Pretzel Logic

Theories about the origin of the pretzel are many. Some say that the iconic twisted shape is meant to portray arms folded in prayer. One legend states that a baker accused of a crime was offered the opportunity to avoid prison if he would produce a piece of bread through which the sun could be seen three times. Still another tale claims that the three-holed shape symbolizes the Holy Trinity. Even the word pretzel has no clear history – it is variously described as a variation of the Italian pretiola (or “little reward”, intended for children who learned their psalms) or perhaps the Latin bracchiola (“little arms” – arms folded in prayer, perhaps?), just two of the asserted beginnings.

Whatever the truth, there’s little argument that pretzels are one delicious snack – one of the most popular in the U.S. I read a claim (although cannot find verification) that the pretzel market in the United States is nearly half a billion dollars a year. Pretzels, it would seem, are pretty popular.

They’re fun to make, too, and fit in nicely with discussions Medieval studies (according to Wikipedia, the use of the pretzel shape as an emblem for bakers dates to at least 1111 A.D.), history of the Christian church, the math associated with baking or even chemistry (a Maillard reaction takes place during baking – this reaction is the basis for natural- and artificial-flavor creation – which gives the pretzel its bitter bite). And if you don’t have, need or want a reason for making pretzels at home, it’s just an all around great hands-on project and one that is sure to entertain all ages. Little ones enjoy the play-clayesque activity of shaping the dough and older kids love to think up new toppings and shapes. What’s not to love?

The basic recipe is simple:

- two packages dry yeast
- 1 ½ cups warm water
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon butter, melted
- 4 ½ cups white flour, divided
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 5 cups very warm water
- 2 tablespoons baking soda
- salt for sprinkling (table, kosher or sea)

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees F. Pour 1 ½ cups of warm water into a large bowl and stir in the yeast and sugar to dissolve. Let sit for five minutes, the yeast should bubble and froth (if it doesn’t try again with more water, yeast and sugar). Mix together butter, four cups of flour and 1 teaspoon salt. With the mixer on a low speed or by hand, slowly blend in yeast mixture. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl and let rise, covered, for one hour. After rising, divide dough into equal portions and roll or shape pretzels as desired. Dissolve baking soda in the very warm water in a large bowl. Dip pretzels into water and place onto a lightly oiled or greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with salt and bake for 12 minutes. When they’re cool enough to handle, enjoy!

Try whatever variations sound interesting to you – different toppings like sesame or poppy seeds work well, or perhaps some dipping sauces might be fun. What happens if you dip some pretzels in the baking soda mixture, but not others? What happens if you double the amount of baking soda? Does the dough hold its shape if you form it into letters? Why or why not? Have fun and experiment, it’s all the more fun with a delicious treat at the end.

This article will be published in a modified form in the next issue of The New Classical Family

The New Carnival of Homeschooling is Up!

Christine at The Thinking Mother has done a wonderful job in organizing the ever-larger number of Carnival of Homeschooling entrants. Head on over for your weekly dose of encouragement, perspective, deep thinking and laughs.

When is a curriculum not a curriculum?

Spend any amount of time on a message board or forum associated with general homeschooling issues and sooner or later (my money's on sooner) you'll encounter a post that goes like this:

Help! I don't know what to do with my preschooler! She's three and soooo inquisitive - please tell me a curriculum I can use with her. I'm so lost!

Responses to this desperate plea can generally be categorized according to type. Some will assert that the OP is doomed to ruin her child's love of learning forever if she doesn't banish the word curriculum from her vocabulary immediately and cease all attempts at guiding the young mind. Others will quite earnestly recommend packaged pre-K set-ups from well-known homeschooling suppliers and suggest that surely a three year-old is ready to conjugate. (At this point, it's not at all uncommon for the thread to derail completely into the very tired and tiresome Homeschooling Method and Approach Debate^TM, the details of which can no doubt be recited by heart by anyone who frequents such boards and upon which I, if granted the ability to impose my will on the subject, would institute a strict moratorium.)

For my part, I see the poster's question differently. Most of the time I have encountered this problem so wrenchingly posted, I don't see it as a request for curriculum at all. I see it more as a request for help with ideas for enjoying time with a young person whose needs have all of a sudden morphed from naps and nursing to shapes and colors. This transition can be a difficult one for everyone concerned and many parents find themselves just adjusting to the idea of a "baby" when all of a sudden they find themselves with a kid - one who runs, jumps and creates with what seems to be a physics-defying velocity.
For these parents I recommend activity books, which are the very same sorts of publications marketed to teachers as curriculum, but without that hot-button designation attached. Re-read the post this way...

Help! I don't know what to do with my preschooler! She's three and soooo inquisitive - please tell me a book of activities I can use with her. I'm so lost!

...and the request takes on another tenor entirely, one much less threatening to those who would react to a single word rather than the content of the message and clarifying to those who would enroll the child as soon as possible in the nearest co-op. It's a completely different question, and one that has less to do with politics, nomenclature and self-identification by method within the homeschooling community and much more to do with sharing ideas, parent-to-parent. If we knee-jerked less and cared more.

