Drat. Well, anyhow, the 7th Homeschooling Country Fair is now up and running, with a slew of interesting-looking posts to check out.
Monthly Archives: June 2007
“Yes, Yes, I Know She Is Quite Smart, But I Want to Know How Her Soul Is Developing”
This article by a California teacher with 30 years’ experience in the classroom appeared in last week’s San Francisco Chronicle.
"The present emphasis on testing and test scores is sucking the soul out of
the primary school experience for both teachers and children. So much time is
spent on testing and measuring reading speed that the children are losing the
joy that comes but once in their lifetime, the happy messiness of paint, clay,
Tinkertoys and jumping rope, the quiet discovery of a shiny new book of
interest to them, the wonders of a magnifying glass. The teachers around them,
under constant pressure to raise those test scores, radiate urgency and
pressure. Their smiles are grim. They are not enjoying their jobs."
Let children be children
Is your 5-year-old stressed out because so much is expected?
by Penelope H. Bevan
I was watching one of my second-grade girls try unsuccessfully to tie her shoes the other day, and I thought, "This is a person who is supposed to be learning plural possessives?" I think not.
We’ve just finished test time again in the schools of California. The mad
frenzy of testing infects everyone from second grade through high school.
Because of the rigors and threats of No Child Left Behind, schools are
desperate to increase their scores. As the requirements become more stringent,
we have completely lost sight of the children taking these tests.
For 30 years as a teacher of primary kids, I have operated on the Any Fool
Can See principle. And any fool can see that the spread between what is
developmentally appropriate for 7- and 8-year-old children and what is demanded
of them on these tests is widening. A lot of what used to be in the first-grade
curriculum is now taught in kindergarten. Is your 5-year-old stressed out?
Perhaps this is why.
Primary-grade children have only the most tenuous grasp on how the world
works. Having been alive only seven or eight years, they have not figured out
that in California there is a definite wet and dry season. They live in high
expectation that it will snow in the Bay Area in the winter. They reasonably
conclude, based on their limited experience with words, that a thesaurus must
be a dinosaur. When asked to name some of the planets after he heard the word
Earth, one of my boys confidently replied, "Mars, Saturn, Mercury, Jupiter and
Canada!" to which a girl replied, "No, no, no, you gotta go way far outer than
that."
Research has shown that it takes approximately 24 repetitions of a new
concept to imprint on a young brain. The aforementioned plural possessives come
up twice in the curriculum, yet they are supposed to know it when they see it.
This is folly.
Currently, 2 1/2 uninterrupted hours are supposed to be devoted to
language arts and reading every morning. I ask you, what adult could sustain an
interest in one subject for that long? Yet the two reading series adopted by
the state for elementary education require that much time be devoted to reading
in the expectation that the scores will shoot up eventually. Show me a
7-year-old who has that kind of concentration. Show me a 64-year-old teacher
who has it. Not I.
The result of this has been a decline in math scores at our school,
because the emphasis is on getting them to read and there isn’t enough time to
fit in a proper curriculum. Early math education should rely heavily on messing
about with concrete materials of measurements, mass, volume and length, and
discovering basic principles through play.
There is no time for this. The teaching of art is all but a subversive
activity. Teachers whisper, "I taught art today!" as if they would be reported
to the Reading Police for stealing time from the reading curriculum, which is
what they did.
It is also First Communion time in second grade. Yes, I teach in a public
school, but First Communion happens in second grade, and it is a big deal, the
subject of much discussion in the classroom. The children are excited.
A few months back one of my girls exclaimed, "Jeez, I have a lot to do
after school today, Teacher. I gotta do my homework, go to baseball practice
and get baptized." I laughed to myself at the priorities of this little to-do
list, so symbolic of the life of one second-grader. But there was a much larger
issue here. What is happening to their souls? You may ask, what business it is
of the schools what is happening to the souls of these little children?
I will tell you. Any fool can see that those setting the standards for
testing of primary-grade children haven’t been around any actual children in a
long time. The difference between what one can reasonably expect an 8-year-old
to know and what is merely a party trick grows exponentially on these state
tests.
Meanwhile, children who know they are bright and can read well are proved
wrong time and again because of the structure of these tests. Teachers spend
inordinate amounts of time trying to teach the children to be careful of the
quirky tricks of the tests when they should be simply teaching how to get on in
the world.
Twenty years ago, I had a conference with a parent, a Sikh, whose child
was brilliant. I was prepared to show him all her academic work, but he brushed
it aside and said, "Yes, yes, I know she is quite smart, but I want to know how
her soul is developing."
