Lift Up Your Hearts!

As further proof that we haven't progressed much, ethically, from the days when unsavory characters made midnight forays into graveyards to provide medical researchers with cadavers for dissection, I offer this macabre story of tissue removed from bodies entrusted to various mortuaries in New York City, without consent and without proper safety precautions. The tissues were then implanted, in the form of bone and skin grafts, in hundreds of unsuspecting patients across the country.

I'm beginning to suspect that "factory medicine" is as dangerous a practice as factory farming.

Because I have a friend who is an avid deer hunter, the New York Times article on chronic wasting disease caught my eye. CWD is the deer and elk equivalent of mad cow disease, and has spread so far to 11 states and two Canadian provinces.

The news is not all bad for hunters. Bruce Morrison, chairman of the National Chronic Wasting Disease Plan Implementation Team is himself a hunter and asserts, "I'm not worried." However, he also recommended that hunters in states where CWD has been found have their deer and elk meat frozen while the brain is tested, and warned that no part of an infected animal should be eaten.

Which is not good news for the rest of us. I fail to see a material difference between this warning and a call to increase greatly the testing of animals that end up in the meat departments of our grocery stores. We have not learned well from Great Britain's sad experience with mad cow disease, and need to stop burying our governmental heads in the sand. Japan's recent renewal of the ban on U.S. beef is not the most important reason for tightening the regulations, although it is the one grabbing the headlines.

Personally, I'm awaiting news from Symantec and McAfee that they will be implementing special protection measures for Gateway computers.

It was a bit frightening.

A few months ago we added a Maxtor OneTouch 200G external hard drive to our system, which excited me greatly because it made backing up my files much easier. Then one day last week we heard a sudden "pop!" and...nothing. No recognition of the drive by the computer, no light on the drive, no light on the power supply. The last was actually good news, as it gave us hope that it was the power supply that had given out, rather than the drive itself with all our data.

Our first attempt to determine the full extent of the damage was frustrating. I called CompUSA (from which we had purchased the drive) and was told (1) yes, they did carry replacement power supplies for our Maxtor drive; (2) they were in stock; and (3) the cost would be $9.99. I thought that was very reasonable, and we headed out to the store.

Only to be met with incredulity: No, we don't have such a thing; we don't sell them and never have. But I just called and was told, etc., etc. Sorry, even though you called our local number, you were actually speaking with a call center and they were just plain wrong.

To the credit of the CompUSA manager, he did offer to sell us a device he thought would be compatible for the quoted $9.99, instead of the marked price, which was twice that. To take advantage of his offer would have been a mistake, however; we were spared thanks to reading the fine print and knowing 1 amp = 1000 milliamps (i.e. 300 ma is not the same as 3a.).

Maxtor itself was much more helpful. To our pleasant surprise, the drive was still under warranty, and they immediately sent us a new ($30) power supply. (Actually, I'm grateful to CompUSA, since if we'd been able to purchase the power supply that night we wouldn't have thought to check the warranty!) The package arrived today, and thanks be to God the drive itself was fine, and all our data with it.

We're up and running again, and struggling with the moral of the story: Back up your data, but quis custodiet ipsos custodes? How to back up the backup? If it's data you really don't want to lose, better have redundant backups, preferably not all in the same room, house, or city.

For those of you who have given up on the long-broken links to Peter's Ponderings and Hannah's Happenings, I finally fixed them. Enjoy!

You will notice a change in the form used for making comments. Thanks to an enterprising (among other adjectives) spammer, I've had to institute an anti-spam measure. When you want to add a comment, simply type in the authentication code you'll see in the form, then send your comment as usual. Thanks for your patience.

This Orlando Sentinel column by Leonore Waldrip needs a wider audience. So for the dozen or so of my non-robotic readers, here it is.

Imagine: You are happily expecting the birth of your child, and when the thrilling moment approaches you check into your local hospital, a scenario common to most American mothers-to-be. You give birth to a healthy baby boy, but when you, yourself, are finally released from the hospital, it is more than three months later and you have lost your uterus, both arms, both legs and very nearly your life.

That's what happened to Claudia Meija. Somehow during what should have been a very brief stay at the hospital, in an area (labor and delivery) where the patients aren't even sick, she acquired an "aggressive streptococcal infection," a.k.a. flesh-eating bacteria.

