05Mar
0

Nicholas Flamel’s timeless advice: Wait, look, observe

Welcome to my next installment as part of the iHomeschool Network’s new series called Quotable Wisdom.

Each Tuesday, we’re all posting thoughts from topics or authors of interest. I’m sharing quotes from famous mathematicians and scientists for your pinning and Facebooking pleasure, but my biggest goal is that I hope something will spark you or your family to dig deeper into a particular area or a particular person’s life.

Quote by alchemist Nicholas Flamel

Ashar picked our quotable person again this week. This scrivener, scientist and manuscript-seller who was born in the 1300s is the subject of some factual reading we’ve been doing – as well as our new favorite fiction series by Michael Scott.

Today’s quote is especially pertinent given the mixed histories that surround its author – some true, some completely an invention of later writers. Some sources label him an alchemist in the early-chemistry tradition, some as more of an occult magician, and others as an almost immortal demigod. In truth, he was a married, devoutly Catholic man who committed the heresy in his time of knowing how to read and write! (Yikes.) Our readings have been a great way for Ashar to learn how to separate literary fiction from historical fact!

You must learn to question everything. To wait before moving, to look before stepping, and to observe everything.
~ Nicholas Flamel

Learn more about Flamel

More awesome quotes

04Mar
2

Mom learns, too: Done with astrobiology, on to microbiology

Remember last month when I said unschooling really isn’t about what Sarah is learning?

Mom learns, too: Be interested and be interesting.Since then, I’ve finished my astrobiology course through free online learning provider Coursera. (I even finished “with honors!”) I’ve also signed up for several coming Coursera classes, but the next one – Gamification – doesn’t start until April.

So I wanted to have something to work on in the meantime. Now that I’m rolling with the idea of devoting some of my time each week to tackling a learning project, I wanted to keep up the momentum.

Enter The Microbiology Coloring Book. Yes, I bought this for myself using some Amazon credit I’d earned through Swagbucks. Yes, I’m a dork.

But I’m a dork who likes to color and who’s using that to learn about how anthrax got its name, what the first bacterium to be isolated was, how the earliest microscopes worked, and more.

And, in an awesome learning “coincidence,” I got to learn more about the experiments that disproved the idea of spontaneous generation, which was a common but erroneous belief in the 1700s and earlier. This was cool, because it was actually something we talked heavily about in the astrobiology class!

I’ve set a goal for myself to do about five “plates,” or coloring/reading sets, a week. If I did that consistently, it’d take me 21 weeks to finish the book. I may take a break during my other Coursera courses, depending on my schedule, but it’s nice to have this to fill my time in a way that’s a little more productive than playing Level 33 of Candy Crush Saga for the 873rd time.

By doing things like this book and the online courses, my goal isn’t to become a master in these subjects. In fact, most of this microbiology work should be a review of my high-school-level biology course. But it’s interesting; it’ll refresh my memory before the epidemiology courses I signed up for this fall; and it’s given me a chance already to talk to Ashar about some neat concepts.

What are you learning this week?

Many thanks to Flickr user John Williams for the base photo that’s part of our the “Mom learns, too” logo, and to Karen Lee of A Radical Path for sharing the brilliant reminder to be interested and be interesting!