Teaching history at home

Rather than go into a long discussion on a point which is nebulous to what I really want to talk about let me just say:

I have two kids who are being home schooled and three that are at school and one that thinks she should be…

My twins have had speech/communications issues and learning disabilities which are not severe enough to hold them back or get special help yet they are basically the type of kids that the system shuffles along while shrugging.

So my wife put her foot down and we are now home schoolers.  In the process of looking for suitable materials one thing is clear to me.  Homeschooling seems to be something religious people predominately do.

How do I know this?  Well loads of the history books avoid evolution (they talk of “nomads”) and give way to much credence to bible as truth.  Look, I am all for that, to some extent, but I consider it to be foolhardy to ignore science.

So we have been combing around for some world history books that might interest grade 4 students that would not talk down to them or be boring.  So with this in mind I also put my foot down on the pseudo-history that some of the books had.

Now let me introduce my choice.  This book on the right had a good mix of web page style  fitted with actual information.  It seems to be a good introduction to world history without going overboard.  It also includes a wide variety of things, including the story of the Israelites but in a much more classroom style.

Case in point, the opening discussion is about evolution of man but it is a brief discussion, it has the various bipedal ancient hominids on a suspects wall with a brief introduction.  Then it moves on into Egypt discussing some of the roles of Egyptian religion and lifestyle.  It is done in a cartoon type format.

As some who takes history seriously I found the book both cheap ($17 bucks on Amazon) and a good way to get them interested in history.   My wife is using the book to reinforce language arts so that they learn more than just history.

If you are considering homeschooling I would certainly recommend it.  At least for younger kids.

Of course the advantage to home schooling is we can go on a “field trip” to the museum whenever we feel like to also reignite the learning process in a different way.

Day one done lets see what tomorrow brings.

What the bloggernacle means to me

With the Banner of Heaven retrospective going on over at Bloggernacle Times it has made me reflect somewhat on what the whole bloggernacle might mean to me.

Historically I came to the bloggernacle later than most.  After being heavily involved in political blogging I had only read a few LDS blogs once in a while and mostly read the FAIR website for its semi-once-in-a-while articles.  I ended up reading blogs in earnest in the spring of 2006 because I got thinking that if there are so many blogs about so many subjects then there must be a large LDS blog populace.  I was not wrong.

At the time I had no desire to start my own blog I just wanted to get a feel for what other Latter-day Saints thought in the world.  It was then that I found the Mormon Archipelago.  Using its links I was able to find a number of blogs.  Some I found were ones that were easy to gravitate to and others were sometimes thought provoking and others were, well, not my cup of tea.  I am not alone in this discovery nor particularly new at it.

Most of us I think find the Bloggernacle in similar fashion.

For me commenting on issues was fun, I thought after a while if I got invited to a bigger blog I would probably be willing to do so.  But mostly I did not know the crowd so I supported the ones I liked and commented as often as I could.

After leaving my political jobs and returning the university I felt like starting my own LDS blog would be a good way to share some of my history research with everyone, LDS history I found was a popular topic on the blogs I read.  It was about that time that the Juvenile Instructor started up.  So we were kind of kin to one another as same era blogs.

I have over the past couple of years floated around blogging very inconsistently due to just being too busy or less interested in LDS blogging.   This burn out phase has hit more often than I would admit but at the same time I am writing for a number of things so after a while I just found myself getting burned out and not having a lot to say on some issues.  Again this can and does happen.  Lots of rich writers and commentators on the bloggernacle have fallen off and in some cases gotten back on.

After four years I can say that I know what I appreciate about the bloggernacle.   It is a two fold thing that I want to express.

1.  I think the LDS Blogs offer perspectives and thinking that at once can be revelationary and on another side can be mundane or hostile.  Each of these have their place, I know some blogs I have read have challenged me from all three and some that bored me from all three.   Yet each category has reached me at different times when I was looking for different things.  Blogs I do not normally frequent, Feminist Mormon Housewives and Mormon Mommy Wars have both offered me something I can think about.

2.   The intellectual contributions and out of the box thinking, this is something the blogs can do to help develop ideas of faith.  They are out growths of Dialogue and Sunstone magazines, where some of this began.  In some ways it reminds me of the ancient and medieval philosophers who helped to set ideas about religious institutions.  Often I see Thomas Aquinas, Moses Maimonides and Al-Ghazali in some of the discussions about the role of God, the foreknowledge of the Father, and in the role and place we have in the afterlife.  In some ways these discussions are mind blowing but in others they advance religious understanding and conformity which is more developed than your garden variety Sunday School meeting.

