October 2009 Reading List

1.  Expressions of the Catholic Faith by Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D.:  I didn’t actually read all of this book.  I read about 2/3rds, though.  I think part of the problem was that the author’s understanding about the construction of the New Testament is completely based on tradition rather than Biblical archaeology or historical criticism.  It just goes to show that a nihil obstat doesn’t necessarily mean that everything in a book is factually correct.  It’s also an example of what you get when you have an art historian writing about religion.  Even though I loved his definition of transubstatiation as being the opposite of transformation, he started losing me when he said that Matthew was the first Gospel written.

2.  Boys and Girls Learn Differently by Michael Gurian:  Having already read his books The Wonder of Girls and The Wonder of Boys, I found parts of this book repetitive.  The book is oriented towards the classroom, and he generally disregards homeschoolers.  He also seems to orient everything with the assumption that all kids come from homes with either single parents or two working parents.  He advocates longer school days, so that kids won’t have to latch key it and will have time to learn extra life skills at school.  It sounds like torture, though, for those who do have a parent waiting for them at home to teach them those things.

3.  You’re Teaching My Child What? by Miriam Grossman:  This book was really great.  It goes over some of the things that are never covered in sex education classes that should be, and exposes how most promoters of “sex education” really promote “sex ideology” that has very little basis in science.  She is hardly unbiased in her disgust of groups like Planned Parenthood, but she makes a lot of good points…especially when it comes to the credentials of some of the people making policies and advising young people about their sexual health.  I highly recommend her book.  The information about pheromones, oxytocin, and cervical maturation makes the book totally worth reading.

 

ETA:  I knew I was missing something…

4.  True Darcy Spirit by Elizabeth Aston:  This Pride & Prejudice sequel follows Miss Cassandra Darcy, grand-daughter of Lady Catherine De Burgh, as a case of mistaken identity followed by a romantic error of judgment, alters her life forever.  This was third or fourth re-read of this book in my personal collection.

5.  Mr. Darcy’s Dream by Elizabeth Aston:  This is Aston’s most recent sequel, and follows two of Mr. Darcy’s nieces (Jane’s and Georgiana’s daughters) as they plan a summer ball at Pemberly so that Mr. Darcy can show-case his new and modern greenhouse.  This is the first book in which Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth are actually seen rather than just referenced.  She keeps their appearance fairly short, though, with only Mr. Darcy having any dialogue.  I think part of Aston’s success  is that she does not risk ruining such iconic characters as Darcy and Elizabeth.

September 2009 Reading List

1.  All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque : I don’t know what to say about this book.  I am glad that I read it.  It takes a very deep look at the insanity of war, but not quite in the fun way that Catch-22 does it.  It gave me a much better understanding of World War I, but it was especially interesting to remember that it is written from the perspective of the “bad guys”.

2.  Star Wars Fate of the Jedi:  Abyss by Troy Denning:  The plot thickens…and after all these years I still love reading Han and Leia tease each other.

3.  Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman:  I totally agree with Klosterman’s assessment that everyone wants “fake love”.  I also tend to agree that all probability is really 50/50.  I had to really push myself to read through the chapter comparing everything in life to a Lakers/Celtics rivalry.  I did find it amusing that he asks people what kind of speech he would give if at a party whose entire guest list include former sexual partners especially since I’ve only had one partner who happens to be my husband.  Something tells me he doesn’t hear that a lot.  Overall, it’s a very fun book to read.  One thing that struck me (being me) is the influence of his Catholic upbringing in ways that Klosterman probably doesn’t even realize.

4. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh:  I’ve heard this book recommended in Catholic circles but I’m not exactly sure why.  It does center around a wealthy Catholic family between WWI and WWII, but I don’t know that I would really call it a “Catholic book” thematically.  There were two things I found interesting. 1) Lady Marchmain was more concerned about her daughter marrying a non-Catholic than her son having a homosexual affair.  I find this interesting given the idea that society was more unforgiving of homosexuality back then than it is today.  Secondly, there’s a part where Sebastian Flyte (I wish I could find the exact quote) where he explains to Charles that Catholics see the world in a completely different way than most other people.  Charles argues otherwise because he just can’t see the world as Sebastian and his family do.  Interesting book; I’m glad I read it.

