How to educate a child like well educated people in late 1700's?

[mcconnellboys]

I'm not sure, but it sounds like you've been reading Gatto, LOL! I think that immersion in meaningful work from an early age might assist, but other than moving to a Mennonite farm somewhere, I'm not certain how to achieve that under current laws....

[Nan in Mass]

Sailing is good GRIN. My children are more grownup than their friends because of sailing. If you do something wrong sailing, you can die or kill others. The same is true of a car, of course, but the danger has lost its obviousness because we drive all the time without incident. Most children who live around water have had a number of bad experiences where it felt like the water was trying to kill them, so the necessity of getting things right on a sailboat feels more real. Sailing requires patience with an uncontrolable force outside oneself. It requires that one pay attention. It requires skill and knowledge. It requires quick thinking, teamwork, and courage, upon occasion. Sailing is good GRIN.

-Nan

[Melanie]

Sailing is good GRIN. My children are more grownup than their friends because of sailing. If you do something wrong sailing, you can die or kill others. The same is true of a car, of course, but the danger has lost its obviousness because we drive all the time without incident. Most children who live around water have had a number of bad experiences where it felt like the water was trying to kill them, so the necessity of getting things right on a sailboat feels more real. Sailing requires patience with an uncontrolable force outside oneself. It requires that one pay attention. It requires skill and knowledge. It requires quick thinking, teamwork, and courage, upon occasion. Sailing is good GRIN.

-Nan

 

Can't wait to get my son to Hawaii and on a boat! :D

[LNC]

My favorite book of '09 was Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. He had NO advantages growing up. He had an amazingly natural intellect,with a few patrons along the way, but also a true autodidact. He was incredibly inspiring how he taught himself an incredible array of subjects, and he had a huge influence on our developing nation.

[Nan in Mass]

Sailing sounds good to me right now. It was 20 degrees and gusting 40 kts here yesterday.

[Nan in Mass]

I think you have to be careful. Were the founding fathers founding fathers because they were well educated? Or were they well educated (self educated) because they were extraordinary people and later went on to become founding fathers because they were extraordinary? I am quite sure that if I gave my children a Thomas Jefferson education, they would not go on to become president. I am quite sure I don't want them in politics, either. I want them to be able to think, yes, but there are other ways of learning to think. Engineering would be more suitable for two of the three. I don't think you need Latin and Greek to become a brilliant artist or musician, either.

 

Not that I don't think this is a good discussion... and not that I haven't noticed the twenty year olds sitting in the driveway smoking and waiting... not that I don't think failure to launch isn't a serious problem... and not that I don't think it is good to look at other educational schemes and borrow from them for your own purposes... I just think, as a previous poster said, that you have to start with the end and work backwards. I don't happen to want to start with Thomas Jefferson. We have our own ways of launching. Boats have a lot to do with it LOL.

-Nan

[LibraryLover]

:iagree: And Jefferson did as well.

 

Touche, boys, touche.

[Jill- OK]

What is the title? Do you have a link to this so I can potentially find it at our library?

 

Thanks!

 

...Welcome to Felicity's World, 1774

 

Or some variant of that. :001_smile:

 

It's an awesome book, in fact, all of the companion books that are like this one do a great deal to put the books in context. (IMO).

[2squared]

I think you have to be careful. Were the founding fathers founding fathers because they were well educated? Or were they well educated (self educated) because they were extraordinary people and later went on to become founding fathers because they were extraordinary? I am quite sure that if I gave my children a Thomas Jefferson education, they would not go on to become president.

 

:iagree: I was thinking about this discussion this morning, and I have to agree. I don't think education makes a person or propels them into some sort of special position. I think that the ability to identify problems, create solutions, and work hard is the key to developing people like the founding fathers. Education can help pave the way, but it certainly isn't the end-all, be-all.

[Colleen]

Good post, Nan ~ as usual.

I think you have to be careful. Were the founding fathers founding fathers because they were well educated? Or were they well educated (self educated) because they were extraordinary people and later went on to become founding fathers because they were extraordinary? I am quite sure that if I gave my children a Thomas Jefferson education, they would not go on to become president. I am quite sure I don't want them in politics, either. I want them to be able to think, yes, but there are other ways of learning to think. Engineering would be more suitable for two of the three. I don't think you need Latin and Greek to become a brilliant artist or musician, either.

 

Not that I don't think this is a good discussion... and not that I haven't noticed the twenty year olds sitting in the driveway smoking and waiting... not that I don't think failure to launch isn't a serious problem... and not that I don't think it is good to look at other educational schemes and borrow from them for your own purposes... I just think, as a previous poster said, that you have to start with the end and work backwards. I don't happen to want to start with Thomas Jefferson. We have our own ways of launching. Boats have a lot to do with it LOL.

-Nan

[Colleen]

 

I don't think that everyone from "back then" had it together.

Right. It's all too easy to romanticize the past ~ even the somewhat recent past.

I think we need to be careful to build what we want in our families within the culture we are placed in now, teaching kids to handle the temptations and difficulties they will truly wrestle with in their futures. I'm not sure it will help them to idealize about the past, using comparisons that may not be factual or helpful.

Agreed.

 

[Colleen]

I think it's misleading.

 

My personal take (which is probably not as informed as many who have studied historical figures from that time in depth) is that educations ran the gamut back then, much like they do now; some people could afford to be tutored and sent to the best schools of the time, as children, and others waited until adulthood. (Wasn't there one president that didn't learn to read until he was seventeen?)

 

The difference, I think, comes from a society that didn't have television (although they did find ways to waste time, even then), and was extremely literate, when folks were literate at all. (You read Shakespeare, Euclid, etc. once you learned to read.)

