Throwing Marshmallows

Can I just say for a moment that I am really enjoying having “older” kids?

I was not sure what to expect when the boys and I headed out to the National Book Festival today. They seemed excited about seeing Terry Pratchett in person (our new absolutely most favorite author…we are on the third book in the Tiffany Aching series, Wintersmith, and can’t get enough of Discworld and the Nac MacFeegles). But still, spending a day in the crowds on the National Mall listening to authors talk about their books? I wasn’t too sure how it would go over.

So I decided that we would go see Terry Pratchett (luckily he was scheduled for noon) and then play the rest of the day by ear, figuring that I wanted the kids to have fun and if all else failed I could watch the talks via the web.

We headed out and took the metro downtown, getting there in plenty of time (a small miricle for me). Walked around a bit, checked out where they were selling books but decided that we did not want to wait in that long of a line. Went over to the Science Fiction and Fantasy tent and got seats in the very back. I have to say that Terry Pratchett definitely lived up to my expectations. I wasn’t sure how much the boys enjoyed it because he talked a lot about his adult novels (he has kids books and adult books set in the same Discworld with overlapping characters…very fun!) But he was so funny that Jason especially really enjoyed it.

We then walked down to check out the kids activities, but did not find much interesting there (a lot of stuff for younger kids). Went back to the book signing, but realized that the line was way too long to even attempt. At that point, there were still a few authors that I wanted to check out, but we still had over an hour and half wait until the next one we wanted to see and I really was not sure that they would last that long. We decided to get lunch and see how we felt. The kids tackled played with each other out on the grassy area while I waited in the incredibly long lunch line.

By the time that we finished, we had only 15 minutes until Holly Black (co-authored The Spiderwick Chronicles) so we decided to head over there. Another great talk and she read from her new book Ironside. Also found out that there is a new Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles series…the first is called The Nixie’s Song. They are planning on 3 books I think.

We had another hour to kill before so the boys decided that they wanted to check out the book sales tent again. This time the line was reasonable, so we picked up The Nixie’s Song and Ironside (although I think that we will wait a bit for Ironside…I checked on Amazon and I think that some of the subject matter is a bit mature for him…it is actually recommended for 14 and up. That is one nice thing about books, they don’t go bad!). For Kyle we picked up Martina The Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale by Carmen Deedy and Skippyjon Jones and the Big Bones by Judy Schachner.

Headed back to the Children’s Tent (did I mention that we did a fair amout of walking?) to see Carmen Deedy but had a little bit of time to kill, so I read Martina which we all thoroughly enjoyed. But I have to say that I did not do the story justice…which became very obvious when we heard Carmen tell it in person! My friend Parrish had mentioned that we should not miss her talk and she was right. Carmen is a fabulous storyteller! Jason commented on how she changed the story from the book and we talked a bit about the difference between storytelling and writing for a book.

Then it was time for MT Anderson. This was a bit drier for the boys, as he spent a fair amount of time talking about his book Octavian Nothing which is set in Revolutionary War times (which I, of course found fascinating). He did answer some questions about Whales on Stilts (the boys really enjoyed this). He talked a lot about what inspires his books…for Whales on Stilts he said that there had been a couple of whales that were washed up on a beach near him. This got him to thinking about what if whales, instead of being the harmless, gentle creatures we think they are, were instead just biding their time and waiting to invade complete with laser eyes. And how else would they do it, but on stilts? Neat.

After that, it was a crowded ride home on the metro. We finally got home around 6pm. Whew.

The only disappointment was that the lines for the book signings were way to long (and out in the hot sun) and that due to some sort of brain freeze, we totally missed Jack Pretlusky (we have some of his poetry books).

The neat thing is that we had an absolutely wonderful day. Despite all the walking and the waiting. I gave them plenty of chances to decide to go home, but they wanted to stay. I do think that Jason got more out of it as he really seemed to enjoy the talks. Kyle had fun, but tended to get a bit bored more often. And I only had to bribe offer ice cream once.

Amazingly, I just checked and they already have the webcasts up! That is pretty darned amazing. You can find the video on each author’s page. Neat! Definitely check it out. They are great. And I just noticed that they also have podcasts of interviews with different authors. How cool is that…

Now I am beat! I hope to get some pictures up soon. Did not have the energy to download them tonight.

Just read over on Salon’s Machinist blog about how Amazon has opened AmazonMP3 similar to iTunes where you can download songs and albums. One nice difference is that most of their songs are offered cheaper (.89 instead of .99) but the biggest difference is that the downloaded songs will play on any device, both iPods and non-iPods. It seems that previously, for the most part, download places were divided into iPod only downloadable (like iTunes) and those that could not be downloaded onto iPods. Which meant that if you had an iPod, you could not use certain sites (this has been a problem I have had at times finding places other than iTunes and Audible.com where I can download audio books). So I was really glad to hear that AmazonMP3 songs will work on my iPod.

