I'm not sure I understand the way you're using the term "versatile." My DH is an extreme VSL, about as far along that scale as you can get, but he can still read complex texts and write scientific papers. He does need a LOT of help organizing his thoughts, because to him everything is connected to everything else so he tends to keep "circling" around a topic rather than writing in a "straight line," but his visual strengths don't mean he's verbally-disabled. Obviously he is much better at some things, like math, science, music and art, than he is at things like writing and foreign language, but I don't think there's anything he'd be incapable of learning, if he was allowed to learn it in his own way. As DebbS noted, I think you're looking at these issues from the perspective of a linear thinker so, to you, geometry is visual and algebra isn't — but to DH, algebra and calculus are just as visual as geometry. He is also a gifted musician and for him music is very visual and spatial. He is not a good sight reader, but he can play anything by ear because he can picture the music in a 3-dimensional way and play what he "sees." When we go to the symphony, I hear a sort of continuous "river" of sound flowing into my brain through my ears, whereas DH actually perceives the music as a sort of constellation of sounds located in three-dimensional space, and he can listen to each of those sound points separately. On the one hand, that gives him a far deeper and more detailed experience, and allows him to appreciate the music in a way that is totally lost on me, but the downside is that he hears every single tiny individual mistake and he can pinpoint exactly who made it. I think foreign languages are probably the toughest subject for VSLs, especially when grammar and vocabulary are taught in a less contextual way that depends a lot on drill and memorization. DH was forced to spend years studying Latin, French, and German, presented in a very dry grammar-based way; he was always terrible at it and doesn't remember a thing. Would he have been successful in learning a language if he'd been intrinsically motivated and had been allowed to learn by immersion or some other method that worked for him? I would think so. My DS has chosen to study Attic Greek; he's extremely motivated, he's using a text that focuses on reading and translating from day one and introduces grammar concepts in a more context-based way (Athenaze), he'll be taking classes from someone who goes out of his way to teach in a really engaging, visual, interactive way (Regan Barr), and he uses visual mnemonics to help him with vocabulary. I'm sure it will be difficult for him, in a way that science isn't, but I also think he can be successful at it. In terms of both content and skills, I don't think there's really anything that DS or DH couldn't learn, if they wanted to and were able to approach it in their own way. If the question is "are they 'versatile' enough to be forced to learn something through methods that are completely counter-intuitive to them," then I don't understand the point of that? Jackie

Unfortunately, the "standard" way of doing things in any public school I've been involved with, as a student or parent, is precisely to have students drill math facts until they get them, and they are presented with algorithms and told to apply them whether they "get" why it works or not. This is why I despised math in school, even though I was quite gifted at it and could figure out the "how" and the "why" on my own. My son's PS teacher was just like the American teachers described by Liping Ma, who had no conceptual understanding of math whatsoever. She also refused to allow DS to start division until he had perfectly memorized his times tables, which is absurd. VSLs simply do not do well with memorizing discrete sets of facts out of context, and in fact there are many people who are quite gifted in higher mathematics who never learned the times tables. After I pulled DS out of school, I let him use a chart, and he learned his math facts just fine by using them in context. Similarly, once he understands a math concept on an abstract level, he doesn't need lots of drill and repetition to "cement" the concept; as soon as he can visualize it, he gets it. The first time I showed him how to solve a word problem algebraically, he was quite annoyed that he wasn't taught that way from the beginning because it made so much more sense to him. VSLs are often much better at math than arithmetic, but they spend so much time 'remediating" arithmetic and/or slogging through endless problems and review, that they end up hating math. Well, by that definition pretty much everything is "linear" in the sense that one day follows the next so we do one thing after another. In the example I gave, there were several "detours" into topics and materials that are not in the text, and the list of biology topics that DS has actually studied (posted a page or two later) is neither text-based nor linear. Similarly, the way he approaches history (currently, anyway) is that he uses Greece as his "base" and then travels around both chronologically (backwards as well as forwards in time) and geographically. He's also jumped out of the frame, so to speak, to look things up about the Ottoman Empire, the development of medieval weapons, the influence of Roman military strategy on medieval warfare, and lots of other little topics. I don't insist that he do things in a certain order or according to a certain schedule. Looking back, in hindsight, at what he's studied, it may be possible to draw a very meandering, loopy "line" connecting one topic to another, but I think calling that "linear" makes the term no longer useful in the way that Karen and I and others are using it. Well, I was an advanced kid who would have been "able" to dumb things down for the sake of fitting in, but I was never willing to do it, and it's not something I would ask or expect of my kids. I don't want my son sitting in a classroom, bored out of his mind and just going through the motions, when he's capable of learning so much more, at a much higher level, by doing it his way. I truly don't even see the point of that. Because of my own educational experiences (and DH's, too), I start from the assumption that there is really nothing in the "standard" model of education that is inherently "right" or "better" or "necessary." DH and I would both have been far better served in high school by being given the chance to self-educate, and in fact we both ended up being very successful in fields where we were exclusively self-educated. Jackie

