Articles About Education

Every once in awhile, I find an article in the The New York Times about teaching that I want to keep. Whether it's about the advantages of one room schoolhouses, progressive education, or portfolio assessment... or the struggles of the current generation of boys... it's one I want to read again and again. So I'll keep that list here, in case anyone else finds it interesting.

A very special article:
"How Demosthenes Reached Across the Ages to Speak to William", from

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The New York Times

Something Surprising Happens When Kids Have to Set Their Own Goals
Jan 2, 2025

In This Industrial Design Class, Students Eat Their Homework
Dec 19, 2024

Nurses, Chaplains, and Teachers Should Not Be Replaced with Technology
Dec 4, 2024

For Too Many Kids, Books Are Uncool and Unread
Jul 24, 2024

As Boys Struggle, Men Who Teach Kindergarten Step In
Jun 23, 2024

A School With 7 Students: Inside the ‘Microschools’ Movement
Jun 17, 2024

What Happens to Gifted Children
Jun 13, 2024

Sign Right Here: The Parents Pledging to Keep Kids Phone-Free
Jun 9, 2024

Boys Get Everything, Except the Thing That’s Most Worth Having
Jun 5, 2024

A Utah Mountain Town Brings Back an Old Idea: The One-Room Schoolhouse
Apr 21, 2024

An Ancient Solution to Our Current Crisis of Disconnection
Nov 27, 2023

What Most American Schools Do Wrong
Oct 22, 2023

Who Runs the Best U.S. Schools? It May Be the Defense Department.
Oct 10, 2023

This Simple Fix Could Help Anxious Kids
Sep 4, 2023

Parents Don’t Understand How Far Behind Their Kids Are in School
May 11, 2023
I think a fifth year of high school is an excellent idea, and I don't understand why ALL schools in the country didn't automatically just have children repeat the grade they were in when COVID struck. Instead of moving everyone on and then discovering that they're all a year behind in math and reading.

A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute
Oct 23, 2011
It is very interesting to look back at this classic article... over a decade later!

ASDE - The Alliance For Self-Directed Education

Parents! Stop whatever you’re doing and DESCHOOL now!

What’s the Damn Rush? Embracing the Present Instead of Preparing for the Future

YouTube

Maintaining Classroom Discipline (1947)

Standardized Testing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

a photo from a recent special guest visit:

Thad Heckman, architect of the new train station
Mark Bollman, project manager for the city

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Accidental Archaeologists

A student and I are reading Accidental Archaeologists: True Stories of Unexpected Discoveries by Sarah Albee. Here is the list of stories included:

Chapter One: A Blast from the Past
Italy
1709
town of Herculaneum (Pompeii was later found nine miles away)

Bodies from the Ash: Life and Death in Ancient Pompeii
by James Deem

Pompeii (Unearthing Ancient Worlds)
by Liz Sonneborn

Chapter Two: Etched in Stone
Egypt
1799
Rosetta Stone

Seeker of Knowledge: The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs
by James Rumford

You Can Write Hieroglyphs
by James Rumford

Chapter Three: A Giant in the Field
Egypt
1815-1819
tomb of Sety I (among other discoveries)

Belzoni, Giovanni Battista

Tomb of Sety I (KV17)

Valley of the Kings

Chapter Four: In a Pile, Crocodile
Egypt
1899
Tebtunis papyri

What crocodile mummies can tell us about everyday life in ancient Egypt

Chapter Five: What a Wreck
Greece (Aegean Sea)
1900
Antikythera shipwreck

Antikythera Shipwreck

Chapter Six: Proving a Point
New Mexico, USA
1908
Folsom site

Bison antiquus

George McJunkin and the Discovery That Changed American Archaeology

Our Stone Age Heroes

Ancient Chesapeake site challenges timeline of humans in the Americas

Chapter Seven: Paleo Painters
France
1940
Lascaux Cave

Lascaux Cave Virtual Tour

Discovery in the Cave
by Mark Dubowski

The Secret Cave: Discovering Lascaux
by Emily Arnold McCully

Chapter Eight: The Case of the Copper Coins
Australia (Marchinbar Island)
1944
Kilwa sultanate coins

A similar coin, also thought to be from the Medieval Kilwa sultanate, was found in 2018 on Elcho Island, also in the Wessel Islands group.

Unravelling the mystery of Arnhem Land’s ancient African coins

Chapter Nine: Scroll Up
West Bank
1947
Dead Sea Scrolls

Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library

Chapter Ten: Bogged Down
Denmark
1950
Tollund Man

He’s the most famous of Europe’s bog bodies. But who was Tollund Man?

