On the Nature of Discourse in Blog World

I like to read other blogs.

In the evenings, on days when I am free to do so, I like to sit down with a cup of tea (Licorice Spice, Hot, with Honey), and check out the homeschooling world of blogs. I really enjoy peeking into another person's world to see how they do what they do and to read about how they live their lives. I particularly enjoy reading blogs written by people from different walks of life who have different experiences than I could ever have and who have wisdom to offer that I would not experience otherwise.

Last night I checked in on a blog I have reading once or twice a week. It is written by a single, gay homeschooling mom who also runs a farm and lectures at a university. (I have not yet learned what she lectures about--I think it may have to do with animal husbandry). Anyway, I "tuned in" last night to see what she was thinking about lately. She had been discussing some controversial issues in her last few posts and she had posted a link to the blog of someone who had flamed her. I went to that link to see what that person had said. That person had well and truly flamed her--using generalities and personal attack in a way that has become sadly familiar to me on message boards and in certain parts of the blog world. As a consequence of this flaming, this woman wrote last night that she may be taking a break from the blog world for a little while. I will be sorry if she does because I was learning a lot from her. I had posted several comments to previous posts, and although I do not totally agree with her position, I hope I came across as someone who respects her arguments.

All of this has lead me to consider the nature of discourse in blog world. Actually, I've been thinking about the nature of controversial discourse in our culture in general. In 1992, while I was working in the Long Term Ecological Research Center's UNM campus lab, I was also exposed for the first time to right-wing talk radio. Some of the lab techs liked to listen to Rush Limbaugh--it seemed to be a sort of prurient interest on their part, as they had political views that were diametrically opposed to Rush Limbaugh's diatribe. I listened to several shows and was not impressed with what I heard. It was not that I disagreed with Rush on some issues, although I did, so much as that I was concerned about the way he handles disagreement. His response to any disagreement with his views amounted to blustering and name-calling. I rarely heard an argument that led to anyone actually thinking about an issue, and never did I hear an exchange that led to mutual respect at the end. At the time, I bought myself a walkman tape player to use when it was my turn to acid-wash glassware, and I ignored the issue.

Now, though, as I watch with dismay how the culture wars have played out, and how entrenched our political parties are in ideology and how unable our leaders are to cross the aisle and actually get something done about important issues, I wonder about the Rush Limbaugh effect. At present, on those occasions when I tune into our local talk-radio station (usually when I am driving and need to hear the traffic report), I have heard a number of different talk hosts who sound much the same as Limbaugh. None of them appear to be interested in real discourse on an issue nor are they interested in solutions. Rather they appear to be interested only in vilifying those they disagree with. They speak in generalities, insist loudly upon their own rightness in the face of contrary evidence, and assault the character of anyone who disagrees. There is no discourse in which citizens may examine issues and consider them in order to vote. Ideology triumphs over reason. Further, those who follow such ideologues most closely tend to suspend reason in order to be honored as "dittoheads" on the air.

A problem I see with this is that it has become acceptable in other realms--on the internet, on TV and even face-to-face. It has replaced the discourse that is vital to the health of the republic with something else. It has become acceptable to say to someone: "Since you are a Democrat/Republican/Gay/Christian/Jew/(fill in the blank), I don't have to listen to what you have to say and I already know what your position is on any issue and it must be wrong.

I think one reason for this state of affairs is that, with some exceptions, our schools have not taught two generations (now going on three!) the art of constructing a logical argument nor the art of identifying logical fallacies. To make it even worse, schools have not taught the majority of students the difference between the right to express an opinion and the need to demostrate the veracity of the opinion. (When I taught science, I had students insist that because they had the "right to an opinion" that meant that we all must accept that the opinion is right. It almost seemed as if they had no sense of reality outside themselves).

In any case, I think that as homeschoolers, we have a responsibility to learn the art of constructing a logical argument and to teach it to our children. We need to model and teach respect for others in how we listen and respond to them. And we need to make our portion of the blog world a place where many different people have a voice and receive a respectful hearing. One can disagree--respectfully. We could contribute greatly to the quality of discourse in this nation, and thereby to the strength of our United States (remember: Out of many, one), if we model respectful discourse among ourselves, and teach it to our children.

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Now, for something completely different!

Today, N. and I read about the Greek Olympics and about the battles of Marathon and Thermopylae. N. was fascinated with the story of the run of Phaedippides for reinforcements at the battle of Marathon. He made a picture of the runners and the Olympic torch. We put it on our timeline. While he was making the picture he keep saying: "Phaedippides, Phaedippides!" I think he really liked how the word rolled off his tongue and how it sounded to his ear. He may forget much about history, but I bet he does not forget about Marathon and Phaedippides!

