Six for Sunday-- Education

--1--

Faith from Two-Thirds Unschooling linked on an e-list to this math article -- I remember reading it a long time ago -- The Story of an Experiment. This is the experimental proposal:

The whole subject of arithmetic could be postponed until the seventh year of school, and it could be mastered in two years' study by any normal child.

The rest of the article is about trying that experiment. Dates from 1935; interesting reading.

--2--

I liked these posts at bearing blog: plan for science next year and follow-up. Good points about homeschool science teaching, made by a homeschooler with a science background.

While I am at it, a question: Where do you look for science resources if you're (1) not a science person yourself (2) can't stand Apologia or most other designed-for-homeschoolers science resources (3) don't want to inflict public high school science texts on your highschooler and (4) prefer "living books" written by people who know and love their subject?

The answer for me is: browse MacBeth's website, High School Science. Living books and other links there, divided by conventional high school classifications of earth science, biology, chemistry, physics, etc.

Some other time I'll write a whole science post since it's something I've been thinking about lately as Kieron approaches high school age. I've sold all my Apologias so I don't even have to be tempted to try them out again.

--3--

Teacher, Revised, the site that tried to make the case that going to a public school gives you the right to call other people names, has been inviting dispatches from the home school front, and this is a good one. There are good comments, too.

Since I am the mom of a kid who went to public high school this year (the first in our family to do so) I also liked this post called After the Final Bell. I admire what public school teachers do, the good ones at any rate, in spite of being "overwhelmed by standards, teaching to the test, and paperwork". Sean had some good teachers this year. And I give Mr Jesse Scaccia credit for being willing to listen, definitely an attribute of a good teacher.

--4--

Someone on my classical Catholic list (see sidebar) linked to RC History's Timeline of Saints (pdf). A good resource for chronological studies. There is also a saint's timeline at Saints.SQPN (formerly patron saints' index). It's presently in a bit of confusion as the site switches domains but if you look up the date you're interested in, you can often find good information.

--5--

On the total homeschooling-geek front, otherwise known as "I care about this, but who else in the entire California Sierras would?" my oldest son who just graduated from college this May gave me an article called A Definition of Comedy by Duane Berquist (brother of Marcus Berquist, brother in law of Laura Berquist).

I googled Duane Berquist and as a result found this cool site called Society for Aristotelian Studies which contain the Definition of Comedy article (pdf) plus lots more that looks interesting, should I ever get past my present TBR stack. See, the thing is, according to my son, that they think there is a missing section in Aristotle's Poetics -- he briefly comments on Comedy and seems to imply he will treat it in more detail later, but then never does -- oh, never mind. But if you're interested, the article really was interesting to read. Lots of Shakespeare quotations and references. Made me want to read more Shakespeare.

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I guess that's all for now!

(I think I'll save Sunday for link day. The meme I mentioned on my Saturday post called it Sunday Six -- it's unfortunately extinct now, but hopefully Steph won't mind me borrowing her graphic. Maybe the Sunday Six-Pack? -).

Oh, I forgot one...actually two....

--6--

Link to the article on Robinson Crusoe at Wikipedia -- I posted it on Twitter but wanted to remember it in case we do some extensions after finishing reading the book together.

And a link to a page about the Steller's Jay -- with some activities like a coloring page, etc -- and information about its habitat and diet, and some nice pictures.