There were no complications with the birth: "Everything was normal." But then she developed a rash ("possible allergic reaction to the sheets") and severe stomach pain ("normal for someone who had just given birth"). Two days later, doctors performed a hysterectomy. Twelve days later they amputated all her limbs, having given her the choice between that and dying. Even so, it was months before she was healthy enough to leave the hospital.

Is it any wonder that when Jon was in the hospital with viral meningitis I prayed as much that he would not acquire a new infection as I did that he recover from the original?

Is it any wonder that, despite its own inherent risks, home birth is looking more and more like the safer alternative?

Most of you will hear about this sooner or later—it was on the front page of the CNN website tonight, so no doubt it will be on the evening news. So yes, that's our Milwee Middle School at which a student brandished a pellet gun that had been modified to look like a 9mm handgun. There was a brief hostage situation; the school was "locked down"; and the student isolated and later shot by the SWAT team, after which the remaining students were sent home. The gun-wielding student, who was labelled "suicidal," is currently in the hospital on life support.

Here's a local version of the story:

http://www.wftv.com/news/6056445/detail.html

The Giver, by Lois Lowry (Dell Laurel-Leaf, New York, 1993)

I doubt I would have found The Giver had it not been required reading for two of my nephews. One read it as a class assignment in seventh grade; for the other it was read aloud in fifth grade. Intrigued, I borrowed the book from our library.

The Giver makes me wish I belonged to a literary discussion group. Without a doubt there is plenty here to discuss, and I can see why teachers might be eager to share this Newbery Award winner with their classes. I would love to talk about it in a group, to toss about various interpretations and implications. And yet, despite the "young adult" designation, despite the fact that the main character has not yet reached his teens, I question the value of such a book in the elementary or middle school curriculum.

My friends and family know all too well how strongly I believe children are much more capable than we give them credit for, and are all too familiar with my rants about how society—especially school—holds them back, does not respect them, and deprives them of important opportunities for growth and learning. Certainly a 10-year-old could contribute intelligently to a discussion of The Giver, if he had the background and experience. However, modern American education—which definition I extend backwards at least as far as my own experience—will rarely if ever allow such a child to develop. To speak intelligently on the serious issues that emerge from this book requires more knowledge of history, philosophy, religion, literature, and ethics than many adults possess. Without such a background, how can a discussion rise above the level of the readers' feelings?

I'm reminded of the first Gulf War, during which our local elementary schools made a point of engaging their students in discussions about the war, querying them on such issues as why we were fighting and whether or not the war was justified. What, other than confusion and a false sense of self-importance, can come from asking such questions of people who know nothing of history, let alone economics, politics, and religion?

Before we ask our children to wrestle with life's difficulties, ambiguities, and moral dilemmas, let them have a strong course of history and logic, at least. To do otherwise is to send them unarmed into mortal combat.

Time spent celebrating the season precludes (for the moment) collecting and publishing my thoughts on Christmas and culture. That will come later. In the meantime, please know, or remember, that hidden deep within and behind and under and through and above all the traditions and chaos and commercialism of the season lies meaning and purpose and hope and a story unequaled. And have a

While browsing the USPS website for international postage rates, I found it amusing to note some of the items one cannot mail to certain places. Most countries prohibit money and weapons; some countries also have more interesting restrictions:

You will get in trouble if you send "coffee in any form" to the Philippines. Jordan prohibits "advertisements concerning treatment of venereal diseases." Don't send "wireless receivers and their accessories, parts, or batteries" to Iceland, "Japanese shaving brushes" to Uganda, horror comics to Great Britain, playing cards to Spain or Madagascar, "books and prints contrary to the Islamic faith" to Saudi Arabia, "circulars or advertisements containing amulets, charms or talismans" to Malaysia, or "primary educational books not written in Portuguese" to Brazil.

Italy prohibits stamp albums, artificial flowers, "bells and other musical instruments and parts thereof," "hair and articles made of hair," "nutmeg, vanilla, sea salt, rock salt, saffron," typewriter ribbons, and "toys not made wholly of wood." The list for Ecuador includes "all maps showing the territory of Ecuador with incorrect boundaries," "bits and mouthpieces made of copper or any alloy containing copper," "preparations for erasing ink and handwriting," "so-called 'Panama' and 'Mocora' hats and the straw used for making them," and unrefined salt. Taiwan forbids coins over 100 years old along with "extracts, essences, and concentrates of tea" and "sugar, molasses, saccharine, and other sweetening substances."

