Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Devotees wanting to become Montessori teachers were offered six-month courses in various locations in Europe taught by Maria herself. The personal contact with her changed the lives of those who took her classes. They came away with not only a teaching method, but new faith in their role as teachers, more hope for society, and more love for children.

I do see a subtle difference in Montessori and CM in a speech of Maria's at a graduating ceremony in one of her courses:

"...we are drawn toward the child, as individuals, as members of society, and for the good of the human race as a whole. The child is an authority; and the adult must make himself in accord with this authority if he wishes to better his conditions."

[My comment: Charlotte Mason had a deep respect for the personhood of the child, but not quite the same faith and reverence. She believed that teachers needed to work with the natural tendencies and abilities of children, but children needed to be under authority. They were too inexperienced, and their reasoning was too uneducated, to put the kind of trust in them that Maria seems to be advocating. CM would never have said that children were in any kind of authority that teachers or society should submit to. I think Montessori (like Rousseau?) thought that beauty and perfection were found in children, and if the rest of the world went back to that, society would be better. But CM felt that children, like everyone else, had imperfections that they needed to control, and if they were taught correctly, they'd be better adults. Rather than adults seeking to recapture or enshrine childhood, CM was more about teaching children to be better, more fulfilled adults by developing the potential they already had. Thus, I think that Montessori might appeal more to unschoolers who have faith that children will get what they need if we leave them alone and give them the freedom to do what they need to do. But CM felt that children needed self-discipline to prevent lazy habits that would be detrimental to him later and limit what he might have been. You can read CM's perspective about leaving children to develop free and unencumbered in Vol 2, ch 7, online here. ]

Montessori is representative of the Century of the Child. Maria thought that war was the result of materialism, people wanting more, because they hadn't had their needs met in childhood, and that was because society was built around what adults wanted without considering children. By transferring the center of society from adults to children, children would be fulfilled, productive, and become adults who weren't dissatisfied and frustrated. And [if I'm understanding this correctly] then there wouldn't be war. People would put their energy to work for harmony and order rather than death and destruction.

She appealed to the education of the spirit, not just the technical or utilitarian. The teacher needed a 'proper attitude to the moral order.' Yet she did this without pushing her own religion (Catholicism) or preaching. When Fascism took over in Italy, her schools were closed down, so she went to Spain. Then civil war broke out in Spain, so she went to Holland, opened a school and continued her work. She never wasted time responding to critics, but focused on continued continued progression forward.

She saw that children love walking along a line on the sidewalk because their disproportionate bodies have a hard time with balance. So she built that into her school routine, making children walk a chalk line. She saw how children like to balance on fences, and that led her to help invent jungle gyms. Her scientific background gave validity to her research. EM Standing concludes this section by saying that she epitomized her ideal for teachers: 'One who combines the self-sacrificing spirit of the scientist with the love of the disciple of Christ.'

Read the next part of this series, or start at the beginning.

Montessori chapter 3

This is from Maria Montessori Her Life and Work by E. Mortimer Standing.

Chapter 3

Maria's success attracted a lot of attention. Visitors came from around the world, more schools were set up, and she was persuaded by friends to write a book to safeguard her miraculous method in case anything happened to her. Her method seemed to come from nowhere because she had no teacher training, she was a medical doctor. Froebel [of Kindergarten fame] was influenced by Pestalozzi, who was influenced by Rousseau, who was influenced by John Locke. But Maria had no recognizable educational influences. She was influenced by Seguin and Itard, who were unknown in the educational field. And they were influenced by Pereira, who educated deaf mutes in Spain.

Maria was practically an overnight sensation. She decided to quit working at her school in order to evangelize the world with her discovery. She would live off her book royalties and travel to give courses in her method. [A friend just today speculated that perhaps Charlotte Mason never achieved the kind of household-word status that Montessori and Waldorf did because she was focused on improving the education within England, while Montessori and Steiner actively promoted their methods to the world at large.]

She went to America and impressed Alexander Graham Bell, who was interested in deaf mutes, and Thomas Edison. Five thousand people came to hear her at Carnegie Hall. She set up a model classroom at the San Francisco World Exhibition. But, although the movement started off so enthusiastically in the US, she didn't stay to help mold it. She returned to Europe. And, without her guidance, the movement became 'diluted' in the US as less and less teachers were trained by her and understood her original method.

In Europe, special schools were built with everything downsized to children's scale. Her books were translated into many languages. In 1919, she went to England amidst much acclaim [this would have been during the last years of Charlotte Mason's life.] EM Standing notes her insight into children, her strong yet charming personality, her devotion to her mission, as some of the reasons for her popularity. But she was afraid that people would think of her method as merely a miracle for kindergarten, and she felt that what she had discovered would have implications into adulthood, and would permeate homes and all of society in a few generations. But that would only happen if her principles were adhered to exactly [Charlotte Mason said the same thing about her own principles.] And she felt that the only way to prevent her ideas from being misunderstood and misapplied was to stop traveling and evangelizing, and devote herself to study and development of her method to older children, and give lectures to pass on her vision directly to as many people as possible. She lectured in India during WWII and met Ghandi. She traveled and lectured into her old age, with the help of her son Mario [she had a son? The book never mentioned that development! There was no mention of her marriage or any of her personal relationships, except her mother.] She died suddenly in 1952 in Holland at the age of 81. She was Catholic, and was buried in a Catholic cemetary in Holland.

