11/29/2009

For Karen & Thérèse

Mr. D*S and Moxie in June '09, on the back deck.
Also June. Please, please may I have a bite? or ten?
Panda in July '09.
Then suddenly grown up, later that month.
October '09. And now she'll kill me for this.

11/28/2009

How to be a Latin Lover: Cambridge


One of the hallmarks of a Classical Education is the study of Latin. Our rough guide, The Well Trained Mind, recommends starting in Grade Three. Unfortunately, we wasted a lot of time with the traditional, parts-to-whole, grammar-based programs. I know that Susan Wise Bauer recommends them, but a child can be bored to tears with all the paradigm memorization and no real Latin sentences or stories. (I know I was.) Panda was totally uninspired with this method. She could chant her conjugations and declensions but they had no meaning to her and she could not read a passage to save her life. In Grade Six we switched to Cambridge Latin, a reading approach, and loved it. The stories are compelling, and lend themselves beautifully to comic strips and dramatization. The books are very attractive, the history section in each unit is fascinating, and don’t worry, they do teach the grammar, just very gradually without the memorization and chanting. And now I am motivated to learn along with Panda, which is a minor miracle.

There are four Units, each corresponding roughly to a year of teaching. Each Stage in each Unit presents Model Sentences that incorporate a new grammar concept with illustrations, four or five short stories, a Vocabulary checklist of 25 to 30 words, auxiliary vocabulary, two About the Language sections (grammar concepts explained with examples), Practicing the Language section, a more detailed look at some aspect of Roman life and a Word Study. There are illustrations and photos throughout. The first Unit follows a family in Pompeii, ending in the eruption of Vesuvius, and the Second Unit follows a son of that family in his travels to Britannia and Alexandria. Unit Three goes back to Rome. The Teacher’s Manual is actually helpful, which is sometimes not the case in home learning curricula. It explains the photos and illustrations in more detail, gives background and tips for teaching the stories, suggests grammar concepts to review, Latin mottoes and saying to learn and gives ideas for further study.

At the very least you need a Student Text and a Teacher’s Manual, but I recommend the Workbook and CDs as well. Try Chapters or Amazon for new, Alibris or Abebooks for secondhand. You can also order lots of peripherals such as extra stories (Fabulae Ancillantes), Test Crafters, etc. The North American Cambridge Classics Project also supplies games, drills, vocabulary tests, flash cards and comprehension questions in Latin, as well as pencils that say things like, “Flocci non facio!” and “Pestis! Furcifer! Mendax! Caudex!” There are terrific resources for vocabulary, history and grammar drills on the Cambridge UK website. There is also an extremely helpful Yahoo group. This group is mostly teachers with a few home learners, and some of them have Quia games posted for each stage that we use again and again.

With a little supervision, this could be used as an independent course for a home learner. That said, Panda and I do it together. I truly enjoy learning Latin. I keep a step or two ahead of her with at least an extra half hour a day and we both do the Practicing the Language exercises and one or two of the Workbook exercises. We read and translate together and quiz the vocab together. One problem with Cambridge is that although the student translates a lot from Latin to English, English to Latin is wholly lacking. As an experiment, we are starting to do some English to Latin using stories from Fabulae Ancillantes, but about a year behind, since this is new to us. A dedicated teacher in a private school might do the first two Units in a single year, but we are far more relaxed than that.

If your Latin study isn't panning out, I would wholeheartedly recommend the Cambridge Latin reading approach.

11/26/2009

The Fall

What can be more deeply suburban than lush green lawns? Mr. D*S has developed a surprising affinity for lawn care. Who knew? We applaud his efforts, especially if it leads to this kind of fun:

(This photo was taken in '08, our first summer here.)
I am more concerned about flowers and salad, so this part of the backyard is especially mine. As a gardening novice, I am taking it slow and easy. It has filled in a little more this summer:

I never dreamed vegetables could get so out-of-control and sprawling. The cherry tomatoes, the ones we could reach, were a revelation. Arugula, tarragon, parsley, basil and radishes were terrific, the lettuce less so. Next year we hope to grow some better varieties from seed and I'll know better than to crowd everything in together like that. Also the bricks must go. They are far too tippy.

This is the very spot that I took a tumble in July, losing my balance while gathering baby arugula leaves for a salad. Annmarie next door must have heard me cursing, because she asked if I was OK. "Oh sure, fine," I gasped. "Just got the wind knocked out of me." Except that I developed the strangest case of indigestion two days later. Three days (and a lot of antacid) after that, I was so uncomfortable lying down that I had to sleep in the Lazyboy I inherited from my Dad. Finally, pain, excruciating middle-of-the-night pain, convinced me that an ambulance was in order. Several hours later, lying in the hospital corridor, I remembered the fall out of my garden. I went home 10 hours later with a diagnosis of a fractured rib and fluid in the lungs, and a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers.

11/12/2009

We Are All Connected



[deGrasse Tyson]
We are all connected;
To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically

[Feynman]
I think nature's imagination
Is so much greater than man's
She's never going to let us relax

[Sagan]
We live in an in-between universe
Where things change all right
But according to patterns, rules,
Or as we call them, laws of nature

[Nye]
I'm this guy standing on a planet
Really I'm just a speck
Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck
To think about all of this
To think about the vast emptiness of space
There's billions and billions of stars
Billions and billions of specks

[Sagan]
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together
The cosmos is also within us
We're made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself

Across the sea of space
The stars are other suns
We have traveled this way before
And there is much to be learned

I find it elevating and exhilarating
To discover that we live in a universe
Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
As intricate and subtle as we

[deGrasse Tyson]
I know that the molecules in my body are traceable
To phenomena in the cosmos
That makes me want to grab people in the street
And say, have you heard this??

(Richard Feynman on hand drums and chanting)

[Feynman]
There's this tremendous mess
Of waves all over in space
Which is the light bouncing around the room
And going from one thing to the other

And it's all really there
But you gotta stop and think about it
About the complexity to really get the pleasure
And it's all really there
The inconceivable nature of nature.