Day 55: Why you shouldn't do school until 6:30 pm...

You shouldn't start school at 8am and work until 6:30pm because the next day you are too burnt out to want to do anything!  I had a long list for Tuesday and we did it all (except reading 1/2 of the anti federalist papers.  We only read part of it).  Besides going to book club at the library (a homeschool club-not put on by the library, just done at the library in the Teen Room.  It is just a group of hs teens that read and discuss books, more than 50 years old, on their own.  They discussed The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe this month.  Next month it will be The Wizard of OZ), lunch, and a couple of breaks we worked all day long.  We proved we could do a mountain of work in one day and we aren't going to do it again.  (Notice I didn't say never...It was long and horrible, but it may happen again...just not any time soon!)

 Today we took it easier.  We watched about 3/4's of the movie:  A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation.  After (and during) we discussed it and went on to do some math review worksheets.  We did a little reading and Jake ended the day with a lesson on honesty and integrity at church and reading from The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood by William J. Bennett.  When I went in Jake's room to tell him goodnight he asked if I could bring in post it tabs so he could mark a quote he wanted to remember (he gets that from me) and the only ones I could find were pink.  I gave them to Jake and he looked at them and then back at me and said, "Really?  Pink post it's for a book about being a man?"  We both laughed and he read me the quote and marked it.  This is what he marked:

"There was once a common understanding in our society among men that there are standards of action and behavior to which men should hole themselves.  Men, the code dictates, among other things, keep their word, whether in writing or not, men do not take advantage of women, men support their children, and men watch there language, especially around women and children.  The code of man is fading." 

We are lucky that the code is honored in our family, but Jake recognizes it is fading in the world...that it has faded.  Hopefully we are raising a teacher and leader who will help bring that code back.