Thursday, June 30, 2011

Indecision Tango

Now that freshman year is nearly past us (well, yeah, just nearly…we’re still schooling throughout the summer months…finishing up labs, and attempting to complete our Algebra text), what to do for a career, or specifically, what to major in, has become the near-constant topic of discussion with my young teen. She went from just taking all school related things lightly, and only really “worrying” over trivial things like what to wear, or how to keep her hair pin-straight, to getting incredibly serious and kind of wound up over this one issue. Her inner voice seems to be shouting, “Just make a decision already!” It doesn’t help that her younger sister and brother seem to know exactly, or somewhat exactly, what they want to do with their lives—all subject to change of course. S wants to be an artist and she seems to have always just known this. She sometimes switches her focus, from computer animation to general illustration, but it’s all about art with her. F on the other hand, just wants to be rich. He’s set on becoming some kind of business mogul and spends most of his free time accounting for every penny he owns. He regularly contemplates how he can make his money grow—not to mention, he keeps close tabs on what everyone owes him. S tops his list of debtors, owing him a whopping $26.75! But poor E has no idea. I can’t remember E ever knowing, or being sure of what she wanted to be, other than maybe a fairy princess when she was two. I guess all other options paled in comparison for her. Actually, now that I think of it, there was a time when she showed a bit of an interest in fashion design, largely due to our watching a season of Project Runway (the season in which the oh so “fierce” Christian Siriano won). I totally ran with it. My Mom, at my prompting, bought her a fashion design game, and I bought her a fashion illustration how-to book. Soon afterwards came the purchase of a sewing machine and few how-to-sew guides for her to wade through. All remained largely unused. Obviously, it was just a passing fancy. Not a problem. We all go through it. Now, while this indecision is not uncommon at her age, as I’ve assured her countless times, it really seems to be bugging her greatly right now. So far my advice to her has been to just relax.

I know my response surprised E, as I’m not exactly the sort to relax about anything. I’m sure she’s thinking that I’m just disregarding her feelings on the matter, and making light of it all, but really, I’m not. While I do tend to stress over things way too much, often crediting my tendency for worry as my main motivator in life (Well, that and guilt. Guilt is a tremendous motivator, but it’s not exactly a healthy route to take anywhere), that’s the last thing I want for my daughter. The truth is that once upon a time, I never used to understand people who just didn’t know what they wanted to do with their lives…yes, even if they were as young as 15. I was a stickler like that. Considering this, my laid back answer to “relax” was frankly out-of-character for me, and E called me out on it. Yes, it was out-of-character for “old me.” That would be the “Me” of last week, or in all truthfulness, the “Me” of a few years ago when I was still apt to attempt doing all things “by-the-book.” Old Me (i.e. the flashcard parent I once was) would have panicked, and suggested immediate career testing, or several books on the topic as a prompt for ideas. I wouldn’t have known another way to respond. My own experience was so different. I had practically declared a major at the age of eight, after briefly entertaining, and later abandoning, the thought of becoming a veterinarian and/or zoologist at age seven. Being diagnosed with allergies to pet dander laid waste to those pipe dreams, but I quickly bounced back and settled on the dream of becoming a writer.

So it was, that from the age of eight, I was certain that I’d go to college and study English. I eventually did. And while I may not be a published author, I do still get lots of enjoyment out of writing whenever I have the time. It certainly hasn’t turned out to be a very lucrative choice for me, but I never really cared for anything else. That said, I think that I probably cared for it as much as I did because I felt I had an aptitude for language arts. It’s like a “What came first—the chicken, or the egg?” scenario. Are we drawn to certain careers or choices of major because we have an aptitude for them, or because we are just interested in the subject? Does a natural inclination for something automatically lead to our becoming interested? I know that I was also interested in topics and activities for which I had little skill, but I never would have considered those as feasible career options. The aptitude connection seemed to be it for me. But I’m sure it varies with people. I’ve met people who have shown great talent in different areas, and not care one whit about any of them. That kind of effortless talent, despite lack of interest is mind-boggling to me. I figure that if I were just disposed to be good at something, I’d just do it contentedly. But of course, that’s just me speculating. Besides, I just can’t imagine being super great at anything I feel just lukewarm about. I’d imagine that I’d be using only a small fraction of my potential, which is an amazing thing to ponder. I mean, if someone manages to be super talented even while disinterested, just imagine what they would be able to accomplish if they were able to channel all of their interest and potential into their particular area of aptitude?

