Justine on justice

Who made my dress? (Fashion Revolution Week)

This is a long black cotton t-shirt dress, made in Hong Kong. The label is a brand name used by a company in Toronto that imports clothing from Asia. If you're hoping for organic, fair-trade, and sustainable, this dress unfortunately isn't going to be it.

So why am I featuring it as a way to wrap up Fashion Revolution Week?

Because it illustrates the tensions we face in trying to act and dress with justice. What's the best way to use our resources?

I was looking with some envy at very nice organic cotton t-shirt dresses made by an ethical company in New Zealand, and sold through an online shop in western Canada. They run about US$100, or Canadian$130, and come in black, grey, and a gorgeous plum colour. You would probably not be sorry if you put your money into one of those dresses.

But that's still a lot of money. So I bought two t-shirt dresses at the thrift store, for six dollars apiece. One is sort of alligator green, and I was planning to re-dye it in plum, except that I didn't know its cotton-polyester blend ruled out home-dyeing-in-a-pail. (It might be possible to use a special synthetic-friendly dye and cook it on the stove, but that's not really practical for us.) I'll try to pass it on to someone who does look good in alligator green.

The other dress is black, which is generally not my favourite colour, but I kind of like it in this dress; it's practical and even a bit elegant. The long length can be belted up, and the style goes with just about everything. Just like a $130 dress from New Zealand.

I made a choice this time around, between buying something new and ethical, or something used and ethical. I don't know who made my dress. But I know who benefits from it.

Saving the planet when you're over fifty (Fashion Revolution Week)

Much of the media produced for Fashion Revolution Week seems aimed at young consumers (or anti-consumers). People who wear distressed denim and have tattoos. People who look great in wildly ethnic, eclectic, funky clothes (and can afford them). People who are not me, and maybe not you.

Thrifted silk t-shirt. I hardly ever find silk clothes, so this made me very happy.

However, those of us over a certain age have strengths too, such as longer memories. We remember when clothes really lasted, or when they didn't but we kept wearing them anyway.  We remember having to take sewing in school, or having someone at home who sewed and mended. We remember when shoes and clothes took a bigger bite out of our babysitting money, or our parents' wallets, so we had to take extra care of them.

Some of us grew up with hand-me-down clothes. Some of us had patches ironed on our jeans, and not the decorative kind. Some of us found back-to-school shopping downright torturous. Those long memories aren't all good.

But just as we are old enough to know that card catalogues weren't always on computers, and dinner wasn't always drive-thrus, we know that clothes haven't always been all fall-apart fast fashion.

Canadian-made jacket and skirt (thrifted)

We are old enough to make choices. And we are not too old to make choices.

If you knew that a particular retailer or manufacturer was causing harm to people or the planet, would you stop buying from them? Where do you think a retail store's unsold clothes go? Have you ever asked?

Do you notice where things are made, or what they're made from? How easy is it to find clothes made in your own country, or from quality fabrics? How much of a price difference do you think is reasonable for natural-fabric, fair-trade, or sustainably-produced clothing?

Do you ever shop consignment or thrift? Swap clothes with friends? Up-cycle something unwearable or boring? Knit yourself a hat? Happily wear a favourite piece of clothing over and over?

At fifty-plus, we are old enough to wear clothes we couldn't have carried off in our younger days. My husband said that grey suit has "character," and I took that as a compliment.

We are old enough to remember when blue rivers meant clean water, not dye runoff from jeans. But we are not too old to want to help make things better..

The women who wear them (Fashion Revolution Week)

"Clothes aren't going to change the world; the women who wear them will." ~~ Anne Klein

I wanted to include a photograph, but I couldn't choose just one (and didn't have permission to post them here anyway); so please click over to this Mennonite Central Committee story and see some beautiful women for yourself.

Free fashion-revolution fanzine

Fanzine #002: Loved Clothes Last is free to read online at The Fashion Revolution. How generous is that?

Something to read today: Ten Thousand Villages on turning seventy

Kenyan School Girl Doll: a Ten Thousand Villages classic

When a Mennonite Self-Help Crafts store opened in our town back in the 1980's (I think it was), we thought it was a new thing. Not that we teenagers were too excited by a store full of baskets and pillow covers, but we figured since our mothers and grandmothers liked that stuff, it was a safe place to buy them birthday presents. After a few years, my mother had so many soapstone and carved boxes that you could hardly see her dresser, but she said she liked them.

But Self-Help, later renamed Ten Thousand Villages, had gotten started years before in the U.S., and this year it is celebrating its seventieth anniversary. This article talks about its commitment to craftspeople around the world (LINK CORRECTED!), and how sales (and therefore the ability to order more items from the makers) have increased over the last couple of years, after a slump not so long ago. I've noticed myself how the local store seems to be changing; it's less crowded, and (oh, here comes that word) almost more curated in what's on the floor. When you walk in, you're more likely to notice all the scarves and earrings, the fair trade cinnamon, and the quirky cushions with elephants and bicycles embroidered on them (not to mention the free coffee), than you are the usual rugs and baskets. I've also noticed that they do a lot of very professional promotions through email and on the website, and for some reason I don't find their appeals as irritating as those I get from some other companies. I think it's because it shows how seriously they take their work, that what they have is so good that they could become someone's "new favourite store." Years ago, it was enough to fly in some baskets and boxes, and sell them to grandmothers and people who cared less about the dishtowels than they did about making a donation. Now Ten Thousand Villages' harvest of crafts, and the way it's treated, speaks for itself.