The Wonder of Boys

Even though I don’t have any boys, I decided to check out this book by Michael Gurian.  While I didn’t feel the need to take extensive notes like I did for The Wonder of Girls,  I thought I would jot down a few things that caught my attention or made me think.  For instance, I did learn some interesting things like that most boys/men hear better out of one ear than the other and process information better through their left eye.  He talks about how male empathy is more task-oriented.  A boy won’t allow empathy for others to interfere with completing a task at hand unless he has been given responsibility to look after a certain person who requires empathy at that moment.

Gurian talks about the importance of male role models to the proper development of boys into men and puts a big emphasis on the importance of competitive and team activities to fulfill a boy’s natural need for competition, physical exertion, socialization within a large group, and meeting other male role models.  This made me think a lot about male-only schools and clubs.  Having gone to a single-sex school I always heard that studies showed that girls did better academically in a single-sex environment than boys.  However, perhaps single-sex education is good for boys in other ways besides academics; perhaps it fulfills other develomental needs.  And maybe some all-male clubs were less about just trying to keep females down but more about just offering places where men could just be men.  Of course, the problem was that these all-male places sometimes had the side-effect of holding back female businesswomen when business deals were made at a place they couldn’t access.

One thing that I thought was kind of sad even though I understand it was when he talked about how mothers must be prepared to hand the emotional and moral training of her son over to his father or another male around age 10.  A boy needs a good man to teach him how to be a good man.  I couldn’t help think about one of my friends who lived with his father after his parents divorced when he was in early adolescence.  I couldn’t help but think about how hard that must have been for his mother to let her only child go live away from her.  And I wondered if she had agreed simply because that is what my friend said he wanted or if she somehow knew that it would be in his best interest to go live with his father at that time in his development.

A lot of what Gurian said really resounded with things John Taylor Gatto and David A. Alberts have written about the necessity for real work for adolescents, especially boys.  And I also couldn’t help thinking about how the Amish put a great importance on work that keeps the father with the family all day so that boys have a constant model of behavior and mothers aren’t given a disproportionate amount of responsibility for discipline.  Sometimes the Amish have an amazing understanding of things that us Englishers lost a long time ago.

I don’t care for the set-up of this book as much as I did the other-one.  Of course, having written this book first maybe Gurian realized that a structural change was needed.  He also seems to twist himself into a pretzel trying to emphasize that while boys need spiritual direction that doesn’t necessarily mean they need a religion.

I think the two biggest flaws of the book, though, are that he doesn’t even mention pornography and he condones masturbation.  Pornography is a huge problem for men, especially in this internet age.  These are huge missing pieces of the puzzle that I hope has/will be remedied in later editions.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to the parents of boys.  And if I ever become the parent of a boy, I will probably add this to my book collection.  It does have certain lessons that parents need to learn.

August 2009 Reading List

1.  So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling by Lisa Whelchel:  In preparation for the upcoming semester, I decided to reread the book that first made me consider homeschooling.  I always like this book because it uses personal narratives to teach you about homeschooling instead of dry facts and figures.

2.  Eat This, Not That! for Kids by David Zinczenko:  I first saw this series in our local used book store.  I decided to go with the version for kids since they are the main ones that I cook for.  It had a really good evaluation of the kids’ menus at various restaurants, and some ideas for at home.  I liked the assumption that I wasn’t going to be making every meal from scratch using all organic materials and the smoothies wouldn’t include yogurt I cultured myself.  And Bailey and I were able to have a good discussion about how the healthiest thing on the menu might not really be healthy just less unhealthy than the other things on the menu.

3.  Homeschooling: A Family’s Journey by Gregory and Martine Millman:  I had read this once before but grabbed it from a homeschooling/education display at the library as an impulse.  It was alright.  One thing that bugs me is how easy they try to make it seem to travel all over the world and take your kids with you.  I think it helps if you have an uber-flexible job like the father had, and if your job is probably covering part of the expenses for sending you to places like Rome or France.  It’s just not something that every homeschooling family living on one income can afford to do.

4.  E=Einstein edited by Donald Goldsmith and Marcia Bartusiak:  I read about two or three essays from this collection about Einstein.  They had a lot of detail about his various theories, which required more brain power to understand than I felt like expending.  Next time I’ll stick to a regular biography.

5. Homeschooling for Excellence by  David and Micki Colfax:  I think I may have also read this once before a few years ago.  Since these days I seek homeschooling books that discuss the experiences of others, it had that going for it.  I didn’t get too much out of the book, though.  Their lifestyle was so removed from mine, especially since they were homeschooling in the pre-internet era.  The resources now available to homeschoolers make it a whole different enterprise than it was for them.

