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Crich Medical PracticeTel: 01773 852966
South Wingfield SurgeryTel: 01773 833086
Holloway SurgeryTel: 01629 534763
Please contact the surgery if you have not had your flu jab yet and you are in one of the at risk groups.
The practice will be closed on the following Wednesday afternoons for staff training:
14th January, 18th March, 22nd April, 13th May, 17 June, 15th July, 14th October, 18th November,
Please note that from Monday 25th November 2013 the opening time for both Ripley and Whitworth MIUs will change. They will be open from 8am to 10pm daily. Please follow link for press release regarding this. http://www.dchs.nhs.uk/dchs_about_us/dchs_news_events/dchs_press_releases/id/39123/t/6
If you wish to pre-register click on the link below to open the form. When you have completed all of the details, click on the "Send" button to mail your form to us. When you visit the surgery for the first time you will be asked to sign the form to confirm that the details are correct. PLEASE NOTE - WE WILL ONLY BE ABLE TO REGISTER YOU VIA THIS METHOD IF YOU ALSO COMPLETE THE ONLINE MEDICAL QUESTIONNAIRE (please see below)Pre-registration FormWhen you register you will also be asked to fill out a medical questionnaire. This is because it can take a considerable time for us to receive your medical records. There is an online version of this file too, which you may fill out and send to us. When you come to the surgery you will be asked to sign this form to confirm that the details are correct. Online medical questionnaire for new patients
Note that by sending the form you will be transmitting information about your self across the Internet and although every effort is made to keep this information secure, no guarantee can be offered in this respect.
Registration Form
These fact sheets have been written to explain the role of UK health services, the National Health Service (NHS), to newly-arrived individuals seeking asylum. They cover issues such as the role of GPs, their function as gatekeepers to the health services, how to register and how to access emergency services.
Open the leaflets in one of the following languages
Please find below the link to the practice catchment area. Please click on the link and type your post code into the box to see if you are able to register as a patient.
Practice Catchment Area
Copyright 2006 - 2014 My Surgery Website | Privacy & Usage | Edit | Staff Home | Site Map | Accessibility


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I once rented a part of a house that had been, well, not fully cleaned out from the previous occupants. It was a house full of hackers that had been variously occupied by friends and friends-of-friends for almost a decade as they passed through Austin on their way from or to new lives, which is to say, it had, well, "character".
One of the sad truths that emerged at the Technology Salon on ICTs and M&E was that failure in development is rarely about the project performance, but about winning the next contract.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
How to Wear a Long, Flowy Skirt
With its flattering cut and to-the-knee coverage, a long and flowy skirt will be your new go-to piece of clothing. Complete the look with these stylish pieces.
Made for Shade
A stylish sun shield: the fedora. Blue trim lends a pop of color ($59, Grace Hats Tokyo).


text:
With coverage set to begin what will be one of Park Slope's great media sensations of the spring--the vote on a referendum to consider a boycott of Israeli products--I include here a link to today's Wall Street Journal coverage.
I am also reposting the piece I wrote about BDS this summer.
After another two weeks in Israel with members our community in early February, I remain convinced that a boycott of Israel is the wrong strategy. Even while seeing up close some of the difficult and painful consequences of the occupation, it remains clear to me that Jewish settlements are only half the problem--Palestinian intransigence with regard to direct negotiations are the other half.
Studying the BDS movement closely, it is clear to me that the goal is not to merely "end the occupation" (a goal shared by many Israelis and American Jews) but the real goal is to end the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The BDS movement seeks a one-state solution, which, if demographic projections are correct, will mean the dissolution of Zionism's central goal, shared by its proponents for more than a century. And with issues like Iran's nuclear weapons program and an increasingly unstable and unpredictable Middle East region, Israel must remain a legitimate bastion of safety for its Jewish citizens.
For those interested in learning more about this issue, please attend the Progressive Voices for Peace in the Middle East event with Michael Walzer, Brooke Goldstein, Zudhi Jasser, and Yonah Shem-Tov at Old First Church on Sunday March 4 at 2 pm.
More such public teach-ins will follow in the weeks ahead.
21 February 2012
BDS Returns to Park Slope
Posted by Andy Bachman at 11:15 AM
1 comment:
- Anonymous said...
Dear Rabbi:
Your thoughts and additions to this discussion have been refreshingly simple and eloquent. thank you.
thank you for promoting our conference. Here is a link:
- February 21, 2012 at 2:02 PM
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Java SE: javadoc, jar, JConsole, RMI, Applet/Java plug-in, Swing, AWT, JDBC, JNDI, JMX, Serialization, XML JAXP, Utils and Collections, Concurrency, Logging, Reflections, Regular Expressions
Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 6 Programmer [May 24, 2012]
Java EE: JSON Processing, Servlet, JavaServer Faces, JavaServer Pages, Expression Language, JSTL, Dependency Injection, Enterprise JavaBeans, Persistence, JMS, JTA, JavaMail, RESTful, JAX-WS, JAX-RPC, JAXR, JAXB, JAXP, JAF, StAX
Oracle Certified Expert EE 6 Enterprise JavaBeans Developer [July 12, 2012]
Oracle Certified Expert Java EE 6 Web Services Developer [October 26, 2012]
Frameworks: Spring (MVC, IOC, AOP, RPC), Struts, Tapestry, Orbeon XForms, Hibernate, neo4j
Testing: JUnit, Selenium, Mockito, TestNG
Web: JDOM, SAX, HTML5, XML, XSD, XSLT, JavaScript (jQuery, Prototype), CSS
DB: Oracle 11g, MS SQL Server 2008, MySQL 5.0, PostgreSQL 7.x
Patterns: GoF, Enterprise Integration patterns
OOP, CakePHP
Russia, Saint Petersburg
Tradable's award winning platform helps brokers solve the needs of their most demanding clients. Born open, our APIs allow third-party developers to build and deploy all types of awesome trading applications which sit seamlessly within the Tradable platform. Traders can discover and install new trading apps from the tradable appstore with the click of a button to fully customize their trading experience. The result is a constantly evolving platform where traders and brokers alike benefit from all the great and innovative features being developed by the Tradable developer community.
Extreme highload system, serving tens of millions quotes per second, hundreds orders while 99% uptime.
Ukraine, Simferopol
Simferopol was in Ukraine those years,
now it is Russia
Norwegian AirShuttle Search&Price Module
Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, commercially branded "Norwegian", is a public low-cost airline noted on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The company is best low-cost airline in Europe. It has a route portfolio that stretches across Europe into North Africa and the Middle East, as well as Thailand and the US. With competitive prices and customer friendly solutions and service, the company has experienced significant growth in recent years.
EJB 3.1, JMX, JMS, Hibernate, Spring (context), Jboss AS7, Jboss Infispan, JBoss HornetQ, Google Guice, Maven, git, Struts, JSP, JSTL, Javascript, Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Amaji Healthcare
Integrated platform of applications derived from open source technologies to meet the needs of a healthcare market segment. Contains Tolven (http://tolven.org) as system back-end which provides data storage, security and workflow services . OpenOffice Writer is front-end component and gives ability easly to write and modify documents using it's power formatting and templating features.
OpenLDAP, EJB3, Servlet, JSP, JSF, Ant, JAXB, Hibernate, JDBC (sometimes), Orbeon XForms, Tolven API
Taurida National V.I. Vernadsky University, 2002—2008
Master's degree, Mathematics
TNU occupies 39th place among the 200 best higher schools of Ukraine in the rating of UNESCO "TOP-200 Ukraine", and 14th place in the rating of higher schools of Ukraine, made according to data of Scopus data base, evidently leaving behind other higher schools of Crimea.
By the way:
Ukraine is the one of the two largest emerging markets in Eastern Europe. The significant benefit, which these countries managed to retain and develop, is their strong engineering and scientific base. The roots of this go back to the Soviet Union era, when emphasis on fundamental education and science were predominant. Currently in Russia in Ukraine, there are approximately 3,500 engineers for every 1 million people, the same ratio as in the United States. The technical skills of this work force often go beyond basic programming, and extend to complex science and engineering tasks.
|Wife :)
|Family remains the highest priority
Simple Amazon Search
Designed and developed from scratch, this project aimed for Amazon affiliate program. Main technology is PHP with help of jQuery, html/css, simple LRU-cache and understanding of Amazon web services.
Site Cost Calculator
Responsibility: Lead developer, DB architect
PHP-based, SEO-oriented system for analyzing and calculating websites approximate value using public statistics: domain info, hosting features, website inner details, etc.
Also available Flex addon, Firefox extension and Chrome extension
Technologies involved: PHP, MySQL, HTML, Javascript, jQuery, Firefox extenstions, Chrome extensions
What Is Your Name
Responsibility: Lead developer, DB architect
Simple (knee-coding style), just-for-fun social project based on counting and analysis the names of all the inhabitants of our planet.
Technologies involved: classic bunch PHP + HTML + CSS + jQuery, MySQL


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The week is half over and I've yet to make it to the gym... which really bothers me... as I NEED to be using the weights and machines and doing ZUMBA! Unfortunately, my gym schedule (this week) clashes with too many MUST DO's at work, so I'll continue to track my food and get as much extra movement in during the day as I can.... I'd hoped to get at least a short bike ride in this evening, but it's raining... so that's a no go... Tomorrow is a new day!!!
