Saturday, 14 November 2009

  • I Think We've Been Cheated

     

    I just finished reading an article that is absolutely incredibly mind-boggling.  This article (Click here  to read it) states that a rather large experiment was performed in schools, back around 1930, which showed that children who had no formal math training before sixth grade actually caught up with their peers in math by the end of the sixth grade year, showing that when the brain is developmentally ready, math is learned very quickly.  The children were able to learn in one school year what their colleagues had spent six years on.  The even more surprising things is that the children who were part of the experiment FAR surpassed their peers in language.  These children developed more interest in reading, a better vocabulary, and greater fluency in expression than their peers who had spent so much time trying to learn math in the earlier years.  Not only had math study been largely unproductive, but it had cheated them out of time for other activities which would have benefited them more.

    I have long suspected that math is shoved onto kids too soon, and this article made me sort of angry.  If it has been known for all these years that this system works very well, and the children enjoy school a great deal more, then WHY for crying out loud, have we all been forced to struggle with teaching/learning math in the early grades?  Just think, thousands of American children have been taught that math is hard and hateful, when the real problem was that their brains simply weren't ready to assimilate it.  All that time...wasted!  And when I think of all the wonderful learning they have sacrificed because they had to spend a great deal of time on math, it's just terribly frustrating! 

    Makes me wish that I could start all over, and have the courage to go against the status quo, trying this method of teaching.  And it makes me very angry that this method was not adopted nationwide after its success.  It is just WRONG that young children are pressured to so that learning becomes a drag.  And I suspect that children who struggle with math in the early years often give up, feeling that they will never understand it, so when they actually reach the age where they are developmentally ready for it, they no longer have any desire to try.

    I have lamented many times the fact that my children generally want to just "get done with" school, rather than enjoying the process.  It is a sad thing that many people see the learning process as a necessary evil, and completely unrelated to their lives.  I have enjoyed so much all the things I have learned by homeschooling my children, and now I can't help lamenting the fact that we could have made it infinitely more enjoyable for them.  But, having been brought up in the traditional school system, I simply didn't know any better.  I can only pray that God will be able to bless my efforts anyway.

     

    And I can't help thinking that this is a good example of how our government works, too:  If something has been proven not to benefit the people, go ahead and keep doing it anyway...

    Yeah, call me cynical.

     

     

Friday, 13 November 2009

  • Quotes of the Day

     

    If Washington worked with just one-tenth the passion in corralling the enemies of the U.S.
    as it has in ramrodding the Obama-Pelosi health care system down our throats and pocketbooks,
    we'd reduce military acts of terrorism down to zero, inside and outside our borders.
    ~Chuck Norris

    source 

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Moving out at eighteen is a fairly recent, definitely cultural idea, one which regardless of the spiritual implications makes no economic or ecological sense. Does every eighteen-year-old need his own stove and refrigerator? How many square feet of housing are wasted on a solitary individual when the more prudent solution is to share? Why are some people getting their knickers in a knot over the emissions of cows while ignoring the massive impact this exodus of young people has on carbon footprints?
                                                        ~from the editors of Timberdoodle 

     

Thursday, 12 November 2009

  • Currently
    My Side of the Mountain
    By Jean George
    see related

    Do You Hear What I Hear?

     

    This evening I was in the kitchen when I heard tires squealing frantically and the sound of a crash.  I thought, "Oh, no," and headed toward the front of the house to see what had happened.

    Turned out that the boys were in the front bedroom playing some kind of racing game.  Where they got it, I'm not sure--I think they have some sort of barter system with their friends--but apparently it's a LOT more fun if you hook it up to speakers so that you can hear all the sound effects really LOUD.

    You can also give your mother a scare, and that's pretty fun, too... 

     

  • Prayer Request

     

    Please pray for David Michael Brovont, born prematurely yesterday.  His lungs have been getting worse instead of better, and he is being taken by helicopter to another hospital.  Also pray for his parents Mike and Anna, who are driving to Philadelphia to be with him.

     

    Update:  Baby David is gone.
    Please pray for his parents and family.

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Monday, 09 November 2009

  • Currently
    Children of the River (Laurel-Leaf Contemporary Fiction)
    By Linda Crew
    see related

    And we wonder why Americans are getting fat!


     

    This is an amazing article about portion sizes and how they have changed in America.  Just as an example, look at this.

         

    The hamburger on the left was a normal sized burger twenty years ago, and the one on the right is what people commonly eat now.  Click here for more examples.

    http://www.divinecaroline.com/22178/49492-portion-size--now

     

  • November Gifts

     

     

     

    Gifts that make my life worth living,
    gifts that make my moments holy.
    Not gifts that I wish for,
    but gifts that I have received.
    Gifts that bring me back
    into Joy and Gratitude.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    white birches, leafless against a deep blue sky
    my sons creating hurricanes of leaves with the new leaf blower
    tangy apple cider
    golden asparagus fields rippling in waves like the ocean
    gooey pumpkin cake
    geese honking as they organize themselves into a V
    the crunch of leaves as you walk through the woods
    wispy windswept clouds
    smooth creamy chocolate-y fudge
    red and yellow mums, boldly standing where other flowers have faded
    turkeys ambling off the road, taking their own sweet time
    and gossiping together as they walk
    the smell of freshly cut wood
    that tired but oh-so-good feeling of muscles that have worked hard
    a field of perfect little Christmas trees
    a bear carved from a tree stump
    Amy chatting and waving to her own picture on the computer screen
    chili and cornbread eaten outdoors on a warm November day

     

Friday, 06 November 2009

  • Grateful? Yep.