6. The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian:  Have a post that should be published soon.

July 2009 Reading List

1. Freedom’s Choice by Anne McCaffrey:  This is book 2 of the Freedom Series and an inspiring continuation of the story.
2. Freedom’s Challenge by Anne McCaffrey:  Pretty good, but I’m not keen on the main character conceiving her children through drunken one-night stands, even with her spouse’s consent.
3. Freedom’s Ransom by Anne McCaffrey:  I wouldn’t have ordinarily read these back to back, but I ran out of everything else.  I don’t know if it was just because I read these in a row or if the series kind of petered off like some of her other ones have.  But I think that she either should have stopped at three or written a fifth one.  This almost seemed like the start of a whole new story arc.
4. I Like Being Catholic edited by Michael Leach and Therese J. Borchard:  Got its own post.
5. How to Organize Just About Everything by Peter Walsh:  I kind of browsed through this book full of practical and sometimes just fun information.  I’m not sure about his page on “How to Homeschool”.  I think it would have been better if he offered suggestions for organizing homeschooling supplies or paperwork rather than a lame blurb about homeschooling itself.
6. The Wonder of Girls by Michael Gurian:  Got its own series of posts.
7. The Mystery and Meaning of the Mass by Joseph M. Champlin:  Finally learned the basic differences between the “Tridentine” Mass and the post-VII “Novus Ordo”.
8. Star Wars, Fate of the Jedi: Omen by Christie Golden:  Nice enough, but reaffirmed my decision not to spend any money on getting my own copies of new Star Wars books.
9. Being Nikki by Meg Cabot:  The second book in the Airhood series takes the mystery, intrigue, and fun to a whole new level.
10. Amish Enterprise by Donald Kraybill and Steven Nolt:  This book takes a sociological look at how the lack of farmland has led many Amish into the world of business and its effect on them.  His discussion about the constraints on business that are self-imposed by Amish culture made me think of a lot of Pope Benedict’s latest encylical Caritas In Veritate.

The Wonder of Girls (Part 2)

These are some of my notes from the book about specifically what I, as a mother, need to do to aid their healthy development according to Michael Gurian.

Stage 1:  Birth to Five Years

1. Attach, attach, attach!! “…Infant attachment to the primary caregiver is one of the primary indicators of later success as an adult” (p. 111).    This attachment needs to be consistent through age 3.
2. Discipline from 18 months on.
3. Teach manners.
4. Introduce child to chores.
5. Introduce child to the spiritual life.
6. Limit media usage, specifically television exposure.  (I think I’m getting better.)

Stage 2:  Ages Six to Ten Years

1. Deal with lying, stealing, and cheating while understanding that this is normal experimental behavior.
2. Be a clear and competent authority figure for her to model.
3. Nip whining in the bud.  Make her explain how what she wants will benefit others besides herself.
4. Teach her how to accept and even enjoy failure.
5. Monitor media usage, make her media literate, and limit television and movies to those with “uncomplicated moral conclusions”.

Stage 3:  Ages Eleven to Fifteen Years (or onset of Puberty)

1. Be prepared to handle sudden anger.  Try to investigate the source of your daughter’s anger, but expect her to treat you with respect no matter how angry she is at you.
2. Be prepared to handle occasional bouts of sadness (which are completely normal): help try to find the root if there is one, offer physical affection or quiet time together, share stories of sadness from your own life, explain possible biological roots of her sadness (hormones, menstrual cycle), help her to discern between legitimate and irrational self-shame if an issue, suggest exercise, help her avoid foods with lots of refined sugars, and be prepared to involve her father, grandmother, or other mentor for help if necessary.
3. Be prepared to respect certain pulls for autonomy but be careful not to abandon her completely.
4. Do not allow absolute privacy.
5. If clothing battles crop up, ask her what she is trying to express about herself with her clothing choices.
6. Incorporate Rites of Passage.  (I’ve really been giving this a lot of thought.)

Stage 4:  Ages 16 to 20

*Help her to answer the following Four Questions

1. Question of Identity.  Who am I?:  Besides making sure she knows all of the neurological and bio-chemical things that make her female, help her to learn about her ethnic and religious heritages, her likes and dislikes, her good and bad qualities, and her talents and deficits.  Share your life stories with her:  good times, bad times, fears, disappointments, heart-breaks, and moments of truth.
2. Question of Autonomy.  What can I do?:  Help her deal with personal responsibility, power, and freedom.  I think that discerning personal and professional goals in life would fall under this category, too.
3. Question of Morality.  What do I believe?  What is right and wrong?  How should she behave in certain situations?  What are her own personal limits and what risks is she willing to take in life?    What about situations where the right thing to do isn’t always clear?  Discuss “what ifs” with her.  Challenge her to think for herself and express her own beliefs.
4. Question of Intimacy.  Who will I love?  How will I love?  Dating.  What are her physical limits before marriage?  Discuss what to look for in a future husband and future father of her children.  What are the most important qualities that she wants from her marital relationship?  What about the day-to-day responsibilities of marriage?  (I tend to lead more towards courtship rather than dating.)