It's been such a beautiful week-end spent in the Kansas City area with our daughter and her family! It's nice to be able to spend time with family enjoying simple things! On Saturday we took the little ones to the local pumpkin patch! It was awesome, even though hundreds and hundreds of other families who had the same idea! A great time was had by all! Yesterday, my husband and I took three of our four grandchildren on a short drive to visit their great-grandpa... while my daughter and her hubby enjoyed their first visit to a NASCAR race, again a great time was had by all! This morning, we get to take our oldest grandson to preschool and check out his classroom, before we make our long journey home! It's going to be another beautiful day! Enjoy!!!
It's Friday, which means weigh in day! The lovely number staring back at me this morning was exactly the same as the one staring back last Friday morning, 206.6. Obviously, I was hoping for loss, BUT I know that I'm doing what I need to do to reach ALL my goals, which means I have to accept the fact that sometimes the scale isn't going to show my real progress!! So, this week I will celebrate a nonscale victory... which includes staying well within (sometimes below) my calorie allotment each day, getting 250 minutes of cardio on, whcih includes 26 plus miles on my bike, and finally being truly HAPPY!!!
Everyone have a great week-end!
As of the end of my 8.6 mile bike ride I have ridden a total of 26 miles this week, not much by some standards but very substantial to me!!! I never realized just how relaxing (mind clearing) a nice bike ride could be, but now I do!
Have a great day!!!
On Sunday I rode my lovely bike ten miles in a little under an hour! The weather was beautiful and it felt great! Yesterday was supposed to be Zumba time with a friend after school, but she twisted her ankle and couldn't dance, so I opted to go for another bike ride! It was a little slow going at first, legs felt a bit sluggish, but as I warmed up, it felt good and I managed to get a 7.4 mile ride in, in 40 minutes!!! We're going to be gone Friday thru Monday this week, so I feel the need to get as much exercise in as possible before hand! Regular Zumba tonight and maybe, just maybe a short bike ride! (It'd be great to get 20 miles in, in three days!)


text: We were staying at the St. Regis in Rome and wanted an little more spontaneity in a dining experience. Around the corner and 5 blocks up we found this place. The wait staff was very helpful with our very broken Italian. They introduced us to 2 different bottles of inexpensive wine and the cheese and salami plates were awesome for... More


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Just one? Well, my all-time go-to resource is Charlotte Mason's sixth volume, Towards a Philosophy of Education. Might I pick a second? My favorite education books ever is Poetic Knowledge.
My wall timeline. It is a project we enjoy year after year.
Are you going to hate me that I don't have one? I have never had the money to buy many resources, so the main extras we have are things that I have test-driven for publishers for free.
Hmmm. I don't think I'd call this our Number One Favorite, but what comes to mind first is Bob Parson's Simply Draw {reviewed here}.
Goodness! Why does this feel so hard all of a sudden? Oh! I know: Visual Latin. Love it already.
I have a whole list of things I wish I could add if I had double the budget. My oldest is trying to teach himself to draw birds, so I think number one on my wishlist right now would be a copy of John Busby's Drawing Birds.
The fabled Ambleside Year 12.
Veritas Press and The Classical Teacher from Memoria Press.
Shock: Ambleside Online. I also like to look at Charlotte Mason Help and my beloved CiRCE Institute.
FOUR SIXFIVE OTHER HOMESCHOOLERS Don't fail me, people! I tag Mystie, Dawn, Silvia, Naomi, and Heather.
31 August 2011
Homeschooling Meme
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30 August 2011
Grand Conversation: Discussion Questions for AO Y4 {Post the First}
Before I share my questions, I thought I'd mention that I am not looking for an exact answer here, and I had to tell E.-Age-Nine that because he seemed afraid to speak at first, as if he might get the answer wrong. I finally told him that my goal was to get him thinking and talking about the ideas, and I have my own ideas, and sometimes our ideas will match up, and sometimes they won't, and that's okay.
- Reading: Madam How and Lady Why Chapter 1, pp. 5-8
Does Madam How remind you of God? Why or why not?
- Reading: Madam How and Lady Why Chapter 1, pp. 8-13
What does it look like to learn from Madam How? To damage her property?
- Reading: Poor Richard pp. 25-31
Do you think you could make a journey from New York to Philadelphia like that?
- Reading: Poor Richard pp. 32-43
Should Ben have acted as he did in his brother's shop? What do you think about the Governor? Does he remind you of anyone from Pilgrim's Progress*?
- Reading: This Country of Ours Ch. 31
Do you think the people should have hid Goff and Whalley?
- Reading: The Story Book of Science Ch. 3 & 4**
Do you remember what the Bible says about ants?
- Reading: Robinson Crusoe***
Do you think Robinson should have sold Xury to the captain? Did he have the right to sell Xury?
What is the greatest temptation of Robinson's life at this time? Read. Proverbs 28:20.
Why do you think Robinson was cast onto the shore rather than drowned? Do you think this is for his good?
**My student is not reading these chapters on the same day, but I only planned on question. I'll just ask it when it seems most appropriate.
***My copy of Robinson Crusoe has neither chapters nor pages that would be helpful to list. Hopefully, you are reading along and can tell where is the best place to ask such questions. Tweet
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29 August 2011
New: Year Four Discussion Questions
One of the things I noticed near the end of Year Three was that E.-Age-Nine was slowly gaining greater and greater ability to really discuss what he had read. I'm not just talking about narration, but about the actual ideas embodied in the text. He was also making connections between what he read in one place, and what he had read somewhere else in a book, or even his Bible.
Not long ago, Naomi over at Living Charlotte Mason in California quoted Dr. Carroll Smith on the steps involved in narration:
If you click over, there is a brief description of each step. What I want to focus on here is the description of grand conversation:
- Teacher introduces the new text
- Student recreation of old text
- Reading of living book text
- Narration of living book text
- Grand conversation
Following the narration children need to be able to share their reactions and ask questions — their reactions and questions. Following the conversation they have had with the author through reading and narrating, the children now need to be able to have a conversation with the teacher and their fellow students about what the author said in the text. Here, the teacher talks with the students and not at the students.Some children are big talkers and will naturally start doing this. But other children will need to be trained, and all can benefit from honing their skills a little.
Saturday night, as I did my pre-reading for the week, I wrote down a question for each reading. I tried to muster everything I've learned from Andrew Kern as far as asking a good, idea-provoking question {though I'm sure practice will help, too}. This is my attempt to guarantee grand conversation through preparation. I would love to do it on the fly, but the truth is that I'm more likely to be paying attention to my Year One student rather than engaging fully in my Year Four student's narration. This ought to help me focus and give him the thorough education that he deserves, even if his mommy isn't yet a master of managing multiple students.
My thought was that perhaps some of you who are unable to pre-read, or just want some ideas, would enjoy seeing my weekly questions. Obviously, the first question is, "Do you {student} have any questions?" And if they do, a grand conversation will start all on its own. But if they don't, or if they are the type to need a little prodding, this might get them started. Socrates wasn't afraid to ask questions, and we shouldn't be, either.
My plan is to post my questions most every Tuesday here on Afterthoughts. Now that school has started, I can't write a long article everyday anyhow. Tomorrow, the first set of questions will go live. If you have written up discussions questions, or have ones that you asked spontaneously and found success with, I'd love for you to share them in the comments as we go along!
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Miscellaneous Musings on Monday
In other {more important} news...
- I finally finished James Jordan's Creation in Six Days. I'm sort of neutral on whether or not to recommend it. On the one hand, I like a lot of his criticism of alternative views. I like that he understands where science begins and ends. But his own views are not what I'd call traditional. I mean, yes, okay, he believes in six 24-hour days of creation, but beyond that he gets a little weird. I'm not even saying I totally disagree with him; just that it's a bit odd...sort of belies the title, I think.
- Are some or all of your children unvaccinated? If so, I highly encourage you to participate in the survey over at VaccineInjury. {Yes, I hate the name of the website.} I was actually trying to design my own survey to ask these very questions, and even though they could have been more thorough, I think it is a great start. If you recall, in my review of the book Childhood Vaccinations, I said that I thought the most interesting {and unresearched} question concerning vaccines is whether unvaccinated children are healthier than vaccinated children. I find it interesting because, so far, my unvaccinated children are far healthier than my vaccinated children. At the same time, one of my unvaccinated children was born with severe food allergies--before that happened, I was convinced that those sorts of allergies were caused by vaccination. But they are not {at least not in our experience here}. Anyhow, you can only answer the survey for children who are completely unvaccinated--not delayed, and not partially vaxed.
- Do you try and accommodate "learning styles" in your home? Do you believe that children actually learn differently? Apparently, there is no scientific evidence that this is true. According to Curriculum Matters, a 2009 study concluded that
there is no scientific evidence to support the popular idea that teaching should be differentiated according to whether a child is a visual or auditory learner, or absorbs ideas best when she's up and moving around while learning.I find this interesting because I've read a lot of things lately that imply that there are best ways to learn {and teach!} specific subjects, and catering to "learning styles" {especially excessively so} might actually be playing to a child's handicaps. What do you think? {HT: CiRCE}
- Here's one for you Tolkien fans out there: Art Student Hand-Illuminates, Binds a Copy of Tolkien's Silmarillion. I do not own a copy of this work. I wonder if illuminated copies will be for sale? Beautiful! {HT: Dawn}
- My father has a contribution for today: Big Government Destroys Family Farmers. Not that many of you will be surprised by this. Ahem. Have you watched Farmegeddon yet? There hasn't been a screening in our area, but I trust it'll eventually be on Netflix.
