Dear Bishop ——-,

We are currently attending Vacation Bible School at ————– Parish.  We are very sorry to report that there was no Water Wednesday.  We had a very dry Wednesday.  We feel certain this must be a violation of canon law.  Please take action immediately.

Yours in Christ,

the Fitz children.

PS: Our mother is suspiciously undisturbed by these untoward events.

 

Summer Vocation Update

The vocation goes well, in a crazy, overwhelmed kind of way.  Finished school last week, Superhusband, big kids & I went to an archery event over the weekend, then big kids went off to camp Sunday evening.  First time for them, but it’s a local place where multiple friends are working or attending (including my #1 all time awesome highly-recommended babysitter, who is Aria’s counselor for the week).  So it’s not quite like ‘going away’ the way camp can be.

Meanwhile, supposedly I’m cleaning the house the week.  Dragged my way through Monday, still tired from the weekend (up waaay too late), plus took two little girls swimming.  Tuesday was grandma day, today after a short cleaning fest we took the Bun out to lunch with her best friend, in observance of her birthday.  More cleaning this afternoon, I guess.  Tomorrow, cleaning fest continues, maybe another swim, and an evening meeting to plan for Vacation Bible School.

(Yes! I am teaching VBS.  Big kids.  I get my 5th graders from CCD last year, plus the rising 5th graders.  Woohoo!  Okay, and let’s admit it, those peppy tell-it-like-it-is VBS songs really are the ticket when you are immersed in the depths of grief or despair.  Makes sense — kids need songs that fit their world, and their world is even crazier and out-of-their-control than the adult world.)

So goes life.  I repent of ever trying to do a book review during the spring and summer months.  Cleaning fest keeps getting set aside for Yard Fest and Garden Fest, plus Fitness Fest and I’m not sure what else.  Reading time just.isn’t.there.   Something to look forward to now that the days are getting shorter again — evenings inside, curled up with a good book.  Months from now, of course, but a little something to take the edge off that darkness I don’t otherwise enjoy.

–> The angel book really is very good.  And has been an immense help in my spiritual life these last few days.  But not light reading, and right now my brain is all about light.  Full review coming just as soon as I’ve completed the thing.   You can go ahead and get yourself a copy, it’s a safe buy.   Rock solid.

Hope you’re having a good summer (or winter as the case may be), and I’ll check in again now and then to keep you updated on where we are.  Meanwhile, lots of great other sites out there to keep you entertained.

 

Er, St. Anthony . . .??

Still on vocation here.  Which at this time, does include all that much writing.  But I mean to be doing at least a little bit of bloggity-work, and lately I’ve been foiled.

–>  I’m not sure if St. Anthony is just getting rather fed up with me, or if he’s got some plot up his sleeve . . . maybe he thinks I ought to own *two* copies of Angels & Their Mission – cause it’s good ‘n lost.  Lost because, I will note, I was taking it with me everywhere I went in a desperate effort to *actually read the book*.  Which promises to be quite good.  (The chapters I’ve read to date are.  Really, owning a second copy seems like a might good idea, because I think it’s going to be a lender.)

Meanwhile, poor Chris Cash at the The Catholic Company can console himself that there’s probably a plenary indulgence just around the corner for anyone who tries to herd Catholic bloggers into some semblance of order and responsibility.  (I can’t be sure that doing so is one of Holy Father’s intentions, but I’m confident the American bishops sure would like it if we’d set a good example . . . So that counts for something, right?)  And you can read the Happy Catholic’s review here while you wait for mine.

Also coming up one of these centuries, my backlog of Requiem Press books-to-review.    For today, I leave with you two words: Ronald Knox.

Ah, happiness.

 

Deep in the vortex . . .

. . . Not sure where all my writing time keeps going — perhaps into the garden, judging by the looks of it. (Yay!)  Seems like snatches of quiet time are always hovering on the horizon, but then flit away whenever I get close.  Anyhow, I’ll write when I write.  Meanwhile, console yourself that I’m off enjoying a nice vocation.

 

An Apology to the SuperPainter

Suppose that while you were recklessly failing to supervise your children — perhaps engaging in some act of parental irresponsibility such as “going to the bathroom”– your two-year-old finds the lost Post-It Notes.  And, because they are hot pink Post-It Notes, your two-year-old determines this product is probably a decorating item.  Wallpaper, for instance.  And so, in the time that you are so foolishly relieving yourself in the other bathroom, your child very generously moistens the notes and proceeds to cover a variety of surfaces that had been, previously, woefully boring.  That is to say: Not Pink.

