Adjusting Expectations.

My son is ten. He's not a "young ten" but a boy with a birthday right in the third week of October. I brought him home from public school at the end of Grade One. He was 8. An old 8. He couldn't read. I had no idea what he could do in math, nor what he should be doing, so we started over with the math books--in Grade One.

That was two and 1/2 years ago. I have had to "remediate" him for so long, I have forgotten to set high standards for him. But, I got a nice slap up the side of my head about that today.

Up until now, I have been taking down all his narrations for his writing. Only a few weeks ago did I start the next step (which is supposed to happen at the end of Grade 2): dictating the first sentence back to him to write before I hand him his paper to copy out. Yesterday, he asked me to dictate back the first two sentences. I did...and he proceeded to finish it on his own--without looking at what I'd taken down. "Yes! We've made it to third grade!" I thought.

Today I set him down to do the third re-telling in Aesop A--the Crow and the Pitcher. I let him read it over once (we last looked at it two days ago) and then handed him a piece of paper, a pencil and an eraser and said "tell the story."

He had a few moments where he just HAD to know how to spell the odd word here and there...and I just gave him the dictionary. (Heartless Mom! OK, I admit I looked up "higher" for him and had him copy it from the page.) But much to my surprise, he did the whole thing without me. We'll edit it tomorrow.

Perhaps I have been holding his hand too long! And I think I'll start treating him as a fourth grader from hereon.

The ramifications are huge, people, huge. For one thing, I can stop fretting about his being "behind." For another, he's entering that "independent" stage so I can breathe once in a while. And you can bet that I'm going to let him do his entire narration all on his own next time. Maybe we'll even start (gasp) outlining!

He is becoming mature. S-l-o-w-l-y, to be sure, but I felt the fresh wind of change today and I'm so grateful. I had to share.

From Acceleration to Zygote

or why your weight changes in an elevator.
Check it out!

Scheduling Success--I hope!

In order to lighten our summer load and prevent free-fall in December, I decided to focus on what is, for us, essential, and move around the rest. The essential Sacred Cows are: spelling, science, math, Latin and writing (for the 10 year old). I continued with Canadian History just because the timing is right, given our trip to Montreal in May. We will continue to do these throughout June and July.

I took someone's suggestion to alternate Grammar. I may play with that a bit, yet, but my son will be happy to know he gets a mid-textbook break from July 20 to August 30th. I tend to think of Grammar like Math, so it may or may not be a good idea. I may try and find a worksheet or two, something he can do in 10 minutes or so. Then again, we are continuing with the writing--and that's just grammar in practice--so we may be just fine.

As for the rest, it's fairly self-explanatory. The rush to finish SoTW and THE-HURRY-IT-UP-AND-CATCH-UP is gone. Wherever we are when my son hits Grade Nine and begins the Classical Books curriculum will be fine as long as his skills continue to grow. I have to do another spreadsheet, of course, for just that. It should be interesting. But not today.

I still have to decide on a science curriculum for the Fall and figure out our read-alouds. I still have to correlate my daughter's Bible study (Vos and Calvary Chapel) with the subjects covered in Christian Studies 1. And I need to figure out whether to speed up on our Canadian History curriculum and if so, how. Next year (2009) we'll do Provincial Facts and Geography. (Must come up with a better name for that!) The year after that, something on the structure of Governments, municipal, provincial and federal. (Maybe). But I digress.

Here is the revised schedule. Many thanks to all.

page two: Boom da da boom!

Androcles and the Lion

Illustration by Ann & Janet Grahame Johnstone from Books Illustrated.

The Boy and I are doing the programme from Classical Writing. We started last week in Aesop A.

The program offers a model each week for a child to re-tell. They can change whatever they like, really, as long as the bones of the story is still recognizable. Essentially, it is learning to write by imitation and I think the method is marvelous.

His model this week was "Androcles and the Lion." His "assignment" when re-telling the fable was twofold.

A. To change the sentence types in the model and include all four (his grammar program, Rod and Staff 3, names the types a little more intuitively):

1. declarative (telling)
2. imperative (commanding)
3. interrogatory (asking)
4. exclamatory (exclaiming)

B. To punctuate with respect to the proper use of

1. capitals
2. end punctuation marks for each sentence and
3. quotation marks.

Here is what he wrote--and typed. It is his final, polished draft.

Androcles and the Lion
By The Boy


I fled from my master to the forest. I was frightened!

What’s that? A monster!? Nay, it was merely a young lion, moaning and groaning. I wondered why. I commanded him, “Put out your paw!”
He did. I saw a huge thorn. I carefully took it out and bandaged it up quickly.

He took me to his den and fed me every day.

One day while we were separated, the soldiers found us and captured us. I was condemned to be eaten by the lions.

The lion came bounding and roaring into the arena.

It was my friend! He saw it was me. He fawned over me and licked me.

The King summoned us to him. “Tell me how this could happen, young man,” said the King. I told him the story and he set us free.

THE END

Scheduling Woes.

We took a lot of time off this fall. Ok, let's be honest. Except for a few weeks in August--we took the whole thing off. Yep, not one math book was opened, not one page of grammar recited, not, even, (much to my shame) one book read to the kids.

But we're back now. We're almost up to full speed. And the teeth knashing and hand wringing are over with, finally. So I've been working with the spreadsheet trying to figure out our schedule for the year. Here it is in two parts.

(Click on them to make them larger.)

Missing from the schedule is writing for the ten year old--Aesop A, and Latin (for both).

The first block of pink is a non-negotiable trip to Montreal--hooray! The purple is our Church's summer "camp" (or VBS program.) The other pink strips are our "weeks off"--1 every six.

These are my woes:
1) How do we have a lighter load during June and July and yet still do everything? I know, impossible, but that's really what I want.

2) We really, really need to do these science units in the summer. They're from Apologia's "Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day" and they all have to do with insects. We do not have insects here in the winter! It's one of the few benefits of having winter.

3) See all that dead space near the end of the year (near Christmas)? That's my "wiggle" room. I'd love to start new curriculum the minute we finish the last--but I think that if I don't schedule at least a few more breaks, we will all go mad. Maybe. No, definitely.

4) See all that dead space near Christmas? I know this is going to sound crazy to some of you--but I do not want to take any time off in that period. A really light schedule would be OK--but I've learned from experience--if we take a whole bunch of time off, we just don't come back.

