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Handwriting and script.

A perennial lament about modern education:  kids don't write in script or learn cursive anymore.  Must be all that texting!  

Here's an article from The Atlantic that argues, indeed, new technology had something to do with the decline of cursive -- but it was technology of a couple of generations ago. It's entitled, "How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive:"

The ink used in a fountain pen, the ballpoint’s predecessor, is thinner to facilitate better flow through the nib—but put that thinner ink inside a ballpoint pen, and you’ll end up with a leaky mess. Ink is where László Bíró, working with his chemist brother György, made the crucial changes: They experimented with thicker, quick-drying inks, starting with the ink used in newsprint presses. Eventually, they refined both the ink and the ball-tip design to create a pen that didn’t leak badly. (This was an era in which a pen could be a huge hit because it only leaked ink sometimes.)

...

The ballpoint’s universal success has changed how most people experience ink. Its thicker ink was less likely to leak than that of its predecessors. For most purposes, this was a win—no more ink-stained shirts, no need for those stereotypically geeky pocket protectors. However, thicker ink also changes the physical experience of writing, not necessarily all for the better.

I wouldn’t have noticed the difference if it weren’t for my affection for unusual pens, which brought me to my first good fountain pen....Its thin ink immediately leaves a mark on paper with even the slightest, pressure-free touch to the surface. My writing suddenly grew extra lines, appearing between what used to be separate pen strokes. My hand, trained by the ballpoint, expected that lessening the pressure from the pen was enough to stop writing, but I found I had to lift it clear off the paper entirely. Once I started to adjust to this change, however, it felt like a godsend; a less-firm press on the page also meant less strain on my hand.

My fountain pen is a modern one, and probably not a great representation of the typical pens of the 1940s—but it still has some of the troubles that plagued the fountain pens and quills of old. I have to be careful where I rest my hand on the paper, or risk smudging my last still-wet line into an illegible blur. And since the thin ink flows more quickly, I have to refill the pen frequently. The ballpoint solved these problems, giving writers a long-lasting pen and a smudge-free paper for the low cost of some extra hand pressure.

...[M]y own writing morphed from Palmerian script into mostly print shortly after starting college. Like most gradual changes of habit, I can’t recall exactly why this happened, although I remember the change occurred at a time when I regularly had to copy down reams of notes for mathematics and engineering lectures....[I]f joined handwriting is supposed to be faster, why would I switch away from it at a time when I most needed to write quickly? 

I loved this article, not least because it describes a wonderful example of how technology changes daily life right under our noses without our even noticing.  

Here, the argument is that the older technology -- low-viscosity ink --  caused our "traditional" script to develop ligatures between letters.  It was natural, the kind of thing that happened unless you were being especially careful, and so standard scripts, in which the joins proceeded from letter to letter in a repeated, predictable way, made it so we'd all still be able to tell one letter from another.  It was possible to print separate letters that did not have trails of ink joining them, but it took extra care and attention -- and took longer.

Viscous ink of the kind used in ball point pens does not make accidental ligatures, any more than it typically bleeds all over a paper -- yes, we've all known a pen to leak in our bag or pocket from time to time, but I'm willing to chalk that up to a defective pen -- do you notice all the pens that don't leak?  This state of affairs would be a miracle in the days of fountain pens only.  Since it doesn't make accidental ligatures, standardized ligatures are no longer, technically needed.

(Yes -- an individual, today, still needs to be able to recognize them, because many people choose to write in joined script.  But now, it's a choice to write in joined script, whereas in the days of fountain pens, it was a necessity.)

Furthermore, modern pens (because they require at least some pressure to roll the ball and make the ink flow) strain your hand, especially if you're pushing instead of pulling the pen, as lefties do.  So -- more ligatures means more ink to force out, and that means more strain.

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There's a lesson here to learn (ha) about pedagogy, too.

My second-grade classroom had a big poster on the wall showing the proper way to sit while writing and the proper way to hold a pen, the barrel angled far back and cradled by the right hand -- much less upright than I held it.  I have a memory, too, of there being a picture showing how left-handers should write, with the pen-hand a mirror image of the normal writers' hand, and paper turned at an odd angle that wasn't even close to the angle I turned it.  I still suspect that no actual left-handed writers were consulted in the creation of the latter picture.