The present emphasis on testing and test scores is sucking the soul out of
the primary school experience for both teachers and children. So much time is
spent on testing and measuring reading speed that the children are losing the
joy that comes but once in their lifetime, the happy messiness of paint, clay,
Tinkertoys and jumping rope, the quiet discovery of a shiny new book of
interest to them, the wonders of a magnifying glass. The teachers around them,
under constant pressure to raise those test scores, radiate urgency and
pressure. Their smiles are grim. They are not enjoying their jobs.
Our children need parents and teachers who, like Hamlet, know a hawk from
a hand saw, who know foolishness when they see it and are strong enough to
defend these small souls from the onslaught of escalating developmentally
inappropriate claptrap. The great unspoken secret of primary school is that a
lot of what is going on is arrant nonsense, and it’s getting worse. Any fool
can see.
(end of article)
Do You Know What an Eggcorn Is?
Via Elizabeth at Charlottesville Words: The Eggcorn Database.
The word eggcorn was coined collectively by the linguists who write at the excellent group blog Language Log.
Linguists collect usage examples. Unlike language teachers or the often
self-styled grammar experts who complain in the press about the decay
of English, they are not picky: the actual, real-life use is what
counts, and the most interesting bits — those that might reveal
something about how real people apprehend their language — often
stretch the received rules of correctness.In September 2003, Mark Liberman reported (Egg corns: folk etymology, malapropism, mondegreen, ???)
an incorrect yet particularly suggestive creation: someone had written
“egg corn” instead of “acorn”. It turned out that there was no
established label for this type of non-standard reshaping. Erroneous as
it may be, the substitution involved more than just ignorance: an acorn
is more or less shaped like an egg; and it is a seed, just like grains
of corn. So if you don’t know how acorn is spelled, egg corn actually makes sense.
Other examples of eggcorns are:
"for all intensive purposes"
"just desserts"
"here, here" (instead of "hear, hear")
"coming down the pipe"
The aforementioned Elizabeth gets credit for spotting a new eggcorn in common usage, and it is now included in the dictionary: "half-hazard."
Eggcorns are different from malapropisms, which can also be fun to watch for. A malapropism is a word used in place of the correct word, where the substitution sounds similar to the intended word but means something vastly different, often resulting in quite comical sentences. A famous example is the line uttered by Curly of the Three Stooges: "I resemble that remark!"
(The link takes you to WikiPedia, where there are many more examples of malapropisms and eggcorns, including a malapropism that made me laugh out loud: "New Scientist also reported the first-ever malapropism for
"malapropism", when, having become aware of his error, the office
worker apologized, saying he had committed a "Miss Marple-ism." No doubt he was thinking of Mrs. Malaprop, the character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play, The Rivals, whose comical linguistic errors gave rise to the term.)
So a malapropism is a wrong word used in place of a word that sounds similar, but not identical, and has a totally different meaning. An eggcorn is a substitution that sounds the same or almost the same as a word or phrase—so similar, and making just enough sense, that it often passes into common usage: "blatantly obvious" instead of "patently obvious."
Don’t you just love the English language?
Daily Dose of Daily Lit
I read about Daily Lit at The Common Room last week:
Get thee to Daily Lit, where you can sign up for a bite sized daily dose of good reading:
DailyLit
sends books in installments via e-mail. DailyLit currently offers over
250 classic public domain titles that can be subscribed to and read in
their entirety for free. Popular titles include "The Art of War" by Sun
Tzu and "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen Readers can choose how
often and at what time they want the e-mails sent to them (e.g. every
weekday at 6:30am). Books on DailyLit can be read any place that a
reader receives e-mail, including on a PDA, Blackberry, Trio, etc. Each
installment of a book can be read in under 5 minutes, and if a reader
is done with a particular installment, a reader can receive the next
installment immediately in his/her e-mail Inbox. DailyLit has recently
added forums where readers can discuss their favorite books and
authors.You can search by category, title, or
author. These are arranged alphabetically, of course, and once you’ve
chosen, say, all the ‘B’ titles, you can arrange those by length to
give you some idea of what you’re getting into. For instance, under
‘b,’ Herman Melville’s Bartleby will come to you in only 18 short and
easy parts, the gospel of Mark in 22, Charles Dickens’ Bleak House in
440 light installments.
Naturally I had to mosey over for a look-see. I signed up to receive Anna Karenina by email. Have never read it, have meant to for a long time. Wish I didn’t already know the ending.