For the record, I have a few books I recommend to parents in such straits. Some of these are intended for parents (and are, then, activity books) and others were written for teachers in an institutional education setting (and are, then, curricula). All of them are beautiful, full of songs, games and crafts and easy-to-execute activities just right for the parent wondering "what shall we do today?" with no hand-wringing or fretting over method needed.

	The Everything for Spring/Fall/Winter series is chock full of rhymes, recipes, games and crafts. Some activities were written with a classroom in mind, but are easily customizable.
	This science-related activity book is meant for younger kids and is chock full of interesting little projects that are easy to accomplish with household items.
	A wonderful book geared focusing on the rhythm of the seasons and (primarily Christian) holidays and offers detailed activity and handwork instructions for toys, dolls and games.

Review: Growing with Grammar

Tamela Davis’ Growing With Grammar was designed to fill a particular void in home-based formal grammar instruction. Knowing that many homeschooling families sought a complete grammar program that did not simultaneously inject specific beliefs or values into the text, Ms. Davis set out to provide just that. And with the quality and scope presented in Growing with Grammar she has most definitely fulfilled that goal.

I reviewed the Grade 3 materials and was quite pleased to note that from a design standpoint, Growing with Grammar has been wonderfully thought out. The Student Workbook is spiral bound at the top of the book, rather than on the left hand side, a feature that is very accommodating to the lefties among us (myself and son included!). Workbook pages are very uncluttered, with generous amounts of white space – useful for keeping on-task by elimination of visual distraction and also for notes or additional examples to be written in the margins. All in all, both the workbook and Student manual are very learning-friendly and typeset for easy reading.

In terms of content, Growing with Grammar succeeds in presenting a comprehensive grammar program. The five chapters in the third grade level cover everything from sentence structure to the types of words (nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc.) to basic punctuation. Students transitioning from Jessie Wise’s First Langugage Lessons (intended for first and second grades) will find the change a smooth one, although I don’t know if Growing with Grammar was written with that in mind.

Each chapter has its own review, and each lesson within the chapters has a corresponding worksheet in the workbook. This organization means scheduling is simple and, depending upon how fast the student can work, makes speeding up or slowing down easy since knowing just where one is in the program is obvious. Parents of students who want more practice on a given topic should have no problem using some of the pages’ white space to write up some additional questions using Davis’ as examples and inspiration.

The directions for the workbook exercises are direct and simple, so an independent learner will find it easy to work on his or her own and parents working with their children will encounter no ambiguous instructions to muddle the lesson. The exercises are plainly designed: X the correct answer, correct the sentences, underline appropriate words, rewrite, etc. A child with a good foundation in writing and some independent reading will find the work quite accessible.

So far, Growing with Grammar is available for third and fourth grades, with fifth grades and a primer for the combined first and second grades scheduled for availability in early 2007. If these additional titles reflect the quality of both content and production that I have seen with the third grade level, I have no reservations about recommending Growing with Grammar to any family seeking a gentle, yet systematic and thorough, introduction to English grammar.

Each chapter has its own review, and each lesson within the chapters has a corresponding worksheet in the workbook. This organization means scheduling is simple and, depending upon how fast the student can work, makes speeding up or slowing down easy since knowing just where one is in the program is obvious. Parents of students who want more practice on a given topic should have no problem using some of the pages’ white space to write up some additional questions using Davis’ as examples and inspiration.

The directions for the workbook exercises are direct and simple, so an independent learner will find it easy to work on his or her own and parents working with their children will encounter no ambiguous instructions to muddle the lesson. The exercises are plainly designed: X the correct answer, correct the sentences, underline appropriate words, rewrite, etc. A child with a good foundation in writing and some independent reading will find the work quite accessible.

So far, Growing with Grammar is available for third and fourth grades, with fifth grades and a primer for the combined first and second grades scheduled for availability in early 2007. If these additional titles reflect the quality of both content and production that I have seen with the third grade level, I have no reservations about recommending Growing with Grammar to any family seeking a gentle, yet systematic and thorough, introduction to English grammar.

Visit Growing with Grammar for more information. The ISBM number for the Student Manual is 0-9772923-0-4. Growing with Grammar is published by JacKris Publishing, LLC. The ISBM number for the Student Manual is 0-9772923-0-4. Growing with Grammar is published by JacKris Publishing, LLC.

Just What Does “Classical Education” Mean, Anyway?

So, just what is Classical Education? Does it mean that you address history chronologically and in four year cycles? Or maybe that you focus on Great Books? Perhaps it means a literature-based education. Then again, maybe it just means a concentration Latin and/or Greek? Or that your family adheres to a more Humanities-based interpretation.

There are probably as many opinions as to the proper composition of a Classical Education as there are interested parties. And how one feels on the subject may well be influenced by how one came to the classical ed table in the first place.

Andrew Campbell of Memoria Press’ The Classical Teacher recently published an article entitled “Multum non Multa” or, not many things but much. In it he suggests that most of what is termed “education” today is more time-wasting overkill than useful tools for learning. I nodded along eagerly, thrilled to be reading an opinion that so closely echoed my own, until I read a sentence that brought me up short. After relaying a quote from Tracy Lee Simmons’ Climbing Parnassus in which Simmons calls American public schools “cut rate education malls for the intellectually lame” Campbell asserts, “Unfortunately, this trend is noticeable even among home schoolers.”