Something to read today: hard, honest talk about minimalism, clothes, and stuff like that

Worth reading:  7 Things Building a Plus-Sized Capsule Wardrobe Taught Me.

From that article:

"When I gained weight in college, finding decent clothing on a budget became even more difficult. Although I still love the orderly cohesiveness of the capsule approach, I think it's important to be aware of the potentially problematic nature of contemporary 'magazine minimalism' that treats making do with less as the latest trend."

Way way back, I wrote a post here on the Treehouse about expensive (but nice) designer toys, Trendoids Spend Lots to Scale Back. I've had similar concerns and conversations about the luxury of being able to super-fine-tune one's diet, or about the trendiness of "tiny houses." These are, to some extent, problems unique to a culture that has enough goods and enough money for people to make those choices. We think of the creative and resilient pioneers and Depression-era survivors, those who made their potato-peel pies and whatnot; but they were as happy as anyone else when times got better. Laura Ingalls Wilder did not spend her later years wishing to eat only wild game and cornbread. Years ago I knew of an "intentional community" that was formed, with the highest of ideals, by a group of overall-wearing, long-haired couples in the 1970's. By the time I visited, ten or fifteen years later, most of them had moved back to the city with their children. Rural realities were not all that romantic.

What about those of us who live on a low budget because of choices we have made (such as staying home with children), who stretch food, make low-cost gifts, re-use, re-cycle; who really do depend on used clothing stores...but who still realize that "fast fashion" has become a problem and that excess, even extremely cheap excess, causes its own problems? (Is there any difference between our family's semi-retired lifestyle and that of, say, someone who was laid off, or a single parent who needs more work hours?)

I bought summer shoes new this year, and a better pair, from a better store, than I am accustomed to getting. For my ugly-bunion feet, they were totally worth it for a season of no blisters. I put an unusual amount of money (for me)  into the sustainably-made dress I bought for our anniversary. And I'm saving up for one more somewhat expensive item for the fall. Does that make me hypocritical, when I get most of my other clothes at the lowest possible thrift store prices? There have been times when it would have been all thrift store and discount store.

But yeah. We see the ridiculousness of Marie Antoinette playing shepherdess in her spare time, but our own understanding of "simplicity" needs to be carefully considered as well. Does "less is more" help us to identify with those who have less, or insult them? Do we take on anything...food style, housing, homeschooling, church styles, because they are the latest thing that floats by, or because we believe those choices put our values into action?

Those are questions that we will just have to keep on asking.

Fashion Revolution Week: Finding a Balance

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 1911

The Fashion Revolution began because of a recent tragedy.  It wasn't the first one, and it won't be the last.

Who do you blame? Big businesses? Factory owners? Small consumers? Rich countries? Poor countries? People who just want to buy a pair of sweatpants?

How do you change a big, complicated mess?

Proverbs 31:8-10 (N.I.V.)

8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,

    for the rights of all who are destitute.

9 Speak up and judge fairly;

    defend the rights of the poor and needy.

But how can we speak if we don't listen first?

And how will we know if we don't ask?

"Beauty is about balance, and what is sustainability if not finding a balance between the desires of our generation and the needs of the next?" ~~ "A Moral Sense of Beauty," by Carry Somers

School plans for the first week of March and the last week of Term Two (Lydia's Grade Eight)

Do this week's Bible readings. Read part of Chapter 5 in Seeing the Mystery.

Read up to Canto 12 in Fierce Wars, Faithful Loves.

Read some of Exploring the History of Medicine, Perelandra, and The Trial of Charles I.

Whatever Happened to Justice?: "The Lessons of Simón Bolivar" and "Eating the Seed Corn."

Read the next section of Journey to the Source of the Nile: it takes in the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next.

Do some punctuation exercises in The Easy Grammar Plus, and writing exercises in The Roar on the Other Side. Work on graphing equations in Key to Algebra.

Latin: Start lesson VIII.

Finish our art study of Albrecht Dürer, and composer study of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Two weeks left in the term (Lydia's Grade Eight)

We could take a quote for this coming week from "Uncle Eric": Humans are not made to be gods, they can't handle it.  It reminds me of something I read recently in a Mitford book: that it is not up to us to make everything and everyone around us perfect; that's God's job. Isn't that kind of what Charlotte Mason said too, not to interfere with the Holy Spirit's work in human souls?

School plans for the week:

Bible: already scheduled.

Christianity and art: finish chapter 4 of Seeing the Mystery.

Citizenship: A chapter from Ourselves Book II. Whatever Happened to Justice?, chapter 27, "The Fun is in the Playing."

History: concentrate on The Trial of Charles I.

Geography: the journey from Lake Tanganyika to Lake Victoria, with maps.

Composition: work in The Roar on the Other Side.

English literature: the poetry of George Herbert. Choose some memory work. Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves.

Readalouds: keep reading Perelandra. I have a feeling we're not going to get through this by the end of the term, but that's okay.

Composer study: Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Ecology: Chapter 11 of Exploring the World Around You: "Succession." How does the observable process of succession parallel the hypothetical process of evolution? This chapter refers to a Canadian film, "The Spruce Bog: An Essay in Ecology," directed by Dalton Muir in 1957. The film does not appear to be available online, but the link is to the original two-page teacher's guide.

Science biography: The Seashell on the Mountaintop.