I’ve received three email installments so far, and I’m surprised by how funny the opening of the book is. I had no idea it had any comic element at all. I’m enjoying it, but I don’t know if I’ll stick with the emails. It’s not just that a book is cozier, though that’s a lot of it. I’m feeling like reading a novel via email is coloring my experience with the book. I’m "hearing" it like I hear email: the conversational tone, the back-of-the-mind impression that what I’m reading is something transient, fleeting, something that can be deleted with the touch of a button.
The Deputy Headmistress revisited the subject yesterday, inviting readers to share the titles we’ve signed up for. I liked her list so much I went back and browsed the archives some more. Maybe nonfiction would work better for me via email?
You can also subscribe to a book’s feed, so that daily installments will show up in your feed reader. That’s exactly the idea I had last year, when I was tempted to create a Charlotte Mason blog that would work its way through her books. I was too busy, so I offered the idea up for grabs, and the amiable Amy took up the mission. I’ve been enjoying her daily CM installments ever since.
Since the RSS feed format has suited for CM, I decided to give it a try for a Daily Lit offering as well. One of the DHM’s picks was Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which I haven’t read (except for quotes here and there) since college. High time I revisited it. There are so many great works available that I was tempted to sign up for a bunch, but I know I won’t be able to keep up. The TBR pile at my bedside has grown to ridiculous proportions. It was taller than Rilla, but it fell over. I think she pushed it.
OK, So the “Cold” Part No Longer Applies (Here in San Diego), But I AM Still Nursing a Baby, So Hush
Scott is reading Karen Edmisten’s answers to the marriage meme.
"Hey!" he says. " ‘What side of the bed do you sleep on? The side children always seem to show up on.’ How come in our house, I’m always the one to get up with the kid who appears beside the bed at night?"
Me: "Because I’m the one who nurses the babies."
Him: "Hmm. I’m pretty sure I’m the one who gets up, even when there isn’t a nursing baby in the picture."
Me: "That’s because it’s cold out there!"
Another Source for Unabridged Martha & Charlotte Books
Karen E. noticed that a1books.com has a selection of the original, unabridged editions of some of my Martha and Charlotte books for reasonable prices, if you’re still looking.
The abridged versions are in the bookstores now, and please note that although the covers say "by Melissa Wiley," I declined to have any involvement in the cutting down. I have not read them. I did notice that one of my fairy tales in Highlands was pulled out and reprinted in the back of the book, under a heading about how "Martha loved when her mother told her stories." Eek.
Poetry Friday: Forests at the Bottom of the Sea
We’ve had a very briny week. Yesterday we went to the aquarium; today it was the beach. Naturally I had to reach for Whitman this afternoon; he understands so well the magic of the bluegreen underworld that so fascinates my children.
The World Below the Brine
by Walt Whitman
The world below the brine,
Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle openings,
and pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of
light through the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the
aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the
bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his
flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the
sting-ray,
Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, breathing
that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings
like us who walk this sphere,
The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.
This week’s Poetry Friday roundup can be found at The Simple and the Ordinary.
At the Aquarium
No-Cry Friday
MotherTalk has dubbed June 15 "No-Cry Friday" in conjunction with the blog tour of Elizabeth Pantley’s book, The No-Cry Discipline Solution. I haven’t read the book yet, but I’m interested. Parenting literature is, in case you haven’t noticed, a pet interest of mine. I’m partial to the work of Dr. Sears, myself. And also (I know this will be a shocker to veteran Bonny Glen/Lilting House readers) Charlotte Mason.
For my contribution to No-Cry Friday, I am reprising a recent Bonny Glen post that generated a lot of nice feedback; a goodish number of people seemed to find it useful.
A Word Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
Sometimes
I think all my real parenting successes have to do with hitting upon
just the right metaphor to illustrate a concept. Patience, example,
levelheadedness—forget it. All I’ve really got going for me is a knack
for figurative language. But hey, if it works…One image that has worked wonders here lately is the tipping cup.
Years ago, I noticed something about toddlers. If a two-year-old is
holding a cup of water, and it tips and begins to spill, the
child—rather than righting the cup—will nearly always turn that cup
right upside down and dump out the rest of the water. Which is why you
only gave the child water, and not juice.It struck me a certain type of temperament is prone to similar
behavior when it comes to anger. I have a hot-tempered child whose
natural tendency is to react to any slight upset with a full-fledged
outpouring of wrath. If her cup of emotion tips, so to speak, her
inclination is to just pour it all out.So one day I talked to her about toddlers and tipping cups, and how
our feelings can be like the water in the cup. She seized hold of the
metaphor immediately. We talked about how part of growing up is
learning how to straighten your cup back up after you’ve been jostled.