Is that enough info?
Can you help me whip this into shape somehow?
I'd be soooooo grateful, I might even send you cookies.

Weekly Report #2

It was a short week. In fact, it isn't over yet as we still have today to get through.

But I am quite excited about what we have done, this week.

We finished SoTW chapter 9.

We got caught up in Grammer with the boy and he pretty much has his diagramming of subjects and predicates figured out at last.

The girl is up to lesson 127 in FLL and we're now getting into dictation. She's handling it without any trouble, much to my surprise. She was so delighted with the fact she got it right, yesterday, she wrote it again!



I've got over my fear of Memoria Press's Christian Studies 1. The boy continues to astonish me with his grasp of the Bible. It isn't taking a lot to elicit some fairly deep thoughts.

I've switched back to using the Vos Story Bible with sheets from Calvary Chapel for my daughter. She loves this. She hasn't really gone through the Old Testament this way. (We used it for the New last year.) One night this week, she found that I had printed off new sheets--and all of a sudden she had to do them. Never mind it was bed-time! So, I had her Dad read the proper chapter.

Later, I asked her how it went and she pouted, "Daddy wouldn't help me."
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
"He wouldn't spell 'cursed.' He just sounded it out."

Oh dear. Teaching can really change the dynamic between the Princess and her Daddy! (Probably for the better.)

There are just two other things I want to highlight from this week.

My son and I continued on with Aesop A. This week we were to identify sentence types. I was frustrated with the instructions in the teacher's book when it told me to go back through the previous week's model to identify the different sentences as this week's model was written entirely in declarative sentences. What on Earth? I wondered. Why would they do that?

Then it occurred to me--ahh, it's easier to change them! So, I suggested to my son that we re-write Androcles and the Lion using different types of sentences and he was stumped until he took my suggestion to tell the story from Androcles's point of view. We had a great time re-writing it. I'll have to post it tomorrow, though, as he isn't finished typing it up on the computer yet.

Lastly, and most importantly, my son hit a wall with long division. I've spent a lot of time this week over at the WTM boards hashing this out. With the wonderful suggestions from the women there, we are beginning to get through it.


We did some physical exercises that involve crossing the mid-line (mostly a bunch of figure 8's and swaying our arms from left to right and from upper left to lower right.) I wrote his problems on graph paper and pre-drew the subtraction lines. I sat down beside him and worked on each question with him as he went along. It took us 30-45 minutes to do 8 questions, but they were done perfectly, and we "talked through" every single step.

We're going to do that today and every day until he gets impatient with me and just does it himself. I'm not sure the wall is scaled yet, but it is at times like these that I am so grateful to be homeschooling. What public school teacher could possibly have time to do all that? How could he hit that wall and not come away feeling (needlessly) ashamed of himself?

This is exactly where he would give up on school, if he hadn't already. When I brought him home at the end of Grade One he was already calling himself stupid and had zero tolerance for his mistakes. Let's hope he gets over this wall quickly, though. My daughter needs some intense one on one work for three digit subtraction with borrowing!

As for me, I started making up our spreadsheet to plan out the year. I have finally stopped fretting about how behind we are and accepted the fact that the work we have to do is just the work we have to do. I'm still fiddling with it, but I've finally lost the anger and despair I had had about our very long break last fall. So, we're on week 7 of a 40-42 week year. I'm just trying to do my best to make sure the load isn't too heavy during the summer.

On Science, Part Trey.

On Science, Part Deux.

We did some science after supper tonight. It happened spontaneously.

Someone said "hair" and I remembered that was our next lesson on the human body. So, I whipped out our very informative, heavily illustrated book on the Human Body, (one of those Kingfisher Encyclopedia things) turned to the chapter on hair and began to read, picture book style.

The kids were immediately grossed out by the picture of a microscopic itch mite. They asked about lice. So, we went to the computer and looked them up in google images. We came across this particularily interesting one. My boy said, it looks like a monster! I answered him, "Yep, God made monsters, but he made them microscopic."
(Which is a very interesting thing to think about, someday.)

They were thouroughly engrossed and grossed out. My son finished reading the spread in the book on skin. We got out our nasty magnifying glass and looked at our arms. We chatted about skinand sweat and moisturizure and goosebumps and capillaries.
And that was it. 20 minutes tops.

I wonder if I should run off the diagram and have them label "epidermis, dermis, etc., as a follow up--or just leave it?

How formal/informal do I want to be with this?
How rigorous?

Like those experts in English who say, "get your children to love reading and all will be well" there are those scientists who say, "get your kids to love finding things out and all will be well." Well, not quite all in either case, but it may be a place to start. And I'd only be a few clicks ahead.

Something else to think about.

On Science.

I hate science.
I don't understand it.

I attended 14 schools in 12 years in three different education jurisdictions: Ontario, Alberta and the NWT. It left huge gaps in my education and one of the biggest casualties was science. I know next to nothing about Earth Science (in fact until a few weeks ago, I didn't even know what the term meant) nor Astronomy. Don't ask me anything about Physics. And what I do know about plants, animals and the body is shaky.

I mean, I do find certain things fascinating, like tugor preassure and heliocentrism. I think it's cool that trees and plants photosynthesize during the day and then reverse the process at night. (They do, don't they? I can't quite remember.) The fact that all bugs have six legs and three body bits--and yet are so incredibly different from each other is amazing. (Those facts could be wrong, though. Don't quote me.) I think the human body is a miracle.

But, that's no excuse for not doing science with the kids. Part of why we don't do science--though I have three full curriculae on my shelves--is that I don't know what we need to learn. As far as I can figure out, there are at least four different approaches you could take:

• A. Nature Study
  Go for walks with a sketchbook. Learn to draw. Label the drawings when you get home from good reference books. Observe things happening in the world. Find out why it works that way (eg, cranes at a construction site. Condensation on windows, etc.)

• B. Forgo textbooks and formal learning and just get a bunch of books on how to do experiments and muck about.

• C. Read our way through science.
  Use a spine for topics in a particular area of study and pick topics to be studied. Read about the topic, make a narration page, read picture books, biographies, and I don't know what else. Maybe do an activity or experiment or two and write it up, somehow.

• D. Buy a text book, do what it says. But here too, one must make further choices:

• a) Cover one subject in depth for a whole year--like the Apologia texts do, or,


• b) Cover a few (or more) topics lightly, knowing you will return to study it in more depth later. Pick a few topics (related to your history cycle) each year and pick and choose from what's out there what to do.