Latin: keep working on Lesson VII of Our Roman Roots (we're about halfway through the book).

P.S. The school year is going by so quickly, way too quickly. We have two weeks left in the term, then exams, then a week's holiday, then Term Three. And if you don't think it's going to be hard not to try to stuff every very last thing into that very last term...

Political Power...or Service? (Lydia's Grade Eight)

Book studied: Whatever Happened to Justice?, chapter 26.

"Uncle Eric" has an out-of-the-mainstream view on political power. He says,

"Political power is not the capacity to build a better world. It is [the privilege of using] force on...persons who have not harmed anyone. It is something done to someone....Political power is violence."

He quotes people such as Thomas Bailey Aldrich:

"There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks."

And William Hazlitt:

"Power is pleasure."

So here are some things to think about:

Which of the three images from Arthur show actual political power in use?

Is there a legitimate use of political power? Should Christians be involved in their country's government? In the police force? How should they act if they are put into or achieve positions of power? What does the Bible say? (This article is useful.)

"Christianity enhanced the notion of political and social accountability by providing a new model: that of servant leadership. In ancient Greece and Rome no one would have dreamed of considering political leaders anyone's servants. The job of the leader was to lead. But Christ invented the notion that the way to lead is by serving the needs of others, especially those who are the most needy..." ~~ Dinesh D'Souza, What's So Great About Christianity?

Plans for the week (Lydia's Grade Eight)

Monday is a holiday here (Family Day). Here are some planned activities for the other days.

Tuesday

Hymns: Continue learning "O God, My Faithful God."
Celebrating the Christian Year, by Martha Zimmerman. Chapter 8, Shrove Tuesday.

Francis Bacon: "Of Beauty" (also called "Of Virtue") (Harvard Classics, page 106). Listen to it read aloud, slowly, and narrate back as well as you can.  Names and Latin phrases to be put "on the blackboard" as an aid to narration.

Readaloud novel: Perelandra, by C.S. Lewis

Latin lesson

Independent work: Bible, math, grammar, history, science readings.

Wednesday
Hymns
Celebrating the Christian Year, Chapter 9, Ash Wednesday.

Ourselves Book II, chapter IX.

Geography: continue Journey to the Source of the Nile.

Latin lesson

Independent work

Thursday
Hymns
Celebrating the Christian Year, Chapter 10, Lent. Read pages 107-109

Whatever Happened to Justice?, Chapter 26.

Francis Bacon, "Of Virtue": work on paraphrasing the first half of the essay.

Readaloud novel: Perelandra, by C.S. Lewis

Latin lesson

Independent work

Friday
Hymns
Celebrating the Christian Year Read pages 109-112.

Justice: finish the chapter as needed, and read some of the quotes on the following pages.

Francis Bacon: complete the paraphrase.

Picture talk:  Albrecht Dürer, the Apocalypse series of engravings. More here.  Also described at Khan Academy.

Latin lesson

Independent work

Justice, Latin, and Tanzania (Lydia's Grade Eight)

Today's lessons include Whatever Happened to Justice?, Journey to the Source of the Nile, and finishing the week's Latin lesson.

1.  Uncle Eric, Chapter 25, "The Great Mystery." This chapter may seem too "American" at first glance, but it's kind of cool anyway. There's a description of small-L liberals, who "believe in social freedom and economic control." Then a description of small-C conservatives, who "believe your production and trade should be free, and taxes very low, but the government should control licentious things like pornography, drugs, and gambling." So which group would you rather hang out with? But which side would you rather have in power? Because this model "explains only how liberals and conservatives think, not how they behave." What is the problem? "Political power."

2.  Geography, pages 143-148. The group arrives at Lake Tanganyika.

3.  Our Roman Roots, Lesson VI.  Map quiz game on page 41 of the student book. Review the verbs of command (stand up, sit down, etc.).  Review activities for the week, and then do the Lesson VI Quiz (it includes a map, so be prepared!).

A lesson on Justice: Might or Right? (Lydia's Grade Eight)

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul quilt, in The Brooklyn Museum

Subject: Citizenship. Book studied: Whatever Happened to Justice?

Review: On page 126, "Uncle Eric" says, "The Founders did not like democracy and they did not trust it. They wanted liberty." Explain what he means by this.

On page 128, there is a short list of "obstacles to voting" in the early years of the United States: gender, skin colour, etc.  It turns out that less than three percent of the adult population were permitted to vote. Read the rest of the chapter and explain why 3%, at that time, was actually a novelty.

Chapter 23 is a short discussion of one question: if the Constitution was supposed to be the highest law of the land, where did Common Law now stand?

Read just the first page of Chapter 24. What is the meaning of the expression "robbing Peter to pay Paul?"  Why don't we want to do this? Why does "competing for privilege" mean that "everyone is scrambling for control of the blackjack?" Can you think of any fictional parallels?

At the bottom of page 134, "Uncle Eric" says that courts now seek to find ultimate law in the Constitution.  OK, then, he says; let's look at the language of the constitution. Your assignment: Read the rest of the chapter (one page and a bit) out loud, as if you were Uncle Eric (Aunt Erica) giving a speech.

School plans for the week (Lydia's Grade Eight)

Week 18 begins...

Morning readalouds:

Seeing the Mystery, chapter 3: "One of Us." "Do we know what speaks best to Indonesians? Would a painting by Raphael of the Crucifixion seem as strange and unreal to them as this Indonesian portrayal does to us?"

