Smrt Lernins

The second in our Secular Thursday series of secular homeschooling mom archetypes, The Organized Mom, has been guest authored by my own favorite Organized Mom, Patchfire of A Little Rebellion:

When Smrt Mama was preparing for this, her first year of homeschooling, I probably overshared my own preparations. Needing to balance the needs of two students and a toddler too, I was even more organized than ever before. I think it was the color-coded schedules that finally did her in. The result was being used loosely as a model for the Organized Mom archetype. Now Smrt Mama’s asked me to pontificate for a bit on the strengths and weakness of Organized Mom.

Here’s a quick refresher on the Organized Mom archetype, pulled from Smrt Mama’s original post on the topic:

* The Organized Mom – She is better at this than you will ever be. If you’re comparing yourself to other homeschoolers, just go ahead and quit before you get around to comparing yourself to her. You might even consider flinging yourself on your sword. She has her days scheduled to the color-coded minute and her children obey them perfectly. She researched her curricula extensively and is most likely following a Classical model. She’s already finished planning her curriculum for next year. Her children are enrolled in enrichment programs and are now very enriched and can Appreciate (with a capital A) art and music. Her motto: “It’s never too early to start looking at colleges.”

Her strengths are many. Organizing, knowledge, vision, and confidence stand out amongst them. There are weakness there, too – overscheduling, trying to do too many books and too many curricula, and above all, the possibility of arrogance. Organized Mom doesn’t know how not to be organized, though, so the key is mitigating the weaknesses.

Strengths: The obvious is first: organization. Organized Mom has a system for computer files, pieces of paper, and everything in between. Often blessed with a good memory (or a good back-up system!), Organized Mom has a place for many things, even if it’s not immediately obvious. She extends this organization onto her time, with an almost eerie ability to coordinate errands, enrichment activities, exercise, and other time demands in order to maximize efficiency. The color-coded schedule? Merely a written diagram of what’s inside her brain.
Weakness: Kids need time to play freely. They need downtime, and some spontaneity, too.
Solution: Be sure that the color-coded schedule allows that time for free play and downtime. The kids will come to look forward to it, and will also know no screen time is allowed during it. Also, don’t extend the color-coded schedules too far. Scheduling the schoolwork: good. Scheduling your Saturday down to fifteen-minute intervals? Bad. Sometimes a block of time would be better served by a checklist than a schedule, and other times, the schedule kept 95% of the time should enable Organized Mom to break the schedule entirely.

Weakness: Armed with her knowledge of curriculum, Organized Mom wants to use the best resources. All of them.
Weakness: In an attempt to play to her personal subject strengths as well as shore up her personal weaknesses, Organized Mom can easily unbalance her children’s curriculum. Afraid of shortchanging them, their enrichment activities may end up concentrated in just one or two areas.
Strength: Organized Mom knows about lots of good resources, and can change course for various children, or offer suggestions for other homeschoolers.
Strength:Organized Mom knows where her homeschool is going. She may have a formal vision statement written, or a list detailing what a high school graduate should know. She’s looking into the future, and planning with the end in mind.
Solution: Use that vision statement! Organized Mom sometimes needs to step back and look at the big picture when she’s caught up in the minutiae. Often, simply picture where a certain program or curriculum fits (or doesn’t!) in the overall plan will help her make a good decision. Organized Mom is also a perfect choice for running (or at least attending religiously) a homeschool moms’ night out or curriculum sharing night. With her knowledge of various curricula, she may know just the program for Suzy Neighbor’s advanced ten year old, or Kelly NextTownOver’s budding reader. She’s also unafraid to change programs for the needs of her different students. One child may thrive with one approach, and the next another. Luckily, she knows the ins and outs of many, and can meet her children’s needs accordingly.

Strength/Weakness: Organized Mom is confident. She has a plan and a vision, and knows what to use to achieve it. If she were inclined to make comparisons with other homeschoolers in the beginning, she’s stopped after just a year or two, or maybe less. Even when there are doubters, she just tunes them out. Think Rachel Berry on Glee singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” There can be a fine line between confidence and arrogance, however, and one of her biggest strengths (confidence) can all too easily become a big weakness (arrogance).
Solution:The phrases “in my opinion” and “in my experience” can help mitigate the occasions when she steps close to the line. Organized Mom must still be careful to gauge people’s reactions, whether online or in person. If she’s not skilled in reading people, even more caution may be required. She shouldn’t let fear of alienation through arrogance keep her from sharing what she knows and has learned, however, which makes this strength/weakness duo by far the most difficult to navigate.