- I love making homemade salad dressing. It's something I started when I children were allergic-to-everything, and I've never stopped since. Here is a new one I want to try: Creamy Ranch Dressing.
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26 August 2011
What Education as an Atmosphere Looks Like
So far, I've been talking about the more concrete aspects of Ambleside: hymns, composer study, picture study, and geography. I'm skipping to the abstract here mainly because it's been on my mind since yesterday.
Before I tell you my story, let's talk about what our dear friend Charlotte means when she says that education is an atmosphere.
Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life
This is one of Mason's brilliant mottoes, packed full of ideas. We're only going to look at atmosphere here, of course, but I wanted to make sure we acknowledge that this is only one facet of the whole; atmosphere alone is not education.
In her sixth and final volume, Mason writes this:
Seeing that we are limited by the respect due to the personality of children we can allow ourselves but three educational instruments––the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit and the presentation of living ideas. Our motto is,––'Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.' When we say that education is an atmosphere we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a 'child environment' specially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere both as regards persons and things and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the 'child's' level.
In other words, by atmosphere, Mason does not mean building the perfect child-appropriate environment. She does not mean covering the corners of our coffee tables in bubble wrap and padding our playgrounds with rubber. She does not mean netting our trampolines {though I own a netted trampoline...ahem} and she does not mean covering our walls in bright colors and engaging pictures. This is what people thought atmosphere meant in Charlotte's own culture. She writes:
The theory has been,––put a child in the right environment and so subtle is its influence, so permanent its effects that he is to all intents and purposes educated thereby. Schools may add Latin and sums and whatever else their curriculum contains, but the actual education is, as it were, performed upon a child by means of colour schemes, harmonious sounds, beautiful forms, gracious persons. He grows up aesthetically educated into sweet reasonableness and harmony with his surroundings.If we recall that Charlotte criticized the German Kindergarten for being too perfect--contrived--then we realize that she must mean something more than simply manipulating a child's environment.
And, in fact, she does. She quotes Professor Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose as saying:
A plant carefully protected under glass from outside shocks looks sleek and flourishing but its higher nervous function is then found to be atrophied. But when a succession of "blows" (electric shocks) is rained on this effete and bloated specimen, the shocks themselves create nervous channels and arouse anew the deteriorated nature. Is it not the shocks of adversity and not cotton wool protection that evolve true manhood?
And here we are getting at Charlotte's aim, which she made quite clear previously in her third volume:
By this we mean that parents and teachers should know how to make sensible use of a child's circumstances (atmosphere)...Educationg through atmosphere, then, is not something we create, but rather involves our response to what is. Everything in the child's "atmosphere" is the opportunity for development of the child's character. The child can become a better {or worse} man than he would have been without both the challenges and blessings which God has placed in his life.
Recent Events
These past few weeks leading up to A.-Age-Six's molar extraction and filling--her first real dental procedures--were not easy. For whatever reason, God chose to place these obstacles in the path of my most sensitive, least pain-tolerant, most intensely nervous child. If I were a dullard, I might have missed the point {and I almost did}.
One thought that John Piper has been teaching our small group lately is that our faith is rooted in the knowledge that God does things for our good. Not just our past good or our current good, but also our future good. Walking in faith, then, means trusting along the way that these things will work out for our good.
It logically follows, then, that since my children likewise belong to God, He is also orchestrating the events of their own lives for their good as well. When Charlotte says that education is an atmosphere, I automatically leap to faith- and character-building.
Daughter A. looked to become the sort of woman who would refuse to have children because of the pain and fear involved {and, c'mon, we all know it's scary!}. Yesterday, when her simple extraction became complicated and turned into oral surgery, and I was holding her hand and trying not to look like I was fretting, I just kept reminding myself that the Lord has His purposes. Could it be that experiencing all of this pain and facing all of these fears early in life will reap a great harvest later in life? Will she be a tougher woman because of it?
Honestly, I think she will.
She learned lessons in trust. Two days before The Day, as we headed to Aunt Rebecca's house to borrow a movie, she told me she had decided not to worry about it anymore, that she figured that because I was a Christian and I loved my child, I was probably telling the truth about it not hurting very much to get a shot in the mouth.
She was quite the trooper. She was tempted to freak out and refuse to let the dentist do his job--that was very clear. But she didn't. She even waited until it was all over to cry.
It is so easy to think that my job as a mother is to help her avoid pain. It's like when my oldest was a tiny tot. It was tempting to try and protect him from every bump and bruise, to keep him from hitting ground when he fell. Obviously, we want to avoid serious injuries and death, but in general I learned that allowing a child to fall taught him better balance. Allowing him to be hurt taught him to be more careful--and taught him faster than a thousand naggings!
When we think of education as an atmosphere, let us not think of building an environment but rather of helping the child face his own situation with faith and courage when things seem wrong, and joy and gratitude when they seem right.
Not a bad approach for ourselves, either!
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23 August 2011
What Geography Looks Like
Geography: What's the Point?So first, let's ask ourselves what the point of geography is in the context of a Charlotte Mason-style classroom. In her first volume, Charlotte tells us:
[T]he peculiar value of geography lies in its fitness to nourish the mind with ideas, and to furnish the imagination with pictures. Herein lies the educational value of geography.She does not believe that studying dry geography textbooks and memorizing the names of capital cities is a good example of geographic study. Remember: Charlotte Mason believed that education is nothing less than the forging of relationships. Geography was one more way for a child to form a relationship with the world in which God placed him.
In this sense, she viewed geography as a means of world travel. The child could become intimate with a place in the world which he had never visited, if he was reading the right sort of books:
But let him be at home in any single region; let him see, with the mind's eye, the people at their work and at their play, the flowers and fruits in their seasons, the beasts, each in its habitat; and let him see all sympathetically, that is, let him follow the adventures of a traveller; and he knows more, is better furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the maps.In her sixth volume, we see her pressing even more for a geography that is gloriously, wonderfully alive to our students:
Do we wish every child in a class to say,––or, if he does not say, to feel,––"I was enlarged wonderfully" by a Geography lesson? Let him see the place with the eyes of those who have seen or conceived it; your barographs, thermographs, contour lines, relief models, sections, profiles and the like, will not do it. A map of the world must be a panorama to a child of pictures so entrancing that he would rather ponder them than go out to play; and nothing is more easy than to give him this joie de vivre. Let him see the world as we ourselves choose to see it when we travel; its cities and peoples, its mountains and rivers, and he will go away from his lesson with the piece of the world he has read about, be it county or country, sea or shore, as that of "a new room prepared for him, so much will he be magnified and delighted in it." All the world is in truth the child's possession, prepared for him, and if we keep him out of his rights by our technical, commercial, even historical, geography, any sort of geography, in fact, made to illustrate our theories, we are guilty of fraudulent practices. What he wants is the world and every bit, piece by piece, each bit a key to the rest.That last part has greatly impacted my philosophy of geography. I never considered that in teaching geography, we ought to be giving them the world.
Early GeographyOur friend Charlotte discriminated between the ages. In the younger years, geography, like much else, was taught in a more hands-on approach. In Volume One, she writes:
[T]he mother...will find a hundred opportunities to teach geography by the way: a duck-pond is a lake or an inland sea; any brooklet will serve to illustrate the great rivers of the world; a hillock grows into a mountain––an Alpine system; a hazel-copse suggests the mighty forests of the Amazon; a reedy swamp, the rice-fields of China; a meadow, the boundless prairies of the West; the pretty purple flowers of the common mallow is a text whereon to hang the cotton fields of the Southern States: indeed, the whole field of pictorial geography––maps may wait until by-and-by––may be covered in this way.Here we see her suggest teaching geography by analogy. A hill is like a mountain, a pond is like a lake or sea. And so on.
In addition, she suggests that the mother of young children teach them to observe the position of the sun {and its relation to the hour of day}, gain a sense of direction by recognizing east and west, and later drill them with a compass. Basically, the many hours spent out of doors are not focused solely on nature study proper, but also include geographical study.
Geography for the Older StudentIt was only after the child had built up a repertoire of analogies through his hours of outdoor romping that he was welcomed into the classroom to read great geographical works. When Charlotte says we ought to allow our geography student to be "at home" in a region, she accomplished this through certain kinds of books:
The 'way' of this kind of teaching is very simple and obvious; read to him, or read for him, that is, read bit by bit, and tell as you read, Hartwig's Tropical World, the same author's Polar World, Livingstone's missionary travels, Mrs. Bishop's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan––in fact, any interesting, well-written book of travel. It may be necessary to leave out a good deal, but every illustrative anecdote, every bit of description, is so much towards the child's education. Here, as elsewhere, the question is, not how many things does he know, but how much does he know about each thing.{I actually own an ancient copy of Hartwig's Tropical World and it is absolutely fabulous.}
A child uses maps at this stage, but not for drills.