Yes, this is exactly what DH says! He says that linear people who learn and understand things step by step, piece by piece, can assemble those pieces into a whole by force of will if they have to, even if they hate the subject, find it boring and meaningless, etc. But he says that there is no way he can force, by sheer willpower and determination, a cloud of ideas and concepts and connections to form themselves into the whole. It's not a logical process and there's really no way to speed it up. The "bonus," however, is that often when that cloud finally does come together, it's pulled in all kinds of other ideas and concepts that were not part of the original package, which often leads to very original solutions that a more linear thinker might not have come up with. Jackie

I asked DH this question, because I know that for him the answer to a complex problem is often just a sudden "aha" or what he describes as "emergence" — all of the components are sort of floating around and then just kind of congeal into the solution. Sometimes he can then work backwards to fill in the steps, but that takes a long time and perhaps the student wouldn't have time to do that on a test? He said that if the student is consistently getting the answers right, then he would assume that they do understand the process. Also, he asked if the solution would be something the student could draw? He said that when he was in boarding school (UK), he had a biology teacher who would let him draw the answers on exams, and he was always at the top of the class; a few times the teacher even reproduced his diagrams and passed them out to the other students. OTOH, his physics and chemistry teachers wanted everything in writing, didn't care if he got the right answer if he couldn't show how he got there, etc., and he had lousy grades in those classes even though he loves physics. I understand 8's point that some kids just need to learn to deal with the structures and requirements that exist in the real world, but I think there are also some kids who end up being excluded from something they would actually have been very very good at. DH was IQ tested as a child, because his teacher was convinced he was "retarded" — in fact his IQ is 164, and the psychologist said it was probably higher since he had "ceilinged out" on some of the spatial tests. As I mentioned in the other thread, he told me that he thinks in multiple dimensions and in very abstract images, and he "gets" quantum physics in a way I never could, no matter how hard I might try. He reads it for fun, he does thought experiments, he has said that if he could do it over he would love to have been a physicist. He was one of those kids who was always taking things apart and building rockets and messing around with circuits and electronics from the age of 5. School did nothing for him except make him miserable and prevent him from doing all the cool and interesting things he wanted to do. Once he got out of college, he earned two quite prestigious fellowships in the US, which allowed him to do his own research. The guy who nearly flunked chemistry in HS had his original research, conducted at the Smithsonian, published by the American Chemical Society. He was invited to do a PhD at Cambridge after someone saw him present some of his other research at the British Museum. In the process of doing a PhD at Cambridge, he decided he needed to write his own software in order to accomplish what he wanted to do, so he taught himself advanced calculus and several programming languages, wrote a very complex piece of software that does things no one has ever been able to do before, and showed it to his supervisor, who told him to get himself a patent lawyer ASAP. He now has patents granted or pending in 7 countries, he's presented his work at professional conferences where execs from places like Sony and Disney and Hitachi were literally throwing business cards at him from across the table, he's designing and building customized stereo/3D camera systems, he's working on new projects with medical applications — and he still daydreams about becoming a physicist when he "retires" from computer science. Would it be "fair" to let a student like him draw his answers or just provide the solution, if he doesn't arrive at the solution in a step-by-step way? Is it "fair" that educational institutions are designed almost entirely by and for one particular type of thinker? Would it make sense to flunk a profoundly gifted student with a passion for physics because he doesn't think the "normal" way? Those are (IMHO) very complicated questions. Jackie

