Well, Well, Well

Studeo is a year old today! We've been too sick (instead of well, well, well - this stomach flu thing is nasty!) this week to post much, though.

Love and Learning

These are some interesting quotes from a book I just started reading: The Intellectual Life: Its Spirits, Conditions, Methods by A.G. Sertillanges, O.P. (hat tip on the book recommendation - Family-Centered Life - though she mentioned it on an e-mail list we both belong to rather than her blog):

Our liking, if correlated to our fundamental tendencies and to our aptitudes, is an excellent judge. If St. Thomas could say that pleasure characterizes functions and may serve to classify men, he must be led to conclude that pleasure can also reveal our vocation. Only we must search down into the depths where liking and the spontaneous impulse are linked up with the gifts of God and His providence. (pg. 5)

Life is a unity: it would be very surprising if we could give fullest play to one of its functions while neglecting the other, or if to live our ideas should not help us to perceive them.

What is the source of this unity of life? Love. "Tell me what you love, I will tell you what you are." Love is the beginning of everything in us; and that starting point which is common knowledge and practice cannot fail to make the right paths of both in a certain measure interdependent.

Truth visits those who love her, who surrender to her, and this love cannot be without virtue. (pg. 19)

So you may have noticed that I've been exploring some of the multi-faceted aspects of education. I'm trying to get a better sense of what is essential in education. One of these that I think is often neglected is the very important concept of helping our children learn to love what is good and to desire the truth.

When Big People Play with Cars

This is such a neat video (commercial actually) that I just had to share...

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/honda.php

Snopes (a great place to check if forwarded e-mails are really true) has the content of the e-mail going around plus identification of key facts (and a few more details they uncovered)...

http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/hondacog.asp

I think this has been around the Internet for quite awhile, but it's new to me. :)

Shakespeare on Thomas More?

I have to read this - Sir Thomas More - a play ascribed to William Shakespeare which apparently was never performed in Shakespeare's day because of political censorship.

We've been watching the PBS series In Search of Shakespeare with Michael Wood. It seems interesting and even informative so far, though quite slanted in places and probably not suitable for children.

Chesterton on Education

He definitely deserves his own post - just for the quotes from one of his books. Many thanks to Dr. Thursday for helping uncover many of these gems...

"Now having read numberless newspaper articles on education, and even written a good many of them, and having heard deafening and indeterminate discussion going on all around me almost ever since I was born, about whether religion was part of education, about whether hygiene was an essential of education, about whether militarism was inconsistent with true education, I naturally pondered much on this recurring substantive, and I am ashamed to say that it was comparatively late in life
that I saw the main fact about it.

Of course, the main fact about education is that there is no such thing. It does not exist, as theology or soldiering exist. Theology is a word like geology, soldiering is a word like soldering; these sciences may be healthy or no as hobbies; but they deal with stone and kettles, with definite things. But education is not a word like geology or kettles. Education is a word like "transmission" or "inheritance"; it is not an object, but a method. It must mean the conveying of certain facts, views or qualities, to the last baby born. They might be the most trivial facts or the most preposterous views or the most offensive qualities; but if they are handed on from one generation to another they are education. Education is not a thing like theology, it is not an inferior
or superior thing; it is not a thing in the same category of terms. Theology and education are to each other like a love-letter to the General Post Office. Mr. Fagin was quite as educational as Dr. Strong; in practice probably more educational.
It is giving something--perhaps poison. Education is tradition, and tradition (as its name implies) can be treason."

(What's Wrong with the World, "The Truth About Education" )

"Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself
too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question.
For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens
or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets cakes. and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's
function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."