How to Read a Book: starting chapter 11, "Agreeing or Disagreeing with an Author." "If the reader understands a book, how can he disagree with it?"

Whatever Happened to Justice (Uncle Eric), chapter 21: "Instability, Nuremberg, and Abortion."

(Well, we could just stop right there, couldn't we?)

Independent Bible Reading: already scheduled.

History and Literature: Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves; reading about Charles I in The New World and The Trial of Charles I

Mathematics: working in Key to Algebra, Booklet 8

Composition and Grammar: The Roar on the Other Side; Easy Grammar Plus

Science readings: personal choice.

Latin: Our Roman Roots, finish lesson V. Theme for the week: "By leading us to truth, education lifts us above the cares of life."

Afternoon readalouds:

Journey to the Source of the Nile; continue the chapter "Lay down the burden of your heart: Bagamoyo to Zungomero." "[Burton's] first major goal was to reach Zungomero. That was our goal, too, but we had a problem: Zungomero has completely disappeared from all modern maps."

Exploring the World Around You, start chapter 9, "Population Balance." "In the predator-prey relationship, most people think that it is the predator that controls the prey population...But, it is just as true to say that the prey controls the predator population."

The Merchant of Venice

Afternoon other things:

Jean Sibelius, Symphony Number Four. Notes and extracts (I love this site!)

Nature studies, Life skills

School plans for the week (Lydia's Grade Eight)

We are following a slightly more structured schedule this winter (a few more daily "must do's"), and the first week went pretty well, so I have to figure out how big a piece of the month's work we can or should try to fit into the second week.

Things that are pretty much laid out: Bible readings, grammar, math, Latin.

Other things we will probably be reading: Seeing the Mystery, the second half of Chapter 2. Churchill's The New World, continuing to unpack chapter 13 on Charles I. One chapter of The Trial of Charles I. Ourselves Book II, Chapter IV, "The Will and its Peers."  Whatever Happened to Justice, chapter 20, "Liberty vs. Permission." The Merchant of Venice, reading Act II.  Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves, Cantos Four and Five. Working on The Roar on the Other Side. Finishing Chapter 10 of How to Read a Book.

Geography: reading about Christopher Ondaatje's journey to Zanzibar.

Some nature and art, and if we can do them together, even better.

How to be a homeschool-parent-mensch

"If it be not goodness, the will is virtue, in the etymological sense of that word; it is manliness." -- Charlotte Mason, Ourselves (Volume 4)

In other words: Menschliness.

Mini poster and further explanations found on Life Without Pants; blog (outside of that post) contains adult language.

The post at Life Without Pants refers to a book by Bruna (not Brenda) Martinuzzi, The Leader as a Mensch: Become the Kind of Person Others Want to Follow. From her website: "Martinuzzi takes the reader on a transformative journey to a way of living, self-discovery, and personal strength that translates into becoming a person who authentically inspires with empathy and confidence—and successfully motivates others to follow by example, a mensch-leader."  I also liked one of the reviews posted there: “Bruna Martinuzzi has distilled the essence of what it takes to influence and motivate others, not by the exercise of authority, but through the example of ethical and admirable character. She doesn’t just tell us how—she helps us understand.” — Mark D. Lange, Christian Science Monitor

So what does that have to do with homeschooling parents? The attributes listed in the above poster, which are summarized from Martinuzzi's book on leadership, can be taken as characteristics of good teachers, and also of good parents. I won't paste the explanations as given on Life Without Pants, but here are my own (homeschooling) takes on the list.

1. Give people gifts other than those that you buy.  LWP mentions the gift of "A reason to care," among other things. In November I wrote a series of posts here about the gift of discipline, including this one.. We invite, we offer, we give; we don't invade or impose.

2. Become a talent hunter. See #5.

3. Share ideas and information that can enrich. Don't keep all your good ideas to yourself. Homeschooling parents seem to understand this naturally...hence the existence of support groups and the publication of many "how we did it" books and magazines, not to mention the Carnival of Homeschooling.

And of course it applies as well to what we actually teach. One way we frequently start our day here is with our homeschool "principal" (Mr Fixit), who tunes in closely to current events of all kinds and who is usually good for a "weekday update."

4. Spend more time in the “beginner’s mind.”  Put yourself in the student's place. What would you want to know about a topic? What would be a good way to communicate a particular idea? What points should you explain first, and which ones does your student need to discover for him or herself?

5. Don’t tell people what they can’t (aren't able to) do.  Marva Collins is a prime example of ignoring "can'ts," and so are John Holt and John Mighton.

6. Minimize the space you take up. LWP interprets this as referring to focus and lack of clutter, but I actually see another meaning in it: what Charlotte Mason calls Masterly Inactivity. That is, the focus is put on the student, rather than on the teacher. The student gets to ask the questions instead of just answer them.
7. Become a relationship anthropologist.  Maybe like this? "Justice can best be grasped through the prism of three generations. If I want you to treat me justly, I must imagine you and your parents and your grandparents in context. If we want to treat each other justly, we must imagine each other in context - you and your parents and grandparents; and me with mine. I must battle as hard for me to “get” your story as I battle for you to “get” my story." (Trustcounts.orghttp://www.trustcounts.org/just3.html)
8. Be happy for others. At the L'Harmas retreat last fall, Tammy Glaser told the story of a boy in their community school with a particular set of special needs, who was also hypersensitive to noise. On one occasion, when he demonstrated how far he had come by doing some kind of classroom presentation, the rest of the students all clapped for him...quietly.
9. Get rid of grudges. Allow second, third, fourth chances. Don't let past tensions spoil a good learning opportunity.