 

I think that the people who advocate learning Latin and Greek are definitely following a part of what was considered important, "back then", but the thing that I tend to focus on is the reading of classics. Books of value and meaning that have stood the test of time, and have informed minds for centuries.

 

I agree, particularly with those portions I bolded above. This is a good discussion, but the past needs to be viewed in realistic context, not a rose-colored lens.

[Mama Lynx]

:iagree: I was thinking about this discussion this morning, and I have to agree. I don't think education makes a person or propels them into some sort of special position. I think that the ability to identify problems, create solutions, and work hard is the key to developing people like the founding fathers. Education can help pave the way, but it certainly isn't the end-all, be-all.

 

The the OP's point was not, I don't think, to find a way of educating her children to go into a special position.

 

Education alone doesn't do anything. To achieve great things, the right combination of education, character/ability, and life circumstances must occur.

 

I can't do much about the life circumstances of my kids, and I can only do so much with their character and abilities.

 

But I can strive to give them what I think is the best education, and I think the Founding Fathers had a stellar education. My kids are far more likely to be video game programmers than statesmen, and that's fine. They'll be video game programmers with a kick-butt command of Latin and an amazing command of history :lol:

[Colleen]

 

Education alone doesn't do anything. To achieve great things, the right combination of education, character/ability, and life circumstances must occur.

Right. And even then you, like Thomas Jefferson, can be mired in debt and maintain a lifestyle that's contradictory to the morals you espouse.

 

[Colleen in NS]

we live in the 21st century, and we need to equip our children to be the best citizens of this time and place.

 

But I think that much of that comes from looking to the past.

 

"Classics" are books/ideas/practices that have proven valuable, throughout centuries, and part of my leaning towards classical education comes from a belief that perpetuating good ideas is...well, a good idea.

 

It sure is a balancing act, like a pp said, isn't it. Sometimes I idealize the "past," too, and think I'm not doing a good enough job or that this generation is more doomed than previous ones. Then I stop and think, "Gee, I've been reading through history for a few years now, and the pattern I see is that humans have pretty much gone through the same cycles, over and over, generation after generation." I need to borrow the good from the past, and do my best to equip my kids for *this* lifetime.

 

It's good to see you still posting, Jill. I've always appreciated your perspective on these things.

 

I think you have to be careful. Were the founding fathers founding fathers because they were well educated? Or were they well educated (self educated) because they were extraordinary people and later went on to become founding fathers because they were extraordinary?

 

We have our own ways of launching. Boats have a lot to do with it LOL.

 

Hmm...Nan, you always get me thinking and seeing things in ways I've not seen before. I suppose one can get a "good education" and still not do anything with it, if it's in isolation. I'm always thinking of how I can integrate the academic/skills part of our education with the rest of life, while still making sure my kids get the skills - that's what it's for after all, right?

 

"we have our own ways of launching..." Thanks for saying this. As I've sat here and sewed this afternoon, I was thinking about how we are somewhat "different" from many people in our immediate vicinity of life here...we have one 15 year old vehicle, must live very frugally on a low income, don't get out every day of the week, and are not involved in "activities" or much in the way of volunteer things (some, but not as much as a lot of people we know, or at least not in the same visible capacity as them in the same realm), and I was fretting a tiny bit about how this might affect our kids in the next few years, worrying that they are missing out on a "well-rounded" education.

 

But objectively, I believe that we do a pretty good job at making due with the life and circumstances that we *do* have. Being forced (well, I could go out to work and earn money, but that would defeat our purpose in me being home - homeschooling!) to live the frugal life has been good in many ways for us. I've certainly become a lot more creative - in cooking, providing clothing, grocery shopping, gift giving, making things instead of buying things (winter hat for dd last night from thrift store yarn, tote bags today, Christmas gifts, and finding great gifts at thrift stores), and finding ways to give my kids a WTM-style education on the cheap. It has forced me to really figure out things like: how do I teach Latin without resorting to pricey videos? How do I delve deeper into math (read Jane in NC's posts and then search the library for game/activity books:D), beyond the great R&S teaching? What is the long-range perspective on writing skills and how do I break it down stage by stage and year by year and week by week? How about grammar? How do I help my kids get more out of reading, without having to buy lit. programs? Being "stuck" in our circumstances has given my kids a chance to relax, tinker around the house, play with Legos for hours on end, make up little games to play, make up playacting situations, explore our backyard and wooded area, experiment on the piano outside of their lessons with Daddy, read a lot, and be together at most places we go whether it's grocery shopping, visiting friends, church services, helping our sick neighbour, etc.. Our family is not broken up all over the place with his and her friends/activities - they do have friends, but our life does not revolve around that. And I like that. I really want our family to be the launching pad, with outside help as we choose.

 

So when you said that we all have our own ways of launching and that boats have to do with your way, I thought, "Oh yes, of course we do! Frugality, which has come as a result of our earlier choices in how we wanted to do family life, really has been part of the launching pad for us, here." Thanks for saying that.

[angela in ohio]

:iagree: I was thinking about this discussion this morning, and I have to agree. I don't think education makes a person or propels them into some sort of special position. I think that the ability to identify problems, create solutions, and work hard is the key to developing people like the founding fathers. Education can help pave the way, but it certainly isn't the end-all, be-all.

 

I think we need to define the term education. I think education is where you learn to identify problems and create solutions. That's what we're doing in this homeschool anyway. :)

[Mama Lynx]

Right. And even then you, like Thomas Jefferson, can be mired in debt and maintain a lifestyle that's contradictory to the morals you espouse.

 

You've got me. By admiring and emulating to some degree the education of the various founders, among others, I'm sure I can expect my kids to have their personal failings, as well.

 

:lol:

[angela in ohio]

You've got me. By admiring and emulating to some degree the education of the various founders, among others, I'm sure I can expect my kids to have their personal failings, as well.