 I always thought the difference between how I hold a pen and how they told us to in school came from my being left-handed.   It never occurred to me it was because schools were still insisting in the 1980s on a grip that was developed to manage the quirks of fountain pens:

Sassoon’s analysis of how we’re taught to hold pens makes a much stronger case for the role of the ballpoint in the decline of cursive. She explains that the type of pen grip taught in contemporary grade school is the same grip that’s been used for generations, long before everyone wrote with ballpoints.

However, writing with ballpoints and other modern pens requires that they be placed at a greater, more upright angle to the paper—a position that’s generally uncomfortable with a traditional pen hold. Even before computer keyboards turned so many people into carpal-tunnel sufferers, the ballpoint pen was already straining hands and wrists. 

...I wonder how many other mundane skills, shaped to accommodate outmoded objects, persist beyond their utility. 

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I predict the Atlantic will get a LOT of letters about it, particularly angry handwritten ones.

I have never held a fountain pen -- the experience that gave the author the insight to suggest the real cause of the decline of ligatured handwriting -- but other than that  my experience with my own handwriting is similar.

Engineering school forever altered my script.  Today it is a mix of block capitals and sometimes-joined lowercase, with the "weird" cursive forms jettisoned in favor of r's that look like r's (and can't, for instance, be mistaken for the Greek letter mu).

Three representative samples of my handwriting.  Using a gel rollerball pen, my preferred tool, although I'm also fond of a super-sharp pencil.

 

Although I taught my kids to read script, I stopped bugging them to write in it when it occurred to me that the point of handwriting is to be legible, rapid, and non-injurious to the hand, in that order. My observation is that flowing script is none of these -- unless you use fountain pens, I guess!

I've moved my homeschool over to teaching Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting, a flexible print that can be joined, not-joined, or sometimes-joined however the student desires.

There's a lot less grumbling about this; it's legible; and we can move on to other things.

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I don't actually have any vitriol towards cursive, and I'm always charmed to receive a piece of real handwriting that's been written with great care.   It is a lovely art form that can bring grace to mundane occasions.  And I've experienced many times the fleeting sense of encounter that comes from picking up some scrap of household litter and discovering on it a slip of a loved one's writing.  If the loved one has been gone a long time, it is almost as if they live again, for the instant it takes your eye and mine to register it.

What I don't like is the suggestion that lack of cursive is Another Thing Wrong With Kids These Days. It would be like shaking your head that I buy bedding for my family instead of laboriously piecing together fabric scraps from their old clothes, because quilts are pretty.

Anyway, reading this essay is definitely going to help me move forward with a casual approach to handwriting -- without guilt.  Legible, rapid, and painless.  Those are my criteria.  If one of the kids wants to, we can study Palmer script or even calligraphy -- in art class.

Spelling reform.

Yesterday my 5yo took a broken keyboard (from which we'd clipped the USB cable, making it a toy) and a magnetic Doodle Pro and propped them up on his wooden workbench to make a "computer" with a screen into which he could enter text.

He asked me to write his name on the "screen" so he could copy it.  (That's my writing at the top of his Doodlepro.)  Then he dutifully pecked out each letter on the keyboard, and picked up the magnetic stylus on its tether to write the letter on the screen.

I wrote the name at first with just the initial capital letter, and he insisted on my changing it to all caps.  He rejects the notion that a lowercase "e" belongs in the middle of his name.

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We've been working on letter sounds and reading words with short vowels in them for most of this school year, not as consistently as I would like, but enough that he can blend well, even though he often needs to be reminded of the difference between a "b" and a "p" and a "d," and sometimes I have to remind him of others, especially "n" and "f."  Even though those aren't perfectly mastered, I started moving on to the digraphs:  "sh" and "er" (for /ɜr/ as in fern) and "ai" (for /eɪ/ as in fail) and "th" only for /θ/ as in both  --     /ð/ as in bother waits till much later in my system.  At first, I teach a single sound to go with each digraph.   

A couple of days ago I introduced "ee" for /iː/ as in "seed," telling him that when we write two e's together, we usually spell the sound /iː/, and my 5yo told me:  "That is not an E.  An E has three lines that go across."

I explained about capital letters, took my dry erase marker and wrote a capital A and a lowercase a, a capital B and a lowercase b, continued through to the E and the e.

He said:  "In my name there is an E, and it has three lines that go across."

I said, "We have worked with the letter "e" before, only we have always had it spell the sound /ɛ/.  Like this," and I wrote   r e d    on the board.   "Rrrrrruh.   /ɛ/.    D.     Red."