This isn't the end of the book, it's just the opening biography. I think the rest of the book deals with her method.

Read the next part of this series, or start at the beginning.

Sunlight, sort of

It were an excellent lightbulb that were made just in the midway between this and the old one. The one is too like a tungsten and says nothing and the other too like the doctor's office's flourescent bulbs, evermore bluish.

(Read Tim's Mom's earlier post if you have no idea what I'm talking about.)

New Term

We're starting Term 2 on Monday. That means that I need to make sure we have all the books we need, divide etexts into 12 readings, and print off a schedule for each student. I started last night.

My Year 4 student, age 9, is having trouble with Year 4. He doesn't understand It Couldn't Just Happen, Madame How and Lady Why, Kon Tiki, and Age of Fable. He's struggling with Poor Richard. He's hopelessly behind in Robinson Crusoe, even though that's one we have on audio CD. I've been trying to catch him up, reading to him, re-working his schedule, trying an easier version of a book. But it's been three weeks and it just isn't happening. Plus we have other issues to focus on in the area of self-discipline.

So, I'm removing him from Year 4. He did Year 3 just a few months ago (come to think of it, that was a struggle for him, too.) So I'm creating a Year 3 1/2 for him for the next two terms, then he'll start Year 4 over again next year when he's a little older. Here's what he'll be doing:

History: A Child's History of the World by Virgil Hillyer (the whole book)
Historical literature: Otto of the Silver Hand and/or Men of Iron, both by Howard Pyle
Geography: Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason (online here, but missing a few pages)
Nature Reading: Bambi (we have this, unabridged, on CD, read by yours truly)
Science: The Sciences by Edward Holden (online here)
Math: continue with his Math-U-See
Daily copywork and studied dictation
Typing program
Literature: Heidi and The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

He'll join the rest of the family for Plutarch, Shakespeare, poetry, art, music appreciation, and nature study. He'll be reading A Child's History of the World, The Sciences, Elementary Geography, and (maybe) Otto of the Silver Hand. I'll be reading aloud Men of Iron, Heidi, Five Little Peppers, and I already read Bambi onto a CD. I hope to schedule him so that he has one or two things to read, and one thing to listen to every day.

Maria Montessori - Chapter 2

In Italy, an experimental group of apartments was built to house the poor. During the day, the parents would go to work and the school-aged children would go to school, leaving the preschool children unsupervised. It was decided that a daycare should be set up to confine them, and Maria was eager to be assigned to their care so she could test her new theories on 'normal' children. She wasn't allowed a school budget, but she was able to order 'office equipment.' So she had school furniture built and labeled 'office furniture': little tables, shelves, cabinets, and small arm chairs. She began with sixty wild, frightened children between the ages of 3-6. Two unskilled, untrained young ladies were hired to assist her. They had no teacher training, so she didn't need to un-train them.

Though everyone doubted that anything could be done with such disadvantaged children, within six months, the results were surprising. Maria felt that she had discovered a treasure: that all children, even these disadvantaged ones, have inborn characteristics that are natural to all children. Even their impoverished lives couldn't take that from them.

These are the inborn traits she discovered:

1 - They're capable of amazing mental concentration. During a time of discovery or mastery of some task, children can be oblivious to anything but the task at hand.

2 - This can manifest itself in a love (or compulsion?) for repetion of something they've already mastered or something familiar. The Montessori method allows for this necessary repetition.

3 - Children love order and love putting things where they belong. Maria discovered that the window of opportunity in which a habit of order develops is between the ages of 1 and 3 1/2.

4 - Children like to know their options and make choices. If they're trained to be orderly soon enough, they can be allowed free and independent use of classroom resources and be trusted to put them away when they're done.

5 - Children prefer to work at a task than to free-play with toys.

6 - Normal children prefer to do the right thing when they know how to do it regardless of punishment or reward. In Maria's schools, the only reward her students valued was accomplishing a task and getting to move up to the next one.

7 - Children naturally love quiet.

8 - Maria's students rejected candy (only when absorbed with a task?)

9 - Children have their own sense of dignity. As an example, they prefer to have clean noses if only someone will show them how to blow their nose.

10 - Many of her students requested instruction in reading at 4 or 5 years of age. Once they learned the sounds ans shapes of the letters, they were compelled of their own accord to write words on any surface they could find, even though they had never been taught to write, and they were overjoyed to be able to do this. Yet they still weren't reading. They were enjoying the game of making words, but still hadn't made the connection that written words could communicate thought. Maria got them reading by writing some words of her own. She wrote simple instructions, such as, 'if you want a kiss, come to me.' It was days before her students realized that she was writing more than random words, but once they ubderstood, they were eager to de-code her clues and thus began reading.

11 - In a well-run Montessori school, children naturally become harmonious and self-disciplined so that unruliness is nonexistent. Maria's explanation for this was that the cosmic order that holds the universe together is born in each human, and children will naturally yield to it if the circumstances make it natural to do that.