 

 

:D

[Colleen]

 

By admiring and emulating to some degree the education of the various founders, among others, I'm sure I can expect my kids to have their personal failings, as well.

Mmm, I think you misunderstood my tone. Or rather, I didn't express myself well. I wasn't implying that you should expect your kids to have the same personal failings as those whose educations you admire and emulate. (And fwiw, the "you" in my previous post was general in nature.) The original post in this thread, imo, implies to a degree that an admirable education makes for an admirable man and vice versa. And that may very well be ~ obviously, there's much to admire about Thomas Jefferson. But I'm not an idealistic sentimentalist.;)

 

[hillfarm]

I totally agree that not all people in the past were wonderful individuals. However, I would point out that a great many of the deadbeats lived shorter lives due to the immediate consequences of their actions. Many died early of disease, accidental injury, and outraged fathers and husbands!

 

Regarding farm work, I don't think there is any special magic in that work being performed on a farm. IMO it has to do with it being concrete, specific, measurable work where shortcuts and do overs just don't happen or get results. Work that has direct impact on the safety and security of one's self and family.

 

When my dd was little, she used to say, "There's lots of ways to get dead on a farm.", parroting my frequent warnings of dire natural consequences for various risky behaviors. By the age of 6, she was reliable in the barn yard. I could count on her to work the gates in situations when doing it poorly or wrong could have resulted in serious injury or death to one of our animals. Of course, I never put her in a situation where a childish lapse would result in HER getting hurt, but she knew if she didn't get the gate shut at the right moment when we were moving the rams, that one of them could kill a lamb if he got in with it. She understood that I truly needed her help with the gates and that serious things could happen if she didn't do her best.

 

I wonder if volunteer work with groups like Habitat for Humanity could help fill this need for more urban families? Exposing your children to work that really counts, for someone even if not for their immediate family.

 

It is interesting to see what is considered a good education. Dh's 96yo great aunt has lamented to me that she just doesn't know what they are teaching in the public schools these days. She was disgusted when a teen neighbor boy had no idea of how to figure the volume of a corn crib and how to determine how many bushels it would take to fill it. In her day, that was considered basic knowledge and everyone with a "good" education would have known how to figure that!

Edited December 31, 2009 by hillfarm

[ElizabethB]

Well, in the 1700's one of the more popular spellers used to teach reading and spelling was Dilworth's Speller. I like Webster's Speller better, it was used from 1783 on. (Linked below.)

 

With the spellers, they were able to read at the 12th grade level when they had finished working through the speller, they went directly from the speller to the KJV Bible or other older Bibles written at high grade levels.

 

Before that, they learned to read using Latin first, but with syllables just like the Spellers. Then, they learned to read and spell in English with syllables, first with hornbooks then later with Spellers.

 

Very interesting discussion, by the way! Everything else I would have said has already been said.

[Mama Lynx]

Mmm, I think you misunderstood my tone. Or rather, I didn't express myself well. I wasn't implying that you should expect your kids to have the same personal failings as those whose educations you admire and emulate. (And fwiw, the "you" in my previous post was general in nature.) The original post in this thread, imo, implies to a degree that an admirable education makes for an admirable man and vice versa. And that may very well be ~ obviously, there's much to admire about Thomas Jefferson. But I'm not an idealistic sentimentalist.;)

 

Thank you for that. Yes, I did mistake your tone.

[Mama Lynx]

It is interesting to see what is considered a good education. Dh's 96yo great aunt has lamented to me that she just doesn't know what they are teaching in the public schools these days. She was disgusted when a teen neighbor boy had no idea of how to figure the volume of a corn crib and how to determine how many bushels it would take to fill it. In her day, that was considered basic knowledge and everyone with a "good" eucation would have known how to figure that!

 

 

But that's just geometry, with practical application! :lol: Now we learn the geometry, but too often lack the work that will show us the practical application. Why do you need to know about how to fill a corn crib when you sit at a desk all day?

[hillfarm]

According to Great Aunt Opal, it is one of the basic features of an educated person--reading, writing, arithmetic, corn crib filling...:D Doesn't matter much to her what the person actually does for a living!

[angela in ohio]

It is interesting to see what is considered a good education. Dh's 96yo great aunt has lamented to me that she just doesn't know what they are teaching in the public schools these days. She was disgusted when a teen neighbor boy had no idea of how to figure the volume of a corn crib and how to determine how many bushels it would take to fill it. In her day, that was considered basic knowledge and everyone with a "good" eucation would have known how to figure that!

 

A decent math education would teach this. Given the dimensions of the corn crib, simple geometry would give the volume. He may need to look up a bushel, but then he should be able to use math to figure out how many bushels would fill it. The neighbor boy probably didn't know how to find volume at all. I know many students who don't.

[IsabelC]

You could always be rude and point out that your well educated child will earn enough money from her medicine or law practice to pay somebody else to put the appropriate amount of corn in the crib :tongue_smilie:

 

I think some of us have a slight tendency to romanticize the good old days. What about all the things that nobody learned back then? Driving a car. Utilizing IT. Feminism. Most non white culture. Arguments for and against carbon trading. How to evaluate and resist 21st century marketing practices. Etc etc etc. It's all very well to complain about dropping standards (and I do agree that they have, if you look at basic measures such as reading level among the 'educated'), but is it really feasible for a child to learn everything the Founding Fathers did PLUS all the modern things that they didn't need to learn??

[2squared]

I think we need to define the term education. I think education is where you learn to identify problems and create solutions. That's what we're doing in this homeschool anyway. :)

 

:iagree: That's what we are doing too. We are more relaxed academically so we can focus on application. But, then, we moved to the country so we can have animals, gardens, and all that other hard work.

[hillfarm]

You could always be rude and point out that your well educated child will earn enough money from her medicine or law practice to pay somebody else to put the appropriate amount of corn in the crib:tongue_smilie:

 

I would never be rude to GA Opal. Although she is very direct in what she says, there are often so many kernels of wisdom there that I would never do anything to cause her to not feel free to speak her mind to me.;) Besides, out here in farm country, everyone looks down on those who are so inept as to have to hire others to do the work that they should know how to do themselves. Being self reliant is more valued than earning lots of money.

 

I think the issue is more about having a complete understanding and facility with the information required to get along in one's world. Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson understood how to get things done in a colonial world. I would have been at a loss in that environment, having never lived under the authority of a dictator or monarch. GA Opal excelled in the things that it took to succeed in her world--rural, agricultural in the early 1900's. My child will probably have a need to understand and master technology and communications in a way never dreamed of by the founding fathers.

 

IMO, some of the constants that compose a "good" education in any time or place include the need to be able to honestly and accurately observe, to come to reasonable conclusions and decisions, and to use logic to identify faulty thinking in one's self and others. Other constants would be the ability to accurately communicate one's thoughts in spoken and written form(regardless of the technology of the time), the ability to analyse the communications of others for truth and meaning, and the ability to perform such mathematical calculations necessary for daily life (whether cooking, banking, investments, geometry, sewing, etc.)

 

The variables would be identifying and studying the political, social, and economic issues of the day, mastering the current level of technology, developing a sense of cultural literacy, and mastering the intricacies of daily life in one's time period. For example, the skills and understanding that would make for a well educated Hopewell/mound builder Indian (that dd is currently studying) would qualify one as an absolute failure in colonial, early 1900's, or the present times.

 

I think it takes a mixture of both the constants and the relevant variables to create a well educated person. I also think that we should strive to resist the temptation to automatically adopt the criteria pertinent to the aristocracy of a bygone age. Just because a certain set of academic experiences made them well educated does not guarantee that such education will suffice in modern times.

Edited December 31, 2009 by hillfarm

[TechWife]

Excellent post - you clarified a lot of my thinking here. I may end up quoting you on my blog one day, if that's ok?

[Nan in Mass]

This list is almost exactly like the list of goals we made when we began homeschooling and had to define educated in order to prioritize. I think it is an excellent list GRIN. And you stated much better than I ever have managed the dangers of removing oneself from one's culture and era.

-Nan

[hillfarm]

(Looks over shoulder)

 

Techwife, you talkin' to me???

[bethben]

I think part of my problem is that we know about where we want to end up education wise (basically great thinkers who can apply their knowledge to real life situations), but we have no idea how to get there. We don't have a real ending point, just a vauge idea of where we want to be (which is what started me asking the question about the education of the Thomas Jeffersons). Right now, we are just doing the next thing hoping that it reaches our goal. Maybe what we have to do is start building an academic framework to work around.

Beth

[hillfarm]

Rene Dubois said, "Sometimes the more measurable drives out the more important." My concern for myself is that I not pat myself on the back for requiring a much more rigorous course of study than our ps counterparts, only to find that such an education basically majors in the minors.

 

I'm just thinking/typing out loud here, but it seems to me that thinking skills, reasoning and logic would be major areas of emphasis. Diagramming a sentence is fine, but if the student has no idea of what meaning the sentence conveys and no way to judge whether that meaning is true, then what is the value of being able to diagram it?

 

IMO, the study of Latin is important for those who use it as a tool to improve thinking skills or to refine communication skills. Not so much if the desire is to impress others with the refinement of your homeschool, or because soandso was well educated and he studied it. I'm trying to think globally here--do the Chinese consider a knowledge of Latin to be a mark of an educated person or is it just an archaic Western language to them?

 

Lately I have been looking at many of the standard educational practices with different eyes. I have come to realize as I teach that even though I was a straight A student and considered well educated, how much of the rote memorization I have forgotten, and have never needed to use. Or the fact that even though I worked in a scientific field for many years (as a marine biologist), I never used any of the higher math I studied beyond algebra and geometry. When I was publishing a scientific paper, I did as everyone else in my lab was expected to do, and consulted with our professional statistician. As I mentioned in the last post, the skills I have needed most were those of observation, reasoning, logic, problem solving, etc. Would my dd be better served if we skipped trigonometry (since she has little interest in math/engineering, etc.) and spent that time on logic or communications?

 

Would I do better to keep dd away from popular culture like Webkinz and Hannah Montanna? Or would it be better to allow those things in limited doses so that they could serve as future tools for communication to better enable her to convey complex messages to the public via a common set of experiences?

 

For me, it is not so much about what to study--I kind of know what I want to cover. The problem is prioritizing. What can be jettisoned without future repercussions? Chances are, my dd will never memorize the English and Chinese rulers and their dates. If she needs to know that, she can look it up. Just like I do. Because even though I did memorize it thirty years ago, I no longer trust my memory and would look it up to confirm it anyway. For now, I see our schooling in history focusing more on getting a great feel for the big picture, repercussions, and significance than on the minute details. Time I would have spent on that I am now spending on research techniques and critical evaluation of validity of source material.

 

Sorry to be so long winded about this. I always joke that this time of year is the most dangerous for our homeschool. I have down time between Christmas and New Year's Day, it is cold and yucky outside, and I am a bit bored with the curriculum I selected for the current school year. My mind turns toward the coming year and I concoct all these new schemes for school in the fall.

Edited December 31, 2009 by hillfarm

[AngelBee]

"Better to shoot for the stars and hit a tree limb than to aim low and blow your toe off."

 

 

I love this quote!!:lol:

 

:lol: That is great!

