Fostering a new renaissance through creativity, authenticity, spirituality, and art
I read the above book three years ago when my oldest daughter was applying to schools, and it was out of date then, published in 2000. Since that time, these authors have put out a whole slew of titles that you can see on the shelf in any teen section of the library. Written by … Read more
Today we visited Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering (click here). This is my son’s dream engineering school, but it is also tiny, elite and very difficult to get into. This is a school especially designed to be a creative, innovative, hands-on engineering school. It is young, built in 1997 to respond to a dearth … Read more
I am in Annapolis, celebrating the end of my oldest daughter’s sophomore year at St. John’s College. She is happy, challenged, thriving, and possibly a bit over-scheduled. Every minute doesn’t seem to have enough seconds for her; her days have no excess hours. She was the lead in and co-directed the school play, Eumenides, … Read more
I went to a preview screening of this documentary last night. It was just rough clips of an independent film in the making, interspersed with commentary, and concluded with a panel discussion. I can’t therefore review and rate this as a movie yet, but I’ll share what I learned, as well as some of my … Read more
No April Fool, I was at the State level competition of the National Geography Bee today. Although admittedly I was witnessing top students, it was encouraging to see these kids’ familiarity with our world and their facile command of its facts. We were honored to have our daughter participate at this level! Our daughter missed … Read more
Below please find the response I received from the College Board, obviously an official form letter since it refers to me taking the exam. Regardless, I thought it may be of interest: March 17, 2011 Dear Polly: I am writing to you today in response to your email regarding the essay prompt on the SAT® … Read more
Yesterday I wrote a formal complaint to the College Board, the folks who put out the SAT placement test. The content of my letter has been brewing ever since Saturday, when my son took the SAT test, and the essay question was about reality TV. I referred to my disgust over it in my rather … Read more
It feels like an end of an era. It has taken my husband and I, together with our oldest two teenagers, three years to get through the complete seven season series of this TV show on DVD, checked out from our library. We absolutely loved it and are sorry it is over. We started it … Read more
I encourage everyone to see this important documentary. I thought it was well done and give it five stars.
Ever wonder what I get back from my blog readers? The limerick Joe wrote for me made my day and inspired this post, but all of you are interesting people who contribute so much to my life! I cherish each of you. Here is a recent smattering of input from my readership: “There once was … Read more
I really enjoyed this movie set in India about a child struggling with dyslexia and the art teacher who helped him overcome it with understanding, kindness, and compassion. Regardless of it’s slow pace, the subtitles, and long song interludes, I give it five stars. I was very touched by both what the boy went through … Read more
As promised (click here) I wanted to feature an example of vital picture books. Usually I’d promote individual picture books that were remarkable in themselves, which is not particularly the case here. This post is about a remarkable man and his ideas. Picture books about him best communicate his important message into the budding thought … Read more
This is a book more people should read. I give it five stars. My oldest daughter read it in high school and ended up attending one of the 40 schools featured here. Her school, St. John’s (click here), which I had not heard of before, is already an enormous blessing even though she’s only half … Read more
Here are some insider photos of what it looks like to homeschool science, at least at our house. Our dining room table gets lots of action. Both kids are enjoying online science classes this year complete with labs… That blue stuff smelled awful! And I’m sending out a special THANK YOU to blog reader Debbie … Read more
Below is a copy of my daughter’s account of the service trip she took last summer to teach in the Christian Science Sunrise of Africa School in Nairobi, Kenya. She wrote this at Thanksgiving time in deep appreciation for her myriad church sponsors who donated in varying amounts to make this experience possible. She has … Read more
I’m blown away by something I read in today’s New York Time (read it here) that states picture books are going out of vogue because parents are encouraging kids to move on to chapter books. How wrong! I have to give a pitch for picture books, because they are very important. They should be fully … Read more
As I discussed yesterday (see here), my son, along with 20 church teens, went on a service trip to Peru to build a school. They also spent time with the school kids while they were there. If you want to read the blog of their experience you can see it by clicking here. They were … Read more