Friday, April 27, 2012
Week 29
After a nice week long break, we are back at school. To get everybody warmed up we did some "easy" stuff. For example, we sat down and started right out on Ethics. You know, where you only have to think...a lot. We studied Aristotelian Ethics and ethics in the modern day. We compared Fatalism to Determinism. After that class, if you haven't already guessed, we were wide awake. Then we did Life Skills math and then jumped right into Latin. Now that class was...confusing. We started noun declensions. For those of you who don't know what that is, don't worry, I'll tell you. Noun declensions are endings that go on Latin nouns to tell the reader if the noun is a subject, direct object, predicate noun, direct noun or a indirect noun. Get it? Okay, of you don't then, sorry. For the rest of you, now you can act like you knew it all along. Then we did a new Cornelia. Now that was a different story. That part was interesting!
For whole other reason, this was the best week EVER!!!!!!!!....so far. That is because it was Rue's first week at school. Rue, is my four month old puppy! And she gets to come to school with us! I posted a picture of her at the end of the blog. Anyways, getting back to our day, we all had lunch, then we did math. Just to give you an idea of how much Rue enjoyed math, when we started trying to figure out the problems, Rue fell asleep. On Tuesday we did History, where we traveled to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. We talked about Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten, and his wife Nefertiti. Then we came back and had Science. We are moving onto crickets, grasshoppers, and locust. We read a bunch of books, and one of them was how people regularly eat grasshoppers. The book is called Man Eating Bugs. It shows a bunch of bugs people eat all around the world. Some of them are REALLY gross. And it comes with recipes. We learned that grasshoppers shed their skin like a snake about 5 or 6 times before they are adults. Each shed is called an "instar". When they grow wings, it means they are adults and stop shedding. The book also said that they lay 2-202 eggs. We all agreed that that was a big difference and not very helpful. Then after lunch we did math, again. And again Rue fell asleep. But not after she tried to eat my work. I guess she really doesn't like math.
And that brings us to today. We started out with Reading Comprehension and read half of the play Oedipus Rex. After that we did spelling, in which we did prefixes and some Latin derivitives. I have a question for you: do any of you know a word with the prefex "dendr-" meaning tree or bush? We could only come up with dendrology and rhododendron. Just leave your answer in the comment section if you know more. Then it was time to go to the Telling Room, where I am writing this. And then, we have co-op tomorrow and internships on Friday. I cannot wait(of course)! It is just so fun! But enough of that, I have to wrap this up. So...the end.
written by Sophie, (student)
Here is a picture of Rue! Isn't she so cute?
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Weeks 27 and 28
Due to the onslaught of both Easter and Passover last weekend, I wasn't able to get to the blog, so I'll be reporting out on two weeks here. In addition, this wraps up our last week of classes before April break! I think I can speak for everyone when I say that it's a much needed and much deserved rest.
We've been experiencing a few cases of interesting synchronicity across and within several of our classes. In History, we've just left the Greek Dark Age for the Egypt of the New Kingdom (18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties). In Reading Comprehension, we finished Aristophanes' The Clouds and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, and we've moved on to Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. We also happened to finish studying the Greek Theater in Ethics. Once we read Euripides, we've completed a work from each of the Greek play-writes.
In Ethics, we've left the Socratic and Platonic schools of thought, and we've moved onto Aristotle. Aristotle's more scientific approach to ethics branches into philosophy and a kind of applied logic called Propositional Calculus. The Sophists that we had been studying earlier in Ethics had used a basic form of logic that was easy to manipulate. They would use its manipulative nature to confuse and convince their audiences. In fact, the Sophists were the first "lawyers". My students, like Aristotle, had found basic logic frustrating. Now, knowing Aristotles' inclinations (through Ethics) and his rationale for Propositional Calculus (from Logic), the students are actually experiencing the relief that come with being able to PROVE why an argument doesn't "feel right".
Another example of "worlds colliding" occurred between our History/Reading Comprehension/Ethics classes. In history, we've been watching how various empires are fighting for boundaries: the Hittites, Hyksos, Egyptians, Assyrians, etc. We've seen references to these groups of people in the Greek plays that we've read. We're now able to answer questions like: Why was it so important for Oedipus to answer the riddle of the Sphinx?; what did this 'challenge' symbolize, historically?; what was Aristophanes' satirical criticism of Socrates based on?; weren't Aristophanes' frustrations due to the fact that he was applying Aristotle's logic to Socrates' arguments?
Lastly, we've continued our study of entomophagy as a jumping-off point for Science. We're moving into grasshoppers/locusts/crickets. In addition to their basic anatomy, we will be studying the various cultures who routinely eat them. It just so happens that we'll be starting our reading of the New Testament soon, and I'll be sure to point out that John the Baptist's "bread" that he ate during his stay in the desert was locust. And, we'll have to re-read our Old Testament passages that mention potential grasshopper sightings: Leviticus 11:22 specifically allows the eating of locust, grasshopper, and katydid. In addition, I'd like to suggest the possibility that the "manna" from heaven that sustained the Jews in the desert could have been locust swarms.
As you can see, there are lots of connections lately. There is nothing more rewarding to hear your student say "Oh, hey, that TOTALLY makes sense because..."
We've been experiencing a few cases of interesting synchronicity across and within several of our classes. In History, we've just left the Greek Dark Age for the Egypt of the New Kingdom (18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties). In Reading Comprehension, we finished Aristophanes' The Clouds and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, and we've moved on to Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. We also happened to finish studying the Greek Theater in Ethics. Once we read Euripides, we've completed a work from each of the Greek play-writes.
In Ethics, we've left the Socratic and Platonic schools of thought, and we've moved onto Aristotle. Aristotle's more scientific approach to ethics branches into philosophy and a kind of applied logic called Propositional Calculus. The Sophists that we had been studying earlier in Ethics had used a basic form of logic that was easy to manipulate. They would use its manipulative nature to confuse and convince their audiences. In fact, the Sophists were the first "lawyers". My students, like Aristotle, had found basic logic frustrating. Now, knowing Aristotles' inclinations (through Ethics) and his rationale for Propositional Calculus (from Logic), the students are actually experiencing the relief that come with being able to PROVE why an argument doesn't "feel right".
Another example of "worlds colliding" occurred between our History/Reading Comprehension/Ethics classes. In history, we've been watching how various empires are fighting for boundaries: the Hittites, Hyksos, Egyptians, Assyrians, etc. We've seen references to these groups of people in the Greek plays that we've read. We're now able to answer questions like: Why was it so important for Oedipus to answer the riddle of the Sphinx?; what did this 'challenge' symbolize, historically?; what was Aristophanes' satirical criticism of Socrates based on?; weren't Aristophanes' frustrations due to the fact that he was applying Aristotle's logic to Socrates' arguments?
Lastly, we've continued our study of entomophagy as a jumping-off point for Science. We're moving into grasshoppers/locusts/crickets. In addition to their basic anatomy, we will be studying the various cultures who routinely eat them. It just so happens that we'll be starting our reading of the New Testament soon, and I'll be sure to point out that John the Baptist's "bread" that he ate during his stay in the desert was locust. And, we'll have to re-read our Old Testament passages that mention potential grasshopper sightings: Leviticus 11:22 specifically allows the eating of locust, grasshopper, and katydid. In addition, I'd like to suggest the possibility that the "manna" from heaven that sustained the Jews in the desert could have been locust swarms.
As you can see, there are lots of connections lately. There is nothing more rewarding to hear your student say "Oh, hey, that TOTALLY makes sense because..."
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