Spring 2013 Belly Dance in Bryan, OH

Belly Dance with Rita Helena

When: next session begins Thursday, April 4 from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m.
Classes will run for 5 consecutive weeks for $50

Where: the Community Center on Buffalo Rd., Bryan

Topic: class will focus on a new choreography for drum solo or group performance. New students are welcome!

Please contact Cindy at Parks and Recreation at 419-633-6030 to register. Hope to see you there!!

   

Homeschooling: Christian Curriculum Warning for Catholics

Here is an interesting segment from the Keeping It Catholic website that will hopefully help you in choosing your homeschooling materials:

I am still unclear on what exactly about (company name deleted) is anti-Catholic as opposed to just being non-Catholic..... I realize their history up to a certain grade leaves out the Catholic material and I have heard not to use their history and science after this grade. I would appreciate some specific examples of how they are ANTI Catholic.

The discussion was off and running! The following reply is the most edifying -- because it comes from a person with firsthand experience as a "Biblical Christian."

Well, have you asked yourself why they leave out the Catholic material in the history? I'm a convert from Fundamentalism. We were very careful neither to give the Catholic answer on anything nor mention anything in the history books that might cause our children to be open to Catholicism down the road.
Our view was that Catholicism was one of the many wide roads straight to perdition. Our school loved to get Catholic kids in so they could gradually wean them from their faith and make sure they learned all about Sola Scriptura (only the Bible) and Sola Fide (only the faith) so well that they would never return to Rome. (At the time I approved, until I saw the truth of Catholicism. It was then that I realized we should never have been so narrow as to tolerate such interference with parental authority-- because that's exactly what we hated about the public schools!)

Abeka, Bob Jones, and Alpha Omega were our favorite resources. When a Catholic parent asked about homeschool materials, we loved sending them to these three companies. Why? We knew that the entire slant of their educational program would range from Protestant to anti-Catholic. Like the public schools, we all knew that the way you train and educate a child will determine his whole outlook on life as an adult. After all, the Scriptures say, "Train up a child in the way he should go...."

That is why, when it comes to history, the Protestant publishers gloss over or omit the Catholic contribution and point of view. The child will never know it and, therefore, can never refer to it. Eventually, it will be easy to convince the child to become a "born-again Christian" (meaning a Protestant one or even a fundamentalist one!).

The Fundamentalist Mindset Toward Catholicism. If the Catholic contribution to history isn't important enough or influential enough to mention, then all the things that happened through the good influences of the Catholic Church can be credited to other cultural elements. So the Catholic Church can be effectively written out of the history books. With this kind of educational approach, the bad things that happened in history can be blamed on the evil influence of the Catholic Church. All the good things can be credited to the "Reformation" or various "enlightened" heretics who held the protestant-type positions long before breaking with the Catholic Church.

We screened our history books very carefully to make sure that no hint of good was written about the Catholic Church. We understood even a morsel might lead our children into slavery to the Catholic church and then to hell!

A Specific Example. When Alpha Omega carried a homeschooling book written by a Catholic, they apologized for it in their catalog's advertising blurb. They explained that they thought the book had some useful material in spite of being tainted. As a fundamentalist, I appreciated the warning and thought it was very conscientious of them.
 Reading books were another issue. They could use verses and stories that promoted sola scriptura and sola fide and re-emphasied those ideas until they were totally ingrained. The rules were -
-Never hint of Tradition as being from God; always indicate that Tradition is of man and never of God.
-Talk about ANYONE from the Bible as a good role model--except Mary or Joseph.
-Talk about any good religious leaders - provided they aren't Catholic. A good Jewish leader is better than a Catholic as an example for our children, because a Jewish person doesn't have the whole truth. As for Catholics, the fundamentalisst view is that a Catholic has chosen to ignore the truth in favor of the evil constructs of power hungry men and idolatry.