(What's Wrong with the World, "The Emancipation of Domesticity")

"But the important point here is only that you cannot anyhow get rid of authority in education; it is not so much (as poor Conservatives say) that parental authority ought to be preserved, as that it cannot be destroyed. Mr. Bernard Shaw once said that he hated the idea of forming a child's mind. In that case Mr. Bernard Shaw had better hang himself; for he hates something inseparable from human life. I only mentioned educere and the drawing out of the faculties in order to point out that even this mental trick does not avoid the inevitable idea of parental or scholastic authority. The educator drawing out is just as arbitrary and coercive as the instructor pouring in; for he draws out what he chooses. He decides what in the child shall be developed and what shall not be developed. He does not (I suppose) draw out the neglected faculty of forgery. He does not (so far at least) lead out, with timid steps, a shy talent for torture. The only result of all this pompous and precise distinction between the educator and the instructor is that the instructor pokes where he likes and the educator pulls where he likes. Exactly the same intellectual violence is done to the creature who is poked and pulled. Now we must all accept the responsibility of this intellectual violence. Education is violent; because it is creative. It is creative because it is human. It is as reckless as playing on the fiddle; as dogmatic as drawing a picture; as brutal as building a house. In short, it is what all human action is; it is an interference with life and growth. After that it is a trifling and even a jocular question whether we say of this tremendous tormentor, the artist Man, that he puts things into us like an apothecary, or draws things out of us, like a dentist."

(What's Wrong with the World, "Authority the Unavoidable")

"We have said that if education is a solid substance, then there is none of it. We may now say that if education is an abstract expansion there is no lack of it. There is far too much of it. In fact, there is nothing else."

(What's Wrong with the World, "Humility of Mrs. Grundy")

Catholic Thought on Education

I have some favorite quotes on children and education here. Now I'm collecting quotes and thoughts on education - its definition, purpose, etc.- especially from Catholic tradition. These are presently in no particular order and I'll be adding more over time. Please share your own suggestions.

"In the broadest sense, education includes all those experiences by which intelligence is developed, knowledge acquired, and character formed. In a narrower sense, it is the work done by certain agencies and institutions, the home and the school, for the express purpose of training immature minds. The child is born with latent capacities which must be developed so as to fit him for the activities and duties of life. The meaning of life, therefore, of its purposes and values as understood by the educator, primarily determines the nature of his work. Education aims at an ideal, and this in turn depends on the view that is taken of man and his destiny, of his relations to God, to his fellowmen, and to the physical world. The content of education is furnished by the previous acquisition of mankind in literature, art, and science, in moral, social, and religious principles. The inheritance, however, contains elements that differ greatly in value, both as mental possessions and as means of culture; hence a selection is necessary, and this must be guided largely by the educational ideal. It will also be influenced by the consideration of the educative process. Teaching must be adapted to the needs of the developing mind, and the endeavour to make the adaption more thorough results in theories and methods which are, or should be, based on the findings of biology, physiology, and psychology." (1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, article on Education)

"On her part, the Church cannot but set great value upon reason's drive to attain goals which render people's lives ever more worthy. She sees in philosophy the way to come to know fundamental truths about human life. At the same time, the Church considers philosophy an indispensable help for a deeper understanding of faith and for communicating the truth of the Gospel to those who do not yet know it.

...at the present time in particular, the search for ultimate truth seems often to be neglected...Yet the positive results achieved must not obscure the fact that reason, in its one-sided concern to investigate human subjectivity, seems to have forgotten that men and women are always called to direct their steps toward a truth which transcends them. Sundered from that truth, individuals are at the mercy of caprice, and their state as person ends up being judged by pragmatic criteria based essentially upon experimental data, in the mistaken belief that technology must dominate all. It has happened therefore that reason, rather than voicing the human orientation toward truth, has wilted under the weight of so much knowledge and little by little has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being. Abandoning the investigation of being, modern philosophical research has concentrated instead upon human knowing. Rather than make use of the human capcity to know the truth, modern philosophy has preferred to accentuate the ways in which the capacity is limited and conditioned.