So yeah, I told my daughter to relax. This whole homeschool experiment has taught me many things, including a lot about just letting go, allowing things to progress organically, and just plain RELAXING. It’s also taught me that I can be good at a number of things for which I previously thought I had no aptitude. I had a severe math-phobia when I was in school. Now that I’ve had the opportunity to teach and re-teach myself, I’ve discovered that I love it. It’s still challenging, but not in a horrible, “I’ll never get this!” kind of way. I feel I’ve become more logical, and more methodical in my thinking. I find myself doing extra math for fun, just to exercise my brain. So obviously, what you’re good at or interested in at 15, is not necessarily what you will be good at or interested in at 18 and first embarking on your journey through college, or at 38 and juggling the demands of family and adulthood. If I had to decide on a major today, I’m not so sure I’d be able to make up my mind. My interests have grown exponentially over the years, and this allows me to better identify, for the first time ever, with the legion of “undecideds” out there.

I tried to impress upon my daughter that we are constant works in progress, with evolving interests, and that it is not uncommon for several of us to succumb to long periods of indecision at various points in time. Tiger mothers all around the world would recoil at the thought, I’m sure. And then I remembered a story about one of my college roommates. I told E the story in an effort to illustrate how she’s not the first, nor the last, to face this kind of uncertainty. I may as well retell it here.

One day as our then current semester was winding up to a close, one of my college roommates approached me with a conundrum. She was just one semester shy of completing her senior year, and she had still not declared a major. This was the stuff of nightmares for Old Me. I guess she was feeling pressure from her parents and her guidance counselor to “just decide already,” so she was desperate to just pick something willy nilly. She had jotted down a list of the courses she had already taken and passed, and asked me to help her make sense of it all. We both pored over the undergraduate course handbook, and after a few hours of deliberation, I looked over at her and said, “You’re an English major.”

“I’m a what?”

Yeah, it was like a “Harry, you’re a wizard…” moment, if ever there was one. We were both surprised. For starters, I would never have pegged her for an English major. I kept thinking that she would probably be better suited for something like public relations, or communications. But the list of courses before us told a different story. She seemed to continuously gravitate towards English courses. She had counted them all as electives, and while some were not purely English courses, they still fit somewhat under the big English umbrella. After some more discussion, we found that she just needed about three more English classes to fulfill her major obligation. It was a big “a-ha” moment for the both of us. I’m embarrassed to say that for me, what I learned that day sort of cheapened my opinion of the way that English as a major was regarded at our college. I mean, some of the classes that qualified as English were just general, broad humanities courses. It occurred to me that you could have taken just a handful of literature and/or writing courses and still have met the English major requirements. While this wasn’t the case with my roommate, who had indeed taken more than a few literature courses, I wondered how many students managed to earn a B.A. in English, with barely any literature or writing courses under their belts. Now, despite the happy ending, I can’t say for certain that this was the best choice for her. I don’t even know what she’s doing now, or how declaring English as a major helped or hindered her along the way. What I do know, however, is that her interests, unbeknownst to her at the time, were clear by the choices she made.

After listening to my roommate’s story, E was still perplexed, asking questions along the lines of, “How does this apply to me?” Apparently, my former roommate’s late college career indecision and eventual epiphany moment didn’t inspire much serenity in my daughter after all. I vainly tried to assuage the situation by telling her that the way I interpreted the whole experience, had me believing that sometimes, what we are most drawn to is not always so obvious. The significance of my roommate’s propensity for choosing English-related courses time and time again went unnoticed for years. I took this as proof positive that this could be the way it is with many other people as well. We just don’t always see the big picture, or how all of our interests and aptitudes can be linked to create the perfect assortment of skills necessary to become a great librarian, lawyer, bookkeeper, healthcare worker, filmmaker, educator, etc. So for now I’m just suggesting that E look more closely at what activities and topics she finds herself regularly seeking out. The answer may be there somewhere, but it’s also entirely possible that it’s not there yet. Beyond this, I seem to be currently tapped out of ideas. I may just find myself consulting a few career books on my own to prepare for when this becomes the topic du jour again. And if pressed, I may even urge her to take a general aptitude test that lists career niches to consider. But those wouldn’t be my first options. As a mother, it is inevitable for me to see what I believe are her strengths. E is a nurturer. She really is. Everyone who has been in her presence for any significant length of time can plainly see this about her. She is incredibly empathetic and has such a beautiful spirit. I could possibly suggest careers in healthcare or social work, but that would be a bit like leading the witness. There’s a fine line, I think, between tossing out general suggestions, and full on prodding. So I’ll tread lightly. I really do favor more of an organic unfolding for this sort of thing. But I’m not sweating it for once, and I hope E learns not to either.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