10. "Help others caress the rainbow," which means "Inspire hopefulness." One way to do this: include books that inspire in your homeschool curriculum: poetry, fiction, biography.

11. Make people feel better about themselves. No matter where they come from, no matter what's happened before. Give them opportunities to succeed, and let them know they're smart.

12. View promises as unpaid debt.  And don't promise what you can't follow through on. "How do you become the kind of person others want to follow? By being a person that people trust." (LWP)

Lydia's Grade Eight: Homeschooling in December, and the questions I ask myself

Some homeschool families take December off, or do Christmas unit studies. We did some of that when the girls were younger. But the trouble with trying to squeeze about 39 planned-out weeks of school between Labour Day and the end of June, and include March Break and a few other days off (planned and unplanned), is that you can't really do all that and not do at least some school work in December. So we will get started this Tuesday with Term Two of Year Eight, then take our two weeks of holidays with the public schoolers. (Monday is going to be a finish-exams day.)

I'm thinking...I'm always thinking about this, but I have varying degrees of success...how can I take this list of mostly readings, and make it more of An Atmosphere, A Discipline, A Life? And still be a little bit relaxed, because it's December after all?  If I were doing Charlotte Mason consulting for some other family, what would I add or scrub? Where is Mrs. Dowson's unity of thought? Where is the thing that engages attention? How do we encourage delight? Where is Lydia the person, and Mama Squirrel the teacher, and Mr. Fixit the principal, and the rest of the family, and the community and the world (physical) and the universe (spiritual) she lives in? What relationships are we building?

And how does one do this most effectively with just one eighth grader who enjoys doing most of her work independently?

Some ideas, things we might do: Re-emphasize a certain kind of routine or "horarium," one that offers both discipline and atmosphere--for instance, having readaloud times in front of the fireplace upstairs, instead of shivering in the basement. (It's only an electric fire, but we like it.) But also maintain quiet, non-distracting spaces where a person can focus on math and grammar. Make things graphic where that helps (using notebooks, visual organizers). Give her enough opportunities to use her power of choosing.

School goals for December (three weeks' work):

Read The Bible Through the Ages, begin the section on the New Testament
o 10 pages/wk, starting at page 132: The World of Jesus; Life and Ministry of Jesus; Spreading the Good News
o 10 pages/wk: Apostle to the Gentile World; Letter writing; Thessalonians, Galatians; Corinthians, Philippians

Bible Study
o 2 Samuel 10-13:20; Matt 17:19-18:14; Psalm 119:123-136; Proverbs 10:12-21
o 2 Samuel 13:21-15; Matt 18:15-19:15; Psalm 119:137-155; Proverbs 10:22-32

Celebrating the Christian Year
o  Look ahead to Epiphany on January 6th.

December hymns and carols: "Wake, Awake" (Nicolai); "All My Heart This Night Rejoices" (Gerhardt)

Donatello, Madonna Pazzi

Art History / Christian Studies
Read Seeing the Mystery: Exploring the Christian faith through the eyes of artists
o  Preface: What do artists really show us?
o  Chapter 1: The great paradox, pages 13-26.  Works featured in this chapter: paintings from the Roman catacombs; Correggio, Adoration of the (Christ) Child (1520); Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne (Byzantine icon); Donatello, Madonna Pazzi; Caroline Hamilton, "Mary and Baby Jesus"; Inuit carving, "Mary and Jesus"; Gentile de Fabriano, The Adoration of the Wise Men (Magi); El Greco, Christ Driving the Money Changers; James Ensor, Ecce Homo (Christ and the Critics); Christ Pantocrator (icon).

A little more Picture Study:
o  Introduction to Albrecht Dürer (see references at the end of the Renaissance book from last term)
o  Dürer's woodcuts for Martin Luther's Christmas Book

Composer Study: Jean Sibelius - Finlandia. (Chapter in Modern Composers for Young People, by Gladys Burch.) From Wikipedia:  Finlandia, Op. 26 is a symphonic poem by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. It was written in 1899 and revised in 1900. The piece was composed for the Press Celebrations of 1899, a covert protest against increasing censorship from the Russian Empire, and was the last of seven pieces performed as an accompaniment to a tableau depicting episodes from Finnish history. A typical performance takes anywhere from 7½ to 9 minutes.

The Twelve Teas of Friendship
o  Read pages 88-89, Gifts of Friendship.

Handicrafts / practical skills
o  Make something decorative or useful for the holidays.
o  Help with holiday baking!
o  Make notes in your Enquire Within notebook.

Outside classes: weekly drama class.

Citizenship
Keep a calendar of current events in the back of your BoC.

Read Whatever Happened to Justice
o chapter 16, Political Law.  "It is made up law, created out of nothing."
o chapter 17, Discovery vs. Enactment

Read Ourselves Book II, Part II, THE WILL.
o  page 137-middle of 138,  Chapter III, "Will Not Moral or Immoral." Before reading, review the idea of putting a "dividing line" between people who have acted with Will, and those who have acted with Wilfulness. "The wilful person is at the mercy of his appetites and his chance desires...without power or desire to control the lead of his nature..." But Will "implies impersonal aims...[it means] the power to project himself beyond himself and shape his life upon a purpose." There are also those who do not call upon Will, who "think as other people think, act as others act, feel what is commonly felt, and never fall back upon their true selves, wherein Will must act...Life is to such persons a series of casualties..."