He looked at me skeptically for a minute and then said:  "Okay, mom.  How about this.  When you want it to say /ɛ/ you will write it that way.  And when you want it to say EEEEEEE like in my name you will write it with the three lines that go across."

Oh, child.   That would make sense, wouldn't it.  

"That is a good idea," I told him, "to write different symbols for different sounds.  Some languages are written that way, and it makes them easy to learn to read.  But unfortunately, ours is not, and we all have to learn how to read it the way that it is written in our books."  

My little spelling reformer.  Maybe I should have gone the medieval route and taught him to read in Latin first, adding English reading at the advanced level of decoding.  The system has its appeal.

 

Service dog support.

Here's a little vignette that, I hope, will inspire you with gratitude and perspective.  And perhaps some generosity.  Share the link and enjoy.

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My friend Cathie (who's also my three-year-old's godmother, by the way!) has recently turned to GoFundMe to beg funds for a peanut-sniffing service dog, ASAP, to protect her teen daughter Julia.  I thought I'd put a plug in for them here.

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Julia is a lovely young woman, fond of crafts, children, chess, and literature.  She is Cathie's oldest daughter, number two in a family of six.  

 

Homeschooling has been the right choice for their family, in part because Julia and her sisters and brothers live with numerous different food allergies and sensitivities, some of them immediately life-threatening.   Tree nuts, finfish, shellfish, wheat, eggs, dairy, rice, you name it -- somebody in their house is sensitive to it.   

Julia's mother is, as you might imagine, an extremely versatile cook, and very good at streamlining and doing things such as making one kind of meal for one child and a different kind for another and a third kind for herself.  I have had lunch at their house and personally observed three different pizza crusts being prepared at the same meal.  

Very tasty pizza crusts, I might add.  If anyone could rock multiple food sensitivities in a family of eight, it would be Cathie.

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But while one can adapt meals for kids and adults with "mere" sensitivities, peanuts (along with a few other things) have to be Protein Non Grata in Julia's household.  

Everyone knows some people are allergic to peanuts, a few of them quite severely.  Lots of kids have epi-pens stored with the school nurse.  It seems that more and more parents every year have to carefully vet each good-faith proffered piece of candy or baked goods.  We all know it's a growing problem.  

But Julia has one of those instant, frightening, call-911 peanut allergies that make it hard even to enter public spaces.   Here's Cathie, recounting the event that caused them to bite the bullet and start raising money for a service dog:

On Sunday we called 911 after arriving home from our Montana vacation. Julia had touched something with peanut residue at a restaurant on the way home. Within minutes, her fingers, knuckles and hands were swollen and covered with hives. She must have also brushed her lips because they were swelling up, too....

...We are quite certain that the contact happened when she touched something in the bathroom at the restaurant, possibly the bathroom door.   Whatever it was, it was small enough to not be visible or smell-able because she is overly scrupulous about what she touches.

Cathie has told me that Julia cannot shop in grocery stores that have an open bin of bulk whole peanuts because the tiny dust particles sent into the air from the shells as they are scooped and poured trigger an allergic reaction in her airway.  Some time ago, at a friend's house that had been thought "clean," Julia (walking barefoot on the carpet) stepped on a fraction of a piece of dry cereal, just a crumb, on the carpet.  "Her entire foot swelled up," Cathie told me.  "Within minutes."

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Julia is of high school age now.  She is active in a scouting organization, in church, and in several academic clubs, and hopes to attend college, hold down a job, travel, serve the community, and all the other things that young people dream of doing.  But at this point, she and her family have had to reckon with severe limitations on her activities in public spaces.  

• Young people with allergies as severe as Julia's cannot safely hold many typical teenagers' jobs, such as food service or babysitting.  
• Looking to the future, it's impractical to expect that prospective employers would be willing to enforce peanut-free policies.  
• It's unrealistic to expect that the young people she might meet while away at college will carefully keep peanut products off the surfaces in a college residence hall.   
• Maintaining a social and professional life will be challenging if she cannot safely enter most restaurants, coffee shops, or break rooms.

Of course,  most restaurants, coffee shops, and breakrooms are not, in fact, contaminated invisibly with peanut residue.  Most of them are, in fact,  safe for Julia to enter and use... but she doesn't have a good way of finding out when they're not safe.  

This is why a service animal seems to be an appealing choice for Julia.  Service animals are allowed to workin most public places by statute.  We are most familiar with dogs that have been specially trained to assist people who cannot see well enough to safely navigate public spaces and streets, and with dogs (and a few other animals) that perform routine tasks for people that have limited mobility.   

