The Boyer Sisters, Part 3

[DaisyD]

Well... The invention of the button could have saved Napoleon's army in Russia...

[Destiny]

Well... The invention of the button could have saved Napoleon's army in Russia...

Dammit daisy. You owe me a change of clothes. LOL!

[charmedforsure]

8 minutes ago, DaisyD said:

Well... The invention of the button could have saved Napoleon's army in Russia...

Ah, foiled by tin buttons... Napoleon was ambitious attempting to invade with roughly 600k men, but NO ONE wins in Russia's winter, except Mother Russia. See also World War II. 

 

[ViolaSebastian]

@charmedforsure, why do you do me this way? I love this woman and I'm watching every single one instead of cleaning my house! Lori would be appalled!

[MargaretElliott]

Hello yes violent sexual themes below, in a historical context, you've been warned.

 

An interest of mine is historiography. Historiography, in essence, is the history of history. It is a study of how history has been portrayed over the centuries. I've read lots of old history books, some of which are hilariously inaccurate. A textbook from around the 1910s that one of my old professors showed the class said (this is VERY paraphrased), "And then the British colonized the savages and brought them Jesus, so it was all right and everyone was much better off because of it." Now, of course, we know that this is not true. Many British soldiers (not all, of course, but it wasn't just a few isolated incidents either) raped and killed many women during the colonization of India, and were rarely prosecuted for it, despite the fact that it was punishable by death. We read excerpts from Nancy Paxton's "Writing Under the Raj: Gender, Race, and Rape in British Colonial Imagination, 1830-1947" about the negative social ramifications the British caused.

Basically my point is, when you look at a secondary source that's a bit older, it's probably wrong about something. I mean, history books today are definitely wrong about some things, but it's just a lot more likely in older books. Does that make sense? The older a book is, the more likely it is that it's been influenced by racial or political prejudices that make the content less reliable.

So, in summary, look at lots of sources. Cite them, if you can. Never take anything at face value. The writer always has an agenda- try to figure out what it is, and see past it. And of course, question everything!

[laPapessaGiovanna]

7 hours ago, AlwaysExcited said:

But you don't tell us! We can't read minds.

And, as you said you like extra reading material, there is something from me:

https://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/companion-to-historiography.pdf

The one text I couldn't stop thinking about while reading your posts was Robert Irwin's Saladin and the Third Crusade. Page 130. Also, the whole part V. 

Very good reading material @AlwaysExited thank you, but I don't know if @Gabe will appreciate,  I mean it even references to Marxist historians *shock horror*

[DaisyD]

Thank you @charmedforsure! I knew he was undone by buttons (hardyharhar) but I didn't remember exactly how.

[PreciousPantsofDoom]

Gabe is why I don't teach High School.  Or College.  All of this fucking around trying to pretend that he isn't trying to impress us with how knowledgeable and open minded he thinks he is makes me tired. He is so clearly at that stage BEFORE  you realize that there is way, way more to know than you ever realized.   I suppose it's good that he has all of this ambition (for his social history curriculum dream, for his sewing work, for his family etc. ) and it is in his favour that he (whoever he is) has engaged with us a bit.  I just don't have the patience myself to deal with him without getting stabby, so kudos to those who are.  Engaging that is, not getting stabby. 

Ugh. Youth.  So young.   Just grow up already.

[ViolaSebastian]

3 hours ago, PreciousPantsofDoom said:

Gabe is why I don't teach High School.  Or College.  All of this fucking around trying to pretend that he isn't trying to impress us with how knowledgeable and open minded he thinks he is makes me tired. He is so clearly at that stage BEFORE  you realize that there is way, way more to know than you ever realized.   I suppose it's good that he has all of this ambition (for his social history curriculum dream, for his sewing work, for his family etc. ) and it is in his favour that he (whoever he is) has engaged with us a bit.  I just don't have the patience myself to deal with him without getting stabby, so kudos to those who are.  Engaging that is, not getting stabby. 

Ugh. Youth.  So young.   Just grow up already.