Now, factor in that I have two children nearly three years apart in age and that I want to do the same thing with both of them together. I need a curriculum which will demand more from the elder without boring or overtaxing the younger.

YIKES!!

For the Grammar stage, the WTM recommends something very like approach C. (In fact, I looked it up!) Topics are correlated to the history cycle, though they say this isn't strictly necessary.

But for what it's worth:
Ancients: Animals, Plants and the Human Body.
Middle Ages: Earth Sciece and Astronomy
Renaissance and Reformation: Chemistry
Modern Era: Physics.

makes a lot of sense, right?

For the Logic/Dialectic stage the same topics are re-visited, (Grades 5-8) and then again at the High School or Rhetoric level.

But here's what they say about science in the Fifth grade:
You have the same topics you studied in Grade One (Ancients), Animals, Plants and the Human Body but you'll "study basic cell structures, learn about the environments they share and then branch out into the study of classification." In other words, you start to make connections as you delve more deeply into the subject(s).

In its procedure, it comes fairly close to what I understand about Nature Study, only we could call it artificial nature study, since one sets up an experiment first.

1. Set up an experiment, do an "experiment" report.
2. Do a sketch of the specific topic being studied.
3. Write a report on the area under investigation.
4. memory work: identify and define the scientific terms one ought to know.

Egads. It is thorough. It is sound. And it's a lot of work for Mom to pull it together--especially when you consider I'm doing this with a third grader tagging along who will have her own stuff to do. We have most of this school year yet to complete (Middle Ages: earth Science and astronomy. [shudder] and next year to plan and prepare for. It'll be chemistry, which is good. I did well in Chemistry and liked it until I flailed about in the unit on Organic Chem. and barely passed it. Then, I just wasn't interested anymore.

I really have to pull together something NOW! I have a little unit on the human body which is a quick and easy introduction to all the neat, cool systems in the human body. We're just not getting to it.

I hate science.
I really don't understand it.

The Saturday Review of Books

Go read something and then tell us about it. Please.
Here's the link.

A Review of Readers

Why use readers at all?

They are rather old-fashioned, but they're immensely well suited to laying the foundation to a classical education. In fact, they were designed to do so.

They are practical: passages increase in complexity from book to book as a child's reading improves. They're wonderful for copywork as paragraphs are usually numbered and the passages are short, making them excellent for children to read aloud and practice their elocution. But other than their usefulness, what makes them valuable?

There is a wonderful brief history of the success of the McGuffey Readers by Henry H. Vail over at Project Gutenberg. In his first paragraph, Vail, who held the copyright to the Readers in 1920, extols its virtues and goals:

the reader should cover the whole field of morals and manners and in language that will impress their teaching indelibly upon the mind of every pupil. While the chief aim of the school readers must be to teach the child to apprehend thought from the printed page and convey this thought to the attentive listener with precision, these efforts should be exerted upon thoughts that have permanent value. No other texts used in the school room bear directly and positively upon the formation of character in the pupils. The school readers are the proper and indispensable texts for teaching true patriotism, integrity, honesty, industry, temperance, courage, politeness, and all other moral and intellectual virtues. In these books every lesson should have a distinct purpose in view, and the final aim should be to establish in the pupils high moral principles which are at the foundation of character.

In 1900, a thoughtful woman decried the Readers then in publication in a letter to the New York Times. She wrote that the "new" readers were failing to provide moral instruction. The Pacific Coast Series created a furor when they removed the moralistic tone and introduced Pacific Coast writers. But modern educators persisted in modernizing the Readers, culminating in the publication of the Elson-Grey Readers in 1930. Now, these old readers are not used as Readers per se, but are analysed in higher level Univeristy classes for their "stereotypical descriptions" and analysis and exegesis of the time-bound values they illustrate and exhort as this brief example shows.

But, there was another objection to the Readers of the time voiced by Charles Eliot, then President of Harvard. They are not, as it were, actual literature, he pointed out. "They are but scraps of literature."

This criticsm influenced the content of the Readers, for the better. One of the best, the Heart of Oak series, developed by another president of Harvard University, Charles E. Norton, was expressly designed to include not only literature, but the best of Nursery Rhymes, fables and folk tales. Look at Book 2, for example.

It's not difficult to see why, in an essay for the New York Times on the gradual degradation of the selections in Readers, Ravitch mentions them in glowing terms. You can see the Heart of Oak Series on-line here. It's hard to believe they were in publication for only five years.

But the shift from phonetic readers with moral tales to "look-say" readers with even scrappier bits of tales about children in their everyday lives, seems in retrospect, inevitable. There were many things afoot, not the least of which was the idea that not all children would grow up to be managers and the like--and neither should they be educated to be. William Elson, the author of The Elson Readers was one of the early proponents of this view.

Elson believed in providing a "general" education to all children until about grade four and then separating them into two tracks: one to prepare for high school, the other for work. He strongly believed that 95% of all children were destined to be "industrial and commercial" workers and should be educated accordingly. (Ravitch, Left Back, p. 91)

And so, most of us never learned

"Who has seen the wind?
Neither I, nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The leaves are passing thro'

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by." *

No, the pundits that be declared we'd be better served by reading,

"Look, Spot, Look."

************************
More reading on readers:

An interesting article which places Readers in the context of the history of spelling--and the story of Ayres and his list.

From spellers to readers. An interesting ovrview of various readershere.

An interesting site on all things McGuffey including an article on the differences between the editions and contains interesting history on Mr. McGuffey, himself.

On The Dick and Jane Readers: here.

*Who Has Seen the Wind, by Christina G. Rosetti, a common selection in the Readers.

Audio Files and Literature.

The Hare and the Hedgehog.

Last week I discovered two wonderful Audio file sites: Story Nory and Lit 2 Go. Both are free. You can import the latter directly into ITunes through the "store" and then go to "Education," then "University of South Florida," then "College of Education."

This week, I discoverd the Elson Readers with the Table of Contents on-line. These are not the "Dick and Jane series introduced by William Gray in the thirties. They appear to be authored by William Elson. See the post on A Review of Readers.

I'm always looking for ways to enjoy our time in the car: and I have children who won't sleep. So, burning CD's with selections from the readers seemed like a good idea.

So, here's what I found for The Elson Readers, Books 2 and 3, just in case you'd like to burn your own.

