Tonight was Catherine's Girl Guides enrollment night where all the new girls pledge their eternal souls to the dark sisterhood of Guiding and they all get shiny pins. I shouldn't be like that. It's a really nice troupe with great leaders. One of the leaders has told me that they'd considered homeschooling in the past but choose to continue with schooling for some very good reasons I won't go into.
Tonight I met the mother of that leader and it turns out she had been hoping they would homeschool, was disappointed when they decided not to and was interested as all get out about it. And she's a former teacher.
I know about a half dozen or so teachers and former teachers and talked to many more over the last few years. One of those, just one, wasn't keenly interested and supportive of our homeschooling. By coincidence, or maybe not, she seemed to be the only one I've known who didn't seem to have any passion for her chosen career. All the others seem ready to offer advice, time and resources and want to learn about just what it is I do at home with my kids in terms of education.
I've heard a lot of stories about homeschoolers who've had ugly reactions from teachers and I've expected it to happen for some time. I've been expecting that for 5 years now. I think perhaps I better stop because inevitably when I meet a teacher and he/she finds out I homeschool and we start to ramble on about math and kids and, "isn't it great when you get to watch them learn?"
Occasionally there's a bit of a gulf. I can't use advice on record keeping that's meant for classes with 30 kids and I'm betting my prime tactic for dealing with a disinterested kid, take time off to go watch cartoons and snuggle, isn't going to be something a Grade 6 teacher will find valuable. We're both in education but we're both different kinds of specialists within that field and very often the skills and tools needed for one situation are exactly was isn't needed for the other.
Regardless, we still love kids and watching them learn. And we all relish our place in that learning.
I've invited the grandmother up for tea some day so she could get a bit of a feel for how we go about our homeschooling. I hope she takes me up on it.
Showing posts with label christian homeschooling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christian homeschooling. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Homeschooling in the Last Days.
Okay, whoever searched for the phrase, "Homeschooling in the Last Days," and wound up on my blog (assuming you come back), I want to tell you something.
If you really, honestly, truly believe these are the Last Days, forget about the frikkin' homeschooling.
Stuff your kids with candy, spend 12 hours a day at the theme park, buy them a Wii, 360 AND PS2, give them each 6 kittens, bunches of frogs and a pony, have chocolate cake at every meal and a birthday party everyday.
If it's the Last Days then drop the freaking BJU workbook and go have fun. Yes, I know you'll have lots of fun when you're raptured but gosh, it's not like they'll be able to come back for a visit.
At least work on getting them the 360. I'm pretty sure they're won't be any Microsoft products in heaven.
If you really, honestly, truly believe these are the Last Days, forget about the frikkin' homeschooling.
Stuff your kids with candy, spend 12 hours a day at the theme park, buy them a Wii, 360 AND PS2, give them each 6 kittens, bunches of frogs and a pony, have chocolate cake at every meal and a birthday party everyday.
If it's the Last Days then drop the freaking BJU workbook and go have fun. Yes, I know you'll have lots of fun when you're raptured but gosh, it's not like they'll be able to come back for a visit.
At least work on getting them the 360. I'm pretty sure they're won't be any Microsoft products in heaven.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Misquoting Jesus
I just finished listening to the audio book version of Bart Ehrman's 'Misquoting Jesus.' Mr. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and he writes at length about what textual criticism has revealed about the New Testament. What it reveals is often disturbing and just as often, absolutely thrilling.
I was familiar with textual criticism from my Education for Ministry course. It's at the core of how we approach the Hebrew Scriptures in year one and the NT in year two. I was somewhat aware of how scribes may have changed the texts of the epistles, gospels and so on but most of our focus was on Q source and the documentary hypothesis. I've been missing out.
'Miquoting Jesus' makes it plain that the versions of the New Testament most of us have today are likely affected by the mistakes, sometimes honest, sometimes not quite so honest, of scribes who copied the texts over the centuries before the advent of the printing press. Mr. Ehrman points out that these mistakes may have begun with the very first copies being made as those who did the work of scribes in that early christian community were not profesionals but often simply people who came close enough. They may have misread words, left things out or wrote not what was written but what they thought was meant.