If this were to happen to you, here is what might you learn when your four-year-old went to remove the decorating some minutes later: wet hot pink Post-It Notes are an effective means of sponge painting.  Leaves a delightful pink rectangle on your high-gloss white walls.  After just a few short minutes of application.

Now you might worry that if you tried to color your walls using the Post-It Note Method that the color would quickly bleed, or run, or wipe away.  Be not afraid.  Even moments after removing the paper, the color remains impervious to water, diaper wipes, dish soap, vinegar, ammonia spray, even Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

Now to decide: Should we follow the four-year-old’s suggestion and paint over?  Or just get out the surviving notes and finish the job?  Kind of perky.  But I suspect Mr. Boy does not want a pink bathroom.

 

Us v. Us

When I was little, I was afraid of people who were not like me.  Not run-away-and-hide afraid, but intimidated, nervous, certain those people did not really approve of me.  What kinds of people scared me?  Soldiers scared me.  I can remember being at the VA hospital (both my grandfathers served in WWII), and being nervous whenever I saw a soldier in uniform.   Not sure what to say or how to act.  Wanting to stare.  Certain that there was  a right thing to do, and that I was not doing it.

It wasn’t the guns, the soldierly-ness, that intimidated me.  I was equally nervous around my sister’s softball team.  All those girls in neat ponytails and shiny yellow uniforms, their caps dotted with stickers for every something important that they did, gathered together, important, capable, competent.  They were probably perfectly  nice people, but I didn’t know how to act around them.  I kept my distance, tried not to make eye contact.

I was little then, and shy.  I’m a grown-up now.  No longer afraid of girls on softball teams.

Last feast of the Holy Trinity, our parish priest explained that the Trinity is a model for human relationships.  In the Trinity, he observed, “There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’.” To be Catholic is to put off “us-and-them” thinking.  To recognize that all people are “us”.  No one can be pushed off into some category of Other People, who are not deserving of our respect and concern.   Compassion, works of mercy, we perform them not because ‘those poor other people are so desperate, so pitiful’, but because ‘they are one of us.’

I’m late to the party on the Blogging Against Disablism Day blogfest.   The official day was Friday; luckily the blogfest-manager has compassion on people like me who blog on the other side of the International Week Line.  “Disablism” is a word used to describe discrimination or prejudice against people with disabilities; analogus to racism or sexism or what have you.   Not a topic I write about much, or even think about much; the notion of equal rights for all people has always seemed to so obvious to me that I half-wonder what there is to say.

But I think us-versus-them gets to the heart of it.  As I see it, modern prejudice against people with certain types of disabilities finds its origin in the eugenics movement of the late 19th and early 20th century.  The parents who were pushed into comitting their disabled children to institutions in the 1950’s, were the ones who, as children in the 1930’s, attended state fairs with “Fitter Families” contests and displays on the importance of good breeding for the strength of the human race.  A disasterous era whose stain on society is still felt today.

How to get over that sense of ‘otherness’? That feeling that certain types of people are fundamentally different? It requires some growing up.  A realization that those “other” people are just ordinary people. Not a case of ‘that could be me’ but a case of ‘we are in the same boat’. Nothing special at all above and beyond the ordinary specialness of being human.   And nothing less, either, than the extraordinary specialness of being human.

 

The Over-Decorated Soul

So the other week I was driving to religious ed with my 1st grader, and she asks, “Mom, are you sorry had to give up mountain climbing in order to have kids?”

Gotta love the easy ones.  “No.”

Aria is a budding homemaker in the best possible Martha Stewart-y way, so I explained:  A person is kind of like a house.  You have to keep it well-maintained in order for it to be useful.  Sports and hobbies help keep your body and spirit in good working order.  If you let yourself get too run down, you are like a falling apart house, or a house that is dull and depressing — and that kind of house doesn’t serve its people very well.

On the other hand, you could build and build a wonderful, giant, strong, beautiful house.  But if no one ever moves in, what good is it?  It’s an empty building.  Houses are meant to be lived in, to be put to use.  To serve people.

I observed that God made us to serve Him and serve others, and we really can’t be happy unless we are fulfilling that purpose.  Just like a house cannot be a happy home if it is empty and unused.  Mountaineering was a way to build up my ‘house’.  But it isn’t my purpose: my purpose is to love and serve my family in my vocation as a wife & mother.

We talked about other ways that people serve their purpose.  Priests who serve a parish, contemplative religious who serve by their prayer, unmarried people who serve God and the community through their work.  Even people who are unable to do anything else, can serve by offering up their situation for the good of others.