This is the whole section to read:

To 'Will' is not to 'be Good'––Perhaps what has already been said about Will may lend itself to the children's definition of 'being good,' and our imaginary dividing line may appear to have all the good people on the one side, and all the not good on the other. But the man of will may act from mixed motives, and employ mixed means. Louis XI., for example, in all he did, intended France; he was loyal to his own notion of his kingly office; but, because he was a mean man, he employed low means, and his immediate motives were low and poor. An anarchist, a rebel, may propose things outside of himself, and steadfastly will himself to their accomplishment. The means he uses are immoral and often criminal, but he is not the less a man of steadfast will. Nay, there are persons whose business in life it is to further a propaganda designed to do away with social restraints and moral convictions. They deliberately purpose harm to society; but they call it good; liberty to do as he chooses is, they say, the best that can befall a man; and this object they further with a certain degree of self-less zeal. It is the fact of an aim outside of themselves which wins followers for such men; the looker-on confuses force of will with virtue, and becomes an easy convert to any and every development of 'free-thought.'
It is therefore well we should know that, while the turbulent, headstrong person is not ruled by will at all,––but by impulse, the movement of his passions or desires,––yet it is possible to have a constant will with unworthy and even evil ends. More, it is even possible to have a steady will towards a good end, and to compass that end by unworthy means. Rebecca had no desire but that the will of God should be done; indeed, she set herself to bring it about; the younger, the chosen son, should certainly inherit the blessing as God had appointed; and she sets herself to scheme the accomplishment of that which she is assured is good. What a type she offers of every age, especially of our own!
The simple, rectified Will, what our Lord calls 'the single eye,' would appear to be the one thing needful for straight living and serviceableness.

Literature
Shakespeare: begin The Merchant of Venice (you have already read about this play in History of English Literature, Chapter 47).  A thought for this play: can we decide which characters have Will, and which ones are just Wilful?

Merchant of Venice graphic found here

Read Mythology by Edith Hamilton, ten pages/week.  Alternatively, read Till We Have Faces.

Read Part One of Don Quixote, John Ormsby translation, adapted for schools by Mabel Wheaton (we have a copy of Ormsby, which I've edited temporarily using a pile of Post-It Notes).  This will probably be a readaloud for us, at least until Christmas.
o  Mabel's introduction
o  Chapters 1-5 (pages 1-18 in our copy)
o  Chapters 6-10 (pages 18-54, following the Post-It Note skips)
o  Chapters 11-15 (pages 54-92)
(Homework over the break: finish Part One, chp. 16-19, pages 104-199 in our copy, with omissions)

Read History of English Literature
o  chapter 52 Bacon--New Ways of Wisdom.  "'I have read in books,' he wrote, that it is accounted a great bliss to have Leisure with Honour. That was never my fortune. For time was I had Honour without Leisure; and now I have Leisure without Honour. But my desire is now to have Leisure without Loitering.'"
o  chapter 53 Bacon--The Happy Island. (About Atlantis)

Read Rawley's Life of Francis Bacon (printout) (read this after the History of English Literature chapters)

Poetry:  Read Fierce Wars & Faithful Loves (Spenser's Faerie Queene Book I with contemporary explanations and footnotes)
o Read the Introduction and "Beginning"; then read Cantos 1, 2, and 3.  I would say let's read it aloud, but there are so many notes and things that it seems to make more sense to read it to yourself.

Fun Christmas readaloud, maybe: Dorothy L. Sayers, "The Necklace of Pearls"

Geography
Read Journey to The Source of the Nile, by Sir Christopher Ondaatje
o  Prologue: A Song of Africa.

o  Read pages 27-49 (Chapter One).  What led up to this (1996) journey to the source of the Nile? Compare with the reasons for beginning the Kon Tiki expedition. What did Ondaatje hope to achieve?

Science and Nature Readings
Keeping a Nature Journal
o  pages 90-91, seasonal changes in winter
o  page 92, "Seeing Signs of Winter"
o  page 97, "Combining observation and research"
o Spend time outdoors and make entries (written, drawn, lists) in your nature journal

Ecology and Nature Study: Read Exploring the World Around You
o Chapter 7, Food. "Hydrogen atoms [are] neither created nor destroyed [in photosynthesis], but just rearranged. That's an expression of one of the most fundamental laws of science, the law of conservation of matter."

Human Physiology and Health: Read Exploring the History of Medicine
o  Chapter 1, The First Physicians
o  Chapter 2, Medicine Goes Wrong. "If the corpse and the book don't agree, the error is in the corpse!"
o  Chapter 3: Fabric of the Body,  Andreas Vesalius
o  Chapter 4: Father of Modern Surgery, Ambroise Paré.  "I treated him. God healed him."
o  Chapter 5: The Living River (William Harvey). Supplement: "William Harvey and the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood," by Thomas Henry Huxley (printout).
o  Chapter 6: The Invisible Kingdom (the microscope)

History Readings
Keep a Book of Centuries with all history studied (Bible, English, Canadian, etc.)