N. also liked the poem that cqn be found on the stele at Thermopylae. He has repeated:

"Stranger, go tell the Spartans..." many times today. This is the fun part of teaching--when something we talk about really captures a student's imagination!

Falling Barometer: Just One of Those Days

Last night while our class was discussing the Brown v. Board of Education decision, it did it again! It started snowing. By the time I reached my truck after class, it was starting to stick. By the time I drove through the canyon and started up Via Sedillo, I was slipping and sliding. That part of the drive seemed surreal because the snowflakes appeared to be forming a tunnel in front of the windshield as I drove. I did not need my wipers!

This morning we woke up to an inch and a half, and Bruce decided to shovel the driveway path. He shouldn't have bothered, it has all been covered again as I write. This morning, though, there was a great deal of wind and the clouds were racing across the sky. We thought that it might be frontal weather indicating clearing, but, alas, it was only the storm front for a second wave of snow.

N. woke up with more energy today, but he was still coughing. He was not motivated to do any work, but I made him do some anyway. We read more of Coolidge's The Golden Age of Greece . He didn't mind that so much, because we cozied up on the couch under a down comforter (my Australian friend over at the Homeschooling Aspergers calls it a doona). Then I suggested he do a picture from the book and write a short explanation with it. He was not thrilled to do the picture, but he took his board into the living room and did it. I showed him how to lay out the caption: Title, date, short explanation. He waved me away and I went to prepare the next activity--Brain Engineering exercises--while he actually wrote the caption.
When I checked his work, he had run several words together and misspelled others. So I told him that he had to correct it. Oy vey iz mir! You'd think I'd asked him to go to work in the salt mines. He muttered that I was making him into a Helot (the Spartan term for slaves) and clattered his pencils around, giving me a truly thunderous mad face, as he did the corrections. (I am glad he remembered what a Helot was). He was mad at me all through the Brain Engineering exercises--which involved finding hidden pictures and identifying what is wrong in other pictures. He was still mad through the memory exercises that went with it. He was really mad when I started to fix lunch and asked him to fetch apple juice from the garage.

I admit it. I let his mood affect mine. I snapped at him and banged a few plates around myself. When I got a grip, I checked the barometer. Sure enough, it was falling...fast. It went down several hundreths of an inch in less than an hour. Kids are little barometers! I noticed that when I was teaching high school science--the whole class would suddenly become cranky in my chemistry lab, and I knew, with no window, that a low and a storm was coming in.
Come to think of it--I am a barometer, too. The sudden sense of frustration came to me from a sudden physical discomfort. The pressure change. As an adult, I am the one who had to identify the problem and deal with it--even though I really wanted to bang around more plates. So I forced myself to breath s-l-o-w-l-y in and out ten times. Then I explained to N. what was happening and showed him the barometer. I told him that I was sorry I snapped and that his behavior does affect others, as does the weather.

We ate lunch. We cleared up. I gave him some free time so that I could prepare for Neurobiology class. But I never did go to it. That falling barometer was a harbinger of more snow. It started snowing hard as I was getting into the truck. The temperature fell to right at freezing. I ended up pulling the notes off the class website, and by looking at the power point as well, I think I have a reasonably good understanding of Action Potential.

But I did take this picture this morning from the kitchen window. A raven was being blown before the rotating storm clouds. The bird very gracefully changed directions and moved across the flow of the wind. Beautiful. "To live with grace, to ride the swell, to yet be strong of will..." The balance can be difficult.

Connections and Freezing Fog

ALOHA! The 57th Carnival of Homeschooling is up over at the Palm Tree Pundit . Anne has put together some good reading about Connections for homeschoolers. Visit the carnival and make some connections .


Yesterday, after math and reading, N. came with me to my Neurobiology class because he had boy scouts soon after and I don't like to drive into town more than once. Gas is still pretty pricey and there's greenhouse gases to consider.


Here is a picture of N. relaxing in the new Domenici Medical Sciences Center before class. We went to the Medical-Legal Student Bookstore and found a really neat pen called the PenAgain. It is shaped so that you hold it correctly for neat writing and it reduces hand strain. They can't keep it in stock at the Medical School! Heh, heh.
I was going to buy one for N. and for me--we both have really messy handwriting--but unfortunately I left my purse in the truck. That was the first in a day of forgetting. After class, we went to Borders where we would meet DH and he would then take N. to Boy Scouts. But N. somehow left a bag with his scout uniform and book at Borders (or somewhere!) because by scouts he did not have it. GRRRRR!


