Thank you, Steve Jobs

I was really sorry to hear the news from one my friends today that Steve Jobs had died.  The term "visionary" gets thrown around a lot these days, but if there was anyone who deserved that term, it was Jobs.  You may not be a dedicated Apple computer user, like our family is.  But did you realize that the whole point-at-a-picture-and-click-to-make-your-computer-respond interface that prevails in today's personal computers came from Job's vision?  I remember the first time such a way to interact with your computer first showed up, in the long defunct Lisa Computer (from Apple).  Lisa didn't last, but it was such a harbinger of the future--a vision, yes, of a computer that could be used by those who hadn't learned computer code, which was the only way to run computer before Apple Computer redefined computers.  Windows was merely a copy, a catch-up, to Apple's game-changing software interface.  So pretty much all of us who aren't code-crunchers owe a debt to Steve Jobs.

Of course, that wasn't his only gift to us.  How many of us own iPods, or other MP3 players that were inspired or influenced by Apple's foray into the digital music business?  And, indeed, the iPod technology has arguably changed the entire music business as much as anything since the earliest recording technologies.  Eventually, that morphed into the iPhone--where you could stay connected to email and WWW and such using your phone--and then to the iPad, a design for the digital book, plus much more.  Again, that entire line was driven by Job's vision for a digital technology that could transform our lives.

Even the youngest among us has been touched by Job's genius.  Is there any children's movie makers today who have had such an unbroken line of hits as Pixar, which Jobs bought from George Lucas and turned into an digital movie company that has enjoyed an unparalleled success, both critically and commercially.

There is so much that we could all learn about the leadership path of Jobs over the years, and perhaps I will write something more about that in a later post.  But right now, I just want to express my gratitude to the man who had done so much to make computers so easy for us to use.  Particularly as a homeschooler, I don't know how I could teach without the easy operation of computer technology that he helped to facilitate.

Curriculum Resource NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program (with special guest appearance by Eragon's Christopher Paolini)

Good news--the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program website for 2011 is up!  You are probably familiar with the NaNoWriMo program--that is, the short-hand description for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, an online effort to encourage thousands of adults to write a 50,000-word novel in the space of a month (and  November, one of those only 30 day months at that).  It is supposed to be an intense writing experience, which I hope to do one of these years (but I don't think this will be the year).

However, my son would like to do NaNoWriMo this year.  Fortunately for him, they have a great website that supports younger writers (who also get to work towards a smaller total word count).  The site has countdown clocks and word counters and Internet badges and lots of cool stuff like that to attract students to the project.  It also has some things to get them over writer's block, such as a Dare Machine, which "dares" authors to include certain things in their stories or try some fun writing exercises, such as having your characters write a novel about YOU.

But once November starts, much of the program is geared towards encouraging students to actually finish the novels they have begun.  One way they do that is to have published authors send emails to the students with bits of advice or pep talk.  And guess who will be sending some emails this year?  None other than Christopher Paolini, who wrote the first of his famous Eragon series when he was 15 and was homeschooling.  Now, with 25 million of his books sold worldwide, he is the hero among young writers, but especially among those who homeschool.

HOWEVER--even if you and your students/children aren't participating, there are still resources to check out.  Of particular interest to teachers is their collection of hour-long lesson plans about many aspects of writing, including creating characters, developing conflict, writing good dialogue, choosing a setting that support the characters, and so on.  Click here to see the full list of lesson plans available for middle school students.

So whether or not you end up writing a novel in a month, it is a curriculum resource that is worth checking out.

Math Trek at the North Carolina Museum of Art

Our Math Trek series has started up again for the new year.  This is one of the creative math activities organized by Maria Droujkova of Natural Math.  It is a multi-aged program where students of all levels take quests to find and photograph different math concepts.  We then share them with each other, whether by discussion, acting them out, or posting them on the web.

This week's Trek took place at the North Carolina Museum of Art, which has so many wonderful things to look at, whether mathematical or not.  Maria's colleague, Brad Herring, was there to capture the action on film, so that we could share it with other similar groups around the world so they could have their own Math Treks:

Our intrepid leader, Maria Droujkova

Our videographer, Brad Herring

Maria have the students various "quests" to find and photographs, including recording examples of fractions, proportions, and fractals.  Then we came together to discuss and recreate some of our favorite mathematical concepts/photographs:

Recurring Circles

Acting out the proportions of seats in a circular amphitheater

Making a human fractal

As always, it was a fun and educational outing.  Plus, the weather was beautiful this weekend.  But to see students discovering math in settings all around them--that was even more beautiful!

