Poems for Homes: "That memory may their deed redeem/When like our sires, our sons are gone"

Memorial Day reading list -- pieces written and sung long ago but fitting for today:

"Concord Hymn" (Emerson)

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

"To Lucasta, Going to Wars" (Lovelace)

Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee (Dear) so much,
Lov'd I not Honour more.

Nickel Creek's "The Hand Song" is a modern, moving story about a young soldier who learned to give it all at his mother's knee.

Thank you, dad and John John for your lives of service. "If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful." (CS Lewis)

Poems for Homes: Lit Bit

Lit Bit Enrichment Class

Below is the syllabus from the enrichment class for 4-6^th graders at our Fine Arts co op. Class goals: a "treeline" overview of literary genres and devices, demystify some terminology, and introduce children to great works.

Start with these descriptions:

Literary Device=Writing Tool (metaphor, alliteration, rhyme, etc)

Literary Genre=Writing Type (novel, play, poem, etc)

The class was meant to be a supplement only to the children’s language arts classes at home. It was comprised mostly of 10- and 11-year-old boys, and it took place Friday before lunch.

Hence we avoided writing exercises for the most part, and instead did some acting, reading aloud, drawing (hyperbole and onomatopoeia), a few games, fun worksheets, and had good discussions.

For example, we might discuss the definition of alliteration and then read a line or two (or three or 10) from a great work illustrating it.

This “treeline model” proved to be a great way to just introduce them to a few great works of literature in a way that was non-threatening and palatable to wiggly 5^th grade boys. (And it was loads of fun for their teacher.)

At the end of the year the children presented memory work – 10-30 lines they chose to memorize from several selections offered.

How delightful is it to hear the first 13 lines of Chaucer’s "General Prologue" from The Canterbury Tales on the lips of a skinny, 11-year-old, tow-headed boy in sneakers and baggy shorts? “When April with her showers sweet with fruit/The drought of March has pierced unto the root…” Or to hear a tousle-headed, tee-shirted boy who loves Bionicles recite Antony’s speech from Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. ”Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him…”

How delightful to hear a wee little slip of a girl with a brown ponytail boldly recite “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” “Half a league/ Half a league/ Half a league onward/All in the valley of Death rode the 600…”

Or to hear a freckled boy with round glasses whose mom is battling cancer recite Robert Frost. This child chose “The Road Less Traveled.” “I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence…”

Yes, my dear, and so shall I.

In many cases, Wordsworth’s line that “the child is father to the man” is very good news.

Syllabus: Lit Bit, 2010-2011 academic year

Each semester we covered various aspects of literary structure. We discussed each aspect, read and analyzed samples from great works of literature, and in some cases, wrote our own samples.

Fall Semester: (a sampling of) Literary Devices

Simile

Metaphor

Hyperbole

Alliteration

Onomatopoeia

Rhyme

Allegory

Spring Semester: Literary Genres

This semester, in addition to studying the genres below, each child memorized a piece of literature from a great work. (They chose from a list comprised of pieces from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Byron, Tennyson, and Frost.)

What is The Western Canon?

Fiction vs Nonfiction VERSUS Truth vs Falsehood

Encyclopedia/Dictionary

Play

Novel

Poetry: rhyme, meter,

Haiku

Sonnet

Fairy/Folk Tale/Fable

Parable

Newspaper/magazine article

Propaganda/Advertisement

Sermons on Mark

For those interested in studying the Gospel of Mark (we are studying Mark 9 under the insightful Peter Dietsch at our own church this month)... here are some sermons on the Gospel of Mark, from my brother, Scott Redd, who is a professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary:

Mark 2: Felt Need, Deepest Need

Mark 4-5: Sea Storm and Man of the Tombs

Those are audio links.

Homeschooling, in SALON

We are back in the new school year, and here in a new town, so I find myself answering some familiar questions about home schooling from people I meet.

I am glad they ask, it means they are open and curious. Sometimes people seem disapproving, and there are certainly some assumptions made by people about home schooling. But most people seem genuinely curious.

The main questions I hear when we move to a new place and make new friends are: "Why do you home school?" "What about socialization?" and something along the lines of, "How do you do it? Do you start in the morning and go all day like in regular school?"

I thought I'd do a blog on these 3 questions at a later date. But first in this blog I'd like to link to two interesting perspectives on homeschooling from the left-of-center home school crowd, in links below.

For my more traditional friends, also want to add I am not advocating taking your children to bars late at night or "un-schooling."

But I digress...