A Tisket, a Tasket, and an Enormous Transcript

I’m actually writing this post offline. We’ve had no Internet access since Sunday. The powers that be said something about our having a slow connection and an outdated modem. I swear it feels like a whole new dark age. I’ve determined that pre-Internet I had managed to be very constructive. I hadn’t really considered my prior output before. I was taking about 24 credits per college semester, and holding down two part time jobs, adding up to regular full-time hours. During this time, I also managed to make the Dean’s list and graduated a year before time. Now however, it almost feels, as my Mother so aptly puts it, that I’d as much as drown in a bucket full of water. I find that I overwhelm easily, and after no Internet for the past few days, I’m fairly convinced that the Internet, or rather, my propensity to surf the web for any reason, several times per day, is behind my general (as of late) lack of productivity. Not having Internet access therefore, has been a bit of boon. It has meant that I’ve begun to engage in more productive endeavors, some which I had been frankly dreading. One of these was starting to formally put together E’s high school transcript.

Of course, it would occur to me to put together my daughter’s transcript on a day when I wasn’t able to locate the transcript book I’ve kept on-hand for-like-ever. And as the Internet was down and I was unable to check transcript guidelines elsewhere, I resorted to the one small section on transcripts in The Well Trained Mind for some direction. Per TWTM, traditionally, 120 hours equals one credit, but this may vary by state or district. Not having access to our state’s or district’s guidelines at the time, the first thing I did was look over our records, and our previous schedule, to nail down the approximate time spent per subject. I made sure to keep track of time spent on independent work (for everything besides independent reading), as well as one-on-one tutorial-like times with me. What I ended up with looks something like this, based on a 36-week schedule (Note that Language Arts was the hairiest, and my projections for next year are hairier still):

Language Arts – 396 hours

This included time for spelling (2x/wk), writing (4x/wk), interdisciplinary writing (2 days/wk), grammar (2x/wk), rhetoric (2x/wk), and logic (2x/wk), and finally literature (2x/wk). Considering we were only able to fit five of the about eight books I wanted to have E read this year, I was thinking that more time should be dedicated to literature next year. And yet already, under the big language arts umbrella, we’ve managed to log in at least two classes’ worth of hours. And this doesn’t even include vocabulary, which we sort of dropped by the wayside.

Other subjects were pretty average in terms of time. E spent about 180 hours on Algebra I, and we still haven’t completed the book. I was thinking we could work on the remainder of the book this summer. I don’t recollect ever completing any of my texts in high school or college, and I do remember we did a lot of skimming and skipping around, yet I can’t get myself to do the same with E. She’s totally her mother’s daughter, as she’s shot down any ideas of skimming as well. So we’ll persevere a bit longer.

Science (Chemistry) came to about 144 hours, counting projected time for all labs, which we’re still in the process of completing.

History came to 108 hours, as did Latin.

I counted our time at Kung Fu, Tai chi, kickboxing, and weapons classes under Physical Education/Health. I added only the time for our regular classes, and not for any of the additional seminars and extra classes we take from time to time. Still, this all came to a whopping 216 hours.

We really dropped the ball on our elective classical language, i.e. Koine, having spent only about 36 hours on it all year long, with two brief sessions/wk, not nearly enough time to count for much credit at all.

In addition to the above, E took three homeschool art classes, about 2 hours each—again, not nearly enough to count for much credit.

She put in 42 hours volunteering as a CCD classroom aide, and then there was some time (not a significant number of hours at all), involved in a volunteer capacity at events and such at our Kung Fu school. I didn’t log in times for that, but I suppose I could have. She had scant involvement in our church’s youth group, so I didn’t add that in either.

