Armadillo’s Book Blog

1. My 12 yr. old aka dd built a hovercraft as part of her science fair project. Having watched the Junkyard Wars episode on hovercraft, I was quite worried about whether it would ever get off the ground and had actively discouraged dd from choosing this as her project. However, on her own, dd located really excellent plans for building the hovercraft. (The skirt folds in on itself and so forms a closed pouch, and then dd punched holes in the center of the bottom pouch. Which is much more efficient than an open skirt — all the air immediately pushes down.) Then, with just a short lesson about machine tools from her dad (and he did oversee the work) dd pretty much built the whole craft in a day, then took another day to punch the holes and attach the leaf blower (most of that time was spent worrying about where to put the holes). Herself. For example, dd came up with a very clever scheme for where to cut the air holes using a protractor and a pencil on a string for deciding where to cut them… ANYWAY, no limbs, not even any blood lost on the construction. Dd had allocated a week of debugging, but pretty much none was required.

THEN, in terms of the experimental design — dd was trying to determine whether additional weight slowed or sped up the hovercraft — I could tell that she had really no way of even starting to think about what her hypothesis should be. SO, I steered her (really, just emailed her a link) to a webpage with Newton’s 3 laws of motion. And, it was astounding how quickly she understood what F=MA means. And also, when you can sit motionless 1/2 inch above the ground, the law of inertia starts to make a WHOLE lot more sense.

Then, she weighed each of her classmates and had them ride the course she’d laid out to get the data. We had MANY volunteers.

And then, there came the time when dd had to write her report and create her board. I think that figuring out what the difference between “weight” and “mass” are and what the word “gravity” means took the most time. Finally, I pulled out our older daughter’s old AP Study Guide to Physics B & C, and the light bulb turned on over all our heads. No one really knows what the word “mass” is — it a property of matter having to do with how gravity affects it. And so, what is “gravity” — it is a theoretical force that explains how matter interacts. So we got to learn what recursion means, and at some point dd stopped and said, “How come this took me so long to understand? I must be very stupid.” (Must’ve been all of 20 minutes.) And I pointed to the cover of the AP Study Guide to Physics B & C and asked her if she knew what an AP was, and pointed out to her that this was a book for sophisticated high school students, and that, really, it was obvious from the definitions that even physicists don’t truly understand these terms.

Then, there were some very “smart people” (dd’s words) who served as the judges. They were very impressed with dd’s board and with her deep understanding of Newton’s laws. The hovercraft gives you SO many ways to understand inertia. It does not move (horizontally) unless force is exerted on it. It then goes and gives no indication that it intends to stop, once pushed. And then — action/reaction. So there is the leaf blower blowing air down. And — SOMETHING is blowing that air right back up. And that air is pushing the hovercraft up off the ground. (Enough air to lift a 300 pound adult. AMAZING. EERIE.)

Anyway, go now. Build a hovercraft. It is fun. Exciting. To build and ride.

2. Every year dd’s school goes on an Intensive Studies trip. This year’s was to the Southwest. We’d never seen the Grand Canyon before. We live on the coast, where it’s mostly cool and damp most of the time. We had some friends of the school show us Hopi. (The entire trip website is not completed yet. But here are some of the pages.)

One of my photos was named Sony’s Picture of the Day. We saw so many magical places.

So, it was a good school year. I don’t have any idea if dd learned any math or English. Next year is her last year at this school. I am already traumatized at the thought of investigating high schools. Perhaps we’ll just home school.

a review by the mother of a gifted homeschooler

I’ve now read TWTM twice and have had time to think about it a bit. I like SOME things about classical education in general and TWTM in particular, but others, I’m not too keen on.

First of all, Piaget’s stages of development have been known to be incorrect for years (even though they’re often taught in psych 101). They just aren’t true.