How truths are worded is important. Mostly, fundamentalists know it is important to use a way of wording upon which almost all Christians agree upon. By not presenting an obvious denominational slant, the loyalty to a single creed is weakened. By organizing words and phrases in a way with which a Catholic can agree or won't "catch on" (to the Protestant definitions, of course), the issue at hand is not offensive and Catholics tend to agree with it. Eventually, Catholics become comfortable with other, similarly worded, comments that are, if analyzed, anti-Catholic.

Why do "Christian" publishers do this? It's not because they have an agenda to hurt Catholics. It is because they want to be absolutely certain that their children are raised to view the Bible and only the Bible as the authority in their lives. Tradition (meaning the Tradition of the Catholic Church as upheld by the Magisterium) has no place in the faith life and neither does the Catholic "faith and good works" doctrine.

The Christian publishers want to ensure that children grow up totally convinced that faith is the only thing they need to be "saved." There is no place for good works; it is only your faith that gets you to heaven. No matter how much good you do, you have to build up a rock solid "faith" feeling inside yourself about God. The strong message is that if you don't accept this view of salvation, you really don't have faith in God and your soul is totally lost. As a fundamentalist, you have to check that "faith-feeling" meter on a regular basis. This, of course, clashes with the fundamentalist once-saved always saved teaching, although the alleged reasoning even behind that is "it's a faith thing."

Catholic parents have to ask themselves: If Christian books are written to permeate Protestant fundamentalism into children, why would a Catholic parent want to use them?

For Catholics making use of these kinds of books or curricula, the end result is serious. The children become accustomed to hearing about faith and other matters from the Protestant view.
There is no mention of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph or the Saints, the need for confession after repentance, etc. Those parts of Catholicism become alien to children because the curriculum is permeated with fundamentalism. For example, when the children do hear about Mary (as taught by the Catholic Church), it is so different from the simplified, watered down religious commentary in their "Christian" curriculum, that they have trouble connecting with the truth about the Virgin.

Language is a very powerful thing. How the faith is presented fits with the entire theological construct. If the book or curriculum presents information as the fundamentalists do (because some Catholic truths cannot be stated in the same way), and a child is exposed to this approach daily and yearly, which will the child understand and choose? Will he choose and believe the one to which he is accustomed, or the one that sounds "odd" to him?

Another example -- if the child finds that the only mention of Mary is "once there was a young Jewish girl named Mary. God chose her to give birth to the Baby Jesus," then the theological understandings of Mary as Mother of God, and the Immaculate Conception, are alien, and the foundations for understanding them are not there. The child needs to hear exactly what the Angel said to Mary, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." The child needs to hear Mary's responses, "How shall this be accomplished, since I know not man?....Let is be done unto me according to thy word."

The child needs to know that the Holy Spirit (God, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity) came upon Mary and caused her to conceive God (Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who is both divine and human). This builds the foundations for understanding that Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos). Repetition is needed for mastery of the concepts in the story of the Annunciation.

Parents need to know that if the truths of and about the Church are downplayed in the rest of the curriculum, it weakens the concept that this "religion issue" is important . The fundamentalist language in Christian books and curriculums will never allow anything good about Catholicism to be included; the complete truth and the real answers will never be found in a "Christian" curriculum.
As a convert to the Faith, I have given much thought to all of this. Now I use Catholic religion and history and reading. I want to be sure that my kids learn to be Catholic. I have the same dedication I once had as a Protestant because I understand the underlying premise of nondenominational materials...but it was a long, somewhat painful road to get here.
  

Keeping It Catholic: Charlotte Mason Red Flag

“Every education teaches a philosophy; if not by dogma then by suggestion, by implication, by atmosphere. Every part of that education has a connection with every other part. If it does not all combine to convey some general view of life, it is not education at all” (G.K. Chesterton, The Common Man).

My Keeping It Catholic homeschooling guide, by Marianna Bartold, finally arrived! As I mentioned before, she red flagged both Charlotte Mason and Maria Montessori. I have read the whole CM portion (her objections to Montessori are basically identical), and the author makes what appears to be a fair argument for cautioning against some aspects of Mason's worldview. Her reasoning is based on the perceived evidence that Mason's philosophy is too laced with heresies such as rationalism and naturalism, and is inspired largely by the Enlightenment figure, Jean Jacques Rousseau. One should be aware of these issues, by reading Mason's own words, Bartold suggests. (Note: Having now read a significant amount of CM's writings, I have found none of those heresies suggested by Bartold nor any infatuation with Rousseau.)