What he means is that in the zeal to fill a child’s mind with useful knowledge, and both an ability to learn and love of learning, perhaps the days become packed with so much science, history, geography, grammar, music, logic and so on that the mind clutters and has no room for the simple time spent with Latin or Greek that would enable the child to delve deeply into all these subjects and more by reading original works.

Susan Wise Bauer ties Classical Education to the trivium, a three-part cycle that builds the goals of one part upon those of the preceding. Furthermore, she frequently uses the word “systematic” to describe the method of education she espouses and stresses that it is language based and hooks her texts on the study of chronological history.

Laura M. Berquist also stresses the trivium and the direct influence of Dorothy Sayers’ beliefs that children must be taught how to think over instruction in any given subject-specific area. Berquist has said that Classical Education may be accomplished with a variety of texts, in fact any that is appropriate for the student’s position in the trivium could be considered classical.

So, which is it? What are the qualifying features of a Classical Education? The question may never be resolved with consensus and our perspectives are likely colored by the introduction we had to the subject, augmented by further readings. I have met numerous families who read and were inspired by The Well-Trained Mind and resolved to organize their children’s educations around its pages “but without the Latin.” Checking back with them a year later finds them including not only Latin but perhaps Aramaic as well on the recommendation of subsequent authors consulted. That Classical Ed families are seemingly so willing and able to learn and adapt as their knowledge grows can only be seen as a good thing. When it comes to Classical Education and homeschooling, ad libitum may well be the order of the day.

Why Classical Education?

I knew even as an undergraduate, well before I actually had children, that I wanted to educate my family at home. What I didn't know, though, and couldn't figure out was how. My first exposures to the meta-topic of home schooling were in the form of Grace Llewellyn's work - compelling to be sure, but not quite what I had in mind.

Despairing over what I saw as my fellow students' inability to construct (or deconstruct, for that matter) a sentence, read and understand a simple paragraph, challenge statistics and studies meant to influence their thinking or - let's be frank - even parrot the simplest facts (the approximate dates of the U.S. Civil War, to what the Bill of Rights refers, where and what Nagasaki and Hiroshima are, for example) let alone understand why those facts are important, I simply could not and cannot wrap my mind around Llewewllyn's educational philosophy. I couldn't – and can’t - understand the rejection of the idea of a Canon, a body of knowledge deemed desirable for all to posses.

For years I brooded and half designed my own curriculum, not realizing the breadth and depth of the home educational materials available. I simply had no idea that somewhere out there others were thinking the same thoughts as I and developing a response.

In 2004 I read a scathing review of The Well-Trained Mind (Wise, Jessie. New York: Norton, 1999 which expressed more the author's attachment to the dogma of unschooling and personal dislike of Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer than any real impressions of the book’s content. The funny thing, though, is that the review's attack on The Well-Trained Mind led me to seek it out - they expect children to read! Science! Se don't need to stinkin' science! Math? Since when did anyone really need geometry, anyway? And literature? Please. No one's ever needed The Canterbury Tales to get a phone line installed.

Somewhere along the line, it seemed as though we all forgot how to learn, how to decode the messages that bombard us from all directions. Classical education – rigorous, elegant, thorough and exactly was I sought in all those years.

Settling on a method and manner only satisfied part of my search. Feeling alone and misunderstood even within the home education community for my dedication to seeing to both the content and approach of our home learning, I sought out comrades. Over time I even found myself adopting methodologies from other classical ed proponents. Laura M. Berquist, David Hicks, Marva Collins and others weighed in through their experience and writings, influencing our household in great measure. We were – and are - missing only one thing, community.

And that is why I have produced this, The New Classical Family. We have so much to learn from each other – what we use, where we turn and what we do. But even more, who we are. We are all The New Classical Family. Welcome.

Well, now what?

So I had this great idea to create a blog for The New Classical Family (NCF), my six-month old 'zine for families interested in classical models of education. We've had two paper-based (analog?) issues posted and the third is being readied for print - or would be if I weren't typing this instead. The long-term plans for NCF have always included an option for a digital version but we figured, why not start now? Why wait for a fancypants website when the good folks at Blogger have done a good bit of the work for us?

Why, indeed. So here we are. Over the next few days I'll be putting a selection of articles from the first two issues and a teaser or two from the next, plus some totally new content. We're open to guest authors, if anyone has something they'd like to say on the subject of classical education and their family's approach, and we'll also create a blogroll of related sites that might interest our readers.

The response to The New Classical Family has exceeded my wildest dreams. We've discovered our village, one we never knew existed and, while a bit wildly dispersed, has provided more support and stimulation than we ever imagined.

And now we'd like to share that village with you. So many of us bucking the tides of prevailing educational systems feel isolated and alone, wondering where we might turn for companionship and interaction. Over the past six months I have learned that we are not alone, not by a long shot - there are thousands of us, ready to reach out and connect.