I have always had a philosophical problem with the monopoly that Apple has when it comes to the iPod and downloads (not enough for me to not use it though…I really love my iPod!) so this seems like a good thing. Of course the selection is not as good as iTunes so far, however Amazon is a big name in and of itself so I think that it has a good shot at having just as good a selection. Competition will be good, I think.

Check it out!

I was listening to Howard Gardner talking on NPR about his new book, Five Minds for the Future. According to the review on Amazon:

Psychologist, author and Harvard professor Gardner (Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons) has put together a thought-provoking, visionary attempt to delineate the kinds of mental abilities (”minds”) that will be critical to success in a 21st century landscape of accelerating change and information overload. Gardner’s five minds-disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful and ethical-are not personality types, but ways of thinking available to anyone who invests the time and effort to cultivate them: “how we should use our minds.”

He has taken his studies about multiple intelligences and worked them into a more of a “how to” exercise of looking at what skills are important in this day and age. Fascinating stuff.

Anyone else read it? I might have to look for it when I hit the library this week…

Looks like John Warner is ready to retire. For a Republican, he was not really half bad. I will say that I appreciated his ability to stand up for what he believed in (even if I did not agree with him all the time) and not just toe the party line. At least he recognized that there were other points of view out there. He also understood what it meant to be a Senator and took his office very seriously. Not to mention, he was a very senior Senator…no matter who wins this time around, Virginia will have two very junior Senators. So on the whole I am a bit sad to see him go (unlike my gleeful joy at seeing George Allen go down in flames).

This brings up an interesting opportunity. Right now it looks like Mark Warner will throw his hat into the ring for the Dems which is great as he did an outstanding job as Governor and if Virginia did not have this weird one-term limit rule would still be Governor (although I will say that I really like Tim Kaine as well). Where it becomes interesting is that Tom Davis (R) who is currently my Congressional Representative is looking to make a bid for the seat as well. Which means that I not only get to vote for Mark Warner, but against Tom Davis.

Which also means that the House job is open as well (haven’t heard who is interested in making a bid for that yet). Which means that next year I have the best chance ever to NOT be represented by Republicans! I could actually live in a state with a Democratic governor, 2 Democratic senators, a Democratic Representative (in addition to my current state rep who is a Democrat). Yikes. Who woulda thunk. Is Virginia actually finally going blue?

I know, I know. I am not going to count my chickens (donkeys?) yet. But a girl can dream, can’t she?

I received an update email from NBC Nightly News with this promo about tonight’s broadcast:

How well does Illinois Senator Barack Obama get along with his chief rival for the Democratic nomination for President? It’s one of the questions Brian Williams asked Obama today in a one-on-one interview.

This is what NBC felt was the most noteworthy question to highlight about a major presidential candidate? Whether the candidates like each other? What does he expect Obama to say? I swear everyone is looking for “dirt” rather than discussing issues of any importance. Earlier I saw a report where people were trying to say that Michelle Obama was taking a crack at Hilary. Everyone wants a cat fight and that is all politics seems to be lately. John Edwards is trying to raise the profile and discussion about poverty and all you can find is coverage of Elizabeth Edwards and Ann Coulter.

Are the American people that shallow that all we want is to hear about $500 haircuts and debate whether Barrack is too “feminine” and Hiliary is too “masculine”? Or is the mainstream media just pandering to the lowest common denominator and trying for ratings?

We are supposed to be having a national conversation about where this country is going and what do we see on the news? Fluff and nothing important. Who likes who and who said what about who and who said something about nothing important. Now I will admit that my eyes glaze over when I hear candidates going on about specific “plans” especially when you realize that by the time the plan is implemented it will not look anything like what is proposed (any other Virginians get a kick out of how Jim Gilmore basically won the governorship by promising to get rid of the car tax? I do…every time that I send in my car tax payment). But I do want to hear about what a candidate feels are important issues and where they want to take us and why. Call me idealistic, but I want a candidate who believes what they say, whether it is popular or not.

It just bugs me when there are so many more important things to discuss (like how the Bush administration has drastically changed the balance of power in our system of checks and balances in ways that are extremely scary) how the mainstream media goes running after the latest distraction (Oooh! Look! Something shiny! Maybe it will help ratings!).

I find that I can hardly stomach mainstream national news ever since the awful sensationalism of the Va Tech shootings. If I hear about something I want to know more about, I try to check it out on NPR. And thank goodness for Bill Moyers on PBS. At least there is some place that I can hear a news program with some substance and things that make me think and question. That goes beyond sound bites. And that has some heart and integrity.

Bah. I just don’t get this society that we live in sometimes.

I first heard the Throwing Marshmallows quote after which this blog is named when I was reading the Unschooling.com bulletin boards years ago. I loved it and asked the author if I could use it as my signature line. She agreed. I don’t remember how long I used it as a sig line. When I started thinking about a name for my blog, that quote came back to me and seemed like a perfect name. But somehow I had lost the name of the person who had said it! I tried going back to unschooling.com, but could not find any reference to it. I also tried googling it, but no luck. So I decided to attribute it to “anonymous”.

This morning I got an email from a woman who said that she was the originator of that quote! Yea! Finally. A name to go with the quote!

