I read a great response today to the question: What do I do when my kids know more than me?

I agree with Lee's thoughts. And I love the way that homeschooling encourages everyone to learn more. Love it!

But there's another part of the homeschool mentality that comes out of this: Life long learning, not just for kids but also for us adults. Homeschooling can rekindle a wonder about the world and a desire to understand it more. So there's much more than just a "I'll look that up and get back to you" attitude. We can be excited about learning, and so dive into a subject, not just find the answer and get out.

My dad blogged about Sonlight's Life Long Learners forum today as well. I haven't really spent any time there, but it looks like they get into some pretty tough subjects.

And we shouldn't shy away from them.

Granted, we need to pick our battles and choose what we will expend our efforts pursuing--and sometimes there are more important things to tend to than ethical debates, apologetics, or the latest scientific philosophy; naturally, we can't do everything.

But I love being a part of a community that is dedicated to seeking the truth and getting smarter.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

P.S. If you want to read what others have been thinking about/experiencing, be sure to check out the Other Posts of Note.

I love words, and every once in a while one will pop into my head and I'll have to look it up again. For example: Recapitulate.

Fitting, seeing as how I want to continue (finish?) the discussion (rant?) I started yesterday.

I left off suggesting that we can't just "live and let live" because others would die (physically, metaphorically, spiritually, etc). But since people hold strongly to opposing views, what's to be done? Both sides often feel like the other is "The Enemy" and that truth resides on this side of the line. But as rational, intelligent, educated, and truly caring people, I think there are two things we can/should/must do:

1. Find the real enemy. While filming MathTacular, we said hunger is the enemy. The problem is not that Luke suggested we move a light. He's not trying to sabotage the shoot. No, we're just hungry and it's time to take a break.

As Christians we should have an even greater insight. And, no, it's not that Obama is the Antichrist. Rather, we know who the Enemy is. We know what he does, how he works, and know how to put him down.

Or, we should.

The problem--for me, at least--is that I often operate as a functional atheist. No wonder we have trouble recognizing the Enemy.

...that reminds me, for some reason, of one of my all-time favorite blog posts. If you haven't read it yet: Do so.

2. Consider your epistemology. How do you determine what is true/right/accurate? And the variance between these answers is what allows us to be ideologically 180° from each other.

If we could openly and accurately acknowledge our epistemological views, I think things would start to become much clearer. The step after that, the next impossible step, is to hash out where we are intellectually inconsistent. That would, I think, bring much more consensus in the world.

The difficulty of both of these steps often leaves me to throw up my hands. I can't do it. We can't get there.

And that, I propose, is why we find we can't do anything.

~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

P.S. Of course, when I'm not functioning as an atheist, I realize that I can at least pray.

Labeling someone else--or a group of "someone elses"--as "The Enemy" is a very powerful tactic. It makes things black and white, cut and dried, and a point of fact.

And as a matter of fact, others are very, very wrong at times.

But they see themselves as absolutely right, and you as very, very wrong. And we know this is true. For example, the best villains always have a very compelling reason for doing what they are doing. They, while we recognize their error, firmly believe they doing the right thing.

So how do two people (or groups) who are ideologically 180° from each other get anywhere? This is, I think, the fundamental question that--until answered--leaves us with things like opposing political parties and varying religious views (or lackthereof). This reality is one of the primary reasons we can't just "live and let live"... because, in many cases, doing so would be detrimental to others whom we care about. For instance: Pro-choicers believe that letting Pro-lifers have their way will end up killing women and has little to do with babies. Pro-lifers, on the other hand, believe that letting Pro-choicers have their way kills babies and has little to do with women. That's radically different and there is very little room for "common ground" here.

Another example of "The Enemy" mindset that I saw again and again today was The Department of Homeland Security's latest "report" that labels "those that [reject] federal authority in favor of state or local authority" as, at the very least, potential terrorists (bottom of Page 2 of 9).

Katie
Karen

I couldn't find a link to the .pdf from the Department of Homeland Security's site, but I did find this note. So, perhaps those "rightwing extremists" are over-reacting a tad to what is not much more than a very poor choice of words... perhaps.

This "Enemy" mentality has been brewing in various areas of the homeschool movement as well.

So what should we--as rational, intelligent, educated, truly caring people--do in these kinds of situations? Broadly labeling everyone of the other side as "The Enemy"--as the DHS appears to have inadvertently done--is not the way to go.

But what is? Because, as rational, intelligent, educated, and truly caring people, we can't do nothing.

Can we?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

A couple weeks ago, I was challenged by Jennifer to look into the negative stereotypes of Native Americans presented in some of Sonlight's titles. I promised to back to her and hope to continue the conversation here. But this post applies to many other aspects of questionable content, so please keep reading.

Sonlight's IGs
Part of what makes Sonlight's curriculum so amazing are the Instructor's Guides (or IGs). Every IG is full of notes and questions to help round out the texts; primarily because every author is writing from a particular bias or viewpoint, and those could easily be wrong or hurt someone. Sonlight, thus, includes a lot of background information so students (and their parents) can get a clearer picture of what is really going on.

And while I couldn't find a particular article on stereotypes of Native Americans in my brief search of one of the IGs, I saw many notes about what was happening at that point in history that shows false negative stereotypes as errant.