The good news is that the methods used by Charlotte Mason which I like, such as living books, narration, and copy work, were actually borrowed from classical education. Bartold herself says that the classical method can be applied to any worldview, be it Catholic, Protestant, atheist, etc... In and of themselves, then, the educational methods used by Charlotte Mason are not problematic. Furthermore, she understood children and how to effectively teach them. Scholasticism is the Catholic philosophical application of classicism. Since this is all new to me, I'm going to have to read the whole volume and come back to distill what I have learned.

What about unschooling? It is not mentioned in this volume in the Red Flags section. However, Bartold does object to the idea she perceives in the CM method that the teacher is only a facilitator of the child's education, which is a belief embraced by some unschoolers. (I did not, however, get the impression that Mason actually thought this way in my own readings.) Child-led learning is said to be the inheritance of Rousseau's influence, so it is perceived negatively. The idea that children naturally desire to learn is denied, a point on which I vehemently disagree with Bartold. She understands John Holt to have been an atheist, but I have no idea whether that is true.  

My idea of Catholic unschooling, as I have put it forth, is that the parents must actively teach their children along with the child-led, auto-education (self-teaching). Merely "strewing" educational materials in the hopes that one's children will find them and be interested is simply not adequate. Radical versions of unschooling do not fit with the parental vocation. In my opinion, there is certainly room for interest-led learning and a relaxed, gentle approach, but the education of the child in every area of life, including academics, is the primary responsibility of Catholic parents. The child cannot be left largely to his own devices in that case.  

What I argue along with other unschoolers is that the "traditional" means used in public schools need not apply in acquiring an excellent education. So can I, in good conscience, be a "Catholic unschooler"? According to my definition, yes, I think so. This is true especially since Bartold thoroughly covers various learning styles and the four basic human temperaments and advocates that the parenting/teaching style should correspond to the child's individual needs. Custom-designing the education is thereby encouraged, which also fits in with an unschooling mindset.

On that note, look again at the quote by C.K. Chesterton. According to what he said, it logically follows that a child cannot get what qualifies as a true education, according to a Catholic conscience, in the public schools. The general view of life espoused in the schools is secular humanism, a religion at odds with any form of Christianity and many other faith traditions. For the Catholic parent, this leaves only the options of homeschooling or a Catholic school. If public schooling is absolutely unavoidable, then Catholic parents have to be even more diligent in countering the ill effects and in firmly establishing the Faith as central to the child's education. It seems to me that this would be a nearly insurmountable task, but with God all things are possible. The challenge for the homeschooler is to keep it Catholic, for the Faith to permeate the entire education.

Bartold lists St. John Bosco as a good source for Catholic educational philosophy and methods, who is also designated as an inspiration for Catholic unschoolers in Suzie Andres' books. So since I have much more reading to do, I think it's time to take a hiatus on the subject for now. Have a blessed Holy Week, everyone! Next time you hear from me I will be a bona fide Catholic!!

Crocus!!!

Oh joy, oh rapture, a purple crocus is blooming in my yard! And three more are ready to pop open at any moment. The sun came out, and the day warmed up, so we took the dog for an evening stroll and picked up a friend of Beezy's to play at our house. We asked her friend about seeing some kids out today during school hours, wondering if spring break had already started. No, she said, they just had "early release."  Isn't that a prison term?

Anyway, I want to write about unschooling and get away from "what we did for school today" type posts, even though we still regularly do formal lessons. I want to be sure to note, though, that Beezy likes the workbook pages she does and all of the books we read, so she is not being forced to do things she dislikes or coerced to learn things about which she has no interest or does not yet have the readiness to understand. I am also not requiring her to sound words out anymore. Interestingly, she will often sound them out on her own, and I have noticed that she regularly self-corrects in her reading, because the story does not make sense when she makes a mistake. This tells me she is not just decoding words; she is comprehending the material. If she asks what an unknown word is, I just tell her, and it seems to stick much more quickly without my insistence on the burdensome practice of sounding out.

