Mommy Education... Serona and I have decided to start classwork again to change the intellectual side of our brains that so often can be left ignored. Last night on our date we went to a wifi coffehouse and sifted through some MIT OpenCourses to decide on a class. It came down to Political Economy of Development, the History of the Middle East, or Technology in a Dangerous World. We then went to look for the texts and readings for the class and realized how difficult and expensive it would be to track those down and decided at this point we will need to take another tactic.

So we headed off to Barnes and Noble's bargain book section and browsed for something that peaked our interest. We decided a study in US President's would be interesting and we picked Ronald Reagan basically because of the selection that was there. We picked up three books on Reagan to use as our course texts. Two are from Reagan "true believers" and one is a "unbiased" review of his presidency. We will also rent some films on him. The plan is to kind of immerse ourselves in him for a little while - with assigned reading of one chapter a week in the main book and each of us working through the other books to bring different perspectives to the discussion. When we are finished we plan on each writing a paper on our studies and then picking up another topic of interest.

It is so nice to be married to a man who thinks this is a fun way to spend our alone time and who's interests often coincide with mine (politics, argument, science fiction, apologetics, environmentalism) and who can also stretch me (economics, deep philosophy and medieval history are not my cup of tea) and who I can stretch (identity politics, power, social movements and media studies aren't his) so we can sharpen each other like "iron sharpens iron". We are contemplating starting another blog to follow the progress of our studies if we do, I will be sure to let you know.

For now it is exciting to add to my self-study list. Currently I keep up with breastfeeding research, homeschooling, parenting, whole foods and nutrition, and I try to stay on top of current affairs such as world affairs, us politics, and privacy issues. But a class type structure really appeals to me, sometimes I truly need the discipline, even though I am a life long learner.

Peace,
Tenn