June 14, 2006
A Literary Twilight Zone: Where Winnie the Pooh and Froggy meet Don Quixote in Turn of the Screw
The Main Character: A reluctant transplanted graduate student, middle school teacher, wife and mom of one and soon to be two
The Prologue: The Books That Started It All: Susan Wise-Bauer's The Educated Mind and Julie Peters' Julie and Julia
Susan Wise-Bauer's The Well-Educated Mind
My one true passion in ife has always been books: Escapist, romantic, thought-provoking, change-the world journeys. My bookshelves make up a miniature library that span the Dewey decimal system. I have books on physics, germs, history, politics, autobiography. Authors from Barbara Kingsolver and Maria Doria Sparrow to Jennifer Cruise and Fern Michaels.
I've been committed to educating myself and to ensuring that I can bring love of learning and knowledge to others since as long as I can remember, so when I stumbled on this book on Amazon.com, I had to have it and wanted to add Wise-Bauer's other titles as well. The Educated Mind is basically a primer for educating yourself in the classical way from home as many of our greatest minds have. I read Part I at the beginning of June. Basically, this gives you a way of evaluating and improving yourself as a reader. Using her test, I'm a pretty good reader but there's still room for improvement, especially if I'm to read many of the titles on her lists.
Wise-Bauer recommends journaling your thoughts as you read, exploring whether or not you agree with what you read and why, and then taking these thoughts further by discussing them with others. Well, pretty much since college, I've been a lapsed journaler. I'd like to argue that there were just too many thoughts and too much living going on, but I suspect it was more just trying to keep up with school work and full-time earning a living. Too much writing what other people required to want to write for myself. Also, since moving to Florida, I've had a hard time connecting with other readers who might want to discuss such works as those that Wise-Bauer recommends, or even such fluffy fun escapist list as Jennifer Cruise's Bet Me and In Her Shoes.
I thought about starting a book group... In fact, there was a time in my life when book groups WERE my life. In fact, it was the way I met my husband Jim. Shortly after joining an on-line life in 1995, I moved to nowhere Alabama. I quickly found that my standard pick up line "What are you reading?" tended to generate glazed stares in the eyes of men who selected their dates based on whether you preferred Orange or Red (University of Tennessee verses the University of Alabama for those of you who are not from the Deep South).
Anyway, in order to find intelligent life.... ahem.... readers I could connect to while living here, I branched out from AOL's e-mail to their online book community and discovered bookgroups. Most groups tended to be limited to bestsellers and to not go deeper than "Did you like this book?" Or, what did you think about so and so sleeping with so and so? type questions. Yes, this was better than the football discussions of my local community for someone whose knowledge of football is limited to the difference between a field goal and a touch down. Still, it wasn't a deep exploration of literature.
The first bookgroup I signed up for was where I met my future husband. It was devoted to the works of Umberto Eco, and by chance, shortly before moving to Nowhere, Alabama, I had picked up a copy of Foucault's Pendulum, the book the group was reading, for a $1 at a thrift store (another one of my passions, thrift stores). This group went beyond the college litarature class and much much deeper than the standard book group. It took them six months to get through the book and during that time I read that book three or four time through and a part of it that was going to be under discussion every week. During the time the group met, I made some great long distance literary friends and decided to apply to graduate school. More on that later.
Any way, this exploration that we did with the book groups seems to be what Wise-Bauer recommends for attaining her "classical education." How in the world would I have time for that kind of commitment on each book, research for my thesis, prepare lessons, and be a wife and mother to a two year old as well as a soon to be born newborn?
When I picked up Julie Peter's Julie and Julia, she seemed to have the answer: To Blog.....
Julie Peters' Julie and Julia
Julie Peter's was depressed and feeling stuck in her life but wasn't sure what to do about it until she stumbled on a classic from her childhood, her mother's copy of Julia Child's masterpiece: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She embarks on a year long experiment in which she attempts all 524 recipies in the book and chronicles her experiences on a blog. As she proceeds with the experiment, she learns a lot about herself and the art of "living with gusto."
To be perfectly honest, a similar experiment in my house would probably result in mucho tears, divorce, and self-disgust. For one thing, I was experimenting with vegetarianism when I became pregnant (although I seem to have developed an extreme need for chicken since the First Reponse test came back positive). Secondly, most of my culinary experiments create results which my husband labels as "glop." I'm pretty much a disaster in the kitchen with all but the most basic standard fare.