     

    I wrote this on Monday, when I generally try to write my gratitude post.  It's different than usual, but it's what was on my heart right then.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    So what am I grateful for today?

    More than anything, my marriage. That's what is foremost in my mind at the moment. After spending a lot of time this weekend thinking about marriages that are either crashing and burning or just slowly having the life squeezed out of them, I'm feeling incredibly thankful to have been so blessed in marriage. I don't understand how two people who once wanted to spend all their time together, who laughed together and played together and watched sunsets together in awe of God's creation, can arrive at a point where they want do hateful things to each other, where they get restraining orders against each other, where they simply can't stand to be near each other. How does it happen?

    I don't know. I just can't imagine. But I do know how it doesn't happen. And those are some of the things that I am so grateful for in my own marriage.

    We spend as much time together as we can.
    We touch a lot.
    We laugh together.
    We talk about what we've done during the day.
    We realize that we can't necessarily fix everything that's wrong in our lives, but we still care and we still listen.
    We say, "I love you." Often.
    When one of us is cranky and difficult, we overlook it.
    We play games.
    We talk about our dreams.
    We tease each other.
    When one makes a stupid mistake and is sorry, the other forgives.
    When the offender doesn't act sorry, the offended remembers that sometimes they act like a jerk, too, and still forgives.
    We try do special favors for each other.
    When we disagree, we still try to understand each other and respect each other.
    We share silly jokes.
    We eat meals together.
    We compliment each other.
    And we laugh. A LOT.

    I really wonder if that isn't one of the most important things. Laughing. Because in all the other things, we fail sometimes. We aren't always thoughtful and forgiving, and sometimes we forget that we need to talk, and sometimes we get caught up in the busy-ness of life and don't take time for each other, but as long as we always go back to laughing together, it seems that the other things happen, too.

     

    Grateful?  You bet I am.  Thank you, Lord!

    \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/  \o/





Thursday, 05 November 2009

  • The Well-Turned Phrase

     

    I recently read the novel Deception by Randy Alcorn, and found myself thoroughly enjoying his way with words.  I just love the way he uses the language.  For instance, he is a master of the opening hook.  Here are the openers for the prologue and the first two chapters:

    #1   In a dark room punctured by a bare hundred-watt bulb...

    #2   My chest pounding like a dryerload of army boots...

    #3   In the mornings I go fishing.
            By the side of my bed.
            For clean clothes.
            I seldom catch much.

    Aren't those just absolutely great?   

    The main character is sort of a hard-nosed, crusty type of guy, and the descriptions are from his perspective.  Here are a couple more snippets that I thought were pretty clever.

    This couch had known a thousand posteriors, and so far it had spent forty minutes getting to know mine.

    My partner doesn't just have a lot of issues; he's got the whole subscription.

    Kendra declared that condoms should be distributed in schools to prevent diseases and pregnancies.  So I said yeah, and how about we use the same strategy to solve the problem of battered women by handing out boxing gloves to abusive men.

    Not only is the writing great, but it's a great story, too.  It's the third in a trilogy that began with Deadline and Dominion, so you might want to read those first, though it's not at all necessary.  All of them are worth reading, though, because Alcorn has such a neat perspective on eternity.

    In other news, the official Homefire computer was virus infested and is, even as we speak, being restored to a factory prisitine condition.  Which is not a good thing.  I think we were able to recover most of the data, which I am very thankful for, but now I am wondering what I may have forgotten.    It's a scary thing to watch your computer go through and wipe everything clean... 

    And now it's rebooting.  .............................waiting.......................................  and waiting.................................

    and waiting.  I'm getting worried.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    edit:  I wrote that last night.  It took a LONG time to go through all the rigmarole, but now I am typing on my computer and I have a LOT of things to reinstall and restore.  (That will make plenty to do today, not to mention cleaning and school and food and laundry and all that other fun stuff.)  Thankfully, I think we were able to keep most of my info, with the exception of e-mail.    Soooo...

    IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

    If you are my friend and would like for me to ever write to you again, please e-mail me!  I have lost ALL of my addresses, so I'm starting from scratch. 

      

Wednesday, 28 October 2009

  • Overheard Tonight

     

    At Bible study this evening, we were going through Philippians 2, and after reading verse 10

    That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

    someone asked, "What do you think it means by 'things under the earth'?"

    I heard the man behind me say, "Well, it can't mean earthworms, because earthworms don't have knees."

     

    ~~Cracked me up.