Since I want to focus on not separating life from learning and our Faith, then it's important to just describe the magic inherent in everyday life. I am much more attuned now to simply having real conversations, rather than trying to create "teaching moments."  If Beezy is interested in a conversation her dad and I are having, we just include her and answer her questions without dumbing anything down. Her advanced vocabulary reflects this.

Beezy watched Tom and Jerry cartoons on video this morning. She did her piano homework and practiced playing. A great deal of time was spent creating a theme poster for her 4-H meeting tomorrow, and I will try to get some pictures of it posted here later. It reads, "4-H Is the Cat's Pajamas!" Beezy has been wanting to wrestle with her dad, but he has been sick. Tonight they had a pillow fight and all kinds of fun. He is reading to her now, and I think we will all watch a Super Friends video before bed.

I am still recovering from my sinus infection but am feeling better. Tomorrow I have a retreat all day for RCIA, and only a week will be left before my full entry into the Church! It's beginning to look like spring...

German Homeschooling Family Seeks U.S. Asylum (and the new U.S. school curriculum disaster)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/15/obama-admin-trying-to-deport-german-evangelical-family-seeking-assylum-over-homeschooling/

I was made aware of this case a couple of days ago. It goes to trial April 23. The Obama administration wants to deport an evangelical Christian German family, the Romeikes, that fled their country because homeschooling is not legal there. If they return to Germany, they face the possibility of steep fines, jail time, and their children being taken from them. They have been living in Tennessee since 2006 and were granted political asylum in 2010, which has since been overturned. This is a threat to all homeschoolers in the U.S. This is yet another attack on religious liberty by this administration. Readers, please share any additional information you may have on this critical issue.

This headline is also disturbing (http://rt.com/usa/school-curriculum-new-works-937/):

"A new curriculum for public schools across the United States will soon make it mandatory for at least 70 percent of all assigned books to be works of non-fiction, eliminating classic works that have influenced great thinkers for centuries"

That's it--our public schools are doomed. And how long before the administration tries to force this on homeschoolers and private schools as well? How do more dry, "informational" textbooks and the elimination of classic literature prepare children for college and for life? How much more boring can school get? Parents need to mutiny!! Take to the streets and protest! This crazy plan, called the Common Core Curriculum, is hopefully going to crash and burn fast, because the results will be even more illiteracy and a higher drop out rate. That's the only hope.  47 states have already signed onto this. God help the USA.

And this!  (http://rt.com/usa/texas-microchips-school-district-262/)

What on God's green earth?????? This is America? No wonder they don't want students reading books like Orwell's 1984...

"Students in Texas to be monitored with microchips"

  

Steubenville, Football, and Rape

"The pictures from Steubenville don’t just show a girl being raped. They show that rape being condoned, encouraged, celebrated. What type of culture could possibly produce such pictures?"

When I was in college, a rape crisis center worker came to my dorm to talk about rape. She told us that the rapist is usually someone the victim knows. He is most often like her, similar in age, race, and socio-economic status. Rape occurs equally during the day as at night. One in three women will be raped in her lifetime. A young woman I knew was gang raped on the OSU campus while I was there, around 9:00 p.m. The best way to avoid being raped? Be aware of your surroundings. Don't look down. Walk with good posture, look confident. The rapist is a coward and wants an easy victim. If you look like you would fight, he won't choose you. If you are attacked, scream and run, and yell "Fire!", because people are more likely to help if there is a fire than if you are being raped. Hold a key between your pointer and middle knuckles in such a way that you can jab the eyes or the jugular of your attacker. Also carry a whistle on your key chain.