Today N. is sick. A coughing, feverish, stuffed-up kind of sick and he has no energy to do anything. We are missing his science class at Explora! as I write. But I don't want to take him out. It is very cold here, and windy, and we have had a freezing fog over us all day.
I am having such a hard time getting us into a routine since the Bar Mitzvah and now that UNM has started up again. But if the kid is sick, he's sick! I will have to adjust and that's all!

I used the extra time today to clean up my office and get organized to study for a test next week in Neurobiology. The test will cover cellular organization of the brain, anatomy of the brain, membrane potentials, action potentials, electronus and propagation along axons, ion channels (in cell membranes), and sensory transduction. I have not taken a test like this in at least 10 years. I'm just a little nervous! I think the freezing fog has entered my brain!


I've got to go study and prepare for my Special Education Law class. I had to download a copy of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution and prepare a definition of justice. That class will not be too bad, although I can tell that I am starting with a different viewpoint about rights than are most of my classmates.

I wanted to close by showing a picture of one of our Juniper trees coated with freezing fog. We just don't get this kind of weather around here very often. This winter has been a bonus for us. And it is really beautiful! A fact of which I will remind myself as I scrape the truck to drive to class today.

Every day in winter during the Amidah (standing prayer), we praise G-d "who

causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall." If we change the word "rain" to "snow", we are getting exactly that. We are grateful for the El Nino and for the precipitation, even the freezing fog.

A Subtle Change in the Light

Yesterday morning when we took the dogs for a Shabbat walk up the ridge in front of our house, we saw the most amazing sight. Fog surrounded our mountains on three sides--covering Juan Tomas to the south, the Estancia Valley to the southeast and Mountain Valley to the North. We don't get a lot of fog here--so this was truly a time for us to "turn aside and see this great sight."
Above is the morning sun above the fog over Juan Tomas and the Estancia Valley.

We noticed something else as well. The light is changing. We are yet one week out from Groundhog's Day, which is the cross-quarter day between the Winter Soltice and the Vernal Equinox. The change in the quality of the light as well as the length of the day is becoming very noticable. The sun is rising about 20 degrees north of the winter solstice point.

It is still cold in the mornings and evenings.
Snow still covers the ground as it has for six weeks. But the light is stronger and is the unmistakable harbinger of the coming spring.
In the old calendar, next Saturday would be the beginning of spring. And we can feel it coming.
And the birds are singing in the mornings in the snowy woods now.
Next Saturday is also Tu B' Shevat--the Jewish New Year of Trees. I am planning a week of study surrounding that holiday culminating in a Tu B'Shevat Seder next Saturday afternoon. This is the first time in a number of years that I have felt excited about this minor holiday. I think that living up in the mountains now, and the real winter we are having, has contributed to my sense of the change of seasons.

One of the rewards of homeschooling is that we can turn aside to see the miracles that surround us everyday. We are not always hurrying. Hurrying to be "on time" according to someone else's schedule. When we were always hurrying due to being oversheduled, I am not sure we achieved more (which is the goal) and I know we often could not turn aside and see the great sights that lie right in front of us.

There is a midrash about the burning bush in Parashah Shemot. The midrash states that the burning bush had been present for anyone to see, but only Moses took the time to turn aside and "see" that the bush burned but was not consumed. If you think about it, noticing a bush on fire is something anyone might do. But it would take someone who had the patience to watch would see that it was not consumed.

I am so grateful we can take the time to notice the change in the light. The fog over the valley. Who knows if we will every see this sight again?

Above is South Mountain as seen from the Via Sedillo. The Mountain is up to her waist in fog.

A Day with the Brain

Yesterday was a good day for N.

In the morning, we did our usual routine--Shacharit (the morning prayer service), then math and critical thinking.

But after critical thinking, we had set up an internet conference with Dr. Cheri Florance in New York City. She is an audiologist who has developed techniques to help very visual people use verbal pathways effectively, so that they can be successful academically. She did this first to help her son Whitney, who had symptoms of auditory processing problems, hearing loss and autism. You can find her story in the book Maverick Mind if you want to know more about it. Click on the hyperlink to go to her website.

Anyway, Dr. Florance tested N. yesterday, giving him an Auditory-Visual Learning test and a Sound-Symbol Associator test. N. did stunningly well on both, indicating that he is very gifted using his visual pathway. The problem seems to be that he uses his visual pathway in ways to interfere with the use of his auditory sequential pathway, this creating problems for reading and other sequential tasks like organizing himself. We are working with Dr. Florance to teach N. how to use the best pathway for different tasks so that he can realize his great potential and become successful in academic environments.

It is interesting. N. carries a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome (AS) which is a high-functioning form of autism. It is thought that some people with autism are extreme visual thinkers. This appears to be the issue for N. So he has difficulty communicating with people who are highly verbal in their patterns of thinking.