I sincerely thank all of my teachers and professors that told me to sit down, shut up, and open up my ears. The ones that told me I was wrong or needed to work harder. A good part of college is learning that (contrary to what you may believe...) you are not the sharpest knife in the drawer and that there are always people who know more than you and work much, much harder than you--and they are ready to call you out and show you up. There are a lot of people in this world that could benefit from that lesson.

[Bretta]

@Gabe, no doubt homeschooling has encouraged a lot of motivated learning and actually can prepare one very well for higher education in the sense of being independent, self-disciplined and motivated. Higher education is, however, a wonderful opportunity to engage with the wider world and learn from people with different opinions. The experience of listening to and appreciating other peoples' perspectives no matter how estranged they are from our own can be invaluable in helping us grow, mature, develop critical thinking  and even become more grounded and secure  in our beliefs. The wonderful thing about academia is the value placed upon logic. For example, citing unreliable sources and citing courses inaccurately and drawing illogical conclusions are frowned upon.

I hope that you and Brigid will be able to have these experiences. No doubt you'd be able to gain a lot from self-study but there is no harm to directed/accredited study and, in fact, a lot of good. Adaptability is a skill needed in life, and adapting your study skills from a homeschool (ie. independent, eclectic and and self-directed) background to a college environment can refine one's thinking and broaden one's understanding of the world. I also hope that you would be open to encouraging your children to have an advanced education and preparing them for it because a college education does indeed open so many doors to them (you couldn't be a lawyer, engineer, astronaut, or doctor without higher education). Even if they choose different paths, at least the path to college will not be shut and they would have so many more opportunities in life.

The thing with anyone from any background is the need to validate ourselves by proving the way we were raised and educated is the best way, but the truth is that there is no perfect way (there are some better ways and others less so, of course). I would especially encourage you not to think of any path ie. not going to college as somehow being superior or more advantageous because that's not an unchangeable rule of the universe.

I don't look down on your homeschool background because that's the same background I have. But something inside of me yearned for something more, a new challenge, a new horizon, etc. One thing I've learned is to "never say never"! Something to realise that is I don't know everything, I can't know everything, and I can always, always benefit by learning from and listening to others .

[AlwaysExcited]

13 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

Very good reading material @AlwaysExited thank you, but I don't know if @Gabe will appreciate,  I mean it even references to Marxist historians *shock horror*

But he has read many books, thousands! From different authors of every (every!) persuasion. Clearly, that means he is already familiar with Marxism and it's most significant works, right? 

[catlady]

ok, i've been thinking about @Gabe and his "1000s of books."  he's in his early to mid twenties, right?  

i'm 46, and until recently, i owned 993 books.  yep, i kept count over the years.  it took me about 15 years of serious collecting to acquire them, and my entire adult life to read them.  they ranged from oversized atlases to trashy-romance paperbacks.  i did read the atlases; i have a fascination with geography.  then this summer, for several reasons, i hosted a massive book sale and unloaded 712 of them.  i spent an entire weekend sorting them and deciding what to keep/purge.  as i evaluated each one, i was surprised that i could remember bits of what i read.  but for many hundreds, i doubt i could give a meaningful summary of the text.  

my point here is that even one thousand books is a massive quantity, both in physical volume and in the information they contain.  for Gabe to have read multiple thousands, and gotten something out of each of them, that's a serious undertaking.  hundreds of trips to the library.  another library on the Kindle.  several hours per day poring over these books.  (and all that book-readin' cuts into FJ time!!)  

Talk to us, Gabe.  i'm genuinely interested in the reading habits of an individual half my age who has outperformed me in a hobby i truly enjoy.

[Lurky]

20 hours ago, BackseatMom said:

An even better idea is to take advantage of your child free status and take a class or two with your wife. You'll have someone to discuss what you are learning with, and your children will benefit from their primary teacher having more knowledge. She might love it.

I always loved taking classes with my partner - it's such good fun, and we learned so much.  Plus for people who haven't had relationships before, disagreeing about things you learn is a fairly safe way to learn that you can disagree, how to argue, eg, without hurting the other person.  The differences between saying "I can't believe you think that!  Look at what it says here!" as a friendly argument, versus "I can't believe you're so stupid that you believe that".