I was almost raped my senior year of high school. I went to the party of a classmate whose parents weren't home. A boy I had been friends with since the 7th grade, Louie, suddenly said, "You're looking pretty sexy tonight", grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me to the basement. I thought he was being funny. He was my friend. Our lockers had always been right next to each other due to the proximity of our last names in the alphabet. I don't know how much he had been drinking. I nursed the same beer the whole evening, so I wasn't drunk at all. Thank God. He pulled me into a bedroom, pushed me onto the bed, shut the door, and turned off the light. I got up and turned it back on, still thinking Louie was being funny. But he did this repeatedly, and suddenly I knew I was in terrible danger. He was a big guy. The last time I turned on the light and tried to open the door, by best friend saw me. "What are you doing?" she asked, smiling and laughing, and then the look on her face changed as she registered the look on mine. She got our party host, and the two of them forced the door open on Louie. Later upstairs, he asked me, "Why didn't you let me rape you?"

At school on Monday, Louie looked down at the floor while at his locker. He avoided eye contact with me. He never apologized. I didn't tell my parents or any school authorities. I don't know why. Maybe because I wasn't hurt, maybe because I thought my dad would kill him. Maybe because I didn't hear about rape until college. I was never told what to do...

What would have happened to that girl recently in the news in Steubenville, Ohio, if it was still the '80s? She woke up practically naked, not really knowing what had happened, but fearing she had been molested. The two boys who digitally raped her were sentenced to at least one year in juvenile prison, and possibly until they are 21. It was a blogger who first exposed the damning twitter and Facebook messages and pictures. This is one case in which technology has served the good. Yet the blogger received no shortage of hate messages. Why? Evidently the high school football team is the pride of Steubenville. According to the blogger, even the middle aged dudes sitting in the stands are fanatic, reliving their own football glory days. The two rapists were on the team.

Football doesn't cause rape. But excessively glorifying sports, and the star players, can lead to a certain entitlement mentality, a certain arrogance and exaggerated sense of power. An exemption from the rules of decency, evidently. I was a freshman cheerleader. On the bus traveling to away games, a player would shout out, "What makes the grass grow?!" The rest of the team would shout in reply, "Blood! Blood!"  If we won the game, much celebration happened on the way home. If we lost, there was silence. There is too much emphasis on competition, on winning, over the benefits of learning teamwork, good sportsmanship, and doing one's personal best. Having played the game together should be reason enough to celebrate. Are players even aware of such phenomena as character building? At least when I was in high school, and I was a manager for the football team, the whole team went to church and prayed before school on the day of a game. Prayers were also said in the huddle on the football field. God having been kicked out of public schools, this no doubt would be forbidden today.

In the last couple of years I remember reading in a magazine about a high school cheerleader who was raped by a basketball player. I don't know the outcome of that story, but while the events were being investigated, the boy was allowed to continue playing on the basketball team. Not only that, the girl was expected to continue to cheer for him at games; otherwise, she would be kicked off the squad! She was ostracized by school administrators, teachers, and coaches. The accused boy was, after all, a star athlete.  This is the risk a girl takes if she reports the crime of rape, which is not sex, but violence. We must empower our girls to tell someone any time they are violated in any way, or threatened or verbally abused, and they need to be supported by parents, school officials, and the community. And these teenage boys need to be tried as adults. The age of reason is seven. By 16 a young man clearly should know the difference between right and wrong. A crime is a crime is a crime.

Louie was a football player, which did not cause his behavior but may represent a contributing factor to what happened in Steubenville and other places. Louie always seemed like a really nice guy. He wasn't. He was a potential rapist, and I was a virgin. Parents, talk to your kids, both girls and boys, about rape as soon as they are old enough to understand. Don't be in denial about what really happens in schools, at school related events, and among school peers outside of school activities. The rape avoidance techniques I mentioned above would not have helped Jane Doe of Steubenville, because she was too drunk. Women get drunk faster than men, and it takes less alcohol. Girls need to be aware of the dangers of drinking beyond car accidents. My grandpa told me when I was very young that if I was ever at a party and put my drink down, to never pick it back up and drink it. Why? Someone might have put a drug in it. He didn't say "date rape drug", but that's what he was talking about. Jane Doe suspected she had been drugged.

