Half-baked

I just read Tim Rutten’s “The Perils of Palin” in the LA Times, from which:
Although she supports the teaching of creationism in public schools, [Alaska Governor and Republican vice presidential nominee] Palin thinks it should be presented alongside, rather than instead of, evolution. “Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. [...]

Dolls and drudges

New York Times columnist Gail Collins, author also of America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines, writes in her op-ed today, “Baked Alaska”,
The idea that women are going to race off to vote for any candidate with the same internal plumbing is both offensive and historically wrong. When the sexes have parted [...]

Poetry Friday: Poems for peasants

I fell off the Poetry Friday bandwagon with a loud thump at the beginning of the Summer, when it seemed as if we were always gone, or getting ready to go somewhere, on Fridays (and sometimes Thursdays). But with school starting next week, I’m ready to haul myself back up; in fact, that’s me [...]

Travelling light

(You can find the t-shirt here)
Slow and steady seems the way to start our travels once again this year.
In the past week or so, I’ve seen a few emails go by at online home schooling groups about parents in a tizzy about their families’ first day back to “school”, and some of them are experienced [...]

The Perils of Progymnasmata

taken too far.

Mickey Mouse and natural selection

Interesting article in The New York Times on science education and learning to talk about, and teach, evolution in Florida’s public school system, and the benefits of learning to pull one’s punches.

And more from Lapham’s Quarterly

“The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.”
– Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
Just received the latest [...]

More on the American paradox

From Terrence McNally’s (no, the other Terrence McNally) recent interview at AlterNet with Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason:
That’s really the American paradox. For example, there is no country that has had more faith in education as an instrument of social mobility. No country in the West democratized education earlier, but no [...]

Up up and away

I heard a bit about the University of British Columbia’s new tree canopy walkway on CBC radio this morning, in between Olympic and vice presidential updates:
Media Release [from the University of British Columbia] | Aug. 22, 2008
UBC Opens New Tree Canopy Walkway
Today, the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research officially opened its newest [...]

Beware of barbarians bearing lattes

Via 3quarksdaily, where Morgan Meis is a Monday Musing editor:
From “Notes From a Barbarian: Reconsiderations of a canon-less world” by Morgan Meis, in The Smart Set*:
The idea of a “canon” is in tatters. A canon needs an established cultural authority, and there is no guiding authority in culture anymore. There are no real gatekeepers. The [...]

Georgian Summer

“Let us live and act so that the borders will not divide people, but bring them closer together.”
Alexander Dubček, who was leader of Czechoslovakia until 40 years ago today, 21 August 1968, when Soviet tanks rolled into the country to put an end to the Prague Spring and Mr. Dubček’s hopes for “a free, modern, [...]

Poor sportsmanship

Much easier to reprimand a 21-year-old overnight sensation for celebrating than to reprimand, let alone condemn, the host country for breaking its Olympic promises and continuing to spout the myth that the Games have opened China, isn’t it?
And why, when faint criticism comes, does it come from an IOC spokeswoman and not Jacques Rogge?

A hub for home schoolers

As many of us are starting to think about getting back to school and the return of formal studies, here’s a handy article by Lora Shinn, “A Home Away from Home: Libraries & Homeschoolers”, in the August 1 issue of School Library Journal:
Homeschooling families are everywhere these days. They’re on television, giving interviews after winning [...]

The company of books

I haven’t paid too much attention to the Barnes & Noble website since moving to Canada in 1994, because I rarely buy books online from the U.S. But earlier this year I learned — I can’t quite remember how — about The Barnes & Noble Review. Not only is The Review [...]

The clearest way

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
John Muir
I’ve been rereading Muir since our friend died last week. Which reminded me that nature writing has been a popular subject this summer, both at Granta and at Lapham’s Quarterly.
Granta’s Summer issue, “The New Nature Writing”, includes an article by Mark Cocker, which [...]

More booms in the backyard

The boys were standing behind me this morning as I was quickly clicking through my Bloglines subscription and I could hear audible gasps and “Put that back up again!” when I clicked on today’s GeekDad post by Kevin Kelly on Rubber Band Machine Guns.  So they were beside themselves when I clicked the post’s link [...]

Wrapping

I’m wrapping presents for Laura’s birthday on Saturday:
The Misadventures of Maude March by Audrey Couloumbis
The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer (An Enola Holmes Mystery)
Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer (Young Royals series)
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Mythology, edited by Dugald A. Steer, from Candlewick’s Ology series
Practical Quilling by Anne Redman, found on [...]

My idea of a vacation

I just finished reading Corby Kummer’s account of “Dining with Dionysus” from the September 2008 issue of The Atlantic, about his visit to the Greek island of Kea for cooking courses offered by Aglaia Kremezi* and her husband Costas Moraitis.
Heavenly, from the description of the relaxed and relaxing course –
Many courses are intensive and technique-heavy. [...]

I was poking through the upcoming

September/October 2008 “School” issue of Horn Book, looking for titles to put on my “new books to order from the library” list, when I discovered this in the listing of articles:
“Books as family? In a homeschool, they [...]

Home chemistry buffs

in and around Massachusetts might want to be a bit more careful with their home chemistry labs.
And yet in Toronto, a propane factory can be built in the midst of a residential neighborhood with nary a peep from the authorities.
Curious.