Book 2
Audio Files:

My Shadow-Robert Louis Stevenson
Lit2Go 3

Bed in Summer—R. L. Stevenson
Lit2Go 2

Lucky Hans—Old Tale
Hans in Luck by Grimm, Lit2Go 6

The Ant and the Grasshopper--Aesop
Lit2Go 4

The Dog in the Manger
Lit2Go 4

The Cow—R. L. Stevenson
Lit2 Go 3

The Lad Who went to the North Wind--Norse
Lit2Go 3

Who Has seen the wind?—Christina Rossetti
The Wind—Christina Rossetti Lit2Go 1

Jack and the Beanstalk—Old English Tale
Story Nory, parts 1 and 2

Elson Book 3
Audio Files

The Hare and the Hedgehog-Grimm
Lit2Go 2

The Miser--Aesop
Lit2Go 4

The Fox and the crow
Lit2Go 5

The Stone Cutter—Japanese Tale
Crimson Fairy Tale book; Lit2Go 6

The Jumblies—Edward Lear
Lit2Go 3

Farewell to the Farm—R. L. Stevenson
Lit2Go 3

A Good Play—R. L. Stevenson
Lit2Go 1

Nest Eggs—R. L. Stevenson
Lit2Go 3

The Sleeping Beauty
Story Nory and Lit2Go 5

The Ugly Duckling—Hans Christian Anderson
Lit2Go 3

I am so grateful to have these resources I am not going to complain about the fact that I couldn't find more. But if you can suggest sites with human readers of free literature: I would deeply appreciate it.

Enjoy!
edited to add: I did find another source. I put it in link in a sidebar. And there's librivox, of course. How did I forget that?

Left Back by Diane Ravitch

A Century of Failed School reforms.

And how. This book is dense. It contains generous helpings of the words of ideologues themselves. Reading it, one feels pounded on the acme anvil...but it is no joke.

Yet, it reminds me of the little children's rhyme, "The Ten little Indians." And this is how it goes.

Over and over again the ten little indians fall out of bed, each with a slightly different war cry.

Test, test the children, said the first. Let's find out what each child is capable of doing before we send the child into higher learning. He may not need it. Never mind that the new intelligence tests did not (and do not now, nor ever will they) measure a fixed innate intelligence.

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Let us therefore be efficient, cried a man named Bobbitt.

Why teach about ancient history and the literature of other ages? "These deal with a world that is dead...."(p. 165)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

The interests of the children must drive the curriculum, said Dewey. Learning must happen naturally, freely. Teachers must not teach, but facilitate. (p.169)

and so they all rolled over and one fell out--

We need education without schooling, cried a man named Rugg, and he took subject matter with him. (p. 225)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

A new world order--that'll be the ticket, they cried in the thirties, dazzled by the light of the Soviet project schools beaming down upon the ruins of the depression. History crumbled and was replaced by Social Studies, and fewer and fewer children who could have studied higher mathematics didn't.

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Activities, by jove, the children ought to learn with activities! Not those dratted old, moldy subjects.

When the teachers were as gifted as those in the Lincoln school, the activity movement engaged children in stimulating projects, which helped them learn reading, science, mathematics, and history. In the hands of less skillful teachers the activity movement kept children busy on aimless projects without
teaching them the knowledge and skills that they needed.
(p. 252)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Readers begone! cried the inventor of the Dick and Jane series, William Gray:

"The problem of teaching pupils to read has been clearly differentiated from the traditional effort to cultivate appreciation for classical literature." (p. 256)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Let us integrate the student into his own society! Socialization, that's what's important, not knowledge!

It was a short step from the radical idea that the schools should build a new collectivist social order--which the public schools had plainly rejected--to the distinctly non-radical idea that schools should teach students to conform to the group. (p. 261)

and they all rolled over and rest fell out--

Integration, Summerhill, The Open School movement, the sixties, the absence of both parents and in loco parentis, the call for standards; after taking us slowly and painstakingly through the history of Education ideology (and idiodicy) Ravitch turns her focus outward: to the schools and the world in which they exist with all its competing factions.

Competing? Sadly, yes. The ideologues had redefined "education" to such an extent that those whom you would have thought to have one goal in mind, the parents, students, and teachers invested in the educating of children couldn't even begin to read from the same page.

But what did happen? They did effect societal change. Children were educated--but to what?

Changes in curriculum in the pursuit of relevance accentuated narcissistic themes. Social studies courses focussed on immediate personal and social issues; chronological history and civic knowledge, which required students to think about worlds larger than their own aquaintance, were relegated to minor roles in social studies departments. Values clarification courses...proliferated. English became "English Language Arts," with more attention to self-expression and social issues than to classical literature. The study of heroes once popular among students in search of models to emulate, fell into disfavor. In an effort to promote self-esteem and group identity, schools reduced their once customary attention to the values of self-restraint, self-education and humility. p. 407.

If you can't quite manage the whole book; do read the Conclusion.

On Reading

A book patiently waiting for us to read this week.

OK, I think I finally have this figured out, more or less.

#1. Reading out loud.
The kids will read to me from whatever I pick. I like the McGuffey Readers (1920's edition) for this. 3x a week, minimum.

#2. Quiet Reading.
For the boy, this is divided into two parts:
a) History--selections from to the Story of the World, Activity Guide, corresponding chapters from Child's History of the World by Hillyer, and Famous Men of the Middle Ages by Haaren. I also have other books I pull from. I've made up a chart for him to follow each day.

b) Literature. I got this idea from one of the women at the WTM Board. I have a basket and he can read anything from this basket for 1/2 hour (or longer). He finished Mr. Popper's Penquins today (with the CD). I found Sonlight to have the most workable suggestions.

For the girl, this includes anything she can currently read.

#3. Read Alouds. I have three: one for both children, and one for each of them at bed-time.

I am so relieved to have this figured out, I can't tell you. The deal is--no screen time--at all--until the reading is done.

Peals of Laughter

from the boy's room this evening.

He's listening to it on CD--and I got the book, too. I suggested to him he might want to read along.
Naaah.
Halfway through the first disc, he wanders into the dining room, asks a lot of questions about Roman numerals, picks up the book and makes off with it.

Yep. He's reading along.
Many thanks to the wonderful women at the WTM forums.
(I gave him the book three weeks ago and he would not pick it up.)