I just ordered this book — thanks for the recommendation! I couldn't agree more with the idea of developing analytical thinking by putting your kid in complex situations and making them figure their way out. We very quickly dropped the logic/critical thinking workbooks (which DS hated) and replaced them with chess, which he loves. It accomplishes the same purpose, IMO, but it's more visual, it's three-dimensional, and it's much more interactive and engaging. And the joy on his face whenever he manages to beat DH is something you just can't get from a workbook. :) Jackie

That's a very interesting question. I would guess (and this is purely a guess) that for a VSL a really good documentary would be the equivalent of a really concise, well-organized, well-written book for a linear-sequential thinker; i.e., it would be presenting the information in a way that was "preformatted" for the way they absorb information. Actually, now that I think about it, many documentaries do sort of start "in the middle" of the story, by presenting the key concept or event, and then they jump forward and backward in time, even leading the viewer down dead end rabbit trails (NOVA documentaries often do this, replicating the way a scientific puzzle was solved, dead ends and all). So I think there's more to it than just the fact that documentaries use pictures instead of words — I would assume that documentaries are likely to be produced by people who are themselves VSLs, so not only is the information presented visually, it's presented in a structure that makes sense to them as well. In contrast, textbooks tend to present information in a more linear, sequential way, like an expanded outline. I think many documentaries would be very difficult to outline! They lend themselves more to the "mapping" strategies used by VSLs, which often have a hub (main concept) at the center, with branches to other "satellite" concepts. It's still, I think, a more passive form of learning than interactive/hands-on/discovery-based learning would be, because the "answers" are still being provided rather than the student discovering them for themselves. But perhaps by providing the information visually, it gives VSLs a much larger field of concepts to play with later, whereas if the same information had been presented in text form they would probably only have been able to visualize a small percentage of the info — and only what was relevant to them at the time. With documentaries, they can often absorb and retain the whole thing, for later playback, even if they don't quite "get" all of the information when they first see it. Does that make sense? I know there have been times when DS has suddenly made a connection and said something like "oh yeah, I remember that documentary about annelids when they said that... blah blah blah" and it's something that didn't really even register at the time but that now makes sense to him. There's no way he could do that with information from a textbook, because there would not be any "storage mechanism" for information that wasn't immediately relevant when he read it. Jackie