Organized Mom is the quintessential Girl Scout, living up to the motto of “Be prepared.” If her children don’t win college scholarships and go on to rule or change the world, she’ll have just one thing to say. In the immortal words of Han Solo, “It’s not my fault!”

[Note from Smrt Mama: Do you identify (even partially? somewhat humorously?) with any of the remaining homechooling archetypes? Would you like to guest author a future Secular Thursday blog post at Smrt Lernins? Email Smrt Mama with your ideas for the Secular Homeschool Archetypes series!]

Dear Crazy Internet Christians,

It’s time I had a little come to Jesus meeting with y’all, alright? And yes, I’m aware of the irony there.

Now, you intelligent and compassionate Christians, who treat others with respect and who actually try to live life as modeled by Christ, can just sit right back down. This isn’t about you or even about Christianity (or at least, its foundations). I know that the crazies aren’t the only representatives of Christianity, or even comprise the largest percentage of Christianity, but they are, unfortunately, the loudest. You reasonable people have my love and appreciation for making this world a kinder place, though most of us differently-believers and non-believers wish your voices were a little easier to hear over the fray. God bless you for trying.

I’m talking to y’all over there, the other Christians, the ones who use your religion as a weapon of hate and denigration against others, who expect everyone in this world to treat your beliefs as true and absolute while you dismiss all of theirs as falsehoods and heathenry, who balk at any implication that an alternative set of beliefs might ever be acceptable to discuss (or God forbid, to actually believe), who wander around like rabid dogs in a hot summer street, looking for a chance to become righteously offended and bite anyone who commits the grievous crime of not thinking how you think.

If this is your version of Christianity, well, I feel awfully happy that I’m not a Christian (and even if I were, I’d be happy that someone like you probably wouldn’t consider me the right kind of Christian). You are not convincing me to become a Christian. You’re not convincing me to think highly of Christians or Christianity. You’re certainly not convincing me to think carefully about what I say, out of fear of offending you punkin dunkin liddle baby feelings.

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to hate Christians so much? A little hint — it has nothing to do with being afraid that your religious beliefs are right, being jealous of you, being lead astray by the devil, or any of the other nonsense your more extreme Christian groups keep claiming. Here’s a great example of the behavior that triggers that sort of response from others: Getting worked up over someone asking for recommendations of “books about Christian mythology for non-Christians”, dressing them down for daring to (accurately) use the term “Christian mythology” to refer to “the body of traditional narratives [everything] associated with Christianity,” accusing them of “insulting [your] intelligence” by asking for secular resources in a manner you find unacceptable, and really, when it all comes down to it, making an ass of yourself because someone is addressing a question to non-Christians on a board where you seem to think that everyone should feel obligated to ascribe to your narrow and unreasonably rigid view of Christianity, all while making plenty of blatantly insulting and ignorant comments about adherents to other faiths and their beliefs in the exact same thread and plenty of others.

That’s why people hate you. You’re narrow-minded. You’re petty. You’re completely self-absorbed. You see insult where none is meant just for the pleasure of feeling wronged. You’re judgmental. You’re hypocritical. You’re passive aggressive when you aren’t being openly aggressive. You cast the first stone into your neighbor’s eye. You’re just plain mean.

In short, you give Christianity a very bad name and you look like pure fools in the process. The best thing you could do to win people to Christ would be to just shut up, because y’all aren’t doing him any favors right now.

Sincerely,
Smrt Mama McLernins

P.S. The heathens called and they’d like their holidays back.

If you haven’t already guessed it, I might as well put it out there: I’m liberal (particularly definitions 1-5). I’m not just liberal, either. I’m a Liberal — a great big fat pro-choice, equal-marriage-rights-touting, social-services-loving, Universal-Healthcare-wanting, happily-tax-paying, tree-hugging, Obama-swooning, Olbermann-watching, if-real-life-were-like-West Wing-I’d-be-in-hog-heaven Liberal, complete with bumper stickers*. I’m That Liberal.

