Stuff We Like :: 3.16.18
Watching the school walkouts this week was so inspiring, and at first some of the more negative commentary, complaining about the students and the protest got to me a little. Then, though, I realized that this is so much the response protests got during the civil rights movement — and I thought about how we look back now at those people who were brave in the face of criticism and worse. I think about that, and I think about these kids, and it makes me feel better about the whole world.
WHAT’S HAPPENING AT HOME/SCHOOL/LIFE
I have pretty much found my homeschool sweet spot with high school, partly because I get to do things like this comparative literature class built around Studio Ghibli adaptations. (I’m actually going to do a talk on how to do this yourself at the SEA conference this summer if you want to come listen to me nerd out about literature.)
Maggie has some great advice for helping readers trying to get comfortable with reading more.
one year ago: We were down to the Final Four in Homeschool Madness. (Also: Great spring readalouds and our favorite advice for homeschooling the early years)
two years ago: Shelli looks back at a music gap that filled itself. (Plus: Biographies of mathematicians for Women’s History Month)
three years ago: How Shelli homeschooled 2nd grade and preschool
THE LINKS I LIKED
Have you seen this amazing series The New York Times is doing reporting the obituaries of women who didn’t merit obituaries in the paper when they died? Amazing women, like Ida B. Wells and Qiu Jin.
I think this is fascinating whatever side of the political spectrum you fall on: Our level of fearfulness seems to correlate to how politically conservative or liberal we are.
I love Lisa Simpson so much, so I really loved this profile of the actress who gives Lisa her voice.
Before Google, there were librarians.
WHAT I’M READING AND WATCHING
It was spring break for Jason’s school this week, so I have been catching up on all the movies.
First I finally watched Get Out, which is brilliant, and now I want to teach a class about it because apparently that’s what I want to do when I watch a movie I like now. (Also television shows — I really want to teach an ethics class with The Good Place.)
Then I watched Black Panther, which I pretty much loved. There were three or four times during the movie where I just started crying because the women were so amazing and strong and beautiful. (The costumes were also beautiful, but they didn’t make me cry.) Can we have more superhero movies like this please?
Jason and I watched Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, and the cinematography was just gorgeous. It was maybe a little too star-studded — I’m sure it’s the inevitable consequence of adapting a movie from a book that has so many characters, but it sometimes felt more like a series of beautifully filmed cameos than a film with fully developed characters. I appreciated the sheer ridiculousness of Poirot’s mustaches (which can only be described in the plural). I thought it was a nice adaptation overall — I’d definitely watch another Branagh Poirot — even if it wasn't life alteringly amazing.
I also saw A Wrinkle in Time, which (as you know) I’ve been so excited about but which, ultimately, was a miss for me. I hate saying that because there were so many things to love about the movie. The actress who played Meg is brilliant, and the movie is often very beautiful, and the story — of Meg coming into an awareness of her own strength and beauty and Meg-ness — is really a wonderful story. It’s just not A Wrinkle in Time. It lacks the nuance and mystery, the philosophy and odd other-ness that I think is what I really love about A Wrinkle in Time. If I didn’t love A Wrinkle in Time and I went to see this movie, I would probably have liked it a lot. But as a hard-core Madeleine L’Engle fan (I’ll update my reading list next week!), it was a disappointment. Did you see it? What did you think?
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN OUR HOMESCHOOL
We love recording cloud observations in our nature journals, so it was really fun to discover that NASA has a citizen science project going on that asks people to do just that. Shelli really inspired me with her year of citizen science, but it’s been hard for me to find projects that actually work with our everyday life so I am really excited about this one.