Actually, DS really became a "history person" once I turned him loose. I decided to be really hands-off with history; I get him whatever TC courses he asks for, I watch/discuss them with him whenever I get a chance, and provide him with books on whatever topics he wants to research. He was really into Egypt for a while, but for the last year and a half or so he's been devouring every resource on Greek history he can get his hands on. He's also made numerous forays into related areas, using Greece as his conceptual "base." E.g., after watching the TC course on the Greek & Persian wars he decided to do more research about the Persian (Achaemenid) Empire, then followed that trail through the Seleucids, Parthians (with a brief detour to the Tocharians), and Sassanids, before returning to Greece with a course on Alexander (followed by another, even more in-depth, course on Alexander). He also went back and researched Mesopotamian city states once he understood Greek city states, because then he had something meaningful to connect the information to (whereas the first time we went through Mesopotamia he had zero interest and remembered nothing). One really interesting opportunity he's provided for me, in terms of helping him synthesize more abstract concepts, is that he's invented this fictional civilization ("Entegonia"), including writing their "history," mapping their landscape, and designing/drawing many cultural attributes like clothing, weapons, houses, religious shrines, etc.; he's also evolving them over time. This is a huge bonus for me, because he's providing two of the key components for VSLs: a wholistic "big picture" canvas and an arena for discovery-based learning. So, for example, when he showed me his original map of the Entegonian world, I noticed that he had a lot of geographic features arranged in ways that would not occur in nature, so I started asking questions: "Interesting that the river is running parallel to both the mountains and the ocean — where does it start and where does it drain? Can you do a bit of research on rivers and watersheds?" (He redrew the river, and added a marshy delta where it drained into the sea.) "I see that the forest ends abruptly at the edge of this steppe environment. I wonder what would cause that?" (After a bit of research, he added a transitional zone and changed the steppe to a plain when he realized that the descent from the elevation of the steppe to sea level would be far too steep.) When he said that he was planning for the Entegonians to move from the forest near the sea to the steppe/plain area, I asked him to name all the resources he could think of that would be available to people with easy access to a river, forest, and ocean. He decided that there were multiple sources of high-quality, easily accessible protein (fish/shelfish, game, fowl), honey, fruit, nuts, probably starches like tubers and acorns; unlimited supplies of salt and fresh water; wood for building and fuel, etc. "So what would cause these people to migrate from a land rich in natural and food resources to a much sparser area like a plain or steppe?" He thought of natural disaster (forest fire, tsunami), competition from neighboring groups, conquest and forced migration. He planned to have them transition from a forest-based people loosely organized into a confederation of tribes into a more hierarchical society practicing agriculture, so I asked what would drive that transition: what would be the advantages for them, in that environment, of a more stratified organization? I suggested that he research the sort of environments in which all of the earliest civilizations developed, and think about why they developed in those particular places. OTOH, there were some aspects of Entegonian civilization that he absolutely nailed, such as having the main deity of these forest people be a god of both hunting and the moon, symbolized by a wolf. He drew beautiful jewelry, including a pendant showing the hunting/moon god, made of silver, wrestling with a boar, made of gold to symbolize the sun; he said it was made to commemorate an eclipse. He also said that as they transitioned to being more settled and agricultural the sun god would become more prominent, and there would be a struggle between the elders who wanted to continue venerating the moon good and the emergent priest class who wanted to focus on the sun god. I thought that was really perceptive. Anyway, I hope that gives you a few ideas of how you can use some of the creative "projects" these kids come up with for some stealth learning, by asking lots of questions and letting them figure it out, rather than directly "interfering" or trying to co-opt their projects. (BTW, if you want to sneak a bit of science into her dragon project, there's a very cool website called Dragon Genetics that you might casually mention to her... ;) ) Jackie

