All posts by Gina Kleinmartin

Homeschooling

Secular Homeschoolers: not quite as rare as unicorns.

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I was talking with a friend the other day, and he said ‘secular homeschoolers? Isn’t that an oxymoron?’

I didn’t know what to say. We don’t homeschool for religious reasons, and many of the homeschoolers we hang out with don’t, so to me it’s the normal situation to be secular.

The numbers sort of bear this out. In a survey by Trinity University in 2000 (one of those ‘check all that apply’ surveys), 38.4 percent of homeschooling families cite religious reasons as a reason they are homeschooling. According to the National Educational and Home Research Institute, most people homeschool for more than one reason. In 2012, 91 percent said they homeschooled because of school environment (that’d include us as well), according to the Institute of Education Sciences. The US Department of Education found that 16% of parents in 2012 homeschooled for religious reasons primarily, although far more cite religion as a second reason.

Our local secular homeschooling group has about 200 members, and is a great resource for those of us looking for non-religious materials and courses. And while we do all bump into very very vocal religious homeschoolers, most of the time everyone is very polite and understanding of our different choices. We get enough negativity from family, friends and the society at large; we don’t need to add it to each other. And those instances where fellow homeschoolers are abusive are a wonderful teaching experience for our children to learn real socialization skills. Chatting with our local secular group, it seems that it’s generally agreed that any weirdness felt from being a secular homeschooler is more felt from outside the homeschool community, rather than from within. We generally teach our children about religions as part of our schooling as well.

A concern for the secular homeschooler is finding secular curricula. While they are not as common as religious curricula, more resources are being added to the market as producers are figuring out that we exist. Places like Global Village School and Time4Learning provide complete curricula, while ALEKS and Saxon provide math, and science can be found at places like Connect the Thoughts and Khan Academy. For support, there is the closed facebook group Secular Homeschool Families, and http://www.secularhomeschool.com/.

Our personal journey includes multiple reasons for homeschooling. While we always thought we could do ‘a better job’ than the schools (one on one teacher student ratio will always be the best), a primary reason was that our son was simply not suited to the school environment. As social as he is, he gets ‘peopled out’ very quickly, and he did not react well to being forced to continue to socialize after he hit his limit. No flexibility was allowed him in school to put himself into a ‘time out’ when he needed one, so he would be very stressed. That and a school refusal to make his work more challenging were our primary reasons. If we did that Trinity survey above, though, I probably would also have checked the ‘religious reasons’ because there were multiple times our son came home loaded with Bible stories because another child had brought a comic book ‘Action Bible’ to school to read with the other kids.

Eggs, Food

Eggs, part one. Of many.

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Eggs part 1

 

Eggs are amazing. Even merely as a foodstuff, they are just incredible.

 

They are portable, healthy, convenient, cheap, tasty, and easy to cook or incredibly showy, depending on what you do with them. And they are one of the original ‘fast foods’— when we domesticated chickens 5000 years ago a side effect was a calorie dense, protein rich, portable food.

 

They are full of the amino acids that help build muscle (leucine). They have choline which is helps your brain think, focus and motivate (wow— I think I need more eggs for breakfast!). Choline also helps your liver do its job.

 

And if you remember the scare about eggs and heart disease in the 1980’s (possibly like me you had a mother who threw them all away at that point, along with bacon and ham and whatever other food was being vilified at the time), it’s interesting to note that they are now saying that apparently there is no measurable increased risk of heart disease with moderate egg consumption (7 whole eggs a week) unless you are a diabetic. In a study of nearly 120,000 people, that’s what they came up with.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10217054?dopt=Citation

 

And actually, if you are at risk for macular degeneration and eye cataracts, you’re best to eat eggs, because eggs protect the eye.

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16340654?dopt=Citation

 

However, they do say that is you have heart disease already, or have already had a stroke, then you may be good avoiding more than three eggs yolks a week. That leaves you all the whites you could want, though.

 

So, as with pretty much everything you’ll see from me, eggs are great in moderation. Eat them without fear, but not all of them at once. And watch what you eat them with— They™ are thinking that since eggs are often served with high fat, high sodium foods, it could be merely that eggs like associating with trouble makes, not that they are in themselves troublemakers.