This has given rise to different forms of agnosticism and relativism which have led philosophical research to lose its way in the shifting sands of widespread skepticism. Recent times have seen the rise to prominence of various doctrines which tend to devalue even the truths which had been judged certain. A legitimate plurality of positions has yielded to an undifferentiated pluralism, based upon the assumption that all positions are equally valid, which is one of today's most widespread symptoms of the lack of confidence in truth...On this understanding, everything is reduced to opinion, and there is a sense of being adrift." (Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio from the Introduction, part 5)

"Moral education - the training of heart and mind toward the good - involves many things. It involves rules and precepts - the dos and don'ts of life with others - as well as explicit instruction, exhortation, and training. Moral education must provide training in good habits. Aristotle wrote that good habits formed at youth make all the difference. And moral education must affirm the central importance of moral example. It has been said that there is nothing more influential, more determinant, in a child's life than the moral power of quiet example. For children to take morality seriously they must be in the presence of adults who take morality seriously. And with their own eyes they must see adults take morality seriously.

Along with precept, habit, and example, there is also the need for what we might call moral literacy....to show parents, teachers, students, and children what the virtues look like, what they are in practice, how to recognize them, and how they work....If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance. Children must learn to identify the forms and content of those traits. They must achieve at least a minimal level of moral literacy that will enable them to make sense of what they see in life and, we may hope, help them live it well."
William Bennett, introduction The Book of Virtues

Evelyn Waugh on Education

Yesterday I found this interesting little snippet from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (written in 1945 though the novel is set mostly in the 1920s and 30s) which makes me want to read more of Waugh on education...

(he puts these words in the mouth of a priest)

"The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. With anyone over fifty you can be fairly confident what's been taught and what's been left out. But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into the depths of confusion you didn't know existed." (from Part II of "Brideshead Deserted")

I always found C.S. Lewis' introduction to St. Athanasius On the Incarnation interesting because of his exhortation to read old books in order to take ourselves out of the limitations of modern errors. It is part of the reason I have enjoyed Chesterton so much as well, I think and makes me that much more interested in what Waugh has to say.

What is education?

Part science, part art and part grace (perhaps in more ways than one).

The Best Laid Plans...

Yesterday was our first day back at school after Easter break. Funny how you plan everything "just so" and then life happens. Bernie and Terri woke up sick and weren't able to keep anything (even liquids) down all day. Gus tends to have a hard time jumping back into things like Math after a break (this seems consistent with his unofficial Asperger's diagnosis). He struggles especially with staying focused, but sitting with him, letting him dictate some problems to me and keeping the assignments reasonably short all help.

It's interesting to see how our planning works through challenging days. The "system" we've developed this year - although we're still tweaking it - seems to be a good fit overall. Approximately once a month, I make a list of basic jobs and subjects I want the children to cover each day (I put this together in Excel with boxes for each school day of that month. The list is broken into three sections - chores, "essentials" and additional subjects. The chores and essentials need to be finished before movies, dance/gymnastics class, computer time, etc. The additional subjects are required or not required at my discretion, based on our extra-curricular activities, field trips, etc. This allows us, for many of our subjects, to base our accomplishments on time and effort rather than number of pages or topics covered. The "additional subjects" tend to be the more open-ended ones like reading and art. Even this varies somewhat from child to child.

The beauty of this system, for us, is that it keeps us on track in various ways, but allows us to keep a pace we can manage. (Not always slower, by the way, but appropriate to each child). Quite a few of our subjects, especially for the younger children, are "open-ended". For science, the younger children get to pick a science book to read, or work in the garden or their nature journal (the older children have somewhat more restricted choices - for example Ria got to choose a general topic to study in science this semester and is required to keep notes/write reports as well as read and enjoy science). For reading/literature, Gus on down get to choose what to read each day, but Ria has an assigned list based on a high-interest topic. Again, she has more writing requirements. In general we tend to do a mix of texts/workbooks and living books/hands-on/etc. even within particular subjects. For example, Gus enjoys Math puzzles and stories (such as The Man Who Counted by Malba Tahan) and works better on his formal Math when it's kept a little shorter and he can look forward to the "fun" stuff too.