This all came to, not including the art classes and volunteer work, approximately 1,188 hours for the entire year, including the 36 hours for Koine, which I’m considering just lumping in with Latin, under the “Classical Languages” header. This comes to approximately 6.6 hours/day, based on a 180-day schedule including the physical education, and 5.4 hours/day without the physical education hours added in. I thought that that was fairly standard. Oh, but I just realized now that I never considered the time she’s spent with her Dad on learning computer applications and typing. I’ll have to discuss times spent on those with him, but even so, I think that will only come up to enough hours to account for about a half credit in technology.
What left me a bit unsure was how to account for the extra hours logged in under language arts. The Well Trained Mind offers an example of what to do in such a case. The example is associated with the great books study recommended in the text. According to the example, 320 hours’ worth of study can translate into a full elective credit for literature, and one full credit for history (provided of course, you follow the guidelines in the book and your study involves historical documents and source readings). Go figure that the few books we “cut” due to lack of time, were the autobiographies that correlated to our history studies. But in our case, as we were covering U.S. History 1 anyway, it would have made more sense for those readings to be added onto the time spent separately on history. The individual parts to our language arts study, as mentioned above, were: spelling; writing; grammar; literature; rhetoric and logic. I figured that the most common sense way to sort these into groups was to lump spelling, grammar, and literature under the English 1 course title, and put writing, logic, and rhetoric into another group under the Speech 1 course title. The latter would count as an elective, and fit under “Speech” as rhetoric is classified in TWTM. It made sense to lump the logic and writing together along with the rhetoric, and I’m relieved to have that settled.

I’m still nowhere near done with this. I still have to check my state and district guidelines, find that dang transcript book (I swear I saw it just a few days ago, but where could it be now? It’s anyone’s guess.), and figure out how to put it all together and make it look as official as possible. In addition to preparing the transcript, I’ll be gathering materials for a portfolio of representative work. I’d like for it to include a cross-section of examples ranging from typical assignments, to quizzes, tests, lab and project photos, as well as reports and response papers.

If anyone is out there and has had experience with writing transcripts, I’m all ears, and open to some been-there-done-that advice!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Wish I Had a TARDIS to Transport Me Back

I'm feeling BIG feelings today. Just before this I visited a homeschooling board, and noticed a post by someone who was just starting out on her family's homeschooling journey. I was immediately reminded of a friend of mine who is only a few years in, and how everything is still so fresh and new and exciting for her. It has all made me think back on our days, once filled with learning letters, spelling words, playing math games, making crafts, playing dress-up, and cuddling on couches with storybooks. I remember their little voices begging me to re-read Tikki Tikki Tembo for the third time in a row. I'd feign a bit of reluctance, just to make my eventual succumbing under pressure all the more exciting for them. "Score! Mom caved!"

I remember when my three were just learning how to read, and how fun it was to see them getting all excited about everything. I know I'm choosing to remember only the good stuff right now, as I've previously written about some of our early reading struggles. But still, it was a simpler time. One I didn't fully appreciate as much at the time. I'd give anything to have a bit of that sweet simplicity back in my life.

And yet I really do love where we are right now. I remember feeling that I wasn't all that well-suited for "teaching" in the early years. I wasn't particularly crafty, and I felt that that worked against me at the time. I struggled to add in a bit of creativity of my own, when I felt I was better equipped at presenting a lecture instead. I'd find myself digressing a lot, going off on tangents on topics that were way over their heads. I remember how much I looked forward to their getting older so that we could finally get to discuss things thoroughly--serious, deeply meaningful things. And then before I knew it, that time came. They were old enough, and we started discussing to our hearts' content. And while it's been wonderful, now I'm finding myself getting all nostalgic. Funny how that happens.

I wonder if I can get the kids interested in making a macaroni necklace today. Or perhaps some finger painting? It's worth a shot.

Friday, June 24, 2011

A Light at the End of the Tunnel? Quite Possibly.

This is for anyone who has been following my asthma story, now turned saga. If you don't know the goings-on, feel free to look to the right and click on the "Health" tag for the beginning of the story.

In my last post, I left off with a blurb about my looking into natural antibiotics. My intent in doing so however, was not sufficiently clear. I still fully intended to try Dr. Hahn's recommended treatment protocol, but after my experience with the Biaxin, I just wanted to give my body some time to detox a bit first. I was experiencing nasty side effects for several days after quitting the Biaxin, and in addition to that, my chest congestion and constriction came back, and was even worse than before. I expected that this was going to happen, but I figured that I would just try to stave off anything worse by taking some natural antibiotics in the interim.