Well, DS tried to learn biology that way the year I decided to impose textbook learning on him, but every time he wanted to jump off and explore some connected thread, I said something along the lines of "no, we won't get to that until chapter 18" or whatever. I just assumed that he needed to go through the textbook in the "correct" order, but what I actually did was prevent him from really learning or retaining anything — and I managed to make him hate what had previously been his favorite subject. :banghead: So we started over, sans textbook. Here are some of the things he's studied in the last couple of years: * He's interested in paleontology, so he's read extensively about the emergence and evolution of single-celled organisms, and the new research on the origin of amino acids. He can draw and label the parts of plant and animal cells and describe the function of most organelles. * Extensive study of protists and algae; he regularly collects new organisms, studies them under the microscope, identifies, and draws them. * Spent several months studying the different ant species on our property, including conducting lots of experiments and reading about the concepts of "emergent phenomena" and complexity. * Spent several months studying mantids and grasshoppers, including observing a mantid stalking, capturing, and consuming prey daily, as well as mating and laying eggs. He noticed that the mantid learned, from experience, to pull the back legs off large grasshoppers before eating them, so she wouldn't get kicked while eating, and that she always discarded one small part of the grasshopper, which turned out to be the contents of one part of the intestine — even though she would carefully eat the membrane around it, like eating corn on the cob! Watching her eat grasshoppers led him to research grasshopper anatomy & physiology and he did lots of drawings. * Collected and maintained a colony of about 40 planarians and conducted numerous experiments (e.g. food preferences, preference for light or dark, fresh or "stale" water, etc.). Researched and drew diagrams of their neurology and digestive systems (he was fascinated by their primitive "eye spots" and the fact that they eat by everting their "stomachs" from the middle of their bodies since they lack mouths). * Spent about a month studying birds after he read a book about a biologist who kept a pet barn owl for 20+ years. Watched an online "owl cam," dissected pellets, watched Life of Birds, did numerous bird-watching trips, read Proctor & Lynch's Manual of Ornithology, and did lots of drawings. * He's spent at least 200 hours on paleontological digs in the last 3 years, plus reads books, scientific articles, and assorted paleo blogs. He's read parts of Origin of Species, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, The Beak of the Finch, and Your Inner Fish. * We spent a couple of weeks studying the human eye and visual system, including dissection, which he did not enjoy, lol. He's fascinated by trilobyte visual systems, though; not only were their eyes made of minerals, some species were capable of binocular color vision. He recently had a very interesting conversation with a trilobyte specialist, who did a double take when DS started asking him very detailed questions, lol. * He's really into marine invertebrates like nudibranchs, jellies, anemones, and... all those other things he could easily rattle off a list of, but which I have no idea about. (I once mistakenly confused sea squirts with sea cucumbers and got an indignant lecture about pentaradial symmetry vs something else and... I forget the rest). I don't know where he gets all his info from, he just reads a lot, watches documentaries, and absorbs things out of the air apparently. * He hasn't done much with genetics yet, beyond a bit of research into fruit fly genetics, watching several documentaries, messing around with a large DNA model we have, and reading parts of The Cartoon Guide to Genetics and a "graphic novel" called The Stuff of Life. I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I expect that by the time he hits 9th grade, he'll have covered most of what's in an intro level bio text, so the text will just fill in the gaps rather than being the primary mode of learning. I'll write more in a separate post. Jackie

Linda Silverman, a psychologist who specializes in helping gifted VSL kids, wrote an article called Two Ways of Knowing that summarizes a number of the psychological and neurological studies on VSLs. Some of the information is dated (it was written about 15 years ago), but it's a good starting point. Below are some of her suggestions for teaching VSLs (note the emphasize on discovery-based learning): * Use inductive (discovery) techniques as often as possible. This capitalizes on the visual-spatial learner's pattern-finding strength. * Teach the student to translate what he or she hears into images, and record those images using webbing, mind-mapping techniques, or pictorial notes. * Incorporate spatial exercises, visual imagery, reading material that is rich in fantasy, and visualization activities into the curriculum. Spatial conceptualization has the ability to go beyond linear thinking because it deals more readily with immense complexities and the interrelations of systems. * Avoid drill, repetition, and rote memorization; use more abstract conceptual approaches and fewer, more difficult problems. * Visualization and imagination are the visual-spatial learner's most powerful tools and should be used frequently. * Allow the student to construct, draw, or otherwise create visual representations of a concept as a substitute for some written assignments. * If a bright student struggles with easy, sequential tasks, see if he can handle more advanced, complex work. Acceleration is often more beneficial for such a student than remediation. Jackie

Well then this will totally blow your mind... I was just talking to DH about how hard it is for me to imagine thinking in 3D moving images, and he said that actually he thinks in more than three dimensions and the images are often extremely abstract. :blink: He says that since he tends to be working on multiple problems over long periods of time (he's a computer scientist specializing in stereo/3D imaging and does a lot of research on the neurology of vision as well), he can "nest" multiple, multi-dimensional "conceptual maps" inside each other and "pop" into and out of them as needed, including working on different levels or dimensions simultaneously. Each level contains connections to all other levels, so it's not just a conceptual version of those little nesting dolls. Of course he said it's not really possible to explain it in words, so he tried to explain it by analogy to some concept in quantum physics, while drawing diagrams all over the chalkboard in the kitchen, all of which was completely over my head. I learn something new every day... :001_huh: Jackie

