A Mystery Solved

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Schoolroom Set-Up

Here's how the school room started at the beginning of the year - I realized I took these before I tidied up for the evening.

Math shelves are on the left, book rack (I love this thing so much - it was an awesome $10 craigslist score, but, honestly, the kids totally ignore the books in it! argh!), mirror and DIY mobile for Felix (which was quickly destroyed by Lucy), Lucy's shelves with practical life and sensorial works mostly on the right. The kitchen is up through that window, so in theory, some day, I can work in the kitchen and keep an eye on the kids diligently working independently.

Another angle on the math shelves, with our "learning basket" of read-alouds on top (we actually read these out to the couch, but they live in here), and a basket of work mats to the right. The schoolroom doubles as our home office, which is not recommended by Montessori-at-home experts, and, in fact, has proven to be a bit of a distraction.

Beyond Lucy's shelves are language materials.

This all worked great for a little while, but Felix is now quite mobile, so schoolroom times have been fairly chaotic of late - time to make some adjustments. The table also was too small for both big kids to work at simultaneously and really too small for Joseph generally, so it has been moved to Lucy's room, and I'm on the hunt for a replacement.

The Angelic Doctor as Teacher

The main branch of the Memphis Public Library has a great little used book shop run by the Friends of the Library where I recently picked up Pieper's Guide to Thomas Aquinas. Some insights from the chapter on St. Thomas as teacher - first, his very different notions from the idea that "those who can't, teach":

Teaching, says Thomas, is one of the highest manifestations of the life of the mind, for the reason that in teaching the vita contemplativa and the vita activa are joined--not just patched together superficially, not merely connected "factually," but united in a natural and necessary union. The true teacher has grasped a truth for itself, by purely receptive contemplation; he passes it on to others who likewise desire to partake of this truth. The teacher, then, looks to the truth of things; that is the contemplative aspect of teaching. It is also the aspect of silence, without which the words of the teacher would be unoriginal in the primary meaning of that word, would be empty talk, gesture, chatter, if not fraud. But the teacher simultaneously looks into the faces of living human beings--and he subjects himself to the rigorously disciplined, wearisome labor of clarifying, of presenting, of communicating. Where this communication does not take place, teaching does not take place. 

This next bit reminds me of Dan Willingham's suggestion that too often today our educational system attempts to teach novices as if they were already experts:

Precisely this characterizes the teacher, it seems to me: he possesses the art of approaching his subject from the point of view of the beginner; he is able to enter into the psychological situation of one encountering a subject for the first time.

...[this art] is a fruit of love, of loving devotion to the learner, of loving identification of the teacher with the beginner. 

So, here we've been told the two things the teacher needs to contemplate and then communicate: silence and love. Silence is required to receive the truth, and love to attend to the person of the learner and to persevere through the "wearisome labor" of communicating what has been received to them. Makes a useful framework for assessing the first stretch of our school year.

Thus, the more intensively and the more passionately a man engages in these two activities [contemplation and communication], the more he is a teacher. On the one hand, there is his relationship with truth, the power of silent listening to reality; on the other hand, there is his affirmative concern for his audience and his pupils. And we may say that Thomas personally accomplished both these activities with extraordinary intensity.

St. Thomas, ora pro nobis!

 

Spaghetti Squash Marinara

Definitely our favorite restaurant thus far in Memphis is Hog and Hominy. So I kind of impulse-bought their new cookbook when I saw it at Costco a few weeks back, figuring it would be totally worth it if only the peanut butter pie recipe was in there - and I must have been right because Bob, otherwise pretty unsure why we need all those cookbooks, totally agreed.

Well, the pie recipe IS there, along with their collard greens, a bunch of fancy pastas, and a recipe for making tonic (!!!) from scratch. But more practically, this spaghetti squash marinara.

Next time: use bigger pot

Sock Season

Chilly in the morning, abandoned by noon.

No Happy Harmony, pt. 1

New neighbor

I've seen a few mom blogs commenting on Elizabeth Corey's article, "No Happy Harmony," in the latest First Things. Corey seems to have accurately described how the work/family tension appears and feels to a lot of well-educated, conservative women in a fair and non-judgy way. I certainly could have been one of the female students in Corey's office, puzzling over what to do with my talents and interests that don't seem to be of use to the stay-at-home mom.

Corey organizes her piece around a set of dichotomies: on the one side, she places work, career, self-cultivation, achievement, excellence; on the other is home, mothering, self-giving, leisure, nurturing. The one (but crucial!) point at which she veers from what historians have called the ideology of "separate spheres" is, of course, to give women a place in both spheres, rather than adding the additional paired dichotomy of man and woman. This seems to me to be what has, in fact, happened, historically: the line between the sexes that used to divide the world into a public and private realm now cuts through the heart of every mother.