Vocabulary Lesson

My daughter is reading a scrap of a comic she's picked up from her father's lunchroom.
She turns to her brother and asks, "What's an anvil?"
He says, "It's a really, really heavy thing they use in cartoons."

So, do you think he's moving into the Logic Stage?

My son and his father are watching cartoons together.
The boy turns to his Dad and says, "Where are these mice getting all these illegal explosive devices?"

On Reading and Taste.

I'm a snob.

I admit it.

I think I'm even a wee bit proud of it, too.

But, as in so many other areas of my life my ideas and ideals exist over here--and over there? Well, that's reality: and it doesn't quite match up.

My son's tastes in entertainment are monstrous. Well, to me, anyway. I suppose they are normal for any 10 year old guy. The action boy-mutant-hero Ben-10. Transforming, maurading Bionicles. The mutant X-men. Graphic novels. Batman. Marvel comics. Garfield. Calvin and Hobbes. The Adventures of Bone by Jeff Smith. Bad kids' movies.

Fortunately, he also loves playmobil and stories about Ancient Rome. And he does read: even if it is something filled with drawings. (Sometimes known as graphic novels. Pah. Novels. A marketing term, no more.)

We got into this mess because, I, his mother, and teacher, did not take enough care in selecting what he was to be exposed to. Totally my fault. Good gracious that my son should be bored! Because, well, if he was, then he'd ask me to entertain him. I had a terrible attitude towards my children when they were younger and so the harvest is grim.

But all may not be lost. He is, after all, only ten and he still loves and trusts his mother. He doesn't know how much I've failed him. So, tonight, I've been combing the web and Homeschool catalogues to find stuff for him to read which he will enjoy and which will stretch his brain just enough not to discourage him, but to make it grow--in a direction that will make reality closer to my ideals.

It's been a tough slog. But today, I did check out Andrew Lang's The Arabian Nights Entertainments and, at my request, he read anything he wanted out of it. He chose Sinbad's third voyage--featuring--wait for it--a great one-eyed hairy beast:

I don't think it's an alien one eyed hairy beast.

So that's all right.

I Owe This Woman--

and I've never met her. Jessica at Trivium Academy is one of those "homeschoolers for homeschoolers." She asks tough questions. She has researched and learned an awful lot--and kept track of all of it on her blog. She is on her own homeschooling journey and writes eloquently about it. And I don't think she sleeps!

So, I'm indebted to her in a general way--but also quite specifically for her "Nobility Record." It's so integral to her homeschool that I found myself feeling somewhat guilty about borrowing it and using it for my own children: but it is a remarkably powerful tool for the children--and for me.

Here's the poem.

True Nobility
by Edgar Guest.

Who does his task from day to day
And meets whatever comes his way
Believing God has willed it so,
Has found real greatness here below.

Who guards his post, no matter where,
Believing God must need him there,
Although but lowly toil it be,
Has risen to nobility.

For great and low there’s but one test:
‘Tis that each man shall do his best.
Who works with all the strength he can
Shall never die in debt to man.

This puts something like a "chore chart" into a completely different realm. I used it, though, as Jessica did; not for chores, but as a way to keep the children "on task" for their schoolwork. I made minor changes to mine. Click here if you want to see it.

The kids were a bit confused about what it meant to be "in debt" to man--until I had an example the other night. I'd fallen behind in the laundry. My husband asked for something he needed. So, at midnight, I had to run a load of laundry. Unfortunately, both children witnessed my temper as I stomped around complaining that my husband "should have told me earlier."

That wasn't the issue, of course, as I sheepishly explained to the kids the next morning. I had tasks to perform. I didn't do them. I owed Daddy his underwear.

I don't know if they got much out of that: but the poem is truly a rich resource for building diligence and responsibility. For all of us.
Thanks, Jessica.

Weekly Report #1

Sometimes, you just don't have a good week. Sometimes, even though you plan and get excited about it all, things just don't work out.

We had a terrific day on Monday. We started late, but kept on track all day. Tuesday was a wash. Completely. I didn't even read out loud to them. (Well, maybe I did, I don't remember!) We took Dad to work at 6:30 am, came home, crated the dog, made up the grocery list and then purchased a month's worth of groceries. And then it was veg-ville until my son't Tae Kwon Do class at 1:30.

I think we'd each had about four hours of sleep.

Well, Wednesday went well. (How's that for alliteration?) We were tired, but I was very proud of them. They worked hard.

It caught up with us Thursday, though. The kids could not settle at all Wednesday night (up until midnight)and last night was the same.
So, we only did about 4 1/2 hours of school on Thursday--and I'm panicking.

I decided to write up the weekly report for 2 reasons, though.
1) I want to focus on what we did accomplish, not what we didn't.
2) I want other homeschoolers to be reassured by our struggle. Of course, we're not out the "other side" of this yet, and you can't really make this bad week encouraging until that's done, but I have faith we will turn this around!

Copywork:
I shifted this to first thing in the morning and found a new cursive font for the oldest. He likes it. He calls it "robot writing."

Recitations:
The boy is still struggling to learn his poem, but it is going well. He likes to stand at attention and do actions while he's reciting and it's perfect. He only glances at the poem for cues--and he's too funny!

My girl amazes me with the speed at which she memorizes. She's got the first two stanzas down.

Latin is proceeding well. And they nearly have all their words memorized. It really tickles me to see kids aged 10 and 7 using words like magisterial!
Here's my son, practicing his latin vocabulary:
I thought it was a highly imaginative way to review his Latin. There were four more pages!

Canadian History: Whew, we finished up our extremely brief introduction to Native people in Canada and moved on to the Vikings today. Vikings really capture the imagination of children, don't they! I told my daughter she'd done a wonderful job on copying her narration and deemed it "blog-worthy" so, here it is:
As for Story of the World, we finished up Chapters six and seven. That was a relief! I feel so behind schedule with this!

Grammar continues.

As for Bible study and writing and science--I'm still struggling to fit them into our day. But this is about what we DID get done, not what we didn't. So, that's it, folks. I am utterly amazed at how smoothly the day has gone today. I wish I knew why.

update: Good Golly, Miss Molly, the girl finished her math in less than 1/2 hour and got 100% I looked for a calculator...but, no, she just DID it! (Yesterday, I was in despair. It took over an hour.)