Additionally, your child needs to be raised in a “Three-Family System” consisting of the nuclear family, extended family (or very close friends), and institutions such as church or school.  However, the child must be able to form true bonds with people in the institution or it is not a true third family.

The Wonder of Girls

The Wonder of Girls by Michael Gurian is a neurological, bio-chemical, and anthropological study of all the dynamic things that make girls wonderful, and I can not recommend it enough to the parents of daughters.  First he begins by discussing the Feminist Movements–its achievements and its limitations.  He notes how the Feminist fear that neurological and biological gender studies would be used for the continued repression of women also kept such differences from being used to empower women.  He then goes on to discuss the neurological advantages that women have in the “Gender Wars”.  These include faster brain development as well as faster blood flow to the brain and through more parts of the brain leading to better memory, multi-tasking, and ability to project consequences of actions.  He then breaks down female brain development into four stages and explains what he calls the female “intimacy imperative”, a neurological imperative to define one’s self by one’s relationships with others.

I found the neurology section section amazing, and there are certain things that really struck me:

1. The importance of self-knowledge in the maturation of young women is often over-looked.  Young women can gain self-knowledge through family attachments and on a practical level by making surveys of family history and experiences.  Unfortunately, just at the time when young women most need their parents’ input, time, and attention, many parents’ step back thinking their young teen no longer wants or needs their support or guidance.
2. “[Between ten and fifteen] She will probably become judgmental of others in ways she regrets later.  She may become nasty in ways you don’t like (ways she will feel bad about when she’s lying in bed at night reviewing her day internally” (p. 41).   If that doesn’t explain the nastiness and cliqueish behavior that starts in Junior High I don’t know what does.  Of course, this also initially made me question whether keeping my children out of schools would really help avoid this behavior in my own children as I had hoped.  Then he goes on to say on p. 42: “The social technologies (such as media, peer groups, school institutions) of early adolescents today are overwhelming to brain growth in ways they were not a hundred years ago.”  So while homeschooling may not completely eliminate this behavior, it may diminish its effects on them.
3. “Stress increases cortisol levels in the brain for boys and girls.  Extremely high stress levels during Stage 3 of female brain development (ages eleven to fifteen) can lead to neurological rewiring, leading to higher rates of depression for the rest of a woman’s life (p. 46).”  People often talk of family history or genetics playing a part in depression.  What if the reason children of depressed people are more likely to be depressed themselves is because the excessive stress of dealing with a severely depressed parent rewires a girl to be more likely to have depression herself.  It’s kind of like the cyle of abuse; in fact, Gurian describes a similar correspondence between excessive stress levels in boys due to sexual abuse and later pedophilia.
4. According to Gurian, it is normal for Stage 3 girls to have occasional periods of depression or “self-esteem drops”.  It is a neurological response to all of the physical and neurological changes occurring within.  Wow, I bet my mom really would have liked to have known this when I would hide in my room and cry for days.  Of course, if she had this book available, she would have known that these were the times when I most needed her to connect with me.  “…if a child is guided to navigate Stage 3 in relative innocence, protected safety, and constant primary attachments, she ends up developing an even stronger, more competent, and less neurotic self by twenty-five or thirty than had she been “hyper-matured”… ” (p. 44).
5. “At around twelve, after two years of accelerated neural activity, her brain will begin to focus neurotransmission on areas of the brain most often utilized and not on areas underutilized” (p. 39)  To me this was the the thing that stuck out to me the most.  What he is saying is that things that are learned or most important to a girl between the ages of ten and twelve are  more likely to “stick”.  This doesn’t mean that she is incapable of learning or finding interest in other things at later times, but these things are more likely to remain a part of her throughout her life.  This concept could really effect how we choose to homeschool our daughters between the ages of ten and twelve.