 

Right now, I will start with what makes them one of the most magical foods we can eat. The chemistry in the simple egg, that makes it into the magician it can be.

 

Let’s start with the yolk. The gooey, rich golden part that dribbles onto the potatoes or that you dip your toast into for breakfast foods. But it’s not just the xanthophyll— the yellow in the yolk that can add its color to make food pretty

 

It’s also capable of convincing acid and fat (two of my favorite things) to stick together, to get their combined flavor into your mouth in an unctuous smoothness. Every one knows that oil and water don’t mix, but we also know that things like mayonnaise and hollandaise are delicious, and most of us know that eggs are part of that. And it’s the chemistry of the egg yolk that does it. Eggs have some amino acids that repel water, and some that attract water. But it’s not just that. The lethicin, which is a phospholipid (part fat, part salt) is sort of like a tadpole, who likes sticking it’s head in water and its tail in fat. So you have your mayo and hollandaise so irresistible.

 

So when you mix that egg yolk into your butter and lemon juice combination, you get the double force of the amino acids and the lethicin working to make some parts of the yolk stick to the lemon juice while other parts will stick to the butter, and you can dip your tater tots into a little bit of heaven.
I’m paranoid about my eggs, and like them cooked, so I make my hollandaise sauce in a double boiler, although many people will say you can do it fine in a blender. If I had a friend with chickens, I’d do that, but I don’t right now.

 

½ cup of butter, cut up into dice. Reserve ½!

2 egg yolks

1T lemon juice

1 tsp minced garlic, shallot, green onion, whatever you have

black pepper

melt the ¼ cup butter in the double boiler. Add the rest of the ingredients, and mix well. When it is all melted and mixed, add the last of the butter and remove from heat while stirring. Serve immediately.

Baking, sourdough

The care and feeding of Starter.

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I own a sourdough starter. This starter is older than our son (he’s 11 now) and has moved with us two times. It has come back from the brink of death at least twice, and has exploded into 8 jars at a time other times.

It is so easy to care for and maintain, it’s like the easiest pet in the world. Keep it in the fridge, feed it at least every two weeks, and make things with it.

No problems.

You need a non-reactive container. Mine is a cool little crock that will hold about 2 1/2 cups my dad got me. I have used glass jars and enameled steel bowls as well. Key here is you do not want something that has a tight closing lid, or that has no lid at all. One will explode, one will dry up. My crock is perfect for this by not sealing. A piece of plastic wrap with a rubber band would do the trick as well.

I see so many people so tentative about taking care of a starter. They are nervous about weighing versus measuring, temperatures, so many things. And I am sure that my methods would make some people turn up their nose, but they work, and that is all I really care about. Things that work and don’t add stress to my life. So, here it is.

Once a week (it’s on our list of things to do), I remove the starter from the fridge. I look at it. I’ll have to update with pictures! Because if it’s happily bubbling with some liquid, yay! The only thing to worry about is orange. If it goes orange, it’s not salvageable. Liquid on top, even greenish liquid is fine. Pour it off (I have never attempted to drink it, although people apparently would, in desperation). Spoon half the starter out (or as much as you need for your recipe, but let’s assume you are splitting your starter for a friend (or are asking a friend to split hers/ his)). Add to the starter at least a quarter and no more than a half of the total starter volume in flour (all purpose, whole wheat, high gluten, whatever floats your boat) and an equal amount of water. I use filtered water, I don’t know about using ‘normal’ tap water. Please don’t fret over the amounts, this is all eyed. Then stir them up, and put them in the fridge.

A big fear of early users was that if it froze in Alaska, it would die, so ‘sourdoughs’ used to sleep with their starter. But if it freezes, it ought to be fine. Heat will actually kill it. I like keeping it in the fridge so that it grows slowly. If I need a lot suddenly, like for the new donuts I want to try, I will leave it out on the counter, where it will bubble happily.

And this ought to be done every 1-3 weeks, so every week or two is a good excuse to make some tasty sourdough goodies!

And that is seriously it. All you need to do to care for and feed your starter.