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My Thoughts

I'm seeing a lot of the same discoveries that Charlotte Mason found in her work with children - that children want to do useful, organized things and they don't need the prompt of any bribe or reward. And they both noted the dignity that children have. But Maria Montessori seems to have latched onto the physical doing of development - the need to touch and accomplish and write. I don't see any reference to the children's minds - to their imaginations and aspirations and inner yearning for God. In contrast to Charlotte Mason's use of great, inspiring stories from history and literature in which to enrich their imaginations and play, Maria Montessori found that children, when given toys, preferred the accomplishment and busyness of work. Maybe that's because she was working with children from such deprived backgrounds?

[This post composed on PDA. ;) ]

Read the next part of this series or start at the beginning.

Sunlight!

We found a "Compact Flourescent Sunlight Bulb" at Walmart and put it in our family room. And it makes it look like we opened a window! Even the shadows it casts look nicer. I love it, if we had a few more, it could always look like daytime in here.

This could change my life!

All Mozart

I promised a friend I'd post this. I still haven't listened to it yet. They boast 24 hours of Mozart.

http://www.live365.com/stations/mozartmp3

About the pictures in the middle of the book

There's a center section of photos in the book about Maria Montessori. The first is a portrait of her, a very strong-looking, handsome woman. A picture of little kids outside on "washing day," washing clothes in wooden sinks and hanging them on a short clothes line. A beautiful, orderly classroom with shelves, drawers, and a walled little corner with things hanging from the wall. It looks like it could be kitchen utinsels, but the picture is too small to make it out. A little boy (three or four) at a table with two sandpaper touchboards. Each board has some areas that are smooth, and some areas that are covered with sandpaper to teach "rough" and "smooth." (It seems like a lot of work to me to teach something that kids will learn just from handling things in the routine of their daily lives.) Large paper cut-out cursive letters with a boy of about ten arranging them to make words (who cut out all those letters?) A girl writing words on a lined chalkboard. Number rods. The manipulatives to teach addition are longer than the child! I imagine that, these days, manipulatives have been scaled down to a more handleable size. Four children arranging events along a long timeline. The timeline is so long (twenty feet?) that it's laying outside on the lawn. Children working with a pegboard to figure out a mathematical equation. And, finally, an aged Maria Montessori with a small child.

At first glance, the materials look impractical and expensive. I would think that children, being designed to learn, could learn without special equipment, or, when equipment helps, that simpler is better. I may be showing my CM bias. Earlier this evening I was wondering why I decided to read this book (what was I thinking!) And then I remembered. I had read an editorial that Charlotte Mason wrote in the early 1900's reacting to the flurry of interest in Maria Montessori when she was the newest trend in education. I thought I'd understand CM's letter better if I understood more about the Montessori method. So, here I am, reading the book, but I feel so biased that I'm not sure I can read with an open mind.

So, this will be Maria Montessori as seen through the eyes of a very biased CM educator.



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If you want to know more about Charlotte Mason, you can start with this FAQ. You can also read CM's six-volume series online, including an in-progress modern English paraphrase, here.

Maria Montessori Her Life and Work ch 1

Miss Roxie still doesn't have her copy of Pride and Prejuduce, so we aren't starting that book yet. So, what shall I read?? I'm itching to start The Lord of the Rings, but I can't find a copy I like, something small and hardbound that fits nicely in my hand and is lovely to hold and look at. Which leaves the book about Maria Montessori that I've been talking about reading for months. So, that's what I'm going to read. Here's what I got out of the first chapter.

Maria Montessori Her Life and Work by E. Mortimer Standing, written in 1962

Chapter 1

Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was born in Italy, an only child. She sounds like a determined, confident (perhaps to the point of bordering on arrogant), and ambitious child. She wanted to be a mathmetician in an era when women only had nursing or teaching careers open to them. So she went to an all boys school! Then she changed her mind and decided to go for biology, then changed her mind again and decided to be a doctor against her father's wishes. She was the only girl in her medical classes, and, because of rules about co-ed dissections of cadavers, she had to dissect after dark by herself - a spooky prospect, but she was determined enough not to let that deter her. She held her own when the guys gave her a tough time and earned their respect, though not necessarily their affection. She paid her own way through the university by tutoring.

At one point, she was discouraged and ready to give up. As she walked home, she saw a beggar woman with a toddler. As the woman begged for money, Maria watched the child happily playing with a scrap of paper, totally oblivious to her plight of poverty. That inspired Maria not to give up, so she continued with her medical training.

When she graduated, her mother supported her, but her father still disapproved. Critics who disapproved of a woman doctor were ready to heckle and protest at her first medical lecture. Her father was persuaded to attend by an acquaintance and she was so brilliant that she earned his approval and even stopped the critics from causing a scene at the lecture. She was chosen to represent Italy at a feminist convention in Berlin. She spoke out for working women, then went to another convention in England to speak against child labor.