[Nan in Mass]

I think your problem might be the ages of your children. I think when your children are older, 15 or 16 or so, you will see the results you are looking for. Meanwhile, you have to take it on faith that the things you are doing will eventually produce results and not hop around too much. There are many good ways to be educated, but if you hop around from one to the other frequently, you run the risk of just getting started in many of those ways but not ever getting far enough in any one of them to see results. You want great thinkers who can apply their knowledge to real life situations. That is a goal that will work fine. I think the danger is that you will try to fit in too many applications. Check for yourself since my experience is limited, but the great thinkers I know all learned to be great thinkers by becoming experts in one or two places and then, as adults, discovering that they could apply their knowledge and skills more widely. I think there are many ways to learn to think. Some people do it by aiming their education towards being able to read the classics in their original language (the LCC people). Some people do it by aiming their education towards logic and rhetoric (debate club, writing). Some people concentrate on math and proofs. Some concentrate on technology and inventions. Others on art or music. Others on science experiments. Others on historical research with its causes and connections. Some on politics and government. Some on great books. Etc. It probably isn't possible to do all those extensively all the time. I think you are better off choosing a medium that suits your family's interests, expertise, and situation, and making sure that you are doing that well and extensively, building up a high level of skills and making sure that you investigate many applications. Then do the rest of your subjects more lightly and watch for individual talents and interests to develop as your children get older. I'm not sure how helpful all that is, since it is so general. I found it useful to look at older teenagers and pick a few competant ones as models. For example, my technically oriented son has an older friend who is skilled at finding information on the internet. He pulls his laptop out when I'm driving them around and looks up anything that they might be curious about, from rules for a game to historical or scientific facts to characters in films. This made me realize that if I wanted a child who could do that, I had better provide a laptop and internet service and time to practise. I admire another young friend who travels competently on his own. That tells me that I need to allow my son to travel on his own. Look around for examples of who you would like your children to be and ask them how they learned to do something or become good at something. People usually are happy to tell you and the answers are often not what you would think.

 

HTH

-Nan

Edited December 31, 2009 by Nan in Mass

[Homemama2]

While we might not have farms, there are other things that would be helpful to know to more self reliant in our culture. Things like fixing vehicles, home repairs, sewing etc. My dh is very good at this while I am not. I can scrapbook the night away but if my son rips his pants I have to buy a new pair (or take them to my mom who is great at sewing). When we got married my dh might not know how to fix a certain problem with the car, but he had worked on them enough (bc of his dad making him) that he could figure it out eventually. Same with pretty much everthing to do with the house. I think the thing that impresses me the most about the past is that not only were (some) educations better but they also learned all those basic skills too. They were considered adults earlier than people today because they were prepared to BE adults, and expected to be adults. Most were married young and needed to be able to take care of a house when they did.

Today teens can all text and email and do just about anything computer related, which IS important to know in our culture, but it's not the ONLY thing. They might not need to know how much corn is in the corn crib, but they will most likely need to know how much paint to buy if they are going to paint the living room.

[LizzyBee]

Re: Maturity.

My grandma graduated from high school at age 16, got on a bus and rode half way across the country to work at a factory in California - during WWII. Two years later, she got married, moved back to her home town and had twins. A year later, she had my father. After the children were in school, my grandma went to college and became an RN.

 

As a parent today, I can't even begin to imagine letting my young teen (if I had one) do that! Nor can I imagine many 19-year-olds married, with three children under the age of 2. (They were married 40+ years and, by all accounts, had a great life.)

 

I talked to my grandma about that time period a few years before she passed away and she said that it was just expected - you graduated young and started a family. You were responsible because society expected you to be.

Today, most parents would counsel their children to hold off on marriage, hold off on starting a family.

 

My child is still young, so this is uncharted territory for me. But I will say that I am shocked by the teens in our neighborhood. I am friendly with the parents and discouraged at how many times they say, "Well, they are still young. They don't know what to do with their lives." They are all 19 and 20 now and are still hanging out at their parents, smoking in the driveway, not employed, not in college.

I don't know what the expectations are these days but, judging by the kids in our neighborhood, expectations have taken a nose-dive in the last two generations.

 

I grew up in a place that is still like that. It is not uncommon for girls to be engaged before they graduate high school and get married the summer after graduation. Most kids don't go to college, but many have jobs or work on the family farm while they are still in high school. VoTech is important in high school, and some kids are highly skilled in masonry, auto repair, or something similar by the time they finish h.s.

 

I don't know why my family turned out differently than most people in that area. My oldest sister owns the family farm, but she leases it out and lives elsewhere. My brother didn't go to college, but got a job with the phone company when he was 18 and retired with financial security at about 58 yo. My three older sisters all went to a hospital school of nursing and never moved back home. I started nursing school, quit to get married at the very mature age of 18 :001_huh:, but went back to college to get an accounting degree. My youngest sister went to a state university and was in ROTC. We knew education was our ticket to a better life.

 

I have been known to tell my kids that girls used to get married and run a household as young as 13 or 14 yo. I don't want that for them (I've also told them they should finish college before getting married), but there is no reason a typical 13 yo can't be capable of running a household.

 

One thing I can tell you about growing up in a rural area, though. I learned to respect people who work hard, whether they run a Fortune 500 company or clean toilets for a living. Living in the suburbs, it's much more difficult to teach kids the value of hard work, whether physical or mental.

[Lovedtodeath]

Rene Dubois said, "Sometimes the more measurable drives out the more important." My concern for myself is that I not pat myself on the back for requiring a much more rigorous course of study than our ps counterparts, only to find that such an education basically majors in the minors.

 

I'm just thinking/typing out loud here, but it seems to me that thinking skills, reasoning and logic would be major areas of emphasis. Diagramming a sentence is fine, but if the student has no idea of what meaning the sentence conveys and no way to judge whether that meaning is true, then what is the value of being able to diagram it?