Maps must be carefully used in this type of work,––a sketch-map following the traveller's progress, to be compared finally with a complete map of the region; and the teacher will exact a description of such and such a town, and such and such a district, marked on the map, by way of testing and confirming the child's exact knowledge. In this way, too, he gets intelligent notions of physical geography; in the course of his readings he falls in with a description of a volcano, a glacier, a cañon, a hurricane; he hears all about, and asks and learns the how and the why, of such phenomena at the moment when his interest is excited.Charlotte firmly believed that a child ought to grasp the meaning of a map. She writes in her first volume:
The child who gets no ideas from considering the map, say of Italy or of Russia, has no knowledge of geography, however many facts about places he may be able to produce. Therefore he should begin this study by learning the meaning of a map and how to use it. He must learn to draw a plan of his schoolroom, etc., according to scale, go on to the plan of a field, consider how to make the plan of his town, and be carried gradually from the idea of a plan to that of a map; always beginning with the notion of an explorer who finds the land and measures it, and by means of sun and stars, is able to record just where it is on the earth's surface, east or west, north or south.Basically, a little cartography is in order.
Practically Speaking...In my own home, we have a basic geography routine which works for us. We utilize the basic geography selections for Ambleside, of course. For each book, we secure a blank map to work with. I have done this with every book, save Marco Polo. His journey was so extended that we worked with a globe instead. Now, I wish I had thought to get a number of blank maps and tape them all together, that we might have had a great big one with which to record our intellectual travels. This is what I hope to do with my future students.
But as I was saying, we have a map. On the first day, I take the child to the globe {the children are trained from very young to know where our own residence is upon the globe}. We start with where we are, and then we "travel" to find the place about which we will be reading. Then I show them how the map "matches" the globe. I find this is most important with my youngest students, who don't yet completely comprehend maps.
As we are reading, we trace the journey {for most of the books detail a journey of some sort} upon the map. In Paddle to the Sea, for instance, I have a blank map of the Great Lakes, which I label for my students, and they color. On the first day, Lake Superior is mentioned. I label it, and my students color it blue. As we go on, they color the places we talk about that day. As students get older, the details and flourishes they add to their maps can become more extravagant.
In fact, I think it would help greatly if we began to think of the maps as a sort of travel diary, where the children are recording not only the journey, but the things which interest them along the way. What if they drew little icons to represent parts of the journey? The man-sized sheep upon the mountain top from Marco Polo? The iron mills in Paddle to the Sea?
But I digress.
I end our geography readings with we call our "map narration." Instead of merely telling back, the child tells back while using the map as a prop. He traces the journey upon the map while he is explaining what happened there. All of this goes a great way in associating his memories of the stories with actual positions upon the map.
In addition to all of this, Charlotte mentioned cartography, as I pointed out above. We have made models of their bedrooms to scale using graph paper. Both times we did this, we were trying to make decisions about furniture, and this helped us to see how it would fit and how the rooms could be arranged. The children seem to have learned a ton through this, and I keep thinking that I should just do our whole house, with their assistance, of course.
We are blessed to be near real mountains and a real ocean, so we haven't had to work too hard with analogies. But as I think about it now, I want to make a special effort to point out geographical features whenever we are on nature walks. This is easy for me to forget in the midst of identifying a butterfly, of course, but it would be a generous gift, especially to my littlest ones.
The Heart of GeographyAs in a number of other places within her philosophy, geography is one of the places where we see Charlotte Mason crossing the educational divide we see in our culture. The adoption of John Dewey's philosophy has resulted in our culture valuing children who know about rather than know intimately. It seems an odd idea to say that children ought to "build a relationship" with the world around them, or even the world far away {through the use of books}. Instead, we prefer our children to possess a large arsenal of facts about geography. We drill them--sometimes without even using maps. We consider ourselves "successful" if our children can rattle off information about places they've never seen.
Charlotte asks different questions to determine her success: Does the student love the place he studied? {Has he gained affection?} Has he read such great books about places, and gained such intimate knowledge, that he can visualize the place? Is it as if he has already been there? If he is able to travel there someday, will the place actually seem familiar to him?
It's not that memorizing facts is wrong. Though I don't have my children memorize geography facts at this time, they all must memorize their math facts, and they do this because it aids them in their math. I am sure that geography facts might function in this way, depending on the approach. But it isn't really Ambleside if we aren't working on increasing in affection for these places and being able to visualize these foreign parts of God's world.
Generosity. That is really the heart of a Charlotte Mason education, which is why I appreciate it so much. Let us always remember that in the geography lesson, we are offering them the world.
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22 August 2011
Miscellaneous Musings on Monday {First Day of School Edition}
But enough about me.
In other news...
- Can you boil your affection for the liberal arts down into a bumper sticker? This guy can.
- There is an interesting old post over at The Rabbit Room by Jonathan Rogers, author of The Charlatan's Boy {reviewed here}. It's called How Stories do Their Work on Us. Here's a tiny taste:
Nathan's story did what all great fiction does: it took David out of himself, and it gave him an emotional attachment to what it is good and right.
- Pray for us on Thursday, please. Daughter A. is finally having that molar extraction she needs, plus a filling. We need travel mercies...and a calm, brave heart for my little girl.
- Did you hear about the South Dakota schools moving to a four-day school week as a solution to their financial troubles? I'm going to laugh if they find that with less days in school, their test scores go up. On second thought, the article says:
In elementary school, recess and physical education classes will be shortened.So now I'm thinking the only things going up are their diagnoses of ADHD.
- I enjoyed many of the quotes in MMv's chapbook entry from The Idle Parent. One of my favorites was:
For the idle mother it is not a choice between "going back to work" or "staying at home." She explores that vast and rich territory between those two barren poles.
- Don't look now, but Cindy actually posted something on her Morning Time Moms blog. Might there be more in the future? I'm hoping!
- Last week, I posted some links on the Rawesome raid. This week, I thought I'd follow up with the other side of the story: A Raw Deal by Root Simple. I read the report from the private investigation firm, and they have a witness that Healthy Family Farms was buying conventional eggs, for instance, and repackaging them as organic and/or pastured and then selling them for double the price, and by the end of the report {if you get there} you'll be thinking this whole thing was something of a racket. I am for food freedom, yes, but not for fraud.
- Lastly, we could talk about the massive shut down of power plants headed our way, and about how some of you might be really, really cold this winter. This might be viewed as quite the triumph for the USA's green religion, and if you choose to worship at that altar, you might find this pleasing. Since coal power is a big reason why we didn't burn every tree {for heat} from sea to shining sea, I'm thinking this is Not Good. Really, though, our main concern should, once again, be the idea that the EPA can govern without any oversight at all from our actual legislative branch. I find it disturbing that any alphabet soup government arm {i.e., EPA, DOE, etc.} can create "rules" {otherwise known as laws} outside of the constitutional provisions. I mean, really! Doesn't anyone even read Russian literature anymore?
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21 August 2011
Sailboat Cake Tutorial
This cake was super simple, so this tutorial will be, too.
Step 1: Bake two round cakes. I did eight-inch. Nine-inch would be fine, also.
Step 2: Freeze said cakes. Don't skip this step. It is far, far easier to decorate a frozen cake compared to an unfrozen one. So do yourself a favor and freeze the cake. This can be done up to two days in advance without negative consequences.
Step 3: Make your frosting. I make the Wilton Buttercream. It never fails me. I made three batches, but only ended up needing two, so I froze some on the off-chance that it will last until I make cupcakes in a few weeks.
Ste 3a: Taste test the frosting. You know: "Just in case."
|Crumb Coat
Step 5a: Taste test more frosting. You know: "In case something changed."
|Base Coat
Step 8: Mark out your sailboat. I did this using a toothpick. I do not like free drawing with frosting. The cake I was imitating used fondant for this part, so it was cut and then slapped on top. I don't like the way fondant tastes, so I did all frosting, therefore I marked some light lines on my "canvas."
|Side View
|Top View
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18 August 2011
What Composer Study Looks Like
Before I get started, I want to remind you that when I say "Ambleside," I'm talking about Years One through Six--the elementary curriculum--and not Years Seven and up {also called House of Education}. In addition to this, my oldest child is only nine and beginning Year Four next week. So when I'm discussing all of this, I'm talking about young, beginning students, not advanced students. There is a difference, and we must keep in mind that what is good for young beginners is rarely sufficient for advanced students, while what is good for advanced students is not appropriate for beginners.
If we think we can approach our students the same way all of the way through their education, we are fooling ourselves. We have to deal with the nature of the student, and a Year One student, who is six years of age, is quite different from who she will be in Year Five when she is ten.