Review of the Hunger Games series, with a little Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, and Twilight Thrown In

The popular media item I was most wrong about was The Pirates of the Caribbean movie. When I heard that Disney was going to make a movie based on a ride at one of its theme parks, I thought it was the stupidest idea I had ever heard. Even when I found out that Johnny Depp, whom I love love LOVE, was going to star, still, I was not a believer. But when I actually watched the movie, I thought it was GREAT for the kind of film it was. Fun, fantastic, swashbuckling action, and interesting, larger-than-life characters, most especially the one-of-a-kind Captain Jack Sparrow that Depp created. But it has some interesting meat as well--some valuable lessons amongst all the ghosts and pirates and young lovers and such. It was a perfect summer blockbuster film, and I admit I was completely wrong in my pre-judgements.

But my second most egregious error may be my previous dismissal of The Hunger Game series.

The premise of the book--that is, a bunch of teenagers who have to fight to the death for the amusement of the TV audience--sounded like yet another grim, post-apocalyptic YA novel filled with senseless violence (which to me, a perennially upbeat person my entire life, seems inexplicably popular to today’s teenagers). But I was wrong. Well, it is a grim, post-apocalyptic novel...now that I’ve read the whole series, I’m not convinced it should be classified for Young Adults, unless by that they mean college students. Most of all, however, it is violent--more violent as the books proceed--but the violence is not senseless at all. The violence teaches us a lot. It teaches us about war, and about power, and about coercion. It teaches us about human nature, and how really horrible people can be to one another...but also how wonderful and loving and heroic they can be as well.

Because as it turns out, the fighting between the teenagers is really just the appetizer. The entire series is more of a meditation on totalitarianism, a la Fahrenheit 451 or Nineteen Eighty-Four. However, it incorporates more modern aspects to it, such as the rise of reality television and the latest devices for warfare.

The series also kind of made me think of Harry Potter for grown-ups. Only instead of magical Hogwarts castles where the four houses competed in Quidditch and the House Cup, here we have the dystopic nation of Panen, where the citizens of the 12 Districts that remain of the United States compete simply to survive. And Voldemort, mean dude that he is for children’s literature, really can’t compare with the political leaders in the Hunger Games, who wipe out entire villages, schools, hospitals, or even a whole District, seemingly without a qualm. Because in the Hunger Games, they aren’t just messing around, trying to get rid of an elderly wizard and “the boy who lived.” In the Hunger Games, they are in all-out war.

So the Hunger Games books get high marks for realistically depicting what happens in war. And I think it is a valuable thing for young people to read. Again, I wouldn’t advise it for middle schoolers; that is, I think they could read it, but I don’t think they would GET it. But teenagers, college students, young graduates whose lives have basically been untouched by the multiple “wars” we are in and have been over the past 10-20 years, but where all the pain and suffering and destruction occurs only in foreign countries and among our paid military--this is a great wake-up call to how awful war really is. And one of the greatest questions raised, which runs through all the books, is who your enemy really is. That is not always an easy question to answer in a war.

HOWEVER....there is another side to the books.

War, and political coercion, and when and how to fight back, are definitely major themes of the series. But there is another backbone to the stories, and that (just like Harry Potter) is love. Yes, there is the love triangle, a la Twilight, except about ONE THOUSAND times better, since the characters are interesting and multi-dimensional, and they demonstrate their love through their actions, not sitting around moony-eyed whining about how they can’t live (or not live....well, you know what I mean) without the other, like the dippy lovers in the current soap opera that is Mary Worth..

OK, sorry about that. I just had to get that out of my system.

So there is a love triangle, but the choice is much more realistic (vampire versus werewolf...come on). Do I choose the one who loves me irrationally and unconditionally, even though I don’t think s/he really knows me? Or do I choose the one who knows all about me, particularly my dark side, to which s/he seems to draw me? Actually choosing a partner not just by how s/he makes you feel (ESPECIALLY when you are awash in adolescent hormones), but by the way s/he acts and by the kind of person you are when you are with that person--now THAT is a lesson about love. Again, I’m not sure even teenagers are ready to think that way, but I’m pretty sure middle schoolers aren’t.

And the wonderful thing of the book is that is not the only type of love explored. There is love for family and love for friends and love for team mates and love for colleagues that maybe even should be thought of as enemies. There is love for the earth and love for the animals. There is all kinds of love. And that, again, lifts this series above the many dystopic YA series there are out there.