Read The Story of Mankind
o 13. Meawhile the Indo-European tribe of the Hellenes...
o 14. The Greek cities that were really states

Read Canada: A New Land
o England on the Atlantic Coast (spread over two weeks), pages 160-178
o The Dutch Claimed the Hudson River District, pages 179-183

Read Churchill's The New World
o Chapter 11, pages 115-124, to "...Spanish match." (Guy Fawkes, James I, Charles, 1605)
o  pages 124-130, beginning 'In the midst of these turmoils,' ending with 'London greatly aided them in this.' (Mayflower; James's children betrothed; Jacobean Charles I crowned)
o  pages 130-138: last half of chapter 12.

French and Latin

French
o  Unit 7: The Party.  Demonstrative adjectives.

o  Unit 8: Where, when, how?

Latin: catch up on the lessons we had started earlier.

Reading and Writing Stuff
Commonplace Books, Copywork, and Recitations (Memory Work)
o  Copy passages from poetry, plays, and the other books read
o  Practice Scripture passage(s): (choose which you will memorize)
o  Practice poem(s):
o  Other memory work:

Narration (all subjects)
o  Oral narrations of readings
o  Reader's Journal: one page, twice a week, on any of your readings (choose which you will write about)
o  Keep Book of Centuries and/or other notebooks handy as you read or listen; make entries at the end
o Other kinds of narrations: dramatic, musical, artistic...

Easy Grammar Plus (workbook), pages 188-205

Write with the Best Vol. II
o  Unit 4: Persuasive Essays.  Day 1 (read "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine), 2 (look at definitions of essay, thesis statement)
o  Day 3 (reread Common Sense and look for arguments, main point, conclusion), Day 4 (consider topic and thesis statement for a persuasive essay)
o  Day 5 (5 Objectives), Day 6 (Begin writing essay)
Homework over Christmas break: continue working on your essay.  Look at Day 7, 8 etc. for guidance.

Read How to Read a Book, Chapter 10, Criticizing a Book Fairly (this is the point where the reader gets to talk back)
o  Teachability as a virtue, pages 137-140.
o   Read The Role of Rhetoric, pages 140-141.(Note: this is a short section, but I think we might need to explain about the Trivium a little more than Adler does here)
o   Read The Importance of Suspending Judgment, pages 142-145

Mathematics:  Mathematics: A Human Endeavor.  Chapter Three, Functions and Their Graphs

Lesson Three
o  Introductory problems
o  Functions with Line Graphs, Set I, Questions 1-23 (workbook)
o  Functions with Line Graphs,  Set II, Questions 1-21 (workbook)

Lesson Four
o  Introductory problems
o  Functions with Parabolic Graphs, Set I, Questions 1-18 (workbook)
o  Functions with Parabolic Graphs,  Set II, Questions 1-16 (workbook)
o  Optional: Set III: the price of a pizza

Lesson Five
o  Introductory problems
o  More Functions with Curved Graphs, Set I, Questions 1-16 (workbook)
o  More Functions with Curved Graphs,  Set II, Questions 1-14 (workbook)
o  Optional: Set III

Lesson Six
o  Introductory problems
o  Interpolation and Extrapolation: Guessing Between and Beyond, Set I, Questions 1-13 (workbook)
o  Interpolation and Extrapolation: Guessing Between and Beyond,  Set II, Questions 1-15 (workbook)
o  Optional: Set III: racecars
o  Summary and Review, Set I, Questions 1-15 (workbook)
o  Summary and Review,  Set II, Questions 1-14 (workbook)
o  Further exploration, as time permits

Education is a Discipline: Mrs. Dowson Follows Up (Part One)

Abridged and adapted from this Parents' Review Article:  The Discipline and Organization of the Mind. Pt II, By Mrs. Dowson, L.R.C.P & S., I., in the Parents Review Volume 11 1900, pages 137-148. Mrs. Dowson is having a conversation with "Uncle Eric" (Richard J. Maybury) and anyone else who wanders by.

"And then, of course, there is 'A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste.'  Today, Y&R joins UNCF in celebrating its 40th anniversary -- 40 years and still going strong. The line, as you know, has seeped into our culture’s vernacular. It’s been appropriated, copied, parodied and mangled in the retelling. Who of a certain time and place can forget former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle’s tongue-tied tripping over the line, which he recalled as “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind”? The real line was so ubiquitous and so beloved, that his faux pas was banner news that day and struck a note of blasphemy that was heard around the world." ~~ David Sable in Advertising Age, March 3 2011 

Uncle Eric: Sometimes I think the connection between law and economics was better understood two hundred years ago than it is today. An economy is en ecological system every bit as much as an ocean or a rainforest. (Quote from Whatever Happened to Justice?)

Mrs. Dowson: We are so accustomed to scrap knowledge, to mental powers wasted for want of discipline and organization, that it takes time for us ordinary parents and teachers to see the crying need for a better intellectual economy.

M.S.: What do you mean by intellectual economy?

Mrs. Dowson:  Economy in the sense of not misspending our intellectual resources, or wasting the opportunities we have. There are wise people who tell us that not only in the higher forms of higher schools, as in Italy, but all through the process of education after the primary state is passed, children should be taught about thinking and reasoning, about knowing and not knowing, and even something concerning the deep problems of existence.

M.S.: Are you talking about philosophy? That's not something we study systematically in our curriculum; we are not directly studying Aristotle, for instance.

Mrs. Dowson: But you are teaching them, through their other studies, to think and reason, and that they can know, that it is possible to know.