Beyond honest mistakes were early christians who added words, stories or changed meanings to combat gnostics or other alternate views of christianity in the early and very diverse life of the religion. Also, to express anti-judaic feelings, lessen the role of women or make it clear that pagan criticisms of christianity were ill founded.
This is sad stuff in some respects. There's a strong case to be made by some that the great story of the adulterous woman from the Gospel of John ( 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her') may have been a later insertion. But there's thrilling stuff as well. There's a possible female apostle who is given a sex change in some texts of an epistle of Paul...And no, I don't mean Mary Magdalene.
One thing that struck me was how much tradition shaped the New Testament. I run into people who adhere to the idea of sola scriptura (atheists even!) and claim that because I give weight to tradition and reason, not simply accepting the divine authority of scripture, I'm somehow not a 'True Christian'. It's wonderful to have a book that shows that from the very beginning scripture was molded by pre-existing traditions and the sometimes reasoned decisions of those who copied the pieces of the New Testament. That Jesus was presented in a certain way in Luke not because it's an accurate account of his works and life but in that form he represented already formed ideas of a Lukan community.
Great book, a really exciting read and tremendously important in these days were those who would tell us what the bible means are attmpting to bully the rest of us.
I was familiar with textual criticism from my Education for Ministry course. It's at the core of how we approach the Hebrew Scriptures in year one and the NT in year two. I was somewhat aware of how scribes may have changed the texts of the epistles, gospels and so on but most of our focus was on Q source and the documentary hypothesis. I've been missing out.
'Miquoting Jesus' makes it plain that the versions of the New Testament most of us have today are likely affected by the mistakes, sometimes honest, sometimes not quite so honest, of scribes who copied the texts over the centuries before the advent of the printing press. Mr. Ehrman points out that these mistakes may have begun with the very first copies being made as those who did the work of scribes in that early christian community were not profesionals but often simply people who came close enough. They may have misread words, left things out or wrote not what was written but what they thought was meant.
Beyond honest mistakes were early christians who added words, stories or changed meanings to combat gnostics or other alternate views of christianity in the early and very diverse life of the religion. Also, to express anti-judaic feelings, lessen the role of women or make it clear that pagan criticisms of christianity were ill founded.
This is sad stuff in some respects. There's a strong case to be made by some that the great story of the adulterous woman from the Gospel of John ( 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her') may have been a later insertion. But there's thrilling stuff as well. There's a possible female apostle who is given a sex change in some texts of an epistle of Paul...And no, I don't mean Mary Magdalene.
One thing that struck me was how much tradition shaped the New Testament. I run into people who adhere to the idea of sola scriptura (atheists even!) and claim that because I give weight to tradition and reason, not simply accepting the divine authority of scripture, I'm somehow not a 'True Christian'. It's wonderful to have a book that shows that from the very beginning scripture was molded by pre-existing traditions and the sometimes reasoned decisions of those who copied the pieces of the New Testament. That Jesus was presented in a certain way in Luke not because it's an accurate account of his works and life but in that form he represented already formed ideas of a Lukan community.
Great book, a really exciting read and tremendously important in these days were those who would tell us what the bible means are attmpting to bully the rest of us.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
November 14
Harry was up and running around pretty early but Catherine didn't roll out of bed until close to 10am. It was a late bedtime last night because she and I were playing cribbage, the first time she'd played it. She still works on her fingers when she's adding and subtracting so I thought cribbage would be good for getting quick addition skills off her hands and into her head. This morning we had another game. She beat me both times of course.
Other then that...Boy, not much. It was a rainy, blustery day so everyone was feeling sort of lazy. We watched TV, read a book (Digimon...ugh) and did a little bit of cleaning.
Other then that...Boy, not much. It was a rainy, blustery day so everyone was feeling sort of lazy. We watched TV, read a book (Digimon...ugh) and did a little bit of cleaning.
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