As a doctor, she was assigned to a psychiatric clinic, where she had to visit insane asylums. There, she saw idiot children (?) mixed in with the lunatics and her heart went out to them. After being given their food, the children would scavenge the floor for crumbs. The nurses were disgusted by the children's lack of refined manners, but Maria realized that they had no toys, they were treated like cattle, and grabbing crumbs were their way of reaching out for tactile experiences to feed their minds. She thought that they might benefit from some kind of educational attempt. She began to work with two French doctors whose lives were dedicated to 'defective' children - Jean Itard (who worked with deaf mutes) and Edouard Seguin (famed for his work with deficient children). Maria told an educational congress that those children were entitled to an education as much as normal children. The result was an orthophrenic school in Italy, with Maria as its director for two years - 1899-1901. Deficient children from regular schools were deposited there, as well as the idiot children from the asylums in Rome. Maria visited London and Paris to learn how others were dealing with these kinds of children. Then she returned to Rome to observe and study the children themselves. She spent 13 hours a day with the children, and then she stayed up late writing her observations and assembling plans for their education.

She decided that the method that was working for these children should be used with all children. After all, if the methods were rational enough to get through the mind of even imbeciles, wouldn't it work with anyone? [This, I think, is what alarmed Charlotte Mason - that someone would have so little respect for the personalities of children that they would presume to think that methods that worked for idiot children would be good for all children across the board.] With her direction, these defective children learned to read and write and even did as well on public exams as normal children. While the world marvelled at the miracle she had wrought with imbeciles, she was wondering why normal children weren't scoring higher on their exams than defective children. She decided it was a lack in their education. She felt that the methods she had used with idiot children could 'develop and set free the personality' of normal children.

In 1901, she gave up her position at the school and went back to the university to study philosophy and psychology, and to reflect on her theories about education. She felt a need to clarify her vision and theory. She translated long books by Itard and Seguin from French into Italian, a labor of love for her admiration of their work. She also studied the nervous diseases of children and was an examiner/lecturer at a teaching college. In her lectures she emphasized that the teacher's duty was to help, not to judge, and that real mental work doesn't exhaust the mind, but nourishes the spirit (that sounds CM-ish!) Some of her students said, "Her lectures make us want to be good."

There is a story of how, as a doctor, she paid a housecall to a woman who had just given birth to twins who were nearly dead. She lit a fire, held the babies and brought them back to life. Years later, the mother credited Maria as being their real mother, since it was she who had given them back their lives.

Read the next part of this series.
Read about the pictures in the book.
Read Charlotte Mason's Letter to the Editor about Montessori that prompted me to read this book.

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If you want to know more about Charlotte Mason, you can start with this FAQ. You can also read CM's six-volume series online, including an in-progress modern English paraphrase, here.

Miss M's New Kitchen

Miss M got a little kitchen set for Christmas. She has an assortmrnt of little dishes and toy food that have been collected over the past twelve years since her big brother was a toddler. She doesn't seem to know what to do with the stove or the oven. I guess I haven't been the best example!

I made her a little teabag. It's a tiny bean bag with about ten pony beads inside. She knows exactly what to do with that. She puts the little bag in her little toy mug with pretend water from the toy sink, and then pops the cup in the little toy microwave oven to make tea, just like Mommy.

The teabag

She probably needs a little toy blender so she can make pretend green smoothies! LOL!

Christmas!

One of the things I love about Christmas - cards and pictures! We hang the cards from the top of the doorway between our dining room and family room, and we put the pictures under the glass on our table so we can see them throughout the month.

Daddy and Miss M.

Tim WON!

His poem (posted below) won! details at The Beehive.

What did he win?

This virtual chocolicious award! We're thrilled to have received such an honor from one of our favorite blogs!

Okay, it took a couple of days

But I think I "get it" now. The Beehive posted a challenge, they listed some neologans (neologs?), which are made-up words. Shakespeare made up his own words , so it's nothing new. And they challenged their "Beehive Faithful" to write a poem using all the words. This is Tim's poem. Today it hit me that, in this poem, the Neologist makes up words, and Strunkenwhite is the proper language itself. And now I get it, and it's really funny! You'll have to click on the Beehive link to see their original post and a list of the words that had to be included in the poem.

Long ago (three days, you know)
there was a dreadful fight
between a Sir Neologist
and one Sir Strunkenwhite.

First "Snoitatulas, sirrah!"
said Sir Neologist.
Sir Strunkenwhite spoke not a word,
but only clenched his fist.

Then fully clad in armored plates
(spendiferously bought)
those two aku-akued across
the field, and staunchly fought.

Up and down the field they fought
and took dismayful wounds,
smiting not with swords alone
but eke with piercing words.

"Do improbe your strokes, Sir Strunk,
or else you've lost the fight:
loserish attacks ne'er yet
availed a losing knight."

"Nevermind, Neologist,
just keep your own defense:
neologistic tendencies
don't prove linguistic sense."

But in the end Neologist
defeated Strunkenwhite
and laid him out upon the ground
with sound like dynamite.

"Aha, sirrah! Gahbooleah!
you're at my mercy now."
And, speaking thus, Neologist
let fall the fateful blow.

"Gahbooleah! Gahbooleah!
O frabjous day!" cried he--
and quickly turned hysterious
in his excessive glee.