To begin this discussion, I think it is most helpful to quote part of what one of the AO Advisory, Wendi Capehart, says on the music page:
In music study the same principles apply as do in picture study, nature study, and nature notebooks. That is the principle of attentiveness and good observation. The goal is not to have children who can give a lecture on music theory. It is to have children learn to enjoy classical music and tell one piece from another just as naturally as they learn the difference between, say, The Farmer in the Dell and When the Saints Go Marching In - because they are both familiar with and fond of what they are hearing. The more they are exposed to good literature, the better they get at reading the themes and language of literature. In art and music, the more they are simply exposed to pictures and music, the more they learn to 'read' the themes of the world's classic compositions.It bears repeating what I learned from a lecture by John Hodges {conductor, musician, and composer, as well as director of The Center for Western Studies}, which is that exposure breeds taste. I remember reading once in regard to food that some children require ten separate tastes of a food in order to acquire even a tolerance for that food. This is why we always made our children take one. single. bite. of whatever it was they thought they didn't like. Just one. We knew it would pay dividends later when they had learned to tolerate--or even like--those foods. The same goes with music. If you ever hear someone say they "hate" classical music, chances are they were never really exposed to it.
Wendi goes on to say:
With reading we don't begin with the mechanics, the grammar and punctuation, nor we do we begin with a biography of Beatrix Potter before we read Peter Rabbit. With music, we should begin in much the same way - with simple exposure. Our children may read and be familiar with Beatrix Potter's children's stories for years before we would move on to Shakespeare, biographies, the history of "English Literature." So they can simply play around with music, listening to it, plinking away on musical instruments without being burdened with facts about the lives of composers, music theory, technique, and composition. In other words, those of us who do nothing much more than play the tapes and CDs, occasionally humming along, of each term's composers, need not feel guilty.Wendi says that adding music appreciation to the PNEU {Charlotte Mason's schools} was a bit of an afterthought, and I'd say that Volume Six concurs, in which Charlotte quotes from a lecture given at an Ambleside conference in the 1920s:
Musical Appreciation––which is so much before the eye at the present moment––originated in the P.N.E.U. about twenty-five years ago. At that time I was playing to my little child much of the best music in which I was interested, and Miss Mason happened to hear of what I was doing. She realised that music might give great joy and interest to the life of all, and she felt that just as children in the P.U.S. were given the greatest literature and art, so they should have the greatest music as well. She asked me to write an article In the Review on the result of my observations, and to make a programme of music each term which might be played to the children. From that day to this, at the beginning of every term a programme has appeared; thus began a movement which was to spread far and wide.If the first goal of what we in Ambleside commonly call "composer study" {which I think is a bit of a misnomer} is exposure and acquiring taste and appreciation, the second goal brings us back to the verse I shared earlier in this series:
Musical Appreciation, of course, has nothing to do with playing the piano. It used to be thought that 'learning music' must mean this, and it was supposed that children who had no talent for playing were unmusical and would not like concerts. But Musical Appreciation had no more to do with playing an instrument than acting had to do with an appreciation of Shakespeare, or painting with enjoyment of pictures. I think that all children should take Musical Appreciation and not only the musical ones, for it has been proved that only three per cent of children are what is called 'tone-deaf'; and if they are taken at an early age it is astonishing how children who appear to be without ear, develop it and are able to enjoy listening to music with understanding.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. {Philippians 4:8}In her fourth volume, Charlotte writes:
Many great men have put their beautiful thoughts, not into books, or pictures, or buildings, but into musical score, to be sung with the voice or played on instruments.The music we introduce, then, is another source of great thoughts--of true, honest, lovely things to think upon. The second goal is nothing less than the enlarging of the soul as it feeds upon virtuous ideas.
Wasn't This About Doing Composer Study?Yes, well, sometimes I first need to remind myself of the goal. Depending upon our aim, our methods will be different, right?
In Volume Four, Charlotte tells us:
Use every chance you get of hearing music {I do not mean only tunes, though these are very nice}, and ask whose music has been played, and, by degrees, you will find out that one composer has one sort of thing to say to you, and another speaks other things; these messages of the musicians cannot be put into words, so there is no way of hearing them if we do not train our ear to listen. A great help towards learning to hear music is to know the notes, to be able to tell with one's eyes shut any note or chord that is struck on the piano or sung with the voice.She mentions two things here: knowing the name of the composer {that, eventually, we might recognize his work whenever we hear it} and having what is commonly called perfect pitch. I would say that the former belongs to composer study, while the latter belongs to solfege or other music lessons.
As I searched through her volumes, I found that Charlotte's primary emphasis was upon really listening to the music. Again and again we see her using everything in her power--including music exposure--to train the attention. She wants her students to graduate with the ability to be fully present in their lives.
On the In Memoriam page {where Charlotte's former friends and comrades wrote about her after she passed}, one woman says:
[T]hrough Musical Appreciation she prepared children to understand and enjoy concerts.Later, another writes:
[T]he musical appreciation which is taught in the P.U.S. makes one able to understand in some measure the work of a musician, as well as having one's senses pleased by it.Charlotte herself writes, in Volume Five:
Let the young people hear good music as often as possible, and that under instruction. It is a pity we like our music, as our pictures and our poetry, mixed, so that there are few opportunities of going through, as a listener, a course of the works of a single composer. But this is to be aimed at for the young people; let them study occasionally the works of a single great master until they have received some of his teaching, and know his style.I think we can use all of this to put together a nice little list concerning the qualities of music appreciation as taught by Mason and her friends:
- The focus is upon hearing the music.
- Most of the time, the information the children receive concerning the pieces listened to is quite simple, and might often be as simple as only learning the name.
- The children ought to enjoy the hearing.
- Works studied ought to be a number of works by a single composer, that the students might learn something of the style and message of that composer.
The noise, noise, noise, NOISE!
Now, I for one do make a timeline figure {because I am a timeline nut...I have issues, people!}, if the composer whose works we are studying happens to have lived during the period of history we are studying, but that is hardly the point.
Composer study--which is, more rightly, a study of six works by a single composer--is very, very simple. Play the works. Listen to them. Name them {and, obviously, we name the composer}.
I do not do this formally. Rather, I put on the works while we are doing chores or some other activity {like painting}. The children might dance or march around, depending on how the music makes them feel. My oldest is probably ready to do this formally, now that he is in Year Four. We shall see if his mother is ready.
Sometimes, I purchase an Opal Wheeler biography and leave it lying around the house on the off-chance that my oldest wishes to learn more about the composer.
But that's about it.
I know that lots of supermommies out there like to make a composer lapbook and do composer crafts and talk about all the details of the composer's life. You can do what you like. But if you are feeling pressured to make composer study into Composer Study {if you know what I mean}, well then...relax. One of the goals is to enjoy it, and you can't possibly do that if the stress of it has just turned your shoulders into knots.
Listen to the music. Name it. Breathe. Enjoy!
In these younger years, that is enough.
One final note: In my opinion, a child's musical education is not complete without actually studying music formally. Ambleside officially suggests that this begins in Year Four. Our family begins at age eight {which tends to fall in Year Three}. Personally, I think any younger is not necessary and possibly detrimental, depending on the child. So much of the information we are tempted to drown students in during composer study can be learned, slowly and steadily, during formal music instruction. Chances are that adding in musical study around year four will naturally enhance a child's appreciation during composer study.
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17 August 2011
What Hymns Look Like
In regard to hymns, Charlotte doesn't say a whole lot about them in her writings. In Volume Five, she does explain the state of education in England:
Nowhere with us are two out of twelve, much less sixteen out of twenty-four, school hours devoted to religious instruction. Psalm, hymn, and catechism have departed; the Bible lesson is pared down to a shred; and, in our zeal, we do not see that we have deprived the people of the classics, the metaphysics, the ethics––as well as the religion––peculiarly their own. Instead, we have put into their hands––"Readers"––scraps of science, of history, of geography––saw-dust, that cannot take root downwards and bear fruit upwards in human soil.Here we see that psalm, hymn, catechism, and Bible lesson together comprise a healthy religious education.
In the hymns section of the Ambleside curriculum, we learn that Charlotte's students were taught three hymns per term, making for a total of twelve per year. On her Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six, she explains that a six-year-old ought to be able "to recite, beautifully, 6 easy poems and hymns."
In her third volume, Charlotte describes the singing of hymns as an aid to the habit of praise:
Perhaps we do not attach enough importance to the habit of praise in our children's devotion. Praise and thanksgiving come freely from the young heart; gladness is natural and holy, and music is a delight. The singing of hymns at home and of the hymns and canticles in church should be a special delight; and the habit of soft and reverent singing, of offering our very best in praise, should be carefully formed. Hymns with a story, such as: 'A little ship was on the sea,' 'I think when I read that sweet story of old,' 'Hushed was the evening hymn,' are perhaps the best for little children.In the Parent's Review article The Religious Training of Children at Home, the habits of the Christian Sabbath are discussed. The author says, for instance, that
I would have Sunday tasks as small as might well be. No child of mine, unless of its own free will, should learn a whole hymn on Sunday. It is a very common and delightful custom to repeat hymns on Sunday--every one of the family saying something--and you will say, "Hymns ought to be learnt." Yes indeed, they ought; but must it be a whole hymn? Would not two verses carefully said be as acceptable, and the rest of the hymn could be read, and more of it learnt another Sunday.The idea behind this is that it ought to be a sweet, restful task rather than becoming a burden of work for the child. In my own opinion, it seems even better, then, to have learned the hymns throughout the week, that Sunday might simply involve the joyful singing of songs already known.
I'd like to take a moment and connect all of this to our Poetic Knowledge study as well: At the beginning level, poetry, music, astronomy, Latin, etcetera, are done rather than studied. Music is experienced with the whole body; the students use their voices to sing, play an instrument if they know one, and dance.
