Do you mean a scanner? One that takes old 35mm slides and produces a digital file? There are services where you box up all your slides, and mail them off somewhere to be scanned, and they mail you back your slides and the files. This way, you don't need to fiddle with computer stuff, you just get what you want.

I'm about halfway through this new book by the founder of the Khan Academy, and it is a great read. Although he hasn't directly mentioned homeschooling, he started out afterschooling his nieces, and a lot of what he has to say is very applicable to homeschoolers. (Mastery teaching, teaching in small chunks, one-on-one attention, "flipped" classrooms, etc.). It certainly is an inspirational read, and for those of us who get overwhelmed from time to time, reading books like this is a good pick-me-up, and way to recharge our batteries. I really like how he has some educational theories behind what he is trying to do with the Khan Academy, but they are very pragmatic, and not couched in terms of educational jargon. These theories are all based on his personal experience and actually using and deploying them. All in all, I highly recommend this book!

So, where do the MTU kids come from? They can't all have been homeschooled. :001_smile: Is there some mythical PS somewhere that actually is challenging STEM kids? Unlike all the ones I seem to hear about which brag about being "above average" on some useless metric. Did they come from private school? Were most of the students Tiger-Mom'ed with afterschooled enrichment?

I'll let others judge whether this is a "pro" or a "con", but MTU's student population is 75% male.

:iagree: My favorite example of the above is one in which one of the boys goes off to scout camp with his troop. How do they get to scout camp? About a dozen boys are shown standing in the bed of a pick up truck that doesn't even have a tailgate, just a chain across the back. This truck then heads off down the road going to some camp, who knows how far away. How many years in jail would the driver get these days for that?

I think there's a big difference between high school and elementary school in this regard. Back in the dark ages, I went to what was though of as a pretty good public high school, with (what I would guess) had an average library. (Not nearly as swanky as the library in the Breakfast Club movie, but that's another thread). I went to the library every day for "study hall", but I almost never checked out books there for research material. Why? Because even a average sized high school library rarely had any (or more than one) book on any particular topic. I always went to the public library for anything more than a encyclopedia lookup. Even my smaller town, the public library had (10x ? 100x?) more books than the high school. And I certainly never went to the school get a book there for pleasure reading, that was also the domain of the public library. Now elementary school is another story, there's less "research" there, the books are less for reading to learn, and more about learning the pleasure of reading. Also elementary school library is good for teaching about library skills. So, even though I love books as much as anyone, losing most of the books in a high school library wouldn't bother me much. It always struck me as a waste of money, if all the books were duplicated at the public library. If my high school library had, I don't know, 5,000 books, and they each cost $20, that $100k right there. I think I'd rather see that money shared with the public libraries, and more people would have access to those books.

He has found God. Problem is, he was looking in the mirror...

Is there a smartphone/ipad app that comes close to the TI?

I don't know this is true, I think maybe homeschoolers just have more ability to act on their concerns than other parents. I've talked to many public school parents who fondly reminisce about their Latin schooling and wish their kids could get the same. I think the real question is when to being Latin instruction. Though I'm firmly in the pro-Latin camp, I'm skeptical of the value of teaching it in the elementary years.

Well, at least it wasn't a tattoo. This seems to me like machine-translated gibberish: Qui (He who) would (english) vulnero (I wound) servo (either "I serve as a slave to", or "by means of a slave") facio ("I make or do") nos (us) validus (strong, but in the nominative, meaning it modifies the I of the sentence who is wounding, slaving or making)

I feel like "STEM" is an overly broad categorization. There's a huge difference in the job market for, say, someone with a PhD in Astronomy, whose only related career path is to teach at the University level, and whose job prospects depend 100% on federal research funding; and someone with, say, a petroleum engineering degree, where there is lots of private sector interest.

The exact same test? With the same questions? Please forgive my lack of trust in humanity, but I'm surprised that cheating isn't totally rampant.

There are so many ratings and awards that schools can win, that it is a sad school that can't point to at least one accolade. Feels like "Lake Wobegon", where every school is above average.

We're a few years out, but I'm kind of surprised at the above -- is the same PSAT administered on different days in different locations?

A) Best title ever. B) Our rule is that the privilege to stay up late reading can only happen once a week, when nothing is going on the following morning, and can be revoked based on behavior. The morning after these nights the reader is allowed to sleep in.

How expensive is it? Jenney's has been in publication since before Caesar invaded Gaul, so maybe there are used copies around you could pick up for cheap? Otherwise, Wheelock is a perfectly fine grammar-based approach to Latin, similar to Jenney, again, you should be able to get used copies cheap, and there is an answer manual floating around the internet, you should be able to find for free.

Some teens just need a lot more sleep than others. Is there a middle ground you can experiment with? Maybe let him sleep in a couple of extra hours three days a week, and wake up early on others? How late does he sleep on weekends?

I totally agree with the above. I would also point out that the foreign language AP classes are roughly equivalent to 4th semester college classes, which always struck me as a bit unfair, compared to all (?) the other AP classes, which roughly correspond to first semester college classes.

I think it is really, really hard to make accurate generalizations. Some 100 level college classes are taught by full professors who are passionate about their subject, world-renowned researchers and wonderful teachers. Other 100 level classes, perhaps at the same institution, might be taught by a TA who barely speaks English, and just finished her Bachelor's degree a few months earlier.

I wonder if there are some minor test-taking mechanics you could help her with that would improve matters. Did she have anything to eat during the test breaks? Sometimes a little blood-sugar boosting can do wonders for these long tests.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the bolded! Pet Peeve 14,589: Having a perfectly normal conversation with someone and their cell phone goes off, blaring some distorted sound loud enough that it can be heard by everyone in the tri-county area, completely derailing your train of thought. Even if your friend silences it, it still is a horrible intrusion. THEN, you just get back into it again, and 20 seconds goes by, and a different horrible noise comes out of the accursed thing to let you know that the silenced caller left them voice mail. I intentionally have my landline phones at home set to the lowest possible ringer volume, so they sound more like "excuse me please", and not PAY ATTENTION TO ME NOW!

Maybe once every couple of years, we read about a house in our area blowing up because of a gas leak. Let's say you call this in, and it isn't a serious problem. Worst case: you might feel silly for an hour or so. OR, let's say it was a serious problem, and you didn't call it in, and a house blew up, and killed a family. I bet you'd feel shame the rest of your life. I know what the right choice is: it's the one you made.

I've never understood this idea that there are some faith groups with so many extra resources lying around idle that they could make even a small dent in these huge problems. My church is having problems getting our leaky roof fixed!

If not by the schools, then by whom?

I'm curious what the expectation was for the co-op class? Was the expectation that it would cover a full year of high school language? How often did it meet? How much out of class work was there? Keep in mind that at least your student was an 8th grader -- how old were the other students? I think a reasonable expectation of work for a first year language class is the equivalent of (roughly) an hour a day of direct instruction every day of the week, and roughly the same amount of study outside of class. I know around here it seems like toddlers are taking AP classes, but perhaps resetting expectations is appropriate. There is nothing wrong with an introduction to Latin (or any other language, for that matter) for 8th graders, that covers maybe half or less of a full year of high school language, just as long as the teachers are honest about the material they cover. Finally, I note with irony how many of us who decry "teaching to the test", and the rise of the standardized testing industry, need to rely on a standardized test like the NLE to verify progress. I don't have a good solution for this conundrum, but I think it shows how complicated things get in real life.