Need vitality?

I've been thinking more about the theme of yesterday's post.  About how we need to reach out.  That's not just about young men and women; that's about all of us.  We all need someone to reach out and sweep us into a group of friends.  When the groups are ever expanding, they are no longer cliques. They exude vitality.

And they're fun.

Moving in the same circle day in and day out is, well, boring.  Who wants to be stale?  I toss bread and cake when they get stale.  Cookies, however, are a different matter altogether.  They are never boring.

I digress but maybe that's the point.  We all need cookies in our lives.  Some chocolate chip mixed with peanut and some oatmeal and white chocolate too.  Not all in the same person, at least not in very many people.  Each person brings their own flavor to a group, and it needs to be changed up often.

Kind of like dating.  Why date one fellow when there is a world of flavors of boys?  After dating the oatmeal, and the chocolate chip, and the peanut butter/oatmeal/chocolate chip type, then you can decide that Nilla Wafers really are your favorite kind because they set off your personality in the best way possible.

But that goes further than just dating.  It spices up book groups, congregations, classes.  How many of you slept through general ed classes and maybe some upper division courses because it was just so . . .  vanilla.

I felt that way today.  I lacked energy and was too hot (lots of people in the meeting room and no fans).  Sat with my daughter and didn't greet anyone, didn't get up to welcome anyone.  A very bland day.  Guess who feels bored tonight?  Three guesses and the first two don't count.

i don't feel energized and vitalized.  I learned, however, that vitality must be given to grow.  Same with energy.  If I had put myself out a little, I would have benefitted.  I did a little bit, and my energy jumped a bit.

Just think of what would have happened if I'd done more of it.

What would happen if more of us did it.

When I want to revitalize my family, I bring them together for dinner, for a game, for scripture study, for anything I can think of.

Same should work for anything else.

Maybe it's time to invite my neighbors over and see if we can create some neighborhood vitality.

What I wish I understood when I was single

How many young ladies worry about their image?  With whether they're dating or who they're dating, or if they have friends to hang with?  Personally, I think that would be all of them.  At least, I've never met one who wasn't concerned at all.  Maybe a few who are more concerned with others and have enough confidence in themselves not to be ruled by those fears, but definitely not enough.  And those numbers didn't include me.

The other day I watched a group of fellows clustered in a circle around a single young lady who was "holding court" with them.  What was notable was that one fellow was standing just behind the other young men wearing a smile and being intent on the conversation he was witnessing but totally left out of.

My heart hurt.

My head made sense of it about a week later.

The young lady in question does not matter.  She could be one of a thousand young ladies who obsess over themselves and their quest for more admirers (and usually one particular one.)  What matters is that she missed an opportunity to include a young person who needed to be be accepted and made to feel part of the group.  In this particular setting, I knew the individuals involved and understood that the young woman does not want to date the young man left out.  To the point of rudeness.

She isn't alone.  Many young ladies misunderstand attention as translating into dates.  I wonder how many of those 12 fellows will actually ask this particular girl on a date.  Maybe one if the odds hold true; less if not.

What the young man wanted was much more simple.  He wanted to feel included, to be important in in a simple way.  And it would have been so easy to have brought him into the circle.  The fellows would have willingly opened the circle and a greater camaraderie would have been established.  But the opportunity was lost.  Because she was too cool for him in her opinion.  Because she didn't want to have to deal with him obsessing over her.  (Don't worry.  I think the young man's parents would have quenched that idea.  They are not happy with the thought of their son dating her.  In this case, I know the parents.) Interestingly, she left the activity alone instead of with anybody at all.  So much for holding court.

For an opposite action, several years ago when we lived elsewhere, I watched young ladies take my sons into their groups and befriend them.  They made them feel important.  They were loved and watched over by both the fellows and girls.  Were my sons inclined to date the girls?  No but they gained a great deal of confidence by interacting with each of them.  As the mother of the boys, I felt an immediate gratitude to each one of those girls.  Each of them holds a special place in my heart because of their care and concern for my sons, and my prayers are not complete without a spirit of thanksgiving for their influence at an important time in their lives.

So . . . what's my point?

It's simple.  Young women need to befriend others, male and female, dateable and not so much.  And if they get a date request, they are free to (kindly) turn them down. Or accept if they wish. And if they get a marriage offer, they can say thank you, no, if that opportunity actually happens.  (Doubtful.)  And if several years down the line the fellow seems much more dateable, they haven't kissed that opportunity goodbye when they were rude little imps.

