"I hate it!" she yells, not at me by in my direction. "I hate that logic can't win."

We'd spent the last two hours discussing the Bible with a couple from a different religious persuasion. The time had gone well--overall--but now that they were gone we were decompressing and things were tense. It was bad. But we were winding down.

The idea that logic can't win reminded me of Seth Godin's blog post about getting people to know what you know. He states: It won't help.

Raw information, a downloaded education, and even better logic all break down at the point of presuppositions. We can't get to truth through reason alone because we lack knowledge, understanding and a clear view of everything. Reason is great. Education is important. But it can't save us. You don't even need to step outside Orthodox Christianity to see that smart people, sincerely devoted to following Christ, come to some really different views on things.

So if education can't save us, what's the point? Put in a way that's more relevant to what I do promoting a homeschool curriculum provider: If education can't ensure we win, what makes a great curriculum?

Here are the top 3 things that first popped into my head:

1. A great curriculum helps you think through your presuppositions. Why do you believe as you do? What about this idea compels you? What underlying assumptions are you making? As you answer those questions, you will be better able to untangle the unspoken assumptions of others.
2. A great curriculum encourages you to learn more. There is always more to learn, and a life-long pursuit of learning opens us up to wonders of the world around us. We can tackle difficult and debated subjects with joy.
3. A great curriculum lets you see how others have thought about the same things and come to different conclusions. Looking back through history and seeing the outplay of ideas gives us a glimpse into truth. Hindsight allows us see how things turn out, which hints at the underlying reality.

Education can't save us. But a great education is one that is built on a love of learning and an examination of the past which can help us walk better into the future. Those are all things I see in Sonlight's homeschool curriculum.

What do you see as the purpose of education? What makes a great lesson/curriculum/study?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester

The longer I work at Sonlight, the more grateful I am that I have the opportunity to do so. Today's super-cool-part-of-my-job: I get to create things I've never seen before.

Introducing...

Sonlight's Virtual Booth

I've been working on this project since before September 15, 2009. The Virtual Booth is based on some of my favorite games. I took the first-person interaction and exploration idea of Myst, added the cut-scene transitions of Zelda and included the speech bubbles of Starcraft to bring you a virtual homeschool convention experience like none other!

This project is still in Beta, so your feedback and suggestions are most welcome. Please feel free to email me with any suggestions and insights you have. Please also let me know of any bugs you find.

Thanks!

Come be one of the first people in the world to wander Sonlight's virtual homeschool convention booth, learn more about Sonlight, experience some super cool technology, and help me test a project I've been dying to tell you about for over a year now!

Check out the Virtual Booth!^[Beta]

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester

Today I was reminded of Gorillas, a game where you lob exploding bananas at your opponent. (You can play a Flash version of the game here)

You are given two variables to control: Angle and Velocity. Get the right combination of the two, and, blam! your opponent is a cloud of red pixels.

Think about that: At the tender age of nine I was working with angles and velocity--not to mention that pesky notion of multiple possible solutions based on two variables in a function. I would not return to these concepts until I was in high school physics. And, surprisingly, by the time I got there, the subject was at lot more difficult.

Why?

Because rather than learning how velocity and angle relate to each other in a parabolic arch--ignoring, as we always do, wind resistance--I was forced to memorize the mathematical equations and computations needed to solve for the function. It was dull and uninspiring. In fact, I really didn't like it. Except for the one assignment where we rolled a marble down a ramp and attempted to hit the center of a target on the floor. That was applied mathematics. And it was fantastic.

The thing about Gorillas is that it is not--at heart--an educational game. The "educational" bits are left off (e.g. equations). So, sure, Gorillas didn't teach me the formula, but it did teach me very high level concepts. And while Physics taught me the formulas and computation, it didn't really teach me the problem solving skills.

I found the TED talk linked from Mary Mimouna's post to be fascinating. In it, Conrad Wolfram argues that we should stop teaching computation and start teaching math.

On the one hand, memorizing the basics of computation and equation building helps a ton when you're trying to figure something out. On the other hand, I think a lot more kids would discover that they love math if it had more to do with exploding bananas and less to do with "show your work" and "don't use a calculator."

The more I hear about math education, the more excited I am about MathTacular. We designed these DVDs to teach the concepts and demonstrate the calculations. I think it's a great balance.

What do you think of the Experimentation/Computation tension?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester

The three Ms.

M1. A huge thank you to everyone who participated in the My Passport to India project. We're still waiting for all the money to come in via the mail, and we're praying that we'll meet the goal when it all arrives! Thank you, again, for your generosity.

M2. More than just MathTacular4 has been added to the MathTacular Family. We just launched the MathTacular Educational Kit for the Christmas season. This Manipulatives Kit is not going to be a permanent Sonlight item, but we are offering it now as an excellent gift for a friend or family member who may not homeschool and is looking for an excellent way to reinforce math concepts.

I just want to make sure this is absolutely clear: This Manipulatives Kit is a product Avyx created for a different market. This product is not part of the original MathTacular Tetralogy. Rather, it is an offshoot project aimed at getting the incredible educational benefit of MathTacular into homes which may not be inclined to homeschool.

M3. Malls. With the launch of the MathTacular Educational Kit, I was able to go check out one of the kiosks in a local mall. It's fun to see a product I originally created displayed in a mall.

MathTacular Sign

MathTacular Kit Display

I was even able to snag a MathTacular shirt and got a shot of the kit assembly:

MathTacular Shirt

That's it for this week. See you on Monday! ...hmm... the fourth M <smile>.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester

...my computer just don't know who you are.

I got a letter yesterday from my insurance guy. It was one of those "you mean so much to us, we made you a few dozen address stickers with a fun little graphic on them" kind of thing. The trouble was: The stickers had someone else's address on them.

Nice.

I was so inspired by their obvious care and attention to detail, I gave them a call.

"Hi, Luke," said the cheerful guy on the other end of the line.

'Weird,' I thought to myself, 'he certainly seems to know who I am.'

After a few moments, the insurance guy had found the problem. Their office had my information correct. But the marketing database had it wrong. That would explain how they were able to bill me and yet not know my address.

The world was beginning to make sense again.

And, working at Sonlight, I can relate. It would be nice to have a central system that handles everything we do... but such a piece of technology--if it exists--is beyond my reach. And so, I realzied, it's entirely possible that something fishy may happen to you as you interact with Sonlight over the years.

It's not because we don't care about you. But our computers may have no idea who you are. Just remember, like I did with my insurance company, please contact us if you have any questions or concerns. We'd love to help!

Speaking of marketing... don't forget to check out the Christmas Sale.

And if you haven't given to the Mission India project yet, you need to do it before the end of today to have your gift matched.

What's the oddest piece of mail you've received?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester