bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • Liveblogging curriculum development: Skills list.

    Part 4 in a series in which I develop a second-grade library skills curriculum. 

    I look over the scrawled list of skills that Hannah and I came up with.  What I really want is for my older child to learn how to find stuff in the library without my help, because I’m busy managing the younger ones.  On a fresh page I write: 

    Main goal:  Child is able to locate fiction & nonfiction books & reference entries on a subject of interest, independently or with the help of library staff, while following library rules.

    Yes, that’s about right.

    On a new page I make a list and label it SKILLS.

    1.  Child will know proper way to behave in a library and how to care for library materials.

    I’ll have to distill this down to essentials:  what always needs reinforcement (don’t run; don’t yell; don’t eat or drink around books) and what they wouldn’t know unless I told them (wait patiently in line to see the librarian; don’t try to put books back where you found them, but leave them out for the staff to put away).

    2.  Child will identify library staff.  Child will know how to approach staff and ask for help finding things.

    An important skill in general, but especially here in the library. 

    3.  Given a subject of choice, child will know how to find the encyclopedia and select the correct volume, then to ask library staff for help finding the right page.

    Selecting the correct volume only requires first-letter alphabetization skills.

    4.  Child will know where to find a dictionary and an atlas and will understand what they are for.

    Might as well, since they’re in the same section as the encyclopedia.

    5.  Child will know the meanings of signs that say "fiction," "nonfiction," "reference," "juvenile," "reference desk," "checkout/returns," "copier," "telephone," "restrooms."

    6.  Child will know what is meant by "author," "title," "subject," and "keyword."

    I remember when keywords didn’t even exist.  But all four are necessary to use the catalog.

    7.  Child will find the shelf containing the juvenile nonfiction books on a subject of choice, by browsing or asking staff for help.

    Maybe I’ll create a reference card, a little cheat sheet, that will help him navigate the cataloguing system.  Maybe one already exists.  Google it?  Didn’t find one, but ooh, here’s a history of the Dewey Decimal System and Library of Congress system, with a comparison of the two.

    8.  Child will find fiction books by an author of choice, by browsing the shelves or by asking staff for help.

    Asking for help has to be part of this strategy for fiction until alphabetization is completely learned.

    9.  Child will know how to use the library copier.

    This is important for taking home reference information — we won’t usually have time to wait for a seven-year-old to puzzle out the encyclopedia entry on jellyfish.

    10.  Child will know how to use the online library catalog with adult supervision.

    There is one library area that I am not eager to push for independence with, and that is the computer system.  I want the child to be able to hit all the keystrokes and navigate, but I’ll be right there to help.  Besides, we’ll mostly use that from home. 

    11.  Child will use his own library card to check out books and will know when to return them on time.

    Just as soon as I learn how to return library books on time!  BWAHAHA.

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  • Library skills curriculum – what do we want?

    Part 3 in a series liveblogging curriculum development.  (Part 1 – Introduction.  Part 2 – a visit to the neighborhood branch library.)

    Over a cup of tea, each of us nursing a little one, I told Hannah I was planning on developing a library-skills curriculum for second grade.  "Do you want me to develop it for Ben too?"  (Her son Ben is in the same grade as Oscar.)  It sounds like a good idea.  I write down the name of the library branch that her family uses, so I can tailor the curriculum for their library too, and I keep my notebook and pencil out while we think out loud of what the children need to learn.  We come up with a scrawled list:

    • Library rules.
    • Asking librarian for help — approaching and identifying library staff.
    • Where ref materials are
    • how to find on shelves – children F, children NF, picture books
    • author title subject keyword
    • basic – computer catalog

    At this point we pause and reminisce about card catalogs:  the brass pulls polished by many hands, the clunk  of the drawers sliding open, the feel of placing your palm on the aligned edges of many cards and turning hundreds of cards at once, the faded typewritten ink:  Subject — Libraries — Library science. Hannah tells me that her church has a library, a small collection, that still uses one — only one drawer, but a real card catalog nonetheless.   "Really?  Maybe we can take a field trip to see it!"  She agrees that this could be fun.  Maybe we could develop a card catalog for a child’s bookshelf even, as a project…

    I pick up my pencil again.  "What about alphabetization?" I ask.

    Hannah considers carefully and finally says, "I don’t think that this ought to rely on the child’s knowing how to alphabetize words.  It’s a pretty complicated skill." 

    "But maybe if they were at least able to alphabetize to the first letter of a word.  So they can at least find the right volume of the encyclopedia." 