M.S.: Yes, we were talking about that yesterday.  How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig uses an analogy of finding the right key that unlocks a door to truth, and I said that in today's culture it's more common to question not only the existence of the key, but of the door as well.

Mrs. Dowson: Learning to "think" is not a separate subject. The children should be led... into the art of organization, the art of bringing all they learn, science, letters and what not, into some approach to a unified, inter-related whole. If we can effect this, we shall be able to put into the hands of a child an instrument of moral as well as of mental discipline, and a piece of work to do that nobody else, great or small, has done or ever can do for him.

Charlotte Mason: We begin to see light. No one knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man which is in him; therefore, there is no education but self-education, and as soon as a young child begins his education he does so as a student. (source)

Mrs. Dowson: However wide may be the territory of knowledge over which, by grace of other men, he wanders, a child who has acquired power to do this organizing work will not be likely to become an intellectual tramp or to fancy himself a king. However carefully he may have learnt to observe and to define, it will not be the fault of his education if, in after life, he loses sight of the many considerations that qualify the value of his results, and limit the scope of his operations.  He at least will not be likely to make the mistake so frequently made by men one would expect to know better, the mistake of regarding a simplicity of method in study for a simplicity of the one subject of all study, human experience.

Education is a discipline: Mrs. Dowson and Synthetic Thinking (Part Two)

Part One is here.

Abridged and slightly adapted from "The Discipline and Organization of the Mind,"  by Mrs. Dowson, L.R.C.P & S.,I. (Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Ireland), in The Parents' Review, Volume 11, 1900, pgs. 83-92

M.S.: How would you describe a good school environment?

Mrs. Dowson:  Is provision made there for giving a child's mind the discipline it needs to enable him to overcome the difficulties of the general distracting intellectual disorganization? Is the need, not only for giving him knowledge, but for giving him the chance to organize it as it comes, practically recognized? Do his teachers always recognize that, only if he has this chance and acts upon it, will he be in a position to overcome the troubles that are sure to come upon him in consequence of the prevailing specialism and the lack of unified knowledge in those with whom he will have to deal?

M.S.: Have you found this to be true of many schools?

Mrs. Dowson: We shall hardly go too far if we say that most teachers and most students are sadly wanting in this respect. We may even venture to say that many teachers would be hard put to it to tell us how the fullest possible organization of mental powers and mental possessions can be effected; and what form the necessary discipline should take.

M.S.: Why is this so?

Mrs. Dowson: The art of education lags behind the science; and the science is not listened to, nor heeded when it cries aloud.  The leaders in educational science are applying the lessons of personal experience, and they are telling us how we may bring its benefits to bear in the mental discipline of our children; but, unless I am doing them a grave injustice, the practical teachers of England remain, for the most part, either opposed or unconvinced.

M.S.: So you're saying that the evidence is out there, but it's not acted upon?

Mrs. Dowd: In some places it is. We hear that in Italy young people in the highest classes of the Lyceums are taught about their own minds and the way they work, are shewn how to reason well and find out when reasoning goes ill; they are led on to know when they do not know, and to discern the difficulties of knowing at all and of knowing what knowing means; they are made aware of the oneness of things in their apparent diversity and of the steps men take in trying to get at the heart of the simplest of those things and of the whole.

M.S.: Let me see if I understand this: bringing the "scraps of knowledge" together is like synthetic thinking. There needs to be more unity of thought in education, some way of organizing knowledge. Is this the only approach that seems to work?

Mrs. Dowson: It is true that there are other instruments of discipline--a good piece of Latin prose is one; but I doubt whether there is any other way, except one which is outside the range of 'practical politics,' by which knowledge can be redeemed from the evils of specialism.

M.S.: What about science? Wouldn't it work to emphasize scientific training, teach the students to approach any question with the scientific method?

Mrs. Dowson: The cyclone of science with its practical application sweeps regularly over and through the midst of us, right into our mental lungs....but for the most part, what is taught in schools in the name of science is the thing aptly called 'the brute scientific fact.'

M.S.: What do you mean by "brute fact?"

Mrs. Dowson: The brute scientific fact is of little more educational value than the equally brute historic date, or king, or battle, in which our grandmothers took pride. Botany, for example, is usually taught in schools just as the lists of kings and queens and ware were taught to our grandmothers: it is taught as a more or less cooked-up arrangement of brute facts about plants, their characters, their structure and their functions, served with a sauce of scientific moralizing about heredity and environment and the like. Its chief advantage over the strings of royal names and the glib questions and answers of a Child's Guide, accompanied by historical platitudes about the 'greatness' of one person and the 'cruelty' of another, lies in the fact that the plants are not dead and buried out of sight like the kings, but are alive and may be looked for, and picked, and brought into the schoolroom. Botany may be taught in a way to train the mind to accuracy of observation, a power the value of which, for the wise person, it is difficult to over-estimate. This is one of its advantages; but even the advantage brings a danger.

M.S.: What sort of danger?

Mrs. Dowson: I repeat with some emphasis that, for the wise person, or for the child whom his teachers are seriously and intelligently trying to develop into a wise person, the power of observing accurately is of enormous value, but for the foolish person and for the child taught by foolish persons of a certain type, there comes with it a grave intellectual peril, never more perilous, perhaps, than at the present time--the peril in which a man stands who has the essentially superstitious habit of believing excessively what he sees, and either disbelieving, or posing to himself and other people as disbelieving, everything he does not see.

(To be continued tomorrow, and I promise it is going to be very interesting.)