminology

    his audience can grasp. Learning

    i s p u s h e d t o w a r d s f r u i t i o n .

    Science utilizes observation

    and measurement to uncover

    the regularities inherent in our

    physical environment. With a

    Christian and classical approach to

    education, we naturally provide our

    students with both the ideological

    and historical foundations to

    science

  5. These books look beautiful and well written. Do you know what ages they are for?

     

    I don't know what age the author intended them for but I use them with a 12 year old and it works out just fine. Maybe 5th grade at the very youngest. There are supplemental books with worksheets and experiments and writing assignments that are maybe a little bit more mature. The supplemental books aren't necessary but I like them and use them (and they are written to public schoolers). They are published by the Johns Hopkins Talent Development Program/Smithsonian.

  6. I have love reading this thread. It has been a very nice kick in the pants. Thank you to everyone who has shared their ideas.

     

    I was reading the Circe email newsletter today and towards the bottom is a link to this little blurb about the tension between college entrance and classical education. Really, it is all that keeps me swinging back and forth and I really need to just let go and trust that the education I am providing really will create the wisdom and understanding and thinking skills and knowledge that I know in my heart it can. Not to mention the fully rounded, educated person that I am often on my soap box about. :)

     

    Anyway, here

     

    It really is quite short, for those of you overwhelmed by all the talks and reading lately.

  7. Well, that just makes me sad and grateful I homeschool, especially in light of the many threads and discussions and reading lists going on around here the last few days. I kept looking for a pull out quote to sum up what frustrates and saddens me but there are just so many things that are wrong and discouraging and I am only on page four.

     

    Fifth grade reading level? Really? We are doomed.

     

    I think the librarian's ideas and list are the most shocking and telling.

     

    eta: I am listening to a talk about the history of progressive education while I am reading that report - there couldn't be a more clear example of how it has failed.

    This is the road we started down and now we have come to the end of the road and all of the educators are running around with their hands in the air wondering what went wrong and how did we get here and how do we fix it.

  8. Old World Europe - Questions for the Thinker by Fran Rutherford

     

    It is a book of questions, with suggested answers, about the literature itself, questions for further thought, some vocabulary, suggestions for research projects. They cover The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, Beowulf, Rule of St. Benedict, Life of Charlemagne, The Prince, The Song of Roland, The Canterbury Tales, and Don Quixote. They are divided into sections for epic poetry, history, philosophy, poetry and the novel. The different sections don't really attack the books in a different way. They are sold by a Catholic publisher but I don't notice anything particularly Catholic, or even really religious, about them.

     

    The teacher's guide is just the student book with the answers filled in.

  9. I was just catching up on this (we don't have cable) and came upon this video http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/state/witness-martin-attacked-zimmerman-03232012 which paints a very different picture than some of the other reports. Maybe this has already been discussed.

     

    details from the above story: "But one man's testimony could be key for the police.

     

    "The guy on the bottom who had a red sweater on was yelling to me: 'help, help…and I told him to stop and I was calling 911," he said.

     

    Trayvon Martin was in a hoodie; Zimmerman was in red.

     

    The witness only wanted to be identified as "John," and didn't not want to be shown on camera.

     

    His statements to police were instrumental, because police backed up Zimmerman's claims, saying those screams on the 911 call are those of Zimmerman.

     

    "When I got upstairs and looked down, the guy who was on top beating up the other guy, was the one laying in the grass, and I believe he was dead at that point," John said.

     

    Zimmerman says the shooting was self defense. According to information released on the Sanford city website, Zimmerman said he was going back to his SUV when he was attacked by the teen.

     

    Sanford police say Zimmerman was bloody in his face and head, and the back of his shirt was wet and had grass stains, indicating a struggle took place before the shooting."

     

    This is the only story from this angle that I have seen...anyone know anything more about this twist; whether it is some effort to scoop other stations, if this is "National Enquirer" style journalism, or if there are some other stories going around like this?

  10. You are right and :iagree: and I feel guilty after reading your post. I really do spend too much time sorting and rearranging the bricks instead of actually building the structure.

     

    I skipped the lazy column from the Circe email because I assumed it meant the usual definition of lazy but now I will go back and read it. Thanks for the kick in the pants.

     

    eta: This part sums it up for me - "Laziness is so deceptive that it can even drive you to do something you really don’t like instead of doing your duty. When I have a tough writing deadline coming up or a stack of long research papers to grade, I have a strong desire to clean my bathroom instead. I hate cleaning my bathroom. There is no household task that I detest more. Yet, my laziness is so great that I would rather scrub a toilet than do my unpleasant duty. Additionally I am deceived by my own sin because at the end of the day, with a sparkling bathroom, I feel productive when I’ve really been lazy."

     

    It reminds me of a conversation we had around here about procrastination and that a lot of procrastination is based on fear of failure and being afraid to just start. We (our family) are famous procrastinators, which becomes pretty much what the article describes as laziness. Sigh...

  11. Meanwhile, where I live, I was getting sunburned in February and the beginning of spring was greeted with one storm after another and there is finally snow on the ski runs I can see up on the side of the mountain. Spring is always a bad bet around here but this year winter didn't start until the first of March and now it won't let go. It has been freezing cold and 40 mph winds for the last two days. Blech! I want my "winter" back - it was nicer than this "spring".

  12. We have the 1902 edition of the Young Folks' Library. There are 20 volumes that have to be picked up one by one but are pretty readily available and reasonably priced on Amazon. They are also free on google books.

     

    They cover just about every topic and story someone in the 19th century would or should be familiar with and are written from a, I don't know, "virtue" perspective - how will these stories and such affect your character - not just a common knowledge list.

     

    Most of the other books we have are on all the book lists.

×
×
  • Create New...