    This seems right, so we continue:

    • Alphabet – "beginning letter"
    • The Code – library of congress or dewey
    • Library layout
    • The system of checkouts, returns, holds, etc.
    • Field trip to big central library

    I’ll compile this into a list of goals when I have a chance.

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  • Library trip.

    Part 2 in a series:  I develop a library-skills curriculum for second grade. (Part 1)

    I went to my neighborhood branch library this afternoon while Mark watched the kids, armed with a notebook and a camera.  After returning some books and paying my six-dollar fine, I walked around and took notes about the layout, since that is the library I will teach my son to use.

    There is a children’s room, suitable mostly for reading to little ones.   Library_024 Shown here are some picture books and readers in bins, alphabetized by title.  On the shelves are more picture books alphabetized by author.

    Videos and audiobooks are kept there, as well as a collection of children’s periodicals.Library_025

    Outside this little room are the juvenile stacks.  The fiction is alphabetized by author and the nonfiction is arranged according to the Library of Congress system, which pleases me.  I spent seven years in a library that contained almost nothing but Q-QC and TA.

    Library_027 Library_026_2 Mental note:  must find info on the rest of the LC system.   GV?  NC?  What’s that?

    Juvenile reference is a single shelf at the beginning of juvenile nonfiction.  I write down some titles we might find useful:  Lands and Peoples — social studies encyclopedia.  Children’s atlas.  Ox. Comp. Child. Lit.  Science encyclopedia — 2 of them.  Encyclopedia of Life Science.  Int’l Wildlife Encyclopedia.  Wildlife and Plants. 

    Where’s the kids’ regular encyclopedia?  I find it in the main reference section with the Encyclopedias Brittanica and Americana.  Also dictionaries and phone books and other atlases.Library_022  It’s the 2007 World Book.

    What else might we need to know?  There are three library desks:  checkout/returns, reference desk, and children’s librarian.  The children’s librarian is not there, but the other desks are staffed. 

    There are a few comfortable places to read and also study desks:Library_023 Library_028

    There are, of course, computers for using the library catalog and web browsing.  One thing I like about our neighborhood library is that there are not any children’s computers at brightly colored tables with a bunch of games pre-loaded onto them.  What computers there are for web browsing are always packed with teenagers.  I suspect that this is due to low funding and I hope and pray that nobody comes through with funding earmarked for preschoolers’ computer games. 

    I sit down at one of the terminals and do a catalog search for juvenile nonfiction about libraries.  I click on one entry, which isn’t actually at this branch, read the call number, and walk over to the corresponding shelf in JUV NF.  I choose a handful of books to take home, maybe to incorporate into my curriculum, and run them under the express checkout scanner.

    Posted next to the scanner are the library rules.  I make some notes:  no loud speaking, no playing audio, no running, fighting, noise, games downloading, annoying people, eating, drinking is ok if cup is covered, no loitering, don’t break the law. 

    I wander around some more.  Today’s newspapers are in the adult fiction section.  There’s a copier there too.  It accepts coins, which is good for children.  I forgot to Library_029 see how much it charges per copy.  Under the clock are shelves of tax forms.

    I can’t really take any more pictures unless I start asking people for permission — the library’s pretty crowded.  But my hour’s almost up, and my baby’s at home, so I put my books in my bag and head out to the car.  That should be enough information to get started.

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  • Liveblogging curriculum development.

    I use packaged curricula and other people’s lists for a pretty big chunk of my homeschooling, but sometimes I like to design it myself when I can’t find exactly what I want.  (Maybe that’ll stop when I have more children and less time!)  Since they’re for my own use I don’t have to polish them, just sort of hammer it together the way I want and tweak as I go along.   I designed my own reading curriculum for Oscar, for example, based on the ideas of a curriculum developer that I happen to know personally but whose own phonics program wasn’t ready to use yet, and it worked fabulously for us.   I designed a biography-based combination religion and social studies program for first grade that we’re halfway through, now, and that one was really quick ‘n’ dirty and there are things I will do differently with my next first-grader, but it still met my needs well.

    I’m just about to design a sort of half-unit-study, half-curriculum for second grade library skills, and I’m going to blog it.  I’m starting by going to the local library, five blocks away.  See you there!

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  • Changing style as the family grows.

    Hannah and I were discussing the other day how our parenting style, philosophy, strategy, and tactics changed when we went from one child to two to three. I don’t mean that experience teaches you the right way to do it — I mean that some choices seem reasonable when there’s only one, not so great when there are several children.

    I home-pre-schooled my first toddler "Montessori" style:  I set up low shelves of ready-laid-out work trays and allowed him to choose his work freely whenever he wished.  Worked great until the second baby learned to crawl.  Nowadays I keep all the school and art supplies inside two tall metal cabinets with padlocks on the door.  Not very Montessori anymore.