And then we talked about how some people are always decorating, but no one ever moves in.  People think that because an activity — hiking, or reading, or taking a vacation — makes them feel happy, that they will be happy if they do more and more of that.  It’s like always setting the table, but never sitting down to eat.  You wonder why your life looks so beautiful but you are never satisfied, always hungry for more.

It was a good conversation.  She understood it, because she is, herself, such a builder and decorator.  She could see the tragedy of a table set for Easter morning, but no one every sitting down to eat at that table.  Always just more and more decorating, no meal ever served.

And of course, as these conversations will, I was enlightened too.  How often do I fall into the trap of just a little bit more reading, a little more quiet time, another walk on a lovely day, because I want to keep ‘feeling better’.  These activities are so refreshing.  They build me up, make my mind and body and spirit better able to serve.

But I find myself falling into the trap of always wanting to be more and more built-up, more and more decorated.  I forget that the moment of everything-just-so, of feeling so fresh and wonderful and new, is not meant to be the all-the-time feeling.  Anymore than a room should always be sparkling, never sullied by the foot traffic and dirty dishes of those horrid occupants who just make a wreck of a hard day’s homemaking.

So that’s my goal: to avoid an over-decorated soul. If it doesn’t ever feel a little worn, a little cluttered, a little grimy, than it is probably sitting empty and useless.  Clean it up, keep it well-maintained, yes.  But then put it to work.    Diligite diligentius.

 

No, no . . . the other North

So Mr. Boy received the gift of cardboard this afternoon — enough, he tells me over chocolate pudding, to make a ladder to the top of Mt. Everest.  Much happiness, and then some speculation on when the Everest climbing season begins (I never kept track), and his mother allows that she does not want him climbing Everest, but it might be fun to visit Nepal.

Nepal?  What’s that?

Time to pull out the globe.  “It’s north of India,” I tell him.  He starts scanning the area all around India.  “North,” I remind him.  “Which way is north?”

I am certain he can answer this.  And yes, he can.  With complete confidence, he turns around and points to the backyard.

 

What must I do to teach you how to be saved?

Had our final religious ed class for the year last night.  The parish sprung for pizzas and sodas, and we played a variation on “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?”  The set-up was this: the kids could ask the two of us teachers any question about the catholic faith that they wanted, so long as they had researched the answer.  Parental assistance was fair game.   I told them I wanted to be absolutely humiliated in my ignorance.

Overall, Miss K. & I fared pretty well.  We couldn’t name all ten plagues (um, it was ten, right*?), and nor correctly perform the Byzantine Rite sign of the cross.   We could drum up a list of the twelve apostles with some effort (Matthew, how could I forget you?  You are my patron!), and with less difficulty list the 10 commandments, but not in order.  But we got through questions about the Seamless Garment philosophy with flying colors, knew when and where the Holy Spirit had shown up in visible form, and yes, we do know what the catholic teaching on birth control is.  Tons of fun.

But, as always with teaching, there was a rather sharp lesson for me.  One of the dads wisely sent in this one: What is the Catholic teaching on salvation?  A brilliant question – here you are at the last night of a school year of instruction, let’s make sure these kids have heard the most important lesson.   (And while we’re at it, find out: Do the teachers even know?  It is a legitimate concern.)

I learned from this question that a) I am long winded and b) I *still* haven’t boiled it down to a bumper-sticker version.   Yes, of course I know what the church teaches.  I know it in too much detail.   I found myself starting with original sin, summarizing the experience of Isreal, passing through the Incarnation, quickly on to Calvary, the creation of a church, the ordinary means of salvation through the sacraments, and then a few notes on baptism of desire and so forth.

I passed the quiz but failed a test of my own.  Because although I know it is important to give kids the details of the faith, there is a time and place for being able to quickly sum up the reality of salvation in a few short words.

Catholic words, though.  Even though catholic theology encompasses the (typical) evangelical protestant teaching on salvation, it contains something more.  And I don’t want my bumper-sticker-version to be misleading.

But evangelical protestants are dead on right: Every time you teach, no matter the subject, it really ought to lead to a brief invitation to conversion and faith.  And if a child comes out of my class knowing only one thing, it should be the answer to the question of “What must I do to be saved?”.

So that is my homework for this summer.  To find my own words for the short version.  I think it is there in the creed.  But I need to get the hang of communicating the creed to my audience in a way they will take it home and make it their own.

***

*Yes.  I have read the pentateuch. More than once.  But I’ll admit I’m prone to skimming certain sections.  Truth is I get to the plagues and I just kinda think: Okay, disaster after disaster.  I get it.  Never really worried about whether it was gnats or bumblebees or whatever.

