Nscribe
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Posts posted by Nscribe
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The following is coming from a friend who recently put her child in and commented on what she wished she had done:
1. Teach him to write his full name on everything to be turned in.
2. Teach him to record assignments into a planner or on an app.
3. Teach him to cite basic things in MLA.
4. Work more on timed short answers
5. Explain about head lice...yeah it was an issue she had to worry about when the letters went home week 3
6. Teach internet responsibility and consequences (her child had way more freedom at school than she allowed at home)
if I remember others she mentioned I will post later
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...My job was to take the puzzle pieces they learned out of "school" and put them together into a cohesive picture of the world, and to prepare them to continue their education on their own after they graduated. My job also was to build good, strong adults, but that wasn't a homeschooling thing and and I didn't talk much about that with them. Day to day, homeschooling was a long series of negotiations as we tried to balance their job and my job, but overall, we knew where we were going.
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It worked, but it would have worked SO much better if I had had some idea of what was reasonable and if they had had some idea of how large a normal workload is.
Nan
Again, I love the first quote... I could do with less of the day to day negotiations :cursing: , but I realize someone will have to do them at some point or simply will not care, if I don't confront the challenge now.
Dd taking these classes has cut down a great deal of the "negotiation" and that justified the cost in terms of peace. She sees it isn't a mom is tough thing.
I do worry we don't have the time to practice things as much as might be best, but I struggle to see where to find more time.
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TY for sharing.
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I remember a professor saying: "You will not find the answers for my exam questions in the books assigned for this course or in the lectures, but you will find components of what will be needed to constitute the answer which will receive an A or a B grade and demonstrate you learned." The next class session 1/3 had dropped the course and others were on the fence.
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I see kids with real challenges and their parents facing really tough decisions about how to help them build a sustainable life. I admire them and how they strive in the face of the challenge. When I see parents of kids who are able walk away from the work of assuring they can be prepared I get angry. Sometimes they just don't want to be the enforcer of standards but are unwilling to let anyone else do it either. That just makes me cringe.
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....Mostly, you are learning the rules of perspective and some basic asthetic rules. Nothing about the process squashes creativity because there isn't really anything creative about what you are doing. Once you can draw, even poorly, you can use it for creative purposes. This applies to other subjects, too. In order to be creative when playing the piano, you need to be able to play what you hear in your head. This takes a fearsome amount of practice.
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Ok - I've written a book. I feel like it was all too much of a muddle to really answer your question. If I had more time, I might be able to distill it down to a nice short list of things like trying always to stick to assignments that began with a blank piece of paper. Hopefully you can pull out the bits you want and ignore the rest and I didn't wander too far from the topic.
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Nan
It is a good book and I enjoy reading it and thinking.
I love the word choice of fearsome in relation to practice.
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Nan...I could quote repeatedly from what you wrote. The bit about music and few being willing to listen to the results made me laugh, so true.
One thing I do not regret so far with Dd is clearly establishing between us what would be required for her to earn a diploma/graduate from our "school". She was given the opportunity to look at the options available at other schools (which might be feasible alternatives) and decide. It might seem cold and rigid, but with her boundaries and clear expectations often set us both free and avoid strife. We revisted it as we wound up last year, the requirements did not change but I wanted her to be clear on the expectations and own the choice.
Over the last couple of years Dd is taking, or has taken, a couple of courses online or on-site that have helped me frame expectations a bit. Watching her do Lukeion, APUSH online, and a couple of locally offered courses in the sciences and humanties has given me a frame of reference in terms of what is reasonable to expect from her and from a course of study. It has helped to guage how much can be done in a week, what challenging looks like at this level and what at least someone(s) else with experience deemed reasonable in terms of expectations. When asked now, I suggest it is worth it to us trying a couple of courses recognized for their expectations and get a feel for what to do in other content areas. It is expensive, but I think it may have saved us some experimentation costs and bought some peace of mind. It has been good for her and for me to see she can do it by some external standards beyond tests.
I love the way you describe your thinking and goals. I think this helps us all and especially those trying to get a handle on what to do and how. I am out in the world a great deal and wind up in a lot of conversations with parents and teens about highschool, college and education in general. There are so many extemes and nuance doesn't seem in practice. The changes in the system in the last couple of years seem to generate even more talk. It is refreshing to see/read/hear a thoughtful response/conversation.
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Nan, sorry your post poofed, look forward to the follow up. I am chewing on my own question tonight...
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Not gymnastics, but performing arts did play a part in our decision to homeschool and ultimately to continue homeschooling thru the highschool years. The schedules of the activities associated with these passions make it rather difficult to work with additional deadlines externally from school. Schedule and pacing control makes for user friendly living.