However, what better way for a busy wife, mom, teacher, and student to explore what she reads and encourage dialogue with other readers in a non-pressured, non-academic environment than blogging? So, what are you reading? Would you consider coming along on my adventure of developing a "well-educated" mind, knowing that Froggy, Winnie the Pooh, and The Little Engine that Could will be blended with Henry James and The Man of La Mancha?
A Literary Twilight Zone: Where Winnie the Pooh and Froggy meet Don Quixote in Turn of the Screw
The Main Character: A reluctant transplanted graduate student, middle school teacher, wife and mom of one and soon to be two
The Prologue: The Books That Started It All: Susan Wise-Bauer's The Educated Mind and Julie Peters' Julie and Julia
Susan Wise-Bauer's The Well-Educated Mind
My one true passion in ife has always been books: Escapist, romantic, thought-provoking, change-the world journeys. My bookshelves make up a miniature library that span the Dewey decimal system. I have books on physics, germs, history, politics, autobiography. Authors from Barbara Kingsolver and Maria Doria Sparrow to Jennifer Cruise and Fern Michaels.
I've been committed to educating myself and to ensuring that I can bring love of learning and knowledge to others since as long as I can remember, so when I stumbled on this book on Amazon.com, I had to have it and wanted to add Wise-Bauer's other titles as well. The Educated Mind is basically a primer for educating yourself in the classical way from home as many of our greatest minds have. I read Part I at the beginning of June. Basically, this gives you a way of evaluating and improving yourself as a reader. Using her test, I'm a pretty good reader but there's still room for improvement, especially if I'm to read many of the titles on her lists.
Wise-Bauer recommends journaling your thoughts as you read, exploring whether or not you agree with what you read and why, and then taking these thoughts further by discussing them with others. Well, pretty much since college, I've been a lapsed journaler. I'd like to argue that there were just too many thoughts and too much living going on, but I suspect it was more just trying to keep up with school work and full-time earning a living. Too much writing what other people required to want to write for myself. Also, since moving to Florida, I've had a hard time connecting with other readers who might want to discuss such works as those that Wise-Bauer recommends, or even such fluffy fun escapist list as Jennifer Cruise's Bet Me and In Her Shoes.
I thought about starting a book group... In fact, there was a time in my life when book groups WERE my life. In fact, it was the way I met my husband Jim. Shortly after joining an on-line life in 1995, I moved to nowhere Alabama. I quickly found that my standard pick up line "What are you reading?" tended to generate glazed stares in the eyes of men who selected their dates based on whether you preferred Orange or Red (University of Tennessee verses the University of Alabama for those of you who are not from the Deep South).
Anyway, in order to find intelligent life.... ahem.... readers I could connect to while living here, I branched out from AOL's e-mail to their online book community and discovered bookgroups. Most groups tended to be limited to bestsellers and to not go deeper than "Did you like this book?" Or, what did you think about so and so sleeping with so and so? type questions. Yes, this was better than the football discussions of my local community for someone whose knowledge of football is limited to the difference between a field goal and a touch down. Still, it wasn't a deep exploration of literature.
The first bookgroup I signed up for was where I met my future husband. It was devoted to the works of Umberto Eco, and by chance, shortly before moving to Nowhere, Alabama, I had picked up a copy of Foucault's Pendulum, the book the group was reading, for a $1 at a thrift store (another one of my passions, thrift stores). This group went beyond the college litarature class and much much deeper than the standard book group. It took them six months to get through the book and during that time I read that book three or four time through and a part of it that was going to be under discussion every week. During the time the group met, I made some great long distance literary friends and decided to apply to graduate school. More on that later.
Any way, this exploration that we did with the book groups seems to be what Wise-Bauer recommends for attaining her "classical education." How in the world would I have time for that kind of commitment on each book, research for my thesis, prepare lessons, and be a wife and mother to a two year old as well as a soon to be born newborn?
When I picked up Julie Peter's Julie and Julia, she seemed to have the answer: To Blog.....