It must be so hard to have never had the experience of eg being in a classroom with your best friends and having wildly differing views on what you're learning - and getting really heated and even angry - but knowing that it's ok to disagree, and believe opposite things, but you still love and care for each other enormously.  I have no idea about "Gabe"'s education, but from the Boyer blog, they didn't have much of this kind of opportunity. 

But yeah, for people who plan to homeschool, having the chances to experience different styles of teaching must be such a gift, in the same way that I loved having different tutors' approaches in uni, as it really helped me understand the differences between learning styles. 

(I am such a proponent of life-long learning, it's so fulfilling and exciting, and even the things I find hard and difficult are so rewarding.  It's why I did (the equivalent of) community college courses and then my second degree in a subject I'd never done before, rather than take the easier path of doing a History MA then PhD, because moving out of my comfort-zone was the most exciting/stimulating thing I've done, and I'm super-grateful I had the opportunities)

[laPapessaGiovanna]

51 minutes ago, catlady said:

ok, i've been thinking about @Gabe and his "1000s of books."  he's in his early to mid twenties, right?  

i'm 46, and until recently, i owned 993 books.  yep, i kept count over the years.  it took me about 15 years of serious collecting to acquire them, and my entire adult life to read them.  they ranged from oversized atlases to trashy-romance paperbacks.  i did read the atlases; i have a fascination with geography.  then this summer, for several reasons, i hosted a massive book sale and unloaded 712 of them.  i spent an entire weekend sorting them and deciding what to keep/purge.  as i evaluated each one, i was surprised that i could remember bits of what i read.  but for many hundreds, i doubt i could give a meaningful summary of the text.  

my point here is that even one thousand books is a massive quantity, both in physical volume and in the information they contain.  for Gabe to have read multiple thousands, and gotten something out of each of them, that's a serious undertaking.  hundreds of trips to the library.  another library on the Kindle.  several hours per day poring over these books.  (and all that book-readin' cuts into FJ time!!)  

Talk to us, Gabe.  i'm genuinely interested in the reading habits of an individual half my age who has outperformed me in a hobby i truly enjoy.

I dunno. I am a quick reader and a huge bookworm (a library rat in Italian) and according to a quick and rough calculation (30 shelves x  an average of 30 books) I own 900 books in my main bookcase, this doesn't account for a smaller bookcase in my room, a number of boxes in the attic, those stored in my laptop and all those I borrowed from library (In my teens I used to visit it at least weekly borrowing 9 books every time) and friends over the years. In my estimation I am older than @Gabe of at least one lustrum but my reading time was SEVERELY limited by pesky things like school and uni attendance, internships, jobs, social life, family etc. So maybe it can be true that he read thousands but I have difficulties thinking that all those would be history related books, like you @catlady I counted everything from Homer to Joyce passing throug Boccaccio Cartland and Lindgren. And I don't remember everyt of every single one, not even remotely.

[Bretta]

Well... if you count the 66 books of the Bible you'd only have to read the Bible 15 times to get 1,000 books

[nausicaa]

5 hours ago, catlady said:

my point here is that even one thousand books is a massive quantity, both in physical volume and in the information they contain.  for Gabe to have read multiple thousands, and gotten something out of each of them, that's a serious undertaking.  hundreds of trips to the library.  another library on the Kindle.  several hours per day poring over these books.  (and all that book-readin' cuts into FJ time!!)  

Talk to us, Gabe.  i'm genuinely interested in the reading habits of an individual half my age who has outperformed me in a hobby i truly enjoy.

I was wondering this too. I read A LOT. Don't know how many books I own but the other day I decided to tally up how many books I read this year since I got serious about getting through my too long to-read list last January. (Yes, I am a nerd.) The total came to 58. And while some of these books were long, like Bleak House, others were shorter fiction writing manuals or light classic murder mysteries at 200 pages. 

I'm 32. Let's say I average 50 books a year (a pretty liberal figure considering busy years and also times I was reading something super long and dry that took me a month to complete). I started exclusively reading adult-style books at maybe 13 or 14? That's 950 books. And that number would account for ALL the books I've read since eighth grade grade. Not just one genre, like history.

