Special Needs Child
Art of Chess Combination
Art of Sacrifice in Chess
Turning Advantage into Victory in Chess
Storming the Barricades
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played

I was reading at Roundrock Journal and musing about meteor impacts, when I remembered a cool word: astrobleme - meaning star wound - and the official word for the crater left by a meteor impact.

Best Homeschooling has a great collection of essays on, you guessed it, homeschooling.

I particularly enjoyed Just Do the Math, by David Albert, as it is a very good description of how I learned mathematics one summer. I went from barely managing basic computation to college algebra in about a month and a half of study - because for the first time in my life I needed to know it.

THE FIELD TRIP

On Wednesday, Jan. 25, Phoebe and I took Faith, Abby, Bede, and Gilbert on a field trip to the Bedré chocolate factory. The excursion had been planned by Phoebe’s Yahoo group, Oklahoma Natural Parenting Homeschoolers. Quite a few families participated, and all the children seemed to have a good time, so the event must be judged a success.

It was educational, too. At least, I learned a few lessons.

Frankly, none of us knew what to expect. All we knew was: this was a chocolate factory, and they offered public tours. Since chocolate is a topic in which our offspring have a demonstrated interest (sometimes bordering on devotion), we hoped it would be a good introduction to the world of industry, commerce, and free enterprise. It was all that.

And yet, I have to say it was a disappointment. I had hoped to be conducted on a tour of the facilities there. But the only two rooms open to the public are the gift shop, and an empty narrow hallway behind the gift shop.
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The very first Carnival of Homeschooling is up at the Why Homeschool blog. I haven’t even read any of it; I’m so excited about it that I’m blogging about it first, then reading it.

As with so many other school-related controversies, homeschooling families may look upon this one from an elevated perch above the fray. A public school teacher in Texas got herself in a spot of trouble for blurting out to a bunch of first-graders that there is no Santa Claus. After getting phone calls from angry parents, the school forced the teacher to recant her allegation of Santa’s nonentity. Not only that, she had to tell the students that she had in fact just heard from Santa, who was alive and well.

It’s one of the earliest decisions every American family makes: how are we going to handle Santa? Here at our household, Mr. Claus is handled like any other fictional character. When we are asked if any fictional character is real, we just answer no. They’re made up.

Sometimes, we further explain that Santa Claus is based on a real man, Saint Nicholas, who really does love all children, and adults besides. But Saint Nicholas lives in Heaven, not the North Pole, and he has no elves or reindeer. And I would no more hand my daughter a dolly and tell her it was from Santa, than I would give her a box of nails from Bob the Builder.

I’ve got nothing against parents who teach their children that Santa is alive and well, and the source of their Christmas gifts. My own parents maintained the Santa myth when I was young, and I don’t feel wronged, or respect them any less for it. But it sure sounds like a lot of work, and I don’t think I would be capable of it. It would require more skill than I possess to maintain such a preposterous lie.

Because Santa is preposterous, even for a four-year-old. The flimsy story is so full of holes that it falls apart under even mild questioning. How can Santa get into dwellings with no fireplace? How can he visit every house on Earth in one night? If he makes the toys, how come they say “Fisher-Price”? How can he know who is good? Why do some kids get more and better gifts than we do? How come every time I see Santa he looks different? I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to answer these questions.

Now, we don’t have a “Santa-free house.” The guy’s not a devil, and he’s not a bad influence. Our children see Santa in books, on television, and depicted on decorations, much as they also see Barbie and Winnie the Pooh. They sing songs about him. In fact, as fictional characters go, a happy man who loves all children and gives away toys to celebrate Jesus’s birthday is one of the better ones.

I don’t even mind if they believe he’s real. Kids believe lots of stuff. But someday, like all children, they will know the truth, and it won’t be a hard truth to learn, because it will be what I’ve been telling them all along.

I started a new Yahoo! group. Because that’s what the world needs: more committees!

Click to join Oklahoma Natural Parenting Homeschoolers

Sometimes it’s tricky to find the right spot. Maybe this will help some folks.

John Taylor Gatto, the education reform advocate who… “quit teaching on the Op Ed page of the Wall Street Journal in 1991 while still New York State Teacher of the Year, claiming that he was no longer willing to hurt children” has released the entire contents of his book, The Underground History of American Education on his website.

If you don’t know what needs reforming about the American education machine you might just want to look that over.

h/t: ladyliberty8

We (me, Faith, Abby, Gilbert and T.J.; Bede was asleep so he stayed home with Sean) went to the Arts and Sciences meeting tonight and met many nice people. We examined several looms, some quilting, hand embroidery and some period-oid stuff found at thrift stores to be modified into more accurate versions. It was fun!

I think T.J. would rather have gone to the Siege Engine meeting though. They’re making a functional catapult, how totally cool is that? Next month.

I measured Bede, then measured some linen/cotton fabric I had, marked it and cut it out from this pattern. I’m very excited about it! Now I have to go thread my new sewing machine and figure out how it works - I’m not handsewing this because (I think) it will be faster to machine sew it. We’ll see about that, though.

Whew!