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The thread about the college professor's comment (http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/493869-the-high-stat-kids-cant-think-they-cant-apply-what-they-supposedly-know/) made me think about that process that goes something like:
from exposure>>> to recognition>>> to familiarity>>>to application>>> and then mastery/creative use/ability to manipulate with dexterity and ultimately to mastery.
This made me wonder about what high school studies should aim to do. Should mastery be the goal, always, in every arena? When the expectation is a buffet of content areas and skills sets...what practices yield the result or is it really possible?
Learning how to learn is a skill, but then sometimes learning how to cram and get past an obstacle may be a useful skill as well. I often hear some high schoolers talk about how it feels like a lot of cramming then on to the next thing. I can see why it might, given the nature of high school.
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It would be interesting to hear what others do to keep high school from being a drive-by or tour and move on experience.
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Top schools are selecting deep thinkers who don't have a broad array of activities. Trust me, I had one!! My son was quite the homebody with only Scouting and some church stuff and piano for school year ECs. He only outsourced 1 PA Homeschooler class, 3 AoPS classes, & 1 Write @ Home. You couldn't have budged him into doing more regardless of how hard you tried. He's a very modest and soft-spoken boy who preferred thinking during solitary runs on the local trails to joining sports teams. We respected his need for quiet reflection.
BUT... you have to demonstrate that deep thinking with some sort of results, kwim? Or with participation in those olympiads and summer camps you listed. My son lived for Mathcamp and USACO...OR it could be research with a local prof, science fair, etc....
You can't fill a whole class with this kind of kid, though. What I'm seeing at the top schools is that they're selecting some of these kids and also a broad array of others, too. There's a spot for the pointy theoretician AND a spot for the well rounded generalist who's got the long list of leadership & ECs.
Scouting, church stuff, piano, plus participation in math camps/science fairs/research, classes outside the home (via internet) for a homeschooler ... sounds like an array to me. I haven't gotten the impression that broad array means everything and the kitchen sink. My impression was that they wanted to see some initiative, something to a student's life beyond academics, something to indicate a personality and drive. Many times I have heard comments that lean negative toward too many activities that when added together leave open the question of whether the student could have really been involved in so many things. Actually of late, some of the really intense types we know have taken even that to an extreme and don't allow their kids to try anything that may detract from the pattern (swimmer girl says mom I want to try chess once a week with some friends, Mom discourages with cautions of depth/not breadth).
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I've been thinking about this, because the IB as I see it taught here - leading to the same exams - does leave space for innovative thinking. I have been wondering whether the cramming in the US is a product of previous learning in schools. In the UK, you start the IB at sixteen. At that point you will already have completed the rough equivalent of an SAT subject test, but with essay questions, in all the subjects that you will then study for the IB. You are not trying, for example, to go from zero to IB in physics in two years - you will already have studied physics for two years. I can't imagine doing the IB from scratch in two years, except in those subjects where it is specifically designed for that - ab initio in a foreign language, for example.
L
I suspect some of it is geographical. Although it varies a great deal from district to district in the US, our local district has IB themed middle schools, with feeder elementary schools to those which emphasis IB elements. Students can attend the IB high schools without having attended the middle school feeder, but a sizable chunk start early in the process. A big trend locally is for IB students to take AP classes in addition to their IB workload. The thing is these kids generally are not exposed to a great deal of diversity anywhere along the way and a great deal of the program's strengths are lost to it all being more theorectical than practical and real for them.
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My posted quoted the following:
When I said the losers were kids who didn't play the admissions game, I was referring to the kids who didn't have pages of extra-curricular activities/sports with lots of leadership roles or Varsity letters but are deep critical thinkers. When admissions folks place a higher emphasis on pages of outside involvement, etc, then that is what the "players" are going to "perform." I think that GGardner's pt is a direct hit.......I'm sure the ranter could careless about what extracurricular activities his students were involved in high school and is more interested in if they can think.
Admissions goals versus departmental goals...
The most selective schools should be able to fill the incoming class with the all of the above type who will demonstrate a record of outstanding academic performance and a full array of extracurricular accomplishments. Thus, this would be a bigger issue for those schools that may be at the next level of selectivity?
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Are older kids being dinged because their ideas are not quite so "creative"? Im just having a tough time understanding what they could possibly be looking for that so many little kids score off the charts, and older kids fail so miserably.
In a couple of words...nonconformity and absence of inhibition. As people age, they tend to gain affirmation from their compliance and achievement within systems. The 4 or 5 year old is less likely to show restraint than the 9 or 10 year old.
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You know, when it comes to the "teaching creativity" bit, I think a good bit of the problem is that most people don't really understand very much about creativity. Self-discipline is a huge piece of it. A lot of what one needs to know to be creative about something looks distinctly UNcreative while it is being taught. ...
Nan
Yup.
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I think two other things are at play as well. 1) Homeschooling is growing, the demand is higher. 2) Increasingly more content is available electronically and a demand for print continues.
