I'm exhausted

I'm hoping for an early bed night, maybe with a good book.

Along the good book lines, I'm reading Charlotte Mason's Home Education for the first time. I'm only as far as the preface, but am already finding food for thought. I'll try to post some bits I found interesting soon.

We got a dusting of snow and a freeze after several days of rain last night. Every other school at least got delayed, if not canceled outright. We had class all day. Oh well. At least seeing the ice crystals on the sidewalk while walking to class was neat.

I'm sorry I don't have deeper thoughts at the moment, but today was a very long day. I left the dorm at five till eight and got back at 12:40. Then I left again an hour later. So I'm a tad brain-dead.

Art History resources

These are a few resources that have come up recently in my Art History course (Medieval Art and Architecture). These would be helpful for homeschooling, or for anyone interested in this sort of thing.

Turning the Pages: A British Library website where you can look at a number of original manuscripts online and turn the pages with your mouse. It is amazing. The Lindisfarne Gospels, The History of England by Jane Austen, and Mozart's musical diary are a few of the possibilities. Did I mention how cool this is?

The Bayeux Tapestry on Youtube: An animated version of the Bayeux Tapestry. Honestly, the music is my favorite part. I got Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, and O Fortuna.

Make your own Bayeux Tapestry.

Thinking about language

I've been taking Russian for the last three semesters. It's an interesting language to study because it's so much more subtle than English. Russian makes all kinds of distinctions that English doesn't bother with, or at least doesn't bother with anymore. For instance, if you're going somewhere on foot you use a different verb than if you're going somewhere by transport. And then there's the imperfective/perfective question: is this a repeated action or are you going to/have you done it one time and one time only? English really only uses "to go" in these situations. Well, I guess you can count "to drive" and "to ride," but that gets a bit iffy.

And then there's "where." English uses "where" for "Where are you?" and also "Where are you going?" and "Where are you coming from?" Russian uses a different word for each of these. My professor explained it in terms of where, whither, and whence. Which is interesting, because suddenly I understand so much better how both the Russian and the English words function. This is true of whom as well. Before I studied Russian I couldn't point out the direct object of a sentence to you and I don't know if I had even heard of indirect objects. But because Russian uses different cases for the subject, the direct object, and the indirect object, I can now figure out what they are in English. Most of the time.

Which leads me to this: sometimes the things we study make strange connections to entirely different areas. I mean, who knew that studying Russian would clarify English grammar for me? I guess there is some correlation there since they are both languages. But I just wrote a paper from my art history class which relied heavily on the ideas of the historian of religion Mircea Eliade, whose work I had first read in my Celtic Spirituality (Christianity, although it didn't say so) class first semester.

And leads me finally to this: let your mind make connections. We usually get our education in discrete packages: this is art history, this is math, this is English, this is Russian. We don't have to leave them in those discrete packages. Cut the string and let them be friends. Okay, yes that metaphor was a little strange. But you get the point. There are interdisciplinary connections. Explore them and see where it takes you.

In case you missed it...

All the fuss about words.

For me, words are judged by two criteria: beauty and precision.

Most of us know that there are certain words and combinations of words which are extremely (almost ineffably) beautiful to the ear. For instance, my favorite word is silver; I find most tree names lovely as well: ash, poplar, beech, brich, elm. This is not because of something in their meaning, although I like silver and most trees quite a bit, but simply for the pleasant sound that they make when spoken or read. Like Lord Peter Wimsey, I find it very easy to be drunk on words, just the sounds of them. If, as is proposed, language is reduced to the lowest common denominator, all beauty is ruthlessly stripped from it. No more Shakespeare, no more John Donne, no more King James Version, no more Dylan Thomas, or Gerard Manley Hopkins, or Tolkien (perhaps especially him because of his love of the archaic) or even e.e. cummings. Even if their works were "translated" into a more "acceptable" form they would not--could not--survive because they would not remain themselves.

This is partly because the precision of them would be gone. Take, for instance, the last line of Manley Hopkins' "The Windhover":

and gash gold-vermilion.

Nothing terribly difficult about that--gash, perhaps--except for vermillion. That's simple enough to fix. Vermillion is just a sort of red. So, stick red in and there you are:

and gash gold-red.

Or there you aren't. Because, aside from completely and utterly destroying the rhyme and meter, the precision of the sentence is lost. Red is a broad word--it is quite likely that someone reading the amended sentence would think of a glorious rich, dark red; a very lovely color to be sure, but not the intense orange red that is vermillion and so not the right word. To reduce language to the lowest common denominator is to lose the ability to communicate accurately.

Words matter. Theologically speaking, the changing of one word or part of a word can very easily mean the difference between right belief and heresy. Thus, it is the difference in 'Theotokos' and 'Christotokos' which separates the position of the true church from the Nestorians. King Solomon, all those thousands of years ago, knew that words have power for "a word fitly [my emphasis] spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." We cannot take lightly any attempt to wrest them from us.

The Deputy Headmistress brought up a comment which posited a sort of conspiracy theory. I agree with her that it is probably overstating the case, but this sort of idea about language is indicative of a mindset which is deeply disturbing; one which desires, consciously or unconsciously, a dumbing down of the general populace and a lack of independent thinking.

Just because I'm feeling protective of my words, here's the full text of "The Windhover." Hey, they'd even have to change the title of that one! It's full of lovely words.

