Acknowledging the Past and Present

Before beginning, I want to acknowledge that while I’m certain my audience here is not solely white, there is a disproportionate percentage of white people within the national homeschooling community, so I’m primarily addressing people for whom this subject is often overlooked, or who only give a brief brush of the topic for a single month each year.

Though I have been active on Twitter, Facebook, and even my writing page regarding Black History Month, I must apologize for forgetting to mention it here. Every day, my kids and I have discussed at least one black leader, hero, or notable individual. From civil rights leaders to artists. From politicians to scientists. People from the past and present. I’ve shown them videos, websites, photos, read their stories to my son. (Visit Satyr’s Garden for a list of my personal black heroes.)

We’re excited to see Black Panther in the theater, but we’re waiting a couple of weeks to save those seats for POC. Daughter understands the significance of the film, son thinks it looks like another exciting superhero film. (A reminder on why representation matters. And specifically Black Panther. And a comment on representation from former FLOTUS, Michelle Obama.)

Being four, he doesn’t grasp yet the import of the movie, the history behind the month, or what other children his age go through. He’s learning, bit by bit. The other day, he walked in on me watching a video of a white police officer brandishing his gun at a handful of black children who were playing ball on the sidewalk with each other outside their homes. One of their mothers had stepped out on the porch and was so terrified she was wailing in the background. He was confused.

We had a discussion about what was going on that led to one about why so many adults he knows distrust police officers. It wasn’t an easy conversation, but it was far easier than the talks POC give their children about how to act around police to avoid being murdered for the color of their skin.

While my son will be raised to see POC as humans, equals, and friends, I know that’s not a shared view by the current U.S. government, many institutions in place within my country, nor many of the supporters therein. My kids have seen me go off to protests, when my daughter was little, I brought her along, because protests didn’t usually involve the risk of violence. Now I leave the kids at home with my partner.

Why am I being political on a homeschooling blog? Because being socially literate is as important to our education as the academics we teach. Because the political is personal. Racism is rampant in our country, Nazis and white supremacists are vocal and taking positions of power, and it’s becoming ever more dangerous in this country to have brown or black skin.

If you’re also white/European American, and these things matter to you as well, please teach your children. Show them that it matters. Work on a local level to dismantle the systems in place that continue to hold down POC. Teach them about black heroes of the past and the ones working hard today to follow their dreams and make the world better, in spite of the extra obstacles they face.

Write or call your legislators at both local and national levels. March with Black Lives Matter and protest against white supremacist rallies. Make it uncool to be racist again. Challenge people in your circles who tell racist jokes, hesitate to hire dark skinned candidates, or make generalized statements that aren’t true. Do this daily, not just for the month of February.

Raise up POC in your community, promote their work on social media, donate to projects. Buy tickets to see Black Panther, and send some extras to a POC who can’t afford movie tickets themselves. Need more ideas? Here are some:

• 5 Ways White People Can Fight White Supremacy
• 9 Ways White People Can Support the Fight Against Racism
• Doing the Work: White People Must Invest in Anti-Racism

As part of my efforts to support Black Lives Matter, I’m donating 100% of my share of sales for Cress and the Medicine Show earned every February from this year onward, and 50% of my sales every other month.

Also, if you’re an educator working with high school-aged teens (including homeschoolers) or young adults in college and wish to see if this story would support your curriculum, I’ll happily send you a .pdf. You only need send an email to raven.demers@gmail.com with the subject “Free Copy of Cress.” You’ll be given a teacher-specific copy that includes permission to print for the purposes of education.

If you’d prefer to not purchase the book, but would rather donate directly to Black Lives Matter, you can donate here. Another excellent way to offer individual reparations is through Reparations started by Natasha Marin.

A Few Recommended Picture Books:

• Belle, the Last Mule at Gee’s Bend by Calvin Alexander Ramsey
• Chicken in the Kitchen by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Boy Who Didn’t Believe in Spring by Lucille Clifton

Some Recommended Novels: 

• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Girl with Magic Hands by Nnedi Okorafor
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

More Book Lists:

• Epic Reads: 21 YA Books for Black History Month
• The Measured Mom: 40 Black History Books for Kids
• Barnes & Noble: 8 Must Read Books for Black History Month
• Okay Africa: 9 Black Fantasy and Sci-Fi Novels That Will Take You Out of This World
• The Root: A Guide to Fantasy and SciFi Made for Black People, By Black People
• For Harriet: 7 Black Women Science Fiction Writers Everyone Should Know
• African American Science Fiction
• AfroPunk: Book Blog

 

 

Transparency: The books recommended above are linked through my Amazon Associates account. If any books are purchased through those links, I will earn a few pennies per copy. Just as I will donate 100% of my portion of the sales of Cress and the Medicine Show this month, I will also donate any money, if any, earned from those links.

I Never Saw Another Butterfly

When I was in seventh grade, we began WWII studies, and focused on the Holocaust. Part of our readings was the collection of poetry and art by the children of Terezin concentration camp, where over 150,000 people went in, but only 413 survived (of them, 10,000 children went in, less than 100 survived). The collection is called I Never Saw Another Butterfly, and is one of the readings I feel is integral to a Holocaust curriculum (along with Maus I & II, “The Shawl,” and other historical fiction). Because these are the real accounts of real children who lived and died there, it makes the reality of the Holocaust hit home all the more. Because it’s difficult to find, I purchased a copy when my daughter was learning about WWII.

A play was also written based on their poetry and art, which my middle school (St. Margaret’s Episcopal in San Juan Capistrano, CA) performed that same year. If you’re in the Seattle Eastside / Puget Sound area, and your children are ready to learn about the actions of German Nazis, pay a visit to Studio East Theater and see I Never Saw Another Butterfly in person. You can pair it with the book, as well as a discussion about the history. Depending on the age of your students, consider tying readings and play to documentary film clips of the release of prisoners at the concentration camps. Warning, if you haven’t seen them yourself, they can be emotionally jarring.

Studio East recommends only children 9 years or older attend this play due to its subject matter.

Performance Dates & Times: October 13 – 29, 2017 – Fridays at 7:30 pm, Saturdays at 2:30 pm and 7:30 pm, Sundays at 2:30 pm. Purchase tickets here.

Privilege

A high school classmate of mine who also homeschools asked our group an important question:

“Question: How do you take part in bringing about equity in education as a homeschooling parent? Homeschooling is a privilege. I wonder how to wield that privilege in bringing fairness in public education. I would love to hear.”

I left the following response:

“Here’s what I’m able to do at this time:

1. Vote for legislation that helps the public education system.
2. Talk to local officials about policy changes that help and hurt.
3. Get to know my neighborhood’s children, and be a resource for them.
4. Share education ideas with the parents in my life, regardless of where their kids receive their education. Before I could afford to homeschool, I still took fifteen to twenty minutes a night with my daughter to work with her on a project, discuss something, or teach her a new skill.
5. Encourage other people to do #1&2.”

There was a time when I desperately wanted to homeschool, but as a single parent earning slightly more than minimum wage, there simply wasn’t a chance of it happening.  I probably wouldn’t have been too good at it back then, either (although I still feel rather inadequate as a homeschooling parent much of the time).  It seemed I’d never live my dream of homeschooling my children, but after a disastrous third grade year with a strict, unyielding teacher, and a good friend willing to help, we began this journey.  If I hadn’t become too sick to hold down a full-time job, I’d also have been unable to continue with our educational experiment and I wouldn’t be teaching literature in a small class each month (or soon to be teaching creative writing).

Privilege is a funny thing.  As one person pointed out, a privilege is either a right everyone should have, but not everyone does, or it’s a right no one should have, but some people do.  There was a time not so long ago when homeschooling was the norm, and a formal education for the few.

Despite homeschooling being a right to all citizens in the United States (with some varying laws attached depending on the state), the ability to support a family and homeschool is no longer attainable by all who wish it.  For far too many, there is only public school, and since standards vary by neighborhood (and its residence level of average income), the poorest are often the least able to obtain an adequate education no matter whether it takes place in the home or in a school. A lack of choice leaves many families feeling trapped in a system that doesn’t meet the needs of all its students.

If you’re reading this, then you’re likely already aware of these issues, and I’m preaching to the choir.  However, it doesn’t mean we homeschoolers should wring our hands or throw them into the air for our lack of involvement.  There are other ways to reach out to the schooled community, and while my current list of what I do is short, it’s a start.  Some other ideas include:

a. Becoming a tutor or educational resource for institutionalize students.

b. Engaging in schooled or community activities like youth outreach projects, PTA functions (check your school or district’a rules about participation), and other local functions.

c. Starting a summer camp, a week-long salon during breaks, or providing low cost workshops on topics of interest.

d. Creating a web list or forum for local educational and youth resources, and announcing it among both homeschool and formal schooled groups.

e. Becoming an educational advocate for children struggling in public school (look for them among friends, family, and neighbors), and help fight for their needs in accessing resources the public schools ought to provide.

Have some other ideas?  Please share them below.

 

 

Grief Pride and Community

With the tragedy in Orlando, I’ve been feeling rather alone, despite a full house.  My partner is straight and cisgender, my son is three, and my daughter seems distant about it having not truly engaged in the LGBTQ community beyond a few Pride parades.  So I reached out to my neighbors online to see if anyone had planned a vigil or gathering to find solidarity.  By the act of asking, one neighbor talked to the Unitarian pastor in our area and secured a location.  A time has been set, and I’ll get the space I need to grieve. Yet I feel uneasy about it.  If over a hundred people gathered as a supportive community were shot in what they thought was a safe space, how can any of us feel safe?

For my readers unaware, this mama is a pansexual, genderfluid woman.  While many people we see in passing assume we’re a cisgender, heteronormative, monogamous couple, and we benefit from that assumption, going to any event with a specific focus on the LGBTQ community becomes a target.  I’m grateful for the support my local community has shown, but I know there are plenty of people in our area who aren’t so understanding, who maybe think what’s happened is excusable or even desirable.  If they exist, they’re being quiet in our online forum.

So, on Thursday evening, I’ll be visiting with my neighbors who share in the grief of this tragedy, and hoping the presumed safe space remains safe.

Since we don’t have cable, and all our media is from selected videos, the internet, and radio, my son hasn’t been exposed to it the way some young children have.  I haven’t had to explain the hate in some people’s hearts yet. I haven’t had to explain the danger.  But I’m one of the lucky few.

If you’re having to talk to your kids about these issues, speak honestly and from the heart.  Keep it age appropriate.  For a 4 year old I know, his mom talked about the man having a heart filled with hate instead of love; that four year old went on to ask his parents to keep love in his heart for him and he’d do the same for them.

For more discussion about LGBTQ issues, BrainPickings.com has an intriguing selection that includes the classics Heather Has Two Mommies and  King & King within it.  I definitely need to check out the Maurice Sendak book I’d never heard of before.  Bustle.com also has an extensive list published the day after the tragedy, with a little crossover between the two, yet neither mention the charming Jacob’s Dress, which my son and I adored together.
If you’re close to someone who was harmed or killed in the massacre, or your sensitive children aren’t sure how to approach their grief, here’s a list of 64 books about grief in every flavor to help you navigate these vulnerable feelings.

The Craft and Children

Thanks to my long-time readers for your patience the times when I goof up and forget to post something, or one of my scheduled posts reveals itself before it’s fully dressed.

Last week, I missed a post entirely, and wanted to offer a quick insight into some of what I’ve been writing at Hearth, Heart & Home, a SageWoman blog dedicated to pagan parenting, rather than focusing instead on the homeschooling itself.

If you’ve never visited, you may wish to check out my latest post, Using the Craft on Behalf of Children.  It’s lighter in nature than some of the posts there, but has some tips for fellow pagan parents who wish to utilize their spiritual tools for helping their children through life.  Some of the tips could apply to anyone, regardless of your path or views (especially Monster Spray).

I have a major writing deadline for a couple of my short stories this Wednesday, so if I’m a little late again this week, I appreciate your understanding. (At least I have something almost finished this time!)

 

Covering World War II

With the return to a focus on education after the holidays, I’ve been working with a list of resources for my daughter’s World War II studies. In July, when we start formulating plans for the “school year,” she chose this period of time for her History studies.  Since this took place across several theaters, I’ve separated resources by focus: General, Western, Eastern, and domestic U.S.

While this doesn’t cover every aspect of the war, I believe these resources will give her enough of an overview to explain much of what was happening during that time. We’d already prepared her with some lead up texts and videos regarding the first World War and global politics leading to WWII.