After the internet conference, N. went with me to my Neurobiology class. He goes with me on Wednesday because he has Machon (religious school) in the evening. This week, we met in the Gross Anatomy Lab, so that we could do a brain dissection and learn the major anotomical landmarks of the brain. N. was allowed in the Gross Lab--there were no cadavers out--and the professors were delighted to let him hold the brain and they answered his questions. N. noticed a lesion in the occipital lobe of the brain. The professor said: "See what happens when you eat too much candy! Just kidding--but this brain might have had trouble with processing vision." So N. learned that visual processing takes place in the occipital lobe. He told me later: "My occipital lobe must be very big--I am a visual learner!"

The other graduate students are determined to persuade him to become a neurologist.

The openess of the professors and other students to my son's questions is something that I deeply appreciate about science. When I taught science, I took a student to the Intel International Science Fair. There I saw internationally known scientists and Nobel prize winners on the floor with students in the exhibit hall, tracing pathways, drawing diagrams and having a great time discussing their field.

I imagine that my N. will become some kind of scientist or engineer. He is the son of a physicist and a biologist-turned-teacher, and the step-son of an engineer. His older sister, ML, spend her mid-school and high school years vehemently insisting that she would NOT be a scientist. NO WAY! She'd heard enough of that at the dinner table to last her a lifetime. She is now finishing a B.S. in Chemistry and she is planning to intern this summer at Sandia National Labs with an organic chemist as a mentor. She plans to go for the Ph.D. in Chemistry. You could say the lady did protest too much!

Some statistics show that a child of one scientist has about a 40% chance of going into science and a child of two scientists has a 75% likelyhood of going into science. It appears that certain ways of thinking have high heritability--probably due to differences in brain structure and function that we are only beginning to discover.

We had a great day with the brain yesterday!

Carnival of Homeschooling #56

The 56th Carnival of Homeschooling is up over at The Thinking Mother.
And Christine is really in thinking mode this week with the theme January Musings.
There are 45 entries to choose from.

I am going to curl up with my laptop for the next few evenings and enjoy them all!
I love what I am learning from the diversity of the homeschooling community.
You are all amazing!

Once Again Unto the...Drift!

Weather Report: On Friday night-early Saturday morning, we got about one inch of snow here in Sedillo.

On Saturday afternoon--evening, we got about 3 inches more. The yesterday, from afternoon--night, we got about 3 and 1/2 inches more. (The measurements are approximate because we had strong winds that blew and drifted some of the snow. To the left is snow drifted against the neighbor's fence.

The drift symbolizes where I feel we are right now!

Today, the East Mountain schools are closed, as are the Moriarity schools. Although I allowed N. to go outside and play with his sled this morning, I do feel the need to get some work done today. N. disagrees and is working under protest. So we are having one those days where it is very difficult not to get into a power struggle with him. I think one of the problems is that I did not start the routine right away. We did not pray the morning service and that part of our routine is missing. Missing a piece of the routine really puts N. out of sorts--and of course, the fact that the "school" kids are having a snow day, increases his frustration.


How did I manage to "forget" the morning service? Well, my morning routine was somewhat upset because I had to check the goverment, business and school closure list (at KKOB online--thanks KKOB!) in order to see if there were any delays for UNM (ML, my 21 year old had class today) and Sandia National Labs (for DH). There were no closures or delays for any place in Albuquerque. So ML went off to school. Just as I was feeding the dogs, she called to say that she had slid into a ditch. DH and I began clearing his car so he could pick her up. Then, just as we were leaving to rescue her, ML called to say that a guy with a "mongo" truck got her out of the ditch. She missed French and managed to throw the routine.


N. is not the only person who gets out of sorts when the routine changes. I do too, although I cannot have a melt-down.

So today, we are feeling somewhat out of kilter, and I am feeling very unproductive in the homeschooling department. I guess we have to chalk it up to "one of THOSE days." I know they happen in school, too. It's just that my goal has been to hit the ground running now that the Bar Mitzvah is over. However, it has been feeling more like start, fart, stumble and fall!


We've been rather "drifty" instead of organized of late.


One productive thing I have done today is take a picture (right) of the beautiful ice sculpture in my dooryard.
It is melting now, even though the air temperature is below freezing. The intense solar radiation against the house wall (two feet to the right in the picture) makes it much warmer near the porch than it is further out in the yard. Isn't this pretty?

The snow falls when it is time to fall. The snow drifts before the wind when the wind blows.
I make plans--but sometimes I forget that those plans are not set in concrete. Sometimes the wind changes and my plans need to change too.