Today's Dictation

It recently came to my attention that at his age, I should be dictating the first sentence of my son's narration back to him before he starts to copy it. That meant our procedure would have to change a bit. I usually have my son give me his narration first, so he could model it for my daughter who struggles. The change meant she would have to go first. So, we tried that today. And this is how the dictation proceeded.

Here are the first three sentences he dictated to me:

"Muhammad died. They chose a new leader, Abu Bakr. He was called the Caliph which means ruler of the Islamic Empire."

I told him I would say the first two sentences (since the first one was so short) and he was to repeat them back to me before he started writing. Before I read the second sentence, I told him, "There's a comma in it. Listen for the comma so you know where to put it."

He repeated the sentences after me, including the pause for the comma. He had no trouble writing the first sentence (though I had to spell both "Muhammad" and "died.") But he got as far as "they" for the second sentence and then couldn't remember what he was supposed to write. So I told him, "You already know what happened. What did they do?"

And he wote, "They chose a new Caliph, Abu Bakr." ("Abu Bakr" and "caliph" were up on the board!)

So, before I handed him his narration to copy, we did a little editing. We changed the third sentence to read, "The Caliph is the ruler of the Islamic Empire."

Much better, no?
And does anyone know if "Caliph" is supposed to be capitalised or not?

A Good Day.

I was up about an hour before the kids. That's always a good way for me to start my day.

When they finally wakened, we started gently. I had their Bible verses written out in Startwrite for them to copy. I made them say the verse first, then count the commas. There were three. I asked: "How many sentences is it?" They both answered three. "What ends a sentence?" I asked. "A period" they told me. "So how many periods are there?"

"One."

The seven year old was astonished. She honestly had not noticed it was one sentence.

So, that was interesting to me. Normally, I just give them their copywork and treat it more as a penmanship excercise than a teaching tool.

Then, I had my daughter say her poem to me three times. She has the first stanza memorized already. It's amazing what a sponge a seven year old brain really is. I can't remember if my boy did his poem or not.

Then, Latin. We did the vocabulary review together, very quickly, and then turned to our lesson. Today was the story of Romulus and Remus and when my son saw that, he was about to close his book and wander off, saying "I know all about that." But, I made him stay and we learned something new: Their father was Mars and their mother Sylva. The lesson included a picture by Reubens with some questions for a picture study. When we were done, my daughter says, "What, that was latin? We're done?"

Lively Latin is a fantastic program!

Then I gave my son his math. We almost had an argument about it, but when I showed him what he needed to do, he was OK with it. My daughter ran around looking for this and that to do her piano. She finally finished her theory work and her practicing. I confess, I didn't keep as close an eye on her as I should have.

I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but my daughter missed her math. When it was time to do it, she elected to clean her room instead. That was OK. She'll do it later, after she comes home from her piano leassons tonight.

Oh yes, now I remember: I reminded my son his book report was due tomorrow. We were working on that and I didn't really have time for her math right then. That was it.

We had lunch and a small break: then it was time to review the spelling words and do the spelling test. (Something we really should have done on Friday, but oh well). Then we had another small 15 minute break. (The puppy ensures we take a lot of breaks! I've started using the timer to make sure we come back from them!)

Story of the World was next. We're continuing our introduction to Islam. Today was all about the fight Muhammad led aginst the people of Mecca. Never knew any of that before. The kids are just writing up their narrations now. (They both dictate them to me and then re-copy it into their own hand writing. I'm supposed to have my son write more of his on his own by now, but I'm not quite sure how that goes.)

Let's see, we have Grammar and typing each, Bible Study and a writing excercise to start with the ten year old that will last us the week.

Not bad, folks, not bad. The school day has only been in action for 4 1/2 hours so far. Not bad at all.

*Image from this site

On Writing

#1 Who's your audience?

I learned this one on the job. A wonderful woman tethered me to a telephone line for nearly a year to teach me how to write news reports for CBC radio. Her name was Janice Stein. She was in Windsor. I was somewhere else, trying to eke out a living as a freelancer. She was a difficult person to work for, but her dedication and committment to bring me up to snuff was no less than award winning.

She had a surprising answer for me: my audience was my grandmother. I'm going to tell the story to my grandmother. She even suggested I put a picture of my grandmother by the computer to help me remember.

Writing for radio is writing for the ear. So,
#2 one thought: one sentence.

That's it. Complex compund sentences are not necessary and they are too hard for the ear to follow. Keep it conversational. That was very difficult for me. I'd learned to write in University, worse, I'd learned to write philosophy papers. Folks, it's as you've always expected: that isn't writing. I was in despair until I read what I wrote nearly every night in my journal. That was in words of one syllable. That was clear and concise. All I had to do now was to learn how to tell a story instead of moaning and complaining about my life. Gotcha.

The next bit was the hardest.

#3 The thesis statement.

This was to be the first line of my report. There's a formula of course. Here it is: "Someone is doing something because___________."

Notice that it's about people. I'm not saying "something is happening because....." but "people are protesting." And actually, to say "people are protesting isn't quite good enough. The last bit of excellent advice she taught me was

#5 use vivid verbs.

"People are yelling, marching up and down outside the courthouse."

As countless other writers have urged, paint a picture, she said. Show me the secene in front of you. So, my apologies for the ponderous bits below. My grandmother doesn't have a computer so I sometimes forget that I'm writing for her. Always.

This week I'm teaching the ten year old how to find the topic sentence and make a key word outline. Then we're going to re-write the piece using the outline for guidence. I'm using the free samples I printed off from Imitations in Writing, Aesop from the Logos school. I'm quite excited. It's more than time.

PS. When do you suppose blogger is going to fix spell check? This could get embarrassing!

On Curriculum.

You'll see that in the side bar I've included the materials I use (and hope to use) in our homeschool. But I have chosen those materials not entirely because they are subjects we need to cover: but because covering those subjects imparts skills I think we ought to have. The kids are young, yet. At this age, I'm just trying to get down the fundamentals.

We have a hard time getting to all of our material. And given my goals, I'm sure there are redundancies. I'm writing all this out here not just to tell you what we do and why, but to help clarify my thinking and perhaps simplify our lives as a result.

I have chosen to follow a particular model of home education called, for better or worse, "classical." As a homeschooling method, it began with the discovery of an essay by Dorothy Sayers extolling the virtues of a medieval classical education with an eye and an ear to the different psychological "stages" on the child's ability to learn. It has evolved from there into various forms. I have read what I could and picked out what I've wanted for the goals I want to achieve.