You don’t have to let every little splash turn into a big flood.This image has become a bit of code between us. I’ll see her
beginning to lose her temper after something annoying happens.
"Straighten your cup," I’ll murmur, and more and more often, she takes
a breath, presses her lips together in grim determination—and keeps her
temper in check. I’ve come to know the expression on her face that
means she is struggling to hold her cup upright. She likes to cuddle up
with me in the afternoons and talk about her triumphs."I didn’t tip my cup, Mommy," she’ll whisper. "I wanted to
pour it all out, right on [insert sister’s name] head." A pause, a
wicked chuckle, as she savors the image perhaps a bit too much. She
knows there is acid in that cup. "But I didn’t."
A month later, the image continues to prove useful—and not just for the child in question. I often remind myself not to tip my cup, too. For parents, the saying should be: "Don’t shout over spilled milk." The other night I was listening to a talk on mindful parenting by Ren Allen and Sandra Dodd, recorded at the 2005 Live and Learn Unschooling Conference. Ren said that a big shift in her parenting style came when she realized that "between every action and reaction, there is a moment"—a moment in which you, the parent, can choose how to react. Kneejerk parenting—reacting with the first emotion that rushes over you when something goes wrong—can become a habit, but we can all break it. We can take a breath and choose a different reaction, a calmer, kinder one.
Another image my kids and I have used to help us control our tempers is to think of temper as a horse. You’re the rider of the horse; you hold the reins. Lots of times, something is going to happen to upset that horse; it’s going to want to rear up and buck and come down hooves flying, stomping, charging at the offender. But we don’t have to let that horse run wild; we can choose to rein it in.
Both metaphors, the bucking horse and the tipping cup, have been really useful ways for my kids and me to talk frankly and constructively about emotion, temper, reaction, anger, and patience. I have found that in an emotionally charged situation, an angry child will respond much better to a lighthearted, "Whoa, there! Don’t let that horse get away from you!" than any kind of scolding or sternness on my part.
Connections
"Learning," says Sandra Dodd, "comes from connecting something new to what you’ve already thought or known."
Charlotte Mason called this understanding of education "the science of relations." Relations, connections, rabbit trails: these are the terms homeschoolers use to describe the natural processes of learning. One topic, even one word, sparks an interest or a memory, and zing, learning happens.
It’s like playing with those magnetic rods and balls you stick together to make cool geometric shapes. (You know, the ones currently banished to the top of my closet because they are so fearfully dangerous for babies.) When you touch one of the little rods to one of the shiny silver balls, there’s such a satisfying click as they draw together. You can feel the power of the connection.
I dearly love, at the end of a day, to think about all the connections my kids made—or that I made!—that day. So many satisfying little clicks, so many pieces of knowledge fitting together in interesting ways.
I had the Sandra Dodd "connections" page open on the laptop today because I wanted to look up that quote for a post. (This post, I suppose, although, as you’ll see, the page took over and became the impetus of the post.) If you scroll down Sandra’s page a little, you’ll see there’s a fun exercise for sparking connections, the bit with all the words in balloons. This caught Jane’s eye and she wanted to know what it was about. I showed her, and she asked if we could try it. She decided to start with the word "purple."
We started shouting out ideas or things we associate with purple, and of course "royalty" came up, and neither one of us could remember the name of the shellfish the original purple dye came from. We looked it up and found this page, which told some tidbits I’d never heard before. Did you know the legend says it was actually Hercules’s dog who discovered the dye? Hercules noticed its mouth was stained purple after it ate some snails.
King Phoenix received a purple-dyed robe from Herakles and decreed
the rulers of Phoenicia should wear this color as a royal symbol.
We also found this part particularly interesting:
The chemical birth of the synthetic dye industry can be traced to the
discovery of an aniline-based purple dye, mauveine, by William H.
Perkin in 1856, who accomplished this while searching for a cure for
malaria. Perkin was an English chemist who changed the world of his
time by making this purple color available to the masses. It became
quite fashionable to wear clothing dyed with “mauve,” and Mr. Perkin
became a very wealthy man.
We had lots of other associations with purple, but the Hercules thing was so interesting we got sidetracked, and about that time Rose asked me to make a baby duck out of felt for Beanie, to match Rose’s Beanie Baby duck (!), and in the middle of that endeavor I remembered I’d picked up a book of patterns for knitted animals, and hadn’t shown it to Jane yet, and she got all excited and went off to translate the knitting patterns into crochet patterns, because she much prefers crocheting.
Rose asked for a felt dog next, or maybe Jane will crochet her one, but I don’t think we’ll stain its mouth purple.