Sneezes and apocolyptic stories

Sickness has been winding through my family this week. So far, it has not touched me. So far. I stayed home with Jedd on friday and kept the store closed. Thom had a taste of it on Sunday, Annie woke up with it Monday and today Emma is home from school with it. Yesterday, Emma and her friend Rachel worked till 11 p.m. on their science project for regionals. Em started sneezing around 7. I have to confess it was the most irritating sneezing I've ever heard. It was non-stop. She assures me vehemently that she was covering her mouth, but I was in the next room and the walls were reverberating with each mini explosion out of her mouth. I was scolding her to stop. I was imploring her to stop. I was begging her to stop. Of course she had no control and couldn't...but I had to try. Maybe it was all the cleaning yesterday that stirred up dust. I've been frantically trying to keep up with the house sanitizing I had last month by the team of ninja-cleaners. It's not easy, but so far, so good. Except for the sneezing....

I have just read Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. A classic post-apocalyptic story set in Florida in the 50's. If you've never read this, I highly recommend it. I'm now going to pull out and re-read Neville Schute's , On The Beach.
I also have A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Van Demille going. Any parent who still has kids they're educating, whether home-school, private school, or public school, this is a must read book. I got out of bed at 11 last night to walk down the hall and read this to Jedd, who was still awake and reading in his room.
"Think of a human pair teaching their child how to walk. There is, on the child's side, strong desire and latent powers: he has legs and means to use them. He walks and smiles; he totters and looks alarmed; he falls and cries. the parents smile throughout, showering advice, warning, encouragement and praise. The whole story, not only of teaching, but of man and civilization, is wrapped up in this first academic performance........"

" All the knowledge, skill, art, and science that we use up and revere, up to Einstein's formulas about the stars, is a mere repitition and extension of the intitial feat of learning to walk. But this extension does not take place by itself. Most of it has to be taught, slowly and painfully. There was a time when Einstein was not quite sure what eight times nine came to. He had to learn, and to learn he had to be taught."
___ Jacques Barzun

It was the last two lines that excited me and that I felt compelled to make sure Jedd understood.
The basis of the whole book thus far, is that we can't force education onto each other. Our children must educate themselves. We must be there to mentor them and provide the means. By mentoring, it means we must continually be re-reading classics and learning along with them. Talking through the classics with them and keeping discussion going. And by classics, we're not talking only literature, but the classics in math and science and history etc., so that students understand the "why" and "how" behind the process.... Fascinating!