In Julia's case, an "allergen alert" dog -- using capabilities similar to those exploited by police dogs that detect narcotics or explosives -- offers her the hope of quickly assessing her environment as she moves through it.  Rather than avoiding EVERY place and event where she MIGHT come into contact with dangerous residue or dust, she hopes to be able to enter spaces freely, and rely on the service dog to alert on particular contaminated objects and surfaces.

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Julia's family recently returned from a trip to visit I Smell Trouble, LLC, a trainer of allergen alert dogs in Bozeman, Montana.   Julia's pictured above with one of their dogs, which I guess they were taking out for a test drive.

(Some care had to be taken before the trip to identify a breed whose dander would not trigger sensitivities in any of the family members. Fortunately there are a few viable choices, so they do not find themselves in the especially unenviable position of being allergic to all the allergen alert animals.)

Here's Cathie:

 The trainer has an opening for a dog for Julia if we can raise the money quickly and locate the breed we need - an Australian Labradoodle or Standard Poodle, due to their hypoallergenic properties. This is an almost two year process to get a puppy and have it fully trained and certified as a peanut detection dog...

We've been contemplating getting a peanut detection dog for Julia for almost a year now, but there is just no way we can afford it. 

Today we decided we just have to ask for help.

Please check out our fundraising site. 

I thought I'd lend my blog today to tell Julia's story, raise awareness of severe and immediately life-threatening environmental allergy, and -- perhaps -- encourage readers to pass the story on and help Julia raise the funds she needs to get on the list to acquire a service animal.  

Julia would be about sixteen years old by the time her service animal is ready -- the perfect coming-out gift for a young woman who has a lot to offer the world, as soon as she can move freely in it.

Technology, productivity, and unemployment.

Interesting musing here at Engineering Ethics Blog.

The ways that people make a living today are very different from what they were a generation ago.  In 1970, Detroit was still a bustling manufacturing metropolis, thousands of women earned a decent living as telephone operators, and many newspapers provided employment to linotype operators who spent their days at the keyboard of a clunky pile of machinery that molded molten type metal into sticks.  Needless to say, you will have problems finding a manufacturing job in Detroit these days, and the other jobs are history too....

And we are by no means done...almost half of current U. S. jobs could eventually vanish as they are taken over by "computerisation."

What so often goes completely unmentioned in discussions of technological unemployment, is the question of anthropology: what is your model of the human being?  

I think the model that most secular economists and researchers use is something like this.  All life is basically economic in character, and the ultimate good in this life is a smoothly functioning economy, wherein everyone capable of contributing to it works to the best of their ability and receives in turn the material benefits of their work. That is a nice picture as far as it goes, but as a philosophy of life it's somewhat lacking.

For a completely different take on technological unemployment, you should read one of a number of works that were popular in the 1930s.  Even in the teeth of the Great Depression, writers such as C. C. Furnas in The Next Hundred Years went into optimistic technophilic raptures about how the increasing efficiency and productivity brought about by technological advances would let most people earn all the money they needed by working only one or two hours a day, leaving the rest of the time for leisure pursuits such as art appreciation and charitable work.  

We have certainly gone beyond Mr. Furnas's wildest dreams of increased productivity.  So what went wrong with his vision?

I'm not entirely sure, but one factor seems to be the social consensus of what kinds of work and lives are to be desired, and what kinds are to be disparaged.

 

Go ahead and read the whole thing.   I think he's correct about that social consensus, incidentally, but another piece of the puzzle is -- in my opinion -- the rise of the two-income (or n-income, where n is the number of adults) household in all economic classes.

That's just a link for thought this Monday morning.  See you later!

More on "spiritual poverty."

Melanie picked up my ball in the last post and ran with it:

Especially in the online world it can be so hard to see others’ humanity, to risk being flamed at by approaching what seems like a scoff as if it were an invitation to a dialogue, to risk seeming like a fool for enagaging a “troll” instead of dismissing him with scornful words. And in Catholic comment boxes you also risk being chided by your fellow Catholics for engaging with such angry hurtful people. “Don’t feed the trolls,” they warn you. But perhaps that’s exactly what we are called to do? To feed them? Couldn’t it be that the troll who regularly hangs out at Catholic sites someone who is hungering for the truth but afraid of rejection so is preemptively rejecting those who he feels have already shut him out?

Mind blown by the sudden new meaning of the term "to feed trolls."

