Backroads

Husband has been essential to this process. He knows how to rinse stuff, somehow.

This lady's recipe. The whole family loves it.

@CarborendumI am happy to report we have found the Perfect Recipe for kimchi.

That I do.

We're technically still in the experimental phase trying to find that one recipe everyone in the house loves, but it's been a lot of fun and none of the batches have been bad.

I've taken up making our own kimchi. I'm surprised at how pricey the good pepper flakes are getting.

Eh, I haven't thought it was supposed to objective in years. It's supposed to influence people.

Clandestine government organizations turn eyes toward Australia...

The holiday hams are dropping in prices around us, to the point of awfully good deals. However, husband and I aren't communicating, so now we have like 6 hams we got for less than 99 cents a pound.

On a side note, rewatched this last night. Still a solid movie.

I agree with you on that. Deep thinking, critical thinking, these are rather vague terms. When people complain "this and that doesn't teach critical thinking" I'm not sure how to respond. I could probably look up a list of strategies some blogger or professor put together and teach those, but I don't know how to guarantee that will result in the desired thinking, however that is defined. Most of these strategies, I find, tend to be very biased. I think deep/critical thinking is a concept that is more of a journey. You'll just have to develop it independently.

Say what you will about the evils of the internet, but it's created a golden age of "look it up yourself" education and it's wonderful.

Oh, now I'm sad I thought I suggested so! My intended point is that whatever educator be that parent or teacher would do well to keep an eye on struggling readers. I've heard from some homeschooling friends there is a certain degree of "wait and see" in various skills, but that best comes with a point when you have to say "Billy's had all the time to go at his own pace and he still can't read. Maybe we need to try a new tactic or look into a learning disability". Formal schooling, for good or for bad, does tend to be more rigid on a timeline. Though I have a theory anxious parents helped contribute this. This is my third year teaching kindergarten, and at the beginning of every year I have at least one concerned parent freaking out how their kid is behind because they can't read. Meanwhile I'm setting up alphabet and phonemic awareness lessons...

I don't have the numbers right now, but one of the big pushes for reading science right now is that there is a gap between the kids who very well could pick up reading on their own and those that need the letters and sounds taught. The latter number is concerningly huge. So while it might sound nice to expose kids and hope they're in the former group, it's not trusty. It's impossible to say why those teens can't read, but I feel a parent ought to know when one reading education plan isn't working. On the other end of the spectrum, today zi l has to assure a mother her kid was reading at an age-appropriate skill level, was passing all assessments of such, and no, is not at risk of having to repeat kindergarten.

I think my ideal would be to truly place the crux of public education at a community level (I don't know if that would be city or country or what, but I think we have too much overhead). Send whatever funding percentage we decided to decree to that level, maybe set a few must-have-to-be-a-productive-citizen standards at a higher level, and go from there.