A Recommendation

I'm afraid I still don't have my camera cord, so no pictures yet, and this post also won't contain any knitting, but I do have something quite special to tell you all about.

My dad has started blogging!!

I've been pushing him to blog for a while now, and for a long time before that I was pushing him to write a book (the blog is intended to be a sort of trial before getting into larger-scale writing).

No, it's not about knitting.

But I think some of you might be interested anyway, and I personally know it's going to be fascinating and great because I've been the audience for these ideas for many years, and it's exciting stuff.

Some of you might remember some nostalgic posts I've written about my childhood, in which I mentioned that my parents, though very young and on a tight budget, were (are) absolutely brilliant parents. My dad is also a brilliant teacher, recently retired from a career in the public schools in Michigan. I tried recently to sum up, in very few words (and you know how hard it is for me to use few words), the influence my dad has had on me. This summary was for the dedication in my newly finished dissertation. I'll quote it here, but first I have to explain that it contains a Russian word that's of central importance in the dissertation: vospitanie. The word is untranslatable because it refers both to education and to moral upbringing: it is the process through which a child becomes a knowledgeable, mature, moral, civil and generally well-rounded adult. (My dissertation is a microhistory about a single Russian gentry family in the mid-nineteenth century, and focuses on gender and ideas, especially vospitanie). Here's the dedication:

This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, who set me on this road and have been unfailingly supportive throughout. In particular, I thank my mother for teaching me to be always alert to how gender affects experience and ideas. And I thank my father for engaging me in discussions of education and history nearly as soon as I could talk, and continuously ever since. I could not have asked for a better vospitanie.

That's the best explanation I can give for why you should check out my dad's new blog, which will be a way for him to record, explore, and reflect on what he's learned in his several decades as a father and teacher. Help him get going by asking him questions! Join the discussion!

Teaching Our Children Well