Casteluzzo Academy Term 2 (Greeks)

During my blog hiatus, I did attempt another Casteluzzo term. This time we made it about halfway through before I had a root canal and was sick for months, Tony went through a couple of jobs, and everything kind of fell apart again. At this rate, it looks like I will successfully complete a term by about mid next year. It's not the learning curve I would prefer (i.e. instant perfection), but at this point, I'll take it. I guess it's time for me to return and report on this term, since it was officially supposed to end this week.

Overview: Term 2 - Greeks
Since last term we read Gilgamesh and some other very ancient history, we spent this term very focused on the Greeks. Although this schedule was Tony's and mine, Axa has been calling herself Hercules for the past several months. Go figure.

Sunday Reading:
Joseph Smith Manual. I pretty much kept up with this, and it was nice to have read the lesson beforehand when I got to Church. It was also nice to have read the lesson beforehand when I didn't get to Church. I've spent more Sundays home sick in the past few months than the rest of my life put together.

History:
History of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. I very much enjoy this book. He chooses his philosophers for their historical impact as well as philosophical relevance, which rounds out and gives great context to my history studies. I have loved Bertrand Russell ever since I read A Free Man's Worship in my freshman philosophy class. For him, truth is a passion and a necessity. He never believes anything for comfort or convenience. Interestingly, I find that many of his contentions with conventional Christianity are well addressed by the Gospel as restored through Joseph Smith. My curriculum tells me that I am actually right on schedule in my reading, which is funny, since I ditched the schedule weeks ago, and have been reading him strictly for pleasure.

Herodotus. Never got this one checked out from the library, more's the pity. Next time around. I love Herodotus.

The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton. Fascinating little book by one obviously enamored of the Greeks. I ended up gobbling this one before I took it back to the library. It's a great overview of the most important people in golden Greece.

Nibley. We were supposed to read a couple of essays from Early Christianity and Enoch. I nibled around, but not these particular ones.

Parenting:
Rearing Responsible Children. I think I finished this one too. I'm starting to feel better about this term.

Philosophy:
Plato. Apology and Republic. So, I was never that fond of the Republic, and Bertrand Russell has a serious antipathy toward Plato. I wouldn't want to live there, anyway, although I do appreciate his assertion that women would make as good of guardians as men. But this time through the Apology, I was deeply moved. Socrates reminded me of nobody more than Abinadi. He is no otherworldly madman. He is deeply affected by what is happening, and has his own fears and sorrows. But he is unmoved in his conviction, and wonderfully courageous to the end.

Education:
A Thomas Jefferson Education. Somebody loaned me the original book and the how-to manual. I read through both, twice. Oliver DeMille is a great salesman. But few of his ideas (and none of the useful ones) are original. And personally, he rings a little hollow. The best analysis of him that I've heard came from a friend who called him a "pied piper."

A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason (vol. 6). This was very enlightening. I was especially fascinated by the extensive section on curriculum. I'll definitely be referring back to this.

Natural History:
Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony by Lewis Thomas. Easy reading, but thought-provoking. I skipped around. I didn't actually make it to the title essay. His style is engaging and his thoughts interesting. However, I think he makes the great works list more through lack of many colleagues writing popular essays in his area of expertise than through any extreme genius of his own. Still, worth reading.

Music:
The Book of Musical Knowledge. I picked this up at a library book sale. It's fascinating, but impossible to keep up with when I schedule a reading only once a month. I did read the chapter on primitive and savage music. I just read a similar piece out of The Lost World of the Kalahari, about the instruments invented by the Bushmen.

Drama:
Timon of Athens by Shakespeare. Didn't read it, but I want to. Alcibiades appears.
The Birds by Aristophanes. Had to take this back to the library halfway through. Dying to get back to Cloudcuckooland.


Literature:
Themistocles by Plutarch. This either, more's the pity.

Literature:
The Iliad by Homer. I didn't get this checked out of the library. I need my own copy badly lest my ears be boxed by Alcibiades.

Literature:
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Tony and I have two chapters left of this, and we've been enjoying it immensely. It's our snuggle time reading.

Science
Parts of Animals and Politics by Aristotle. So I got bogged down in Parts of Animals and never made it to Politics, which I think I would have enjoyed more. Mine's abridged. I think I need a full version. It did seem disconcertingly disjointed, although the editor explained in the introduction that Aristotle's writings had been edited and complied already in the first century a.d., so any further editing shouldn't affect it adversely. Balderdash.

