Catching Up With Photos

Nathalie's last night at home before leaving for college: a marathon game of Risk

The morning we drove Nat to Bob Jones University.

Our visit to Antietam Battlefield

Sam and Rachel at Antietam Battlefield

Rachel and Samantha unwillingly pose for a  photo.

The Connecticut monument at Antietam Battlefield

My birthday

I love this picture of Sam.

Hannah

Rachel

Big E 4-H Showmanship competition

Abby's last time competing as a 4-H'er

Abby's showmanship goat: Raclette. This goat exemplifies everything that can be wrong (conformation-wise) with a dairy goat, and yet in the breed class at this show, the ADGA judge placed her first in her age category. I almost (ALMOST!) offered the judge my glasses. The next day, with a different ADGA judge, she placed dead last, where she should be. 

Now that Abby is no longer in 4-H, Raclette has been sold to a dairy farm in Bloomfield, where she can live out her days having babies and making milk; never to grace a show ring again!

4-H Showmanship

Final awards ceremony

4-H Milk-out competition winners

4-H Showmanship winners

4-H Herdsmanship winner for Connecticut and Overall for the second year in a row! Yay Abby!

4-H Herdsmanship winners by state.

4-H Judging competition winners. Abby did really well with second place in the senior division.

Scavenger hunt winners: Albert and Rachael

Samantha's birthday cake made by Hannah.

Challenges

Abby and Nathalie's first few days of college have had some challenges.
Their first day of classes included Accounting 101 and English Composition 101. They both like their accounting teacher, although Nathalie struggled to keep up with the notes. Abby did fine with note taking, so they agreed that Nathalie will do her best in class and fill in the rest from Abby's notes later.

English was another story. The professor basically strode into the classroom, handed out the syllabus, put up a youtube video and told the students to write their emotional reactions while watching the video. He then left the room for the duration of the video. The video was of a very offensive "comedian". It was an hour long ranting and raving about how "whites" have oppressed the "blacks". (google Paul Mooney if you really want to see it) It was filled with profanity, crude sexual references, and hatred. If it had a rating I am sure it would be rated R.

Nathalie came home and was visibly upset by it. Abby was ticked off that the professor had so little respect for the students. She said he arrived late, was sloppily dressed, and put his feet on the desk when talking to them. Let's just say she wasn't impressed.

I watched the first half hour of the video and understood their reactions. The assignment was for the students to write a one page, single spaced essay, from their worldview, which included these three points: What was your emotional reaction to the video? Does racism make you feel guilty? Is racism here forever? The syllabus also included this message: Although we will not be discussing race for the entire semester, we will be discussing other sensitive topics. If this video was too intense for you and you found it too offensive, I suggest you drop this class.

Sam and I agreed to let the girls make their own decision regarding the class. I felt the teacher was out of line in his attempt to shock students and turn, what should be a class on how to write a college essay or research paper and how to use the MLA format, into a soapbox for his personal agenda. Nathalie couldn't drop the class fast enough, while Abby took it as a personal challenge to show the professor that she could have an opposing opinion and write it well.

We allowed Abby to keep the class with the stipulation that I read over her first essay assignment. If I felt it was not strong enough to stand up to this professor, we would advise her to drop it. We also advised her that this guy could fail her even if her writing was excellent, just because he didn't agree with her. She accepted that and countered that she could always take it over winter session, if needed.

 I should not have been worried. Her rough draft of her essay was very good. Her rewrite showed some well thought out responses to the questions. She has enough confidence to stand on her beliefs and opinions and not be swayed by dramatics and posturing. This class, it seems, will give her lots of opportunities to strengthen her "faith muscles" and improve her debating skills. (Not really what an English COMPOSITION class should be teaching, in my opinion!) Was her essay perfect? Nope, I see lots of corrections that should be made, but it is her class, not mine!

This is the essay she wrote:

      My emotional response to the Paul Mooney film changed as the film progressed. Initially I felt confused. I did not get the point of one guy lying on a couch talking to another guy sitting in a chair pretending to take notes. My emotions quickly moved to anger. I was offended by the language of the film and Paul Mooney’s comment about Bin Laden looking like an old Jesus. I was offended by the coarse and gross language. He talked of fornication in very crude ways. When he compared Bin Laden to Jesus I was offended because neither is like the other in any way. Jesus showed mercy and compassion to all people, most especially those considered outcasts by society. Jesus never killed or hurt anyone, in fact He healed people. Bin Laden killed thousands of people and showed no mercy. To compare the two is, in my opinion, blasphemy. By the end of the film I was disgusted. Paul Mooney slandered a former President, a former Vice-President, Betsy Ross and many others. He showed a lack of respect for these people and to me that is appalling. 

     It seemed that some of the ideas put forth in the film were based on erroneous information. For example:  Paul Mooney claimed that the Egyptians were black, and that the blacks built the pyramids. This is not accurate. The Hebrews were the ones who built the pyramids. The Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians. When the Hebrew people multiplied and grew into such a number that the Egyptians feared them. The Egyptians persecuted the Hebrew slaves to keep them in bondage. This can be found in the Bible in the book of Exodus in chapter one verses eight through twenty –two.