So, yesterday was a rather difficult day with taking care of sick kids and running after a very healthy toddler while helping and encouraging the others. But Bernie and Terri took the day off without the pressure of being "behind" and Gus, even after being quite frustrated at times with his distractedness from some subjects, was extremely pleased when he finished his entire list in a timely manner. Ria doesn't generally struggle with finishing her list, but she also hasn't fallen into the habits I formed in elementary school of getting by with only what was required and learning for the sake of tests and grades rather than bigger things.

When even a bad day is a "successful" day, I guess we're doing okay. But it sure took me a long time to develop all these little strategies that fit the needs of our family so well. Learning to understand my children's learning styles and strengths and weaknesses has been a big part of the puzzle. Each family is unique and each child is unique and I think every family - even those who don't homeschool - go through their own process of figuring out what works for their children.

High School Curriculum

A collection of links of curriculum, booklists, graduation requirements and general goals:

Kolbe Academy
Brookfield Academy, Brookfield, WI
Trinity Academy, Pewaukee, WI
Seton Home Study

I intend to add to this list - I know I've come across many more interesting sites with scope and sequence (and other things) worth considering. Suggestions encouraged!

High School Curriculum/Goals

A collection of lists from online (we're doing some future planning, and I wanted to compare different "designs" and ideas) - these are not all Catholic:

Homeschool Programs, Curriculum Lists and Graduation Requirements:

Kolbe Academy
Seton Home Study
St. Thomas Aquinas Academy
Our Lady of Victory School
Mother of Divine Grace School
Angelicum Academy


"Traditional" High Schools, Curriculum Lists and Graduation Requirements:

St. Thomas Aquinas Academy, North Carolina
St. Augustine Academy, Ventura, California
Trinity Academy, Pewaukee, Wisconsin
Brookfield Academy, Brookfield, WI
Trivium School, Massachusetts

Ancient Roman Charades

We had a delightful Easter week co-op yesterday as explained so nicely by Ria. My friend Mary Z. and I had the distinct privilege of spectating at the Ancient Roman Charades (described at the link above) put on by our three co-op Latin classes (ages ranged from 10-18 in all, Gus being the youngest in the group). The other moms were busy with their classes and we should have had the foresight to bring a video camera! The amount of creativity and knowledge astounded us. Some of these kids know far more than their moms and co-op teachers (the older kids have graduated to a, ahem, "real" teacher, however). The experience served to remind me that some of the most important academic roles for us teacher-moms are "opening doors" and "lighting sparks".

The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Education

So-called moral permissiveness rests on an erroneous conception of human freedom; the necessary precondition for the development of true freedom is to let oneself be educated in the moral law. Those in charge of education can reasonably be expected to give young people instruction respectful of the truth, the qualities of the heart, and the moral and spiritual dignity of man.

"The Good News of Christ continually renews the life and culture of fallen man; it combats and removes the error and evil which flow from the ever-present attraction of sin. It never ceases to purify and elevate the morality of peoples. It takes the spiritual qualities and endowments of every age and nation, and with supernatural riches it causes them to blossom, as it were, from within; it fortifies, completes, and restores them in Christ." (2526-2527)

The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. "
The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute." The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable. (2221)

The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere, however modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. It is born with the awakening consciousness of being a subject. Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person. (2524)

In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith. For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the Ecclesia Domestica. It is in the bosom of the family that parents are "by word and example...the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation."

It is here that the father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way "by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity." Thus the home is the first school of Christian life and "a school for human enrichment." Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous - even repeated forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life. (1656-1657)

Winston Churchill

Willa at Every Waking Hour has some excellent quotes from Winston Churchill in her sidebar (as well as consistently thoughtful posts on educational theory - I always find something helpful and/or insightful there). I especially liked these quotes:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

My New Wallpaper

I think I finally found some wallpaper that I like. I've always liked the look, feel and read of old hardcover books. Since high school, I've had a small collection of lovely books found inexpensively at rummage sales and thrift shops. Turns out my husband had his own little collection, so we have a few shelves now of old treasures - quite a lot of prayers books, in fact.