DH recently told me that the reason he types so slowly is because he often starts with the stressed syllable, even when that's not the beginning of the word. E.g., if he were typing the word "engaged" he would likely type "ga" first, then have to backspace to fill in the "en," then forward-space to add the "ged." I thought that was fascinating because it highlights both the nonlinear way he thinks and also the fact that VSLs tend to categorize things based on meaning or importance, so he basically files and retrieves words by the accented syllable rather than by the first letter. Similarly, when he tells a story he often starts somewhere in the middle, with whatever aspect of the story is the most significant to him, and then fills in the details in what seems to me to be a sort of random jumble, but which makes perfect sense to him. In order for me to process it, though, I have to go back and put it in some kind of logical or sequential order, so I'm always asking questions like "Wait — which guy? Was he already there or did he arrive later?" When I tell DH a story, he tends to latch on to one aspect or event and then try to connect everything else to that, so he'll ask for information I've already given — because it went in one ear and out the other since he didn't have the "big picture" yet. When I first met him, before I understood that that's truly how he processes information, I used to get really annoyed by constantly having to repeat myself, thinking he was just not bothering to pay attention. Which, sadly, is exactly how his teachers always treated him. Jackie

Below are some explanations of the differences between "visual-spatial" and "linear-sequential" thinking, from visualspatial.org, which might answer some of your questions. Of course, this is a continuum rather than a dichotomy, and the kids who tend to struggle the most with the standard linear-sequential modes of teaching are the kids on the far visual-spatial end of the continuum. My DH and DS are both extreme VSLs, and I have to say that learning how to teach DS has been like learning a foreign language, because I'm very much a linear-sequential thinker. I've tried to add more concrete details in my comments. I think one of the biggest misconceptions about VSLs is that they just use pictures instead of words, and learn the "whole" before the "parts," but that the structure of their thinking is the same. IOW, people assume that they still think in a linear, step-by-step way, just using pictures and starting at the other end of the conceptual "ladder," beginning with the "whole" and then going down, one step at a time, to the "parts." In fact, they think in a completely different way. For one thing, they don't think in static 2D "pictures," they think in fluid, moving, spatialized 3D images. Furthermore, information isn't filed in neat, content-specific file folders for easy retrieval, it just sort of floats around in their heads looking for a connector site. If they're forced to learn a bunch of discrete facts that don't relate to anything else they've already learned (or where they can't readily see the relevance), it just floats away without ever finding a connector site. The stuff that does stick, though, gets incorporated into more and more complex webs of information. The more "strings" there are connecting a bit of information to other bits, the easier the information is to retrieve. This is why they tend to "jump around" in their learning process — they find a connection for one piece of information, which leads them down the "string" to another piece and they wonder how this connects to the new information, so they follow that trail, constantly building the web and adding new connections. This is why we (parents of VSLs) try so hard to find ways to engage these kids. It's not about coddling or indulging or making learning "fun" — it's about making learning possible. I think everyone learns better when the material is interesting and engaging, but linear-sequential learners are able to stand "outside" the material and process it even when it's boring. In many cases, this is possible because the information, although boring, is already preformatted for them in a linear-sequential way. VSLs learn by entering into the information; they get inside it and mess around with it and find the big picture (often an all-at-once "aha!") and then absorb the details. When the material seems completely irrelevant to them, and it's presented in a way that's completely counter to the way they think and learn, there's just no "entry point" for them. Textbooks preorganize information in a linear, sequential way that is perfect for linear, sequential thinkers. Spatial thinkers don't learn that way, though — they jump all over the place, often making lots of lateral connections rather than moving step by step through the material. For example, a VSL kid learning biology may start at the beginning of the text, learning about cell structure, but then want to jump to learning about single-celled organisms (including several weeks studying protists in pond water), then researching the evolution of life on earth and recent research in recreating the process, and then maybe a brief foray into the search for life on Mars, back to evolution and natural selection, then DNA & genetics (with lots of hands-on labs), then studying the human body (with a side trip into the evolution of viruses), then reading Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish, then... etc. It may look completely random and disorganized to a linear/sequential person, but that is how they learn and organize information, and if they are allowed to learn that way, then their retention is amazing, and they will often jump ahead and make further connections on their own. This is why forcing these kids to just "suck it up and get it done," when they are frustrated and miserable, only exacerbates the problem. They aren't just "crying to get out of the work" — in fact, much of their unhappiness comes from the fact that they want to do it, but it's just not working. Like Karen's DD, my DS is a very compliant, eager-to-please kid. It isn't a character issue, it's a neurotranmitter issue; they simply can't process information when they're in this state, no matter how hard they try, or how much they want to please. Jackie

