A friend of mine, who formally taught fifth grade but is now homeschooling, was discussing with me the other day how powerful an effect classical music was in her classroom. She was amazed at how peaceful and calm her classroom was when she started out the day with classical music. Boys especially seemed influenced by it, and she noticed that they seemed to be better behaved and able to concentrate on the mornings she put it on. It got to the point where the children themselves would request the music, and parents started donating more CDs to add to her collection because their children kept telling them how much they liked it at school! It turns out that she was definitely on to something. There have been many scientific experiments that proves that living organisms are most definitely influenced by the sounds in their environment. A group of plants exposed to classical music grew better than another group exposed to rock music; a similar experiment using mice actually had to be cut s...
Change is in the wind, it seems. My two oldest boys this week were accepted into their first choice college : Franciscan University at Steubenville. I am already beginning to grieve their absence, and it won't be for months yet! I'm writing the study guides for our educational theater , partly thanks to this blog and to the article in Mater et Magistra. I love incorporating our homeschooling techniques into a guide written to help classroom teachers incorporate the arts into their curriculum! It seems as everything has come full circle. I guess homeschooling for all these years has come in handy......!! Our new theater group, The John Paul II Repertory Theater, has offically been born. Our first production, The Velveteen Rabbit, was very well-received by our homeschooling group! Look for more productions to be announced soon! And finally, a former collegue from The Travel Channel and I are beginning to plan some arts marketing strategies to bring attention to some of t...
I liked this quote so much that I needed to share it. It's by Ramona Baker, Director of the Masters in Arts Administration program at Goucher College. "Figure out what wastes your time and then work to avoid those situations and people. When you do something that doesn’t work, learn from it and move forward. I have learned that anger is a waste of my time. Time spent listening to people who always see only dark clouds and half-empty glasses is time wasted. And it’s a waste of my time to take long, soaking baths in guilt and regret while I replay my mistakes over and over in my head." If you'd like to read her whole reflection entitled What I Do Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was An Emerging Leader, click here . Thank you, Ramona! This just resonated with me!
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