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I wonder in a big way about the students who might be not the top 1%, but would be in the top 5 or 10%. Are they being challenged in high school and are they finding their way to college without really being called upon to meet challenges?
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Many of those listed we like, but I would have to add: "Yes, Virginia There is a Santa Clause" Beautifully illustrated version of the newspaper editorial response.
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But most high school courses are too easy for kids who score in that range. (Which of course makes sense: a school can not provide a course that is of appropriate level for the top 1% of its students - nobody else would pass.)
One of the biggest problems for the smart students is that they never learned how to work. They coasted through high school, easily got their 4.0 without much effort, never encountered material that was so difficult that they could not understand it upon first hearing - and then they go to university and take math and science.
I see a lot of these students. Bright, hard working - it is not that they are slackers who don't put in the time. They simply do not know HOW to do it. They spend hours upon hours, to no avail. Some show up in my office in tears. And I have a lot of sympathy for them, because that was *I*, during my first semester at university: I had graduated from my German specialized high school top of the class. I was on a verge of dropping out of the physics program because it did not make sense and I though I was too stupid, because that had never happened to me before. It took me an entire semester figuring out the "how", and from then on it was plain sailing.
It is not that the smart students can not manage the level of coursework. It is that they have never been taught what to do if things do not click immediately. The schools have been failing them, because they never provided an adequate challenge for the bright kids.
I see it all around me, but not just in the schools.
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In fall 2013, a record 21.8 million students are expected to attend American colleges and universities, constituting an increase of about 6.5 million since fall 2000.
Nearly 7.5 million students will attend public 2-year institutions, and 0.5 million will attend private 2-year colleges. Some 8.2 million students are expected to attend public 4-year institutions, and about 5.6 million will attend private 4-year institutions.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372
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Somewhere between the Ivies and the averages on the SAT/ACT are a whole lot of students going to colleges.
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The following taken from About.com:
The average overall SAT score (50th percentile) in the United States for 2012 was a 1498:
- Critical Thinking: 496
- Math: 514
- Writing: 488
National ACT score averages look like this for 2012
- Average Composite Score: 21.1
- Average English Score: 20.5
- Average Mathematics Score: 21.1
- Average Science Reasoning Score: 20.9
- Average Writing Score: 7.1
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I pulled these for the sake of discussion. The ACT score for the Ivies is 30-34, the SAT 2200+.
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Well earned for Mom and Son!
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Through the years I was alternately perceived as the snob whose educational choices were too rigid, or the creative unschooler who gave her kids too much freedom.
I have been thinking about this topic all morning. My dh was always a bit worried about homeschooling high school until this year. This year, he has made several new friends with senior or freshman in college. The common thread is "they had an A in AP calc, why are they flunking out of calc 1" or the more common lament, "they have straight A's in the IB program, why are their ACT scores so low?"
I feel for the kids and the parents. It is late in the game to realize that that your kids' GPAs are not a true indicator of what they know.
We are struggling with my dd2's education. We have to play the NCAA game, but between her sports and transcript needs, she doesn't have the down time to really learn and explore. I feel like I am two people, like JennW said, the crazy pushing parent and the crazy unschooler who is demanding that her teens have free time.
I don't know what the answer to any of this is, but the problem seems to be deeper than just our educational system.
I grew thick skin *fast* when we started homeschooling. I was accused of everything from "trying too hard" during our first year (I actually had people a bit put out that none of us burned out, and even said I was making them look bad!) to being an "overachiever" and a "slave driver" after a few years.
Just relating with the above...big time!
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I think this is a bit cynical and alarmist. Not every undergraduate program is expensive remedial high school. Several of us have kids who are doing very challenging coursework at small LACs in addition to doing hands on research with faculty. There are excellent professional schools, too, such as the one my oldest attended to study lighting and stage-craft. Even at the biggest state universities you can find challenging courses and engaged professors. Of course there are huge numbers of unprepared students who drop out, or who cruise through it all simply to experience all that college life can offer such as greek life and football. Not my kid's cuppa, but important to some. But there many undergraduate programs across the country where serious students can learn while they finish growing and maturing.
Several LACs have special engineering programs where you spend the first 3 years at the LAC getting a liberal arts education, then transfer to an engineering school for a 2 year's masters degree.
That is a fair response and taken to heart because I often find my faith renewed by reading the adventures of so many of those posting here.
*smh* they can't be serious??
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
I know a lot of people who work in the system who would agree with you and can cite example after example of the homeschool kids they encounter once it fails. The reasonable ones go on to note they ones who enter school without problems don't stand out and thus are not noticed and the ones making it work at home they don't see.
The issue for me, in part, is about ultimately paying the costs. The student who enters college unprepared and takes huge amounts of loan debt subsidized by the taxpayer costs us all a lot. I am weary of college for everyone, until everyone is ready for college, and that doesn't happen enough in any educational settings.