So thank you Barbara Lamping for your wonderfully visual and accurate quote:

“Learning can only happen when a child is interested. If he’s not interested it’s like throwing marshmallows at his head and calling it eating.” - Barbara Lamping

I am slipping behind in my blog reading…I forgot to mention that I had a new post over at Life Without School last week. It is called How Can You Learn If You Can’t Read and is a re-worked version of a post I wrote here a while back.

Enjoy!

When you are gone for almost 3 months.

The first thing is the traffic! I had forgotten what it is like to drive up around here. I got a bit spoiled down in Ocean City…yes, it gets crowded on the weekends, but the weekdays, there really is little traffic. I also think that you don’t notice it quite so much because we do not have to drive nearly as much. A lot is within walking distance, and even when you have to drive, you are only driving for about 5 minutes at a time. I go through much less gas during the summer.

And the next thing I forgot how cluttered my house is! My goodness we need to get rid of a lot of stuff. It is not just the kid’s stuff, but our stuff as well. I am still unpacking but we just have stuff all over the place. Kind of overwhelming actually. I am actually feeling the need to purge and reorganize. Let’s just hope that I can find the time to do it all.

Ah well…it is good to be home…

My friend Rebecca’s husband has developed a neat new blog widget called NearCircle. It is a way to create a community of related blogs. Kind of like a webring but looks much more interesting and interactive…you can see posts in the sidebars and also go to the Circle home page and check out posts for all the blogs in the circle…kind of like an interactive focused blog reader. I usually am not into the social networking kind of sites, but this seems a bit different and I like that it is blog based. And it seems a bit more fun than just a static webring listing of blogs.

It is brand new, so there are not too many members yet, but check it out. I set up a Virginia Homeschooling circle so if you are a Virginia homeschool blogger, please join! There is also a Waldorf circle and an Unschooling circle so far. I am racking my brain to see what other circles I should set up…

Come join the fun!

Made it back today, a little later thanks to not being able to find Lapis (one of our cats) when we were ready to leave. But we are home nonetheless.

It is nice to be home, although we will definitely miss the beach. But we will be back on the weekends this fall and have next summer to look forward to! Now all I have to do is unpack…

This interesting Psychology Today interview was forwarded to one of my homeschool lists. In it, psychologist Robert Epstein talks about his new book The Case Against Adolescence. He has some interesting things to say about why many teens have the problems that they do. And about the role that schools/our society play in these problems. Many of these arguments are not new to homeschoolers:

We have completely isolated young people from adults and created a peer culture. We stick them in school and keep them from working in any meaningful way, and if they do something wrong we put them in a pen with other “children.” In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil. Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall said it was programmed by evolution. He was wrong.

I can’t say that I agree with everything that he has to say. He believes that teens should be allowed to take “competency tests” to allow them to have additional rights (just like you have to take a driver’s test to be able to drive a car). His idea is to have a variety of tests that would allow a minor to become emancipated without a court action. My problem with that is that I think that he puts too much faith in the ability to develop a test or tests that can accurately judge this type of thing. Not to mention what about the poor kids who just don’t test well? An interesting idea in theory, but I have my doubts about the practicality of it.

Anyways, an interesting article from a non-homeschooling source that makes many of the same arguments that many homeschoolers do…many kids (especially teens) would fare better by experiencing the real world doing real work with adults rather than by being in an artificial environment surrounded by their peers.

Ok, call me a geek, but this list is hilarious. Gotta love the world in which we live…

Hat tip to the LibraryThing blog.

Is deciding when to come home! (I know, I know…life is rough!)

While I absolutely love the time after Labor Day at the beach (no tourists!), I also start feeling the pull to head home. Usually I let the weather be our guide…if it is still warm and August-like weather, we will stay and eek out some more time at the beach. If things start cooling down, then it is more likely that I will feel the pull of home.

My favorite time of year is fall…the weather gets cooler, football season starts (Go Hokies!)…I start feeling a need to change things up. One of the nice things about “going home” is that we get to start from scratch. New things to do, new rhythms to develop…we get to rediscover old friends and activities and places that seem new again because we have been away almost 3 months.

Maybe it is the years of being on a school schedule, but then I have always been someone who wants to shake things up periodically…I used to enjoy rearranging my bedroom for a change of pace and always loved when we would switch between “summer” clothes and “winter” clothes. I woud hate to live in a part of the country without seasons.

There will be a lot of things that I will miss from here. But there are things that I have been missing at home as well. Plus we will be back! We always come down in October for the boys’ friend Jack’s birthday and try to come down other times during the off season as well.

Still no decision when…but I think that probably within the next week or so. I think there are a few things that we still want to do (like eating at Shenanigans and maybe a kayak trip or two.) There are also things that I meant to do this summer that won’t get done (like picking new curtains and figuring out what pictures I want to frame and hang. But I can do those at home as well. The nice thing is that we can play it by ear and leave whenever we want. Of course that also means that we need to start packing and closing up the place…ahhh…decisions…decisions….