There are some interesting points and perspectives in these links, especially about socialization (most famously and capably handled by Susan Wise Bauer in the homeschooling classic, The Well-Trained Mind, intended for non-sectarian home schoolers as well as Christian ones) and also specialization.

Home schoolers are a group of diverse people. After all, people rarely fit rigidly into one mold. There is a spectrum of people involved on home schooling -- politically, financially, and culturally -- and they overlap in areas. Going to a home schooling convention or meeting or support group can mean sitting next to people you would otherwise never cross paths with, and enjoying it. It is good.

I know of a home schooling mom whose children wear school uniforms and sit in a row in little desks. I have met moms whose children wear their pajamas until noon and do their school sprawled across the floor.

Most of us fall somewhere in between. Both of these approaches would make me a little crazy, though when we moved here before our furniture did, we had no choice but to do our workbooks on the carpet. (And you know, the good news is that the kids were able to do it. An unintended consequence of home schooling can be flexibility -- mentally and physically -- cue wry smile.)

I saw this diversity among home schoolers more in China than in anywhere else, where, due to the exorbitant cost of private schooling and the Mandarin and communist nature of public schooling, many expat. women home schooled who otherwise wouldn't.

Confessions of a Homeschooler

Sour Grapes

Top 10 Reasons to Home School

10. Pajamas and pancakes during memory work and devotions.

9. You can safely doze off during afternoon SSR (sustained, silent reading)

8. I get to go on every field trip. Heck, I get to pick every field trip!

7. It is socially acceptable to cuddle during read-alouds.

6. The kitchen crew is available during morning hours.

5. My human encyclopedia, Will, is always at the ready with scientific data.

4. Three little words: Done By One.

3. No need to flatten down cowlicks except on Sundays.

4. Owning lots of good Kingfisher and DK books!

3. The town library, the nature preserve, and Starbucks are satellite locations.

2. Vacations in the off season!

1. The learning never stops...for mom, too.

Matthew Henry quotes

Quotes from Matthew Henry

I have a brand new Matthew Henry commentary on the Bible ("Nelson's Super Value Series!") which I got from Borders this summer.

From Romans:

"And we all know how soon a man will contrive, against the strongest evidence, to reason himself out of the belief of what he dislikes"

From Exodus:

"It is a sign of guilt to be angry at reproof."

"Sometimes the Lord suffers the rod of the wicked to lie very long and very heavy on the lot of the righteous."

About our attitude towards the church and the foibles of its members: "But we must take heed of being set against the ways and people of God, by the follies and peevishness of some persons that profess religion."

On Moses faithful mother and his little reed boat, "And if the weak affection of a mother were thus careful, what shall we think of Him, whose love, whose compassion is, as himself, boundless? Moses never had a stronger protection about him...than now, when he lay alone, a helpless babe upon the waves. No water, no Egyptian, can hurt him. When we seem most neglected and forlorn, God is most present with us."

Genesis and Dysfunctional Families

The kids and I just finished Genesis in the mornings, and we noted the following repeating themes coming down through the generations of God's people, starting with Cain and Abel and moving on down through the ages. Faith marks this family -- many of them have great faith in acting as God commands, and following His commands to move great distances, but there are some markers of dysfunction we took as a warning for all of us today.

* Brothers as rivals and competitors
* Jealousy and/or favoritism, as a partial cause of the above, and always simmering under the surface
* Trickiness! "Parsing" words
* Marital infidelity

Escape from Presence

Here is an amusing and insightful excerpt from an old Cary Tennis column in Salon. It is about the increasing inability of all of us -- in this virtual world -- to achieve Absence. (And here I am, blogging on it. Rich.)

...The problem is compounded by the fact that the very definitions of presence and absence have changed; absence has become contingent; presence has become inescapable. No matter where we are, our virtual selves remain under surveillance.

Until recently, one could actually achieve absence. One could go somewhere and be gone. The traveler would send postcards. The postcards would have pictures of beaches or statues. They would be eagerly awaited and gratefully received. Absence was simple. It was an absolute condition, soon relieved by presence. Presence was also an absolute condition.

No more.

Now absence and presence are contingent and variable, matters of degree and form. A person may cease responding to e-mail and achieve a sort of absence although he or she remains in place. Or a person may go to India and yet be as present as always.

A version of us is always present. We are over-connected. We spy on each other from afar.

The quality of our absence is thus degraded. Absenceness is a precious resource we are fast running out of. Soon there will be nothing but presence. We will wish we could go away but will not be able to. The pain of constant presence will be too much for some to bear; it will be a torture like that of sleep deprivation. There will be a rash of virtual suicides, in which people disconnect themselves and appear to be dead. We will have virtual funerals for them. This will all come in time...