SCHOLA: Worthy of a U-turn

Friday, January 23, 2004

Worthy of a U-turn

Driving up to my parents' house today, to temporarily store some clothes during our move, I mentioned to the girls how I just realized that my eyes were starting to go, now that I'm officially approaching the top of the hill...(shudder) Not blurry, but not their usual sharp focus. No sooner had I finished saying that, when I thought I saw a man biking towards us, with a hamster on his head. Yup, that's what it looked like. I told the kids and they howled. First chance I had, I whipped the car around and went back for a second look. It was a guy, with some sort of rodent, riding on top of his head. I have witnesses.

This one goes in the file along with the five guys we saw at an intersection, removing a flat tire from their car's rim, with a chainsaw.

See? Life in South Florida has its up-side, too.

SCHOLA 101

schol' a: 1) An intermission of work, leisure for learning, learned conversation, debate, disputation, lecture, dissertation. 2) A meeting place for teachers and pupils, place for instruction, place of learning, school. 3) The disciples of a teacher, body of followers, school, sect. 4) An acronym for my tortuous blog title "Secular Classical Homeschoolers' Odyssean Learning Adventure." 5) How my Boston cousins pronounce "scholar." 6) Someone who studies at 10 o'clock for a dilla or a dolla.

These are the blatherings of an introverted, autodidactic, champion of The Enlightenment raising three daughters. At one time or another we have homeschooled, public-schooled, Catholic-schooled, cyber-schooled, unschooled, and even threatened boarding school. We have been inspired variously by The Well-Trained Mind, A Thomas Jefferson Education, and Climbing Parnassus, tempered by the writings and wisdom of Charlotte Mason, John Holt, Benjamin Franklin and Michel de Montaigne.

I try not to get wrapped up in labels, but we are secular and we are classical-ish.

We travel. A lot. Sometimes to the other side of the state and sometimes to the other side of the planet. Join us on our journey as we search for our home, navigate the waters of self-education, lounge with the lotus-eaters, and bash a Cyclops or two.