I am also attracted to what is known as a Charlotte Mason education. There are tomes on her method, including those she wrote herself. It's a very attractive method, conjuring up images of well-trained, thoughtful and observant children reflecting the Victorian age in which she lived and taught.

However, this is my go-to site for keeping me on track with what I'm supposed to be doing and how to go about it.

In both educational orientations there's the idea of moving from model to practice. You provide a child with a model of what is to be expected, to be emulated, and, eventually, executed.

The very best example is copywork. Here, a child is given a piece of fine prose or poetry or a Bible verse, written out. The child then copies it out letter for letter, word for word, including punctuation. It provides more than an example of correct penmanship--the idea is to provide the correct model for recognising good language. Copy work gives way to dictation, so a child can learn to write what he hears.

Parallel to this is narration. The child "tells back" the story he heard, the passage he read or describes the picture he sees in front of him. Thus they learn to synthesize, organise and summarize information.

The teacher writes the narration out in the beginning....later, after enough dictation (practice in writing what he hears) the child writes it out himself.
The narration is the foundation for all writing. Changing and manipulating the narrations can be used to teach grammar, vocabulary and spelling.

For now, these are the skills we're focusing on:

Brain Training:
Models: Poetry. Latin. Bible Verses. Eventually, Aristotelian logic. (I may have to write up my own curricula for this for kids to use and understand.)

Method: Memory work, in the form of memorizing poetry and Bible verses (and math facts) establishes the habit of retaining rhythm and wisdom and knowledge. Translating Latin is where the brain stretches itself and we aim to get there quickly. Eventually, we'll do our Aristotelian logic and engage in Socratic dialogue. Fortunately, I have two degrees in Philosophy, so I feel fairly confident we can do this in the teen years. I'm just not sure how to get there from here, yet.

Materials: Um, poems, Bible verses and a good Latin program. Strategy games also fall into this category like Yahtzee, chess, checkers, Clue and Blokus. I also use a series in beginning logic called Mind Benders.

Expression:
There are two kinds: verbal and non-verbal.

Verbal: The fine art of using language.

Models:
The Bible, Poetry, Quotations and Maxims, stories and good books. We need to know what to listen for, we need to know what is a well constructed sentence, as well as what is a good sentence aesthetically. The same goes for stories, and later, arguments.

Methods:
I read books to them. We also use copywork, narrations, and for now, a formal study of grammar, spelling and writing.

Materials:
I have two programs for grammar (one for each child), one for spelling which they do together, and one for writing.

Beyond copywork and narrations we aren't doing any writing. I think this is a disservice to the ten year old but the program I've picked is so teacher-intensive and thorough that my mind balks at the amount of time I think it would take to do it with him. He also needs to be able to type: that's the best way to handle a great volume of words at this age.

I aim to do something with spelling and grammar every day. These are subjects we will drop doing formally at some point so I feel sort of rushed to get through them quickly now.

Science (which I can't ever seem to get to) and History are fodder for narrations and copywork.

Non-verbal: The Cutural Arts.

This is strongly emphasised in the CM method of education, the classical method doesn't place as much emphasis on it--not even half so much as the original Greeks and Romans did. This, I think is a result of following the medieval model of classical education: it's as if the Renaissance never happened.
We don't do as much of this as I would like, either.

Models:
Music, Poetry, Plays (both live and on video and CD), Art.

Method:
Exposure, mostly. I'm working on the implementation, slowly.

Means:
Both study an instrument. I have plans and materials to start teaching us to draw. We go to plays at our local theatre.

Looking at this, I'm realizing that really, we just need to focus on Music and Art. The poetry and plays are really part of our verbal expression program. That seems much more manageable.

Mathematics:

We don't actually do mathematics. Real math is brain-training at its highest form. In a brilliant explanation of mathematics Adrian outlines the proper method of teaching it, starting out with the Big Questions and ending up at an understanding of sets. I do want to get us to this at some point. I'm just not sure how. For now, we do arithmetic. I use a program that explains part of the rationale behind the computations. Not in an intimidating way, but in a kid-friendly "oh now I get it way" that's extremely empowering. I'm not afraid of arithmetic anymore. I was when we started.

Looking at the world from a Christian Perspective. More generally and briefly known as our "worldview."

As Christians, I want my children to have a particular world-view, a biblical world-view like Francis Shaeffer talks about in What Shall We Do Now?

Models: The Bible, reading a non-Catholic version of the lives of Saints.

Methods: memorizing Bible Verses, studying the Bible, catechisms, going to church. I think I may have them memorize one of the shorter creeds, too.

Materials: For now, it's simply a course in conflict resolution and Bible Study. Developing a world view is a lot more than just going through a Bible Study program, of course. Still, the one I've picked (by Memoria Press) does present the material so that one can begin to understand that being a Christian means to occupy a particular set of beliefs about the world, its Creator and our relationships to everything and everyone in it.

Get a general idea of stuff so that when we do it in more depth later on you have some idea what we're talking about:

In this category we have History and Science.

And that, as they say, is that.

This has been helpful. Not the least of which is that it I now have something called my "educational plan" somewhat written up. The "EP" is a legal requiremnt I have to file with my school board in order to continue hs'ing. I only just realised, as I was typing this, that I hadn't done one for this school year!

Routines and Consequences

Answering Joanne's questions, the biggest thing that seems to stand out for me is our lack of routines and predictability. There's just too much chaos around here.

There were two other ideas that have sparked off some thoughts I want to work through that will help with that:

1) One woman wrote that she takes away a certain amount of screen time from her son if he doesn't get his chores done within an hour of waking up. This may be the approach for us to take.

I have a schedule: but it's shot whenever we don't start "on time" which is every day, right now!

I could certainly try that with respect to myself....and start establishing some peace and order to our lives. I sort of already have that in place: for example, my first visit to the downstairs bath is when I "swish and swipe." One load of laundry needs to be in the washer before bed.
Transfer to dryer and start another right after breakfast.
Fold during our lunch break, and so on.

But the other thing that keeps us in chaos is the lack of consequences. There are also no accountability for the kids to do their chores (nor for me, actually). The consequences I face, of course, are doing laundry late at night when someone says he's out of socks, and letting dishes pile until there's no room to prepare food.