This is a photo of a pile of some books that I thought would be eye-pleasing - mostly in the way of having a reasonably consistent size and color range (a little easier to look at than the blossoms, I think - which were originally intended for the Grace Garden Journal anyway).

Here is a list of the books (since some are hard to make out):

across the top:

Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas (Vol. 2) This is beat up enough to have required a little touch up in Paint Shop Pro. It dates from 1903 and is all in Latin.

from left to right:

The Poetical Works of Robert Burns

Tennyson's Poems (1869 edition). This is an incredibly gorgeous book. I think it looks just like one Laura Ingalls Wilder describes in one of her books (I think it's Little Town on the Prairie) that she gets as a gift - I think she snooped and found it in her mother's drawer and was later ashamed. Anyway, I tried to sell it once, when we were pretty tight on cash, but wasn't willing to part with it for the measly $35 offered for it.

McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader (1879) This volume belonged to John's great-great uncle.

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Life, Letters and Journals by Louisa May Alcott (1889) This one belonged to one of John's grandmothers

The Songs of Ireland (no date, but inscribed with some beautiful old-fashioned ink-pen writing, belonged to John's great-great-uncle)

The Students' Series of Latin Classics: Cicero De Senectute (1918) given to me by my high school Latin teacher, Fr. Joseph Geary, as it was being discarded from his school's library.

The Tragedies of William Shakespeare - this poor book completely lacks a cover.


Now I should probably also admit that I haven't yet read any of these books straight through. I will be remedying the situation with Kidnapped in the near future.

UPDATE: I can't believe how much better the wallpaper looks than the original picture.

Favorite Teachers from Stories (Real and Make Believe)

Can you tell we're on vacation? Here's what Gus, Ria and I came up with so far. Please add more of your own suggestions...

• Dr. Cornelius from Prince Caspian


• Mr. Ray from Finding Nemo


• Annie Sullivan


• Miss Stacey from Anne of Green Gables (at least the movie - no one around here has read the book in a long time)


• St. Albert the Great - the teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas (Ria thinks he's brilliant)


• Sr. Geraldine from Shadow of the Bear


• Albus Dumbledore


• The priest in prison in the Count of Monte Cristo (again, thinking of the movie for now)


• Thomas Edison's mother


• The teacher from The Day on Skates


• St. Ambrose - the teacher of St. Augustine


• The Sister from Twenty and Ten

Road Mirth

Isn't it nice when other people can see the humor in the little ridiculous and quirky things in life?

Yesterday I was stopped at a parking lot intersection with two others cars (no markings to help you out and more obscure than your average parking lot). One car waved the other through, which was fine. Then I waved that car to go and got confused because I couldn't see if his blinker was on. I started to move, then stopped, realizing my mistake. He completely "got it", we both started cracking up (which we couldn't hear, but just see), I again waved for him to go and he turned in front of me with a big grin and a thumbs up.

I Almost Forgot...

that it's Pope Benedict XVI's first anniversary!

Good thing I checked the Curt Jester before I went to bed. We enjoyed Jeff's fun B16 piece last year at this time and my children really got wrapped up in the entire process.

Viva il Papa!

Yet Another Blog

We decided to start recording and sharing our gardening and outdoor learning on a separate blog - Grace Garden Journal. I actually started this several weeks ago, but finally just got back to it today. By the way, does anyone know how to change the date on a post? I'd like to put things in the correct order on the blog.

Ria's Garden

Here's Ria's flower garden. We've all been working on this together to get it planted (Grandma's help and expertise and Grandad's special drill bit for garden bulbs were very much appreciated). We're not done yet - we put mulch on the parts that are planted. Sure is an improvement - particularly with the well-pipe so close to the front door.


By the way, we planted tulips (mostly white and a few mauve), lilies (some pink, some yellow), dahlias (similar color scheme) and purple irises so far. We still have a bunch of gladiolas and lilies of the valley and a few more dahlias to plant. Gotta love planting bulbs - it sure makes future years easier!

A Little Before and After

My dad and my hubbie built these beautiful shelves! Thanks guys!!!