Despite being somewhat informed as to natural health, and striving to live a healthy life, natural supplementation, and particularly which supplement was good for what ailment, always alluded me. I figured I'd ask people who were more informed on that topic, and I got some really good suggestions from this very kind couple I met through Twitter. I took what they and others said, and did a little of everything. I took colloidal silver for a period of about 10 days, high dosed vitamin C (about 10,000mg/day), and added turmeric and garlic to everything. I also cut out sugar and dairy, which I had been having in small amounts in my coffee, which I also quit. I had already cut out gluten, although I had had a few slip-ups prior to this period. I greeted every morning with a mega dose of vitamin C and yerba mate. I had already been taking probiotics due to being on the antibiotics, so I continued that, and I had some kombucha every few days. I did this for almost two weeks. I noticed that after I took the colloidal silver, I would have a short period of productive coughing followed by a period of some relief of my symptoms. But the periods were brief. I had to keep to the air conditioning at all times. It didn't help that the weather was just awful--at times hot and muggy, and at times cold and damp. Nevertheless, I kept up with these natural antibiotics, and I believe they kept me from getting too much worse. Nevertheless, I was having asthmatic episodes daily. They weren't like isolated attacks, but just large periods of wheezing and chest constriction. Talking was difficult, so I just stayed silent. I was uncomfortable as well, so it's not like I could even concentrate on doing anything like reading. I did my best at silently directing the kids to keep up with some of their independent work while I was essentially confined to the air conditioned areas. After a week and a half of this, I decided that I had had about enough. I wanted my life back. I figured it was time to try another doctor.

My husband called to make the appointment. As mentioned, I couldn't even speak. I was so hoarse at that point, and sleep deprived, that I probably wouldn't have made much sense anyway. We got all of the relevant information together, and stuck it all in a manila folder. I was to be the first patient of the day. I had seen this doctor before, and I wasn't sure what to make of him. I knew him to be especially chatty, unlike many of the other doctors I had seen in my life, but I figured that this was a good thing. He had another physician do the preliminary "interview" for him, and I was pleasantly surprised that this man seemed to be well aware of the effects of diet and nutrition on overall health. Most doctors, in my experience, play down this connection, as nonsensical as that may sound. One of the first things he told me was that I should eliminate gluten and dairy from my diet. He was pleased when I told him that I had already done so. He then proceeded to urge me to high dose vitamin C. Check. I was doing that, too. He also told me that it appeared that my adrenals were spent, and that I would need to take something to help with this. This, by the way, was something else my knowledgeable Twitter friends suggested. During this part of the appointment, I mentioned Dr. Hahn and his research on antibiotics and asthma, but he wasn't very receptive. At first I think he assumed that I was bringing up some unsubstantiated internet claims. Well, there was that and the fact that he generally seemed to be into pursuing more natural options to supplement my traditional prescription corticosteroids. I explained that while I understood the risks of long-term antibiotic use, that I was considering the big picture--i.e. a few months of regulated antibiotic use as opposed to a lifetime of steroids to treat my asthma. Now, to be fair to those who counseled me to eschew all forms of standard pharmacological options in favor of healing via diet and lifestyle, I freely admit that perhaps I didn't give the non-standard dietary course of treatment enough time to take. But frankly, I was miserable, and my family was suffering the consequences of having a mother and wife that was unable to function at the capacity required of her.

After that patient interview, I was ushered in to the next examining room where I would see my doctor. I overheard the first physician speaking with my doctor, and heard mention of a few words in fleeting--something about the internet, and a cure for asthma. I immediately figured that my first assumption was correct, and that they thought I had fallen for some unsubstantiated internet claim of a cure for asthma. A few seconds later, the doctor entered the room and proceeded to tell me that there was no cure for asthma. Gutted again. Then he went on to tell me for over an hour (yes, this is no exaggeration...I was in there for a very long time), that all I could do was move to Arizona. He assured me that the drier climate would be as close to a cure as I could hope for. I am not the sort to break down into tears in front of strangers, but I almost did just that. My husband had been with me in the examining room for the interview part of the visit, but had to leave abruptly when he got a call from his dad, asking him to come right away and pick up our kids. An emergency came up, and he had to take my mother-in-law to the hospital (she's much better now, by the way) and would be unable to watch the children after all. When my husband ran out, as he had to of course, I felt I was missing my advocate. Thankfully, he was back long before I was done, and helped me find my voice again. As mentioned, I was in there for a long time--just over two hours I'd say. After finally getting the opportunity to plead my case, the doctor actually agreed that I might be a good candidate for the treatment. I nearly died of shock when he started writing the prescriptions. Because I was in such bad shape when I came in, he suggested I take a Z-pack first, then follow that with a 3-day burst of 1800mg of azithromycin. That would come to a total of eight days of daily antibiotics. Once that course was followed, I was to graduate to the once per week dose of 600mg.

