Papoose!

So this picture was taken at about 8:45 at night, which is normally Akasha's fussy time. AND she is sitting on her own while we eat dinner! In other words, she loves to be swaddled. I have been wanting to try it for awhile since she is always very comforted by having her arms and hands held, but it has been too darn hot. Tonight was cooler, and it worked like a charm.

First Playdate?

We got to go visit Amoreena's new baby today!

Akasha looks like she is planning some evil deed LOL.
It was baby central! Melissa's new daughter was there as well, sporting these adorable socks from Japan.
Later I decided to try my first back carry with the wrap!
She slept in there for about half an hour while I made dinner, which is great considering that is usually her fussy time!

Peekaboo

Empathy?

Kate and the girls stopped by to pick something up on Thursday and Orion had his usual bout of not being sure if he loves or hates Ruby. At one point he pushed her and she hit her head on our sliding glass door. I asked him if he wanted to apologize, but he was way too angry himself at that moment. Then yesterday when he was at Home Depot with Ron, out of the blue he said he wanted to get a card and decorate it for Ruby to tell her he was sorry for hurting her head! I am always so bummed he doesn't seem to have any sense of empathy yet, but I guess he does somewhere inside! It just takes him two days to process it. Takes after his dad on that one I guess haha.

She is Smiling I tell you!

And doing other stuff she is not "supposed to" yet, like holding onto stuff. I gave her the ring in the picture, and she held it for like 5 minutes! The smile below was from me making silly noises at her. Orion gets all the best smiles from her though! He is going to be a great entertainer for her!

Gatto on Education

Another great article posted by Emily awhile back....

http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm

I am just now getting a chance to write about it. I have always wanted to read Dumbing Us Down, so this article was great as it seems like a condensed version of the book from what I have read. All sorts of great information if you want to read the whole thing, but here is some of the stuff I found most interesting about the original intent of how our educational system was set up. Very scary stuff!

Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."

Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole.

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

Pirate Park

We finally checked out the so called Pirate Park. You can't see it in these pictures, but there is a play structure shaped like a pirate ship. The big draw of the park, though, at least for Orion, is this sand area with water that comes down a cement thing. I guess it usually only comes on for 30 seconds or so when you push a button, but it was stuck on when we went, so there was a puddle forming. That was great fun for Orion though!

He loved the place, but it has a few drawbacks. It was quite a walk from the street, and uphill. There was also no shade at all near the sand. I had Akasha in a sling to keep her out of the sun, but I think she was getting hot because she was pretty fussy. So I think this will be a place only for cooler days in the future!

Sibling Snuggling

Some brother and sister cuteness:

Would you look at those eyelashes?!

Akasha looks like she is doing some kind of dance move here LOL.

And here she looks like she is reaching out for God all Michelangelo style.