So in this series, there is war, and there is love. And because it is war, and because it is NOT Harry Potter (as much as I loved that series), if you make it through the end of the series, characters that you love will die. Because that is the reality of war. And you will be shocked, and you will miss them, and you may even cry, but you will go on to finish the book, and continue to appreciate them even after they have disappeared from the text. Because that is the reality of love.

So if you are up to experience all that--I don’t know a better current YA series to read.

PS--If you want to see my responses to the first two books in the series, visit:
Book Review:  The Hunger Games
A Concrete Poem on Catching Fire

A New Addition to Final Friday

It was the final Friday last night, which is the occasion of the month Art Loop in Cary, NC, where we live. Final Friday has been enhanced the past few months with the opening of the new Cary Arts Center, which now participates.  But last night, we had not only CAC join in, but also an occasional participant and a brand new art gallery that has opened in downtown Cary.

We started at the Arts Center, which was bustling because the theatre was showing Once Upon a Mattress that night as well.  But the month's exhibit was also interesting; it consists of high-quality photographs of assorted old family heirlooms, accompanied by a short piece written by a poet about the significance of these antiques to the family of the descendants.  It was a great show to discuss with my son and his friend who accompanied us, because it made them consider how many stories there are associated with the things that we value, whether they are utilitarian, sentimental, or actually have monetary worth outside the family.

There is a commercial center along Chatham Street in downtown Cary called Chocolate Smiles after the  candy store of the same name located in that plaza.   They joined in the fun this month by staying up late and offering food and entertainment.  The chocolate store encouraged children to make art from jelly beans:

They served lovely food, including some empanadas and fried plantains from the nearby Cuban restaurant:

and quite a nice blues band that played as we ate and sipped and watched the sun set from the terrace above:

All of the Town of Cary buildings had the same displays as last Final Friday, so we didn't go to those buildings.   But we headed down to the heart of downtown Cary, where what did we discover but....

There is a NEW art gallery that has just opened in downtown Cary!  Apparently, only three days ago...

The gallery is named Emerge Fine Arts, and it is owned by a digital photography artist, assisted by her father and her Chinese Crested Hairless dog, whose name is Sophie:

The art was rather upscale, but very nice, including some wonderful glass, watercolor, and acrylic pieces:

So good luck to Emerge--we hope it is really successful!  It was great to add it to our Final Friday tour.

Of course, we also loved the art in our usual favorite galleries as well--Cary Gallery of Artists, the Russian Gallery, and the more-recently opened Chambers Art.    Lots of lovely pieces to see in all sorts of media, and many of the artists are available on that night to talk about their work.  So it is a great opportunity to enhance your education about contemporary art.

Are You Downloading Ebooks, eBooks, ebooks, or e-books?

Grammar is a topic we do here on a regular basis because I think one of the most important academic skills I can teach my son is to communicate well.  However, English being the highly adaptable language it is, it is hard to find a definitive source to settle some of the grammar questions about recent English language use.

The title gives one such example.  Many of us are getting our books in digital format, whether it is a novel to be read on the iPad, Nook, or other such electronic book device, or curriculum, resource material, or other such items.

But when we download these items, what is the proper way to refer to them?  Are they Ebooks?  eBooks? ebooks?  or e-books?

One site I've found that helps with such questions as this is Daily Writing Tips.   Not only do they debate topics like this, they have lots of resources on the subject, including a section on Grammar 101 and a basic grammar (their choice is) eBook (although they suggest that the most popular choice is probably e-book).  If you subscribe to their blog, you will get a daily email relating to writing, which can be helpful to students, teachers, and bloggers alike.

Curriculum Resource: Studying Marine Invertebrates Through Song

We are studying Oceanography this year through our Oceans Coop.  However, we aren't just looking at the math and science of the subject; we are approaching it sociologically, artistically, historically, and through literature (and maybe some other ways if we can think of them).

Here is one unusual way that I just found.

There is an scientist named Kevin Zelnio who works with Duke University and the Discovery Channel on ocean issues.  He is the editor of Deep Sea News (among other blogs), and is particularly focused on marine invertebrates.   But Kevin has another side; his is also a folk song writer and performer.  He has written a bunch of song about the sea, with a particular focus on marine invertebrates.  Plus, he shares them with the world, free of charge.

Check them out below.  I think they are a fun way to bring another dimension to your studies about marine biology and ecology!