The Word Worker

Category: Life

  • Unschool

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    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    We’re the unschool crowd. Nope, not the uncool crowd; those extra letters are intentional. We don’t have to waste our time in car line or on the bus. We don’t have to follow dress code or wear uniforms. We don’t have to be confined to desks for hours or locked in one room. We don’t…

  • Wait

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    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    This morning I found myself reflecting on my husband’s and my history. When I was a teenager my family attended an annual lecture series at the small college he attended. The students were responsible for a lot of logistics as part of their education, so we would have run into each other multiple times over…

  • We’ve Come So Far?

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    wordworkerrussell
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    2000 years ago, the Romans possessed the skill to build aqueducts using stone blocks shaped by hand and stacked without mortar into columns and arches over thirty feet high, with more layers of arches on top. They laid roads of stone that spanned an empire stretching from India to Great Britain to Africa. Both were…

  • Not Helping

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    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    “Aren’t you on medication? I thought it was helping. Why do you feel so bad?” If you have a chronic illness, you’ve probably heard some variation of this ad nauseum. We live in a culture that expects some version of Star Trek medicine, where every problem can be fixed, every ailment can be cured, with…

  • Work

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    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    It’s a bad word in our society, a lightning rod that attracts every social argument imaginable. Manual laborers view with contempt those who work with their minds, considering them lazy and out of touch with reality. Those in intellectually focused professions  look down on manual laborers, certain that no one with ambition would waste time…

  • It’s Not a School Day

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    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    We have officially started our homeschool summer. No more assignments. No more schedules. No more educational obligations. It’s wonderful and relaxing, and we are having so much fun! When chores are finished the kids drag out my old violin lesson music and open the organ to pick out the little simple songs on the keyboard.…

  • Important

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    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    The world is full of wars, conflicts, political arguments, societal inequities, and many other unpleasant things we humans deem important. We fixate on everything that is wrong, twisting ourselves into knots trying to figure out who we are supposed to hate, who or what is the enemy. We bury our noses in news, gossip, and…

  • Blame Culture

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    wordworkerrussell
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    From the very beginning of the world, when Adam and Eve tried to deflect responsibility for their rebellion, humans have relied upon blame culture. Anything wrong is always someone or something else’s fault. Children do it to get out of trouble. Adults do it to avoid dealing with problems. Each generation blames whatever is unfamiliar…

  • Seasons

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    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    As many of you many have noticed, the blog has been a little neglected of late. Life comes in seasons, and my family has been experiencing a mildly difficult season. We needed time to work out some instabilities, and that has made writing difficult to accomplish. It also proved to be a time of refocusing…

  • Opportunity and Prejudice

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    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    Recently I posted a series of questions on social media. I wanted, and received, feedback revealing how we as a society understand certain concepts that are central to a civilization. Need, work, and identity are necessary in order for a culture to thrive, but perception of what constitutes those things varies widely. When those varying…