Corey is right, on current terms, there simply is no happy harmony between these two poles: "...this quest for balance, the desire to reconcile radically conflicting demands, is misguided. Work and family evoke from us two distinct modes of being and of relations to others. The conflicts between these modes cannot, if we are honest with ourselves, be wished away or ignored."

But are those two poles "natural"? I'm not convinced that "work and family" by essence "evoke from us two distinct modes of being and of relations to others," even if they do in twenty-first century America by (historical) accident. Parts of each side of the dichotomy may be inevitable, but others divisions are only made to look natural by association. Parsing out which is which is, of course, the tricky part. And the fun part - at least for the achievement-challenged ex-grad student! 

Kindergarten, Term 1

Some things we are reading this fall:

The Little House in the Big Woods
On the Shores of the Great Sea
A Life of Our Lord for Children - Marigold Hunt
the Once Upon a Time Saints books
Edward Adrizzone's Little Tim series
The Kitchen Knight - Margaret Hodges/Trina Schart Hyman
A Child's Book of Poems illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa
lots of Paul Galdone - Lucy currently requests The Three Little Kittens on a daily basis
Wild Life in Woods and Fields - Arabella Buckley

Two Pictures Unearthed

From the weekend we spent in Madison when Joseph was nine months old.

Outside the state capitol - time to find that hat for Felix

Inside: a badger

Carpooling

New Backyard

Command Center

The specifics of this set-up will be changing to fit our new house, but I wanted to keep a record of the system here, so I remember what worked about it and why.

After trying lots of other organizational schemes, most of which were centered around a binder or notebook, I finally realized that I actually need to be able to see everything that I need to be able to see. Out of sight is out of mind.

Here we have a calendar, my bulletin board, which holds my weekly cleaning checklist and recipes on probation, and one of my two planning clipboards for school (the other one is usually up there, too, but I think it got packed already for some reason). One clipboard has the Montessori presentations for the week, and the other has the morning basket plans. I also use those for record-keeping.

On the counter is a tickler file and a file of stuff I've torn from magazines over the years. Neither of these have worked that well for me and will be eliminated as I move towards implementing a (more) paperless system. Not sure why there's an empty flattened pasta box stuck in there. Children.

On the white board on the fridge, I keep a running list of groceries we need and leftovers that need to be eaten. When I am really on the ball, I also write a list of all the week's produce as we unpack it into the fridge so that things don't get forgotten in the crisper drawer. It's also the place for Bob to leave notes and to-dos for me. The paper has an inventory of the freezer, which we're trying to empty before the move.

Our new house has a galley-style kitchen, so there is no big open wall for all this to live on. My current plan is to keep the whiteboard on the fridge, get a smaller bulletin board to fit one of the narrower wall spaces, and then keep the school-related clipboards in the school room. But we'll see.

Edmund Morgan, RIP

The Puritan Dilemma was one of the first works of real history I read; it revealed that textbooks had utterly deceived me about the nature of that discipline. If I could make everyone read one book about American history, it would be Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom. NYTimes obit here; Jill Lepore has a tribute here.

Packing Up

To Goodwill

To Memphis

Preschool Lessons: Montessori

When I first started reading Maria Montessori's works and other books about her method when Joseph was still a baby, I was both compelled by them and equally sure that I was too disorganized and undisciplined to implement them with our children. I sill mostly think that.

But.

My increasing conviction that Montessori really knew what she was talking about as well as seeing how Joseph responded to a Montessori style environment in the atrium at our parish, finally let me to order a few basic materials and take a stab at some presentations this year. And, well, it didn't look anything like MBT's house.

So as I've been thinking about this year and what we want to do moving forward, I felt quite torn about whether to attempt continue my lame attempt at Montessori homeschooling. I certainly wanted to, but I also understand the arguments made by Montessori purists that all the details matter and in some cases a half-assed attempt at Montessori is perhaps worse than no attempt.

In one of my more optimistic moment, I ordered a set of albums. And while I heard from many Montessorians and thought I understood that materials in themselves are not really the point, in reading the theory album it finally clicked for me that I have been approaching the question from the wrong perspective. While it's true that there is a deep connection between the specifics of the classroom prepared environment and the philosophy behind them and you can't just go in and mix it up without upsetting that connection, that doesn't mean the Montessori classroom is the only expression of the philosophy. It just means you need to know what you are doing!

I am right to judge that I do not have the stuff mentioning abilities to stay on top of a classroom full of Montessori materials nor would doing so mesh well with the principles of simplicity and uncluttered-ness I am trying to implement in the rest of our home life. But rather than focus on a specific outcome as seen in a Montessori classroom, I need to immerse myself in the philosophy and observations underlying the specific materials and presentations. I think that a deep understanding of what is going on will allow me to make carefully considered judgments about which materials to invest in, as well as how to meet our children's needs within the other the confines of our family's style and mission. I have to accept this will be a long term project, one in which I will certainly be learning by trial and error. My goal is not to be completist about my albums but to understand the purpose behind every presentation so that I can ensure we are addressing all of our children's needs whether through "real" Montessori materials or by other means.