Rosie the Riveter by Normal Rockwell

GENERAL

• Book: A Short History of World War II by James L. Stokesbury was recommended to me as one of the best summaries of the war, being both accessible to most readers and accurate in depictions of the war.  If you wanted a single book for an introduction to WWII, check this one out.
• Film: No Job for a Woman: The Women Who Fought to Report WWII; a one hour documentary about the women who fought to be war correspondents.
• TV: The World Wars miniseries on History Channel and their web site.
• TV/WEB: PBS features numerous resources online for the war, but mostly notably are The War, a documentary series focusing on personal stories, The Perilous Fight: America’s WWII in Color, which includes a timeline and exploration of the war as it affected the U.S., and The Secret History of WWII, which offers trivia for those who wish to understand more.

GERMANY/WESTERN THEATER

Children in a Nazi concentration camp

• Book: Diary of a Young Girl (unexpurgated) by Anne Frank; this particular version reveals more of Anne’s life in hiding, and includes details her father felt should not be included, but as her cousin who released it stated, it shows Anne was first and foremost, a developing young woman, and not just a martyred icon to be held up against the brutality of Hitler’s Germany.
• Film: The Diary of Anne Frank
• Book: I Never Saw Another Butterfly edited by Hana Volavkova; this is a difficult book for the empaths and compassionate people.  This was a required text when I was in seventh grade and the drama teacher even made a play of it. This book contains the poetry and drawings of children held at the Terezin Concentration Camp.  It made such an impact on me, I bought a fresh copy so one day I could share it with my children for this purpose of teaching about the war.
• Book: Maus I & II by Art Spiegelman; these two graphic novels were the first two books I gave to my daughter for her official introduction to WWII.  The artist uses animals to tell the story of the German front in which mice represent Jewish people and the cats represent Nazis.  Definitely a profound pair of books and excellent for engaging any student of the war.
• Film: Schindler’s List
• Book: The Second World War by Winston Churchill is a short series of books including notes and letters Churchill wrote at the time.  Because it’s from his perspective, I’ve kept it to the European section of our focus and are using it as a reference and exploratory set of books, rather than official readings.
• TV: Home Fires is a new series period drama about a rural English village during the war, which PBS just began airing in 2015.
• Film: Life is Beautiful
• Book: Mein Kampf (Ford translation) by Adolf Hitler; we have chosen not to include this in our circulation, but I want to mention it to those who wish to read the words that expose the madness of his mindset, for this is the book of a man who charmed and manipulated a nation into committing genocide.  For those interested in this perspective, the Ford translation is said to be the best.
• Book: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer; focus on Nazi Germany.
• Film: Stock Footage of Concentration Camps; while there isn’t a single film I’d recommend, there are multiple clips of footage, some short, some long, showing concentration camps at the time of their liberation.  Some notable videos include: Belsen Liberation 1945, Auschwitz, Dachau, and a Nazi SS Concentration Camp Compilation. Warning: All of these videos show stark human suffering, death, and sometimes nudity.
• TV: Doctor Who.  Not every episode, but for those studying the war, it can help lighten things by watching some of the episodes involving WWII, our top favorites are The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances (two parts of a whole story) and Victory of the Daleks.  These tales aren’t historically accurate since they involve alien invaders, but they’re something worth watching on the topic for students and parents who enjoy science fiction television.

 