This is getting us close to the place where I can explain that we do not, at this age, do "hymn studies." Again, as with picture study, there is such a thing as doing too much. In our zeal for children to "understand" we actually muddy the waters. I do not believe that a child needs to have all of the background of a hymn to sing a hymn; to love a hymn.
Children love to sing, and they adore familiarity, including in their music. This is why, as much as I appreciate the hymn rotation on the Ambleside site, I have chosen to focus on hymns which are regularly sung in my church or by family members {of course, most of them are on the rotation, just not in that particular order}. Once the children have mastered those, we will branch out and follow the rotation, but one of our goals is for them to be able to fully participate in worship service, to the full extent that they are able, including singing the songs.
Remember: part of the philosophy is that we can trust children to make their own connections. We do not have to spoon-feed anything to them, including their hymns. So let's talk about what learning a new hymn looks like in my home, which might be quite different from what works for your home, but that's part of the fun, no?
Here are the steps I take:
- Prep for the hymn. This is the part I do in advance. Hymn learning is just one more part of our memory binder system, so the first thing I do is find the score of the hymn, either online or in our hymnal, and print it off, placing it in the "daily review" section of the binder.
- Brief introduction. When we begin the hymn, I tell them its name. If it is written by someone they know {like Martin Luther, for instance}, I tell them who is the author. If necessary, I explain a couple words and phrases that might trip them up.
- Teach the first verse. Sometimes I accompany with the piano, but usually I don't. I sing the verse, and they listen. I sing it through phrase by phrase, with them repeating after me phrase by phrase. I sing it again a couple times, with them joining in more and more as they put the words together. One last time, they listen while I sing, and then we close with all trying to sing the verse together.
- Review. Beginning the next day, we sing the verse every day we have lessons.
- Teach the subsequent verses. Once per week, I add a new verse, until we have learned it all. This means that the "review" portion is reviewing all of the verses we learned.
What if a hymn has a compelling story behind it?My parents gave us a children's book about some of the major hymns of the faith, and it was quite moving to read the background information. It is sort of like in the book Future Grace, where John Piper explains that B. B. Warfield's wife was struck by lightening and paralyzed on their honeymoon. She never recovered, and he stuck close to home, nursing her himself, for almost forty years. In the next paragraph, when Piper shares Warfield's thoughts on Romans 8:28, it means a lot:
The fundamental thought is the universal government of God. All that comes to you is under His controlling hand.Obviously, the stories behind hymns can make them feel even more powerful. With this said, I choose to save those stories for later. I think they can be distracting when our purpose is to connect the children to the song and the church through memorization of the verses and melody. In reading the story later, when they have mastered the hymn, the story will turn the tables, and then they will be mastered by the hymn as well.
Next: What Composer Study Looks Like
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16 August 2011
What Picture Study Looks Like
Why do Picture Study?Mason had a number of reasons for beginning picture study with even her youngest of students {meaning age six}. First, she believed that this would increase their interest in the artists' works. This is akin to John Hodges' assertion {made in regard to music} that exposure encourages appetite. If you want children to like art {or music}, you have to familiarize them with it.
Second, she believed it was one other way of increasing their power of attention and observation {of course, this might depend upon how you go about it}. In addition to this, at various times she mentioned its value in regard to the ability to make a clear mental picture, increasing the power of imagination, training their ideas of "form and colour," and even enjoyment and populating the mind with beautiful images to think upon.
When I think of why we do picture study, I think of Philippians 4:8:
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.This is nothing less than a habit of the mind, and this habit requires a lot of content. Lucky for us, the world is full of beautiful, noble, lovely things to think about. As a child becomes so acquainted with a beautiful picture that it is stored forever in her memory, this is one more image that he can draw up and ponder whenever he might need it.
How is Picture Study Planned?Ambleside Online assigns six pictures from a single artist per term. These may be line drawings, oil or watercolor paintings, etchings, etcetera. In Volume 6 of Mason's work, we see that this is exactly what was done in Mason's own schools. I think that Mason exposed the children to them one at a time, but I have them all printed up on cardstock at once, frame them, and hang them upon a wall in our dining room. When it is picture study day, I bring down that day's assigned piece.
How is Picture Study Done?I'll tell you how Mason described it, and then I'll tell you what we here on the microhomestead actually do. Here is a quote from Mason's first volume:
"Step II.––Give them the picture 'Alexander and the Diogenes' to look at, and ask them to find out all they can about it themselves, and to think what idea the artist had in his mind, and what idea or ideas he meant his picture to convey to us.
"Step III.––After three or four minutes, take the picture away and see what the children have noticed. Then ask them what the different dogs suggest to them; the strength of the mastiff representing Alexander; the dignity and stateliness of the bloodhounds in his rear; the look of the wise counselor on the face of the setter; the rather contemptuous look of the rough-haired terrier in the tub. Ask the children if they have noticed anything in the picture which shows the time of day: for example, the tools thrown down by the side of the workman's basket suggesting the mid-day meal; and the bright sunshine on the dogs who cast a shadow on the tub shows it must be somewhere about noon.
"Step IV.––Let them read the title, and tell any facts they know about Alexander and Diogenes; then tell them Alexander was a great conqueror who lived B.C. 356-323, famous for the battles he won against Persia, India, and along the coast of the Mediterranean He was very proud, strong, and boastful. Diogenes was a cynic philosopher. Explain cynic, illustrating by the legend of Alexander and Diogenes; and from it find out which dog represents Alexander and which Diogenes.
"Step V.––Let the children draw the chief lines of the picture, in five minutes, with a pencil and paper."
Before I tell you what I do, allow me to tell you what I think is the most important point our dear friend Charlotte ever made about picture study:
There is no talk about schools of painting, little about style; consideration of these matters comes in later life, but the first and most important thing is to know the pictures themselves. As in a worthy book we leave the author to tell his own tale, so do we trust a picture to tell its tale through the medium the artist gave it. In the region of art as elsewhere we shut out the middleman. {emphasis mine}There is a huge temptation here, as in all areas, to make these things harder than they have to be. Mason simply allowed the child to interact with the picture.
We do not have to select a biography of the painter, an analysis of the painting, and so on and so forth. Students do not have to do a craft with the painting in mind, or take a test about the painting. We do not have to discuss symbolism until we are blue in the face. I have seen mothers feel so inadequate when it comes to picture study simply because they have overcomplicated the process.
It isn't that we can "be lazy" and not do all of these activities. It is that these activities come between the child and the object of study. Too many distractions cause him to not know.
In other words, picture study is simple because it is focused. It has one goal: to know the painting.
So here is what we do: Once per week, I take down the assigned picture {each picture gets two weeks}, and we look at it. I tell them the name of the artist and the name of the picture. If the picture is referring to a story, I first read it to them {except when they are already very familiar with it}. This usually takes a short period of time because most paintings, if they reference a story at all, reference a short myth or passage of Scripture. Then, the children crowd around and they take turns telling me what they see. I call this "narrating the painting." In the past, I had them try and "draw the lines" but there were tears {they were too young, for the most part} so last year, this oral description was all that they gave me. On his exam, my son would describe a painting in the most detail he possibly could without giving us the name, and then we had to guess which one he was talking about.
This year, I plan to have my oldest {age nine} draw the lines. The others can do so if they like, but it will not be required. I like that Charlotte limited the time on this activity to five minutes.
On occasion, I've bought a children's book about a particularly famous artist or painting, but for the most part, we keep it this simple.
Charlotte believed that artistic analysis was appropriate in the older years, not in the younger years. This makes sense to us because Poetic Knowledge already taught us that small children must deal in wholes, and that the wholes must precede analysis by years, not days. When the time for analysis comes, we will find good books to aid us. For now, we stick to very simple, but very regular picture study.
Preschooler approved?I don't think a child is ever too young for this activity, as long as our expectations are age-appropriate. Picture study is by far my two-year-old's favorite time of the week. He literally cheers when I grab a picture off the wall! For him, though, we turn it around. Do you see the woman? The door? The house? The tree? The dog? He points and points and enjoys every minutes of it. We ask him what he sees, and sometimes we understand him, and sometimes we don't. And then he listens to what the others are saying about the picture.
Because of my poor experience with drawing the lines of the painting, I would say that, unless a child is a natural artist, beginning this before age six or seven might be unwise. But other than that, this is a wonderful way to begin incorporating the elements of a broad and generous education into a lives of our youngest members.
Next: What Hymns Look Like
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15 August 2011
What Ambleside Looks Like
Personally, I think that Ambleside is the simplest, most effective curriculum I've ever encountered. Regardless of its simplicity, it can be hard for us to implement because of our huge mental hurdles. After all, most of us {myself included} spent years learning in an environment that was highly influenced by Dewey, which means it was almost completely antithetical to what we are trying to do. Learning to think about education in a way that diverges so much from our upbringing--our culture--is the hardest part.
It matters not that this is actually a return to the traditions of humanity. Right here, right now, it can be difficult.
This is why I've decided to start a new series. Plus, I've got school on the brain, whether I like it or not. I'll just serve this muse until another comes my way.