Chapter Eleven: Lucky Break
Thailand
1955
Golden Buddha

Wat Traimit: Bangkok’s Golden Buddha

Chapter Twelve: Eternally Yours
China
1974
Terracotta Army

The Terracotta Army: A Complete Guide

Chapter Thirteen: Temple of Gloom
Mexico
1978
Templo Mayor

Templo Mayor

Chapter Fourteen: Grave Considerations
New York, USA
1989
African Burial Ground

African Burial Ground National Monument

Chapter Fifteen: Dead in a Ditch
Italy
1991
Ötzi

Ice Mummy: The Discovery of a 5,000-Year-Old Man
by Mark Dubowski and Cathy East Dubowski

The Iceman

Chapter Sixteen: Skeleton Key
England
2012
King Richard III

Richard III: How things have changed since we dug up a king

Chapter Seventeen: The Chamber of Secrets
South Africa
2013
Homo naledi

Human Evolution Card Set from Clocca Concepts

The Extinct Human Species Found In Remote Cave Chambers

Chapter Eighteen: You Don't Say
Mongolia
N/A
burial site of Genghis Khan

Metropolis: Ten Cities, Ten Centuries
by Albert Lorenz

"A Mongol Tent City, 13th Century"
pp.14-15, The Enormous Empire
pp.16-17, A Movable City
pp.18-19, Life in a Mongol City

IN THE NEWS

Archaeologists Find a Marble Statue in an Ancient Roman Sewer
Bulgaria
The New York Times - July 9, 2024

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Celestial Navigation in Grade 6

An article in The New York Times this morning made me want to update a post I wrote back in 2020. Here are some notes on teaching Astronomy & Celestial Nativagion in grade 6:

Ancient Shipwreck Preserves a Deep Bronze Age Time Capsule

I recommend doing a main lesson block on Oceania in 6th grade, combining it with the existing Astronomy block done in Waldorf education, and tying in the celestial navigation skills of the peoples of Polynesia and Micronesia.

(My World Geography and Waldorf Education post gives the full scope & sequence of World Geography grade-by-grade.)

Geometry and Geology, both studied in Grade 6, tie in a LOT with this, so I'm feeling confident about the topic suiting this year developmentally.

Geology and Astronomy
by Charles Kovacs

The Night Sky Book: An Everyday Guide to Every Night
by Jamie Jobb

Astronomy for Kids: How to Explore Outer Space
with Binoculars, a Telescope, or Just Your Eyes!
by Dr. Bruce Betts

I have not found much for children specifically on Celestial Navigation, so Waldorf teachers would have to do what Steiner, in fact, suggested we should be doing all of the time. Which is to put away the Kovacs read and research on OUR OWN and write our own stories to tell our class! And Maria Montessori actually said the same thing about the Five Great Lessons.

I, like everyone else in education, do not have the time and energy to research everything from scratch for every block I teach, but for this one I think it will definitely be worth it!

Children's books on this topic by James Rumford:

Island Below the Star: How the First People Came to Hawai'i

A Gift from the Past

Lesson plans and more kid-friendly explanations:

• Driftwood Cartography by National Geographic
• Marshallese Stick Chart (PDF) by National Geographic

  Micronesian stick charts show wave patterns and currents. The shells represent atolls and islands. Using stick charts (also called rebbelibs, medos, and mattangs) ancient mariners successfully navigated thousands of miles of the South Pacific Ocean without compasses, astrolabes, or other mechanical devices.

• How far they’ll go: Moana shows the power of Polynesian celestial navigation
• Wayfinding and Navigation from the "Exploring Our Fluid Earth" website by the University of Hawai'i

Here are some resources for adults & background information:

Sky Phenomena: A Guide to Naked-Eye Observation of the Stars
by Norman Davidson

Traditional Celestial Navigation Before 1400
quick overview by Rice University

Vaka Moana, Voyages of the Ancestors: The Discovery and Settlement of the Pacific
by K.R. Howe

Polynesian Interconnections: Samoa to Tahiti to Hawaii
by Peter Leiataua Ahching

Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia
by Christina Thompson (audiobook)

So that's all I have so far!

It does make me think that reading Carry On, Mr. Bowditch would be an excellent idea. First of all, it's a Newbery winner. And, second of all, it's about an expert in celestial navigation (the link is to his bio on the National Maritime Historical Society's "Sea History for Kids" website, which is great)!

Luckily Geometry happens in sixth grade, so you can talk about angles and sextants and octants. Since the sextant and octant are reflecting instruments, that ties in with sixth grade Physics! All making me think this block should fall at the END of the year, perhaps even in the Summer between grades 6 and 7! It is nice to stay up in the summer and stargaze. And homeschoolers have that luxury!