North Korea makes it very simple: "All merchandise is prohibited."

Jonathan has his own small electric screwdriver, which he uses to remove and replace the tiny screws on the back of his (non-working) computer keyboard. I would be amazed enough at his physical dexterity, but what really blows me away is his knowledge of when and how to reverse the direction of the tool.

I could write so much more about the great things Jonathan is doing, and I probably will, eventually. But what impelled me finally to write was watching him peel, perfectly, a hardboiled egg for his lunch today. He only just turned two years old!

The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise (W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2004)

I heard so many homeschoolers raving about The Well-Trained Mind that I had to read it for myself. Then the question became not why so many people love it, but why do I? One reviewer called this approach “ultra school-at-home”—which should have been enough to send me fleeing as from a thousand devils.

If I didn't loathe labels that place homeschoolers into boxes, the one I would be most likely to accept concerning our homeschooling philosophy would be "unschooling." So why would I enthusiastically recommend this book, in which the only reference to unschooling is negative and largely inaccurate? Why would I even read a homeschooling book that opens with the stated belief that homeschooling is second best to an ideal school system, and includes the line, "I set up the desks and the American flag and started to teach my children at home"?

Let me begin with my sympathetic feelings for the White Queen in Alice, who could believe “as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Just as I find no inherent contradiction between Attachment Parenting and my belief that babies need to spend a lot of time prone on the floor, so I see no reason why someone who passionately believes an unspoiled child hungers and thirsts for knowledge should not find much of benefit in the Classical Education model. One of the secrets to success with unschooling is knowing how to discover, discern, and extract from many sources that which is good.

What is commonly called the Classical approach has fascinated and appealed to me ever since I read Dorothy Sayers’ The Lost Tools of Learning. Despite the best (unintentional) efforts of one of the most popular present-day advocates of this approach, and of a private school of my acquaintance that attempts to follow it, to make this form of education appear repulsive, if I were homeschooling now I would find a way to synthesize these ideas, to offer my children the benefits of both unschooling and the Trivium. Impossible? Go ask Alice.¹

Two aspects of The Well-Trained Mind make it particularly valuable:

• The authors have compiled an absolutely fabulous collection of ideas, recommendations, and resources. The reading lists alone are probably worth the price of the book.


• The book articulates one of the foundation stones of my unschooling educational philosophy: Children can achieve far, far more than is commonly expected of them, if they are given the opportunity and the encouragement our educational system commonly denies them.

I do want to point out an area in which I find The Well-Trained Mind to be deficient: mathematics. We used the Saxon math books from Math 54 to Advanced Mathematics (neither the earlier books nor calculus was available back then), and our experience was quite different from what the authors describe.

They state that parents need to teach the mathematical concepts in the Saxon books, that it is not a self-teaching program. We found that to be dramatically untrue. I can't speak for anything before Math 54, but beginning with that book the Saxon texts contain everything needed. Our children simply sat down with the books, read the material, worked the problems, and went on. This was a delightful contrast to other math texts that had left us bewildered because they assumed a teacher had already explained the concepts.

A grievous omission from The Well-Trained Mind's carefully laid out mathematics curriculum is any recognition that some students will be able to cover the material more quickly, although they do provide a revised sequence for students who might need to take a slower approach. Our children would have hated these math books if we had followed the official Saxon plan, which requires students to work every single problem. This would have bored them so seriously they probably would have developed an aversion to math, instead of the love they now have. We found that doing one third to one half of the available problems (carefully chosen to avoid missing concepts) was the right pace, and they flew through the books with joy. Saxon proponents who fail to acknowledge such an option do a disservice to both the publisher and the students.

Children who follow the path described in The Well-Trained Mind will receive a liberal arts education exceeding that of most college graduates, yet their mathematical knowledge will be little better than that of a typical college-bound high school senior. Not only is mathematics critical to many fields, but the mental skills developed in more advanced (post-calculus) courses should be an important part of the rhetoric stage.

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¹ For those who are too young or too old to have experienced Jefferson Airplane, this is not a reference to my mother-in-law.