You still have a responsibility not to feed the troll on the property of the person who has the "don't feed trolls" rule, i.e., in their comment box.  But you could invite them to your own blog or you could contact them off-blog.  And you could certainly engage respectfully (and skillfully) in a manner designed to be peaceful, all light and no heat.

Having started down that line of thinking, how there is a need for the spiritually impoverished to be fed, especially online I began to imagine that some individuals might have the vocation of doing just that. Then as I talked it over with Dom he said, it couldn’t be individuals. It would have to be people living in community. And as we talked I began to envision a new sort of religious community: the Missionaries to the Digital Continent. A cloistered contemplative order who live the Benedictine motto ora et labora whose days are ordered around the monastic hours and Eucharistic adoration and who are dedicated to bringing Christ to all the darkest corners of the internet. 

Aw, man, you beat me to it.  I've been thinking of this for a long time but haven't written about it here.  Instead I wrote it in Dorian Speed's Facebook comments.  This is what I wrote after she went on her rant about that Vatican website using Comic Sans:

Dorian, I think you're just the person to take this idea and run with it (when you are done with Electingthepope.net of course): The Church needs a new religious order of blogging and HTML-savvy monks and nuns. We need to set up a cloister with high-speed Internet connection and excellent tech support. In between praying the Liturgy of the Hours, attending daily Mass, and working in the refectory and gardens, they'll do pro bono web design for struggling Comic-Sans-using parishes and church organizations everywhere. They'll also surf the Internet looking for combox discussions into which to inject a note of charity and wisdom. Also they will pray for trolls.

and in another comment, an afterthought:

We can put the adoration chapel in a Faraday cage so they don't get distracted from what really matters.

Anyway, not to get too distracted about it: 

Melanie suggests organizing the effort to be "spiritually poor" around the seven traditional Spiritual Works of Mercy.  (You can find these enumerated here.) Since we're talking about an analogy anyway, let me list the seven Corporal Works of Mercy first:

• To feed the hungry;
• To give drink to the thirsty;
• To clothe the naked;
• To harbour the harbourless;
• To visit the sick;
• To ransom the captive;
• To bury the dead.

The seven Spiritual Works of Mercy are

• To instruct the ignorant;
• To counsel the doubtful;
• To admonish sinners;
• To bear wrongs patiently;
• To forgive offences willingly;
• To comfort the afflicted;
• To pray for the living and the dead.

Just as the charism of the Franciscans was to perform works of mercy from a position of being intentionally corporally poor, we are envisioning a charism of performing works of mercy from a position of being intentionally spiritually poor.  

The intentional corporal poverty was a means of demonstrating (among other things) that none of us can pat ourselves on the back for acheiving our material riches, because so much of it was out of our control and all of it, our physical life itself, is a gift.  We may have had a hand in taking and shaping God's good gifts to our profit, in making good decisions along the way (we do believe in free will after all, and that God lets us participate in the development of our own futures) but in the end we owe it all to God.  "No shroud has pockets" indeed.

So the intentional spiritual poverty would be a means of demonstrating (among other things) that none of us can pat ourselves on the back for achieving whatever spiritual riches we have.  The intellect with which we absorb the deep theological musings of the doctors of the Church, and craft arguments to defend her teachings?  Gift from God.  The desire we have to come closer to God?  A gift.  The gift of emotions, of sorrow at the Passion, of joy at the Resurrection?  A gift.  True contrition?  Gift.  Gratitude to God for all his good gifts?  A gift in and of itself.

I am not sure how to demonstrate it outwardly except, as I said, by a radical non-judgmentalism of the person.  Even the most objectively horrible people must be reached out to with love and compassion and a recognition of "there but for the grace of God go I."   

It strikes me that, if the contemplative wing of this order be called to Internet surfing and commenting, that the active wing be called to prison ministry.

Internet contract for kids.

After I wrote the Internet safety lesson I described in a previous post, I learned that my good friend IRL The Road Scholar had put up a lot of good links related to Internet use in the homeschool.  This included a set of "10 digital commandments for kids" in the form of a contract for kids to go over with their parents and sign.  (The Road Scholar's commandments were, in turn, adapted from a set found at Komando.com.)

I thought the contract was a great idea.  And no, I don't think it's overkill.  Whenever there are complicated permission structures, where the rules are many and detailed, having "the rules" in a written form is good for everybody, so that we can refer back to it to remember exactly what we previously agreed upon.   Also, going over the rules carefully is a way to have a conversation about what the rules should be.  Parents do have authority over their kids, but sometimes kids have good ideas that should be incorporated into the agreement. 