Studying the tools that navigators used in the 1800s, and understanding how they work, will help students see how remarkable it was that Ancient People could navigate with confidence on long voyages without them!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Sieglinde de Francesca

I think I may have ALL of the books by Sieglinde de Francesca! I love her book on drawing with block beeswax crayons using only the primary colors. It's great for grade 1. And her book on teaching the Fables block is an absolute must-have for grade 2. And we adore the Limindoor Woods series!

love these special bookmarks with
The Golden Rules of Gnome!

Right now things are very Limindoor Woods around here.

Zac is reading A Donsy of Gnomes as his SSR book. I am reading the class The Way of Gnome as our lunchtime read aloud story. And Zac's bedtime read aloud is Mother Comfrey, which he got from the Easter Bunny this year. The lavender color of the cover is perfect in an Easter basket!

Zac has read so many of the Boxcar Children books since he absolutely fell in love with reading and now we are looking for something to be a bridge to rows of small print close together. I like the Limindoor Woods books for this because she uses small print but she skips a space between each paragraph. So they are perfect for him. Here are the titles in that series:

A Donsy of Gnomes: 7 Gentle Gnome Stories

sample pages

The Way of Gnome

sample pages

Gnomes & Friends

sample pages

The Gnomes' Rosette

sample pages

Nine Gnome Nights

sample pages

A Gnome-in-Training

sample pages

Mother Comfrey:
On the Wanders & Wonders of an Exceptional Gnome

The ones we don't have -- and which I just finished ordering for Zac -- are The Seven Sleeps: A Donsy of Gnomes' Dream Adventures and A Mouse & His Gnome: The Quest for the Silver Spring. Also, her website is lovely and I highly recommend checking it out! https://teachwonderment.com

I also have her collection of Irish stories, The Guilds of Tir Na nÓg: A Collection of Celtic Dream Tales, but I have not yet had a student read it.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Wildest Places Season 1

I'm working on writing up some Zoology lesson plans for a friend who lives in Australia. It has been great fun to re-conceptualize this classic Waldorf block using Australian animals instead of European or North American ones! It's an amazing continent!

(If you're teaching the Man and Animal block in Waldorf grade 4 as well, join the Ruzuku course and we can plan together and share favorite ideas!)

Ruzuku Course: Man & Animal

As part of my background research, I watched Season 1 of Wildest Places.

Here is a list of all of the animals mentioned in each episode:

Episode 1 - Outback Deserts

Pink Galah

Common Blue-tongued Lizard

Shingleback Lizard

Honeypot Ant

Thorny Devil

Perentie Monitor Lizard v. Emu (egg eaten)

Red Kangaroo

Greater Bilby

Spinifex Hopping Desert Mouse

Inland Taipan v. Long-haired Rat (eaten)

Pelican

Budgerigar

Episode 2 - Rainforests

Border Ranges Leaf-tailed Gecko

Lamington Spiny Crayfish

Satin Bowerbird

Australian Brush-turkey v. Carpet Python

Potoroo

Pademelon

Bandy-bandy

Funnel-web Spider v. Cricket (eaten)

Rhinoceros Beetle

Rainbow Stag Beetle

White-lipped Tree Frog

Ulysses Butterfly

Huntsman Spider

Cassowary

Musky Rat-kangaroo

Spangled Drongo

Weaver Ant v. Trap-jaw Ant

Tasmanian Devil

Quoll

Platypus

Echidna

Magpie Goose

Brolga

Mertens' Water Monitor

Saltwater Crocodile

Freshwater Crocodile v. Little Red Flying Fox (eaten)

Episode 3 - The Bush

Koala

Rainbow Lorikeet

Laughing Kookaburra

Forest Kingfisher

Wedge-tailed Eagle

Tawny Frogmouth

Honey Possum

Sugar Glider

Thick-tailed Gecko

Golden-tailed Gecko

Tammar Wallaby

Bettong

Bush Stone-curlew

Mulga Snake

Numbat

Compass Termite

Echidna

Golden-shouldered Parrot

Red-bellied Black Snake

Mulga Snake v. Inland Taipan (eaten)

Brumby

Wombat

Australian Bulldog Ant

Hibiscus Harlequin Beetle

Pill Millipede

Peacock Jumping Spider

White Crab Spider v. Orange Lacewing Butterfly (eaten)

Magnificent Spider

Redback Spider

Portia Fringed Jumping Spider v. Green Jumping Spider

Portia Fringed Jumping Spider v. St Andrew's Cross Spider (eaten)

Episode 4 - Wild Coasts

Humpback Whale

Bottlenose Dolphin

Grey Nurse Shark

Sand Whiting

Silver Bream

Dingo

Light-blue Soldier Crab

Stromatolites
not an animal... these are ancient bacteria-created layered formations of sediment trapped over time in microbial mats!