Alas for Sir Neologist!
He overdid his mirth,
and soon he lay by Strunkenwhite,
quite dead upon the earth.

Therefore friend beware, lest you
should suffer Neo's lot;
play with language if you will,
but see you kill it not.

If You Give Your Mom Some Bubble Bath

"Does anyone else enjoy the 'If You Give A Mouse/Moose/Pig a Cookie/Muffin/Pancake' books?"

I can't say that I've ever really read those books, just skimmed one once. But I did enjoy this! Katie at CM, Children and Lots of Grace wrote it, you must read it! :)

Deck the Blogs!

We were tagged by The Common Room to share some of our favorite Christmas ornaments and tell their stories. We've switched to a smaller tree, so some of our ornaments aren't used any more. These are my picks; Tim may have others.

This is a nutcracker ornament. It commemorates the years the boys were into the Nutcracker, the music, and the ballet their friend was in, and the figure skating one.

This one is just cute, and it's my very favorite.

This is a teeny, tiny church.

This reminds me of my childhood in Rhode Island, when we used to get sleds for some Christmases and go sledding during our Christmas vacation.

We had a friend who used to make these egg ornaments and give them out to our church group every year. I had three, but this seems to be the only one I have left.

These are actually napkin holders. Dad got three of them, one for each boy a few years ago, because they were like Narnian crowns. They're solid and heavy, so we don't hang them on the tree, we display them around the tree instead.

Some Pictures

Demolition of the gingerbread house. I was determined that we wouldn't let this house sit and harden because nobody wanted to ruin it. I encouraged the boys to eat it during the evening.


Miss M has been begging for "candy house" all day. So I broke her off a square of roof. She tasted it, but had more fun playing with it than eating it. I nibbled a corner of the gingerbread, and I wasn't impressed. It was pretty hard and not especially tasty.


J and a napping Miss M earlier today


Our tree with lights but still waiting to be decorated

Blog: Reporting From Iraq

I learned of this from The Common Room. It's a news junkie who is in Iraq, and, as far as I can gather, is reporting on how things look from the perspective of the soldiers. Her blog is HERE, and she says "Everything I thought I knew was wrong...If I am truly unbiased, then I need to get used to this one simple fact; that the untold story, might in fact, be a positive one."

I'll be keeping an eye on what she has to say.

Our Gingerbread House

We made our first-ever gingerbread house! This is a kit we got from the grocery store. We followed Mother Auma's tip and made sure our icing was really thick and stiff, and it worked really well.





I've been reading with interest the posts about how various AO/CM families celebrate Christmas. Just to add our own personal variety to the pot, we try to keep the focus on Christ's nativity and family fun. We know He wasn't born in December, but Christmas seems as good a time as any to us to commemorate it. We don't do Santa, but we do have a small tabletop tree. The intent is to take our focus off the tree and instead make the nativity that we set up on the fireplace mantle our focal point. Dad loves the traditions he remembers from his own childhood, so much of our season is pretty mainstream-conventional. With influence from our CM education and other CM moms, we're discovering more classical Christmas music and older traditions. I've enjoyed reading about the different ways that families have found to honor Christ in the way they celebrate Christmas.

Vote for Your Favorite Homeschool Blogs (and some Quotes)

We aren't in any of the categories, but we did nominate some of our favorite blogs. You can place your vote here.


Two Talent Living posted some quotes about truth under the title "Thoughts on Truths I’ve Reaffirmed Recently" (thanks to Mother Auma for pointing these out!) Here are just the two I liked best; there are more:

Everyone may be entitled to his own opinion but everyone is not entitled to his own truth. Truth is but one.
Doug Groothius

The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity.
Robert Anthony

Costume Picture

This is us boys in our costumes at the theater. We got a couple compliments on them, and it was hard not to notice the stares...

Mom's Narnia Movie Review

Could be spoilers --

Tim and I agreed to write and post our reviews before we talked to each other much about it, and before we read any other reviews.

I thought the movie was great! Georgie Hensley is perfect as Lucy. There were a few changes, but nothing enough to change the gist of the story. I did miss one of my favorite quotes, but it turned up later in the movie.

My minor criticisms: Some dialog between the children was missing. My own fault for knowing the book too well, I guess! Susan was more . . . Susan-ish? They really seemed to want to emphasize her practical side. I guess they're thinking ahead. If you only read the books, you'd be surprised at Susan later, but the movie seems to be setting things up for later. In general, the children seemed to squabble more and have some real issues that I hadn't seen in any other productions or read in the book. I assume that was an attempt to modernize them and make them more believable to modern movie-goers. Is it really so hard to believe that siblings can have warm feelings for each other and not have underlying hostilities towards each other? I thought it was a good idea to expand the antagonism between Peter and Edmund, it makes it more believable that Edmund would have been resentful enough to feel okay about going to the Witch. But it seemed that that was more the norm for the Pevensie sibling relationships.

The major thing I noticed was that Aslan wasn't 'fleshed out' enough for me to feel any connection with him, or to feel the same sense of desolate hopelessness when he died that I'd felt in other productions. Maybe it was just me having an off night? The battle and the kings and queens and the prophecy seemed to be more of a focus than Aslan himself. Maybe that's just because they showed more of the battle, and I'm used to it being de-emphasized or pretty much left out altogether in an attempt to put the focus on Aslan?