It's particularly important in areas where kids and teens are learning to exercise freedom responsibly:  internet use, staying home alone, learning to drive a car. In situations like that, we want them to stretch a little bit, so that they can gain experience and (it's to be hoped) wisdom; but we do not want them to stretch dangerously beyond their capabilities faster than their maturity can keep up.   That is complicated and subjective, and in a bigger family it's hard to keep track of where everybody is at a given time.

Furthermore, I think it's important to include items that protect the child's interests as well.  At some point, I think a parent needs to demonstrate respect for a child's privacy by agreeing to limit blogging about them or writing about them on FB.  So note below that the contract includes language that could let my child ask me to remove or modify blog posts about him.  And I think it's so important that a child be honest about what he or she encounters online, that I think it's reasonable to agree up front that if the child tells us promptly about a potentially dangerous encounter, he will not be punished (though privileges might be reduced; changes in privileges should not be construed as punishments).

So I took the contract and adapted it for my own family, in which there is an almost-11-year-old boy who is just now getting expanded access to the Internet.  I thought I'd post the text of my adapted contract here.  Feel free to use it or adapt it for your own family.

Comments are welcome.  We haven't gone over the contract with him yet, so please tell me if you have any feedback or suggestions!  I can still make changes.

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Internet and Computer Contract for Kids Under 18

 
When I use computers, mobile devices, phones, and the Internet, I promise to follow these rules to keep my family, my friends and myself safe.   I will discuss these rules with my parents and initial each section as we discuss them.

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1.  My parents will decide when I am allowed to use the computer, cell phone, Wii or other game system, and the Internet.

• I will only visit sites they say I can.
• I will only do things we agree are appropriate.
• I will log out when they ask me to log out.
• I will not allow my siblings to log in on my account or use my “time” without permission.
• I will respect the rules that my friends' parents set for them.  I will not help them break their parents' rules.
• If I use the Internet while I am away from my parents or at a friend's house, I will let my parents know that I did.  I will tell them about any new games I played.  
• If I or one of my friends brings a new game or video into the house, I will show it to my parents.
• I will tell my parents if I accidentally use a device, play a game, or  visit a site I  think they might not want me to use.  I know that my parents will not punish me for accidentally doing this as long as I tell them right away.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

2.   I will never tell anyone secure information without getting my parent’s permission first.

• I will not say when I am alone or when the house is empty or tell my family's schedule.
• I will not tell my family's last name, address, workplaces, passwords, or phone numbers.  
• I will keep this information about my friends as private as I keep my own information.
• I will not use the Internet to show, spread, or tell anything private.
• If I am not sure whether something should be kept private, I will ask my parents.
• If I want help keeping something private, I can ask my parents.
• I know that if I ask my parents to keep private a story or a picture that features me, they will respect my wishes.  I can ask my parents to remove information that they have shared about me from social media.
• I know that it is very easy for secrets to spread once they are in electronic form.
• I know that any electronic message on the Internet could be read or seen by anyone, forever.
• If I accidentally reveal information, I will tell my parents the same day so they can act to protect our family.  I know my parents will not punish me if I tell them right away.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

3.   I will not participate in mean, physically dangerous, or morally wrong activities online.

• If anyone does or says anything that bothers me, I will tell my parents.
• I will show my parents if I see material or play a game that 
  • is obscene 
  • depicts real and severe violence or simulates realistic and severe violence
  • shows nudity, meaning pictures of people who are naked or who are showing the parts of their bodies usually covered by bathing suits
  • is cruel
  • encourages people to do things that are wrong or illegal
  • frightens or disturbs me
  • tries to trick me into revealing personal information or do something wrong
  • seems to be a lie
• I know that my parents will not punish me for accidentally seeing such material if I tell my parents right away.
• I will not do, say, send, or show anything obscene, illegal, immoral, frightening, or cruel.
• I know that it is not lying if I use a fake name to protect my identity or if I refuse to tell information to a person who has no right to know it.  I know that it is always okay for a kid to refuse to tell any information over the Internet.
• I know that search engines and online information sources such as Wikipedia could lead me to sites that are obscene, cruel, dangerous, frightening, or tricky.
• I know that much of the information on the Internet is untrue or misleading.
• If I want to search for information on the Internet at home, I will let my parents know before I start.  I will always search on the computer in the living room where they can observe me and help me.
• If I want to use the computers in the library to search, I will use the computers set aside for kids in my age group (“kids” or “teens.”)