It was suggested that in addition to high dosing vitamin C, that I needed to increase my intake of probiotics, start taking SAM-E 400mg for liver support, take green tea extract to ward off any yeast infections, and take Adrenotone to enhance my adrenal function. I have taken all of these daily, as well as following a healthy diet free of dairy and gluten. Once upon a time, I followed a vegan diet and felt the best I had ever felt when on it, and I have since considered going strict vegan again, but I'm not quite there yet. I'm not completely discounting this as a possibility in the near future however, especially as I think that particular diet would only enhance what I'm already doing to cure myself.

My results so far? Normally when taking antibiotics, I get immediate relief. This time it took a bit longer. I had completed the first eight days' worth of doses before feeling a significant difference. I am now currently at the one dose per week part of the regimen. Today I will take my second weekly dose, and so far so good. I was able to return to my kung fu classes last week, and I'm feeling stronger with every passing day. There have been a few rough patches here and there, but nothing like what I was experiencing before. I'm planning on staying the course, and I'm not letting those little rough patches deter me. I've read that in some cases, the full benefits of this treatment can take up to a year or so to become apparent, so I've got a long way to go. I expect to be taking these pills until some time in September. I'm hopeful that this will work for me. It's a glass half-full kind of day.

NOTE:

See Here and Here for the beginning of the story. I hope to get another post up on this soon!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

The Catalog's Here!

The one good thing about being completely backed up and disorganized this year, particularly with regard to the actual purchasing of stuff for next year's homeschooling, is that for the first time ever, the new Rainbow Resource catalog arrived before I'd gotten around to placing my order!


Isn't it lovely, in all of its nearly 1,400-paged glory?

But I'm being good about sticking closely to my original list of resources and supplies, despite, as Rudyard Kipling would have it, my "'satiable curtiosity."

The trouble with being, at heart, an eclectic homeschooler (albeit with a decidedly classical bent), is not that I see value in so many methods and resources, but that I always wish I could employ them all. Some weeks, we're literature heavy, other weeks we're more hands-on and crafty. Ah, to be able to do it all at tandem.

In an effort to illustrate how easily I could be manipulated into wanting the latest and greatest thing on the market, I had been thinking rather seriously of using MCT language arts with my younger two this year, but I ultimately decided against it. I was mature enough to realize that the only reason I had been seduced into considering it at all was because of all of the wonderful things people were saying about it. I've no doubt that it's a wonderful program, but really, the eclectic mix that we have been using all along for language arts has been working well for us, so switching wouldn't really make much sense, regardless of how wonderful MCT seems to be. I think that by now, I have effectively exorcised myself out of that mindset. Besides, I've been homeschooling long enough to realize that there's always a bigger, better program on the horizon. Tangentially related, I visited the Well Trained Mind boards again not too long ago, after having been away for a while, and experienced a bit of acronym shock. Once upon a time, I just knew that "TWTM" = The Well Trained Mind, that "LCC" = Latin Centered Curriculum, and that "ETC" stood for Explode the Code. I used to be "in the know." But when I got there, I found a whole new set of acronyms to wade through. It took a while to figure out what was meant by RSO, CLE, and HOD. What?!?!? After some digging, I learned that these are Real Science Odyssey (Secular), Christian Light Education, and Heart of Dakota (Christian), respectively. All received glowing reviews. To be clear, I at no time considered any of these. Frankly, I've got enough options to wade through.

And just because I mentioned which of the aforementioned programs was secular, and which were not, I wanted to add that as a not-so-consistent rule, I do often tend to avoid a lot of Christian curricula, regardless of denomination. The "not-so-consistent" part comes in when it comes to grammar. I love Rod & Staff Grammar, a Mennonite program, and use books three through five. At those levels, the sample sentences are kind of generic Christian, and I don't mind that. At those levels, there's no particular doctrinal bias that I can see. I've read that this changes in the later levels, so I don't use those. To me it's just the best grammar program I've ever seen, and I love the teacher's guide layout. I wish all teacher's guides were as well put together. My teen is using Seton's Grammar 9 (Catholic) now as well, and really likes it, and the doctrinal bias in that case, is not a problem for us as we're Catholic. That said, it's not my favorite, but it gets the job done. When it comes to other subjects and materials written from a sectarian point of view, I find that often the religious content (yes, regardless of denomination) often seems tacked on and really reaches to fit the spirituality into the lesson. The way I see it, if the connections made make sense and are organic to the lesson, it should be seamless, and it seldom is.

Off to peruse the catalog a bit longer. Just in case.