A Little of What We've Been Up To...

(causing a serious lack of blogging)

{}Celebrating Holy Week and Easter

{}Enjoying the company of my parents (who were visiting from Minnesota for the past week)

{}Working on a ton of house and garden projects (my mom is an avid gardener and my dad loves working on house projects - and we sure needed some work in those areas!) Ria's massive flower garden in front (it was terribly barren there before) is nearly finished. Hope to put a picture or two up soon. I have to admit that I attended Easter Vigil Mass with some traces of wood stain still present on my fingernails, but the new shelving and pot-hangers will be much appreciated for a long time to come.

{}Enjoying the beautiful outdoor weather.

{}Running to the usual commitments and after the completely enchanting toddler-of-the-house. This week, Frank (the ultimate Munchkin Man) learned to open the baby locks on all the kitchen cabinets. I happened to be observing when he first (I think) opened the dishes cabinet. He calmly pulled out a bowl and closed the door. Then opened the door and replaced the bowl, and closed it. And repeated this about ten times as calmly and matter-of-factly as if he'd done it all his life and it was completely normal to do this ten times in a row. It almost seemed like he didn't want to push his luck by making his excitement too obvious. My dad was so impressed with how smart he was. Distressed might be a more appropriate word for me (hehe). By the way, he also unlocks bedroom and bathroom doors upstairs. He takes a Q-tip from the closet, pulls off the fluffy stuff and wiggles it in the doorknob until it clicks. We discovered this when his poor aunt had her shower interrupted a few weeks back. Sigh. We haven't seen this much determination in a toddler since Terri was two or three years old. I'll have to share my favorite Terri-at-three-years-old story sometime soon, but this post is getting too long already.

By the way, Ria's flower garden has been the occasion for some of Frank's most contented moments as of late (particularly during the post-Easter candy-monster blues). It's a big kidney-bean shaped garden, so we got some stepping stones to curve through it (oops, I accidentally typed "curse" the first time through - something about the Fall in THE garden, I guess) and he is completely absorbed in the task of toddling from stone to stone. Gardens are SO good for kids. I guess I'll never be a great gardener because my objective isn't really to succesfully grow beautiful plants and provide fresh tomatoes for our family, but to let the kids get dirty and watch stuff grow. Naturally they'll be happier if we get to eat or decorate with their hard work.

{}Updating the love2learn.net Catholic Colleges page (finally!) Lots of updating to do still on the other teen/college admissions pages, though.

{}Preparing to hand out some awards to my Latin students from our homeschool co-op who participated in the National Latin Exam. My class of five girls in 7th and 8th grade (taking the Latin I exam) had a Summa Cum Laude, a Maxima Cum Laude and a Magna Cum Laude (which amounts to some very fine scores). My previous class (of four students), who are now working with a more knowledgeable teacher, (and took the Latin II exam) had two Maxima Cum Laude and one Magna Cum Laude. Woohoo!!!

The National Latin Exam is really a great program that promotes classical studies in schools (check out the link above). They are very eager and helpful about working with homeschoolers - no need to be in a co-op situation - and it can be nice to get that occasional glimpse of "objective" testing (not a bad thing for transcripts).

Happy Easter!

Gaude et Laetare!

It's funny - we didn't have Easter mass plans firmly in place and rather suddenly decided to attend the Easter vigil mass at a local convent. My husband got a wonderful Easter present as his godfather, who had fallen away from the Church, was at that Mass and been regularly attending Mass at the convent chapel. What a happy night!

And just for fun, here's a picture of Ria's Chestertonian Easter Egg (click on the picture to read her post about it).

LibraryThing

LibraryThing has an interesting page with user stats. It includes some fairly mundane things like the largest libraries and newest additions. The interesting thing to me were rankings of books and authors by ratings and tags. I thought it particularly interesting that Chesterton's The Everlasting Man came out as the number one book according to user's ratings. Neat, huh? (I really need to read it myself still!)

Speaking of which... Dr. Thursday has some great quotes from The Everlasting Man for Holy Week.

