My New Camera!!

This post by C

I just got a new camera for my birthday! This is what it looks like
Here are some of the pictures I took:



I also like the special effects on this picture:
I also took the picture in the post before this one.

Shawnee Lookout

Our longtime family friend F is staying with us this week while his mom works. There is a gap between his school year and his summer sitter's availability. I'm glad to fill it. The kids and I really enjoy his company.

Today we visited Shawnee Lookout, a county park and historical site that overlooks the confluence of the Miami and Ohio Rivers. We hiked up to and through the earthen fort (built by the Adena Indians,) and out to the end of the ridge, where we feasted on pbj sandwiches, apple slices and brownies (courtesy of F's mom.)


(click for full size)

The view is phenomenal. I love getting that kind of perspective. I think the kids were more interested in the snails along the trail (there were about a bajillion.)

C took her new camera. She has taken nearly 400 pictures with it in just over a week. She says she's saving for a laptop so that she can work with her graphic art projects whenever she wants. I do agree that she will need her own computer soon, but I'm thinking an external hard drive might be a more pressing need!

So, we had a good day. Tomorrow the kids have plans for a major backyard water fight. I will enjoy staying home. We haven't planned yet for Thur or Fri. We'll probably go swimming at least once.

Backyard Foraging

A list of our current backyard edibles:

catnip
lemonbalm
mint
chives
onions
shallots
shell peas
snowpeas
mustard greens
oregano
thyme
rosemary
lavender
mulberries
black raspberries
clover
fennel (though our little start is not yet hardy enough to eat)
jack-in-the-pulpit (we have been very clear with T--our jack is not for eating!)

T always has been a big forager. She's been on a catnip kick lately. I can tell when she's been into it because it lingers on her breath.

R ate a lot of peas at first, but a couple of things have happened. I think the novelty has worn off, but also, the peas have moved from the eat-as-you-pick stage into the lightly-steam-then-eat stage, so my guess is he just doesn't find them as satisfying.

T is not so much into the mulberries. She is keeping close watch on the raspberries, though.

R does not yet know to discriminate between mulberries and raspberries. He loves the mulberries--and they're within easy reach.

We have several varieties of tomato this year, but it will be a while before we're enjoying most of them. The exception is the cherry tomato--it has about 12-15 little green fruits. T has a close eye on it, too.

It's funny how at first I found myself saying "get out of my garden!"...then I realized the folly of scolding my children for eating vegetables.

Happy Birthday

R celebrated his second birthday this Thursday.

His new favorite word is "cake."

He blew out the candles himself.

His favorite gift is his toy weed whacker, also known as "whack!"



He also loves his sandbox...in fact, we all think the sandbox is pretty neat!


He's changed so much since last year:


And I can hardly believe this was only two years ago:


Sniff. My tiny baby is a strapping toddler...and I can see the boy just around the corner.

My Requisite Post on a Hot Homeschooling Topic

This post "The Case Against Homeschooling" has been getting a lot of attention with the homeschooling bloggers. There are some thoughtful, well reasoned rebuttals. My friend S wrote one. I have been around this particular block a time or two, and S did a fine job, so I don't feel compelled to add more words to the argument.

I'll sum up the offending blog post. This teacher, Jesse Scaccia, wrote a flip, ten point list on why homeschooling doesn't serve students' best interests. His/her points are redundant. S/he uses straw man arguments and logical fallacies. It's readable--it's even kinda funny, but I'm jaded and I like dark humor. If the intent is(as I suspect) to be incendiary, s/he succeeds. The homeschoolers I know are fairly sick of battling the stereotypes and misconceptions.

For your reading pleasure, here's an oldie but a goodie: The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List graced our refrigerator for the better part of a year. I gave the copy to a friend who needed it--and I'm over that wave of bitterness, anyway.

This is not the first (or even the tenth) time I have seen teachers tearing down homeschoolers. What I don't understand is why highly qualified, highly educated professionals don't put their critical thinking skills to better use! Jesse Scaccia, like the others before him/her writes from the point of view that home education uses the same materials and methods as institutional education. It's a fundamental flaw. In our family, we have tried out several styles of homeschooling, but I have never tried to replicate a brick and mortar school (well, maybe Sudbury Valley) The homeschoolers I know do not and would not try to replicate institutional education. It's the methodology we take umbrage with--not the materials, the teachers, or heaven forbid, the other students!

Why is it so hard to conceptualize a different approach? Why is it so hard to see the student as intrinsically motivated, and the parent as a mere facilitator? Believe it or not, that's how it works at our house, and it works well.

Or is it just easier to take pot-shots at stereotypes?

Jesse's follow up post is titled "Homeschool teacher, meet public school teacher. Now hug." S/he persists with referring to the parent as "teacher."

Just so we are clear: I am not a teacher. I don't think of myself as such, I would never refer to myself as such. I find the notion offensive. I have a great deal of respect for teachers. I acknowledge that it requires education, training, dedication, and an innate proclivity to teach in a classroom. I have none of those things. While I am a person with aspirations, teacher is not one of them!

I can, however, facilitate the education of my own children. I don't use institutional materials, I don't use institutional methods. I outsource when it makes sense. It's just not the same thing, and if Jesse really doesn't get that, I have to question his/her critical thinking skills.

The author of this inflammatory piece, Jesse Scaccia, lists his/her credentials. They include two masters' degrees, a couple of bachelors' degrees, a metric ton of classroom experience...if Jesse truly represents the cream of the crop of highly qualified educators (as it appears s/he does,) but still writes a scathing, ill-researched article on a hot topic in contemporary education while failing to demonstrate decent critical thinking skills, and falls back on cheap persuasive tricks, and gets no where near the real meat of the argument (any homeschooler worth their salt can list far more compelling reasons not to homeschool,) why on earth would I want Mr./Ms. Scaccia to educate my child??

Molting Mantis

 

The Case for Working With Your Hands

I really liked this article from the Times Magazine: The Case for Working With Your Hands.

When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options. We idealize them as the salt of the earth and emphasize the sacrifice for others their work may entail. Such sacrifice does indeed occur — the hazards faced by a lineman restoring power during a storm come to mind. But what if such work answers as well to a basic human need of the one who does it? I take this to be the suggestion of Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use,” which concludes with the lines “the pitcher longs for water to carry/and a person for work that is real.” Beneath our gratitude for the lineman may rest envy.

on education:

One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”

A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic rather than to accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive. There is a pervasive anxiety among parents that there is only one track to success for their children. It runs through a series of gates controlled by prestigious institutions.

and from the concluding paragraphs:

The visceral experience of failure seems to have been edited out of the career trajectories of gifted students. It stands to reason, then, that those who end up making big decisions that affect all of us don’t seem to have much sense of their own fallibility, and of how badly things can go wrong even with the best of intentions (like when I dropped that feeler gauge down into the Ninja). In the boardrooms of Wall Street and the corridors of Pennsylvania Avenue, I don’t think you’ll see a yellow sign that says “Think Safety!” as you do on job sites and in many repair shops, no doubt because those who sit on the swivel chairs tend to live remote from the consequences of the decisions they make. Why not encourage gifted students to learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their fingers will be crushed once or twice before they go on to run the country?