After going through all of the neurology, Gurian begins to tackle the wonderful world of female hormones in Chapter 3.  And I wasn’t nearly as impressed with this bio-chemical section as I was with the previous one.  For one, I found his descriptions of the female menstrual cycle less than stellar.  He should have used the same terminology that any book about female menstrual cycles or a gynecologist would use.  For instance, he should have explained that “Stage 1″ of the menstrual cycle begins with the first day of a woman’s period, and then started discussing the biological effects of each hormone on the reproductive system and the correspondent effect it has on a woman’s mood.  Secondly, I wonder if he is even aware that a woman can track her monthly hormonal journey by charting her Basal temperature?  Talk about the ultimate self-knowledge that would seem indispensable to a young lady.  I did find the “Tree of Life” information rather interesting as well as poetic.

I am kind of writing this post as I go through the book.  I am mainly touching on things that stood out to me and that I want to remember for my own reference.  There is so much more in the book, so please don’t feel like I am “spoiling” it for you.  I can tell that I am going to have a lot of notes about the second part of the book which discusses specific strategies for supporting the natural development of your daughter.  Therefore, this is probably a good point to split into a second post.

I Finally Get Half-Blood Prince!! (Spoilers if you haven’t read the book.)

Yesterday my husband was asking me a question in the car about the movie Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince.  This of course got me rolling on all the things they changed/cut out/didn’t explain from the book.  So then DD#1 started asking questions about the whole thing, and we started discussing the identity of the Half-Blood Prince.  Then she kind of asked something about why the Half-Blood Prince is even important.  As I was explaining it to her, I FINALLY GOT IT!

I had always just thought of the book in terms of plot development:  learning of the horcruxes, romantic entanglements, and Dumbledore’s death.  And I guess I only thought about the Half-Blood Prince in that he is the one who kills Dumbledore in the end.  I totally did not get the deeper theme of the book.  I finally realized that the reason the book is titled around Snape is foreshadowing about the importance of Snape himself.

As usual Snape is Harry’s biggest present enemy in the book.  They are constantly nipping at each other with Snape, as the teacher, constantly getting the upperhand.  However, Harry thinks that the Half-Blood Prince who helps him with his potions class and teaches him all sorts of neat new spells is his new best friend.  Of course, he doesn’t realize that they are one in the same.  His enemy is his friend, and his friend is his enemy.  This just underscores Snape’s dual nature as double agent and villian/hero.  Just as the Half-Blood Prince has a darker side (as shown by sectum sempra) then logic would show that Snape himself has a hidden light as well.  And what about Snape’s pride in being a half-blood when he supposedly belongs to a group that values “pure blood”?  Perhaps this further goes to show that he is pretending to be something he is not when he is with the Death Eaters.  He is not a pure blood, so he is not a true Death Eater.

I pretty much suspected as soon as I finished the book the first time that Snape’s murder of Dumbledore and been prearranged between the two.  I never really contemplated the deeper meaning of the title, though, in relation to the book.  I don’t know why.  Maybe I was just to caught up in the progression of it all.  One of those things that I love about the HP series is that when you go back and reread it you see foreshadowing and symbolism that you never noticed the first time through.  Sometimes this is because you just missed it in the action, and sometimes because it didn’t have a context until you read the later books.  The complexity is one of the things that makes it so enthralling.  I just can’t believe it took me this long to really understand the significance of the Half-Blood Prince.  I just feel like smacking myself on the forehead and saying “Duh!”

I Like Being Catholic

Besides being true, it is also the title of a book I recently read.  It’s a collection of anecdotes and observations made by a variety of Catholics and edited by Michael Leach and Therese J. Borchard.  The book itself was very clear that it is not a book about theology, but it was a nice enough little read.  At the time, I was going through it I did not particularly think it was going to be worthy of its own post, yet here we are.

The title of the book comes from something Father Andrew Greeley said while appearing on “Donohue” when asked why he remains a Catholic if he disagrees with many things the Church teaches.  He simply said, “I like being Catholic.”  This reminded me of when I agreed with my husband to try and find a compromise church early in our marriage.  I told him that I would try to find a denomination that we were both comfortable in, but deep down I would always be Catholic.   He wasn’t really happy about my honest admission at the time, but I think he might understand better now that he is Catholic himself.

