Newest MBP*

(*MBP = "must be purchased")

Yep. Gotta have this one.

By cognitive scientist and mother Alison Gopnik, one of the authors of another favorite sitting on my Parents/Kids/Human Development shelf, The Scientist in the Crib, here is a new book on development and what it teaches us about being human. This is going to be my next book purchase.

On that bookshelf, I have the above mentioned Scientist, the series about education and childhood written by Charlotte Mason in the late 1800's, The Continuum Concept, and a few homeschooling books that also have a lot of good perspectives on children and the way they grow. (Homeschooling for Excellence, Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum, Honey for a Child's Heart, and Real Learning, to name a few).

Now that I type that all out, it looks a bit ... um ... broad? Gopnik: cognitive scientist; Mason: Anglican school teacher; Liedloff: student expedition member turned author; Colfaxes: former public school teachers turned pioneers; Berquist: classically educated Roman Catholic mother; Hunt: evangelical author and book lover; Foss: Roman Catholic school teacher turned author and homeschooler. I suppose the one thing they all have in common is a stubborn determination to figure things out regardless of how things are being done or presented, yet taking "the past" in all its fullness into consideration. All of these people accept a long view.

Gopnik's newest book is an engaging and fascinating read, full of up to the minute research presented in an easily grasped manner, and best of all ... she actually likes children. They're not the other or the enemy or the subject for her. She is a passionate scientist. This is a good book.

Next week at this time, I'll be finishing up the last touches of my pre-assignment for my first class of the new quarter - HMS 481: Human Studies - Relationship with the Self. We're supposed to bring one to two pages of our perspective on "the human self" and what it is. If we want to, we can cite outside sources - and Philosophical Baby would be one of them if I started in with a list. But I think that if I begin citing my shelf full of sources, my paper would end up being five or six pages instead of one or two, and it would be hard to stop. So many books, so little time ...

And school starts next week!

Yay!