Julie Peters' Julie and Julia
Julie Peter's was depressed and feeling stuck in her life but wasn't sure what to do about it until she stumbled on a classic from her childhood, her mother's copy of Julia Child's masterpiece: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She embarks on a year long experiment in which she attempts all 524 recipies in the book and chronicles her experiences on a blog. As she proceeds with the experiment, she learns a lot about herself and the art of "living with gusto."
To be perfectly honest, a similar experiment in my house would probably result in mucho tears, divorce, and self-disgust. For one thing, I was experimenting with vegetarianism when I became pregnant (although I seem to have developed an extreme need for chicken since the First Reponse test came back positive). Secondly, most of my culinary experiments create results which my husband labels as "glop." I'm pretty much a disaster in the kitchen with all but the most basic standard fare.
However, what better way for a busy wife, mom, teacher, and student to explore what she reads and encourage dialogue with other readers in a non-pressured, non-academic environment than blogging? So, what are you reading? Would you consider coming along on my adventure of developing a "well-educated" mind, knowing that Froggy, Winnie the Pooh, and The Little Engine that Could will be blended with Henry James and The Man of La Mancha?
posted by Gypsy @ 1:15 PM
6 Comments:
At 8:45 PM,
James Rovira said…
A very good resource for any great books study is the website of any Catholic University, esp. one that has a graduate school in English.
The proper way to proceed with a "classical" education is, of course, to be taught Greek and Latin while young and to read the classics in their original languages. Only from there do you move on to moderns like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, Joyce, etc.
The advantage of learning Greek and Latin extend beyond the ability to read classic works in their original languages. Since modern English is so very influenced by both these languages you will be a better English user for your experience, and will find that you have a greatly increased capacity to learn modern European languages, almost all of which are descendants of Greek and Latin.
Thiis is very difficult, of course, for an adult. I'd suggest adults start with Hesiod, Homer, at least select Plato and Aristotle, Virgil, the Bible, select Augustine, then Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. If you can read some pre-Socratics too, great.
Wherever you go from there, you will be in good shape.
At 2:05 PM,
Gypsy said…
ah.... but few of us are given the opportunity in today's public schools of a good classical education. There are far too many preparations for standardized tests and for entering the workforce. In fact, education for itself, and learning to think, is not the goal of public education, at least for the majority.
The true liberal arts education, with a focus on grammar, logic, and rhetoric through reading is what Susan Wise-Bauer is recommending. In The Well Educated Mind, she suggests titles in categories such as novels, poetry, history, and drama with reading tips for the adult self-educator who feels like they missed out on this type of education. The goal of Wise-Bauer is to improve our ability to think about the world around us through literature, in much the same way that liberal arts graduate schools prepare literature students.
Since, at the same time that I pursue this project, I am also preparing lessons that I hope will inspire real learning for middle school students and thinking about how to bring the love of books and learning to my children, I thought this would encourage ideas and a dialogue with others here.
While learning Greek and Latin is not the approach that Wise-Bauer recommends first, like you she suggests starting at the beginning with the "classics" and using a chronological approach. Since I've sampled all of these at some point in my education, I've chosen not to follow that recommendation, though I do hope to read or reread most of her recommendations during the course of the project.
At 2:23 PM,
jrovira said…
Yep, that's one of a hundred reasons why everyone possible should stay out of today's public schools...but there are exceptions.
At 10:53 AM,
GypsyReadr said…
On the Social History of Trash and the Human Footprint
When Don DeLillo’s Underworld first came out, I attempted to slog my way through the book. Unfortunately, the only thing that seemed to register with me in the book was his commentary about trash and the problem with what to do with it. I’d never thought about trash before. It was just a necessary evil of day to day life. I just assumed it deteriorated in landfills and became a part of that ashes to ashes, dust to dust that all things go through in life. DeLillo’s book was an eye-opener about the extent of the trash problem, even if not a terribly well plotted novel.
So a few years later when I came across Susan Strasser’s Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, I was surprised to learn that trash is actually a relatively new invention, a product of the consumption-based economy that began with the 20th century and escalated following World War II. Prior to this, everything was generally recycled or reused or used as an alternative fuel source, even animal dung and the scrappiest, holiest rags. After reading Strasser’s book, I made some decisions about reducing, reusing, and recycling to try to limit my own creation of trash and the impact I have on the earth. The majority of my friends take things like individual portion sizes, fast food wrappings, disposable diapers, paper towels, and toilet paper for granted. Like me before reading Underworld, they don’t think about the resources used to create these products or where they go when we finish with them. When I quit buying sandwich and snack bags and began rinsing out old bread bags, quit buying paper towels and napkins and began using cloth napkins or old rags, and refused to use disposables, store—bought baby wipes, or buy baby food, my friends and family declared me truly weird. Also, the response of traditional social groups – public schools, daycares, churches – was completely negative. Did you know most daycares won’t allow you to bring a cloth-diapered child to their program (even if you are willing to compromise and buy them store-bought wipes?)