College fraternity parties are also notorious for very dangerous, bad behavior. I had a boyfriend who belonged to a fraternity, and the young men in this group had conflicting attitudes toward women. They wanted the prestige of attractive females at their parties, but a woman was "just a girl", and a relationship with a girl should never take precedence over "the Brotherhood." Women were props, not people. It was just creepy, and misogyny was rampant--tell your daughters to stay away from frat parties at all costs.

I don't know what is happening in the youth culture to dehumanize these kids, but pure evil is at work. Parents, teach your children well, and protect them. It is your solemn duty. The stakes are too high to leave it to chance.

Self-Designed Catholic Homeschool Curriculum

As I increasingly orient our homeschooling to the Catholic Faith, I'd like to share what we are using for "curricula", considering that term in an open source, unschooling kind of way. That is to say, by way of seamlessly joining learning, life, and the Faith. Using my little way of the fleur de lis, with faith formation at the lily's center, I endeavor to be vigilant in keeping Beezy's home education Catholic. Our curriculum is self-designed and utilizes "living books" as much as possible.

The most important resource, of course, is the Catholic Bible. (We use the Holy Bible, RSV, second Catholic edition). I checked out a Catholic Children's Bible from the library but decided it wasn't going to work. It paraphrases the stories and then explains their significance. I could tell it would be tedious for Beezy and would not work well for her age level. Even for older children, though, this does not fit into the Charlotte Mason philosophy of using original sources and letting children make their own connections regarding the material. The Bible as it is written has always unfailingly held Beezy's attention. I only got the children's version because it was suggested on the Mater Amabilis online Catholic CM curriculum site.

I have been teaching the Rosary to Beezy, and we have covered all five Joyful Mysteries, reading the stories from the Bible to meditate upon as we pray the Hail Marys. At her age (8), one decade at a time is plenty. For copy work, she has written out the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be. We will continue with the Fatima prayer and the Salve Regina (Hail, Holy Queen), as well as the Apostle's Creed. This also covers memorization/recitation.

Since yesterday was the Feast of St. Joseph, I read a St. Joseph Story for Kids from parentsduty.com. I especially liked this, because it discusses doing chores as a gift of oneself. I could almost hear the wheels in Beezy's head turning! We are almost finished reading, Kateri Tekakwitha: Mohawk Maiden by Evelyn M. Brown. This is from Ignatius Press, which has a whole series of novels about saints. I read a chapter, or part of a chapter if it is very long, and Beezy narrates it back to me. This book also falls under the subjects of history and Native American studies. We previously read, Our Lady Came to Fatima. 

Today Beezy asked me who the "Glory Be" prayer is addressed to. When I told her, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, she wasn't sure exactly what that meant. She knew the Father was God, and the Son was Jesus, but who was the Holy Spirit? I just so happened to have a book I was planning to begin today, A Young Person's Book of Catholic Signs and Symbols by Francis Tiso. This book begins with the symbol of the circle representing the One God, and then proceeds to the Trinity. Love those moments of synchronicity!

So there are several ideas for beginning a Catholic-based curriculum. You probably already have a Bible and a Rosary. I simply type the prayers on the computer to print out for Beezy to copy, and the books come from the library. Easy breezy lemon squeezy! Not all of your resources have to be Catholic per se. For example, we are reading Little Town on the Prairie for American history/literature right now, and we are using a basic, "Time and Money" workbook, plus a toy clock with movable hands, for math. The important thing is to avoid curriculum choices that are anti-Catholic or specifically eliminate Catholic historical content (or which contain a Protestant bias). You want to be sure that the Catholic point of view, or point of conscience, as it is expressed by Keeping It Catholic, is upheld.

Speaking of KIC, my book had not been sent due to a warehouse error, but I have been assured it has been shipped, so no doubt I will be giving my feedback on the Keeping It Catholic Homeschooling Guide soon! Tonight Beezy's religious education class, which meets weekly, prayed the Stations of the Cross, and I joined them, participating in this ritual for the first time myself. Ten days until I'm Catholic, thanks be to God!!