In ways the bloggernacle has added to my understanding of gospel topics, and has blown some of my own preconceptions away.  I love it when it does that and this more than anything else is the reason I return to understand and grow both in intelligence and in faith.    That for me is what the bloggernacle has meant to me.

The Flu and me

Last Sunday I woke up feeling really ill.  I was dizzy and sleepy and off and on really hot.  I fell asleep about 1pm and woke up around 4pm, yet I still felt myself exhausted.   So at 9pm I went to bed for the night.

Feeling that way I called in sick the next day for work.  Then feeling a bit better that night I went to a meeting and Tuesday I went to work.  By Wednesday it was obvious I was still feeling the effects of some sort of flu, in fact each day until Friday I felt ok in the morning and awful as the day wore on.  By wednesday just sitting at my desk I broke out into a sweat like I was running a marathon.

So I went home early and stayed away from work for the following day.  Only on Friday did I feel good enough to go back into work and actually do normal things.

At this point if you have not tuned out I will explain why all this description is so significant.

Our local hockey team the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday announced that at least one player had come down with the H1N1 (aka the swine) flu.   At the same time many other players on the team had gotten the flu over the past week or so. 

Thinking about making a big decision

In the navy
Yes, you can sail the seven seas
In the navy
Yes, you can put your mind at ease
In the navy
Come on now, people, make a stand
In the navy, in the navy
Can’t you see we need a hand
In the navy
Come on, protect the motherland
In the navy
Come on and join your fellow man
In the navy
Come on people, and make a stand
In the navy, in the navy, in the navy (in the navy)

About a month ago my oldest son brought home a blue piece of paper.  On it was an invitation to join the Royal Canadian Air Cadets.  For the first time I can remember he was really excited.

I spent probably a week bringing up all the cons, so that he understand it was not a one day in one day out decision.  Still he wanted to do it and I could not in good conscience say no.  So off he went.  Two weeks in and he seems to be enjoying himself and looks like he will commit to the year which he would stay in as his mother wanted him to promise.

So his decision brought back a flood of memories for me.

Music and how it plays to emotions

I have been thinking a lot about music lately.

Whenever I hear the song God Be With You Till We Meet Again, I will forever associate it with the end of my time in the mission field.  To some extent whenever I hear it I start to sniffle a bit thinking about that period.

This association can also be positive.  I absolutely get chills and feel the spirit of the song when either Spirit of God or Praise to the Man are sung.  No matter how many times I hear it I feel boosted.  In its own way Master the Tempest is Raging has that same effect.

Mind you I have songs that I associate with other emotions.  Mostly these are not hymns, for reasons that become obvious fairly soon.

One of these songs that made an impression was Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses which fit my mood a lot at the time in my life.  In a period when I distrusted quite a lot I found comfort in the heavier songs like this one.

Yorkies, they are not for girls mate!

Ok over on Ardis lovely Postum ad posting I have manipulated it into a very chocolaty direction so I wanted to give people an idea, who have never been to Britain what all the fuss is about.

See the following few ads.

or this one

Doing the right thing seems so unusual

Last week my wife and I were out doing some shopping.  When we came home there was a box on the door step.

It became obvious that the box, which neither of us expected, was not for us.  It had been delivered to our address by mistake by a shipping company.  So we examined the address and we realized quickly that the address was meant for someone on the other side of our neighbourhood.

So my wife tried to look them up to find the person in the phone book so she could call and let her know we had her package.   We failed to find the person so we then did the next best thing we contacted the company.

After letting them know we had the package and we were looking to get to the right address the company said they would be right over.  It had turned out that the box had been tucked into the wrong delivery area and the person just read the number (which is the same as ours) and dropped it at our door.

So when they got the package back we were surprised at how happy they were.  The delivery person kept repeating how wonderful it was that we were so honest.

Now, this is not to say we are perfect, but I felt a little surprised by this, it seemed like we were being complemented for doing the right thing.   For me this was not a question, at no time did we think we should keep whatever was in the box.  So it just made sense to at least try to do the right thing.

The fact that it caught them so off guard that we would do the right thing I was left wondering why this would be that unusual.  It was sad to realize that we are now the exception instead of the rule.  I think about how the person who ordered the item would feel having invested money in something only to have it go missing.  Yes they would probably get it replaced but speaking from experience it is a bit of a nuisance.

So while I shake my head that we are unusual I am grateful that what we did was natural and not some morality question.   Hopefully it will rub off onto my children when they are in the same position.