Because one of the things that the book drives home is that whether you are a very orthodox Catholic or a “cafeteria” Catholic, once you’re a Catholic you’re pretty much always a Catholic.  Even if you get disgusted or disenchanted with the Church, if you protest or drop out, or even if you get ex-communicated, the Church will always be waiting there for you to come home like the Prodigal Son.  Being raised Catholic, even nominally, shapes your view of the world and your place in it in sometimes subtle ways that you don’t even realize.  And the power of the Church may lay dormant in you for years, popping out at times you least expect

The other thing that struck me was the familyhood that the Church offers.  It is more than a sense of community, even if that is how it is often described.  The Catholic Church is really a family.  There are people you love and people you can’t stand in your family but you’re stuck with them no matter what.  That’s how it is in the Church.  Even when you don’t want to be part of the Church’s family anymore, you can never truly escape it.  The Precious Blood is thicker than water, so to speak.  Mandatory weekly Mass attendance is like the Sunday dinner with the family that you feel obligated to attend, even at those times you don’t really feel like it.

Of course, anywhere in the world that you can find a Catholic church or even a lone Catholic priest able to say the Mass you can find the comforts of home.  And just like your Cousin John who you haven’t seen in two years shows up to help you move, your family is always there when you really need them.  The Catholic Church is one of the largest single providers of social services in the world.  Despite the sometimes shoddy theology I was exposed to in Catholic schools, my fondest memories are of working together with other Catholics for the betterment of the parish and the larger community.  Whether it was counting coins to make change for games at the Church picnic at age five or six, running my own booth at age 13, ushering at Mass starting at age 14, raising money and can goods for charity, or working at a dinner program for underprivileged children in high school.

As I was thinking about the familyhood of the Catholic Church, I thought about one of the catch phrases of Protestantism:  “What you really need is a personal relationship with Jesus”, often implying that Catholics do not in fact have this.  As the book points out, from the cradle to the grave, the Catholic Church offers a most personal relationship with Jesus.  Jesus isn’t just there when we choose for him to be; he is always there with us.  Most Catholics are officially presented to God within weeks of birth (not that He didn’t already know every hair on our head before we were born) in the sacrament of Baptism.  From the age of seven, we are invited to God’s house for dinner every week with him in the Eucharist.  We also learn to say we are sorry when we have done something to offend God through the Sacrament of Confession, and we experience the joy when we know that God has forgiven us for our transgressions.  This is an important part of any personal relationship.  God is there when we join ourselves to another human being in marriage or to the entire Catholic Church through Holy Orders.  And like the most loving relative, God is there to comfort us and nourish us when we are ill and/or dying through the Sacrament of Healing.

These things are just a very small part about why I love being Catholic, and they are a few small reasons why I will always be Catholic.

Weapons of Mass Instruction (Part 3)

There are lots of little thought here and there that have gone through my mind while reading John Taylor Gatto’s Weapons of Mass Instruction.  The last one I will address in this post.  What kind of homeschooler would John Taylor Gatto be?

I couldn’t find very much personal information about John Taylor Gatto out there.  Most biographies just covered his professional life.  In his letter to his granddaughter in Chapter 9 of this book he briefly discusses his wedding day and the existence of his daughter, the child’s mother.  Since he was a school teacher for 30 years who tried to work within the system before deciding it was pointless, I assume that his daughter probably attended schools.  Therefore, while Gatto has immense respect for homeschoolers, he was probably never a full-time homeschooling parent himself.    So this makes me wonder what path Gatto would have chosen if his daughter’s education had been completely in his hands.

I definitely do not think that Gatto would have done “school-at-home” homeschooling.  After all, “school” is what he realized doesn’t work.  Would he have leaned towards Montessori or Charlotte Mason?  I don’t think he would have gone for Waldorff very much.  I think he would have been very suspect of another method coming out of Germany.  Something tells me that he would have probably used some sort of mix between Classical homeschooling and unschooling.

Gatto criticizes rote memorization several times in the book, and rote memorization is an important part of the first stage of Classical homeschooling.  But I think Gatto mainly worked with middle school and high school students, and much of his work seems to address the idea of adolescence.  I think he may have meant rote memorization that continues through all twelve years.  I think the Rhetoric stage of Classical homeschooling would have particularly appealed to his understanding of education.

However, I think the over-whelming structure of a strict Classical homeschooling program would have turned Gatto off.  I think Gatto would have wanted a child to have more time to “do” things and do things of personal interest rather than have to sit and study and follow someone else’s plans.  I can totally see Gatto embracing more child-led learning, especially in the teenage years.

I really wonder if anyone ever asked him about this.  The idea makes me want to dig through some of his other books and interviews to find out.  Of course, that’s if I can get through all the books I already had on my reading list before I added all of the ones he inspired me to read.  So many books…so little time.