JAPAN/EASTERN THEATER/PACIFIC WAR

Marshallese women

• Web: PBS’s Timeline of the War in the Pacific
• Book: Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang; details the assault on 300,000 Chinese by Japanese soldiers during WWII.  Warning: graphic.
• Film: Grave of the Fireflies is a film by Miyazaki (e.g. Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, etc.) focuses on two small children in the final days of WWII.  Grab your tissues.
• Book: Bravo for the Marshallese by Holly M. Barker; while this isn’t specifically about WWII, it’s instrumental in what took place in the South Pacific and later the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Written by my Applied Anthropology professor at the UW, and former ambassador on behalf of the Marshallese, Holly shows the destruction of a people’s land and culture in the name of progress. The Marshallese were manipulated into believing they were serving a greater good by allowing the U.S. to use one of their islands as a testing ground for nuclear weapons.  In effect, the Marshallese became the unwitting guinea pigs in a long-term experiment to understand the effects of radiation, effects which continue to be felt among the remaining islanders. Her lectures on the Marshall Islands can also be found in video form. This includes her images and engaging lecture style: U.S. Nuclear Testing on the Marshall Islands
• Musical: South Pacific the musical which features some insightful numbers such as, “You Have to Be Taught.”
• Book: Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Fumio Kono is a manga about the generational effects of the atomic bombings of Japan.  It’s so incredibly beautiful and haunting that my daughter and I have both read it multiple times over the years.
• Book: Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard; shows a Japanese interment camp through the eyes of an adolescent British boy, separated from his parents.
• Film: Empire of the Sun (Note: the song used as a running theme and sung twice by the boy is a Welsh lullaby called Suo Gan; thanks to this film, I learned how to play it on the piano and sing it to my children.)
• Web: Stanford’s Pacific War Sources and Lessons
• Film: Stock footage of the Nagasaki/Hiroshima bombs and aftermath.  Warning, these contain graphic, upsetting imagery: Victims of Atomic Bombing at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Atomic Bomb Tests, Aerial and Ground Views After Bombing, and The Bombs that Shook the World

 

U. S.

U.S. soldier gives candy to Japanese-American child

• Book: The Invisible Thread (in my own words) by Yoshiko Uchida; a young woman’s experience in the U.S. internment camps for Japanese citizens
• Book: To the Stars by Takei by George Takei; this autobiography of the well-known Star Trek actor includes chapters on his experiences as a boy in a U.S. internment camp. George Takei also has a play running on Broadway about the internment camps called Allegiance.  If you happen to be in New York City, I recommend getting tickets.

 

LOCAL

For those wishing to explore WWII in and around Seattle, I recommend the following museums for their exhibits on the war:

• Wing Luke Museum in Seattle’s International District – permanent exhibit on Japanese internment
• MOHAI (Museum of History and Industry) – Weapons and vehicles of war; a permanent exhibit on the war
• Museum of Flight – features planes used during WWII

Local History: Moving Mountains to Make Seattle

I wanted to share this link I found today about how Seattle was literally made by moving mountains.

Pop Culture History Lessons

MTV logo from the 1980s

Do you ever have moments where your kids have no idea what you’re talking about because you made reference to something important or well-known among your generation? It happens often in my home, especially since my daughter is homeschooled and we don’t have television (we watch movies and select shows on DVD and on our computer), so she isn’t constantly bombarded with media to the same extent I was.

So occasionally, I sit the children down and teach “Pop Culture History” using YouTube as video guides.  We cover everything from music videos (and lament about the days when MTV played them) to commercials.

All About Eve

It isn’t just references from my generation, either.  Since I grew up watching all sorts of television, lived in a three-generation household, and listened to a lot of stories and music from my elders, I learned a lot about pop culture media from as far back as the 20’s (my maternal grandmother was born in 1918 and lived with us for many years).

Golden Girls

We watch black and white films and discuss Pink Floyd.  We sat down and powered through all seasons of the The Golden Girls because it was a love I shared with my grandmother.  Now my daughter understands why Betty White is incredible (though she has yet to see her earlier work).  She can now comprehend why my partner and I laugh at certain references in current shows, films, comics, and even news reports that mention something from before her birth.  Politics beyond ten years ago isn’t as a great mystery to her as it is to many of those in her age group.

Dathon and Picard at El-Adrel

Why is pop culture even important? Much like being culturally literate in the ways of classic literature, your nation’s history, and the ideals upon which it was founded are necessary to be able to discuss shared ideas with other people, being literate in pop-culture allows for certain languages and ideas to flow together.  Anyone who knows what “Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra” means, can understand how a simple phrase can completely shape a person’s sense of what someone else is saying and help strengthen understanding. Just as some languages have single words or phrases for complex concepts, pop-culture references provide mutual comprehension of something vast while saying something small.

Alan Rickman as Professor Snape

My daughter said to me the other day, “Always?  Always.”  To anyone who knows Harry Potter well, they might recognize this brief exchange between Professor Snape and Headmaster Dumbledore regarding a complex set of emotions and an explanation for quite a lot of Snape’s behavior over the previous six years. It strikes at the heart to hear it, and can render one of us speechless in the right moment.  And given the context of our discussion, this mention can add a profundity and shared connection not easily achieved with a longer string of words.

