Socratic Questioning

You know something that really bugs me? When I find out that I have more to learn. Sounds funny doesn't it? But my list gets longer and longer every day and I start to think I'm going to lose my mind. I wish I had started this learning stuff earlier in my life!

This is what I found today, Socratic Questioning.
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/the-role-of-socratic-questioning-in-thinking-teaching-learning/522
The idea that questions fuel learning, not answers. Answers are the end of learning. Our modern classrooms are full of the answers in the form of textbooks that outline what the questions and answers are for us. The thing that came to my mind while reading the article is my resent delve into studying the Torah and what it means to Christians. I've been a bit disappointed that the book is only leading me to more questions and now I'm busy trying to find those answers. That is the conditioning I've received from our modern education system and I'm only now starting to ask the questions that might lead me to a greater understanding of our world. The conditioning is that a teacher asks the questions and the student reads a textbook and regurgitates the answers that were given, not the questions that have arisen from the reading and the discussion that follows between people that are on a similar quest for knowledge.

So here I am again having to think! :)

Sprint Car Races!

When we went to the Demolition Derby a few weeks ago, one of the bigger races was cancelled so they gave us free tickets to the next race. That's the one we went to last night. Here they are are gettting ready to start.
The race was awesome! I'm amazed at how fast those little cars go around the dirt track. Tom and I love the races. We could sit there all night! The rest of the family likes going but could probably take it or leave it. I like the dirt they throw up into the stands on the corners and they way they go sideways around the curve and blast off into the straights. I have to admit though, I like the demo derby better. More crashes!! :)

This is what I found the boys doing during one of the races. I had to record them doing it since Jake was making one his famous cutesy faces. I'm sure some day I will be able to blackmail them both with this!

Fighting for Principles

While reading "The Life of George Washington" by Washington Irving, I came across an interesting point. Washington was defending his stance on the current tax on tea. Before the colonies declared independence, their argument was not that the taxes were too high or "burdensome", but that they were wrong. It was the principle they were fighting about. And they were willing to stop all trade, risk being killed, even war to stand on principle. How many times today have we heard one side, Democrat or Republican, go on about how horrible it is that the other side is holding up legislation due to ideology or principle? We hear that people aren't going to get their welfare checks if we don't set aside our principles and come to a compromise. That would be fine when both sides have similar principles but need to compromise on details. Amazing that our forefathers, our founders, could see that a principle is something you fight/die for not compromise on. The taxes that the King of England continued to impose were only a few cents but both sides were willing to go to battle over the thing. The King was willing to fight to the death for the idea that he was absolute ruler and could do as he saw fit. And the Colonies were willing to die for the idea that man must be governed with consent. Neither could compromise their principles and should not have unless they decided to agree with the other sides point of view.

Today, are we willing to fight, die, or even lose friends for the ideals that we hold dear?

Tovaas Day at Disneyland

Yes! We spent the weekend at the Happiest Place on Earth with my Dad, Step-Mom, and Brother and his family. And it was a blast! I can't remember the last time I had that much fun at Disneyland. It might have helped that we haven't been in over a year and we were used to going every week. And staying at the Grand California Hotel may have had  something to do with it. But I think that it was mostly because we spent the time together with our family and we are one fun bunch!

The Grand Californian was beautiful. We've walked through it many times on the way home from California Adventure when we lived across the street, but we've never stayed there. The only complaint I had was the 1gpm shower heads. Sheesh! The hotel room had bunk beds for the kids and they loved them and they left chocolate coins for us when they turned down the beds.

We arrived Friday night and had dinner at Tortilla Joe's with the whole family. Nikki and the boys walked around Downtown Disney and met us back at the hotel for a swim. The pool has big water slides! Carson was getting tired and laying a lounge chair, so I put a towel on him and tucked him in. We had to do that several times. :))

As guests of the hotel, we got to get into the park an hour before it officially opened. I've been there as a cast member a million times for Magic Mornings, but never as a guest! We got on the Monorail at 7AM and headed straight for the new Star Tours (which was awesome). We went on Space Mountain next. It was decorated for Halloween with projections of some scary monster thing. We weren't impressed except for the very beginning of it and a part before a drop that looked good. Then we had breakfast with Minnie and Friends at Plaza Inn (another first for us) and Chip kept trying to steal everyone's chocolate milk. We had fun harassing characters.