One customer said just yesterday:

Sonlight carries a lot of books that cover sensitive topics. They have been especially careful to alert parents anytime their children will come into contact with such material. This gives parents a chance to proactively have a conversation with their children about the issue presented to make sure the child understands the topic and looks at it through the lens of a Biblical worldview. (full post here)

So Sonlight tries to balance out negative/incorrect ideas in our IGs. If you are not using the IG with your books, you're not getting the full Sonlight experience.

On the other hand, we know there is always room for improvement. If you come across a section of a book that you think should be dealt with more fully, please let us know. We are always welcome your input and insights. Jennifer, I would be very interested in your thoughts especially.

Consider Your Perspective
Another post I came across today warned people that Sonlight's science program "is extremely creationist/young earth based." I find that moderately amusing because there are many others who feel that Sonlight promotes Evolution and Old Earth thinking far too much.

Who's right?

In many ways, it all depends on your perspective.

I think, objectively--especially when you consider the titles we carry along with the notes in our IGs--it's fairly clear that Sonlight does promote a creationist/Young Earth view... with some notes about the other topics to round things out.

Granted, we can all get so myopically focused that we don't see where we have gone wrong. That's why it's so great to be surrounded by a large community that can help set us right. And that's why your feedback is so valuable to us. We never want to hurt people, but when we do please help us set it right.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

Quick: What is an imaginary number?

Oh, sure, you could cheat and use Wikipedia, or--even better--Simple Wikipedia. But do you recall the definition of an imaginary number from your Algebra class (or, at least, Calvin and Hobbes)?

An imaginary number is the square root of a negative number (which, since a negative number times a negative number is always positive, is impossible). But imaginary numbers are very helpful when you're solving for an equation and you find you need to get the square root of both sides of an equation and one of them happens to be negative:

Solve for x:
x² = -72

If you're still reading, I guess you either find math fascinating--as I do--or you trust me to get to some kind of point worth suffering through the horror of math. Or, you've been skimming and not really paying attention.

If you're no longer reading, I'm glad you at least stopped by. <smile>

I must admit that I still get a little woozy and sick to my stomach when someone asks me how many purple beads are in the pile if 3/4 of them are red, 25% of the rest are black, 14 are white, and x orange beads were given to Bobby last Saturday when Susie took 1/18 of the total for a lemonade stand where she sells a glass of juice from concentrate for $4.13, and ice is another 7% if you want it on Thursdays.

Cherish has a very interesting post on our aversion to math which is often linked to school teachers.
[Edit: Sorry, I forgot to add my "mild profanity" disclaimer.]

I'm not sure if my dad helped give me an interest in math by insisting that he show why 34-17=17; I certainly didn't appreciate it at the time because I just wanted the answer. But his patient--and infuriating--demonstrations of how math really makes sense have helped me.

I hope I can do the same for my children with a few less tears.

Hmm... I guess today was a Math Monday.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

First, a couple funny images:

I read blogs via Google Reader, and use hotkeys to get through the posts faster. But sometimes my fingers hit the wrong keys and I start typing instead. This is what I looked up to see this morning:

NOM link here

And, for as smooth as everything went yesterday, there were a few minutes where Sonlight's homepage looked like this:

10am MST April 1, 2009

Now that we've had our giggles, time to move on to the second--and real--point of this post:

I read yesterday that online communities must be small because "[t]rue community only thrives when the members deeply care for one another." There are many other fascinating points, and so I suggest you read the whole thing.

It got me thinking, though. Granted, I'm not close to all the bloggers I read, but I'd like to think that I have already established very close connection to at least a couple of my "bloggy friends." And considering I attended the wedding of a friend I met via World of Warcraft, and more and more people are meeting their soulmate online, I think this online community has brought us to a very real dimension of connection... even if it isn't IRL.

The Sonlight Forums are a prime example of a rather large online community. And maybe this community thrives on the deep care each member has for homeschooling rather than each other. And so like many other clubs and gatherings, an online community is built around focus, purpose, or interest.

Churches come to mind.

As much as I should deeply care about all of my brothers and sisters in Christ, there's no way I could. But I still gather with them every week in church. And we have community. I have a much closer community with my small groups and friends, but there is community with the other members of my church.

Or, perhaps, I'm just a child of this digital age, and so can't remember the "good old days" when people really did have communities.

So, what do you think, friends?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

Again and again blog posts pop up that suggest public schools need to "stick to the basics" of reading, writing and arithmetic and not waste so much time on other things that have little or nothing to do with education. These kinds of posts tend to make it into my Other Posts of Note.

And today I came across a post about students taught to Twitter in school. It sounds like it's part of a "social media 101" course, or something.

My thought is this: Perhaps educators have realized that life makes for a great classroom and there is much to be learned in this great wide world of daily living, and so they must get involved in helping their students grow in all aspects of life.

Which would be great if they could get through the lessons they are supposed to be teaching in four hours a day so they could spend the rest of the time experiencing the joy of life-long learning with their students.

But they can't.

So in trying to help kids succeed in all areas of life, they end up with only 36% of their students proficient in the basics (like my local public school).

In trying to teach kids to tweet, they fail to teach children to write.

Thankfully, as a homeschooler, you have the opportunity to get through your "required" lessons quickly, and if you want to turn your child's blog and Twitter account into "Social Media 101" for credit... you can.

Homeschooling: Making the most of the classroom of life.

Sounds like a nice tagline.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father