Starting tomorrow, we'll go through the elements day by day {or post by post, as the case may be}.
First up: picture study.
Update: Read More
-What Picture Study Looks Like
-What Hymns Look Like
-What Composer Study Looks Like Tweet
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Miscellaneous Musing on Monday {One-Week-Until-School Edition}
In other news...
- Feel like thinking your way through some feminism this bright Monday morning? Angelina Stanford {of Permanent Things fame} gave what I heard was a brilliant talk at the CiRCE Conference this year. The text of her speech is now available on the CiRCE website: What is Woman?: A Re-examination of Feminism & the Church. Highly recommended.
- Or, maybe homemade gumdrops are more your style? I don't really like gumdrops, so you won't catch me spending time on this in my kitchen, but I think it's pretty cool that she did it.
- Willa is quietly continuing her thoughts in the stream of our Poetic Knowledge bookclub. She hasn't written much lately, but Looking Into Childhood has some worthy thoughts.
- In my poultry reading this week, I learned that poultry farms that go organic experience a drop in antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections in their flocks. I love reading this stuff...even though I do not feed our birds an organic diet. WHY? you might ask. Have you priced 50lb. bags of organic feed lately? Because I have and I'm telling you it's not affordable. But I don't worry, because our birds have never had antibiotics, and my reading indicates that it is the steady stream of antibiotics {including that found in medicated feed} causing the drug-resistance. Our flock mainly subsists on grass and bugs, enjoying grain rations at morning and evening. The fact that this is not organic bothers me not at all, especially considering it is such a small percentage of their diet.
- I grew up knowing how George Soros made billions by destroying countries, economies, and banks. But perhaps your family talked about something else at the dinner table? Here's a little primer from The Blaze on how he might have done it here.
- I'm considering a new recipe sometime this week, just for fun. These Veggie Potato Latkes sound good to me. There will definitely be some zucchini in these!
- I have a question. Does anyone know why I would have giant, beautiful tomato plants...and absolutely no fruit? My garden has otherwise performed perfectly. I have five beautiful pumpkins ripening. The zucchini is still going strong. I have more beets than I know what to do with. The carrots are almost ready. And so on. But my tomatoes? Nothing! I've seen a few flowers, but not even any green fruit. No sign of any bugs...I am mystified. I grew them from seed. Might the seed be the problem?
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11 August 2011
AO Year Four Timeline Figures
There was a time when I considered selling timeline figures for my wall timeline on the side to earn a little book money, but I decided to just give it away. You know: casting my bread upon the waters and all that.
So here are my Year Four figures, for those of you who might enjoy them:
And you're welcome. Tweet
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10 August 2011
Quotables: A Return to Modesty
|A Return to Modesty:
Discovering the Lost Virtue
by Wendy Shalit
A truly misogynist culture like our own loves to encourage the so-called fatal woman or "b--ch," because she confirms its suspicion that all women are really evil, and if we were honest, we would admit it. What it cannot bear is a real, living woman--someone with hopes, dreams, secrets, and all of that other schmaltzy stuff with Dr. Klein & Misogyny, Inc. takes as evidence of being "emotionally labile." {p. 169}
Modesty damps down crudeness, it doesn't dampen down Eros. In fact, it is more likely to enkindle it. {p. 173}
"When teenagers easily dismiss the s*exual side of a male/female relationship and claim to be 'just friends,'" Friedman continues, "it's not a virtue or an accomplishment; it's a sad loss. And what we have lost is our ability to be naturally s*xual." {p. 179}
[S]ome say that embarrassment is socially constructed...I would say the opposite--that embarrassment is natural but it can be socially destructed. {p. 204}
Preventing pregnancy doesn't make everything OK. {p. 207}
We don't believe our girls when they tell us what they hoped for. When they come crying to us in all sincerity or despair, we are annoyed with them and tell them, like Sharon Thompson, that "their distress" is "disproportionate." They would be better off, as she says, if they took "the romantic equation apart," "accept[ed] love as ephemeral." So we put her on the Pill, on Prozac, tell her to try harder, and by the end, it's her hopes that are dead. Then when she no longer cares about anything, we deem her "mature." If she's like me and still cares, then she is "immature." {p. 208}
We tell them that the only risk is pregnancy or s*xually transmitted diseases, but it simply isn't true. Maybe it's true if you're the sort of person who loves only yourself, because then you can never lose yourself completely in anyone else, but most girls are not as narcissistic as our culture trains them to be. {p. 210}
What's rarely talked about is what it's like to grow up in a divorce culture even when your parents are not divorced. For even when they're happy, they always could get divorced... {p. 210}
No child can ever really rest in our culture of divorce. We have to be careful not to be sick, to be entertaining all the time. If we're too much of a burden, we could find ourselves all alone. {p. 211}
[I] see s*xual modesty among my peers as a return to the idea of having private claims, as a way of escaping from the mire of indeterminacy and insecurity. First, by not having s*x before marriage, you are insisting on your right to take these things seriously, when many around you do not seem to. By reserving a part of you for someone else, you are insisting on your right to keep something sacred; you are welcoming the prospect of someone else making an enduring private claim to you, and you to him. But more significantly, not having s*x before marriage is a way of insisting that the most interesting part of your life will take place after marriage, and if it's more interesting, maybe then it will last. {p. 212}
Working mothers with small children now say they work "because I have to." Why do so many women say that? If we have been freed from oppression and are supposed to be liberated, then how has it come to pass that so many women are forced to do what they do not want? {p. 215}
However particular religious understandings of modesty may differ, all are in agreement that modesty is inextricably entwined with holiness. {p. 218}
The most common complaint I hear from women my age is that there is no longer any "dating scene." Young people go out in packs, they drink, they "hook up," and the next day life returns to normal. {p. 236}
[C]onsider yourself forewarned: If you refuse to be cured of your sensitivity or your womanhood, if you start defending your right to your illusions, be prepared for people to tell you that you are silly and childish. Be prepared for some to make fun of you directly, and for others to be more sophisticated about it and try to reduce your hopes to various psychological maladies. {p. 237}
[Older women] generally take for granted the dating, the courtship rituals, the early marriage they enjoyed, and--what now almost never exists--the lifetime companionship, the simple trust one has with a spouse who was also one's first lover. To them, "innocence" is always in ironic quotes; it was a word their mothers used. They do not make the connection between this initial innocence and the lasting love that came after. {p. 240}Tweet
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Book your room at Holiday Inn New Ulm
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3-star hotel with free airport shuttle and restaurant
Situated in a rural location, this hotel is within 32 mi (52 km) of Verizon Wireless Center, Mount Kato Ski Area, and Minnesota State University. Blakeslee Stadium is 27.6 mi (44.4 km) away.
Hotel Features
A restaurant, an indoor pool, and a fitness center are available at this hotel. Free self parking and a free airport shuttle are also provided. Other amenities include a bar/lounge, a spa tub, and coffee/tea in the lobby.
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All 126 rooms provide room service, coffee makers, and cable TV. Free newspapers, free local calls, and hair dryers are among the other amenities that guests will find.Information missing or incorrect? Tell us!
Holiday Inn New Ulm2101 S Broadway St New Ulm MN 56073
Hotel Amenities
In addition to an indoor pool, Holiday Inn New Ulm provides a spa tub and a fitness center. The hotel offers a restaurant. A bar/lounge is on site where guests can unwind with a drink.
A business center is on site at this 3-star property. This New Ulm hotel also offers gift shops/newsstands, coffee/tea in the lobby, and complimentary newspapers in the lobby. Complimentary self parking is available on site.
- Complimentary newspapers in lobby
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- Total number of rooms - 126
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An indoor pool and a spa tub are on site. Other recreational amenities include a fitness center.
To make requests for specific accessibility needs, complete the "Special or Accessibility Requests" section of "Trip Preferences" when you book your hotel.
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Check-in time starts at 3 PM
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Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on hotel policy.
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Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
- Pet fee: USD 15 per night


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Posts tagged: Joey Lagano
Charging forward from the seventh position after a restart on Lap 158 of 200, Joey Logano overtook pole-sitter Ryan Truex for the lead on Lap 195 to win the 5-Hour Energy 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series race, leading a 1-2-3 finish for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Joey Logano drove away from Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin after a green-white-checkered-flag restart to win his second straight race in the series and third of the season.
Joey Logano wins NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Talladega Superspeedway with a late race pass on Sprint Cup series teammate, Kyle Busch.
The victory was Joey Logano's first of the season, second at Fontana and the 10th of his career. Logano is the first Sprint Cup Series regular to win a Nationwide race this season.


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Mother Teresa's reaching out in love: stories told by Mother Teresa
Barnes & Noble, 2002 - Christian life - 164 pages
Biographical account of Mother Teresa, 1910-1997, founder of the Missionaries of Charity woven around events and incidents that touched her life.
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Review: Mother Teresa's reaching out in love: Stories told by Mother TeresaUser Review - Allie - Goodreads
Short stories about what Mother Teresa said in some of her PUblic speaking, really good and really short. Read full review
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I've always been intrigued by Mother Teresa's character & love for people. Interesting read & loved the quotes & stories told by her. Read full review
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The documentary 'Informant' profiles Brandon Darby, a grassroots leftist activist. He and filmmaker Jamie Meltzer join HuffPost Live to discuss the complexities of the story.
