Embassy
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Posts posted by Embassy
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As Christians, in obedience to Christ's command in Matthew 28, we have a obligation to share the Gospel to the ends of the earth. With everyone.
Let's say I'm standing 100 feet away from a cliff and I'm watching people run as fast as they can towards the cliff.
Do I say nothing? Maybe I say, "They don't believe in the cliff, so I shouldn't say anything." Or maybe I think I'll offend them if I say something. They've chosen their own path towards the cliff.
Or do I yell, "Stop! I know a safe path! Don't go that way! That way leads to death! There's danger ahead." If you've never heard that, you deserve at least the warning. If you don't believe that message there is nothing we can do, but at least we said something.
It seems a whole lot more offensive to say nothing than to shout out a warning and an offer of a different path.
And for those who don't believe that Jesus is the only way of salvation, then yeah, the person yelling about the cliff looks like a freak at best and an offensive intolerant bigot at worst.
I understand that it is offensive to be told you are running straight for a cliff, especially if the path is part of your heritage or your culture or a path you've created just for yourself. Your opinion of us and your offense doesn't really change the fact that we feel strongly enough about the danger ahead that we want you to hear that Jesus Christ provided a way for you.
Those pictures are nothing more than attempts by Christians to shout out to other Christians, "Hey, tell people about the cliff! Don't stand there and watch people run over the cliff just because it makes you uncomfortable to say something."
:iagree: Very well said Daisy.
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(My bolding)
I don't want to get side tracked here, but this simply isn't true. There are many Christians in the Middle East and North Africa. To name a few: Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine, who have some of the oldest Christian communities in the world, and who's bibles are in Arabic.
In addition, Iran has large amounts of Armenian Christians.
There are hundreds of churches in Iran.
People groups are not the same thing as countries. A country can have many different people groups. Take Iran for example.
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It is not planting time here yet, but I plan on planting tomatoes, cucumbers, and peas. We are planting sunflowers for the birds and milkweed for butterflies. I'll likely start a small herb garden too.
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Yes, I schedule everything for the whole year. Sometimes I have to add, delete or tweak, but in general I like having things set for the year. I list all books, activities, experiments, and DVDs chronologically and then check them off as we go. I don't separate things by day or week - I need much more flexibility than that. I keep each subject separate and I just choose what subjects to cover each day and we do the next thing on the list. You can see more about what we do here.
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Are "spiral" and "mastery" terms pretty much used among homeschoolers and not educators in general?
I ask because I was in a conversation recently with someone who worked as a elementary teacher for about 5 years in a private school setting. She was a teacher about 10 years ago. She has a couple of education related degrees with a Masters in Educational Psychology earned in the past few years. I mentioned spiral and mastery when she was discussing her favorite math program (Saxon) and she didn't know what those terms meant.
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When did your little ones start to use the computer by themselves? By this I'm mainly referring to being able to use a mouse and play a game independently and not typing in a web address.
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I list all assignments, books, and activities in chronological order for each subject before we start the school year. As we make our way through the school year we just continue to the next thing on the list. I've have described it more here.
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Is it a disservice to an accelerated learning child to not do much in formal education while they are young? (Allow them to pursue learning on their own but not provide formal structure.)
Or Is it more important to let them be a kid and round out their education with social activities, free time and individual exploration?
I am thinking about a kindergarten aged child who reads fluently, if that makes a difference.
I think it can depend on the child. Some children thrive with unschooling and others need more structure.
With my kids I have started structured learning when my children are about Kindergarten age. Before that I pretty much unschooled. I unschooled the second half of my oldest son's Kindergarten year too, but it didn't satisfy him.
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I would make a list of books. My 1st grader had never been a fan of read alouds. I had attempted to read chapter books to him for years without much interest. I chose books differently this year and I have a changed boy. It is one of his favorite things about school now. You can see our list of books here. It was designed for a little boy, but there may be some books on there your daughter would like. I started off with lots of picture books and slowly built up to chapter books.
I would just discuss the book as you read it. You will be able to tell if comprehension is happening.
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A thorough education.
That might show up with more time spent, a greater range of subjects studied, or greater depth of subject matter studied. So I guess a rigorous education could be a deep, wide, and/or long approach.
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Very cool. I am going to add that to my blog reader to follow along.