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

4.   I will never post or send pictures of myself, my family or friends without my parents' permission.

• If I set up a blog or online profile, I will tell my parents where it is and how they can read it.
• If I join a social network, mailing list, file or sharing site, or group of any kind, I will invite my parents to join.
• I will work with my parents to set privacy and sharing settings that satisfy them.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

5.   I will never, ever meet with anyone I've talked with online without first talking to my parents.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

6.   If my parents ask for my password, I will give it to them.

• I will never give out any passwords I know to any others, not even friends or siblings.
• If I find out a password that belongs to my parents, I will tell them that I know it.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

7.   If I want to download anything, I will ask for permission FIRST.

• I know that some applications, games, music, movies, or programs are unsafe to download.
• I know that I must pay for these things and that the cost is sometimes hidden.
• I know that sometimes “free” content is really stolen.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

8.  I will not try to win free things or buy things on a phone or on the Internet. 

• If I get a message that I have won something, I will show my parents.
• If I get an email asking me to enter a password or other information, I will tell my parents.
• I will not forward messages that tell me bad stuff will happen to me if I do not forward them.
• I will not click on any advertisements.  If I accidentally click on an advertisement, I will close any new windows that appear and go “back” to the last page I was viewing.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

9.   I will not change settings, install software, or open my parents' files without permission.

•  If I think I might have accidentally done this, I will tell my parents right away so they can fix it.
• I know that my parents will not punish me for accidentally doing this as long as I tell my parents right away.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

10.   I understand that my parents allow me to use the Internet, computers, and games on the condition that I do not hide from them what I do. 

• My parents may examine the computer, my phone or any other device that they or I own.
• They may see where I have gone on the Internet, what emails and text messages I’ve sent and received, the things I’ve downloaded, or what I do. 
• I will not erase my browsing history or record of sent messages without permission.
• I will BCC one of my parents on every email I send until they set different rules for me.
• I promise not to turn off or alter any parental-controls settings or software installed by my parents.
• I will not close a window when my parents come into the room to hide something I’m viewing.
• If I use code words or abbreviations, I will tell my parents what they mean.
• If I think I may have accidentally done something I am not supposed to, I will tell my parents right away.
• If I want to do something that I am not sure my parents would approve of, I will ask them first.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

 

For the child:

• I have read the above, and I will follow these rules.     
• If I do not follow these rules, I understand that my parents might reduce my privileges or punish me.
• I understand that “reducing my privileges” is not necessarily a punishment.  My parents might reduce my privileges for any reason in order to keep our family safe.
• I also understand that even if my parents do not punish me, my actions on the Internet might have consequences from which my parents might not be able to protect me or from which they might choose not to protect me.

_____________________________________

Child's signature                                 Date

For the parents:

• I agree to let my child use electronic devices as long as they follow these rules.  
• I agree to answer any of my child's questions that will help him or her use the Internet safely and responsibly.   
• I agree to make changes to the rules clearly and in writing, and keep them with this contract, so that my child always knows what the rules are.
• I agree not to punish a child for accidentally breaking a rule, as explained above, as long as he promptly tells  a parent about it.
• I agree to discuss my child's ideas for safely increasing privileges as the child learns to use the Internet responsibly.

____________________________________

Parent's signature                               Date


_____________________________________

Parent's signature                                Date                 

 

+ + +

Difficulty parsing.

For a minute I thought this comic was about NFP. 

And then I thought:  Wait a minute, this stick figure is a guy.

 

"My client is not in a hurry."

Said architect Antonio Gaudí about his life's work.  National Geographic this month has a pretty good article about an interesting (and I think, beautiful) building, well over a hundred years in the making:  Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona.

In 1883 Gaudí inherited the Sagrada Família from another architect, who had laid a traditional neo-Gothic base. Gaudí envisioned a soaring visual narrative of Christ's life, but knew that the massive project could not be completed in his lifetime. For more than 12 years prior to his death in 1926—he spent his last year living at the site—he rendered his plans as geometric three-dimensional models rather than as conventional drawings. Though many were destroyed by vandals during the Spanish Civil War, those models have been vital to Gaudí's successors.

"They contain the entire building's structural DNA," explains Mark Burry, an Australia-based architect who has worked on the Sagrada Família for 31 years, using drawings and computer technology to help translate Gaudí's designs for today's craftsmen. "You can extract the architectural whole even from fragments. The models are how Gaudí met the architect's challenge: taking a complex, holistic idea and explicating it so others can understand and continue it after your death."