I continued to read and think about the issue, essays like Barbara Kingsolver’s and her most recent nonfiction work, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, about trying to eat locally. I tried to make decisions about my food, buying things as locally and organically-grown as possible. I experimented with vegetarianism, struggling against my family’s rebellion to come up with creative, tasteful recipes that they would eat. When I read Judith Levine’s Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, I attempted her experiment on a smaller scale, trying to only buy the things that I need and again struggling with my family. Perhaps most interesting about her experiment are the compromises we make about consumption, especially when it comes to our professional choices and gifts to our loved ones.
At 10:54 AM,
GypsyReadr said…
continued...
When I received an e-mail about another book about another experiment in reducing consumption and the creation of waste, it immediately went on my wish list. Just this week the community college where I work was able to get Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man via inter-library loan, and I was especially intrigued by the fact that he, too, is so torn by the conflict between his own desire for comforts that we take for granted and the impact that he is having on the earth, especially because he also has a small child in the book and a strongly consumerist and resistant spouse. I am hoping that I read about his journey, that I will be able to make some additional decisions about my choices that can reduce my household’s impact on the planet and come up with responses to criticisms and complaints from family members, friends, and schools that will encourage them to also think about their personal impact. The fact that so many books and articles are coming out about people choosing to live off the grid, reduce their carbon and environmental footprint, and make individual choices about consumption is not coincidental. Every social movement starts with the individual, the “I,” and grows. I will try to write more about my reading and experimenting here and hope that you’ll join me with your own ideas and experiments.
At 11:23 AM,
GypsyReadr said…
Why I am back...
Why I am back…
When I first began teaching, I was surprised and appalled by how badly students read. My first inclination was to blame school systems for failing to teach good basic reading skills, and some of the blame does lie there, without a doubt. Instead of setting high expectations and holding students accountable for meeting them, many school systems argue/assume that students won’t do the reading, especially independent reading, and try to find other ways of getting the material to them, including video and web/internet alternatives that provide at least a superficial idea of content like how government works or what The Crucible is about, never mind why it is still relevant today. I found that if I set those expectations high and held students accountable, many would, in fact, reach for the goal, kicking and screaming, it’s true, but they would still make the attempt. As I continued teaching, however, I found that probably as many as a third or more students truly struggled with reading comprehension, not because they were lazy or didn’t care, but because they really didn’t get it. Many of these students, I was surprised to find, don’t see pictures or images when they read. They see letters and words on a page, and getting the meaning of the words on those pages seemed to require processes that they don’t have. As an educator who loves to read, in fact, takes reading for information for granted, I struggled with what to do about these students. I took some literacy courses and read a lot of what I could get my hands on, but none of them seemed to address why some kids seem to get reading so easily and some don’t. Most focused either on direct instruction in phonemic awareness and vocabulary development, while others advised different techniques for visualizing what is read and identifying main ideas or supporting details, but how to help a student find text friendly and accessible.
Last fall when I was shopping at Barnes and Nobles, I came across Maryanne Wolf’s Proust and the Squid that for the first time seemed to ask the same questions I had been asking and that used modern technologies and historical research to get to the root of the increasing literacy problem. In the early chapters, she traces the evolution of the brain to begin to use symbols for first the natural world and then increasingly for the spoken word. She traces the changes that had to occur in the many parts of the human brain in order to build on that ability and develop from symbols or scratches on tokens to full alphabets and pages and pages of text to capture oral histories. She introduces the controversy of Socrates and Aristotle with the changes from oral to written texts and begins to explore it with the evolution taking place today with the move towards digital and electronic text and how this may be impacting the way young people learn to read and access text today.
I am only on chapter 2, as she explores this history, but I am hoping that her ideas and research will help me as an educator as well as a reader of classical and modern literary and nonfiction texts.
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