I don't know if you have access or not but when we have studied habitats my boys really enjoyed the One Small Square series of books.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I've heard great things about that book series.
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I recently put together a study of biomes and food chains for my boys using library books, internet resources, and DVDs. I listed it on my blog if anyone is interested in resources on that topic.
I'll be adding ones for botany and zoology soon too. We love science!
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I'm glad you replied to this thread anyway. :)
OT: May I ask what you're using for Mandarin? Thanks!!!
:) We are using My First Chinese Reader from Better Chinese.
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I do a little bit of that with the German that I know. I'll work it into the conversation here and there. I combine the German with English. For instance I may say "it is cold" in German 3 times, 1 time in English, and then in German again. They are able to catch on to what I am doing this way.
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Approximately:
30-60 minutes per day on language program
and and additional 30 minutes per day watching DVDs/videos in target language
For Mandarin it works out to:
45-60 minutes a week on main curriculum
45-60 minutes a week on tone practice
60 minutes a week watching Mandarin videos/DVDs
For Arabic it works out to:
30-60 minutes a week on reading and writing Arabic
30-45 minutes a week on Arabic CD-Rom vocabulary games
60-90 minutes a week watching a learning Arabic DVD cartoon program
For Greek it works out to:
30-45 minutes a week on Hey Andrew.
15-30 minutes a week on Koine Greek videos (sometimes)
ETA: Whoops, I didn't see that this was the high school board. My kids aren't close to high school age :tongue_smilie:
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I was looking at the "homeschooling before compulsory school age" post and noticed that many people said that they aren't really for preschooling - what are the reasons for that?
Because the cognitive benefits are greater if your child spends the preschool years developing extended pretend play sequences instead of structured academic learning.
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My son had eczema on his face pretty bad when he was an infant. I tried eliminating food, but didn't notice any change. I used the steroid cream as little as possible. What helped the most was taking my little guy out into the sunshine. Letting the sun shine on his face for at least 15 minutes a day helped keep it under control. It totally disappeared from his face later in infancy and took over his arms. Now at age 7 only occasional spots flare up. So try the sun, maybe it will help.
To this day he has no known allergies although he is a very picky eater :)
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I guess I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around why an adult would be offended at a child calling them sir or ma'am. :confused: I've always considered it a sign of respect.
I've lived in 12 different states and 3 countries so far in my life. I wouldn't be offended if a child called me that, but hearing ma'am comes across as somewhat patronizing to me. When I worked with children my preference was to be called by my first name. Most parents had no problem with that.
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My son told me that he liked school because he enjoyed learning. He said this with a big grin on his face. I had fun with him because he has been known to whine at times. I asked him to repeat it and then I asked his brother what he said. His brother told me "I'm not going to say that!" :lol:
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It took me years to realize that I naturally have *always* had a very high love of learning, which increased when we started homeschooling -- unfortunately, our DSs have a very LOW interest in anything to do with schooling -- Note that I did not say they have a low interest in LEARNING. What I have found is that *THEY* associate formal learning with school. They dislike school, therefore, (in their minds) they don't enjoy learning.
Needless to say, that made our first years of homeschooling disappointing and frustrating especially to me -- I thought it would all be so "delight driven" -- "Look ,children! Isn't it wonderful having grammar (or math facts... or spelling... or...) in our own home! Anything and everything can be educational!" :001_rolleyes:
Don't get me wrong -- I DO think it is important to use materials that will best connect with a student, especially if they have a learning issue or really strongly need to have their first exposure to a topic from a very specific learning style. (I have a strongly visual-spatial learner, and it took a LOT of work and research and trial-and-error to find math, spelling, and writing programs and techniques that work for him.)
And I also think it is important to have fun and not have everything so formal. In fact, that's where I often see our DSs enjoying learning, when it's in an unstructured, informal setting -- just fooling around with kits or math manipulatives, field trips, games, just-for-fun read alouds, shows like Bill Nye, Mythbusters, Nova, etc.