On the plus side, seeing Narnia come to life, and the creatures and the battle so realistic was unbelievable. Making everything seem so real overrided any minor changes. Still, I don't think that seeing the movie will replace reading the book. More than ever, it makes me want to read LOTR to see what I missed from seeing the movies. ;)

Narnia: Tim's Review

So we saw Narnia. And of course the question is, How was it?

Excellent. It was worth the four year wait and all the anxious nitpicking of each little piece as it was released. I had worries about changes that might deviate from the book's spirit, but although there were many changes, virtually none of them changed the meaning or spirit of the story. Was it better than the book? No. No movie could be. But was it the best movie, speaking realistically, that could be made from the book? In my opinion--yes!

We arrived at the theater, in costume, a little after six o'clock. We waited in line for about forty minutes before they started seating for the movie. By that time the line reached all the way back to the door. We found out later that every single one of today's showings (nearly a dozen) were sold out. Hooray!

Of course there was the long, long wait watching advertisements and previews after we had taken our seats. But once the movie started our audience grew very quiet. There was hardly a whisper through the whole movie; only wrappers crackling and laughter at the humorous parts. My eyes only left the screen once (that was to hand out the Turkish Delight we had brought--at the appropriate moment, of course). We clapped when it finished. Not only us, but the rest of the audience too. Hooray again!

The structure of the movie was very good. The script had a few weak lines, but overall it was also very good. I think we have a new quote source in our house. A good deal of action was added or magnified. The characters of the Pevensies were much more fleshed out than in the book (which was actually a good thing). A lot of emotion and humor was added. The camera shots were good, the costumes were good, the score was good (though not, I think, particularly memorable), and the acting was very good. There were two aspects that disappointed me. First, the CG: although it was very, very good, it was not photoreal as I had hoped. However, it did not detract from the movie as a whole, and the animals talking were certainly believable. Second, Aslan's character seems to have been weakened. More on that later.


Here followeth ..:: SPOILERS ::.. Be forewarned.


The highlights of the movie? Hmm. I had thought I could select just a few, but as I think about it there were too many good parts. There were a couple that gave me shivers up my spine: Peter and Edmund drawing their swords for Narnia, Aslan's resurrection, and the of the White Witch when Aslan said "It is finished." (Astoundingly, Andrew Adamson added that line without realizing the reference. That certainly makes one think.) The children being sent away, Aslan's resurrection and the final reconciliation of Peter and Edmund were more moving parts: what I would call tear-jerkers (only for me I can't). I liked Aslan's appearance in the fireplace, which made him seem to have a hand in preventing Lucy's kidnapping. I also loved the nods to the original, such as the line about the stars falling and the blue-bottle in the windowsill. Yes, it was a fly. (Sorry, inside joke.)

The worst part of the movie, I think, was that Aslan's power and character were slightly changed. He is still the King, and the part about the Laws or Deep Magic governing even Him did not trouble me. But the things that happen--Father Christmas arriving, the Winter ending, the Witch's reign being broken, and even Aslan's appearance--were attributed more to the arrival of the Pevensies and the fulfillment of prophecy than the direct actions of the Son of the Emperor-over-the-Sea (which title is not mentioned, by the way). And Aslan's line about Narnia being his family: perfectly alright, in perspective, but leaning more towards New Age philosophy. However, Aslan still conquers death and kills the White Witch, so perhaps I should not be complaining.


Here endeth ..:: SPOILERS ::.. You may start reading again.


We enjoyed it very much. Because the excitement of the first viewing has not worn off yet, I can't trust myself to give an honest judgment of where it rests in my Top Ten Movies--but it is certainly there. We will be going to see it again at least one more time. I don't mind in the least.

Today is the Day!

The Narnia movie!!

Tim has been following this movie for four years (when it was still a rumor), and checking its progress online almost daily for two years. The boys have costumes ready to wear to the movie, and we have tickets reserved. We would have loved to go to the midnight premier, but our town is too small to do that. (Our town is so small that Pride and Prejudice isn't even being shown here at all!) Miss M will be walking around the mall with Daddy during the movie (I'll have my turn in a couple of weeks, when he takes the boys to see it a second time!) They're all too excited to eat.

On Times Past

"Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind,
long years numberless as the wings of trees!
The long years have passed like swift draughts
of the sweet mead....
Who now shall refill the cup for me?" ¹

"Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze." ²

The flow of time sometimes brings a lingering sadness and a desire for the past. Most, I think, have known this desire; for "the hours pass, and the days and months and years," says Cicero, "and times past cannot be regained, nor can the future be known." Why do we have this desire? And will it ever be satisfied?

"And when I die, and when I'm gone,
There'll be one child born and a world to carry on,
There'll be one child born to carry on." ³

Perhaps this is the answer: an endless cycle from birth to death, life to life, and time to time. But this is not what the heart desires. We enjoy the present but desire the past; love each new life but mourn at each death.