The rest of the day was filled with lots of rides, snacks, and walking...lots of walking. I'm still recovering from all the walking! We would split up, get together, go on a ride, get a snack, split up again. It was great. It never got hot cause it was pretty cloudy all day. And we got trapped in a huge crowd before the fireworks. There was something going on in Tomorrowland that involved the fire department. That kinda scared us. Nikki and I had cream cheese filled pretzels and now we're having withdrawls from the deliciousness. We got to see Fantasmic. And then we went around and went on all the dark rides in Fantasyland just before the park closed at Midnight. 17 Hours! I can't believe we made it! A little balking from Jake at around 10PM, but some coke and a pretzel cured that. Tom started the crying about missing Disneyland already after Fantasmic, but he's ok now. I didn't have to carry anyone out of the park.

We staggered back to our hotel room and fell into bed at 1AM. The next morning we were up at 7am and out in the lobby saying our goodbye's at 9. I hope we can do it again sometime. It was the best weekend ever!

Cold?

It was dark this morning when I got up and not because the sun hadn't come up. There were big black clouds. Lightning and thunder and then rain. Rain! And it was cool outside. It stayed that way all day. In the afternoon, it started to let some sun through but then it clouded up again. We have the windows closed and the fans off for the first time in months. I'm sure it will warm up again over September but it is weird that Fall hit us so suddenly.

The boys and I watched "Cheaper By the Dozen", the one with Steve Martin. They were shocked. We just read the book a month or so ago and they loved it. I couldn't read the last chapter without choking up every other sentence. The movie was only the same by the fact that they had twelve kids. That's all. Not even the names were the same. Tom thought the kids were brats and that they should appreciate how hard their Dad was working to give them a bigger house and new clothes (in the movie), which made his Dad smile. The movie was funny, don't get me wrong, but it didn't have the moral message or bright outlook on life that the book had.

I'm reading "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch". I just got it in the mail this afternoon and I have a discussion online about it on Thursday afternoon, so I'm zooming through it. It is a wonderful book. I'm so going to read it to the boys when we are done with "Tom Sawyer". They will love it.

It Ended Up a Great Day

My headache wasn't as bad this morning but was still there. It still is while I write this but I haven't had any ibuprofen since this morning and it's just a fuzzy pain. Hopefully, tomorrow it will be completely gone.

I woke up this morning to a light rain. I was laying there hoping to sleep longer but couldn't get back to sleep. When I came into the livingroom, I realized that it WAS late. The clouds were covering the morning sun and it looked dark out. I sat on the porch and listened to the rain for a bit while my coffee brewed. There is nothing like rain in the desert. The smell is just amazing and you can hear the rainfall approaching. It pitters from far away and moves across the desert. It sounds like the earth is breathing a sigh of relief.

Jake got up, got dressed, and went to Grandma's house to play XBOX 360. That's where the day went downhill. Grandma lives next door and got an XBOX 360 on Saturday. She also got them Halo 3, which they have been wanting forever. So now Grandma's house has way better toys than home and Mom's jealous of the time spent over there. I feel like I'm just here to cook and clean and hand out chores. I can't explain it really. All I can say is that I hate it. Tom got up while I was in the shower and left before I even got to say good morning. If they are over there all day long, how am I supposed to lure them into doing something besides playing that damn game? How am I supposed to model the behavior I want to see in them, if they are never home? Ugg... I guess it will pass after awhile, but it doesn't look good right now. I didn't want the new game system. We already have three at our house. It's a perpetual time and money sucker and it makes me crazy.

Dan had today off and he wanted to do something fun so we took the kids to the Palm Springs Air Museum. The boys love World War II stuff and they loved showing the place to Dad. Afterwards, we went out to dinner at Islands! Yay! And we stopped at Michael's to get some yarn for my next project. It was a perfect afternoon.

When we got home, it was still raining and 74 degrees has never felt so good! The boys ran to Grandma's...grrr...and there was an awesome double rainbow. It was so amazingly bright!

And here's a bonus picture of Tom coming in a the quad in a cloud of dust yesterday!



The Stars!

Last night, I couldn't sleep. I've had a migraine since Friday afternoon and spent most of Saturday sleeping. Of course, when night came, I could sleep no more and couldn't even read since it hurt my eyes. So I lay there, dozing off now and again. I heard the cat meow outside the window and went to let him inside. He didn't run right in the door so I stepped outside to see if he was on the roof again. I looked up. I stopped in my tracks in awe. It was about 4am. I had never seen so many stars over my roof. We have star gazed in the evening before bed, but this was something else. Amazing. It was like the usual groups of stars you can see in the desert but then someone dusted the whole sky with tiny pricks of light. It was absolutely beautiful. At that moment, I thanked God for the experience, picked up the cat, and went inside. I'm still in awe of it so many hours of daylight later.