Also, @laPapessaGiovanna I love the term "library rat" and want to bring it into English usage!

 

[BackseatMom]

Interesting thought. I read about 100 books a year (125 if audio books count). I am a very quick reader, especially when its just for enjoyment. Let's say I've been reading adult only books for about 18 years. 9 of those years I was in college and grad school, and I read significantly more (let's say and average of another 50 per year). So that's 9 years @ 125, and 9 @ 175. That's 2700 books I've read, plus thousands of articles (actually thousands, not Fundy thousands). However, 1) most of the books were fiction 2) I repeated many of my favorites over the years 3) my long term recall has to be active. Number three means that I can still recall facts and figures from source books and articles from college (or last month) that I was trying to remember, but I have occasionally reread a fiction book from years previous and not even realized it until the end. I literally remember nothing from some of the fluffier things I read this year.

I guess I am saying that Gabe may have read thousands of books (maybe, he's pretty young) - but there is no way he's read thousands of scholarly works, and even less chance that he remembers that many.

[formergothardite]

4 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

And I don't remember everyt of every single one, not even remotely.

I've read tons of books too, but some I only remember that I've read them and others only tiny slivers of what the books were about. Is Gabe counting the Bob Jones books in that list of books he read? If so, he has forgotten the bad history they taught or he didn't realize it taught bad history at all. Sonlight also has some very questionable history books in their book list. 

[DancingPhalanges]

I will say that one of the only things I remember about Bleak House is the spontaneous human combustion scene. It has been a long time since I have read it and that's all that comes to mind specifically. 

When we watched Pride and Prejudice and Zombies my daughter and I cracked up because it was so awesome. If you've read the book and at least watched the Colin Firth 1995 miniseries then you will love the movie. I thought I would hate it! Sometimes things should be fun, no purpose needed. 

Thousands of books? I love to read and can't quantify but I know many have been forgotten and/or not important. 

Happy New Year! 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

2 hours ago, BackseatMom said:

snipped

...but I have occasionally reread a fiction book from years previous and not even realized it until the end. I literally remember nothing from some of the fluffier things I read this year.

snipped

I once read a series of mystery novels on a long car trip. It was the only time I ever read books by that author. A few years later, my husband referred to the main character from the books and I had absolutely no recollection of having ever read those books. I guess the trip was more interesting than the novels! 

[freedom_for_all]

Little thread drift but how do y'all keep track of your books? Someone mentioned keeping a list of the books they have read over the years and I got curious. How do you keep track of what books you own and where they are etc?

Looking for a good system. 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

Personally, I don't keep lists of books I own or have read, but I do keep lists of books I want to read and/or own. I think other FJ library rats may be more organized than I am, however. 

[Destiny]

12 minutes ago, freedom_for_all said:

Little thread drift but how do y'all keep track of your books? Someone mentioned keeping a list of the books they have read over the years and I got curious. How do you keep track of what books you own and where they are etc?

Looking for a good system. 

I use Goodreads.com for the purpose. I'm sure other FJ library rats have better ways though.

[desertvixen]

@freedom_for_all, I keep an Excel file of books.  My books are divided up by bookcase (romance/related history -i.e. Victorian and Regency stuff - mysteries/true crime, sci-fi and fantasy, history and reference, juveniles, my Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys collection, vintage books, and my misc/most used shelf) with each shelf being assigned a number.

I currently have 1534 books in dead tree format, between 800-900 Kindle books on the current device, about 600 Kindle books extra on the cloud.  There is overlap between dead tree and Kindle, but not sure how much.

[DancingPhalanges]

No organization here. I drive my husband crazy! I have books in piles, in bookcases (not organized), in boxes in the attic, etc. 

I keep screenshots of books that are mentioned in posts here and other places, take pics of books I see in bookstores, and kind of have a loose list. I have an Amazon list and books on a wish list/on hold at the library. 

Basically have no room for more books and need to purge.

Time to eat and get ready for Clemson/Ohio State Football.