If this is for the DS who's an "aspiring cartoonist," he might like Virtual World Design and Creation for Teens. It teaches Alice, which is a free Java-based program developed by Carnegie Mellon. The tutorials use the current version (2.2), but after he learns the ropes he can upgrade to the beta version of 3.0, which allows programming directly in Java, includes lots of characters and environments from the Sims, and allows export of the finished products to youtube. My 7th grade DS has just started working through this book and DH (software developer) has been quite impressed with the book and with Alice as an intro programming option. Jackie

The special needs board tends to focus on diagnostic/therapeutic issues, and most of the discussion on the accelerated board is about much younger kids. Also, the article Karen posted is just as applicable to "normal" kids as it is to gifted kids and those with LDs. The students who took part in the study quoted in the article are, one assumes, mostly "normal" college students. And there are certainly members of this board with "normal" kids who choose to pursue more student-led approaches, as Teachin'Mine indicated:

The study quoted in the Scientific American article utilized two groups of comparable size — in fact the "control" group taught by the experienced professor was slightly smaller (171 students) than the inquiry-based class led by a post doc (211 students). The two groups covered the exact same topics during the same period of time and the test was designed jointly by the professor and the post-doc. The average test scores were 41% for the professor-taught group and 74% for the inquiry-led group — that is a HUGE difference. Also, I recently posted about a charter public school (with apparently normal class sizes and a normal level of staff) that had implemented project-based learning, and their test scores were among the highest in the district despite the fact that they covered the state standards in an unconventional way and did not "teach to the test." Even cash-strapped state universities with huge intro classes could implement a similar system, since they already employ grad student TAs to teach part of the classes. For homeschoolers, of course, class size is a non-issue. I also thought the fact that the inquiry-led students with the inexperienced teacher learned more than those with an experienced professor was quite encouraging for homeschoolers. It also demonstrates that it's not only possible to cover "standard" college-prep material in an inquiry-based way, but it can actually be more productive. Jackie

The number of hours students spend in class has not increased, and yet the students are learning more and testing better due to the change in methodology. Jackie

Perfect — I may be doing it the same year. Since you're doing Greek lit and American at the same time, you could probably arrange for some interesting pairings, e.g. Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra is based on Aeschylus's Oresteia. Jackie

I think it's a great idea. Also, depending on which books you want to cover for American (and whether you need it to be a whole credit, half credit, or just part of "English 9"), one option you might consider would be "American Literature Through Film." While DS will happily devour Homer and Herodotus, I know he'd consider slogging through books like The Scarlett Letter and Grapes of Wrath as nothing short of torture (I did — and literature was my favorite subject!). I think approaching American literature through film will provide a cultural-literacy-level familiarity with the works, and allow plenty of analysis, without torturing him unnecessarily. We'll be spending plenty of time on other, more appealing (to us) literature. Anyway, if you're interested in the Lit-Thru-Film idea, I'm planning to put together a list of films and associated resources at some point. I forget what grade your DS is in — is this for the coming year or the one after? Jackie