We meet death not only in the loss of life. Death comes at the loss of each year, at the end of each day, at the passing of every moment. Death is what life is full of. So it has always been: we live but to die; each moment dies even as it is born. So it will continue, age upon age, life upon life, time upon time, until time ceases. Must it be so always? Is the reality indeed so unequal to our longing?

What is this longing? What is the reality it longs for? There is nothing extraordinary about times of the past, nor in their loss; and each present moment, when it departs, will become part of that elusive longing for the past. This present does not satisfy the desire now; once past, how could it satisfy the desire if it were to be regained? Each of our other desires can be satisfied: if we are hungry, we may eat; if we need love, we can be loved. But when we think we desire the past, we find the past will not satisfy the desire. The desire must be for something else. But it is not in the present or the past. All desire must look to the future, yet this desire is not satisfied by the future. So what can it be? If past, present, and future fail us, we must look beyond them. Our desire must be for something outside of time.

But how can we find the source of our desire if it is outside of time? We are bound by time and cannot leave it. Our life is a part of time; we cannot go beyond time and yet remain in this life. Therefore the fulfillment of our desire must be beyond life—and to pass beyond life we must first pass beyond death. There is both the riddle and the answer: there is death in life; there is life in death.


¹ "Galadriel's Lament" by J.R.R. Tolkien
² "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof
³ "And When I Die" by Peter, Paul and Mary

Seven Sevens

I was tagged by - my own son!

Things to do before I die:

1. Learn to know God better. < ditto
2. see all of my children grow to be sincere Christians
3. Read Plato
4. see Hawaii
5. understand poetry
6. stop and 'smell the flowers'
7. read a lot of Tolkein, CS Lewis and Chesterton

Things I cannot do:

1. Play the piano (or any instrument, for that matter)
2. find my way around a city
3. cook
4. listen to jazz
5. feel at ease in public
6. dance
7. create music or poetry

Things that attract me to my spouse:

1. Honest
2. Silly sense of humor
3. hard-working
4. Forgiving
5. Strong sense of traditional values
6. values family
7. patient

Seven things I say most often:

1. basically
2. Think, Mommy, think!
3. I don't think you're supposed to have that (to Miss M)
4. and 5. socky-wocky and feety-feet (baby talk)
6. Smoothies are ready!
7. Bedtime! (I asked the boys what they wished I wouldn't say so much and that was their response)

Seven books (or series) I love:

1. Art book about Waterhouse
2. Chopin in Paris
3. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
4. The Charlotte Mason series
5. Endangered Minds
6. James Herriott
7. Little Women

Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time):

1. Pride and Prejudice miniseries
2. Wuthering Heights (with Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon)
3. Our Mutual Friend miniseries
4. A Little Princess
5. The Sound of Music
6. Ever After
7. Groundhog Day

Seven People I want to join in, too:

Madame B at Sunny Day
thimblecottage
Dawn :)
Amy
Phyllis
Firefly
erinee

Seven Sevens

Pipsqueak at The Common Room tagged me to do the seven sevens game.


Things to do before I die:

1. Learn to know God better.
2. Read everything Lewis, Chesterton, and Tolkien ever wrote.
3. Play the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata.
4. Learn broadsword-fighting.
5. Make a film.
6. Write an epic.
7. Get even close to finishing my language.
7b. See The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, see Ancanar, read Cicero and Beowulf in their original languages.


Things I cannot do:

1. Ride a bicycle.
2. Dance.
3. Speak Anglo-Saxon.
4. Bounce down a tree.
5. Bounce up a tree, for that matter.
6. Sound like Christopher Lee.
7. Listen to good music "in the background."


Things that attract me to my spouse:

I'm MARRIED? < ditto. < same

Seven things I say most often:

1. "Really?"
2. "We'll see."
3. "- - - !" (Miss M's name.)
4. "Thank you."
5. (whatever elvish word I currently have stuck in my head.)
6. "It's from the Narnia movie..."
7. "Hopefully" in starting a sentence. (It's a habit I'm half-trying to break.)


Seven books (or series) I love:

1. The Lord of the Rings
2. The Chronicles of Narnia
3. Beowulf
4. The Space Trilogy (Lewis)
5. Ivanhoe
6. Jane-Austen-novel-series
7. Time Quartet (L'Engle)


Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time):

(The last three I'm not so sure about)

1. Sense and Sensibility (with Emma Thompson)
2. The Adventures of Robin Hood (with Errol Flynn)
3. the A&E Pride and Prejudice < ditto
4. Ever After
5. The Lord of the Rings
6. Star Wars
7. Pirates of the Caribbean

Seven People I want to join in, too:

I don't have seven people either:

1. Tim's Mom
2. Just Here For Now from Sunny Day

Top Ten Desert Island Christmas Albums

Queen Shenaynay from the Beehive posted her favorite albums here, and, after I do a little shopping at amazon.com for one or two from her list, I'll be posting our own list. :)

Our tastes are pretty basic, we like traditional carols and we don't need our carols gussied up to make them palatable for modern listeners. Last year I wanted to buy a couple of new CD's to play at our church services, so I sampled quite a few current selections at the Christian bookstore and couldn't like any of them. Instead, I went online and looked for old favorites - Bing Crosby, Julie Andrews, Nat King Cole, and liked those much better. I didn't learn to like classical music until we'd been homeschooling a couple of years, so we're only beginning to discover what's out there in that genre. I expect our top ten list will change when we find more classics to love.

