Hello, Crochet and Education Fans!

Hi, everybody!

This is my very first post to my very first Blog!

I hope to share with you all two of my main interests: 1. The reasons and basis of the education of the young (Philosophy of Education), and 2. Crochet!!! (SEE BELOW)

Nº 1: PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION: I'm working -off-and-on, though mostly off- on my dissertation topic: Education for Freedom in the Venezuelan Curriculum. With the upheavals in the country, both political and physical, progress has been rather slow, but I'm trying to keep up the readings and the discussions on this.
Some of the main points:
a) What is personal freedom? Is it related to personal responsibility? Does it depend on external circumstances? Can someone think s/he is free if there are things s/he cannot do?
b) How does the teacher educate pupils for the exercise of personal freedom? Is it possible -or even convenient- to impose certain studies, without curtailing that freedom?
c) Is education for freedom possible with a compulsory curriculum?
d) How can one be free in a democratic society?
... and so on, and so forth!
As you can imagine, the topic is rather complex... I'll try to share my thoughts on the various aspects as frequently, and as clearly as possible. I also hope some of you will risk presenting your thoughts, opinions, counterarguments, etc., with my assurance that I will read everything, and try to answer each post!

Nº 2: CROCHET is my hobby! I rediscovered it a year ago, when I had to spend several weeks away from work due to a bad case of viral bronchitis. I have been doing several different things, and am developing some interesting techniques that I'd like to discuss with you.
As soon as I can, I'll post some photos, both of completed projects and of WIP (work-in-progress!).
Just yesterday, I found an interesting site (Thanks to a crochet list): www.knitting.east.ru. Unfortunately, it's in Russian. Nevertheless, by hitting some links, I came across some interesting patterns, with diagrams!
I tried http://www.worldlingo.com/en/websites/url_translator.html and the translations it provides are -to say the least!- a good laugh! It's almost impossible to understand! But, with the diagrams and the little you can get from the translations, this web side can be useful. It has a list of lessons on crochet, with drawings and samples of different stitches, and a very good section on how to make Brouges (Brujes? Brussels?) lace (Encaje de Bruselas, to the Spanish-speaking!).
I also found the diagrams for a pattern that appeared several years ago in Burda Crochet!, also in Russian: http://www.devichnik.ru/2002/08/spiral.phtml. Maybe I'll give it a shot and try to follow the diagrams. Later, I'll try to write down the instructions, probably in English.

Well, I think I should be going back to work now. There's a lot of things to do!

See you soon!

Wendy