Yes, if she used more than 10 images, it's a clear copyright violation no matter what she's using them for, and I would argue that even if she had used fewer than 10 in a coloring book, that would also violate the prohibition against reproduction by another graphic service. Amazon doesn't show the copyright page for that particular book, but I looked at several other Dover books that said "copyright free" on the cover, and they all contained the same restrictions: the number of illustrations that may be used "free and without special permission" for "graphic and craft applications" is limited to a specific number (6-10), and reproduction by other graphics services (as quoted by Simka above) is strictly prohibited. IMO, the curriculum publisher seems to have violated both restrictions: she's used more than 10 illustrations and she's reproduced them in their entirety as a graphic resource rather than using them as occasional illustrations. Jackie

The copyright page in the coloring book Simka linked says: Maybe the author did get permission to reproduce them, but I didn't see any credit or acknowledgment of the permissions in the unit study — only the claim that the "clip art is public domain" (which is not true). Comparing the unit study to the coloring book I can see that she used more than six pages (looks like she pretty much copied the entire coloring book); if she didn't get permission from Dover, then that is certainly copyright violation. That coloring book is not even out of print — it's still being sold new by Amazon. Simka, if I were you I'd contact the author and ask if she got permission from Dover. If she tries to claim that she didn't need permission, then I'd ask for your money back and maybe forward your copy to the permissions person at Dover. I've found that a lot of people who put together units like this don't understand copyright very well, and they especially don't understand the difference between copyright violation and plagiarism. I bought a set of unit studies and discovered that many units used large blocks of text and images (sometimes whole pages) from other websites, and not only were the original sources not credited, the "author" was claiming copyright in her own name. Even worse, the US History unit was copied word-for-word from an old text on Google books. The fact that the copyright was expired means it's legal for anyone to print and sell copies of the original book — it doesn't mean someone can download the text, put their own name on it as author, and claim to copyright it themselves! That is clearly plagiarism. Jackie

There are a couple of anthologies that might be of interest: Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology includes a mix of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. You can see the TOC on Amazon. Language of the Earth: A Literary Anthology also includes a mix of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and even art; again most pieces are excerpts but there seem to be quite a few relating to geological/meteorological events. Moby Duck is in a totally different direction, but might be a fun read. It's the story of 28,000 plastic bath toys that were lost at sea in a storm, and how far they traveled, what scientists learned about ocean currents, how plastic effects the planet, etc. Jackie

You know, if I were 20 years younger I would LOVE to start an online school for quirky 2E kids. DS's experience with Lukeion this summer has really brought it home to me what an incredible difference it makes when information is presented to him in a really interesting, engaging, and visual way, by someone who's passionate about the subject. If only there were entire schools like that! Jackie

I wonder if this is more of a problem with boys than girls? If I asked DS to write about himself, I'd get two sentences about liking paleontology and Greek history. If I asked DD to write about herself, I'd get a novel with her life story, starting from birth, plus a list of all her friends and pets, her favorite colors, what she wants to be when she grows up, etc. :lol: Actually, I think it would probably be just as difficult for DS to write about another kid as it would be to write about himself. Ask him what his best friend is like and he'll say "He's smart and funny." Ask DD about her best friend and you'll get a novel almost as long as her own! I think girls (in general, not all girls) spend a lot of time looking for ways to connect to other girls, so they tend to focus on lots of details about themselves and each other, in an effort to "match" details (Purple's my favorite color too! You love horses? I have a pony! Look, we have the same shoes! etc.) Or maybe they hate those types of essays equally and I'm totally off the mark... :tongue_smilie: Jackie

Thank you! This is the part I was thinking of: I thought that was a really brilliant way of choosing subjects and deciding how to do them. :iagree: Nan, you and Karen and JennW definitely need to get writing — I will buy all the Well-Trained Quirky Kid books you guys can publish! Jackie