Posted in Teachers Corner

Today was much less interesting, but I tried to get a lot done. I put up the shelving pieces that have been all over my floor for a month waiting for me to decide where they're to go. I helped my hubby rearrange his delivery bin so he'd only have a thirteen-hour day. I did the dishes. Wow. I feel accomplished. Oooh.

Actually, we finally got some schooling in. She did a tangram, very quickly too -- I might have to filter out the easy ones from now on. She learned her times tables, yes, all of them. I picked up a "Times Tables the Easy Way" a couple of weeks ago (sorry, Dena -- I hadn't connected you with the competition at that point), and she's pretty much got it, with the exception of speed. That will come. She also started in on a book called "God in Art" (I believe) that I picked up after that wonderful art class at the conference. And then we played a logic game tonight. Not too bad. Oh, and we enjoyed a lovely romp through extremely odd time signatures with composer Leroy Anderson -- I love his music!

I was incredibly impressed with the speakers at the conference this year. Dr. Tom Hoyle of Genesis fame started out, but I only caught half his presentation. Fascinating. He made a scale model of Noah's ark, using only the info in the Bible (not all our crazy notions about how it had to be), and then compared it to scale models of modern-day ships that we know. Highly effective.

The Brain Guy, Terry Small, was one of my favorites. He's a brain scientist, and has never spoken to homeschoolers before. Boy, did he have fun with us! We may be a little too overeager about learning; he loved getting us to do goofy things during his talks. I was even scolded in front of everyone for laughing too much (actually, my "partner" in all these hilarious antics he had us doing made a goofy comment to me using what he was teaching us, so I wasn't really in trouble, but he did "stop the class" to make us share. Essentially, she called me a genius -- I couldn't help but find that laughable!).

He made quite a few good points that I'll be introducing in our lessons this year, but one of the most significant in my eyes was one he related to Alzheimer's. In most of us, myelin sheaths cover our synapses so that we retain information and that connection is strengthened; I've known this for about six years because of some research I did into behavioral problems with early-term preemies (my dd was 8 weeks early). What I didn't know is that recent research shows that Alzheimer's patients lose their memories because the myelin sheathing disintegrates!

I had never thought of that before -- my daughter's behavior back then (and generally that of others with this same problem -- usually labeled ADD, ADHD, Asperger's, Autistic, and others) resembles that of an Alzheimer's patient! Short attention span and memory, major fits over minor issues, hyperactivity, aggression, uncontrolled emotions, and so on -- it all sounds so familiar.

So my next question was: what can we do to improve the production of myelin in these children? I asked Terry, and first of all, he hadn't heard of this research. I'll have to send him the links to the info I found years ago. But second, he said I shouldn't worry because the brain continually produces more and more myelin. I didn't want to offend the man, so I thanked him and figured I'd send him on this goose chase later, but I had plenty more questions. If the brain continually produces more, what causes the brain to stop producing more in the brains of Alzheimer's patients? And the research I read said these early preemies have some improvements (and remember, there's a wide range of affectedness in this group), but most have ongoing issues for most of their lives, at least as long as we've been able to track it. So somewhere, somehow, there's a switch that either gets turned off or damaged in these kids (probably because they trying to survive in an incubator instead of focusing on producing all the remaining developments they've missed in the womb).

Hmm. I can't wait to see what he and other scientists come up with on this one. I wish I had taken more of his courses.

Enough of my ramblings for one night, but I thought I'd start giving you a flavor of what the conference was like. More later.