    Hannah used to lift her first toddler up onto the kitchen counter (she stayed near and taught him well how to keep safe near the edge) where he could easily help out with cooking and other projects.  Worked great for a while, but that practice had to end when three children all wanted to be up there at once.

    Another friend didn’t mind interrupting errands to retrieve a forgotten doll for her first little girl. If it was MY forgotten thing, I’d go back for it — why not do the same for her?  But when the car held a new baby who needed to nurse NOW, extra driving to get a doll suddenly made no sense.

    We parents who want to treat our children as real human beings with real needs give and give and give to the little one, and we get used to considering her needs and her wants as equal to our own.  I remember well that I used to think that I ought to respond to a request from my child the same way that I ought to respond to a similar request from my husband.  I still think that, but today I understand that requests don’t come one at a time, and no matter who’s asking, I have to prioritize.

    We are adults and able to give quite a lot, able to defer our own satisfaction until naptime!  We can be so selfless:  we believe we should never put off meeting a child’s needs, and that we should generously help her to get what they want when it’s reasonable.   And so many requests are "reasonable!"  And then when another one comes along we find out — sometimes they both need something "reasonable" at the same time, and despite our best efforts one of them is going to have to wait.  That sometimes in a family needs and wants have to balance as best they can.  And everybody learns something.  And we all grow a little.

    What’s the answer for parents of a single child? Maybe it’s to be a little "selfish," selectively so, once in a while.  But I know from experience (back when I had only one) that it’s hard to do that in a way that feels natural and right, not capricious and — well — unreasonable.

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  • RIP Cathy Seipp.

    One of my favorite bloggers passed away today:  Cathy Seipp. 

    Ms. Seipp fought the same type of lung cancer that killed my mother.  They were diagnosed around the same time, it turns out, at the same stage; my mother had already succumbed to her cancer by the time Ms. Seipp started writing openly about her disease. 

    My mother, unlike Ms. Seipp, was a smoker; but I learned during her illness that half of all cases of that type occur in nonsmokers, and so no one could say that her tobacco use caused the disease.  I shared Ms. Seipp’s frustration with the stigma of lung cancer and the comparative publicity that, say, breast cancer gets.   This post from 2005 says it well.

    I didn’t read Cathy’s World every day, but would check in from time to time to catch up on her and see how she was doing.  For some reason I never put her on my blogroll or bookmarks list — I always clicked through from the VC link.  Never met, exchanged email, or even commented that I remember.  But especially after she started to write about her health, maybe because of my mother’s illness, I wanted to check in with her.  And always enjoyed her trenchant writing.

    I’m proud to say I never wondered “Why me?” Because that’s philosophically incoherent. But I do have a list of people that I consider every now and then, thinking: Why not you instead?

    She tended to go a few days between posts, so checking about every week seemed right.

    For months after my mom passed away, I would suddenly think that I needed to give  her a call, and then a beat would pass before remembering — oh — can’t do that.  I keep expecting at the back of my mind that if I click through to Cathy’s World, after a few days have gone by, there’ll be  a new post from Cathy, letting us know how the funeral thing went, how she’s adjusting to the afterlife.  It’ll fade, but it’s strange nonetheless.

    If you never read her, it’s not too late — her stuff is all still there.  Daughter Maia has been posting updates for a few days.  Spare them a thought and a prayer if you can.

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  • Back.

    My computer had to go into the shop this week, so I abruptly became unable to post.  Should be back to normal today or tomorrow.

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  • What the heck is wrong with the Latin-to-English translators?!?

    I haven’t blogged the new apostolic exhortation yet, but Fr. Z’s comment on the line about Latin in the liturgy — as translated FROM LATIN for the English-reading populace — is important.

    Latin: exceptis lectionibus, homilia et oratione fidelium, aequum est ut huiusmodi celebrationes fiant lingua Latina.

    In Latin, the phrase aequum est means "it is reasonable, proper, right".  It can be rendered as "it is becoming", to use a somewhat archaic turn of phrase.

    German: es ist gut, wenn außer den Lesungen, der Predigt und den Fürbitten der Gläubigen die Feier in lateinischer Sprache gehalten wird.

    Italian: eccettuate le letture, l’omelia e la preghiera dei fedeli, è bene che tali celebrazioni siano in lingua latina.