Foreign Language
Italian - Pimsleur II A and B. I made it through A, and never made it to the library to get B. We do still sing a hymn and read scriptures in Italian, though. We get at least a meager daily dose.

Ancient Greek - I spent many hours sick in bed with Teach Yourself Ancient Greek. I am proficient in the alphabet and some basic grammar, and I have a vocabulary of several dozen words. I need to keep at it so I don't forget it all. I desperately want Athenaze.

For the Bobbles, I have been downloading audiobooks for Axa from librivox. Favorites have been Church's Iliad for Children, Kingsley's Heroes, and Charlotte's Web (courtesy of Grammy).

We go on a nature walk once a week in our nature preserve, and we've been collecting things for the nature table. Axa started a nature blog. They still spend their requisite outside time.

Axa's chores include feeding the goats and chickens and checking for eggs. She also makes her bed, cleans her room, puts away her laundry, and gets herself and Raj dressed (when he cooperates) and sets the table.

Tony does mental arithmetic with Axa fairly often. And both she and Raj are fascinated with the concept of "matches," and find them everywhere (today Axa told me at lunch that she would only eat foods that matched (cleverly including the yellow pineapple, millet, and custard, and excluding the green peas and orange carrots and yams. she made an exception for the white milk, but I didn't point it out).

Other than that (and the myriad unplanned learning moments), I haven't done any other homeschooling lately. But I think things are going fairly nicely. Once I have it down on paper like this, it all looks a little better than when I hopelessly compare it in my head to the unattainable (but perfectly planned) ideal of perfection I have.

Oh, well. We don't want to miss the rainbow in the mad rush for the pot of gold.

A sun far off in a shell of silence

Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on swiftly tilting planet . . .

We visited the nature preserve. The sycamores were shivering, half naked in the wind. My children ran ahead, delighting in every new flower and leaf and bird. I walked behind them. Our yard is full of birds these days. We must be far enough south that somebody else’s birds come here to overwinter. I recognized the goldfinches again a few days ago. I hadn’t seen them since late summer.

This year I am grateful for a thousand little gifts of grace. Those birds, the blue of the sky, the collection of seeds and nuts and pods my children bring in from outside. The trees that change their colors and drop their leaves and the trees that don’t. Warm milk, fresh eggs, grass beneath the soles of my feet. I have never been so aware of the gifts of the earth. Nor of the Giver, who maketh his sun to shine on the just and on the unjust, showering love on those who recognize it and those who don’t. That sun shines so abundantly here. Even as the days shorten and the shadows lengthen, there is time each day for me to walk outside, close my eyes, and feel warmth and radiance.

And so I shiver, like the sycamores, when I feel the wind. Yet even as it blows, I turn my face to the ever-present light. I envision it bursting forth over the blackness and emptiness of space, and flying through thousands of miles to reach me as I stand on a little blue shivering earth. And I think of the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. That proceedeth forth . . . to fill the immensity of space. Not to touch a few points or throw up a faint glow in the distant corners, but to fill the immensity of space. I saw Eternity the other night, like a great ring of pure and endless light . . .

Should I not pause in the light to remember God?

Namaste, I say to Him as I finish my yoga practice. My tiny, flickering light salutes the great and everlasting Radiance that is You.

To be or not to be

dog owners, that is. I was thrilled a few weeks ago when someone posted a dog on freecycle. Axa and Raj love the goats and chickens, but their efforts to play with their animal friends are often unsuccessful and always comical. I thought it would be great to get them an animal that would play back. And what could be more logical than a dog? We corresponded with the owner a few times, and she brought the dog over yesterday afternoon. He was everything she said: sweet, beautiful, energetic, sensitive, and great with the kids. Unfortunately (also as billed) he was an escape artist. He got out three times in the six hours we had him. Twice Tony caught him, and once it was my turn. He just went loping down the road, sometimes looking back, but ignoring my calls. After two blocks, he slipped through a fence into a field. I said a desperate prayer and squatted down and called his name in my most excited voice. He turned around and ran back to me, grinning. I was exhausted and shaken up. I guess it was beginning to dawn on me that a new dog would be a big time, energy, and worry commitment. I'm just not ready for another child right now, not even one with four legs and two soulful, mismatched aussie eyes.