Reading

Barbara Curtis at Mommylife just a finished a random drawing for winners of two copies of Dr. Laura's newly-published In Praise of Stay-At-Home Moms. She drew my name from a list of 75 commenters!

I've been on the reserve list for this at the library for a couple weeks. Thank you, Barbara!
* * * * * * *
Books I've read this year include Anne Rice's Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains: Healing the World: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, and Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede, all of which I recommend.

I'm currently trudging through Beukelman and Mirenda's Augmentative & Alternative Communication: Supporting Children & Adults With Complex Communication Needs.
* * * * * * *
My New Year's resolution was to read through the Bible in 2009. I'm using The Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan, which runs on four tracks at once. So far, I've read:
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua
Matthew, Mark
Acts, Romans, I Corinthians

I'm thankful for the physical and cognitive ability to read, and for access to books.

Midwest Homeschool Convention

This weekend I went to the Midwest Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati.

Melinda Boring of Heads Up! shared strategies for teaching different types of learners. I heard Karen Braun of Spunky Homeschool. Amanda Bennett spoke about homeschooling in general, and unit studies in particular. Real and humorous, she has a blog--and a farm, which is even better.

Stephen Guffanti, developer of Rocket Phonics, covered research on learning differences between boys and girls. Boys prefer verbs! Girls, nouns! Boys distinguish movement! Girls give weight to color! (Ok, I simplify. :-)

Durrell Dobbins, a microbiologist, gave his take on optimal sequencing of science education--from the particular unit to the complex system (physics through through chemistry, then biology). Building understanding of how things work, from the ground up, reduces need for use of rote memory in learning. His science curriculum, Colors/Rainbow/Spectrum, and Bridge Math (chemistry prep) are available at Beginnings Publishing.

I also heard presentations on early reading, classical music, and "classical" education--which seems to have its own little language, in the homeschool world.

More than 200 vendors lined the exhibit hall. Booths of used books and curriculum were fun to dig through. Ditto bargain bins of new material. Professional educators with years of experience were selling products they'd developed and found effective.

The convention was an encouraging experience.

Working from home

We're considering homeschooling. At The Simple Dollar,Trent Hamm has posted lessons he's learned working from home over the past year. His ideas are helpful in counting the cost.

Being there

First Things has posted a good article by Glen Arbery, Pieties and Pixels. He articulates discomfort with a greed for holding on to the heart of experience by capturing images of its surface. Ironically, in the effort to preserve, the photographer distances himself from subject and setting. He reduces the experience for others present by objectifying it. The image preserved will steadily be moved from its context, as time passes. The photographer, not fully present, missed the original immediacy and will not be able to recover it in viewing photos later.

The article reminds me of a discussion between Ransom and the woman on C.S. Lewis's Perelandra, about a rationale for attempting to extend a goodness beyond God's provision of it.

Arbery's concerns are increasingly relevant, in a culture increasingly larded with cameras, camera phones, and Facebook friends.

Mothers

Leslie Leyland Fields and Barbara Curtis, mothers of what are now considered large families, were recently quoted in a New York Times article on the subject:

And Baby Makes How Many? February 6, 2009*

(I enjoyed hearing Leslie, Seattle Pacific professor and Alaskan fisherwoman, speak at last year's Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids. Her most recent book is Parenting Is Your Highest Calling...and Eight Other Myths that Trap Us in Worry and Guilt.
Barbara's comments on a national list for parents of children with Down syndrome introduced me to Mommylife and the blogosphere. She is a former Montessori teacher and homeschooler; I have several of her books about teaching young children.)

*It's disappointing to find the New York Times behind the times, using Down syndrome as an adjective for a child. People first!

Trains

When I was small, we played 45s on the Decca record player that sat on the Singer in the kitchen. One of the two records that didn't hold hymns offered train ballads.

Hank Snow, Wreck of the Old 97

Jimmie Rodgers, Hobo Bill's Last Ride *

They served some functions of fairy tales of an earlier age, mediating suffering in manageable doses, giving value and meaning to lives of victims.

*I think both were sung by Hank Snow, but can't find him singing the second, on Youtube.