Trailer for Informant.
Jamie Meltzer s brilliant documentary political thriller has a twist: we know who done it. His name is Brandon Darby. He started out as a leftwing activist and New Orleans do-gooder and ended up accepting standing ovations at Tea Party conventions. Along the way, his ideals shifted or at least his notion of who the good guys and the bad guys are and he became an FBI informant. Hero or villain? Patriot or turncoat? Snitch or savior? Director Jamie Meltzer isn t saying. He leaves that up to you, which is the thrill in the thriller.
The heart of the story happens when Darby, by then a paid FBI informant, travels with militant activists to the 2008 Republican National Convention, with the intent of stopping them before they break the law. When two young men end up storing Molotov cocktails in their basement, that s when things really get interesting
Excerpt from the documentary The Informant.
In this politically relevant documentary, director Jamie Meltzer turns his lens on activist-turned-informant Brandon Darby. Darby became famous among community organizers after defying authorities and heroically rescuing a friend during hurricane Katrina in New Orleans Ninth Ward, then helping to start a grassroots relief organization called Common Ground. He symbolized for many the potential power of radical activism.
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Car Forums / Acura / Acura TL
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Entry Level Luxury Performance Sedans
edwardsf Posts: 188Thanks - Great photos. Except one. The Audi photo looks much poorer quality than the others.
I don't know if I get to comment as I am mainly a lurker here (but a respectable lurker), but I think the TL and the IS are the most pleasing dashes - they are a little too lux for me, but they are soooothing. The Audi and BMW gauges are by far the best. There is something about no nonsense, somewhat retro teutonic guages that evoke high end machines to me. Wood interiors on these smaller German cars seem to clash with their bauhaus, glass and steel Messerschmidt effect.
Purple and baby blue colors on gauges just seem like sacriledge to me. Except they fit perfectly on the G. For the life of me, I cannot figure out Infiniti's love of flashy, old lady-oriented interior glitz (that clock looks like a women's watch). Infiniti interiors spell Liberace and Myrtle Beach retirement communities for me. The Cadillac. Yes my fellow Americans, we have met the enemy and he is us.
BTW, I think Saab fits here but you have to sit in the wrap around Saab interior to appreciate it's slavic modernism.
cdnpinhead Forest Lakes, AZPosts: 3,316. . .they fit perfectly on the G. For the life of me, I cannot figure out Infiniti's love of flashy, old lady-oriented interior glitz (that clock looks like a women's watch). Infiniti interiors spell Liberace and Myrtle Beach. . .
I've enjoyed the discussions of interiors & gauges, but didn't comment until now. I completely agree with what you posted.
And then, to top it off, I don't find the CTS interior so offensive as everyone else apparently does.
Well not everybody. :blush But with car interiors/exteriors the photos never seem to do them justice, either positive or negative. The BMW interior pales in comparison. Yet when I get in a BMW interior it is all about the driving, even i-drive. I love the orange gauges. The Lexus feels like my living room, I want to recline and go to sleep.
It's interesting to read about peoples preferences when it comes to cars.
Actually if you want to go by the best interiors of late I'd say Nissan/Infinti have the most modern looking interiors. BMW, and Audi, use to have the best but it seems they as of late let Ray Charles, design them. :surprise:
My favoritest interior of all the cars made for model year 2007' is the Volvo S80's. Volvo, has arguably the best interior design I've ever seen with the new S80.
It is a real "eye-stopper" of modern art. :shades:
So would you recommend the new E320 Bluetec?
Yes I would. The E has supposedly been gutted for 07 and should prove to be more reliable, but sadly the reality of buying a Mercedes is that reliabilty isn't a given anymore. That said........
My marketing director has a 2005 E320 CDI which she likes, but it has had more problems in two years than her former E300 Turbodiesel had in four years.
The main things I've seen about these is that people are getting "bad gas" according to service advisors. Last week while getting a service I was talking with a E320 CDI owner and she said the service adviser told her which stations to avoid. Despite this she said she would be getting a ML320 CDI.
BMW, interiors lack a artistic design. Yuk !!!!
Artistic design?
"Art is useless, so is a flower." - Oscar Wilde
I know car manus spend millions on exterior design and interior layouts. Yet not a single car in this class is even remotely attractive on the outside. As far as interior's the e46 had the best interior of all of them by a longshot. Now that it's gone we're stuck with the current faux pas that pass as interiors. Not a single one of the interiors shown above is driver-centric enough. They play to the rest of the car's passengers. The e46 with it's tighter design, titled-toward-the-driver dash, low beltline (god how I love riding in friends and family member's e46s) and controls right-at-hand epitomizes what these interiors should be.
Visually, I couldn't care less - as long as there is no wood anywhere. I just want everything of importance - gauges, controls, HVAC, stereo pointed at me. The passengers can look out the window. Function over form - the driver is king of the domain, so therefore all functions should be aimed at pleasing the driver.
""Art is useless, so is a flower." - Oscar Wilde
Well said Mr. Wilde.
"Yet not a single car in this class is even remotely attractive on the outside. "
"Visually, I couldn't care less - as long as there is no wood anywhere. "
I don't think Mr. Wilde was following you when he made that statement.
Spartacus, the point I made by saying:
Yet not a single car in this class is even remotely attractive on the outside.
I still bought one of these cars, even though visually it's ugly. It reminds me of a melted Buick. Like all the cars in this class the e90 is just plain dowdy, slab sided and not the least bit interesting. Ditto the TL, C, IS, CTS, G35, etc. Even if a car is nice to look at, the would in no fashion influence my purchase. The interior needs to have zero wood and be driver oriented. Beyond that, I couldn't care much less if there's a navigation screen or a digital readout like KITT's. Just make it functional and lacking anything that is or appears to be wood-like. Wood belongs on furniture, not a piece of machinery.
laurasdada Posts: 2,731"the driver is king of the domain..."
You must not be married...!
And I have to disagree, I find the TL (that I own) to be a very handsome vehicle from almost any angle. The first Acura since the original Legend Coupe with any kind of style, imho. The NSX, while apparently a wonderful car, didn't do anything for me style-wise.
In this group, to me the only car that is severly challenged style-wise is the CTS. YMMV
'13 Jaguar XF, '11 BMW 535xi, '02 Lexus RX300
I may be blind, but until you give me the money and tell me what car to buy, this is my opinion and I am sticking to it.
ROTFLMAO, yes you have that right. As far as the money part, I wished I could help you out. It would perhaps make you able to see a lil' more clearly. :P
You must not be married...!
Live-in girlfriend I will probably marry by the end of 2007. She understands that in her car I do things by her rules (and she buys crazy things like seat heaters and automatic transmissions). In the house I defer to her - save for my office. In my car: it's my domain...she fully understands that driving is my thing. Luckily we share the same passion for restaurants, movies and the NFL.
The NSX, while apparently a wonderful car, didn't do anything for me style-wise.
Ah, the NSX cockpit was the bomb. Yummy.
Good quality wood belongs on furniture.
True, but on a premium car and good quality wood, it looks like it belongs also in mine, and many others opinions
Wood in a car looks tacky;
LOL, Depends upon the car and interior lay-out.
in a Lexus or a Bentley, it still looks out of place and poseur-ish.
I'm going to have to send you cane, so you can "tap" your way to better senses, because you are legally blinde to "hate" on premium Bentley and Lexus wooded interiors. They are among the best :P
Some cars look good with wood, others look overcooked. I can't stand wood in sports cars where, to me, it is akin to showing up on a basketball court wearing cordovan shoes. However in luxury cars wood is welcome in subtle amounts. Variety and harmony with material and texture are always welcome. And as always it's a matter of taste.
However in luxury cars wood is welcome in subtle amounts. Variety and harmony with material and texture are always welcome. And as always it's a matter of taste.
I totally agree with this sentiment. My dad had a 1976 Jaguar XJ6 30 years ago, and it had the most beautiful wood dash. Too bad the car was in the shop half the time.
Now that you mention it, that's one of the things the 3-series and most other performance sedans could definitely use less of... power steering. And it's curious how this aspect is hardly if ever mentioned in performance reviews and discussion. That's one of the things I like about the 5-series. It seems to use the power assist more sparingly.
dewey Posts: 5,243Sold it during April after buying a BMW535xi Touring! Sometime during mid-November my wife will mainly drive the Touring as I'll be driving a new BMW335i sedan.
I can assure you if I had major problems with my old 323i I would not of bought two other BMWs. During 8 years of ownership the SRS system/audio system was the only issue worth mentioning. And the audio was still functional and not worth replacing. Not bad considering 8 years of ownership.
No more car purchases for another 7 years until I get that itch again. Or at least until my wallet is replenished.


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Posted Thu, Mar 22, 2012 by Martuk
WildStar Wednesday visits the wilds of the Northern Wilds for a look at the local wildlife. This week's WildStar Wednesday visits the Northern Wilds of the Nexus to preview some of the local wildlife. The new blog serves up a number of bestiary entries that include details and special attacks for the Rootbrutes, Girrok and the Skeech. Check them all out in the latest WildStar Wednesday.
Source: WildStar Wednesday: Northern Wilds Bestiary