 

IMO, the study of Latin is important for those who use it as a tool to improve thinking skills or to refine communication skills. Not so much if the desire is to impress others with the refinement of your homeschool, or because soandso was well educated and he studied it. I'm trying to think globally here--do the Chinese consider a knowledge of Latin to be a mark of an educated person or is it just an archaic Western language to them?

 

Lately I have been looking at many of the standard educational practices with different eyes. I have come to realize as I teach that even though I was a straight A student and considered well educated, how much of the rote memorization I have forgotten, and have never needed to use. Or the fact that even though I worked in a scientific field for many years (as a marine biologist), I never used any of the higher math I studied beyond algebra and geometry. When I was publishing a scientific paper, I did as everyone else in my lab was expected to do, and consulted with our professional statistician. As I mentioned in the last post, the skills I have needed most were those of observation, reasoning, logic, problem solving, etc. Would my dd be better served if we skipped trigonometry (since she has little interest in math/engineering, etc.) and spent that time on logic or communications?

 

Would I do better to keep dd away from popular culture like Webkinz and Hannah Montanna? Or would it be better to allow those things in limited doses so that they could serve as future tools for communication to better enable her to convey complex messages to the public via a common set of experiences?

 

For me, it is not so much about what to study--I kind of know what I want to cover. The problem is prioritizing. What can be jettisoned without future repercussions? Chances are, my dd will never memorize the English and Chinese rulers and their dates. If she needs to know that, she can look it up. Just like I do. Because even though I did memorize it thirty years ago, I no longer trust my memory and would look it up to confirm it anyway. For now, I see our schooling in history focusing more on getting a great feel for the big picture, repercussions, and significance than on the minute details. Time I would have spent on that I am now spending on research techniques and critical evaluation of validity of source material.

 

Sorry to be so long winded about this. I always joke that this time of year is the most dangerous for our homeschool. I have down time between Christmas and New Year's Day, it is cold and yucky outside, and I am a bit bored with the curriculum I selected for the current school year. My mind turns toward the coming year and I concoct all these new schemes for school in the fall.

Great post! and :iagree:

[Nan in Mass]

Yup. And then your child grows and changes and you have to do it all over again at the beginning of the summer LOL.

[bethben]

I think you are better off choosing a medium that suits your family's interests, expertise, and situation, and making sure that you are doing that well and extensively, building up a high level of skills and making sure that you investigate many applications. Then do the rest of your subjects more lightly and watch for individual talents and interests to develop as your children get older.

 

This really helps! I am thinking about how God has really given my husband and I passion for certain things - mostly worldview and how it affects people's thinking. It makes me realize the things that I am drawn to in curriculum choices may well be the things we need to focus upon. It also explains why I feel like we "should" do Latin, but never really feel all that gun ho about it. Thanks!

Beth

[stripe]

You could always be rude and point out that your well educated child will earn enough money from her medicine or law practice to pay somebody else to put the appropriate amount of corn in the crib :tongue_smilie:

 

That is rather rude, and then I suppose the question becomes, who taught that person? Isn't it a bit silly/scary/sobering to realize the "intellectual elites" lack most basic skills? (I've heard from some who train young lawyers that most think serious legal research begins and ends with Google.) Besides, I don't think I'd want to have a doctor who couldn't rapidly perform calculations in his/her head. This is what leads to fatally inaccurate medicine strength calculations. And I can't stand the idea that no one really needs to know anything (really? not anything?) because we can just go look it up.

 

I don't have much respect for the idea that we can just farm out the intellectual stuff for others while we blather on in our own little bubble. I read a truly awful, nationalistic book along these lines in about 1999. It was read with a big blue star on the cover, but I can't recall the title. The authors' view was that although Indian people would end up knowing vastly more (especially in math and science), somehow the American economy would always be the top in the world just because of some inate American je ne sais quois. I think the veracity of that statement has been seriously taken to task in the intervening decades. There are no guarantees, and certainly when one lacks basic skills and thinking ability.

[Jill- OK]

I have been known to tell my kids that girls used to get married and run a household as young as 13 or 14 yo. I don't want that for them (I've also told them they should finish college before getting married), but there is no reason a typical 13 yo can't be capable of running a household.

 

This is how I feel, about all of my kids. (Girls and boys). Since they'll likely live to be 80 or so, I don't want them to be in any particular hurry to take on all the responsibilities of adulthood...but there's no reason for them to be immature. There's a difference.

 

Whenever there are discussions about the vast difference in today's teens vs. their age counterparts from yesteryear, I always think something similar.

[Colleen in NS]

it seems to me that thinking skills, reasoning and logic would be major areas of emphasis. Diagramming a sentence is fine, but if the student has no idea of what meaning the sentence conveys and no way to judge whether that meaning is true, then what is the value of being able to diagram it?

 

I enjoyed reading your whole post - lots of food for thought.

 

I do want to say that I find diagraming skills to be a huge part of the thinking toolbox. Yes, logic skills need to come into play, but to me, being able to take a sentence apart just helps the logic process along. Since I finally learned how to diagram in recent years, I have found myself mentally diagraming sentences as I read, to further discern a meaning that may be hiding from me. Once I can discern the meaning, I can move on to evaluate the meaning, with logic skills. Diagraming is also merged in with our grammar program, so it's not something separate that we spend lots of time on - it's just repeated in more depth each year.

[IsabelC]

I would never be rude to GA Opal. Although she is very direct in what she says, there are often so many kernels of wisdom there that I would never do anything to cause her to not feel free to speak her mind to me.;) Besides, out here in farm country, everyone looks down on those who are so inept as to have to hire others to do the work that they should know how to do themselves. Being self reliant is more valued than earning lots of money.