Why Read Fiction?

There is some really interesting discussion on the value of fiction/literature in the comments of this post. The answer, in brief (or perhaps just in part), I think is that fiction touches the "heart" rather than just the intellect.

Love of God and Love of Neighbor

From God is Love by Pope Benedict XVI:

Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave. Here we see the necessary interplay between love of God and love of neighbor which the First Letter of John speaks of with such insistence. If I have no contact whatsoever with God in my life, then I cannot see in the other anything more than the other, and I am incapable of seeing in him the image of God. But if in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be "devout" and to perform my "religious duties," then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely "proper," but loveless. Only my readiness to encounter my neighbor and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbor can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me. The saints - consider the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta - constantly renewed their capacity for love of neighbor from their encounter with the Eucharistic Lord, and conversely this encounter acquired its realism andd depth in their service to others. Love of God and love of neighbor are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment. But both live from the love of God who has loved us first.

Meet the Austins

I'm almost finished reading Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle. I picked it up at last week's library book sale and Ria gobbled it up immediately. "You have to read this," she said. "They're like us." I often don't get around to reading the books Ria would like me to, but I have to admit that this was one of the most intriguing enticements I've ever had to read a book - to find out what my 12 year old daughter thinks of our family!

It's good news, I think. :) Here's a pertinent quote...

"Of course, Mother and Daddy shout some too," John said, "but it's different. I can't explain why it's different, but it is."

"It certainly is!" I said.

"Mother says she can never stay mad at Daddy no matter how hard she tries. And Daddy says, 'Stay mad! You won't even let me get mad at you,' and then they laugh. Aren't you sorry for people who don't laugh, Vicky?"

"Yes. And people who don't love music and books."

"And people," John said.

Ria and I think it might be fun to make one of those online quizzes for "Which storybook family are you?"

I Guess My Kids Like to Cook...

and that's partly why we got an electric coil cook stove rather than the gas stove I might have preferred (some of our cooks are pretty young and the coil seems safer). Anyway, not five minutes after the new stove was installed, I had a whole line of kiddos eager to make - oatmeal, macaroni and cheese and a tortilla with cheese (respectively).

Appliance Wars

It's a funny thing. I'm very comfortable around a computer, but I don't like appliances with big electronic keypads and lots of features. It seems to me that you pay a lot more for the features, there are more things to break and it's a lot more expensive to repair them.

We've always believed this to a certain extent, and tend to buy a simple model of a good brand for things like dishwashers, dryers, etc. So far we have had ZERO maintenance problems with any of these appliances we've purchased.

When we moved into our current house two years ago, appliances were included- an old washer and dryer set and three almost new high-end kitchen appliances (fridge, dishwasher and range). The receipts were still around - these babies cost over $1000 apiece new and have all the features we tend to avoid. The fridge is still doing fine, but we've had loads of problems with the dishwasher and the range. The dishwasher has broken down twice already (this is a 2002 model, I believe) and the range is heading out the door A.S.A.P.

We've replaced the big burner on it twice already (at $75 a pop), but now the nice glass top is broken. It didn't take much - Kate dropped a Corelle cup on it when she opened up the microwave above. The glass is shot, but get this - it costs $550 to get a new top! That's easily the cost of a new range.

Anyway, thought it might be useful for someone else to know that the glass-top ranges can be a little family-unfriendly. One break and you're out (practically). The appliance refurbishing companies I called didn't want it even for free because it's so expensive to replace the top. I might give Freecycle a try. Sure glad we didn't shell out the $1000 ourselves!!!

Losing Their Heads

I thought some Republicans were losing their heads over the immigration issue but this is ridiculous! (warning - article about offensive anti-Catholic diatribe by conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage)

SAT Optional Universities

Honestly, I didn't know until now that such universities existed. Here's a news article on this apparently growing trend. (hat tip, Flying Stars)

Cutting of the Turf

Well, we actually did it. We rented a sod cutter from Home Depot and cut a few fine gardens to plant all those fine seedlings the kids started. The kids are over the flu now and got a real kick out of rolling up all that sod today (moving it won't be so much fun for Mom and Dad, though). Oh, and such fine digging as they've ever had. We'd have been lucky to have started one garden without this wonderful machine, but now each of the kids gets to work their own "bit of earth" as Mary Lennox might say.