Here's our list --

A Christmas Album (Amy Grant) It never seems like Christmas until we play this. I haven't been as thrilled with her later Christmas albums, but I love this one, it never gets old.

Light of the Stable (Emmylou Harris) especially the song Beautiful Star of Bethlehem, which the Judds popularized recently

The Nutcracker (Tchaikovsky) We have three copies of this. We sometimes listen to the whole thing, and sometimes just highlights.

Nine Lessons & Carols (The Choir of King's College, Cambridge) A new tradition for us that just started a couple of years ago.

Greatest Christmas Songs and Christmas with Julie Andrews - We love both of these, and can't pick between them, so I just included both of them

Handel's Messiah (Our copy is conducted by John Eliot Gardiner) The Messiah has been growing on me over the years.

Christmas Day in Hawaii Nei (Makaha Sons) Mom's addition: "This isn't the only Hawaiian Christmas music I have, but it's my favorite."

A Christmas Carol (Focus on the Family Radio Theater Drama) We listen to this every year, I prefer this to any of the movie versions

Merry Little Christmas (Linda Ronstadt) I just picked randomly from a few others that we like to make it an even ten. (Tim wants to replace this with a favorite of his own)

In Autumn

Another poem written for creative writing class (which is finished now).

In Autumn

The wind comes from forgotten lands
of ancient hills and elven strands
to tease remembrance in the mind.
You'd think the air was brought
purposely to wake the thought
of elder day or foreign clime.

The leaves are like an unknown tongue,
each a word, in piles flung,
sentence-deep around the trees.
The earth speaks, too (squish! squash!)
And the treetops (swish! toss!)
In a roil of branchy seas.

They tell of something just beyond
mortal grasp; like a fond
memory, but deeper, higher.
I cannot see what's behind
the invitation of the wind—
I know the Something stirs desire.

This Month's Books - November 2005

Beowulf by Anonymous, translator unknown (this online version)
The first time I've read this translation. It's more literal than Burton Raffel's, and it seems to have heavier alliteration, which sometimes makes for better reading aloud (it's almost impossible to read it silently). But it is harder to understand and I don't think it grasps the original meaning as well as Burton Raffel's. Still, Beowulf is Beowulf.


Persuasion by Jane Austen
Very good, all of it. The writing quality and characters especially (the character introspection was excellent). I will have to read them all again, but this may be my favorite of Miss Austen's books so far.


On Directing Film by David Mamet
Mr. Mamet is both a screenwriter and director. In this book he propounds his theory of film and how, therefore, a film should be made.

A film is a story told by a series of juxtaposed images. The film is built of smaller story segments, the scenes, which are in turn made of smaller segments--"beats," he calls them--which are made of several shots, which are the smallest segment. The job of the smaller segments is to show action in the simplest possible way, and combined they form a meaning in each of the scenes and the ultimate story of the film. Because a film is built this way, the shots or beats themselves do not have to be "interesting"--they do not have to tell the story. The same goes for the actors--they don't have to act interestingly, they just have to perform the actions. The story itself will make them interesting.

He also talks about some of the problems with modern filmmaking. A lot of modern films do not have a good story or structure, and a lot of modern directors are more concerned with personal expression or making things "interesting" than they are with telling a good story as simply as possible. Because the story itself is not interesting, they have to add things to make it interesting: eye candy or "artistic" style, or graphic detail. But if the shock value is all that holds the audience, then each successive film will have to be more and more graphic. If moviemakers would simply concern themselves with telling a good story as simply and clearly as possible, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems we do. (Personal note: I think by this standard Alfred Hitchcock would be a very good director but Peter Jackson would be a very bad one. Artistic expression and all that.)

It is a good book, well worth reading if you are interested in making films or just interested in the filmmaking process. (Be warned, however, that there is some mild language and a few other things that might not be suitable for children.)

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Apple Cinnamon Muffins (1 dozen)

I tweaked a recipe for "basic muffins" that I found online to make whole wheat apple cinnamon muffins. These use oil, but no butter or shortening, so they have no hydrogenated/saturated/trans-fat.

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached flour
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup soy or rice milk
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1 cup applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, the liquid ingredients in another. Then combine both and mix it all up. I use foil liners in a cupcake tin so they don't tear apart when you try to remove them from the paper to eat them.
Bake 400 degrees 20-25 minutes.

Teacups

I've always thought that someday it would be fun to collect teacups. As it turns out, my collection has already started! I love pretty teacups, so if you have any pictures of yours online, I'd love to see!

My very first teacup, and still my favorite. My mother and I saw this while shopping at an antique mall during a visit, and she bought it for me. She suggested that any teacup collection should be based on a color. That was easy - pink!

When I saw this one, I thought it was the prettiest teacup I'd ever seen. Until I brought it home and put it beside my favorite! But it's a close second.

These beautiful cups were gifts from my favorite tea partner, Ginger.

Not really a teacup, but I love it.