 

I think the issue is more about having a complete understanding and facility with the information required to get along in one's world. Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson understood how to get things done in a colonial world. I would have been at a loss in that environment, having never lived under the authority of a dictator or monarch. GA Opal excelled in the things that it took to succeed in her world--rural, agricultural in the early 1900's. My child will probably have a need to understand and master technology and communications in a way never dreamed of by the founding fathers.

 

IMO, some of the constants that compose a "good" education in any time or place include the need to be able to honestly and accurately observe, to come to reasonable conclusions and decisions, and to use logic to identify faulty thinking in one's self and others. Other constants would be the ability to accurately communicate one's thoughts in spoken and written form(regardless of the technology of the time), the ability to analyse the communications of others for truth and meaning, and the ability to perform such mathematical calculations necessary for daily life (whether cooking, banking, investments, geometry, sewing, etc.)

 

The variables would be identifying and studying the political, social, and economic issues of the day, mastering the current level of technology, developing a sense of cultural literacy, and mastering the intricacies of daily life in one's time period. For example, the skills and understanding that would make for a well educated Hopewell/mound builder Indian (that dd is currently studying) would qualify one as an absolute failure in colonial, early 1900's, or the present times.

 

I think it takes a mixture of both the constants and the relevant variables to create a well educated person. I also think that we should strive to resist the temptation to automatically adopt the criteria pertinent to the aristocracy of a bygone age. Just because a certain set of academic experiences made them well educated does not guarantee that such education will suffice in modern times.

Um, that's pretty much what I meant, except that you expressed it more eloquently! :lol:

[IsabelC]

That is rather rude, and then I suppose the question becomes, who taught that person? Isn't it a bit silly/scary/sobering to realize the "intellectual elites" lack most basic skills? (I've heard from some who train young lawyers that most think serious legal research begins and ends with Google.) Besides, I don't think I'd want to have a doctor who couldn't rapidly perform calculations in his/her head. This is what leads to fatally inaccurate medicine strength calculations. And I can't stand the idea that no one really needs to know anything (really? not anything?) because we can just go look it up.

 

I don't have much respect for the idea that we can just farm out the intellectual stuff for others while we blather on in our own little bubble. I read a truly awful, nationalistic book along these lines in about 1999. It was read with a big blue star on the cover, but I can't recall the title. The authors' view was that although Indian people would end up knowing vastly more (especially in math and science), somehow the American economy would always be the top in the world just because of some inate American je ne sais quois. I think the veracity of that statement has been seriously taken to task in the intervening decades. There are no guarantees, and certainly when one lacks basic skills and thinking ability.

I absolutely agree with the above. (My comment was sarcastic/tongue in cheek - obviously this didn't come across in text form.)

With the degree of specialization now existing in every field, there is always a point where even the most well rounded, educated person has to trust an expert. However it is still a reasonable aspiration to have a body of knowledge and understanding that pretty much everyone can attain. (And of course, with Googling become an ever more popular substitute for traditional research, a good critical thinking faculty is more crucial than ever before!)

Edited January 1, 2010 by Hotdrink

[Jane in NC]

One point to add to this most interesting discussion:

 

I think that the most interesting and often the most well educated people I have met are those who have taken advantage of their opportunities. And by this I do not mean opportunities that are purchased--often opportunities are the things we find in our own backyards.

 

One of my dear friends who is extremely well educated (beyond her English degree) credits a few public school teachers but mostly the public library. Her family did not have money for travel so she was a child who "saw" the world through books. She recalls reading her way from one end of the library to the other, learning an abundance of useless things which assembled into useful things as the puzzle pieces of the world came together for her. Her library was not particularly well funded back in the post-depression era. She simply read every dusty volume on the shelf.

 

One of my son's friends may not have a transcript with impressive AP courses, but this is a boy who can repair a tractor. He has traveled to out of state horticulture competitions with 4-H. In fact, his involvement with 4-H has allowed him to participate in a number of activities which his farm family would not have been able to afford. Again, it is all about taking advantage of the opportunities presented.

 

My son wrote in one of his college essays that he was surprised to "discover" the American Civil War at the end of 11th grade. Sure, he had read about it. But he had grown up surrounded by it. He had walked on remains of earthen forts so many times he took them for granted. But when an archaeological field school came to the area last spring, attracting students from across the country, the scales fell from his eyes. What a spectacular "backyard" was there all along!

 

I think that is true for most of us. Wherever we live there are trees, birds, rocks, historical markers, book mobiles, streams, canoes, sewing machines, wise senior citizens, children who want to learn, sacks of flour and packets of yeast. We should not bemoan what we lack or cannot afford. We should seize our opportunities.

 

On that note, I think I'll take a walk and see what is happening in the natural world on this first day of the new year.

 

Maybe it be a good one for all.

 

Jane

[hillfarm]

Hotdrink, I wasn't offended by your comment previously. I realize that most people don't have experience with a 96yo relative who literally grew up in a different age. She is a feisty old gal who doesn't hold back about what she thinks, which is a part of her charm. I learn things from her every time we speak.

 

Regarding the proverbial good education, I am currently in a place where I am trying to find that subtle line between rigor and overkill. I personally LOVE knowledge of the details. I used to have a great memory and I always win at trivia games. It gives me comfort to know all this stuff. However, dd is more like dh in personality. She becomes very frustrated with all the little details. And it seems like they go in her head this week with total recall and by next week, they have fallen out the back and she barely remembers covering the subject. (That was okay when she was 6, not so much now that she is 11.)

 

With math, for example, she began to flounder with Abeka and all the repetition. She would weep and wail and one math page would take eons to complete. I switched to MUS, with their "if you know it, show it and then move on to the next page" philosophy, and now she loves math and does quite well with it. She gets bogged down in minute detail and repetition.