Because . . . that can happen.  It did to me.  Some fellows just take longer to mature and gain the coolness factor.  Then again, what is "cool" in high school frequently becomes a liability for the rest of their lives.  The cool guys I knew in high school?  I have NO idea where they are and didn't care past graduation; it didn't matter because most weren't so hot in college and beyond.  What I DO remember was a young man that I snubbed in college returning the compliment some years later when he had put his act together.  I have no idea where he is now, but I would not bet against the very distinct probability that he has done very well for himself and his family both personally and professionally.

Now that is cool!

New book a little disappointing? and wish list of new curriculum releases

I restarted the book, Washington, A Life, and am hoping its worth it.  I just read a review that talks about how Ron Chernow books tend to drag through some of his narrative.  I've noticed that already, and I'm only a few chapters into it.  Another challenge is having to have my iPad open as I read the book (paper) so I can bring up portraits as he refers to them.  Given that the portraits seem to drive the narrative, I think pictures should have been included.  The prose is written for an advanced reader with an excellent vocabulary, it is not the kind of book that would appeal to visual learners like mine.

On curriculums: yes, I'm addicted to looking at curriculums.  It's a byproduct of homeschooling for so long!

A math approach I recently learned about and would love to buy to investigate more fully.  See Sharon's story:  http://www.12345math.com/sharons-story/
http://homeschoolmathematics.com/pmf/

And this is a language arts approach I just might buy.  It sounds intriguingly promising and appeals to my English teacher side.  Too bad it wasn't around several years back!
http://youtu.be/DOkHcwvBHOc http://youtu.be/DOkHcwvBHOc

Lastly, a fun aid to save money for a specific purpose:  http://www.goodshomedesign.com/52-week-money-saving-challenge/

Oh, and one last one for sewers or tailors out there:  sewmamasew.com.  Lots of things to try to make.  I actually got turned onto this one through Craftsy.com, which I love!

They call this education?

Today my daughter came home from school with horrifying information especially to me, an English/Secondary Education graduate, ex-high school teacher, and homeschool mom.

On a lighter scale, her Honors Freshman English, her teacher confessed that she was not a very good speller.

Umm, there is no problem with having spelling challenges, but to be an English teacher and NOT work on improving her spelling?  That is lazy and makes me question what kind of education my daughter will receive.

That wasn't the worst of it, however.  In class, the teacher afflicted the students with the TV show Friends, an enormously popular, morally bankrupt show with actors playing relatively flat characters.  She had enough class to recognize that it could be abhorrent to my daughter, since she had revealed in her initial paper that she was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly called Mormon.  Unfortunately, my daughter has had very little exposure to today's television programs since we have rarely had cable television and have restricted TV viewing so she trusted that the show would be fine if it was being shown in her English class.  She hates having attention drawn to her so she chose to stay.  Ugh.  Nasty lesson for her.

Excuse me, but that show has so-called "adult" content.  So adult that I'm not old enough to subject myself to it.  Why would I want to?  There is nothing good or praiseworthy in it.  It teaches that drama is the order of the day, and that immorality is the norm and should be encouraged.  In this era where teen pregnancies are topping the list of societal ills that are costing this country millions in welfare measures, having a show like that shown and therefore implicitly condoned in a public high school simply does not make sense. That just starts the list of negative facets of that show.  Yes, I know it was popular.  Yes, I know that I may lose friends for expressing my opinion of such a popular show.  So I'm not Facebooking it.  However, I have the expectation that education is essentially worthless unless it uplifts the individual and the society.  Depravity is easily found and requires no skill or education.  Classics require more discernment.

My next objection to this choice of examples for which the students were to describe characterization is simple.  The characters are flat.  Stereotypical.

Last, the students were required to read one of two novels over the summer.  Why weren't those books used as source material for the assignment?  I did not read the one selection because a few reviewers on Amazon revealed parts of the plot that were distasteful to both my daughter and I.  The other, Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, was rife with wonderful characterizations.

Which takes me to my next problem with this "Honors" Freshman English class.  From what I can tell, there is no difference between the Honors Freshman English and English 1 right down to the summer reading assignments.  I expected it to be run at a higher level, requiring higher order thinking and reading.  I expected full-scale analysis, not 5 sentences.

In another class, my daughter was dealt a different kind of blow.  She was told, along with the other students, that she would have to turn in their science books at the end of the week because there aren't enough texts for everyone.  She was so excited to read that text!  Now she won't be able to devour it as she wanted.  I was astonished.

A national book?

One of the pivotal ideas I learned long ago is contained in this book.  I am going to quote this, maybe because I'm lazy and maybe because I thought it good enough to write in longhand in my Commonsense Book.