As you might imagine, liberal homeschoolers aren’t exactly in the majority in the Deep South. In fact, I’m pretty certain liberal homeschoolers aren’t in the majority anywhere, and certainly not liberal secular homeschoolers of the non-unschooling variety (which seems to be where many of my liberal homeschooling sisters gravitate). If you’re looking for the group that is probably the least represented among homeschoolers, the secular, rigorous, classical, liberal homeschoolers might very well be it. We’re certainly in the serious minority on the Well Trained Mind forums, the Mothering.com forums, and even in our local secular co-ops — I was surprised by the number of conservatives and/or “Libertarians.” Really turned my expectations of “hippie liberal homeschoolers” on their head. Turns out that the liberal hippie is being fast replaced by the Libertarian “nonconformist.” Hear that rattling? That’s my eyeroll.

When you’re the minority among a minority, you spend a lot of time dispelling assumptions about your motivations. No, I’m not homeschooling my child to protect him from evolution, sex ed that isn’t abstinence-only, or contact with “unsavory elements” like uppity women and Ho-Mo-sekshulls. If anything, I’m homeschooling in order to teach more evolution, better and more expansive sex ed, and provide plenty of contact with the unsavory elements that the conservatives seem to fear so much. I am thrilled that my children are getting plenty of exposure to women who don’t subsume their power to men. No, I’m not an opponent of “government” schools (the Libertarian term for public schools, intended to create a scary mental picture of overbearing politicos lurking in the corners of the classroom to brainwash your children). I think public education has done fantastic things for this country by providing a baseline of education for every child. I don’t think it’s a flawless system, but I don’t believe it’s evil, brainwashing, dangerous, or anything like that. I just don’t think it’s set up to meet individual needs that well.

Of course, I’m to the political and social left of the majority of religious homeschoolers. That’s a left I’m comfortable inhabiting. But being so far to the left of many other secular homeschoolers can make for a lot of awkwardness, like the time one boy in my writing class (an otherwise delightful child) starting making comments about how Obama was “messing up” this or that, resulting in a snappish response from me of, “That’s ‘President Obama,’ and let’s leave politics for the adults who know what they’re talking about, rather than in my class.”

It’s not that I expected a perfect meeting of the minds. I’ve spent my entire life in the South; I’m used to being the most liberal person in the room. I just thought there would be more homeschoolers out there like me. I didn’t think I’d continue to be the most liberal person in a room full of secular homeschoolers…but unless Patchfire is there, I still am. I’ve found my “tribe” for birth, breastfeeding, and parenting philosophies, but the handful of politically/socially like-minded homeschoolers are barely enough to make an extended family, let alone a tribe.

*I had more, but someone at the secular homeschool co-op also stole my “Breastfeeding for the survival of the human race” car magnet. Not pointing fingers, but almost all of the other liberal hippie moms in that co-op already had the exact same magnet.

Today, Captain Science (who has been doing a splendid job of staying on track these last three days) encountered a bit of a road block while working on Writing Strands. The lesson asked him to write about the parts of his schooling that his parents might find interesting. That would be all well and good, but the activity went on to request information about some fairly out-of-home schooling educational experiences, like science projects with classmates, boring lectures from teachers, and the like.

Now, color me confused, but this is the writing curriculum praised by many homeschoolers, including the authors of The Well Trained Mind, so I didn’t expect that an entire lesson (prewriting, two writing assignments) would be relating to the public (or at least more formally structured, with other students) school experience. I told Captain Science to just write about his homeschool day as though he were relating it to Officer Daddyman, but he keeps coming upstairs to ask me things like, “Mama, we don’t have periods. What do I do?” (“Just write about your different subjects.”)

Of course, as much as Captain Science has enjoyed Writing Strands, and as much as I like how it is structured, we’ve had the issue of it just plain being below his abilities level. I’m having to combine multiple days worth of lessons into a single day, just to give him an appropriate level of work. I think now I should have started him with Writing Strands 4, but the recommended age range threw me. Ha! Should have known better.

If I’m going to have to rewrite and reorganize most or all of the lessons, I may as well just write the lessons. Luckily, our Michael Clay Thompson Town curriculum came in the mail yesterday, complete w/ the writing program, Paragraph Town, so hopefully we’ll be able to move forward with something a little more challenging (for him, as the challenge of Writing Strands was mainly for me).

I can’t wait to dive into our MCT stuff, but I’m making myself take the weekend to plan our course.