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on a swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,--the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

~Gerard Manley Hopkins

A college education

I came across a link to this post at LAF the other day. This post may not make much sense unless you've read it, so go do that.

I am not a wife or mother and therefore it may seem that I'm blowing smoke or speaking out of place. However, since that is my (eventual) goal, I see nothing wrong with educating myself as much as I can now.

Although I plan to be a stay-at-home wife and mother (if it is God's will) I am also attending college. There are several reasons for this. First, my parents, especially my father, encouraged me to do so. Second, God gave me a good mind and I want to develop it as best I can. College is not the only way to do this but it can be a good way to. I firmly believe that a woman ought to be able to support herself and her family if something were to happen to her husband. For me this will probably mean getting a teaching degree. This necessitates my going to college.

However, these are my choices which are supported by my parents and which seem, as far as I can tell, to be in accordance with God's will and plan for me. They are not the choices for everyone--not because some people aren't smart enough to go to college but rather because God has different plans for each of us. Some of us will be called to go to college, others won't. Neither group need judge the other. That is not to say that we won't, but that is a function of our fallen nature, not the facts.

My two cents in the on-going discussion.

"Boring" classics

I have Google Alerts set to send me anything about Charles Dickens and this Guardian article popped up today. It was honestly one of the sadder things I've ever read. I knew that education was bad, I knew it was going in that direction, but to have a free gift of some of the greatest books in the English language rejected for Japanese manga (no offense manga fans, there's nothing necessarily wrong with it, IMO) is highly depressing. Go ahead and read the whole thing. I'm adding commentary here.

Dozens of schools have rejected gifts of free classic books because today's pupils find them too 'difficult' to read, it has emerged.

Let's start here. They're free. These schools are not being asked to pay money, taxpayer or otherwise, to buy them. They're being donated. But today's pupils find them difficult. And heaven forbid we even think of challenging them a bit.

Around 50 schools have refused to stock literary works by the likes of Jane Austen, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens after admitting that youngsters also find them boring.

The worrying figures were released by the Millennium Library Trust, which donates sets of up to 300 books to schools across the country.

David Campbell, who runs the Trust, also revealed that a further 50 schools had sent back the gifts as they were on the verge of closing down and another 40 said they had no library to store the books.

This organization evidently sends not only Dickens, Austen, and Shakespeare but George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, and J.R.R. Tolkien to schools in England. Good grief, it sounds like a great idea to me! But then I doubt the idea would work here either.

The bottom line is getting the pupils to read, whether it's a newspaper, comic novel or magazine.

"In an ideal world, I would love it if the pupils came into my library and requested some of the classics, but the fact of the matter is that pupils today are living in a different world."

She added that pupils are more interested in Japanese comics rather than literary greats. "Kids love action and adventure," Miss Read said. "They want books that excite them and are current. They love fantasy.

"The books for nowadays are Manga, the Japanese comic books that you read from back to front."

It's funny how quickly that, "As long as they're reading, it doesn't matter what they're reading" argument has caught on. As far as I'm concerned it's absolute rubbish. It does matter what they're reading. I hate to say it, but there are good books and there are bad books. I'm not saying that manga is necessarily bad (I haven't had enough exposure to it to say) but it is not Jane Austen. It is not Charles Dickens. It is certainly not Shakespeare. It's not even really George Eliot. The article isn't really clear if Tolkien's books were among those sent back or not, but if they were then it's very odd that the librarian thinks they love fantasy. I suspect they weren't sent back, if only because the movies are still fairly recent.

Another school, which rejected the free 'Everyman's Library' books, wrote: "The paper jackets are ugly and unattractive and the binding is dull and boring.

"What is needed is the familiar paperback format with attractive jacket and abridged versions."

Strange, I own several Everyman's Library editions and find them to be very attractive. My "Rossetti" poems book comes with a nice dust jacket, good paper, and a ribbon to keep your place. That 1906 edition of Jane Austen I was raving about? An Everyman's Library edition. And let's see. They are free. They are not costing you a penny. If you don't have room that's one thing, but to send them back because they're too boring? Hmm. No sympathy here. A call for an abriged edition is ridiculous unless you are talking about War and Peace or Les Miserables. Abridgments only edit all of the beauty out of the author's prose. If these kids are used to abridged editions no wonder they haven't learned to love the books.

"These book were not considered too difficult. It is shocking that they are being described in this way and children who have been taught properly should have no problem enjoying them.

"It can only mean that standards of literary are much lower that the government claims."

Hmm, you think? Especially considering there are numbers of people out there who love them. Do you think they suddenly wake up in college and decide to love them? Some probably do, but there are others who have been reading them since age 10.

However, not all the responses were negative. One school librarian wrote: "We are a low-achieving high school, but we're improving. I would never have been able to find the money in my meagre budget to buy copies of these classics."

That is encouraging. At least there are a few children and a few librarians out there who will have the opportunity to be exposed to these books. Not all of them will learn to enjoy them, but perhaps one or two will. That's all right with me. I am unhappy that some adults seem to think that because children haven't learned to like something they have had little exposure to, they will never learn to like it. Did they like olives the first time they tried them?

If we put the bar low that's all anyone will ever learn to jump over. If we raise it, we will probably find that at least some will find it in themselves to jump over.