I can see why the style is polarizing, why many people don't like it.  (Gaudí's style superficially resembles flamboyant Gothic, in my opinion, while taking inspiration from natural forms.) But unlike the pared-down modernism that's so common in recent church building, the style (though new) strikes me as recognizably, richly, traditionally Catholic.  And I love the story of how it's being built so slowly, the job passed on from generation to generation, much like the cathedrals of old.

End of an era.

Derek Lowe, defending chemistry blogging against the usual charges (no fact-checking, no editorial oversight, yadda yadda yadda) is absolutely right:

There is indeed a lot of inaccurate nonsense on the internet. And everyone should read what they find online with a thought to who's written it, and why. But everyone should do the same with stuff that's printed on flattened sheets of dead trees, too, even if there are flattened-dead-tree-sheet editors and fact checkers. This is no place to list the stories that have been horribly messed up by even the most respectable of the old media. I'm thinking of a good list right now; any well-informed person should be able to. (If you can't, you're not as well-informed as you think you are). And there is indeed a lot of good science reporting in newspapers and magazines, although we can't ignore the fact that there's an awful lot of lazy and sloppy science reporting, too.

But there's a lot of inaccurate nonsense in the peer-reviewed literature, too. Without editors and reviewers there would surely be more, but too much junk gets through as it is. And if you want to see that stuff flagged, you'll do well to read the chemistry blogs.

Professional journalists -- even (especially?) sci-tech journalists -- don't have a monopoly on the wide dissemination of sci-tech information anymore.  And we're all better off for it.

Introduction to the Devout Life 3-23 and 3-24: Discernment in mortification and in social interaction.

As I wrote previously, I'm not exactly skipping ahead so much as I am considering the chapters of part 3 out of order:  chapters 1, 2, 37, 23, and 24 all have in common a topic of discernment of how to practice virtue, and so it seems prudent to read them first before diving into the chapters on particular virtues.

3-23 is entitled "Mortification" and has to do with exercising moderation in "corporal austerities."  Fasting too much is discussed, as well as not getting enough sleep.  Francis also chides those who would discipline the flesh when corrections should rather be applied to the heart.  

There is a lot to recommend this chapter.  Here is a bit that relates to fasting and gluttony:

We should always remember our Lord's words to his disciples:  "Be content to eat the fare they offer you." (Lk 10:8).  In my opinion to eat whatever is set before us, as and when it is set before us, whether we like it or not, is more virtuous than always to choose the worst; the latter may seem more austere yet it lacks that resignation by which we not only give up our own taste but also our own choice.  There is no little austerity in always accommodating our taste to whatever is put before us; such mortification makes no show, causes no inconvenience and is very suitable for those who live in the world.  To refuse one dish for the sake of another, to sample everything, find nothing well cooked, or properly clean, and to make mysteries of every mouthful, indicates a pampered heart which can rise no higher than plates and dishes...  

...Consistent moderation is better than occasional immoderate abstinence followed by indulgence.

There you go!

Chapter 24 is about society and solitude, and is well summed up by its first sentence:  

To go to extremes in seeking and shunning company are equally blameworthy for those who live in the world.

Here's his basic guideline:

If there is no good reason for seeking the company of others or for entertaining them at home, keep yourself company; but if others come to you, Philothea, or if there is good reason to seek them, mix with them willingly and cheerfully, in God's name.

I suppose the members of our own family count as "others" who "come to us."  No fair hiding in my room then.

As usual, Francis's advice isn't that we should completely avoid enjoyable worldly pursuits -- like parties and social get-togethers whose purpose is only for having fun.   We should only be careful that they don't rule our heart:

Some social gatherings have no other end but recreation, and are merely a diversion from serious occupation; as far as these are concerned, we should not be too attached to them nor devote to them more than our spare time.  Some visits are necessary out of politeness, for example, social calls to pay our respects to our neighbours; in such cases we should neither be too punctilious in their fulfilment nor so impolite as to neglect them, but fulfil our obligations, modestly avoiding bad manners on the one hand and frivolity on the other.

Francis finishes up by recommending that we cultivate a love for solitude so that we can find refreshment in it when we need it.

This chapter raises a question to me that I haven't quite answered:  Is time spent on the internet, reading blogs and forums and the like, a type of solitude or a type of society?  Does the answer to that question depend on our own inclinations?