Our new home also has space for a dedicated school room, which I think will make a huge difference in making Montessori manageable for me. Lucy turns three in October, so I'll be focusing on practical life and sensorial with her, while moving Joseph along in language and math.

All Whole Wheat No-Knead Bread

This turned out way better than I expected, although next time I think I will lower the temp and bake a bit longer with the lid off as it still seemed just a wee bit gummy. The crust was great, though.

The Angelic Doctor Says

On the saying of Gregory, 'Often they who might have contemplated God in peace and quiet, have fallen and given way under the burden of occupations; and others who, had they had occupation, would have lived well and profitably to mankind, have perished under the sword of their own peace and quiet,' -- it is to be remarked that persons of strong passionate inclinations, which tempt them to impetuous actions, are, absolutely speaking, better fitted for an active life, owing to the restlessness of their Spirit. Hence Gregory Says: 'Some are so restless that if they get rest from labour, they labour all the more grievously, because the more liberty and free time they have for their own thoughts, the worse storms they endure in their hearts.' Others again have naturally a purity and peace of soul fitting them for contemplation; and if these persons are totally set aside for active occupations, they will suffer loss. (Sum. Theol. 2a-2ae, q. 182, art. 4)

Un-pin-worthy Chore Charts

Working on my tendency to make the perfect the enemy of the good enough.

Yes, Lucy did get a hold of my dry ease marker

Organizing the Pantry

The pantry had gotten pretty disorganized and I was avoiding more pressing housework, so the kids and I emptied it out, wiped down the shelves, took an inventory and put it back in better order.

I had Zero Waste Home out from the library, and I am looking forward to implementing a brilliant idea from it once we eat down our reserves: rotating pantry staples. Bea Johnson keeps one canister each for legumes, grains, pasta, etc, and then changes up what she fills it with. I hate winding up with bags of three colors of lentils, four types of dried beans, and five different dried fruits, but we also like variety. Why has this solution never occurred to me?

To keep track of what we have, I created checklists in Springpad. My goal is to only purchase food at the butcher shop and farmers' market for the rest of the summer and have as few pantry items as possible left when it comes time to move in the fall.

Preschool Lessons: Morning Basket

With the school year winding done, I'm thinking about what has worked that I want to build on and what I've learned is not for us right now.

Our morning basket has taken a little tweaking, but this is definitely working for us. I've simplified the readings we had been doing (at this stage of the game, for us, it seems better to make sure we are spending time outside every day rather than doing some "nature reading"), but down the line I see us adding nature readings back in along with history and catechism. I've also worked out a planning/record keeping system for this that I'm pretty excited about, but that's for another post.

So, at the moment, our morning basket includes morning prayers, reading about the saint of the day or the liturgical season, a story from our children's Bible, a hymn, poetry reading, and what I'm calling our "1000 good books" reading. Sometimes we have a Lucy Micklethwait book from the library that we look at (Lucy loves these!), and we often also have Lucy pick out a picture book or two since our chapter book doesn't hold her attention yet.

This year, we read through the Milo Winter edition of Aesop's fables, Mother Goose, A Bear Called Paddington, and memorized "The Whole Duty of Children" (Lucy has been surprisingly enthusiastic about our poetry reading). I finally got serious about hymns, and we spent the Easter season learning "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" (Joseph loves singing together). Considering I was pregnant or had a newborn this whole year, I'm pretty pleased with what we got done.

What I've Been Up To

Crunchy Granola

I spent the first few years of married life searching for the perfect granola recipe. This is my go-to formula, using whatever nuts and dried fruit we have on hand (usually cranberries instead of cherries, but occasionally dried blueberries, om nom nom), and since we've moved south I sometimes swap in sorghum for the honey. It meets with the approval of my mother- and sisters-in-law, and they are from the hippie capital of America so they know granola.

Even though I always return to this recipe, I can't resist trying new variations, so when this month's Martha contained a recipe for Walnut Granola, the kids and I baked up a batch.

Not bad, but no match for my standby. However it did make a TON, and since Bob has been patiently dropping hints for granola bars for a few months now, we made two batches: Hillbilly Housewife's peanut butter granola bars (although I may have to give this one a try to use up the marshmallows lurking in the pantry from Thanksgiving)

and another recipe the origins of which have faded into the mist.

Preheat oven to 350. Combine:

2 T. milk
2 eggs
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 c. cinnamon

and beat until well blended. Stir in ~ 3 cups granola. Press into greased or parchment-lined 8X8 pan - the better you pack it in there, the better the bars will hold together. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool completely before cutting.

I got way too many dried apples in my last Azure Standard order, so we added about 1/2 cup chopped up, which was tasty.