It seems to have become quite trendy among religious homeschool co-ops and resources to require parents to sign a “statement of faith” before enrolling their children in the program. These “statements of faith” may be as simple as swearing you are Christian and as complex as to make sure you match, theologically and philosophically, with the ideals of the co-op’s founding individual or organization on every single level. If you do not sign, you do not join. Insisting on a signed “statement of faith” may be within these groups’ right, but I don’t think it is right, morally. I also don’t think it’s particularly Christian.

What’s in a “statement of faith?” Ead’s Home Ministry would be happy to walk you through creating one for your religious co-op, because nothing says “love thy neighbor” like something specifically designed to “[e]xclude families that do not share the faith [you] have,” right? Among the many families you can exclude through your carefully worded “statements of faith” are those who practice “Non-Christian faiths and the cults” ( “cults” usually meaning “Mormons and/or any sect/denomination we don’t like”), believe in any form of “liberal theology” (like the notion that the Bible isn’t absolutely literal, accurate, and perfectly translated — not matter what version you’re using), or who don’t believe in the “truth about hell” (“truth” being a word I’ve noticed gets thrown around a lot in groups of this nature).

The words that springs to mind when I see such required “statements of faith” aren’t “devout” or “Godly.” They’re “defensive” and “insecure.” Surely, one who is secure in the rightness of one’s faith wouldn’t feel threatened by the inclusion of someone who didn’t think exactly alike. Surely, allowing a secularly homeschooled child to participate in a math or art class with your children won’t shake your children’s religious foundation or be an affront to your God. What’s the real intent of a “statement of faith” anyway? Is it really to help protect those of different faiths from being “uncomfortable” or feeling out of place, as the above website claims?

Do religious homeschool co-ops really believe they are in danger of being inundated by secular homeschoolers, with the intent of converting (or unconverting) their children and bringing down their organizations? The teachings of some fundamentalist churches are awfully paranoid, so perhaps they are ascribing an agenda to secular homeschoolers and our children. Concepts like “tolerance” and “inclusivity” are presented as subtle ploys to undermine belief. Personally, I’ve never met a secular homeschooler who wanted to waste their money and their child’s educational time on a creationist science class or Titus 2-style daddy/husband worship Bible study program, period, let alone one who desired to waste that time and money simply to undermine the program. We might like to enroll in classes on art, music, math, or a variety of other subjects. If we find the subject matter or the co-op itself to be so offensive, counter to our beliefs, or beyond our comfort level, we just don’t sign our kids up for it.

I know a few secular homeschoolering families who participate in religious co-ops in order to have access to classes and opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise get. Their goal isn’t to disrupt class or try to dispute any religious messages. They don’t teach their children to argue with the teachers or try to convince the other children in the class that their beliefs are wrong. The expect their children to be respectful of the co-op’s teachers, rules, and beliefs, just like you would respect the rules and beliefs of someone in whose home you were a guest. Most of them use the differences in beliefs as an after-class teaching tool, to show that people who believe different things can still come together in certain areas. Isn’t that a message we want to teach children, rather than the message of excluding and reviling anyone not exactly like us?

In many areas, especially smaller towns and rural regions, religious co-ops are the only game in town. Thankfully, not all religious homeschool co-ops and resources require these exclusive “statements of faith.” Some have them listed on their website or in their paperwork, which is helpful in making the theological and philosophical foundation of the organization obvious, but don’t require that parents or children sign them. Some require only that their administrators and/or teachers sign. Plenty seem to still actually believe that their goal should be educating children and providing services to the community. That seems to mesh a whole lot more with what I’ve read about Jesus than “keep your kids away from mine, you sinner” — then again, secular homeschooler here, so I supposed my understanding of the Bible is automatically suspect.

Incidentally, I’ve yet to come across a secular homeschool co-op that required anyone sign a “statement of non-faith.” In fact, our co-op is “an all-inclusive group” that “welcomes diversity” and doesn’t “discriminate on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political views, or teaching style.” Is that really so very threatening?

Despite the Tank not being back in preschool yet (back on Wednesday), me having to take Babypie to the dermatologist (all’s well!), and this being Captain Science’s very first day after winter break and on the new schedule, I think things went swimmingly.

Captain Science and I got up at 8:00am. He grumbled a little at this, as I previously allowed him to wake naturally, which lead to a pretty wide variance in start times. Still, he got up, did his arm exercises, got dressed, and ate his breakfast quickly and with little fuss, and sat right down to get started on his math before I had to leave with Babypie.