 

Previously I was trying to follow a more classical pattern, but found that especially with history and science, my efforts just weren't bearing much fruit. Dd would diligently study her lists of dates and facts, would be able to parrot them back to me, but a couple of days later could barely recall the basics. So I am going to try to do with that more of what happened with MUS. I am going to teach more of an overview/survey type of course. But I don't feel that is enough. So I intend to fill in with frequent field trips and hands on activities.

 

But I worry that she will not be well educated because we are not memorizing lists of facts, she doesn't know all the major battles of WWII, she probably can't recall each layer of the atmosphere.... Am I screwing up her education and allowing her to become a slacker by permitting this????

 

At the same time, we are doing much more in the "backyard education" area that Jane mentions. For example, dd may not have memorized all the elements and minerals during her study of geology, but she now has a passion for rocks and we have gone on two collecting trips. She has joined the local lapidary club, and has found an elderly mentor who will teach her how to cut, polish, and fashion semi-precious stones into jewelry. She is doing an extensive 4-H project on rocks and minerals, involving various posters, reports, activities, etc. I commented on another board about how even though it scares me, I feel that we are sliding into more of an unschooling approach in several areas!:D

 

And don't even get me started on what she is doing for her Hopewell Indian project... She has learned how to make cordage from various plant fibers, baskets from those fibers, how to start fires using a sticks, how to carve pipestone with flint, how to preserve deer hooves for ornamentation, how to prepare bone material for use as tools and ornamentation, etc. And she has a full slate of additional skills to cover this year. By the end of her self initiated study, she will probably be able to go into the woods and live perfectly well with no modern input at all. Before the ripe old age of 12.

 

So...is she going to be well educated? I can't tell. I know the basics will be covered (good old reading, writing, arithmetic). But rather than a traditional classical education of Latin, trigonometry, etc., she may know a great deal about things other than those. She will have great hands-on skills, hours of nature observation in the woods, many practical abilities. I just don't know... Perhaps these days, in our world of myriad opportunties and specializations, I need to redefine my concept of a well rounded education. No one can cover it all. (I just realized that with each passing year, more is added to the body of knowledge that an "educated" person is expected to know. Has it reached impossible proportions?) That's when I keep going back to my idea of success being the ability to move well and competently within one's particular world.

 

I am VERY open to additional insight on these matters. Thanks to all here who are helping me think this through.

[Sahamamama]

We are struggling with real work. We did not intend, at this point in our lives, to be where we are, in a rental house in the suburbs. We can send them to Grandpa's house for a few weeks in the summer - he lives in the middle of nowhere and they can chop firewood, help him build fences, etc. out there. But here?

 

I agree with the necessity of farm work or real, meaningful, preferably physical, work. How to get it in the 'burbs, though?

 

Helping out on Boy Scout Eagle projects is something we do, and that's good work, and physical, but too few and far between.

 

Some ideas to give your boys real, physical work: Is there a neighbor for whom your sons could work for free or for pay? Is there an elderly person nearby for whom they could go grocery shopping/carry bags?

 

Could your oldest two boys rake leaves/shovel snow for someone nearby? Is there someone's fence they could volunteer to paint?

 

Is there a church you are part of? They could possibly offer to do some sort of landscaping -- planting flowers in the spring, watering them in the summer, raking leaves in the fall.

 

FWIW, if you live even NEAR the country, your sons could have their own animals and rent a space at someone's farm. 4-H'ers around here (NJ suburbs) do this all the time. Some of the kids have goats, sheep, horses, calves -- you name it, they have it, and many of them "rent" a space on a farm. They can arrange to pay off their rent by doing chores on the farm.

 

Are you allowed where you live to have an indoor pet? A rabbit? Something that requires your boys to care for an animal daily is a good step to learning responsibility, and if you ever do get out into the country and raise your own livestock, they will be that much more experienced with animals. BTW, rabbits are good eating. ;)

 

Also, these books are well worth working through with your sons:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Created-Work-Practical-Insights-Young/dp/1883934117

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1883934095/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1883934117&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0E0ZK6E7HNZ6CNWAD0ST

 

HTH.

[Lovedtodeath]

It seems that most people own a home. There is painting, maintenence on painting, replacing or painting trim, scrubbing doors and walls from dirt/fingerprints, maintenence on gutters, fence, garden, grass, cleaning windows, replacing faucets, maintenence on furnace and A/C unit (like replacing filters, any appliance really... repairing dings on the wall, replacing flooring, cleaning carpets and furniture, cleaning the stove, cleaning out bathroom and kitchen vents and drains, replacing faucets, showerheads, sinks... We never run out of things to do. We sometimes wish we lived in an apartment. I am shocked that you all think home ownership in the suburbs is so easy.:confused:

[LizzyBee]

It seems that most people own a home. There is painting, maintenence on painting, replacing or painting trim, scrubbing doors and walls from dirt/fingerprints, maintenence on gutters, fence, garden, grass, cleaning windows, replacing faucets, maintenence on furnace and A/C unit (like replacing filters, any appliance really... repairing dings on the wall, replacing flooring, cleaning carpets and furniture, cleaning the stove, cleaning out bathroom and kitchen vents and drains, replacing faucets, showerheads, sinks... We never run out of things to do. We sometimes wish we lived in an apartment. I am shocked that you all think home ownership in the suburbs is so easy.:confused:

 

It's not that suburban life is easy and there's nothing to do. Our garden and flower beds constantly need work and it seems like the inside of the house is never all as clean and decluttered as I'd like at the same time. But I think growing up with less money and dependent on the land for food and warmth (as in cutting our own firewood) makes kids more aware of the VALUE of hard work. I worked hard as a kid, and I didn't want that kind of life for my kids. But at the same time, I am utterly annoyed every time they say that I can just go buy something on a card. They don't seem to fully grasp that you have to have money to pay off those cards, and the money has to come from somewhere - which involves someone doing some kind of work!