    French: excepté les lectures, l’homélie et la prière des fidèles, il est bon que ces célébrations soient en langue latine

    Spanish: exceptuadas las lecturas, la homilía y la oración de los fieles, sería bueno que dichas celebraciones fueran en latín

    Portuguese: exceptuando as leituras, a homilia e a oração dos fiéis, é bom que tais celebrações sejam em língua latina

    Polish: z wyjątkiem czytań, homilii oraz modlitwy wiernych, dobrze będzie, jeśli takie celebracje będą odprawiane w języku łacińskim  (Literally: "It will be good, if such celebration will be officiated in Latin language").

    Are you sensing a pattern in the rendering of aequum est, or rather how aequum est in Latin is more than likely the accurate reading of the original language of composition of the Exhortation?   

    Let’s see the English.

    English: with the exception of the readings, the homily and the prayer of the faithful, such liturgies could be celebrated in Latin.

    Frustrating, to say the least.  h/t Amy.

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  • Like Jostens for engineers! Kind of.

    Mark was awarded a patent last week, something that pleases him.  I told the kids that when someone asks what their daddy does, they can now say he’s an inventor. Just like Caractacus Potts! Or Inspector Gadget, maybe.

    I was amused by a bit of direct marketing that came in the mail a couple of days later:

    Dear Mark,

    It is my great pleasure to congratulate you on the granting of your newest patent! …

    It is your personal dedication that made this patent possible.    It took your valuble time and resources.  But because your patent accomplishment is intangible, it can be easily forgotten… by you, your colleagues, and your family.

    Don’t let your patent achievement be forgotten!  Instead, create a lasting memory of your accomplishment by ordering a patent commemorative plaque or frame.  Your patent commemorative is more than metal and wood — it is tangible evidence that you have made a contribution to this world and future generations.  One of our customers, Mr. Hank Cutler said it best:

    "It is always rewarding to have tangible evidence of one’s work, apart from publications. [Gee!  I didn’t know that my father/grandfather/great grandfather did that, but here’s a plaque to prove it.  Guess I’ll have to do better than that].  Their presence, in family history, fuels future generations to do better things."

    What better reason is there to buy a patent commemorative plaque or frame?  Create your lasting memory so that your "presence, in family history, fuels future generations to do better things" by placing an order for your patent plaque or frame today! 

    Heh — Mr. Hank Cutler (could it be the Henry H. Cutler who received a patent for this Ventilated Infant Garment in 1950?) said it best, indeed — so well that they had to add the text in brackets to make sure that we get the point!  Gaze upon this with awe, Junior.  Your forebears were noble men.  Here is the proof:  an engraved facsimile of a government document that certifies that one of their ideas was sufficiently *cough* original *cough* to warrant certification of its originality!  Go forth and do likewise!

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  • Guest-blogging highlights.

    From my guest blogging stint at HMSBlog:

    The self-weaning post is a bit of a re-run from one of my most-linked posts.  I want to write more here about the CC/TOTB link and about the "village of attachment," so I’m begging for inviting comments and questions on these two especially, if you’re interested.

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  • Compounding.

    A friend suggested I find a compounding pharmacy that will re-formulate Mary Jane’s medicine.  I called a local place this morning and found out that I can get her antibiotic in a more concentrated form, so I only have to give her one mL/day instead of four; and that it can be made colorless, so it won’t stain her clothes any more.

    So — thanks, friend!

    She had her kidney radiology this morning — we should get  all the results tomorrow.

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  • Always check twice.

    Saturday morning I drove the kids over to Hannah’s for the day.  I pulled into the cul-de-sac and waved at her son Ben, age 7, who was sailing sticks and bits of leaves in the raingutter stream, all swollen with spring meltwater.  Ben stood up and waved back as I pulled my minivan up into their steep driveway littered with plastic action figures.  The driveway was pretty full, so I decided I’d rather park in the street; I put the van into reverse, and as I started to back out I automatically looked up and scanned the street.

    Ben? 

    I stomped on the brakes.  The van rocked on its springs.

    Up popped Ben from behind the minivan, where he’d bent over to gather the sticks from the gutter behind my wheels.  I breathed through my mouth, engine running and toes immobile on the brake, and watched him; he ran around from the back to the front, disappeared from sight in front of my left wheel well, leaped back up with his hands full of toys rescued from the middle of the driveway, and trotted away.

    I made it inside, told Ben’s parents, let them give him a talking to (which I hardly remember).  I haven’t been driving the minivan for that long, and the one thing I hate about it is the giant blind spot right behind it.  I can’t see anyone shorter than about five foot one if they’re standing right behind my car.  If I hadn’t checked twice —

    –Well.  I did check twice.  That time anyway.  And I hope I always do check.  I hope you do too.

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