Officer Daddyman called me at one point to verify the timing of snack and lunch, as our snack break is 10-10:30 and lunch is from 11:30-12, and there’s not another snack listed on the schedule (he’ll have one w/ his school reading or during any of the other free times). What he doesn’t realize is that if Captain Science doesn’t get frequent, small breaks for movement and a little food, he can’t concentrate worth a hooey. An hour to an hour and a half on, 15-30 minutes off seems to be the magical combination for maximum output.

Math was a bridge (between chapters 10 and 11), grammar was an Editor in Chief A1 exercise, and history was on Roman technology. He went over the time limit on all three, but was able to complete the work within the time allotted for catch-up work and corrections. I think that as he adjusts to the new schedule, and after we do a little desk rearranging to help speed things up, that he won’t have trouble finishing everything.

It felt great to be back to school today. I’m not looking forward to the Tank’s return to preschool, though, and am now leaning even more strongly towards not re-enrolling him next year, in favor of putting him in the Master’s Academy arts program. If he’s going to be in a religious setting, I think he’d benefit more from it being arts-based (which I can’t really give him) than “academics”-based (which I can).

Have everyone else started back to school?

I’m sure you’ve all missed me terribly, and pined for me like a not-dead-merely-stunned parrot pines for the fjords. I’ll be picking right back with my regular weekly posts, like “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” Tuesday and Secular Thursday, this week.

We’re starting some new curricula this semester: Lively Latin and Michael Clay Thompson’s Grammar Town (also getting the teacher manual). After Captain Science wraps up his Vocabulary from Classical Roots book, we’ll switch to Caesar’s English I, for compatibility with his grammar. Still up in the air about Practice Town.

To keep us on task a little better, I’ve made a color-coded schedule for Captain Science for Monday through Friday. I won’t go as far as Patchfire and make schedules for the whole family, adults included, but I think a detailed schedule for my somewhat scatterbrained son will help, not hurt.

Here, marvel at my schedule:
Captain Science’s Weekly Schedule

Wasn’t that marvelous? Are you, as some might say, dazzled? I thought so.

2010, y’all. Another 90 days to go. Onward and upward.

MJ has a few questions for the [Smrt] Homeschooler this week. She asks, “How long to do you plan to homeschool? What/how do you base you decision on whether or not to homeschool the other kiddos? And/or will you start Babypie out on the ‘public’ path or just skip it altogether and do homeschool from the beginning?”

Right now, my plans for homeschooling have no upper limit (other than college, obviously). That is going to be entirely up to Captain Science’s needs as he ages. I’m sure there will be many subjects where his needs outweigh my abilities. Luckily, that doesn’t necessarily mean a return to public school, unless he wants to attend one of the magnet high schools in our area, of which we have several. He could attended our local university (or one of the downtown universities) as a joint-enrollment student. He could take classes at Pierian Springs, which offers classes for upper grades with a collegiate style schedule, format, and campus (complete with collegiate pricing, though. Ouch!). We can get packaged curricula or find online classes for Advanced Placement classes, if it’s outside my subject area, and he can take the AP tests to exempt out of college courses. There’s tutoring, co-ops…we have lots of options. Returning to a mainstream public school really isn’t one of them at this juncture, though.

I might do with Babypie what I’m doing with the Tank, and put her in a year or so of preschool at someplace like the little Methodist school where the Tank goes. It will depend on her needs. I have no plans to enroll either of the kids in a mainstream school past pre-K, though. I’ve become too disenchanted with public education’s methods and goals. I think homeschooling is better for my kids and for our family as a whole. If one of them shows a need for a different environment, we’ll address that as it comes.

As a bonus, MJ also would like to know, “What’s the wackiest religious based material you’ve seen out there?”

Oh, MJ. How could I pick just one?

Emily at Learning Vicariously asks, “If you could go back in time, would you have homeschooled Captain Science all along, or were you happy with his early education before last year’s teacher? What made you decide to put The Tank in a traditional preschool? What are your plans for him and Babypie in the coming years?”

I’m not really much of a “go back and changes things” person in general. The end is almost always a result of the process. I never would have come to homeschooling as a first choice — I had to get there by seeing how nothing else was right for Captain Science.

