Author: Phoebe Gleeson

The Parmesan Cheese You Sprinkle on Your Penne Could Be Not

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

According to the FDA’s report on Castle, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, “no parmesan cheese was used to manufacture” the Market Pantry brand 100% grated Parmesan Cheese, sold at Target Corp. stores, and Always Save Grated Parmesan Cheese and Best Choice 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, sold by Associated Wholesale Grocers Inc., which along with its subsidiaries supplies 3,400 retail stores in 30 states. Instead, there was a mixture of Swiss, mozzarella, white cheddar and cellulose, according to the FDA.

First the olive oil, now the cheese.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/the-parmesan-cheese-you-sprinkle-on-your-penne-could-be-wood

Multiple fees, fines and bail charges add to Oklahoma County jail crowding

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

The stacking of fees, fines and bail amounts have turned the Oklahoma County jail into an overcrowded debtors’ prison.

A newly released report by the Vera Institute of Justice doesn’t flat-out call the jail a debtors’ prison — but it sure describes it as one.

“Currently, money plays an outsized role in who occupies pretrial beds in the Oklahoma County Detention Center,” the Vera Institute said in its initial 14-page report.

http://m.newsok.com/article/5478819

this man is so dear to me

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

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Our annual celebration of our love! Today is the feast of St. Faustine, a martyr beheaded by Diocletian. We are the only couple I know to celebrate this particular martyr; everyone else is all about a more well-known member of the Church Triumphant, St. Valentine. One fortuitous happenstance of celebrating this martyr over ol' Val is St. Faustine's Day is known for its deep sales on lovey-dovey chocolates! How lucky for us, don't you think? 😉

Sean's poem reads:

So much love there is between us
Not superficial but intravenous
That ancient Romans who had seen us
Could mistake us for Mars and Venus
Or mythic lovers of that genus
Happy feast of Saint Faustinus
Posted by Instagrate to WordPress

purple and secure

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

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Faith returns to the undercut. My kid, yes, she certainly is. "People will continue to think you're a boy, probably even more than the Mohawk," I said. "I don't care, that's not a big deal to me," she said. "I mean, I'm usually not very conscious of being a girl anyway. Not that I want to be a boy. Just that I sort of think of myself as a person, who does person things. Whatever other people think about me, that's up to them."
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gratitude today

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

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Clementine ran up to Sean when he got home and said “Hi! Hi, Daddy!” She has never said “hi” or “Daddy” before, or waved, or pointed at Sean, or anything. So, totally cool. I was verklempt

And also, today we learned that Gilbert has perfect, or absolute, pitch! So far his exposure to musical instruments consists of fooling around with a piano keyboard simulation online, so we were really surprised. We’ve just recently gotten a real keyboard with a sampling function, so there has been much goofy noise along with some attempts to make music. He said, of a sample attempt, “Try to sing that in a C, it will sound better. — laaa –” and, it was indeed a C! Further quizzing showed that he could both identify and produce any note without a reference, even hours after, cold. So that’s pretty cool too!

What a great day.

Just Do the Math, by David Albert

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

A group of homeschooling mothers gathered together in a circle to discuss unschooling approaches to their children’s education.

 “Not possible,” homeschool mom proclaimed glumly, shaking her head.

 I had just explained how the Sudbury Valley School – a democratically managed, child-directed learning environment that has been around for almost 40 years – has demonstrated repeatedly that a child could learn math – all of it grades K through 12 – in eight weeks. Average (if there is such a thing), normal (never met one), healthy children, hundreds of them, learned it all, leading to admissions to some of the leading colleges and universities in the nation.

 “Must be some kind of trick,” she insisted dolefully, remembering her own dark days in the classroom slaving over the seemingly inscrutable, all joy wrung out as from a wet sponge, then as an elementary school teacher herself, and now finally daily fighting what she was convinced was a losing homeschooling war with her nine-year-old over the required workbook pages.

 “Nope, no tricks, no special techniques, magic curriculum, or innovative teaching method,” I informed her. The secret, if there was one, was to wait until the child asked for it, indeed insisted upon it, and had a use for it, even if the use was just college admission.

I have found this to be true.

First, I personally learned all the algebra I needed to take the ACT in about a month. I had never had algebra previously, having ceased all formal math instruction about halfway through seventh grade. A month of concerted effort and I went from a 17 to a 26 on the math portion.

Second, my own children have gone from no formal math to grade level (6th, or so) in about 3 months of off and on effort. Some weeks went by with no progress, and other weeks would cover a full grade of work. This has been the case for Faith and Abby.

Third, my autistic son, Bede, has had no person-to-person instruction of any kind in any subject. He is entirely self-taught, the ultimate autodidact. He knows how to add, subtract, multiply and divide with no trouble. How? Because he needed to learn to do other stuff he wanted to do, so he learned it.

So you can keep your high-pressure or even your medium-pressure learning environments. I don’t want them. Why do you?

http://www.besthomeschooling.org/articles/math_david_albert.html