She quoted Boundaries with Kid by Townsend and Cloud. I have the book. I've read the book. Somehow, I did not undertand the part I highlighted below:

Parents run into a big problem when they do not distinguish between psychological and negative relational consequences versus reality consequences. Life works on reality consequences. Psychological and negative relational consequences, such as getting angry, sending guilt messages, nagging, and withdrawing love, usually do not motivate people to change. If they do, the change is short-lived, directed only at getting the person to lighten up on the psychological pressure. True change usually comes only when someone's behavior causes him to encounter reality consequences like pain or losses of time, money, possessions, things he enjoys, and people he values.

I tried this a little bit last night. When my daughter interrupted me on the computer for the third time (she was supposed to be going to bed) I told her "I can't talk to you right now. You are supposed to be upstairs" and then as she continued to speak, I looked anywhere but at her. It was hard on both of us, but she went upstairs.



I have to think about this in greater detail, however.

What are the kids' chores?

When are they supposed to be done?

What will be the consequences for not doing them?

How do I enforce those consequences?



I may have to speed re-read Cloud and Townsend!

A Response to Joanne

I asked for help on a homeschooling message board. My post was this:

The kids are kicking up their heels at doing any schoolwork. And I'm feeling quite discouraged. It is such a battle, some days, that I just don't feel capable of facing it. (And I'm not handling it well. I'm constantly on edge and stressed.)

Have you any advice for me?
Is there a hot-line for homeschool moms?

What can I do?

Joanne responded with the following questions in brown.

1) Do you have age appropriate, quality giving routines in place?
I think she means: Do we have any chores?
We do, but no routine or set time for getting them done. Vague rewards, vague consequences for not getting them done. (Actually, none).

2) Do you have connecting rituals, playfulness and intentional positives?
I asked for clarification about intentional positives and haven't got it yet. Connecting rituals, playfulness? Well, I'd like to read aloud to them more. Sometimes we play a game after supper. But frankly, at the end of the day, I just want to slink off by myself for a while and have nothing to do with anyone.

3) Look at food in terms of quality, tone of meals.
Well, my son's manners leave a lot to be desired, so when we eat together (about 4-5 nights a week) I spend some time correcting him. His sister less so, but still. We also have an argument nearly every night about what's on their plate and sometimes negotiate how much of it has to be eaten before they get dessert.

4) Is anyone hooked into too much screen time?
The worst culprit is probably me. I have a lot of things on the computer and I need access to them. It's the location of my social life and down time and planning. My son is "hooked"--it's very hard to pull him back from his games. TV we banished--but there are still too many dvd's and videos.

5) Sleep?
See this post. Short answer: we're getting enough, but not at the right times.

6) Are YOU getting YOU time in whatever way feeds you?
No. What I need is time to be alone--without anything that needs to be done. Then, I can relax. I don't think it's possible to get that for at least another few years. To be fair, I do get a lot of time on the computer: but I'm still always, always "available."

7) If you are constantly on edge and stressed, how is your trigger managemenet? Noise, chaos, neediness, unpredictability, mess and tedious repetition are draining, exacerbating triggers. Guess what life with kids is comprised of?
Noise: can't stand it. The computer is in a room with a french door. I keep it closed sometimes while the kids watch dvds.

Chaos: quite.

Neediness: if one child or another interrupts every ten minutes, does that mean he or she is needy?

Unpredictability: We have no routines, except to eat supper when the husband gets home. We never know what time he's coming home. Any other routines we used to have (like baths starting at 8:00pm) have been obliterated by our time-shifted sleep/wake cycles.

mess: oh, yes, it's messy around here.

tedious repetition: well that about covers all the things I am doing in a rather haphazard fashion at the moment: laundry, dishes, cleaning, projects, meals, schooling.

8) Is everyone getting an appropriate amount of play, exercise and movement?
It's been about -30C here the past week. I'd have to say no.

9) Major changes, transitions, stress?
We got a puppy at Christmas. That's been stressful.

10) Could you be depressed, clinically?
Perhaps. But it's seasonal. March is coming soon. We haven't the time, resources or inclination to deal with it professionally.

Now what?

In The Beginning: The Backstory

The year was 2005.

My daughter was just about to start kindergarten.


My son was just finishing Grade One in a french immersioan public school. I have absolutely no idea how he was doing academically--I don't speak French. Socially, though, the situation was terrible. My son had had two years of kindergarden at that school, (left back because of emotional maturity issues) and K2 as we had called it had been brutal. His "friends" had turned on him and ridicules him for being a kindergartener. I had wantd to give it another year before making any decisions. (He had found one truly great boy for a friend and I didn't want to disrupt him from that relationship.)

I started reading about homeschooling and the more I read, the more I wanted it. Web sites from other Christians promised I'd have greater guidence over the children's spiritual life. Other homeschooling moms on message boards assured me we could take our time and my children could learn at their own pace, in their own way. If he struggled, help would be right at hand and not diverted by the challenge of keeping 30 children on task. I read John Taylor Gatto. His works made a huge impression on me. I read Laura Berquist and from there, the Well-Trained Mind. I read about the theories and philosophy of Charlotte Mason. I went to a homeschooling conference where hundreds of parents were trying the same thing....and I saw hundreds and hundreds of books. Wonderful books. Books I would be able to share with my children if we homeschooled. And I wanted that. I wanted it all.

I lamented the fact we didn't live on a farm. It's the ideal place to learn personal responsibility and the fact that everyone must contribute to the family for its survival. But, though a poor substitute, I did give them their own household chores.

Beguiled by the promises implicit in homeschooling, I thought I would be able to educate my children to pick wholesome, engaging books and entertainments. I thought they would be kind and generous and cheerful. I envisioned evenings reading books or playing games happily together. And, of course, they would learn to read, write and do their figures. They would learn to reason and argue well.

And so, then I began reading about educational philosophies and curriculum guidelines and courses of study and math programmes and so on and so on. I knew I wanted an academic curriculum. I wanted the intellectuall rigour and discipline it promised. No child-centered studies for us. No "unschooling" here, no substitution of the sacred cows of learning for a progressive education*. Besides, the former approach, unlike the latter, is consistent with my parenting philosophy, which is, in the words of one syllable: "I'm the boss."

And so we began.

*According to Diane Ravitch in Left Back, (Simon and Shuster, 2000) Harl R. Douglass, a leading progressive educator disapargingly referred to academic studies as the "Sacred Cow" curriculum in Secondary Education for Life Adjustment of American Youth