     Does racism make me feel guilty? No, racism does not make me feel guilty. According to Webster’s 1913 Dictionary the definition of the word guilty means: Having incurred guilt; chargeable with, or responsible for, something censurable. I am not responsible for racism. I cannot feel guilty for something that I have not done. However, racism does make me feel sad. It makes me feel sad because I believe that each and every one of us was created by God in His image. We are all equal in the eyes of God. We are all sinners and we all need to repent of our sin. It makes me sad that racism exists, as this is not the will of God.

     I do not believe that racism is here forever. Racism is a part of this world now but this world shall pass away. There shall be a new heaven and a new earth after all the prophecies of the Bible have been fulfilled. The Bible says in this new earth and new heaven there will be no more sorrow. Racism brings sorrow. So if there is no more sorrow, then there will be no more racism. This can be found in the Bible in the book of Revelation in chapter twenty-one verses one and four.   

The girls' second day of classes included Statistics, Business software, and First Year Experience. They say that Statistics is "okay". First Year Experience is taught by a teacher who taught at Norwich Free Academy back when I went there: Mrs. Ivansheck! Abby struggled in Business Software, but Nathalie did extremely well. 

Day two rattled Nathalie as she got overwhelmed with the amount of homework and note taking. She came home ready to quit. We managed to talk her into at least finishing out the week. After the third day she was finding her rhythm, and with Abby helping her with the note taking, I think she'll be okay. Abby is loving college. She likes the challenge and seems to be rising to it. 

Today is day four and Nathalie seems to be getting a little excited about some of her classes, especially Business Software, since she has to help Abby and not the other way around! 

If You Aim at Nothing, You Are Sure to Hit It

With all this downtime, Abby and I started looking at colleges. Which brought us to a discussion of what she would need to get into a college. So I did some research here: http://heartofthematteronline.com/ and here: http://www.thehomescholar.com/. This article: http://heartofthematteronline.com/homeschool-resolutions-for-parents-of-high-school-students, really inspired me to set down on paper what my goals and expectations were for the girls' high schooling. I used various college websites and our local high school handbook to find out what they required for applicants to guide me in tweaking what we were already doing. So here is the final product:
(the parenthesis are the publishers of the curriculum we'll be using)

Course of Study- Four Year Plan
Abigail E. Smith

Freshman Year

American History: Columbus-Reconstruction (Notgrass)
Algebra 1 (Teaching Textbooks)
English (Notgrass) Vocab/Spelling (BJU)
Biology 1 (Apologia)

Electives:
Latin 1 (Latina Christiana)
Consumer Math (Money Matters)
Bible (Notgrass)

Sophomore Year

American History: Late 1800's-Present(Notgrass)
Algebra 2 (Teaching Textbooks)
English (Notgrass)Vocab/Spelling (Classical Roots)
Biology 2 (Apologia)

Electives:
Latin 2 (Latina Christiana)
Bible (Notgrass)
U.S. Government (Notgrass)

Junior Year

Chemistry 1 (Apologia)
World History 1 (Notgrass)
Geometry (Teaching Textbooks)
British Literature (Learning Language Arts Through Literature)

Electives:
Latin 3 (Latina Christiana)
World Geography (Geography Matters)
Bible (Notgrass)
Writing Composition (Three Rivers Community College)

Senior Year

Chemistry 2 (Apologia)
World History 2 (Notgrass)
Pre-Calculus (Teaching Textbooks)
American Literature (Learning Language Arts Through Literature)

Electives:
Research Writing (Three Rivers Community College)
Bible (Notgrass)

This is just a skeleton, so to speak. What is listed here is the minimum. As we do other things we will add them on. Certainly, somewhere in there needs to be an Agriculture elective!

I also came up with a transcript document:

I haven't finished filling it all in, but she should have more than the required 24 credits once she's through. (Sorry it's fuzzy. Copy/Paste from Publisher to Blog is not so good.)

While this shows that she hasn't completed much of her Freshmen year, she is currently working on subjects from her Freshmen, Sophomore and Junior years. By May (if she stays on task) she'll have completed ninth grade, 1/2 of tenth grade, and 1/7 of eleventh grade. Because we school year round, her goal is to complete her tenth grade work and half of eleventh grade by September.

Putting it down on paper has shown both Abby and I, an end goal and the path to getting there. If you are homeschooling a high schooler, who is struggling with direction, this might be the way to go!

Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Yesterday we took the girls to the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London (or was it Groton, I can never remember what side of the river I am on!). The museum has art by Walter Wick on exhibit until the end of the month. Walter Wick is the creator and author of the "Can You See What I See" and "I Spy" series of books.
The exhibit consists of many of Mr. Wick's photographs made huge with many of his actual models that he (and his team) created in order to make the photos. The detail and time involved in creating something for just one photo is incredible!
At the entrance the girls were given a paper with certain photos and lists of things to look for in those photos. In addition some of the photos had lists of things to find posted near them. It took us nearly two hours to go through all the photos.
Mr. Wick, the girls discovered, was born in Connecticut and in the same month and year as my dad. They found that to be interesting. The other thing they learned is that, perspective makes a world of difference. The same display, photographed from an slightly different angle, creates an entirely different picture!
We also walked through the American Art gallery in the downstairs portion of the museum. The girls enjoyed it more than the French Art exhibit.
On our way home we drove through the campus of Conn College. Hannah really liked it there. She liked the old buildings and the "peacefulness" of it all. Perhaps she will want to attend?? Only seven more years until college for her!