1.  Societies are successful when people choose to be good.

2.  People choose to be good when they are taught and believe in good.

3.  The thing which determines how well they are taught is their national books.  Good national books like the Bible or Shakespeare will lead to a good nation.  Bad national books like The Communist Manifestor or Mein Kampf will lead to bad nations until they reject such books.

Now, what of a nation with no national book, with no central text which almost everyone agrees upon as the measuring rod of right and wrong?  Such a nation is simply without culture, or at best it is in the process of losing it.

I think this is profound.  If a nation, or even a town, has to have a law governing every situation, they are doomed.  That is impossible.  Besides, how do you determine how something should be handled if the people cannot agree on the fundamentals?  If everything is situational.  Situational ethics is a moving target.  Something as basic as the golden rule, stating the idea to "Do unto others as you would have others do to you," would become a cumbersome mess.  Maybe that's why we can't build enough prisons anymore.  Maybe that's why our court system is so inundated.

Some examples for a national book in history?  The Bible, Torah, Koran, even Shakespeare have each been used.  The national book, however, arises from the homes of a nation.  When a book is used as the guiding principle giver in enough families, it becomes the national book.  As DeMille put it, if we will defend our book as our teenagers will their music, then we have a national book (for at least our own family) in place.

New beginnings and bloggings

I have been a longtime homeschooler who stumbled a lot with different theories and needs as I taught my children.  We aren't done with that adventure yet, but it is rapidly drawing to a close with only one year of formalized education left for my sons.  My daughter's time is closing even more rapidly because we are putting her into public high school with specific goals in mind.

That said, I have learned a great deal by teaching my children and relearning things that I probably learned when I was in school.  In some cases, learning things I had NOT learned in school although I was an honors student.

This blog is documenting where I'm at now and moving forward.  Because learning doesn't stop and start according to your degree status.

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I have been studying the Thomas Jefferson Education theory of teaching and learning by reading the book Teaching a Generation of Leaders:  A Thomas Jefferson Education for the Twenty-first Century, by Oliver Van DeMille.  The first point of it is that as teachers, we can teach, lead, and inspire, but the responsibility of a student's education lies with the student, not the teacher.  I think that is true to a point.  However, there are some skills that are absolutely essential to successful living that not every student is interested in learning but must.  So yes, it is important to learn math.  And maybe even chemistry.  So that is where the teacher/parent has to step in and make sure exposure to those subjects happens.  However, I think this book gives some excellent ideas to achieve some desired ends.  So that is my disclaimer to all those who would discredit the ideas behind TJ Ed.  Use what works.  Dump the rest.

All that said, as an adult my responsibility to continue learning is definitely my own, and as long as I have access to a library, I don't have to (and shouldn't) stop.

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One of the ideas that I thought pure genius in this book was the idea of keeping a Commonplace Book as Thomas Jefferson did, summarizing the main ideas of what you learn and study each day.  In it, you keep at least one essay per day summarizing the main ideas or some new concept learned that day.  It is important to apply the ideas in the classics to "real life."  Otherwise, there is limited applicability to it.  This practice of applying what I read has been one I was taught to do years ago when studying the scriptures.  There are many things I learned, such as how to interact with others and understanding other points of view from the books I read.  This idea of the Commonplace Book formalizes the approach to something I can review later so I began my Commonplace Book today.

Another aspect I thought brilliant was the idea that an essay should receive only one of two marks.  They are:

Great work!

and 

Do it again.

Only excellence should be accepted.

I've always had a hard time giving my kids grades because I felt like either they understood it which would be an A

or they didn't and that meant we weren't done.

No A, B, C, or D to it.

In real life, you can either do an assignment or project

or not.

Nothing in between.  

I either can make a tasty dinner . . .  or not.  In Pioneer Woman's words, just keeping this real.

So the whole program behind TJ Ed is this:

1.  Read the classics.
2.  Discuss them with a mentor who will only accept quality work.
3.  Apply what you learn.

That's it.  Well, not really, because there is a lot behind it.  You have to read to understand, think about what you are reading, and discuss it.  That means the mentor also needs to be reading and thinking about it as well and generating discussion with good, meaningful questions and experiences and coming up with applications for using the ideas in the book.  It makes reading the classics an active experience because it isn't really someone else's job to come up with the questions.  The classics can be the mentor; you don't have to have someone outside of yourself to do this although it's more fun!

That's where I'm at in the book so far.  I hope you'll come back to learn with me.  Grab a copy of the book and read it along with me and leave comments.  Oh, and I'll mix in things I have learned along the way; this is my synthesis.  I have no idea if the author would even agree with some of my ideas and frankly don't care.  It isn't about what he learned, but about what I'm learning.  And you.  Feel free to mark up your book.  I prefer the tactile sensation of writing with a pencil.  Maybe you will too.