Having a true “grammar stage” would be acceptable to some students but just plain painful to most gifted ones–and beyond that, for math, at least, it is simply counter-productive. For example, TWTM predictably likes Saxon math, with its emphasis on rote memorization and the execution of algorthims as a substitute for actual mathematical thinking. While many gifted children will accept this, it is not a good idea. There is, quite frankly, a very good reason that Susan Wise Bauer did not major in science, mathematics, or engineering. Most classical education curricula provide a very poor background for these things. The prediction in TWTM that students will find upper level math and science “hard” is not representative of the difficulty of the subject so much as the completely lack of decent preparation.

Memorization of facts, which is an emphasis of a classical education, provides a framework around which everything else you learn can be hung. Whether it’s dates or mathematical facts (and this from someone who HATED memorizing math facts), there are certain tools that are important to build a body of knowledge upon.

Also, many schools now completely neglect all language arts, and classical programs usually offer a very good program for those. History is often dreadfully dull and incoherent as presented in schools, and most classical plans make it important, relevent, coherent, and at least fairly interesting. Primary sources are important, but they are not the be-all and end-all of math or science or history studies for very important reasons.

For a subject-by-subject critique of TWTM from my point of view, since it’s the most popular book on classical education, click here.

– Sophia

www.notadestination.com

Inspired by the thought that “People of most faith traditions are called to love one another and to be responsible stewards of God’s creation. … Global warming is not a political issue; it is a moral issue.”, a local church group has blitzed our community with multiple showings of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. They presented it on several school days right after school at a church just down the block from the middle school, and on several nights as well. They made An Inconvenient Truth convenient to get to at least.

And yet, as someone who is capable of transitioning from “denial to depression” (as Al Gore calls it) in hyperspeed, I was reluctant to go. After all, if I was ever in denial about global warming, I can’t recall it. But as just one person in a pretty overwhelming world, I am (still) not certain what I can/should do.

But just look at this invitation:

Students, parents and teachers are especially invited to attend. We need to give our kids the training they will need to deal with the broken earth we are leaving them. “Imagine we are 17 years into the future and share a brief conversation with our children and grandchildren as they are living their lives in the year 2023. Imagine now that they are asking us: ‘What were you thinking? Didn’t you care about our future? Were you really so self-absorbed that you couldn’t – or wouldn’t—stop the destruction of Earth’s environment?’ What would our answer be? We can answer their questions now by our actions, not merely with our promises. In the process, we can choose a future for which our children will thank us.” An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore, 2006.

How could I not go, and how could I not take my 11 year old daughter?

Well, my daughter was not enthusiastic. It’s going to be DEPRESSING, her friend told her. And I thought that might be true.

But it wasn’t. Al Gore narrates the film and he speaks from his experience. The anecdote he started with totally captivated my daughter. Gore shows a flat map of the earth, with South America and Africa in the center. And describes how when he was in grade school, a classmate commented that those two continents looked like puzzle pieces, as if they once fit together. The professor responded that this was a stupid idea. The continents are too large to have ever moved. And that student went on to become a ne’er-do-well and drug addict, and the professor went on to a high-ranking position in setting environmental policy in our current administration.

My husband could not attend — he is buried in the proofs of his upcoming book. And when we returned home, dear daughter was just plain exhausted (we went to the last, evening performance). And he said to her, “Al Gore has the reputation of being a wooden speaker; what did you think of the movie?” Dear daughter replied, “I thought he was wonderful. I thought the movie was wonderful. I was afraid that the movie would be too depressing. But he presented the facts so clearly. And at the end, he does provide a long list of actions we can take. I want to do all of them, and when I’m older, I want to vote for people who won’t lie to us about climate change.”

Yes, we did learn about the very depressing plight of the polar bear. And, yes, it is amazing how many glaciers and permafrost have already been lost and are continuing to be lost. And those in our government are still actively engaged in deceiving us about the science and scope of this impending disaster. And yet, it is still possible that we can slow these changes and possibly reverse them. If we try.

I’m thinking that maybe this Christmas, all anyone gets is a CD of An Inconvenient Truth.

Please make sure you and your children see this movie. We need great minds, in addition to Al Gore’s, to get involved with this.