Green Turtle

Dugong

Bottlenose Dolphin v. Mullet (eaten)

White-spotted Eagle Ray

Nervous Shark

Bull Shark

Rock Crab

Kangaroo swimming

Cowtail Stingray

Ghost Crab v. Loggerhead Sea Turtle

Humbug Damselfish

Neon Damselfish

Staghorn Coral

Wrasse

Parrotfish

Spangled Emperor

Sea Pike

Plate Coral

Blacktip Reef Shark

Trumpetfish

Whale Shark

Reef Manta Ray

Spur-throated Locust

Golden Orb-weaver

Red-footed Booby

Hermit Crab

Horned Ghost Crab

Brown Land Crab

Christmas Island Blue Crab

Coconut Crab v. Christmas Island Red Crab (eaten)

Brown Booby

Saltwater Crocodile v. Bull Shark (eaten)

Cob Bread Oven - The Upgrades!

This is the story of our second Cob Bread Oven.

We built the oven in week 2 (The Story of Trash) so that we could bake with it in week 3 (The Story of Food).

During Trash week of Stories of Household Items, our focus was on reuse, reduce, and recycle. We incorporated a number of reused materials into our oven, only buying concrete sand from Ready-Mix (total cost: $6).

In addition to sand, our oven included

old 55 gallon fiberboard drum donated by Emriver, Inc.

old glass bottles / sawdust / straw donated by Ms. Megan

old bricks from my garden wall

old newspapers from my house

clay dug from my yard

broken-up pieces of our first cob oven

leftover paper pulp from our Tuesday topic, The Story of Paper

Monday - build insulation layer and add sub floor

a 10 x 10 foot canopy to help protect the oven from rain

thank you to the family who donated this pop up canopy
during the COVID pandemic and our Outdoor School times!

Build Your Own Earth Oven, 3rd edition by Kiko Denzer

I cut down the drum so we could use it as a form
to hold the base layers while they were still wet

Step 2: Insulate Your Floor
p.41 - recycled glass bottles set in a "mortar" of clay slip + sawdust

working with Ms. Megan to mix it up

packing the bottles and mortar into our form

p.43 - heat sink - a bed of dense oven mix

dancing a batch of cob!

using the tarp to mix

p.52 - snowball test
p.53 - do the twist
p.54 - using a tarp to mix

Tuesday - let dry

Today we took a break from the oven so that the base layers could dry and did some Papermaking to go with our "recycle" theme. This colorful paper pulp was all left over from January's Capital Letters block (G is for Goose) -- see This Week in Papermaking -- and I froze it afterwards so that it wouldn't be wasted. After today I didn't want to re-freeze the remnants, so I got the brilliant idea of adding the pulp to the oven as part of the wet paper layer!

bags of frozen pulp thawing in the sink

Wednesday - build hearth, make sand form, add newspaper layer

before today's activities started, I cut the sides off the fiberboard drum
(this was super easy to do because it was wet)

fiberboard is NOT safe to burn so it MUST be removed from the final oven; however, using the drum was extremely helpful because then we could use the lid as a template to help us plan the hearth

Step 3: Make Your Hearth Floor
p.45 - spread a smooth shallow bed of sand on the subfloor

with the addition of the "tongue,"
the children thought he looked like a little man!

Step Five: Make the Sand Form, or Shape the Void

p.50 - "The oven is a void, and the sand form is what shapes it.
Cover the void with oven-mud, dig it out -- there's an oven!"

you cover the sand form with a layer of wet paper so that when you're tickling the sand away later your fingers can feel when to stop!

cob mixture contains quite a bit of sand so if you didn't have this shift in texture as a cue, you might remove quite a bit of your oven from the inside by mistake

Thursday - build oven mud layer

Thank you to Ms. Megan and her family for coming to help us again!

The children divided themselves into two teams of 7. One team was more interested in working with their feet and they went off to dig more clay, manipulate the tarp, and dance up a huge batch of cob. The other team was more interested in working with their hands and they stayed by the oven and added the cob when it came over in buckets.

Each team had time to sit in the shade and rest and drink water, of course! I was dancing cob and had absolutely no time to take pictures of that process!

p.55 - many handfuls make a layer

Friday & Saturday - let dry

Sunday - remove sand form

Thursday, Jun 20 - first baking attempt!

Baked Apples! The oven fired beautifully (much much better than our first attempt). Clean bright flames, smoke merrily coming out the chimney, and HOT. We cored apples and loaded fresh homemade butter, freshly ground nutmeg, and raw sugar into them, then wrapped them in aluminum foil (in case sand was still falling from the ceiling) and put them in for 1 1/4 hrs.

YUM!

If you're interested in cob ovens, here are some really nice notes from The Happy Monk Baking Company.

I will also add that I think you should make firm decisions about the roof and the door pretty early on, instead of hoping they will work themselves out later.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!