 

Curriculum Review – Math-U-See

‘Tis the season for choosing next year’s curricula.  We’ve been using Math-U-See for about three years now, so I guess I’m ready to post a review.  (Have I already done this? If so, I’m doing it again.)

How we ended up with Math-U-See

First of all, for early grades I’m not convinced any kind of formal curriculum is required.  If you are are comfortable doing elementary-school math, you really can just teach your little one the basics all on your own.  All the same, I decided I wanted to use a formal curriculum for Mr. Boy.  So that’s what we did.  You might have reasons you want to do the same.

Why Math-U-See?  Well, it is the program of choice of my two real-life homeschooling friends with older kids.  Both my friends like the program, and I’ve seen their children really do come out of school understanding math and being competent math-users.  So I was biased towards it.  After looking at reviews of various curricula, watching the demo CD, and seeing my friends’ materials, I decided it was probably a good fit for us.

What You Get

At each level, there is a student workbook, a DVD, and a teacher’s manual.  Above the primer level (think kindergarten-ish) there is a test booklet as well.  The DVD introduces each chapter’s lesson, and the teacher’s manual explains to the parent how to teach the lesson.  This is not a word-for-word now-say-this type lesson.  The DVD and manual teach you, the parent, what the math concept is, and how to explain it to your child.

Once your child understands the lesson, he can do the workbook pages to practice.  There are three fairly short worksheets for each lesson, and then three cumulative review sheets.  If you find your child needs additional help, the manual includes suggestions for activities you can do with your child.   You can also print out practice worksheets from Math-U-See’s website, and for basic math facts drill, MUS has an online-drill program.  Both of those on-line features can be used by anyone.

Why I like Math-U-See

There is a strong emphasis on understanding.  Students learn to do operations by first mastering the underlying concept.  Memorization is the result of understanding and practice, not the goal in itself.  In the small sample of children I know who have used Math-U-See, I’ve seen that the kids really do understand how to apply math to everyday life.  The parents (myself included) report that they have picked up handy math tips they never learned as children.

The program is self-paced. You work on a chapter for as much or as little time as you need, and then you move on.  To this end, the various books aren’t assigned grade levels.  To me this, this is what homeschooling is about.

To a certain extent, my children can work independently. Technically, the parent is supposed to view the DVD, read the manual, and teach the child the lesson.  In reality, my son can watch the DVD and figure out what to do 80% of the time.  Now that he is a strong reader (note: most 3rd graders would not be able to do this) he can even work from the teacher’s manual.  My other MUS-loving friends admit that their children self-teach too.

Reasons you might or might not like the program

The worksheets are boring. I like this.  Plain black and white pages.  But some people really go in for colorful pages with lots of illustrations and all that.  If you need colorful workbooks, you are out of luck.

The worksheets are short. If you want a lot of ready-to-go repetitive drilling, you are out of luck.  For my children (and me) short worksheets are our friend.  I don’t mind printing out extra practice sheets off the webpage in the rare event that we need more drills.  But if you need a lot of drilling ready-to-go, this is not for you.

When push comes to shove, you are the teacher. Up to you to use your own words to explain the lesson, assess whether your child has mastered the lesson, etc.  You decide when to slow down and dig in, and when to skip on to the next chapter.  I think Math-U-See does a great job of equipping the parent to teach effectively.  But there is a certain amount of time and effort required on your part.

The student materials are consumable, and sold as a packet. So you’ll need to buy new workbooks for each student.  Likewise, whether you want the test booklet or not, you get it.  In contrast, there is a strong market for used teacher-packets.  This wasn’t so true several years ago when the new edition of DVD’s and student books came out; but nowadays you can typically find a used DVD & Teacher’s manual for about $20, if you keep your eyes open.

The Scope and Sequence is Linear.  Again, I like this.  But if you are the sort who likes the little-of-everything approach, you are out of luck.  To keep abreast of our public schools, who do the hodge-podge, I do have my kids read a few library books on assorted math topics not covered by their current MUS book.

**

In all, I think it is a good program.  I’ve been happy with it, have no real complaints, and am pleased at my children’s progress in math.  I think Math-U-See does help them to understand mathematics well.

The program fits our budget, in part because I’ve had luck finding teacher materials second-hand, and in part because where I feel the need to supplement, I can do so for free. We use the on-line drills for extra practice, and I bring home math-themed library books when I want to cover a topic outside the MUS scope and sequence.

There are less expensive programs out there of course.  And as I said to begin, I don’t think you need any formal program at all for the early grades, if you don’t want.  But if you do want such a thing, I think MUS is as good as any.