BUT... if I had continued to TRY to make school entertaining, I would have stopped homeschooling years ago, feeling I was a failure. I finally just had to accept that our DSs just don't like school. AND, it is not my job to try and make them enjoy it. Whether or not they feel entertained, or "enjoy" learning is their choice -- not my responsibility. My job is to provide them with the materials that will best enable them to learn; to provide individual help as needed; and to make sure as their parent that I equip them beyond academics for real life. And that's where I see the success or failure coming in -- not did THEY choose to learn anything or choose to love to learn -- but did *I* daily choose to do the best I could in those above areas.
Here is the episode that helped illuminate the situation for me: One day the 3 of us were playing a math-oriented game and laughing and having a great time. Suddenly, my younger DS looked up with an expression of extreme suspicion and said, "Is this SCHOOL?!!" and I laughed and said, "Why? Will you stop having fun if it is?" And he said very fiercely, "YES!" So I said, "We're having fun, so it must be a game!" And he relaxed and we all went back to having fun (and probably learning a little something in spite of ourselves!).
Ultimately, the best thing for all of us was when I stopped trying to make school entertaining and "just got on with it". And you know what? After a few months, they came to me every once in awhile and would say, "We really liked ________; could we do that again sometimes?" -- Affirmation that they DID enjoy learning -- they just didn't want to admit it. LOL!
Now, 11 years into homeschooling, I try to schedule what I think would work best with each student; I try to include some books and activities I think they would especially enjoy (and since they are in high school, I do solicit input, though I make the final decisions); and I try to make sure we just enjoy some things for fun and NOT write a report on it or make a diarama or check a box off on a schedule -- and smile to myself when I see them learning in spite of themselves. :tongue_smilie:
BEST of luck in finding what that balance looks like in your own home and in schooling! Warmest regards, Lori D.
Lori,
I appreciate your detailed response. Something you said struck a chord with me and I'm not totally "getting" it:tongue_smilie: I never considered that instilling an interest in a child was entertainment or entertaining a child. I'm sitting here thinking over this and I still don't get it. Perhaps you can help me out or maybe someone else can. If you instill an interest through entertainment wouldn't that interest go away when the entertainment did?
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Do you critique your own teaching methods by looking at how your children enjoy learning the topic at hand? Do you judge whether something is a success or failure based on how well your children show interest in learning?
Children naturally enjoy certain subjects over others. What about the ones they don't enjoy? Do you believe you should just learn the material and move on because a child can't be expected to like everything or do you attempt to instill an interest in the subject?
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Sounds like you are doing a great job. I have a science lover here too and I've found that making up my own "curriculum" fits us best. There are textbooks out there that have the desired amount of information, but they are too textbooky. We go in depth in one topic rather than covering many different topics in one year. This year we are doing biology and we spent the first half of the year studying the human body. Medical students spend years studying it so there is no shortage of information. I found using library books that give the detail my son craves to be the best fit. He also still enjoys lots of pictures so I choose books that are filled with pictures. We watch DVDs from the library and online that cover topics more in depth too. We also do lots of activities and experiments. Google is a great resource for activities or experiments. There is quite a bit out there with open courseware so your ds could watch or listen to lectures on topics of interest too. Maybe you could unschool science too and just provide him with resources to learn. I ended up doing that with my son's major science interest. But we still cover other science topics in school.
Here is our human body study. It took us about 60 hours to complete it. Maybe there are some resources on there that could help you.
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It doesn't have to be hard or "special." We always get irritated when we go to restaurants that insist on serving "weird" food, instead of just normal food that doesn't have meat.
:iagree::iagree::iagree:
Sometimes I order a meat dish and substitute a vegetable for the meat. I think some of those vegetarian dishes were invented by meat eaters with meat eaters guilt. At least that is what my meat eating husband calls it. They throw every vegetable in the world or add beans or tofu or some other protein to a dish that would be fine without it. People who eat meat often don't understand that we don't need to replace the meat with beans, tofu, or 50 different vegetables.
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I know what you mean about bumper cars. The tiles were distracting. I do like the program though. I did use it with the white board with greater success.
I am now using Rod and Staff's Spelling workbook which teaches by sound and sequence. It has been a good fit for my older son.
A question about unsaved people of the day
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
India is the scene of much persecution on Christians. It doesn't rank with some countries persecution-wise, but is it certainly not anywhere close to being free from persecution.
All people in India are not of the same culture and language. Some people/ethnic groups in India may have had lots of exposure to Christianity and others may know nothing about it.