Pop culture history adds dimension, flavor, and a chance to connect more deeply with time periods inaccessible to our kids due to their youth. And to adults as well who wish to learn and understand more about our near ancestors, reaching back to partake of the television shows, music, films, and casual reading material of the past can help us better understand our elders, our culture, and the past which shaped our present.

May the Force Be with You.  Troy and Abed in the Morning.

“Troy and Abed in the Morning” from Community

A March Talk

One of the greatest aspects of homeschooling for me are the conversations I have with my daughter that explore topics of significance that flow and allow for both of us to share, imagine, and create together as we learn from one another.  This is such a conversation:

Earlier this spring, my daughter and I were walking (with my son in his Ergo carrier on my chest).  It was a rare warm, sunny day; a cool breeze set the trees dancing lightly, and the dappled light fell across our usual path.

My daughter asked me what armor — we talk often about reasonable armor for female characters — could be worn in the modern day that would allow a woman or girl to blend in.  I pointed out that it depended on what a given woman did in her daily life, and used different occupations as examples.

A student could wear jeans, a shirt, and hoodie over form-fitting plate or a light chain mail.  Leather wrist bands could be taken as a fashion statement rather than protection.  The jeans could be reinforced with another material; the undershirt could be made of Kevlar. Steel-toes boots with retractable blades in the toes.

So, too, could a woman working in an office, hide her armor and weapons beneath a pant suit and silk shell.

“Where would she hide the sword?” my daughter asked.  (In our discussion our CEO had a sword.) I suggested it could be a slender katana or sabre with a hidden sheath in her pant leg, or held crosswise along her back beneath her jacket (“I want a girl with a short shirt and a long jacket” came to mind). “Maybe it folds up or retracts somehow.”

I said, “What if she or he works as a camp counselor? Consider the counselors who take care of kids at the YMCA summer camps.  He* could wear khaki shorts with caltrops in his pockets, hiking boots with a dagger in one of them; a high-tech mesh shirt beneath his t-shirt.”

*(I kept seeing a young man with a big, white grin and surfer-good looks a la Finnick Odair, but the outfit could equally apply to women.)

Daughter, after more scenarios of combat-ready, blended citizens brought up the Medieval-inspired battle gear for women as often drawn in comics, and we reimagined the outfits for male characters.  Our favorite is the dwarf in stiletto boots, g-string codpiece, and a leather strap across his nipples to help deflect blows to the chest or heart.

Then she suggested we pair them up: the CEO in her pantsuit, now with twin swords across her back aligned with the dwarf in leather gear, complete with spine-breaking posture to show both beard and buns (see: The Hawkeye Initiative). We surmised among giggles that they’d be mistakenly assumed to be in a given relationship by modern day people.

This conversation was the precursor for our new rule:

All armor, uniforms, or superhero costumes worn by the women must also be worn by the men. (More details here.)

Ok, I’m not great at drawing, but here’re my imagined characters from the discussion. Female and male heroes shown in similar outfits and roles.

We’re both big fans of gender-bending and transgender stories (yes, there’s a difference); everything from Twelfth Night to Ranma 1/2.  We’re also feminists who like to see equality in our stories.  This rule is rather obvious, and it’s intended to be, because there are still so many comic, game, and film creators who continue to put women in ridiculous armor, impossible positions, and demeaning situations, in order to appeal to a narrow selection of fans.

So, geeky artist friends and colleagues, before you put her in the armor you’re imagining, try putting it on her male counterpart instead.  You’re the creator, you can choose to create anything — so why perpetuate the status quo?

GeoHistory: Map of the World, 1689

New Mexico by michaelwhitney via Flickr

Recently, I’ve been devouring my daily subscription to How to Be a Retronaut, and  one of today’s entries is no exception.  The author has provided a zoom map of the world from 1689 that became an exciting game of “see what you can find/identify”.  My daughter got several right that were more obvious, and we both were in awe of the span of Florida and then New Mexico.  The label Mongolia that led all the way deep into India was also an eye opener.

We keep thinking of borders so fixedly in our minds, and discussions of history seem abstract until we look at a map from a time period of great fluctuation and discover how much has changed (and how much hasn’t).