A Spring Story

Well, it' a glorious spring day here - lots of sunshine and a lovely breeze. The kids are playing outside and our sunroom allows me to see and hear them so nicely with the windows open. I've got a touch of the flu, so I'm sitting here with my laptop thinking it's a good time for a story...

Our first house was a small 1890s farmhouse on a quarter acre, just behind the main street in a smallish Wisconsin "village". The backyard was tiny - quite a bit of it was taken up with an old smelly detached garage and a very large (though occasionally leaky) shed - probably once used as a chicken coop. I still miss that shed which allowed me to store all the off-season clothes, books, Christmas decorations, etc. in Rubbermaid Tubs where the kids couldn't really access it (although a funny side point is that we never had to lock it).

Anyway, most of our yard was on the side of the house, running from the shed to the street in front. A nice wide, long area, wider than the house and unbroken except for two little apples trees we planted ourselves to give a little "definition" to the backyard.

We've always tended to be a little late with our first lawn mowing of the spring. One year, about six or seven years ago, John was engaged in this task (the mower was a bit of a bear besides). He always likes to mow in large rectangles, getting smaller and smaller toward the middle.

This time, he was nearly finished with the chore - he had perhaps a 6 foot by 10 foot section left to mow when he ran out of gas. The grass was already long, but this patch was near to the shed and it didn't seem worth the trouble to get more gas just then. So we let it be.

The next week, he decided to tackle that small patch when we saw him stop and swoop something up in the grass. It was a baby bunny. The mower went off and all the children (well, I think we only had three at the time) had to come over to see. There was a little rabbit warren, in a hole just at the surface of the lawn. There was just a little grass and some rabbit fur fluff covering (if I remember right) six babies. The long grass stayed and even Terri who was just toddling around could walk right up next to the hole, look down, and watch them peacefully sleeping without disturbing them. The mother rabbit showed up when things were a lot quieter to care for her little ones (Ria had christened them after Hilda Van Stockum's books - everyone's favorite was Francie who ran the farthest and the fastest - the mother bunny was, of course, "Hilda").

One time when I was walking out to the shed, Hilda was nursing the babies. It was the funniest thing to see - they were lying down underneath her kicking their legs around - guess human moms aren't the only ones with babies who wrestle them while they nurse!

Anyway, sometimes the most priceless lessons in life are the ones you don't plan, although I'd like to give this one a try on purpose some time just to see what happens. (I did see that MacBeth recommends something along these lines). Of course now that we have pets (a cat and a dog), we aren't likely to get a bunny family, but then again, our gardens are now a little safer too.

Remembering Pope John Paul the Great

He died a year ago today.

Here is a great place to read his writings and talks.

This was around the time last year when I first started nosing around the blogosphere - following the story of Terri Schiavo and people's reminiscences about Pope John Paul II. I just looked today and my first post here was April 30th, so Studeo is fast-approaching its first birthday.

Silence is Not Always Golden

It strikes me that when someone shocks or disturbs you with something they say (at least on a philosophical level) it's not necessarily a good thing to bite your lip and walk away. Sometimes it IS just a misunderstanding rather than a difference of doctrine or opinion. People express themselves poorly all the time and I've often wished I had the chance to explain something better or explain something further to someone. Don't be afraid to ask questions and listen long enough to ascertain what they are trying to say. Be specific. "Are you trying to say....?" can be a very valuable question.

"Jim Larranaga is My Hero" by Elizabeth Foss

This seems to be turning into a little theme here, but I wanted to share with you a neat article on Catholic Exchange by Elizabeth Foss about a college basketball coach who is inspiring her to hold fast to her principles. (hat tip Nutmeg)