Smrt Lernins

I haven’t done a weekly update in a while. It felt too much like same-old, same-old.

We have only 15 days left in our school yet, and I won’t be here for the last five of them. Nana will be moderating the final week, while I jet off to Chicago to doula for our most precious and beloved Auntie D, godmother to my children and my best friend of 15+ years.

What have we been up to lately?

Well, Captain Science has reviewed some mathematics, doing a lovely job of demonstrating continued mastery of skills with another pass at the Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents final bridge. He’s also been working on some basic algebra concepts with Officer Daddyman, in preparation for this summer’s foray into algebra. I look forward to starting Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra.

Captain Science has finished Paragraph Town, though we’re going back and redoing a few lessons, using history texts as the writing topics. He’s continued to do work in Practice Town, keeping all those excellent language arts skills fresh in his mind. He’s written several excellent essays lately, including the introduction to a story about a revival of the Roman empire and an essay about Thor. He has also done some work in Building Poems.

History-wise, he has pretty much finished the stack of books on the Vikings, which is good, as they’ll be overdue if we don’t return them soon! He seemed to really enjoy the mythology and learning about longships and raiding parties. This wraps up the history we’re doing this year, as we’ll start ancient history of Asia, Africa, and the Americas in the fall. I want him to add the Norse gods to his pantheon project, which we’ll start wrapping up next week!

Science has continued to be all, you know, scienc-y. They’ve done some physics labs. This week, as Earth Day fell on science lab day, Patchfire had Captain Science and Eclectic Girl calculate their carbon footprint. Captain Science and I talked about ways we could reduce our carbon footprint, using examples like replacing store-bought beef with the locally raised beef we’ve been eating. The brain class is still loads of fun. They’ve made brain hats (a model of the brain to wear on their heads), have watched videos, have done neuron activities and short-term memory activities. Wait, what were we talking about?

Our co-op classes are starting to wind down for the semester. I’ve enjoyed them so much! The writing students are turning in completed drafts for me to edit. We’ve talked about the process of submitting written works to magazines, journals, and contests. The plan is to finish in the next two weeks or so, with submittable manuscripts for all the children. We’ll mail everything off on the last day of class. I hope someone gets something published!

Captain S has also done some work in his logic book and in a few other areas. His co-op board game class has proven to be one of his favorite things. Their food fight game is hilarious!

Wow! I can’t believe we’re almost done for the year. It’s gone by so fast.

Lo, so many times doth I find myself declaring thusly, “This is why I homeschool!”

Today, at Olan Mills photography, the photographer argued with me over comma placement in the title on a photograph collage. The main picture was of all three of my beautiful, talented, and delightful children (whose behavior while Nana and I looked at photo proofs was such that they are lucky I did not devour them on the spot like a disgruntled hamster), with one small photo of Tank and Captain Science and one small photo of Babypie below. The collage was captioned “Captain Science, Tank & Babypie.”

I protested the lack of Oxford comma between “Tank” and “&” (the “&” was necessary in lieu of “and,” due to the length of Tank’s real name), only to have the photographer tell me, “No, that’s right. I thought it was supposed to be the way you’re saying it, but an English teacher was in here the other day and said this is the right way.”

I responded, “Well, I have a master’s degree in writing and editing. I can assure you that it’s supposed to have a comma,” then said to my mother, “This is why I homeschool!”

While it turned out to be a non-issue, as an additional comma wouldn’t fit on the line, I will not accept the dropping of the Oxford (or “serial”) comma simply because some English teacher says so. Dropping that comma may be acceptable in AP style, which is designed to minimize space, but dropping the serial comma is not otherwise acceptable to me. Unless the final two items are together (“peanut butter & jelly,” for instance, or even “Captain Science and Tank,” since they were in the same photograph, while Babypie was in her own), that comma belongs in that list.

But me no buts* about how this is acceptable in non-academic American written grammar, because Americans say and do many things that are an abject butchery of proper grammar and usage. American writers have become lazy, American grammarians have lost their spine, and American teachers are failing to impart a respect for proper punctuation in their students. If it’s good enough for Strunk and White, the MLA Style Manual and The Chicago Manual of Style, it’s good enough for me, and it should be good enough for you, dammit.

Yes, when Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves) talks about not getting between those on opposing sides of the Oxford comma issue when drink is involved, she is, in fact, talking about me.

Considering that most public schools use MLA writing guidelines, which advocate the use of the Oxford comma, the idea of a public school English teacher telling a photographer that the comma isn’t necessary incites me to a new level of grammatically righteous anger. I’ve tolerated too many notes (both from Captain Science’s old public school and Tank’s private preschool) that pluralized with an apostrophe or misused “to” and “too” (No! You do not have “to many volunteers!”). While I often have a playful relationship with English, I will not give up my commas without a fight!

*Neither Officer Daddyman nor Patchfire have heard the phrase “but me no buts.” They both thought it was a typo. I promise that it is not. Here is a nice article about the “X me no X’s” model.