We learned a lot from the different schooling methods. I regret a great deal about those years, too, especially not pulling the Captain out of his Montessori school when we first suspected the bullying problem (the bullies in question was the teacher’s daughter and her best friend, the daughter of another teacher in the school) or insisting that he be moved to a different class in public school when we realized the ongoing issues with the teacher were so extreme. I’m unhappy with Montessori and public schooling, both as they apply to Captain Science and systemically. Having something to which I can compare homeschooling, however, is a good thing. Having Captain Science’s attitude, demeanor, and willingness to work to compare to how he was in other schools means I can appreciate just how good homeschooling is for him. Seeing what methods don’t work for him gives me a better idea of what we should try as an alternative.

We opted to put the Tank in a traditional private school setting for a few reasons. For starters, the little Methodist preschool is the same place where Captain Science went for two years, and he loved it there. The teachers are sweet, it’s low on the God stuff for a church school, it’s close by, and relatively inexpensive. Because this was our first year homeschooling, I thought it would be best for Captain Science if we could focus as much attention on him and his education as possible. I had no idea how this was going to work! I had no idea to what degree we’d struggle, how much time it would take, or anything like that. Having the Tank out of the way for a few hours, three days a week means I can put a lot more energy into school for Captain Science on those days.

I also did worry a little about the socialization issue. The Tank isn’t old enough for classes at the co-op, so he spends a lot of that time playing with the babies and younger toddler. While many of my friends have children Captain Science’s age, their other children are mostly older or younger than the Tank. He’d never spent any significant amount of time away from me. I wanted him to have an opportunity to play with other children in a safe environment for a short period of time — preschool seemed like an ideal place for that. Plus, he had been begging me to go to school since he was old enough to realize Captain Science was going somewhere, and despite the Captain being home now, the Tank still wanted to go. He enjoys it immensely and I view it as a regular playdate much more than I do “school.”

Next year is still up in the air for the Tank. I know I’ll homeschool from kindergarten onward, but whether or not we re-enroll him for another year of pre-K is yet to be seen. I know he’ll want to go, but I’m not sure I’ll want him to. The back and forth to the preschool is disruptive and inconvenient, so if I can find a better outlet for the Tank’s (considerably higher than Captain Science’s) social needs, we may not go back next year. As for what we’ll do with Babypie, that’s still so far in the future at this point that I don’t even want to think about it! There are several other baby girls her age in our homeschool circle, which gives her more of a ready-made friends than the Tank had available. With her being my (potentially) last baby, I might also be too clingy to send her off anywhere. Yes, I admit it! I might be a bit overprotective of my baby.

All in all, I’m happy with the choices we have made for this year, but I wouldn’t rearrange our past in hopes of getting this experience sooner. It’s homeschool-by-comparison that allows us all to truly appreciate what a gift we have been given.

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Since then, our understanding of how evolution works has changed and expanded, and scientific discovery has advanced at an almost exponential rate because of it. The field of evolutionary biology has helped us learn about genetics and the science of aging, and has even provided the framework for nanotechnology.

Of course, evolution fails far more often than it succeeds, and that failure teaches us, too. Too much change, too quickly, and a species can’t pass on the necessary traits quickly enough to continue. The little mutants who struggle gamely on can’t reproduce swiftly enough to make generations of little mutants who thrive under the new conditions. For any species to reach its evolutionary potential and not snuff it at the first big challenge makes the process all the more incredible. That infinitesimal biological differences, compounded over time, have taken us from the cell to the brain that can study the cell is enough to blow the mind of this particular collection of cells.

Adapt or die. Change or become extinct. This concept is practically ubiquitous in humanity, isn’t it? It’s not just in our biology, but in our technology, our culture, our beliefs. Those who cling to the outdated perish, either literally or figuratively through a death of relevance. Those with the tiny differences, the small but significant ways of adapting, that genetic willingness to take a risk and strive towards the new, survive and pass those traits on in a stunning continuation of the evolution of the human mind and that thing we call the human spirit.

What is our evolutionary potential as human beings? How far will we go? Is that change that could spell our end out there, waiting to wipe away all but the traces we left on the world? What tiny mutations — currently undetected, inconvenient, or seemingly irrelevant — might spell the success of our species?

Happy Birthday, On the Origin of Species — you didn’t get it all right, but you opened a doorway in our minds through which we could travel towards understanding.